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ladyonfire28 · 4 years

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Came back from my little break for that new article ! Here is the translation of Adèle and Aïssa’s interview for Libération. It’s a very long, but very interesting one. So i recommend to read it. There may be a lot of incoherencies so please tell me if something doesn’t make sense !

Aïssa Maïga and Adèle Haenel : «Finally there’s something political happening»

They stood up together at the César and have since been striving to invent a common front against all forms of discrimination. For "Libération", actresses Adèle Haenel and Aïssa Maïga retrace the journey of generational awareness.

Some kind of symbol. A large mural, in tribute to George Floyd, a 46-year-old black American who died on 25 May when he was arrested by a white policeman, and to Adama Traoré, who died at the age of 24 on the floor of the "caserne de Persan" (Val-d'Oise) following an arrest in 2016, was painted at the beginning of the week on the façade of a building in the 10th arrondissement of Paris. Close by, the Adama Committee organized a press conference on Tuesday. Words, demands and the announcement of a new march to fight against police violence. It takes place this Saturday in the capital, from the Place de la République to the Place de l'Opéra. The organizers dream of seeing a huge crowd come together. This demonstration comes at the heart of a tense period. Young people are demanding answers and action, while many police officers feel that the Minister of the Interior is letting his troops down in the face of the scolding.

In the street, we will find associations, politicians and many people. Adèle Haenel and Aïssa Maïga will be there. Not a first. They were already present on June 2nd at the rally in front of the Paris high court. The actresses didn't really know each other before the last César ceremony, marked by the speech of one and the shattering departure of the other. Since then, they have never left each other. Both describe the moment as a "turning point". The fights converge.

When the idea of a cross-exchange came on the table to put words to their commitments, they did not hesitate. On Thursday, in a roadstead near Belleville, Adèle Haenel arrived first, followed by Aïssa Maïga. They are not of the same generation, the journeys and paths are different. The styles too. The one who got up at the announcement of the prize awarded to Polanski goes up and down, talks with her body. The one who, at the same ceremony, invited to count the black people in the room appears calmer, stays seated on her chair, speaks in a low voice. Adèle Haenel and Aïssa Maïga complement each other.

From where are you speaking?

Adèle Haenel: I speak from my personal political background, rooted in feminism, a background that is shaken by the worldwide movement around police violence and by the French movement around the Adama Committee. I would say that taking charge of my own history has given me the ability to deal with other broader issues that do not immediately affect me. I'm talking about a kind of political awakening. This desire to show my support for the families of the victims, for the political movement against racism and police violence in France, and for the actors who take a stand. I'm thinking of Omar Sy, Camélia Jordana and you, Aïssa.

Aïssa Maïga: This intersectional awakening evoked by Adèle is a place where I have been for a long time without necessarily being able to name it. For a long time, the racial question in cinema was so pervasive in my life that it cannibalized everything else. I felt that it was less difficult to be a woman, in a world that discriminates women, than it was to be a black woman. The work done by Afrofeminists in France and abroad put the words in my mouth that I didn't have because I didn't have that heritage. I am speaking from a place that is on the move and that is not made up of certainties, that is made of interrogations, especially about the fact that I can implement changes on my own scale. And I'm also speaking from a place that is purely civic and is tinged with various influences. I didn't grow up in a poor suburb, I didn't live in financial precariousness, I come from a rather intellectual middle class, it gave me certain tools, and yet I haven't escaped this very French thing, a soft racism, rarely seen but which is haunting... because it's omnipresent.

Why did you get involved with the Adama Committee?

A.M.: Because this is a fight for justice. It was Assa Traoré who came to meet me during the release of the collective book Noire n'est pas mon métier ("Black is not my job"). I knew her from afar, I knew her struggle, and she appeared. The support became obvious and it has really taken shape in the last few months. I was immediately impressed by this woman, her quiet strength, and this ability to forge a bond, to think of her family drama in political terms. Her voice matters. She's not just an icon: she allows a movement to emerge.

A.H.: For me, it's even more recent, I had to go through a problem that was going through me, that involved my body in discrimination in order to mingle with other injustices. I was listening to what Assa Traoré was saying and I was struck by her determination and intelligence. But it is only very recently that I also became physically aware that I could not fail to support this woman and the whole fight against police violence and racism, in the same way that I am taking up the fight for feminism and against sexual violence. I can't have it two-tiered.

On June 2nd, more than 20,000 people gathered in front of the High Court of Paris, at the request of the Adama Committee. An unprecedented turnout, with many young people, why?

A.M.: The Adama Committee saw very well the link between George Floyd's drama and their own. The death of Adama Traoré, choked under three gendarmes, was materialized before our eyes with the unbearable images of Floyd's death. The French youth who look at these images cannot fail to make the connection, it is obvious. There is also a form of accessible activism that is developing via social networks. Activists will involve others through simple, accessible sentences: if you are not a POC, you are still involved, it is your responsibility to listen and take an active part, at your level, in the fight for equality. There is also the idea that we need to establish a link between police violence, the racism that can be found in other social spaces, the issue of gender equality, the environment, and the urgency of dealing with these problems now. There is also a form of anxiety among young people: they are told that in fifty years' time there will be no more water. And finally the feeling of injustice, which is omnipresent and linked to the circulation of images on social networks. Police violence follows one after the other, and this creates an accumulation effect. It is not just a dogmatic political vision, but a reality that is lived or perceived as real.

A.H.: There is a turning point in the effectiveness of the movement as well. This feeling carried by Assa Traoré that we are powerful. It's not just ideas that go around the world, it's ideas that make the world happen. It gives hope and responsibility to a whole generation.

During Aïssa's speech at the Césars, in which she confronts the profession with the near-invisibility of actors, filmmakers and producers from French overseas territories and African and Asian immigrants in French cinema, you are in the room, Adèle. You don't know each other yet. Do you understand her speech immediately?

A.H.: It's obvious, but it's not immediate, it takes a little time to understand the extent of the racist mechanism when you, yourself, haven't been forced to see how it works. I was brought back to particular assignments, but not to this one. So it takes a long time before it becomes unbearable evidence. When Aïssa takes the floor, it's courageous because the room is very cold and it's making it even colder. I thought it was funny and I thought "finally, something political is happening".

Did you both understand that people find it violent to count black people in the room, and even that they might find it paradoxical to split the audience?

A.M.: Counting isn't splitting, it's measuring the gap between us and equality. When it comes to inequality, to be blind to color is to be blind to the social burdens that come from our history and the imagination that flows from it. I am fighting for art and culture to deconstruct racial fictions. In our field, cinema, there is a tendency to believe that when a few exceptions appear, the problem of racial discrimination is solved. I do not think that my presence, that of Omar Sy, Ladj Ly or Frédéric Chau, Leïla Bekhti, for example, however gifted they may be, exonerates French cinema from an examination of conscience. There is always an over-representation of people perceived as non-white in roles with negative connotations - and it's not me saying this, it's the CSA, through its diversity barometer. There are still too few opportunities for younger people, who today in 2020 deplore what I deplored when I was starting out. Still too few non-whites behind the camera and almost no one in decision-making positions. I started this job when I was 20 years old. I am 45. A generation, not a few exceptions, should have risen. It hasn't. And it's unbearable as a citizen, a mother and an artist.

At the César ceremony, I deliberately used a inflammable symbol. If we refuse to measure differences in access to opportunities in terms of racial discrimination, perhaps we are accepting the status quo. Today, we need concrete action by decision-makers and numerical targets in order to measure progress. A few personal successes, however brilliant they may be, cannot justify the violence of large-scale unequal treatment.

A.H.: The substance of what Aïssa said to the César is relevant, it speaks to the moment, and being shocking has the virtue of awakening. The criticisms that followed were "I agree but"... In fact, it means that even when the substance is right, the form is never the right one. It's a form of censorship, there are people who have the right to speak and others who don't.

A.M.: Allowing oneself to express anger head-on is taboo because we are actresses and we are supposed to preserve the desire that others project on us. And also because it highlights the precarious nature of this profession: are you able to overcome your fear, to express your opinion, with the risk of losing something?

A.H.: From my point of view, that of a white woman - forgive me for putting myself in this position, but it's still unfortunately an assignment - I see that when I spoke about what happened to me personally, I received a lot of support, especially from people who are not especially on our side. However, as soon as I spoke up, politically, to say that giving the prize to a rapist fleeing from justice was an insult, all of a sudden I was really overstepping what I was entitled to do, what I could interfere in...

Do you think there's a "white privilege"?

A.M.: Words are so tricky...

A.H.: When Virginie Despentes uses the term "white privilege", it's a bit related to Aïssa's gesture when she counts the black people in the room. It's a question of pointing out, by calling up words that should be those of the past, the gap between the evolution of universalist ideals and the facts of manifest exclusion at work. Provocation points out this flaw and invites us to close it.

Is there state racism?

A.M.: I don't know about "state" racism, it would have to be written into the laws to say that. The right word is systemic: it means that there is something that does not allow for real equality, something in the established rules that allows a small number of people to discriminate without being worried. What also raises the question is the inertia of the state in the face of the continuation of systemic inequalities.

From what you say, we are at a turning point in the struggle against racial, gender, social and other forms of discrimination...

A.M.: I felt the turning point in 2018 with #MeToo, Time's Up, and when I saw all these women from such diverse backgrounds (in the streets) after Trump's election. It was an image I had never seen before in my generation. It was in the United States, and yet something happened to me in France, because I had been dreaming of this convergence for a long time. I'm not here to defend my chapel. I'm not going to be satisfied with a breakthrough if blacks have more roles while Arabs and Asians are still in a degraded situation in French cinema. The convergence I'm talking about didn't quite take place at the time of #MeToo, which quickly became a white women's movement in my eyes. In French cinema, there is also the "50-50 for 2020" movement [collective for parity and inclusion founded in 2018, editor's note] that I saw coming like the guerrilla movement we had been waiting for for a long time, pragmatic, quick, positively impatient, very constructive. The work done in favor of parity is colossal. On the other hand, I regret that diversity is the next program. But it cannot be the next program for me, that is the mistake. I've talked about it very openly, and frankly in a fairly relaxed way with some of them.

A.H.: Much more relaxed than I was, by the way!

A.M.: And then I said to myself that the battles are progressing on different levels and that we're going to have to find some kind of alignment. The fight for women's rights is not just a women's issue, it's a men's issue, just as the fight against racism is not just about POC. And it wasn't until 2020 and the murder of George Floyd that there were those voices, especially white voices, that said, "This is my problem too." Including in France, where this awakening of consciousness is made possible by the work done by the families of victims of police violence.

A.H.: In my political journey so far, I had forgotten to understand the places where I am not just in a situation of domination. I am also, as a white woman who is not in a precarious position, in a dominant position in certain aspects. Understanding that, feeling that, is essential. My political agenda was focused on feminism, and I didn't realize that it was implicitly white feminism, unintentionally excluding. What Aïssa says seems fundamental to me: the agenda that would order one cause after another is not conceivable and leads to inertia. It leagues us against each other in identity issues that are sterile, since they reiterate the terms of oppression. This is a major issue in the effectiveness of political struggles: how can we mobilize without reiterating the categorization we are fighting against? This implies understanding that there is a deep articulation between all systems of domination and that there is a need to defend these causes in a cross-cutting manner.

Aïssa's speech on June 2nd, during the demonstration initiated by the Adama Committee, called for a fair, dignified and positive representation of minorities in the media. But who can judge what is dignified and fair? Only the ones who are affected ?

A.H.: Today, in France, female characters in films are implicitly white women: I have a much wider range of possible jobs than that offered to a black actress. But in my field of so-called universal women, very often, women are offered satellite roles around male characters. These roles take up what is considered to be the normal white female nature, of restraint and reification. What appears natural here is a cultural construction of identity that is done precisely through stories. This is one of the reasons why the political stakes of representations in the cinema are so important.

Is this a criterion for assessing or rejecting a work? What should be done with existing works that have been reassessed as problematic?

A.H.: Works must be recontextualized. They are not created out of nowhere, out of time. Let's question them! That doesn't mean that we stop watching them, but that we ask ourselves what their political substratum is and what they convey. Questioning representations is a sign of vitality. And that does not mean that we would no longer have the right to see these works.

A.M.: With this waltz of statues of slavery figures in the United States or in the French overseas departments at the moment, the citizens gives their answer. Either the work must be contextualized, in a museum or in a place with a historical explanatory note, or it must stand out.

Is it women, more willingly than men, who carry this convergence of fights ?

A.M.: I feel a change in the scale of our lives, a major turning point in the way we perceive each other and allow ourselves to hybridize in these battles. Regarding the massive presence of women from cinema in front of the High Court on June 2, I wonder. In particular about my own capacity to build bridges... while guaranteeing the visibility of the fights against discrimination against women or POC. How do we ensure that the fight against discrimination, for equality and equity, is as visible as the rest? I am not at all sure how to do this. But it has to be done. When, the day after the César, I received a text message from Adèle, even though we don't know each other, and she writes to me to say "I heard you. I'm here. Let's meet", it can be as simple as that.

Why did you send that text?

A.H.: Because of the solitude in this room. And the brave gesture of saying what she said on stage. We'd met the same evening and maybe I hadn't caught the moment, I was captivated by our own event... That is, what had happened after we'd, let's say..., gone to get our coats a bit earlier in the dressing room... (Aïssa Maïga laughs) And I thought, let's not forget the constructed gesture, the political intentionality of Aïssa in there. I wanted to get closer to her courage. So I think that we shouldn't talk about masculinity by saying "men", that we should consider masculinity as a field of organization of power with its own complexities, and its intersectional repercussions. I refer to Angela Davis' book, Women, Race & Class, on the issue of the difficult articulation between the civil rights movement in the United States and the emerging white feminist movements where there was a lot of racism. Why don't we think of ourselves as spontaneous and necessary allies between categories of discrimination, racial, social and gendered? We need to take the history of this division seriously in order to work on it and overcome it. As Assa Traoré does in an ultra-intelligent way when she says "Whatever your religion, your sexual orientation, wherever you come from, whatever your skin color". It is an invitation to self-criticism of our own movement. This is my discovery at the beginning of this year: the self-criticism of my history as a white feminist.

When you get up during the César, is it thoughtful or impulsive?

A.H.: This award was a claim to the right to do whatever you want as long as you are at the top. That is to say: rich white men who don't feel concerned when we talk about violence. What it means beyond sexual violence is that there are people to whom repressive laws do not apply. It's as if the police and the laws shouldn't act against them, but around them... And that's what you feel in that moment in the room. What happened on César night was a dissolution of the status quo. Now it's either you stay in the room or you don't stay in the room.

A.M.: And it was important to be there at the César, because I read a lot about boycotting that evening, but for me there was no question of backing out. A boycott is not just staying at home behind your television, not being there without anyone really noticing. It was important to say that the home of cinema is also our home, our space, our place of expression. We are in a position to speak out and for that to have the virtue of provoking discussion. When that person wins that award, it's the time of the turkey, where someone praises the rapist grandfather, when everyone knows. And you're breathless, you can't move, time becomes elastic, everything is extremely heavy, it's unreal. You enter another dimension. And the fact that a person manages to regain possession of time, to become master of their time and master of their body by standing up and saying no, it put oxygen back in, it woke us up. Adèle and I looked at each other two or three times during the evening, we knew we were together. There was something like a physical experience. We boarded the ship together.

We're spotting the allies.

A.M.: That's right. And time returned to normal when Adèle, Céline Sciamma and others, including me, got up. It was a coherent political gesture in which many people recognized themselves.

Do you think that your political positions, formalized at the César, can have an impact on your career?

A.M.: The question is how do you break a family secret? Festen is one of my favorite films. (Laughs) I wasn't born at the time of the 2020 César, it's the result of a personal journey and a legacy. Others before me have spoken, for example Luc Saint-Eloy and Calixthe Beyala on the same issues at the Césars in 2000. When Canal + and the César invited me to come and give an award, I said "yes, but I want complete freedom". Blowing up a family secret is a movement for self-liberation, it's an essential meeting with yourself. Choosing to be on the side of silence, of the status quo and therefore of injustices with full knowledge of the facts is something I was quite incapable of doing. The consequences for one's profession are not that one doesn't care, but spitting out what one has to say is a top priority. The question of what it is going to cost behind it is resolved by the feeling of freeing the word, provoking debate, making a generational contribution to the fight for equality, which in essence concerns us all. I have an appointment with myself around 60, 65, the age when my children will be about the same age as I am today. There is something about transmission. I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror. I don't want to tell myself that I haven't taken advantage of my little privilege of being a POC exception in French cinema to the detriment of all those young people I meet on the street, who aren't white and who say to me with fear in their stomachs, "Do you think I can still do this job?"

What about you, Adèle?

A.H.: The message that was sent to me very clearly by a casting director is that I will never work again. Obviously, this person was very sure of himself, since he wrote it in print capital letters about a dozen times. What do you say when you ask for respect and silence? They say, "Don't speak out politically because it's not your role". But also: "Don't take the lead artistically either because you're an actress, you have to follow the genius of your director". This whole structure is part of this culture where you shouldn't listen to yourself but to submit. I don't know what the consequences will be for my job. What is certain is that I will never regret it. We did something that night that freed the voices of a lot of people. That is worth much more than all the threats to my career, which in any case is always fragile, because it is a precarious environment. If I totally respected the rules and said, "Yes, yes, you have to separate the man from the artist", that wouldn't stop me from being able to get out of the game. It's as much about inventing one's life as trying to open up the future.

Written by Cécile Daumas , Rachid Laïreche and Sandra Onana. Photo by Lucile Boiron

#adèle haenel #aïssa maïga #adele haenel #aissa maiga #portrait of a lady on fire #that was a very great read #can i just say i gasped when aïssa mentioned Festen #it's an incredible movie !!!#portrait de la jeune fille en feu #libération #sometimes i translate things #long text #black lives matter #blm

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uncloseted · 3 years

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there's a part of me that still thinksa bortion is murder. i act like i support it to fit in but deep down i dont. please just listen. i think forcing someone to go through a pregnagncy they don't want is inhuman but it also feels inhuman to kill a baby and i dont like thsi idea that if youre 4 weeks pregnant and you want it its a baby but if youre 4 week pregnant and dont want it then its just a clump of cells thats just not how scence works. so theres this woman who was forced to get an .

Anonymous asked:

abortion and she was 6 months pregnant and apparently th baby waws born alive but it died shortly after from ashpyxia and i just dont know what to think. i know forcing smeone to get an abortion is just as bad as forcing them to give birth and that theres no such thing as a six month abortion and at least wher e i live abortions are only available until week 14 but like wwhat if someone is 15 or 16 weeks or 7 months, do they not have a choice anymore? please dont think im a bigot im not im so

Anonymous asked:

sorry i just dont want to be brainwashed by ANYONE, pro life or pro choice and im just so easily influenceable i just want to support whats right you know

No worries at all! I don't think you're a bigot and I'm glad that you want to engage with this issue critically. I'm happy to give you the facts as they stand and offer you my perspective on the issue. Apologies in advance that this is a bit long, but please try to stick with me until the end! All of this is important in understanding the different sides of this discussion.

There are a few main categories I want to talk about in this answer: legal, science, politics, and culture. For now, I'm going to avoid delving into any religious or metaphysical questions about what is and isn't considered "a person", since while those conversations are interesting, I don't think they're particularly useful in the context of discussions about abortion. As Harry Blackmun wrote in the court opinion for Roe v. Wade, "we need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate."

Legality

Starting with legal issues, there are a few points I think it's important to make in order to get a sense of how we relate to abortion. Abortions are legal in 98% of countries. 34% of countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand most European countries, and China, allow abortions on the basis of a the pregnant person's request, without needing to prove that there is risk to life, risk to health, risk to the fetus, economic or social reasons that abortion is a necessity, or extenuating circumstances (such as the pregnancy being a product of rape or incest). The vast majority (93%) of countries with highly restrictive abortion laws, such as outlawing abortion except in cases where the pregnant person is endangered, are in developing regions. There are five countries that completely outlaw abortion. These are: Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Malta, Nicaragua, and the Vatican City, all countries where the Catholic church has significant influence.

Of the countries that do allow abortion, there is always a limit on how far into a pregnancy a person can be when they choose to terminate. Beyond that limit, the person doesn't have a choice anymore, and must carry the pregnancy to term (except in extenuating circumstances). The most common limit is 12 weeks (3 months), although some countries allow abortion up to the point of "viability", where the fetus can live outside the mother's womb with artificial aid. Typically, the point of viability is around 24 weeks (6 months). In the US, 87% of abortions are performed before 12 weeks, and 92.2% were performed at 13 weeks or fewer. For reference, pregnancies are typically around 40 weeks long.

Forced abortion is illegal in almost every country, including the US and the UK, and it is considered an act of violence against women. It is just as bad as forcing someone to give birth, which is why all countries do their best to prevent it from happening. While forced abortions can and do happen, particularly to victims of sex trafficking, I think the solution to this issue is to put policies into place that protect vulnerable women, instead of trying to ban abortion entirely.

Science

So, most countries allow abortions up to 12 weeks. What does that actually look like in terms of the fetus? Here's a timeline of fetal stages of growth:

Weeks 1-4: at this stage, the "baby" is actually an embryo. It starts out as just a fertilized egg. The amniotic sac forms around it, and the placenta develops. The eyes, mouth, lower jaw, and throat are in very early development. Blood cells are taking shape. By the end of week 4, the embryo is smaller than a grain of rice. It is very literally "just a clump of cells" at this point.

Weeks 5-9: the "baby" is still an embryo. Its facial features begin to develop, folds of skin that will eventually become ears grow, tiny buds that will eventually grow into arms and legs form, the neural tube, digestive tract, and sensory organs all begin to develop. Bone starts to replace cartilage. At about 6 weeks, a heart beat can be detected. After week 8, the baby is considered a fetus instead of an embryo, at which point the fetus is about one inch long.

Weeks 9-12: the fetus' arms, hands, fingers, feet, and toes are fully formed. It may be able to open and close its fists and mouth. Ears are formed, and its reproductive organs begin to develop. By the end of week 12, the fetus has all of their organs and limbs, and their circulatory and urinary systems are working, but everything needs to continue to develop in order to become functional. At the end of week 12, the fetus is about 4 inches long.

It is important to know that the miscarriage rate is highest in the first trimester (before week 12). Among women who know they're pregnant (typically further along than 6 or 7 weeks), 10-20% will miscarry. 30%-50% of all fertilized eggs miscarry.

Other important developmental markers include:

During month 4 (weeks 16-20), you can see the sex of the fetus.

During month 5 (weeks 20-24), the fetus starts moving around.

Between week 22 and week 24, brain waves appear in the cerebral cortex.

At week 24, the fetus may be able to survive if it is born prematurely, provided it has intensive care.

Somewhere between week 26 and week 30, the fetus may be able to feel pain, although we don't know that for sure.

A fetus is not capable of thinking, communicating, reasoning, self-motivation, feeling emotions, or consciousness. They don't have a concept of the self, and they don't know that they exist. They are essentially sedated for the entirety of the pregnancy. Since we use "brain death" as the primary criteria for death, it makes sense to me that we might consider "brain life" (the point where a fetus exhibits brain activity) as the point at which a fetus becomes a person.

While some people will refer to an embryo as a "baby" from the time they discover they're pregnant, scientifically, it is a clump of cells, whether that clump is allowed to continue to grow or not. It's not something we would recognize as a baby, or be able to interact with as if it were a baby. An embryo is a precursor to a baby, kind of like how a seed is a precursor to a plant.

Some other arguments

I want to quickly touch on some other arguments for abortion rights that people make. I'm not going to delve deeply into them, but it didn't feel right to leave them out entirely. These are arguments that don't depend on whether or not a fetus can be considered a person.

Bodily Rights

There are many situations in which we prioritize individual bodily rights over the right of someone else to live. For example, we don't force people to donate organs to people who are dying, even though a donated organ would save their life. Advocates for abortion rights argue that those same bodily rights should be extended to a pregnant person.

Deprivation

This argument usually looks something like, "but what if that fetus was going to cure cancer when it grew up!" Basically, it's saying that abortion is morally wrong because it deprives the fetus (and the world) of a valuable future. To me, this completely ignores the deprivation that already exists by forcing a person to carry and birth a baby they don't want, and potentially the deprivation that comes with raising that child. People who make this argument never seem to ask, "what if the pregnant person was going to cure cancer?"

Slippery Slope

Some people argue that normalizing and legalizing abortion may lead to people also accepting euthanasia. I am unconvinced by this for two reasons. 1. Slippery slope is a logical fallacy and 2. I absolutely do think we should legalize euthanasia for certain situations.

Religion

I don't want to dig too far into this one, but what I will say is that the US is a country that (at least nominally) has a separation of church and state, and the religious beliefs that other people hold should not infringe on a person's rights to make choices about their own life.

History and Politics

The practice of abortion itself is incredibly old. The Sanskrit epic Ramayana, which dates to the 7th century BCE, describes abortion being practiced by surgeons and barbers. In the Assyrian Code of Assura, circa 1075 BCE, a woman is allowed to procure an abortion except when it's against her husband's wishes. The first recorded evidence of induced abortion is from the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BCE. Japanese documents show records of induced abortion from as early as the 12th century, and it became more prevalent during the Edo period. It is considered to be unlikely that abortion was punished in Ancient Greece or ancient Rome. All major Jewish religious movements allow abortion in order to save the life or health of a pregnant woman, and often support abortion for other reasons as well. Christianity has a more complicated relationship to abortion, for reasons that I'll go into in a bit, but for now let's just note that there very much were ancient Christians who believed abortion was morally permissible at least some of the time. Before the 19th century CE, first-trimester abortion was widely practiced and was legal under common law throughout the English speaking world, including the US and UK.

The reason I bring all of this up is because the political debate over abortion isn't really that old, and the debate tends not to actually be about the morality of abortion as an act so much as it is a proxy for other issues. The first backlash against abortion in the English Speaking world was in the 19th century, and was a direct reaction to the women's rights movement, which was starting during that time. In the US, anti-abortion laws began to appear as early as the 1820s, but picked up in earnest by the late 1860s. These laws were introduced for many reasons, including the fact that abortions were being provided by untrained people who were not members of medical societies and concerns about the safety of abortifacients. By 1900, abortion was a felony in every US state, but they continued to become increasingly available. By the 1930s, licensed physicians performed an estimated 800,000 abortions a year.

Jumping forward a little bit, let's talk about the history of abortion in the US just before Roe v. Wade. It's estimated that in the 50s and 60s, between 200,000 to 1.2 million abortions were being performed per year, even though they were illegal. Throughout that same time, the second wave feminist movement was growing, and was increasingly advocating for birth control and liberalized abortion laws. As a reaction to second wave feminism, a number of anti-abortion organizations, primarily led by Catholic institutions, cropped up to mobilize against the legalization of abortion. It should be noted that, at the time, abortion was not an issue for evangelical Christian groups. In the 1960s, 17 states legalized abortion for a variety of different circumstances. Then in 1973, Roe v. Wade happens, ruling that a pregnant woman has the right to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction. The ruling was 7-2 in favor of legalizing abortion. Even after Roe v. Wade, Christian Evangelicals were neutral to positive on the ruling. It's only after 1980 that Evangelical Christians started to organize around abortion as a political issue and joined the Catholics to form what we now think of as the Christian Right. There's a lot to say about that and why that switch happened, but for the sake of brevity, just know that the evangelical backlash against legalized abortion in the US started not as a moral crusade, but as a way of convincing people to vote for Ronald Regan instead of Jimmy Carter (who wanted to de-segregate schools). No political debate happens in a vacuum, and it's important to understand what other factors might have been at play when looking at where these debates come from and how the sides formed.

Culture

Lastly, let's talk a little bit about the cultural impacts of banning or legalizing abortion. The right to have or not have a child is necessary in order for women to achieve equality with men. Countries with high gender equality, such as Iceland, Finland, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden, also have easily accessible abortion options. Criminalization of abortion disproportionately impacts poor women and women of color, and does nothing to address the systemic issues that may cause them to require abortions in the first place.

Researchers from the WHO and University of Massachusetts found that banning abortion is an inefficient way to reduce abortion rates; in countries where abortions were restricted, the number of unintended pregnancies actually increased, and the proportion of unintended pregnancies ending in abortion also increased. When abortion is banned, women aren't not having abortions; they're having illegal abortions that are done unsafely.

There is also some evidence to suggest that legalized abortion actually decreases crime rates. 20 years after the legalization of abortion in the US, there was an unprecedented nationwide decline of the crime rate (including murders, incidentally). The drop in crime is thought by some to be a result of the fact that individuals who had a higher statistical probability of committing crimes (people who grew up as unwanted children in poverty) were not being born.

Which brings me to my next point- the majority of people who are "pro-life" (at least in the US) aren't really pro-life. They're pro-birth. If they were truly pro-life, they would be interested in making sure that all of those babies had their needs met after they're born. They would be interested in making sure those babies can lead long, healthy, safe, and productive lives. They would be for universal healthcare, expanded social safety nets, parental leave from jobs, universal basic income, raising the minimum wage, mandated vacation time, increasing funding for public schools, decriminalizing drugs, abolishing prisons or at least reforming the police. They would be against the death penalty (ironically, some of them are actually for the death penalty for women who have had abortions), and for increased access to birth control, comprehensive sex-ed in schools, increased gun legislation, against war and nuclear weapons, for enforced mask wearing to prevent people from needlessly dying from a global pandemic... but those issues don't factor into their "pro-life" stance. They're for "the baby gets born and then has to pull itself up by its bootstraps like the rest of us."

Closing Thoughts

Look. I'm not super jazzed about abortions. I understand how they can feel like an ethical issue. I think we should do what we can to reduce the number of abortions that are performed- teaching comprehensive sex-ed in schools, making birth control and emergency contraceptive options widely accessible, letting men know that reversible vasectomies are an option. I think we should make abortion easier to access, so those who do need it can make the decision early in the pregnancy. But I also think that it's a very personal decision, one that's irreversibly life altering, and the person who's going to experience the life altering event should be the one who decides what happens. 65 year old conservative, Christian white men who will never be pregnant (and frequently don't really know how the female body works) shouldn't get to make that decision for them. As someone for whom pregnancy would be life threatening, I want to know that I have options should that situation present itself someday.

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spacetimewithstuartgary · 4 years

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What Will Solar Cycle 25 Look Like? The Sun is stirring from its latest slumber. As sunspots and flares, signs of a new solar cycle, bubble from the Sun’s surface, scientists wonder what this next cycle will look like. The short answer is, probably a lot like the last — that is, the past 11 years of the Sun’s life, since that’s the average length of any given cycle. But the longer story involves a panel of experts that meets once a decade, a fleet of Sun-studying satellites, and dozens of complicated models — all revolving around efforts to understand the mystifying behavior of the star we live with. NASA scientists study and model the Sun to better understand what it does and why. The Sun has its ups and downs and cycles between them regularly. Roughly every 11 years, at the height of this cycle, the Sun’s magnetic poles flip — on Earth, that’d be like if the North and South Poles swapped places every decade — and the Sun transitions from sluggish to active and stormy. At its quietest, the Sun is at solar minimum; during solar maximum, the Sun blazes with bright flares and solar eruptions. Solar cycle predictions give a rough idea of what we can expect in terms of space weather, the conditions in space that change much like weather on Earth. Outbursts from the Sun can lead to a range of effects, from ethereal aurora to satellite orbital decay, and disruptions to radio communications or the power grid. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center is the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts: With accurate predictions, we can prepare. The work that researchers at NASA and around the world do to advance our solar activity models helps improve those forecasts. In turn, solar cycle forecasts give us a sense of how stormy the Sun will be over the next 11 years and how much radiation spacecraft and astronauts may face during heavy bouts of solar activity. Modeling the Sun is a tricky business because scientists don’t fully understand the internal churning that causes this magnetic flip-flop. Computer models use equations to represent the Sun, but the star manages to elude them. If the Sun were a machine, it would have countless knobs and dials whose functions and sensitivities remain unknown. “Over the last 40 years, we’ve come to observe the Sun in much greater detail,” said Lika Guhathakurta, program scientist of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. “It’s produced a wealth of information, but quantifying and modeling the solar cycle remains challenging. We’re working against how variable the Sun is, and the complexity of what happens inside the Sun.” Without fully understanding how the magnetic field, which drives solar activity, moves inside the Sun, scientists have to make some assumptions. The plight of solar modelers could be likened to that of weather forecasters — if they tried to forecast the weather by looking at just the upper atmosphere, and not the critical layers below. There are many approaches to modeling the Sun in order to develop solar cycle predictions. Some models use ground-based observations spanning hundreds of years; others may use satellite data, which has only been available for the past four decades or so. In recent years, some researchers have incorporated machine-learning tactics. Models may focus on different precursors scientists have identified are linked to solar activity: Earth’s magnetic field, which responds to the Sun’s, and the strength of the magnetic field at the Sun’s poles are most common. “Part of the scientific process is whittling these questions down, and working in parallel on the same problem in different ways,” said Maria Weber, an astrophysicist at Delta State University in Cleveland, Mississippi. Each model is one tool among many. “We might find there are different tools that can get us the same outcome, and then you could pick the type that best suits you.” It’s the job of the Solar Cycle Prediction Panel — co-sponsored by NASA and NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — to evaluate all of these models and release an official prediction representing the scientific community’s best efforts. Meeting every decade since 1989, the panel brings together experts from around the world, including Weber, who served on the panel for Solar Cycle 25. The discussions are known to occasionally get heated, a sign of the complex task at hand and the fervor each scientist has for their favorite models. In the end, the scientists wrote their predictions on a little piece of paper, Weber said, and the debating began. “Ultimately, we all had to agree, whittling down and adjusting our estimates, so that people felt it best reflected everything we knew up to that point,” she said. In March 2019, only the fourth time such a panel had convened, the 12 experts considered some 60 different models. In recent years, one seems to be especially successful: the polar magnetic field model. This uses measurements of the magnetic field at the Sun’s north and south poles. The idea is that the magnetic field at the Sun’s poles acts like a seed for the next cycle. If it’s strong during solar minimum, the next solar cycle will be strong; if it’s diminished, the next cycle should be too. Together, they predicted dates for Cycle 25’s start and peak, and the peak sunspot number, an indicator of how strong the cycle will be. The more sunspots, the higher the sunspot number, and the more solar eruptions a cycle is expected to unleash. Currently, the Sun’s poles are about as strong as they were at the same point in the last solar cycle, which scientists interpret as signs that Solar Cycle 25 will play out in similar fashion to Cycle 24. Solar Cycle 24 was a feeble cycle, peaking at 114 sunspots (the average is 179). Solar Cycle 25 is now underway and expected to peak with 115 sunspots in July 2025. Lisa Upton, co-chair of the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel and solar physicist at Space Systems Research Corporation in Westminster, Colorado, compared their task to hurricane forecasting. Meteorologists often consult several models, each spitting out its own possible path a hurricane could take. “One of the lessons there is you don’t put too much faith in one model, but see what all of the models together can tell you and teach you,” Upton said. As a whole, a group of predictions is more likely to land on the right path. Some have taken novel approaches to making these predictions. Scientists recently published a new way to survey the solar cycle: Instead of the traditional linear view of time, they used a mathematical technique to map the last 18 solar cycles onto a circle. What emerged was a more orderly pattern of behavior than expected from the Sun. Their so-called solar clock is like a typical clock, where each roughly 11-year cycle can be described over 12 hours. Instead of the time of day, certain “times” correspond to high solar activity. Right now, the scientists say, it’s about 3 o’clock, near the first uptick in activity that comes at the beginning of each solar cycle. The scientists reported their findings in Geophysical Research Letters. “The most active Sun — in terms of solar eruptions — happens between 5:30 and about 10:00, when there’s a sharp drop-off in activity as the Sun moves toward minimum,” said Robert Leamon, a solar scientist on the study, based at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “Once we know where we are on the solar clock and can calculate the speed of the cycle we’re in, we can make much more precise predictions about when the next cycle of solar activity will start and stop.” According to their clock, the Sun’s next quiet period will begin around the first half of 2027. If Solar Cycle 25 meets the panel’s predictions, it should be weaker than average. Cycle 25 is also expected to end a longer trend over the past four decades, in which the magnetic field at the Sun’s poles were gradually weakening. As a result, the solar cycles have been steadily weaker too. If Solar Cycle 25 sees an end to this waning, it would quell speculations that the Sun might enter a grand solar minimum, a decades-to-centuries long stretch of little solar activity. The last such minimum — known as the Maunder minimum — occurred in the middle of what’s known as the Little Ice Age from the 13th to 19th centuries, causing erroneous beliefs that another grand minimum could lead to global cooling. “There is no indication that we are currently approaching a Maunder-type minimum in solar activity,” Upton said. But even if the Sun dropped into a grand minimum, there’s no reason to think Earth would undergo another Ice Age; not only do scientists theorize that the Little Ice Age occurred for other reasons, but in our contemporary world, greenhouse gases far surpass the Sun’s effects when it comes to changes in Earth’s climate. Eventually, scientists would like to issue weekly forecasts for the Sun, just like meteorologists do for Earth. But solar cycle and space weather forecasting have far to go. There are still questions about the Sun’s interior to answer and important data to collect. “One of the things that’s exciting about being a solar physicist is that we’re at the forefront of this — there’s still all these questions that have yet to be answered,” Upton said. “There are still a lot of rocks to unturn.” Solar Cycle 25 will continue to unfold, and scientists will keep tinkering with their models and watching to see how close their predictions come. It will be another five to six years before they can say who was right — or wrong — all along.

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #news #NASA

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ashraesmith-blog1 · 5 years

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Research questions

1. Why do we as humans assume the worst at times?

-It seems as though, our minds tend to jump to the worst possible scenario, maybe not everyone; but maybe everyone has at least experienced something of the sort. We tend to get caught up in our own drama- then essentially we project our own problems onto others, until we become aware of this silly thought process, that truly doesn’t get people anywhere. There are ways we can overcome this pattern of thinking, such as meditation and identifying the problem (catastrophizing). “Catatrophizing is what is known in psychology as a ‘cognitive distortion‘ — a habitual and unconscious way of thinking that is not realistic. In this case it’s a habit of negative exaggeration”(1).

(1) - “Catastrophizing - Always Assume the Worst? Why You Need to Stop.” Harley Therapy™ Blog, 11 June 2019, www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/catastrophizing-always-assuming-the-worse-heres-why-you-should-stop.htm.

2. Is materialism valued over connection in our modern society?

-Growing up in a society fueled with the ooo’s and ahh’s of technology, in my perspective, it was a difficult childhood to navigate at times. I was always a tomboy, dressed in basketball shorts, running around the neighborhood catching frogs, and discovering bugs. I was also interested in technology, I remember receiving my first iPod back when I was maybe seven years old, and being amazed I could put all my favorite songs on one little device. I also grew up with the pressure of using social media, and still do use Instagram frequently to this day. Overall, this has been a concept I have wanted to dive into for quite sometime, always feeling like the advancements in technology are confused for evolution, when I truly believe that our evolution lies in how we treat each other, in how we empathize, love and value the connections we have with others, but especially ourselves. Technology gives us a reason to ignore our mindfulness, making it easy to push our traumas to the side, to remain unresolved, therefore possibly being projected on others, keeping the pattern going.

What I have also noticed is the fight for kindness, the fight for what really matters, which is fairness for all. I truly believe that if humans could wake up one day, realizing it was time to stop being a selfish ass, then we could discover something beautiful, maybe finding reasons to care for our Earth as well.

I want a world with fair options and access to food, I want a world with acceptance, I want a world where people can pursue their dreams instead of focusing on making more money and getting ahead. I want a world where humans can actually be humans, getting along in the way we were always meant to.

“There has long been a correlation observed between materialism, a lack of empathy and engagement with others, and unhappiness. But research conducted over the past few years seems to show causation. For example, a series of studies published in the journal Motivation and Emotion in July showed that as people become more materialistic, their wellbeing (good relationships, autonomy, sense of purpose and the rest) diminishes. As they become less materialistic, it rises” (2).

(2) - Monbiot, George. “Materialism: a System That Eats Us from the inside out | George Monbiot.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 Dec. 2013, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/09/materialism-system-eats-us-from-inside-out.

3. Why do human let their walls down around others of the same interest?

-It is common for humans to have fear of vulnerability, which often leads people to inadvertently cause pain to others (3). “People with this fear often become "distancers," using well-honed methods to keep others at arm's length. Some become intentionally buried in work, school, or other activities. Some simply disappear at the first sign that a relationship is becoming serious. Still, others perform an elaborate dance of push and pull, drawing in a potential partner only to pull away emotionally when the other person gets too close, then drawing that person back in once distance has been reestablished” (3).

(3) - Fritscher, Lisa. “Overcoming a Fear of Vulnerability and Love Your Imperfections.” Verywell Mind, Verywell Mind, 13 June 2019, www.verywellmind.com/fear-of-vulnerability-2671820.

4. How do we break down walls that keep others from being their true self?

-This question was difficult to find research on to be honest, but on my search for the answer, I stumbled upon http://breakingwallsprogram.org, I spent time looking at their website, but this mission statement is what really stood out,

“Breaking Walls fosters global dialogue among the leaders of tomorrow by creating artistic, educational and community-building opportunities for youth to become empathetic, system changing leaders. Breaking Walls’ activist approach allows participants to create an alternative community, modeling an inclusive and peaceful cohabitation and social interaction built on the arts, empathy and acceptance. We empower youth to discover their voice, offer them a platform on which to use it by promoting a continually-expanding inclusive, respectful and trusting world cultivated by our artists, ambassadors and associates. Breaking Walls engages and supports young people as they become creative artists and empathetic leaders of tomorrow who will actively advance personal transformation and social change within their home communities and on the global stage” (4).

For my answer to this question, I believe if we find a critical mass someday on this Earth, a critical mass of individuals who are likeminded to this perspective, this is how we will begin to break down walls that keep others from being their true self. We must teach this to youth, helping to teach healthy habits at a young age.

(4) - Breaking Walls. “Home.” Breaking Walls, breakingwallsprogram.org/.

5. How can we spread the movement of growing your own food?

-From my volunteer experience, it seems as though educating all different ages is the key to success when it comes to spreading the movement of growing food, but especially to our youth, and even more specific, in low income neighborhoods.

6. How do we get children to be interested in eating produce?

-Once again, from my experiences, getting youth into the garden, getting them excited to cook food with the produce they just picked 10 minutes ago. Letting the child learn about knife safety, and showing them the correct way if their interested, instead of automatically having fear about the child holding a knife.

7. Is a vegan/vegetarian diet healthy for a growing child?

-Is a vegan diet healthy for a growing child? The answer is yes, you want to make sure your children are getting all the vitamins and nutrients their growing bodies require, according to pediatric dietitian Katie Nowacki, RD, a vegan diet can be healthy for children (5).

Is a vegetarian diet healthy for a growing child, once again, the answer is yes.

“To make sure your child gets enough of all the nutrients needed for a growing child, their vegetarian diet must include:

Protein alternatives such as nuts, eggs, legumes and tofu

Energy for growth and development

Iron to prevent anaemia

Vitamin B12

Vitamin D and calcium to prevent bone disease

Suitable fats from non-meat sources

Food in the correct form and combination to make sure nutrients can be digested and absorbed.

Breast milk or formula will remain an important food for babies up until 12 months. Talk to your child and maternal health nurse about the introduction of solids” (6).

(5) - Children's Health Team. “Is a Vegan Diet Safe for Growing Children?” Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic, Health Essentials from Cleveland Clinic, 16 Jan. 2018, health.clevelandclinic.org/is-a-vegan-diet-safe-for-growing-children/.

(6) - Department of Health & Human Services. “Vegetarian Diets and Children.” Better Health Channel, Department of Health & Human Services, 28 Feb. 2012, www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/vegetarian-diets-and-children.

8. How can a healthy lifestyle impact all other aspects of an individual’s life?

- Lifestyle has a significant influence on physical and mental health of human being. This can be a significantly positive influence, or a significantly negative influence as well. (7)

(7) - Farhud, Dariush D. “Impact of Lifestyle on Health.” Iranian Journal of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Nov. 2015, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4703222/.

9. How can humans learn to live with more acceptance/less judgement towards others?

From my research, I cam up with an article titled, “10 Reasons to Stop Judging People.”

Number one, don’t blame yourself.

Number two, be mindful.

Number three, depersonalize.

Number four, look for basic goodness.

Number five, repeat the mantra, “just like me.”

Number six, reframe.

Number seven, look at your own behavior.

Number eight, educate yourself.

Number nine, give the person the benefit of the doubt.

Number 10, feel good about yourself.

(8) - Parkway, Barbara. “10 Reasons to Stop Judging People.” Psychology Today, Sussex Publishers, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-the-questions/201410/10-reasons-stop-judging-people.

10. How many food deserts are in Milwaukee?

-”Maggie Yarbrough with Hunger Task Force says food deserts are in 24 of Milwaukee County’s 35 zip codes” (9).

(9) - Rook, Brandon. “Fighting Food Deserts and Hunger in Milwaukee.” TMJ4, 21 Aug. 2018, www.tmj4.com/news/local-news/fighting-food-deserts-and-hunger-in-milwaukee.

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theaccountsonpoint-blog · 5 years

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7 Common Mistakes Made by Fitness Businesses

Once people decide they want professional fitness help, they’re spoiled for choice. Take my local shops for example - there are four gyms/fitness studios within 100m of each other! The flipside of this is that people also tend to lose motivation or forget about their fitness goals quite quickly.

What does this mean for you? Well, unless you're one of the mega fitness brands, you've got to work your butt off to attract and convert new clients. Then you've got to pay close attention to other aspects of your business or you may not be able to retain those clients, or profit.

I’m not a personal trainer and have never run a gym, I just want to share the results of surveys/interviews I’ve done with close to 100 fitness professionals (both clients and non-clients).

Here’s the shortlist.

Things to avoid when you’re running a gym or personal training studio

These common mistakes are here to help you. As you read, just remember:

- Everyone makes some or all of these mistakes at some point.

- It's valuable to pinpoint problems so you can set a path for continuous improvement.

- These mistakes are VERY inter-related. If you fix one thing it will improve other areas too.

1. Working too hard/long hours

Many of us start a business for a better lifestyle but, sadly, it is much more common for business owners to be working an unhealthy number of hours each week.

If you've started a fitness business and you're feeling overworked and underpaid you need to know that you're not alone - you're in the majority. This ultra-competitive industry requires that you put yourself out there on social media and everywhere else possible so that you have a good shot at success. This means failure is very public. Maybe that's a good thing? Some of us work better under pressure.

If you don't have anyone helping you with your clients, your day is probably something like this....

- Get up at 4:20am for the early sessions

- Work your butt off during the day to get things done

- Take breaks whenever you have a few moments

- Try to look energetic for the evening sessions

- Get home late

- Post and comment on social media

- Then, just when you try to sit down and relax you get client messages or new enquiries via Messenger. You can't ignore those!

Sound familiar? This 'mistake' is actually a symptom of other root causes mentioned below. I think everyone starts out working like this out of necessity. It's manageable in the beginning due to the excitement of it all - but it's not sustainable.

2. Not having a well defined target market

How do you compete with 24-hour gyms or massive franchises that have a seemingly endless marketing budget? The answer may be to narrow your focus on a target market, or to specialise/niche.

If you haven't yet niched it might be because you're worried that specialising in something may deter other 'would be' clients. Well it might deter a few. On the other hand, if someone is looking for a new fitness solution, what is it that would currently attract them to your business rather than a super well known and trusted brand?

Being unique and promoting your point of difference has three advantages:

1) It tends to attract the sort of people you want

2) You’re more likely to provide an amazing service that will keep them with you

3) They’re more likely to spread the word

Is there something about your business that people would actively search for and when they find you they would think: This is it!

3. Poor financial management

Fitness businesses aren't alone on this one. Poor financial management is the leading cause of small business failure.

The thing about the fitness industry, is that most trainers or instructors are working to build up their client base and can't really spare time or money to manage the finances properly. A lot of people spend more time and money on marketing to increase revenue - but don't stick your head in the sand. It's important to know your numbers even if they’re pretty small at the moment. Knowing your numbers may provide extra motivation for improvement.

If you already have the finances sorted when big changes happen, such as registering for GST or suddenly making a bigger profit, then you won’t be caught off guard. The tax office doesn't accept ignorance as an excuse and having a tax debt makes running a business much harder.

4. Not creating systems

"Let systems run the business..." Michael Gerber

But who has time to develop systems when they're starting a business? Well, when you consider that 94% of problems with a business are systems driven and only 6% due to people (Deming), it makes sense to work on the 94%.

Here’s the good news: you already have systems for your business, even if you haven't documented them. You just need to get them out of your head.

Years ago, I used to type up static manuals for business processes but that's all changed. Now we create an online directory of every process and fill each module with video and screenshots or easy-to-update text.

This seemingly boring task seems way more interesting when you consider the big benefits:

- Improved quality

- Improved client satisfaction

- Improved client retention

- Increased referrals

- A more professional perception

- Increased perceived value and higher fees

- Optimised marketing

- Optimised sales

- Optimised training

- Optimised management

- Improved team satisfaction

- A higher business valuation

- The prospect of franchising

I'll stop there but, honestly, the implementation and continuous improvement of systems is what separates the leaders from the pack.

5. Going it alone

"... and let people run the systems" Michael Gerber, again

Most fitness businesses are started by one or two people who are running all the sessions themselves and trying to balance all other business tasks in their down time. This is OK in the very beginning but then it's common to get stuck in 'no man's land'.

You'll become too busy to do anything properly and your business will suffer, not to mention your mental health.

There are some tasks that could actually be done better by someone else for a cost that makes sense. Consider things like cleaning, bookkeeping, social media management…

Then, imagine finding an amazing trainer/instructor who could handle 12 sessions a week. Your time could then be spent on business improvements that are much more valuable than running sessions. If you're worried about what your clients would think, don't worry, you can focus on retention activities that may make them even happier than they were before.

The business is so much more valuable to a buyer once the separation of owner and operations is complete. In fact, it's nearly impossible to sell if you haven't done this to some extent.

And one more thing about going it alone... wouldn't you like to have a holiday?

6. Thinking you can't afford or not ready for the software you need

Software can seem expensive but there are so many benefits.

I have noticed how those who make the leap and fork out for good software suddenly find themselves signing up more clients. They become busier with more clients and couldn't imagine coping without the software.

On the other hand, those who hold off seem to be constantly struggling.

Why is that? Maybe it's because the software gives a more professional appearance, which attracts customers.

Here are a few reasons it can make life easier for you and your clients.

Good software efficiently manages payments. This gives you a consistent and predictable cash flow. The majority of fitness clients actually find this better than having to have the right cash or purchase 10 packs through a weird system. Direct debit is set and forget - for them and you.

It also efficiently manages bookings or scheduling. Clear communication around schedules is vital for your business. Why wouldn’t you optimise that?

This sort of software can help you grow. Maybe it's the retention work you can do with the software that gives the competitive edge. Or perhaps it’s the marketing capabilities they include if you integrate them with marketing apps.

However it happens for you, after some growth (if not from the start) you'll need good accounting software - not only to help you stay out of financial trouble but also to know your numbers, set targets and monitor your performance.

“That which is measured, improves”

Peter Drucker

7. Thinking you're too busy to spend time on service and satisfaction

To be honest, there were tonnes of "being too busy to..." type mistakes in the survey responses, but there was a lot of overlap so I've narrowed it down to the three key areas.

I've also changed the title of the mistake from "being too busy to" to "thinking you're too busy too". My reason for this is that these things are so important in the fitness industry that if you don't attend to them regularly they will come back to bite you.

They're not just “nice to haves” - they're critical.

If you spend hours on social media each day, that's great, but it may be more effective to to spare a bit of time on:

Improving your services (REFERRALS, CLIENT ATTRACTION AND RETENTION) You're probably already continuously educating yourself on health, fitness and nutrition. That learning is an amazing building block for new services and the continuous improvement of existing services. Service improvement is a leading determinant for referrals, client attraction and retention.

Checking customer satisfaction (REFERRALS, RETENTION) Trying to sense the vibe of customer satisfaction probably isn't good enough. You're probably too busy to have one-on-one chats with everybody, so consider using your software to periodically send out a three question survey. This could highlight problem areas fast, shows changes over time, and let you know the winning elements that shouldn't be changed.

Checking team satisfaction (TEAM RETENTION, CLIENT SATISFACTION, REFERRALS) How’s the team doing? This should also be systematically checked. Even if you've got bulletproof hiring and training systems, when a team member leaves it's a major disruption, and a black hole for money and your time.

Keeping your team highly engaged and proud of the business should reduce team turnover and mitigates the risk of them leaving on bad terms. You need to look after your crew so well that they don't start looking for work elsewhere or, worse still, decide to build up their own client base in direct competition with you.

Some of the fitness people who helped with this article had ways of lessening the impact of these 7 mistakes through additional revenue streams like online coaching, online training courses and product sales. I'd love to hear about your fitness business if it's immune to any of these 7 mistakes. I’d also love to know I've missed anything so get in touch in the comments section to add your experiences.

by:

Simon Birdsall

#fitness #health & fitness #gym #gymowner #personaltrainer #onlinetrainer #fitnessexpert #fitnesspeople #trainer #fitnessinstructor #business #fitnessbusiness

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dianamathur-novelist · 5 years

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European Project, Baltic Dream, Paths Forward Where American Dream Falters

Robert J. Shiller, Sterling Professor of Economics at Yale University, 2013 Nobel Laureate, and kin to four Lithuanian grandparents, addressed attendees at the Baltic Boston Conference on November 24, 2018, commemorating the Baltic centennials.

Professor Shiller spoke about the evolution of “The American Dream,” a notion that was coined and lauded in 1931; and compared it to the European Project and the “Baltic Dream”.

Using search tools Ngram and Proquest, Schiller traced the American Dream origins to the nation’s founding thinkers, including Thomas Paine, who challenged the logic of hereditary advantage in Common Sense (1776); and Ben Franklin, who in 1782 France published the pamphlet, Information for those Who would Remove to America.

“Don’t come to America if you think you will impress people with title and money,” Franklin wrote. “Come if you can do something. Americans say, ‘God Almighty is a mechanic.’” Franklin claimed the humble husbandman (farmer) would be respected in America.

A sister concept to the American Dream was portrayed by Israel Zangwill in his 1908 play, “The Melting Pot,” wherein a Jewish man marries a Christian woman. President Teddy Roosevelt applauded the play, making assimilation, the coming together of different nationalities and cultures, the preferred face of the nation (rather than, for example, the Jim Crow laws of the day*).

In 1930, “The American Dream” was advertising copy for a box spring mattress. (It cost $13.50).

In 1931, “The American Dream” was coined by historian James Truslow Adams in his book, Epic of America. (So named because Adams’s publisher said a book entitled The American Dream wouldn’t sell.) With that phrase, Adams was defining a hopefulness that he admired in American culture.

"…that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone (emphasis added), with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. … It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman (ahead of his time, Prof. Shiller points out, Adams specified both genders) shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."

“Ideas are contagious,” explained Shiller, “like viruses, thoughts change and mutate over time, their popularity goes in and out.” In the depths of the Great Depression, the hopeful idea of the American Dream was born, its roots already established in the nation’s consciousness, and the notion went viral.

Immigrants came to America because of the American Dream, some aspiring to own farms – one version of the Dream. America attracted hardworking people. Every young activist thought of the United States as a bastion of freedom and democracy.

Continuing the etiology, in 1931 and 1961, respectively, playwrights George O’Neill and Edward Albee* used the title with irony, dealing with the disintegration of the American Dream.

The American Dream doesn’t mean today what it meant in 1931.

1950 real estate ads painted the American Dream as home ownership: Man marries and children arrive. Man gives them a place to call their own. The ideal was a suburban home, where couples could entertain using their stylish wedding gifts. The concept had lost its idealistic and intellectual tenor since 1931, even neglecting the original idea of inclusion.

The American Dream further mutated by1980, when homes became thought of as investments. Prof. Shiller pointed to the shift in public attention from land prices to home prices, among other proofs.

Today, suburban home ownership no longer represents the American Dream. Walkable cities offering art, community space, and eateries, make life meaningful to young people.

In 2018, Frank Rich wrote in New York magazine, “That loose civic concept known as the American Dream … has been shattered. No longer is lip service paid to the credo, however sentimental, that a vast country, for all its racial and sectarian divides, might somewhere in its DNA have a shared core of values that could pull it out of any mess.”

The American Dream is history*.

Across the Atlantic, the counterpart to the American Dream is often referred to as the European Project. In contrasting the two mindsets, Jeremy Rifkin explains:

For Americans, freedom is associated with autonomy, which requires amassing wealth. One is free by becoming self-reliant, an island unto oneself — and with exclusivity comes security.

For Europeans, freedom is not found in autonomy, but in access to a myriad of interdependent relationships with others. The more communities one has access to, the more options and choices one has for living a full and meaningful life. With relationships comes inclusivity, and with inclusivity comes security.

The American Dream puts an emphasis on economic growth, personal wealth and independence. The new European Dream focuses more on sustainable development, quality of life and interdependence.

The American Dream pays homage to the work ethic. The European Dream is more attuned to leisure and deep play.

The American Dream is wedded to love of country and patriotism. The European Dream is more cosmopolitan, less territorial, … and secular to the core.

Neither Americans nor Europeans have lived up to their respective dreams, but Europe has articulated a vision for the future that focuses on quality of life, sustainability, peace and harmony.

(Rifkin, 2004.) (Check out the highlights of a collective vision based on personal transformation rather than individual material accumulation here:

Professor Shiller shared brief references to national Canadian, Chinese, and French Dreams, elaborating on views of the Russian Dream obtained through a primary source. “They don’t talk a whole lot about it, but …we too have a national dream. Not for happiness. We dream about what the majority of Americans already have, a cottage (single family home).”

A common aspect of the American and Russian Dreams: We want to live well, and not be limited by a society that prevents us from doing what we could do.

That this is the sincere desire of a typical Russian is evidenced by the popularity of recent presidential candidate Alexei Navalny, who said, “The idea we are destined to always live in poverty is deeply engrained in people’s minds. The goal of my campaign is to conquer it.” Navalny’s run against Putin was halted by conviction of a tax irregularity.

What is the Baltic Dream? Professor Shiller picked the brains of his Yale Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian students to elucidate its themes. Recurrent were feelings of loyalty, and of love for country and culture – though not in a nationalistic way – and of wanting to go back. It’s a dream of integration into exciting things wordwide; of being part of the family of European countries, small by might, yet world citizens, technological leaders and entrepreneurs in the vein of Finland’s Nokia and Estonia’s Skype. “The Baltic Dream is to be free, independent democracies; to own our land, and speak our language.” Power in song and dance is part of the genetic code, still as relevant and victorious as the Singing Revolution.

What comes next in the evolution of national dreams?

A desperate political atmosphere has come in after the demise of the American Dream. It’s every man for himself. There is loss of commitment to policies that redistribute to the poor, and loss of entrepreneurial optimism. Political attitudes are hostile. Troubled polarization and the rise of nationalist politics beset the quest for our identity and hope for the future.

Last year 69 million people were displaced by war and discord, and are pushing at borders.

Fear of immigrants, fear of automation stealing jobs, fear of home price inflation, especially for people who haven’t yet bought homes, is rampant.

Professor Shiller’s tone was tactful in answering questions from the Baltic Boston audience, which comprised both Trump supporters and critics. He deftly replied that discussing America First as a national sentiment and public policy requires a psychologist as much as an economist.

What obligation do Baltic countries have to help Muslim refugees? Muslim refugees don’t have that much interest in going somewhere where you have to learn an exotic language. And the national identities of small countries may be threatened by the influx of different perspectives. But certainly the Baltics should take some Muslim refugees, and be nice to them.

Shiller’s documentation of the rise and fall of the American Dream ended on a note of reasonable hope when he compared President Trump to the historical figures of William Jennings Bryan, a populist of the 1890s; Father Coughlin, a fascist radio priest of the Great Depression; and Senator Joe McCarthy, Red-scare smear tactician of 1950.

“These men all were very popular at one point in time,” Shiller pointed out. “Then they went too far and that did it. McCarthy eventually became ridiculous, even accusing communists of mind control.” The citizenry eventually withdrew support for these figures. “Trump’s antics may be pushing his luck. Calling a woman ‘horse-face’ doesn’t have to do with politics. You don’t call people that, even an opponent.”

“I just hope he does the right thing in the remaining two years,” Shiller concluded.

by Diana Mathur

* the author’s observation

#Baltic Boston #Robert Shiller #American Dream #Baltic Dream #The Ghastly Year

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profgandalf · 3 years

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Fatherhood and FBI Agents of Robert Hanssen's Generation

I wrote this several years back in 2001, when my father was still alive. But I post it here to underline the nature of law enformcent officers in my experience:

My father, a retired special agent for the FBI, meets and stays in contact with other ex-federal or "government men" (Dad still prefers "g-men") on a list server developed by another former agent. Following standard FBI procedure--habits endure even after retirement--messages from this list server regularly end with the phrase "Privileged / Confidential Information May be contained in this Message." In some ways what I am about to share violates that confidentiality, drawn as it is from the private thoughts of members who once belonged to an agency well known for its official reticence. Yet, in light of some of the criticism aimed at the agency recently along with what feels to me to be a growing general, public mistrust of what motivates the average agent, it is a point of view I think should be exposed to the broader American public.

There is a common misconception that most individuals—be they soldiers, policemen, and or government agents—who develop the skills needed to use deadly force do so because they enjoy the rush of hot dogging. Recently, while reporting on the ongoing FBI espionage scandal which involved veteran agent, Robert Hanssen, US News and World Report quoted David Major, a retired FBI counterintelligence officer, as describing his and Hanssen’s generation of agents as members of a “cigar-chomping, door kicking” macho order (Duffy 24). I find this perception limiting and incomplete. My dad, a veteran of 24 years with the Bureau whose career centered around the urban New York City office from 1955-78 and who was a part of that same generation, never chomped on a cigar, but I did see him kick down a door--once. And the circumstances are telling.

In my childhood home, a solidly built Tudor in Long Island, NY, the second-floor was laid out in an L with the entrance hallway and stairwell located in the short line. The long line had two bedrooms, but--in an anomalous floor plan design I have not seen since--the second bedroom was reachable only via the first. Each bedroom was used by a sister. The older sister, Debbie, "guarded" the outer door, while Mary, three years younger, slept in the inner room. For anyone who has had, or sired, siblings this set up clearly has problematic privacy issues. Debbie controlled the only portal to Mary’s room, and “Debs” had the only door that could be locked. Thus, Mary found that the only way to assure the integrity of her personal space was to sometimes lock Debbie’s outer door and then retreat to her own room. One day Mary locked her sister’s door, and with her friend closed her own door to enjoy a private game of “Barbie.”

Downstairs the visiting girl’s parents and my family were enjoying one another’s company when they noticed the girls had been missing for quite a while. They soon found, with the help of a frustrated Debbie, the locked door, but as hard as they knocked and as loud as they shouted, no response came from inside: no music, no chatter, just silence. Furthermore, that room being on the second floor, there was no way to check through any available windows. To this day, we don’t know why the girls did not hear us, probably lost in the world of pink corvettes, miniature fashions and plastic boyfriends. However, Dad, fearing some unknown tragedy, took two steps back, braced himself, and with a hard strike, kicked the door down. In a moment he rushed in, only to find Mary and her friend wide-eyed in fear and surprise but completely safe. Debbie's door, meanwhile, was never lockable again until my parents sold the house nearly ten years later.

I don’t tell this family story to embarrass Dad, although he blushes whenever this comes up. I tell it to illustrate a basic quality that does not seem to be coming up in the various descriptions of the men who served in Mr. Hanssen’s generation. Certainly, Dad was capable of using force—even deadly force. One of my prize possessions for years was one of his firearm's silhouette targets with a tight cluster of bullet holes around both the figure’s heart and head. But Dad’s use of force was centered neither on a macho lifestyle nor in a game of cops, robbers and spies: Dad kicked down the door because he thought Mary was in trouble. He and the men with whom he served (women, then, had not yet gained access to the bureau) were committed to protecting and preserving the society that in turn protected and preserved their families.

Furthermore, my father was typical of agents in his generation in their commitment to theirs and other's families. He once told me that the one case that could galvanize an entire office was a kidnapping case. Other agents would stop their own investigations to help the agent assigned the task. They were all fathers, and they knew the clock was running on a child's life. In addition, when asked about what was the outstanding moment of his FBI career, my dad, who still proudly displays a wall lined with commendations signed by J. Edgar Hoover, says it was the night he could put down the phone, turn to a pair of terrified parents, and tell them that their child was safe.

When the story of Robert Hanssen's betrayal came out--and by the way, it is notable to me that in a society in which so many seem to plead “not guilty” even when overtly caught, Hanssen ended the affair quickly with an admission--I avoided the topic in my regular emails to Dad. I knew that the subject would be upsetting. I've watched his pain, faced as he has been, by the general cultural debasement of Hoover to whose memory he still remains in many ways loyal. I also knew that everyone else, friends and family, would be asking the retired but passionate man what he thought of the whole scenario. So I left it alone.

For his part, Dad occasionally forwarded emails to me from the g-men list server maintained by former FBI agents. There were comments of self-re-assurance and pride. One was especially ironic considering the suspect’s and my dad’s strong religious feelings: “Even Jesus, after hand picking his twelve, still had a Judas.” But in it all, I could sense that there was a pained gritting of teeth behind the ironic smiles. As I read about Hanssen, his role as a father has come up again and again. I thought of the times I had seen FBI agents as fathers.

While growing up, I occasionally accompanied my dad to “firearms,” practice where I also saw other children with their FBI dads. I even sometimes fired a weapon myself--like the time I learned that shooting a sawed-off shot gun is more like aiming a hose than firing a pistol. I came away with both a profound sense of their power and of them not being toys. On the other hand, the Styrofoam containers used for storing rounds of ammo, found everywhere on the firearm compound, made great toy blocks and because they floated, toy boats. Never was I allowed to forget the difference between toys and not toys: I remember "the talk" when Dad sat me down, like Harrison Ford in Witness,and clearly explained that his gun was not and nor would ever to be used as, a plaything. That speech--filled with serous, imminent threat and protecting, abiding love--was echoed by other agent-fathers all around the firearms' compound. Their fierce warnings heard amidst the single pistol shots and thundering, rhythmic automatic fire of men sharpening their skills with deadly force. And then, years later, I became a dad too and found myself under a different kind of fire.

My first son, Andy (the 4th) was born with a trachea and esophagus fistula, called a TEF baby by all the doctors and nurses who now filled my life. His neck dead-ended while his breathing tube was directly connected to his eating pipe. Massive surgery in Rhode Island’s children’s hospital saved his life, but my wife, Loretta, and I began the long journey traveled by so many parents who sit by bedsides holding the hands of little ones who suffer in innocence. Part of our burden was lightened by the McDonald House program. And it was while staying at the Providence Ronald McDonald House that I saw for the last time FBI agents from my father’s generation.

Three men representing the FBI Foundation arrived to present a large donation to the head of the Providence Ronald McDonald House. Thinking of that experience, I wrote this email in response to those he had sent on about the Hanssen affair:

Dear Dad:

With all the news about the alleged treason committed by an FBI vet, I was wondering how you were doing. I got my answer with the last few emails you sent me.

I thought the points made by the other G-men and women were good and important reminders of the bureau's right to still be proud. Still, I couldn’t help but sense the wincing within the correspondence—a general suffering from the sting that something like this could happen in the bureau at all. I know that for you, the FBI was not only a law enforcement agency: it was a fellowship of men who believed that the good of the society within which they, and their families, lived was important enough to defend. I know that you weren’t alone in this perception.

It’s been years since this happened, but while the news was breaking about this case of espionage, I thought of how you and your fellow agents came to the Rhode Island Ronald McDonald House to give a large donation to the McDonald program partly because of the extraordinary service they had given Andy after his birth.

I don’t recall where Loretta was, but I believe I, you and the other men

ate together somewhere for lunch. I recall being struck by how similar they were to you. You were all about the same age--graying if still fit.

You all still wore the same "regulation" trench coat over your suits in the manner that I recall so well from my childhood. Some wore tan; some wore navy-blue, but it was in all in a similar mode. (I, myself, wear something like it today. I like to let my London Fog© flow out behind me on windy days, but I'm not the same. I suspect that the tweed jacket and the tummy-warming sweater of an English professor would not have met with Mr. Hoover's approval.)

I can't recall the conversation, but I remember thinking that you all shared qualities besides those of style. I picked up that the dominant political tone was conservative (I don't even recall who was president at the time). There were shared bits of knowledge sometimes expressed in an unintentional code of past experience: numbers relating to weapons or details of some past case. And I was keenly aware of my greenness among such old warriors.

And yet there was one other quality I recall. I don't know if I was right. But I thought I sensed that they, like you, were all fathers and grandfathers. Thus, the purpose of being a warrior was not the quality of danger and action in the lifestyle, it was the quality of life which you defended. As young as I felt back then, I also felt quite comfortable.

One detail from the present case which hurts is that this man is the father of six. He, like you and they (and me) is a father. If he is guilty, I wonder where he lost the vision of what it was he, a part of an elite group of warriors, was defending.

Your Loving and Thankful Son,

Dad not only confirmed to me that they were all indeed fathers but thought this letter worthwhile enough to send to the former agent listserver with an explanation of the events and even the names of the agents to whom I had vaguely referred. Later he forwarded me some of the responses. They confirm what I thought I knew. For privacy’s sake I have suppressed their names, but there seems to have been a strong sense of something that needed to be said.

One former agent wrote that the theme of the family speaks “volumes that we need to hear to get through this tragedy.” Another said “The letter placed the Hanssen matter in its' proper perspective and put into words those values which we all cherish.” Another agent went in a slightly different if related direction saying that the letter's reminder of the family as motivation for all that generation “causes me concern for Hanssen's children. That family surely needs our prayers.” This perspective, surprising to some, was not unique; these former agents, these warriors, continued to think of and care about even the family of the one who had failed them all. One agent especially articulated this concern:

I can’t believe what this man has done to his family! It is unlikely that his wife will be able to collect any of the monies that he has paid into his government pension. That will probably be frozen by the government. As a result, the family will likely lose their house, cars, ability to pay college tuition. . .everything! He has undoubtedly been fired by now, so the family loses their insurance coverage, not to mention his salary. Add to this whatever fees Plato Cacheris and Co. [Hanssen's defense team] will charge them to represent this monster. . .My Lord, what a mess! Talk about innocent victims. . .I hope we all go back to our families this evening and hold them very, very tight.

These letters express what does not seem to be coming up in all the ongoing coverage about the agency nor its people. For the agents of my father’s generation the protection of the society was an extension of the protection of their own and everyone else’s children. I suppose we have all heard of criminals who were devoted family figures. However true (and I question this), I want to make it clear that I am not just trying to show that FBI agents were merely good family men.

What I am trying to express is that there was in most of them a direct connection to what they did in the field to their familial responsibilities. People who are devoted to their families can be selfish and savage to others outside of their unit. However, these men tempered their lifestyles, worked to uncover evil, and used even their deadly force because they were family men. Are there exceptions? Of course. But that’s what they are—unusual.

Much of the negative portrayals of members of the FBI (and other military and law-enforcement organizations), come, I think, from the belief held by many that individuals whose service to this nation includes learning how to use deadly force must be inherently evil. They forget that people raised in cultures of familial importance will, even as tough individuals, be motivated by the need to protect rather than to play with dangerous and expensive toys. Oh sure, the FBI agents of my father's generation were macho; they could kick down doors; they could chew cigars, but that was not what defined them nor should it define our attitudes towards them or any other member of our police or armed forces. We need to distance our perspective from the shaping forces of Hollywood action adventure heroes. One agent wrote simply “Thank you for this email. I cried.” Major’s definition is wrong by omission. What a difference it makes in one’s mind to think of the above agent weeping for, and over, families--even if he is chomping on a cigar as he does so. Did he? I don’t know; however, there were tears of relief in my father’s eyes when, after kicking down the door, action-adventure he found my little sister and her friend safe.

Works Cited

Duffy, Brian. “Spy vs. Spy” U.S. News and World Report. 20 Feb. 2001: 24-25.

If done today using MLA:

Works Cited

Duffy, Brian. “Spy vs. Spy” USNews.com. 25 Feb. 2001 Web.4 Oct. 2012.

If done today using APA:

References

Duffy, Brian. (25 Feb. 2001). Spy vs. Spy. ” USNews.com. Retrieved from

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/010305/archive_004809_6.htm

#law enforcement #family #betrayal

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allthebiddiesartur-blog · 6 years

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Five Characters Lists

Nick

Conceited

" He sold the Bollettieri Academy, because he got himself into debt, and it was the biggest mistake of his life... He says he's not getting paid what he's worth. He says I've been an unsound investment. He's spent hundreds of thousands of dollars developing me, and he's entitled to hundreds and thousands above the hundreds of thousands I've already given him.”

From this example you can tell that Nick thinks very highly of himself. He is brushing Andre to the side telling him that investing in him was a waste of his time and a loss of money. Only someone who thinks money is more important than anything else, would say something as conceited as that

Selfish

- " Part of the problem with my game in 1989 is my racket. I've always used a prince, but Nick has convinced me to sign with a new company, Donnay. Why? Because Nick's got money troubles, and for delivering me to Donnay he gets a lucrative contract for himself."

Nick is not worried about how Andre plays with the racket he’s not comfortable with, he is just in it for the money. Nick’s whole mindset is on the money, he puts it before Andre’s success in the game of tennis, this shows the selfishness in Nick.

Forceful

" Little girl: what a pretty panda! Where did you get it? Andre: we won it. Little girl: what are you going to do with it? Andre: I'm giving it to a friend. Gabriel: the man wants to see you. Andre: I walk slowly, taking my time. I stopped at the door to Nick's office. Nick: he clears his throat. I understand that you were at Busch Gardens yesterday. Did you have fun? Anyway, my daughter apparently has fallen in love with that Panda. Ha ha. She can't stop talking about it. So here's the thing. I'd like to buy that Panda from you. Look, just tell me how much you want for it, Andre. Why don't you write down how much you want for it? How about I give you $200."

Nick will try anything to get Andre to give up the panda he was going to give to Jamie. He pushes even further bribing Andre with $200. Then at the end he convinced Andre into giving up his panda to give to Nick’s daughter

Wendi

Indecisive

“She says we’re too young to make a commitment, too confused. She doesn’t know who she is. She grew up Mormon, then decided she didn’t believe the tenets of that religion. She went to college, then discovered that it was completely wrong for her.”

Wendi is completely lost and confused as to what to do with her life. She never really commits to something and she is quick to give up on it.

Independant

“I can’t be your travelling companion, she says, your sidekick, your fan anymore. Well, I’ll always be your fan, but you know what I mean. She needs to find herself, and to do that she needs to be free.

And so do you, she says, We can't realize our separate goals if we stay together.”

Wendi feels confined in her relationship with Andre. If she is set free from Andre she is able to do whatever she wants with her life and doesn’t have to rely on anyone but herself.

Supportive

" As we walk through the front door of my parents' house, my father meets us at the foyer. He starts right on me. Why didn't you make adjustments after the rain delay? Why didn't you hit backhand? I don't answer. I don't move. I've been expecting his tirade for the last 24 hours and I'm already numb to it. But Wendi isn't. She does something no one's ever done, something I always hoped my mother would do. She throws herself between us. She says, can we just not talk about tennis for two hours? Two hours no tennis."

Wendi understood how stressful a loss is for Andre. When his father harps at him with all of the things he should have done and could have done, she is brave enough to put an end to his father's harsh comments in order to give Andre’s mind a break. All of Andre life his father has been very hard on him and his mother would never come in between them.

Gill

Reliable

“Somewhere up there is a star with your name on it. I might not be able to help you find it, but I’ve got pretty strong shoulders, and you can stand on my shoulders while you’re looking for that star. You hear? For as long as you want. Stand on my shoulders and reach, man. Reach.”

Gil constantly reminds Andre of his value because there are times where Andre forgets what he is capable of. Gil wants Andre to chase his dreams and will be with him every step of the way through the tough and successful times.

Encouraging

“Gil likes to yell at me when I’m working out, but nothing like my father’s yelling. Gil yells love. If I’m trying to set a new personal best, if I’m preparing to lift more than I’ve ever tried, he stands in the background and yells, Come on, Andre! Let’s go! Big Thunder! His yelling makes my heart club against my ribs.”

Gil’s encouraging words is a powerful tool. He uses his encouragement to motivate Andre to becoming the best version and pushes him to his full potential

Protective

“Four guys burst into the restaurant and sit one booth away. They talk and laugh about my hair, my clothes… He (Gil) picks up the man’s burgers and eats half in one bite. Needs ketchup, Gil says, his mouth full. You know what? Now I’m thirsty… Gil takes a long slip, then slowly, almost as slowly as he drives, pours the rest of the soda over the table.”

Not only is he a mentor, Gil acts as a bodyguard. Anyone or anything that cases Andre to have negative feelings, Gil’s first instinct is to protect him.

Approachable

" He simplifies the bible. No ego, no dogma. Just common sense and clear thinking. Parenti is so casual, he doesn't want to be called Pastor Parenti. He says he wants his church to feel unlike a church. He wants it to feel like a home where people gather."

JP is very approachable. Usually with the church a sense of guilt, and pressure is put on you when talking to a priest. In JP’s church he makes all the pressure and guilt disappear. His humble, calm and kind personality lets people know that they can come to him and talk if needed

Selfless

" look, J.P. says, my life is as screwed up as the next guy's. Maybe more. I can't offer much in the way of shepherding. I'm not that kind of pastor. If you're looking for advice, I'm sorry. If you're looking for a friend, that we can do, maybe."

Though J.P. feels that his life is just as messed up as many other people's lives, he is still willing to be a good friend to Andre and offer his services to him. He is not concerned with what he will get out of this friendship and just wants to be there for him when he can be.

Wise

" I lean against the railing, sobbing. J.P. has the decency, the wisdom, to say and do nothing. He knows there is nothing to say, nothing to do, but to wait for this fire to burn out."

At this point Andre is broken up by his loss at the Munich Cup. Instead of J.P. encouraging Andre's sobbing he knows not to say anything because it will make Andre think about the situation and calm down on his own. Sometimes people need to do this on their own so they don't always depend on others.

Philly

Low-Self Esteem

“He pours out his heart, his self-doubts and disappointments. He talks about never winning. He talks about being a born loser.”

Philly is always being compared to his younger brother and how he fails to meet the standards of his father. He starts to believe in his father’s criticism leading to a lack of self-confidence.

Selfless

“I count out $1000 and throw it at my brother. Your cut of the loot.

What? No! Andre, you worked hard for this, bro.

Are you kidding? We worked. Philly, I couldn’t have done this without you.”

Even though they’re both financially struggling, Philly wants Andre to have the money to himself. Philly puts his needs aside because he believes Andre worked hard for it.

Sensible

“Slipping behind him I gently set the ice cream sandwiches on the conveyor belt.

He looks down, then looks at me.

We can’t afford that.

I’ll have this instead of my potato.

He picks up the box, looks at the price, lets out a low whistle. Andre, this cost as much as ten potatoes. We can’t.”

Philly and Andre can only afford ten potatoes to last them a week. Andre is fed up with eating 3 potatoes a day, he tried to sneak in ice cream sandwiches which are not in the budget. Philly understands that the ice cream sandwiches would be delicious to eat however, it will not be beneficial in the long run. He thought ahead that no matter how much he wants the ice cream sandwiches, it is not necessarily what they need to buy in order to survive.

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reputationiseverything · 4 years

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How To Build A Chatbot For E-commerce

email marketing 2017 trends

A chatbot for e-commerce gives you the power to engage with new, existing, and potential customers with real-time, text-style messaging, without actually providing (and paying for!) a live person.

Through carefully scripted conversations, your brand can provide your customer base with support, information, and resources 24/7.

Like any conversation, chatbots are a two-way street —- and there are benefits for both brands and users.

Customers (or prospective costumes) can find information quickly, without having to wait for a human. And you can draw customers through the sales funnel, without interacting with them directly.

Chatbots leverage artificial intelligence more than any other technology, and can help you:

Identify and nurture qualified leads

Provide customer service and support

Interact with past customers, including providing shipping and return information

Gather feedback on the customer experience

Recommend related products to increase sales

If you are looking for a way to build a real relationship with your audience, improve customer service, and even increase sales, chatbots should be high on your list of priorities.

Today, I will explain exactly how to build and launch a chatbot for your e-commerce store from start to finish.

The good news is, it’s likely a lot easier than you think!

What Is the Goal of Your Ecommerce Chatbot?

Getting clear on your goals will help you avoid distractions and stay laser-focused on results.

Chatbots for e-commerce are a powerful sales and marketing tool. So before you get started, get a handle on what you want your chatbot to do for your business.

Here are a few more features to consider before digging into building your chatbot:

Where do you want the chatbot to be located?

What other platforms, such as social media, do you want it connected to?

What kind of information do you want to supply to your customers?

What are your customers looking for when they interact with your chatbot?

Do you want users to be able to request and connect with a live person?

How will your chatbot fit into your overall marketing strategy?

Getting a handle on what you want, at least initially, will help you build your chatbot efficiently, without getting distracted by the myriad of things chatbots can do. (Seriously, they can do a ton.)

I highly recommend considering the power of Facebook Messenger when it comes to chatbots. Well over a billion users are using Facebook Messenger every month, so interacting with your brand can be seamless.

Messenger can give you valuable user insights, such as their name and location, that can help you help them find what they want – and ultimately move them through your sales funnel.

One of the most useful tools for launching a Facebook messenger chatbot is Manychat, which we’ll cover below.

Building a Chatbot

Yes, it’s possible to plug-in Facebook messenger directly into your website. Still, a third-party chatbot program gives you the power to set up automated conversations through scripts, answering popular questions, or assisting customers, without human interaction.

Every program has its own interface and step-by-step plan to actually build your bot, so instructions may vary.

Not only can you build a chatbot for your e-commerce but customers can also subscribe to your content using that platform, so when you publish a blog post with a sale or new product, it’ll go right to their Facebook messenger app.

How to Set Up a Chatbot

Choose which platform you want to work with. I’ll walk you through Manychat, but there are several other options, including Chatfuel, Botsify, and Mobile Monkey. I’ve chosen Manychat for an example.

Give the chatbot program access to your Facebook page.

Provide some basic information about your company and your goals.

Now, it’s time to start creating the chatbot’s content, including broadcasts (like an email blast) and conversation flows — this is complex, but you only have to set it up once.

On Manychat, go to “Automation” to see your options for various flows or sequences.

Building a chatbot for e-commerce comes down to writing scripts that engage, educate, and serve your customers.

You can start editing these default messages, such as the Welcome message to include your brand information and a warm greeting.

Now it’s time to build flows that simulate real conversation with your customers, allowing them to interact with your brand.

To build flows in Manychat, the best option is the Flow Builder. This is available once you open and name a flow.

You can stay in Basic Builder mode, or click “Go To Flow Builder” in the upper right-hand corner.

This will give you a visual representation of your conversation flow, which is really helpful for making sure you don’t miss anything. Keep adding dynamic steps to simulate the conversation you want to walk your visitors through.

How to Build Flows

Add Trigger. What’s going to launch this conversation? When you click “Add Trigger,” you’ll be given dozens of options, from subscriber opt-ins to keyword triggers to pop-ups on the side of the screen. Choose the one that makes sense for the goal of this flow. How will the customer start this conversation?

Add Text. It’s time to start the conversation. A warm “Hello, How can I help you?” is good. An introduction to your chatbot persona or your brand is also an excellent place to start.

Keep going. The conversation has only begun! Add images or galleries of choices. You can choose “User Input” in the Manychat Pro version, to allow customers to choose from various options in responding back with you. Here’s a quick look at a few of the button options you’ll have for each message.

Consider looking at your customer service logs and planning conversations based on the most common questions customers or prospects ask.

6 Tips for Building an Effective Chatbot Script

Your script is the most critical part of building an effective chatbot. Here are a few tips to ensure your script is on point every time.

Start with a welcome message: Remember you are simulating a conversation. If a real person just walked up to you and started talking about a sale, it would be a little weird. Start with a “hello” and maybe an offer to help or another soft opening.

Provide a Main menu: Provide this option early in the sequence to help customers find what they need quickly and allow them to return to the menu if they need to. Use a gallery view and include pictures and links to basic information on your page.

Use personalized text tags whenever feasible: If you can use a merge tag to fill in the customer’s name, or other personalizations, you can sound more human. But be careful, because overdoing the personalization can come across as fake.

Think like the user: As you are planning the conversational flow of your chatbot, think of it as a flow chart, with various options leading to other options. If they say this, you say that. And so on. However, don’t lose sight of your ultimate goal, which is to close a sale or prompt a sign-up. Ensure each path leads to a goal or to another engagement, such as subscribing or talking to a live person.

Include a Buy Now option: If your goal is to drive sales, a buy button will make it easy for customers to convert. Allowing them to purchase right there in Facebook messenger is key.

Get the Unsubscribe option: Give users a way to opt-out of communication, either through an Unsubscribe button or a keyword such as “stop.” Provide the instructions early in the communication.

Should I Use E-commerce Chatbot Templates?

You can use templates designed to help you set up flows even faster. These templates can take some of the guesswork out of building the chatbot script.

Relying on the templates is tempting — it could save you so much time!

But be careful. Relying too heavily on templates can make your conversations feel fake and stilted. I recommend using them carefully — but remember that you know your customers best.

Consider reviewing Abandoned Cart templates and Out of Stock templates for e-commerce specifically.

These can help you drive sales to an already interested crowd.

Here’s what ManyChat’s Starter template looks like in a simulation:

Remember to use these templates as starting points. Dive in the customization options, from images and text to unique flows, to ensure the interaction sounds natural and is authentic to your brand.

Make every update you need to make sure you don’t sound like someone else or too robotic.

Building In Natural Characteristics

When we text, we move at a certain pace, as fast as our fingers or thumbs can type. It’s important that your chatbot move with the same kind of rhythm, otherwise it can become too robotic or pushy.

Here are a few tips for making your chatbot feel more natural:

Keep messages short. Use a string of two or three messages, rather than a long paragraph of text that will visually overwhelm the customer.

Create pauses between each message. This allows for those familiar three dots to animate, giving customers breathing space in between texts and simulating a more human interaction.

Attach links and photos in ways that feel human, rather than a barrage of content. It should feel like “Here this is probably what you’re looking for,” rather than “Here is our entire menu to choose from. See anything you like?”

Testing Your Chatbot for E-commerce

As you start setting up conversations in your e-commerce chatbot, you’re going to want to test the chatbot to make sure conversations feel natural and interactions are working the way you expect them to. There are a few ways you can test your flows to make sure they are working:

Set Up A Test Facebook Page

Create a new Facebook page to use internally for development. Then link your chatbot program account to that page, in addition to your brand’s pages.

Do all your development of flows, broadcasts, and other experiments in that test page.

Then you can log in to Facebook messenger and see them live for yourself and ask other team members to simulate customer interaction and make sure things look and function properly.

Make Use Of The Program’s Live Visuals

If it’s available, try the live visual simulator so you can see how your flows will play out in real-time. Watch these with scrutiny and a customer’s eye. Are things happening an even pace? Does it feel natural or like a sales blast?

Integrating Your E-Commerce Chatbot

One of the great benefits of using a chatbot program is leveraging the widget tool and embedding your chatbot on your website or other online locations.

Where can you lead customers to interact with your chatbot? Here are just a few ideas:

A pop-up box on your site, asking customers if they need help

A subscribe button to receive your newsletter or sales blasts through messenger

A sign-up for events, virtual or in-person

These “triggers” can set up conversations with users, allowing them to opt-in to your chatbot and providing you with customer data.

Available programs offer a range of widgets or buttons with code snippets you can place in the code of your website.

Tutorials are available, but if you aren’t sure, hiring a web developer for this quick project or hourly may be the way to go with this.

Conclusion

Building a chatbot for e-commerce can take your sales to the next level.

Not only can it give you access to highly qualified leads, but also allows you to position yourself as a resource and knowledge base. With an e-commerce chatbot, you can build rapport with your customers and ultimately nurture loyalty.

Using one of the built-in systems, you’re just a few clicks away from starting to engage your customers, giving them valuable information, and driving sales.

As you’re building, don’t lose sight of your brand messaging and voice. Stay on track with who you are as a company, and you’ll be on your way to building a chatbot that sounds authentic to your unique point of view.

How can you use a chatbot for your e-commerce site?

Youtobe

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shoury01 · 4 years

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MANAGING REMOTE WORKFORCES: BEHAVIOURAL CHALLENGES

In response to the uncertainties presented by Covid-19, many companies and universities have asked their employees to work remotely. The new policies leave many employees — and their managers — separated from each other for the first time.

Common Behavioural Challenges of Remote Workforce:

Managers first ought to understand factors that can make remote work especially demanding. Both managers and their employees often express concerns about the lack of face-to-face interaction. Supervisors worry that employees will not work as hard or as efficiently (though research indicates otherwise, at least for some types of jobs). Many employees, on the other hand, struggle with reduced access to managerial support and communication. Challenges inherent in remote work include:

A) Lack of access to information:

Newly remote workers are often surprised by the added time and effort needed to locate information from colleagues. Even getting answers to what seem like simple questions can feel like a large obstacle to a worker based at home. This phenomenon extends beyond task-related work to interpersonal challenges that can emerge among remote colleagues.

Research has found that a lack of “mutual knowledge” among remote workers translates to a lower willingness to give colleagues the benefit of the doubt in difficult situations. For example, if you know that your officemate is having a rough day, you will view a brusque email from them as a natural product of their stress. However, if you receive this email from a remote colleague, with no understanding of their current circumstances, you are more likely to take offense, or at a minimum to think poorly of your colleague’s professionalism.

B) Social Isolation and Loneliness:

Loneliness is one of the most common complaints about remote work, with employees missing the informal social interaction of an office setting. It is thought that extraverts may suffer from isolation more in the short run, particularly if they do not have opportunities to connect with others in their remote-work environment. However, over a longer period of time, isolation can cause any employee to feel less “belonging” to their organization, and can even result in increased intention to leave the company.

Not surprisingly then, it’s a huge health factor that impacts not only our psychology but even our physical health. Isolation and loneliness in humans are just as detrimental. Prolonged isolation can in extreme cases result in things like anxiety and depression.

When working remotely, we miss out on so many opportunities to connect with our colleagues and managers. More than just that, though, we also feel like our teammates don’t hear us the same. We often feel like leadership doesn’t take notice of us the way they do those working in office. A survey of remote employees found that 37% of those surveyed believe that working remotely can lead to reduced visibility and less access to company leadership.

C) Distractions in the Environment:

Typically, we encourage employers to ensure that their remote workers have both dedicated workspace and adequate childcare before allowing them to work remotely. Yet, in the case of a sudden transition to virtual work, there is a much greater chance that employees will be contending with suboptimal workspaces and (due to school and daycare closures) unexpected parenting responsibilities. Even in normal circumstances family and home demands can impinge on remote work; managers should expect these distractions to be greater during this unplanned work-from-home transition.

D) Communication issues due to a lack of non-verbal cues:

We lose some of those hallway conversations, and quick in-office chats, but it goes deeper than that. It can become difficult to sense intent in messages between you and your team. The philosophical concept Hanlon’s razor, coined by author Robert J. Hanlon, says that we should “assume ignorance before malice,” when communicating with others. It is based on thousands upon thousands of years of primal programming that causes us to assume something is a threat by default for the sake of survival.

The problem is, that natural defence mechanism doesn’t help us much in a modern workplace. When you’re messaging an employee, they’re liable to assume negative intent when you say something they could take as a “threat” (such as when you offer a critique, feedback, ask a question, etc.), and the same goes for you. Without any of the non-verbal cues to discern intent from what we see and hear, communication issues can easily arise, since almost 90% of all communication is non-verbal. Imagine trying to make an important decision with only 10% of the information.

How Managers Can Support Remote Employees

There are specific, research-based, steps that managers can take without great effort to improve the engagement and productivity of remote employees, even when there is little time to prepare. As much as remote work can be fraught with challenges, there are relatively quick and inexpensive things that managers can do to ease the transition:

A) Establish structured daily check-ins:

Many successful remote managers establish a daily call with their remote employees. The important feature is that the calls are regular and predictable, and that they are a forum in which employees know that they can consult with you, and that their concerns and questions will be heard.

B) Provide several different communication technology options:

Remote workers benefit from having a “richer” technology, such as video conferencing, that gives participants many of the visual cues that they would have if they were face-to-face. Video conferencing has many advantages:

1) It allows for increased “mutual knowledge” about colleagues

2) It helps reduce the sense of isolation among teams

3) Useful for complex or sensitive conversations as it feels more personal than written or audio-only communication.

4) Aids in discerning the non-verbal cues of communication that we are so accustomed to.

C) Provide opportunities for remote social interaction:

The easiest way to establish some basic social interaction is to leave some time at the beginning of team calls just for non-work items (e.g., “We’re going to spend the first few minutes just catching up with each other. How was your weekend?”). Other options include virtual pizza parties (in which pizza is delivered to all team members at the time of a videoconference), or virtual office parties (in which party “care packages” can be sent in advance to be opened and enjoyed simultaneously). While these types of events may sound artificial or forced, experienced managers of remote workers (and the workers themselves) report that virtual events help reduce feelings of isolation, promoting a sense of belonging.

D) Offer encouragement and emotional support:

Especially in the context of an abrupt shift to remote work, it is important for managers to acknowledge stress, listen to employees’ anxieties and concerns, and empathize with their struggles. Research on emotional intelligence and emotional contagion tells us that employees look to their managers for cues about how to react to sudden changes or crisis situations. If a manager communicates stress and helplessness, this will have a “trickle-down” effect on employees.

Effective leaders take a two-pronged approach, both acknowledging the stress and anxiety that employees may be feeling in difficult circumstances, but also providing affirmation of their confidence in their teams. With this support, employees are more likely to take up the challenge with a sense of purpose and focus.

Remote Management Tips:

1) Establish Well-defined Expectations:

Everyone has a different idea of what doing something “quickly” or “well” means. Whether showing examples of what you expect to be done, calendar sharing, etc., make sure you have clear expectations from those you work with online.

2) Engage Consistently:

Engage your remote workers on a daily basis through some kind of communication. Use multiple channels to communicate. Then, plan a regularly scheduled face-to-face meeting. This can be weekly, monthly, or annually, and could be combined with a training or coaching program. This constant interaction and engagement will help remote workers feel included, which is an important aspect of the organization.

3) Trust the Team:

Sometimes, companies are not willing to embrace a remote workforce because there’s an uncertainty about whether or not the work will get completed at the same level as if they were in the office. To combat this belief, set up work-from-home guidelines, such as emails must be responded to within 24 hours, use text for urgent matters, etc.

4) Clarify For Mission, Values, Outcomes And Role:

Remote workers are often frozen out of regular-office human interaction, so on-target overcommunication is critical. Help them get aligned with mission, the values that truly matter to them, as well as the outcomes they love delivering to others and their natural role in any situation. This will keep them truly motivated and working with you longer and more productively.

5) Organise Reliable Tools:

If remote employees can’t download files, struggle hearing on a conference call, and consistently receive meeting invitations for times when they are still asleep, you have failed to address the basics. First, invest in reliable tools to make collaboration possible. Then develop clear processes to use such tools. For circumstances when quick collaboration is more important than visual detail, provide mobile-enabled individual messaging functionality (Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc.) which can be used for simpler, less formal conversations, as well as time-sensitive communication.

6) Focus On Goals, Not Activity:

It is important to manage expectations and stay focused on goals when embracing a remote workforce. Don’t worry as much about what is being done. Instead, concentrate on what is being accomplished. If we are meeting our goals, then great. If not, we need to look into the situation further. It is all about accomplishment, not activity.

Connect Their Goals With Yours. The world is shifting quickly to a workforce interested in learning and skills advancement rather than stability. Take a moment to connect their interests to the goals of my company.

7) Create A Communication Strategy

Managing a productive team remotely begins with a strategy for communication. First, arrange for the appropriate number of weekly formal “report-ins.” Second, set guidelines about daily needs. Some people work better with a shopping list of questions and thoughts while others like a trickle. An understanding of what is urgent will further mitigate inefficiency, allowing ultimate productivity.

Make each team meeting count with intentional purpose and opportunities to engage and contribute in a variety of ways. Intentionality is an essential practice, particularly when we cannot readily “see” our people.

8) The Importance of One-On-Ones:

Since you don’t have all those moments in the office to build rapport and talk about issues ad hoc, make up for it by setting aside more time for your one on ones with your remote employees. One of the fastest ways to build resentment on your team is regularly cancelling one on ones. Employees miss out on the kinds of information that would naturally spread across an office related to other parts of the company and brief announcements. One on ones provide an opportunity to make up for that as well as handle all the little things that build up over the course of a week.

Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

#remote #remoteworkplace #remoteteam #remotecollaboration #communication #leadership #management #visual #loneliness #isolation #uncertainty #information #teamwork

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asfeedin · 4 years

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Defining a Product’s Purpose and Plan

Say I’m in the process of developing a new waffle iron. It’s going to be capable of perfectly detecting when a waffle is golden brown no matter the volume or thickness of the batter. We’re talking about next-level waffle technology. It could be an absolute game-changer, but in this scenario, something goes horribly wrong.

The product is rushed through development without any real guidance or objectives. And when it’s sent to the manufacturer, there’s no picture of what kind of audience will gravitate to it, how it stacks up to other waffle irons, what it’s going to do for the business, or other crucial factors that might give this waffle iron an identity in the marketplace.

If that were the case, then this once-in-a-generation feat of waffle engineering would go to waste — all because it didn’t have a solid product strategy to guide its development.

Product Strategy

A product strategy is an overarching plan that guides the course of a product’s development. It addresses factors like your target audience, where your product fits in the market, and its ideal business impact — establishing firm pictures of your company’s market vision, specific goals, and big-picture initiatives.

A sound product strategy can be the difference between a product being able to carve a permanent place in its market and being an absolute afterthought. It can put weight and sensibility behind a product to help it resonate with consumers as effectively as possible.

It’s the foundation for a successful product lifecycle, so if you’re interested in developing a product at any point in the future, it’s a concept worth having a picture of.

Here, we’ll get an understanding of what a product strategy is, the framework that structures it, the key elements it should address, and an example of the concept.

Product Strategy Framework

A product strategy framework is typically composed of three core components: market vision, product goals, and product initiatives.

Market Vision

Who is this product for, and what does that mean for you as a business? Those are the critical questions to answer when defining your market vision. This portion includes information about your target customers, plans on how you’ll position your product, and how it’s going to perform relative to your competition. Your market vision has to address your customer needs, the buyer personas you intend to appeal to, and how you’ll deliver a competitive offer.

Product Goals

There has to be some sort of endgame to your efforts with a product strategy. You have to work towards something. Setting goals is crucial to charting your course and keeping you on track. Goals guide your development team, allow you to keep tabs on progress, and ultimately measure success when your product has been released.

Make sure your goals are SMART — specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. Make them clear-cut with a sense of urgency behind them. Also, don’t backload all your goals for the end of the project. Set individual, timely milestones along the way to ensure that your team is maintaining a solid pace and accomplishing everything that needs to be done.

Product Initiatives

Product initiatives are essentially more conceptual product goals. They’re big-picture ideas, including trends you want your product to influence. They represent the kind of impact you want to have on your business, your reputation, your status within your industry, the state of your industry, consumers’ lives, or the world at large — depending on the scale of your operation.

Product Strategy Example

In 1984, Apple released the Macintosh 12K8 — the first iteration of what would go on to become the world’s most popular brand of personal computer. The Mac was a bold step forward in the landscape of computing, and though it ultimately fell short of the goals it set initially, its product strategy is worth examining.

Market Vision

High tech marketing and product strategies through the 70s and early 80s catered primarily to hobbyists and “early adopters” — people without backgrounds in computing willing to learn about it to improve work productivity.

There wasn’t much emphasis on appealing to the common consumer — exactly who Apple made a point of trying to reach. Its market vision revolved around giving the average person access to straightforward, aesthetically appealing personal computing.

Product Goals

Apple set a series of measurable, time-oriented goals for the Macintosh — specifically when it came to sales. Apple estimated the Mac would sell 50,000 units in its first 100 days — a target it hit with relative ease. However, those early sales proved to be misleading, and the Mac 12K8 didn’t come close to hitting its long term sales goals.

Though that might be the case, the fact remains that Apple set specific goals about its preferred sales figures to ultimately gauge the success of its product strategy.

Product Initiatives

Apple released the original Macintosh with the tagline, “The computer for the rest of us.” It was easily operable with an accessible graphical user interface, among several other approachable, straightforward features.

The original Mac was designed, positioned, and marketed as a machine that would shape the future of personal computing. It was going to make the concept more accessible for the general population, beyond hobbyists and traditional PC users. That was Macintosh’s product initiative — to democratize personal computing. And for what it’s worth, Apple nailed it.

Key Product Strategy Elements

An effective product strategy revolves, in large part, around four key elements: honing in on a customer segment, understanding the competition, ironing out the business end of the strategy, and considering the macro-environment.

1. Hone in on a customer segment.

You can’t develop a product strategy without understanding who you’re trying to reach. The first step in identifying that base is determining what specific need you’re trying to address with your product. Once you identify the best need to tackle, you have to consider who that need applies to. Don’t approach the process with some fuzzy, indiscriminate picture of who’s buying — that will be inefficient and unsustainable.

Take time to develop detailed buyer personas. Touch base with who you think you can reach to see if your product will resonate with them. And be prepared to adapt to feedback from your customers as time goes on.

2. Understand the competition.

In all likelihood, your company will have competitors within your space with similar value propositions. That’s why you have to understand the options they offer, how you compare, and how you can stand out.

Successful products always have some kind of differentiating factor. Bear in mind, that’s not necessarily the same thing as your product’s key benefit. Your competition is your competition because your products serve a fundamentally similar purpose. So how do you go about tracking that factor down?

Generally speaking, your differentiating factor will be a matter of better service, better quality, or lower prices. But how do you settle on one? Well, you can run different ideas by that customer base you’ve landed on. They’re as reliable a source of inspiration as you’ll find. Also, keep tabs on your competitors. See how they’re trying to set themselves apart and try to find a lucrative niche that still has space.

3. Iron out the business end.

Ultimately, a product is a means to an end, and that end is generally monetary. A product strategy will let shareholders know how they’ll see a return on their investment. It will detail — in-depth — how you plan to monetize your efforts.

What is your business model? If your product is web-based, will you generate revenue through selling ad-space? What about a subscription model? If your product is a consumer good, what kind of retailers will carry it? Or will it be sold exclusively online?

A business isn’t a business if it has no interest in making money. Putting out a product with no concept of how customers will be able to buy it makes for an ineffective, borderline-pointless product strategy.

4. Consider the macro-environment.

The macro-environment is the sum of the major external factors well beyond your control that influence your company. They’re the political, economic, social, and cultural forces that can sway the context in which you do business and how your customers might view your product.

Though they’re not entirely predictable, your product strategy has to take them into consideration. That could mean being mindful of new technology that might shape your market, different markets you might be able to appeal to going forward, or the ways your customers’ needs, interests, and behaviors might shift over time.

Product Positioning

The concept of product positioning revolves around how customers view your product — the space in their minds your product is going to occupy. It’s essentially the process of determining how to best communicate the useful, compelling attributes of your product to your target audience to shape a specific perception.

How you intend to position your product is often summarized in something known as a “positioning statement” — a concise statement that explains how your product suits your ideal buyer persona. It’s meant to be used as an internal tool to align marketing efforts with the brand and value proposition. It goes like this:

For [target customer] who has [need statement], [Product/brand name] is a [market category] that [key benefit statement/compelling reason to buy]. Unlike [primary competitor alternatives], the product [unique differentiation statement].

The statement for video-sharing social media platform TikTok this statement could read:

For mobile users, predominantly aged 13 to 24, who are looking for a consistent stream of straightforward, engaging content, TikTok is a video-sharing social networking service that never stops running videos tailored to their specific preferences. Unlike Instagram or YouTube, TikTok automatically plays new content nonstop — all in keeping with what users have demonstrated they like to see.

Companies generally leverage tactics and resources like market research and focus groups to inform their ideal product positioning strategies. These strategies allow businesses to understand how their target audiences can best be reached. With that information at hand, companies can determine the best ways to convey their products’ benefits to resonate with those consumers.

Product positioning often informs a company’s marketing efforts. That means tailoring certain aspects of a product’s presentation and messaging to suit the needs and wants of that audience. This can often involve adjustments to aspects like packaging or display.

Successful product development needs guidance. It doesn’t figure itself out as it goes, and businesses can’t afford to wing it. A product strategy sets the tone for the process. It sets development in motion and keeps it on track.

Product strategy is a matter of defining a product’s purpose. One of its most important functions is establishing the why of a product. And without that, it’s very difficult for product teams to know where to start and how to proceed.

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wyrdsistersofthedas · 7 years

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Taint Resistance in a Bottle - Random Thought Blogs: The Blighted Entries 2

Totally just a random exercise in speculation this week after reading some very interesting ideas about whether the taint could be spread from Grey Wardens to their LIs or to those healing them. I highly recommend reading the excellent thoughts and evidence presented by the OP, @altalemur , @rederiswrites and @higheverrains. My thoughts took a tangent, of course, that eventually circled back to become this post.

I think there is a fairly simple, albeit probably magical, answer to the question. Whatever gives the Grey Wardens their resistance to the taint makes it nigh impossible for them to pass the taint on to others. Even with prolonged exposure to a warden’s body, like during a rare warden pregnancy, the warden is not contagious, including to the child. In fact, we know that Morrigan had to go to extreme, probably blood magicky, means to have a baby with the taint. Wardens just don’t pass it on. Examples:

If Morrigan is involved with a male warden who refuses to do the Dark Ritual, she still gets pregnant with a taint-free Kieran (which implies there must be some consent on the part of the warden in order for the ritual to work).

Side note: The fact that Morrigan could have a baby with the warden without the Dark Ritual implies that the ritual had nothing to do with increasing her fertility. The ritual was purely to pass the taint on to their child or create a connection with the archdemon. Ergo, Morrigan probably was using other means (again likely magical) to ensure she became pregnant.

Fiona gives birth to Alistair, taint free.

Side note: Fiona had been a warden for about a year when she became pregnant. Same thing happens with Morrigan, if you do the Dark Ritual or the warden is romantically involved with her. This suggests that a warden’s best chance at having children is during a 18-24 months window right after the Joining.

When griffons were forced to undergo a modified Joining ritual, they are completely unable to develop the Grey Wardens’ resistance to the taint. This leads to their (near) extinction because they can infect each other with the taint, unlike wardens.

I suspect that when the first Grey Wardens discovered how to do the Joining, they also figured out a way to magically block, or resist, the taint...at least for a while. If this theory is true, it would also give another reason for the Calling. If the Grey Wardens eventually lose all their resistance they would become no different than a ghoul, who can and do spread the taint to others.

“There are stories across Ferelden of these ghouls, maddened by the corruption of the blight, attacking their friends and spreading the corruption further. While it is likely that the sickness will eventually kill a ghoul, the dying strength of these poor creatures makes them nearly as great a danger as the darkspawn themselves.

They are no longer our friends, our family, or our countrymen. They are victims of the Blight, and must be given the same mercy Hessarian showed Andraste: a swift sword.”

It stands to reason that Grey Wardens who completely lose their resistance would then pass on the taint like other infected beings. (I wonder if the Architect’s accelerated ghoul program, which he used on Bregan, Genevieve, and Utha, allowed them to keep their resistance longer. Utha seemed pretty lucid in Awakening. I wonder if the Architect gave Seranni some form of the resistance too.)

A warden’s resistance to the taint is so powerful, in fact, that it literally blocks the song of the old gods in darkspawn. The Architect needed the blood of wardens to free the darkspawn of their compulsion, or rather their resistance to the taint.

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So yeah, that resistance that Grey Wardens have to the taint is probably what prevents them from spreading it to their companions. Now the next question should be...what gives Grey Wardens that resistance? Like I said before, I think part of the resistance is part of the magic of the Joining Ritual, but that doesn’t explain why some can survive the Joining and other die. What makes a Grey Warden able to survive the Joining and develop that resistance to the taint? Is it some innate quality or biologic feature in the warden themselves? Or is it an outside force or aid?

Leliana seems to have a natural resistance to the taint. Maric is able to resist via potions concocted from “rare herbs” and, possibly, his dragon flavored blood. There are also suggestions that a person’s willpower can affect their level of resistance. Former lead writer and ex “word of god”, David Gaider, said:

“Insofar as how long a Grey Warden could remain on the throne, it depends. The taint will make a Grey Warden age faster, so someone like Loghain isn't going to be able to stay a Grey Warden for very long as he's no young man. The "thirty years" quote is about the maximum, but the reality is that it depends on how often one is exposed to the corruption and sometimes just personal variance-- even so, for a monarch to stay on the throne upwards of thirty years is no mean feat. I don't really think that's the limiting factor when it comes to this sort of thing.” (Bioware Forums, I miss your information if not the sea of negativity. More interesting taint related info here.)

Another quote:

“But the idea is also that it varies. Thirty years is the maximum that you could probably expect. It's going to vary for an individual according to their willpower and the level of their interaction with the darkspawn. During a Blight you can expect that the Grey Wardens are going to have shorter lifespans. Outside of a Blight the Grey Wardens would tend to live longer. We have instances in the game of people going on their Calling after five or ten years. Alistair's thirty year quote shouldn't be taken as gospel, that's the way I like it.” (Interview with Gaider, posted on Swooping is Bad LJ)

I’m going to have to investigate this further, but I am pretty sure the level of resistance in each warden varies and can be affected by several factors.

Taint Resistance in a Bottle?

“King Maric was given a leather satchel full of potions, each of them contained in a delicate glass vial. According to the First Enchanter, this was a precious mixture of herbs that would enable Maric to resist the disease spread by the darkspawn. He was, after all, the only one in the group without the Grey Warden’s immunity. One full vial was to be swallowed each morning; according to Duncan’s count, that meant the King had a two-week supply.

Rather optimistic of the First Enchanter, really.” (The Calling, p. 71)

I’m very curious about the “rare herbs” mentions in The Calling and in the Joining ritual description. I suspect that Marethari used a variation of the potion Maric took to keep Mahariel alive long enough to take the Joining. The fact that none of our companions were tainted while killing the oodles of darkspawn in Origins would make a lot more sense if we had to make potions to help them keep their resistance up. And here is the section of total speculation that began this whole post:

What could those “rare” herbs be? (Possible ingredients list lies below the cut.)

(I mean, this could be critical information for those of us that like to write fanfiction and don’t want to totally hand wave encounters with the darkspawn by saying, “Once again, we’ve all managed to not get tainted in spite of all the people around us who are totally tainted now because darkspawn!”)

The Wilds Flower: (rare-ish) Given that it these flowers can help a mabari suffering from the taint, it stands to reason it can help a human build their resistance. This flower would be available to the Dalish and was known to the kennel master at Ostagar, so it would very likely be included in the tincture. It can be found in the swamps of the Korcari Wilds.

Embrium: (common) This flower is often used in healing mists and potions, and to enhance regeneration. Sounds like qualities that could help combat the taint. It is commonly found in the regions around the Waking Sea.

Spindleweed: (common) A common ingredient in resistance potions, it stands to reason that a taint blocker would include this herb. It can be found in the valleys on either side of the Frostback Mountains.

Dragonthorn: (rare-ish) The leaves of the dragonthorn tree “enhance and stabilize other, more volatile magical compounds”, a helpful trait for a potion that combats one of the most virulent diseases in Thedas. It also is used in spirit resistance tonics. It can be found in the Forbidden Oasis and the Wellspring, but sample could theoretically be obtained from one of the Circles of Magi, the Wonders of Thedas or other merchants of medicinal/magical ingredients.

Vandal Aria: (common) Cousin of the Silent Plains rose, this plant can be used to craft healing potions and a rock armor tonic. This plant can grows in dry climates, like the Western Approach and the Hissing Wastes, but can be purchased from most medicinal merchants.

Deep Mushroom: (common) The right varieties of deep mushroom can restore stamina and help heal injuries. “The most common varieties used in the herbalist's trade are the Blightcap, Ghoul's Mushroom, and Brimstone Mushroom, almost all of which tend to carry the darkspawn's corruption. While they cannot transmit the disease, this trait often makes them quite poisonous.” Clearly, deep mushrooms are taint resistant themselves, but choosing the right variety and careful preparation would be needed in order to harness their beneficial properties and avoid accidental poisonings. Various varieties of deep mushrooms can be found in caves and in the Deep Roads.

Concentrator Agent: (common) Composed of distilled and purified Heatherum and Foxite, which are both common herbs in Ferelden, a concentrator agent would enhance the effects of a taint resisting potion.

Lifestone: (rare) Although lifestone is a rock, not an herb, it would a powerful ingredient to add to a taint repelling recipe. It can only be found in proximity to lyrium veins in the Deep Roads and likely was affected by it. “Lifestones enhance the natural properties of other materials used in item creation.”

Felicidus Aria: (near extinction, extremely rare) “Commonly known as the Silent Plains Rose” this flower is the only plant that can grow in Blighted lands. This implies that it has an extreme natural resistance to the taint. It would be nearly impossible to find and extraordinarily expensive, but it could be a powerful component in an taint eliminating elixir. Hawke has some (if you do Isabela’s quest). It could also be stolen from very rich nobles.

High Dragon Blood [living preferred]: (Rare. Super rare if the dragon was still alive! Damn near one of a kind, if the dragon was a great dragon. Be prepared for weird grand kids with that last one though! ;-} ) Dragons are, perhaps, the most naturally taint resistant creatures in Thedas and their blood might convey some of their power. Known side effects: Reaver-itis and scaly skin if too much is consumed. You might have to make friends with a dragon worshiping cult to get the blood of a living dragon, btw.

Magic also seems to be necessary in the alchemic process to create taint resistance tonics, so a knowledgeable mage healer would likely be required to make the concoction work. An experienced Grey Warden mage would likely be an ideal brewer and, according to the RPG, the Grey Wardens are aware of the existence of these herbs (or whatever they turn out to be), and have helped spread this knowledge across Thedas. Perhaps it was even the Grey Wardens at Ostagar who told the Kennel Master about the Wilds Flower.

And there you have it! My random thoughts collected in a slightly less random post.

Drink in good health!

-MM

#dragon age #dragon age awakening #dragon age the calling #dragon age meta #grey wardens #blight #taint #the architect #taint cure #thedas medicine #thedas magic #morta's musings #long post

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