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As an entrepreneur, your life is dynamic. Okay, it’s chaotic. :) You're in charge of launches, clients, marketing… on top of all the regular life stuff. So yup, overwhelm comes to the playground in full force, and it's up to us to how we respond - or as you'll hear me challenge today, perhaps being proactive can change the whole ball game. Let's dig into ways overwhelm affects us and discover how to break the negative patterns we fall into when we feel we're in over our heads.Common signs of overwhelm: Well, aside from Netflix binges (or just name your favorite avoidance tactic), you say things like, “Oh my God, I'm not going to be able to handle all of this!” Or “I'm not cut out for this!” These are crafty ways that our minds shut us down or send us into patterns that are unhealthy, like distractions, or doing little non-activities. Essentially this shuts us down.These are red flags that you have too much going on in your brain! In my 15 years of coaching and 25 years of running my own business, and well … being human, I’ve recognized two major ways people experience overwhelm. Today I’ll teach you those two ways, plus a habit I developed to proactively manage my personal panic mode. I’ll also give you a brain dump exercise to combat your own overwhelm patterns. And you’ll discover how the art of the brain dump works for managing our deluge of responsibilities, obligations, and expectations (self-imposed or otherwise).Your brain is not a container. You need to clear it out and allow your brain to be the tool you can use! Trust me, this method is surprisingly effective for your productivity. Give it a shot, and you'll see.Mentioned in this episode:> Get on the waiting list for Uplevel Cafe.

So far, all of our public domain stories were created prior to 1925. However, there are a few newer tales that are no longer copyright protected. From one of the world’s best science fiction writer’s comes a tale of idioms and aliens.Essentially, this story is a long dad joke. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I, a dad, did.Even if you don’t know his name, you know the work of Philip K. Dick. Several of his books and stories have been adapted into movies and Tv shows like: Total Recall, Minority Report and Man in the High Castle. He died in 1982 of a stroke just four months before his blockbuster movie, Blade Runner opened.

There is nothing wrong with light-colored or milky-toned skin. In fact, you are saving your skin and youth when you keep harmful rays and tanning beds away. The sun is not a bad element, as we get natural vitamin D from the sun, but overexposure is. However, people become tempted as a tan is considered beautiful or sexy. Well, what if you could have both worlds; a natural glow using a natural bronzing lotion? This product is for Men, Woman, and is also safe for children. Carlynn Woolsey is the author of this recipe and has created a way for fair-type skin to be sun-kissed in a beautiful glow. Coconut oil is a natural skin protector, but if you plan to be in the sun for a long time, I recommend placing sunscreen on before or even mixing it with your natural bronzer so your skin stays protected. Ready to be sun-kissed? Me too, so let's start! Natural Bronzing Lotion Ingredients: 1/4 cup beeswax pellets1/4 cup carrier oil: (almond/grapeseed/jojoba)1 cup coconut oil1/2 cup coffee grounds1 tsp. ground cinnamon Directions for Coconut oil infusion: In a small saucepan, combine the coconut oil, coffee grounds, and cinnamon. Simmer over low heat for approximately two hours. Then allow the mixture to cool. After it cools, strain the coconut oil. Discard the grounds, or use them to make a body scrub. Directions to make the cream: In a small saucepan set over low heat, combine the coconut oil infusion, a carrier oil of your choice, and the beeswax pellets. Whisk the mixture to ensure the oils are fully incorporated and heat just until the beeswax is melted.Remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the essential oils, if desired. Place the pan in the freezer for approximately 30 minutes and whisk once while freezing. If you can't place it in the freezer, allow the mixture to cool at room temperature for at least an hour. Essentially, you are melting everything down to combine the ingredients and then letting it harden back up again. Once hardened, give the mixture another good stir with the whisk; it should have a slightly whipped consistency. Store the cream in an airtight jar, in a cool place, for up to three weeks.Apply when you want that sun-kissed natural bronzing glow. Not only will this give you a glow, but the cream will nourish your skin, leaving it soft and brilliant. This recipe is also perfect if you are planning a trip to a sunny location and don’t want to feel out of place or blind someone with your brilliant fair-type skin ;). Apply as often as you need and as always, remember to stay healthy and free! Heather EarlesHeather EarlesHeather is married to a retired Special Forces Officer, and they live on a sustainable farm with their four children. She is an established author of inspiration, fiction, and children’s books; a journalist, a stay-at-home mother, and an advocate for healthy living. She publishes a weekly blog and podcast (Herb ‘N Wisdom™) and writes for two newspapers to aid and inspire others. “I want to make people feel good about life.” Learn more about the author

In this episode, we talk about burnout — a big, scary topic that’s been very front of mind for us lately. It feels like we’ve hit a collective wall, and we thought better understanding burnout might help us start to move past it. We get clear on what burnout looks like, how it shows up, and how to identify when we’re feeling it. We talk about the different types of burnout; pandemic-related, professional, or personal and cover some mechanisms to deal with them. We get real honest (and heated) about advocating for ourselves at work in a capitalist system that hinges our worth on our output. We talk about tools to avoid burnout and discuss the issues facing millennials (aka: the generational obsession with optimizing ourselves). Finally, we talk about how self-care has been co-opted into an industry that pressures us to constantly look to improve ourselves. Essentially, you’ll be listening in on an honest conversation about a difficult period in our lives. Follow us on Instagram @educatedmesses if you’d like to be a part of our conversations in future episodes! Note: Our offer to include free ad reads for BIPOC-owned businesses still stands and will continue to stand.   Other EM episodes we mention Ep 09: How Do We Become More Resilient? We also mention Burnout Book By Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski Sources Millennial Burnout - Buzzfeed Smartphone Study - UTexas  

“Essentially, all healing is the release from fear. To undertake this, you cannot be fearful yourself. You do not understand healing because of your own fear.” ~ ACIM Today mama and I did some healing. We began the process of forgiveness. Looking to the past to forgive can be uncomfortable and scary. Those skeletons may have been in the closet collecting dust for awhile!

Here’s a question for today – what makes someone trustworthy? What do you look for? If you had to pin it down to a single trait, or indicator, what would it be?Think about how many people we trust in our lives just for a second – with our vision, our businesses, our children, our finances, the health and wealth of our Nation.Yet how do we ever really know if someone can be trusted - essentially their moral code – until it’s tested. Essentially until – potentially – it’s too late. Which brings me on to my next question, and ultimately the focus of today’s episode. Is there a reliable i.e. scientific way that we can predict and therefore design for trustworthy behaviour? A way of being able to trust who we can trust in a way.Now let’s take that to the next level, if there is. If there are repeatable factors behind trustworthy behaviour – how could we use it to influence ourselves? Our own likelihood of behaving in a way that fits with our intentions – with the vision of the human being we want to be on our best days. When I first started diving into this topic, the marriage of combining science with trust seemed like an unlikely one. Human beings are mysteries right? We’re a walking soup of contradictions, hormones and reactions. Any attempt to predict our behaviour usually fails.And yet – this simple force – trust – is the glue that holds together every single fundamental part of the world that we know. Society, democracy, marriage – they all rely totally upon its existence.So, it would seem about time that we dived a little deeper into the mechanics of it.My guest on today’s episode has done exactly that, but he’s also taken it a step further. He’s identified the actual molecule responsible for trust – and found a way it can be used to predict behaviour with up to 80% accuracy.Paul Zak is the founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies and Professor of Economics, Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University. Paul’s two decades of research have taken him from the Pentagon to Fortune 50 boardrooms to the rain forest of Papua New Guinea. All this in a quest to understand the neuroscience of human connection, human happiness, and effective teamwork. His latest book, Trust Factor: The Science of Creating High Performance Companies, uses neuroscience to measure and manage organizational cultures to accelerate business outcomes. His 2012 book, The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity, recounted his unlikely discovery of the exact neurochemical that drives trust, love, and human morality. In todays episode we dive into…Why human beings are the only creatures with a fully developed moral code – and how we use it to predict behaviour and essentially keep ourselves safe.The moral molecule – what it is, how it works and how it can be harnessed to increase the likelihood of trustworthy behaviour.The link between trust and prosperity – and why understanding the science of trust might be the key to alleviating poverty How Pauls career and experience in this field has impacted his own approach to building trust – as both a leader and a parentAnd finally – probably the part that blew me away the most – what all this information tells us about the future of storytelling. Including exactly how to structure a story – in order to trigger the chemicals in the brain that are directly responsible for people taking action. On reflection, the part of this conversation that probably stuck with me the most is the concept of ‘time ins’ as a trigger. The essential idea being that when people behave in a way that leads us to disconnect – either as a leader, a partner, a friend or a parent – often our instinct is to give them a time out. Set them apart, make an example, reinforce the rules through separation. In most countries we have based an entire criminal justice system upon this one guiding principle. And yet… in many of those occasions, what’s actually needed is a time in. A bringing closer into the fold. An acknowledgement that - given the wrong combination of situations, chemicals, hormones and moments in time – we can all (and will all to varying degrees) lose sight of our best selves. On that note, hunker down – or hide out somewhere quiet if you’re still in lock down – and soak up both the science and wisdom of the incredible Paul Zak. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Love No Hate #108. Within Brim's Skin -- Brimstone is joined by his wing man Alex DaPonte as they discuss lots of things including why there is a scientific reason why time goes quickly the older you get and why Greg Cipes is incredibly Zen. They discuss when Grumpy Cat was a thing and a meme legend. They discuss one billion GIF uses and how social media building is hard to do. Essentially, he explains what gets Within Brim's Skin.

The 16:9 PODCAST IS SPONSORED BY SCREENFEED – DIGITAL SIGNAGE CONTENT Generally speaking, the sun doesn't play very nicely with LCD displays when they're running outside. The brightness has to be cranked just to cut through glare, and all kinds of R&D work has to be done to effectively get out all the heat that builds up when a screen runs out in the sun all day. So what if there was display technology that actually did well in direct sunlight? There's e-paper, but that tech can't do the full motion or rich colors that are inherent in LCD displays. So how about a display that's reflective like e-paper, but is otherwise a more conventional LCD flat panel?  That's the premise behind Azumo, a Chicago company that has developed a micro-thin front light for LCDs, taking the place of the backlighting arrays that illuminate millions or billions of TVs and display monitors. By day, in bright light, an Azumo-equipped display doesn't even need a light on, front or back. And at night, that front light illuminates the screen. Right now, Azumo does smaller displays for industrial and medical uses, and is developing the tech for tablets. But the company is equipping its production lines to do larger displays, with the idea that customers like media companies and QSR chains would take a liking to digital posters and drive-thru order screens that didn't run up big power bills just to be viewable. I spoke with Azumo CEO Mike Casper. Subscribe to this podcast: iTunes * Google Play * RSS TRANSCRIPT David: Mike, thank you for joining me. Can you tell me what Azumo is all about?  Mike Casper: Yeah. Thank you, Dave. So Azumo is a display technology company that is really enabling something we call LCD 2.0, and that effectively is using all the great things about LCD, but it's making it much more energy-efficient, much more effective for all environments and ultimately safer on the eyes as we stare at screens more and more these days.  David: And how is it different from the LCDs that we all know in traditional consumer or primary commercial displays?  Mike Casper: Sure. So most LCDs that are out there today, the vast majority of them are transmissive LCDs and so the way that these work is the pixels essentially act like shutters of light, and so they either close or open allowing what's called a backlight to light up the screen and let the light pass through. While these backlights in these older transmissive style LCDs, they only allow about 7% of the light to make its way through those pixels. So 93% of all this heat and light and really wasted energy generated is stuck behind the LCD and so with this new style, and what we're helping to enable here at Azumo is what's called a reflective LCD. Essentially what the LCD manufacturers have done is put a mirrored surface on the back, so no light can pass through it but what happens instead is that light from the outside or external lighting will reflect off the surface and that's the way that you can see the display. So it's saving 90% energy, much better viewing in bright sunlight and outdoor environments, which is why it's a great application for signage. David: So it's a little bit like electronic ink in that you're using natural light to illuminate the visual surface. But different in a whole bunch of other ways?  Mike Casper: Yeah, exactly. You're spot on. So E-paper and electronic ink were some of the first successful versions of reflective displays. Now those just like paper, ePaper paper are more diffuse and it's a lot easier to have light bounce off the surface and so if you've ever read a Kindle or a Kobo or any of these e-reader devices, they're fantastic out in the sun, the battery lasts a really long time. But just the way that those work, they're somewhat limited in color, a lot of them are only black and white or have some muted colors. But I think more importantly they're pretty limited with how fast they can update themselves and so they can't really do video or some of these other great things that we're used to with LCDs. Reflective LCD on the other hand can help to overcome some of those limitations with ePaper. David: So all of the compromises that you might have to make with the paper, particularly if you want to do motion media or really rich saturated colors and all that stuff, it's very difficult. But with this, you're effectively using the conventional LCD displays except your lighting from the front to the back, right? Mike Casper: Exactly. The vast majority of the LCD architecture is essentially the same and so you're able to get high-resolution, full video, refresh rates, all those great things about LCD, it's leveraging almost the exact same manufacturing process so there's a nice, robust supply chain. There's just a lot of great things about reflective LCDs that many people don't know about. David: So do you manufacture finished displays or is your technology something that goes into the displays that are made by mainstream commercial LCD manufacturers?  Mike Casper: Good question. At Azumo, we manufacture and design and manufacture what's called the front light component. So we're really the lighting component, the key enabling technology for these higher-resolution reflective LCDs. Because it's fairly new, what we've done with our supply chain is as we've been working with some of the major LCD manufacturers to package their display with our front light and then we'll sell the whole module to a variety of OEM customers and industrial and medical and other consumer products. However, now that the industry's starting to build and improve upon the reflective LCD and know more about us and the fact that our front light does exist, they're also starting to purchase the front light directly from us, and then they'll create the module and sell it to their customers. David: What does that front light look like? I'm trying to picture it.  Mike Casper: The best part is it's invisible. So you almost can't see it. David: That’s why I can’t picture it. (Laughter) Mike Casper: That's one of the key features for front lighting. So essentially we're a light guide component and light guides have been around since even when LCDs first started because most light guides are used, as I was describing earlier, for traditional LCDs, you have to light it from the back. And so most light guides are hidden behind the screen. You don't even see them. They're typically buried within the module and it's very easy to hide them ‘cause you have the LCD on the front. If you try to take that same light guide and put it on the front of a reflective LCD, it has to be completely transparent. So that's why it hasn't really worked using conventional lighting methods in the past and why something like our invisible front light is such a critical component because you want the user to see all the beautiful things apart from the LCD, not any components sitting on top. David: So is it like LED edge lighting with kind of a sheet or something?  Mike Casper: Effectively, yeah. So we're using a modified edge lighting approach that is able to get an LED coupled into our material and when I talk about our material, it's about 50 microns thick. So it's about 1/20th of a millimeter, extremely thin. This is why we're able to get that embedded in the top layer of the LCD and the way that our system works, we're still able to capture all that light from the LED, channel it in, and then serve as a light guide that can deliver the light to the front of the reflective LCD when needed.  David: So why would I want to do that? Mike Casper: So the biggest reason is really two-fold:  Power savings is number one. Using reflective LCD with our front light module, can save 80 to 90% power consumption compared to some of the other EMS of technologies like micro-LED or OLED, or compared to even some backlit LCDs. So power savings is number one. You're actually using the light around you when you use a reflective LCD module and especially in the case of signage, oftentimes this is outdoors, you got the bright sun out there, let's use this great light source we have here which is the Sun. Why not just use that to our advantage? So that's the main reason.  The second being, viewability in all environments. The Sun in that example looks fantastic, the brighter the sun, the brighter the display, and then in the case, if you're viewing it at night or in a darker environment, that's where our front light will turn on and so you get a nice glow on the display without it being distracting to the user.  David: It seems from what you're telling me, like the application for this in terms of large format displays would be for high brightness outdoor displays. Is that a reasonable assumption?  Mike Casper: Yeah, I think that's a great application for it. When you look at what other display technologies are trying to do for high brightness environments there's a lot of challenges, right? You've got to pump a ton of light, whether you're using Emissives, micro-LED, or OLED, you're just pumping so much brightness just to try to beat the sun and it's a lot of wasted energy. So yeah, I think that's a fantastic application right off the bat.  David: Yeah, I've done some work recently around outdoor displays and talked to a lot of industry people and they're cranking 3500 nits, 5000 nits, that sort of thing and the amount of power has got to drive that, but also for those guys, when you talk to them, they talk about the sun being the enemy. They're doing everything they can to counteract the impact of the sun, whereas it sounds like you're putting these out there and saying, “Bring it on!”  Mike Casper: Exactly the brighter the sun, the better. So yeah, I think that you're exactly right, that's the key. All these other display technologies are having to do all these workarounds, even think about micro-LED or LED billboards. They don't even have to be micro-LED, just regular LED billboards that are having to pump fans and other cooling mechanisms just to overcome the heating element of making these so bright during bright environments. The whole point of having LEDs, I thought was to save energy, not consume more.  So I agree the sun is their enemy but in this case, with a reflective LCD, it actually boosts the performance.  David: So to use the example of a Phoenix or Las Vegas, if it's outdoor street furniture at a transit shelter, that sort of thing. Through the day if the sun's out and beating down, do you even have lighting on? Mike Casper: No. In that environment, you wouldn't need to. We could see there would be sensors, maybe some brightness sensors that if it start to get cloudy and whatnot, it could turn the light on, but 80-90% of the time, you would have the sun out, it would be bright enough to see on its own and you wouldn't need any external lighting.  David: I suspect you've got an engineer or you're an engineer and you've done the mathematical models. I'm curious what kind of money this would save?  Mike Casper: Yeah, it's quite a bit, especially when you start talking about many of these digital displays that are out there right now, a majority of them are LED billboards. And today, some of the recent studies that have been done on the standard billboards outdoor for the transportation area are already consuming the same amount of energy as four households in the United States within a year, and so just one LED billboard that's running throughout the bright sun, throughout the night is already consuming a significant amount of energy. With reflective LCD, this could be reduced by 90%.  David: But you can't replace a LED billboard with a reflective LCD display, can you?  Mike Casper: Yeah. So what would you end up doing, I think it is very similar to how the LED billboards are built, where the modules are essentially started to daisy chain together to make larger sizes. You can do the same thing with these reflective LCD modules.  You can have a very nice thin bezel and have say up to 55-inch diagonal displays, just be tiled next to each other until you build up the full size that you need. It’s also another benefit with the Azumo light guide, the front light that we're able to use. Most light guides have a bunch of LEDs along the edge that have hotspots and so this is why most backlit LCDs have to have some sort of a bezel or border to block those hotspots. But because our material is so flexible, we're able to actually bend that all the way behind the display. We are able to get a nice tight radius of about half a millimeter. So our border can be really thin and enables you to tile these close to each other.  David: So this would be the equivalent of the super-duper-oh-my-god-amazing, add a few more adjectives in there, narrow bezel display?  Mike Casper: Yeah, exactly.  David: So they would just be like a hairline and I guess at a distance, you wouldn't even see that, like a billboard?  Mike Casper: Right. It's all about that viewing distance. But yeah, especially when you're able to get some of these higher resolution LCDs in the tiles themselves, you can start doing just as good dynamic content on both as opposed to an LED billboard as well. David: So I suspect there are some people listening to this thinking this is interesting, but whenever there's new technology like this, the costs are through the roof and it sounds amazing, but it's not financially feasible to do it. So what are the cost implications of this?  Mike Casper: Yeah. Good question, and I'd say we're at the forefront of it right now. You're starting to see over the past year or two more and more of LCD manufacturers showcasing these reflective LCDs in larger sizes. So I think Sharp maybe showed a 32-inch or around 30-inch last year. I know JDI has been showing a few examples over the past few years. Same with BOE up to 55-inch, I believe.  So they're starting to showcase this potential, and with that, I should say is, I think they're also trying to understand the market dynamics and pricing. The good thing is that because it's built on the LCD infrastructure, which has been out there for years and years, fully capitalized equipment, minimal switching costs. So I think they're able to fundamentally keep the prices within an LCD realm, nothing crazy where you've got to go build a whole brand new,OLED fab or anything like that. You can actually use some of the LCD manufacturing capacity that's already out there.  But then like any new technology, as you said, it's lower volumes to start and how do you price it and extend that out over time? I think that's still to be determined.  David: So if you're working with a Sharp, NEC or a company like that, are they getting your layer at the original manufacturing line or is it something that they would add after the fact and say, “okay, now it's reflective”? Mike Casper: Yeah, so what we're doing at Azumo, with our front light technology, we're scaling up our production lines for these larger sizes as we speak, and so everything we've done over the past few years has been on displays ranging from one inch up to about eight inch diagonal.  Just last year, 2020, we installed some new production equipment that enables us to go up to about 20 inch diagonal, and so in order to get to these larger displays, we're going to be installing some larger equipment to handle these larger panels. So today, our products can be found through the smaller displays and we're working with the LCD manufacturers to be scaling that up in the future, to be able to offer this to the signage industry for these larger panels as well. David: So it's not a physics challenge or anything else, it's just a matter of having the right equipment to do the larger displays? Mike Casper: Exactly.  David: How do you deal with intellectual property? If you're dealing with Chinese manufacturers, there's a bit of a history there. I'm not totally sure how fair it is, I don't know. But there's always some antsiness about working with overseas manufacturers about their intellectual property and what's going to happen.  Mike Casper: Sure. What we've done at Azuma, wwe're located in the United States as our headquarters, we do have some operations in China. And most of our core IP elements are actually still produced on equipment here in the United States, fairly close to us too, in suppliers that we use, so we're able to keep it close to the chest, especially those really core IP elements, I think that's always a key strategy for any display technology. But also recognizing that the entire display ecosystem for the most part is in Asia. So, you're going to have to be, as you scale the business or scaling technology, you're going to have to integrate along the chain there, and so finding ways to, from us, just determining at what point we have the production here versus a different location where we're still able to protect and maintain our IP.  I will say too, it's one of those where we're always constantly innovating as well, and so filing new patents on new technologies as we're developing is another strategy of ours as well. David: So with those displays that are already out there, you mentioned the smaller ones getting up to as large as 20-inch, but a lot of it's a one-inch, eight-inch, that sort of thing. What are they being used?  Mike Casper: Yeah, so all of the smaller products, when we first launched a little over three years ago, really the only reflective LCDs in the market at that time or monochrome, for the most part, going after industrial and medical applications, a lot of handheld products that we're using have these smaller displays looking for that power savings, and we're working very closely with Sharp. We're actually one of their value-added partners in their preferred lighting component for their reflective LCDs. So a lot of these handheld industrial products, medical products, IoT products, are out in the market today using our modules, and what's exciting for us. In the second half of this year, we'll be delivering some tablet products with our technology and reflective LCD embedded as well. So stay tuned for that, but that should be out the second half of this year.  David: So that would be good for, again for medicine, but also for things like restaurants and so on, outdoor dining patios and people taking orders that way?  Mike Casper: Yeah, that's another great application. The particular customer set for this tablet is more in the education space. Children staring at screens all day long, reflective LCD also has the benefit of being a little healthier on the eyes, so you're not blasting light from a backlight or from an OLED screen in your kids' eyes all day long,   David: I guess it extends the battery life too, right? Mike Casper: Exactly.  David: What is the operating life of your technology? Does it have any impact? A normal LCD might be 60,000 hours, does it bring it down to 50 or increase it?  Mike Casper: Yeah, I think at least in terms of applying it for UV protection, a lot of those other materials and coatings that need to be applied for outdoor signage applications would still be applied here as well. So being able to get the 5-7+ year lifecycle needed for the UV protection can be incorporated. The LCD side, which I think is very similarly to how these LCDs are being used. Now what you might find actually is, because of many LCD specs that are quoted today for outdoor applications like you said, the 60k hours, that's probably actually more tied to the backlight because the backlight has to be pumped up so bright to fight the sun that it’s probably burning those LEDs out in the backlight. It's not actually the LCD itself, but probably the LEDs.  So I think you could even extend that because you're not getting, you're not fighting the sun with those.  David: Again, talking about the sun, some of the issues that have been around with outdoor LCD is obviously glare, but the one that really concerns operators more than anything else is that the displays are going to burn out and they're going to turn black. I think what they call isotropic, is that still a reality or because you're taking daylight heat out of the equation, it’s not really a worry?  Mike Casper: That's a good question. I think probably the verdict's still out on that, but I would imagine that because the sun reflecting is actually making the screen brighter, I think you'd be avoiding that issue. But that's a good question. I don't know if there's been enough longevity studies with it quite yet in terms of what the long-term implications would be.  David: How long has the company been around?  Mike Casper: Azumo started in 2008. So we're coming up here on our 13th, 14th year.  David: And how did it get started, like what led you down this path?  Mike Casper: Good question. Bringing out the memory bank here. So we started down a completely different path. We actually started the business with technology around advertising signage in the sports industry specifically. So we were putting illuminated advertising logos, frozen in the ice of hockey rinks. Imagine all those logos on the ice that are always there and just started blending into the background, we could make them disappear and start glowing, in between whistles. So that was how we started the business and the technology, nowhere near LCD displays, but it helped us really think about different ways of creating really thin lighting. As you may know, ice for hockey rinks is pretty thin. They're about an inch thick or so, so you've got to have lights that can go really large and really long, but being very thin and invisible, and so over time we adapted that to now provide a front light for these reflective LCDs.  David: See in Canada, you could also do them in curling sheets. Mike Casper: Yep, we looked at that as an option.  David: And then you saw how small the market is? (Laughter) Mike Casper: Yeah, there were some good advisors and investors early on that suggested we pivot a little bit.  David: Yeah, just advertising in general, a lot of startups get into that and then they realize, “oh, this is actually hard!” Mike Casper: Yeah. It's a lot harder than it sounds.  David: Yeah, the technology is the easy part. It's schmoozing media planner.  Mike Casper: Exactly. The ecosystem and the industry were just not what we anticipated, and luckily for us, the reflective LCDs had been improving and had a need and so that enabled us to pivot the business and move to what we are today.  David: So where are you at now in terms of size of the company, number of people, all that sort of stuff? Mike Casper: Yeah, so we're almost 30 people now. Our headquarters is here in Chicago, in the United States. We've got about 20 different sales rep organizations globally now, both in North America, throughout Asia.  We are still venture-backed, so we've got a great set of investors that are knowledgeable in the display industry and focus on energy savings, and the last round that we'd closed was our Series B.  David: Okay, and what are the plans in terms of getting into transitioning or expanding, I guess would be a better way of describing it from what you've been doing to date, to getting into the sort of thing that we've been talking about for digital out of home and QSR drive-through displays, that sort of thing? Mike Casper: Yeah, and so that's a current growth area for us that we're putting a lot more effort behind. So the new production equipment, as I mentioned, can get up to 20-inch. There are some applications now that we can get into these smaller signage spaces and work closely with our LCD customers on some modules. So we're going to be showcasing some of those here coming up and then really expanding our production capabilities next year and getting on some of this larger equipment, being able to handle these larger panels, larger signage applications grow as well.  David: Are you feeling the pressure to get on the outdoor stuff? Just because of the pandemic and how drive-thru has gone from something that a lot of people do to something that in a lot of cases is the only way you can get food from a fast-food joint.  Mike Casper: Yeah, that's a great example. I think, there's definitely an increased demand and an interest that we're hearing from the LCD customers, because a lot of them already have a lot of those relationships with the out of home, and so we're already hearing it. more of a reverberate through, which is due to the pandemic.  David: And do you want to be a brand or do you want to be just like a component inside that the manufacturers know about, but the regular digital signage ecosystem and certainly the end-users wouldn't know, wouldn't care?  Mike Casper: That's a good question. I think, right now our focus is working very closely with the LCD manufacturers and serving them as our customers. In the future, we do see opportunities to partner with them, especially because we live and breathe this low-power reflective LCD, day in and day out, and so we think there are some opportunities to work together to create our own joint modules that are even further optimized, whether that's branded with us or something else, that's still to be determined, but either way, we want to partner with the LCD manufacturers and really drive the technology and performance to serve this market. David: There are observers in the industry who say that LED is going to completely take over. Between micro-LED and just fine pixel pitch LED, the need for LCD is slipping away and it'll be a niche product.  I don't totally buy into that, but I can see how things are transitioning. Where's your head at with that?  Mike Casper: There's obviously a lot of talks, like you said, with micro-LED and while there are great benefits with that technology I will say too, the LCD industry is massive. The ecosystem, the supply chain, there's a lot of vested interest to adapt that technology because it is a great backbone, and so that’s why I think micro LED, it's not going to take over. There's going to be great places for it, absolutely. But LCD is still going to have a predominant position, and that's why we're coining this reflective LCD as LCD 2.0, it's just taking the great things about LCD and adapting it for the world of the future, and I think especially with outdoor, it's a great application for it. David: Is there a lot of education that you have to do with the display manufacturers or do they get it and by extension, do you think the same thing will have to happen as they adopt it, that they'll have to educate their buyers? Mike Casper: Yeah, definitely a lot of education, because for those that know a little bit about reflective LCD, you're probably thinking what you saw with transflective LCD years and years ago, right?  Like the first Game Boy, for those in the audience that played that, or remember that, that had a transflective LCD, which was retty grainy, had pretty bad colors, and so a lot of people I think have that in their head when they hear reflective LCD. “Oh, how great can it be?” So now that the industry is being able to leverage the Azumo front light, which is this again, transparent portion of it that enables the underlying LCD to have much higher performance, much higher resolution, better colors, et cetera. So there is a re-education about what reflective LCD is now versus what many people may remember it in the past. David: If you don't know what you're looking at, and you had a reflective LCD and a conventional LCD with the same brightness and basically the same panel, just lit from the front versus the back, would an observer be able to see the difference?  Mike Casper: So depending on where you are, you'd see a couple of things different. So obviously in a bright outdoor environment, that would probably be your first obvious difference you'd notice where the reflective LCD looks fantastic, the backlit traditional one is going to have that glare, the contrast is going to get muted because all the blacks look a little grayer and the colors look more washed out, and you're fighting the sun which is going to overpower any backlight. So that'd be the first noticeable difference.  If you're in a darker room or if you're really close to the display. Again, depending on what the application in the viewing distance looks like, the backlit LCDs at least historically have had a higher resolution and a little bit broader color gamut. Now a lot of that is due to the fact that reflective LCDs are still fairly new but they're increasing that color gamut and the resolution. Some of the latest ones I think are shown by Sharp are close to 300 PPI now. You would notice it today, there's a slight difference. But that’s a question of what's the application: are you watching it on your phone, 18 inches from your face, and you've got the latest and greatest Netflix movie on? Or you're providing information to a user that might be walking by in an outdoor environment? So there's definitely some room for improvement, but they're making a lot of strides and a lot of sealing room here.  David: So if I'm to use the time-honored example of Coca-Cola and their particular Pantone red, would you be able to replicate that red?  Mike Casper: Good question. With working very closely with the LCD manufacturers and tuning their color filters, we can actually put,t in our front light, we can have an RGB LED set that has finely tuned wavelengths, and I'm getting a little technical here, but we can essentially tune the color to match the color filter of the LCD to really boost that color gamut. And so that's where we can start getting towards that Coca-Cola Pantone and really the broader color gamut that's required for signage.  David: Okay. All right. Really interesting. If people want to know more about this, where do they go?  Mike Casper: You can visit our website, www.azumotech.com. We're also pretty active on LinkedIn and you can reach out to us at any time. We'd love to chat about your application and really appreciate the time here today.

Jason Galante – The Changing Landscape of Executive-Level Sales Have you ever considered a career in sales? Jason Galante is the vice president of sales at Mary’s Gone Crackers, Inc. and has an impressive resume in executive-level sales. His experience includes working for food industry giants such as Kashi, Diamond Foods, and Snyder’s Lance. Learn how the Covid-19 pandemic changed how business is conducted, adjusted the method in which relationships are developed, and created the opportunity to work from just about any location. If you’re interested in the exciting career of executive-level sales and want to learn from a couple of experienced salesmen, don’t miss this intriguing episode of The Travel Wins. “When salespeople are successful, and sales leaders are successful, they’re typically out in front of the customer, and I think companies are learning that... Essentially, you don’t need a sales leader or a leader in the building every day.” - Jason Galante Not only do we learn about executive-level sales, but Pete and Jason also discuss the food industry and how consumers have changed their purchasing habits. You’ll also learn about the influence of social media, whether or not in-person sales will continue, and permanent changes that will likely remain due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mary’s Gone Crackers plans to expand its operations in Reno, Nevada, and continue creating new and exciting flavors. If you haven’t tried this gluten-free product, look for it online or in your local grocery store and discover this tasty and healthy snack for yourself. Show Notes: 1:04 - Jason explains why salespeople no longer must work out of a company’s headquarters. 3:50 - Discover how the Covid-19 pandemic affected Jason’s travel schedule. 7:00 - We learn how the Covid-19 pandemic has permanently changed business. 9:30 - Find out if food sales increased or decreased during the Covid-19 pandemic. 12:35 - Pete and Jason discuss how consumer changes have boosted online sales. 15:32 - Jason tells us if trade shows will come back. 16:34 - Pete asks Jason about the secret to creating relationships with people in this new era. 20:16 - Learn how Jason has been able to stay with the same company while working remotely. 24:33 - Jason explains how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected consumer behavior in the food industry. 26:32 - Discover how the food industry utilizes social media. 27:42 - Jason tells us about new developments for Mary’s Gone Crackers.SUBSCRIBEYou can subscribe to The Travel Wins Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, YouTube, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spreaker, Podnews, Castbox, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, and Amazon.The Travel Wins intro song by Allison Johnson and Steve StevensPodcast post-production by Podcast CleanersWebsite Design by Stack Host#sales #jasongalante #marysgonecrackers

Jason Galante – The Changing Landscape of Executive-Level Sales Have you ever considered a career in sales? Jason Galante is the vice president of sales at Mary’s Gone Crackers, Inc. and has an impressive resume in executive-level sales. His experience includes working for food industry giants such as Kashi, Diamond Foods, and Snyder’s Lance. Learn how the Covid-19 pandemic changed how business is conducted, adjusted the method in which relationships are developed, and created the opportunity to work from just about any location. If you’re interested in the exciting career of executive-level sales and want to learn from a couple of experienced salesmen, don’t miss this intriguing episode of The Travel Wins. “When salespeople are successful, and sales leaders are successful, they’re typically out in front of the customer, and I think companies are learning that... Essentially, you don’t need a sales leader or a leader in the building every day.” - Jason Galante Not only do we learn about executive-level sales, but Pete and Jason also discuss the food industry and how consumers have changed their purchasing habits. You’ll also learn about the influence of social media, whether or not in-person sales will continue, and permanent changes that will likely remain due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Mary’s Gone Crackers plans to expand its operations in Reno, Nevada, and continue creating new and exciting flavors. If you haven’t tried this gluten-free product, look for it online or in your local grocery store and discover this tasty and healthy snack for yourself. Show Notes: 1:04 - Jason explains why salespeople no longer must work out of a company’s headquarters. 3:50 - Discover how the Covid-19 pandemic affected Jason’s travel schedule. 7:00 - We learn how the Covid-19 pandemic has permanently changed business. 9:30 - Find out if food sales increased or decreased during the Covid-19 pandemic. 12:35 - Pete and Jason discuss how consumer changes have boosted online sales. 15:32 - Jason tells us if trade shows will come back. 16:34 - Pete asks Jason about the secret to creating relationships with people in this new era. 20:16 - Learn how Jason has been able to stay with the same company while working remotely. 24:33 - Jason explains how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected consumer behavior in the food industry. 26:32 - Discover how the food industry utilizes social media. 27:42 - Jason tells us about new developments for Mary’s Gone Crackers.SUBSCRIBEYou can subscribe to The Travel Wins Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, YouTube, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spreaker, Podnews, Castbox, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, and Amazon.The Travel Wins intro song by Allison Johnson and Steve StevensPodcast post-production by Podcast CleanersWebsite Design by Stack Host#sales #jasongalante #marysgonecrackers

The world of ecommerce is constantly changing — this last year being a prime example. How people shop in 2021 is radically different from how they shopped in early 2020, so forget about thinking about comparing today’s world to a decade ago. Although that is fun to see how much has changed. Now, it’s all about keeping up with your customers, which is why for our first official roundtable episode of Up Next in Commerce we wanted to bring on two people who have been on the cutting edge of the industry for years. Ashima Sehgal is a Software Development Manager at Amazon Music and Jon Feldman, a Senior Marketing Leader for Salesforce Commerce Cloud. These two go way back to their days working together on ecommerce implementation at Restoration Hardware, which was a journey in and of itself, and while they remain close friends, they sit on the opposite side of the fence when it comes to certain aspects of the future of ecommerce. We get into all of it in this episode, including discussing whether shopping at the edge is the future of the industry or just a passing fad, and how to get buy-in when selling a new implementation. I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did!Main Takeaways:Make It Easy: When pitching or selling an implementation, the key is to tell the right story and make it hard for the business to say no. Highlight the pain points that their business is facing, and play up how you will solve those problems from beginning to end and be a great partner throughout the process. But one thing to remember, don’t try to tackle everything from the start and be upfront about what is prioritized and what is put on the backburner. Edgy Opinions: There is a lot of debate on the future of shopping at the edge and whether or not it is a fad. Regardless of whether it sticks, businesses should be harnessing the power of meeting customers where they are and selling to them in those places, but the base ecommerce platform should not have to suffer as a result of those efforts. It’s All A Simulation: In the last year especially, there has been a lot of talk about the death of retail and the rise of an ecommerce-only economy. That is a myth. While 2020 and early 2021 undeniably changed the way people shopped, it was more of a blip in the timeline and not a true indicator of the future, which will more likely be a blend of in-person and online experiences.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome to Up Next In Commerce. I'm your host, Stephanie Postles, CEO at Mission.org. Today's episode is going to be a really fun one. It's our very first official Roundtable and we have the two perfect guests joining us. First up, we have Ashima Seghal, the software development manager for Amazon and Jon Feldman, a senior manager of Product Marketing at Salesforce. Ashima, Jon, how's it going?Ashima:AwesomeJon:How's it going? Stephanie:Good. I'm glad to have you here. So I heard you guys have a little background, you've worked together in the past and I wanted to start there so people can know your relationship, like how do you all know each other? And maybe, Ashima, I'll let you start with that.Ashima:Yeah, I feel like Jon and I have worked together forever now. 2008, I moved to the U.S. and I met Jon, the first company I joined. It was a consulting shop, we work together to help people build their ecommerce websites and features on it. And, he's mentored me through that period to help me understand better where my interest lies. And he's also helped me grow my management skills and given me opportunities as he grew in the ladder in those organizations, I saw some opportunities come my way as well. And then, we worked together recently in Restoration Hardware. As a director of engineering, he and I worked together in terms of prioritization of what should be done when and working closely with the business, in terms of understanding how to get to the customer, how to go get features quickly to market and so on and so forth. So, a lot of history there to explore.Stephanie:And that really talked Jon up. So Jon, is that your recollection as well?Jon:No doubt.Stephanie:And what was your favorite project that you all worked on together?Jon:My success in ecommerce is deeply intertwined with working with Ashima. I mean, we worked very closely, both at Access Group where we did a zillion implementations. And then, when we went to Restoration Hardware, we had a really beautiful relationship and so far, I had the crazy ideas and she had the practical skills to do those. And so, it worked really symbiotically. So I feel like we've seen a lot of stuff and built the systems so yeah, really delighted to be sharing this.Ashima:Yeah. One funny story, I can tell you was we work for Falabella in Chile, and it was a Spanish speaking Morgan, I didn't understand as much Spanish so I would speak my English louder thinking they would understand me and Jon would be like, why are you yelling at them? I'm like, I'm not yelling at them. They just don't understand me. I'm trying. So, that was some happy moments.Jon:I remember that. That's wonderful. That was back at the building of [inaudible] or whatever.Ashima:Exactly.Stephanie:My gosh, that's awesome. And Restoration Hardware, that seems like a really good company to work on, especially from an ecommerce perspective, because when I was looking through articles and whatnot, it was talking about how they were resisting moving to ecommerce for a while. So, were you guys working there when that was still undergoing, when they didn't really want to make that move or were you already past that hurdle, and already ready to start implementing things?Ashima:I can go first and then, Jon can add to that. But if Restoration Hardware wants, they don't want anything to do with digital, they would close their eyes and close that shop today. The reality for them is they want to be beautiful. They want customers to come and touch them and feel them. They want people to experience it and then, love it. And digital is a hindrance to that because digital is very removed. It's away from the customer, however beautiful an image you put on digital, the fabric is something you can't feel and that's what they're selling. They want you to experience it. Then, going into building restaurants in their business than going into hotels half that is an extension of that. But we were more of an idea shop. We were enablers for them, not that loved and given as much money but still help them run 90% of their business through auto management and so on. So, we were critical to their success, but didn't get as much love I would say. Jon?Jon:No, I totally echo that. I think that Restoration Hardware is at its core, a luxury business and they want that luxury, in person experience. And it's really interesting because it was fascinating to be there during a time when there was all this transition to digital and everybody's like, well of course you need these nine things and to have like a real hard no, the experience is fairly impersonal and manual. I think it was really frustrating at the time. But it's really impacted my thinking since that I challenged the ease shopping at the edge. It's definitely something we're seeing. There's huge growth in it, right? It's a big area, certainly, Salesforce can't stop talking about it. But, from a Restoration Hardware standpoint, it's growth, but is that the growth that's important for my brand, which really affected how I evaluate some of that stuff.Ashima:Right. Another important thing is that we were always asked to do one day in their store, and Jon did it and we did it like all of us employees did it. And it was fascinating, because you could see why that was important. You could see that they wanted customers to come every day, look at a cushion and buy that and keep the relationship going. That is what they thought the bread and butter was. I met this lady who comes in every two, three months and buys a new big thing for her house. She has lots of money.Ashima:And that's the 1% that they're targeting. And that's what's running their business. They don't care about the 99%. They don't want to be digital, because they don't want to be for the masses. They know who their customer is. And that's what I learned in Restoration Hardware, that they were so aware of who their customer was and they were very successful. Look at the stock price now, right? That's part because they understand their customer. And we were just like I said, enablers. So, we were a step removed from that painting and so embedded in engineering, but if you talk about business, they were geniuses, I would say.Jon:Yeah, no doubt. Gary, he has built an unbelievable business. Restoration Hardware was a very difficult place to be in IT but it is an unbelievable business.Stephanie:Were there any big projects that you remember that you felt really strongly about? You're like this could go through and you just got like, Nope, sorry. We are not doing that.Ashima:Many of those.Stephanie:Maybe your favorite memory?Ashima:Yeah, we brought in so many different awesome implementation options for [mobile] and people just didn't buy it. It's like my cat who knows I'm here but pretends I'm not here. It's like that. Restoration Hardware acknowledges mobile is important but just does not want to invest in our mobile experience. I still say our because I feel like I'm connected to the brand but it is still sucky. Right? So I feel like mobile was the big, big one and why it's painful is because we brought in so many different ways of getting it in, like let's do it incrementally. Let's get one page there. Let's just get on iOS like, no.Jon:One of the strongest members I have is one of the chief merchandising officers who I want to be really clear is a lovely person, I follow her on Instagram, we're still buddies, is super brave but sitting at one of those tables in the center of innovation and whatever it's like it's the big show building and Restoration Hardware is really designed, if you're a vendor to be like, yo, this is the place, holding up herself and being like, who's going to buy a couch on this? Right? And I was like, man, we got a long way to go. Technology is not the place these guys are hanging out so-Ashima:Right.Jon:Man. So, before I get into... I want to dive deep into implementation because I know you both had background in that. But before that, I would love it if Ashima, you can explain maybe your current role at Amazon and then, Jon will go over to you just so everyone knows who we're talking to.Ashima:Yeah. Like I said, I'm software development manager there. I manage teams that run the front page of music app. So my team is a full stack team, which translates into iOS, Android web engineers, as well as Silverstack engineers who come together to build features for browsing, how customers discover music more easily, and highlight the personalization capabilities that we have under the hood and make it more obvious for customer experience improvement.Stephanie:Pretty cool. All right and Jon.Jon:That's awesome, probably the highest performing team at Amazon Music, I assume.Stephanie:I would think so too.Jon:[crosstalk] Ashima took the technology path after leaving Restoration Hardware and I was like, I can't do another project or I'll be dead. So I went into marketing and now, I do event content and I do all the flashy video stuff for Salesforce. It's a ton of fun. Ashima, your worst nightmare, I am paid for thought leadership. People pay to listen to the crazy stuff I say.Stephanie:I do want to dive into the implementation piece. I want to hear a bit about, we haven't actually dove that deep into that side of things on the podcast. Usually, I have brands on big and small, but we don't go into the weeds there and because you both have seen a lot of implementations in your career, I was hoping you can go through what makes a successful ecommerce implementation, like what does that look like, any case studies, I want to know how someone can make sure to put their best foot forward when thinking about that?Ashima:Yeah, in my experience, the best way to sell an implementation to a business stakeholder is to highlight their top three pain points, what is it that you're struggling with the most like in case of Restoration Hardware, or even my current company, we would ask them, what are the features you wanted to get in in 2019 and still haven't been able to get out of the door? And how can we increase velocity? Velocity is a word business loves. They want their things out the door, in front of the customers as soon as possible. That's one. Two, I feel really strongly about instrumentation and collecting metrics. If you don't know where your customer is and how they're using your site and what they're thinking as they're using your site, it just is pointless in many ways, because you can't make progress in any specific area, if you don't know how well or bad it's doing.Ashima:So those two avenues of velocity and instrumentation connect with business a lot. And then, also giving our business a sense that we're not boiling the ocean, we're going to go slow, start at point A and take you through to point B and won't abandon you midway and here's how it's going to go and give them an early peek into what an implementation would look like, is again, something that just strikes under with business and I feel like they understand our side of the problem.Stephanie:Okay.Jon:I couldn't agree more with agreeing on a language from an IT standpoint with the business and how you can evaluate the success of it. So ahead of time, you know that the business values this and IT values this and is the project to achieving that yes or no, rather than some... because the worst situation is where people start pulling metrics that no one's ever measured out of the air. And it's like, in the last week, our average card size is down 82 cents, you can chase that rabbit pretty deep.Stephanie:I was just going to ask that about metrics. It seems like at least back in my Google days, everyone was always operating in different metrics. I worked with product teams and [inaudible] teams and they didn't really see eye to eye with what was important. So, how would you present that to leadership in a way that connects with everyone who's your manager or manager's manager, and not just presenting business metrics that don't make sense to an engineering team who's like, well, wait, this is actually the bigger infrastructure problem while business is like, but what about my average order size? How do you think about that good balance without overwhelming them with hundreds of metrics?Ashima:Right. I feel like I agree with Jon that metrics and exclusivity don't make sense but if you connect the funnel that, here's where the customer started, we can see that we have so much value in this detail page and this is the button they're clicking the most. And if I improve this experience and reduce the number of clicks, it's going to get us this much left in the final revenue number. I feel like starting and ending, creating a story out of it has the best impact.Ashima:If you throw out a caught value number from the middle, maybe that won't resonate as much but creating a story, creating here's where we start, here's where we see most value. And this is where it's going to end, might have a better-Jon:No, totally. And I can think of two reasons why that's important. One is that it provides a north star for the project as it's going. These projects are multi month projects with different stakeholders and a lot of movement in them. And so being able to touch back to here are the use cases that we all agreed on that we're doing I think, is really critical. The other is it's interesting because it's table stakes to the level you're talking about is to have a broad agreement with the business and IT about what it is you're building full stop and while you're building it. I can think of implementation we did in Emeryville, which was, super lovely people but they were ultimately trying to save the business by replacing their ecommerce engine and as the business degraded, the energy around like we're going to get this new site out and all of a sudden the boat's going to float again. It just doesn't bear out that way. If you don't know why you're building and how that's building your business, technology alone is not going to do it. [AD READ]Stephanie:Yeah. And I love the idea to around having to have a story for it. I don't think I've heard of many, especially, engineering managers speak that language before, which I think is awesome. But I mean, we talk about that in our company all the time about, every podcast needs to be told and the hero's journey type format, even our show notes, everything needs to be told in the story, it needs to open up loops. I'd be interested to hear how you structure that to connect with other people. How do you think about building a story in a way that's going to sell leadership and excite them for something that they might not be able to see like the changes that are happening after a year or so?Ashima:Yeah, and I might be preaching to the choir. You guys are much better than me in this business but I feel like you have to know your audience. If you're going into a VP discussion, your story is going to be totally different and if I'm selling it to my senior manager, he's going to look for what is my [inaudible] AWS. What story are you telling? So knowing your audience, and creating the story based on it is super important. We pay a lot of attention to documentation and story writing. That is why all engineering managers are, well, could have been all of them, rounded part of just knowing what will resonate with that particular team member is super important so that you can bring out just those facts in that conversation and sell that specific point. Jon, I don't know if you have any-Jon:In marketing, we call those personas.Ashima:Personas.Stephanie:Tell me one more thing, Jon, how do we approach that?Jon:How do we approach aligning the stories with a persona? Yeah, I totally agree with Ashima, you have to know your audience, you have to really be able to know what the people want... like any big project like this, it's only going to be successful when it's a mutual success. So understanding how you can talk to somebody and say, we're going to do this and it's going to help you this way, and we're going to need your involvement this way, right? Knowing how to have those conversations is the way to, I think, introduce people to these big projects and get them excited about it. But then, also really being focused on, here are the problems that this project solves for you, constituent of this project, because if people don't have any skin in the game and there's no clear connection between their participation and some better outcome, they're not going to want to do it.Jon:A lot of it is people have some sort of vision, we came in at the point where people already had a vision that they were going to do something at the ecommerce thing and we filled in the blanks of here's what your store would actually look like and here's how your use cases actually match into a finished product. And so, I think she's really right, that you really have to know what the people who are consuming the information about the project need to hear to feel great about it to feel like it's a solution to their problems.Ashima:The other important thing to remember is the the reviews that go well are the ones where you're not tackling 10 problems. I feel like you should look at your story again and find the two problems that you're trying to solve, don't talk about 20, 10. The ones that are successful are the ones that are saying, here are my two problems, working backwards from it, here's where we need to start and here are the big milestones we're going to touch as we work towards it. So working backwards, shortening your storyline to one to two problems that you will solve and never say you will solve everything because you will never be solving everything. There's just too many things that you could fix.Ashima:As an engineer, I could find 1001 things to fix on a particular implementation, on a system. But are you trying to save cost? If cost is your end goal, your story should be just focused on cost. If getting customers specific feature is your goal, that's what you should be focusing on. If you try to do too many things, the audience gets confused. And then, you don't get consensus with it. Because they're like you're asking too much of me. I can't make all these decisions today. So, you don't get good outcomes of this conversation.Jon:Totally. I think that that's a really good insight all the way around when you do an engineering project because it's... particularly one of the sides, right? You live and die on the success of it. And in a very real way, it sucks but a lot of it is also politics and the visioning or how the perception of your project is in the company, and projects that are incrementally spinning off benefits, even if they're not huge, but reliably doing it in my experience, get a lot more love and attention than the, there's going to be this unbelievable bang on Thursday and everything's going to change, right?Jon:Those big bang projects, I think, can be very traumatic for everybody involved. And so, I think the idea that you start with something that works, and then build on top of that, rather than, I got to get all 10 of these perfect at the same time, it's a much harder climb.Ashima:Yeah. The last thing I would say about this is, be honest and upfront about what the trade offs are because you're not going to make everybody happy out of an implementation. Never have I seen that in my career making everybody happy.Jon:Of course.Ashima:So, the prioritization is key to success, like I was saying, picking through problems and solving them. But even within that, you're not going to be able to fix everything, right? If you set the right expectation as a consultant, as an STM or whoever you are in that meeting, and say, this is what I'm going to be able to do in this timeline. And, this is what I'm not going to be able to deliver up front, that might make you lose some customers, but you'll probably gain more customers out of that and I feel like that's a more honest conversation, you earn trust.Stephanie:Yeah, I was thinking-Jon:Yeah, total radical transparency, being upfront. We had a mentor Ashima and I, who would say, hold your client's feet to the fire. Every time he'll be like, are you holding their feet to the fire? And that idea that all of these are partnerships and that a strong vendor relationship is not a vendor who is complacent and like, I'll do whatever you want but is actually holding your feet to the fire and being like, if you don't do these two things, these outcomes are going to happen. And I'm not going to be injured the same way you are, but you got to get on it.Stephanie:Now I know where you got that line from Jon, you pulled that on me last week.Jon:Some inside baseball, Stephanie is outstanding at holding her clients feet to the fire. It's really great, because long ago, I learned that people in business negotiations very rarely say stuff, just to say it, right? There's always something that happens. And I was like, this is the third time I've heard this. It's consistent every time.Stephanie:Yeah. So how has the landscape changed when it comes to maybe either re-platforming or moving to digital for the first time? What were the maybe the two to three biggest problems that were being solved back when you were at Restoration Hardware or before then to now where before maybe people were focused on costs or just simple things? What's the focus now that people are trying to achieve when going through any kind of digital transformation or re-platforming? What are they looking for now?Ashima:I feel like business and engineering are looking for different goals. Engineering is looking to break down the architecture. When Jon and I did initial projects, most of the systems were monolithic. And there was this one giant deployment doing everything and when it broke, everybody cried. We've moved on from that world into the new brave world of Azure and AWS, and every other small or big company trying to get into the buzzword cloud but what that really means is that the implementation goal from engineering side has changed. We've felt more empowered to make small changes. I don't want to boil the ocean. I don't want to switch all of my implementation but I'm going to change this part of this page and just live with it and then, see how it goes.Ashima:And that's a big empowerment factor because then, I'm not stressed about changing everything at once. Right? I can go make micro changes. From business point of view, I feel like the challenge is about understanding younger customers and that's a totally different challenge from engineering because you have to run more user surveys. When we were doing implementations, I barely saw anybody doing user surveys, and coming back to me with a product doc saying, here's what I found. This is what people want, and it's going to be awesome. It was like, I have some intuition. I want to implement incrementality and this is what we should try and do and we'll see what happens. I feel like business is smarter now. I see many more people doing user research, user deep dives, experience deep dives ahead of time to know why they're building something, what would resonate, how do I get that 12 year old into my service so they will stay with us until 40 and I have a continuous revenue stream. So, I feel like the business landscape is changing from that point of view. Jon?Jon:Yeah, it's really interesting that you say that. It reminds me of a million years ago, like 2000, 2001. I was at ATG, which became Oracle commerce. And we were at some crazy Swedish auction bidding site and in Stockholm, I remember the CTO comes in and he's like, are there any features of ATG we haven't turned on yet because we should turn them on and I was like, that's bananas. And so, I think that initial like, I just need to be online. I don't really care what it is because I just need to hold the hill like just to physically be there I think is less important than to Ashima's point. There's a lot more intentionality about like, I want to produce this experience for my customers, and it's tied into a larger journey rather than like, if I'm not selling online.Jon:Although, actually, you said two things I was really interested and the first is that, just to say it out loud, right? At Salesforce, it's not a monolithic, kind of is monolith, right? Like we have micro services or APIs but it's all behind the curtain. It's not pure micro services in the way that someone else would but provides it all API stuff. I hear what you're saying about engineering teams having more ability to make small changes and being able to just get in and do stuff, because stuff is more easily manipulated, because there are more places, I don't know, from access. But, I think that also comes with a lot more ownership. I mean, you need an engineering team that's capable of doing those things, or more maintenance in that scenario.Ashima:Yeah, absolutely. You can't microservice the heck out of the system. You have to be intentional about it. But I feel like in the last five years, our overall engineering pool of people have learned this and it's no longer an anomaly. More people are doing this, it doesn't matter what language you're using, you could be on C, C++, or you could be on Golang. I feel like there's lots of people who have experienced it, learnt it. The bigger companies are now doing it, the Walmarts are all microservice based so we're no longer in the world where people were just experimenting with this and created hundreds of them. I feel like we're more intentional now, we've learned from our experiences.Ashima:The pool of engineers we have now are more experienced. This is not a new thing for them so, I feel like I have seen... maturity is the word I was looking for, that people are becoming mature in their implementation and more intentional about it. It's no longer monkeying with this new concept like-Jon:No, totally. Not only their robust skills in the marketplace, but their design patterns as well that people can fall back on. It's not like I'm now writing the very first of these ever on the internet.Ashima:Right.Jon:Awesome. That's really interesting. I've already answered the question.Ashima:The other thing I would mention from business side, which I really appreciate is people are trying to do one thing and one thing really well. You could go to the play shoe store, and you see kids shoes, they do that awesome. I love those shoes or the furniture I recently bought. These companies who are doing small things less inventory, trying to make the business profitable but doing those really, really well. I feel like that's a huge switch from ecommerce that Jon and I are used to where I am this shop that is going to sell everything under the sun and tell me how to sell it and that was hard because every product is different and categorization is different. The search has complexity and those were really hard problems that we were solving. I feel like businesses are becoming smarter in deciding where they're good at and what they should be doing.Stephanie:Yeah. [crosstalk]Jon:Shopping at the edge is this big idea, right? That all of a sudden, you can't keep people within your website, that all of a sudden, those four walls of your website are gone and now people are going to be shopping in marketplaces or on Amazon Music or at the Hertz checkout thing, or you're renting your car, you can buy whatever, right? And I think it's a compelling idea and I think it really speaks, Ashima, to what you're talking about in terms of little engineering things to make it easier. Like all of a sudden, you're like, now I can really easily ingest orders from the Hertz kiosk. It's not a big lift to do something like that.Jon:And we're seeing crazy growth and I think it speaks a lot to that engineering crowd into the marketing idea that you'll have a lot of control agility to be able to do this stuff. So I mean, as a Salesforce employee legitimately, it is something that we're investing in making happening, but I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how brands navigate it. Because certainly, it's a different model than I'm used to putting on the internet, certainly different than I'm used to using personally, but then, Ashima's point was like, kids today, right? Stephanie:I was going to say exactly what you just said, Ashima about how now, it used to be kind of chaotic, because businesses were trying to do everything. But now to think about, it seems like businesses have to be everywhere to sell, consumers want to shop everywhere. I mean, I know Jon mentioned shopping on the edge, that term which we've brought up a few times in the show and I want to hear how you guys think about that. Because I talked to quite a few brands who say that consumers are on TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, they're over a walmart.com, they're on Amazon, how do we keep up? We need to be selling everywhere quickly. And maybe Jon, I'll let you start because I know you have a strong opinion that maybe doesn't go well with what Ashima thinks?Jon:I think Ashima and I naturally falls in different sides of this. I think in addition to brands now not necessarily needing to have a gigantic... you can have a very focused set of skus that are easy to merchandise and understand. You also don't need to own all the software and stuff that you once did. It's much easier for a brand to be like, I'm going to exist to sell beanies. They're going be the greatest beanies in the world and assemble, it's the software stack for the brand stack, getting back to that, assemble the software in a way that, frankly, a physical brand that has a lot of legacy stuff is going to have a much harder time following you along. Ashima:I'm not opposed, or I don't think it's something that's not happening, it is happening. Shopping on the edge is happening. My point is that, as an engineer, as an engineering team, it doesn't preclude me from building a strong ecommerce site that's going to be my core platform. I still have to do everything in my power to make that as a strong space, that it can be stable enough to take regular orders. So the engineering effort to chase 50 different places is hard. But I feel like all teams probably first need to focus on making their core platform strong, right? It has to be.Ashima:And the second point I would make is only small... only X5 of your customers are coming from the edge shopping and that is why it's harder to understand exactly how to show your features and what will work for them and that's where my point about user case studies might work. But the bigger bulk of customers still going to come back into your site to explore other things that you have. So if you have X number of dollars, where would you get the most value out of them? Would it be just a shiny poster on Instagram, and bringing them back to your site or putting in your engineering dollars and making that one click work from Instagram? So that's where I struggle what would give you the best bang for your buck? Jon.Jon:Yeah, no, it's, I think, a great point, right? When you're talking, I'm like, man, I definitely want that core platform that's like robust and could do anything.Ashima:Yeah.Jon:I think what you're saying about user stories is ultimately the right answer, though, because when we think about core platform, I think you and I, Ashima, generally, we think about big robust servers sitting in a box somewhere, able to handle any trade, but that's not what every brand's priority is particularly something you want so-Ashima:Yeah.Stephanie:Yeah. Essentially say, they didn't even know they needed a website. They were just like, if you... I am trying to think, who we had on who is... a more recent episode where they're like, well, if we're selling on Instagram or Facebook or wherever it may be, no, it was a bot within Facebook Messenger. And you go on there, it's a personalized bot and then, they can say, this shirt would fit you perfectly and you can buy within Facebook Messenger. And she was making the point of like, why would you even need a website, if you can sell within Messengers or through Dms which is where the world is moving right now? Who cares what your website looks like [crosstalk]Jon:I guess, right back to this Ashima's point about user stories, right? Which is that ultimately, it doesn't matter if you have... pure in the server box of ecommerce definition, if your users are all on TikTok and they're going to buy through some crazy thing, you'd be bananas to invest in the giant server solution or in a traditional ecommerce solution. You want something that can flexibly follow wherever your customers are and knowing that if you don't own the store they're in, that they're probably going to move around a lot, right? It's not going to be TikTok forever. And so, you need the ability to service that.Ashima:Yeah, I feel like I'm a little bit biased being in Amazon, just the pink hat makes me think that I'm not just selling to TikTok customers, I'm thinking big. I have my customers everywhere. So it might be that for your brand, that might work. But for the [inaudible] of the world, they have to have strong presence on their own platform, and TikTok might help. I recently made a big purchase of couches I bought from article.com and I didn't do the shopping on the edge but what was super helpful was to look at Instagram photos of people using that furniture in their house and how it's set up.Ashima:It enabled me to buy it. So again, I was thinking one of the investment people are making is an AI and augmented reality and so on and I don't know if it's worth it because you the Warby Parkers of the world which are sending you the thing at home or the Instagram approach where you're showing people how your product looks in someone else's home. I feel like that's so much more effective to me as a customer that, making this guess of where my dollars should be spent is a hard problem. And I just am not fully convinced that shopping at the edge should be your end goal if you're a big hump.Jon:No, I think even in the most robust Salesforce marketing, we're definitely not suggesting, turn off your channels, shopping at the edge is the only way. 104% [crosstalk]. don't even need it anymore. it's going to be really interesting Ashima because my kids have Amazon accounts, I think. I don't think they've ever bought anything but turns out, all this management of your kids accounts trying to keep them affiliated like Apple , not doing a great job, Amazon, not doing a great job. Anyway, that's not where they go to shop for stuff. It's all social. I'm like, I need a cable, I go immediately to Amazon. They will not do that.Ashima:That's a really great point because I feel like there's a generational gap that I am starting to understand better as my kids are growing up, living my life through them a little bit and that's a great educational experience for all of us learning, how are people adapting to these new things? What are they connecting with? What are they not connecting with? And so on and so forth. My kids don't even read books, it's all audible. I'm like, I'm going to listen to story that I pick so the life is very different than... why I call shopping at the edge, a fad is it's working really well for this generation but for how many years? The next thing is going to replace it is my opinion and that's why having a core strong platform will get you over this hump into the next one.Stephanie:What do you think could be the next thing now? It's piqued my interest of like, what do you see coming after shopping at the edge just dies? No one does that anymore. What are they going to be doing next then?Ashima:You know-Ashima:I have started to see people use Airbnb experiences and Amazon explorer experiences a lot. Just yesterday, a friend of mine said they've gifted their friend or their wife a Valentine's gift of our tour in [inaudible] somewhere in Korea. I'm not saying name right.Jon:Korea?Ashima:It was awesome. Yeah, it was awesome. Lik this person walked through the markets, who then, they could show them the product. It was a very personalized tour so, I thought that's like the next big thing. And even an ecommerce opportunity like if you're buying from here in a shop in Korea and they can ship it to you.How unique is that? I think there's lots of potential and then, doing online experiences. I'm going to do a cooking class with you and then, I'm going to buy all of these pots and pans and ice from you because it looks awesome. I feel like that could be the next big thing.Jon:No doubt because we've got this live shopping demo that we do which is that it's like we have... it's funny because I thought of you when I narrated. I was like Ashima is going to be like this is never going to happen but it's that, there's an Influencer, you can buy stuff on the side so it's interesting to hear the facts.Stephanie:I think that's the way to go. Yeah, I mean, I think about we had someone saying that they... Andrew from Ideoclick, he teaches or does something with Harvard Business School on ecommerce and stuff. And, she was mentioning they had an influencer from China come in and show what shopping looks like and what her fans do and it was within three minutes, she'd racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales of a Harvard sticker. And they're like, that's power.Jon:Totally.Stephanie:It was new to me. I mean, I get it. I buy shirts and clothes and all this stuff on Instagram just by seeing people I follow I'm like, they remind me of myself and that shirt's cute. So I guess maybe not top level.Ashima:Yeah. Well, I use Airbnb a lot. We go out a lot and one of the things that I really enjoy is that something that that person is using in their house, I sometimes come back and buy it because I've experienced it. I've worked with it for two, three days and I loved it and I'm like, I should have this fixture or I should have this knife or I should have this other thing that I've experienced now, lived with it and I feel like that's such an awesome way to promote product, where you can touch and feel it and experience at no extra cost, but then, also buy it if you really like it. So, if Airbnb uses it, they should give me some money. But-Stephanie:We've got affiliate Airbnb, come on.Jon:Right? I think you're really, right and I also think about Twitch because I do some deejaying stuff so I am on Twitch a lot and there's not only crosssection between product buying but also, in terms of rewarding the influencer directly with cash, that your experience where you're like, this is great. I love being here and they're also selling stuff.Stephanie:How are you guys thinking of retail then, you talked about touching, feeling things and experiencing that, obviously, retail hasn't been at the profile lately. How are you guys thinking about that?Jon:That's why all these predictions, they are really a little tricky because this physical digital thing is all screwed up, well, not screwed up but vastly affected by the pandemic and that's incredibly changed everybody shopping habits. I mean, I bought stuff online, I never buy again and so, if I'm really honest, I am not sure the Twitch DJ stream outlives clubs opening. I'll talk about how Twitch is going to change the world and it's all great but I don't know if people are going to hang out online all day if they can go out once a week.Stephanie:Yeah. [inaudible] I am ready to get out.Jon:Yeah. Like everybody-Stephanie:[crosstalk].Ashima:Absolutely.Jon:For me, in person is going to be a big trouble. The camera's not going to get it done anymore.Ashima:Yeah. I feel like this is a blip, I feel like retail and in person shopping is going to come back with vengeance once things open up, we all get vaccinated and be safe. I generally think this is a blip. I feel like retail's going nowhere. It's going to be back. Restoration Hardware is all ready for it, I'm sure.Jon:[crosstalk] Do you think that they'll shift...yeah, totally. Do you think it'll shift the market place, right because I agree, I think we are going back to in person something but the Best Buy down the street has evolved so many times. During the pandemic, they were a fulfillment center then, they were a store , then, they were like outside only and now... I just don't know that it makes sense for Best Buy to have that big retail store and not have a [inaudible]. I agree they'll come back but, I don't know if it's going to be the same.Ashima:Yeah. With Fry's stores closing last week which was a sad event in my household. My husband loves Fry's.Jon:That was really sad. Bad day.Ashima:Yeah. You are absolutely, right that it's going to look different. It's going to be more personalized as, I think, we discussed before, it will look different. There's also going to be a disparity, the big guys are going to have money, they're going to come back the same way, the Targets, the Walmarts, they are going to be the same. The little guy or the medium guy has to make some sense of what will get them through this hump and keep them going. I don't see a [inaudible] store coming up near me, even if they were planning to, I think those plans will be delayed but I feel like some of it is going to back the same way it was, earlier.Stephanie:Yeah. The one thing we keep hearing is more about curation when it comes to stores, that people want to go there for an experience, you go to a pottery ban, you go to West Elm, whatever it maybe and you're lik, this is my space, this is my style, I come here because I don't want to think but then, I also think about me and I'm like, I go to a T.J.Maxx and it's just, all over the place and I thrive there. I'm like, this is my spot. Find something fun and I don't know what to expect so, I think it just depends on the shopper.Ashima:I love that comment because it's very hard to create emotions online. Pe`ople don't have the patience of going through things and things online. This feeling of hunting and finding gold in that aisle, that's going to stay with us, again, there's a demographic that loves it and that demographic is waiting for being vaccinated to get out there.Jon:And you think that digital needle in haystack experience doesn't exist in the same way it does, I mean, like T.J.Maxx, I found this unbelievable bargain.Ashima:It does in some cases, where you guys talk about Instagram and finding something you didn't even know existed. Sure, it does but not in the same way. Finding the $5 t-shirt that you didn't know exist in T.J.Maxx is like, that's new.Stephanie:It's my day. Walking out of T.J.Maxx store snapping, maybe Jon, he looks very confused about our conversation.Ashima:Yeah.Jon:No, it's cool. There's a Ross up here. I know what's up.Stephanie:Ross-Jon:Ross is like the... you could get, Ross is a second store, right? It's just lost inventory so anything can be there.Stephanie:Extra lost. No one goes in and doesn't get lost. All right. Well, Ashima and Jon, this has been an amazing round table. So fun having you guys on. We definitely have to do it again, where can people maybe find out more about your work. Ashima, we'll start with you. Where can people find more about you?Ashima:You can find me on LinkedIn, a lot about me, things I write or things that are relevant to me so LinkedIn is the right place.Stephanie:LinkedIn. All right. Jon, what about you? Where can people find out more about your work?Jon:Yeah, totally. LinkedIn is a good place or just search for Salesforce and my name. I write a lot of Salesforce stuff, number one blog ever. Number one performing blog.Stephanie:Yup and you have an amazing stay conversation for it. Everyone should check it out, methodical trans in there. We've referenced it a few times in our newsletter and it is very helpful for anyone who's either trying to start an ecommerce shop or trying to transform into a big brand. So, thank you guys so much for doing this show and we will see you next time.Ashima:Thank you very muchJon:Thank you.Ashima:Take care, Stephanie.

Are you wondering how to use TweetDeck to manage or get the most out of Twitter? One of the ways to stay abreast of what's happening in the world is to use a social network like Twitter. If you're like me and you dislike being fed items that have been selected by someone else to broadcast on the airwaves then stay tuned for alternatives. While this article is not a rant on who's taking sides when it comes to what the media publishes daily. It is an educational piece to help guide you into choosing the options best suited to your needs. Tell me if these sound relatable. You're sick and tired of wading through a ton of content every day that is irrelevant to your needs and interests. Nearly every time you switch on the television or radio station you lose the ability to be selective about your news choices. Even when you decide to use platforms like Facebook or Instagram there's still the challenge of finding something interesting to digest. If only there was a way to set up your own selective news channels so that you get a real choice. In this post, you'll learn how to use TweetDeck to get very selective about the choice and sentiment of the content in your own private feeds. What is TweetDeck If you've never heard of TweetDeck before or you've been meaning to take it for a spin this is your 2-minute description of this fabulous customisable tool. TweetDeck is a social media dashboard application with functionality for managing Twitter accounts in real-time. Think of a single interface to stream tweets across different types of columns and still access your home feed. It was first released back in 2008 by Iain Dodsworth and was later acquired by Twitter in May 2011. This makes TweetDeck one of the only native Twitter apps where you'll get the latest tweets in a standalone setting. You can think of TweetDeck with desktop client functionality to give you a bird's eye view of the things that you would like to see on Twitter. Essentially, it gives you the ability to streamline the things you would like to see and eliminate the ones you don't want to see. A great way to visualise this dashboard is seeing it as a tool to reduce the overwhelm associated with the Twitter platform. There are at least 5 things that you can do on TweetDeck that's not available as standard directly on the Twitter platform. Let's spend some time looking at some Twitter statistics so that you can see why using TweetDeck can be a game-changer for you. Twitter Statistics If I asked you how many people use Twitter daily you probably wouldn't know because it is not as popular as Facebook and Instagram. On a daily basis, there are over 187 million people using Twitter regularly. According to this report by Hootsuite. The average age range is 25 to 34 and in terms of gender 70% of the users are male. Over 59% of people using Twitter use it as their source of daily news which is truly eye-opening. 5.8% of the world's population over 13 can be reached using Twitter Ads. In terms of the predicted growth rate, Twitter is forecasted to grow by 2.4% this year. What's really surprising is that Twitter is the number one social media platform in Japan. When it comes to ranking in mobile apps worldwide, the Twitter app ranks in 6th place. Have you ever wondered which are the top 5 user accounts on Twitter? Well, at the time of writing this post here are the top 5 Twitter profiles. Barack ObamaJustin BeiberKaty PerryRhiannaCristiano Ronaldo I don't know about you but I would have never guessed that Barack Obama would be the number one followed account on Twitter. It's great to see that at least two women made it in the top 5 seeing that Twitter is a male-dominated social media platform. TweetDeck Features Before looking at how to use TweetDeck let's spend some time looking at the features that are available natively inside the application.

Opening Monologues. Biden hastening the destruction of America in real-time. Essentially unopposed. Where are Republican Leaders? Major League Baseball boycotts Georgia over election law, right after cutting a new TV deal with China. Corporate tyrants Apple, Delta and Coca-Cola also piling on. Pete Doocy sketches the surprisingly mild concepts at play in Georgia. President Trump declares it's time to "fight back" with our dollars, especially since "we have more people than they do." A reporter asks Jen Psaki if Biden will boycott the upcoming Beijing Olympics. Americans tuning out of politicized professional sports in record numbers. Never Pence. Easter Commentary. Theologian Karl Barth on Resurrection. The Chain Breaker. With Listener Calls & Music via Molly Skaggs, Cageless Birds, Johnny Cash and Zach Williams. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the past 13 years, Dr. Armin Feldman has provided Pre-Trial/Pre-Litigation medical consulting to our legal system. He has trained over 1,600 physicians around the United States to learn how to do this kind of medical consulting and supplement their income by providing these services. Dr. Feldman consults on those 9 of 10 cases that are settled and never go to trial. We discuss what makes medicolegal consultant work different from a medical expert.  Essentially, you are working for the plaintiff’s attorney in a personal injury or workman’s compensation case, usually because of some type of traumatic injury, trying to determine if the case has merit, reviewing the case for concurrent adverse outcomes that may not have been identified, like depression, and assisting the attorney until the case goes to trial, when an expert witness takes over. That being said, most cases settle. We discuss how to get a foot in the door, how to market yourself, and how much time you should expect this to occupy. He has an upcoming conference at the end of April, virtual, of course, that you can find at medlegal2021.com. Dr. Feldman began his career in psychiatry, practicing for over 20 years and owning several outpatient head injury rehabilitation clinics around the country. In 2008, Dr. Feldman opened MD Consulting Services, aiding legal professionals in navigating the medical issues in their cases. In 2011, Dr. Feldman expanded his services, creating MD Business Consultants, a coaching program and business system for physicians doing Medical/Legal consulting. With a database of 750,000 physicians, Dr. Feldman teaches his techniques via his Coaching Program and through a conference is via live stream only due to the current pandemic.

Hey y'all, well, this episode we dive into tons of fun stuff. There are new toys w/JDK 16, Spring Native and Graal. Essentially, it's a fun time to play with Native and new JDK 16 features (Records are mainstream!). And in a one-two punch, Spring Native release of 0.9, and Graal news of adopting truffle makes the ideal of adopting native images for your Java builds not far-fetched. It might have still some rough edges, but oh my, for some projects, it went from being painful, to a non-issue. So yeah. Millisecond startup times coming up! Micronaut is also out with 2.4.0, which we think is actually healthy! (we worried for a second or two). And Microprofile also has a release, with its LRA (and SAGA! pattern). We really wished SAGA was an acronym In addition some interesting consolidation happening with Crowdstrike buying Humio, and Okta acquiring Auth0. Interesting moves in security and authentication to say the least. We see how deep SolarWinds go with blaming an intern for their security woes. If that's your strategy, you already lost at the security game (shame!) And lastly, oh my, there is an Outlook vulnerability making its rounds. Important enough to hear (and patch!). You don't want weird inetpub/wwwroot files hanging in your outlook server. http://www.javaoffheap.com/datadog We thank DataDogHQ for sponsoring this podcast episode DO follow us on twitter @offheap http://www.twitter.com/offheap Take the JVM Survey! https://snyk.io/blog/java-ecosystem-survey-2021/ JDK 16 https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/the-arrival-of-java-16 MicroProfile LRA https://openliberty.io/blog/2021/01/27/microprofile-long-running-actions-beta.html CrowdStrike nabs Humio for $400M – https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/18/logging-startups-are-suddenly-hot-as-crowdstrike-nabs-humio-for-400m/ Micronaut 2.4.0 https://github.com/micronaut-projects/micronaut-core/releases/tag/v2.4.0 Okta acquires Auth0: https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/03/okta-acquires-cloud-identity-startup-auth0-for-6-5b/amp/?__twitter_impression=true&guccounter=1 SolarWinds blaming an intern https://twitter.com/cnn/status/1365445311066480641?s=21 @Author tags: https://twitter.com/headius/status/1366517443112402944?s=20 Graal and Truffle https://www.graalvm.org/reference-manual/java-on-truffle/ Microsoft Exchange Mass Hack: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/03/a-basic-timeline-of-the-exchange-mass-hack/  

Wanna split £100? You get £50 free AND save money on 100% green electricity by moving to Octopus Energy. Plus I get £50 to support this podcast but ONLY if you do it by using my unique referral code. I moved to Octopus recently and had been putting it off for ages,  but I kicked myself for not doing it sooner, as it’s literally a 5 minute job to give them your details.   Click here: https://share.octopus.energy/free-puma-452   On today’s podcast: Electric Hummer SUV Launch Edition is $110,000 BMW iX M60 Reportedly Packing 560 Electric Horses Watch the Nissan Ariya Do Last-Minute Winter Testing Swedish Structural Electric Car Battery Question Of The Week Answers     Show #1042   Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are in the world, welcome to EV News Daily for Sunday 4th April. It’s Martyn Lee here and I go through every EV story so you don't have to.   Thank you to MYEV.com for helping make this show, they’ve built the first marketplace specifically for Electric Vehicles. It’s a totally free marketplace that simplifies the buying and selling process, and help you learn about EVs along the way too.   ELECTRIC HUMMER SUV LAUNCH EDITION IS $110,000 "Hummer has unveiled the SUV version of its electric pickup truck, which comes with up to 300 miles of range and will sell for a suggested retail price of up to $110,595 for its first edition. Reservations for that model are already full, according to GM’s website." say The Verge: " GM, which is producing the electric Hummers under its GMC brand, said the SUV will go into production starting early 2023, with less pricey variants starting at $90,000 in the spring of 2023 and a low-end $80,000 variant with a 250-mile range in the spring of 2024. Previously, the company said that its electric pickup truck will start assembly at the end of 2021, starting with the most expensive trim level."   The fully enclosed Hummer EV measures 20 inches shorter than the pickup. Despite this, it can still comfortably sit five adults and you can fold down the rear seats to open up 82 cubic feet of cargo space, with additional room under the load floor." says RobbReport.com: "The massive cargo space is accessible via a power swing-out tailgate with a full-size, rear-mounted spare tire. The cabin also features the truck’s easy-to-remove Infinity Roof sky panels, which can be stored in the EV’s frunk when you feel like transforming the SUV into a convertible 4×4. News that the Hummer SUV is less powerful than the pickup will be disappointing to some, but there is a tradeoff. Because of the shorter wheelbase, the new model also has a shorter turn radius than the truck."     "GMC unveiled the SUV in a commercial Saturday during the NCAA Men's Final Four basketball tournament. The ad, narrated by NBA star LeBron James, highlights signature Hummer features, such as Extract Mode and CrabWalk, GMC said." according  to Automotive News: "GMC has not confirmed volume targets or where the Hummer SUV will be assembled but AFS says GM will build the SUV at Factory Zero in Detroit, alongside the pickup. GM plans to build 23,000 GMC Hummer SUVs per year once production is ramped up, AFS said. The Edition 1 model will start at $105,595, $7,000 less than Edition 1 of the Hummer pickup, including destination fees. Customers can add an off-road package, which comes standard on the Edition 1 of the Hummer pickup, for $5,000."   GM has yet to detail precise battery specifications but has confirmed that the SUV will store its power in a 20-cell, double-stacked battery pack capable of 800V charging at rates of up to 300kW and offering a range of more than 300 miles, depending on specification. Equipped with the optional Power Station function, the car can also be used to power external devices - and even other EVs - at up to 6kW.  GM estimates a maximum output of 819bhp, which is 167bhp less than the top-rung version of the pick-up but nonetheless enough to take the SUV from 0-60mph in 3.5sec. A claimed torque figure of 11,500lb ft is several times more than produced by even today's most powerful production cars, but the real-life figure is likely to be closer to 1000lb ft when factoring in the multiplying effect of the gear ratios." explains Autocar.   CNET explained it well last year: "GMC's massive number appears to correspond to wheel torque, which is traditional motor torque multiplied through the transmission's drive ratio. Jason Fenske from Engineering Explained has a great video that spells out the difference, a piece he published following Tesla's claim that the Roadster 2.0 will produce more than 7,000 lb-ft of torque. Fenske used a Dodge Challenger SRT Demon as an example. That model produces 972 Newton-meters of engine torque (770 lb-ft). However, multiplied through its gear ratios, you get 14,000 Nm of wheel torque (10,325 lb-ft) in first gear. Most EVs have a final drive reduction ratio of about 8:1"   https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/3/22362072/hummer-suv-electric-price-specs-release-date   https://www.autonews.com/cars-concepts/gmc-launch-electric-hummer-suv-2023   https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/2023-hummer-ev-819bhp-4x4-maximum-road-ability   https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/gmc-hummer-ev-torque-rating-misleading/   https://robbreport.com/motors/cars/gmc-hummer-ev-suv-edition-1-2023-1234605409/   BMW IX M60 REPORTEDLY PACKING 560 ELECTRIC HORSES "The BMW iX electric crossover will reportedly get an M variant in late 2022 or 2023. It'll reportedly pack 560 horsepower (418 kilowatts), according to a new rumor from BMW Blog. The performance EV will allegedly go by the name iX M60. In addition to the extra horsepower, it will have upgrades like suspension tweaks. The styling will also be more aggressive to accentuate the extra performance visually." according to Motor1.com: "BMW will start taking orders for the iX xDrive50 in the US in June and deliveries will start in early 2022. Prices will start around $85,000. The electric crossover will have two electric motors producing a total of over 500 hp (375 kW). This will be enough for the model to reach 62 miles per hour (100 kilometers per hour) in under 5.0 seconds. The 100-kilowatt-hour battery will allow for an estimated range over 300 miles (483 kilometers) in the EPA test."   https://www.motor1.com/news/498501/bmw-ix-m60-power-rumor/   WATCH THE NISSAN ARIYA DO LAST-MINUTE WINTER TESTING "Development of the 2022 Nissan Ariya is wrapping up, with the automaker subjecting the electric crossover to some final cold weather testing in Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost main island, while the wintery weather lasts. The Ariya is production-ready at the moment, so Nissan isn't really changing anything substantial at this point as it readies the model to take on competitors like the Volkswagen ID.4 and the Tesla Model Y, as well as the recently revealed Kia EV6." says Autoweeks.com: "The Ariya will go on sale in the second half of 2021 with a choice of two battery sizes—63 kWh and 87 kWh—and a price around $40,000, according to Nissan, prior to any incentives. The larger battery should give it a range of around 300 miles,"   https://www.autoweek.com/news/green-cars/a36014367/watch-nissan-ariya-winter-testing/   SWEDISH STRUCTURAL ELECTRIC CAR BATTERY "Efforts to reduce battery weight by building batteries that are also part of the car’s structure are a promising concept, and a team of Swedish researchers seem to have made a big advance here, developing a structural battery system that uses a carbon-fiber anode." reports Jalopnik: "Tesla has been developing structural battery packs as well, but the method they’re using still requires individual, cylindrical battery cells, held in place by a matrix that’s also providing structural support as part of the car’s frame. Essentially, Tesla’s method is just embedding cylindrical battery cells in housings that are also part of the car’s frame. This is a good approach, but the Swedish team from Chalmers University of Technology  led by professor Leif Asptakes this concept a step further, making every component of the battery itself out of structural materials. Pretty much every part of this battery is capable of supporting structural loads, and not some lazy, freeloading cylindrical cell just snoozing away in some structural matrix that’s doing all the work."   https://jalopnik.com/swedish-researchers-have-developed-a-new-kind-of-struct-1846608660   "It contains carbon fiber that serves simultaneously as an electrode, conductor, and load-bearing material. Their latest research breakthrough paves the way for essentially ’massless’ energy storage in vehicles and other technology." says SciTechDaily.com: "This is termed ‘massless’ energy storage, because in essence the battery’s weight vanishes when it becomes part of the load-bearing structure. Calculations show that this type of multifunctional battery could greatly reduce the weight of an electric vehicle."   https://scitechdaily.com/big-breakthrough-for-massless-energy-storage-structural-battery-that-performs-10x-better-than-all-previous-versions/     QUESTION OF THE WEEK ANSWERS   RAJEEV NARAYAN I agree with you that a subsidy off the price of an EV may not be the best incentive. Often the manufacturer increases the price to take some of the incentive. My Chevy Bolt now is now suddenly much cheaper now that it is no longer eligible for the tax credit. Post purchase incentives may be better, such as perhaps a certain amount of free charging or free access to charging infrastructure, or even discounted or no yearly registration fees.   James Redman I think people need some persuasion to try an EV so I would incentivise free EV loaners for 24-72 hours, insurance covered etc, and let people try any EV for free.   Marina In New York Company vehicles cover far more miles than a personal vehicle so I think fleets and working vans should get more incentives. It might not be popular with private buyers but it will get more miles driven electrically than anything else.   Tony In His BoltEV It's no so mich an incentive FOR EVs, but more countries should do like Norway and add a surcharge or taxes to the cost of petrol and diesel vehicles to make them more expensive. This doesn't stop anyone buying a petrol car if they really want to, but it does let people choose an EV to save money.   Silvia Hodgson The best kind of EV incentive is one which constantly reminds you of the benefits rather than a single incentive at purchase. So ongoing things like tax breaks, lower fueling costs, lower rates of company car tax are all good reminders about the choice you made to buy an EV.   Veronica In London Why don't more countries lift the Value Added Tax, or VAT, on EVs? We have seen this in the UK following Covid where the hospitality sector had the VAT rate reduced to 5% from 20% in order to stimulate the sector. After all, VAT is an optional tax applied to most things or services we buy. It's the third biggest revenue generator for the government after taxes on wages earned, and the National Insurance we pay on our wages.   Joey Bono, Ωhm EV Solutions Point of Sale rebate, in US $7500 off the MSRP 'sticker price' at time of purchase or finance. I'm on the EV customer journey now and quite interested in the VW ID.4     QUESTION OF THE WEEK WITH EMOBILITYNORWAY.COM   What EV do you want to see your favourite car maker launch which they haven’t already?     It would mean a lot if you could take 2mins to leave a quick review on whichever platform you download the podcast.   And  if you have an Amazon Echo, download our Alexa Skill, search for EV News Daily and add it as a flash briefing.   Come and say hi on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter just search EV News Daily, have a wonderful day, I’ll catch you tomorrow and remember…there’s no such thing as a self-charging hybrid.     PHIL ROBERTS / ELECTRIC FUTURE (PREMIUM PARTNER) BRAD CROSBY (PREMIUM PARTNER) PORSCHE OF THE VILLAGE CINCINNATI (PREMIUM PARTNER) AUDI CINCINNATI EAST (PREMIUM PARTNER) VOLVO CARS CINCINNATI EAST (PREMIUM PARTNER) NATIONALCARCHARGING.COM and ALOHACHARGE.COM  (PREMIUM PARTNER) DEREK REILLY FROM THE EV REVIEW IRELAND YOUTUBE CHANNEL (PREMIUM PARTNER) RICHARD AT RSEV.CO.UK – FOR BUYING AND SELLING EVS IN THE UK (PREMIUM PARTNER) eMOBILITY NORWAY HTTPS://WWW.EMOBILITYNORWAY.COM/  (PREMIUM PARTNER)     DAVID AND LISA ALLEN (PARTNER) GARETH HAMER (PARTNER) BOB BOOTHBY FROM MILLBROOK COTTAGES – 5* GOLD SELF CATERING COTTAGES (PARTNER) DARIN MCLESKEY FROM DENOVO REAL ESTATE (PARTNER) JUKKA KUKONEN FROM WWW.SHIFT2ELECTRIC.COM RAJEEV NARAYAN (PARTNER) IAIN SEAR (PARTNER)   ADRIAN BOND (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) ALAN SHEDD (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) ALEX BANAHENE (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) ALEXANDER FRANK @ https://www.youtube.com/c/alexsuniverse42 ANDERS HOVE (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) ANDREA JEFFERSON (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) ANDREW GREEN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) ANDY NANCARROW AND LILIAN KASS (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) ASEER KHALID (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) BÅRD FJUKSTAD (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) BLUNDERBUSS JONES (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER BRIAN THOMPSON (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) BRUCE BOHANNAN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) CHARLES HALL (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) CHRIS HOPKINS (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) CHRISTOPHER BARTH (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) COLIN HENNESSY AND CAMBSEV (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) CRAIG ROGERS (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) DAMIEN DAVIS (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) DAVID FINCH (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) DAVID MOORE (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) DAVID PARTINGTON (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) DAVID PRESCOTT (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) DC EV (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) DON MCALLISTER / SCREENCASTSONLINE.COM (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) ED CORTREEN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) ERIC HANSEN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) ERU KYEYUNE-NYOMBI (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) FREDRIK ROVIK (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) GENE RUBIN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) HEDLEY WRIGHT (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) HEINRICH LIESNER (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) IAN GRIFFITHS (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) IAN (WATTIE) WATKINS (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) JACK OAKLEY (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) JAMES STORR (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) JAVIER CARMELO DÍAZ PÉREZ (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) JIM MORRIS (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) JOHN SCHROEDER (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) JON AKA BEARDY MCBEARDFACE FROM KENT EVS (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) JON MANCHAK (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) JUAN GONZALEZ (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) KEVIN MEYERSON (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) LAURENCE D ALLEN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) LEE BROWN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) LUKE CULLEY (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) MARCEL WARD (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) MARTY YOUNG  (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) MIA OPPELSTRUP (PARTNER) MIKE WINTER (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) NATHAN GORE-BROWN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) NATHANIEL FREEDMAN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) NEIL E ROBERTS FROM SUSSEX EVS (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) OHAD ASTON (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) PAUL STEPHENSON (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) PETE GLASS (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) PETE GORTON (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) PETER & DEE ROBERTS FROM OXON EVS (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) PHIL MOUCHET (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) PHILIP TRAUTMAN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) RAYMOND ROWLEDGE (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) RENE KEEMIK (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) RENÉ SCHNEIDER (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) ROB FROM THE RSTHINKS EV CHANNEL ON YOUTUBE (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) ROBERT GRACE (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) RUPERT MITCHELL (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) SEIKI PAYNE (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) STEPHEN PENN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) STEVE JOHN (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) THOMAS J. THIAS  (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) TODD OAKES (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER) THE PLUGSEEKER – EV YOUTUBE CHANNEL (EXECUTIVE PRODUCER)     CONNECT WITH ME! EVne.ws/itu nes EVne.ws/tunein EVne.ws/googleplay EVne.ws/stitcher EVne.ws/youtube EVne.ws/iheart EVne.ws/blog EVne.ws/patreon   Check out MYEV.com for more details: https://www.myev.com

One of the widely accepted principles in the tax code is that you should be taxed on money you actually received. But there are a few examples of taxation on phantom income. The problem has the potential to get much bigger. On today’s show we’re talking about the concept of a deemed disposition. It’s pretty clear in the tax law of most western countries that if you sell an asset and you make a profit, that sale might be subject to capital gains tax. But recently Janet Yellen, the new Treasury Secretary and former Fed Chair has been advocating that the government consider taxing unrealized capital gains. The latest incarnation of this concept is called the “Sensible Taxation and Equity Promotion” Act of 2021, or STEP for short. Wonderful! Another catchy acronym for yet another destructive law. Based on current US federal estate tax law, if someone dies today, his/her assets are exempt from federal estate tax up to $11.2 million, or $22.4 million for a couple. That’s a hefty exemption that covers more than 99.9% of the population. If it passes, the value of a newly deceased person’s estate will be valued at Fair Market Value. Then, any unrealized capital gains would be taxed based on that person’s original cost basis. Essentially they’re treating you as if, on the day that you died, sold all all of your assets and had to pay capital gains tax. But they’ve dropped the exemption all the way down to $1 million. Just about every asset is included, ranging from real estate to a small family business. They even specifically included collectibles like art, gold, and rare coins. Some other countries like Canada don’t have inheritance taxes. But in Canada, there is a deemed disposition upon death and if any capital gains taxes are due, they need to be paid at that time when the terminal tax return is filed for the deceased person. The result has been that often the children will inherit a property that has been in the family for decades. The cost of the property was close to zero compared with today’s valuation. The new owners face a hefty tax obligation, or risk losing the property. In many cases, the next of kin will need to get a bank loan to pay the taxes in order to hang onto the property. The only other choice is to sell the property and pay the tax on an actual disposition. In many cases, it’s preferable to transfer the property at a predetermined price while the parent is still alive in order to reduce the tax burden. 2021 could be the year of strategic tax planning.

Keto and BHB Question, LMNT and Autoimmune Condition, Floaters, Appendectomy Recovery Diet to get gut health back, Parenting Make your health an act of rebellion. Join The Healthy Rebellion Please Subscribe and Review: Apple Podcasts | RSS Submit your questions for the podcast here Show Notes: News topic du jour: The Effects of a 6-Week Controlled, Hypocaloric Ketogenic Diet, With and Without Exogenous Ketone Salts, on Body Composition Responses 1. Keto and BHB Question... [9:48] Thomas says: I am a huge fan of your guys' work and follow your content wherever I can. I will try to keep this short: I have been on a ketogenic diet personally for 3+ years, and I have tested myself daily to confirm that I have BHB ketone levels of .4 - 1.2 throughout this timespan.  So, while I'm not quite a 'ketone-chaser' :-), I would say have a somewhat vested interest in the topic. Then I came across this study: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-020-00411-4#MOESM1 I know they did a rat study here, and the chow is questionable (although they did at least use mostly coconut butter here for the KD arm).  But that said, is the mechanism of β-OHB induced cardiac fibrosis via mitochondrial biogenesis inhibition in cardiomyocytes (and resulting apoptosis increase) plausible in humans?!  Perhaps there is a counter mechanism that mediates this? Thanks so much in advance for your valued opinion here.  It's interesting but i'm not sure the mechanism is sound or consistent across the spectrum of metabolic health.  If it were, how would tribes subsisting on mostly animal foods not be observed to have cardiac issues...etc. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5609489/   2. LMNT and Autoimmune Condition [17:02] Kimberly says: I eat a somewhat low carb diet.  I exercise 5 days a week and I have lupus.  I am currently trying LMNT and drinking one a day during my 6 pm workout.  I am finding I am sleeping better!  I am planning on ordering  more, but I wanted to check with my rheumatologist first.  I sent him the info, and his response was:  People ususally get those supplements through their food, and with this addition you may end up with too much of them.  With people with autoimmune disorders I usually err on the side of caution and would say no to any supplements. What is your opinion on LMNT + autoimmune? Kimberly   3. Floaters

[00:30] Chauvin Trial (16 minutes) The Democrat media complex has already settled on a verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial. If the outcome doesn’t satisfy the radical mob, then expect it to be used as a pretext for more violence. [16:30] January 6 Trespassers (20 minutes) U.S. prosecutors are punishing American citizens who attended a rally on January 6 by getting them jailed on trumped up charges and clogging up the court system so they’re forced to wait in jail until their trial date. Some of these Trump supporters are sitting in cells for misdemeanors like trespassing. Biden’s Department of Injustice continues its ruthless persecution of ordinary Americans. [36:00] Border Camps? (5 minutes) The surge of illegals storming America’s southern border is worsening. [40:00] Obesity and COVID (15 minutes) The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently discovered that nearly 80 percent of people hospitalized with COVID-19 were overweight or obese. Essentially, America locked everyone down in order to protect those who have struggled the most to protect themselves against the spread of communicable diseases.

In an ideal world we’d bring you listeners a brand-new episode each and every week. While we can’t see that happening in the immediate future, in the process of creating or preparing for many of our episodes we end up with a lot of fun and insightful conversations that sadly just don’t make it into a final episode.Whether it be interviews conducted in attempt to broaden our perspective and gain further insight into a specific topic before attempting to tackle it, or an unanticipated tangent during a regular recording that we just can’t bring ourselves to carve up, but also can’t force into the overall show structure, we’ve continued to amass quite a bit of material that we would love to share with our listeners at some point and in some capacity.That’s what we’re testing the waters with this week, in our first (but hopefully not last) episode of “Okawari”.In Japanese, the term okawari refers to ordering “another round”. Essentially, if you’re asking for okawari, you want to keep the party going. That’s what we hope this week’s show (and future okawari installments) can bring to the table.As part of the process of examining the world of Nigori Sake for episode 60, we thought it would be interesting to get a bit of insight into the U.S. market’s unique attachment to this special style. In order to do that, we called up sake expert, certified Sake Samurai, and self-declared Sake Ninja, Chris Johnson, to share with us the evolution and status of the style in the U.S.One thing for sure is that we’ll be coaxing the Sake Ninja to reappear in future episodes, as there are dozens of topics that we’d love to pick his brain on, and he deserves a feature all his own. That’s one of the reasons we’re giving this week’s conversation okawari status. Our chat with Chris is both great supportive material for our previous episode, while providing more than enough substance to be fully satisfying as a stand-alone episode in its own right. We’ve got lots more material in the vault that we could use to pour you all “another round” of your favorite past topics, guests, and even entirely new snippets and insights. Let us know what you think of the concept and we’ll see what we can do to develop the format in the future.You can send those thoughts to questions@sakeonair.com or message us via Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook. Note that you’ll also help out the show by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or on whichever service you rely upon for your podcast needs.Thanks for supporting us here at Sake On Air. We’ll be back with more sake and shochu-infused goodness in just a couple of weeks.Kampai!Sake On Air is made possible with the generous support of the Japan Sake & Shochu Makers Association and is broadcast from the Japan Sake & Shochu Information Center in Tokyo. The show is a co-production between Export Japan and Potts.K Productions, with audio production by Frank Walter.Our theme, “Younger Today Than Tomorrow” was composed by forSomethingNew for Sake On Air.

For several years, I have been bribing myself into productivity. It turns out, this is actually a thing. It's called the Operant Conditioning System.  Essentially when we reward ourselves with positive reinforcements we instill gratitude by being able to enjoy the small things.  In today's episode, I am going to share some simple tactics with you on how you can frame daily activities with a reward system that will make you more productive starting today.  Like what you hear? We are honored. Hit that subscribe button and share your thoughts in a review. If you or someone you know may be a fit to be a guest on our show, please reach out to us! Balance. Optimize. Tactics.  Hit that subscribe button so that you don’t miss a day of the added value that I am dedicated to sharing with you weekly.  Let’s Connect!  Facebook  Instagram  Email: ashliewalton555@gmail.com  LinkedIn  Website: www.leowarriors.com

Tear in Heaven #107. Within Brim's Skin -- Brimstone is joined by his wing man Alex DaPonte as they discuss lots of things including why water machines can be annoying and why needing a lifeboat in the green room is a problem. They discuss how to do something good for terminally ill children and possibly win something Disney in return. They discuss the recent awards won by GHR and Brimstone himself and how Viking Vengeance will be released on April 8th on Steam. Essentially, he explains what gets Within Brim's Skin.

This week on Adventure Calls - a simple, two-minute survey. As a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel starts to appear, people are reaching out via email and DM more than ever for expat coaching. Many times, people want coaching, but would prefer something less expensive. I am looking to create a product that can best serve the most people so that everyone who wants to move abroad CAN move abroad. But I need to understand exactly what you want! Would you be willing to take this two-minute survey to help me build what you need? This survey, right here. That's right, here's the one. Thank you! Find Jess DruckerOn InstagramOn TwitterOn FacebookExpat Life CoachingHow To Move Abroad BookAdventure Calls PodcastAbout Adventure Calls Adventure Calls is produced, edited and written by me, Jess Drucker, a four-time expat, world-traveler and author of How To Move Abroad And Why It's The Best Thing You'll Do. Essentially a masterclass in book form, the book (available on Amazon in paperback and ebook) distills my 15 years' experience living abroad into 300 pages of practical step-by-step advice and inspiration for anyone looking to follow their own call to adventure. If you enjoy the show, please rate and review on Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts! 

In this episode, we did a brand new concept called SIMPLE SOLUTIONS. Essentially, we took a few relationship "problems" from Reddit and decided to offer up simple Sumner solutions. And fun was had. LOL. We broke-down what to do with a grandma that won't leave, how to ask a girl out, why rushing back into a relationship isn't the smartest and a bunch more. Please be sure to like, comment, and SHARE! Connect with us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/sumitupsumnersJoin us on Patreon for BONUS episodes: https://www.patreon.com/sumitupsumnersReflection + Planning FREEBIE: https://upbeat-builder-3242.ck.page/9990c47300Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sumitupsumners/Watch full episodes on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmIS3XEX5V5A5XokfDZMdNw/ALL links: https://linktr.ee/admin

On this episode we discussed Creative Financing. The goal of creative financing is generally to purchase, or finance a property, your educational expenses or whatever the case may be using as little of his own money as possible, otherwise known as leveraging, OPM (Other People's Money). It can even be leveraged as a means to secure the funds for educational purposes as a pose to securing funds via traditional methods. This allows you to get better rates or even alleviate interest rates entirely. But it does come at a cost (outside of having a good credit score/history, solid income to debt ration, track record of payment history etc the preliminary requirements) you MUST be reliable, trustworthy, dependable, have developed personal rapport with the other party involved and have a track record of a high level of Integrity. In addition it comes down to honesty and consistency of character if you lack in any of this then it's not an option for you. This is an option that potentially could save you money. Essentially this episode is life hacks to get you thinking outside the box. KEY TAKEAWAYS: Conventional Methods: Personal Loans, Auto Loans (Car Notes), Mortgages, Student Loans etc. Creative Methods: Shared Secure Loan, Loans from family/friends and paying them back, leveraging an individual with a strong financial record to Co-Sign on your behalf, Cash-Out Refinance, Home Equity Line Of Credit etc. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter @loampod Steph: Instagram @misterbottles and Twitter @GEDSuccessStory Fonz: Instagram @fonz_onamission27 and Twitter @onamission_27 DISCLAIMER Fonz & Steph are NOT certified financial advisors, nor lawyers, nor economists, nor CPA's. We are two certified IT professionals that take ownership of the task of being financially competent for ourselves and our last name. The contents on this podcast are for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial, accounting, or legal advice.

We always esteem those who come boldly to the Throne of Grace, but what about those who just want a touch from afar? We’re all familiar with Jesus’ encounter with Jairus and the woman in Mark 5. Essentially, they’re two stories in one, and both drive at one point – that He’s all powerful, and yet personal! Come and explore this familiar encounter more closely and discover the Healer who’s always near to those who seek Him.

We always esteem those who come boldly to the Throne of Grace, but what about those who just want a touch from afar? We’re all familiar with Jesus’ encounter with Jairus and the woman in Mark 5. Essentially, they’re two stories in one, and both drive at one point – that He’s all powerful, and yet personal! Come and explore this familiar encounter more closely and discover the Healer who’s always near to those who seek Him.

Welcome to Nate and Mitch are Friends episode 41. It's very FUN!This episode starts off with a cold opening for the ages and ends with an end to end all endings. We hope you enjoy it!  Nate and Mitch are, once again, in the same room together. Quick quips and jolted japes, this episode has it all. New segment: Listening to voicemails. Essentially we hear a man wish another man happy birthday. Mitch's father makes an appearance. Nate and Mitch also burn through a couple of their tight five jokes.  Honestly, just like the previous episode, we apologize for the quality of mic, but we don't apologize for being friends in person. We love you all. Peace and love. We hope you enjoy this episode because we certainly did!**New episodes every Friday at 10am CST**Follow us on social mediaTwitter - @Nate_And_Mitch https://twitter.com/Nate_And_MitchInstagram - @nateandmitcharefriends https://www.instagram.com/nateandmitcharefriends/Facebook - @nateandmitcharefriends https://www.facebook.com/nateandmitcharefriends

Chris Merrick Hughes – What is New Wave, Tears for Fears - Chris Merrick Hughes is a music producer who has done it all. He's pioneered a genre while drumming in Adam and the Ants. He's defined the genre producing for Tears for Fears. He's also worked with legends like Robert Plant, Paul McCartney and Peter Gabriel.  Pete A Turner and Chris talk about New Wave. Many of the emblematic songs have the core elements of rock and roll...so what makes it New Wave. Chris gives us the answer. Essentially, it's a new approach, and not just in the music.  For the  of this episode head to  Today's intro is provided by a lifelong friend of Pete and Jon's. Robyn Sickler has known Pete since the 70's and Jon since the early 90's think about that.  Robyn is a kidney donor so she's love for you folks to support her charity.  Please support the Break It Down Show by doing a monthly subscription to the show  All of the money you invest goes directly to supporting the show!​ ​Haiku Doing it Different That’s what New Wave Really is It’s not just haircuts ​Similar episodes:  -   -    -  Join us in supporting Save the Brave as we battle PTSD.  Executive Producer/Host: Pete A Turner  Producer: Damjan Gjorgjiev  The Break It Down Show is your favorite best, new podcast, featuring 5 episodes a week with great interviews highlighting world-class guests from a wide array of shows.

Can you really build Print on Demand into 7+ figures in sales per year? This is a year of some tremendous growth for my business, ever since I decided to retire and go full time with Print on Demand in 2020! Most people, including myself, start doing Print on Demand as a way to make a couple bucks on the side.  It's the easiest way to start, and there is nothing at all wrong with keeping your business small, light, and profitable with just your own extra time. In the last couple of years, I've decided that I'm not happy with being "small time", I want to build this business into a million dollar per year enterprise!  This means a drastic shift in mindset, and a different strategy from what I've been doing up to now. In this episode, I run through what is a proven strategy for scaling your business, which involves building a team, and leveraging the time of your workers to maximize your own value.  Essentially, you end up spending most of your time managing your workers, and less time doing the actual work. Learn more by joining my email list at salesondemandshow.com/az

A rookie mistake leaves Jess cursed at a Mayan ruin during a Catholic holiday in Guatemala. Immerse yourself in a trip to Guatemala. While it might be fun for you to listen to, it wasn't fun for Jess and her best friend Tracey to live through. In fact, not once, but twice in ten years, Jess was taken down by a trip to Tikal. This is the story of the first time that happened, with some rookie mistakes related to drinking the water, while visiting during Semana Santa, or holy week. The second time? Well...that was a bone-crushing misery that we'll get to next time on Adventure Calls.  Find Jess DruckerOn InstagramOn TwitterOn FacebookExpat Life CoachingHow To Move Abroad BookAdventure Calls PodcastAbout Adventure Calls Adventure Calls is produced, edited and written by me, Jess Drucker, a four-time expat, world-traveler and author of How To Move Abroad And Why It's The Best Thing You'll Do. Essentially a masterclass in book form, the book (available on Amazon in paperback and ebook) distills my 15 years' experience living abroad into 300 pages of practical step-by-step advice and inspiration for anyone looking to follow their own call to adventure. If you enjoy the show, please rate and review on Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts! 

  People often have this misconception that investments in marketing almost always run contrary to an organization's mission. They feel that any spending that isn’t directly tied to the mission runs counter to the good you accomplish in the world. Bob Roark and his guest, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sswineford/ (Stu Swineford), tackle this very subject today. Stu is the author of https://missionuncomfortablebook.com/ (Mission: Uncomfortable - How Nonprofits Can Embrace Purpose-Driven Marketing to Survive and Thrive). Stu talks about purpose-driven marketing, showing that marketing isn’t really a bad thing, especially if you’re the leader of a non-profit organization or its marketing department. --- Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/XIxoAhUkEbc[/embed] Purpose-Driven Marketing With Stu SwinefordMarketing is not a dirty word. As a leader of a nonprofit organization or its marketing department, you may have been told that investments in marketing run contrary to your organization's mission. At the least, you may feel that any spending can't be directly tied to the mission that runs counter to the good you accomplish in the world. We're going to talk about that. My guest is Stu Swineford. Stu is the co-author of https://missionuncomfortablebook.com/ (Mission Uncomfortable: How Nonprofits Can Embrace Purpose-driven Marketing to Survive and Thrive). He's also the co-founder of https://relishstudio.com/ (Relish Studio), a digital marketing firm and he's also the host of his own podcast, https://relishstudio.com/podcast/ (Relish This). Stu, thanks for taking your time. Thank you for having me on, Bob. I appreciate it. Fair disclosure, Stu and I are working together on a website. They do awesome work so I can attest to that right upfront. One of the things that we wanted to cover is one, we will talk about purpose-driven marketing and then the pillars of purpose-driven marketing, which are attract, connect, bond and inspire. Stu, maybe the first thing that we want to dig into is your thoughts on purpose-driven marketing. Thanks, Bob. Purpose-driven marketing is a phrase that we came to over the course of a few years where we're trying to give people the idea that marketing shouldn't just be an activity that you spend money on and check a box but it is something that should return an outcome. A lot of people think about marketing as a cost. One of the things that we've tried to establish in purpose-driven marketing is that it's more of an investment. It's something that you're doing to either run experiments or prove a hypothesis or tackle a challenge that you're having with your organization. There should be an outcome attached to that and it should be a positive outcome. That's what purpose-driven marketing is all about. Purpose-driven marketing can be applied to both for-profit and nonprofit businesses. It's marketing that has a specific goal in mind and we try to create all of the mechanisms by which you can attain that goal. In the context of Mission Uncomfortable, the book that I wrote, it's geared toward those businesses in the nonprofit sector specifically but the purpose-driven sector, additionally, to try and help them fuel growth. Fair disclosure, too, I read your book. Thank you for providing the copy. In the nonprofit arena, the folks that are in charge of marketing are trying to identify who their avatar or ideal donor and/or client might be. We usually start these discussions with an exercise that we call the values, vision and mission exercise. It takes some nonprofits a second to wrap their arms around it because their entire MO is around values, vision and mission. Making sure that that culture is intact and defined and everyone has a North Star so that we know what direction that we're going. When we work for for-profit businesses, we do an exercise that we call find the money and this can be something that a nonprofit can do as well. Essentially, it's looking back at your prior...

In this episode, Coach Greg 'Old Money' Holmes joins us to discuss the recent newsletter he wrote on the True Fundamentals of Investing. During our feature presentation, Coach Greg discusses some of the most important fundamental concepts he considers before investing including the value of a company, stability, how to determine a fair price, P/E ratios, Return on Invested Capital, Operating Margins, and Dividend payments. Listen in for some insight and wisdom on an important topic for new and veteran investors alike. Before that, Coach Matt, Mark, Tim, and Greg analyze the broad market conditions during our skyline. Last week the FOMC held a two-day meeting, followed by a policy statement and press conference with Chair Jerome Powell. The market bought on the initial price response Wednesday, seemingly liking what the Fed had to say regarding future economic growth, the prospects for the jobs market, maintaining low-interest rates, and monthly bond purchases. Essentially the Fed 'said' everything the market wanted to hear, but the market sold on Thursday after digesting the reality of what the Fed's statement means. Essentially, if things are going to get better as fast as they say, when will they raise interest rates? We discuss the mixed messaging from the Fed and the technical conditions in stocks, commodities, the dollar, and bitcoin during this weekly segment. 1:53 Market Skyline 1:00:40 Greg Holmes

We seem to be on a computational tangent this year. So we thought it best to talk with Moshe Twitto, CTO and Co-Founder at Pliops (@pliopsltd). We had first seen them at SFD21 (see videos of their sessions here) and their talk on how they could speed up database IO was pretty impressive. Essentially, they … Continue reading "115-GreyBeards talk database acceleration with Moshe Twitto, CTO&Co-founder, Pliops"

In the final episode of the Dinosaur Cult series, Essentially, Hovind converted the backyard of his home...into a theme park, improvising an entrance....and refusing to file the proper zoning permit requests with Escambia County. Hovind was charged on Sept. 13, 2002, for failure to observe county zoning regulations, the charge is a 2nd degree misdemeanor resulting from refusing to pay a $50 permitting fee. Only three years after the park opened - two years after his stubborn clogging of the legal system over a $50 bill, in April of 2004 Hovind's work office and home were raided by the IRS. The IRS accused Hovind of tax evasion - not paying taxes - on the more than 1 million dollars he made per year, and While we are on this topic, let's just go ahead and say it: any real man or woman of God is not going to be wealthy and certainly won't be breaking the laws in such a way. Just sayin. Plus did we mention that Kent Hovind also has ties to Sovereign Citizens?[FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA]"Elbow Deep Club" PATREON: www.patreon.com/ordisstudiosWEBSITE: www.ordisstudios.comTWITTER: www.twitter.com/PodcastAfraidINSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/PodcastAfraid[FOLLOW THE HOST ON SOCIAL MEDIA]JARED'S TWITTER: www.twitter.com/jared_ordisJARED'S INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/jared.ordisNICK's TWITTER: www.twitter.com/thenickster15NICK's INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/porchetta_sandwichSAM'S TWITTER: www.twitter.com/spookysam8[ORDIS STUDIOS PODCAST NETWORK]WEBSITE: www.ordisstudios.comORDIS STUDIOS TWITTER: www.twitter.com/ordisstudiosORDIS STUDIOS INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/ordis.studios[MUSIC USED IN THIS EPISODE]Music from https://filmmusic.io"In Your Arms" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.com)License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)[THANKS & MENTIONS FOR THIS EPISODE]Checkout the latest episode of Last Year's Horror, featuring the host of Even the Podcast is Afraid, Jared Ordis. Visit www.ordisstudios.com or https://link.chtbl.com/4Gi7O9ceCheckout Infinite Rabbit Hole Podcast, as our very own researcher & writer Stephanie Kemmerer was a guest on this show recently, https://spoti.fi/3bHm4vsStephanie Kemmerer, researcher & writer for Even the Podcast is Afraid, conducted all the writing and research for this series on Kevin Hovind and his Dinosaur Cult."Even the Podcast is Afraid" (ETPIA) is created & produced by Jared Ordis, an original Ordis Studios Production.Even the Podcast is Afraid is part of the Ordis Studios Podcast Network.Copyright © 2021 by Ordis Studioswww.ordisstudios.com

Servant leadership is touted and recognized as an effective way to lead. Principals who embrace servant leadership build their winning team by empowering their school community at all levels. This month, we draw a simple distinction between servant leadership and service leadership. We contend that service leadership is the actionable aspect of effective leadership that goes beyond the general duties of the job. Service leaders provide something special and unique for each person on the team or for the community at large. They don’t just empower, they provide. To better understand how to be a service leader, we offer the 4 Ps of Service Leadership, which we breakdown in this month’s 302 Thoughts. This component of our One Thing Series podcast, takes a deep dive into this month’s topic so that anyone in an educational leadership position--district leaders, principals, assistant principals, instructional coaches, and teacher leaders--all see how they can uniquely support a learning environment throughout the entire school community. Topics We Cover Regarding Service Leadership: We discuss how service leadership is the engine behind servant leadership. Essentially, the way we empower others impacts how they can serve in their roles. We break down the 4 P model and how it can guide our daily work. We emphasize the power of a positive attitude and how it really is a choice. We talk about turning pride into something of virtue rather than voice. We hope you like this month’s 302 Thoughts as we continue to discuss leadership and the impact that you can have on your community. Stay tuned for more nuggets of wisdom, podcasts, books to read, reflection sessions, and the best resources for leading better and growing faster in schools. Follow us at theschoolhouse302.com to join thousands of leaders who get our content each month. Send this to a friend. As always, let us know what you think of this with a like, a follow, or a comment. Find us on Twitter, YouTube, iTunes, Facebook, & SoundCould. And, again, if you want one simple model for leading better and growing faster per month, follow this blog by entering your email at the top right of the screen. TheSchoolHouse302 is about getting to simple by maximizing effective research-based strategies that empower individuals to lead better and grow faster. Joe & T.J.

If the topic of Machine-as-a-Service (MaaS) is new to you this conversation covers the model in detail. Michael Cromheecke is the CEO of Steamchain and he unpacks this exciting new approach to industry. Essentially it is a business model that uses the data from the machinery to establish a contractual relationship.  In traditional business models OEM's build equipment to a designed set of standards and once the solution is running the manufacturer owns it from there. In the MaaS model end users are funding desirable outcomes of the asset.  OEM's benefit in this model also as they can establish recurring revenue streams tied directly to machine performance. Their partnerships strengthen with the businesses they support as they have monetary incentives to reach premium efficiency of a given asset throughout the life of the equipment.  When improvements are found and implemented both the manufacturer and OEM will reap the rewards.Mike is extremely passionate about this topic and feels it could be a new way for manufacturers and OEM's to grow in the future.  This is an exciting idea and one that we hope will help business owners and leadership as they think about the future of capital assets and meeting market demands. Guest: Michael Cromheecke - CEO & Co-Founder of SteamchainHost: Chris GraingerExecutive Producer: Adam SheetsVideo Editing: Andi ThrowerSteamchain.io Website

My guest today is Bella Harrison. I am so excited to be sharing this interview with you, Bella is one of my dearest friends, definitely a soul sister in this lifetime. We have known each other for just over a decade. I have been trying to interview her for the past few years and it was in complete synchronistic and beautiful alignment in the timing of this interview. This interview absolutely blew my mind. I went through and listened to it a few times myself, I was taking notes. Bellas knowledge and insight into the work she does is extraordinary in my eyes. She is a Somatic Sex Coach and it’s really wild because as I said I’ve known Bella for just about ten years now and it’s incredible to see and witness her transformation. She is one of the most unique and genuine people I have come across in my life. The way that she owns herself is so inspiring - I say in the interview that she has a very strong sensual and sexual presence to her and it was one of the main things that drew me to her and fascinated me about her, from the very beginning. And it makes sense that her work is in the realm of sensuality, sexuality and embodiment of both these elements. She even says that she feels that sexuality is something she has explored in many many life times and it’s something that just comes very much innately to her and you truly feel this when you are around her.  There are so many things that we talk about in this episode. We speak about shadow, what is shadow, what is shadow work. We talk about what it is to come from the heart space and to relate to people from the heart space. We talk about what it really means to be ’doing the work’. Essentially what it is to really move out of victim and victimhood, to really take responsibility for yourself and ultimately what does it mean to come into your sovereignty.

Created By: Yariv WolokMusic By: Jay LubesWebsite: https://www.flyersnittygritty.comAs the Flyers look from outside the playoff picture for the first time all seasons, it's easy to understand why fans have become restless. Even with the recent win to the New York Rangers, the team can't help but look like they have not lived up to their high praise. As the team fell to fifth place in the division, all momentum and good faith that had been built up since Alain Vigneault arrived, seemed to have dissipated within just a short few months. With such a change in emotion it's easy to get caught up in quick solutions and fixes.The Flyers have been without savvy veteran Matt Niskanen all season, since he announced his early retirement, and it's noticeable to everyone. While the team has plenty of talent to compete, it's the poise on the back-end that is much needed on this team. The inability to hold leads, the persistent lack of physicality around the net, and the sudden decrease in team penalty kill effectiveness are all signs of a team lacking stability. Essentially, Niskanen has left a void on the team. However, is rushing to fix the problem really going to help in the long run? On this episode of Gettin Gritty Wit It, I welcome back guest Russ Cohen (@Sportsology) and welcome new guest Mike Augello (@MikeInBuffalo) to the show to talk about the recent Flyers' trade rumors and their chances of competing in the competitive East division.Like and subscribe if you want more of this content!Check Out Our Team Store: https://teespring.com/stores/flyers-nitty-gritty-store-4

Today, in Alaska the new U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan will meet with Chinese officials. Their goal is to improve our relationship with the super power and confront China for its human rights and other abuses. FOX NEWS Senior Strategic Analyst and retired four-star General Jack Keane gives a preview of the today's meeting and discusses the growing tensions between the U.S. and China.   The American Rescue Plan includes an expansion of the existing child tax credit. Instead of receiving $2,000, families who qualify will now receive $3,600 per child. The money also will be given out through monthly cash payments. Essentially, this means a guaranteed income for millions of American families with children. Progressives have long argued a guaranteed income would help families out of poverty and say a recent experiment out of Stockton, California proved their point. However conservatives say 'guaranteed income' is unfair to taxpayers and will only de-incentivize work. Former senior economic adviser for President Trump Steve Moore and former economic advisor to President Obama Austan Goolsbee weigh in on the debate over guaranteed income and the CTC.   Plus, commentary from FOX News Senior Meteorologist Janice Dean.

When people scroll through Instagram these days, they can’t avoid the ads and the influencers pushing products. And that’s not a bad thing. In fact, more and more often, ecommerce is taking place in channels other than on a brand’s website, which is why so many companies are looking for ways to optimize how they execute commerce at the edge -- this means meeting customers where they are. Paloma has one way to do that, by turning messenger platforms into sales channels, which creates a more personalized shopping experience for customers, and a .5-to-10x higher conversion rate for brands.On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, I was joined by Kelsey Hunter, the Co-Founder and CEO of Paloma, to give us the inside scoop on why brands should be investing in conversational commerce. In the last year, Paloma has helped partners convert $9 million in sales, and she explains how that happened by simply diverting ad traffic away from a website and into a chat instead. Plus, she discusses the future of conversational commerce and how the low barrier to entry into the ecommerce industry is forcing everyone to adjust quicker than ever before. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Website Woes: Moving forward, a brand’s website will become more of a secondary piece of collateral when it comes to driving conversions. It will still be critical to have a fast, highly-efficient website experience, but more of the interactions and conversion efforts will be focused on other channels where customers are spending more time.Get To The Party: The worst thing a brand could be doing right now is not experimenting with and setting up processes in Facebook Messenger and other messaging apps. Customer service and the customer experience are two of the leading drivers of conversions, and ignoring a channel that allows you to provide a proactive and personalized experience is a huge wasted opportunity.Far Out Future: The future of commerce is being written right now with shops that are opening with simple Instagram product posts and telling customers interested to go to a PayPal link. More new brands are foregoing the traditional channels and website launches, so the barrier to entry is much lower. As more competition enters the market in this way, traditional brands will have to keep up with their own easy, personalized commerce options.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome to Up Next in Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postals, co-founder and CEO at mission.org. Today we have Kelsey Hunter joining us. The founder and CEO of Paloma. Kelsey, welcome to the show.Kelsey:Thank you, Stephanie. It's so good to be here.Stephanie:We're excited to have you on. I was just thinking I'm like, "How do I know I'm actually talking to Kelsey and not a chatbot?" She's put up a virtual screen and it might not even be Kelsey back there. I'm not sure.Kelsey:I have a history of pretending to be a bot, so.Stephanie:I actually, I read that. I read that you spent a little bit six weeks pretending to be a chatbot to learn how they worked.Kelsey:True.Stephanie:That's fun jumping off point. Tell me a bit about being a chatbot. What's that life like?Kelsey:It is wild. Let's see, I was working at a startup in New York that we offered mobile commerce solution for brands and publishers. So I was really deep in the mobile commerce space when the messenger API opened up. And as we're getting side projects, of course then, decided that messenger would be a good place to try to test things out.Kelsey:And before even building anything, I pretended to be a bot just to see how it would work. That's what sparked all of this. It was like, "Oh wait, if you can talk to people directly, people will talk to you about themselves." I'm asking people questions, they're telling me way too much information. That was really the spark for me. Then I said, "Oh, why are we making assumptions online? We can just ask people and they will very happily tell you things to help figure out what they should buy and why."Stephanie:That's cool. So you were doing this at another company. And then you're like, this is the business in and of itself. And that's how you went to create Paloma?Kelsey:Yeah. It was a totally side project outside of the company that I was working with. But all of the pieces tied together for me. That company is called Button, and when I left Button, I did a little bit of other experimentation in the channel. Actually, worked with a team to build a open-source software, to help people call Congress on Facebook Messenger, which was one of the first software tools that was like a MailChimp for the space, which is really cool. But brought it all the way back around to commerce and launched Paloma at the end of 2017.Stephanie:Cool. So tell me a bit more about Paloma. What is it? What does it do?Kelsey:Paloma helps brands turn Facebook Messenger into a sales channel. Essentially, we work with a lot of D2C and ecom brands across every product, category, audience, price point, and we help them drive traffic into messenger instead of their website where their customers get a more personalized shopping experience, that's powered by our software. So what that might look like for a furniture brand would be, they're running Instagram and Facebook ads and they can set them to open up a Messenger conversation instead of opening up a website landing page.Kelsey:And once in Messenger, our conversation, we'll ask them questions like what room do you want to design? What are the colors in that room? Do you have cats, dogs? Any other kind of style preferences. And then we'll dynamically route the customer to the right products based off of what they've shared. By helping the customer make the purchase decision, we're effectively seeing anywhere from two to 10X increases in conversion rates. And that's a little bit of very cap on, on how that works.Stephanie:That's awesome. I feel like just thinking about, I follow all these influencers on Instagram and they're always selling stuff, which normally I'm like, I want a lot of this. But if you respond to them, they definitely can't keep up. If you're like, does that size, would it fit me? Is that Off-White? Is that Real-White? It seems like there's a lot of opportunity everywhere to have a chatbot set up that personalizes the experience and also helps it scale.Kelsey:Exactly. And what you just described is one of the reasons that we see so much opportunity in that space. And the reason why customers messaged in the first place is because when it comes to online shopping people don't shop on websites. That's just where they transact now. But they're making decisions by what you're talking about, watching influencers, DMing folks, talking to friends, watching YouTube videos, TikToks.Kelsey:So you're basically piecing together all these different parties to figure out, should I buy this? What's the right thing for me? Whereas if you walk into a storefront, for example, you can get all of that figured out in a matter of minutes. You can talk to an associate, they're going to ask questions. Everything that you just described can happen there. There's nowhere like that online. And that's where messaging channels open up that opportunity for the brand to be part of that purchase decision process. So instead of leaving it up to all the third parties, the brand can do it themselves and they can scale it through these kinds of automated conversations.Stephanie:Very cool. And how do you go about setting up the responsive? Is it very custom based on the product? Like, do you work with a brand early on to be like, here's probably what they're going to ask you or they're telling you. What does that look like behind the scenes?Kelsey:We definitely curated a lot to the brand, a lot to the product type and to their customer demographic. So for example, Facebook recently published a case study of the work that we do with Wallow, which is a brand that sells titers, strollers. Basically goods for families and their kids. So they're really great products, but it's actually not so much about having a lot of skews. They don't have a ton of skews. It's more about why should somebody buy this Wallow stroller and how is it going to fit into their family and lifestyle?Kelsey:So essentially what we do is we'll work with them, look at the products that they sell and try to understand their customer type. In their case, a lot of their customers will buy for themselves, but there's a pretty good chunk that are gifting. So for example, the first question we ask is, is this for you and your family, or is this for a gift? Who are you gifting for? And then as customers answer these questions, we can speak to how it will fit into their lifestyle. How old is your little one? Are they eating solids yet or not?Kelsey:We don't actually need the customer to ask questions because by us asking questions first, we can preemptively answer how the value prop works for them. How it fits into their life. So we can say, "Well, they're eating solids is getting very messy. This high chair is very easy to clean." And so you're effectively accomplishing both along the way. It's basically just a really good sales conversation.Stephanie:Yeah. I mean, that's really smart and I think it's a different mindset where a lot of times, when you think about chatbots, the consumer has to initiate the conversation. Has to think of the questions. And it makes me even think about when I'm hiring... I'm trying to think what I was hiring. But they're like, "Oh, do you have any more questions?" And I'm like, "Well, what do people normally ask you? Like, what's the normal questions because I don't know what to ask you."Kelsey:What should I ask. Yeah.Stephanie:If I'm buying a house or whatever it is, what are the top 10 questions you get? And so that's great being like, we'll do all the work for you. Here's some of the questions that we know will start a conversation. So it's actually less work and less cognitive load. Where you can get to the end point and still leave being like, I know what I'm talking about now with this product.Kelsey:Exactly. That's 100% right. And it's actually a really classic UX design issue. Which is actually my original background. Basically, when it comes to any digital interface or any interface at all, if you don't know where you can go, you're not really likely to do it. You're not going to walk up to a pitch black tunnel and be like, "Yeah, I feel confident walking into that."Kelsey:That's like an open free from bot conversation or like you get on a customer support call and it's like, "What can we help with?" And you're like, "Well, depending on what I answer, what's the likelihood you'll have any idea what I'm asking?" It's not great. So we find that structuring and providing a really clear interface for the customers to navigate also makes a huge difference.Stephanie:We talked about this a lot on the show that shopping is moving to the edge. Everyone is shopping on Social, they're shopping on Amazon, Walmart it's everywhere and not always on the website anymore. Do you think that websites are going to become like a secondary thing, where it's like, yeah, it's a nice to have. But people are actually on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook. Going directly to Amazon, they're not really going to always go right to your website.Kelsey:That's exactly right. It's going the way of retail. And that's not to say it's going to go away. It's just that it's not the primary anymore. We see a website as like the catalog and it's a transacting location. In a lot of cases that's useful, but it's not necessary anymore. And we see that with how new sellers are starting today. Especially with COVID, everything accelerates so rapidly. But one of the really interesting trends is, you've got new shops opening up just with Instagram pages and saying, "Hey, DM me for this product and I'll send you a PayPal link."Kelsey:I think those kinds of very low tech indicators of the fact that that's where the market is heading. And, I think you're 100% right. The website's really not necessary. And there are tons of great antique shops I follow in New York that are doing just well without it.Stephanie:Yeah. That's cool. So what other trends are you seeing among sellers right now? Maybe anything new popping up and you're like, pre-COVID we actually weren't really seeing this and now there's a big trend to just opening an Instagram page and selling through DMs. What other things like that are you seeing?Kelsey:I think that's huge. I think that I'm really interested in these future QVC type of models. But that's just because I grew up watching those. I don't know, did you ever watched the knife show?Stephanie:I did not watch that, but.Kelsey:The show was wild.Stephanie:Well, there's a [crosstalk].Kelsey:I think it was on a lot when I was in college. We'd always end up like late night. The knife show would end up on at very late hour and it was just like, "Hey, here's some knives and we're just going to cut all sorts of stuff with these knives." Like the silliest thing. It was so funny, but-Stephanie:[crosstalk] the Blender show. It wasn't called the Blender show, but where they [crosstalk] random things in the blender and I'm like, [crosstalk].Kelsey:Exactly. The same kind of stuff.Stephanie:How much time do we have on our hands apparently?Kelsey:It was so silly. It was like cutting shoes and weird things like that. The humor of it, I think it was really fun. And I think that online, we're seeing a lot of that, like humor come into commerce in a way that I think it's really fun. And that's really what it should be. So I like things like that. But I do think that the new selling methods are probably what some of the most interesting things to me is just, what's the version of opening a store today versus before. And like the barrier to entry is just so low now. It's pretty phenomenal. So I'm excited for that.Stephanie:Yeah. Cool. And how do you advise brands to being proactive when it comes to starting conversations versus being reactive and just taking the inbound? Because if I'm thinking like, I'm a new brand, I don't have any inbound. What's the way to be proactive and like reach out to people with your product?Kelsey:What's really nice is that these channels are often first, which I think is really important for there to be a great customer experience. If we want these channels to succeed, if we want these brands to succeed, we need to make sure that we're being really mindful of the consumer. But what's really, really nice about Facebook Messenger while it is tough to work on another platform, play by someone else's rules sometimes, but there's a ton of great benefits there.Kelsey:And one of them is the acquisition funnel. So brands are currently running ads from Facebook and Instagram and stories, all those normal places. And all they have to do is set up the exact same ads, but they can change the destination of the ad click to open a messenger conversation instead of a website. And so we're able to say, "Hey, we're basically giving you a new ad type that you can leverage. It's going to drive to a higher converting destination." And there's no reason not to try that.Kelsey:Basically, it's a win-win from the standpoint of, it's really easy to test. We can guarantee traffic and make sure that we're properly vetting it and controlling the volume. And you can compare it one-to-one to your ads that go your website. So it makes it really easy for brands to get started. And it makes it easy for the consumers because they're doing what they don't normally do, which is click on ads. So that's the most common way to start.Kelsey:There are other ways of getting customers into the channel and you can do it with short links, with QR codes, we'll link from an email, a pop-up on your website. There's a lot of different methods there. And we have partners that do all of what I just described, but ads is a really common format because again, it's just a very seamless acquisition funnel.Stephanie:Cool. And is there anything that brands are doing right now in messenger or Instagram DMs, where you're like, that's actually the wrong way to do it? Anything that you would advise brands not to do or have seen things going wrong?Kelsey:Yeah, that's a great question. I think not doing anything at all is what I would say is the worst thing. Because, whether that's Instagram DMs and you're just not responding to the people that message you there, and that's a huge, lost opportunity. We understand that it's really hard to scale responding to people individually, which is why platforms like ours can help. But I'm just not doing anything, you're losing customers every time you don't respond to them because they want to engage with you directly for a reason.Kelsey:And every time they do that, there's an opportunity for that to become either a customer or a recurring customer. So let's say that's probably the worst, but in terms of actually doing things that are, are wrong, I don't like any of the spammy stuff and I don't like any of the things where it's not clear to the customer what's going to happen. Those are the things that I find frustrating, but in terms of how to do that, well, there's not as much going on with that anymore because Facebook really did crack down on some of it. So I'll say what I didn't like before was, there was a trend where there's an opt-in check box that you could put on your website that basically said, "I'm opting into Facebook Messenger with a business."Kelsey:And that's still something that you can use today, but at the time you could actually put it on your website pre-checked. Oftentimes customers wouldn't necessarily notice it or see that it was there or see that they had opted into something. But what was even worse was there were lots of sites that were putting them behind the scenes. So it wasn't actually visible on the page at all. So a customer would add something to their cart. And by submitting that add to cart, it was opting them into messages without them knowing it.Kelsey:And then they would get messages later if they abandoned their purchase that were like, "Hey, here's the 10% off. Here's a whatever go buy that thing you were looking at." Which inherently is not a bad workflow, but to do that without letting the customer know that's what's going to happen, really not great. I'd say that's the worst thing I've seen in this space, but you can't do that anymore. And I'm grateful for it.Stephanie:Yeah. Well, that's good. How do you keep up with the changes that Facebook's going through? Because it seems like they've been definitely on like a roller coaster where very popular. And then, I feel like they kind of went through a trough where it's like, does anyone use it anymore? And now I feel like it's growing again. Even among my friends, it's like people are using the groups now and Messenger.Kelsey:The groups are huge.Stephanie:That's the only reason I go on there for the most part, but how do you keep up with what they're even doing behind the scenes and how the buying groups on there just changing. And then coming back and then leaving, and then there on TikTok. How do you keep up with that?Kelsey:I think it could be really easy to get distracted or feel like that's very volatile. The approach that we've taken is actually just been to have our own point of view that is rooted in something just so fundamental that it doesn't matter what the policy changes are really. We won't be disturbed by them essentially. So we've looked at Facebook Messenger as a sales channel since day one of the business. And we've been around just over three years now. And of the platforms that were popping up at the time were MailChimps for Messenger, were abandoned cart notifications and things like that.Kelsey:And that is really easy to get disrupted by policy changes. But if you're fundamentally saying, this is a place where you can more effectively get a conversion from a customer and have a better experience for them. There's actually not a lot that that Facebook could do that would really interfere with that in a way. Unless they just fully said, "Hey, you can't actually use the API at all anymore." They just shut the API down. Then it'd be like, okay, fine. But even if that were to happen, the US market for messaging is inherently multi-channel.Kelsey:Messenger's not being first or last for us. It's going to be one of many. So, that's the way that we approach it as yes, we keep up with the trends. We are a platform partner, so we're pretty in tune with the roadmap and what's going to be happening there. And that's really important. The relationship is really important to make sure that you can prepare for your business. But at the end of the day, I think having a really just underlying fundamental platform approach to what we're doing, enables us to avoid a lot of the mishaps that we've seen affect other business models.Stephanie:Yeah. Cool. And you just mentioned like messaging is just the first, are there other areas that you feel like there's a lot of opportunity that brands can be selling in right now. Or maybe it's not even ready yet, but in the future it's coming down the pike.Kelsey:Yeah. I think anywhere where consumers and brands can have a direct conversation, you're going to see things evolve for that. And it might depend on the platform, if the platform is incentivized towards it or interested in it. Facebook supports this because they believe in messaging as the future of consumer behavior. It's something that's been around since the beginning of the internet, we've been chatting. I don't think that's going anywhere, but Facebook is also really highly motivated to monetize on it. And so, there's opportunity there.Kelsey:But would someone like discord do something like this? I'm not sure. I'm not sure if they're like motivated towards that or if that's part of the business that they want to be building. But I really do see that any messaging channel where you can have that kind of interaction, there's no reason not to produce a better shopping experience there and tried to scale that. It's kind of infinite, I think.Stephanie:I wonder if chatbots on websites, like native chatbots have muddied up a bit. Where it's like, we've all had that bad experience with a chatbot where they're talking and you're like, "Get away, get away. You're not going to be able to help me. I already know it Verizon, stop." [crosstalk]. I wonder if that has hindered the market, with certain people being open to buying via chat bot when they've had experiences that are subpar on maybe certain websites.Kelsey:At the start of these platforms opening up and these APIs opening up, you had people making bots left and right. And they were very low quality. It tarnished it a little bit. I think tarnished it a bit for the consumer and for the brands, because, when things opened up, brands started testing things and they weren't getting performance results. It wasn't their fault. It's really hard. It's like launching your first website and then not working super well. It's like, well, yeah, this is a totally new... It's where the start of websites existing. It's like, yeah, that's tough. It's tough to figure it out. It's a whole new learning curve.Kelsey:So I think that in terms of, what can happen there. It is very easy to tarnish their reputation, but again, it's not going anywhere. So as long as again, you have an opportunity to drive a better experience. You should keep iterating on that. And again, it's like if you have customers that are willing to do directly, it's always an opportunity to do better and to turn them into a better customer for you as well. There is also really huge difference between like the customer support experiences like that, and these types of sales experiences. I think there's a pretty clear line between the two and a lot of that depends on the customer's intent.Kelsey:If you're coming from an ad to shop driver, for example, you know that's what you're doing and you know that that's what you're being helped to do. And it's pretty straightforward. But if you're going in with any level of support need, there's a lot of opportunity to get that wrong. So it's really tough.Stephanie:Someone's already coming in with a heated mindset and one wrong word from chatbot. Ooh, I'm hot.Kelsey:Exactly.Stephanie:The one thing I think about too is the payment piece and how to make sure that customer journey is frictionless because even when I hear, Oh, some brands have a PayPal link, which I think is great. Or like an MVP, get something out there. And also, show there like, do I even know my PayPal login? Like, Oh, I don't know.Kelsey:Exactly.Stephanie:How do you think about, making the checkout experience frictionless where it's not a million different options and people know it's very be fast and easy.Kelsey:Currently we actually drive to check out on the brand site and we find that works really well because it's the trusted destination. You have all of the tooling and UI that you need to be able to have a good seamless checkout experience. And that works really well. Checkout is on our roadmap to be able to process that and manage that. And we won't be like a payment processor. We have partners we're talking to on end, but in terms of the checkout, there's a lot of ways to handle that.Kelsey:And I think that there's been so much best practice learned from mobile shopping as it is, that can be leveraged there. And there's also a ton of testing opportunities, but we really do look to... We're not trying to reinvent wheels here. Stephanie:That whole space is evolving so quick and just talking to the team at fast and continuing to be here and see what they're doing with the one-click checkout. I'm like, it seems like there's such an opportunity to have that right. In every form of like, you've got your cart already loaded in like your Instagram DM, and you can just hit checkout and all your payment information save and drop onto the next Instagram site.Kelsey:[crosstalk].Stephanie:There also seems like there's a good opportunity for Amazon there. I always look at all those Q&A sections, where it seems like how much time do I spend looking at toothpaste? Is it fluoride-free? It's for my kids, is it fluoride free? Does it not have this, that, that. All these questions, but I'm actually going through the whole product page for a thing of toothpaste so much time wasted. But it would be really nice to have a Messenger on there where you could just say, "Hey, does this have this and this?" Instead of me trying to zoom in on the ingredient list, or like, look at all the reviews for something that's like $6 or whatever it may be.Kelsey:Yeah, exactly. I hope Amazon's listening. They should come talk to us. We haven't seen anything quite like that, but we have talked to brands that sell on Amazon and we have done experiences in Messenger that link to Amazon product. That is something that we've experimented with before. And I think that you have to your point, why scroll through a million questions and answers that aren't necessarily relevant to you? And one might be, when you could just have the brand get to know you better and then tell you what you need to know.Stephanie:Yeah, exactly. So when you're first starting to work with brands who are implementing chatbots, what kind of metrics do you maybe advise them to look at to see if it's going well or not? Because a lot of people I could see being new to this, not even knowing like, well, what should I expect for conversion? Or like, what's good. What's bad. Like, how do you advise them around that?Kelsey:That's a great question. So first and foremost, and I think this is a little bit of what might have gotten wrong in the early days of the channel. Businesses care about performance. They care about conversions and CACs and return, and all those things. So, we want to make sure we're mapping to that because if you don't then at the end of the day, they're going to be worth your time if it's not performing on those metrics? Probably not. So first and foremost, we can own conversion rate. That's the KPI that we really truly measure against. Because essentially we're saying if you drive traffic here, instead of your website, it's more likely to convert. That's our thesis. And so if that's true, that's what we're going to start measuring against. And we'll do that by looking at what's your conversion rate from a standard click to site ad.Kelsey:So purchases you're getting out of link clicks. And then when you run a click to Messenger ad, we'll do the exact same thing. How many purchases are you getting out of those ad clicks? And that should be able to tell us if it's a higher converting channel for you. Fundamentally we've seen anywhere from 50% increases to 10X increases in one case and anywhere in between. So it's not abnormal for that to be the initial result. But then in terms of the other things like captain role, as they should benefit from that better conversion rate. It shouldn't be approached necessarily differently than any other conversion tests that you're running.Kelsey:That being said, we have a ton of insight into the full funnel that we can leverage to optimize. And so, all of our partners start with at least a three month program because we know it takes time to warm up and we want to make sure we can iterate. And we do that on a weekly basis. So you might start with X result in month one, by the end of month three, it should be much better. And so the way that we can do that is looking at everything from a customer clicks on an ad, they land into Messenger. Do they respond to the first message, which basically ops them into the channel?Kelsey:Are they completing like a quiz? If there's a quiz or personal shopper? Are they clicking on products back to the website? And then are they adding to cart? And then are they purchasing? So we have a slightly different funnel. You're going to get your ad performance from ads manager and see the link clicks and add to carts and purchases. Paloma is going to see everything in between. So we'll be able to know exactly where people are off and why. And be able to iterate on that much more efficiently than if it were traffic going to a website, where are they clicking? How are they browsing? There's like a ton of more opaque data from a website side. From our end we can literally just see, okay, you have too much drop-off on the first question. So let's not ask that question. Or, Hey, everybody is answering the same way to this one question, that doesn't need to be there.Kelsey:Or, people are clicking on the products. Maybe we need different product batches or whatever that may be. So we'll be able to get a lot more of a finer detail on that. And we have benchmarks for each. We expect our partners to get at least a 30% opt-in rate, maybe percent completion on any type of quiz or personal shopper experience. And then at least 50% of traffic clicking back to the website. And then from there add to carts and purchases depends on what they would normally expect to see. It's kind of a lengthy answer.Stephanie:It's good to know metrics like that to aim for. How do you plug into a brand's inventory system and then also make matches. That will be something that I want to look at. I can just imagine me going in there and not knowing what I ever want being like, "I want a picture." And then someone's showing me something and maybe like, "Oh, not that one." How do you guys personalize it and show something I want, but also make sure that you're not tapping into inventory, that's like out of stock.Kelsey:So we basically can ingest inventory into our system, keep that up to sync, keep that availability up to sync. And so anytime that we're building experiences, you're able to make sure that it's the right things getting shown. In terms of what to show customers based on their selections. We have this like start matching dynamic product matching system where basically the customer's responses get associated with the inventory.Kelsey:So all of your boots are associated with like a boot selection or all of your things that come and break colors would get associated with like bright colors. If you were asking about color preference. And some of these qualities are not things that would normally be tagged onto your inventory. So we're basically expanding on that. So we make the association between the two and as customers make the selections, we basically just filter down and display all the things that would then relate.Kelsey:So like Andy swimwear, for example, if you chose one pieces and some coverage and a lot of support, you're only going to see the products that, apply to all of those qualities. And it's really simple for us to create those. Something like that can take like 10 minutes to build, whereas a quiz to put on a website can cost thousands of dollars and take two months. And so, that's kind of part of the magic and secret sauce of our software.Stephanie:Yeah, that's cool. I was just thinking about, okay, to even create that kind of filtering and navigation options and all that can take a long time. And tagging it and making sure that it's actually can be searchable. And then if you can just have it in a DM or Messenger, that's great game changing.Kelsey:Yeah. It's really fun. It's a very simple, we have like own drag and drop interface to just jag product on to the selection options. They're tagged with that in the future. And then as customers answer, we just know what to show them.Stephanie:Cool. Where do you see the future of commerce headed or chatbots and commerce intersecting. What does that look like to you maybe three to five years down the road? Where do you hope it looks?Kelsey:Really, again, I like to look to what people are doing now when they're just starting out and also at other markets. So really in terms of the future of commerce, we believe very strongly that it's on messaging channels, that that is the next door front. And so, what does that look like? It's customers going to DMs, it's brands driving traffic to DMs and customers just getting much better shopping experiences there, converting there, checking out there. And new stores not having to even open up a website. Again, I don't think website's going to necessarily totally go away, but it's just going to be a smaller part of the puzzle. If you look at what's gone on in other markets like China with Weechat, they're way ahead of the game. And that works really, really well.Kelsey:And it's a huge chunk of the commerce ecosystem out there. So we've been a little bit slower to that, but it is happening. It's happening a little bit more multichannel, and I think that's really interesting and that's a really fun challenge is that, we don't have the monolith app that will do it all. We have a lot of [crosstalk] apps. I think it's great because everyone likes to have their own different way. We're always getting new social networks and apps out there and it's fun. It's really fun. So basically, I'm not sure how many different tools there will be in the future, but we very strongly believe that messaging is the next channel and destination for commerce to happen. And we're effectively building the platform to power that. Stephanie:That's great. It definitely begs the question about keeping things organized when you're selling on so many different channels. And there's probably going to be dozens of messaging platforms that people are using. I'm just imagining a brand, trying to keep up where, they go from selling on their website and then maybe dabbling in Amazon, maybe on Walmart. And then all of a sudden it's now, you can sell on Pinterest and Instagram and Facebook and TikTok. How do you think a brand would be able to keep up or do you see anything right now? Like any innovations that are allowing brands to organize everything in one central place that they can keep track of what they're doing?Kelsey:There are definitely a lot of interesting tools. I think that what comes before the tools are just the people, expertise. I think that's what we're seeing, services and agencies that will help with coordinating all of those things or know how to best launch on Amazon. And then once you've launched on Amazon and all these other places, then you go, okay, well now I have everything in too many places I need a more scalable system. And that's when you start seeing softwares get put in place. And I don't think any come to mind immediately, but I think there's some really great tools that are coming up to try to glue things together and basically to piece together, all the different supply chain and logistics issues.Kelsey:And there's some really great things out there for that. But we're also seeing new commerce platforms that are inherently taking those things in mind. So we have a lot of commerce players that exist that are trying to catch up and trying to add on these different channels. But then you have new players that are from day one saying, "We know it's not just about one place." So you've got things like, headless commerce and no code tools and platforms like Paloma that will from day one say, "Hey, this isn't just about a single source of shopping. It's about a lot of things."Stephanie:Yeah. I completely agree. All right, well, let's shift over to the lightning round. Lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce commerce cloud. I'll ask a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready? You look a little nervous. Wow.Kelsey:I don't know, that's scary. It's a little daunting.Stephanie:No, it'll be fun. It'll be fun. What one thing will have the biggest impact on e-commerce in the next year. I have a feeling you're say message shopping and Messsenger.Kelsey:Obviously messaging. I'll just be repeating myself a little bit, but I think messaging is a bit. It's already been exploding pretty quickly and it's growing faster than ever. We drove almost 9 million in partner revenue last year. And that's just as a small, early stage team, so there's a lot ahead of us.Stephanie:Yeah. That's cool. What, one thing do you not understand today that you wish you did?Kelsey:Just so many people things. I find people so fascinating. I'm constantly seeing how people chat, but I would just love to talk to people about their experiences with all of these experiences and with all these different kind of shopping channels. And, I think that it's not something that I don't understand. It's just something that I'm always eager to understand people's behaviors more. So that'd probably be it. [inaudible].Stephanie:What's up next on your Netflix queue?Kelsey:I am so behind, I need to watch Bridgeton and literally everything else. I've been doing a Buffy rewatch. So I'm just like living in a very different time.Stephanie:What is a book that has really left a very big impression on you? You're like, "I always think back to this book for either business or life."Kelsey:Oh, that is a great question. I'd say, well, what are the ones that comes to mind, it's Italo Calvino. [crosstalk] is the author. And basically, it's a person telling stories about visiting a lot of different cities. And when I was younger, I found that it was just... When you're reading, it's all about picturing what's going on. And as someone who, if you didn't grow up being able to travel a lot, it stuck with me. I was like, I want to be able to do that someday, but also just being able to picture it from a book is really, really nice. I still have like the images in my head of different passages from that.Stephanie:Oh, that's cool. All right. And then the last one, what's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Kelsey:Oh my gosh. I feel like people are so nice. What is the nicest thing anyone's ever done to me? Oh gosh, there's too many things.Stephanie:Wow. You must be a very... People are sending all this nice stuff you way. [crosstalk] people around you, can I have some?Kelsey:When you run a business, or when you start a business, it's all about getting help. That's the best way to be able to succeed is knowing what you don't know and how to get help. So I will say I'm very good at getting help, but what's like the biggest part of that is having people be really nice and great. And so, there are just a lot of people that have helped along the way that I literally would not be where I am without that. From little things like making the introductions, not everyone has access to the networks that you need. And so, the people that believed in me more than the business or more than anything else, that's really huge.Kelsey:And so, I've just got like some really great, great people that helped along the way. I can't pick a single thing, but I'd say like some of our investors, some of just the people I've worked with in the past and they're really just root for you. And will be there when you say, "I have no idea what I'm doing. How does this work?" Or, "I need some help."Stephanie:I thought so. Good answer. All right, Kelsey. Well, it's been a blast having you on the show. I love learning about Paloma and your story. Where can people find out more about you and Paloma?Kelsey:You can learn more about Paloma, getpaloma.com, G-E-T-P-A-L-O-M-A. And me I'm on Twitter, LinkedIn at Kelsey Hunter. I think it's usually Kelsey AH. So feel free to message me, check out the site, chat with us. We're always around.Stephanie:Amazing. Thanks so much.

Episode #50 Welcome back everyone! I hope you're having an amazing week so far. It's March 17th so Happy St. Patty's Day!  Today I wanted to discuss the importance of a creative reset. Essentially taking time off, which yes includes a social media detox, to not do, think, or react. All you're doing is, well nothing!  No phones, computers, or even listening to podcasts because the goal of this is to let your creativity rest. Just like we need to vacation or get out of the house, our brain and thinking process needs  a break from time to time. Especially as entrepreneurs, we are constantly creating, comparing, and launching 'that' next big thing. We see so much from competition online we're constantly trying to do it all & then some.  But, like everything else, if we don't ever take a break from creating & launching, we'll never have the real energy needed to scale our business.  That's what this episode is all about so let me know what you think in the review box! p.s. if you want to catch it on my IGTV head over to Instagram and give me a follow @carolinelewisinspire  p.p.s. if you're ready to scale your business BIG in 2021 and have taken the creative resets needed to realize you can't keep doing this alone, I encourage you to check out my latest DFY program called Aligned & Automated.  https://carolinelewisconsulting.com/alignedandautomated

John describes his harrowing survival of the snow storm that over took Texas that he decided took precedence over our last podcast. We also discuss the wave of violence against Asian-American's in the U.S. as well as White Fragility in Coca-Cola's diversity training. Essentially, it's a hot mess of opinions on these topics that should get you frustrated while listening.

Rip, roar and survive #105. Within Brim's Skin -- Brimstone is joined by his wing man Alex DaPonte as they discuss lots of things including why Miss Piggy may suffer the same fate as Pepe LePew and how cancel culture is getting overwhelmingly ridiculous. They discuss why Alex has a disdain for coffee, why food is life and where to get some. They discuss why Brim's dog Jasper is beyond spoiled and why deep faking photos and videos of young ladies is beyond inappropriate (and illegal). Essentially, he explains what gets Within Brim's Skin.

Immerse yourself in Granada, Spain before listening in on the conversation with the two co-founders of Sincerely, Spain. Claudia Neiman and Dani Norwell. In today's conversation, we talk about life in Spain, and we get real about the challenges of expat life.What drew today's two guests here is wildly different, although they're both from the US Midwest. Claudia Neiman and Dani Norwall are the Founders of Sincerely, Spain, a website where they share their experiences and insights on topics related to living abroad, language learning and culture in Spain. Dani called in from Granada, Spain, where she is based, while Claudia called from Finland, where she recently relocated after several years in Spain. Find Sincerely Spain On SincerelySpain.comOn InstagramOn YouTubeOn FacebookOn PinterestFind Dani Norwell, Author On InstagramDani's book Fairly Familiar Find Jess DruckerOn InstagramOn TwitterOn FacebookExpat Life CoachingHow To Move Abroad BookAdventure Calls PodcastAbout Adventure Calls Adventure Calls is produced, edited and written by me, Jess Drucker, a four-time expat, world-traveler and author of How To Move Abroad And Why It's The Best Thing You'll Do. Essentially a masterclass in book form, the book (available on Amazon in paperback and ebook) distills my 15 years' experience living abroad into 300 pages of practical step-by-step advice and inspiration for anyone looking to follow their own call to adventure. If you enjoy the show, please rate and review on Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts!

With the Bethesda deal now finalized, we discuss the impact of the acquisition and what the plan should be for Xbox going forward. Essentially, if we were Phil Spencer and Todd Howard, what would we do with Bethesda IPs going forward? Which games should stay multi-platform, and which ones should be exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem? We also discuss coming features to MLB the Show 21, as well as how we like to enjoy sports games in general. A summer show might be on the way for Xbox and Bethesda - what do we hope to see there, and how might this impact Xbox's involvement at E3? Finally, an Xbox employee hinted that there are games still unannounced that are coming in 2021 - what might they look like? Finally, we detail the newest releases for Xbox this week and answer community questions in our Fan Mail segment. ***Join our new DIscord channel*** https://discord.gg/gdFCRS92WZ Get all the latest Xbox news right here! Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel! Join our new forums today! Head over to https://forum.generationxbox.com/ now to sign up! Community Links: Website: https://generationxbox.com Email: mail@generationxbox.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/725468307840683/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Generationx_box Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/generationxbox

With the Bethesda deal now finalized, we discuss the impact of the acquisition and what the plan should be for Xbox going forward. Essentially, if we were Phil Spencer and Todd Howard, what would we do with Bethesda IPs going forward? Which games should stay multi-platform, and which ones should be exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem? We also discuss coming features to MLB the Show 21, as well as how we like to enjoy sports games in general. A summer show might be on the way for Xbox and Bethesda - what do we hope to see there, and how might this impact Xbox's involvement at E3? Finally, an Xbox employee hinted that there are games still unannounced that are coming in 2021 - what might they look like? Finally, we detail the newest releases for Xbox this week and answer community questions in our Fan Mail segment. ***Join our new DIscord channel*** https://discord.gg/gdFCRS92WZ Get all the latest Xbox news right here! Subscribe to our brand new YouTube channel! Join our new forums today! Head over to https://forum.generationxbox.com/ now to sign up! Community Links: Website: https://generationxbox.com Email: mail@generationxbox.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/725468307840683/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Generationx_box Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/generationxbox

Today we celebrate the man who introduced Europe to the Piggyback Plant - it’s now a popular houseplant. We'll also learn about the man who was an early evangelist for gardening and working with Mother Nature. We hear an excerpt from a book by a celebrated plantsman as he discusses a beloved snow gum tree. We Grow That Garden Library™ with a joyful book about permaculture. And then we’ll wrap things up with the colorful story about the Indiana State Flower and how the Zinnia lost to the Peony.   Subscribe Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher | iHeart To listen to the show while you're at home, just ask Alexa or Google to “Play the latest episode of The Daily Gardener Podcast.” And she will. It's just that easy.   The Daily Gardener Friday Newsletter Sign up for the FREE Friday Newsletter featuring: A personal update from me Garden-related items for your calendar The Grow That Garden Library™ featured books for the week Gardener gift ideas Garden-inspired recipes Exclusive updates regarding the show Plus, each week, one lucky subscriber wins a book from the Grow That Garden Library™ bookshelf.   Gardener Greetings Send your garden pics, stories, birthday wishes, and so forth to Jennifer@theDailyGardener.org   Curated News Designing a Pollinator Habitat: Four Things to Consider | Story | The Xerces Society Facebook Group If you'd like to check out my curated news articles and original blog posts for yourself, you're in luck. I share all of it with the Listener Community in the Free Facebook Group - The Daily Gardener Community. So, there’s no need to take notes or search for links. The next time you're on Facebook, search for Daily Gardener Community, where you’d search for a friend... and request to join. I'd love to meet you in the group.   Important Events March 15, 1754 Today is the birthday of the Scottish surgeon, botanist, and naturalist Archibald Menzies. Now there's a famous story about Archibald that goes something like this: One time, Joseph Banks sent Archibald on an expedition. At some point, Joseph ended up dining with the leadership of the country of Chile. Archibald was served nuts from the Chilean Pine Tree during the meal, and these nuts were featured as part of an elaborate dessert for this grand meal that Archibald enjoyed. As Archibald is sitting there, he begins to eat some of these nuts. But then, his inner-botanist took over, and Archibald realized that the nuts were actually large seeds. And so, Archibald does what any good botanist would do: he tucks five of the nuts in his pocket. And then, on his way back to England, Archibald planted the five seeds and started growing the Chilean Pine Tree right there on the ship. And guess what? He ended up growing them successfully. Now, once these trees started growing in England, they became known by a new common name when people started calling them the Monkey Puzzle Tree - because someone remarked that even a monkey would not be able to climb the Chilean Pine Tree. And as a result of this, Archibald became known as the Monkey Puzzle Man. Now today, sadly, Monkey Puzzle Trees are considered endangered. But like Archibald, gardeners still attempt to grow these curious trees from seed, and if you're fortunate, you can find those seeds online. Now another plant that Archibald discovered is the Piggyback Plant. Today, this is a popular houseplant, and its botanical name is Tolmiea menziesii in honor of Archibald Menzies. You may be wondering how it got the common name, the Piggyback Plant, which I think is an adorable name that is inspired by the way this plant grows. It turns out that Piggyback Plants develop buds at the base of each leaf where it meets the stalk. Then the new plants basically piggyback off the parent leaf, which forces the stem to bend down to the ground under the weight of that new plant, and the new baby Piggyback Plant can take off from there. Now because of its growing habit, Piggyback Plants are perfect for hanging baskets. And they really do make excellent houseplants because they like indirect light and partial shade. Online, I noticed that the Piggyback Plant is compared to the Strawberry Begonia because they both have attractive foliage, and they are super easy to propagate - which makes them a double win in my book. Anyway, happy heavenly birthday to Archibald Menzies - and thank you for the Monkey Puzzle Tree and the Piggyback Plant.   March 15, 1858  Today is the birthday of the American horticulturist and botanist who co-founded the American Society for Horticultural Science, Liberty, Hyde Bailey, who was born on this day, March 15th in 1858.   We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Liberty Hyde Bailey. He is responsible for starting so many things, including the 4-H movement, the nature study movement, parcel post, and even making sure that electricity got into rural parts of America. He truly was a pioneer. Looking back, it's actually rather staggering to reflect on Liberty Hyde Bailey’s work.  Luckily for us, we’re able to get a clear picture of his activity because he was such an excellent writer. Liberty had some tremendous mentors in his life. First, he served as a research assistant to the great Asa Gray at Harvard in his herbarium, and he worked with Asa for over two years. Between being at Harvard and regularly working with Asa, he got the finest horticultural education and experience that a person could get in the late 1800s in the United States. After Harvard, Liberty went on to work in New York. Specifically, he served as the Department Chair for Horticulture at Cornell University. And if you recall studying genetics, learning about  DNA, genes, and Mendel in middle school, that is due to Liberty Hyde Bailey. This is because Liberty evaluated what Mendel had done, and he realized that it was genuinely revolutionary work. Essentially, Liberty plucks Mendel out of obscurity and puts him in a place of honor - a spot Mendel so clearly deserved. Now, if you're having trouble remembering what Mendel accomplished, here’s a quick little primer. Mendel discovered the basic principles of heredity, and he did that by working with peas in his garden at an Augustinian monastery in Burno, in the Czech Republic. Over the course of seven years, Mendel grew nearly 30,000 pea plants. As he grew the peas, he documented everything about them - jotting notes about their height and shape and color, and all of this work resulted in what we now know as the laws of heredity. In fact, it was actually Mendel who came up with the genetic terms and the terminology that we still use today - like dominant and recessive genes. Mendel is a fascinating person to talk about with kids who are interested in gardening because he really was, at heart, a gardener. Mendel grew so many plants and took such pains to document everything about them; that’s a great story to share with any young gardeners that you may be working with this year. Anyway, back to Liberty Hyde Bailey. There was an excellent book that was written in 2019 that revived Liberty’s best essays, and it was edited by two men named John: John Stepien and John Linstrom. These two men pulled together Liberty’s writings which reveal a man who was a passionate evangelist for gardening. Indeed, Liberty loved gardening, and he wanted everyone else to love gardening, too. In fact, one of his famous quotes is that “Every family can have a garden.” This quote reminds me of the little phrase from the movie Ratatouille, “Everyone can cook.”  Now, before I share a few more of Liberty's great quotes, I just wanted to read to you what the publisher said about Liberty's work. “Liberty Hyde Bailey built a reputation as the father of modern horticulture. And an evangelist for what he called the “garden sentiment,” the desire to raise plants from the good earth for the sheer joy of it, and for the love of the plants themselves.” Here are a few wonderful garden quotes that Liberty wrote. “If a person cannot love a plant after he has pruned it, then he's either done a poor job or is devoid of emotion.”  And here's one of my favorites. "A person cannot love a plant after he has pruned it, then he has either done a poor job or is devoid of emotion." When I read that quote, it reminded me of my relationship with Creeping Charlie. A few summers ago, it was driving me crazy, and then I found a way to change my mindset around it -  kind of like the way I ended up making peace with the rabbits in my garden. Somehow, I managed to reframe my thinking around Creeping Charlie, and I really think it all boiled down to learning about its medicinal qualities and how it was used and valued in gardens in the 1700s and 1800s. Now, I have one more additional quote by Liberty Hyde Bailey that I thought would be a great one to wrap up the segment on botanical history today, and it's a little verse that he wrote about spring. Yesterday the twig was brown and bare; Today the glint of green is there; Tomorrow will be leaflets spare; I know no thing so wondrous fair, No miracle so strangely rare. I wonder what will next be there!   Unearthed Words One of my favorite trees in the Hillier Gardens and also popular with visitors, especially children, was the snow gum from the Australian Alps of New South Wales. Planted small from a pot in 1962, it had achieved a height of around 19 feet with several branches but had a distinct lean, enabling small children to sit astride its lower stem. Its exfoliating bark exhibited several shades of green, creamy-white, and silvery-gray, which I used to liken to the skin of a python. It was also solid and cool to the cheek, especially so on a hot summer's day. On one occasion, I introduced a group of partially-sighted visitors to this tree, encouraging them to stroke or hug the stem and to listen to the sound of the scimitar-shaped, leathery leaves shaking in the breeze. It was a special moment for them and me. Nearby grew a tall-stemmed Apache pine... The pine is today [a champion tree] while the snow gum, despite being supported, eventually blew down in a gale. — Roy Lancaster, My Life with Plants, Chapter: Spreading My Wings   Grow That Garden Library Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway This book came out in 2009, and the subtitle is A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture.  Now, this book is one of my favorites. It truly is a garden classic, and I think it belongs in every Gardner's home library. Today most of us have had a decent amount of exposure to permaculture. But back in 2009, it still was a novel topic for many gardeners. Now the principle that is underlying every page of Gaia's garden is this: working with nature and not against her results in more beautiful, abundant, and forgiving gardens. I remember thinking the first time I read this book that Toby is such a joyful gardener - and this comes through on every page. That's why this book still remains a book that I recommend to beginning gardeners - as well as established gardeners — looking to refine and hone their gardening skills. Gaia's Garden shares everything you need to know to create a beautiful backyard ecosystem. And if you started gardening in 2020 during the pandemic, and you'd like to learn more about permaculture, Toby's book is a must-have. And I just have to share that one of my favorite garden experts, Robert Kourik, said this about Toby's book, “Permaculture gardens are no longer a thing of the future. They are here to stay and flourish. Gaia's Garden is enlightening and required reading for all people who desire to make their home landscape healthy, sustainable, and healing — and that perfectly encapsulates Toby's book.”  This book is 313 pages of a garden classic, introducing best practices in gardening — working with mother nature to strengthen and sustain ecosystems in your own backyard. You can get a copy of Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway and support the show using the Amazon Link in today's Show Notes for around $17   Today’s Botanic Spark Reviving the little botanic spark in your heart March 15, 1957 It was on this day that the peony became Indiana's fourth state flower. The story of how the peony became selected as the state flower of Indiana is actually rather quite interesting. Apparently, the fine people of Indiana had initially considered the Zinnia for the honor, but when that was struck down, they started talking about the bloom of the redbud. But then that caused a ruckus because people could not figure out whether the redbud was a flower or a tree, or a shrub. This is when a young, distinguished member of the Indiana legislature in Indiana named Lawrence Baker, who happened to be a peony grower, suggested the peony. And that is how the peony ended up on the ballot. Now in 2016, the Daily Journal wrote an excellent article, and it was called “Indiana State Flower has a  Colorful Past.”I thought you would get a kick out of it.  The Indiana legislature has adjourned for another year. It was a turbulent session. But at least the lawmakers did not have to grapple with the thorny issue of the State Flower. It was March of 1957 that Governor Handley signed a bill, which designated the peony as the official State Flower of Indiana. The act surprised a lot of Hoosier's suddenly uprooted was the reigning State Flower, the Zinnia. What followed was quite a tempest in a flower pot. It is a tale that smells of intrigue, and the garden editor of the Indianapolis Star blamed the flower switch on a “small cult of Zinnia-haters. Perhaps a little history is an order. Every state in the union has an official flower, from the Camillia and Alabama to the Indian Paintbrush in Wyoming. Back home in the Hoosier state. We can't seem to make up our minds. In 1913 we picked the carnation. Ten years later, we favored the tulip tree blossom. Then, in 1931, lawmakers gave the nod to the Zinnia. Motives for these changes seem to be lost in the midst of time. There appears to have been a trade-off in 1931 when we dropped the tulip tree blossom as the state flower. In that same year, the tulip poplar became the official state tree. That probably salved the hurt feelings of tulip blossom fans. Zinnia lovers were caught off guard when the flower switch came in 1957. The director of the Farm Bureau pet and hobby clubs put up a protest. “We have 650 clubs with about 10,000 members,” she complained, “and one of our projects for years has been to provide the children with Zinnia seeds to grow. Imagine the children growing peonies!” Officials at Indiana National Bank already had ordered huge amounts of Zinnia seeds to be given out at the Indianapolis Home Show that year. They could not cancel that order, so they carried on. Now, if you're a Zinnia lover, you'll be happy to know that Indiana's Zinnia fans did not go down without a fight. They began a letter-writing campaign for newspapers all around the state. In fact, a woman named Meredith Haskett felt compelled to wax poetic about the switch. Somehow the men seem quite impelled The Zinnia to discard  As Indiana's flower and  I think they should be barred.  From making further boo-boos;  I'd fire them all, perhaps —   If I could have my say. I'd probably call them saps  For spending time and money To make the Peony queen;  She lasts a day or two in the spring — That’s all — no more she’s seen. Indiana is a proud state, Colorful and strong And sturdy as a Zinnia; Somebody’s done her wrong.   Thanks for listening to The Daily Gardener. And remember: "For a happy, healthy life, garden every day."

It's '15 Minutes To Action' time again, and in this edition, Nick talks about the true meaning behind M & A - the general term used to describe consolidation of companies or assets through various types of financial transactions, and why this might be the right path for your business. KEY TAKEAWAYS Mergers and acquisitions hold different meanings. They are often used interchangeably but they are not the same. Essentially when a company takes over another and establishes itself as the new owner, this is an acquisition. Mergers occur when two companies of approximately the same size join forces to move forward as a new, single entity. Consolidation occurs when one entity is formed by combining core businesses and abandoning the old corporate structures that can exist from the previous entities. Tender offers is when one company offers to purchase the outstanding stock of a firm at a specific price, rather than at market price. BEST MOMENTS  'I think it's good to get into that detail so that you can see how it works' 'They agree that bringing the businesses together is going to be a better thing all round' 'Ultimately speaking, I am taking ownership - I am taking control' 'It's the whole idea of the one-plus-one-equals-three' VALUABLE RESOURCES Scale Up Your Business – scaleup.vip/podcast Join the free Scale Up Your Business community: scaleup.vip/community Take the Six Peaks of Value Creation Scorecard, to measure your current business performance and show you where to focus to get to where you want to be: https://scaleup.vip/sixpeaks          ABOUT THE HOST My name is Nick Bradley. I’m an entrepreneur, author, speaker and investor. My background is in growing and scaling VC and Private Equity backed businesses. Having successfully built, bought and sold a number of companies, and removed myself from day-to-day operations, my focus now is on helping entrepreneurs get to where they want to be, in business and in life. As well as investing in growth businesses and backing turnarounds - with the ultimate aim of creating value from significant capital events. I’m passionate about personal and professional development - showing up and being the best version of myself ... every day. My bigger vision is to help bring entrepreneurial skills, experience and mindset to people in developing nations - so they can follow their dreams, live life more on their terms - utilising entrepreneurship as a global force for good. CONTACT METHOD Nick’s Facebook Page: https://scaleup.vip/FB   Nick’s LinkedIn: https://scaleup.vip/LI   Nick's Instagram: https://scaleup.vip/IG   Scale Up Your Business website: www.suyb.global See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's one of the most famous, yet thinly plotted episodes in 7th Heaven's history, what can really be said? Essentially, that Eric is out of control and Ruthie is Bean Daughter. Also, Greg's cat Dany makes a special guest appearance!This week we drank:Some Riesling we can't remember the name of. No particular reason we can't remember, really!

If you’re new to real estate syndication, you may be surprised it’s been around for decades.  Simply put, this was crowdfunding, before the term came in vogue!  Essentially real estate syndication is where like-minded investors can pool their capital together to jointly invest in real estate opportunities.  One of the earliest and most famous examples of real estate syndication came in 1961, when 3300 investors bought individual parts of the Empire State Building for $10,000 apiece. On today’s episode, internist and founder of The Real Estate Physician, Dr. Cherry Chen answers your questions on real estate syndication, and why this may be the best example of building passive wealth through real estate for the busy clinician. The Real Estate Physician - a physician-forward resource empowering financial futures through commercial real estate investments. https://www.TheRealEstatePhysician.com ____ Now on Amazon!  The Positioned Physician:  Earn More, Work Smart, and Love Medicine Again, 2nd Edition: Updated with over 50 pages of new content including  new chapters on goal setting, mindset, and sales strategies for a successful online business! https://www.amazon.com/Positioned-Physician-Updated-Smart-Medicine/dp/B08QFBMWCY