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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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UEFI hacking malware

Security researchers are alarmed: the already-notorious Trickbot malware has been spottied probing infected computers to find out which version of UEFI they're running. This is read as evidence that Trickbot has figured out how to pull off a really scary feat.

To understand why, you have to understand UEFI: a fascinating, deep, philosophical change to our view of computers, trust, and the knowability of the universe. It's a tale of hard choices, paternalism, and the race to secure the digital realm as it merges with the physical.

Computers were once standalone: a central processing unit that might be augmented by some co-processors for specialized processes, like a graphics card or even a math co-processor.

These co-pros were subordinate to the CPU though. You'd turn on the computer and it would read a very small set of hardcoded instructions telling it how to access a floppy disk or other storage medium for the rest of the boot sequence, the stuff needed to boot the system.

The hardwired instructions were in a ROM that had one job: wake up and feed some instructions to the "computer" telling it what to do, then go back to sleep. But there's a philosophical conundrum here.

Because the world of computing is adversarial and networked computing is doubly so: there are people who want your computer to do things that are antithetical to your interests, like steal your data or spy on you or encrypt all your files and demand ransom.

To stop this, you need to be able to examine the programs running on your computer and terminate the malicious ones. And therein lies the rub: when you instruct your computer to examine its own workings, how do you know if you can trust it?

In 1983, Ken Thompson (co-creator of C, Unix, etc) was awarded a Turing Award ("computer science's Nobel Prize"). He gave a fucking bombshell of an acceptance speech, called "Reflections on Trusting Trust."

https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf

Thompson revealed that he had created a backdoor for himself that didn't just live in Unix, but in the C compiler that people made to create new Unix systems.

Here's what that means: when you write a program, you produce "high-level code" with instructions like "printf("Hello, World!");". Once your program is done, you turn it into machine code, a series of much shorter instructions that your CPU understands ("mov dx, msg" etc).

Most programmers can't read this machine code, and even for those who can, it's a hard slog. In general, we write our code, compile it and run it, but we don't examine it. With nontrivial programs, looking at the machine code is very, very hard.

Compilers are treated as intrinsically trustworthy. Give 'em some source, they spit out a binary, you run the binary. Sometimes there are compiler bugs, sure, and compiler improvements can be a big deal. But compilers are infrastructure: inscrutable and forgotten.

Here's what Thompson did: he hid a program in his compiler that would check to see whether you were compiling an operating system or a compiler. If you were compiling an OS, it hid a secret login for him inside of it.

If you were compiling a compiler, it hid the program that looked for compilers or operating systems inside of it.

Think about what this means: every OS you compiled had an intentional security defect that the OS itself couldn't detect.

If you suspected that your compiler was up to no good and wrote your own compiler, it would be compromised as soon as you compiled it. What Thompson did was ask us to contemplate what we meant when we "trusted" something.

It was a move straight out of Rene Descartes, the reasoning that leads up to "I think therefore I am." Descartes' "Discourse on the Method" asks how we can know things about the universe.

He points out that sometimes he thinks he senses something but is wrong - he dreams, he hallucinates, he misapprehends.

If all our reasoning depends on the impressions we get from our senses, and if our senses are sometimes faulty, how can we reason at all?

Descartes wants a point of certainty, one thing he *knows* to be absolutely true. He makes the case that if you can be certain of one thing, you can anchor everything else to this point and build up a massive edifice of trustable knowledge that all hangs off of this anchor.

Thompson is basically saying, "You thought you had descartesed your way into a trustable computing universe because of the axiom that I would never poison your lowest-level, most fundamental tools.

"*Wrong*.

"Bwahahahaha."

(But, you know, in a nice way: an object lesson to serve as a wake-up call before computers fully merged with the physical world to form a global, species-wide digital nervous system whose untrustworthy low-level parts were foolishly, implicitly trusted).

But processors were expensive and computers were exploding. PCs running consumer operating systems like Windows and Mac OS (and more exotic ones like GNU/Linux and various Unices) proliferated, and they all shared this flawed security model.

They all relied on the operating system to be a faithful reporter of the computer's internals, and operated on the assumption that they could use programs supervised by the OS to detect and terminate malicious programs.

But starting in 1999, Ken Thompson's revenge was visited upon the computing world. Greg Hoglund released Ntrootkit, a proof-of-concept malware that attacked Windows itself, so that the operating system would lie to antivirus programs about what it was doing and seeing.

In Decartesspeak, your computer could no longer trust its senses, so it could no longer reason. The nub of trust, the piton driven into the mountainface, was made insecure and the whole thing collapsed. Security researchers at big companies like Microsoft took this to heart.

In 2002, Peter Biddle and his team from Microsoft came to EFF to show us a new model for computing: "Trusted Computing" (codenamed "Palladium").

https://web.archive.org/web/20020805211111/https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2002/jul02/0724palladiumwp.asp

Palladium proposed to give computers back their nub of Descartesian certainty. It would use a co-processor, but unlike a graphics card or a math co-pro, it would run before the CPU woke up and did its thing.

And unlike a ROM, it wouldn't just load up the boot sequence and go back to sleep.

This chip - today called a "Secure Enclave" or a "Trusted Platform Module" (etc) - would have real computing power, and it would remain available to the CPU at all times.

Inside the chip was a bunch of cool cryptographic stuff that provided the nub of certainty. At the start of the boot, the TPM would pull the first stages of the boot-code off of the drive, along with a cryptographic signature.

A quick crypto aside:

Crypto is code that mixes a key (a secret known to the user) with text to produce a scrambled text (a "ciphertext") that can only be descrambled by the key.

Dual-key crypto has two keys. What one scrambles, the other descrambles (and vice-versa).

With dual-key crypto, you keep one key secret (the "private key") and you publish the other one (the "public key"). If you scramble something with a private key, then anyone can descramble it with your public key and know it came from you.

If you scramble it *twice*, first with your private key and then with your friend's public key, then they can tell it came from you (because only your private key's ciphertexts can be descrambled with your public key).

And *you* can be certain that only they can read it (because only their private key can descramble messages that were scrambled with their public key).

Code-signing uses dual-key crypto to validate who published some code.

Microsoft can make a shorter version of its code (like a fingerprint) and then you scramble it with its private key. The OS that came with your computer has a copy of MSFT's public key. When you get an OS update, you can descramble the fingerprint with that built-in key.

If it matches the update, then you know that Microsoft signed it and it hasn't been tampered with on its way to you. If you trust Microsoft, you can run the update.

But...What if a virus replaces Microsoft's public keys with its own?

That's where Palladium's TPM comes in. It's got the keys hardcoded into it. Programs running on the CPU can only ask the TPM to do very limited things like ask it to sign some text, or to check the signature on some text.

It's a kind of god-chip, running below the most privileged level of user-accessible operations. By design, you - the owner of the computer - can demand things of it that it is technically capable of doing, and it can refuse you, and you can't override it.

That way, programs running even in the most privileged mode can't compromise it.

Back to our boot sequence: the TPM fetches some startup code from the disk along with a signature, and checks to see whether the OS has been signed by its manufacturer.

If not, it halts and shows you a scary error message. Game over, Ken Thompson!

It is a very cool idea, but it's also very scary, because the chip doesn't take orders from Descartes' omnibenevolent God.

It takes orders from Microsoft, a rapacious monopolist with a history of complicity with human rights abuses. Right from that very first meeting the brilliant EFF technologist Seth Schoen spotted this (and made the Descartes comparison):

https://web.archive.org/web/20021004125515/http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/2002-07-05.html

Seth identified a way of having your cake and eating it too: he proposed a hypothetical thing called an "owner override" - a physical switch that, when depressed, could be used to change which public keys lived in the chip.

This would allow owners of computers to decide who they trusted and would defend them against malware. But what it *wouldn't* do is defend tech companies shareholders against the owner of the computer - it wouldn't facilitate DRM.

"Owner override" is a litmus test: are you Descartes' God, or Thompson's Satan?

Do you want computers to allow their owners to know the truth? Or do you want computers to bluepill their owners, lock them in a matrix where you get to decide what is true?

A month later, I published a multi-award-winning sf story called "0wnz0red" in Salon that tried to dramatize the stakes here.

https://www.salon.com/2002/08/28/0wnz0red/

Despite Seth's technical clarity and my attempts at dramatization, owner override did not get incorporated into trusted computing architectures.

Trusted computing took years to become commonplace in PCs. In the interim, rootkits proliferated. Three years after the Palladium paper, Sony-BMG deliberately turned 6m audio CDs into rootkit vectors that would silently alter your OS when you played them from a CD drive.

The Sony rootkit broke your OS so that any filename starting with $SYS$ didn't show up in file listings, $SYS$ programs wouldn't show up in the process monitor. Accompanying the rootkit was a startup program (starting with $SYS$) that broke CD ripping.

Sony infected hundreds of thousands of US gov and mil networks. Malware authors - naturally enough - added $SYS$ to the files corresponding with their viruses, so that antivirus software (which depends on the OS for information about files and processes) couldn't detect it.

It was an incredibly reckless, depraved act, and it wasn't the last. Criminals, spies and corporations continued to produce rootkits to attack their adversaries (victims, rival states, customers) and trusted computing came to the rescue.

Today, trusted computing is widely used by the world's largest tech companies to force customers to use their app stores, their OSes, their printer ink, their spare parts. It's in medical implants, cars, tractors and kitchen appliances.

None of this stuff has an owner override. In 2012, I gave a talk to Google, Defcon and the Long Now Foundation about the crisis of owner override, called "The Coming Civil War Over General Purpose Computing."

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/08/23/the-coming-civil-war-over-general-purpose-computing/

It proposed a way that owner override, combined with trusted computing, could allow users to resist both state and corporate power, and it warned that a lack of technological self-determination opened the door to a parade of horribles.

Because once you have a system that is designed to override owners - and not the other way around - then anyone who commands that system can, by design, do things that the user can't discern or prevent.

This is the *real* trolley problem when it comes to autonomous vehicles: not "who should a car sacrifice in a dangerous situation?" but rather, "what happens when a car that is designed to sometimes kill its owner is compromised by Bad Guys?"

https://this.deakin.edu.au/self-improvement/car-wars

The thing is, trusted computing with an owner override is pretty magical. Take the Introspection Engine, a co-processor in a fancy Iphone case designed by Edward Snowden and Bunnie Huang. It's designed to catch otherwise undetectable mobile malware.

https://www.tjoe.org/pub/direct-radio-introspection/release/2

You see, your phone doesn't just run Ios or Android; the part that interfaces with the phone system - be baseband radio - runs an ancient, horribly insecure OS, and if it is infected, it can trick your phone's senses, so that it can no longer reason.

The Introspection Engine is a small circuit board that sandwiches between your phone's mainboard and its case, making electrical contact with all the systems that carry network traffic.

This daughterboard has a ribbon cable that snakes out of the SIM slot and into a slightly chunky phone case that has a little open source hardward chip with fully auditable code and an OLED display.

This second computer monitors the electrical signals traveling on the phone's network buses and tells you what's going on. This is a user-accessible god-chip, a way for you to know whether your phone is hallucinating when it tells you that it isn't leaking your data.

That's why it's called an "Introspection Engine." It lets your phone perch at an objective remove and understand how it is thinking.

(If all this sounds familiar, it's because it plays a major role in ATTACK SURFACE, the third Little Brother book)

https://attacksurface.com

The reason the Introspection Engine is so exciting is that it is exceptional. The standard model for trusted computing is that it treats everyone *except* the manufacturer as its adversary - including you, the owner of the device.

This opens up many different sets of risks, all of which have been obvious since 1999's Ntrootkit, and undeniable since 2005's Sony Rootkit.

I. The manufacturer might not have your interests at heart.

In 2016, HP shipped a fake security update to its printers, tricking users into installing a system that rejected their third-party ink, forcing them to pay monopoly prices for HP products.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

II. An insider at the company may not have your interests at heart.

Multiple "insider threat" attacks have been executed against users. Employees at AT&T, T-Mobile, even Roblox have accepted bribes to attack users on behalf of criminals.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/qj4ddw/hacker-bribed-roblox-insider-accessed-user-data-reset-passwords

III. A government may order the company to attack its users.

In 2017 Apple removed all working VPNs from its Chinese app stores, as part of the Chinese state's mass surveillance program (1m members of religious minorities were subsequently sent to concentration camps).

Apple's trusted computing prevents users from loading apps that aren't in its app stores, meaning that Apple's decisions about which apps you can run on your Iphone are binding on you, even if you disagree.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-apple-vpn/apple-says-it-is-removing-vpn-services-from-china-app-store-idUSKBN1AE0BQ

IV. Third parties may exploit a defect in the trusted computing system and attack users in undetectable ways that users can't prevent.

By design, TPMs can't be field updated, so if there's a defect in them, it can't be patched.

Checkm8 exploits a defect in eight generations Apple's mobile TPM. It's a proof-of-concept released to demonstrate a vulnerability, not malware (thankfully).

https://checkm8.info/

But there have been scattered, frightening instances of malware that attacks the TPM - that suborns the mind of God so that your computer ceases to be able to reason. To date, these have all been associated with state actors who used them surgicially.

State actors know that the efficacy of their cyberweapons is tied to secrecy: once a rival government knows that a system is vulnerable, they'll fix it or stop using it or put it behind a firewall, so these tools are typically used parsimoniously.

But criminals are a different matter (and now, at long last, we're coming back to Trickbot and UEFI) (thanks for hanging in there).

UEFI ("You-Eff-Ee") is a trusted computing that computer manufacturers use to prevent unauthorized OSes from running on the PCs they sell you.

Mostly, they use this to prevent malicious OSes from running on the hardware they manufacture, but there have been scattered instances of it being used for monopolistic purposes: to prevent you from replacing their OS with another one (usually a flavor of GNU/Linux).

UEFI is god-mode for your computer, and a compromise to it would be a Sony Rootkit event, but 15 years later, in a world where systems are more widespread and used for more critical applications from driving power-plants to handling multimillion-dollar transactions.

Trickbot is very sophisticated malware generally believed to be run by criminals, not a government. Like a lot of modern malware, there's a mechanism for updating it in the field with new capabilities - both attacks and defenses.

And Trickbot has been observed in the wild probing infected systems' UEFI. This leads security researchers to believe that Trickbot's authors have figured out how to compromise UEFI on some systems.

https://www.wired.com/story/trickbot-botnet-uefi-firmware/

Now, no one has actually observed UEFI being compromised, nor has anyone captured any UEFI-compromising Trickbot code. The thinking goes that Trickbot only downloads the UEFI code when it finds a vulnerable system.

Running in UEFI would make Trickbot largely undetectable and undeletable. Even wiping and restoring the OS wouldn't do it. Remember, TPMs are designed to be unpatchable and tamper-resistant. The physical hardware is designed to break forever if you try to swap it out.

If this is indeed what's going on, it's the first instance in which a trusted computing module was used to attack users by criminals (not governments or the manufacturer and its insiders). And Trickbot's owners are really bad people.

They've hired out to the North Korean state to steal from multinationals; they've installed ransomware in big companies, and while their footprint has waned, they once controlled 1,000,000 infected systems.

You can check your UEFI to see if it's vulnerable to tampering:

https://eclypsium.com/2019/10/23/protecting-system-firmware-storage/

and also determine whether it has been compromised:

https://eclypsium.com/2020/10/14/protecting-your-organizations-from-mosaicregressor-and-other-uefi-implants/

But this isn't the end, it's just getting started. As Seth Schoen warned us in 2002, the paternalistic mode of computing has a huge, Ken Thompson-shaped hole in it: it requires you trust the benevolence of a manufacturer, and, crucially, they know you don't have a choice.

If companies knew that you *could* alter whom you trusted, they would have to work to earn and keep your trust. If governments knew that ordering a company to compromise on TPMs, they'd understand that their targets would simply shift tactics if they made that order.

Some users would make foolish decisions about whom to trust, but they would also have recourse when a trusted system was revealed to be defective. This is a fight that's into its third decade, and the stakes have never been higher.

Sadly, we are no closer to owner override than we were in 2002.

#pluralistic

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pizzahutchan124 · 3 years

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Do you see this pic? I Took it on the 3rd of April to show that I've been saving money since last year. I only recently cashed that in two weeks from today. It came out to $106 subtotal.

I would've updated abour this earlier but.... truth be told I'm dipping my toes into plenty of lakes, rivers, ponds and oceans with seemingly little to show for it at the moment. I'm running an art blog now, and I'm building both a financial and artistic portfolio. I'm getting tons of leads on job opportunities in both social services and backstage tech work, which means I gotta revise my resume to fit the position titles as well as follow up with the respective hiring staff. My extended family is always checking up on me, making sure me and the folks I live with are ok (they're all sweet like that.) Ultimately I would like to craft and create more art, whether that be in writing, yarn crafting, sewing, woodworking or experimenting with traditional and digital drawing. Of course, that means I have to renovate my space so that it flows with a creative and productive atmosphere while maintaining a cozy yet friendly living environment for me and my loved ones.

You dunno what that means? Yea, neither do I. I'm figuring it out as I go, but it gets hard when the people closest to you want results NOW. NOW NOW NOW. Otherwise you're a fookin lazy good-fer-nothing, haha. I got so many irons on the fire right now it's not even funny....

On top of all of that, I dont know what to do with this blog. Ive been doing research here & there and the people in the big leagues say that you gotta stick with ONE topic and/or interest so that not only your blog remains consistent, but your followers know what to expect from you thus remaining engaged on your platform. That's some quality advice for growing a wider audience, but heres the thing- I can't be asked to just dwindle down my posts towards a single topic. Maybe that worked for my ancestors in the past but I'm lucky enough to live in a First world country that encourages free thinking provided that it doesnt limit anyone elses liberties. This is a space where I can explore multiple options, opinions, pathways and idealogies, even the shitty ones if I were as bold as I used to be. In short .....

I AM A MULTI-FACETED HUMAN BEEEEEEEAN.

I used to be a self proclaimed potato; however, things change with time. So do people- we become remixes of what we used to be. Sometimes we become better people for it. Sometimes we don't. And that's ok, so long as we're honest with ourselves about what we're doing to hinder our progress in this lifetime. I think I'm making strides in being more reflective and introspective in that aspect.

Im not sure what this means for the long term future of this blog. I originally made this during a time in my life when the internet was filled with opportunity and promises of a better life. Since then I've become more aware of how the world works and thereby more cynical to the beliefs I once held as a 16 y/o 𝓭𝓲𝓼𝓬𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓼𝓮 𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓱𝓾𝓼𝓲𝓪𝓼𝓽. I'll just continue to post things that are informative to my needs and likes and hope that it'll reach the people it's meant for. Unfortunately that means I gotta work on trimming the fat on this blog. I've made side blogs for this reason, but havent gotten around to utilizing them. That's gonna be a big project for me at some point down the line. Only God knows when I'll get around to it.

Here they are if you wanna browse through them-

a Blog filled with master posts, references and tutorials on stuff

another blog filled with fanart from some amazing folks

Based on the actions I'm currently taking, I can see myself absolutely vibing within the next 5 years.

You can expect me to reblog posts on my main fandoms (mainly yugioh, pokémon and hazbin hotel/helluva boss), commentary on our society at large (uh oh, OPINIONS 😱 so scary), theories and lore based on the fandom(s) I'm in. Ngl I also become enamored with 2d characters from time to time so perhaps I'll get around to making character analysis posts. That's a big MAYBE tho. I'll also post about Cooking, economics, Psychology, personality archetypes and certain spiritual concepts like feng shui, the different kinds of astrology, mythos from different religions (Buddhism, Catholicism, etc), productivity and/or life hacks. I'm also a slut for tropes, Hence the #Tropes tag I made 😁

And finally, I will be making more original content irregularly from when "the motivation strikes me" to "when I feel my ideas/drawing/writings/musings aren't complete hot dog water."

See you in the next post maybe

#Sundae Stories #creative problems #rant #vent #Portfolio #Investment #renovations #Fandom #tutorials #References #life #time management #Scheduling #Writing problems #Artist problems

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the-firebird69 · 3 years

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The Matrix Resurrections – Official Trailer 1

youtube

And I'm sure Neo is in a different level of matrix then Corky's people are

Zues Hera

What does that mean

Cork

It means that they transplant your brains in mass and that you don't have much information so they don't try and seek it too strongly and that because you're a different category level of Satanist that they probably separate you entirely into a different bunker and it's because of what information you'd be after and the fact that they might not want to double you up with them because the data is so valuable to them by comparison in other words there seeking the program that you wrote and they're seeking where it is and where all the items are that he made because of much control the worl

Zues Hera

So you're telling me as they put me in some kind of barrio like they usually put me but in The matrix so not only do I get the barrio here but if they grab us we go in the barrio down there

Cork

That's true corky and I want to say something that might be reality and it might not be in the silicon valley area they have a place that's like a barrio compared to the valley but really it's more like LA to San Fran because outside of silicon valley it's more like him showdown in la is more like the barrio so you can think of Australia because I don't know Australia and sit down and try and think where is that kind of relationship get the high tech the highest tech on the countering and all the stuff because you and yours who are being abused by man could possibly be the cure by finding yourselves and I believe would be separate so the security is not as stiff and the illusions not as strong and the cover is not as strong

Zues Hera

Whoa this is unique you may have found an entrance and the reason we'd be separate is that the data doesn't jumbled and we understand that

Cork

These are things I need to know what he's smart about is the computer and Max and the organization and those two are as well this might work out and since there's tons of clones of me and they're not in the same facility but they're possibly on Titan and that might be a place to look and not send Mac himself and seem to the movie doing it

Neo

They called Neo Leo because his name is near Earth object in other words he has a cybernetic brain and his body is controlling while in a high-tech facility and they bounced the signal around but truthfully Cork and others they can't bounce it around more than bare minimum for speed those are beating out into space it's my guess and then they beep it over and then they beat it down to where he is and that's it other than that there's still a real way to do it and why would they do that they want to blame him and my invisible clan. And they say the songs and so forth corky copies it was kind of ridiculous it's just one guy and all this countering stuff and all these ships and all this code breakers and all this sensing it's like one guy and several computer programs they're kind of nuts. So the hunt begins and this is real and it's extremely important because if you're working something with your remote control if you don't care what happens to the person doing it like nights in White satin

Zues Hera

They considered me to be a hero because I am not doing it didn't create the stuff and I am having you expose it supposedly I say is he didn't make it for them they took it and he's in a lot of trouble she's trying to expose them it's like talking to a wall I think we had a break through this morning because of Corky's joke and his sometimes Amenable person that personality

Or friendly

Just stin

Sometimes you stink Mr A but today we see why this is amazing I'm starting to get all sorts of assistance. They heard what you did and how you did it and it was those chemicals and we need to find out where they are and how they're getting them there and what ships and so forth will have a beat on it cuz it means we're really not controlling anything.

Corky

When I say is you should ask billions because they probably have a general idea where it's coming from and how big that area is and how big of a problem could be in other words sir not going to house your people who they turned into robots on the field that we have them running them but the worst nightmare is for your leaders who mac captures I'm stick in the machine just like your neo it has you run around and then occasionally turns you off and ruins your stuff but mostly follows you because you are sitting signals all the time and you're unconscious on the island in a dream state you're ruining your stuff I told him there and you don't have control over you and you don't understand they're following you around easily because your brain is cybernetic

Zues Hera

Forget the concept but now we understand something it's fear that you want to use and we should use it because that's gosh darn scary someone is taking our bodies put us in the stream state and has this walking around moving our lives fighting people staying out of trouble and eating three meals a day or more and going and doing regular things we do and not even knowing it that was really somewhere else is a nightmare it's like an out-of-body experience so I was trying to figure out something we can tell people about it that using RC and I think we're going to have to because that's a nightmare and the way to explain it it's a nightmare we'll start to realize we're not doing that people and he is and you might be doing to a lot of people they were starting to realize something if you got like 80% of the people here and he just turn switch and it all turn off or worse y'all become agent Smith just like you see in the video after Neo

He looks at me and says oh that's why you're a pain I can be surround by you and you'd really be back control by Max every one of you

So I say this that's a pretty dipping deep and Rich nightmare because we might take you to Australia and after the last few minutes we wouldn't have control over ourselves it would be right there and deliver you from us he's trying it the whole time caa when we were in office

I'm boged out I'm going home I'm sick

Cork

#Youtube

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samuelfields · 3 years

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How to make small talk and other advanced social skills

Does any of this sound familiar?

“I hate small talk, let’s just get to the point…”

“We started small talk and then there was this long awkward pause…”

“I had no idea how to start the conversation so I just sat there silently”

Small talk. Ugh.

But, I do have good news: Small talk is a skill. And just like any other skill, you can become more natural at it with practice. Thousands of my students have improved their social skills (especially if they weren’t “naturals” in social situations).

Today, I’m going to give you word-for-word scripts to help you start this process. Eventually, you’ll be able to set these scripts aside and make them your own — letting your own personality shine through.

How to Make Small Talk at a Glance

Instant Irresistibility: Why Small Talk is Important

3 openers that work in 90% of situations

How to practice making small talk: low stakes experiments

The invisible costs of poor social skills

My “Small Talk” Hacks Video

What to do TODAY

Bonus: Want more ways to build healthy habits? Check out my new Ultimate Guide to Habits.

Instant Irresistibility: Why Making Small Talk is Important

Why even master small talk? Wouldn’t it be easier to get straight to the “important part” of the conversation?

Let me tell you a story about my friend who’s an actress. We were talking about how she’d gone on a bunch of dates and the guys always fell in love with her. They had an instant rapport with her and felt the connection was incredibly deep after meeting her for an hour.

What they failed to understand was that she’s so socially skilled, she’s able to evoke this feeling of awe in most people she interacts with. She’s being totally transparent and ethical, but her social skills are so advanced that they bring out the best version of herself — making her almost irresistible.

The first step to reaching this level of social skills is to master a fool-proof conversation opener.

The 3 openers that work for 90% of situations

Here are 3 scripts that work in nearly any situation. I’m giving you the exact words.

“Hi. How’s your morning going?”

“Hi. I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Ramit.”

“Good morning. How are you?”

Seem too simple?

That’s intentional! Notice how ordinary they are. The truth is, we’re not searching for magic words. We’re simply looking for a way to connect and build rapport.

It’s easy to “nod and shrug…” and then go back to what you’ve always done (which probably doesn’t include comfortably talking to anyone you’d like to talk to).

Or you can try something new. Use these scripts — starting today — and see how they evoke positive responses in others around you.

How many times have we walked past doormen, bartenders, people on the street, baristas and used our phones to avoid small talk?

We can change that starting today. Just a small baby step — say hello! Use just one of these openers to start a conversation with a stranger today.

How to Practice Small Talk: Low Stakes Experiments

The general openers above are great “easy outs” when you’re struggling to think of something to say.

But the hardest part isn’t having something to say. It’s having the confidence to actually do it. One of the best ways to build that confidence is to start very short conversations in low-stakes environments.

I’ll show you what I mean. Here are a few scripts to help practice your small talk skills with baristas and clerks.

Scenario #1: Servers and Baristas Servers and baristas are paid to be friendly, so this is a low-stakes situation. Just be aware of your environment: For example, don’t make your first small-talk attempt when there’s a line of 50 people behind you.

They’ll ask how you’re doing, and what you’d like to order. Instead of ordering your “regular” (in my case, a tall iced green tea, unsweetened), smile first, then try this instead:

“What’s good? (“Everything!”) “No really, what do you get when no one’s looking?”

From here, you can order their suggestion (“That sounds good, I’ll try it”) or stick to your usual (“Cool, I’ll have to try that next time”).

Non-offensive, safe-for-work jokes can add value too, but test your delivery before trying it:

“Have you ever purposely misspelled someone’s name on the cup because you didn’t like them?”

“Seriously, what’s the craziest order you’ve gotten this week?” (Notice how “this week” helps them narrow down the question so they can answer it easily. You do not want to be asking deep philosophical questions at this stage of the game!)

Smile and keep the tone light. This is fun! Treat it like a game and watch what happens.

Scenario #2: Checkout Clerks Most checkout clerks are treated like cogs in the machine. By taking a few extra seconds to make a genuine connection, you’re automatically standing out because the bar is set so low.

“Do you get a discount as an employee?”

[Pick up a tabloid] “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone buy one of these. Do you sell a lot?”

Try one or create your own questions based around it. Remember to listen to their response, smile, and keep moving on.

The point here is that easy micro-tests in low-stakes environments like coffee shops and stores give you valuable practice and confidence you can apply to higher-pressure situations like conferences or bars.

The invisible costs of poor social skills

But what happens if your social skills are just average?

Sometimes, it seems the people who don’t recognize the importance of social skills are the people who need it MOST:

She’ll never know what she missed.

How many of us go through this every day? The scary thing is, we’ll never know what we missed out on because of poor social skills. Those opportunities simply cease to exist.

For example…

We don’t talk to that girl at the bar, then kick ourselves later. Add this up over years and we end up getting our “second pick” of partners — not the ones we WANT, but the ones who are convenient or left over.

We stagnate in making new friends, since it’s hard to meet real friends after college. Especially if you’re not going out a lot.

We might be technically very skilled, but we bomb the interview, or get passed over for a promotion, or we’re not in the “inner circle” of people at work whom the boss favors.

There are even more haunting examples of the consequences of having mediocre social skills:

I have friends who thought earning enough would be enough to attract a partner. They’ve spent the last 5-10 years on their career, but never took the time to learn how to talk to men and women on a personal level. (A lot of Indian people are like this, actually.) Now what? They’ve got great jobs and lots of money in the bank, but they’re missing a core skill — and as a result, the pool of potential high-caliber partners is way smaller than for someone else.

One of my friends runs a successful tech company and was considering acquiring a small 1-man company. After a night of drinking, he asked me what I thought of the guy. He’s a good friend so I told him the brutal truth: I told him that the guy was way too cocky for his experience, I wouldn’t want him on my team, and I told him exactly why. My friend canceled the acquisition the next day. That guy will never know that his social skills cost him a 7-figure payday.

What do all these missed opportunities add up to over 10 years? 30 years?

If you learned even ONE technique to improve your social skills — something you can use every day while talking to co-workers, men, women, even random people on the street — what would that be worth?

Introducing My “Small Talk” Hacks Video

I created a new video for you, a 30-minute crash course on improving your social skills. I didn’t want to just offer you one or two random “tips.” I wanted to go deeper.

The video includes easy scripts for starting a conversation, keeping it going, and politely ending conversations (even with ramblers). I also included a live social-skills teardown about how to make small talk, plus the powerful concept of the Story Toolbox.

youtube

1:28 – Watch as I analyze my latest national TV appearance, beat-by-beat 4:07 – The social skills mistakes I used to make 5:44 – How do you start a conversation with a stranger? 8:20 – How do you keep the conversation going? 13:47 – How do you end a conversation politely? 16:57 – Your Story Toolbox: How can make yourself memorable? 20:50 – How do you make small talk?

TO DO TODAY

In the video at 16:57, I described the Story Toolbox, a Dream Job concept that lets you walk into any interaction — a job interview, bar, or cocktail party — and instantly have 5-10 stories to use at any given moment.

Top performers know that by having these stories ready to use — stories that consistently get positive reactions — they can instantly connect with anyone.

Today, I want you to start building your Story Toolbox.

Here’s your challenge:

Brainstorm ONE engaging story (like my story about the recovering alcoholic at the bar), then test it on 1 person — a friend, family member, coworker, even a stranger.

In the comments below, share the story (just an excerpt) and the reaction you got. It’s OK to get a negative reaction! Share whatever you find below.

How to make small talk and other advanced social skills is a post from: I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

from Finance https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/blog/how-to-make-small-talk-and-advanced-social-skills/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

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xeford2020 · 4 years

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Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village: 40 Years of History

"Ghost of Abraham Lincoln" in Logan County Courthouse for Halloween in Greenfield Village, 1982 / THF146345 Our beloved Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village program is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. It’s been a fascinating journey to have been involved from nearly the beginning, eventually leading the team that plans and produces this very complicated and detailed guest experience. Throughout the entire history of the event, the true star of the show has been Greenfield Village after dark. I know of no better palette for our amazing creative team to have at its disposal to work magic year after year. The year 2020 and its COVID-19 pandemic will be looked back on as a turning point for not only the Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village program, but for all of The Henry Ford. The need for a safe environment and the resources available have forced the team to take a fresh look at the event and view things from a very different perspective. We are excited and invigorated by the plan we have brought forth and we hope our guests are too. The Beginnings of Halloween in Greenfield Village The Greenfield Village Halloween program began as an experience shared through our Education Department’s catalogue of classes and courses. This new concept of a family-based, Halloween-themed experience was first developed as a scary wagon ride experience, with stops and treats at various buildings in Greenfield Village. There were other fun seasonal activities, including dunking for apples, a costume parade and contest, and refreshments in Lovett Hall. The wagon ride was carefully planned out and tapped into Village stories, going as far as having as having a staff member’s child on board as a designated kidnap victim--a sign of the different times that were the early 1980s.

"Trick or Treat" at Wright Home in Greenfield Village, October 1982 / THF146356 This program was presented on an ambitious scale. It was offered one night only and served a remarkably large audience. It was wildly popular and showed what future possibilities and demand lay ahead for the Halloween season. (You can read more about this very first Greenfield Village Halloween program here.) A series of events led to the next phase of the Greenfield Village Halloween program. The Tylenol poisoning scare in the fall of 1982 changed people’s view of the safety of trick-or-treating. This, combined with new staff and reorganized Village Programs and Special Events departments, brought forth the novel idea of opening Greenfield Village at night as a safe place for trick-or-treating. Thus, the foundation for Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village was born: the basic format of the program we have used until now. This first Village trick-or-treat Halloween program drew an unexpectedly huge crowd of over 5,000 people. No control measures for timed or paced entry times were put in place and the event was open to the public. As expected, the supply of treats ran out quickly and drastic measures had to be put in place to try and keep pace. I remember working at the first treat stop, the Loranger Gristmill. We gave out handfuls of loose candy corn (a nice thematic connection to the gristmill). I remember it being a very chaotic experience and the porch of the gristmill being coated in smashed candy corn, which could not be seen—only felt—under my feet. In the light of the following day, I was amazed to see single pieces of candy corn that had been pressed out to the size of my hand, still retaining their original shape and color!

"Trick or Treat" at Heinz House in Greenfield Village, October 1982 / THF146374 Many lessons were learned that opening weekend. Moving forward, Halloween in Greenfield Village became a members-only event and entry times were established to slow and control the flow. Developing the Program in the 1980s and 1990s Halloween would remain a members-only event for the next 20 years. The first few years, Halloween only took place for one weekend in October. This would continue through the 1980s. By the early 1990s, the still members-only program would expand to two weekends and eventually three. During this time, staff were allotted a certain amount of free tickets, but were required to show up on a set day and time and stand in a very long line to get their tickets. Member tickets for the limited number of program days typically sold out very quickly. In the first era of the program, there was a lot of emphasis put on the treats and their thematic connection to the Greenfield Village sites from which they would be given out. Different treats were picked out each year.

The inside of the brochure for 1983’s “Family Halloween in Greenfield Village” lists the thematic connections for each building treat stop. / THF146311 Connecting the trick-or-treat path were a variety of Halloween-themed vignettes or interactions, associated with historical events and characters with a nod to scary stories of the past. The effects were low-tech and, in some cases, took inspiration from the emerging haunted house industry. First seen in the 1970s, these haunted houses were grassroots amateur efforts, often sponsored and produced by local Jaycees, Elks, and other fraternal organizations as fund raisers. They relied on cheap scare tactics that involved being jumped out at, grabbed, and sometimes gory scenes. For years, we used some of these very same techniques. The Ackley Covered Bridge was notorious for this.

"Gorilla" on Ackley Covered Bridge during Halloween in Greenfield Village, October 1982 / THF146372 When it came to infrastructure, the Greenfield Village of the 1980s and 1990s basically resembled the Greenfield Village of 1929. There were very few, if any, streetlights and limited access to power to add additional lighting. Until the restoration of 2003, Halloween in Greenfield Village was very dark. Because of this, the jack-o’-lantern pumpkin path played an important role in lighting the way through the experience. A continuous thread to today’s program is the large number of hand-carved and candlelit jack-o’-lanterns that line the path—though now, they serve more to create ambience and atmosphere. Over 1,000 pumpkins are now hand-carved each week to achieve the continuous path.

Volunteers Carving Pumpkins for Family Halloween Jamboree in Greenfield Village, October 1981 / THF146327 Throughout the 1990s, the Family Halloween program, still a members-only event, continued to grow in popularity and had become a yearly tradition for many. Creative collaborations between the Special Events, Village Programs, and AV teams continued to improve the experience, and serious work and experimentations began with lighting and visual effects. A huge breakthrough was the discovery that Tim and Tom, the Firestone Farm black Percheron horses were decent riding horses. It was not long before the Headless Horseman made his debut in the front fields of Firestone Farm. He was soon joined by Ichabod Crane and a Halloween in Greenfield Village favorite was born. By 2001, though the sophistication and fit and finish of Halloween in Greenfield Village had evolved dramatically from its early years, there was still great potential for growth. Previously, costuming had mainly been reworked or cast-off bits and pieces from the period clothing inventory, décor was minimal, and aside from the hundreds of pumpkins on the jack-o’-lantern path, the main emphasis remained on treats. The New Millennium Brings a Turning Point to the Program

Workers Laying Conduit in Greenfield Village during Infrastructure Restoration, January 2003 / THF133585 In 2002, the big news around Greenfield Village was the impending massive infrastructure restoration that would begin to take place in the fall. The Village would close at the end of September and not reopen until the following June. Halloween would take a hiatus that year as the huge project gained steam. This would be a turning point and a newly imagined program soon emerged, keeping in step with the newly imagined Greenfield Village. By the summer of 2003, a cross-functional team began planning the work. The team very quickly established a back story that would guide what the new Halloween would and would not be. The shock and gore, now so prevalent in haunted houses, was removed from the mix. Instead, there was a move toward a family-friendly experience that would rely on the power of Greenfield Village after dark and scary and adventure-based stories that fuel the imagination and Halloween spirit. Another important inspiration was Halloween party guides, published from the early 1900s through the 1950s, in the collections of The Henry Ford. These handbooks gave endless advice on how to decorate, what games to play, what food to prepare and serve, and a whole host of other miscellaneous tips on how to throw the best Halloween party. Among the most useful and inspirational were the series of yearly Bogie Books, published by the Dennison paper and party goods company from 1912 through 1935. These pamphlets were filled with illustrations, some in color, that featured the huge array of crepe paper and other party products produced by the Dennison Manufacturing Company. Elaborate costumes and party décor were shown—along with the list of Dennison products one would need to replicate the awe-inspiring ideas featured. The colors, textures, and techniques guided our teams in both costuming and decorating throughout the Village.

Dennison's Bogie Book: Suggestions for Halloween & Thanksgiving, circa 1925 / THF96746 Trick-or-treating would remain the main vehicle for moving guests through the experience on a set path, but the look and feel of the treat stations would begin to change dramatically. The Period Clothing Studio became very involved and began to design a spectacular series of costumes to bring the gothic, fairytale, and adventure storybook characters to life—with a nod to costumes of the 1910s and 1920s. By 2005, these characters would become the treat station hosts, with their own stages and stage lighting. Other favorite characters, like the Woman in White, the Dancing Skeletons, the live scarecrow, and, of course, the Headless Horseman and Ichabod Crane, made triumphant returns with new costumes.

Costume Studio Preparing for Halloween in Greenfield Village, October 2005 / THF12490 Another significant change at this point was the shift from Hallowe’en being a members-only event to a public event. Members still had first-pick when ticket sales opened, as they do now, but after a certain date, the public was invited to purchase tickets. As the popularity of the event continued to grow, so did attendance capacities. The creative work to improve costumes, set designs, and theatrical lighting continued. Through the 2010s, staged theatrical performances of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” and other fun, but dark fairytales, such as “Hansel and Gretel” and “Little Red Riding Hood,” were added to the mix. To set up the live Headless Horseman experience, Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” was also performed. Along with the dramatic presentations, live Halloween-themed musical performances featuring a vampire trio, the Potion Sisters, and a musical pirate review rounded out the offerings. To top it off, the Top Hat Side Show became a fixture on Washington Boulevard, anchoring the 1920s carnival theme in that area.

The Top Hat Side Show performing at Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village for the first time in 2015. (Photo by KMS Photography) By 2019, the Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village experience had hit its full stride and welcomed a record number of guests. There were now several different ways to experience the program with the addition of evening dining opportunities, including the children-themed “Fairytale Feast” and the 1850s Eagle Tavern Harvest Supper. Rethinking Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village in 2020

Signage outside the main entrance of Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in March 2020, announcing the closure of our venues due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo courtesy Ellice Engdahl) Planning for the 2020 Hallowe’en program was well underway when the world as we knew it came to a screeching halt—and along with it, the entire summer calendar of Greenfield Village special events. As we cautiously reopened the Village and Museum over the Fourth of July weekend, The Henry Ford continued to learn and understand how safety measures should work, what the scale of program offerings needed to be, and what the future might bring. By the end of the summer, it was clear that we could consider a Halloween program in October. We knew it would need to be reimagined and presented in a very different way in order to comply with safety measures while at the same time allowing our guests to have a fun and enjoyable experience. Based on decades of experience in planning and producing large scale public events, the Hallowe’en planning team took a fresh look at the program. It was immediately apparent that the entire concept of lining up for treats would have to be eliminated. Without the need for a set prescribed route, new possibilities opened, and the Holiday Nights model of enjoying the evening at one’s own pace and experiencing program elements in any order became the logical approach. Greatly reduced attendance capacities and timed entry would ensure a safe experience. Unfortunately, we were not able to offer our evening dining experiences this year, but happily, many familiar and favorite characters and experiences made a return.

A witch and the Hallowe’en Express welcome guests to Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village in 2020. (Photo courtesy Jim Johnson) A very exciting addition for 2020 is the Hallowe’en Express, a brand-new Halloween-themed train ride that makes a round trip excursion from the “Brimstone” Station at the front of the Village. Guests encounter all sorts of sights and sounds along the way. The presence of a live steam locomotive in the Village, with an eerie whistle created just for this occasion, adds an entirely new dimension to the overall experience for our guests. Over the past 40 years, Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village has steadily grown and evolved. There have been many turning points in its long history, and 2020 will rank among the most significant. New beginnings can often be viewed as painful endings, but the Hallowe’en in Greenfield Village planning team is fully embracing this new beginning and is very excited to share the path we have taken. Jim Johnson is Director of Greenfield Village and Curator of Historic Structures & Landscapes at The Henry Ford.

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blankbambosh · 4 years

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Introduction, Reading III: The New Materiality of Design by Hilla, 2nd October 2020

This is a topic that is personal to me on so many different levels. I mean – I have really warm and loving human connections in my life, but I got to say that I’m really close with my phone and other devices as well. It’s really scary sometimes how connected I am with my phone and how much ”it” (and major tech companies who made it) know about me. My devices do make living possible for me in our technology driven world. All the three texts explained from different angles why our world is how it is today. Our world and how it has turned out, is not just something, that happened accidentally. There is a lot of political movement and decision making behind it. There is a lot of science and technological engineering behind it. We as humans are not neutral in this matter nor are our nonhuman tools.

Bruno Latour talks a lot about such simple artefacts as hinges in his text ”Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts.” Hinges enable so many self-evident actions – like opening a door. We take such artifacts for granted, and we can’t even think of a world without them. Thank God for engineers! On the other hand, living in a technocrat neoliberal society has many downsides. Technology changes our minds and thinking, it changes our morals and values and furthermore it shapes our ways of speaking and language. Technology has democratized and elevated our living standards, and that’s why these gadgets can’t be left outside of the conversations about anything and everything – including design.

Being a tech savvy person is power. As a designer, as a master’s student, and as an individual knowing how to operate with technology helps – a lot. There are so many threshold skills to master, and the number is constantly increasing the more technology develops. Designers are asked to master skills that are not traditionally considered something designers have, such as ability to code. Designers need more and more skills outside of their field, skills that have considerably steep learning curve. This kind of development has made me wonder, if designing is more like being good at using different kind of hardware and software, or is it more humanistic practice in which designers are molding reality in other ways – like designing better or ”user friendly” virtual places such as UIs that are easier to navigate and creating friendlier and more human physical spaces by expanding representation and perception what kind of people are considered as ”normal”.

It is safe to say that even without complicated softwares or skills how to use them, we are still as designers using technology tools such as computers in our work. The way these softwares function always affect us and how we make design. These softwares set boundaries and limit the way we work, but they also enable ways of working and customize work flows to our liking in ways, which were not possible before. There are so many cool features to explore and so many exciting effects to experiment with. The endless possibilities to use technology have also played a part in the process in which designers wanted to forget ”all the rules”.

The technology shouldn’t be in the center of the attention when designers do their work. In my opinion, technology should be used as a tool. I’m not sure though, if we can ever go back to that. Has such world ever existed where technology hasn’t played a part of some sort how a design piece turns out? Tools helped early humans to create fire and those tools were playing a meaningful role in the history of mankind. The more the tools mean to us, the more they are valued. Our tools have started to get more human like characteristics and we have made then even communicate with us in a human way. My phone knows when I talk to it when I call it ”Hey Siri!”. According to The New York Times, Apple's Siri is a Norse name that means “beautiful woman who leads you to victory.” Like Bruno Latour writes, technology makes us better as humans. Automatic doors close themselves and traffic lights tell us to stop and wait for out turn. However, these nonhuman devices didn’t appear to elevate our existence out of nowhere. People made them and told them what to do.

Engineers and designers behind of the technology we are grown into using is shaping our reality in physical spaces, but also in virtual spaces, like online. Humans are behind how algorithms work, but after time passes, these algorithms are doing work by themselves, creating new reality for humans. In text ”Workers of the World, Conform!” Nader Vossoughian refers to a philosopher Maurizio Lazaratto. Lazaratto developed the concept of immaterial labour. Vossoughian whites ’The kind of employment – or, typically self-employment – described by Lazaratto requires adeptness with ”cybernetics and computer control” and ends up shaping ”cultural and artistic standards, fashions, tastes, consumer norms, and, more strategically, public opinion.’ Algorithms are working for us, but they can also work against us. Not using technology is not possible for us anymore and our data is collected and sold. Technology and humans are working side by side to shape our reality even further.

We have given a lot of power to the technology we use, and that power can’t be taken back. In ”What is Object Oriented Ontology? A definition for ordinary folk” Ian Bogost explains, that object-oriented ontology or OOO for short, is a study of existence, where ”things” are at the center of the attention. He writes that study of OOO and ”Its proponents contend that nothing has special status, but that everything exists equally – plumbers, cotton, bonobos, DVD players, and sandstone, for example.” Can we live in a world where living and non-living creatures are seen as equal? Is that a way too progressive idea? Should and can we have more power as humans? Is our power just an illusion? Has the power been ours? We have tried to tame nature forever and relized it is impossible. Have we created another force like nature, that has outgrown us, and gives us no choice, but just watch it progress?

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cheapggdbsale-blog · 5 years

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hygieneticmarketing-blog · 6 years

Photo

Picture The Future.

What Do You See?

Is It A Sci-Fi Wonderland Filled With Incredibly Clever Robots? These Sleepless Mechanical Beings Are Set To Take Over The World, But Let’s Not Get Ahead Of Ourselves Yet.

Though It Might Sound Scary And Far-Fetched, There Is The Very Real Possibility That Robots Will Become A Stalwart Part Of Our Future Because, As Humans, There’s A Limit To How Much Data We Can Process Is Any One Go.

Source

Unfortunately, We Don’t Have The Capacity To Hone Down Large Amounts Of Information And Process It At The Drop Of A Hat, Which Is Why Artificial Intelligence (AI) Has Risen Its Head To Pick Up The Slack.

But We’re Not Talking About AI Today, Or The Future. We’re Talking About Content In The Now.

Source

Every Minute, 1.3 Million Pieces Of Content Are Shared On Facebook And 300 Hours Of Video Content Is Uploaded Onto Youtube. Add To That The 500 Million Tweets That Are Sent Each Day And The 85 Million Pieces Of Content That Is Instagrammed, And You Have A Mind-Boggling Amount Of Content Swirling Around The Internet.

Trawling This Content, Monitoring It, And Analyzing It Is A Mammoth Task That Even The Most Accomplished Human Would Severely Struggle With.

Which Is Where Content Intelligence (CI) Comes In.

Source

2018 Is Set To Be The Year Of AI – Actual Intelligence Rather Than Artificial Intelligence. In A Survey Run By Salesforce, Marketers Using Artificial Intelligence Will Increase By 50% In The Next Two Years But, While Automation And Advanced Technology Seems To Be The Next Logical Step, Artificial Intelligence Isn’t Making A Material Impact On Marketing Outcomes – Yet.

Instead, This Idea Of “Actual Intelligence” Goes Hand-In-Hand With CI, Which Is Run By Analytics And Automation.

Basically, It’s Allowing Marketers To Leave Out The Guesswork. With The Ever-Increasing Technological Advancements, Marketers Are Now Able To Analyze Large Quantities Of Data And Produce Automated Outcomes Based On The Results To Stand Out In Their Industries.

But What Exactly Does This Mean For Content In Particular?

WHAT IS CONTENT INTELLIGENCE?

Ryan Skinner, A Forrester Analyst, Defines The Term Content Intelligence As “Technology That Helps Content Understand Itself – What It’s About, How It Speaks, How Effective It Is At Accomplishing Certain Goals, What Emotions It Calls To Mind, Etc.”

For Such A Technology-Fuelled Phrase, Content Intelligence Is A Pretty Simple Concept. It Essentially Refers To The Systems And Software That Turns Data Into Actionable Insights For Marketers.

But It’s Not All About “Big Data”.

Source

It’s Also About Having The Full Context Of A Single Piece Of Content – Almost Like Looking At It From Every Perspective, Including Those We Might Not Even Be Aware Of (After All, The Robots Of The Future Are Supposed To Be One Step Ahead Of Us Mere Mortals).

Having Access To This Information Means Marketers Can Make Better Decisions About The Content They’re Creating.

But, Like Anything In The Tech-Sphere, Content Intelligence Is Constantly Evolving. Today, The Term Is Increasingly Being Used To Refer To The Tools That Give Marketers Access To New Marketing Insights.

WHAT EXACTLY IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONTENT INTELLIGENCE AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE?

AI Is The Slightly More Advanced, Robotic Version Of CI.

Those Robots You Imagined In The Sci-Fi Wonderland Of The Future? Those Are The Products Of AI In The Future. The Term Refers To The Development Of Computer Systems That Can Perform Tasks That Humans Normally Perform – Think Speech Recognition, Decision-Making, And Translation.

Source

CI, On The Other Hand, Is Simply A Set Of Tools That Can Mine Big Data And Offer Insights Based On Analysis For Marketers. CI Can’t Do Human Thinking, But It Can Provide A Quick And Easy Process To Something That Would Take Mortals A Much Longer Time.

HOW CONTENT INTELLIGENCE CAN BE APPLIED TO MARKETING

Vanity Metrics Are A Thing Of The Past.

Instead, Marketers Are Moving Beyond Arbitrary Numbers And Connecting Up The Dots To Produce Bigger, Bolder Insights.

Source

CI Pulls In Huge Amounts Of Data That A Human Couldn’t Compile Themselves, Let Alone Even Begin To Compute. By Using Automated Tools And CI Software, Marketers Are Now Able To Bring Together Data From Dispersed Sources And Apply The Information To Content To Get A Broader Understanding Of What They’re Dealing With.

INFORMED DECISIONS FOR SUCCESSFUL ACTION

With The Reports Generated From CI, Marketers Can Make Intelligent And Informed Decisions About What To Do With Their Content. Things Like:

What Content To Create: At The Moment, Machines Can Only Produce Data-Driven Content; They Can’t Think Creatively. However, This Hasn’t Stopped CI From Informing Brands About New Content They Could Create. Coca Cola, For Example, Has Implemented CI To Generate TV Adverts, In Which The Software Chose The Music And Created The Scenes.

Which Content To Update: CI Helps Marketers Determine What Content Needs Refreshing. For Example, A Prompt Can Be Sent If A Particular Blog Post Is Performing Well And Hasn’t Been Refreshed In A While.

What Content To Share: CI Can Provide Data-Driven Suggestions For What Content Performs Best At Every Stage Of The Sales Funnel, Helping Sales And Marketing Departments Save Time While Boosting Conversions.

AUTOMATION FOR TARGETED CONTENT

CI Doesn’t Just Harness Tons Of Data At Once, It Also Improves The Automation Process. This Saves Marketers Time And Means They Can Laser-Focus Their Targeting To Increase Conversions And Make More Sales.

EXAMPLES OF CONTENT INTELLIGENCE BEING USED IN CONTENT MARKETING

Now We’ve Covered What CI Actually Is And Why It’s Hugely Beneficial To Marketers, Let’s Take A Look At Some Brands That Have Successfully Implemented This Futuristic Feature.

UNDER ARMOUR OFFERS PERSONALIZED TRAINING

Under Armour, A Sports Apparel Company, Worked With IBM To Deliver Personalized Content To Its Customers. By Bringing Together User Dating From Its Record App And Third-Party Data Gathered On Topics Like Fitness And Nutrition, It Was Able To Offer Relevant Training And Advice To Its User.

For Example, A “32-Year-Old Woman Who Is Training For A 5km Race Could Use The App The Create A Personalized Training And Meal Plan, And Could Offer Suggestions On How To Improve Her Diet To Improve Performance.”

SCREENSHOP CREATES STORES FROM SCREENSHOTS

Social Media Platforms Like Instagram Are Full Of Pretty Pictures, And Sometimes (Well, A Lot Of The Time), Users Want To Buy What’s On Offer In The Shot – Especially When It Comes To Clothing. New App ScreenShop Lets People Do Exactly That.

It Works By Converting Any Mobile Screenshot Into A Shoppable Store. Basically, Users Screenshot An Instagram Photo They Want To Buy An Item From And Upload It Into The App Which Then Generates Shopping Results For Similar Items Of Clothing.

HUE SHARES THE MOST COMPELLING POSTS

One Of The Biggest Struggles Marketers Face Is Finding Engaging Content And Sharing It With Their Audience. It’s Difficult And Time-Consuming, But TINT’s Feature HUE Makes That Process A Whole Lot Easier.

The Tool Analyzes Your Aggregated Customer Content And Determines What’s Popular And Compelling To Your Audience. From There, It Makes Recommendations So You Never Leave Great Content Gathering Cobwebs. Using A Deep Learning Algorithm To Unlock Audience Insights, HUE Builds A Library Of Engaging Content That’s Just Waiting To Be Published.

CHATBOTS SERVE CUSTOMER-FOCUSED CONTENT

You’ve Probably Landed On A Website And A Box Has Popped Up In The Corner Asking You If There’s Anything You Need Help With. Nine Times Out Of Ten, These “Chats” Are Run By Chatbots, Which Have Been Set Up To Provide A Stellar Customer Experience.

These Bots Have Access To Huge Amounts Of Data Related To Customers, And They Are Tuned To Detect Patterns. But They Aren’t Always Used For Customer Service Errands.

Take Sephora’s Kik Bot, For Example, Which Serves Users With A Mini-Quiz About Their Makeup Preferences Which Then Leads To The Bots Providing Personalized Content Marketing Suggestions Based On The User’s Responses.

BIG-NAME BRANDS HAVE PERSONALIZATION COVERED

Perhaps The Most Common Form Of CI Is Played Out In Big-Name Brands Like Netflix And Amazon. These Companies Gather Insightful Data From Their Users In Order To Serve Up Relevant TV Shows, Films, And Products.

Each User’s Homepage Provides A Personal Experience Based On The Content They’ve Viewed Or Purchased Before.

In An Age Where Consumers Are Seeking An Authentic Experience With Brands And Where 74% Of Online Consumers Get Frustrated With Websites That Don’t Show Them Relevant Content, Personalization Is A Huge Benefit Of CI.

This Method Of Personalization Isn’t Just Limited To Big-Name Brands. It Can Also Be Applied To Blog Content And Personalizing Site Messaging, Too, Making It Ideal For Subscription-Based Businesses Where The Algorithm Can Learn More About The User Over Time.

SOCIAL MEDIA LETS USERS CURATE THEIR OWN FEEDS

1.37 Billion People Log Into Facebook Every Day, But Here’s The Kicker: No Two People See The Same Thing.

Facebook Uses CI Algorithms To Curate Feeds Based On What Users Like, Dislike, And Share The Most. Users Have A Say, Too, Thanks To The Option To “Hide” Posts If They’re Not Relevant.

Facebook Isn’t The Only Social Platform To Serve Up Personalized Feeds.

In Fact, Most Larger Social Media Sites Are Using Data And Insights To Curate Their User’s Feeds Into Personal Streams Of Fun. This Has Had An Impact On The Paid Ad Industry, Too, As It Means Ad-Buying Brands Don’t Have To Waste Money On Serving Ads To Users That Have Already “Hidden” Them.

BOXEVER DELIVERS MICRO-MOMENTS

Source

Travel Industry Hotshot Boxever Uses CI To Improve The Customer Experience. As The Customer Is Working Their Way Through The Travel Booking Process, Boxever Files Away At Their Preferences And Behavior To Provide “Micro-Moments”.

By Doing This, Boxever Helps Its Customers Find New Ways To Engage Their Clients In Their Travel Journeys.

Not Only Is The Software Picking Up On What The Customer Wants, They’re Using That Information To Serve Up Further Content And Material To Encourage More Sales While Providing A Personalized Experience That Consumers Today Are Craving.

CONTENT INTELLIGENCE AND CREATIVITY

Consumers Are Increasingly Looking For A More Authentic Experience With Brands, And Content Is The Perfect Way For Businesses To Engage With Their Audience. With CI, These Brands Can Find Out What Their Audience Want And Serve That Up By The Bucketload, Leading To A More Engaged Group Of Followers And More Loyal Fans.

It Automates Systems, Digs Deep Into Big Data, And Provides Insights That Can Be Turned Into Compelling Content, Saving Marketers Time And Money.

As CI Continues To Evolve, We’re Likely To See More Personalization And A Bigger Focus On External Data Sources That Can Be Combined With Internal Sources To Create Even More Detailed Insights.

But Content Marketing Still Remains And Inherently Creative Process, And Still Requires The Thoughts And Ideas Of Mere Human Beings. We Can Still Expect Big Ideas And Innovative Campaigns To Be Led By The Human Mind, But Unskilled Parts Of The Process, Like Data-Mining And Automation Will Continue To Feed Into The Ever-Evolving World Of CI.

Are You Ready To Implement CI In Your Content Marketing Strategy?

#marketing digitalmarketing contentmarketing marketingmaterial marketingdigital networkmarketing

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bikechatter · 6 years

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BikeCraft 2017 vendor profiles: Market Mule, Ivalieu, and Clodine Crafts

In case you haven’t heard, Portland’s bike-centric holiday gift fair is back! BikeCraft 2017 is December 15-17 at the Bike Farm (1810 NE 1st Ave.) and it’s powered by Microcosm Publishing.

To get you ready, our friend Elly Blue (Microcosm’s co-owner and marketing director) has been profiling the fantastic people behind the crafts (see the previous ones here, here and here). Below are the latest three BikeCrafters you’ll get to meet at the big event…

Market Mule – Amos Clapp and Justin Carven (website/Facebook)

(Photos: Market Mule)

We’re excited to welcome first-time BikeCraft vendors Amos Clapp and Justin Carven with their beautiful, hand-made wooden panniers. These baskets sit right over your rear bike rack, and can be simply picked up and carried by hand when you get to your destination. It’s a cool idea and it’s exciting to get to be part of a new idea and company like this getting off the ground—here’s hoping BikeCraft can help give them a good boost.

What’s your bike craft?

Hard market basket panniers. These are hand crafted, wooden bicycle panniers that convert to a hand basket.

How did you get started?

The initial inspiration was a drawing on the cover of an Adventure Cycling Magazine that depicted a cyclist from around the turn of the century riding with old style bike luggage. Wanting to make some bike bags, but not having a clear vision, Amos asked his cousin Analesa, who is an avid cyclist, if she had bike bags what would they look like? The sketch she drew is pretty much the shape of our Market Mule bags today. After several years of testing and a number of prototypes we are ready to offer bags to the public.

What’s your favorite thing about what you do?

Probably making a functional piece of art.

What’s your biggest challenge with it?

Putting these bags together requires quite a bit of finesse. Figuring out how make them in larger quantities and market them has been a learning experience.

Ivalieu – Cathy Kellon (website)

(Photo: Ivaliue)

Cathy Kellon is coming back to BikeCraft with her distinctive “bloomers” or “pettipants” — basically tight shorts that you can wear under your dress or skirt, that are technical enough that wearing them all day won’t give you a rash, and cool looking enough that when they show, it’s just part of your outfit. I read on her website that an important factor is that the waistline is not tight. Can I repeat that? The waistline is not tight! Also, Cathy’s story is one of those successful part time entrepreneur ones that you hear at the end of How I Built This and it gives you wild ideas about what you could do, too.

What’s your bike craft?

I make modern bloomers so you can bike in your fave skirt or dress in comfort and confidence. No outfit excuses for not biking ’round town!

How did you get started?

I wanted this very specific product and there wasn’t anything on the market so I went and made it. Well, that makes it sound so easy. It was not! I’m a geographer by training and have spent my career in the nonprofit sector. With zero experience in the apparel or fashion world, it was plain determination that kept me going (some of my friends *might* say that I *might* have a history of getting a wild hare when presented with a challenge). I sourced technical fabrics from around the world, figured out tech packs, asked lots of people lots of really naive questions, got lost in the garment district of L.A., made friends and family wear prototypes, cold-called manufacturing studios, you name it. I negotiated my way from concept to market in the time it took my youngest to go from toddler to kindergartner. It was scary and exciting, and totally worth it. I’m super proud of my product; not just because I finally have the perfect pettipants for my own wear but I’m absolutely delighted by how happy it makes customers. And I’m thrilled to help support reshoring and living-wage jobs in Portland.

What’s your favorite thing about what you do?

Making customers happy! Seriously, I glow inside and out when a customer tells me how Ivalieu made life easier. Recently, a customer said that she was at a work party and realized that her kid had surreptitiously pulled up her dress. Because she had on Ivalieu, she thought, “meh” and didn’t miss a beat in her conversation with colleagues. Or, another recent customer said that she is biking more than ever for getting around town because she doesn’t have to think twice about what she’s wearing. Ivalieu’s got her covered. Yassss.

What’s your biggest challenge with it?

Oh, definitely the time. My profession is in the NGO world and it’s pretty consuming so trying to run a business on the side of family and work just makes me wish there were more hours in the day.

What does bicycling mean to you?

I love biking for all the usual reasons — it’s fun, convenient, energizing, and it offers a lot of independence—but what I didn’t expect, and really value, is how meditative it can be. When I’m biking by myself, particularly along a familiar route, my brain often slips into a more creative-thinking mode. On my old bike commute route, which was just over 7 miles one way, I would find myself ruminating on big issues, but not at the forefront of my awareness. In the midst of watching traffic and pedaling, I would have these crazy flashes of insight where I’d see something in a new and helpful light or I’d come up with exciting (to me) ideas or solve thorny problems. Anyways, it was during these bike commutes that I imagined a line of modern, performance bloomers, worked out design details, came up with ideas for branding and lifestyle photos, and on and on. I’ve noticed that sometimes when my ideas feel a bit “stale,” I’ll realize that I haven’t gone on a good zone-out bike ride in a while. It’s so fun to hop off the bike and have a million ideas that you want to make happen and the energy to go for ’em.

Clodine Crafts – Clodine M. (website)

I’m so thrilled that Clodine is returning to BikeCraft, combining two great local flavors with her upcycled goods: bicycling and distinctively designed Pendleton wool. She makes the little bike accessories that become somehow even more useful and desirable when they’re available in something other than neon plastic shipped from overseas. Thank you, Clodine!

What’s your bike craft?

I created the world’s first and only bicycle top bar cover hand made with Pendleton Fabric®, along with matching ankle bands, key straps, and other commuting accessories. It was my husband who suggested it—and it became an interesting design challenge! I went through several iterations and tests to come up with a solution that fits most any bike bar, regardless of shape or width, and works around cables, pumps and other attachments. Because I wash the fabric in hot water before I sew it, I remove most of the shrinkage and tighten/toughen it. It is amazing how resilient wool is, and how the colors and pattern stays crisp. If the top bar cover gets wet, I just let it dry on the bike.

How did you get started?

All my life I’ve enjoy drawing, painting, jewelry-making, knitting, sewing, and just being handy, a problem-solver. I prefer to fix or transform an object that has character, rather than just dispose or otherwise give up on it. When I stopped by a Pendleton® store near where I live, I noticed the bins of remnants and scraps direct from the mill. The pieces could be small and odd, but clearly very good quality. So I started collecting fabric fragments (my husband called it stockpiling!) I started experimenting, as I wanted to get back into sewing anyway, and wanted to learn how to use a serger—that’s a type of sewing machine that has 4 spools of thread going simultaneously, with a knife that cuts the fabric while finishing the edge of it. Because I have to wear an ID for my day job, and I was sick of the nylon lanyard digging into my neck, my first product was a lanyard made with soft Pendleton® wool.

What’s your favorite thing about what you do?

I like ‘rescuing’ fabric remnants and vintage notions, and combining and transforming them into something new—giving them a new life. I also enjoy the challenge of figuring out how to make something to meet a need, such as with custom jobs that fit an individual’s preference. I especially enjoy the feel of the textiles, and working with combinations of different colors. The rich, earthy colors are very healing to people.

What’s your biggest challenge with it?We live in an interesting time where fewer people learn about what ‘quality’ and handmade are all about. In a craft fair, I’ll see a young adult walk by wearing a cheap-quality, overpriced, and mass-produced knock-off of the Pendleton® look—not realizing I’ve the real thing right there, in a carefully crafted product. Also, just a couple of decades ago or so, it was less expensive to make clothes at home than to buy them in the store. Now the opposite is true—yet there’s an unconscious belief that because something is handmade, it should be less expensive than the store-bought, manufactured version.

What does bicycling mean to you?

Bicycling means freedom. The feeling of being on the bike, outside, is refreshing. And, when I want to go downtown, I don’t have to worry about parking. More and more, I think about the contribution to sustainability. When I can use a bike instead of a car to get somewhere, I’m grateful that there’s just that little bit of less gas used, less exhaust generated.

Learn more about BikeCraft here.

— Elly Blue

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jessicakmatt · 7 years

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11 Rob Burrell Tips To Improve Your Mixing

11 Rob Burrell Tips To Improve Your Mixing: via LANDR Blog

Pensado’s preferred mixer shares some hot tips.

Rob Burrell is a mix engineer who recently became Pensado’s Place’s preferred mixer. What do they have in common? A love of music and educating the next generation.

Burrell’s mixing credits include big rock and country acts like Michael W. Smith, Carrie Underwood, Lady Antebellum, and many others. He’s also mixed sound for film and is now working on a hard rock EP, a pop-opera album and music for three Sea World roller coasters.

“I don’t do genres—I make music. I listen to music that’s all over the map and I’m incredibly thankful that the same diversity comes across my console daily. My clients comes from all over the world, and I’m having the time of my life.”

He’s got us asking: what’s your secret Rob?

From Singing to Stepping Behind the Console

Rob Burrell wanted to become a singer and went to college to do a vocal performance major. One day a professor took him to a background vocal session he was producing. “I’d never been in a studio before, that night everything changed. Watching the producer and engineer accomplish what I had heard my whole life—and naively thought just happened automatically—my entire focus changed. It was the perfect blend of tech and musicianship.”

That made him shift gears and enroll in a Recording and Production program. “I got my first assistant gig in 1994 while I was still in college, and that first job turned into my first Platinum record to hang on the wall.”

A decade later, he decided to focus on being a mix engineer—not just an engineer who mixes. “This was scary because I had four young kids and a wife to provide for—but that’s a pretty good motivation to succeed! It was a rough transition, but it paid off. Somewhere around 5,000 mixes later, I still wake up everyday like it’s Christmas morning!”

Here are Rob Burrell’s 11 tips for mixing, studio workflows and living life, in his words:

1. Ask WHY?

I ask myself this question hundreds of times a day—consciously or subconsciously—out of years of practice. It’s a concept that I challenge all my interns, assistants and my clients with.

If you can’t define the “WHY?” to each and every action, you’re just wandering around hoping to stumble onto something that serves the song well. If you don’t know your end goal, you can’t know how to get there.

Sometimes it’s fun to hop in the car and drive wherever the road takes you. But if you’re supposed to be going out for a bag of coffee and your client is coming in 15 minutes… Might not be the best time for a joyride.

For example, I have a bass guitar on a rock track that is driving the chord changes and it isn’t cutting through. I’ve already defined “WHY?” it needs to cut through: because it’s crucial to the changes.

If I’m choosing a 1176 Blackface peak limiter over a STA-Level Tube Compressor after I pound it with 15dB of 800 Hz, 15dB of 1kHz and more shelf above that. WHY am I doing that? Is it because I read somewhere that you’re supposed to use an 1176 on bass? There’s no “WHY?” there—no thought process of your own.

I want the 1176 is because it’s quick enough to warm and round out a bunch of the clack up top I just created. I was looking for definition in the note changes and it gives me exactly that. The STA would glue it to the wall, but it would give me too much of the nasal region of the bass. It wouldn’t react as quickly to tame the front edge of the string noise.

Don’t get too hung up on “settings” or just become a preset robot. Instead, begin to be aware of your thought process and control it, rather than hoping to get lucky.

In the early part of your career, this will look more like “I THINK this is why…” As you learn and grow your mixing vocabulary, you’ll be able to say with confidence: “This IS why I chose what I did.” So don’t get too hung up on “settings” or just become a preset robot. Instead, start being aware of your thought process and control it, rather than hoping to get lucky.

2. Bring out the Emotion

Music is emotional! There’s no way around it. Sure, it’s technical and it’s a business. But at the end of the day music is born out of emotion—it expresses emotion, invokes emotion, and we should do everything we can to maximize it during mixing and mastering.

So listen to your songwriter, your artist, your producer and find the heart that drives the song. Sometimes this will be obvious when you listen, sometimes you’ll need to dig deeper.

If you invest emotionally and get inside the music, you’ll make much better decisions to serve it best as you can. And of course remember to ask your hundreds of “WHY?” throughout the day.

3. Check Your Acoustics

This is absolutely critical. If you spend any time on the internet, you’ll read that it’s all about “acoustics, acoustics, acoustics.” That’s true.

As a young up-and-coming engineer I always had my eye on more gear. I was sure it would make my mixes awesome. Or a new set of speakers so I could hear better. A killer set of speakers isn’t going to matter at all until you have a great acoustic situation sorted out.

The great news is that there are so many great products out there to help you. You don’t have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get your control room dialed in.

For instance, I use the ASC Attack Wall system which I’ve owned for 17+ years and it’s absolutely amazing! People walk into my room to listen and cannot believe that it’s a modular acoustic system and not a 6-figure buildout.

Take some time to learn about acoustics. It’s your job to understand how it affects your work!

So take some time to learn about acoustics. It’s your job to understand how it affects your work! Grab a free copy of Room EQ Wizard and a measurement mic, and make a plan for spending some money to get your room sorted out. Otherwise you’ll buy a killer new tube compressor and won’t even be able to properly hear what it’s doing.

4. Choose Your Monitoring Chain Wisely

After your space is dialed in, having a killer monitoring chain is key.

A master DAC (Digital-to-Analog Converter) and speakers that you know intimately will give you a window to how your mixes translate in the real world. You want your speaker to give you the whole picture—not to leave out or gloss over parts of the picture that need more work.

Speaker choice is a personal preference but don’t just pick something that sounds good. Choose something that will inspire you to work harder to make a killer mix. There are speakers out there that I’ve tried and made me think I had knocked the mix out of the park… Only to go listen in the car and realize I should’ve kept working for another two or three hours!

So it’s important to have an honest speaker to guide your way. My personal choice are these ATC SCM50’s with dual Bag End subwoofers. I know that what I hear in my room will sound the way I intended when the mix heads out the door.

5. Balance the Right and Left Brain

Mixing should be a fluid process of constantly moving back and forth between the analytical (left) and creative (right) sides of our brain—never staying in one side for too long.

I love the technology we have today. I’m not afraid to say that I don’t miss the days of analog tape. I absolutely have no issues with what’s going on in the digital world and really love the flexibility it allows us to have.

I do have one issue: the fact that we’re staring at a screen all the time. Looking at music? No thanks…

Give tactile mixing a try. It will truly change the way you think and hear in your process, not to mention increase the speed at which you can accomplish what’s in your head.

This is something I’m very particular about. My main screens are off to the side so I physically have to turn my body to see them. I just don’t want to see music while I mix! Instead I’m grabbing faders, turning knobs, staring off into the space in front of me visualizing my mix and being moved by it—rather than being influenced by pretty colors on the screen or an EQ curve that “looks” too aggressive when I see the graph on the computer.

It’s very important to my personal workflow that I focus on the music. Obviously for editing we need to look at the screen or occasionally a plugin, but mixing is different. It should be a creative and musical experience. Even if it’s a single fader with a few knobs that let you to do more than one action at a time. That already has more emotion.

Give tactile mixing a try. It will truly change the way you think and hear in your process—not to mention increase the speed at which you can accomplish what’s in your head.

6. Think Analog for Headroom and Levels

In the digital age, even with great 32 and 64-bit mix busses, we should still be aware of analog reference levels. We love all our hardware emulation plugins, and designers have primarily created those based on analog gain staging.

The key to getting the best sound is to understand that the zero we see in our DAW’s is 0 dBfs (dB full-scale). That means end of the line, no more room. With Pro Tools meters, I always say that yellow is the new red.

Take a vocal, for instance. When a vocalist hits the region where green becomes yellow, the vocal is likely approaching digital zero. This is because of the slowness of PPM meters (‘pseudo peak’) and the harmonic complexity of the human voice. If that same vocal is glued in the yellow or tickling red, you are missing out on the optimal operating range of analog gear—converters and plugins alike.

Learn what reference your DAW uses (-16, -18, -20, etc.) and start watching your meters. So much of the width and depth we want a plugin to achieve is often easy to do by simply reclaiming the headroom we’ve lost from poor practices.

This applies to samples and Virtual Instruments (VI) as well… so often they output right at zero. Don’t be afraid to turn the master of the VI down 10 or even 20dB! Who cares if the waveforms look small! GOOD! That’s why we have zoom functions on computers.

7. Get Down to Business

“Business Matters.” As musicians, we hate to think this way. But for a lot of us, learning to be businesspeople is crucial. At a certain point, you’ll need to make money to keep making music.

With intellectual property being so undervalued today, do your best NOT to undervalue it further with your clients. When you do work for free, that client will rarely want to give you more.

Study the business around you, understand your place in the chain, and think forward. Not just how to survive today, but what it will take to survive in the future.

Charge something, even if it’s just a little. As your ability and clientele grows, your rate should also. Eventually, you may be supporting a spouse and children—free doesn’t buy a lot of groceries or diapers!

Study the business around you, understand your place in the chain, and think forward. Not just how to survive today, but what it will take to survive in the future.

8. Don’t chase. Lead!

Any time you play it safe, you risk losing the client. We are hired for our opinion. If the client hears the mix and isn’t more moved than when they sent you the rough mix, what do they need you for, anyway?

I work hard to push boundaries every day—my own personal boundaries as well as the client’s. I might go too far and scare them a bit… AWESOME! I can always dial it back if I’ve gone out of bounds. If I went 10% beyond where they thought they were comfortable and we dial it back 5%, we’ve all still pushed our boundaries by 5%. This is evolution—carving new and exciting paths.

Playing it safe won’t get you a win. Be bold, maybe even reckless! Music is dangerous, so be fearless! BUT here’s two rules to remember…

Don’t be different just to be different! Know WHY you’re doing something different!

Make sure you are ready to listen to your client above your own ego, because if you aren’t a good collaborator, you may not get the call next time around.

9. Know the Reference

There are two components to this.

The first component is: what audio format is the reference? Always be aware when checking against commercial releases of the format you’re listening to. Streaming? iTunes download? CD? HD Master? Lossy formats are just that… Information has been lost.

If you listen to a stream and try to copy what you’re hearing, I can almost guarantee you’ll have less top and bottom than you should and too much overall compression/limiting. These formats don’t breathe the way your full resolution master should.

Be aware of the effects of these processes and listen for vibe and generalities, rather than accepting it as complete sonic truth. We shouldn’t be trying to copy another mix anyway, but be super careful of the tonal shape of each of the different formats.

It’s also crucial to know what your clients are referencing, because I’ve had “the mix is a bit too bright” comment before and after sending an MP3 reference rather than a WAV file, the top end was suddenly what they wanted. Sad, but true… know your formats!

The second component is simple. Just remember that no two songs are alike! Don’t try to squeeze your mix into a sonic box to match a commercial mix that you love. Again, listen for vibe and generalities. Do your own thing!

10. Ask questions

We ALL should ALWAYS be learning! I purposely set out to learn something new everyday.

There’s always someone who’s been at it longer than you, and those of us that have been at this for a minute love to share our passion for what we’ve learned.

Fight for knowledge and understanding on your own, but don’t be afraid to ask those that have years of experience.

Fight for knowledge and understanding on your own, but don’t be afraid to ask those that have years of experience. We all start at the bottom and grow from hard work and people speaking into our craft and career. This is community at its best!

11. Live life

Hustle, yes. Hustle hard. Music life is challenging, but therefore very rewarding! So live life with those you love.

Inspiration comes from the world around us. Work your tail off—we all need to in order to keep our edge. But without recharging you’ll get burned out.

No person is an island, so go hang out on an island with some family or friends!

Visit Rob Burrell’s website for more on his discography and studio. Follow Rob on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

The post 11 Rob Burrell Tips To Improve Your Mixing appeared first on LANDR Blog.

from LANDR Blog http://blog.landr.com/rob-burrell-mix-tips/ via https://www.youtube.com/user/corporatethief/playlists from Steve Hart https://stevehartcom.tumblr.com/post/161291828004

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