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sagrawal18ahsgov-blog · 6 years

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The 3P Assessment: Parties, Political Interest Groups, and PACs

1. Political parties on clean water:

a. The Republican position is that the EPA’s Waters of the United States rule is a travesty because it extends the government’s jurisdiction over navigable waters. They do not want federal agencies to seize control of state waters, and they want to enforce the original intent of the Clean Water Act and not its distortion by EPA regulations. Democrats believe in conservation and collaborative stewardship of our water, and that we need policies and investments to protect public waters so that people can access and enjoy natural spaces. Democrats want to conserve public waters by engaging Americans in the outdoors and protecting natural landscapes by building a diverse workforce. The Libertarian party states that competitive free markets and property rights stimulate the technological innovations and behavioral changes required to protect our clean water. They believe that private landowners and conservation groups have a vested interest in maintaining natural resources, and governments are unaccountable for environmental damage and have a bad track record on environmental protection. The Green Party strongly opposes recent attempts to roll back the federal environmental protection laws that safeguard our clean water. The health of our clean water is of paramount importance, and they want to halt the destruction of the environment that is sacrificed to unqualified economic expansion. Last, the Peace and Freedom Party believes that the corporate forces and economic system that exploit and brutalize the world’s working class people are destroying the world’s biosphere. Socialism is necessary to end the ecological destruction caused by capitalism. They favor tighter regulation of industrial wastes to protect and restore water.

b. I disagree with the Republican position because they are against enforcing stronger environmental protections and the policies that they want to implement would be harming more than helping our clean water. I agree with the Democrat position because they want to conserve clean water so people can enjoy natural spaces the Earth has to offer. I somewhat agree with the Libertarian view on clean water, because they are for protecting our waters, but their methods for doing so do not seem as direct. I agree with the Green Party’s position because they prioritize the environment and clean water and want laws that protect them. I agree with the Peace and Freedom Party’s belief that industrial wastes must be better regulated to keep our water clean.

c. I think that I identify most with the Green Party. This is somewhat surprising, because I assumed I might agree closest with the Democratic Party, however I thought that the Green Party had a better platform on environmental regulations, while the Democratic platform on the environment was more broad and did not impose protecting our clean water as strongly. I would vote for the Presidential candidate of this Party.

2. National Interest Group on clean water:

a. The name of one national interest group that represents the issue of clean water is Clean Water Action.

b. This interest group wants to develop strong grassroots environmental leadership to bring together diverse constituencies to work cooperatively for changes that improves their lives, focused on health, consumer, environmental, and community problems.

c. Clean Water Action focuses on clean water, oil and gas, toxic chemicals, waste, climate change and clean energy, and civic engagement. They state that clean water allows for healthy and prosperous communities. Drinking water sources are threatened by pollution and overconsumption. Second, Clean Water works to protect people and areas from oil and gas production’s harmful impacts while pushing for the transition to a clean energy economy. Third, they are fighting on all levels to fix chemical laws and find safer alternatives to toxic chemicals in everyday products. Fourth, pollution from sources like power plants is affecting our water, food, and air. Clean Water Action harnesses grassroots power by engaging and mobilizing members and endorsing clean water leaders in elections from the local to national level. Fifth, Clean Water Action believes Scott Pruitt is unfit to lead the EPA because he has acted in opposition to protect our air, water, and health by silencing scientists and giving polluting industries unprecedented access.

d. Clean Water Action endorsed the 2018 Pennsylvania Primary Election. On May 16, 2018, environmental champions Sara Innamorato, Joe Hohenstein, and Chris Rabb won the election, sending them to Harrisburg. The state legislature continues to attack environmental protections, Pennsylvania voters want to see their representatives stand up for clean water and air. Innamorato and Hohenstein are both coming out of environmental protection work and activism, so their wins give voice to people’s concern for clean water and the environment. Voters are worried about lead in drinking water, fracking coming into Allegheny County, and pollution from industry causing an asthma epidemic in parts of Pennsylvania.

e. This interest group is located in Oakland, California. I was unable to find any specific local meetings that I could attend that have happened or are going to happen on their website.

f. There are multiple volunteer opportunities regarding elections and civic engagement, putting drinking water first, rethinking disposable, oil, gas, fracking, and safer chemicals. Volunteer opportunities include helping elect environmental champions, attending and planning events, lobbying elected officials, doing data entry, or performing research.

g. Regarding additional developments that I found interesting from this interest group, Clean Water Action has an annual conference where they feature dynamic speakers, environmental workshops, and networking. The workshops have different panels of environmental speakers who discuss topics such as electric vehicles and green energy or clean water and environmental justice. 2018′s annual conference was held last month at the Wardlaw-Hartidge School in Edison, New Jersey.

3. State interest group on clean water:

a. The name of the state interest group that represents the issue of clean water is the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV).

b. The California League of Conservation Voters aims to protect and enhance the environment and the health of all California communities by electing environmental champions, advancing critical priorities, and holding policymakers accountable.

c. The CLVC helps to create environmental champions and pass strong environmental legislation. The areas that the CLVC focuses their attention includes air quality, clean and renewable energy, environmental justice, global warming, good government, green jobs, ocean and coastal protection, open space and parks, recycling and waste production, smart growth, land use and planning, toxics and chemicals, transportation, water quality and supply, and wildlife and habitat conservation. The CLVC conducts rigorous research on candidates to make endorsements in key races; their endorsements are backed with expertise and they assist candidates with the media, fundraising, and grassroots organizing strategies they need to win. The CLVC campaigns to educate voters about candidates’ environmental records. Current actions that the CLVC are pushing include moving California to 100% renewable power and protecting California from offshore oil drilling.

d. The CLVC has many current endorsements for the June 5th Primary Election. One initiative that they endorse is Prop 68, or the Park and Water Bond. Proposition 68 would authorize $4 billion in general obligation bonds for state and local parks, environmental protection and restoration projects, water infrastructure projects, and flood protection projects.

e. The California League of Conservation Voters is located in Oakland, California. According to their website, anyone can stay informed and make their views heard in Sacramento. Every year the CLVC campaigns for strong environmental legislation in Sacramento, and they collaborate with other organizations on legislation of importance to the greater environmental community. They maintain a full time lobbying presence in Sacramento and work to make sure legislators hear from environmental voters. I was unable to find out the exact dates for when I can attend local meetings or get involved.

f. There is a smaller number of specific volunteer opportunities, but the CLVC makes clear the ways in which anyone can take action. One action is helping to move California to 100% renewable power by voting yes on SB 100. Second, California can be protected from offshore oil drilling by voting no on H.R. 4239, which would bypass California’s safeguards and allow expanded, reckless, and unsafe offshore oil drilling along the state coast. This would reject the giveaway to Big Oil that endangers crucial ecosystems and coastal communities.

g. At the end of each legislative year, the CLVC publishes the California Environmental Scorecard, which is the definitive barometer of environmental politics in Sacramento, rating the performance of the California Legislature and the governor on key environmental legislation. The Scorecard is distributed online and to 30,000 CLVC members, other environmental organizations, and the news media.

4. I think that Clean Water Action is a more organized interest group than the California League of Conservation Voters. Since Clean Water Action is a national interest group, it is more successful and is more widely recognized. Clean Water Action’s target audience is anybody who is concerned about the environment for any reason and wants to take action to help protect and conserve it. Similarly, the California League of Conservation Voters targets a similar crowd, only in the state of California. Supporters of both interest groups would be advocates for the environment and people who want to be a part of protecting the planet. I am following both Clean Water Action and the California League of Conservation Voters on twitter.

5. PAC on clean water:

a. The name of the PAC that pertains to the issue of clean water is the Sierra Club.

b. The Sierra Club PAC wants to protect the environment, practice and promote the responsible use of the earth’s ecosystems and resources, and educate and enlist humanity to protect and restore the quality of the natural and human environment.

c. In 2018 the Sierra Club PAC has raised a total of $99,826, and they have spent a total of $151,828. The amount of cash that they have on hand is $882,379.

d. 100% of the Sierra Club PAC’s budget is spent on Democrats, so none of their budget is spent on Republicans.

e. Some donors include Mr. Robert Heil and Ms. Rosemary Heil from Oakland, CA; Loren Blackford from New York, NY; Holley J. Taylor from Penn Valley, CA; Steve Foote from Bethesda, MD; and Pam Miles from Lake Forest, IL. These donors are involved in a career or interest pertaining to protecting or advocating for the environment. For example, Robert Heil is a wildlife and nature photographer whose personal life is also based around nature, and Loren Blackford is the president of the Sierra Club. The interests of the donors run in close parallel with the PAC interests as they both concern the environment.

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indiabull0 · 3 years

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What To Search For In A Life Coach Near Me.

Best Management Designs As Well As Just How To Utilize Them.

Content

What Does A Business Coach Do?

Instructors Aid Establish Objectives As Well As Hold Business Leaders Answerable.

Further Keeping Reading Self Confidence Structure.

Final Thoughts On Being A Certain Lady.

Vinyasa + Weight Training: Tips From New York Giants' Coach Gwen Lawrence.

Ipec Coaching.

Develop A Positive Frame Of Mind, Improve Your Habits And Also Relocate Closer To Your Goals

Business leaders are commonly intelligent, sensible people that stand out at taking care of a business by information as well as theory. However many leaders find that the hardest part of running a service is taking care of individuals. The only caution to this is when there is an existing culture where the workers are immune to anything brand-new or altering the status-quo.

What Does A Business Coach Do?

Prior to you ran a business you possibly came across great deals of different managers during your occupation, some great some not so good. And also you possibly grabbed a few of their skills along the road. When deciding what sort of coach you wish to be, don't limit yourself to a single style.

What should I talk to my life coach about?

There are several life coaching topics that a life coach can address during a life coaching session, some of which are outlined below.Professional Growth & Direction. Values Alignment. Goal Setting. Skills Acquisition. Strategic Decision Making. Self-Induced Obstacles. Performance Reviews. Productivity. More items

If your group is happy, they're mosting likely to be producing results, also if the work is not ideal. This is since your relationship with your team doesn't seem transactional and also it feels like you truly appreciate them. Transformational administration indicates motivating team members to exceed what they fit-- to concentrate on locations of change as well as growth, as well as always stay up to date with patterns. You need to stabilize which choices need whole group discussions, and also which choices require to be made on their behalf. I assume this, in addition to the results-based management style, set well together.

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Typically you will be guided through a 6-point process in each coaching session: Review the previous session and the actions that you completed. Set the goal for that session. Consider where you are at the present moment with this goal.

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More Reading On Self Confidence Building.

As workers start to retire or leave, business loses important understanding, and also a lot of services need to fill openings promptly rather than hobble along during a prolonged outside search to discover brand-new leaders. Entrepreneur can't simply sit back and await new leaders to get here, totally developed. They need to actively determine employees with leadership possibility and after that discover ways to support and also create that potential.

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An autonomous technique to management can likewise be among the a lot more efficient dispute monitoring styles, as it urges everybody to contribute to the discussion, to participate as well as to have their part. I have actually seen the democratic management style job truly well for job teams, due to the fact that every person has ownership over the plan and the work getting done. Results-based management styles actually function best in workplace where individuals have actually honestly gotten into the concept of results-based work from the start.

Who is Oprah's life coach?

Truth be told, I wanted to learn more about Martha Beck, so I contacted her with the intent of turning it into an interview.

Gifted staff members that attain at a reduced degree frequently will be the ones to climb and handle management duties themselves one day. In today's company setting, coaching plays a crucial role as a result of a higher gratitude of the value of an organization's understanding and human resources. To attain essential results and continue to be affordable, organizations see mentoring not only as a way to form individual performance but likewise, significantly, as a way to construct more comprehensive organizational capacity. This kind of administration style is a follower fave of Digital Job Supervisors since, honestly, it produces outcomes.

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Last Thoughts On Being A Positive Female.

How do you lead a coaching session?

How to Conduct a Coaching Session 1. Step 1: Identify Your Client's Concerns. internal coach training . Step 2: Set Goals for the Session. 3. Step 3: Coach Your Client. 4. Step 4: Agree on Homework/Action Steps. 5. Step 5: Discuss the Lessons from the Coaching Session. 6. Step 6: Establish Accountability Mechanisms. 7. Step 7: Get Feedback on the Session.

Because not everyone works best with this monitoring style, I find that it's best to blend this kind of administration with others, especially for jobs. This design is best made use of when the team is comprised of individual factors that are full-time staff members. When you hear words "coach" or "training", what enters your mind? For numerous, these words will revive memories of involvement in sporting activities. The coach was the leader of the group, and his/her function was to guide the group in the direction of success.

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However, in progressive companies mentoring is considered to be a favorable, tried and tested method for assisting executives explore their present objectives as well as ambitions and also achieve new or higher purposes. The bottom line for most staff members is that they wish to use their capacities to the maximum, get in touch with colleagues and accomplish a level of freedom so they can guide their very own efforts. Giving a work environment that can help employees accomplish those goals is a vital part of coaching. One more essential element to great coaching is identifying talents in others and effectively leveraging them to better the firm as well as the employee's profession. Finding and establishing skill is among the most essential tasks a leader tackles-- the actual future of the company depends on it.

Vinyasa + Weight Lifting: Tips From New York Giants' Coach Gwen Lawrence.

Mentoring and also mentoring are powerful parts that play crucial, and somewhat different, functions in growing employees into leaders. Your future leaders are the staff members others most likely to for help as well as that others continually rely upon. Start the early recognition of management skill with the understanding that leadership possibility is simple to spot. These are your staff members who are aggressive, reliable and thoughtful in their job, and somehow just take control when it's required. Skill growth requires a major dedication of both time and also resources.

Ipec Coaching.

If you follow a participative design you have a tendency to lead by consensus rather than routing employees. You urge input from all your employees, valuing all opinions as well as you reward teamwork.

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Taking on bits and pieces from several methods is a much more practical and healthy and balanced approach. Integrate facets of each whenever it is proper. Nevertheless, there are some drawbacks to the autocratic style. Out of the three approaches, this is seen as the most hazardous for team spirits.

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destinationtoast · 7 years

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Some notes on my fandom stats.

I sometimes get questions or criticism regarding my fandom stats. (I welcome both.) Sometimes critics have missed something that I clearly stated in the post, but often, criticism indicates that I could be doing a better job explaining something. So this is an attempt to explain what fandom data can and can’t show, where I’m personally coming from, and what I’m intending my analyses to do.

This is a v1 attempt -- please give feedback about where I can further clarify! I'll be continuing to revise and update based on responses, so please click through to the original post.

The most common critiques I get fall into a few broad categories:

Incorrect or misleading. Some of my methods/stats/visualizations are wrong, misleading, or don’t match up with someone’s personal experience. (See “My goals,” “The limitations of my ability to issue corrections,” and “How you can help with limitations in existing analyses”)

Wrong focus. I don’t do enough stats about some important topics -- e.g., race. (See “The limitations of my methods” and “How you can help with limitations in existing analyses”)

Not representative. I’m overgeneralizing about fandom and misrepresenting fans by only looking at certain fanworks or by failing to give important context. (See “The limitations of focusing primarily on AO3”)

Overly authoritative. I’m speaking as an authority on fandom and acting as if my stats are The Truth. (See “My goals” and “What fandom stats can and can’t tell us”)

Agenda-driven. I’m using stats to try to justify fandom practices that some people disagree with, such as creating fanworks primarily about men or white characters -- or else I’m using stats to harangue fans into behaving differently, e.g. leaving more comments on fic. (See “The Toast agenda”)

I’ll try to explain where I’m coming from and address some of the most common criticisms here, but if you have more questions or concerns, please pass them along.

My goals

My fandom analysis posts are intended as fanworks -- by a fan, for other fans. Meaning that:

I’m assuming the audience has personal experience in fandom and goodwill toward fans.

While I sometimes have beta readers, these are imperfect works, put together in my spare time.

These are shared out of love for fandom and other fans, and because I think other fans will be interested, rather than to further my career.

As some possibly useful context, I didn’t even mean to end up making a bunch of fandom stats posts in the first place. But when I was curious about fanworks and made a few graphs mostly for myself, other fans turned out to be really interested. So I’ve kept on sharing what I’ve learned as I’ve continued to be curious. And I started a dedicated stats sideblog because some fans who aren't interested in the other content on my main blog asked me to.

I do the best I can to be accurate and clear in my fandom stats posts. But I sometimes make errors in analysis, gather unrepresentative data, fail to give context, present something unclearly, etc. I really appreciate feedback from people who want to engage in thoughtful critique or ask questions when they spot issues with my work. It’s my goal to always update & correct/clarify my posts as I continue to learn more.

I don’t have plans to publish any of my work for a broader audience, or an academic audience. I have a separate career that doesn’t have to do with fan studies, and I do this for fun in my spare time… I think trying to rewrite for a different audience and publish things via official channels would sap a lot of my desire to do it. When I’ve shared things at cons, they’ve been fan conventions, not academic conferences, and I’ve been there because fans expressed interest in hearing me talk about some of my stuff.

(Note: this doesn’t mean I don’t think fandom analysis can be worth publishing, or worth having a career in! And I’m happy to share data and methodology with academics or other interested parties, and to have them redo the analyses/do similar analyses & present the results to other audiences.)

It’s possible I sometimes sound like I’m writing/speaking as An Authority On Fandom, but that’s not my intent. In fact, in fandom I rarely feel like an expert -- because I haven’t actually been active in the online fannish community for all that long, and I only have personal experience with a pretty narrow range of fandoms, fannish platforms, and fannish experiences. I strongly value hearing the experiences and opinions of other fans.

The limitations of my methods

I tend to do analyses of fanworks only, and I analyze aggregate metadata (e.g., number of uses of tags) about large amounts of fanworks at once (thousands or millions of works). That means I’m not looking at any individual works. Those are good techniques for answering questions like:

Which ratings are most common on AO3?

Which are the most common fandoms, characters, or ships?

How has that changed over time?

How many kudos do different AO3 tags get?

What are the most popular genres on Fanfiction.net?

Sometimes I also compare data between archives (AO3, FFN, Wattpad), or look at fandom tagging activity on sites like Tumblr or DeviantART. And occasionally I get access to a bunch of data taken from a site like IMDB and incorporate that, as well.

These methods/data sets have limitations:

I haven’t hand-categorized the data. There may be errors.

I’m relying on other people to tell me what’s in their fanworks, so anything that’s not in the tags, my methods don’t catch.

Different people sometimes use the same tags differently, and I usually can’t detect that, either. I assume that this usually just adds noise to my large data sets, but I also try to think about any systematic biases that might be introduced and to highlight them in my writeups.

I can’t add new information, like a character’s race, country of origin, canonical (a)sexuality when known, etc. Neither AO3 nor FFN specify these attributes (although fans can and do sometimes create tags like “Canon Character of Color” or “Canon Asexual Character,” so to the extent that fans widely use these tags, I can do analyses). I would really love to have data about race and other factors not in the tags; if you have ideas how to get it, I'd be grateful.

I can’t answer anything about the creators of the fanworks (e.g., demographics).

These are the methods that I am personally best equipped to do (in terms of tools, skills, experience). I’ve enjoyed learning some new methods as part of doing these posts, but I’m definitely not good at everything. So when my methods can’t provide the right data for someone’s question, it doesn’t mean the question is unanswerable, but I might not be the best person to answer the question. See “How you can help with limitations in existing analyses” for more information.

The limitations of focusing mostly on AO3

I use AO3 a lot because:

it has the most flexible and best organized tagging system

it's easiest to search, sort, and filter

it already gives you a bunch of stats in the Sort & Filter sidebar, whenever you select a particular tag or combination of tags

I have now written a bunch of scripts to help me quickly get data from AO3

I have the best intuitions about AO3, because I use it the most, so I can do a better job catching errors in my work there

That doesn’t mean I think AO3 contains all fanworks or is representative of all fandom/fanworks. It’s only one home of many for fanworks, and it’s got a lot of unusual characteristics. For instance, because it was founded to provide a home to works that were considered sensitive or banned on other archives (explicit works, RPF, slash, etc.), it tends to have more of these kinds of works than many archives. Initially, I didn’t tend to point this out and overgeneralized about fanworks from AO3. These days I try to point out the limitations in generalizing. (Though I do still find it interesting to learn about AO3 as an archive!)

The limitations of my ability to issue corrections

One good aspect of Tumblr is the way that it can reach broad audiences beyond one’s immediate followers. However, the same easy reblogging that leads to this broad circulation comes with frustrations. Even if I update the original post with corrections or clarifications, the old version of the post often continues to circulate. Another difficulty is that not everyone sees the same conversation thread, so I often end up responding to the same concerns from a whole bunch of different people who aren’t seeing my response to others in different reblog branches.

There’s not that much to be done about this, but readers might want to keep in mind that what they see cross their dash is often not the latest version. You can usually find my latest updates by clicking through to the original post.

How you can help with limitations in existing analyses

I wish I could do more stats about understudied topics like race in fanworks using my methods, and I wish others were studying these topics more, too. Fortunately, my methods are not the only methods, and I am not the only one doing analyses. As one great example, if you are interested in how race factors into fandom demographics or into shipping, I strongly recommend @centrumlumina . They’ve done a demographics survey of 10K AO3 users and annual stats about the most common ships on AO3 (with hand-categorization of race).

There are many other great fandom stats folks as well (I’ve amassed an incomplete list). If none of us have answered the questions you are interested in, I encourage you to try to answer questions yourself! A lot of what I do is not actually very complicated (seriously, a lot of it is just doing a search on AO3 and writing down the number of results, or clicking on a tag and writing down the number of results) -- and there are some fan-made tools to help.

As one starting point, I recommend taking a look at the tools at fandomstats.org. I collaborated with @annathecrow and @esgibter to help fans do some types of quick stats -- right now only on AO3, but we welcome help broadening that! I’ve also written some tutorials on gathering data, and as part of my fandom stats posts I generally share my raw data, which you are free to use to dig into my work further/continue the effort.

Time permitting, I am also happy to answer questions and help you brainstorm how to do your own analyses.

What fandom stats can and can’t tell us

I don't think my fandom stats tell deep truths about fandom. They can provide some insights into some aspects of fanworks: what kinds of fanworks exist on different platforms; how fans are using metadata (tags, etc.); how reader/consumer response to fanworks; etc. But trying to figure out what exactly that data means, and why fans are producing/consuming the things they are, is beyond the scope of the numbers. So is determining the direction of cause and effect between variables that seem related (and ascertaining whether there are hidden underlying causes).

It’s additionally important to keep in mind that the results of fandom stats depend on the questions asked and the types of analyses done. There isn't any one right way to analyze data (there are sometimes bad ways to do it, but often several good ways). Different ways of looking at data tell you different things. Even a good analyst can only see part of the story, depending on what they think to ask, and how. My goals are to clearly explain my thought processes and methods in gathering data, doing analyses, and presenting the results -- in large part so other people can spot potential issues with my assumptions and methods. I always welcome suggestions for follow up work or clarifications, when people think there is more to the story.

A final point: I don’t ascribe any moral judgments to my fandom stats -- that is, I don't intend to imply any opinions about whether fans are doing good or bad things. You can form your own opinions from the numbers, or use them to support arguments. But I try to keep any opinions or judgments out of my stats posts (though I may sometimes share them in other meta).

The Toast agenda

I’m not setting out to prove anything when I do an analysis -- I’m motivated by curiosity (or sometimes a desire to help other fans answer questions or find rarer fanworks). I’m also never setting out to justify (or argue against) any fan behaviors. As I said above, I don’t think fandom stats data can answer questions like “Is it right/good for fans to do [X]?”

A few of my personal tenets regarding data and its role in discourse:

The answer to almost every interesting question about fandom (or any complex system) is “It’s complicated/nuanced, and the answer depends on the details of how you ask the question.” I try to explain my starting assumptions and to map out some of the complexity of the data, where I can. There’s always more to the story, though.

There are many reasons that groups of people do things. We shouldn’t ever look for just one reason. I don’t like questions like, “Is there so much fanfic written about white cis men because of bias in media or bias in fandom?” -- I don’t think it’s an either/or, nor are those the only possible factors. My own data gathering is not an attempt to support either side of such arguments.

For example, there are strong systemic biases in my society (US) based on race, gender, sexuality, class, size, ability, and other factors. This leads to, among other things, a lack of balanced representation in media, and a tendency to privilege certain kinds of storytelling narratives over others. Both media creators and fan creators (and fan consumers) exist in this same stew of biases, and we're all affected by them. This makes it unlikely that only one of these groups is responsible for phenomena like lack of representation in fanworks.

Data is good food for thought and discussion fodder, but can't tell us what to do.

It’s also the case that I have opinions about lots of things. Nobody is truly impartial. When I set out to gather data and test hypotheses, I try not to let my own beliefs or assumptions bias my conclusions, and I am often surprised by what I find in the data -- but it’s unavoidable that my own worldview influences the questions I think to ask and other factors in the analyses I do.

A few facts that may affect my methods, assumptions, and blind spots:

I’m white.

I’m a cis woman.

I’m queer, and I have identified as queer/bisexual for my entire adult life (~20 years).

I’m poly, and I have been in poly relationships for almost my entire adult life.

I live in the US.

I’ve always lived in suburbs or cities.

I’ve always been financially secure.

I’m not religious or spiritual.

I’m liberal to extremely liberal on most political issues.

I have academic background in science.

I work in tech.

As an adult, I’ve mostly been active in the Sherlock fandom, since 2013. I previously read some fanfic in the Harry Potter fandom in ~2005-2008. When I was a teen (mostly pre-internet), I was producing fanfic and fanart (for just me and my friends) in the Star Trek and Peter Gabriel/Genesis fandoms.

I write queer fiction of many stripes -- fanfic (mostly M/M and/or queer poly) and original (mostly F/F and/or queer poly). A lot of it is mature or explicit, and occasionally kinky.

I write het.

I write gen.

I’ve written RPF and self-insert stories.

I love a lot of problematic media. I’m happy both loving it and critiquing it.

I’m in favor of more people (and more diverse people) writing stories, and I’m fine with people writing any kind of fiction that they want to. I’m also in favor of having critical discussions about storytelling, and getting creators to think critically about the kinds of stories they are and are not contributing to the world.

Whew -- thanks for reading! :) Another fact about me is that I’m strongly in favor of self-examination and self-improvement. I’m always striving to do better, and I welcome feedback on my fandom stats, on these notes, or on anything else.

Edit: Thanks to @flourish and @fffinnagain for some insightful feedback on earlier drafts of some sections of this post. All errors and issues are mine!

#my stuff #fandom stats #toastystats #philosophy of data science #ish #FAQ #reference #50

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fly-pow-bye · 4 years

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I’ll put this huge wall of text under a read more, but I want to get this off my chest.

I will admit that this writing was inspired by something that recently happened on Twitter, though I did want to talk about this before. A well-known cartoon critic got called out on Twitter for being cruel to the crew of a reboot of a show by one of the writers. Said writer went on to talk about how they were harassed by the internet cartoon community, to the point where they considered “ending it all”. This is not overdramatic, as the actor who played Jar Jar Binks went through the same situation. Thankfully, they made up, but this led to me thinking about what I’ve been doing on this blog. I wasn’t called out, I never interacted with anyone in the crew online or offline, but my opinions are public and it is extremely likely at least one of them has seen what I have written.

Part of the reason why I considered doing reviews of this particular show was to see if the show was better than what people assumed it would be. Even before the show premiered, back when we were first getting news about how the voice actresses were being replaced and that the show was going to focus on “girl power”, people were ready to write this show off as a terrible, no-good show to be put in the same pile as Loonatics Unleashed, Yo Yogi, and the post-Q5-interference episodes of The Real Ghostbusters. Sure enough, I managed to find quite a few legitimately good episodes, and I ended up having a relatively positive outlook on the series than a lot of people did.

Even with that and knowing that writing more often leads to better writing skills, I should also aspire to grow as a person. A part of that is admitting when I was wrong. I have definitely crossed the line with a few aspects of my own reviews. Most of this is just from my inexperience with making fair points of criticism, and some of it is just because I grew up in a time where “Squidward torture porn” and “mean spirited” were both common phrases in internet cartoon reviews. I am sad to admit that I wasn’t above using the latter phrase in at least three of them, and I wouldn’t have used them now knowing how misused that phrase was.

Along with “mean spirited”, I should have realized that “the writers” is not something that should appear in a review for anything other than self-published books. Cartoons are a collaborative effort between writers, directors, storyboarders, executives, animators, and even the toy companies in certain cases. Every decision, from the way the characters act or dress to how long a hit flash should last, goes through so many people that blaming one group is just wrong. Everyone goes into a cartoon with good intentions, and they do their best with the circumstances around them. With 40 episode seasons, executives breathing down their backs, toy companies wanting to put the characters in costumes, it is easy to see why this show ended up the way it did. Why did I keep saying “the writers”? Because even with my lack of knowledge of how making a reboot of a cartoon show really works, I knew I couldn’t blame just one specific person.

As I have later regretted, there were times where I was specific. This was mostly early on, but there’s still elements of that in some of the later reviews. One of the worst times was where I ended a review noting that the next episode had the same storyboard duo, with the implication that, “oh, it’s by them, so it’s going to be bad.“ I was not even thinking of the feelings of that storyboard duo when I wrote that, and I will admit that was wrong of me to bring it up. Once I decided to do the WordPress re-uploads, that line got cut out, with an apology hidden in one of the image’s title texts. Even now, I feel like I should have been way more upfront with that, but ultimately I wish I would have thought about that when I wrote it in the first place. That wasn’t the only example, but that was one of the more egregious ones.

This is not to say that cartoon criticism in itself is bad, and it’s not that I regret ever opening this blog and reviewing episodes of this show. It’s just that there’s a difference between criticizing the show itself and taking it out on people who are just trying to do their best. I still want to improve myself day by day, and part of that improvement is admitting mistakes. There were some times that I have crossed the line, I will admit it, I do regret it, and I am sorry.

#fpb housekeeping #ppg 2016

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nasapeepoplier · 7 years

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Darkiplier vs Antisepticeye

I have read many comments and reactions to this video since it released. I thought I would put my own thoughts out there as well. I have to start off by saying that I adore both Mark and Sean. They seem like such wonderful people and the fact that they do so much for their subscribers and for others is truly admirable. I really enjoy everything these guys work so hard to put out there for us to watch. They deserve nothing but love and thanks for going above and beyond the “Let’s Plays” that their channels are known for.

I was really drawn in when Mark and Jack decided to do their dark, alter egos because I love horror and sci-fi. I have really enjoyed their videos involving these characters and was very excited to see them come together. I will be honest, I didn’t care for the involvement of the others in this one, it would have been much better if it were just the 2 of them. As the exchange got started, it set the mood and just as I really got into it... it cut away to other people that I don’t watch or even really know. But I love to see a good collaborative effort and to see people working together instead of tearing others down to further themselves.

I could tell that both Dark and Anti were a bit off their game. I’m guessing that this was a last minute decision and probably done quickly while Jack was in LA for only a short time, not to mention busy with other things. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for these 2 to stand in front of each other and play their role. While they are good friends and I’m sure have spent plenty of time together acting goofy, this is way different. If they had more time to work through the awkwardness and the giggles... it may have seemed more comfortable.

What I have seen pointed out the most was Anti didn’t have his gauges in his ears, and Dark was missing his tie and his suit was a mess. Taking the above, and this into consideration, I chose to let it play into the story rather than ruin the experience. We have all watched these characters come into play in their own unique way but separate from one another up to this point. For anyone that has watched something similar, 2 evil beings coming together usually results in a clash.

So here is how I let things play out for me...

Anti hears that Sean is making the trip to LA for other business. I can only assume that Anti and Dark are well aware of one other. He knew he had to find a way to make this trip, which likely means finding the perfect opportunity to tag along. With Sean being distracted by his other business and likely stressed, this was likely not terribly hard but still a risky move considering the travel. Maybe the gauges were left at home intentionally, he had to appear to be as normal as possible to avoid detection. Or maybe just a simple as they were forgotten since the focus was on making the trip. They also could have been left behind after making it to LA, when the opportunity to finally meet Darkiplier face to face presented itself, there was no time to waste, he had to just go.

That brings us to Dark, calm in LA enjoying some down time. Not expecting to hear from Anti at this point, if ever. Dark was likely caught off guard by Anti showing up, he never would have thought he would have the gall to challenge him this way. He hadn’t needed his freshly pressed suit for some time, it was likely in the closet starting to wrinkle and he had to dress in a hurry. You know how it is when someone you want to either impress or intimidate comes along, you want to look at your best but they get in your head which means things can be missed. After throwing on the suit, Dark is unable to find the tie. I can imagine Dark frantically searching which mumbling to himself looking for the tie. At this point, I assume he is quite irritated and you can probably hear the high pitched squeal... people are wondering what is causing the noise. It’s nowhere to be found... so he unbuttons his shirt, making the messy look seem intentional. His ego leads him to believe it will only play into his sex appeal. He figures he can use his calm demeanor and intoxicating way with words to keep the focus off of his absent tie and wrinkled suit. Anti clearly caught Dark off guard which created a bit of panic, this explains why Dark seemed to stumble with his words. Anti could pick up on this, and he found it hilarious, he could barely contain his excitement and keep from cackling during their interaction. I also think the other people interrupting the moment threw off the focus a bit. You could also see it another way, perhaps Dark was otherwise ... occupied at the time. Maybe his tie was currently in use when he was interrupted. If they meet again, I am almost certain it will be more of what we have come to expect from Dark and Anti as individuals.

All in all... I really loved the interaction between these guys. Even more, I loved the bloopers to see Mark and Sean interacting as well and completely cracking up with their friends because of their silly antics. I would love to see something like this happen again. But, unlike others, part of me doesn’t want to see these guys go head to head because I don’t want to pick a side, I would love to see them team up to accomplish their goal. Dark & Anti vs Mark and Sean, trying to take over. But I know that in the end, one would have to betray the other to take ultimate control... it would still be fun to see.

Don’t let the flaws ruin the experience for you. Both of these guys had said that a collab between Dark and Anti would likely not happen. They knew the community would love for it to happen so they did it.... they did that... for US! We all owe these guys a huge thanks and round of applause for making this happen. The entire team on both sides. Because we all know that the magic of Darkiplier and Antisepticeye is in the editing. So a huge thank you to Robin, Kathryn, Amy, Tyler, Ethan, and anyone else that may have been part of this. I don’t know how involved Wiishu is in brainstorming or creating but thanks to her for being so wonderfully supportive of what Sean does. Also thanks to all of the other YouTubers for coming together to create, that’s what they are all here to do. I would much rather see their love for their craft bring them together than to split them apart, it makes for much happier people. Thank you all for all that you do!

#markiplier #therealjacksepticeye #darkiplier #antisepticeye #darkiplier vs antisepticeye

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nadaelkoshairy · 7 years

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Freakish Greek Mythology Stories

Well, well, where to start with Greek mythologies? When you hear the word Greek gods and goddesses, I am certain your mind have just clicked that it’s most probably a topic about the wise, however it’s completely the exact opposite. It’s just a chaotic world, that pretty much needs a superior other god to just control this mess. However, they just managed and lived with.

Just as it comes to this part of the world, I get pretty sure I can find more than a whole community living up there on Mount Olympus maintaining the light, rain and sea, etc... Even history can’t compliment them with anything further than being called nutty by nature.

Even though, these bizarre stories have been as lessons for the Greek, I bet it has something fun revolving around it, because having an affair with a swan, protecting your baby in your thigh or mistaking your son for a plant are definitely not just lessons.

Last but not least, condoms would have solved most of their problems and saved a whole lot of innocent souls. And please, the gods should never try being funny. Thank you.

10. Zeus

While being the king of Gods on mount Olympus and the god of the sky and thunder, he has had so much fun using his status in the community of Gods. Zeus was the typical jerk who possibly made most of the female population hate guys and hold a grudge against them. Even though, we haven’t heard of him for a while now, but his stories have been revolving all around us ever since. Zeus does have a rank for the biggest assholes in the Greek history and most probably the first. He had a thing for cheating on Hera, with anyone and in sometimes could be anything.

And yes, you most probably guessed his story of the next lines. A typical cheating story, but of course with a “Zeusian” twist. Well, it started when he was allured with Leda, and to get to her he had this perfect most logical decision to shift into a swan. Even worse, she was actually lured to have an affair with a swan. Pretty Sure the only good thing we got out of this is blessing our world with Helen of troy.

9. Hera

Of course, Hera wasn’t any better than her husband was; both wackos were literally made just for each other. Also being the queen of Gods was much of a punishment for every creature in the universe. Although she had a knack for creativity more than her husband did, but anyways the devil is most probably clapping for her ever since. Hera has been throwing dozens of punishments on so many Greek women and of course thanks to Zeus for that.

Zeus as we all know was playing around a lot and it doesn’t matter what he would do to reach a women. Whenever he was having some fun, a nymph called “Echo” would have some nice talk with Hera for matters of distraction. However it wasn’t a good idea, because when Hera made the discovery she had that nymph voiceless, unless if it had to repeat someone’s last couple of words!

Pretty much, no one could get bored of Hera’s stories, saying another one can give you another laugh for next couple of hours. It always has been thanks to Zeus, this time Hera impregnates herself (because she’s an effing strong independent woman, let alone she’s actually a goddess.) Giving birth to Hephaestus and just throwing him off Mount Olympus because he had some deformities and she can do better. Bet some of them just wished they had condoms.

8. Athena

Well yes we have been just through the first two in the list and it’s almost like we’ve had enough, but nothing worse than starting a war for no…logical reason?

We see here, Athena the goddess of wisdom, craft and of course war, had some issues too. It was a normal beauty competition between her, Hera and Aphrodite and the judge was Zeus until he rejected and gave this choice for shepherd from Mount Ida called Paris. Unfortunately, this poor Paris was a judge between three goddesses with supernatural powers, who tried to bribe him. Choosing Aphrodite (not because she’s the fairest, but she promised him with Helen, so yeahh.) While he was promised with Helen, Aphrodite promised to start the Trojan War. Of course in collaboration with the other fellow maniac and partner in crime, Hera.

Maybe, Athena can have more than one story, too. Apparently, winning over one of the gods in anything is assumed as a sin. Because she had troubles with being first over everyone, otherwise you don’t have a place in this world. A normal lady called Arachne was an exceptional weaver as she got the talent perfectly. Nevertheless, as soon as Athena heard of that, there was instantly a competition to be set between both of them. And as winning over Athena isn’t the best thing to do, Arachne was transformed into a spider. Now she’s just weaving forever. Still better than you Athena.

No wonder they had to have their capital called Athens.

7. Ixion

Ixion was a just a pathetic guy until things got better and Zeus had some pity for the guy to the extent of taking him up in Mount Olympus. Shouldn’t have trusted your instincts, Zeus. Because as soon as Ixion was there along with this community, he had a thing for Hera. A bit bigger than just a thing. Zeus was doubting Ixion’s loyalty so he had to be put under a “Zeusian” test. He created a cloud looking just as Hera and left it for Ixion’s fantasies to become real. Not enough weirdness he was actually seduced by a cloud, but the cloud was impregnated with what we know today as a centaur.

6. Kronos

Out of all the gods, I truly believe Kronos is the biggest asshole, even topping over Zeus who is his son. But now we actually have an explanation for Zeus messed up life. It’s genetics.

This dude was obsessed with power as much as Zeus was obsessed with getting every women in Greece. However, Kronos was a typical-god freak with anyone who would try to surpass him and his power. For that reason, he just had to kill all his children and end their lives. How he killed his children? He ate them all, except Zeus who was lucky enough. However, I am sure, the whole woman population would have been very grateful if Zeus was another delicious feast for his father.

Don’t forget, Kronos castrated his father. For the same exact reason.

5. Apollo

Before we start this story, we shall give a round of applause for Apollo taking the prize for the smartest way to escape an island. Apparently, his only solution was shifting himself into a dolphin. Yes, just as you read it and weird enough, it worked. Escaping 101.

He was left to grow up on an island, which somehow can never leave it and almost just stuck there for the rest of his life alone. Until this plan just clicked in his brain and he decided to embark on an adventure of his own. Because being a dolphin is so badass, he just had to discover his way. However, while on the way he found a ship that was having some hard time in a storm, so as a typical dolphin he jumps in a helps this ship to find somewhere safe. All while being a dolphin. Ehm... Apollo Dolphin, I mean.

4. Tantalus

Honestly, this guy was just trying to have some fun and might as well entertain Demeter who was really sad for her kid was kidnapped. And we also may call it gods’ humor, because that was never a lesson for anyone.

He was having a feast for god buddies and fellows. A barbecue actually (Yup, barbecues are a pretty old thing now.) Tantalus, being a funny guy just decided to barbecue his own son and feed him for the guests (Well, maybe meat was a bit expensive for him, or the meat he had saved for this feast was just rotten so he had no other choice.) However, well gods can of course differentiate between human meat and red meat, so he was busted and left to die out of hunger and thirst.

3. Hercules

Definitely, not all of this community are assholes and jerks, you get to see a hero every once in a while. Also, while some heroes can have their jerk-moments, Hercules was one of the purest in this chaotic environment. He was always seen as a very strong and brave man who would rescue the people of Greece and help the gods in different missions. And when he died, he was instantly sent to Mount Olympus to live among the gods and goddesses.

The story here tells that there once was a giant called Antaeus who was thought to be immortal while having his feet touching the ground (Perks of having your mother Gaia as the Earth.) The said beast was just killing anyone who would go to challenge him, until Hercules discovered the mystery behind his immortality and it no longer became a mystery. How he killed him? Picked the beast of the ground until he drained the life out of him. Pretty easy.

2. Erysichthon

A very rich and greedy man of the name Erysichthon was never really one who fears the gods and pretty sure didn’t get anything of those lessons. Once upon a time, he just cuts pieces of the sacred trees, and may we put more than a million line under the word “sacred”. Of course, the gods had to take an action, and Demeter was the one in chare this time for what this rich guy did. And as creative all them gods were, Erysichthon’s punishment was to live hungry for eternity. He ate everything he had or bought, he almost sold his daughter for food (Lucky he didn’t eat her.)

At the end, he just ate himself to his death.

1. Minos

Minos was just another man with no super powers like gods, but he was the king of Crete, which gave some sort of power, of course. And as normal as its getting, and we are acquainted now to the Greeks’ weird mythologies, Minos just had a whole lot of bad deeds and intentions.

He had some help from the King of Megara’s daughter by tricking her, to kill her father. But then, Minos decided that the best way to say thank you is to actually punish her for the crime by drowning the girl.

#Greek #greek mythology #ancient greece #ancient greek mythology #Zeus is the biggest asshole #and his wife too #pretty much all of them #gods and goddesses #greek gods and goddesses #greek myths #myths and legends #myths

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ourmrmel · 5 years

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Mel Feller MPA, MHR, illustrates Building an Accountability Structure in Business

Mel is the President/Founder of Mel Feller Seminars with Coaching for Success 360, Inc. and Mel Feller Coaching. Mel Feller is an Innovator and Business Leader. Mel Feller currently maintains an office in Texas. Mel is currently an MBA Candidate.

Building a culture of accountability within an organization is a key element to making a business sustainable over a long period. Not surprisingly, all high-performing organizations are moving toward more empowerment, enlightenment and creating a culture of accountability.

So what is accountability? To some, it is something you make people do, as in “making people accountable.” However, as long as you think accountability can be purchased, mandated, or motivated, you are trapped in trying to create high accountability in a low-accountability culture.

So let us consider what accountability is, and how we can create an organizational culture that encourages it.

By definition, accountability is being answerable or responsible for something. Accountability opens the door to ownership – not necessarily financial ownership, but certainly emotional ownership, where someone acknowledges they are responsible for some aspect of the organization.

Accountability is not something you “make” people do – it has to be chosen or accepted by people within your organization. People must “buy into” being accountable and responsible. For many, this is a new, unfamiliar way to work. Most importantly: individual purpose and meaning come from assuming responsibility and accepting accountability.

With accountability comes a measure of discipline. Accountability is the opposite of permissiveness. Holding people accountable is really about the distribution of power and choice. When people have more choice, they are more responsible. When they become more responsible, they can have more freedom. That is what building a culture of accountability is all about.

So, how do you build a culture of accountability?

First, you stop doing things that undermine accountability—stop overseeing, legislating and micromanaging. Realize the power of reflective questioning, conversations, and collaborations.

Companies that can clearly identify, articulate, and execute their strategic goals are well positioned to be able to create a culture of accountability. In order to effectively achieve these goals, companies must measure and manage actual business performance against these goals in a highly coordinated manner.

A six-step framework to build a culture of accountability is to:

1. Decide what’s Important (develop an authentic mission, vision, values, strategic position)

2. Set Goals That Lead (planning that includes measures, targets, projects)

3. Align Systems (streamline processes and resources so everything supports the goals)

4. Execute the Plan (each employee’s plans and activities support the goals)

5. Solve Problems innovatively (get to root causes quicker, make more informed decisions)

6. Develop Leadership (step back, assess results, develop leadership from within)

Building a culture of accountability requires not only a framework or a systematic methodology based on proven best practices. It also requires technologies that make the framework practical to use and implement on a daily, weekly, monthly quarterly and annual basis. In addition, it takes an outside coach or strategic advisor to help you along the way to make it “stick” – to make it last. Finally, it takes an organization that is ready and able to accept accountability, the ownership and the freedom that comes with the new responsibility mindset.

One thing I have learned (the hard way) from founding a rapidly growing company is without ownership and accountability you literally cannot grow your business. In fact, without employee ownership and accountability, your business is dying.

Ownership offers the freedom for employees to deliver results. It is about them taking initiative and responsibility for their work. Where there is an opportunity to take initiative or bring ideas forward, it happens. Best of all, employees that rate high on taking ownership think like leaders.

Accountability is the other side of ownership. It is about following through and delivering on everything you own. True accountability is key, because there is an exponential impact (a detrimental one) to a team when one person cannot make timelines or complete work as expected.

When a team exhibits both ownership and accountability, a high-trust environment is created, and you will see the makings of a high-performance team.

Not only does ownership and accountability create higher performance, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management also indicates it results in improved competency, commitment to work, increased employee morale and work satisfaction. It is also known to improve creativity and innovation because employees are more invested in the organization’s future.

However, according to AMA Enterprise, there is significant lack of accountability on the part of employees. In fact, 21 percent of respondents stated that unaccountable employees make up 30 to 50 percent of their workforce.

How to Create a Culture of Accountability and Ownership

Clearly, accountability and ownership are important. So, what can leaders do to create a culture of accountability that influences employees to take responsibility over their work? Here are five ways to instill a culture of accountability:

Make ownership and accountability a lived value.

Do not just ask yourself how you can get accountability and ownership in the workplace — make employees live it! Living values and communicating values are very different. I have found that the easiest way to embed these as values in your team is to start with goals and metrics.

Provide everyone on your team with their own meaningful goals and measurable metrics that align with the company’s. Clear goals drive many important behaviors, including accountability. Without good measurable goals and clear timelines, it is almost impossible to effectively enforce accountability.

Another important aspect of good goals is how the help define what does not get focus. Often accountability suffers when too many commitments get made. Goals need to be achievable and priorities must always align with these goals. This allows employees to prioritize their work easily, for example, “Which task contributes to my goals?” Objectives and key results (OKRs) allow us to focus on our priorities, create clarity and accountability.

Draw a box and let the employee own what goes on inside it.

Similar to commander’s intent, establish expectations by defining what the end goal is and the results you are looking to achieve. Highlight these goals to your employees, without prescribing how to achieve them.

Demonstrate that you trust employees by allowing them to figure out the course on their own. If you instill trust in them to get it done, you will empower them to succeed and take responsibility over the outcome.

They will also find the work more rewarding, which contributes to their taking ownership over tasks. Goal-oriented employees are comfortable working autonomously and require little oversight from manager and leaders. This leads us to the next point:

There is no such thing as half delegating.

Micromanaging leads to resentment, stifles initiative and makes employees feel like a simple cog in someone else’s wheel. The compulsion for you to micromanage results from a lack of trust in employees, teaching them that they should seek constant guidance and check-in often, even when they feel like they are on track. It is also very difficult to take ownership over someone else’s playbook.

Give your employees an opportunity to problem-solve on their own rather than doing it for them. Productive employees are high performing because they are proactive about identifying and solving problems.

Explain why their box even exists in the first place.

Do your employees understand how their work contributes to the organization’s success? When leaders were asked this question as part of the 2013 study by AMA Enterprise, the results were staggering. More than half of the leaders questioned said that only 49 percent of employees fully understand the extent that their responsibilities contribute to the organization’s success.

Remember that box you drew for your employee? If you do not connect it to organizational success, an employee does not get a clear picture of the purpose of their job. Communicating how they directly cascade towards the organization’s future success gives employees not only a sense of meaning and impact but also information that will allow them to improve the organization.

This goes beyond the metrics and outputs and into the “why” of the organization and team.

Become an active listener and let them make their box better.

If employees are taking ownership of their work, it is your job to help them do a better job, faster. You become their coach, not their manager.

Creating a company culture that encourages employees to express themselves and share ideas with you is not easy, but listening is the first step. Listening shows that their opinions matter to the business. Let them propose a plan to you, and work with them, if needed, to make it happen. Active listening also means explaining to the core when something is a “yes,” versus “no,” versus “a not now.”

Workplace accountability and taking ownership is all about acknowledging what is on the line for your team and using it to motivate employees to achieve their goals. It is a simple, human-based and very effective approach to avoid organizational mistakes and to improve overall performance.

Accountability and organizational change come through a new set of conversations. You can start having these conversations in your organization. Do not wait - start today!

Mel Feller, MPA, MHR, is a well-known real estate, business consultant, personal development consultant and speaker, specializing in performance, productivity, and profits. Mel is the President/Founder of Mel Feller Seminars with Coaching for Success 360, Inc. and Mel Feller Coaching, a real estate and business specific coaching company. His three books for real estate professionals are systems on how to become an exceptional sales performer. His four books in Business and Government Grants are ways to leverage and increase your business Success in both time and money! His book on Personal Development “Lies that Will Sabotage Your Success”. Mel Feller is in Texas.

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nehapatel64 · 7 years

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Devakshi’s Guide to Friendship

Devakshi have one of the most realistic of stories because it progressed from hatred to cordiality and sprung forth from a deep rooted friendship. This friendship is what helped them flourish in their dating days, and the regression of this component is what killed them in the end. Throughout their marriage, Devakshi worked so hard on being husband, wife and DIL, that they forgot how to be friends. Years later, we are again seeing bittersweet cordiality sprout into the beginnings of a friendship. Here are a few lessons Devakshi taught us about friendship followed by an analysis on what they had lost as spouses and are regaining again.

1. Given the right circumstances, even the dearest people who you trust the most can fail you. Not because they started loving you less but because something along the cores of friendship (communication, patience, understanding), started faltering.

2. It’s never too late to apologize or to forgive. Don’t regret the lost time. Make up for it. Forgiveness may take time and won’t be complete immediately, but with baby steps, it can happen.

3. Some people are more prone to forgiveness and less prone to long-lasting anger than others. People need their time and space, but only communication can eventually revive what was lost. In this case, Dev is far more optimistic and eager than Sona for full recovery of the “good old days”.

4. Mistakes, though some worse than others, are never one-sided. The quicker you can accept this, the easier it will be.

5. Love is not unconditional- friendship is. It’s friendship that makes you respect a person at all costs and friendship only that gives you the right to kick someone to reality AND help them back up.

6. Friendship is the foundation of all great relationships. Making friends may come easy for some, but staying friends is a true attestation to love. Never forget to cherish that above anything else.

“LOVE IS FRIENDSHIP THAT HAS CAUGHT ON FIRE...

Every love story incorporates a deep friendship, but not all friendship is necessarily romantic. In the last three episodes, we saw Dev’s misunderstanding about Jatin clear up and a bond of friendship reforming between Dev and Sona. Upon seeing Jatin and Sona’s bond, Dev did perceive Jatin as a friendship that had amplified to something more. As much as he tried to believe Sona (and boy did he try to believe her), overhearing two shady conversation and seeing Jatin and Sona together at Devakshi’s favorite date place tipped him over the edge. The first of 3 episodes started with a drunk Dev saying “Ms. Sonakshi Bose. Tum yehi thi. aur yehi ban ke rehna chahti thi”Aur aaj ke baad to Ms. Sonakshi Bose ban ke hi rahogi.” De is implying that Sona was inherently inclined to break her relationship with Dev, and to break relationships in general. In the next second, Dev had a repeat self-realization that he has no right or reason to think she shouldn’t move on or there was something between them left to mend. As expected, Dev at this point decided he is never going to try to win her back, as if he is convincing himself to move on.

Jatin was circumstantially dragged into this mess and stayed there as Sona’s guardian and best friend. When he showed up with the police, Dev did a double take , as if he was gauging whether he should be upset that Jatin is helping Sona or thankful that he did so much for his family. To be honest, I thought it would take time for Dev to believe that Jatin and Sona weren’t together. But Sona had proved her trustworthiness at various points before Khatri’s arrest that he was ready to keep and open mind when listening about her and Jatin’s collaboration.

IT IS MUTUAL CONFIDENCE....

As friends, Devakshi had a confidence in each other’s judgement, strength and kind heartedness. This included things as small as Dev calling Sona about taking sleeping pills or the way he took care of Sona during her accident. In fact, this was one of the biggest reasons they started falling in love with each other. Devakshi’s greatest asset as lovers was their confidence in each other’s love and the unhesitant promise to stay together forever. It wasn’t until after marriage that Dev and Sona stopped talking, understanding and listening. For Dev, explaining his intensity, his past and his family dynamics became an exhaustive task he barely tried to do. Sona, on the other hand, struggled to make Dev understand her intentions as a new married woman of the house and how her marriage to him can’t be separated from her marriage to his family. This became most prominent with the jhula track, where neither Sona understood how fast she was trying to change Dev nor Dev maintained the honesty required of a husband, and it only got worse from there. (This is where Asha aunty and my FAVORITE Dev and Ish hug come into play :) ). With worsening communication came decreased trust. Weakening of trust led to decreased confidence in each other and their promises. Dev and Sona had no doubt, that they really loved each other, even if that was the easiest bitter accusation to make 7 years later. If anything, they were disappointed with themselves and each other that they couldn’t maintain the promises or confidence in each other that had started brewing with their friendship. Seven years later, Dev and Sona started off showing off that they don’t need each other, trust each other, love each other and never did. However, Jatin and Khatri’s secret brought a turning point to both of their psyches that brought them to something resembling friendship. When Khatri asked Sona what Dev was to her, she confidently admitted that they have a relationship of maan, maryada and dosti. Even thought she hadn’t yet confronted a raging Dev since the fight, distance from Dev made the heart grow fonder, and Asha’s words on trusting brought a new epiphany and ray of hope for Sona. She wasn’t ready to love him again but became aware of the advantages of opening up to her friend and trusting him again.

Sona herself was wondering how she could get Dev to believe and react appropriately to Khatri’s and Jatin’s truth. In order to stop Dev from killing Khatri (as expected from him), Sona started by establishing her trust on him rather than asking him to trust her. “Maine zindagi main tujhse zyada kisi pe barosa nahi kiya”. The fact that she paused in completing this sentence showed it was something even she hadn’t fully accepted in a long time. But with Asha’s recent emphasis on trust, and Dev’s recent distrust, she subconsciously found the perfect point on which he could believe her. By not telling him how he should feel but rather showing her faith in him, Sona got Dev to calm down. Having Sona accidentally call Ishwari maa during her explanation yet again served a similar purpose. Dev started sensing how Sona had truly accepted his family’s problem as hers and how Sona still feels that emotional connect with the people who he knows had hurt her so much. From that point on, Dev became more prepared to verbalize his guilt and appreciation. Dev saw Sona standing with Khatri and couldn’t even dream that Sona would have come there just for his well being. This made Dev think she was involved in Khatri’s planning, and Jatin showing up could have also ended in something worse. However, all of these small moments collaboratively helped Dev be grateful to Sona and again cleared Dev’s doubt on Jatin’s role. Dev’s helplessness, guilt, fears, faults and regrets started coming out like uncontrollable word vomit post Khatri’s arrest, and he was once again taken aback when he saw Sona TRULY meant it when she said she trusted him. Dev was shocked seeing Sona consoling him and worrying about him, which forced him to recognize that his Sona, his best friend, was again at his side.

IT IS QUIET UNDERSTANDING...

A friend will joke with you confide in you and love you. But only a best friend has the patience, generosity and foresight to make you understand something about yourself better than you do and to tell you how they feel without needing to say much at all. In many cases, the body language ends up speaking louder than the words. There were several instances where Sona’s actions were more effective than all her explanations, but I’ll just discuss the best ones that come to mind.

As stated before, we saw Dev’s breakdown soon after Khatri’s exit. As soon as Khatri left, Dev assumed that his mom’s crime must be money related, as money was the one thing that the family could have been desperate enough for. That doesn’t mean that this is all there is to the crime, or that what Dev is assuming is actually true. Now coming to Dev’s assumption that Ishwari robbed a family. Immediately after it dawned on him that the crime could have been a robbery, Dev started describing the desperate situations of his old life. Dev understands the plight of a poor person, and can see Ishwari’s act from that angle. Furthermore, it is an initial instinct to be in shock and denial when the mother you worshipped for so long may have potentially been involved in crime. Dev never once claimed this crime as okay. Rather, he emphasized just that he wishes he could have done something to prevent it. Dev has always been selfless. Even when he has hurt people, it’s because he didn’t know how to find a permanent balance between all the people he loved. In trying not to break hearts, he broke several. It’s this trait that makes Dev reprimand his 10-year-old self for not being the man of the house and made him confess to Sonakshi that he was unable to fulfill whatever little she had demanded of him. Sonakshi tried to reason with Dev regarding all his issues, but Dev only wiped his tears once she grabbed his arm and said, “It’s fine. It’s ok.” All of Sona’s previous words, though true, sounded like justifications to what Dev considered his faults. But when she grabbed his arm and said nothing but “It’s ok”, the cloud seemed to have lifted for now. It was as if Dev didn’t need someone telling him where he was right but a best friend who would patiently stand by him even when he was wrong.

Dev started outwardly expressing this comfort by subtly holding her hands a few time. Eventually, his emotions took over, and Dev couldn’t resist wrapping Sona in a bear hug. He thanked her not only for helping with Khatri but for coming back as the best friend he has needed for years. Golu was the closest to this kind of support Dev has ever had, but neither he nor Sona, could calm his heart’s turmoil like Sona did. Sona, on the other hand, only half hugged Dev. She was not fully ready to allow Dev into her bubble but knew how much he needed that at the time.

We see Dev’s second breakdown when he thought about how unaware he was about the inner guilt that Ishwari had suffered through by herself. Ishwari’s secret lends to why she was so overprotective of her children, and potentially to why she had such a paranoia of Dev leaving her or no longer loving her. Dev is now realizing that this aspect of Ishwari’s behavior runs far deeper than basic insecurity and is feeling guilty that this was something he could never tune into or relieve. When Sona walks into the room, she immediately recognizes that Dev needed to release all of his emotions and for now just needed a shoulder to cry on. Therefore, she initially sat there with a hand on Dev’s shoulder while he continued his conversation with himself. We see Sona’s squeezes Dev’s shoulder even harder when he says he was a bad husband, as if to non-verbally assure him that neither was his love meaningless nor was her hatred for him real. Sona served as his silent shoulder to lean on until Dev had run out of things to say.

Devakshi had their first light-hearted conversation as friends after the anniversary celebrations. Here we saw how Dev approached Sonakshi so carefully and started opening up upon seeing her smiling phase and receptive mood. Dev became so hopeful that he leaned in for a hug when Sona was only willing to to give a handshake. While this did lend to a humorous moment, we also saw the most understanding exchange between the friends, which happened just by picking up on each other’s indirect cues. When Sona silently offered her hand, Dev immediately admitted that it will take time for them to open up, but they will start to understand each other more with time. When Dev was unable to let go of her hand, Sona picked up that he didn’t actually want her to go and actually gave him a few chances to hold her back.

This ability to understand what the other needed or wanted better than he/she could was something Devakshi possessed prior to their marriage and started dying in their relationship. The scene that immediately came to my mind was when Dev quite literally asked Sona to understand his heart’s desires, which was something he knew even he couldn’t do. In comparison to this, Devakhi’s marriage showed increasing disconnect between the two in which even things said directly went insanely misunderstood or ignored.

SHARNG AND FORGIVING ...

Devakshi have again reached a point where they take time to reflect on things that happen in their lives. They have reached a point where they can at least share their feelings, if not forget about them, and show each other a mirror where it’s most required. I love how Sona was able to compare Dev to Ishwari without a single ounce of bitterness. Instead, Sona took it as a moment to show Dev that he is doing to himself exactly what he regrets Ishwari doing: keeping all her pain contained and releasing it in an unwise way when he can’t take it anymore. To this extent, we can say Sona has forgiven Dev. She is not ready to forget and make the same mistakes again, but she is able to talk about the people who hurt her the most in a way that will help them the most. She was always able to identify Dev’s flaws, but after 7 years is attempting to at least understand what she can’t fully justify.

Even Dev, who was keen on calling Sona the obodro that left him, had huge moments of self reflection he was able to confess. When Devakshi were at the farmhouse, he admitted he was the reason that Sona had become an obodhro, and that she used to be the girl who laughed at his stupidest jokes.

We see in the conversation after the anniversary, that Devakshi aren’t just opening up about their problems but actually taking time to enjoy each other’s company. Sonakshi is sitting here laughing at Dev’s stupid joke when, not even hours before, he was regretting that he changed her from the woman who laughed at his stupidest jokes to an obodro. Dev is almost more hopeful for full recovery of "the good old days”, and Sona is more hesitant. He doesn’t take long to ease into making jokes and friendly conversation once she welcomingly smiles and gives him the green light. By the end of the conversation, he’s even prepared for a friendly hug that she, albeit politely, declines.

It seemed throughout their entire marriage, Devakshi grabbed at the small happy moments they could to flow through the whirlwind called life. Devakshi stopped appreciating each other’s presence and stopped reflecting on those happier moments. Positive vibes became a needle in the haystack that they struggled to find and had no moment to cherish before the next problem arose.

IT IS LOYALTY THROUGH GOOD AND BAD TIMES...

Trust and loyalty are two components that require all the previously mentioned characteristics. When the understanding goes down, the confidence in each other decreases as well. When the confidence in someone decreases, it’s hard to trust them, and lack of trust makes loyalty all the more difficult. We aren’t talking just about a dying love or an extramarital affair. There was nothing in Devakshi’s relationship suggesting they loved each other less or really had plans to move on. Even though the circumstances for the break up had been building for eons, the intention was there to be with each other through everything. Devakshi stopped trusting each other’s ability to be there with each other against all odds. That’s why by the end, when Vicky put the blame on Dev for the prenup and losing Bose house, Sona believed it. As much as Dev had tried to balance his life, he had failed to do it and failed to realize that he had failed. At this point in time, Sona had reached the maximum point of her tolerance and was willing to believe that Dev could do anything of any caliber (even hurt her) for his family. Dev, who was still ether oblivious or in subconscious denial of his faults or his family’s faults, trusted his log-changing, superhero woman to be by his side through all difficulties. He didn’t think there was any problem so big that they, especially she, couldn’t handle.

Eight years later, Dev is standing outside of the farmhouse admitting that he had failed as a husband and couldn’t provide Sona with what little support required through good and bad times. He is questioning why she is still there standing by his side when he couldn’t do the same and realizing on surface level, where he went wrong in their relationship and where he has gone wrong since they reunited years later. On the other hand, Sona voices that “Ek problem kya aa gayi, aur maine haar mani.” I’m sure many of us raised our eyebrows at how Sona reduced their marriage to one problem. However, the idea of that statement was that she was recognizing from what angle Dev would say that she left him too. Both had made promises they couldn’t keep. The main difference is, while Dev’s was a gradual downfall, Sona’s tolerance started declining exponentially. The Dev who had broken down his hard shell for this woman became so soft, he couldn’t handle the necessary struggles. The woman who found a best friend in her enemy and considered him her first and last love even when she was losing him to Natasha, couldn’t stand up to the promise she made once she had him. Now, Sona is able to be that person again, and Dev is able to recognize and appreciate that.

At the end of this anniversary day, Dev is laying awake in bed, worrying about all of his new revelations. Conversely, Sona is unable to sleep while thinking specifically about him. She was there to hold his hand and wipe his tears. In some time, we should be seeing Dev do the same.

IT SETTLES FOR LESS THAN PERFECTION AND MAKES ALLOWANCES FOR HUMAN WEAKNESSES.”

Some of my favorite scenes of all time have been when Dev or Sona are sitting below and against the other. These scenes are always full of impromptu calming motions such as holding hands, caressing the face and playing with fingers. Furthermore, seeing one kneel before the other amplifies the helplessness of the tormented person and portrays how they are with each other through their ugliest cries and weakest moments. Sona loved Dev even more when he was able to show her his weak side. Dev loved Sona even more for accepting it wholeheartedly. The first time we saw this was during Neha’s wedding. As a boyfriend, Dev had plans to keep his pain within and not worry his girlfriend, But he immediately broke down when she reminded him that she will always be a friend first. This was followed by a very appreciative and intimate “thank you” by Dev the next morning. In this instance, and in Dev ki Deewangi, Dev poured out his woes as non-stop tears. In both instances, Sona worried for him from within but stayed strong and practical to (quite literally) help him get back up on his feet.

We never saw such effective release of emotion through Devakshi’s entire marriage. When they said something, they fought about it. When they had a breakdown, it was more accusatory and usually resulted in the other person denying it or the hurt person forgetting it. The most recent example was just prior to Devkashi’s break up, we saw Sona’s least effective breakthrough of all time, She yelled her heart out, only for him to divert from the main point. They forgot it all in the heat of a romantic night, and it only became worse when Sona jumped up with joy at the thought of seeing Ishwari the morning after.

Today, Sona is kneeling before Dev. We have seen in the past that the one having the roughest breakdown is the one usually on the ground. But this time, Sona came and kneeled down in front of him. That’s when I realized it’s not the person having the breakdown who is always on the ground. It’s the person who is ready to have all the emotions (whoever’s emotions they may be) come pouring out. Dev was stressed, but stoic. Sona showed up to hold his hand, comfort him and make him accept what was still bothering him. With her help, Dev was able to reason through the fact that Ishari’s past may have tarnished the hard work Dev put into this family but does not define it. By talking to Sona, he realized it’s time to stop blaming himself for not being able to prevent Ishwari’s guilt, and that the only way she would be able to absolve from any sins or guilt is the face the problem up front. As Sona always used to, she provoked Dev to release his deepest worries and used this knowledge to strengthen him rather than judge him or his family.

#krpkab #kuch rang pyar ke aise bhi #devakshi

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nathanbuhl-blog · 7 years

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“Aint Nobody Got Time!”

Being a teacher or administrator is tough. If you haven’t experienced it, there really is no way to truly understand the challenges faced everyday. A few years ago, I was at a conference and I overheard a group of educators “venting” their frustrations about how much was on their plates. As they were talking, the common phrase kept coming up...over and over and over again...”Aint Nobody Got Time for That!” While the grammar isn’t exactly the best, the point being made was very clear--the teachers felt overwhelmed, pressured, and stressed about what they were “supposed” to do, or for that matter, what they perceived they were “supposed” to do.

The reality of it is there has always been and there always will be feelings of overload as educators grapple with the various challenges and expectations they are dealt with each school year. So with that being said, I don’t have a “silver bullet” that will make this go away, but here are a couple of tips that I hope you might consider and offer encouragement to you.

1. Stay focused on the “Why”

Why are you an educator? For what reason did you become a teacher in the first place? I’m under the assumption that it wasn’t to be really good at filling out paperwork, completing beautiful lesson plans, having flawless parent teacher conferences, attending what seems to be at times meaningless meetings, and becoming the wizard at data analysis. On the contrary, I would assume that the main reason you entered the profession was because you enjoy working with children, you desired a career that would make a difference, and you knew that teaching was something that you were “called” to do. With all of the additional tasks and responsibilities that consume much of your time, thinking about the “Why” brings you back to why you entered the profession in the first place.

2. Control what you can Control.

It is easy to think of all the barriers you are dealt with everyday. Students come to you from all sorts of backgrounds, demographics, and walks of life. In public education, we take them all and welcome them with open arms. There are numerous external factors that are simply outside of your control--policies, initiatives, programs, and circumstances that can easily frustrate you and overwhelm you. Think about and act upon those factors that you can control, those areas where you can make a difference and have an impact. Being prepared, delivering high quality instruction, communicating with stakeholders, working collaboratively with your colleagues, and fostering a positive and nurturing learning environment are all under your sphere of control.

3. Stick Together.

Get out of silos and work in circles with your colleagues. The profession is simply too difficult to do on your own. Be deliberate in meeting consistently with other teachers sharing best practices, problem-solving together, offering each other encouragement, and building each other up. Simple words of encouragement and kindness go a long ways--be intentional about sticking together!

4. Less Sometimes is More.

It amazes me how many initiatives and programs we have in schools. One week we are focused on technology and the next week we are talking about differentiation. We attend one meeting on Curriculum Standards and the next meeting on student discipline procedures. Write down a list of all the initiatives and/or strategies you and your team are focused on. From the list, pull out 2-3 strategies that serve as anchor strategies that you will commit to doing. More often then not, you will find that working on two or three and sticking with them will elevate all of the other areas where improvement is expected. For example, if you are working on differentiating instruction, by default you will be looking at standards, knowing student needs (data), using technology to address student needs, and structure lessons that are highly engaging and impactful which consequently will lower behavioral issues in the classroom. If you looked at all of these separately, you can see how quickly you can feel overwhelmed. Less sometimes is more!

5. Find Balance.

Take care of yourself. Period. Choose to go home at a decent time. Choose to spend time with your family. Choose to carve out space for a hobby or passion. Prioritize and plan increments of rest and relaxation. A rested you is a better you. We so easily get bogged down into the misconception that rest is not necessary and that doing so will be detrimental to my career. I know this is easier said than done, but proactively reflecting and planning ways to take care of yourself are critical to eliminating stress and feeling overwhelmed.

So..when you find yourself saying, “Aint Nobody Got Time for That!”, I hope that at least one of these tips will help you along the way.

This is a blog I will be sharing on a weekly basis. I plan to run through the alphabet (A-Z) with the hope of providing educators encouragement, motivation, inspiration, and practical tips to help you on your journey.

Respectfully,

Nathan Buhl, Ed.D. Chief Academic Officer, FocalPointK12, Inc.

FocalPointK12 enables a scientific approach to improve student academic achievement. We empower school districts with tools that enable research based practices leveraging technology to help support 21st Century Learning environments. To learn more, please visit us at www.focalpointk12.com or feel free to email me at [email protected]

#edtech #education #teachers #plcs #datadriven #K12 #schoolculture

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riichardwilson · 4 years

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How To Create A Compelling Landing Page

About The Author

Paul is a leader in conversion rate optimisation and user experience design thinking. He has over 25 years experience working with clients such as Doctors … More about Paul …

Creating a compelling landing page involves a combination of clear focus, persuasive copy, considered design and relentless testing. Without all four your page will fail.

If you want more leads or increased sales, you need compelling landing pages. According to Hubspot, those companies with over 30 landing pages, will generate seven times more leads than those with fewer than 10.

A landing page is a standalone webpage created to support a specific marketing agency campaign or targeting a particular search term. They are where users “land” when they click a link in search results, email or an ad.

Typically they encourage users to complete a specific call to action such as making a purchase, subscribing to a newsletter or getting in touch.

So how do we create landing pages that encourage users to act, without resorting to manipulative techniques or dark patterns? The answer lies in a combination of a clear focus, compelling copy, considered design and relentless testing.

It is tempting to leap straight into creating your landing page. However, before we begin, we must have a clear focus, and that starts with defining our value proposition.

How do we encourage clicks without shady tricks? Meet Click, our new practical handbook on how to increase conversion and drive sales without alienating people along the way. By Paul Boag. May 2020.

Jump to the details ↬

Define Your Value Proposition

When a user arrives on your landing page, you have less than eight seconds to grab their attention. That means the first step in creating any compelling landing page is to understand what it is that the page will offer and how you can express that compellingly and concisely. That is typically known as a value proposition.

Start by writing a single sentence that communicates what it is you are offering to the user. This sentence should consist of two parts; what problem you are solving or benefit you provide, and how you achieve that.

For example, Skype’s value proposition is:

“Skype makes it easy to stay in touch. Talk. Chat. Collaborate.”

The first part outlines what benefit it provides, while the second explains how it delivers.

Skype’s value proposition outlines both the benefit they offer and how they deliver that. (Large preview)

However, be careful. It is easy for your value proposition to become meaningless. For example, talking about “best-in-class” or “friendly and approachable” is the kind of thing any company could, and does, say.

To avoid becoming too generic, ask yourself whether the opposite of what you have written would still be a valid option. For example, if your value statement reads:

“We offer high-quality products at an affordable price.”

The opposite would be ridiculous:

“We offer terrible quality products at an astronomic markup.”

So effectively, your value statement is stating the obvious!

However, by contrast, if you wrote:

“We offer handcrafted products for a discerning buyer.”

The opposite would be equally valid:

“We offer factory-produced products for the mass market.”

Not that your value proposition isn’t just limited to this one sentence. Make a list of all the benefits you provide to customers and then any features of your offering that allow you to deliver those benefits.

Pipedrive does a good job at backing up its benefits with a list of features. (Large preview)

With that done, you can turn your attention to your calls to action.

Identify Your Calls To Action

Every landing page needs obvious calls to action. That means you need to ask yourself, what is it you want users to do?

To keep your landing page focused and improve your chance of users acting, resist the urge to add too many calls to action. Asking people to follow you on social media, for example, is just going to distract them from completing your primary call to action.

That said, it is often wise to have a secondary call to action. If you have done your job right, your landing page will have convinced many users to take action. Nevertheless, others will not be ready.

Instead of just giving up on these users, it is often worth offering them a secondary call to action, that requires less of a commitment.

For example, if your primary call to action is to get in touch or make a purchase, your secondary call to action could ask people to signup for a newsletter.

To avoid this secondary call to action distracting, ensure it is not too prominent. That might mean showing it lower on the page or even as an exit-intent overlay. That said, be careful. Some audiences react extremely negatively to popups. They should, therefore, be used sparingly.

Although popups can be annoying, there is a case for showing a secondary call to action on exit-intent. (Large preview)

Finally, consider ways of incentivising people to complete the call to action. Perhaps you could offer a free ebook if people subscribe to your mailing list or a discount if they buy via your landing page. Sometimes, something this small can be a nudge that encourages people to take action now rather than put it off to another day.

Of course, a gift is not going to make any difference if other elements put people off. To address that you need to understand what the issues are and find a way to deal with them. That is known as objection handling.

Understand User Objections

What are the reasons that might stop somebody acting on your landing page? Is there a delivery charge or might they be worried about privacy? Do you seem expensive compared to the competition?

If you cannot easily write a list of objections that users might have then you need to do some user research to find out.

Don’t worry that it will be time consuming or expensive. A one-question survey on your landing page is all you need. If people go to leave your site without acting, you can ask them a single question:

“If you decided not to act today, it would be useful to know why.”

You can then show them a list of possible options for them to choose between or they can add their own.

A simple one question survey can uncover why users are not taking action. (Large preview)

Once you understand the reasons why people are not acting, you can then start to address them.

Ideally, that means eradicating the obstacle, such as offering free delivery or money-back guarantee. But failing that, you need to reassure people the best you can in your landing page copy. It is always better to address an objection than it is to ignore it.

For example, McDonald’s knows that many people claim their chicken comes from the less favorable parts of a bird. Instead of ignoring these concerns, they address them directly on their site.

McDonald’s are not afraid to address users concerns directly. (Large preview)

There is, however, one more consideration to take into account when dealing with user’s concerns. You need to make sure you address them at the right time and in the right way.

An excellent example of this is privacy and security. People don’t worry about these things when reading a privacy policy. They worry about it as they are about to submit their email address. That is why it is so important to address data protection and privacy while users are completing a form. Users are not going to search your site for the answers; they will simply assume the worst.

Closely associating reassurances regarding privacy with a newsletter sign up form often increases conversion. (Large preview)

With our offering laid out and objections addressed, we have done the hard work of appealing to people’s logical minds. Now it is time to give them that positive feeling.

Shape Your Personality

Much of our decision to act happens on a subconscious level. In fact, according to research published in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology, people form an initial impression about a site in 50 milliseconds. They go on to say that due to the halo effect these initial impressions last.

In other words, the branding and aesthetics of a site shape our impressions of the actual offering, despite there being no causal relationship between the two.

So what does all of this mean in practical terms? For a start, it goes to show how much aesthetics matter. However, more importantly, it means we need a clear picture of what first impressions we wish to convey and then be confident that our design does precisely that.

Decide On What You Want To Convey

A good starting point is to create a shortlist of words that convey the impressions you want users to have upon seeing your site.

There will be some words that will be universal. For example, you will probably want your landing page to convey “trustworthiness”. However, many of the terms will depend on your audience and offering.

Once you have your list of words and the designer has produced a design that they hope convey those words, the next step is to test.

Testing Your Design Aesthetics

If the designer has produced multiple approaches, then a simple preference test works well. For example, you can ask the user which of your designs do they consider to be more “approachable”.

A simple preference test is often the best way to find the best design aesthetic. (Large preview)

When there is only one design, you can run a semantic differential survey, in which you ask users to rate a website against your keywords. For example, is a design more “approachable” or “unapproachable”?

A survey can be used to ascertain whether a design is creating the right feeling in users. (Large preview)

Of course, aesthetics is not the only consideration when it comes to design. You also need to make sure your visual hierarchy is right too.

Create Your Visual Hierarchy

Establishing a strong visual hierarchy for your landing page will ensure that users see the right information at the right time and won’t be distracted by irrelevant or secondary content.

Answer The Right Questions At The Right Time

The first step is to ensure you are presenting the right information to the user are the right point on the page. To do that you need to understand the thought process that goes through people’s minds as they view your landing page.

Of course, we cannot be sure of that, as everybody is different. Even usability testing can only give us an indication. However, we can make an educated generalization.

Typically, a user subconsciously asks a series of questions when viewing a landing page. These are, in order:

What is this page offering? (Value Proposition)

How will that help me? (Benefits)

How does the offering work? (Features)

Why should I trust this page? (Social Proof)

What should I do next? (Call to Action)

It is, therefore, essential that any visual hierarchy for a page reflects the order a user asks these questions, at least to some degree.

For example, a typical landing page hierarchy might look something like this:

A landing page should combine your value proposition, benefits, features and social proof. (Large preview)

Getting the flow of your content on the page right is only half of the battle when it comes to creating a strong visual hierarchy. The second challenge is ensuring that users see the most critical screen elements.

We can draw attention to essential screen elements in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to:

Positioning

Colour

Size

Imagery

Animation

Negative space

However, probably the most effective technique is to minimize other distractions on a page.

Simplify Your Interface

To achieve this, consider adopting a three-step approach, where you systematically review every element on your landing page from the logo to the privacy policy link.

For each element, you will ask three questions in turn.

Have a robust process for simplifying your landing page. (Large preview)

Start by asking could I remove this element? If I removed it, what would the consequences be? Would those consequences be more damaging than the increase in cognitive load that additional screen elements create? If not, you are better removing it.

If you feel that the content is too valuable to the user or aids in conversion, the next question you need to ask is could I hide this element? Could I put it on a sub-page, under a tab or in an accordion?

Vibecast hide secondary content under an accordion. (Large preview)

This approach works well for secondary content, that although useful to some users who want more detail, is not something the majority of people will be interested in.

Finally, if you cannot hide content, because all users must know it, ask can I shrink this element? For example, people may well want to know about your return policy, but that isn’t as important as the features or benefits your product offers. It, therefore, makes sense to visually deemphasis it, so it is less prominent.

That simple approach together with other design techniques should enable you to create a page with a strong visual hierarchy that draws the user’s attention to the most crucial screen elements, such as calls to action. However, to be sure you should test.

Test Your Visual Hierarchy

Fortunately, there is a quick and inexpensive way of testing whether users see the essential screen elements. It is called a five-second test.

As the name implies, this test involves showing the users your design for five-seconds before taking it away. You then ask the user to recall what elements they remember.

Usability Hub makes running five-second tests easy. (Large preview)

By paying attention to what the user remembers and the order in which they recall elements, you will gain a better understanding of how effective your page hierarchy is in drawing attention to items that matter the most.

Indeed, when it comes to designing a great landing page, testing will be crucial, even once you launch.

Monitor, Iterate And Test

No team will create the optimal landing page on their first attempt. There is always room for improvement, which is why post-launch testing is such an essential part of shaping the most effective landing page possible.

Once you launch your new landing page, you must monitor it carefully using a session recorder like Hotjar or Fullstory. These tools allow you to watch user behaviour on your page, that should suggest ideas for improvements.

You can test smaller improvements to copy, imagery and color using A/B testing, while more significant changes can be prototyped and tested through usability testing.

Whatever approach you adopt, ultimately it will be a cycle of monitoring, iterating and testing that will ensure the long-term success of any landing page.

(ra, il)

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Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/how-to-create-a-compelling-landing-page/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/616077142747463680

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laurelkrugerr · 4 years