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10-13 March 2014
Berlin (Adlershof)
Europe/Berlin timezone
This Workshop is intended as a "hands-on" workshop with a mixture of introductory lectures and practical exercises.
Time slots will be devoted to individual work with modern programming tools, particle generators and statistical analyses.
The goal is to enable the participant to calculate: 1. particle spectra from dark-matter decay or annihilation 2. fluxes as a function of line-of sight densities  3. flux limits and detection significances using the correct statistical methods. Registration for the workshop is now closed.
Berlin (Adlershof)
Erwin-Schroedinger-Zentrum 12489 Berlin Rudower Chaussee 26
There will be no registration fee. However, participants have to register to organise coffee and lunch breaks. Please do not hesitate to contact any of the organizers listed above for any additional information.
For those who need childcare during the workshop, we may able to help with individual arrangements (for example by organizing a nanny or by supporting an accompanying person for the purpose of child care during travels). Please contact us with your inquiry.


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text: BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//CERN//INDICO//EN BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:TEX2018 M-GATE School: Under the Surface of Memory Phenomena DTSTART;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20180625T070000Z DTEND;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20180703T160000Z DTSTAMP;VALUE=DATE-TIME:20210921T023501Z DESCRIPTION:\n\nThe Trieste Encounters on Cognitive Science (TEX) are a ye arly summer initiative by SISSA\, aiming at bringing together scientists f rom all over the world at all levels of their careers to enjoy science\, s unshine\, food&wine and\, ultimately\, life.\n\nTEX2018 hosts the summer s chool Under the Surface of Memory Phenomena\, the first activity of the In novative Training Network M-GATE - Memory Research: Ground-breaking\, Appl ied and Technological Exchanges. The idea is to introduce and discuss foun dational concepts in memory research\, in particular as it relates to the temporal lobes\, from human to rodents\, from the behavioural to the singl e-unit level\, leading to theory and to computational and mathematical mod els. The lecturers include Tim Shallice\, Faraneh Vargha-Khadem\, Edmund R olls\, Sheena Josselyn\, Steffen Gais\, Lisa Genzel\, Paul Frankland\, Lis et M De La Prida\, Karim Benchenane\, Elisa Ciaramelli\, Emilio Kropff\, F reyja Olafsdottir\, Christophe Bernard\, Francesco P Battaglia.\n\nThe sch ool is aimed at 15 M-GATE trainees\, but is open to more participants. PhD students can apply to be allocated one of another 15 places in shared acc ommodation\, at cost (340 Euro per 10 nights). \n\nEmbedded within the sch ool\, on June 30\, several top theoretical neuroscientists are joining us for the symposium Remembering Daniel Amit\, and Beyond\, to talk about the legacy of our late colleague / mentor\, who forged a strong latch between physics and the neuroscience of memory.\n\nA tentative daily Programme (o n the left) will be refined in due course\, but keep in mind that informal interactions will be shared throughout the time at SISSA\, and on July 1s t also somewhere else (bring walking shoes and a swimming attire). Come jo in us!\n\n LOCATION:SISSA Large Meeting Room 7th floor URL: END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR

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Jain_Sudhanshu.pdf (756.04 kB)

Effects of Hydrogen and Syngas Addition on the Ignition of Iso-octane/Air Mixtures

Download (756.04 kB)
posted on 21.02.2013, 00:00 by Sudhanshu Jain
There is worldwide interest in using renewable fuels within the existing infrastructure. In this context, H2 and syngas have shown significant potential, as these fuels can be produced from a variety of biomass sources, and be used in various transportation and power generation systems, especially as blends with existing hydrocarbon fuels. In the present study, a reduced mechanism containing 38 species and 74 reactions is developed to examine the ignition behavior of iso-octane/H2 and iso-octane/syngas blends at engine relevant conditions. The mechanism is extensively validated using the shock tube and RCM ignition data, as well as three detailed mechanisms, for iso-octane/air, H2/air and syngas/air mixtures. Simulations are performed to characterize the effects of H2 and syngas on the ignition of iso-octane/air mixtures using the closed homogenous reactor model in Chemkin software. The effect of H2 (or syngas) is found to be small for blends containing less than 50% H2 (or syngas) by volume. However, for H2 mole fractions above 50%, it increases and decreases the ignition delay at low (T<900K), and high temperatures (T>1000K), respectively. For H2 fractions above 80%, the ignition is influenced more strongly by H2 chemistry rather than by iC8H18 chemistry, and does not exhibit the NTC behavior. Nevertheless, the addition of a relatively small amount of i-C8H18 (a low cetane number fuel) can significantly enhance the ignitability of H2-air mixtures at NTC temperatures, which are relevant for HCCI and PCCI dual fuel engines. The CO addition seems to have a negligible effect on the ignition of iC8H18/H2/air mixtures, indicating that the ignition of iC8H18/syngas blends is essentially determined by the iC8H18 and H2 oxidation chemistries. The sensitivity and reaction path analysis indicates that the iso-octane oxidation is initiated with the production of alkyl radical by H abstraction through reaction: iC8H18+O2=C8H17+HO2. Subsequently, the ignition chemistry in the NTC region is characterized by a competition between two paths represented by reactions R2 (C8H17+O2=C8H17O2) and R8 (C8H17+O2 = C8H16+HO2), with the R8 path dominating, and increasing the ignition delay. As the amount of H2 in the blend becomes significant, it opens up another path for the consumption of OH through reaction (H2 + OH = H2O + H), which slows down the ignition process. However, for T>1100K, the presence of H2 decreases ignition delay primarily due to reactions O2+H = OH+O and H2O2 + M = OH+OH+M.

Aggarwal, Suresh K.

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering

Degree Grantor

University of Illinois at Chicago

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Brezinsky, Kenneth Bararnescu, Rodica

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Pink is the New Green

Michael Loik, of the Loik Laboratory in the Environmental Studies Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz explains why the choice of pink: “That is because of the dye that was selected to allow the red wavelengths of sunlight to be able to pass through. Colors that are not absorbed by the dye are reflected or transmitted. In this case, the dye absorbs green and some of the blue. The blue that is not absorbed, as well as the red wavelengths of sunlight, are transmitted or reflected (red + some blue = magenta).”

Continue reading at

About The Weed Blog

Since its inception, TWB has been based in activism and the mobilization and movements for marijuana policy reform happening around the country. It was created for one purpose: to facilitate a constructive conversation about marijuana in America. This includes both medical and recreational marijuana policy, as well as the marijuana industry and culture.


text:
• indoubt Podcast
  • ·
  • October 2, 2017

Episode 090: Does God Exist? (an Apologetic Debate)

With and Isaac Dagneau

Does God exist? This is the question we’re tackling on indoubt’s very first apologetic debate. Justin Brierley, host of Unbelievable? and Andy Steiger, director of Apologetics Canada, argue with one another over this question – a question that’s been thought about for years. Though both guests are genuine Christians, Justin takes the role of an atheist and uses arguments against Christianity that he’s heard over the years on his show. Though this conversation is fun, it’s also quite informative.

Who’s Our Guests?

Justin Brierley presents Faith Explored in the UK which includes the debate programme Unbelievable? The show is also a popular podcast and has produced an annual evangelism and apologetics conference. He is also the Senior Editor of Premier Christianity Magazine. Justin has a wonderful wife called Lucy and four amazing children too. When he’s not working Justin is usually either spending time with his family or helping out at the church.

Andy Steiger is the founder and director of Apologetics Canada. He created and hosted the Thinking Series and is the Author of Thinking? Answering Life’s Five Biggest Questions. He has spoken on life’s big questions internationally in universities, conferences, churches, prisons and coffee shops. He is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland. Andy lives in Abbotsford, BC, Canada with his wife, Nancy, and their two boys.

Episode Links

Justin’s book is called Unbelievable? Why After 10 Years of Talking to Atheists I’m Still a Christian.

Screen Shot 2017-09-27 at 10.10.21 AM

You can also access Justin’s Unbelievable? show.

Andy’s book is called Thinking? Answering Life’s Five Biggest Questions.

Screen Shot 2017-09-27 at 10.16.53 AM

You can also listen to the Apologetics Canada podcast.

Read It

*Below is an edited transcription of the audio conversation.

Well today is quite the unusual indoubt episode. I’m actually really looking forward to it. I have the privilege of introducing two special guests today. Firstly, Justin Brierley. He’s host of the popular radio and podcast show, Unbelievable?, in England. Yeah, he’s joining us. Thanks for being here, Justin.

Great to be with you again. Thanks for having me on.

And across from me in studio, he’s a friend of mine, Andy Steiger, who is an author, he’s a pastor, and he’s the director of Apologetics Canada. He once was my world religions teacher in college as well. So thanks for being here, Andy.

Yeah, great to be here.

All right, so here we go. Justin’s just written a book called Unbelievable?: Why After 10 Years of Talking With Atheists, I’m Now an Atheist.

No, it’s actually not that.

I’m like whoa!

It’s actually Unbelievable?: Why After 10 Years of Talking With Atheists, I’m Still a Christian. But for the sake of this conversation, we’re going to go with the former. And hopefully, have a little bit of fun. Anyways, I should say this,

welcome to indoubt’s first Apologetic debate featuring Christian, Andy Steiger and Atheist, Justin Brierley!

Gentlemen, is there any words you’d like to say before we start this friendly, hopefully, debate?

Well all I can say is I hope Andy is ready to renounce his faith by the end of today’s episode because I’m pretty sure my debating skills after all these years are going to be put to good effect on him.

I was also wondering if there was a spot where Justin’s going to be able to kneel down before the cross after this, and give his life to Jesus.

Well we’ll see. We’ll see which one goes.

Okay. Justin, we’re gonna start with you. I’m gonna give you about roughly five minutes or so to explain your case for why God doesn’t exist, or why you don’t think Christianity makes sense at all, so go for it.

Okay. The reason God doesn’t exist is because essentially, we have good ways of explaining all the things that we used to attribute to God. For instance, we used to believe that God must exist because look at how fantastically complicated and organized we are as human beings, and the animal kingdom, and the world is. We thought there must be a designer behind it all. That was the way we understood it.

We did the same for things like the weather patterns. We always had this inbuilt tendency to put agency on everything. But as we’ve become more scientific as a people, as we’ve begun to understand the world around us, we’ve realized that all of these aspects of life and reality can be explained by physical processes. So the weather patterns, we know how they’re caused and why they exist. We know that when we pray for rain, our prayers make no difference.

It’s simply a product of the physical forces that exist in the world.

Equally, what seemed like an amazing design that goes into who we are and the world around us has equally been well-explained by a physical process of evolution, blind forces of nature.

And so in that sense, all of the reasons we used to have for believing in God have now been stripped away.

We’ve got no reason to put God in. Any time that we do tend to use God now, it’s a ‘god of the gaps,’ and we quickly find that those gaps can soon be explained by physical explanations. The reason I’m an atheist and I don’t believe in God is because we don’t need God anymore. We’ve got perfectly good explanations of all the things we used to invoke God for.

Okay. What do you say to that, Andy.

Yeah. This is something that I hear quite a bit. I just want to thank Justin for his honesty and being on the show, and sharing with us what he thinks. When we look at atheism, what we’re looking at is somebody who obviously doesn’t believe that God exists, and I do believe that God exists. When I look at the belief of God, what we’re talking about here is faith.

I believe and define faith as trusting what you have good reason to believe is true.

And so when we look at the evidence, then we’re looking at “Which direction is it leading, what is the truth, how actually is the world?”

As Justin was talking there, he’s talking about how this ‘god of the gaps,’ I would actually posit that there’s ‘atheism of the gaps,’ that is that when you’re coming and you’re looking at the evidence, that’s very easy to posit what you want it to come to, especially if you’re coming to it with a commitment. I’m hearing the commitment from Justin, and that is a commitment to physicalism, a commitment to a metaphysical naturalism, a world in which all that there is is the physical world, and there’s nothing beyond that.

The problem with this worldview, and this is one of the problems with atheism, is that

atheism is a reductio ad absurdum argument. It’s an argument that leads to absurdity. It can’t support itself.

The reason is because atheism is more than just God not existing, in this worldview, humans can’t exist either, as Francis Schaeffer put it. And the reason for that is it’s because it’s a reductive anthology. If the way that you’re viewing the world, is, all that exists is the physical, then everything gets reduced to the parts of the world. But we are well aware that there’s a difference between the parts that the world is made of and the purposeful whole to which things are made for.

The problem is, though, it’s always going to collapse on itself, and atheism is going to continually lead back to the parts that the world is made of, just the physical stuff, including humans. In doing so, not only are you getting rid of causal agency of the universe, you’re getting rid of all causal agency, including yourself.

Justin, Andy’s made some big statements about atheism there. I’m not sure how you’d respond to that.

I guess my obvious response to that, Andy, would be that I haven’t been given any evidence that there is anything but the physical nature of the universe and us that exist, because that’s all that we can see when it comes to our science. I’ve never been given any evidence that supernatural beings exist as anything more than the physical nature of what makes us up, that our consciousness can simply be reduced to a brain activity, as incredible as that may seem. It looks the way it is. You would have to show me that I’ve got any reason not to assume physicalism and just that all does exist is physical stuff.

Great. That’s exactly where this goes to, is now we want to look at, okay, what do we have good reason to believe is true?

The very fact that we’re having this conversation is good reason to believe that there is more to the world than just the physical, because we’re using language, Justin and I are speaking English, and we’re using sounds and words that have meaning attributed to the sounds that we’re making. Now there’s nowhere in the world that I can go, and there’s no physical process that I can use to go find out what is this thing called meaning or purpose. These things are non-physical. They’re beyond the physical world. Then we endow words, in this example, we could use other things, but we’re endowing them with meaning.

To make this argument then, we can see this in dead languages. When you come to a dead language, say Egyptian hieroglyphics, it didn’t matter how much you took physics or chemistry to go study those ancient markings. You’re not going to be able to decipher what they mean. That’s because the information there is beyond the physical. This is something that is found in agents, in particular, human beings. In that we’re able to endow things with purpose. In fact, we look for purpose. I could keep going but I’ll stop there.

Okay, okay. Well Justin, I want to just ask you something because Andy sort of alluded to now and even just before, he’s talking about, really, that atheism will collapse on itself when it comes to purpose and meaning. Again, that’s a pretty big statement.

Do you find purpose in your worldview, and would you say that there is purpose and meaning within an atheistic worldview?

Well obviously as an atheist, I don’t believe there’s any purpose out there beyond us.

I don’t think that we have been created by anything that intended to give us purpose. I simply believe we do exist. We are the results of a process of chance, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t create purpose for ourselves. I’m an atheist but I’m also a humanist. I believe that we are all endowed with the ability to create our own meaning and purpose, and that it’s important that people do that. But that’s equally just something that we ultimately can trace back to our evolution or history. I’m sure that there’s a good explanation for why we all need to feel like there is a purpose and meaning to life in order for us to be able to effectively pass on our genes, because it gives us the reason for living.

I think if you’re looking for purpose, we can find that we create it ourselves, and it all ties in to ultimately an evolution or scientific explanation of who we are.

Yeah. One of the things that we’re looking for isn’t just, “Let’s play pretend and pretend that I can give the world meaning.”

Either the world has meaning or it doesn’t.

Particularly, I’m talking in the objective sense. On the one hand, I can subjectively give anything meaning. But on the objective sense, I’m asking what is the intended meaning. This is something that I can’t give myself. I can’t give myself meaning or purpose. I didn’t create myself. I didn’t bring myself into existence. This is outside of my control. In fact, in philosophy, we call this requiring requisite control.

You need a certain level of control to be able to give something or endow something with meaning or purpose.

Now, more than that though, at first, Justin started out by just saying that those things don’t actually exist. We can play pretend like this, but they’re not really there, which again, leads to this very reductive ad absurdum argument where things begin to reduce to absurdities again. The idea being that your life in fact doesn’t have purpose, but we can pretend that it does have purpose.

Interesting. Okay. Are you living a pretend life? I guess that’s the question for you, Justin.

I think I’m just living life the best I can in the circumstances I have.

I’ve never felt like I need God to make sense of my life. I simply do the best I can within my limited sphere of abilities, and in the end, that’s enough for me. I don’t seem to need to have any ultimate sort of meaning or purpose.

I’m very happy to make the best of the life I have now. If it doesn’t carry on after I die, that’s not a problem for me. I’m just going to accept that I had what I had. And I don’t understand why anyone else would feel like we can’t say why purpose has to be handed down from somewhere. Isn’t just an assumption on your part that we have to have an explanation in ourselves for why we’re here and what we’re created for.

What if there is no explanation and we are just the results of chance?

Yeah. This, again, leads to the absurdity. I heard you earlier, Justin, say that we’re just brain chemistry. I mean that’s all we are. So then when we begin to try to live in that worldview, then that means that I’ve got to accept the love that I have for my children is in fact not love, that it’s in fact brain chemistry. This is just chemical reactions in my brain. That also means then that I, myself, am just chemical reactions in my brain. And again, we’re reducing myself to the parts of the universe, in such that now all I am is a brain, and a brain working according to chemical and physical laws, and nothing more. Now if that’s true, then Laplace as demon is true as well in this scenario.

His thought experiment from the 18th Century is quite a simple one, that if the world is full of these parts, called particulars, and if these particulars are following physical laws, then if you knew the trajectory and you knew the velocities of those parts, then you could predict where they’re going just like a billiard game, and you could predict where they came from.

Inside of this, you lose all free will. All that you have, as Carl Sagan would say, is just stardust. We’re just carbon in motion, and that’s it. In doing so, you lose agency.

Interesting. Justin, I’m guessing your comment on that would be, “Yeah, that’s right. And I’m just living the best I can as this, sort of, bag of chemicals,” you could say.

Yeah. I think that I have to accept that it is possible that there is no real agency, no free will, or whatever, and if we are living in a deterministic kind of universe.

But the reality is that I believe in a process of evolution, which is kind of made us instinctively believe that we do have control over our circumstances because that’s helpful for our survival.

As Richard Dawkins puts it, “The universe doesn’t owe you a purpose.” Just because we don’t like the idea of that ultimately being the way things are, it doesn’t stop it being true. I guess I’m just facing up to the hard fact that yeah, maybe we do live in a deterministic universe in which there is no ultimate purpose in which many of the things we think are dear, like love and morality and so on, maybe they are illusions. But hey, that’s life. You just got to deal with it.

And frankly, most people get on just having to deal with the illusions that they find themselves with.

See now, this gets back to absurdity again. The absurdity here is that Justin believes his worldview is true. But if determinism is true, you could never know that that’s true. And then it becomes quite bizarre that he would want to convince me that his view is true and my view is false. It is because his atheism was determined for him, and my theism was determined for me on that worldview.

And really you can’t know truth. I mean, you could never get to what reality actually is. All you could ever discover is what you were determined to believe. You are just particles in motion, and that’s the most that you could ever hope to know. Again, you’re falling into a worldview that is absurd, and that is not coherent within itself, because even in this debate, he can’t even coherently live in determinism.

Well look. Okay, that’s not a bad point you’re making there. But the problem is that your worldview has all kinds of issues with it as well, because

if there is a God, let’s just assumed there is for the sake of argument, He’s doing a really bad job.

When you look at all the awful stuff that happens, if your God does exist, and He’s all powerful and all loving and all good, why does He allow children to be raped, and awful natural disasters to occur, and all of those terrible things? Surely this just shows either that your God is evil or that there is no God, and these are just the natural aspects of the world we live in, and we can’t do anything about them.

Again, this leads to the absurdity that I was talking about earlier, and that is, if we’re just determined, and this is just particles in motion, then there is no such thing as morality. There is no such thing as a way that we’re supposed to live. This, by the way, I find so ironic that Sam Harris, who wrote a book called Letters to a Christian Nation in which he said very similar things that Justin had said. But then he goes on to write a book called Free Will in which he argues that there is no such thing as free will, and there is no such thing as morality.

You’d think, “What are you so upset about then?” Right? I mean, how could you charge God against this idea of being immoral when you don’t even think morals even exist? Again, I mean you have to be consistent within your worldview.

And if you really are upset about morality, then you have to actually live as though morality does exist, which would be non-physical.

Now we’re back to this idea again.

And if Justin’s view was to be correct, I mean, if we want to just follow that out, at best, it would just mean that you don’t like God. But it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist. Then what we could ask is, given the suffering and evil in the world, could it possibly be that God does have a good reason for allowing it in the world? Now we’re getting back to the idea of purpose.

What did God purpose or intend in His creation?

I guess the question for you then, Justin, would be, you say that for the sake of the argument, there is a God, He’s allowing these “bad things” to happen, that implies that you do believe in some sort of morality.

Now I know you’re great friends with Sam Harris, and you’re in his club, his atheist club.

That’s right. They’ve added me on as the fifth horseman actually recently. I’m very honored, yes.

Do you believe in morality?

Well as I said, I think that we just tend to use the things that work for us, evolutionarily speaking.

That means that embedded deep down in us is some sense of right and wrong, but it’s not given from outside.

It’s sprung up from our evolution or history, and learning how we cooperate best together means that it makes sense to get on with your neighbour, and do things together. Now, that means that we all have a working thing that we call morality and we call good and bad. What that means is that’s the way we get through life and so adopt this framework, but it is a subjective one. It’s one which is purely an outworking of our evolution or history, and what helps humans to survive and need to get through life with meaning and purpose and value and everything else that I find dear. But that doesn’t mean it really exists from an outside source.

In particular, in relation to the question of why God would allow suffering and evil, I can’t see why God on the balance of all the evil that we do see in the world, the things that stop us being able to flourish as human beings, I find it very difficult to see how a god could have any reason to allow things that just seem gratuitously wrong, like the rape of little children and that kind of thing. How on earth, what on earth kind of purposes could you possibly ascribe to God that would make sense of that?

I’m a simple flawed human being, but even I can say that if had the power to stop something like that, I would stop it in an instant. So for me, that’s very strong evidence against God.

I absolutely agree with Justin that morality does in fact exist, and that it is truly horrible. There’s an issue though that, here with Justin’s thinking, and that is just because you may be able to come up with a reason – we call this the genetic fallacy – just because you could come up with a reason as to how morality could have come about, that doesn’t mean that you’re now somehow obligated to follow that, and particularly, if given this evolutionary idea of it evolving, or potentially, just being that “Hey, this is what leads to human flourishing.”

Justin has moved, especially at the end there, from an is to an ought, and that there’s a way that we ought to behave, and then if I see something, I ought to stop it. But the problem is from the atheist worldview, you have no access to that. How is it that you are moving from an is to an ought, and that morality does in fact exist, and now we’re talking about something that’s non-physical?

When we’re talking about God, this becomes a whole other conversation now, because in my worldview, I’m working off an atheistic worldview in which I’m talking about God, and then Christianity in particular, God has revealed Himself. This is significant, so that I can understand what God’s purposes are. The Bible explains, and Jesus Christ exemplifies that God created human beings for relationship, and that we can live in relationship with Him, and in a relationship with each other. That is God’s desire and purpose. This requires, Christianity would argue, free will.

And that we could say then that one of the potential reasons why God would allow the type of evil that we do in fact see is an unfortunate side effect of a potential of a world with freedom and love, and the ability to care for each other or the ability not to care for one another.

Yeah, that’s good. Andy just obviously opened up a whole new subject with bringing in Jesus Christ. But sadly, unfortunately, I’m sorry, Justin, to leave you hanging, but we’re not going to be able to get into that, unfortunately.

That’s how I planned it.

All right guys, the formal debate has now finished. That was very good. Well done both of you. That was very, very good.

Well thank you.

If you’re listening right now and you’re slightly confused, maybe you started listening on the radio, and it’s just partway through, our atheist Justin Brierley is actually a Christian. So if you listen to this sort of ‘fake debate’ and were convinced by what Justin was saying, then I would really encourage you to go read Justin’s book, Unbelievable?: Why After Ten Years of Talking with Atheists, I’m Still a Christian, because he is.

I was wondering maybe you can say that, Justin, so we know for sure.

Well only because Andy has done such a convincing job. I’ve just about hung in there, so yeah. No, it was fun. It was very different. I’ve never done this before where I’ve played the atheist, though I have had someone else do it on my show before. In fact, you may know him, Randall Rauser, who’s in Canada as well. He came on an edition of my Unbelievable? Show in which he played the non-believer, the skeptic, as a Christian, and my atheist guest, Michael Ruse, he played the, best for him, theistic arguments.

Oh, that’s awesome.

That was a very interesting sort of swapping of roles where both tried to make the best arguments they could for the other side.

I know that’s very, very good. Yeah, both of you, Andy and Justin, you guys are both familiar with Sean McDowell. The first time I saw this sort of thing being done was at the Apologetics Canada Conference a few years ago now where Sean put on a pair of eyeglasses and he sort of played an atheist. I found it very helpful actually and that’s the point even of this conversation. We want to hear from two Christians some of these arguments being flushed out, so that’s why I wanted to do it today.

I also wanted to mention Andy’s book called Thinking? Answering Life’s Five Biggest Questions. Both of these books are just great apologetic resources for you to get your hands on. So both can be found on Amazon and I’ll provide links also on the episode show page.

But gentlemen, I just want to say thank you so much for doing this. It means a lot. Thank you, Justin, all the way from England. And thank you Andy.

Well thank you, Isaac, and thank you, Andy. It’s been great to be involved.

Yeah, it’s great to be with you.

More Episodes

indoubt Podcast

Episode 040: Dealing with Disagreement

October 17, 2016 · Isaac Dagneau
indoubt Podcast

Episode 008: How Do I Share My Testimony?

March 7, 2016 · Isaac Dagneau
indoubt Podcast

Episode 136: Are Stories a Part of Your Life?

August 20, 2018 · Isaac Dagneau


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Mitigating Overexertion in the Workplace

Exoskeletons Lend Workers a Helping Hand

Joseph Zawaideh, Contributor

Raise your arms parallel to the floor and hold for about 60 seconds. Now, imagine performing that same exercise for an eight-hour workday. Factory workers are far too familiar with the burning, shoulder-breaking work that these repetitive motions require of them, and employers are feeling the (financial) burn, too. According to the Bureau of Labor Statics, nearly 3 million on-the-job injuries occurred in 2017 alone.

To help mitigate the costs of overexertion, some factories have resorted to designing seated working environments, forcing a trade-off between fighting fatigue and maintaining levels of productivity. Once the stuff of science fiction movies, exoskeletons have emerged as one of the most beneficial and necessary components of a trade workers uniform. With an unobtrusive device built to enhance human performance with machine power, workers can accomplish more with less effort and less pain.

As an increasingly popular alternative to traditional approaches to manual labor, global demand for exoskeletons in industrial workplaces is strong and growing rapidly. According to ABI Research, the total addressable market for industrial exoskeletons exceeds 2.6 million units, and revenues are expected to reach $5.8 billion by 2028. Considering an aging workforce and an increased demand for more skill specific trade workers in factory jobs, companies are just now realizing the importance of keeping their employees physically well and able to do their jobs.

The science and technology behind exoskeletons have been around for decades but has primarily been focused on aiding those with disabilities. Not until recently have industries such as automotive, aviation, manufacturing and construction been able to reap the benefits of providing solutions to enhance human capital, due in large part to the variety of categories exoskeletons fall within:

  • Tool-handling exoskeleton, which utilize a mechanical arm to support heavy tools
  • Upper extremity passive devices to provide ergonomic support for the shoulder, neck and back
  • Chairless chairs, built to decrease fatigue in crouching positions
  • Back support, to maintain correct posture for jobs requiring standing for long periods of time
  • Powered gloves designed to increase grasp strength
  • Full body-powered suits provide body support and extra strength
  • Additional/supernumerary robotics, enabling workers to achieve more with additional powered arms and hands

Exoskeletons are revolutionizing factory workplaces by providing all-day ergonomic support, reducing muscle fatigue and lowering exertion levels by up to 80%. For workers, this means less pain and strain in their day-to-day activities; for businesses, it translates to fewer workplace injuries and greater efficiencies in their production lines. With tangible results that impact health, productivity and output, manufacturing companies continue to realize the benefits of exoskeletons and are beginning to implement the device as a mandatory technology in the workplace.

Acting as an extension of your own capabilities, an exoskeleton’s design is dependent on the technology upon which it’s created. A design like Levitate’s AIRFRAME exoskeleton, for example, is an upper body frame that use a system of springs, cables and pulleys to transfer weight from the arms to the outside of the hips, easing the strain of overhead work. When a worker raises his arms, the exoskeleton provides a counterweight that makes the arms feel buoyant, as if the upper body is suspended in water. The system gradually releases as the limbs are lowered, allowing the arms to hang unassisted. Factory workers who’ve tried exoskeletons report less back and shoulder pain and go home at night more active and relaxed, according to exoskeleton manufacturers and employers.

Commercializing exoskeletons for industrial purposes have broken down many of the cost barriers prohibiting companies from potential adoption. In addition to the breadth of industries exoskeletons can benefit, trade workers across a variety of job functions are finding the devices useful in their day-to-day tasks. From product assembly and frame inspections at an automotive factory, to material handling and inventory management in a manufacturing warehouse, exoskeletons provide the support required to complete repetitive tasks more efficiently and productively.

The production of more accessible exoskeleton designs has brought the concept of maintaining human capital and reducing workplace injuries to the forefront in industrial environments. Without sufficient support, employees are more prone to make mistakes—causing them to fatigue earlier and more often. For companies looking to take advantage of robotic innovation and advanced technologies for their employees, early adoption is a key driver in leveraging the benefits of exoskeletons in the workplace.

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From homeless to a teaching support assistant with a learning disability

It wasn’t until she was 20 that Leah Lansdown was diagnosed with Asperger’s and ADHD. Today, the 24-year-old works with […]

It wasn’t until she was 20 that Leah Lansdown was diagnosed with Asperger’s and ADHD. Today, the 24-year-old works with two children with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder at a school in Solihull, where she has been for the past three years.

“Too many children are told their diagnosis with barely any understanding,” she says. “They are told all the things that they cannot do, but it’s not true at all – it’s just that it will take longer for them to get to where they want to go. However, with the right support that can happen.

“As I work at a mainstream school, my role involves ensuring that lessons are adapted to the children’s needs, enabling them to stay in the classroom and access the learning the same as everyone else in the class.”
When parents of the children she work with learn that she has Asperger’s and ADHD, they are relieved, she says. “They are happy to know that the person supporting their children can truly understand them.”

She finds it satisfying to provide the children with comfort and reassurance, but it is by no means an easy job. “It is tough and can be quite tiring. When working with children with special education needs, consistency and continuity of support is extremely important. If you take a day off, it can distress the children.

“The children I work with rely on me to support them. Even if I’m not feeling great, I have to make sure they don’t see it. But when they interact with me, or when I see a response from them, showing that they understand me and are willing to engage, it’s the most rewarding thing.”

When Ms Lansdown was 19, her father disowned her and she was left with nowhere to live. She was able to move into college accommodation, but when it was demolished last year, she was told to give up on her studies in order to receive council support. She refused and couch-surfed under she graduated with a 2.1. She now lives in a council flat in Birmingham.

On Tuesday, she won a place on Dimensions’ Leaders List, the UK’s first national listing of people with learning disabilities or autism who are helping to change entrenched social biases . “Looking back at my life, I am extremely proud and happy with what I have achieved,” she says.

The children she works with – one of whom is in reception and one of whom is in year one – go to school part-time. She runs one-to-one sessions, helps them during break times and runs special activities, such as sensory breaks, “which can get a bit messy”, she says. “Working one to one allows me to really get to know the child. The four-year-old in reception can at times express challenging behaviours due to him trying to communicate, so my work with him concentrates on helping him adapt to the school environment.

In maths and English lessons she sits with them and helps them with the work the teacher sets. She is also a play leader at the after-school club two days a week. “This can be very challenging as I am usually very tired by the end of the day.

“I also go to an autism support group for adults with Resources for Autism. I love it there. The staff are amazing.”


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The Wealth Standard Podcast - Challenging the Economics, Finance, and Wealth Building Status Quo

May 11, 2016

Today on the Wealth Standard Radio we welcome a very special guest, Andy Tanner. Andy Tanner is an investor who specializes in education. Andy and Patrick talk about the importance of education and the way that it is undervalued and poorly delivered in our society. Once on a flight Andy happened to be sitting next...


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How to Build a Mission-Driven Brand

Featuring Collin Wood

Oct. 5, 10 a.m. PT / 1 p.m. ET

It’s no longer enough for brands to deliver quality products and services—today’s organizations must be authentically mission-driven. About 2 in 3 global consumers would switch brands or boycott an organization depending on the stance they take on controversial issues, according to McKinsey. And younger generations are more socially conscious than ever. Generation Z now comprises the largest global demographic, accounting for about 40% of consumers worldwide. And a stunning 9 in 10 Gen-Zers say that companies have a responsibility to address social and environmental issues.

But how can brands adopt and communicate corporate-responsibility programs without greenwashing or falling short of consumer expectations? And what is the role of brands in the fight for racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, environmental solutions, and other important causes? Join Collin Wood, VP of brand strategy at Kelton Global, to learn how brands and businesses can better meet people’s rising expectations in more authentic ways.

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About Collin Wood

Collin Wood is VP of brand strategy at Material. In his career as a brand strategy leader, Collin has had the opportunity to run a range of bespoke projects, from building out innovation pipelines, to product and brand MVP work, to running research and strategy initiatives that help organizations see themselves and their customers in a new light. He’s worked with organizations such as Plum Organics, Electronic Arts, Optimizely, Pepsi, Plenty, and, to name a small handful.

Marketing Strategy Summit_Amy Balliett

About Summit Host Amy Balliett

Amy Balliett is the CEO and founder of Killer Visual Strategies, a Material company and an industry-leading visual communication agency that designs and executes communication and content marketing solutions for Fortune 1000 clients. Balliett is a thought leader in visual communication, and has spoken at more than 175 conferences around the globe, including SXSW, Content Marketing World, Adobe MAX, and SMX Advanced. She is also a teacher at Seattle’s School of Visual Concepts, a LinkedIn Learning instructor, and an accomplished public and corporate speaker. She is the author of Killer Visual Strategies: Engage Any Audience, Improve Comprehension, and Get Amazing Results Using Visual Communication, which was named one of Porchlight's Best Business Books of 2020.


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My trip to Quebec City
(A Tale of Two Summits)

Report from Quebec City:
People's Summit of the Americas

Bryce Oates
Quebec City, Canada

During April 16-21, I accompanied seven other U. S. citizens to Quebec City, Canada, to participate in the Second People’s Summit of the Americas and to join forces with others in opposing the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Our task throughout the week’s activities was to build a strong international campaign to oppose corporate globalization, and to articulate our vision for farm and food policies that pay family farmers a fair price for the food that they grow while guaranteeing high-quality, affordable food for all people.

Other members of our delegation included Bill Christison (Missouri Rural Crisis Center and National Family Farm Coalition), Kathy Ozer (National Family Farm Coalition), Felder Freeman (Federation of Southern Cooperatives), Ron Morrissette (Rural Vermont), Dexter Randall (Rural Vermont), Heather Fenney (Rural Coalition), and Susan Davidson (Vermont Genetic Engineering Action Network). Several hundred other U. S. residents came to Quebec to participate in related forums and events, with thousands of others staying home for local actions and events related to the proposed FTAA (an extensive list of these local events can be viewed at <>

Why convene to oppose the FTAA?

The Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is the name given to the process of expanding NAFTA to all the other countries of Western Hemisphere, with the exception of Cuba. The FTAA, if put into place by the 34 domestic governments in the hemisphere, will be the largest free trade zone in the world with 800 million participants representing a combined gross domestic product of $11 trillion. The FTAA is supported by corporations representing agribusiness, manufacturing, energy, finance, and other sectors of the economy.

Neoliberal trade regimes such as NAFTA, GATT, the WTO, and the proposed FTAA put the “race to the bottom” process into practice. Corporations scour the globe looking for the most regressive health, labor, environment, and agriculture standards. Broad-based support for family-farm based food production, clean air and water, fair wages, and the right to determine local culture and economy are subjected to the whims of corporate greed. Far from developing democratic economies as the free traders would have us believe, these policies exploit local people and resources for the benefit of corporate investors and financial speculators.

Getting there is half the fun

Little did we know it, but getting to the event would be a challenge in itself. Organizers and activists from the U.S. and other countries were harassed and turned back in preparation for the People’s Summit. When I arrived in Montreal, I was immediately sent to customs to be investigated for coming to Canada. My backpack full of pro-democracy, pro-family farm, pro-fair trade propaganda was searched through and numerous pages were copied in an obvious attempt to gather intelligence on the fair trade movement. The customs officials were especially interested in names and phone numbers of contacts, information that would help them to link up the diverse segments of the anti-FTAA movement. Heather even had her personal daybook and planner searched and copied. After two and a half hours in customs, we were on our way to Quebec City.

The People's Summit and Agriculture Forum

During April 17 and 18, farmers from all over the Western Hemisphere met to share information, conduct small group discussion sessions, create action plans, and to formulate a declaration outlining our vision for the fair farm and trade policies. Missouri farmer Bill Christison explained the U.S. experience with free trade: low prices, farmers going broke, record agribusiness profits, and a lack of community food security. Each speaker concluded his or her remarks with a call to action, urging farmers and rural people to combine our efforts into a hemispheric alliance for fair prices, food security, and policies that would better balance supply with demand.

We heard from the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil and their efforts for access to land and the freedom that comes along with ownership of resources. From Ecuador, we learned about the indigenous movement to reclaim their cultural and economic heritage, and their general strike that ground the country to a halt resulting in the entire government being replaced. We heard about the efforts of Caribbean farmers’ role in the “banana wars,” and their success in promoting fair trade goods as a successful model for economic development. Jose Bove also participated in the Summit, telling the story of how he “became” a peasant farmer through his work for environmental and social justice.

Farmers from every country were telling similar stories of corporate concentration on both the input and purchasing sectors. Farmers compete for markets and go broke while agribusiness corporations cooperate for large returns on their investments. Free trade means more production, but a lack of food security reserves that creates the situation for possible shortages of commodities. Free trade means fewer farmers, and rapid urbanization as farmers move to the cities to compete for already scarce jobs. Free trade means record profits for Cargill, ConAgra, Tyson, Wal-Mart, and Philip Morris, and lower wages for family farmers and farm workers.

To combat this corporate agribusiness and trade agenda, farm groups at the forum agreed to participate in a better coordinated effort to implement our policy agenda. Groups agreed to work through Via Campesina, the international farm and peasant organization that is based upon the principles of local sovereignty, fair wages for farmers and farm workers, and food security. Within North America, members of the National Family Farm Coalition, the National Farmers Union of Canada, and several organizations from Mexico agreed to expand our cooperative efforts. We discussed a possible summer meeting to further explore these relationships, and to bring farmers to other countries in order to tell their stories about how corporate agribusiness is exploiting their communities.

Farmers took the message from our Forum to the People’s Summit, where we joined with other forums including Women’s Issues, the Environment, Labor, Human Rights, and Parliamentarians groups to outline a comprehensive agenda for fair trade and democracy. Several thousand people attended this People’s Summit, including hundreds of other U.S. citizens.

Agriculture Declaration

"Any trade agreement must guarantee the food sovereignty and security of the peoples, because food is a basic and fundamental human right. Food must be safe, accessible, and provide a fair and adequate return to primary producers. Farming, livestock production, fishing, and agro-forestry must be practiced in concert with public policies which protect and respect the rights of the men and women of the land, including farmers, farm workers, and indigenous people. Such policies must also protect and respect their use of natural resources such as air, water, soil, biodiversity, knowledge of genetic resources, the right to land, and forms of collective community land rights.

The agricultural policies put into practice by the governments of the Western Hemisphere must encourage and ensure the existence of indigenous people, family farmers, and other people who labor on the land. These policies must limit the export and import of significant quantities of food which destroy our local economies and put at risk our health and our environment. Consequently, governments should promote sustainable agriculture and prohibit the use of transgenic food products. In addition, given the profound inequalities among our people, we should seek equitable development rather than promoting 'free trade' which is unequal by nature. The governments of the Western Hemisphere must recognize that the current policies of the World Trade Organization and regional trade agreements, such as NAFTA, have served to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a few transnational corporations and have deepened the poverty and dependence of our peoples.

We will not tolerate injustice and destruction caused by such policies. Our struggle has a long history, and we are determined."

This document was presented to the People’s Summit and at a press conference explaining our experience with free trade and the policy positions we are proposing to replace the failed model of corporate profits at the expense of farmers, working people, and the environment.

March 19 picnic against genetic engineering

On Thursday, we joined hundreds of protestors at the Quebec Minister of Agriculture’s Office to speak out against their administrative support for genetic engineering in agriculture. The event involved a rally with chants and speakers, colorful theatre and puppet shows, and GMO-free sandwiches and snacks for lunch. Canadian citizens were glad to hear about our efforts through the Farmer-to-Farmer Campaign on Genetic Engineering in Agriculture to impact U.S. farm planting decisions. We were able to help get out the message that food security is threatened by corporate ownership of the seed supply through private patents. People were also interested in hearing about the citizens’ movement to oppose corporate welfare for GMO research with public dollars in numerous U. S. states.

The Wall of shame and police state tyranny

With our policy proposals and action plans agreed upon, we turned our attention toward the FTAA and the meeting of heads-of-state to implement the corporate trade plan. Knowing that they faced strong opposition from a diverse group of grassroots organizations, students, labor, farmers, and other concerned citizens, the free traders held their meeting behind a ten-foot wall of chain link fence and concrete pylons. Dubbed the “wall of shame,” this fence became a symbol of the free traders’ anti-democratic, closed-door approach to policymaking.

Friday and Saturday, People’s Summit participants took our message to the streets with marches, rallies, and protests. While marching throughout the streets of Quebec, our numbers grew as local citizens that joined us in our carnival against the FTAA. This community support continued throughout the weekend, with cab drivers, food service workers, and other locals giving the free traders the international salute time and time again: the fully extended middle finger. “Globalize this,” read a popular t-shirt.

When we arrived at the fence to draw attention to the FTAA’s impacts on private individuals’ lives, the police showed their impatience for popular mass movements. After numerous chants and songs, the police started shooting and lobbing tear gas into the crowd of nonviolent protesters. The face-to-face contact was limited with the police, as they seemed to choose the tactics of “low intensity conflict.” They attempted to disperse our crowd with tear gas saturation in the air.

Is this what democracy looks like?

It’s clear by now, both to the people of the world and the corporate elites, that the new world order is trashing democracy to promote their “free trade” agenda. Whether they attempt to silence our outrage with tear gas, rubber bullets, or the rhetoric of “economic development,” the movement against corporate globalization is growing among citizens of all ages, races, and nationalities. Farmers and organized labor, women and men, environmentalists and human rights activists, and many other diverse constituencies are coming together around a common agenda for local sovereignty, international cooperation, fair wages, and social and economic justice. We have moved beyond merely criticizing the corporate agenda to proposing clear alternatives.

As the pictures of the FTAA free traders’ meeting revealed (almost entirely powerful men in dark-colored suits), corporate globalization means the creation of more wealth for the rich. Our movement, in contrast, is made up of the Missouri family farmer that is fighting for a fair price for soybeans and livestock, the Ecuadorian woman organizing to reclaim her indigenous culture, the Quebec steelworker working for fair wages, and the Bolivian village protesting the destruction of their fisheries. That diversity and the dialogue that occurred between peoples in Quebec is a true step toward creating a just and democratic world.

We have drawn our line in the sand during this round of the trade wars. The WTO, NAFTA, GATT, and now the FTAA are treaties that bind the people to the mandate of corporate capital and investment. It’s going to be an interesting and difficult fight for us in the U.S. President Bush and his Congressional allies are pushing for fast track trade authority (Bush calls it “presidential trade promotion authority”), which will limit debate and disallow amendments from members, in order to shove the FTAA through Congress without much public participation.

For us in the farm community, President Bush is holding farmers hostage by saying that farm and rural prosperity will be dependent upon passage of fast track and the FTAA. Our struggle for a farmer’s living wage and food security is not even on the Bush Administration’s radar screen. As the debate on farm policy expands during the next year and a half (Farm Bill reauthorization is upon us), we will need to use this opportunity to criticize the corporate trade agenda while proposing our policy positions as real solutions to the continuing rural crisis.

After meeting the other faces of opposition to the corporate trade agenda, I know that we can claim victory in our struggle. They may have the tyranny of military repression on their side, but we are on the side of justice and democracy.

The corporate elites may try to wrap their institutions in the rhetoric of freedom, but my Grandma (I like to think of her as the Sage of the Bluestem Prairie) has always told me that actions speak louder than words. In the streets of Quebec City, she was proven right yet again.

Published in In Motion Magazine, April 29, 2001.

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The impact of Web 2.0 has lived up its early technology buzz, and has produced a new ‘economy’ based on sharing. Many firms are seeing these new technologies as facilitating innovation, but are unsure about how best to exploit them. This article is the opener to a series of pieces on how to achieve innovation using the enablers offered by Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 epitomizes the success cases of ventures such as Wikipedia, Flickr, Google, Facebook and Twitter, and movements such as open source software. It has changed the rules of Internet business and is living up to the hype, with offerings that are very different from those generally available at the beginning of the 2000’s.

Web 2.0 –A promise of innovation and success

The new economy is based on three pillars. These are communities, collective intelligence and collaboration. A major breakthrough in technology has made it possible. Harvard Professor Andrew McAfee describes it thus: ‘the www put a multimedia printing press and a global distribution network in the hands of everyone’. Managers often associate Web 2.0 with the use of platform tools such as blogs, wikis and social networks, and the work with terms such as tags and RSS (Real-time Syndicated Service). Whilst the principle behind the concept of Web 2.0 needs some explanation, the popularity of the Internet firms above is attracting managers from all industries to exploit its potential benefits.

Linking Web 2.0 to business

When considering Web 2.0 in business there are two areas where to look for impact. One considers the new opportunities regarding improved commercialization of products, Another sees the benefits on  collaboration and knowledge diffusion among employees and also from outside the company. In addition to the Web 2.0 enabled companies referred to above, other companies in industries such as the so called FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) sector, and the banking and technology sectors are seeing increased innovation. According to a study by Forrester, one in four companies (mainly big companies) in 2008 set priorities with regards to Web 2.0. A recent global survey by McKinsey, shows that among companies that have tried and implemented Web 2.0, 22% were dissatisfied with results. Why?

Web 2.0 in practice: a call for failure

A common misperception among organizations and enterprises is that it is not necessary to have a formal strategy to exploit Web 2.0. Many firms have tried to introduce Web 2.0 by bringing the topic in the agenda of a directors meeting and then, either the marketing or the information technology department, taking ownership and launching blogs and wikis first for internal company use before extending them outside the firm. Results will be mixed, and especially if goals have not been established. Despite the hype surrounding Web 2.0 and its tools, the greater participation they enable solely can not be used as a valid argument to drive a successful adoption in business. This is because blogs seldom will function as self managed entities.

The success cases of Dell and Wells Fargo

When the computer maker Dell introduced its community it had clear goals in terms of the information and services that would be made available to its customers and how employees, experts and other people, outside the company, should operate within this community. It had clear ideas about norms, community policy and liabilities. Dell customers could find support to problems, and queries about Dell services, through its online forums. Of particular interest is that it is Dell’s thousands of volunteer community members that are providing this support. They constitute a virtual help desk manned by intelligent experts outside of Dell. The level of satisfaction among Dell customers appears high; they are able to skip the often prolonged phone conversations with Dell’s customer help desks. On the part of Dell, the company can exploit the cost savings elsewhere.

In other occasions, firms are interested in using Web 2.0 to know more about what clients need from the company. The US bank, Wells Fargo, has four corporate blogs that have become examples of good practice in corporate blogs. People trust the information provided in them as much as they trust emails from trusted friends.

Both Wells Fargo and Dell have coherent policies on participation in on-line communities and social networks although they exploit the tools differently. Wells Fargo understands that it is only selected managers and particular experts that can usefully interact with customers and through this interaction, refine the bank’s offers.

Expanding the knowledge market: Procter & Gamble

Web 2.0 tools have huge advantages over other collaboration technologies that have failed to work in unleashing knowledge. Although many are encouraged to participate, only a small fraction is actually a content contributor. And getting people to participate is crucial for identifying new and interesting ideas. At the beginning of the 2000’s, Procter & Gamble launched a programme called Connect and Develop, aimed at connecting its research centers and engineer across the world. It currently has participation from over 9,000 developers.

A few years after this programme was launched, they introduced blogs and wikis in the flow and the idea of open innovation, with a goal of 50% of their innovation ideas from outside the company. Connect & Develop is used intensively by Proctor & Gamble’s research centers, as well as by innovators outside the company who contribute with solutions and ideas,  many of which are exploited by the company’s marketing and business units.

Example of a short innovation path

Including Web 2.0 in the flow of processes and programs of a company provides a credible argument for directors who have taken the lead of Web 2.0 initiatives in their firm. It also helps companies’ managers establish goals in terms of how blogs and wikis fit with their business strategies. The so called path of innovation can be short term with innovation related to changes to customer service (e.g. Dell’s community) or branding, or fostering customer loyalty (e.g. Wells Fargo’s blogs). On the other hand the innovation strategy may be a long-haul path  involving decisions made based on their strategic significance. For instance, about transformations to the core business or business model.

Long term innovation strategies: BBVA

Banks, traditionally, have not been threatened by innovations introduced by other organizations trying to enter their sector because of the barriers imposed by security requirements and regulation. However, the Internet is opening opportunities for firms keen to enter the sector, e.g. PayPal, CheckFree and Amazon, which are offering new payment models that are becoming popular with customers.

Many on-line start ups are providing tools to enable customers to manage their personal finance. Some of the larger banks, e.g. BBVA in Spain, have responded to these evolutions in the market and are rethinking their on-line banking models. They are experimenting with how to combine Web 2.0 capabilities, such as personalization and information aggregation, with financial services that make the customer experience simpler and more relevant.

Goals and beyond…

Yet there will be so many companies that try Web 2.0 because setting the goals alone is not the sole thing to achieve success like the examples mentioned above. Companies must anticipate what their innovation path will be and manage it accordingly through each of these three levers: technology, managers and employees.

By Marta Domínguez

About the author

Marta Domínguez founded i-Thread Consulting. She acts as a strategy advisor and technology expert to start ups, technology companies and telecoms. She has more than 15 years experience in new product development and technology-enabled innovation in large companies. She has held several executive positions in Vodafone Spain where she worked closely with the executive teams in other countries within the Vodafone Group, on new mobile business developments. Early in her career she worked in the Netherlands on software engineering, eventually becoming a technical team leader in Lucent Technologies Bell Labs. Marta is a professor at the IE Business School in Madrid, Spain, where she leads their Technology & Innovation Forum. She has authored a number of reports on ICT´s and innovation strategies at corporations focusing on banking and financial services companies. You can read her blog at


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Orly Stern Izhaki is Chief Digital & Innovation Officer at Menora Mivtachim.

The Regulator Requires a Director of Innovation

Regulation has a critical role to play to protect customers and businesses operating in industries that are sensitive to various threats. In complex industries such as the financial industry, regulation is often perceived as a barrier and a burden.

About Digital and Innovation – and What’s in Between

Digital and innovation - two big words that one defines, but are not always clear and precise. Many organizations of different sizes understand today that it is necessary to play in the Digital and Innovation fields in order to remain relevant, but it is not always clear how and how much.


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Ultramarine Pin-Up

A lot of my artwork is inspired by silly conversation over on Twitter. When discovering that there is someone out there who has as much need for Pin Up Space Marines as I do, I had to get back to work on that sort of thing!

It also fits in with the whole, trying to get better at drawing Space Marines thing, that I have going on at the moment.

The challenge is to do enough of these for a calendar. I won’t be able to get them done in time for 2019, I am not that fast, but I shall look into getting something sorted for 2020. I may look into doing my own KickStarter or some such, if the idea gets enough traction! As I sadly, cannot afford to create something like this out of my own pockets. We shall see! It will be good fun to draw them up regardless~

If you have any ideas for specific Chapters for the calendar, let me know!?


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Another one crossed off the Lizardmen to-do list – it’s always satisfying to get a larger model finished. I’ve had the base lizard of this done for a good few years but was always a bit intimidated by the Solar Engine on the back – it was a needless intimidation because it was actually pretty easy to assemble and get stuck on; a lot simpler than I had feared.

If anything, I wish the green skin of the Bastiladon was more vibrant. Having said that then it might be dipping into ‘it burns my eyes’ territory and no one wants that (Unless you want to blind your opponent so you win games by default)

The only thing I am rather sad about is the fact that one of the skinks spears snapped and I couldn’t get it to clue on straight – but no one would notice that if I hadn’t mentioned it!

I am looking forward to picking up something a bit more robust than skinks, so next in the Lizardmen line-up is my two Kroxigors, one official Games Workshop model, another than my husband picked up for me during one of his tournament days; and I have absolutely no idea the manufacturer of it; but it looks like it fits the bill.