text:
ARCO Explosion: 25 Years Later

[gopher videoid=”5599a6c97765620f4a000001″ autoplay=”yes”]

July 6, 1990:

On this day, the Chronicle reported on an explosion at the ARCO Chemical Company in Channelview that left 17 people dead and five people hurt. The 100 million dollar tragedy was caused by a wastewater storage tank that exploded during the restart of a compressor.

The impact could be felt eight miles away, and the 100-foot blaze could be seen looming in the sky above the Ship Channel. ARCO spent 36 million dollars on upgrades and rebuilds to the plant, especially to the system safeguards; and underwent an overhaul of safety training at all of its plants.

In 2005, a blast at the BP Texas City refinery killed 15 people and injured more than 100 others when a group of trailers just 100-150 feet away from a vent stack during a shutdown and startup ignited sending a chain of explosions. Since the BP blast, 58 people have died in American refineries, even though refinery officials vow that safety for workers and contractors is the top priority.

Do you think that safety standards and protocols in place today in the American petrochemical industry are good enough? Tell us in the comments below, or tweet our host, Michael Callahan, @MCallahanTV using #ForgottenDayHOU, and he’ll tweet you back.

Carolina Gonzales


Content-Type: application/http; msgtype=response

WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: text/html

WARC-Type: response

text:
5 MUST-READS: Dare to go digital in 2018

5 MUST-READS: Dare to go digital in 2018

5 MUST-READS: Dare to go digital in 2018

It’s a new year, loaded with new possibilities. What better way to harness all that shiny new potential than with five resolutions about digital banking? Will this be the year that biometrics go mainstream? What other payment innovations can we look forward to in 2018?

5 Resolutions for Digital Banking Success in 2018

The Financial Brand

Becoming a digital bank is no longer optional,” this article begins. “The process goes far beyond a mobile app, impacting back-office operations, costs, revenues and the consumer experience. Setting digital banking resolutions will help your journey.”

How Will We Pay in 2018?

Three in four consumers want their financial institution to enable new ways to pay. What will this mean in 2018? In this lead-in to a report from PYMNTS and Visa, consumers are hungry for innovative, connected payments innovations – and smart FIs are finding ways to make them a reality, sooner than later.

2018 Is the Year Mastercard Will Make Biometrics Impactful

Banking Innovation

You heard it here exclusively: Mastercard will be focusing on biometrics in the year to come: “We have to make sure there are some standards to it – how to store this data, how to keep it safe,” says EVP of identity solutions Bob Reany, “[but] 2018 is really about making [these platforms] impactful and making them scale.”

How PayPal Is Setting the Pace in Payments Innovation

Mobile Payments Today

Find out why Mobile Payments Today named PayPal the top influencer in the industry over the past 12 months, during which they’ve enhanced their consumer-facing offerings and helped merchants become better suited to handle customers’ changing expectations in-store and online.

Consumers Are Ready for Biometrics

Consumers are ready to scrap passwords and embrace biometrics, according to a recent study by Visa. But is the payments industry ready to offer up biometric authentication? What would it take to ensure its security?

warcinfo:
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-51
publisher: Common Crawl
description: Wide crawl of the web for December 2018
operator: Common Crawl Admin (info@commoncrawl.org)
hostname: ip-10-148-6-181.ec2.internal
software: Apache Nutch 1.15 (modified, https://github.com/commoncrawl/nutch/)
robots: checked via crawler-commons 0.11-SNAPSHOT (https://github.com/crawler-commons/crawler-commons)
format: WARC File Format 1.1
conformsTo: http://iipc.github.io/warc-specifications/specifications/warc-format/warc-1.1/


text:
If there’s ever any doubt that we’re currently living in a cyberpunk world, then the OpenDime (http://OpenDime.com) sticks should help put that to rest. These little circuit boards can be filled up with bitcoins, and are supposed be used like disposable cred sticks from science fiction. That means you can use digital currency off-chain, and in person, like regular coins and notes. Couple that with some clever PCB design, which I’ll get to later in the video, and you can begin to see how cool this is. Thanks to CoinKite for sending the samples so I could test them out.

Read NODE’s full article and visit their YouTube channel


text:
Ivor Harrison from The Art Gear Guide reviews Derwent Precision

Derwent are renowned worldwide for manufacturing some of the finest graphite pencils artists can use. Derwent have a wonderful selection of traditional wooden barrel graphite pencils. However, the introduction of the Derwent Precision marked the brand’s first mechanical pencil.

The Derwent Precision is a mechanical pencil, developed in two sizes, regarding the graphite core dimensions: a 0.5 and 0.7mm core. It goes without saying that the graphite cores and replacement cores are of a high standard Derwent graphite that we have all come to know and love. With Derwent graphite, you know you’re going to get reliability and quality in every pencil.

The metallic body of the Derwent Precision sports a stylish black gloss finish, trimmed with chrome nib, lapel clip and end cap, making the entire body – an aesthetic beauty for anyone to carry, be they artist, business person or student.

Once removed, the end cap reveals an eraser. Removing the eraser reveals more hidden items, with room to can store extra graphite cores within the barrel. Once the extra cores are placed in the barrel, they automatically feed through when the current core is used completely.

Perhaps the most important feature of the Precision is the metal retractable sheath that extends with the click of the end cap, revealing the graphite. It’s an important feature because so many mechanical pencils in this price range have static sheaths for the graphite. These tend to either break or rip clothing if the pencil in placed in a pocket. With the Derwent Precision, everything is tucked away beautifully when not in use meaning you can return to your pencil time and time again.

The actual mechanism used to extend and retract the graphite is metal whereas a lot of cheap mechanical pencils use plastic, which tends to break easily with use.

But it doesn’t stop there, for this price you get the stylish Precision pencil, three spare erasers, graphite in the pencil and fifteen spare graphite cores in their own plastic dispenser. All I can say is thank you, Derwent, you have done it again, a wonderful product for artists, students, businessperson about the city or academics, the Derwent Precision fits them all.

  1. I enjoy Derwent pencils, and I also enjoy drawing and sketching with mechanical pencils; although the latter haven’t been a ‘throw in a pocket with a sketchbook’ item for precisely the reason given here – unretractable metal sheaths. That the Derwent Precision ticks all three boxes (plus availability in a slightly wider core with softer leads) made it an easy decision to try it. Although I’d also like to ask if it’s possible to remove the lapel clip?

Comments are closed.


text:
Tag Archives: easter

Divi is celebrating Easter, Caribbean style!

Easter egg hunt in CaribbeanAre you spending your Easter weekend on the islands? If so, we’ve got your inside scoop on the best celebrations, activities and traditions for your Caribbean Easter experience. Here are a few of our top picks:

Go beach camping
Beach camping during the Easter season is a popular activity on many Caribbean islands, especially on Aruba and St. Maarten. This tradition has been around for decades, and locals and tourists alike take part in the experience. Beaches will be full of tents during the week leading up to Easter Sunday, with tons of families enjoying their campouts and reconnecting with the beach environment. There will also be a lot of great activities, like beach tennis and soccer competitions, live music from local artists and entertainment from fellow campers.

Fly a kite
On Barbados, kite flying is a unique Easter tradition that takes place on Good Friday. People of all ages join together to participate in kite-flying competitions and challenges with both store-bought and homemade kites, and it is definitely worth seeing if you’re on the island. The sky will be full of bright colors, and the lively energy will put you in a festive mood!

Set sail
On Good Friday, April 3, Aqua Mania Adventures on St. Maarten is offering the Tango Easter Dinner Cruise for only $75 per person. This sunset sail includes an open bar and dinner buffet with traditional Caribbean fare, plus dancing under the stars! You won’t want to miss this lively cruise to kick of Easter weekend, so stop by the Aqua Mania desk at Divi Little Bay Beach Resort to sign up.

Celebrate with Divi
Many of our Divi Resorts destinations will be in the Easter spirit, with fun activities, special menus at our restaurants and more!

Here are some of the dining specials for Easter Sunday:

On Aruba

  • Windows on Aruba will be offering a delicious prix fixe brunch, featuring unlimited dishes, champagne, mimosas and more.
  • At Mulligan’s, there will be a special Easter menu for lunch and dinner.
  • An Easter breakfast buffet will be offered at Seabreeze.

On Barbados

  • Bajan Breeze will offer a buffet lunch with a carving station.

On St. Maarten

  • On Easter Monday, Divi Little Bay Beach Resort will host a brunch with a prix fixe menu and an underwater Easter egg hunt. Winners of the underwater egg hunt will win special prizes, and all proceeds from the event will go to the St. Maarten Nature Foundation.

Easter Menus

For more special Easter weekend events and dining options at your favorite Divi Resorts destination, check with the front desk. Happy Easter!


text:
Sam landed a job at Spotify with Enhancv

25 November 2016 Reading Time: 4 minutes

Sam stood out among 20,000 applicants with an Enhancv resume

Enhanced Lives is a series which aims to put our customers in the spotlight. In a short interview, we ask about their background, the experience they had with Enhancv and how it helped to improve their career.

Our third star is Sam. A busy New Yorker with years of experience in financial industry. Sam used Enhancv to shift her career and get a job at Spotify. How did our platform help her do that?

Hi Sam, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Hey, I’m Sam. I’m originally from Washington, D.C., but I’ve lived in New York City since 2010.
I’m a chef turned Economics student, turned investment banker, turned strategy and ops professional. Recently I made the jump from working at a financial services institution to working at Spotify as Strategy Operations Lead.

When I’m not working I love to cook with my wife, read science fiction, and compete in bar trivia nights with my friends. In 2016 I traveled to Japan, Thailand, Ireland, Scotland, England, and Sweden. For my birthday this year, I hosted “bubble soccer,” which you should totally Google.

Enhancv Sam landed a job at Spotify with Enhancv

What was the reason you created your resume?

I wanted to move from the banking sector into the startup world. As you can imagine, working in investment banking means having a very specific looking resume. Basically, it’s pretty boring.

As you can see from my photo, that old banking resume didn’t match who I really was or the image I wanted to project to potential employers at startups. I needed something much more visually compelling because I’m more compelling in person than I am on paper.

Enhancv Sam landed a job at Spotify with Enhancv

I saw a Business Insider article on Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s resume crafted by Enhancv and it caught my eye instantly. It was exactly the look I needed, so I signed up for the premium account straight away. The platform was easy to use and made my resume look completely different from anything else out there.

Enhancv Sam landed a job at Spotify with Enhancv

What do you like about Enhancv? Did you learn anything from it

My new resume got a lot of attention. Within 90 days of using Enhancv, I got interviews with startups I had applied to in the past and never heard from. I attended a tech conference where companies like NBC Universal, Bloomberg, and Dell were recruiting. All of the recruiters said they don’t normally take resumes, but they wanted a copy of mine.

What I’m hearing from recruiters in the tech field is that cover letters are dead. They’re looking at people’s LinkedIn and checking resumes on their mobiles. Enhancv looks great on mobile and it let me put all the stuff I would have packed into a cover letter right on the resume.

Also, changing the look of my resume actually changed the entire tone of my interviews. After I added Favorite Books and Interests sections to my resume, interviewers would say, “dude, you love the same books I do,” or, “where do you do trivia?” It provided an opportunity for a more natural conversation. My resume with Enhancv gave potential employers more insight into who I am and whether I was a personality fit for their team.

I know for a fact that Spotify gets more than 20,000 applications per day. After I put my Enhancv resume up through the system, it immediately went to the right person!

Enhancv Sam landed a job at Spotify with Enhancv

Enhancv Sam landed a job at Spotify with Enhancv

What message would you send to other job seekers out there?

If you’re not finding your dream job, it’s probably not you. Your resume is just getting lost. Sending a boring banker-style resume and cover letter got me exactly zero interviews.

I had to step up my game, which meant a lot of networking, creating a kickass Linkedin profile, and using Enchancv. When a recruiter is scrolling through a thousand black and white resumes, having a colorful, information-rich, visually striking resume is a serious advantage.

Here’s my advice: Try out the Enhancv platform. You have nothing to lose!

Enhancv Sam landed a job at Spotify with Enhancv

I would like to thank Sam for sharing her inspiring story with us. It means a lot and we hope it will motivate many others to get started and upgrade to more human-centric and performance-based resumes.

If you’d like to contribute to Enhanced Lives series and share your achievements with others, send me a message. I look forward to hearing from you 🙂

Tatiana Rehmova

A glass half-full kind of a girl and a believer that everything happens for a reason. Loves writing, editing and researching the newest ways of doing things.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


text:
Expert Spotlight: “Social media is like getting the toothpaste back in the tube”

expert spotlight

Julie Smith speaks to a lot of schoolkids. At the moment, the Visiting Professor, School of Communications at Webster University, is gearing up for a student-led media conference in Syracuse, NY where she’ll be taking her message: social media isn’t going anywhere and kids and parents need to manage it. “Social media is like trying to get toothpaste back into the tube,” says Smith. “We need to tell [kids] how to do it right.”

In an era of fake news and an ever-expanding social media world, young people are spending their lives online. Whether they’re on Snapchat or Instagram, their online identities are subject to scrutiny and potential abuse, says Smith. And it’s a presence that needs to be monitored and managed, to ensure not only safety but social media wellness.

Note from a journalist, for journalists:

Prof Smith’s strength is in sound bites. She is current and relevant. Her affable nature make her a solid interview for stories on fake news, parenting features, the impact of social media, and media literacy. She has been interviewed by USA Today, the Washington Post, NPR, USA Today, and numerous regional outlets.

Expertise Finder spoke to Prof. Smith about her activism and research.

What role can parents play in monitoring their kids’ social media use?

What parents want is an easy solution – and there is no easy solution. There is no magic bullet. It really involves lots of conversation between parents and kids. Parents are really hungry for information on social media – practical information that doesn’t scare them to death. I talk to them about: here’s what Snapchat is. Here’s how the kids use it. Here’s what the terms of service are. Here’s how kids can get their feelings hurt on it. Here’s how kids can be passive aggressive on Instagram.

We can’t be afraid of it – we have to learn as much about it as possible, because knowledge is power.

What’s the message you relay to parents?

The kids aren’t going to stop using [social media]—the train has left the station. We have to help them cope with it now and use it their advantage. Instead of saying ‘Don’t post’, we need to tell them ‘Here’s the best way to do it.’ We used to say: ‘Don’t talk to strangers online.’ Now we say: ‘Here’s how you validate if the person you’re talking to is really who they say they are.’ We used to say: ‘Don’t take selfies.’ Now we say: ‘your picture should have plain white backgrounds.’ We’ve gone away from preaching to coaching.

Do kids understand that this is something they need to pay attention to?

I think so. I think they’re starting to figure that out. They are savvy. These kids have been creating media their whole lives. They narrate their lives for other people. The real challenge of working with high schoolers is getting them to acknowledge the role that the media plays in their lives. They’re never away from the media—they’re with their phones constantly. Teenagers now sleep next to their phones. So the big challenge now is to give them aware of the presence and the influence. I think some people are in denial about the role media plays in their lives.

Should kids take more ownership of their online identity?

Their story is going to be told online one way or another, so we want them to be the authors of that story. If they are really into photography, they should follow photographers on Instagram, and connect with people who have the job they want. Here are the dos: Do connect with experts. Do understand feelings of despair. Do have coping skills. Do understand the terms of service. Do understand the consequences. Do check the validity of online information. Do use Google Reverse Image search. Do use Google Search for your own name.

[High school seniors] need to have a fantastic profile on LinkedIn. You put your volunteer work on there, you put your service work on there. You put your hobbies and interests and skills, where you’ve gone to school, the teams you play for, the links to your website – it just really needs to be out there and positive and they need to be the authors of it.

What’s your take on social media overall?

I am not anti social media. Because that’s futile. We told kids for years not to talk to strangers online. And yet, when we use an Uber, we’re getting into a car with a stranger. We can’t be afraid of it – we have to learn as much about it as possible, because knowledge is power.

What are you working on right now?

I’m keynoting a student-led media conference, which is really exciting. There are kids who are really excited about media literacy. Typically, when I talk about media literacy to people, I’m usually trying to sell them on the idea. While I’m here I’m talking to librarians on ways to verify online information, I’ve been talking to K-12 teachers, high school counsellors – social workers – and parent groups. There’s a lot of audiences for this message.

Contact or learn more about Julie Smith:

Office: (314) 246-5935

Visit Prof. Smith’s Expertise Finder profile:

Webster University media relations:

Patrick Giblin, Director of Public Relations
Office: (314) 246-7174
Mobile: (209) 606-4417

Find An Expert on the Expertise Finder Network

(click enter after type in search term)


text:
Decorating Modern Children’s Rooms

by | May 20, 2018

Baby pink. Baby blue. Overdone…baby.  Decorating a new baby’s room can be difficult, and new parents find themselves thinking through all sorts of decorating scenarios when they try to figure out how to best outfit a baby’s room. Parents also struggle with changing up a baby’s room to fit the needs of a young child, who is no longer willing to have the same ‘babyish’ look to his or her room as they get older. Luckily, new ( and not so new) parents can enjoy a wide variety of current options with regard to room decor for both babies’ and children’s rooms.

Baby Colors

With regard to color scheme, parents can choose from a variety of colors, such as the 2018 color of the year, Ultra Violet, or other shades of purple. Neutral colors, such as gray, are also gaining in popularity, as they allow for a baby’s room to transition into a child’s room more easily than a pink or blue theme does. Neutral shades also work well in showcasing wall art, such as artwork featuring children’s stories and famous fairytales. Examples of children’s story art can be found here. Other colors for babies’ and children’s rooms that are on trend include teal, yellow and patterns of black and white.

Word Art

Word art has also gained popularity, not only in children’s rooms, but other rooms in the house as well. Paired with industrial exposed brick or neutral palettes, word art — either letters or numbers, or whole words and expressions– has been used increasingly to express personal sentiments in a child’s room. Word art can be found everywhere in children’s rooms, from metal wall art to pillows to canvas art prints. Artwork can be rearranged or changed as the child grows to reflect individual tastes and personal beliefs, which are important to children as a way to express themselves.

Minimal Decorations

Scandinavian design, with its emphasis on minimalism, has also become a popular trend in nursery decoration. This European design scheme has been popular with parents because it adapts itself to many different styles. Children’s rooms can be colorful prints as well as a completely neutral palette. The emphasis is on simplicity in design, and functionality of bedroom pieces, all scaled to suit the child. The art used in a Scandinavian-designed child’s room is modern and minimalistic as well, and can combine a variety of colors and patterns. Scandinavian-inspired children’s rooms have also used neutral white, ivory or beige tone-on-tone colors with multiple types of materials to create a beautiful space for a new baby or a young child. Scandinavian children’s rooms can be designed with whimsical artwork to convey a sense of childlike joy or wonder, such as the whimsical animal artwork done by Olga Shvartsur, whose colorful pieces of animals would be perfect in a child’s room.

Whatever design scheme parents use to decorate a child’s room, it is sure to be a welcoming place for either a new addition to the family or a growing child, who sees his or her room as a safe place for self-expression and growth.

I Need My Space

Do you ever feel like you are just too crowded? Like there are so many people and places and things in your way that you would just give anything to be able to have a few minutes of solitude. One of our co-workers, who has three children under the age of 6, was...

read more

  We have been thinking a lot about scandal lately here at Fine Art America. Sometimes, it seems like scandals are uniquely American, but we are not alone. Scandals take place all over the world, all of the time. Currently, there are several scandals brewing you might...

read more

Wood You Knot?

  Here at Fine Art America, we have noticed that people’s tastes change over time, and that recently, lots of people are just crazy about buying photographs and paintings on wood rather than paper. While paper is a beautiful medium for art – do not get us wrong – some...

read more


text:
The Primary Problems with Healthcare Today: Part One – Lack of Access

Problems with Healthcare

Problems with HealthcarePreviously, we’ve written about the global healthcare crisis, the current existing healthcare models and the problems with healthcare. One of the primary problems existing with each model is the many barriers to access and delivery of care and treatment. Access to healthcare is centralized to a limited number of intermediary players in a way that is costly, non-transparent, and inefficient[1]. It forces all of us to settle on whatever is given based on our locale and socioeconomic status, without having any real voice.

Access to care impacts patient’s physical, social, and mental well-being, as well as their overall quality of life. According to the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, people with a reliable source of care should have better health outcomes, fewer disparities, and lower costs. Yet according to the National Association of Community Health Centers, approximately 62 million individuals in the United States have limited or no access to primary care physicians as a result of shortages[2]. This number is widely expected to increase over the next several years as our population grows older[3]. With an absence of convenient access to primary care physicians, patients turn to alternatives like emergency rooms, urgent care clinics, or choose to not seek care at all. All three options are more costly to the healthcare system than providing access to appropriate physicians[4].

In America, there is one medical doctor for every 434 people[5]. It is important to note that physicians are not dispersed evenly throughout the country. Cuba, a country that has heavily emphasized medicine, has about 6 doctors for every 1,000 citizens[6] . Conversely, in much of developing Africa,there is less than one healthcare practitioner (not necessarily a doctor) for every 1,000 people[7]. India has fewer than 1 doctor for each 1,000 citizens.

Even in communities where healthcare exists, there are financial barriers to accessing care. Countries requiring but not providing health insurance or out-of-pocket payment put citizens at risk of delaying or forgoing treatment, hoping their ailments will go away. This increases costs overall as these same citizens are often treated in emergency rooms, and outcomes diminish because preventative treatment is all but forgotten.

Blockchain technology has enabled the first architecturally- and institutionally-decentralized healthcare system underpinned by cryptocurrency. An advanced P2P network can help pave the way towards a decentralized marketplace, connecting transacting parties worldwide with minimal intermediation.

Current Solutions

In order to solve this problem, we must create a system that is both affordable and globally accessible. Online portals can provide an opportunity for patients to access physicians beyond the sphere of their physical location. Since overhead costs are minimal for physicians to participate, prices per visit can decrease. Global market competitiveness will also drives prices down.

Future Solutions

Gains can still be made, as hundreds of thousands of patients are still without proper access. A common currency can aid the process of cross-border payments, encouraging physicians to provide services more globally. Adding in-person physician visits to the existing system will increase accessibility for patients who lack traditional health insurance, or for those who are able to travel to seek care at more reasonable prices.

Technology like blockchain will make care seamless no matter what care provider you visit. Adding online pharmacies to the platform can help get medicine to those who need it. Overall transparency will lower costs and promote better outcomes.

At HealthSapiens, we’re making this vision a reality with our existing medical platform and eradicating the common problems with healthcare. Do you dream of a better future with access to medical care for all? Follow us on social media @healthsapiens to join our journey!

About The Author

Karim Babay is Chairman & CEO of HealthSapiens, a nationwide healthcare provider that delivers on-demand access to healthcare anytime, anywhere, via mobile devices, the internet, video and phone. Mr. Babay is also the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Intrinsic Value Investment Partners, a value-focused hedge fund. Mr. Babay has over 15 years of global investing, entrepreneurial and corporate finance experience allocating capital across the capital structure (credit and equity), angel investing, liquid and illiquid investments in securities. Mr. Babay has published numerous studies and analysis while at Columbia University. Mr. Babay is member of the board of directors and Chairman of the compensation committee of GLYECO, a publicly traded company, principally involved in processing of waste into high quality ethylene glycol. Mr. Babay received a B.S. in finance and economics from HEC Institute and an MBA from Columbia Graduate School of Business.

  1. M. Porter, ‘ The Strategy That Will Fix Health Care’, Harvard Business Review (2013)
  2. National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC). ‘The Medically Disenfranchised and Shortage of Primary Care.’ (2014)
  3. A. Ritchie, ‘ Access to primary care remains a challenge for 62 million Americans’, Medical Economics (2014)
  4. National Institute of Health Studies


text:
The New Yummy World is Here!

Yummy just got bigger and brighter!

Your favorite Yummy products are BACK! And in a softer and more scrumptious way than ever!

Yummy World is a deliciously fun world made up of a unique cast of characters! Yummy World is set in the sweet town of Sprinkle Tree, a magically yummy place where food is fun and fresh baked friendships and adventures meet!!!

Get it while it’s hot!

Spring is here, flowers are blooming, schools out, it’s time to celebrate with a little indulgence.
Sugary, savory, and sweet the Yummy World crew is ready for some new adventures and now available in stores! Deliciously soft plush and keychain friends join the fun, always with a smile and big googly eyes – they are sure to add some flavor to your day.
Yummy, Sassy, Sprinkles, Coco, Cheezey Pie, Melony, Doublescoop Twins, Sandy, Sunny, and Frankie With a range of sizes and each with their own personality from Mocha Mountain, collect them all for delectable fun! Fresh out the oven get in on all the adventures at!

And follow us for all the Yummy news!
Show us YOUR Yummy and tag #YummyWorld!

Paying homage to Heidi Kenny’s artist plush of My Paper Crane, Kidrobot has opened a whole new world for you to enjoy with new character stories, Yummy designs, community engagement and lifestyle accessories! Each plush character is softer and more adorable than ever! Yummy fits into your life from bed to office, couch, car or bed! For you, for puppy, pussy cat, for baby! Or if you’re Katy Perry, its the perfect Paparazzi blocker!

Follow, engage and join the new Yummy World now! Join Yummy, Sandy, Sassy, Sprinkles, Franky, Melony, Sunny, Coco, Cheezy Pie, and the Double Scoop Twins for the yummiest of Yummy Adventures!

Show us YOUR Yummy and tag #YummyWorld!

Your favorite Yummy toys, plush and accessories will now have a new home at because they need their own Yummy World!

Be Sociable, Share!


WARC-Identified-Payload-Type: application/xhtml+xml

text:
Posts Tagged ‘Tree Spirit Scavenger Hunt’

9 Kid-Approved Activities for the Best St. Simons Island Vacation Ever!

Thursday, May 31st, 2018
Summer Vacation on St. Simons Island

Summer vacations on St. Simons Island, GA. Photos provided by guests/previous photo contest winners.

Kids can be our toughest critics. If anyone is willing to tell you something isn’t fun, it’s going to be them. Shoot, sometimes they’ll say they aren’t having fun even when we know darned well they are. Here are several ideas to make sure the next time you pack the family up and head to St. Simons, you have the best trip ever!

((PS. Share your photos using #kingandprinceresort and you might be featured in our blogs and social media))

~ Build a Sandcastle ~

Or sand angel. Or dig a hole to China. Maybe your little one wants to see how many buckets of water they can run and dump in the sand. Doesn’t matter really what the game is; just bring a bucket, a shovel, and some sunscreen and they’ll be set for hours! If you don’t have room to bring buckets and a shovel in your carry-on, we sell them in our resort shop. If you have room to pack lots of beach toys, check out our list of beach must-haves for kids!

~ Explore the Island’s Bike Paths ~

A paved network of winding bike paths is a great way to get to most anywhere on St. Simons Island and the Live Oak tree canopy makes plenty of shade as you and the fam trek around like locals. Bike rentals are available at Ocean Motion Surf Shop (just around the corner from The King and Prince Resort). Call 912-638-5225 for more information. (Note: The tides on St. Simons Island make for hard sand that allows for biking on the beach. Definitely something unique you can enjoy here and not other beach destinations.)

~ Take a Swing on the Greens~

Depending on age, they may not be quite ready for a full round of 18 but we find our sidekicks are pretty darn content hitting range balls + cruising the golf course with Dad.

[Note, the Hampton Club offers youth camps during the summer. Contact the golf course at 912-634-0255 for details or click here.]

~ Tree Spirit Scavenger Hunt ~

Remember that bike adventure we just talked about? This is a TERRIFIC activity to couple with it! All you need is the map and your camera since you know you’re going to want proof of every Tree Spirit discovered. Tip, start in the Village area at The Golden Isles welcome center (529 Beachview Drive) so you can pick up a map.

Tree Spirits on St. Simons Island, Georgia.

Tree Spirits on St. Simons Island, Georgia.

~ Become a Junior Ranger at Fort Frederica ~

Throughout the year, Fort Frederica offers special events and programs for kids such as the award-winning Junior Ranger program. Also offered is a historical archaeology day-camp during the summer. History is cool + kids have a blast here. Besides, nothing will make you appreciate the size of your home quite like seeing the size of living quarters with a shared fireplace!

~ Swings + Sundaes  ~

It’s important to pause while on vacation to make sure you soak it all in. We recommend grabbing a frontrow seat to the Ocean and ordering a Shipwreck Sundae from ECHO. [At $5, this activity can fit into almost any budget AND you can pretend it’s for the kiddos!]

Ice Cream Sundae at ECHO

Shipwreck Ice Cream Sundae at ECHO on St. Simons Island, GA.

~ Explore the Open Water ~

Every family is a little different but St. Simons Island has options for everyone! From Dolphin Tours with Cap to shrimping aboard The Lady Jane to classy cruises on the String of Pearls to fishing charters with Liquid Assets, there are plenty of ways to enjoy the Golden Isles from the water. Interested in seeing more options? All of our Water Activities can be found here.

~ Climb the Lighthouse ~

It’s not everyday you can  see, climb, and explore a Lighthouse or the Keeper’s Dwellings. Make sure to notice what’s below you as you make your way around at the top. Bonus: You can use your birds eye view of the entire Village including the Neptune Park Fun Zone, miniature golf, and the fishing pier to plan your very next Island adventure!

~ KP Kid Perks ~

Staying at The King and Prince Resort? You and the kiddos will have access to our main pool area which has 2 kiddie pools + a sand pit in addition to our main heated pool. During the Summer, you + the fam can enjoy full pool service from the Sea Shack (think frozen drinks, kid’s menus + more) plus a variety of kids activities throughout the day by the pool deck.

Still want more? If you’re curious to see ALL of the activities our Island has to offer? Click here  for our most comprehensive list broken down by category.


text:
Science and Religion

A human being is part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

“The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion…. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind. To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness….one cannot help but be in awe when (one) contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. Albert Einstein

So that the seeker is assisted in his efforts to remain profoundly present and conscious of himself inside—a particular manner of being to which he is totally unused, but which proves to be necessary for what he seeks to accomplish in himself—the sense of mystery must remain alive in him, accompanying him everywhere and in everything he does: the mystery of this enigmatic silent call which makes itself felt in him at the most unexpected moments and which eludes him, the mystery of the Cosmos, the mystery of the aim of Creation, the mystery of his own life, of his consciousness, his mind, and so on.

Essentially, everything that exists in the manifested world is a mystery.

Edward Salim Michael In the silence of the Unfathomable “

Is the world studied by science the only reality, or does it point to a deeper reality? Is nature a random and chance process, or a project with purpose? Can people be fully understood in terms of the natural sciences, or is there a transcendent dimension to human existence?

Jean Staune Science and the Search for Meaning

Jean Staune has degrees in the philosophy of science, mathematics, paleontology, political science, computer science, and management. He is the founder and general secretary of the Interdisciplinary University of Paris and an assistant professor in philosophy in one of Europe’s prominent business schools, the MBA program of the HEC. He has been an invited teacher in two Pontifical universities and in China’s Shandong University.

As the organizer of some of the most important meetings in science and religion in Europe, Jean Staune is in a core position to report on the dialogue between science and religion, primarily from the views of scientists

0 commentaires

Laisser un commentaire

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


text:
Latest News

London Bay’s Designs at Mediterra Offer Coveted Indoor/Outdoor Lifestyle

by MED Marketing

For luxury homebuyers, the prospect of enjoying an integrated, seamless indoor/outdoor lifestyle in Naples’ temperate winter season climate has long held great appeal.

The lure of indoor/outdoor living has been especially strong at Mediterra, a 1,697-acre gated community two-miles north of Immokalee Road on Livingston Parkway in North Naples where bringing the indoors out and the outdoors in is part of the day-to-day living experience. As literally thousands of homebuyers discovered during Mediterra’s 2018 Model Home Showcase that concluded last weekend, London Bay Homes has taken the concept of indoor/outdoor living at Mediterra to an elevated level. From its innovative architectural designs, to its captivating interiors by Romanza Interior Designs, stunning covered lanais overlooking Mediterra’s spectacular tableau that include outdoor kitchens and spacious dining and conversation areas, and custom pools by its award-winning Acquatico Pools design company that are surrounded by expansive pavered decks and include captivating fire and water features, London Bay continues to provide the type of indoor/outdoor lifestyle Mediterra residents crave.

“The indoor/outdoor lifestyle is a strong point of conversation during the design development phase of any project under the London Bay Homes umbrella,” said Jennifer Stevens, Senior Design Director at Romanza Interior Design. “How and how often the space will be used, the number of people the outdoor spaces need to accommodate, lighting, air circulation, various activities, lifestyle preferences, and finishes and furnishings are all discussed early on.”

More than 60 purchase opportunities remain available in Mediterra. Available choices include London Bay’s new collection of furnished models, as well as home sites showcasing water and preserve views. Purchasers of homes by London Bay are eligible to secure a full golf membership immediately rather than being placed on the membership waiting list as a Limited Golf Member. London Bay Homes, an award-winning homebuilder and developer in the Southwest Florida luxury home market for more than three decades, manages all new home construction sales and marketing for Mediterra. Three of London Bay’s eight models that are open for viewing and purchase at Mediterra feature pools by Acquatico that were named recipients of 2018 Design Awards from the Florida Swimming Pool Association (FSPA). The FSPA Design Awards program recognizes the top designs in pools, spas, and water features.

London Bay’s outdoor living and outdoor kitchen designs are consistent with widely held design trends that embrace cleaner lined aesthetics. Durable materials are incorporated in the designs along with a variety of finishes that satisfy both form and function considerations. Naturekast cabinets, a resin product that is available in a wide variety of door styles and faux wood textures, are a popular choice for outdoor kitchen designs. Danver by Brown Jordan, a line of stainless steel cabinetry, is available in a variety of powder coat finishes. Brushed steel, Sapien stone, Dekton, and Geoluxe slab materials can be used outdoors and offer a variety of visually quieter outdoor countertop textures and a more modern approach than many of the natural marbles and granites that have long been in vogue. A wide variety of outdoor fireplaces available from Brown Jordon, Cooke, and Eco-Smart are available in modern styles. Fire has become a favored accent in outdoor living area designs and can be incorporated in the form of poolside fire and water bowls or specialized post lights from Tempest Torch. These and an extensive selection of other materials are integrated by London Bay’s design team to create an outdoor environment that flows seamlessly from the indoor environment.

“The continuity of the design theme and the materials included in the outdoor living area design is extremely important,” said Stevens. “As designers, we consider the interior and exterior spaces as one cohesive element rather than two distinctly separate entities. We’re able to achieve that cohesiveness through the use of materials that have similar textures, colors, and tones, but not necessarily by using the exact same materials or colors. Furnishings in the indoor and outdoor areas need to complement one another in terms of layout, the number of pieces, and the color palette.”

Central to the inviting indoor/outdoor lifestyle created by London Bay that is cherished by Mediterra residents is the look and feel of each home’s pool and deck design. London Bay’s Acquatico Pools company has established a tradition of award-winning excellence in pool design. Priced at $1,960,000 fully-furnished, London Bay’s three-bedroom, three-and-one-half bath Bettina villa model in Mediterra’s Cabreo neighborhood offers 3,102 square feet under air.  The Bettina presents an open plan with a great room, dining room, and an island kitchen with a pantry and a cafe area. The outdoor living space includes an optional outdoor kitchen. Acquatico Pools received a Silver Award in the 2018 FSPA Design Awards competition for the Bettina model’s pool design. Soothing lighting, colorful planters, and a stunning water and fire feature are included in the design.

London Bay’s Capriano and Catalina models are open and available in Cortile, an estate and single-family villa home neighborhood. Priced at $3,675,000 fully-furnished, the four-bedroom, four bath Capriano’s 4,493 square-feet under air floor plan includes a great room, a wine bar, and a library that opens to an outdoor living and kitchen area. A large custom pool that won a Silver Award in the 2018 FSPA Design Awards competition includes a cascading waterfall fountain, sun-shelf, spa, and a captivating lighting design.  A fire pit offers a perfect gathering spot. An open staircase ends at a wet bar positioned to serve a second-floor lounge and a guest suite with a balcony, while a sun deck offers a view of the pool and a preserve.

Priced at $4,250,000 furnished, the two-story, 5,288 square feet under air, Catalina model features a great room, an island kitchen, and a café. The café opens to an outdoor living space with an outdoor kitchen, an island bar, and ample seating while overlooking a resort-style pool, spa, and fire pit. The pool design by Acquatico Pools won a Bronze Award in the 2018 FSPA Design Awards competition. In addition to an L-shaped pool and a soothing spa, the design includes a sun-shelf and playful water spouts. The master suite’s sliding glass doors open to a private trellis and patio, while the master bath features a garden shower. The first floor also offers a formal dining room, bonus room and two guest suites. The second floor includes a loft, wet bar, a third guest suite, and a sunset overlook with an outdoor fireplace.

Visit the Mediterra Sales Center at 15836 Savona Way off Livingston Parkway two miles north of Immokalee Road. The Sales Center and model residences are open daily. Visit Mediterra online at

News New Model Homes Mediterra mediterra luxury homes Custom Outdoor Living Spaces Outdoor Living

Want to see more?


text:
Top 5 Reasons to Use Reusable Bags!

Mixed Bag Designs Reusable Bags

What better time to celebrate reusable bags than Earth Day! With one of our favorite holidays coming up next week, we’ve been thinking a lot about why using reusable bags is so great for the earth. Using reusable grocery and shopping bags is more than just a fleeting fad – in some areas of the country it is even required by law for customers to bring their own bags for shopping. Don’t have enough reusable bags to fit your busy lifestyle? Not to worry, Mixed Bag Designs has you covered! Our products offer a great way to shop care-free and in style. Check out our top five reasons to use reusable bags!

  1. Express your individual style. Our products come in tons of fun prints and patterns, much more fun than a boring paper bag. Show off your fashion sense with some of our top picks from spring!
  2. Be eco-friendly. Going green isn’t always easy, but one of the easiest ways that you can protect the Earth is by not using harmful disposable bags when shopping. Over your lifetime, you can save over 22,000 plastic bags from polluting the world by using one of our stylish reusable bags!
  3. Reliability. What’s worse than all of your groceries falling out of the bag and breaking on the ground? Not much in our book! The average reusable bag has the lifespan of over seven hundred disposable plastic bags. We make all of our products reliable and worry-free – no need to cry over spilled milk when you have a Mixed Bag Designs bag.
  4. It saves money. Both for you personally and for the economy. In California, it costs roughly $428 million each year to clean litter from waterways, with 8% to 25% due to plastic bags. Additionally, with reusable bags you won’t need to pay the bag fee that is becoming more and more common in the United States.
  5. Plastic bags can be harmful to wildlife. It is estimated that around 100,000 marine animals alone are killed annually because of plastic bags. Although paper bags are less harmful to wildlife, it takes up to 13% more energy to produce disposable paper bags! The solution: reusable bags, courtesy of Mixed Bag Designs.

With pollution on the rise and plastic bag bans following suit, what better time to switch to reusable bags than now? Write “bring bags” at the top of every grocery list as a reminder, and soon it will become second nature. Check out some of the fun products on our website today and get going on your green shopping spree!

  1. Thanks for the information. I just got a reusable bag and I love it. I like the feeling of being stylish as well as eco-friendly. My local grocery store gives a discount for using reusable bags so that is a bonus as well. I’ll have to look at some of your styles.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: Logo

You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google+ photo

You are commenting using your Google+ account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s


text:
quantitative investment risk analysis

@RISK at the Core of DNV GL’s Risk Management Services to Account for Uncertainty

@RISK Drives DNV GL's Risk Management Practice

DNV GL’s energy division consists of 3000 energy experts that deliver world-renowned testing and expertise for the energy value chain, including renewables and energy efficiency.

One of DNV GL’s customer’s, ROAF (Romerike avfallsforedling), an inter-municipal waste management company, wanted to invest in a new waste management system in order to meet EU targets of 50% minimum recycling of domestic waste by 2020. It had several recommendations delivered by a supplier, but needed to ensure that the final decision fell on the most cost-effective and sustainable system – and guarantee that all risks had been considered along the way, as well as an independent quality assessment of recommendations.

DNV GL worked with the customer to create a solid foundation for decision making by using @RISK to first understand and simplify assessment criteria, and then evaluate and report risks against these same criteria. “The main reason we chose @RISK is that it adds that critical uncertainty that is present in all investments and decisions into the model,” says  Nicolaj Tidemand, Principal Specialist at DNV GL. “This gives invaluable information to decision makers, with the integration into Microsoft Excel making the tool very flexible.”

He continues, “Risk management offers the customer more control over the risks related to the business and what actions can be taken to ensure a successful business outcome. Quantitative investment risk analysis gives the customer more information about the risks related to their investment decision, the flexibility of Palisade’s @RISK supports simple cost risk models and complex quantitative risk analyses that could be tailored to the customer’s needs.”

» Read “@RISK Drives DNV GL’s Risk Management Practice”


text:
Understand your audience: 5 Tips to Create Dynamic Personas

Mark Nardone

It’s elemental to marketers: properly understanding and targeting your audience can be the difference between success and failure of a campaign. However, “audience” is a broad term, and will likely include many different types of individuals, groups and/or “personas”.  Marketers are realizing that they must understand the value of gathering insights to drive more personalized marketing programs.  Personas are generally “ideals” of your target customer— traits that you build to better understand the needs, interests, and behavior of existing and potential customers.  Personas, when linked (or engaged) with your brand’s content, become the foundation of a very powerful marketing campaign that will drive outcome and action. This is more important now than ever as the shift to inbound is well underway and the customer, regardless of industry, is truly empowered to embrace a brand at their choice, pace and place.

Once you have your audience personas mapped, how do you reach, engage and reward their interest?  Are they simply a single transaction or potential superstar brand advocate?  If marketing teams are not taking the time to understand behaviors of their customer then they are missing a huge opportunity to build loyalty and trust.  Every customer engagement is dynamic. They consistently change, grow and develop along the pathway to purchase.  It’s the post purchase opportunity that marketers will be challenged with – and persona insights will provide a level of visibility to leverage the possibilities. 16068846966_83c4b4cede_z

Image by Stefano Montagner used under CC license.

We’ve outlined five steps below to help marketers with developing personas profiles that are more dynamic and can deliver better results to your marketing program throughout the customer’s lifecycle.

Building Your Persona(s)

Gathering information about your personas starts with research into both existing customers and desired or aspirational customers.  Examine your own data as well as data from external resources. Review industry reports or assess your business performance from years past to start to get a better handle on your target customer. Look at their demographics, psychographics, roles and responsibilities, challenges and fears, and the tone, tenor and rhythm of previous customer engagements. All of this is a perfect first step.  But this data only goes so far; you need to examine both quantitative data as well as qualitative. When did you last observe, talk to, or engage with someone from this targeted segment? What are the conversations your departments—sales, account management, customer service, etc., are having with customers and prospects.  Engage your team and ask them to help you understand your buyers a bit further.  Maybe it is time to get informal and survey customers and prospects about their pain points, what they value in a solution and what their plans for the future look like. Scientists call this “field research” and like the scientist, marketers need to get out of the “lab” often to truly understand the real world experience of their customers. This will provide a deeper understanding of your audience and help to build “smarter” marketing campaigns with a personalized interest.

Analyzing Your Persona

The next step is analysis. Persona data must be juxtaposed and connected with lifecycle stages to provide a complete picture of what type of content your audience target will value.  This is the second dimension of persona building and it’s based on time and persona maturity/development. Marketers must understand it’s a customers’ journey (not your journey) and the need to adjust your marketing campaigns to the agility of the empowered customer becomes a critical step.  In essence, the customer persona is not static; it’s a living, breathing “character” that develops over time.  Therefore, it is your number one goal as a marketer to develop the right content that is going to engage that persona at each point in their lifecycle.  Are they aware of your company? Are they in a position to purchase or merely just understanding what their purchasing options are? How critical is your product or service to them at each point in their customer navigation?  What do they value and when do they value it the most?  Do they TRUST you?

Measure Your Success

Only 35% of marketing executives say they can calculate the ROI of their marketing spend most or all of the time, according to a survey by B2B Marketing. The rest of those surveyed admitted that they can calculate ROI some of the time, rarely, or not at all. Read more here

Measurement cannot be an afterthought when creating personas that you market to; it needs to be foundational and part of the content’s DNA.  How are you going to measure the impact of your campaign without identifying the criteria to measure within your target audience’s mix?  There is no silver bullet to measurement and it will be different from brand to brand depending on product or service, the lifecycle of your target customer and how you envision engaging with that customer throughout their connection with your brand.  While conversions (sales) are the ultimate measurement, are there measurements pre- and post- purchase that should be evaluated and utilized as triggers to determine the success of your content marketing program? Are there opportunities to take different paths when engaging with a customer during these important stages? How does the target persona value the content you are providing them on the vehicles that you are utilizing (multi-device, omni-channel experiences) and how effective are those vehicles (e.g. mobile, social etc.) in terms of making engagement happen?  Marketers need to create a path to measurement that aligns to your audience’s behaviors and creates visibilities for your team to adjust in real time in order to capitalize on any and all purchasing opportunity.

Test Your Persona(s) for Engagement

The only real effective ways to see how successful a marketing campaign will be is to actually make it happen.  Even the most skillfully drawn customer personas can be flawed or the content you offer your targets just may not be the “right” content at the “right” time.  Marketers need to spend cycles thinking of external factors such as macro events, trends, news, competitive barriers and changing behaviors of their customer (think stages of life, work, relationships, technology, etc.). The main point is that your audience has many opportunities to be distracted and disengage. Your goal as a marketer is not only to keep them involved, but also to keep them on the buying journey. Disengagement will present additional challenges that every marketer will face – it’s how you respond with personalized attention through smart content that will help minimize that problem.

To do this, marketers may wish to consider small-batch tests within different target personas. Social media allows marketers to experiment like never before and at low cost.  These tests can help marketers gather additional insights about their target personas and can also help them understand the time and place on the customers’ journey that promises the most potential for conversion.  This additional information provides real time, real world understanding of what turns a customer on or off and allows marketers to bring even more life to their personas.  A mistake in your bigger campaign execution can be avoided with testing and better understanding what makes for a great campaign. There is never a limit to the depth of understanding a marketer can have about your customers.  However, if you are from the marketing mindset that this isn’t a sprint – but a marathon don’t be afraid to pause, test, adjust and execute what will be a more engaging program that will convert leads and impact sales.  You’ll reap the reward in the long run and build a far more passionate customer base.

Go Big and Learn

Persona development does not end there.  A key objective of any marketing campaign is to acquire new knowledge and key learnings about your customers that can be acted upon during the next marketing push and help keep those buyers returning on the path to purchase.  When you go big with a campaign, lead conversion may be the most important KPI, but the continued evolution and development of your understanding of your audience is just as important. During and after your campaign, check in on performance and how the targeted audience is reacting. Are they engaged at all? Are they clicking links or filling out a contact form? What has been the commentary from customers on social sites?  Is there an influx of ask for more information?  Do these asks then carry over into actual leads?

Persona marketing, coupled with content, measurement and successful execution, has given marketers a new science to develop and engage in effective marketing campaigns for their brands.  But it all begins with understanding the target buyer and what keeps them engaged on the path to purchase.  By applying these five approaches to developing dynamic customer personas, marketers will find themselves more effective and better equipped for the next personalized marketing push and as they bring their customers though a journey that will continue to evolve – and reward!

New Call-to-action

PAN Recommended Content:

influencer marketing

Subscribe to our newsletter


text:
photoshop creative

Photoshop Tip: Rubber Band the Pen tool

Posted in:
Tips & Tutorials, by Mark White
October 16, 2012

Here’s a trick when using the Pen tool in Photoshop to visualise curving paths

Pen tool tip

Turn on Rubber Band in the Options bar when using the Pen tool to see how the next bend will appear.

For more awesome tips on the Pen tool, including how to make perfect selections with it, grab issue 93 which is on sale now. There’s a 10% discount for orders up until 24th December too!


text:
Getting the Product Management Process Right

August 7, 2018

Are product managers visionary leaders bringing the company together — or are they messengers, scurrying from department to department? Are you there to reengineer your organization’s rickety approach to the product, or just fill in the gaps?

All of the above.

Having a strong product management philosophy is crucial, but if you can’t optimize your approach to the needs of the product and the culture of the company, you won’t succeed. Here’s how to get the product management process right.

Define Your Product Management Role

To succeed as a product manager, you need institutional support — and that requires a clearly defined role. Unfortunately, many PMs never get either. Rather than analyzing the organizational factors leading to delays, overruns, poor marketing and development coordination, or other problems, many organizations just create a new job title and assume their PM will fix it.

This can be alluring for new product managers, because they go in with a lot of freedom. The reality is that this approach is a recipe for disaster for everyone involved. You can’t succeed at your job without clear expectations around why you’re there, what you’re supposed to accomplish, and just as importantly, what isn’t your responsibility. You need to address:

  • Your basic responsibilities: Your job probably involves strategic activities like portfolio management and product roadmapping that overlap with other stakeholders. How are you dividing those responsibilities with the CEO and other decision makers?

    On the tactical end, there are similar issues. Are you working with other managers to handle responsibilities like product requirements and beta testing?

    What about product launch? Do you share responsibility in product marketing or quality? And if so, what pieces are you responsible for? These details may change over the lifecycle of the product, but you still need to have a clear understanding of where you fit in from the beginning.
A photo of two developers looking at lines of code on a computer monitor.
It takes a special kind of attention span to be a coder.
  • Metrics: Will success be measured by adoption? ROI? Engagement? Particular market or technical goals like growing Android adoption or integration with new software suites?

    Or is your primary role to resolve specific problems like frequent delays or inconsistent alignment with customer demands?

    Understanding exactly what improvements are expected is particularly important if the company has significant problems with its product management process. You can’t succeed if the company can’t explain what it wants from you.
  • Current PM Process Flow: You need to learn how the sausage gets made as quickly as possible. Not only will this allow you to pick up your role more quickly and smoothly, it will also provide an opportunity to demonstrate your value right off the bat by spotting and fixing broken links in the process chain.

    You’ll need to do a lot of your own research here. Even if every department has well-documented procedures for everything, there’s no guarantee those procedures describe how things actually get done.

Create a Customer-Focused Product Management Mission

Thought leaders often talk about product managers as the interpreters connecting the customer with technical and business stakeholders. This model isn’t wrong, but it’s a little reductive. For Jeff Whitlock, CEO and Founder at Unbird and veteran product manager, the interpreter concept was very useful when he was a new product manager, but it hasn’t held up well over time.

“This model soon began to break down as a tool to help me excel at my job. I had concerns:

  • Why are UX, Tech, and ‘Business’ three separate circles? And why do they need a go-between? Shouldn’t everyone on the team work to bring these circles together?
  • What is ‘the business’ anyway? Customers? Executives? Investors?
  • Is the only value I’m adding being a network router?”

Whitlock created his own model, focused on an exchange he calls the Product Value Cycle. In this framework, businesses make a transaction with customers where both benefit.

A photo of two team members organizing sticky notes on a pane of glass.
We can’t say it enough: we love sticky notes.

“Companies get information about the customer, money, and some form of word-of-mouth from customers. Customers get a product, support for that product, and branding… [and] content.” In his view, the role of a product management is to enable and support this cycle.

The idea is pretty simple, but it helped Whitlock to define his priorities. It showed him he needed to focus on the customer, by strengthening the connection between customers and the organization and creating a customer-focused internal culture.

He also believes product managers should contribute directly to product delivery using whatever skills they have, from coding to copywriting. That way, you earn your team’s respect, which empowers the product manager to improve the company culture.

Whitlock has a great model, but it’s not the only model, and it may not be the right one for you. The important takeaway is that over time you must grow beyond the specifics and find a framework that gives your role meaning and an underlying structure.

If you spend all your time as a go-between and don’t have a higher purpose, you’ll stop learning and burn out. To change your organization for the better, you need to develop a sense of mission within it.

Collaboration, Empowerment, and the Product Management Process

For a product manager, eliminating inefficiency is core to the job — yet, PMs are often stretched so thin that they can inadvertently contribute to it. Overlaps with marketing, sales, and other roles can lead to process duplication. Lack of interdepartmental cooperation results in data siloing. Poor visibility causes friction and inefficiency.

There’s no easy path to solving these problems — no set of product management steps to synchronize the whole organization. In fact, overreliance on process can be part of the problem. It’s easy to fall into the trap of optimizing your role, rather than working with others to change the company culture.

A photo of two men looking at a tablet in their office.
Teamwork makes the dream work! Or something less cliche.

The solution is to collaborate in a way that empowers the people around you, and brings them into your process. Talk to marketing about benchmarking — what they’ve done, what has been valuable, what hasn’t worked — and ask how you can help them reach their goals.

Sit down with your sales team, learn what concerns customers have and give them a voice in setting goals and priorities. Get input from your engineers: how can you support them? What priorities do they see as most important? What ideas do they have for the product?

The more you empower different stakeholders in your organization, the more they will empower you. You’ll gain a deeper insight into the priorities and processes of each department, and a growing network of allies eager to help you bring the whole team into alignment.

Become an Expert at Product Testing

Most product managers don’t have scientific training, but we’re expected to test products like we do. Massive investments, months or years of development, and the hopes and dreams of the company often rest on inexpertly-designed experiments that allow all sorts of flawed assumptions and bias to sneak in.

This situation is complicated by limited resources and product management workflow constraints. PMs often have to derive firm conclusions from a very limited amount of data under conditions that are far from ideal.

For example, let’s say you’re building an app that delivers bite-sized market updates to busy executives on the go. You decide to test it under real-world conditions to make sure it’s usable when executives are pressed for time, on the move, and dividing their attention.

Ideally, you’d recruit executives for your usability testing, and have them try out your app in various situations and give you feedback. You might have one try it during a crowded morning commute on the subway, another test it out while checking email during a quick lunch break, and so on.

However, when you go to test it, you can’t find busy executives willing to take the time out of their schedules. You end up having to settle for testers outside your demographic, in tests that don’t quite pose the same pressures.

But the educated professionals you recruit aren’t necessarily going to have the same reaction as your end users. They may not be as interested in markets, or as pressed for time. They may have different usage patterns or UX preferences. You have to make extra assumptions about what your testers have (and don’t have) in common with your demographic as mobile app users. And those assumptions pose opportunities for error.

It takes practice to be able to make accurate inferences based on limited data, so you need to make testing a priority. As you try new methods, record successes and failures and refine your experimental procedures, you’ll get better at picking the right tool for each situation and reading the results accurately.

You also need to learn to think like a scientist. That means creating tests that evaluate a well-defined hypothesis, honestly identifying your own biases and those of your organization, and evaluating the evidence as objectively as possible. However, to really maximize the benefits of user testing, you may need to rethink how it fits into the product development process.

A photo of two product management team members reviewing data.
Reviewing testing data will be one of the most important things you do during the product management process.

Prototype, Test, and Refine Until You Have Something Worth Building

Management doesn’t like waste — and killing a new product (or improvement upon an existing product) feels like waste. You’ve put all that time into market research, brainstorming a solution, and testing it out on users, only to find that your users don’t want it.

There’s a lot of pressure to ship the flawed product anyway, just so it feels like you’re getting somewhere. This isn’t intentional (no one wants to build and ship lousy software, or design and develop a buggy mobile app). It’s built into the way the requirements and design phase are structured in most organizations. The Silicon Valley Product Group has a great example:

Let’s say you’re given a 4-week timeline to prepare before the engineers will be available to work on your product. Management expects you to define the new product and accurately assess how the product will solve a customer’s pain point. Four weeks seems like an eternity from now, so you feel confident you can turn something around easily.

“You’ll start with an opportunity assessment to understand the problem to be solved, then you’ll spend quality time interviewing real users, and identify a preliminary set of requirements. By the start of the second week you should be able to work with an interaction designer on a prototype, and in the third week you’ll do user testing with the prototype. In the fourth week you’ll flesh out the details of the use cases and review the prototype and spec with engineering.

These are all great practices. But what happens isn’t usually so great. During your initial user discussions you find that users aren’t as excited about the idea as your management was, and/or you struggle to come up with a prototype that users can figure out, and/or the users aren’t excited about the ideas in the prototype when they test it. But the time is up, the engineers are ready, and the result is that during the next three to six months, engineering proceeds to build that same unusable and unexciting product that you saw in your prototype, and you ship, and then your management is of course disappointed in the results.”

When you’re looking to create a new product or add fundamentally new functionality, there’s no guarantee that your first idea will pan out — or your second, or your fifth. SVPG recommends replacing requirements and design with “product discovery” to emphasize that you’re discovering whether there really are users who want the product you’ve envisioned, and what solution will be “usable, useful, and feasible.”

We wholeheartedly endorse that idea. But refining your product management workflow to do more in prototyping is also crucial. If your prototyping tool empowers all stakeholders and creates fully-functional prototypes, you can effectively go through multiple product cycles at once.

A photo of a woman sitting on a bench in the snow, holding coffee in one hand and her smartphone in the other.
The app lets you take your prototype (and the testing data) with you wherever you go.

You can build, test, and handle the vast majority of your quality assurance tasks in the prototyping phase faster. That means you can build out multiple solutions at once, leave time for a few failures and a lot of tweaking, and build something that really meets customer demand — in the timeframe you’d normally spend on one potential solution.

A browser-based prototyping tool with integrated testing can make this process much easier. Your team can send out links to remote testers, allowing them to quickly load and demo prototypes without a lot of setup or configuration.

You’ll be able to quickly record demos and tutorials as needed, monitor usage patterns, and get feedback remotely. With good planning, you can test multiple prototypes at once, starting as soon as they’re completed and evaluating the results the very next day!

Great Product Management Requires Great Tools

Product management is one of the most challenging jobs in app development, but it can also be one of the most rewarding.

With the right tools, you can stop racing to catch up, and start delivering a better product with a more effective workflow. helps product managers by accelerating development and empowering all stakeholders, helping you make better decisions. lets anyone build mobile app prototypes that feel real. No coding or design skills required. Bring your ideas to life quickly! Sign up for a free 15-day trial of today and get started on your next mobile app design.

How are you working to improve your product management process? Let us know by tweeting us @Protoio!

You might also like …

4 Ways to Be a Better Product Manager Inspiration

4 Ways to Be a Better Product Manager

How to Get Started as an Entrepreneur Entrepreneur

How to Get Started as an Entrepreneur

5 Mobile App Prototyping Mistakes and How to Avoid Them Prototyping

5 Mobile App Prototyping Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

How to Avoid Bottlenecks and Accomplish More Inspiration

How to Avoid Bottlenecks and Accomplish More

7 Strategies to Run More Effective Meetings Inspiration

7 Strategies to Run More Effective Meetings

6 Mobile Design Trends to Watch in 2019 Design

6 Mobile Design Trends to Watch in 2019


text:
Fill out a survey to give feedback on Neighborhood District Councils

This post originally appeared on The New Pioneer Square, a blog that shares pictures, news, and events from Seattle’s first neighborhood.

From the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods and Citywide Neighborhood Council (CNC):

We are currently seeking input from community groups throughout Seattle as a way to find out how to support the evolution of the Neighborhood District Council system as a key avenue for civic participation in Seattle.

As you may know, the city is divided up into 13 neighborhood district councils, each of which is made up of local community organizations within the district. The online survey, linked below, is our way to reach people active in their communities, but that may not be familiar with or directly involved in the district councils — we would very much appreciate your ideas!

SURVEY LINK – Thinking Forward: Creating a Vision for Seattle’s Neighborhood District Councils

Survey open until Nov. 14th.

Jen Kelly


text:
Backlinking Tips for Newbies

by • September 21, 2017 • SEO 101Comments (1)1138

As marketers we are constantly being told to focus on content production and social media. While these two aspects of the digital world are hugely important, backlinking still holds the top spot for being the most effective ranking technique. So if you’re new to search engine optimization and want to refine your strategy, make sure you take the following on board.

Mix It Up With Some Nofollow Links

If you’ve worked in the SEO business you’ve probably heard the phrase “diverse link profile” before. Contrary to popular belief, this doesn’t translate to mix up the anchor text. What most marketers tend to forget is that a “nofollow” tag means that Google can choose to ignore the link juice, not that it will.

Of course, nofollow links aren’t as powerful as dofollow links; however, they will make your link profile look far less spammy and may still provide a little juice – we’ll get into that debate another time! As a general rule of thumb, try to get one nofollow link for every two or three dofollow links to ensure everything looks above board to the bots.

Target Highly Authoritative Publications

There are some websites that, relevancy aside, are always worth targeting: Huffington Post, Forbes, The New York Times, Entrepreneur, etc. Not only will these websites provide an extremely authoritative backlink, they are also highly likely to generate a large amount of referral traffic, which is often a massively understated aspect of the business. In addition, you will earn the privilege of being able to say “As featured on …” on your website, which will automatically boost its authority.

While you shouldn’t waste all of your time trying to acquire mentions and features on authority websites, if the opportunity to get coverage does arise, make sure you embrace it – HARO can be a great place to start. Although it’s impossible to quantify how effective authority placements may be, marketers often report huge rankings boosts and influxes of traffic from them.

Stop Focusing On Irrelevant Websites

Google’s number one priority is to rank websites based on their relevancy to keywords. Keep this in mind whenever you’re on the prowl for new websites to target. Finding a blog that’ll link to your company is easy, but unless that website is somehow related to your target page, its value will be questionable, even if it has a high domain authority and trust flow.

Sometimes websites with low metrics are just as effective as websites with high metrics. If the topic and keywords on the page providing the backlink are the same or similar to what’s on your page, Google will look at it in a more favorable light.

Refine Your Anchor Text

Anchor text is probably the most misunderstood element of the backlinking process. Even today, years after Google publicly stated that websites with keyword-heavy links will be punished, people still do it. You must follow the rules. While a few keyword anchors are okay, keep 90 percent of your efforts natural.

By natural that means a mixture of: keyword links, brand links, URL links, relevant phrases, relevant words. Ensure the majority (some state up to 50 percent) use the brand name. For example, when ranking a website like, you could use the anchor text: (URL), Sales and Marketing Experts (brand), B2B Marketing Consultant (keyword), or even a call-to-action, such as “Click Here.” Additionally, you should also try to get a healthy mixture of index page links and deep links, again at a ratio of 50/50.

Produce Content That’s Actually Linkable

This is the most important point of all. Your outreach efforts will always be in vein unless you have a page on your website that’s actually worth linking to. If all you’re trying to do is sell, then forget about authority sites and natural linking altogether. When you’re overtly promotional all you’ll acquire are links from untrustworthy domains that’ll hurt your rankings. So if you’re yet to take this step, postpone your backlinking efforts altogether and read this guide.

It’s truly surprising how many well known SEO companies are still using outdated practices on their clients’ websites. If you’re new to backlinking or simply want to know more about what your chosen SEO firm is doing behind the scenes, use analytics to devise a report and start making your own assessment. Even if just one aspect of your strategy is wrong, it’s better that you find out before the Google bot does!

Related Posts

One Response to Backlinking Tips for Newbies

  1. Amandeep says:

    Thanks for sharing that awesome information

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


text:
Book a demo

Oct 02, 2018

Approx. 7 min. read

Andrew Spence on Helping Employees Find Meaning at Work

Finding a purpose at work is often cited as one of the main motivations for joining a company. For example, a survey conducted with LinkedIn members...

Finding a purpose at work is often cited as one of the main motivations for joining a company. For example, a survey conducted with LinkedIn members has revealed that 74% of candidates want a job “where they feel like their job matters".

But what makes work meaningful? We may not define it in the same way: for some people, meaningful work may be a positive contribution to the company they work for or to the society while for others, meaningful work is work that makes them happy or helps them achieve personal goals. Furthermore, how can the company help employees find meaning in their work? The way employees perceive their work (meaningful or not) has direct impacts on their job satisfaction, motivation, and performance. We had a chat on this topic with Andrew Spence, the founder of Glass Bead Consulting:

Andrew Spence talks meaningful work

Hi Andrew, let's start with the basics – what is your definition of meaningful work?

There isn’t much research on what constitutes meaningful work, but the research done shows that whether someone finds work meaningful is intensely personal and individual to them. For example, we might not fancy cleaning the streets as a job, but another person with completely different motivations and needs might see it in a different way. This doesn’t mean they walk around in a contented euphoric state, sweeping brush in hand, but maybe feeling they have made an important contribution to the neighbourhood.

5 Qualities of Meaningful Work Glass Bead Consulting

In research by Katie Bailey and Adrian Madden, highlighted in my article “What Makes Work Meaningful?”, the researchers found five qualities of meaningful work. Feeling a sense of achievement or pride in our work was important, and so was seeing that our work contributed to our team or a larger cause. For instance, when the researchers interviewed retail workers they talked about helping vulnerable elderly customers.

Can you explain why making work more meaningful for employees should be one of the top priorities in every organisation?

In a YouGov Survey conducted in the UK, 37% of workers found their jobs meaningless. This is shocking and sad. The anthropologist, David Graeber, has written about ‘Bullshit Jobs’- in his view, some jobs should never have existed at all. Organisations providing the work are responsible for the overall organisation design, the governance, outputs, service, and also the job design. This should include finding people who will not only accept the pay and conditions but who are also likely to perform well and stay longer in the role, which in turn, has a positive impact on productivity. So there are benefits for both individuals and organisations from providing more meaningful work.

It should be a top priority for organisations to design work that is likely to be meaningful for employees but there are a number of barriers to achieving this.

Read also: Why You Need Empathy in the Workplace

Can you tell us a bit more about those barriers you mentioned?

We have all at one time in our careers worked in unhappy organisations – I know I have! To twist a Tolstoy quote about families, "All happy organisations are alike; each unhappy organisation is unhappy in its own way."

In terms of barriers, the researchers found some common themes from interviews with a range of workers including retail assistants, solicitors, nurses, soldiers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, and academics. Finding out why an organisation doesn't offer a positive environment is a complex task but employees working in jobs they don't find meaningful is likely to be a contributing factor.

Some of the factors that destroy meaningful work are highlighted in my article based on research, “The Seven Deadly Sins Preventing Meaningful Work”. The ones that resonated with me most include disconnecting people from values - a recurring theme was the tension between an organisational focus on the bottom line and the individual’s focus on the quality or professionalism of work.

Giving people pointless work also ranked highly - a feeling of meaninglessness arose when they were required to perform tasks that did not make sense to them. Nurses, academics, and artists, all cited bureaucratic tasks and form-filling not directly related to their core purpose as a source of futility and pointlessness. If people feel that they can’t trust their leaders to be fair, open and equitable, then they are unlikely to find much meaning in their work. Forms of unfairness ranged from diminutive injustices to freelance musicians being asked to write a film score without payment.

What is your top piece of advice you would share with team leaders for creating a framework that makes work more meaningful for the team members?

I think everyone in an organisation can play a role in explaining the purpose and context of work tasks. One is to link the task or the activity to something bigger. Whether you work as a CEO, a carer or a cleaner in a hospital, you are all equally important in helping people to recover from illness as the nurses and doctors. I think by making the connection between someone’s job and the main goal of your organisation – whether that is to heal the sick or make people feel good, you can help create meaning.

Medtronic is a company that makes specialist medical devices including prosthetic limbs. Many of their employees do not have direct contact with their end customers, because they might work in product development or in finance. To help create meaning, the company shares stories of patients who have benefited from the company’s products with its employees and gives them the opportunity to meet customers at their regular ‘town-hall meetings’. In the words of a senior executive, “Our people end up feeling personally involved in our company’s mission to restore people to full life.” They can see the end result of their work and many are profoundly moved by the patients’ stories.

This has a much greater impact on morale than going through the quarterly earnings report!

According to you, how can knowledge sharing in the workplace (company news, managerial best practices, news related to the industry...) help employees connecting with meaning in their job?

Well I think that knowledge sharing can be useful in allowing employees to find purpose and meaning in their work.

In the previous question, I gave the example of how one company, making prosthetic limbs made sure all employees had some sort of contact with the end users of the products, or in other words, the people who benefited from their work. It’s not practical to do this frequently, but knowledge sharing can really help. This could be any form of social media content in the form of videos, articles, podcasts etc. Anything that helps employees feel positively connected to the customers and creates a feeling that they are making a difference will help. And the research shows that there are individual differences in how people find meaning, so it might be a good idea to try and vary the content and messaging.

Related: How Can Management Support Organizational Knowledge Sharing?

Overall, what can HR do to support meaningful work in organisations?

When I talk with HR and business leaders about designing organisations that provide meaningful work, occasionally I hear the opinion that this is just a ‘middle-class problem’, that pay is the priority for most workers and anything else is a luxury.

For an HR leader to believe that providing meaningful work is not their job is very disappointing. If anyone in an organisation should be the go-to people for questions on people and organisational effectiveness it should be HR.

There are a few things that HR can do to ensure team leaders have the right tools and skills to manage their teams effectively.

Use personality tests, hypotheses testing, and statistical analysis to hire the right people. Work out, which type of people do well in particular roles in your organisation, and measure this over time, feeding back data to improve the recruitment process.

If you really want to understand what employees think about their job, then ask them. Monitor employee sentiment (there are plenty of tools you can use to do this), and identify problem areas quickly.

HR can support teams to find connections from the work they do to the overall purpose of the organisation. Find ways to show tangible examples, like the company that makes medical devices, of what the organisation actually does whether it’s servicing customers or making products.

Keep learning about what motivates people at work – there is still a lot to learn about human psychology and how organisations work. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it isn't just about the money, but it's not exactly about the joy either. It seems that most of us thrive by making constant progress and feeling a sense of purpose.

As an optimist, I believe organisations have the opportunity to solve current organisational issues with an evidence-based approach. With well-designed and funded research programmes carried out by academics and practitioners, we have a better chance of creating jobs that provide meaningful work.

About Andrew: Andrew is a Strategic Workforce Advisor and HR Transformation Director. He has founded Glass Bead Consulting to help companies implementing complex transformation programmes. He is often invited to speak at major conferences on People Management, HR Change and Transformation and People Analytics. He shares his thoughts and key findings in the blog HR Transformation Blog. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn!

A free guide on how to boost employee engagement with employee communication tools

Written by

Valène Jouany

Valène Jouany

Related articles


text:
A Beginners Guide: Digital Nomad Living

With the rise of accessibility to the internet, the term ‘work’ has taken on a whole new meaning - bringing with it opportunities and employment lifestyles that have revolutionised the way we think, earn a living and establish a work/life balance.

For many, the internet is an opportunity to combine work and travelling the world. Digital Nomads (DN) are individuals who pursue a lifestyle of adventure, empowered by technology to break free of the constraints of the traditional office working environment.

With our very own local Swansea girl, Claire D’auria joining us on the 10th May to talk first hand about her DM experience, we look at the how, what and why you should prepare, before starting your journey into the unknown.

Research, read and resource

Quitting everything can be an incredibly refreshing but daunting experience. You’ll have some people who will idolise you and others who will deem you plain insane. Surround yourself with people who have the same mentality. Nomadic explorer Marianne Cantwell explains, "When I started out, most of my friends at the time would say 'Oh, that’s dangerous!' or, 'most of these things don’t work out'. If you stay in that environment it's not very helpful as they’re not giving you any solutions."

Use resources as a means of forward thinking and preparation for your journey. Barbara Winter published a book back in the early 90's titled, Making a Living Without a Job, which has been referenced as a “must read” before you set out on your journey. Keep an eye on DN blogs too, Claire’s is particularly inspirational and informative for anyone starting out.

How much money do you actually need?

Good question and unfortunately not one that has a definitive numerical answer. “It’s a bit like asking how long is a piece of string,” and the long and short of it being, “well as long as you want it to be!” In its fundamentalist terms, you need money to eat, drink, sleep and ultimately travel. Although the amount required varies massively by the way and standards in which you are willing to get there, live and survive.

BecomeNomad summarises, “If you want a lasting experience, which is independence; if you want to rely less on strangers, and have more say in the direction of your life, than money is important. If you want to narrow the uncertainty factor, which is both exciting but can also be negative – money is also important.” It's good practise to work on a monthly budget, you can then work up (or down) from there.

You are not alone, or are you?

If you’ve ever had periods of working from home, you’ll know that some days can be long, others short. Some intense, others a walk in the park, but day after day working without quality human interaction can become a little depressing at times. This can resonate with Nomadic working, especially when you’re not within a co-working environment. The realisation that not even the Amazon delivery man is likely to come out to your remote island abode, could leave you in a state of desperation!

Be sure to properly balance this lifestyle, as that’s what you set out to do right? Nomadic traveller Thomas Kuegler notes, “You need to get out of your base, whether that’s two or three times a week, and go take a class or work a part-time job. Figure out what works for you, and expect the loneliness to come.”

Be your own boss!

Many Nomadic travellers note that not only do they achieve a huge sense of freedom from escaping the everyday rat-race, but also by becoming their own boss. Scary as it is, the positives gained from making your own decisions seem to be an overwhelming success factor for Nomadic living. Be prepared to still be answerable to your clients, but generally via email or similar means.

Document your journey

These are likely to be the most valuable experiences in which you’ll ever invest. Why not create a blog or Instagram page for yourself, your friends, family and even to inspire others. This is a great way of documenting your journey and you’ll be able to look back and reminisce on those situations and people that made you smile, laugh and possibly cry! Starting a blog is actually very easy. It is very cheap, and it can be done in a relatively short amount of time. It could even be a way of making money. Although there is a lot more to this than just uploading beautiful imagery!

Enjoy yourself!

Don't lose focus of why you have set out on your Nomadic journey - ultimately it's a chance in a lifetime experience. Easier said than done sometimes, but you’ve probably already achieved so much by just getting to the starting line. As the creative collective say, “Remember why you’re doing what you’re doing and that while you can do anything you want to, you can’t (and don’t have to) do it all at once. So have fun – it’s a journey!”

Join Claire D'auria on 10th May, from 6.30pm, in our Furnace Events Space - TechHub Swansea, to hear more about the gritty reality behind a DN life. Learn what it’s really like to launch a start-up on the road and how to really progress your business without getting caught up in the sales pitch of a ‘freedom lifestyle.’


text:
Afraid Of Alzheimer’s Disease

Being afraid of a possible Alzheimer’s diagnosis is why some people delay going to the doctor when they see the warning signs. Sybil noticed the signs in her friend Betts, and encouraged her to go to the doctor to get checked out. After they learned of the diagnosis, they were able to get the help and support that they needed.

Hear more of their story in the video.

Oscar-Nominated Sondra Locke Dead at 74 After Battle with Cancer: Click “Next” below!

The Alzheimer's Site is a place where people can come together to support those whose lives have been affected by Alzheimer's disease. In addition to sharing stories of hope and love, shopping for the cause, and signing petitions, visitors can take just a moment each day to click on the purple button to help provide care for those living with Alzheimer's disease and research for a brighter future. Visit The Alzheimer's Site and click today - it's free! ALZ
Proper greatergood_ctg_belowcontent