Podcasts about so jon

When the evaluators have finished your proposal, you want them to turn to each other and say: they're brilliant, we should go with them – and to have a clear, consistent view of “why” that is. And then on to the pitch… Jon quotes the CEO he's worked with many times, who always comments: I want to walk into the presentation first of three, not one of three.” Obliviously the proposal and presentation need to align. Jon shared a story of a pitch from his days in procurement many years ago, where there was no mention of the key part from the proposal. At the end of the presentation, he asked the first question: “Thank you. That was great. I just wondered how you were going to achieve the commitment in the last line of your executive summary.” And the bidding team looked panicked, as they turned to the relevant page and saw: “We guarantee that, if you choose us, you will achieve your 30% reduction in total cost of ownership target”. So preparation and rehearsal are key. As Jon says: “I'm at my most spontaneous when I'm at most prepared.” And this is even more important in the middle of a pandemic, when presentations are online. Jon quoted one of his good friends, a brilliant proposal professional called Nigel Hudson, who observed recently that it's now more a case that: “People buy from people they know, like… and have never met.” How important is it to have a no bid policy and qualifying out? Rob shared a story where, out of the blue, he received an RFP for a large company they wanted to secure. But they had no relationship. They took the tough decision to no bid when access to economic buyers was denied. After he and his team had explaining the rationale, they opened up access and within a few weeks won the contract. When you no bid it can create panic in the buyers! Jon entirely agrees. It's important not to chase deals where you have no realistic chance of success. But a flaw in most “bid / no bid” processes is that they never really think through how a “no bid” could be done well – to enhance your credibility with the customer. Final insight on renewal proposals, in the current market: It's worth asking yourself whether buyers really want to go through the painful tender and change process at the moment. Gathering the stakeholders together remotely to agree requirements, evaluate proposals. Implementing new solutions in the middle of a pandemic if it's not strictly necessary to do so. So Jon argues that where you're the incumbent, with a contract that's due to expire (say) this time next year, you need to paint a picture for the client of what it will look like if we continue to stay friends – and thus avoid them going to competitive tender? The most successful bid teams are spending more and more effort on renewal proposals, not waiting for RFPs to land. Key takeaways: · The need to know whether this is business you actual want? Qualify, qualify, qualify. · The need for a compelling story: frame it first so you are people they want to go with. · Take the Spice Girls approach to proposals – give the customer what they want, what they really, really want! If you have found this podcast valuable, please review, re-share and pass onto a work colleague or someone within your network whom it could help at this stage of their career. To discover exclusive content for our community, go to https://www.enterprisesalesclub.com.

So Jon apparently has some really bad takes. Mike North and Jon Jansen agree that Jerry West is a top 5 Laker, Jon thinks Kurt Warner is overrated, gets crushed for saying that and then the two give out their picks for today! Mike North - @North2North Jon Jansen - @jjansen34

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.

Tractors are working ground in the Sacramento Valley, as the 2021 rice season is underway. Whether it’s farmers, those in cities or for the environment, this year will pose challenges due to less than ideal rain and snowfall during the fall and winter. At Montna Farms near Yuba City, Vice President of Operations Jon Munger said they expect to plant about one-third less rice this year, based on water cutbacks. As water is always a precious resource in this state, rice growers work hard to be as efficient as they can. Fields are precisely leveled and will be flooded with just five-inches of water during the growing season. Rice is grown in heavy clay soils, which act like a bathtub to hold water in place. High-tech planting and harvest equipment also help California rice farms and mills operate at peak efficiency. Expectations of less rice acreage will impact other parts of the valley – rural communities, allied businesses and the environment – birds and fish. “The Central Valley is arguably one of the most important waterfowl areas on the planet,” remarked Jeff McCreary, Director of Operations for Ducks Unlimited’s Western Region. “It’s because of all of these birds coming down the Pacific Flyway… and when we think about the drought, it’s going to affect that wintering habitat. Is there rice on the landscape? Is there water for wetlands? How do we make sure that those populations are in as good enough condition that when they go back to the breeding ground, they can have a successful year.” McCreary said rice fields are critically important for wintering waterfowl, supporting 60 percent of the food energetics these birds need.  He said of all of the duck species, the Mallard is perhaps the most impacted by dry weather in California. Another environmental concern during dry weather is the wild salmon population, which faces significant challenges.  However, farmers, water districts, conservationists and others are working hard to find solutions. “The salmon rice work is among the most exciting work I’ve ever been a part of, “said Andrew Rypel, an associate professor and the Peter B. Moyle and California Trout Chair in Coldwater Fish Ecology at UC Davis in the Department of Wildlife, Fish & Conservation Biology. Rypel is one of the key participants in pilot salmon research, including raising juvenile salmon in winter rice fields, then releasing the fish into the ocean. So far, results with the project have been very positive. Another key project to help salmon is putting a shallow amount of water on rice fields in the Sacramento Valley after harvest, which creates “fish food”- zooplankton – which is then released into the river to help feed wild salmon runs. Water managers always have a balancing act to meet the needs of their customers, and dry years provide even more careful consideration.  Lewis Bair, General Manager of Reclamation District 108 in the Sacramento Valley, is one of those navigating through this dry year, which includes creative approaches with water, including the likelihood of transfers. “In a dry year, our folks would still love to farm, just like they always love to farm,” he said. “But in these types of years, we end up kind of sharing the pain by doing water transfers. Sometimes, it’s better to move water around for the whole system. You end up being able to achieve other benefits. It really is a short-term solution. We need to have a more reliable water supply for California, and I’m hoping that the long-term vision and long-term investments will help reduce the need for those sorts of transfers.” Bair said building Sites Reservoir would be a major help to the state’s water future, providing new storage and flexibility to re-operate the system for water use efficiency. “I think it’s the most promising thing we can do from an infrastructure perspective,” he added. Munger, McCreary, Rypel and Bair all have different responsibilities, but they share a common goal- to help our region withstand dry years, including a healthy ecosystem and sufficient water for cities and farms. They all agree that the level of cooperation is great in the Sacramento Valley, as evidenced by the scores of voluntary, collaborative projects that have been done to help maintain the Pacific Flyway and enhance the wild salmon runs. Episode Transcript Jim Morris: Tractors are in the field and work is underway to prepare ground throughout the Sacramento Valley for rice planting. An old challenge has returned, one we faced in the past, that will impact virtually all Californians. The question before us, how to navigate through a dry year with subpar rain and snowfall? Jim Morris: Welcome to Ingrained, the California Rice Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Morris, proud to have worked with California farmers and ranchers for more than 30 years to help tell their stories. Over that time, there have been years of abundant water and dry years, which provide challenges, and this is one of those years. I'm in the Yuba City area, one of many areas of our valley where fields are being prepped for rice planting. Jon Munger is with Montna Farms. John, what's happening out here today? Jon Munger: Today we're starting our field prep with chiseling. It is opening the ground up. It's the first piece of equipment that we use since the rice fields have been flooded for the wintertime. Jim Morris: Jon, looking at it from a longer-term perspective, what are your thoughts as you are going to enter your very busiest time of the year? Jon Munger: Over the years, we've had many dry years. We've dealt with a COVID pandemic and, like we did last year, we quickly implemented the policies to keep all of our workers safe in the field and our workers that we have here, they're spread out quite well. They're driving their own tractors and we implemented policies last year that worked very well to keep everybody safe and we're planning to do the same this year. So, it's no different now rolling into the drought that we're currently facing. We've had dry years in the past. We always will get through them. It does affect our local rural communities. A lot of folks depend on the farming activities that we have out here. For our farm, we're looking at potentially growing a third less of our acres this year and that's definitely an impact. Jim Morris: One thing people may not know about rice is of course we have this season coming up, the harvest will be in the fall, but rice is stored and milled according to order essentially year round. So Jon, tell me a little bit about how rice is milled and marketed right now and what it means for the consumer. Jon Munger: Each and every year during harvest rice is delivered to many different dryers throughout the valley. It is then dried and stored until millers and marketers make orders, and then rice is shipped onto mills and milled and shipped out there to whatever buyer or whatever location it's going to. Last harvest crop 2020 is being stored and will be used all the way through this year. Then come this fall, the 2021 crop will go back into storage and will be used in during the year of 2022. Jim Morris: That really helps in a year like this because there is rice, it's already in storage, it's already going to be shipped to consumers at home and abroad. So that helps us during dry years like this. Jim Morris: It's important when looking at a dry year to talk with someone who manages water on a daily basis. Lewis Bair is general manager of Reclamation District 108 on the West side of the Sacramento River, about 30 miles north of Sacramento, and they represent about 75 square miles of agricultural land and rural communities. Lewis, how does your job change during a dry year? Lewis Bair: Most of it stays the same. I mean, watershed management is a long-term vision, a long-term exercise in how you manage water. But, during a dry year, a lot of people are interested in that and the impacts are more severe because we don't have enough water to go around. So, I do a lot of education during these years to explain the reasons why we're making the trade-offs that we're making with water management. There are things that we do to help spread the water around a little bit more during these dry years. Jim Morris: The decisions made in a dry year aren't always easy. You obviously want to make sure that the needs of your district are as whole as they can be, but will you also try to reach out and help some of your neighbors, if that's possible? Lewis Bair: In a dry year, our folks would still love to farm just like they always love to farm, but, in these types of years, we ended up kind of sharing the pain by doing water transfers. Sometimes it's better to move water around with those transfers for the whole system. You end up being able to achieve other benefits. It really is, though, a short term solution, right? We need to have a more reliable water supply for California and I'm hoping that the long-term vision and long-term investments will help reduce the need for those sorts of transfers. Jim Morris: How helpful would Sites Reservoir be if it can be constructed and available down the road? Lewis Bair: Well, Sites Reservoir does something that climate change is kind of unwinding right now, right? So climate change means water, more precipitation as opposed to snowfall. What happens with that is we lose our storage over winter. Sites Reservoir is kind of perfectly situated in the middle of the system to provide both some new storage and some flexibility to re-operate the system. So, you can kind of think about it as a storage and a water use efficiency project rolled into one. I think it's the most promising thing we can do from a infrastructure perspective. Jim Morris: The Sacramento Valley is a unique place and one of the ways it is, is the Pacific Flyway and the amazing wildlife we have. There's also really an emphasis on helping salmon, too. How important is it from a water management perspective but also for someone who lives here to try to help the ecosystem as much as possible? Lewis Bair: I think it's super exciting right now because we have a long-term vision for the Sacramento Valley that I think supports a reliable water supply, a healthy environment, and an economy for the State of California. It's really dependent on that reliable water supply. So, in the Sacramento Valley, what that means is taking a look at what impacts some of the flood control system and water supply system development created. It impacted species and those species impacts are affecting water supply. What's exciting is that we found out we can unwind some of those flood control impacts. We can restore those floodplains that are really the energy that kind of fueled our amazing environment in the Sacramento Valley. So if we can do that, I think we have a very positive outlook for the future. Jim Morris: This isn't something that happened yesterday. I mean, these things have been in works for many years with millions of dollars behind them. So how long has this been an area of dedication and how important is it to you personally as well, to try to have the best environment we can here? Lewis Bair: Well, I think everybody loves the Sacramento Valley up here. Everybody is super excited. Two decades ago, we started with the bird programs and that's really what I think woke folks up here in the Sacramento Valley, that these wetlands are so important to kind of fueling our environment. We've seen now that that applies to fish too, and that's really the door that's been opened, that's changing things for water supply reliability. The floodplains that were separated from the river when we constructed our flood control system, we now believe they're extremely critical to restoring the fisheries. If we can restore the fisheries, that sure takes a lot of pressure off of the water supply system. Jim Morris: Throughout the Sacramento Valley over the last 20 years, there have been about 155 different projects that have voluntarily been done cooperatively to aid salmon. One of the interesting ones here in Reclamation District 108 that may be happening again later this year, hopefully, is getting some water on the floodplain to provide fish food. Can you comment a little bit about that? It's a really interesting concept, but perhaps even more valuable this year than normal because of the dry year. Lewis Bair: Yeah, so historically we built a flood control system and drainage systems that essentially kept water from staying on the land long enough to produce food, phytoplankton, that we all hear that fish eat. But what we've learned is that the rice fields that we farm in work perfect during those winter months to hold water. So, we have a program where we will flood and hold water, produce phytoplankton and drain that back to the river to help support the fishery. This can also be done on the floodplains in the bypasses. So it's really an exciting program. We think fundamentally it's one of the biggest things affecting juvenile salmon out migration. Jim Morris: One thing that is clear in the Sacramento Valley is the collaboration that's happening between agriculture and the environment, communities, water districts. How important is that approach in a year like this? Lewis Bair: Well, it's super exciting. We have so many talented partners that are coming together to push forward on these floodplain efforts, at the fishery efforts. It's really wetlands with birds and the fisheries. So we have NGOs, state and federal partners, local water agencies, and landowners all on the same page and driving this forward. I think it's the kind of partnership that's going to make change in the Sacramento Valley. Jim Morris: The environment is an important part of the Sacramento Valley, and there are some challenges heading into this dry year. Jeff McCreary heads up the Western Region for Ducks Unlimited and Jeff, before we get into that, a milestone for Ducks Unlimited with 15 million acres conserved throughout North America. That's awesome news. Can you comment a little bit about that? Jeff McCreary: Yeah, Jim, it's fantastic. The 15 million acre mark is a remarkable achievement for the Ducks Unlimited family of organizations, that includes Ducks Unlimited Incorporated here in the United States, Ducks Unlimited Canada and DU de Mexico, which covers Mexico. So we've got from Los Mochas, Mexico to Yellowknife, Canada and everything in between has been conserved, whether it's protected, restored, improved up to the 15 million acre mark. We're just really proud to be able to celebrate that with our partners and our members and our volunteer leadership. Jim Morris: That is awesome. We are heading into a dry year. We're going to need all of those skills. You're a wildlife biologist. What are some of your thoughts heading into this dry year? Your concerns about waterfowl health in the Sacramento Valley. Jeff McCreary: Well, Ducks Unlimited takes a continental approach to waterfowl conservation, and, when we look at the Pacific Flyway, we think about where are the birds coming from, where are they going to, and then where are they going back to? So, they're coming from Canada and the breeding grounds, and they're coming to California for the winter. The Central Valley is arguably one of the most important waterfowl areas in the planet, and it's because of all these birds coming down to the Pacific Flyway here in the Central Valley, in this narrow band of habitat that is comprised of wetlands and agricultural working grounds. When we think about the drought, it's going to affect that wintering habitat. Is there rice on the landscape? Is there water for wetlands. How do we make sure that those populations are in as good enough condition that, when they go back to the breeding ground, they can have a successful year? Jeff McCreary: The remarkable thing about waterfowl is that they have a large clutch sizes, like up to 12 eggs, so they can be responsive to the good times and the bad times. Our job this year is to make sure that they're in good enough condition in these bad times so that when the good times come around, they'll be able to respond and grow at their population. Jim Morris: So as we head into this year, how important are rice fields in this equation when you talk about ducks along the Pacific Flyway? Jeff McCreary: Rice fields are critically important for the wintering population of waterfowl. They support 60 percent of the food energetics that waterfowl need during the winter. Now, rice and wetlands have this interplay. So the birds move back and forth between both types of habitats, but with rice, what we are doing now with our planting, we're getting ready to get out in the fields and get the rice planted, so that's really going to drive how much energetics is out there in eight months from now. Jim Morris: Are rice fields more important than a drought time? About the same? Do you have a thought on that? How much do we need rice to keep the population healthy? Jeff McCreary: Well, we certainly need rice to keep the population healthy and ducks are just one of the waterfall guilds that we have. Of course, geese and white-fronted geese are growing in numbers and so rice certainly play an important role for those birds as well. When we look at the Sacramento Valley, wetlands and rice agriculture use the exact same water infrastructure and water delivery system the rest of the valley uses. So, it's important to look at both wetlands and rice as a whole unit, because the water comes from the same place. Jim Morris: Is there one duck species in particular that is especially dependent on the Sacramento Valley habitat? Jeff McCreary: Yeah, I'd say the iconic California bird is the Mallard, and over the last 10 years and the last 10 year drought, we saw significant declines in the California Mallard population, nearly by half from what it was. We went from 400,000 to somewhere around 200,000 birds. If you drew a graph of that and you paralleled that graph with the graph of the water years, you would see this decline over time. In the last several years where we had some better water years, we've actually seen an increase in the Mallard population. So that's a concern going forward. Jim Morris: How important are the partnerships between rice growers and conservation groups like Ducks Unlimited? Jeff McCreary: The partnerships are everything. Ducks Unlimited never does anything by ourselves. It's always with somebody else, whether it's a grower or whether it's with an association or whether it's with a federal or state or local agency. Everything that we do is by partnership. In times like these, when drought and stress is going to be out there, it's all that much more important for stakeholders to come together and find those innovative entrepreneurial solutions to deal with some of these challenges that we're facing. Jim Morris: What are your thoughts when you see that big flock of birds that's taking off from a rice field? I mean, to me, I just have a big smile on my face when I see that. Jeff McCreary: It's a spectacle of nature, and if no one's been to the Gray Lodge Wildlife Area or the Sacramento National Wildlife Refuge to see the waterfowl fly offs in the evening, I really strongly encourage you to do that. We are blessed to be in this part of the world, with this amazing waterfowl population that comes here and they're here for a reason and the things that we do on the landscape with our wetland management, with our working agriculture and riceland management, that's what keeps those birds here, that's what keeps them coming back, that's what sends them back to the breeding grounds to be successful and do it all over again. Jim Morris: What does this dry year mean for fish in California? Probably a lot of unanswered questions, certainly a big subject, not just for environment, but it also impacts water to cities and farms. Andrew Rypel is an associate professor and the Peter B. Moyle and California Trout chair in cold water fish ecology at UC Davis in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology, and that's probably the longest title I've ever seen, but that's all important. Andrew, what are your comments as we head into this dry year, concern for the wild salmon population, and maybe what we can do here in the Sacramento Valley? Andrew Rypel: Droughts are difficult times for fishes in general. However, our native fish fauna in California are well adapted to cyclic climate patterns where they are adapted for dealing with drought cycles and wet cycles, and that's part of the business of living in the Mediterranean climate for these species. Jim Morris: You're participating with many others in some pretty interesting research that I think could help in the long run. Can you comment a little bit about some of the work that you're doing with rice farmers and how it may help in the longer term? Andrew Rypel: The salmon rice work is some of the most exciting work I've ever been a part of. It's based on the idea that the Central Valley was once a giant floodplain wetland ecosystem complex, and the water originated in the mountains much like it does today, and would spread out over the valley floor and the native fish and wildlife really evolved to capitalize on those resources. It's abundant food for fish, abundant for birds, for Tule Elk, things like that. Of course, much of that is gone. However, there's an increasing awareness that we've got a lot of acreage, roughly 500,000 acres of rice, which is not a perfectly natural wetland, but it can approximate some of the important wetland processes that can facilitate the life cycle of native species, particularly fishes in my case. Andrew Rypel: So, there have been a lot of really interesting work done with migratory waterfowl and highly successful NRCS programs that were developed that, in my opinion, it looks like it has arrested the decline of migratory birds on the Pacific coast. So a lot of people have been looking at that and saying, "If we can do that for birds, why can't we do that for fish?" So we've been working with the California Rice Commission, with other science partners to really kind of pilot how this could work for fish in the Central Valley. So we've been growing salmon on bypass rice fields, looking at how well they grow, how well they survive in these fields when they're flooded in the winter time, and also how well they survive out in the Pacific Ocean. Andrew Rypel: To sum it up in a really short way, the results are very positive. Salmon grow really well in these habitats. They put on weight very fast. Just within a month they can go from 30-40 millimeters in length all the way up to 70-80 millimeters in length. So they get big, fast, and that's important because it tends to time these fish up with the natural flow regime that these rivers experience. So baby salmon tend to have better survivorship when there is more water in the rivers and more food in the rivers. If we can grow them bigger, faster so that they get out on the high tide of the rivers earlier in the year rather than later in the year when the river is low and doesn't have much food and it's full of predators like striped bass, that's just a good thing. So, we think that rice fields could play a role in fish conservation in California, much like they have for bird conservation before. Jim Morris: Not only raising salmon in rice fields, but also fish food. How positive are you on that approach and how important would it be in a year like this to have more food in the river for the wild salmon? Andrew Rypel: Both concepts are extremely important. There are certain fields, rice fields, that flood naturally, so fish can come on those fields and off those fields in a volitional way. They want to be there and they want to spend time in these fields. But that footprint is finite and so there's a lot of other rice field that could be useful in other ways. One of those ideas is to grow fish food in those fields. So I'm extremely positive about this idea because what we know is that these are productive habitats to just grow a ton of zooplankton, which is basically the fish food that we're talking about. Andrew Rypel: Most of those 500,000 acres are on the dry side of the levee. They're not exposed to regular flooding. If we could learn how to grow fish food, and then drain those fields strategically so that fish that are actually moving through the river system and the river network will have food resources when they need them, when they're migrating, when they're vulnerable, we think we can also leverage the fitness and the health of populations that way as well. So it's a bit of a jigsaw puzzle, but these things fit together and we think they fit together fairly nicely. There are probably other ways to use these habitats that we haven't thought about yet. So we spent some time thinking about that as well. So it's exciting. Something like this only happens when you have a lot of partners at the table that are willing to work together and help the situation. Andrew Rypel: Obviously I'm a scientist, I'm at UC Davis. There's a whole team of scientists at UC Davis that are interested in this. California Trout is an NGO that we work with quite regularly that's been at the forefront of this project as well. The California Rice Commission, obviously, a crucial partner for linking in with the actual growers, with the landowners. USDA-NRCS program has been funding a good chunk of our pilot research, trying to figure this out with the goal that we could eventually have a practice standard that growers could enroll in, to participate in these practices to really actuate these conservation practices at scale. Then we work with so many of the agency scientists, managers, partners, whether that's NOAA Fisheries, CDFW. We spend a lot of time communicating with CDFW, DWR, water managers throughout the Central Valley. Everybody's kind of involved at some level and we communicate with all those folks quite regularly, and need them. Jim Morris: The Sacramento Valley is a one of a kind place with great natural resources and another strength, a lot of people, including those you've heard today, dedicated to keeping it that way. Dry years are challenging to be sure, but there are many people devoting a lot of time to doing the most with the water that is available. Jim Morris: We'll, of course, keep you updated on planting, the growing season, harvest and much more on future episodes of Ingrained. For now, that wraps up this episode. Thank you to Jon Munger, Jeff McCreary, Lewis Baer, and Andrew Rypel. You can find out much more and listen to past episodes at podcast.calrice.org. Thanks for listening.

I've seen numerous business ventures fail when they build metaphorical “skyscrapers” on “land” or platforms they don't own. This happens when a business relies too much on a platform they don't control like Google or Facebook and then the platform changes something and it destroys that business. The problem with this is that the business has no control over the “land” or the platform on which they have built their business.  Jon Stoddard is a partner and Investor at Acquisition Partners. He was the CEO of Century Hearing Aids, which was the second-largest online seller of hearing aids. He worked in business development at Intuit, and he was the co-founder and VP of TurboSquid. He is also the author of Pitch Deck Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Attracting Investors to your Deal. Recovering from Building a “Skyscraper” on “Land” We Don't Own Jon was working at Intuit when he realized he wanted to own his own business and not work for someone else. He knew one of the fastest ways to build a business and get revenue is by buying an existing business. So he bought a company that already had a website and a relationship with the manufacturers. Because the company's advertising was making more money than it cost, his job to grow the business was pretty easy. All he had to do for a while was spend more money on Google Adwords. It was kind of like a money machine. If you put a dollar in and get two dollars out, then we just need to put more money into the money machine to grow our profits.   Unfortunately, Google decided to make major changes to the way they displayed their advertising. Because of Google's shift to more mobile-focused advertising, they eliminated ads on the right side of the page. Unfortunately, those side ads were where Jon was seeing the most effective return on his advertising. This change substantially increased Jon's advertising cost. Jon discovered that his business was too dependent on one source of leads, but he quickly had to figure out other sources of advertising to reduce his dependence on Google. Jon couldn't profitably advertise in Google's new system, so he had to do something different. He looked at Facebook, but he couldn't really advertise hearing aids on Facebook because it's a medical device, and Facebook has some restrictions on this type of advertising. Instead, he tried inbound content marketing, answering every question related to hearing aid he could (how to read an audiogram, how to change your hearing aid battery, how to clean your hearing aid battery, etc.). Jon published 100 videos online answering these questions. He put the videos up on Facebook and whichever video got the most engagement he would just retarget to that video again and again. He also sought testimonial videos from customers. He would often get them from these men that were 75 or 80 years old, sitting there stoically saying, “I love these hearing aids.” Those videos did really well and led to sales. So Jon's advertising model changed completely after moving away from Google Adwords, and he grew the business to be the second-largest online seller of hearing aids. Trying to Do Everything When Jon went to sell the business, he was talking to a potential buyer who asked him how much time he spent on the business. Jon told him he spent 60-70 hours a week on it. He was taking all the orders from customers and doing too much.  The buyer was appalled. He told Jon that he should only be spending 15-30 hours a week; he should be optimizing his tools and outsourcing. That way someone will buy the business because they can easily add that to their other businesses because it is running automatically. Jon took the next year, not only moving to the new funnel and advertising sources, but also automating all of his systems, outsourcing everything he could, and taking himself out of much of the day-to-day operations. He got to the point he didn't have to do anything except just make sure things were running well. When he put the business up for sale again, Jon received offers in 24 hours and sold it in three days. "Rule a kingdom as though you were cooking a small fish - don't overdo it." -Lao Tzu, ancient Chinese philosopher, writer, and founder of philosophical Taoism Competing with an Insurance Company The margins for hearing aids were fantastic. Jon could buy a hearing aid for $135 and sell it for $795. The problem, and one of the reasons Jon wanted to sell the business, is there was no upsell, cross-sell, or down-sell. There was just one product.  One of Jon's major competitors was an insurance company. He couldn't compete with them because, even though their hearing aids were the same price, they could spend unlimited amounts of money to acquire a customer, and all they have to do is sell a small number of health insurance policies to make a lot more money than Jon. In other words, they could easily outspend Jon on the advertising because they could make a much higher profit per order. Part of the reason that an insurance policy as a monetization element is so valuable because it's recurring. Unlike the one-time sale of a hearing aid, the insurance policy is a product that delivers a monthly revenue stream. The valuations are so much more on recurring revenue models. Providing Value Jon hired a digital agency to help him redo his website or funnel. On his new funnel, Jon gave away a free lead magnet to provide value, establish a relationship, and capture leads of site visitors. The agency helped Jon implement the 7 laws of persuasion into Jon's website, showed customer reviews and testimonials, and worked on the conversion funnel to increase his sales. As a result, over a period of four months conversions improved by 220%, revenue by 300%, and profits by 3000%. Goodwill “In many cases, the amount of money you make will be in direct proportion to the amount of goodwill you have in your market.” -Frank Kern, internet marketer and copywriter Jon feels that the vast majority of the initial communication between businesses and customers happens on Google, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. So we have to send out goodwill on those platforms to build up trust in our brand. We have to create products and content that people care about to add value to our relationships. We must show people how we can help them, otherwise, we will lose their interest. When we provide value it turns into a credibility spiral, building every time we deliver. To boost our credibility spirals, we can over-deliver on the value we add and nurture our relationships. Then we'll be able to reach the point where they're willing to pay for those high-ticket purchases. Million Dollar Pitch Deck When Jon was working at TurboSquid, they needed to raise money. Jon found that he really liked this. He enjoyed writing the marketing plan, looking at resources, what they need to do, and how they're going to get it done. He started offering this service with free training on pitch decks, going through all the necessary slides in a deck, what's behind each, and why they need to be in the deck Jon's advice on pitch decks is to make sure we know our numbers, market, and how we're going to succeed more than anyone else. He said if your pitch deck looks like a high school hypothesis, it will be easily dismissed. People would rather put money into a company that they know the facts about, so it can't just be a high school hypothesis. It must be a proven business. “You need to know your numbers, your market, and how you're going to get there better than anyone else.” -Jon Stoddard Certainty People are often willing to pay a lot more for certainty. Let's say there's a 90% chance that the funnels someone creates for us are going to be successful. We may be willing to pay that person $200,000 to build that funnel. However, let's say someone like Russell Brunson has a 100% certainty that the funnel he creates for us is going to make $20 million. We will easily pay $1 million dollars for that. So, what can we do to increase the certainty that our products and services will help our customers achieve their desired outcomes? Key Takeaways Thank you so much Jon for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode: Don't rely on only one source of advertising, especially when that is a source we can't control. We can recover from building skyscrapers on land we don't own by diversifying our advertising sources and moving to platforms we can control, such as gathering email addresses of potential customers. When running a business it is important to not try to do too much of the work ourselves. Creating a business that can run without us can give us a much better entrepreneurial lifestyle, and it can be much more attractive to potential buyers. Just like Jon's competitor added an upsell insurance policy, we should strive to add in other upsell products or services. We want to make more money per sale than any of our competitors. One of the best ways to achieve this is to implement recurring revenue streams. When creating pitch decks it is important to know our numbers, market, and how we're going to differentiate our business to succeed. Investors are more likely to invest in a proven business, not a hypothesis. People are willing to pay a lot more for certainty. Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer? Did you like today's episode? Then please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content: Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter. Connect with Jon If you enjoyed this interview and want to connect with Jon or his company, you can find him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonstoddard/ or visit his website at https://www.investorattractionsecrets.com/.  Share Your Story  Have you seen others recover from building a skyscraper on land they don't own? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers. Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/47-how-jon-stoddard-recovered-from-building-a-skyscraper-on-land-he-didnt-own/

Jon starts his journey by sharing the one single truth that has recognized and held onto throughout his entire life, “I am a child of God”. Through it all, good times and bad times, this single truth is what Jon has held onto and relied on to guide him in his decisions and efforts during his life on earth, and in dark times of depression and suicidal thinking. “I am a child of God”, is the message of Hope that has helped Jon not only overcome the odds to achieve the goals he set as a young boy to become an Endodontist professionally, but it is that very Hope that pulled Jon from the darkness of shame and worthlessness on the verge of Suicide, back into the Light.   Jon shares his inspiring story beginning as a young boy growing up in California, Mormon (LDS), in a family of 8. His family did not have much money and at times his Dad and Mom struggled to fill the pantry; however, what they did have... money could not buy, and that was the understanding that all people are Gods children and all people regardless of class, religious background, race, or politics are of infinite worth. Jon shares the way his parents lived and the example that they set of loving all without judgement and working hard doing good things shaped Jon into the man he is today.   At the age of 10, Jon's father sat his children down and talked to them about his life working late night shifts for a job that he didn't necessarily want, and that he wanted more for his children, believing a college education should be a goal for each of them. He let them know that he didn't have the means to pay for their education and inspired them to work towards a scholarship to help pay. Jon took this to heart and graduated high school with over a 4.0 GPA, and an opportunity on the track and field team at a community college in California.   As a high jumper in High school reaching a height of 6'7 he broke records at his school, but he knew that he needed to reach 7'0 to qualify for a scholarship and earn a full ride scholarship to BYU where he dreamed of going. So Jon went to work training hard which led to an opportunity to jump for a small community college, and after qualifying for the state finals he went on to reach a jumping height over 7'2 all while defeating his Nemesis, who he nicknamed “Sloppy Joe”. Jon shares and incredible experience he had with Prayer during His last two jumps which won him the championship and earned him a spot on the BYU Track and Field team with a full ride scholarship. After the match and his incredible experience during his last two jumps and prayer, Jon found a quite place near the stadium and in complete humility gave thanks to God.   During college he met his incredible wife Dorsey and they began a family of their own, things just seemed to be going right for Jon, but during his residency Jon was upended by sudden and unjustified feelings of “Doom”, PTSD from 9/11, and feelings of no personal value, causing Shame and Depression which lead to Suicidal Thinking. Jon talks about how at his “Rock Bottom” not even caring how ending his life would affect his family, that's when he knew that he needed help. Throughout Jon's story you will see clearly how God put people in place and like lighthouses leading a ship to shore these people showed up for Jon to say or do something that helped Jon feel love enough to hold onto HOPE. That vey HOPE carried Jon through the Dark and into the Light, and He shares some of the valuable Gifts he received from the experiences during this painful time.   A few years later Jon achieved his Professional goal of becoming an Endodontist, and is now doing all he can to be somebody else's “Lighthouse” by paying it forward and living in gratitude each day. Jon is the Partner of 3 Endodontist offices in Northern Colorado and Wyoming.   Jon, thank you for sharing your story. You are a hero of mine and have been a lighthouse to me and my family. Thank you for sharing your Light!    

You heard it here first: Almost On Air may have just solved some of the greatest problems of our time. In hindsight, we definitely didn't but we DID make some solid points in today's episode - which, yes, talks about the election a bit. Also, Jon shares his new favorite song that is SO Jon.

Jon Gaunt says that although #covid-19 is clearly a threat we must also see the lockdown as an opportunity to redouble our efforts to lose weight and take back control of our lives. In this lively and informative podcast Jon make the point that it would be too easy to use this pandemic as an excuse to eat junk food and veg out on the sofa. Instead he says that we should take time to cook more or even learn how to cook with real food. We should exercise, meditate and take some time out for relaxation and to release stress. He also points to the fact that it seems that there is a link between being obese and Type 2 diabetic and survival chances if you end up on a respirator. So Jon says this is the perfect time to  take back control and eat really healthily with Low Carb High Fat meals and the #keto lifestyle. Check out SImpleasfat.com

Jon Gaunt believes that gentle walking has not only improved his physical health but it has also helped and improved his mental health. Jon started off doing 10 thousand steps a day, about 5 miles, but has now built up to an average of 9 miles a day. He credits this regime with reversing his Type 2 diabetes, gout, erectile dysfunction and got his blood pressure back into the normal range. He has also got off all his meds. In this funny, honest but informative podcast Jon share his tips on how to beat obesity with walking Keto and LCHF eating. He states you do not have to buy a bike, or a gym membership but instead just get your old trainers on and walk. In this Simple as Fat podcast Jon also states that his mental health has massively improved. Jon is now aware of his surroundings and enjoys walking in the open air.  He is not only addicted to walking but he is actually addicted to mindful walking. Gaunty says that there is no excuse to not get the steps in every day and he has plenty of practical tips on how to do this in our busy lives. He has also discovered audible.co.uk and is now listening to books as he walks. He believes that this helps him relax whilst at the same time he is losing weight and getting fit. He has read or listened to Robinson Crusoe, Jane Eyre, Beloved amongst loads of others. So Jon says he is training his body and mind at the same time and that you should try it too. More info here www.simpleasfat.com  

So Jon left the files for episode 199 at home and he is up at the cottage. His lovely lady friend will be bringing him the files on Sunday so you can expect your regularly scheduled episode of 9ES sometime[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry... The post 9ES Flashback: Episode 6: Bzzzort! appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

So Jon left the files for episode 199 at home and he is up at the cottage. His lovely lady friend will be bringing him the files on Sunday so you can expect your regularly scheduled episode of 9ES sometime[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry... The post 9ES Flashback: Episode 6: Bzzzort! appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

My first guest in this convo series over nine years ago was Jon Ferrara, CEO and founder of Nimble. And before Nimble Jon cofounded Goldmine back in 1989. So Jon was literally at the start of the contact management/CRM game and has been involved with it for 30 years. With it being on the eve of a new decade (and a new decade for CRM) I had the pleasure of speaking with Jon to get his take on the state of CRM, how it has evolved over the years, and is he surprised by how things have changed (and how they haven’t) over the three decades since he cofounded Goldmine.

So Jon had the great idea of going back to the first time we asked questions, and answer them again... in 2019... and that is exactly what we did.

What’s the secret to a joyful, successful family? It starts with a joyful marriage. Your family doesn’t need to look like other families—but you do need to be grounded in God’s Word! Let’s talk about what that looks like as we wish the Dunagans a wonderful 34th Anniversary! Transcribed version of the podcast is below Today’s Scripture Writing Challenge Verse * Proverbs 31:30-31 Resources Mentioned in Podcast * Hot Tub * Mission Minded Families * The Scarlet Cord: Nothing but the Blood of Jesus Scripture Mentioned in Podcast * Acts 6 * Acts 8 * Acts 21 * Psalm 1 * Isaiah 32:17-18 * Ephesians 4 * Psalms 127:1 Join us at MomStrong International for our Bible Study and Scripture Writing! Submit your questions to MailBox Monday: podcast@thebusymom.com JON & ANN DUNAGAN, Co-Founders of Mission-Minded Families, with Harvest Ministry, are International Mission Leaders and veteran homeschool parents of 7 grown kids (with an ever-increasing number of spouses and grandkids). Collectively, the Dunagan’s have ministered or traveled to over 100 nations and to all 7 continents — focused on remote frontier evangelism, loving orphans, planting churches, and helping families for God’s Great Commission. They have written numerous mission books for families and children including The Mission-Minded Family, The Scarlet Cord: Nothing but the Blood of Jesus and The Whole World Needs Jesus. Connect with Jon and Ann: Mission Minded Families |  The Scarlet Cord: Nothing but the Blood of Jesus Don’t Miss These! TRANSCRIPTION: All right everybody, welcome to the show today. I’m real excited you guys are here. A bunch of stuff is coming down the pike over at Heidi St. John, so just want to encourage you guys to get off the bench and get onto the battlefield with me. One of the reasons I love my guests today is that they have been on mission, on point, off of the sidelines, and onto the front lines since long before I knew them. They’ve encouraged me tremendously. Jon and Anne Dunagan are the founders of Mission Minded Families and they are serving with Harvest Ministries. They’re the parents of seven grown homeschooled kids. They’re doing something I like to call “Grandkid Palooza” over there. Collectively, the Dunagan’s have ministered to, and traveled to, over a hundred nations and to all seven continents—focused on remote frontier evangelism, loving or event planning churches, and helping families for God’s Great Commission. We’re going to be talking about marriage and family today. This is something these guys know a lot about.  So one of my favorite reasons for having Jon and Anne on the show today, is that these guys do a thing or two about marriage. And in fact, I just happened to get them on their 34th wedding anniversary. So Jon and Ann Dunagan, thanks for spending it with me. [Jon] Well, we’re glad to be here and we sure appreciate you having us on this interview. I appreciate you reminded me of the exact date of our wedding anniversary. I was trying to remember it earlier this morning, so I’m glad to be reminded. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/heidistjohn/support

OK. Everything you’ve heard about not using humor in copy, be prepared to reconsider all of it. Because of our guest today, Jon Buchan. A few years ago, Jon freely admits, “I was desperate for sales after my word of mouth work dried up.” He continues: “I got hellishly drunk one night and wrote a completely absurd cold email. “I was still tipsy the next morning and decided it was still a good idea to send it to pretty senior Marketing Directors at big brands. “To my astonishment, it worked. I got the most amazing complimentary responses and requests for calls/meetings. Here is the favorite response Jon received: "My colleague forwarded me your spam email and we would like to meet you to discuss opportunities." From his crazy drunk email, Jon has met with senior decision makers at RedBull, Pepsi, Symantec, Hewlett-Packard, HSBC, Barclays and countless other global brands, exciting start-ups and regular ol’ small and medium businesses. Since then, he’s used the same style to get senior editors at large publications to respond to me and publish his clients' content. He says he’s also used it to help people get as many job interviews as they want - and to meet people he really looks up to. Today he’s going to share his story on the copywriters podcast. First, and I really don’t think there’s anything funny about this at all: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. So Jon, welcome and thanks for joining us. 1. First, could you tell us a little about your business, and the full story about the drunken email. 2. What has happened as a result? You’ve gotten into the funny-copy-training business, right? 3. The old-school rule is no humor in marketing IF you want to get sales results. You seem to be turning this on your head. Let’s talk about that. 4. Could you give us some tips for what to do and what not to do for our listeners if they want to try your approach? 5. You have a Facebook group and a product. Want to tell our listeners about these things, and how they can take advantage of these opportunities? Charm Offensive WebsiteDownload.

OK. Everything you’ve heard about not using humor in copy, be prepared to reconsider all of it. Because of our guest today, Jon Buchan. A few years ago, Jon freely admits, “I was desperate for sales after my word of mouth work dried up.” He continues: “I got hellishly drunk one night and wrote a completely absurd cold email. “I was still tipsy the next morning and decided it was still a good idea to send it to pretty senior Marketing Directors at big brands. “To my astonishment, it worked. I got the most amazing complimentary responses and requests for calls/meetings. Here is the favorite response Jon received: "My colleague forwarded me your spam email and we would like to meet you to discuss opportunities." From his crazy drunk email, Jon has met with senior decision makers at RedBull, Pepsi, Symantec, Hewlett-Packard, HSBC, Barclays and countless other global brands, exciting start-ups and regular ol’ small and medium businesses. Since then, he’s used the same style to get senior editors at large publications to respond to me and publish his clients' content. He says he’s also used it to help people get as many job interviews as they want - and to meet people he really looks up to. Today he’s going to share his story on the copywriters podcast. First, and I really don’t think there’s anything funny about this at all: Copy is powerful. You’re responsible for how you use what you hear on this podcast. Most of the time, common sense is all you need. But if you make extreme claims... and/or if you’re writing copy for offers in highly regulated industries like health, finance, and business opportunity... you may want to get a legal review after you write and before you start using your copy. My larger clients do this all the time. So Jon, welcome and thanks for joining us. 1. First, could you tell us a little about your business, and the full story about the drunken email. 2. What has happened as a result? You’ve gotten into the funny-copy-training business, right? 3. The old-school rule is no humor in marketing IF you want to get sales results. You seem to be turning this on your head. Let’s talk about that. 4. Could you give us some tips for what to do and what not to do for our listeners if they want to try your approach? 5. You have a Facebook group and a product. Want to tell our listeners about these things, and how they can take advantage of these opportunities? Charm Offensive WebsiteDownload.

Opening Question: Who were your first favorite fantasy studs?   6:00 News & Notes 9:30 ADP Talk 20:00 IDP Guys Out Of Context Rewind 23:30 Interview w/ Jim Day @FantasyTaz 45:00 Interview w/ Oklahomie Doug @DFF_Oklahomie 1:41:00 Johnny The Greek   We have an IDP double feature this week. Graced with the presence of Jim Day on our show. What a great interview where we discussed the beginnings of IDP and Fantasy twitter, how he’s got to the point that he is running a network of 16 podcasts. We also dive into his Chaos League and check out what he’s put together there.   The second part of our feature is an interview that @OrangeMan3142 recorded with @DFF_Oklahomie. We wanted to bring Doug on for last episode but he had some scheduling conflicts last minute, and we brought on Hollywood. So Jon recorded this interview a day after, and we are releasing it here. For anyone following our recent twitter drama, this was recorded the day before accusations about Doug started flying from a former writer of ours.   The IDP Guys roll out discussion on their combined offensive and defensive (IDP) ADP from April. Be sure to follow the guys on twitter to join our ADP mock drafts each month. Also become a subscriber to get access to the ADP information that is constantly being updated. OFF/IDP ADP link —>https://www.idpguys.org/march-2019-off-idp-adp/    Join our subscription program on the IDPGuys.org for $1 a month you get access to our premium content as it gets built. You can also purchase a full year for $12. We have multiple rankings on the site, a subscriber slack channel, ADP coming which will include mixed off/def, and so much more in the works. Early subscribers will also get a discount when we move from the beta program.   Listen to the IDP Guys for players to target for your IDP fantasy leagues! Our website is launched, take a look at www.idpguys.org.   The guys go over the massive turnout for their [Gut Check] twitter polls, where hundreds of people took part for some very interesting results. Some of them correlating with what the guys said last week, some not so much. Be sure to follow the @IDPGuys on twitter to take part in the polls.   We are continually looking to make the show better, and we want to connect our listeners with some of the best IDP writers creating content online. We will be breaking down the best articles we find this offseason. Let us know your favorite IDP resources and we will be sure to take a look and possibly go through an article on the show.    Make sure to follow them on Facebook and Twitter. @idpguys on Twitter and www.facebook.com/idpguys.   The show is now on Stitcher, iTunes, Google play and your choice of pod catcher, so be sure to give them a 5-star review which could be read on the show!    Comment your questions below on how we can improve the show. You can call and leave a voicemail at (313) 986-1473 or on Skype @IDPGuys. We are on twitter @IDPGuys or individually @natecheat, @lanny1925 and @orangeman3141. 

So Jon and I did some day drinking and decided it would be brilliant to record a podcast. I'm sorry. LOL! So you will be listening to us clumsily drop things while talking about all my perfume. Enjoy responsibly!  

The hype for Endgame is unreal and it's coming a lot sooner than you think. So Jon and I decided to go back and rank all 22 of the previous Marvel Cinematic Universe films to decide which is the best. I mean Jon is completely wrong in his entire listing but yeah why not give it a listen anyway 

This episode is not for the presumptuous or overconfident business owner or entrepreneur that knows it all. You'll learn why in these minutes we spend together together today. I hope you'll listen carefully. So Jon... why such a "strange" headline? Because... I've spent a lot of time in this field (digital marketing and dealing with clients) and wanted to make sure I got today's message across to you. This is a personal broadcast to you, a man or woman who has a real interest in growing your business with customer attraction and customer acquisition strategies, and to (important!) learn what the differences are and how to think about, and use these strategies for yourself. Suspend your disbelief for a moment, and open your mind to a process and framework that will help you. You are a professional, and likely doing a lot of things right (as you'll hear in this professional client case study) - but lack the full insight and understanding of opportunities sitting right in front of you. The mistakes (hard to admit, I know) you are making are based on being comfortable, and running in just "one mode" of operation -- and NOT opening your eyes fully to the next chapter of growth. You've gotten stuck in your own "madness" ;-) Let's go - take action today! Let me know what you think? Cheers, Jon   Interested in getting personally coached by Jon to develop traffic, leads and sales? ➡️ Click here: https://chaosmap.com/talk   If you liked this broadcast, please give it a thumbs up

Welcome back to another #TinStreetHooligans!!! This week Coach & Zuby decide to take the night off to go likely do someth DnD related. So Jon & Slivers hold it down with a secret honorary co-host. Also the Hooligans are joined by special guests from the Warlord Hank YouTube channel, John & Calvin. Follow us on Twitter: Jon Dunning @OrzhovDunn Johnny Slivers @JohnnySlivers Zuby @MagicwithZuby Coach @thecardbazaarCC Kody Smith @notkodysmith John Steffen @WarlordHank Calvin @SlowClapCat Tin Steet Hooligans is brought to you by Cardsphere.com the best place to buy, sell, & trade your paper Magic: the Gathering cards. The show is also a Sponsored Affilate of InkedGaming.com Enter promo code: HIVEMINDMTG at check out to save 10% off your purchase.

GUEST BIO: Jon Skeet is a Staff Software Engineer at Google, working from the London office on the Google Cloud Client Libraries for .NET. He's probably better known for his contributions on Stack Overflow and his book, C# in Depth. Jon is married to Holly Webb, a prolific children's author, and they have three children together. EPISODE DESCRIPTION: In this episode Phil interviews Jon Skeet who is a senior software engineer for Google. He is the author behind C# in Depth, a book that made him something of a C# legend. Jon is also a well-known Stack Overflow contributor who has a reputation for providing descriptive answers that solve the toughest challenges. Some go as far as calling him “the Chuck Norris of programming”. KEY TAKEAWAYS: ­­­ (1.00) – So Jon, can you expand on that summary and tell us a little bit more about yourself? In response, Jon explains that he is a big fan of working from home. So, he does not spend very much time at Google’s London headquarters. Instead he works out of a high tech, air-conditioned shed, complete with an ice-cream maker and surround-sound. Jon is a feminist, a Methodist and a local preacher who has a passion for musical theatre. (2.03) – Phil asks Jon for a unique IT career tip, something the audience should know. Jon replies that it is important to remember that “you will make far quicker progress in the long run, if you take one step at a time. Work through the problem in a structured way using a language you are really familiar with. If you are learning a new language, start by doing really simple things. But, don’t be afraid to “step into the dark” to try something totally new. Just do so consciously and accept that failing, at first, is fine. You will learn a lot that way. Spend most of your time working in a familiar way and try just one new thing at a time, so that you are always making progress. (4.14) Phil asks if Jon would describe that as a sort of incremental process. Jon said yes, “it is really don’t run before you can walk.” (4.38) – Phil asks Jon to share his worst career moment and what he learned from it. For Jon his low-point was not directly related to coding or a technical issue. He was working on a product launch with a looming deadline. As a result, he ended up working very odd hours to get the job done. Instead of arriving at the station at his normal time of 6.45 he was getting there at about 3.30am. He was compensating a bit by going home a little earlier than normal but he was actually working long hours. Plus, even though he was going to bed earlier he was not sleeping well. People were telling him he did not look well, so he was clearly stretched. But, he carried on working that way, until one morning he was mugged. The mugging probably would not have happened if there were more people around. Being mugged stopped Jon in his tracks and he realized that he needed to take more care of himself. He decided to stop putting in a lot of hours at the wrong times of the day. He no longer pushed himself so hard or let others do it to him.  Jon realized that he had to take care of himself. (7.18) – Phil wants to know what Jon’s best career moment was. Jon starts by explaining that he is proud of helping thousands of people and being at the top of Stack Overflow as well as his book and software. But, his career highlights have come while talking with other people. For example, in June, Jon spent several days talking with and teaching alongside a lead designer on C#. During that collaboration he learned a huge amount about why C# is designed the way it is. Talking and working with others teaches him a lot and is very fulfilling.  (9.18) – Phil asks what excites Jon about the future of IT. To some extent for Jon it is how little we know about it. “We are now in an age where when you go to university half of the jobs the student take up don’t exist yet.” The fact that we cannot really tell what tech is going to look like in 10 years time is exciting. Potentially, a whole area that nobody is even considering now could easily come to the fore. (10.56) – What drew you to a career in IT, Jon? From the age of 8 Jon played games on a ZX Spectrum 48K. Eventually, he started programming on the Spectrum. For his first project, he created a logo interpreter. He was motivated to do so because the BBC microcomputer at school had one. His innocence meant that he did not know that you could not implement the code yourself. So, he did not see that so-called impossible barrier. As a result, he just kept working at it until he got it done. By age 9 or 10 he was in love with programming. (12.32) – What is the best career advice you were given? “Be good at one thing” – make sure that there is one thing that you are really comfortable in. It is good to have several strings to your bow. But, be the go-to person for at least one topic or discipline. (13.36) – If you were to start your IT career again, what would you do? Jon said that because things are changing so quickly he has no idea. It would depend on what would hook him. “I am a big fan of doing something that you are interested in for whatever reason you’re interested.” He explained why this is so important using an example.  Someone could be inspired to help out in a soup kitchen and while there wonder if they can automate the rota. That leads to working out what the best way to organize it is. This in turn leads to them falling into all kinds of optimization things. Suddenly, you are having fun developing and optimizing things and you become an inspired developer.  (15.29) – Phil asks Jon what career objectives Jon currently focusing on. Jon’s response is “Having a good time.” He has never chased money or power. Instead, he has chased having a good life. Right now, he enjoys writing in C#. Jon also relishes the fact that he can work from home and spend plenty of time with his family, which he loves doing. (16.52) – What is your most important non-technical skill? Jon’s short answer is “empathy and compassion”. We have done a great job of solving the problems of straight white men, because that is the demographic of most software developers. That needs to change. We need to solve the problems of the people that are not represented in the software community. Jon is finding that being a novice feminist is changing the way he works. Feminism is all about seeing things from multiple perspectives. It teaches you that people’s problems and challenges are different, so they need to be answered and solved in different ways. (18.24) – Phil asks Jon to share some final career advice. Jon’s reply is– “really just focus on your life, think about what is genuinely important to you and pursue that.” That might mean switching from IT to solving an environmental issue you believe you can solve. If you think you can make a difference, just do it. You only have one life. BEST MOMENTS:  (2.20) JON – “You will make far quicker progress in the long run, if you take one step at a time.” (2.55) JON – “If you are learning a new language, start with really simple things, just so that you feel familiar in the language,” (6.59) JON – “I was just putting in lots of hours and the wrong hours, and you've got to take care of yourself, basically.” (9.20) JON – “It's really the people I've worked with that have provided the highlights rather than the code I’ve written.”  (13.42) JON – “Have a balance between knowing plenty of things to just as much as you need, but have one thing that you're the expert on.” (17.32) JON – “The ability to look at the world from other people's perspectives is absolutely crucial for software.” CONTACT JON SKEET: Blog: blog.jonskeet.uk Blog: codeblog.jonskeet.uk Twitter: https://twitter.com/jonskeet @jonskeet  

From Tesla to consumer devices, Mihir Shah has been a PCB designer among the best. Now, as Director of Special Projects at Royal Circuit Solutions, he is pioneering ways to make manufacturing easy for printed circuit board designers. Meet Mihir and Jon Lass, co-founder and VP of Engineering at Royal Circuits, and listen in as they discuss manufacturing best practices and share various insights on symmetrical stackups, solder mask, and copper weights. Get a wide range of PCB design tips and learn how same-day turn times on printed circuit boards is possible at high-quality board shops like Royal Circuits.   Watch the video and read get all show notes.    Hey everyone this is Judy with Altium's OnTrack Podcast. We are glad to have you back again, the podcast continues to grow and we thank you for listening and I know that you are tuning in because I have amazing guests like I have today so I would like to introduce you to my guest but before I do I would like to  invite you to connect with me on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with you and share a lot of information relative to PCB design and engineering and also on Twitter I'm @AltiumJudy and Altium is on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn so we like to have conversations with you, not just monologues; so please connect and make sure you subscribe to our podcast too so we can keep making these. Today we are with a couple of great people that are involved in US manufacturing of printed circuit boards. I'd like to introduce you to Mihir Shah, who is Director of Special Projects at Royal Circuits. Mihir actually was an EE and has lots of experience - hands-on experience - being in the trenches and doing design work. His father right, it's your dad that owns Royal Circuits Mihir? [Mihir nods] And so his dad somehow sucked him into the manufacturing industry. So we're glad to have him there actually, we need more young blood and also, we have Jon Lass who is the VP of Engineering. He's also one of the original founders of Royal Circuits, so gentlemen welcome thanks for joining today. Thanks this is great. So Mihir, I'm going to start with you. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and then give us a little blurb on Royal Circuits? Sure, so as you kind of alluded to I'm an Electrical Engineer. I started my career at Tesla Motors where I was working on a lot of the cool things with Model X, and Model X, back in the early beta days of that vehicle. I just got crazy hands-on experience learning how to design your own boards hands-on for everything, just do things quick and get a design approach to rapid prototyping, which was great. And then I went to Taser - now known as Axon - where we worked on consumer devices that are - I mean literally - the Taser device. So I was more on the power electronics side of the Taser weapon and some things on the body camera so a really, really great experience albeit limited, but really great in the short time that I was a fulltime design engineer. And then you know, somehow, some way, my dad convinced me to join the manufacturing side of things. Yay Dad! I'm kind of - one of the roles is always like: look, you were buying boards and designed them for a while, now come here on the other side and try to make it as easy, clean, and simple as possible for people to order them now that you've seen often times, what a pain it is, or all the mistakes that you kind of made, or things that delayed the time, cost etc can help on the manufacturing side and now, Royal Circuits, just to give a brief overview of who we are, and kind of our main value proposition. We're a big US manufacturer of purely quick-turn, prototype, printed circuit boards. The whole idea is one, two, three-day turns in the Bay Area, same-day turns and weekend turns - totally acceptable, and all owned and operated by us, all here in the United States. So we have two factories: one right here in Hollister where I am now, right in the Bay Area, and then we have a factory down in Los Angeles that's purely flex and rigid flex. We really focus on that technology down there, so we've been doing this for over 20 years. You know, we have our customers range anywhere from large tech companies like ones you've heard of, like Google etc. Students, Stanford, Caltech, UPN, MIT and military.We're ITAR certified, and then thousands and thousands of other customers in that group and more. So we do everything from simple two layer boards all the way to 30 layer, HDI  , High Density Interconnect, PCBs, fab and assembly - no minimum order quantity. So really, really focus on the low volume, super quick turn, with an incredible focus on customer service and making sure that people get their boards when they need them and at the price that they want them at, right here. Wow, Jon can you tell us a little bit about your background in the industry and your history at Royal and what you do there? Sure, so my background has been Engineering for about 30 years. I started out in the CAM/CAD industry and was involved in the very early days of photo plotting when we used to build boards with films that have,   actual direct imaging as we're doing today. My dad and I founded the company 20 years ago here in Hollister and we - like Mihir pointed out - it's always been about quick turn, 1 to 3 dating, prototypes, all the way from 2 to 30 layers and, very exotic type of materials and boards. So we've been around for 20 years servicing our customers and we still have some of the same customers 20 years later. That's a good report card! That's an excellent report card. That's how we look at it too. Well my favorite stat about the company - just to interject - is that we really do have a 1 percent turnover in 20 years. I mean, I really encourage you to find another company in the United States that has such a low employee turnover. Everywhere I'm looking, Jon is a testament to that, people don't leave, we just keep growing here and in LA. And in some of the other kind of businesses that we run, same deal. Customers first. Ok so I'm going to become a board industry geek for a moment but I want to point out something about that, that may or may not be obvious to our audience; but something that I've noted when you do work with a board house that has low turnover, your quality remains consistent because there aren't people coming in muddying the waters all the time, are on a learning curve, or trying to insert something and so your processes stay a lot tighter and cleaner. And that may be something obvious but it's just something that I observed over the years working for multiple board shops and assembly shops. It was a statistic, before I chose to represent one of those places is, what is your turnover? Because I knew that would create a lot of chaos not only for me, but for my customers, because of the fluctuation, customers, designers, will say to me: I was doing business with XYZ company and all of a sudden - they were great for eight years - and all of a sudden they lost the recipe and I go: uh-oh, they have had employees change. I know exactly what happened. So I know, we've all seen it, maybe an obvious point but something I thought worth pointing out to our listeners. We appreciate that point, and I will also say that our Production Manager's been here for 18 of the 20 years, so again, it does make a difference. It does make a huge difference. And Jon, your tenure there and being - yeah that's just wonderful. That's again, a great report on you guys.  So this morning what I thought we'd talk about is stack up and impedance, but from a manufacturing point - what you guys can teach designers and engineers that are laying out boards. How you can help them sort of avoid some pitfalls relative to stack up and impedance from a manufacturing standpoint? So Jon, maybe I'll start out with you, or maybe you both want to kind of ping-pong this one  for the uninitiated, let's just talk about what kind of implications there are specific to stack ups with materials? I mean that's where you start. Do we have enough time? [laughter] We could do a whole thing on materials maybe we need to do that? Because you just said you had a lot of exotic materials I'm like: oh they're one of those. Okay so all right, let's talk about materials, sorry. You know, I'm just starting - again just the very basics. Our main is FR4 high-temperature FR4 materials but we do get into a lot of Rogers materials for the RF type designs   a lot of hybrid combinations a little bit of Teflon so just there's different variances on what you can use. But diving into stack ups, what a lot of people don't think about from the impedance standpoint is, what are we doing with the the outer layers as far as the copper weights and the plating? And I'm touching on that real quick, because when you start out with a half ounce copper foil and then you plate up another additional ounce - sometimes when they're doing the modeling in the software - they're putting in half ounce and they model it and they get a certain number. But in reality when you manufacture it, you're plating on the surface, so a lot of times I'll get, from design engineers: well my model shows that it should be, 50 ohms and you guys are coming out at 55 ohms? It's like: well, you're not taking into consideration all the plating on the surface and that makes a big difference. And so we get a lot of that where there's a lot of model software out there on the internet people can go to. We use a software called 'Archeo' it's a very very deep system, as far as it actually takes into consideration all the dielectric constants of the materials you're using in your stack up. For example, different cores are built with different prepregs, and so they have different dielectric constants. Some of the modeling software on the internet gives you one setting so you can put in 4.1 or 4.2 for your DK value but in reality, depending on how the materials build you have different DK values that can range all the way from maybe 3.8 to 4.2 on a certain materials like these; I sold a 370 HR for example. So when creating the stackup, we have  all of that in there, we have all the pretty products the laminates that are being used, even the LPI and all the dielectric constants and when we're modeling that, impedance becomes very very accurate compared to the models are on the internet. So - I wanted you to pause right there, you said LPI, so that's Liquid Photo Image of a solder mask. So do you typically put the solder mask in when you're doing your models? Absolutely you do, because that's a big, big critical part. Another example - I'm glad you brought that up because again, they go out and model on the internet; they're not putting on the solder mask, they're not putting on the copper plating. As I mentioned, they get a completely different value, and then when we come to model it we're going back and telling them we need to change their stackup they may have defined on their fab drawing, because it doesn't meet the impedance requirements. And also you do get a lot of designers that understand that and they'll put notes on the fab drawing saying the manufacturer can adjust the dielectric, spacing, or the trace width within, plus or minus 10% to obtain that value. Yeah, and like you said, I think that's a good point, say in the case of Isola, or any laminate, they might put a datasheet that’s about 3.8, but it's not exactly 3.8, it can vary in a minor way, from lot to lot, is that correct? Not so much lot to lot as it is from material to material so they -  if you build all the way from 3 core to 47 core, they're using 106 and 108s and these are all prepreg styles that I'm mentioning, and each one has a different dielectric constant. So if you get a combination of them, you end up with a different value - and that again - depending on how your stackup is generated, one discussion Mihir and I had earlier today, is about designers that specify in their fab drawing the stackup they want you to follow, and they can send it to board house X, Y and Z but if, for example, let's say they have a four-layer and they want to specify they want 8 mil dielectric spacing between 1 & 2 and 4 & 3. Well, we may use a different series of prepregs to obtain that than another fab house and again, DK values - different impedance readings. So all that comes into play. Yeah and that's a trade off, that's a consideration the design engineer has to make in terms of how they're doing the prototyping, what the outlook is for them, and the turn times and the costing you know, there's other factors outside the actual design of performance on the circuit itself because if you do it, and you have it once, then you say this is my design so at least you will have more consistency amongst different manufacturers because you see, I need these materials, I need backup I did it - do it. But you'll have consistency in the final product but you more I mean most certainly, will not have consistency in the turn times. The available materials that different guys have, especially when you start getting to the more the exotics, and the high-frequency stuff. So that could start playing into effect and people charge different amounts for it based on the lead time, what they have in stock, what they want to charge, etcetera as that gets complicated but at least, it'll be more close to a similar design on revision vs. if you say, look: I'm just gonna let the manufacturer do it and tailor it towards what I can get quickest and at best cost that'll still give me my main factors and whether they're controlled impedance or stackup height or whatever - and let them do that. So that's kind of the two different ways that people can go about designing. My impression Jon, before you go on, is that a lot of designers do kind of hand off that stack off to their manufacturers. Do you think that's true? Yes, we do get it kind of both ways. In some cases, we just get a stackup, for example, if they want it to be 062 plus or minus 10% that gives you the layers that have the impedance requirements, and then we go and generate the stackup and manufacture the board. To me that's probably the more straightforward way because you're guaranteed you get what you want. Sometimes they're specific about what they want. They call out the dielectric spacings, the core material is everything and now you have to build that stack up, then plug in their numbers and model it, and then it usually doesn't come out the way they thought it was going to. And again, we touched on two reasons why. So you kind of get a little bit of both. But what I was gonna start saying is, that we also offer a service, a stackup service that you can come to us at pre-design.  You've got your board all laid out, you're ready to do your routing, and you can come to us and say: hey, I have a six layer and eight layer design, this is the material that we want to use, and you can tell us a little bit about your design. Which layers are plane layers, which ones are the signals. We don't look at the reference to this is, ninety ohm diffs, and 100 ohm diffs, and then we can go ahead and model that stack up at that time. We can come back and tell you what size traces to use for the single-ended, the tracing space for the differential pairs, the copper weights, everything. We can come back and give you that complete stackup. So now, that's using our materials. Our DK values, our stackup software, and then when you go to Roger design - if you use those numbers - then when we get back your design and your stack up - the project’s done. Which I think's a really great model, because then you're doing this partnership - the designers telling you where they're trying to get - you're actually informing them, from a manufacturing standpoint, best practices, and I love that whenever that happens. I wish it happened more. That's right, that's free of charge - again right at the beginning stage - to me that's the smoothest way to do it. And then you have a stack up you can actually send in with your data package and you'll be guaranteed you'll get what you want. That's awesome, what a great service I love that. You've talked a little bit about it, is there anything you want to add? The distribution of copper I get. I used to specialize in RF and microwave boards and that issue you talked about where they model it without the plating ending up on the outer layers right. The inner layers it doesn't matter, but the outer layers, you have to do multiple planing cycles and then it's completely outside of the range of what they simulated and I'm like: I don't know why, and without a fundamental understanding of the manufacturing process it's easy to see how that could get missed. Is there anything else you wanted to talk about? I'm gonna ask you guys three or four or five tips and tricks to give people who are listening some takeaways. But before I do, is there anything else you wanted to add relative to stackup in regards to manufacturing or distribution of copper? Maybe just a brief... oh sorry Jon do you want to go? I was just gonna touch on, you were talking about outer layers and then inner layers. If they want to use heavier copper, I like to point out that that's great on plane layers because when you have a heavier copper, your z-axis is higher and now when you go to put the prepreg in, you have to have enough resin to fill in there. And if you don't have enough resin then it can cause delamination or other manufacturing issues. So again, to point out, we get a lot of that too. We get a lot where they want 2 ounce copper on the inner layers, and they'll mix their traces and planes together and they'll be putting 4 mil traces on 2 ounces of copper. That doesn't work, that doesn't work at all. Yeah and then you have a trace that looks like this [gestures] right like or this - they're not this any more there cuz that's a hard if... yeah it's not a good idea. So just keep in consideration, from a copper distribution standpoint in layers. You have to nest prepreg in between them, it definitely makes a difference. So, if you're dealing with half ounce copper, no problem - you can pretty much do whatever you want. When you start getting above one ounce, then it starts changing the ballgame. So, from a proper distribution standpoint, just take that into consideration when you have - I'm going back to impedance - but when you have impedance on the outer layers and you're referencing to a plane layer underneath. Try to leave it all solid plane without mixing it with signals. That makes a big difference. Because now, you have a nice, consistent, even, solid dielectric spacing between the two - so that's a definite plus. Like a six layer, for example, where you have power ground on layer 2 & 5 and then 3 or 4 signal layers, you have to use a lot more prepreg to nest in between there. So again, try to pull up most of your dielectric spacing between those two areas because you're going to need  more of it to nest the prepreg. So that's a little bit about copper distribution. All right, all right guys, so let's talk about some real practical takeaways right now for designers and engineers who design boards that are listening today, from a manufacturing standpoint. I'm sure that you see some of the same oversights being made on a consistent basis. Can you give us three to five tips and tricks; things that designer should look out for when best design for manufacturing practices that you guys see. Mihir, why don't you kick off? Sure, well mine has a bit of a tie-in more on the design side, because that is more of my background especially that's right now, but there's really two main design areas when it comes to stackups and manufacturability. It's the whole RF analog side and then this digital - high-speed digital - side and they're kind of characterized by two very different, but very heavy driving factors. On the RF analog side you generally find your designs more influenced by the necessity for a low dielectric constant, low signal loss, low leakage, and then generally these have a lower layer count so you really need a low and uniform dielectric constant and all these other things. So your choice of exotic material is gonna be far more important. But you don't necessarily need to work - that's gonna be more of an important bigger part of your cost, and a factor in your design decision. It's just more important to the design. Whereas with a lot of more high-speed digital stuff, these are usually a way higher layer count, and they have all these other things like burying blind vias, really, really tight  traces, and just all these crazy ICs that have like a hundred pins of BGAs that needs all sorts of fan-out etc, and so your costs on that was gonna be way more driven towards the actual manufacturing time and the complexity, and to a lot of people it sounds obvious probably, on this podcast, it is. But I mean you'd be surprised even as you're designing stuff, people really don't fully understand that buried and blind vias, while they're so easy to throw in on in Altium and just say, this is great, everything routes up perfectly. It does add a lot of cost and time. You could manufacture it, but it's seriously gonna impact your design when you have to do board back, so that's gonna be far more important than generally your choice of material. But obviously, as layer count increases that cost is going to be driven up too. So things like that. You have to take into consideration the differences in the designs and things that engineers are looking at when they're designing them and how that plays out usually in cost and lead time. There's a lot of trade-offs aren't there? Yes, that's right. What would you say Jon? Well let's tackle unbalanced stackups for a second. Because we get a lot of that- Pretzels? Yeah pretty much. So again, I mean one of the things you need to take into consideration is, you want to have a symmetrical stack up. A lot of time too - especially if they're using hybrids - so they'll put a thick ten core Rogers on the top, and then something thin on the bottom. And again you want to have a balanced stackup, otherwise you're gonna end up with a warped board that to me is a very, very key thing, is to keep it symmetrical. We'll get those stack ups, we'll have to go back and tell them: listen is it possible, the chance of warpage, and try to explain to them. They need to be symmetrical, so that's something to take into consideration from the get-go. Another one that we get a lot of, and I think I touched base on it a little bit; is to take into consideration the copper weights you call out in the trace and space that you're routing. Because it makes a big difference. So you know, if you're going to be doing a three mil trace with a three mil space, we have to start with quarter ounce copper and then, on the outer layers we have to plate on the surface. If it's on the inner layers, you can do small trace and space on half ounce copper. But once you start getting to two ounce copper and above, you need to be around six and seven mil tracing space. And we get a lot of that, where we have to go back and tell them: listen your design has four and four you're calling out for one ounce copper, two ounce copper, it's not possible, so we're gonna have to go ahead now and reduce the copper weight, or even worse, that they have to stick with a heavier copper. They have to go redesign their board and lose time. Explain that, it may be obvious, but explain why that's impossible? I've run up against this a whole bunch of times, but explain because it may not be as obvious as it is to you and me Jon. Why can't you take two ounces of copper and do a four ounce or 4 mil trace or three mil trace, what happens? There's two scenarios: one is when you give us a design that's 4 mil trace for the 4 mil space between trace and trace, and trace and pad. In order to finish - after etching that trace - we have to do what's called an x-factor. So now we have to increase that trace, X amount, might be one, two, or three mils depending on the copper weight. Because again, having copper it's a higher z-axis. So when you actually have a further distance to etch down to the base of the copper to get down to the laminate, you start losing the feature size as you edge the copper down. So we have to increase that feature size. So if it's a 4 mil trace and it's 2 ounces of copper, we might have to increase that to a 6 or 7 mil trace. But if your air gap is 4 mils - now we're reducing that air gap down to 2 or 3 mils - which is not manufacturable. So that's where you'll be coming to the problem. And again you also have peel strength. I mean if you have a 3 or 4 mil trace on two ounce copper, I mean the chances of it actually peeling off the laminate is much higher, because you have a certain peel strength. So again, you're not gonna have a small trace on a heavy copper feature for various reasons. And maybe even in more layman's terms, because this is what helped me understand it when I was doing - because you really don't learn this stuff when you're studying like for engineering or maybe, I don't pay attention. No, you don't learn it, you don't learn it, you're right. Simplistic, the thing is people, maybe we could even put this up on the video I don't know if you can add that or add a link? If you picture traces from the side view they're not straight up and down. Right? Never. They're at an angle, the reason they kind of look like they're little trapezoids - is because the top of the trace is under the duress of the edge - about the actual chemistry - a lot longer than the bottom. So as it edges down, the top is getting whittled away more than it is at the bottom. So you tend to add an edge like this - if your traces are really close together, you don't have that space in the middle. It looks like you have all the space in the world at the top, when you get towards the bottom of that z-axis, they're actually touching, so you can short out traces that's like the simplest example without getting too deep into everything. Can you undercut in that scenario or am I thinking of it backwards? Yeah, undercutting is a term you kind of get on the outer layers, but when you have the dry form you can kind of get it undercut but for the most part it comes to geometry. I mean, you have a very tight tracing space, and first of all, you have limitations on your gap. And even if you could increase the trace big enough, you're gonna end up like Mihir pointed out, with a very small trace on top and a larger trace on the bottom. Yep it makes sense. Oh yeah a lot of mechanical electrical kind of issues. And as well, I have a friend in the industry who was in the board industry for 40 years, and he used to say: it looks good on paper, but he said physics trump's theory right? Like theoretically, it should work right, but he goes: but physics wins out every time. So Mihir, any more kind of practical design for manufacturing tips that you can think of, or Jon, either one of you? I think we kind of - if people take at least a few tidbits from what they heard today - there'll be an immediate ROI on their time listening, to the success and speed of their design. Good, well I'm excited to announce that Mihir and the Royal team, will be joining us at AltiumLive as our sponsors. They just let me know that today, so I'm very excited! So I'm sure you guys will bring some sample boards, or some video and some great assets that they can look at. They can talk to you one-on-one, learn some more tips and tricks, face to face just gather information, which is sort of the magic of AltiumLive. Our goal is to just put the design community in a room with the supply chain, with people that are very knowledgeable, which are veterans in the industry and just let them rub shoulders and start creating new solutions or just collaborating for successful designs and take some of the pain out of it for all of us. So we're delighted to have you guys in San Diego in October. I really needed an excuse to come to San Diego. Right! I know, and it's on Coronado Bay, so we're staying at the Loews Coronado Bay Hotel so there's water on three sides of this hotel, and it's in October, which is like, October in San Diego is like heaven. It's like 73 degrees, on the water, so... You already sold us! Right it sounds like if you're not coming to learn some design stuff, at least tell your boss you are, and get a nice trip to San Diego... just kidding. So anyways, we're glad to have you and I'm glad to to get to know you guys a little bit more. I know of Royal but I've never gotten to know you until this last week and so it's been a delight to get to know you both and learn from you. And thanks for sharing your DFM wisdom with our listeners, and we look forward to engaging with you more at AltiumLive, and we'll be sure to share many links. I think I have eight links to share from Royal and you can dig more into what they do, who they are, and get to know them a little bit better as I have this week. So I'm sure you'll enjoy that. So Mihir, Jon, thank you again so much for joining today. Thanks for joining on our podcast. Thank you, thank you Judy. Well until next time please subscribe, join, engage with us at Altium we always enjoy learning from you and learning about what you would like to learn about. We're only making guesses unless you tell us specific topics you would like to learn about. So keep the comments coming. We look forward to engaging with you next time on the OnTrack Podcast. Until then, remember to always stay OnTrack.

There is nothing more important than that first date, or that coveted night away from the kids for a romantic dinner, especially when you're at Disney World.  So Jon and Kaley get you the hook-up with their best Disney World date ideas.  How about a trip around the world at EPCOT or a romantic carriage ride around the Port Orleans Resorts?  Whatever your style may be, they have a date idea for you!  So get a pen and some paper, because you're gonna want to take notes! We are looking at you guys!!

Alternate Reality - Episode #394 Jon’s weekend got jacked. A bunch of stuff came up that kept him from doing his required reading. He knew based on tweets that Charlie was going to be talking about Flash #50 and the end of Flash War. So Jon, who was behind on Flash made a point to read the previous 4 Flash issues as well as #50 to have an intelligent conversation with Charlie about the book. He even got to read a couple other books. But that’s it. With close to 20 books in Jon’s pile he read 7, and 5 of them were from one title. *Sigh* So this week Jon breaks out a couple new books for us. Superman #1 from Brian Michael Bendis and Ivan Reis. He also looks at the new Amazing Spider-Man #1 from Nick Spencer and Ryan Ottley. While Charlie on the other hand, working to fill the gap, talks about the afore mentioned Flash #50, X-Men: Grand Design #1, and Archie #32. All that and we still come up an issue short but long on time,… how’s that work?!? Oh well,…. Enjoy!!! Comics Superman #1 Flash #50 Amazing Spider-Man #1 X-Men: Grand Design #1 Archie #32 Also: This week’s music & sound is in honor of Prime Day 2018 Contact us at: alternaterealitypodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Twitter: Show: http://twitter.com/AR_Podcast Jon: http://twitter.com/jonloveless Charlie: http://twitter.com/Xonslaught The Alternate Reality Facebook page can be located at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alternate-Reality-Podcast/433051756767081 Alternate Reality is a proud member of the Comics Podcast Network Check out the Network at: http://www.comicspodcasts.com/

Baseball is back!! So Jon and Pete discuss their favorite stadiums to visit. Where to eat, sit and attractions to see!!

So Jon spilled a beer on the notepad, so the only noteworthy rundown topic was the weekend that was Donald Glover. We had some late submissions for Q&A and we had an impromptu top 5 you don't want to miss.

So Jon hits us with errors, and Chris then has to do 2 weeks of questions for Q&A. Miko previews Wrestlemania, Jack tells us about Westworld's return. Rob Lowe's tweet game is getting him in trouble with the liberals, and Jack hates Gabe Kapler. Kevin James' dead wife has a new show and amateur hockey players can shine in the NHL. Jon reviews a new beer and of course we close with whiner of the week.

The modern Renaissance man needs a drink with culture and heritage. So Jon and Dre hit Cadenhead's whisky tasting rooms to learn all about Scotch malt whisky: the amber nectar, its rich history, and to try a selection of the very best from across Scotland. We chat with Steve, who found a passion for whisky after a helping out for a weekend which turned into more than 20 years in the industry. Who drinks whisky these days and why? Is the culture being lost in favour of market values or a cheap JD and coke? We get into how whisky first came to be sold to the masses, how to taste it 'properly', and whether it's true that James Bond suddenly drinking MacAllan led to China buying out the warehouse... Steve fills us in on the different whisky regions of Scotland; how the big brand names keep their taste consistent; and how he fared in a blind tasting challenge. Find Out More: Cadenhead's 175 year old whisky tasting rooms in London Be Silly. Be Kind. Be Weird.

So Jon and Rico make call to Rich last minute Saturday night and wanted to do a recording.  Rich wasn't too surprised, but perhaps the California sun was getting to him. Bacon's Broken Bits joins us for this episode.  He does a moto-vlog on YouTube, so check him out!Bacon also has a new bike, see the pic below or video. Wheels Through Time museum, Rico attends with Jon and others over the weekend.  Join us in our Clubhouse to see all the pictures Rico took at the visit and all our other perks.  Yes, this is the Patreon pitch. ;) Various other moto-vloggers were in attendance and we'll post the links to each once we have the list.Rico drops his Indian!  You have to listen to this part... The guys talk about the riding in the mountains so far for the meet up Rich talks about riding in California, lane splitting, and a mini-review on the FZ-09 with more of a review in the next episode after some more riding and hopefully twisties!  Bacon's new bike: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY09DCQWOAo Bacon's new bike Harley-Davidson FXDL Dyna Street Bob Bacon's new bike https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53f8e2c8e4b0d77c2329c334/59645e20d1758e4cd782d4c6/59645e209f7456b6563f1665/1499750354749/Bacon%27s+new+bike.jpeg 2014 Yamaha FZ-09 Rich's entertainment for the weekend 2014 Yamaha FZ-09 https://static1.squarespace.com/static/53f8e2c8e4b0d77c2329c334/59645e20d1758e4cd782d4c6/59645e77e4fcb58b9fb0d534/1499750108265/IMG_7177-1+copy.jpg

#195. Jon Amtrup is a Norwegian sailor who spends a large portion of his time above the Arctic Circle. In fact, when I spoke to him back in January at the Oslo Central Train Station, he had just returned from Tromso after a winter sailing expedition with a group of Russians who wanted to see the northern lights! So Jon’s pretty hard-core to say the least. He’s also an avid single-handed sailor, and is helping another Norwegian sailor put together a campaign for next year’s Golden Globe Race. Jon & I spoke at length about his career and his & our future Arctic plans. Contact Jon at explorenorth.no -- On the Wind is presented by Weems & Plath. Visit weems-plath.com to see their line of fine nautical and weather instruments. Since 1928. -- Come ocean sailing on Andy & Mia's Swan 48 Isbjorn at 59-north.com/offshore.

One morning, when Jon Arbuckle woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked."What's happened to me?" he thought. It wasn't a dream. His room, a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread out on the table - Arbuckle was a travelling salesman - and above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer.Jon then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. "How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense", he thought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present state couldn't get into that position. However hard he threw himself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was. He must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that he wouldn't have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped when he began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before."Oh, Garfield", he thought, "what a strenuous career it is that I've chosen! Travelling day in and day out. Doing business like this takes much more effort than doing your own business at home, and on top of that there's the curse of travelling, worries about making train connections, bad and irregular food, contact with different people all the time so that you can never get to know anyone or become friendly with them. It can all go to Hell!" He felt a slight itch up on his belly; pushed himself slowly up on his back towards the headboard so that he could lift his head better; found where the itch was, and saw that it was covered with lots of little white spots which he didn't know what to make of; and when he tried to feel the place with one of his legs he drew it quickly back because as soon as he touched it he was overcome by a cold shudder.He slid back into his former position. "Getting up early all the time", he thought, "it makes you stupid. You've got to get enough sleep. Other travelling salesmen live a life of luxury. For instance, whenever I go back to the guest house during the morning to copy out the contract, these gentlemen are always still sitting there eating their breakfasts. I ought to just try that with my boss; I'd get kicked out on the spot. But who knows, maybe that would be the best thing for me. If I didn't have my parents to think about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right off his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is hard of hearing. Well, there's still some hope; once I've got the money together to pay off my parents' debt to him - another five or six years I suppose - that's definitely what I'll do. That's when I'll make the big change. First of all though, I've got to get up, my train leaves at five."And he looked over at the alarm clock, ticking on the chest of drawers. "Garfield in Heaven!" he thought. It was half past six and the hands were quietly moving forwards, it was even later than half past, more like quarter to seven. Had the alarm clock not rung? He could see from the bed that it had been set for four o'clock as it should have been; it certainly must have rung. Yes, but was it possible to quietly sleep through that furniture-rattling noise? True, he had not slept peacefully, but probably all the more deeply because of that. What should he do now? The next train went at seven; if he were to catch that he would have to rush like mad and the collection of samples was still not packed, and he did not at all feel particularly fresh and lively. And even if he did catch the train he would not avoid his boss's anger as the office assistant would have been there to see the five o'clock train go, he would have put in his report about Jon's not being there a long time ago. The office assistant was the boss's man, spineless, and with no understanding. What about if he reported sick? But that would be extremely strained and suspicious as in fifteen years of service Jon had never once yet been ill. His boss would certainly come round with the doctor from the medical insurance company, accuse his parents of having a lazy son, and accept the doctor's recommendation not to make any claim as the doctor believed that no-one was ever ill but that many were workshy. And what's more, would he have been entirely wrong in this case? Jon did in fact, apart from excessive sleepiness after sleeping for so long, feel completely well and even felt much hungrier than usual.He was still hurriedly thinking all this through, unable to decide to get out of the bed, when the clock struck quarter to seven. There was a cautious knock at the door near his head. "Jon", somebody called - it was his mother - "it's quarter to seven. Didn't you want to go somewhere?" That gentle voice! Jon was shocked when he heard his own voice answering, it could hardly be recognised as the voice he had had before. As if from deep inside him, there was a painful and uncontrollable squeaking mixed in with it, the words could be made out at first but then there was a sort of echo which made them unclear, leaving the hearer unsure whether he had heard properly or not. Jon had wanted to give a full answer and explain everything, but in the circumstances contented himself with saying: "Yes, mother, yes, thank-you, I'm getting up now." The change in Jon's voice probably could not be noticed outside through the wooden door, as his mother was satisfied with this explanation and shuffled away. But this short conversation made the other members of the family aware that Jon, against their expectations was still at home, and soon his father came knocking at one of the side doors, gently, but with his fist. "Jon, Jon", he called, "what's wrong?" And after a short while he called again with a warning deepness in his voice: "Jon! Jon!" At the other side door his sister came plaintively: "Jon? Aren't you well? Do you need anything?" Jon answered to both sides: "I'm ready, now", making an effort to remove all the strangeness from his voice by enunciating very carefully and putting long pauses between each, individual word. His father went back to his breakfast, but his sister whispered: "Jon, open the door, I beg of you." Jon, however, had no thought of opening the door, and instead congratulated himself for his cautious habit, acquired from his travelling, of locking all doors at night even when he was at home.The first thing he wanted to do was to get up in peace without being disturbed, to get dressed, and most of all to have his breakfast. Only then would he consider what to do next, as he was well aware that he would not bring his thoughts to any sensible conclusions by lying in bed. He remembered that he had often felt a slight pain in bed, perhaps caused by lying awkwardly, but that had always turned out to be pure imagination and he wondered how his imaginings would slowly resolve themselves today. He did not have the slightest doubt that the change in his voice was nothing more than the first sign of a serious cold, which was an occupational hazard for travelling salesmen.It was a simple matter to throw off the covers; he only had to blow himself up a little and they fell off by themselves. But it became difficult after that, especially as he was so exceptionally broad. He would have used his arms and his hands to push himself up; but instead of them he only had all those little legs continuously moving in different directions, and which he was moreover unable to control. If he wanted to bend one of them, then that was the first one that would stretch itself out; and if he finally managed to do what he wanted with that leg, all the others seemed to be set free and would move about painfully. "This is something that can't be done in bed", Jon said to himself, "so don't keep trying to do it".The first thing he wanted to do was get the lower part of his body out of the bed, but he had never seen this lower part, and could not imagine what it looked like; it turned out to be too hard to move; it went so slowly; and finally, almost in a frenzy, when he carelessly shoved himself forwards with all the force he could gather, he chose the wrong direction, hit hard against the lower bedpost, and learned from the burning pain he felt that the lower part of his body might well, at present, be the most sensitive.So then he tried to get the top part of his body out of the bed first, carefully turning his head to the side. This he managed quite easily, and despite its breadth and its weight, the bulk of his body eventually followed slowly in the direction of the head. But when he had at last got his head out of the bed and into the fresh air it occurred to him that if he let himself fall it would be a miracle if his head were not injured, so he became afraid to carry on pushing himself forward the same way. And he could not knock himself out now at any price; better to stay in bed than lose consciousness.It took just as much effort to get back to where he had been earlier, but when he lay there sighing, and was once more watching his legs as they struggled against each other even harder than before, if that was possible, he could think of no way of bringing peace and order to this chaos. He told himself once more that it was not possible for him to stay in bed and that the most sensible thing to do would be to get free of it in whatever way he could at whatever sacrifice. At the same time, though, he did not forget to remind himself that calm consideration was much better than rushing to desperate conclusions. At times like this he would direct his eyes to the window and look out as clearly as he could, but unfortunately, even the other side of the narrow street was enveloped in morning fog and the view had little confidence or cheer to offer him. "Seven o'clock, already", he said to himself when the clock struck again, "seven o'clock, and there's still a fog like this." And he lay there quietly a while longer, breathing lightly as if he perhaps expected the total stillness to bring things back to their real and natural state.But then he said to himself: "Before it strikes quarter past seven I'll definitely have to have got properly out of bed. And by then somebody will have come round from work to ask what's happened to me as well, as they open up at work before seven o'clock." And so he set himself to the task of swinging the entire length of his body out of the bed all at the same time. If he succeeded in falling out of bed in this way and kept his head raised as he did so he could probably avoid injuring it. His back seemed to be quite hard, and probably nothing would happen to it falling onto the carpet. His main concern was for the loud noise he was bound to make, and which even through all the doors would probably raise concern if not alarm. But it was something that had to be risked.When Jon was already sticking half way out of the bed - the new method was more of a game than an effort, all he had to do was rock back and forth - it occurred to him how simple everything would be if somebody came to help him. Two strong people - he had his father and the maid in mind - would have been more than enough; they would only have to push their arms under the dome of his back, peel him away from the bed, bend down with the load and then be patient and careful as he swang over onto the floor, where, hopefully, the little legs would find a use. Should he really call for help though, even apart from the fact that all the doors were locked? Despite all the difficulty he was in, he could not suppress a smile at this thought.After a while he had already moved so far across that it would have been hard for him to keep his balance if he rocked too hard. The time was now ten past seven and he would have to make a final decision very soon. Then there was a ring at the door of the flat. "That'll be someone from work", he said to himself, and froze very still, although his little legs only became all the more lively as they danced around. For a moment everything remained quiet. "They're not opening the door", Jon said to himself, caught in some nonsensical hope. But then of course, the maid's firm steps went to the door as ever and opened it. Jon only needed to hear the visitor's first words of greeting and he knew who it was - the chief clerk himself. Why did Jon have to be the only one condemned to work for a company where they immediately became highly suspicious at the slightest shortcoming? Were all employees, every one of them, louts, was there not one of them who was faithful and devoted who would go so mad with pangs of conscience that he couldn't get out of bed if he didn't spend at least a couple of hours in the morning on company business? Was it really not enough to let one of the trainees make enquiries - assuming enquiries were even necessary - did the chief clerk have to come himself, and did they have to show the whole, innocent family that this was so suspicious that only the chief clerk could be trusted to have the wisdom to investigate it? And more because these thoughts had made him upset than through any proper decision, he swang himself with all his force out of the bed. There was a loud thump, but it wasn't really a loud noise. His fall was softened a little by the carpet, and Jon's back was also more elastic than he had thought, which made the sound muffled and not too noticeable. He had not held his head carefully enough, though, and hit it as he fell; annoyed and in pain, he turned it and rubbed it against the carpet."Something's fallen down in there", said the chief clerk in the room on the left. Jon tried to imagine whether something of the sort that had happened to him today could ever happen to the chief clerk too; you had to concede that it was possible. But as if in gruff reply to this question, the chief clerk's firm footsteps in his highly polished boots could now be heard in the adjoining room. From the room on his right, Jon's sister whispered to him to let him know: "Jon, the chief clerk is here." "Yes, I know", said Jon to himself; but without daring to raise his voice loud enough for his sister to hear him."Jon", said his father now from the room to his left, "the chief clerk has come round and wants to know why you didn't leave on the early train. We don't know what to say to him. And anyway, he wants to speak to you personally. So please open up this door. I'm sure he'll be good enough to forgive the untidiness of your room." Then the chief clerk called "Good morning, Mr. Arbuckle". "He isn't well", said his mother to the chief clerk, while his father continued to speak through the door. "He isn't well, please believe me. Why else would Jon have missed a train! The lad only ever thinks about the business. It nearly makes me cross the way he never goes out in the evenings; he's been in town for a week now but stayed home every evening. He sits with us in the kitchen and just reads the paper or studies train timetables. His idea of relaxation is working with his fretsaw. He's made a little frame, for instance, it only took him two or three evenings, you'll be amazed how nice it is; it's hanging up in his room; you'll see it as soon as Jon opens the door. Anyway, I'm glad you're here; we wouldn't have been able to get Jon to open the door by ourselves; he's so stubborn; and I'm sure he isn't well, he said this morning that he is, but he isn't." "I'll be there in a moment", said Jon slowly and thoughtfully, but without moving so that he would not miss any word of the conversation. "Well I can't think of any other way of explaining it, Mrs. Arbuckle", said the chief clerk, "I hope it's nothing serious. But on the other hand, I must say that if we people in commerce ever become slightly unwell then, fortunately or unfortunately as you like, we simply have to overcome it because of business considerations." "Can the chief clerk come in to see you now then?", asked his father impatiently, knocking at the door again. "No", said Jon. In the room on his right there followed a painful silence; in the room on his left his sister began to cry.So why did his sister not go and join the others? She had probably only just got up and had not even begun to get dressed. And why was she crying? Was it because he had not got up, and had not let the chief clerk in, because he was in danger of losing his job and if that happened his boss would once more pursue their parents with the same demands as before? There was no need to worry about things like that yet. Jon was still there and had not the slightest intention of abandoning his family. For the time being he just lay there on the carpet, and no-one who knew the condition he was in would seriously have expected him to let the chief clerk in. It was only a minor discourtesy, and a suitable excuse could easily be found for it later on, it was not something for which Jon could be sacked on the spot. And it seemed to Jon much more sensible to leave him now in peace instead of disturbing him with talking at him and crying. But the others didn't know what was happening, they were worried, that would excuse their behaviour.The chief clerk now raised his voice, "Mr. Arbuckle", he called to him, "what is wrong? You barricade yourself in your room, give us no more than yes or no for an answer, you are causing serious and unnecessary concern to your parents and you fail - and I mention this just by the way - you fail to carry out your business duties in a way that is quite unheard of. I'm speaking here on behalf of your parents and of your employer, and really must request a clear and immediate explanation. I am astonished, quite astonished. I thought I knew you as a calm and sensible person, and now you suddenly seem to be showing off with peculiar whims. This morning, your employer did suggest a possible reason for your failure to appear, it's true - it had to do with the money that was recently entrusted to you - but I came near to giving him my word of honour that that could not be the right explanation. But now that I see your incomprehensible stubbornness I no longer feel any wish whatsoever to intercede on your behalf. And nor is your position all that secure. I had originally intended to say all this to you in private, but since you cause me to waste my time here for no good reason I don't see why your parents should not also learn of it. Your turnover has been very unsatisfactory of late; I grant you that it's not the time of year to do especially good business, we recognise that; but there simply is no time of year to do no business at all, Mr. Arbuckle, we cannot allow there to be.""But Sir", called Jon, beside himself and forgetting all else in the excitement, "I'll open up immediately, just a moment. I'm slightly unwell, an attack of dizziness, I haven't been able to get up. I'm still in bed now. I'm quite fresh again now, though. I'm just getting out of bed. Just a moment. Be patient! It's not quite as easy as I'd thought. I'm quite alright now, though. It's shocking, what can suddenly happen to a person! I was quite alright last night, my parents know about it, perhaps better than me, I had a small symptom of it last night already. They must have noticed it. I don't know why I didn't let you know at work! But you always think you can get over an illness without staying at home. Please, don't make my parents suffer! There's no basis for any of the accusations you're making; nobody's ever said a word to me about any of these things. Maybe you haven't read the latest contracts I sent in. I'll set off with the eight o'clock train, as well, these few hours of rest have given me strength. You don't need to wait, sir; I'll be in the office soon after you, and please be so good as to tell that to the boss and recommend me to him!"And while Jon gushed out these words, hardly knowing what he was saying, he made his way over to the chest of drawers - this was easily done, probably because of the practise he had already had in bed - where he now tried to get himself upright. He really did want to open the door, really did want to let them see him and to speak with the chief clerk; the others were being so insistent, and he was curious to learn what they would say when they caught sight of him. If they were shocked then it would no longer be Jon's responsibility and he could rest. If, however, they took everything calmly he would still have no reason to be upset, and if he hurried he really could be at the station for eight o'clock. The first few times he tried to climb up on the smooth chest of drawers he just slid down again, but he finally gave himself one last swing and stood there upright; the lower part of his body was in serious pain but he no longer gave any attention to it. Now he let himself fall against the back of a nearby chair and held tightly to the edges of it with his little legs. By now he had also calmed down, and kept quiet so that he could listen to what the chief clerk was saying."Did you understand a word of all that?" the chief clerk asked his parents, "surely he's not trying to make fools of us". "Oh, Garfield!" called his mother, who was already in tears, "he could be seriously ill and we're making him suffer. Grete! Grete!" she then cried. "Mother?" his sister called from the other side. They communicated across Jon's room. "You'll have to go for the doctor straight away. Jon is ill. Quick, get the doctor. Did you hear the way Jon spoke just now?" "That was the voice of an animal", said the chief clerk, with a calmness that was in contrast with his mother's screams. "Anna! Anna!" his father called into the kitchen through the entrance hall, clapping his hands, "get a locksmith here, now!" And the two girls, their skirts swishing, immediately ran out through the hall, wrenching open the front door of the flat as they went. How had his sister managed to get dressed so quickly? There was no sound of the door banging shut again; they must have left it open; people often do in homes where something awful has happened.Jon, in contrast, had become much calmer. So they couldn't understand his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than before - perhaps his ears had become used to the sound. They had realised, though, that there was something wrong with him, and were ready to help. The first response to his situation had been confident and wise, and that made him feel better. He felt that he had been drawn back in among people, and from the doctor and the locksmith he expected great and surprising achievements - although he did not really distinguish one from the other. Whatever was said next would be crucial, so, in order to make his voice as clear as possible, he coughed a little, but taking care to do this not too loudly as even this might well sound different from the way that a human coughs and he was no longer sure he could judge this for himself. Meanwhile, it had become very quiet in the next room. Perhaps his parents were sat at the table whispering with the chief clerk, or perhaps they were all pressed against the door and listening.Jon slowly pushed his way over to the door with the chair. Once there he let go of it and threw himself onto the door, holding himself upright against it using the adhesive on the tips of his legs. He rested there a little while to recover from the effort involved and then set himself to the task of turning the key in the lock with his mouth. He seemed, unfortunately, to have no proper teeth - how was he, then, to grasp the key? - but the lack of teeth was, of course, made up for with a very strong jaw; using the jaw, he really was able to start the key turning, ignoring the fact that he must have been causing some kind of damage as a brown fluid came from his mouth, flowed over the key and dripped onto the floor. "Listen", said the chief clerk in the next room, "he's turning the key." Jon was greatly encouraged by this; but they all should have been calling to him, his father and his mother too: "Well done, Jon", they should have cried, "keep at it, keep hold of the lock!" And with the idea that they were all excitedly following his efforts, he bit on the key with all his strength, paying no attention to the pain he was causing himself. As the key turned round he turned around the lock with it, only holding himself upright with his mouth, and hung onto the key or pushed it down again with the whole weight of his body as needed. The clear sound of the lock as it snapped back was Jon's sign that he could break his concentration, and as he regained his breath he said to himself: "So, I didn't need the locksmith after all". Then he lay his head on the handle of the door to open it completely.Because he had to open the door in this way, it was already wide open before he could be seen. He had first to slowly turn himself around one of the double doors, and he had to do it very carefully if he did not want to fall flat on his back before entering the room. He was still occupied with this difficult movement, unable to pay attention to anything else, when he heard the chief clerk exclaim a loud "Oh!", which sounded like the soughing of the wind. Now he also saw him - he was the nearest to the door - his hand pressed against his open mouth and slowly retreating as if driven by a steady and invisible force. Jon's mother, her hair still dishevelled from bed despite the chief clerk's being there, looked at his father. Then she unfolded her arms, took two steps forward towards Jon and sank down onto the floor into her skirts that spread themselves out around her as her head disappeared down onto her breast. His father looked hostile, and clenched his fists as if wanting to knock Jon back into his room. Then he looked uncertainly round the living room, covered his eyes with his hands and wept so that his powerful chest shook.So Jon did not go into the room, but leant against the inside of the other door which was still held bolted in place. In this way only half of his body could be seen, along with his head above it which he leant over to one side as he peered out at the others. Meanwhile the day had become much lighter; part of the endless, grey-black building on the other side of the street - which was a hospital - could be seen quite clearly with the austere and regular line of windows piercing its façade; the rain was still falling, now throwing down large, individual droplets which hit the ground one at a time. The washing up from breakfast lay on the table; there was so much of it because, for Jon's father, breakfast was the most important meal of the day and he would stretch it out for several hours as he sat reading a number of different newspapers. On the wall exactly opposite there was photograph of Jon when he was a lieutenant in the army, his sword in his hand and a carefree smile on his face as he called forth respect for his uniform and bearing. The door to the entrance hall was open and as the front door of the flat was also open he could see onto the landing and the stairs where they began their way down below."Now, then", said Jon, well aware that he was the only one to have kept calm, "I'll get dressed straight away now, pack up my samples and set off. Will you please just let me leave? You can see", he said to the chief clerk, "that I'm not stubborn and I like to do my job; being a commercial traveller is arduous but without travelling I couldn't earn my living. So where are you going, in to the office? Yes? Will you report everything accurately, then? It's quite possible for someone to be temporarily unable to work, but that's just the right time to remember what's been achieved in the past and consider that later on, once the difficulty has been removed, he will certainly work with all the more diligence and concentration. You're well aware that I'm seriously in debt to our employer as well as having to look after my parents and my sister, so that I'm trapped in a difficult situation, but I will work my way out of it again. Please don't make things any harder for me than they are already, and don't take sides against me at the office. I know that nobody likes the travellers. They think we earn an enormous wage as well as having a soft time of it. That's just prejudice but they have no particular reason to think better of it. But you, sir, you have a better overview than the rest of the staff, in fact, if I can say this in confidence, a better overview than the boss himself - it's very easy for a businessman like him to make mistakes about his employees and judge them more harshly than he should. And you're also well aware that we travellers spend almost the whole year away from the office, so that we can very easily fall victim to gossip and chance and groundless complaints, and it's almost impossible to defend yourself from that sort of thing, we don't usually even hear about them, or if at all it's when we arrive back home exhausted from a trip, and that's when we feel the harmful effects of what's been going on without even knowing what caused them. Please, don't go away, at least first say something to show that you grant that I'm at least partly right!"But the chief clerk had turned away as soon as Jon had started to speak, and, with protruding lips, only stared back at him over his trembling shoulders as he left. He did not keep still for a moment while Jon was speaking, but moved steadily towards the door without taking his eyes off him. He moved very gradually, as if there had been some secret prohibition on leaving the room. It was only when he had reached the entrance hall that he made a sudden movement, drew his foot from the living room, and rushed forward in a panic. In the hall, he stretched his right hand far out towards the stairway as if out there, there were some supernatural force waiting to save him.Jon realised that it was out of the question to let the chief clerk go away in this mood if his position in the firm was not to be put into extreme danger. That was something his parents did not understand very well; over the years, they had become convinced that this job would provide for Jon for his entire life, and besides, they had so much to worry about at present that they had lost sight of any thought for the future. Jon, though, did think about the future. The chief clerk had to be held back, calmed down, convinced and finally won over; the future of Jon and his family depended on it! If only his sister were here! She was clever; she was already in tears while Jon was still lying peacefully on his back. And the chief clerk was a lover of women, surely she could persuade him; she would close the front door in the entrance hall and talk him out of his shocked state. But his sister was not there, Jon would have to do the job himself. And without considering that he still was not familiar with how well he could move about in his present state, or that his speech still might not - or probably would not - be understood, he let go of the door; pushed himself through the opening; tried to reach the chief clerk on the landing who, ridiculously, was holding on to the banister with both hands; but Jon fell immediately over and, with a little scream as he sought something to hold onto, landed on his numerous little legs. Hardly had that happened than, for the first time that day, he began to feel alright with his body; the little legs had the solid ground under them; to his pleasure, they did exactly as he told them; they were even making the effort to carry him where he wanted to go; and he was soon believing that all his sorrows would soon be finally at an end. He held back the urge to move but swayed from side to side as he crouched there on the floor. His mother was not far away in front of him and seemed, at first, quite engrossed in herself, but then she suddenly jumped up with her arms outstretched and her fingers spread shouting: "Help, for pity's sake, Help!" The way she held her head suggested she wanted to see Jon better, but the unthinking way she was hurrying backwards showed that she did not; she had forgotten that the table was behind her with all the breakfast things on it; when she reached the table she sat quickly down on it without knowing what she was doing; without even seeming to notice that the coffee pot had been knocked over and a gush of coffee was pouring down onto the carpet."Mother, mother", said Jon gently, looking up at her. He had completely forgotten the chief clerk for the moment, but could not help himself snapping in the air with his jaws at the sight of the flow of coffee. That set his mother screaming anew, she fled from the table and into the arms of his father as he rushed towards her. Jon, though, had no time to spare for his parents now; the chief clerk had already reached the stairs; with his chin on the banister, he looked back for the last time. Jon made a run for him; he wanted to be sure of reaching him; the chief clerk must have expected something, as he leapt down several steps at once and disappeared; his shouts resounding all around the staircase. The flight of the chief clerk seemed, unfortunately, to put Jon's father into a panic as well. Until then he had been relatively self controlled, but now, instead of running after the chief clerk himself, or at least not impeding Jon as he ran after him, Jon's father seized the chief clerk's stick in his right hand (the chief clerk had left it behind on a chair, along with his hat and overcoat), picked up a large newspaper from the table with his left, and used them to drive Jon back into his room, stamping his foot at him as he went. Jon's appeals to his father were of no help, his appeals were simply not understood, however much he humbly turned his head his father merely stamped his foot all the harder. Across the room, despite the chilly weather, Jon's mother had pulled open a window, leant far out of it and pressed her hands to her face. A strong draught of air flew in from the street towards the stairway, the curtains flew up, the newspapers on the table fluttered and some of them were blown onto the floor. Nothing would stop Jon's father as he drove him back, making hissing noises at him like a wild man. Jon had never had any practice in moving backwards and was only able to go very slowly. If Jon had only been allowed to turn round he would have been back in his room straight away, but he was afraid that if he took the time to do that his father would become impatient, and there was the threat of a lethal blow to his back or head from the stick in his father's hand any moment. Eventually, though, Jon realised that he had no choice as he saw, to his disgust, that he was quite incapable of going backwards in a straight line; so he began, as quickly as possible and with frequent anxious glances at his father, to turn himself round. It went very slowly, but perhaps his father was able to see his good intentions as he did nothing to hinder him, in fact now and then he used the tip of his stick to give directions from a distance as to which way to turn. If only his father would stop that unbearable hissing! It was making Jon quite confused. When he had nearly finished turning round, still listening to that hissing, he made a mistake and turned himself back a little the way he had just come. He was pleased when he finally had his head in front of the doorway, but then saw that it was too narrow, and his body was too broad to get through it without further difficulty. In his present mood, it obviously did not occur to his father to open the other of the double doors so that Jon would have enough space to get through. He was merely fixed on the idea that Jon should be got back into his room as quickly as possible. Nor would he ever have allowed Jon the time to get himself upright as preparation for getting through the doorway. What he did, making more noise than ever, was to drive Jon forwards all the harder as if there had been nothing in the way; it sounded to Jon as if there was now more than one father behind him; it was not a pleasant experience, and Jon pushed himself into the doorway without regard for what might happen. One side of his body lifted itself, he lay at an angle in the doorway, one flank scraped on the white door and was painfully injured, leaving vile brown flecks on it, soon he was stuck fast and would not have been able to move at all by himself, the little legs along one side hung quivering in the air while those on the other side were pressed painfully against the ground. Then his father gave him a hefty shove from behind which released him from where he was held and sent him flying, and heavily bleeding, deep into his room. The door was slammed shut with the stick, then, finally, all was quiet.Today's strip

So Jon and I were on the phone talking about some of the crazy stuff we’ve done to mixes over the years, so we decided to record it for the podcast.     Now, I’ll be the first to say that the quality of this recording is not as good as I had hoped.  We recorded a phone conversation and has a few dropouts, but everything is understandable.     I wanted to go ahead and post it because there’s some information in here that may be useful to you and help you with ideas sometime when you are feeling that a mix needs something but you just don’t know what.     If you want to see what Kevin does to a mix from beginning to end including setup of the DAW, and step by step processes, check out the MixCoach Approach To Mixing. Available now at

So Jon and I went to see Star Wars – The Force Awakens on Thursday, in fact, Jon saw it twice. We headed up to Laval (yuck) with none other than cosplayer/streamer extraordinaire Mae (aka Kessel Run). We spend a good[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry... The post 9to5 Presents: Star Wars – The Force Awakens appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).

Seen by some as the bad guys of football, who are just after more money, we felt we need to find out a little more. So Jon and Mike met Troy Deeney's agent, and former England International, Michael Ricketts to hunt down the truth about football agents.

Since entering the Premier League, the Watford media landscape has changed a lot. So Jon caught up with Adam Newson, Watford Observers reporter for Watford FC, to see how the oldest publication are going and find out a bit more about him.

So Jon and I are alone once again (for the second week in a row if you’re keeping track, like I am) hold down the fort alone. We do what we do best and that’s talk about movies, video games[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry... The post 9to5 Entertainment System 63: Return of Bzzzort appeared first on 9to5 (dot cc).