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Well, that escalated quickly. Suddenly I'm at home all day because, like most hospitality professionals, I'm not entirely employed anymore. In this episode, I discuss how times like this are powerful opportunities to explore what really matters in our lives. And to understand the essence of how it is we wish to serve in this life. It doesn't matter what it is you're doing, it matters how you're doing it and the person you're practicing as while doing it.Recommended Pairings: Lifestyle, Pre-Service & In-Service Practices To Maximize Your Well-Being & Capability (Service Skills You're Never Taught Pt. 6) | Ep. 61All of This is True:In a very primal way, work determines your identity. I talk about how to go beyond that programming.I give you tools and practices to know the essence of who you are.Regardless of your role in service, the quality of your work depends on how much you fill the cup you plan to pour from. And how much you know who this cup is ("cup" is an analogy for the human being that is you, by the way).You take pride in your work in ways you may not even realize. And taking pride in jobs that aren't your ultimate aspiration will be an absolute game-changer for you.Your true path in life is simply a matter of habits and not some ultimate revelation that descends upon you.Check out the new email/blog series and sign up for the mailing list here.Go Deeper Into The Mindful Service Movement:Explore The Book ToC w/ Live Content LinksJoin the Facebook Community & Bring Us Your Service Struggles & Insights!Follow Me on Instagram & Learn Mindful Ninja MovesSubscribe/Review on i-Tunes & Support the showCheck out my partnership with The Institute for Organizational MindfulnessSupport the show (https://donorbox.org/support-serve-conscious)

Summary: Listen in as Diebold Nixdorf's Jerry Langfitt and Carl von Sydow, discuss how retailers are empowering their customers to shop and check-out the way they want, faster and without friction. Resources: Transforming Your Retail Business with DN VynamicTM Retail Suite Retail Homepage Join the StorevolutionTM Transcription: Jerry Langfitt:                    Hello, I'm Jerry Langfitt, and I'm your host for this episode of COMMERCE NOW. On today's podcast we welcome Diebold Nixdorf's Carl von Sydow, Director of Self-Service for Retail in the Americas. We will discuss how retailers are empowering their customers to shop and checkout the way they want. Faster, and without friction. Welcome, Carl, it's a pleasure to speak with you today. Carl von Sydow:                Thank you Jerry, the same to you. Jerry Langfitt:                    Before we get moving can you tell us a little bit about your background? Carl von Sydow:                Yeah, well, my background is I've been working with retail for [00:00:30] 20, 25 years, and the last 15 has been very much focused around self-service. I've been working with retailers on self-service, from Australia all the way through Europe, Asia, and now I ended up in the Americas. I moved to Columbus, Ohio, last year. I'm from Europe, as you might hear on my accent, but I've been all over the world, talking serf-service. I'm really burning for that concept. I love the fact that the checkout process is something that everybody [00:01:00] is doing every day, but it's still something that evolves. It's a great challenge for the retailers to do this in a good way and meet the customer's expectations. Jerry Langfitt:                    Okay. Well, let's dive in. I'd like to start off by talking about consumer behavior and how it impacts self-scanning. There seems to be a lot of journeys being done at grocery stores now. I can do curbside pickup, I can do delivery, I can do self-scanning. Why do I see an explosion of different ways to shop? Carl von Sydow:                Well, [00:01:30] I always like to put myself in the shoes of the customer or the shopper and look at the customer journey. I'm really happy that we are starting at that point as well. We are not talking products the first thing we do, we're talking about customer journeys, and what makes a customer journey attractive for a customer. If a retailer can meet that then the customers will come to their stores. They will go where they can have their best shopping experience. For me, self-service in general is [00:02:00] of course a very attractive customer journey, and there are many different versions of self-service in customer journeys. Depending on which retail vertical you're in you have different pros and cons for different solutions, but the topic for today, hand scanning, for me, within grocery, it's the ideal customer journey. From a customer perspective, to start with, but also from a retailer's perspective. Jerry Langfitt:                    Let's describe it real quick, just to make sure, since I've just experienced it recently [00:02:30] at a local grocery store. Let's just quickly, for the audience, what is hand scanning? Carl von Sydow:                The concept is that the customer enters the store and at the point where you enter the store the customer will take a device in a bracket in the entrance, and there are two options there. You could have a loyalty-based solution, where you swipe your loyalty card or identify yourself somehow, and you will get a dedicated device with your name on it, basically. It says, "Hi Carl, [00:03:00] welcome to this store." Or you have a different solution where you can pick any device, and you're anonymous when you go through this customer journey. I prefer the first one, of course. There are many benefits with a loyalty-based solution. But you get this handheld device provided by the retailer. You typically could have a bracket on your cart where you can put this device, so you don't have to carry it around when you're shopping. Carl von Sydow:                On that device you will have a big screen, [00:03:30] like on a smartphone, and on that screen you will have what we call a virtual receipt. On that virtual receipt you will see every product that you're shopping. You have an article description and a price and you have a summary and everything. What that means is that the customer will have full control of the transaction. The customer will always see and be aware of how much of my budget have I spent right now, with the products that I have in my cart or in my basket? As you go shopping you pick one item [00:04:00] from a shelf, you scan it with this device, and you put it in your bag. When you have done shopping you go to a pay station. That pay station could be a standalone pay station or you could also go to a normal checkout and pay, but what you do then, depending on the solution, you scan a barcode at the end, or just put this device that you have been carrying around, you put that device back in the bracket on the wall, and then the system [00:04:30] automatically will recognize you and your transaction, and you will pay at the pay station and leave. Jerry Langfitt:                    Now, that seems pretty interesting, because I know that when I'm shopping I rarely keep track in my head what I've put into my cart. This really does provide the consumer information that directly affects their purchase. Do they buy more? Do they buy less? What do we see in the industry? Carl von Sydow:                Well, across Europe, hand scanning is very a known concept. It's difficult almost [00:05:00] to find a retailer in Europe that do not have hand scanning as an option. There have been a lot of different studies made in Europe about hand scanning. There are a couple of significant messages in these reports, one of them being that the average value of a transaction in hand scanning is between 10 and 15% higher than a normal basket in a normal, manned checkout lane. We see the same [00:05:30] trend in hospitality, where we have kiosks nowadays where you can go and order your hamburger. Also in hospitality, with self-service and kiosks, where you have also full control of your transaction, you can do all the different up-sale ... modify your burger to whatever you want. We see a higher increase in hospitality, between 15 and 20%, actually, on the average transaction value. [00:06:00] Empower the customer with the transaction to feel in control, that will increase the transaction. Jerry Langfitt:                    It really seems like it, because I know if I'm shopping with my wife and we're putting stuff in the basket we're usually surprised at the end, going, "Oh my god it costs this much," but if we had a running tally I'd be more apt to go just over. It does give myself, just knowing the information, I think I would probably [00:06:30] buy more as well, because now I'm fully aware as I'm going through this. It can affect my journey probably to the betterment of myself, and the retailer. Carl von Sydow:                That's one of the great benefits with hand scanning is that you're in full control of your spending. You know exactly ... if you have a budget, you can follow it. With hand scanning I can go on forever talking about this, this is one of my favorite solutions for self-service. There are two other main benefits, one very important one being that [00:07:00] you only touch ... whatever you buy, you only touch the item once. That's when you take it down from the shelf and scan it and put it in your bag. If you go through the store in a normal way, to a manned checkout, if you count the number of times anyone, someone, touch your items, it'll be anything from three to four times. You will put it in your bag and you will put it on the lead-in belt at the checkout, then the cashier will scan it, and then you will have to bag it or someone will have to bag it. At least four times, [00:07:30] compared to one time when you do hand scanning. Carl von Sydow:                The other benefit of that is of course ... and if you are a trained user in hand scanning you know all this ... so if you do, as you pack your bag, so you can have the heavy items first, like the milk packages or whatever, and then you put the produce at the end on the top of your bags. You can plan your bagging process yourself, instead of feeling very rushed at the end at the checkout, or have someone else [00:08:00] bag your stuff for you and the eggs are broken when you get home. It's another benefit. Carl von Sydow:                The second big one is that the whole payment phase of a shopping journey is eliminated to like a minute, because the only thing you do when you checkout in hand scanning is that you pay for your transaction. You don't scan any items, or you don't do anything really, you just go to a pay station and you pay with cash or with card. That [00:08:30] typically is less than a minute. Overall, hand scanning is by far the fastest customer journey through a store, independent of number of articles, I would say. If you buy five or 50 it's still the fastest. Jerry Langfitt:                    Now, doesn't this give us an opportunity for either promotion or personalization if I'm using a device and a loyalty program? Carl von Sydow:                If you have a loyalty-based hand scanning solution all options are [00:09:00] available for you. To push advertising to the individual user based on shopping behavior, or previous shopping behavior, or if you scan a particular item and then you have a sale, buy two pay for one, you can push that immediately to this device. You have immediate possibility to push for up-sale, or you can have offers based on shopping experience or previous shopping [00:09:30] behavior. Jerry Langfitt:                    I did see that one, and my experience was it was if you buy four of a particular item or a brand of item, and it showed on the device and said, "Okay, you have one of four, if you buy three more," and when I hit those next three the discount automatically engaged and I was able to get that. That just seems like it's pretty powerful from the grocery store, and the consumer products goods, to be able to push things. Carl von Sydow:                That's a good point, Jerry, because ... I shop with hand scanning. That's my preferred solution. I don't keep [00:10:00] track on all the offers in the store. I'm not that kind of person. When I scan something, I just take a quick look at the display and see if the price was okay. Then, as you said, if they have an offer for the product it will come up on the display. You have bought one, if you buy a second one you will have this discount. Then, yeah, well, I'll buy another one. Without even thinking about it I just bought an item extra because I have this opportunity you told me [00:10:30] on the display. If I would go shopping in a normal way I would never done that. I would never know it. Jerry Langfitt:                    I would see the discount maybe at some point, but the instant gratification you do get going oh, I'll get that, and then suddenly I have four tubes of toothpaste. Carl von Sydow:                And everybody has been at the point of checkout and then the cashier tells you that, well, if you buy another of these you will get a discount. Well, at that point, the shopping journey is ended. I don't want to break that and go and fetch another bottle of [00:11:00] Coke or whatever it is. Then it's too late. It has to happen during the shopping journey. Not at the end. Jerry Langfitt:                    And the coupons they give you afterwards I rarely use, because I don't remember to bring them, but the fact that I have it instantly I am more apt to, well, if I get this then I'll get four more. Let's talk about implementation for a second. Europe is doing it way better, or at least it's implemented more. What is a retailer have to consider when they're doing it here? Carl von Sydow:                Yeah, and longer. [00:11:30] As with everything it's a learning experience. Hand scanning, the first installations, I'm sure it's like 10 years ago or something. The first versions were not as good as they are today, of course. There were some learnings over the first few years that the retailers and the solution providers in Europe have taken into consideration and implemented now in the solutions that are available today. It has taken a few years to come [00:12:00] to the point where we are today, and today the solution is very mature. It works, it has been on the market for 10 years, thousands of stores in Europe are using hand scanning, and they know how to implement it. It's very important ... human beings in general are a little bit reluctant to change behavior, so if you add a new shopping journey as an alternative you have to hold the customer's hand through the [00:12:30] first few times. Otherwise, the customers will not try it. You'll always go with what you are comfortable with. Jerry Langfitt:                    Right, what you know. Carl von Sydow:                What you know. That's very- Jerry Langfitt:                    It's certainly not about just installing tech, you really need to think this through. Carl von Sydow:                ... You have to think this through, and explain to the customer why it's so good, also, for the customer. The customer is not ... like self-service always often hear that you're doing the [00:13:00] job of the cashier and you don't get anything back for it. That's very wrong. As I said, if you use hand scanning, there are a lot of benefits for you as a customer or a shopper by using this system. You have to understand them and someone has to hold your hand through the first journeys, so educating the customer how to work through the first times is very important. Carl von Sydow:                One challenge with self-scanning, or self-checkouts in general, but [00:13:30] particularly for self-scanning, is how you manage produce, where you price the item based on weight. In a traditional self-checkout you have this weighing scale at the point of the checkout, and you pick your bananas from the icon on the screen and then you pay for it. With hand scanning, you have to move that part of that process to the produce area. You have to have a weighing scale somewhere in the produce area so the customer can do that at the produce area. Scan [00:14:00] the item, get the barcode, and then get the right price on the barcode. Carl von Sydow:                I have seen several different attempts here in the US to solve this. Funnily enough, I don't know if they have ever seen how it works elsewhere, because some of the solutions here are very complicated. They are not intuitive, more contra-intuitive some, even. If you have an obstacle like that the customer next time will avoid to go [00:14:30] shopping with hand scanning. If it's too difficult to understand or too difficult to use I won't use it. Jerry Langfitt:                    Yeah, first couple times, and someone's just going to wave off and never do it again. Carl von Sydow:                Then you're done. So it's critical that you implement this from a point where you see ... you have to take away all the pain points during the customer journey and make it as easy as possible for the customer to do these things. Jerry Langfitt:                    Now, doesn't staff really come into it? Making sure that when you're going to do a new technology, [00:15:00] again, you don't just drop a box into a store, you really have to, one, pilot it with the staff because they're going to be the bridge for the consumer. The consumer's going to go to them first. We should train them quite a bit, should we not? Carl von Sydow:                The staff has to be like super-users. They have to know this in and out. They have to recognize and know where the usual pain points are for hand scanning. When they see someone struggling [00:15:30] at their weighing scale at the produce area they have to be very quick in helping that customer to find her way. Or, if you have ... when you scan your item you can easily do a mistake and scan the same item twice. Then you have to take one of them away from the virtual receipt. That has to be easy as well. Or, if you scan an item and then realize, "I wanted to buy that one instead," so it has to be easy for [00:16:00] the customer. For a cashier this is normal operations, to take items away from a receipt, but here we ask the customer to do this. That has to be really easy, so the system and the staff has to help the customer understand how do I do this? Because these are common things that will happen when you go shopping with hand scanning. You will scan the same barcode twice by mistake. You will scan an item and you want to buy another one instead. You will [00:16:30] do that. You have to know how to manage to do that yourself, without feeling awkward or having no one to ask. Jerry Langfitt:                    Right. Internally, you probably need to do a frequently asked questions and make sure all the staff really understands, and be engaging and enthusiastic about it. It really needs to be that kind of implementation instead of just ... it's not just about integration and installation, it's about adoption. Carl von Sydow:                It's about adoption, and then at the end, also a very critical part for the staff is ... we haven't talked about shrink, [00:17:00] but that always comes up when we talk about hand scanning. A lot of retailers are scared about shrink, and if you implement hand scanning it's like the customers would just walk out through the door with the trolleys or the carts full with products and not paying for them. First of all, that is a rumor, it's not fact. The studies that has been made, that I referred to earlier, shows exactly the same risk for shrinkage with hand scanning as with any self-checkout or self-service [00:17:30] solution. So you don't have a higher risk of shrinkage if you have traditional basket-to-bag self-checkout with a security scale, or if you have hand scanning. Carl von Sydow:                If you implement it in the right way, train your staff, have random checks, et cetera, in the system, that monitors what's going on. There are, like in our platform that we have, we have self-learning algorithms that are continuously analyzing the behavior, in the background, of course. How the shopping [00:18:00] process pans out. How many items do you scan after one another? How many items do you take out from a receipt, or put back on the receipt? There are patterns there that could send an alarm that something is not really going as it usually does, or that the shopping journey takes too long or something like that. There are a lot of well-established mechanisms for managing the shrink also for hand scanning. The critical here is the staff. The staff [00:18:30] has to know how to operate and how to use this, and how to explain to the customer why they sometimes have to check if something looks wrong. Jerry Langfitt:                    You almost have to consider, along with a consumer's journey, a staff journey. Carl von Sydow:                Absolutely. Jerry Langfitt:                    Like the staff also is going along with the consumer to help them adapt and help them from a customer-service standpoint. Carl von Sydow:                Yeah, absolutely. In some of the stores where you have a very high usage rate ... and I'm talking like 50% of the customers using [00:19:00] hand scanning ... you can easily see that most of the people that you see that usually were sitting behind a manned lane, a cashier, they are walking around in the store, helping customers with the hand-scanning devices. Helping them when they have done a mistake or stuff like that. They have moved the staff from sitting down in a checkout to walking around helping customers. It's very interesting. If you have a high usage rate that's what you have to do, and that's increase or improve the customer journey as well, because [00:19:30] you have staff available wherever you are if you have a question or a problem. Jerry Langfitt:                    I do like these new journeys that they're doing. I just recently tried it and I found the same thing. Suddenly I'm not in line waiting for my items to be scanned, and I was just interacting at the store level and that's it. Walk in, I grabbed a device, and then I started scanning everything. I loved the tally and I loved getting the discounts. I thought that was really, really cool. I think this is going to really take [00:20:00] over in America. How does a retailer who wants to implement this ... adoption is one of the hardest things to get people to do. What are some of the techniques or items or methodologies a retailer could implement to help with adoption? Carl von Sydow:                Well, first of all, when you introduce something new, of course you have to promote it somehow. There are a lot of different ways to do that. One way is to do it visually. Again, some of the installations, the pilots that I've seen with hand [00:20:30] scanning here in the US, have been not so visual. In my local store it took me a while to even notice that they had a small rack with brackets for hand-scanning devices at the entrance. It was like nine or 12 hand-scanning devices. They were right in the middle of all the other advertising at the entrance that they had. What you can see if you go to a store that has done this in a proper way, [00:21:00] you have like a wall of devices. It's visual, you cannot fail to recognize that, all right, in this store they have introduced a new solution. It's right there at the entrance, you can see all these devices on this wall. Carl von Sydow:                The other thing, bags. As I said earlier, the whole idea with hand scanning is that you ... opposite to what you do normally ... you put your item directly in the bag. You have to have bags at the start of the customer journey. [00:21:30] In a normal journey you have it at the end, right, at the checkout. You have to not only have the brackets there with all the devices, you have to have some shelves and stuff with all the different bag options that you might have in your store. Paper bags, or plastic bags, or bring your own bag of course, that's easy, but if you have bags you have to have them at the entrance. It has to be visual as well, so the customer realize, well, I don't only take the device, I will take the bag and bag my stuff as I [00:22:00] start my customer journey. That's very important. Carl von Sydow:                I've also seen some other initial promotions where customers have been offered discount for the first 10 journeys, or for a period of time, a week or two, then you will have a discount. Or, if you try this, you will have a free of this product when you leave, or something like that. You have to make it fun, you have to make some marketing activities around it to get customers interested [00:22:30] to take the step to actually try a new solution. Jerry Langfitt:                    One more thing on shrink. You had mentioned that there's two ways you can implement this system, with a loyalty program where I have a card and I have to sign in and then get the device, and with anonymous where I can just grab any device. Wouldn't one be better over the other from a shrink perspective? Carl von Sydow:                Definitely, very much so. If you use this anonymous system it's exactly that. It's anonymous. The retailer have no idea if you're a good-behaving [00:23:00] customer or a bad-behaving customer. You will be exposed to the same random checks every time, independent who you are or how you behave. If you have a loyalty-based system ... when you log on at the entrance, as I mentioned before, typically it will say on the screen, "Hello, Carl, welcome to this store." I will know that the retailer knows I'm here. I will be inclined to behave, just by the fact that they know I'm here. I am an honest person, I want to do [00:23:30] everything right. If I do that, the systems that are available on the market, definitely ours, is built like ... if you are behaving you will not be exposed to random checks as often as someone that misbehaves. If you're a good customer you will go through that store more often than not without any random checks or anything. Jerry Langfitt:                    Okay, so let's just do a quick comparison. Typical checkout, I'm in line, basket-to-bag, compared to [00:24:00] this hand scanning. What are some of the benefits that a consumer is getting by taking the hand-scanning journey over just filling a basket and going to a manned till? Carl von Sydow:                It's a good question, Jerry, because I don't see traditional self-checkouts, the basket-to-bag with a security scale, or hand scanning, as being in competition with each other. They coexist, because they have different purposes. [00:24:30] Let me explain. First of all, a basket-to-bag, traditional self-checkout, you have a security scale. The size of that security scale can be different, of course. You have a small or a big scale. Typically, basket-to-bag is exactly that. It's supposed to be a basket of items, and then you bag it. It's a limited number of items, perhaps 10, 15 items, ideally, for a basket-to-bag. You can have a larger [00:25:00] basket, or several baskets, or a cart, and go to a basket-to-bag self-checkout, but that process is quite cumbersome, especially on the weighing scale, the security scale. It's very easy to have unintentional blocks because the security system will tell you to put the item on the weighing scale and you have already done that. The more items the higher the mountain that you build on the weighing scale, the more items you put there, it will just be more complex. Typically, the basket-to-bag system [00:25:30] is for smaller carts or baskets. Carl von Sydow:                Hand scanning, on the other hand, is independent. You can have 150 items. You bag them as you shop, and then you don't touch the product anymore. You can have as many or as few, it doesn't matter. At the point of checkout, when you go paying, you can have two items or 200. The paying process is exactly the same, you just pay and leave. From a customer perspective hand scanning is the only self-service solution that offers [00:26:00] a self-service solution for large carts, large number of items. That's one thing. Conveniently so. Carl von Sydow:                The other thing is that you have this built-in security in the basket-to-bag, with a security scale, because at the point ... that's open for anybody. A self-checkout, basket-to-bag, anybody can go there and go shopping. You have to have this security feature with the weighing scale to control the shrink and to control that process. If you have a loyalty-based hand-scanning [00:26:30] program you don't need that, because the security is sort of integrated in the platform already. You are a known customer, you're a loyal customer, we trust you. You can go shop here, and you can leave. Carl von Sydow:                Those two systems can coexist, so in some stores where you have a high adoption rate of hand scanning you still find a few basket-to-bag self-checkouts, because there are customers visiting, perhaps, from abroad, or from another state. [00:27:00] They don't want to have the loyalty card. They don't have that loyalty card. But your bulk of customers, your loyal customers, they can use hand scanning. Jerry Langfitt:                    It seems like, again, the way we started multiple journeys, you really [inaudible 00:27:13] journeys for different people and different types of journeys. I have one item I need to grab real quick, I have five to 10 items, I have 50 to 75 items. You really want to look at all the ones and find the purpose-built device or solution [00:27:30] that helps the consumer in their journey that they want. Again, empowering them to make their own decisions. Carl von Sydow:                Starting with the customer journey, what different customers do you have in your store? Find different self-service options for your customers. It's not one-system-fits-all, you have to have the ... the customers are more or less expecting options. Another option that we haven't talked about is when you bring your own device, your own smartphone. That's also an option of course. [00:28:00] You don't need to have a store-provided device. You can use an app, the same application that you have on the hand-scanning device basically, but with your own phone. Carl von Sydow:                There are some pros and cons between these two. If you just go and do an app, shop as you go, that's pretty easy. It's ideal for other verticals, perhaps outside grocery where you go shop specialty goods or stuff like that. That could work, you don't have [00:28:30] that many items. In a grocery store, as I said before, if you have a loyalty-based program with integrated security algorithms, self-learning algorithms and stuff like that, you don't really have that in an app, as you go. You just scan and go. There are limited functionalities in the standard shop-and-go app. Carl von Sydow:                What you also can have is, like we have in our platform, you could have the full hand scanning application running on your [00:29:00] mobile phone as well, with all the security features. There's this option as well, but from a hardware perspective there are also pros and cons. The handheld device provided by the retailer is purpose-built for hand scanning. It's easy to hold, like a pistol grip. You have brackets for a holder on the cart, you can just put it there, you don't have to carry it around. The reader is a high-performing scanner [00:29:30] reader on the handheld device. The camera on your smartphone is not as good, it's not reading as fast. The ergonomy of holding your smartphone, scanning, it's not as easy as just holding this purpose-built device. Carl von Sydow:                Another thing, of course, everybody knows, I do, I call my wife for recipes, or, "Should I buy this or that?" I always use my phone when I go shopping, I can't take all the decisions myself. That's just [00:30:00] how I am. So I'm calling home, and if I'm using my phone at the same time, I'm calling someone or doing something else, it just makes no sense to me. It makes it cumbersome, and then if the battery runs out or if I drop my phone because I have to scan all these items, I don't want to risk it. But for a short customer journey, a few items, then use your phone, it's easy. Fast in and a fast out. But if I would go shop a proper basket [00:30:30] or a cart full of items I always opt for the store-provided device. It's much easier. Jerry Langfitt:                    I agree with you, because I know I will either FaceTime my wife or take pictures of the items and say, "Was this what you wanted?" I am constantly in communication with her so I don't get it wrong. I need my phone. Carl von Sydow:                What we have seen also in the countries where hand scanning has been established for quite a while, of course they have added this option of bring-your-own-device to those stores as well. That has been in place [00:31:00] for several years, and the adoption rate for bring-your-own-device is very, very, very low. Just for the reasons I just explained. They are less than 3%. It seems that customers used to using hand scanning, they still opt for the provided device by the retailer, they don't use their own phone for this. Jerry Langfitt:                    There's a benefit to having a phone that does it all, but I still contend there's a benefit [00:31:30] to having a purpose-built design device. It usually gives a better experience and a more reliable experience. Carl von Sydow:                Yes, I agree. 100%. Jerry Langfitt:                    I think this is a great place to wrap up. Thanks again, Carl, for joining us today. To learn more about retail topics like these log on to dieboldnixdorf.com, or click on the link in the podcast show notes. Speaker 3:                           Until next time, please keep checking back on iTunes, or however you listen to podcasts, for new topics on COMMERCE NOW.  

  Episode 38 is part of the Spring 2017 issue! Read ahead by picking up your copy here: http://www.glittership.com/buy/     She Shines Like a Moon by Pear Nuallak   It's cold in London but you glow with warmth. You travel limbless and limned from your core, throat crossed with black silk just as it was in your first days. Yes, you were naked then, washed clean in monsoons, dried by storm winds. When was the last time your sly hunt was wreathed in rice flowers? Do you recall how dtaan-tree fronds stroked your secret self as you rose, star-bound?   Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 40 for May 23, 2017. This is your host, Keffy, and I'm super excited to be sharing these stories with you.   Today we have two reprints, "She Shines Like A Moon" by Pear Nuallak and "The Simplest Equation" by Nicky Drayden.   Pear Nuallak is a writer and illustrator whose work has appeared in Interfictions, Unlikely Academia, and The Future Fire. Born in London and raised by Bangkokian artists, they studied History of Art jointly at SOAS and UCL, specializing in Thai art. Thai and British recipes appear semi-regularly on their food blog, The Furious Pear Pie, and they have an upcoming illustration this summer in Lackington's magazine. Nicky Drayden is a Systems Analyst who dabbles in prose when she's not buried in code. She resides in Austin, Texas where being weird is highly encouraged, if not required. Her debut novel The Prey of Gods is forthcoming from Harper Voyager this summer, set in a futuristic South Africa brimming with demigods, robots, and hallucinogenic hijinks. She Shines Like a Moon by Pear Nuallak   It's cold in London but you glow with warmth. You travel limbless and limned from your core, throat crossed with black silk just as it was in your first days. Yes, you were naked then, washed clean in monsoons, dried by storm winds. When was the last time your sly hunt was wreathed in rice flowers? Do you recall how dtaan-tree fronds stroked your secret self as you rose, star-bound? Now your London home shivers you into clothes. A length of black at your neck doesn't suffice; you add to old habits—night journeys sensibly hatted, the frank, coiled shapes below your neck wrapped in silk layered with batting and wool, each piece hand-made by the wearer herself. No other clothier would believe your particular sensitivities; only krasue know krasue. (You make a fine new flying outfit each season. You like having things, you're the lord and lady of things.) London's cross-hatched with forgotten waterways, the Krungthep of the Occident, murky and decadent. The Heath hides the Fleet in its hills, earth over arteries water-fat; it surfaces as a rivulet, gleams and whispers and winks knuckle high in leaf-lined silt before it talks away, louder and deeper into the festering heart of the city, but you drink it here, the source. The tumulus field brings food best savoured like an egg with bael-sap yolk—slowly, thoughtfully, the red of it so rich on your tongue after eating bland pale without. In the viaduct pond you dump his fixie and clean your face. After the meal you play with foxes. Your city friends have great thumping tails, on hind legs they yelp delightedly. (When you first heard sharp cries in the hills you thought it was another krasue. Foxes came instead, sniffed you wonderingly, ears flicking. You didn't find each other appetising in the least. Their company is brief, precious: city foxes live a year each.) You peer into the Hollow Oak. When you were new here you asked your first fox friend, lovely old Chalk Scrag, if this was their den. No, friend, no—my burrow smells like forest all dark and close, she says. This smells like witch. One day I will show you the best smells of my home, yes, yes, but not that witch tree, no; that is hers to show. You wonder if she's shy. You think about whether she's a person who also knows what it's like to be apart from others. Under the bark and earth there's always the smell of black tea and sugared fruit, sometimes cake, sometimes curry. That one's never come out, says Liquorice Grin, who counts Chalk Scrag as eightieth great-grandparent. She is busy. Leaves us gifts, but never comes out to play with us like you do, friend. Four score years you've hunted here and no corner of Heath is unexplored but this. (You're shy, too.) Before setting off home, you linger by the Oak as you always do. She is shy, she is busy, but you can ask. So for a change, tonight you say, “Your home smells wonderful,” into the hollow. Your eerie heart beats strong as you fly home. Strong teeth and supple tongue open the night-hatch to your flat. You shed your flying clothes and look at yourself on the bed; in your own light you consider the soft limbs, the clean red hollow between your shoulders. What are you truly hungry for? You enfold your secret self with a body that accepts you neatly and completely. The black silk remains at your throat. It is good to lay your head on the pillow. In the morning your longer self stretches her limbs, washes, thinks about being 'she' as she pulls on a turquoise jumper, so good on skin the colour of tamarind flesh, a long skirt in pig's blood, Malvolio tights, black boots laced up. Before a mirror she wanders her hands over the pleasing stubble on the back and sides of her head, dressing the length on top into a sleek pompadour. (Your grandmothers' hairstyle is now subculture fashionable but you wear it anyway, you're the age of two grandmothers together and want to remember what you had.) The morning walk to the cafe brings smells from the flats: running water and clean skin, burnt toast, bacon fat sizzling, hot dusty radiators. There's strange comfort in witnessing others' routines. Coffee is taken quickly before the man with a rough-haired jack comes for his—tame dogs never like you, the cafe's too small for a scene. For two decades you've been teaching. You like interaction structured around things you know and love, boundaries defined. Every 5 years you make yourself move; you enjoy this while you can. Knitting today. To make the cowl you've planned, students discard needles and knit like this: thick yarn knotted onto wrists, loops drawn over fists, wool on skin, weaving on flesh. Your students' concentration is your delight; it staves the hunger somewhat. Once you tended silkworms and cotton bolls, had a great loom under the belly of your stilt house; your family once wore the fabric you grew, span, wove. Now it's only you, the narrowness of your single self. (But the cowls will warm your students, so this will do.) That evening returns you to your alma mater. Female Abjection and the Monstrous Feminine in Thai Cinema, the email said. Open to all. It's sure to be diverting. You've not yet been to the Bloomsbury buildings—when you studied languages, it was the School of Oriental Studies at 2 Finsbury Circus and you were a man hatted and trousered, as it sometimes suits your fancy. The institution's re-invented itself: cosmopolitan, international, politically active, inclusive.  (Coy about its hand in training Empire: to control a people you know their tongues, their hearts.) You sit and are lectured on a self Othered through others' eyes.  Except for one Thai man, the lecturer cites theorists and academics like her, white and Western. She says, “There are no feminists in Thailand—Thai women don't really identify as feminists; it's just not done. People talk about South-East Asian women having power and ownership, but…” she shrugs. (It's never occurred to the lecturer to ask what a Thai woman thinks of herself, let alone a krasue's view of her own condition.) You think of spitting in her tea. Wouldn't make much difference to the taste; your lips are primed. But her words will survive a thousand years: she's adding to the sum of human knowledge. She doesn't need your curse—no, it wouldn't make much difference at all. There is loyalty, still, though you've been here so long and it's your countrywomen who fear you most, who have always kept their distance from you, who would reject and destroy and silence you instantly if they knew your tastes. But you were made by them. You are their monster. It's hard to believe others would believe you. The hunger you've mastered, mostly, but grieving anger and loneliness thunders through your whole interior. You suck your teeth and go home, fill yourself with sweet warm rice. A collection on your kitchen shelves: rice scraped white, rice left red or brown or black, rice so delicious wives forget husbands. (Is it good or bad you've only found husband-forgetting rice? Perhaps men are more easily forgotten by wives. You've no inclination for husbands: the sum of your knowledge on this subject is that they're common.) Once your fork and spoon are closed, an invitation appears, curling hand tracing bright in the air: You are invited to A Midnight Cake Tasting for the delight of the Witch Ambrosia at the Hollow Oak, Hampstead Heath You hesitate, chewing your lip. Perhaps she's only inviting you out of kindness, politeness, obligation. Perhaps she won't be there. Perhaps this is a trick. But she's asked, and you accept. You go as yourself, your honest, smallest self. When the clock strikes the hour you hover, unsure. “Come in, love, I've been waiting so long,” says Ambrosia. The witch leads you in, steps winding like shell chambers into the earth. Her home smells like a home should, is full of things neatly kept, herbs bunched, cables sorted. In the lamp light you see her fine umber self dressed in a gown of fresh plum, face framed with raincloud hair in a thousand braids. You know at once she is splendid. “Oh, is that for me?” she says as you give her a rich saffron scarf. Thanks is a gentle touch to your cheek. The table is spread. Together you enjoy black rum cake and rose-bright sorrel, dark fruits wondrously spiced. You begin with, “I thought I'd say hello.” “So did I,” says Ambrosia, “it was about time.” “Will you come with me tonight?” (why are you so awkward, what could she possibly—) “I was thinking you'd never ask,” she smiles. Up above, Liquorice Grin says, Ah, you've brought a new lovely friend. You dance together, fox fur coppered in ghost light. Ambrosia shines like a moon. Your heart shouts. You are full up of her. The Simplest Equation by Nicky Drayden   I'm doodling in the margins of my Math 220 syllabus when she walks into the classroom like a shadow, like a nothing, like an oil slick with pigtails. She scans the empty seats in the most calculating manner and I shudder when she spots the one next to me. Her knees bend all the wrong ways in her jeans as she walks up my aisle, and her head is a near perfect ellipsoid that could've fallen out of any geometry primer. She sets her backpack on the floor between us, then maneuvers into the chair with the grace of a lame giraffe. "I hope I'm in the right place," she says as she finally settles—her English impeccable, though she exhales the words more than speaks them, typical of her kind. "Partial Differential Equations?" I nod, trying not to notice all those rows of tiny pointed white teeth crammed into her mouth, but then she smiles and it becomes impossible not to. I swallow hard, somehow managing to extend my hand. "I'm Mariah," I say, my eyes tracing along the brown of my skin until it intersects the blue-black of hers. "Kwalla," she says. "Two syllables. Not like the bear." I force a laugh. It comes out easier than expected. "Nice doodle," she says, looking at the squares and swirls and meandering lines. "Very symmetrical." "Mmm..." I purse my lips and cock my head, then with a single tap on the screen, I reset my syllabus to its virginal form. She's not the first Ahkellan I've met. There are a couple hundred here on campus. They come to Stanford when they can't get into Vrinchor Academy or Byshe, or any of the other prestigious schools in their system. Bring us your next best brightest, has become our new school motto. Yale, Harvard, and the other Ivy League schools split a couple dozen Ahkellans between them, but California's consistent temperatures are much more appealing to a race that goes into involuntary stasis when the weather dips below forty-three degrees. After brief introductions, Professor Gopal drones on about semilinear equations. I listen and take notes attentively, afraid to let anything slip past me. I used to love math. Now it's the bane of my existence, always more of the same lifeless problems. But I've got too many credits and too little money to think about changing majors now. So I buckle down and frequently pull all-nighters just to squeak by with Bs. I glance over at Kwalla who's busy solving problem sets on her notebook, two chapters ahead of the professor already. This class is probably a joke to her, just a way to rack up a few credits before applying for an interstellar transfer. But she seems pleasant enough, and none of the other Ahkellans I've met have ever shown anything that resembled a sense of humor, or an appreciation for art for that matter. "Hey," I whisper, keeping the resentment out of my voice. "You looking for a study partner?" Kwalla nods, then smiles at me again. I desperately resist the urge to protect my soft spots.   #   Every Tuesday and Thursday evening, we meet at Meyer Library, hustling through the stacks for table space among towers of old, dusty books. When my grades slip, we add another study session Saturday afternoons in her dorm room. It smells vaguely of sandalwood, and the paneled doors of her closet are neatly lined with posters of angst-ridden Ahkellans. Their slick, black faces are dour and their postures nonchalant—reminiscent of late twenty-first century brood bands, stuff my parents used to listen to. We sit cross-legged on her bed... well, I sit cross-legged, and she sits in some variation of the lotus position that teeters on an optical illusion with all those joints of hers. Our notebooks are spread out between us. Kwalla's explaining Fourier transforms to me for the third time, and we're both beyond frustrated. I try to listen, but my mind drifts, and before I know it I've created a doodle that spans half the page, covering the miniscule amount of calculations I'd started. Kwalla sees and makes a purring sound I've come to recognize as mild irritation. "Sorry," I grumble. I lean back against the wall and stare out the window at her prized lake view of Lagunita. Students horseplay on its shore, blue-gray water lapping at their ankles. They laugh, living life and enjoying the "college experience," while I'm cooped up in here, breathing stale circulated air and staring at integral curves until my eyes bleed. I heave a sigh. "Maybe I should drop the class. Drop out of college. Drop off the face of the Earth while I'm at it." Kwalla smirks. "You're depressed. Good." "Good?" I slam my notebook shut, turn away from her, and fume like a shuttle on its launch pad. Just when I was beginning to think she was a pretty decent person, or Ahkellan. Or whatever. "Yes, it means you're close to understanding the story of this equation. It's a classic tale of love and loss. It's meant to be depressing, yet beautiful at the same time." I roll my eyes as she resets to a clean page and starts the equation again. She works downward, shuffling constants and variables, swaying like a concert pianist. When she's done, a single tear trickles down her cheek. She glances up at me and notices that I'm crying, too. "You saw the story this time?" she asks with hopefulness in her voice. I slowly shake my head, more confused now than ever. "Not even close. I was just trying to figure out how to tell my parents that I've wasted their hard-earned money and the last two and a half years of my life. I hate math." Kwalla recoils as if my mathematical slur negates her very existence. "You shouldn't say things like that." "Give me a break," I say, rubbing my eyes. "I might not get your 'stories' but you don't get how incredibly hard this is for me. I wasn't born a genius like you, solving proofs while still in the womb." From the grit in my words, I expect Kwalla to ask me to leave, but instead she lays a spindly hand on my knee. "I've worked hard to get here, Mariah, but what you say is partially true. Math is our first language, and we crave it when we're born like you crave your mother's milk. It is our first friend. Our first love. Our first everything." Kwalla pauses, face riddled with uncertainty, then draws a black pouch from her backpack. She unties the drawstring and slips a large, tear-shaped crystal into the palm of her hand. Hundreds of facets speckle the ceiling with light, so beautiful. "I've never shared this with anyone," she says timidly. "It's amazing..." "I haven't even started yet," she says with a laugh, then leans close so I can get a better look. Foreign symbols are etched into each cut side of the crystal. "It's a yussalun, a calling piece. It's similar to your auditory instruments, except... well, it's probably easier just to show you." Kwalla holds the piece up in front of her like a trumpet, but several inches away from her mouth. Her thin fingers tap across the facets and the air above the piece crystallizes into an intricate fractal pattern, a living snowflake that blooms sideways and then stretches for the ceiling with all its might. Buds gracefully unfurl to the rhythm of an inaudible beat, stirring up a sense of wonder within me. Then the ice crystals slow, becoming thinner and more delicate until they peter out with a hopelessness that fills me with inexplicable grief. "That was the equation we've been working on," she says after we've both had a chance to catch our breath. "Now do you see?" I nod, feeling wounded and vulnerable. There's a terrible rawness inside my chest that I wouldn't wish on anyone, and yet I crave more. I need more. "Do another," I whisper. So she shares her favorite stories with me, and together we sit pensive for mysteries, hold our breath for thrillers, and giggle at the titillation of cheap romance—each fractal evoking an emotion, pure and intense and untamed. After the sun no longer shines through her window, each fractal leaves a slight chill in the air, so we slip halfway under the covers and Kwalla shares with me a fractal with a perfect heart at its base that dazes me with childlike joy—an equation simple enough to solve itself. Then we throw the covers over our heads and I can't tell where I end and she begins, so I giggle and Kwalla giggles, then she laughs, and I laugh.   #   Our professor posts the scores to our midterm exam outside the classroom door. With great trepidation, I type in the last four digits of my student ID and the page slowly scrolls down, pointlessly melodramatic. My finger shakes as I trace my way across the screen over failure and mediocrity and more failure until I reach the grade for last week's exam. My chest explodes with delight when I see the 98.5. I'm so giddy I can barely stay seated as I wait for Kwalla to arrive. Thanks to her, I've rediscovered my passion for math. I busy myself solving practice problems that tell tales of triumph in the face of adversity. I'll pick the best one and share it with Kwalla tonight. In these last couple weeks, she's taught me how to play her yussalun, turning water molecules in the air into icy fractals the size of a toy poodle, though mine pale in comparison to hers. The bluntness of my fingertips makes it difficult to tap the right facets, but what I lack in accuracy I make up for in perseverance. I've caused more than my fair share of fractals to wilt, however, when I get it right, math and story collide, forming something exponentially more magnificent than the sum of its parts. Her seat is still empty. I wait as long as I can stand it, then ditch class a few minutes into Professor Gopal's lecture. The phone rings and rings as I race to Kwalla's dorm. Through her door, I can hear her speaking in an Ahkellan dialect sounding something like a rooster trying to fog up a mirror. A deeper voice follows with the tin ring of an IVT, an instantaneous voice transmission, cheapest way to call intragalaxy. Against my better judgment, I knock softly. Kwalla answers with an uncontainable smile, and nods for me to have a seat at her desk. Her conversation stretches on for another ten minutes, and as she paces barefoot across the blue carpet, I admire all the ways her legs bend from beneath her skirt, and how the fluorescent light overhead glints on her skin—like iridescent rainbows set adrift across the night's sky. "I can't believe it!" she shrills after she finally disconnects. "It couldn't be more perfect! I've been accepted, Mariah. I'm going to Byshe!" "That's wonderful!" I say, and despite the rip in my heart, I really mean it. Getting into Byshe is worse odds than matching all the balls in the Bippho Trans-Galactic pick-twelve. Optimism has never been my strong suit, but maybe if I study hard and get my grades up, I could apply to Byshe next year. Kwalla could tutor me the rest of this semester and maybe even a few weeks into the summer. I nod to myself, impervious to the laws of probability and blissfully ignoring the fact that I can barely afford out-of-state tuition, much less out of solar system. "I've got some news, too," I say. Kwalla sits down next to me, and her eyes get wide and glassy. "You passed!" "Nu-uh. I nearly aced it!" "This calls for a celebration!" She pulls her yussalun out from its pouch and hands it to me. "Here, you play something nice while I pack." Her voice trails off at the end, a whirlwind of excitement deflated by a sudden prick from reality. "Pack?" "If I don't catch the next shuttle up ..." Kwalla says, voice pitched high and words running together as she tries to stitch together some sort of excuse for wanting to get the hell out of here. I don't blame her, not with the life she has waiting for her across the stars. Kwalla tilts her head forward, and after a weighty silence, she leans against my shoulder. "I'm leaving for Byshe in the morning."   #   I can't let her go without showing her how I feel, so after she's fallen asleep, I slip out of bed and onto a spot on the floor where moonlight from her window falls across my dimly backlit notebook. I work through the whole night, scribbling down the story of us, the fun we've had in our short time together, and all the could-have-beens for our future. It becomes unwieldy, our equation, and even with the tiniest font, it still won't fit on one screen. By the time I finish, my fingers are cramped, my brain is tight, and I can barely see straight. But the story is magnificent, engrossing, tragic. Careful not to wake her too soon, I cradle the yussalun in my hands and prepare to share. Our story takes nearly thirty minutes to play, and when I'm done, I sit back and let it expand into the room. Two concentric buds sleepily emerge and form a base, then sprout three arms each, spiny like a starfish. They curl and coil, each arm to the beat of its own drummer. I marvel at the beginnings of their different stories, and my heart flutters as I try to keep up with them simultaneously. At a meter high, I start to rouse Kwalla so she can see it as the first bits of sunlight shimmer across the fractal's crystalline surface, but just as I lay a soft hand on Kwalla's shoulder, the fractal begins to wilt. It steals my breath as I watch, my mind churning over the equation, wondering if I'd made a bad calculation or misplayed a note. But I couldn't have made a mistake, not on something this important. All at once, the arms spiral up with the grace and might of a dancer, recursive shapes predictable yet mesmerizing. My creation reaches for the ceiling, and I grin in anticipation of the final blossom, but the fractal is thickening like an insatiable sapling and not tapering into delicate buds. I exhale and my breath lingers in the air, coldness striking through my nightshirt as I realize this thing is far from stopping. "Kwalla!" I scream, lips cracked from the moisture being sucked from the air. She doesn't respond and I shake her. Kwalla stirs for a moment, as if trying to fight through impending stasis, but then she goes still. I take a swing at the fractal with her desk chair, smashing off one of the frosty tendrils, but it grows back with a vengeance until all is symmetrical again. Logic gives way to adrenaline and I scoop Kwalla's body up into my arms. "Fire!" I say, over and over through the hallways at the top of my lungs, figuring it will draw more attention than yelling "fractal!" Someone pulls the alarm, and we all scatter outside and across the street. I rub warmth back into Kwalla's limbs as onlookers wait for signs of smoke and flames. Of course they never come, and when rumors start circulating about a prank, I think that maybe I'd overreacted. An explosion of terra cotta tiles silences those thoughts as the fractal pierces the roof of Kwalla's dormitory. Exposed to the night air and the moisture from the nearby lake, the fractal accelerates, busting brick and shattering glass. It's odd, but no one panics or frets over lost possessions. We just watch, completely captivated. The fractal doesn't slow until it's demolished both wings of Lagunita Court and the adjacent parking lot, and even then, it's not quite finished. A single thin stalk stretches up for the stars, and it reaches, reaches, reaches—wispy recursions sprouting like a vine on its way to the stratosphere. With some effort, I pull my gaze away and watch the crowd. There's not a dry eye to be found, including Kwalla's, her body cradled comfortably against mine. "I had no idea," she exhales weakly, "...that you felt so deeply. It's the most incredible story I've ever seen." "I'll miss you," I say before she has a chance to make well-meaning promises we both know it'd be impossible to keep. I savor this moment, because in a few hours, she'll be on a plane to Houston, just one small step on her long journey home.   #   There's a flurry of media coverage and threats of my expulsion, but the Board of Trustees changes its tune when news of the fractal reaches Ahkel and impresses even their most renowned intellectuals. Suddenly I'm no longer a disgraceful delinquent, but one of Stanford's brightest scholars, and any blemishes on my academic record are written off as me being a genius misunderstood in my own time. I laugh at their antics. At least it distracts me long enough for the numbness inside me to fade. A week later, my phone hums in my pocket while I'm doodling in Professor Gopal's class. I fish it out so I can check the caller ID. My heart slips to my toes when I see it's an IVT number, and I scramble out of the classroom on rubbery legs. "Hello?" I say into my phone. "Hello?" I say again, harder this time, as if it'll get my words across subspace faster. There's only a slight time dilation, but the seconds drag on like days. I hang onto the sounds of rustling static, waiting for Kwalla's voice. Only it's not Kwalla. My disappointment is short lived, however, when the caller identifies herself as the dean of the Mathematics department at Vrinchor Academy. She says she's eager for the opportunity to take a closer look at how I derived my equations, and that if I'm interested, there's a spot for me in the upcoming school year, full scholarship. I don't bother holding back my elation, and even though a billion miles separate us, I'm sure the dean's ear will be ringing for days. I return to class and respectfully gather my belongings, though my classmates couldn't have missed my screams. I nod at Professor Gopal, and he smiles knowingly. I can't believe I'll be living a dream, studying under the best minds in the galaxy, devouring math in all its forms. And of course it doesn't hurt that I'll be a quick shuttle's ride from Kwalla, just two planets away. I race across campus, cutting through manicured lawns, dodging traffic, and pushing myself through the knot of tourists gathered in front of our fractal. I fall to my knees, chest heaving and smiling wider than any sane person ought to. My warmed skin braces me against the deep chill the fractal emits. Despite my best efforts not to look like a complete fool, I still draw stares and the attention of a camera lens or two. From the corner of my eye, I swear I see our fractal moving. Changing. Of course that's impossible after all this time—probably just an odd reflection of sunlight or the shadow of a passing cloud. Doesn't matter. I've got a date with destiny tonight: a passport to find, flights to book, a whole planet to say goodbye to and above all, I've got a new story that's itching to be told.   “She Shines Like a Moon” was originally published in Lackington's and is copyright Pear Nuallak, 2015. "The Simplest Equation" was originally published in Space and Time Magazine and is copyright Nicky Drayden 2014. This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library. You can support GlitterShip by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/keffy, subscribing to our feed, or by leaving reviews on iTunes. Thanks for listening, and I’ll be back soon with a poem by Joanne Rixon, and an original story by A.C. Buchanan.

Now it's time to get a bit personal. Before I can take you along for the ride in this brand launch, I have to lay the baseline for explaining where we're starting from. There are two main aspects to this: the business side and the personal side. This episode starts down the road of discussing the personal side. The transcript is below, but if you'd like to leave a comment, go to http://brandingblitz.com/3/ Hello again and welcome back everyone! This is JR and you're listening to the Branding Blitz podcast where I'll take you behind the scenes as I go through the process of trying to strategically use speed and brute force to launch and scale a new brand. This is the third episode. Last time, I gave a quick overview of where we're at so far with this business. I am still very early in this process, but things are well underway and moving quickly. That is one of the things that makes me excited to share this story with you. I always love hearing people's stories of building a business – while they are actually doing it rather than after the fact. I guess it just adds an extra level of excitement and suspense not knowing what the outcome is going to be. As this story unfolds, I'm hoping to share that excitement with you – not so much an excitement about my business and where it's going but about the potential for YOUR business and the things that can happen as you take action towards your goals. I mentioned that in this episode I wanted to talk about some details from my personal life. At first, that may sound like something that doesn't really belong here – but I truly think it does. It is an inseparable part of this story. If I don't share at least some of these details you really won't have the full story. Even more than that, I really hope that my situation can become a catalyst for you, as it has for me. I hope that it will inspire you to take action and move forward and remove any barriers or excuses that may be stopping you from starting or growing your business. Wherever you're at in the process, I think there's something here to help motivate and push you forward. So let's get started! About a year and a half ago, my wife and I found out we were going to have our first child. We didn't have a whole lot of resources but we were getting by. My wife had a full-time job at a residential treatment facility for women with drug and alcohol addictions. Overall, she enjoyed working there, but it was low pay and fairly high stress – and we wanted her to be able to stay home with our daughter if possible. We'd been living pretty frugally and were able to get by with the income from her job, which had left me free to begin gradually building up a small online business whatever extra resources we could budget. I had a little business set up that was growing gradually but steadily – but it needed more money to scale than we had to invest so the growth was very slow. When I had started, we didn't have a baby on the way, so I figured scaling very slowly was okay – I had plenty of time. Suddenly, with a baby on the way, I had 9 months until our expenses were going to go up and even if my wife kept her job we wouldn't be able to get by on just her income. That wasn't going to be enough time to get this very slowly scaling business model I'd been working on up to the necessary size to support us. We decided it was time to look for something that could scale faster. We didn't need 7 figures, but even $1-2000 a month in profit would be enough for our little family to scrape by. After digging around for a while, I came up with an idea for a service that I saw a decent amount of demand for that either wasn't being met or wasn't being met well. Again, it was something that was going to need quite a bit of money to get running at scale – actually it needed more than our annual income to get running even at a low level because I would need to buy specialized equipment. But unlike the last business venture, I had an idea of how to get the money necessary. I spent the few months reading every resource I could find on running a successful Kickstarter project. I made a video of myself talking about the project to put on the project page. I designed a bunch of special graphics and carefully crafted text, descriptions, and calls to action for my page on Kickstarter. Set up the business, the bank accounts, went through the approval processes, went to trade shows to see the special equipment in action and try it out myself. I built up a decent following on Twitter in the months leading up to the launch, contacted blogs to write about my project, got discussions going about the idea on major forums in the industry – basically got as much buzz going as I could with less than $100 in my marketing budget. The day finally came and my wife and I got up together in the morning, went into my office together, loaded up my Kickstarter account, stared at the computer screen as the minutes ticked by until the time came that we had scheduled to start the project. And finally with a shaking hand – I clicked the launch button and... it gave me an error! I think I ended up just having to reload the page or something to get it to work but talk about nerve-wracking. At this point, since I already told you I don't have a lot of money, it may sound like I'm leading up to a big flop – but the project didn't flop. Not even close. The project was scheduled to last just over a month. I think a lot of people have a perception that the Kickstarter creator is just sitting around waiting while the project runs. But that's not the case – at least not for the good ones. It was a very fast paced month trying to keep up with updates and emails and back-and-forths vendors as I realized I was going to need larger orders and more varieties. We hit our base funding goal – the minimum amount I had decided that we needed if this business was going to get off the ground – in under a week. Often after the first couple of days, activity on a Kickstarter page drops off completely – but ours only dropped partially and then our momentum actually grew throughout the campaign with a HUGE burst at the end... and when it was all said and done we ended up raising almost 4 times our initial goal. Now all that extra cash definitely came with it's own set of expenses and commitments to deliver the end result to our customers. It made it both possible and necessary to get more expensive equipment, and have a higher amount and variety of our inventory produced. We were ecstatic at this point. This was going to be a monumental time commitment from me, but we were okay with it because it set us up spectacularly for her to be able to quit her job and take care of our child and we were going to have a successful business which would eventually allow me to hire employees to take over some of my time commitments. The months that followed led us through many bumps and bruises with various vendors and manufacturers and service providers not living up to promises or expectations. But we put our heads down and pushed through. Discouraging as those bumps were, we knew we were blessed to have a business that was going to allow us to meet our goals and had a ton of growth potential. Then my health began to fall apart. I'm actually still working towards a full diagnosis, but it sounds like it was a combination of new issues as well as health issues I've been living with since I was in a car wreck at the age of 14 – some of which have gotten better over time, some I've learned to cope with over time because I had to and some of which I didn't even really know I had. Because the newer issues built up gradually, I didn't notice at first. I knew I was beginning to lose productivity, but I just thought it was stress or lack of sleep (we did have a newborn sleeping in the same room with us afterall). But eventually those new issues inflamed the physical problems I had as a result of the wreck – I recognized those symptoms, but I also recognized something else. I now had health problems I'd never had to deal with before. Something about the combination problems various things in my body created a bit of a perfect storm. Suddenly I'm having severe chest pains, I can't get enough air, and even something as simple as blowing my nose leaves me dizzy and gasping for breath. I get searing headaches, severe fatigue, and I can't think clearly and my memory is fuzzy. As I said, I don't have a full diagnosis yet, but they have told me the EKG, x-rays, etc seem to show a healthy and properly functioning heart – so the chest pain doesn't seem to be a heart issue. The current theory is that my lungs had actually been gradually losing efficiency for quite some time, which was causing my body not to get enough oxygen. The lack of oxygen explains the fatigue, headaches, and mental issues – funny what your body does when it doesn't get enough air... I am being referred to a pulmonologist get get some more tests done and try to determine more specifically what's going on and determine the proper course of treatment or maintenance. Sigh Alright – I think if I tell this whole story in one episode, this is going to get a little long. Don't worry though, I'm trying to record a batch of these so I have a few already to go right away when I upload them. So by the time you're hearing this, the next episode should already be live or maybe within the next day depending on if I decide to space it out or not. For a transcript of this episode, and to leave any comments or feedback, head over to brandingblitz.com/3 – I'd love to hear from you! If you have any questions you'd like to ask and maybe get it answered on the podcast, drop me a line at brandingblitz.com/ask I'm hope now that we're a few episodes into the show you can start to see at this is going to be a fun ride to come along on. If that's true, I'd really appreciate if you subscribed on iTunes and left a review. That'll help iTunes know I'm not just wasting the little oxygen I do have, and I'd really appreciate it! That's all for this episode, I'll catch you next time on episode 4 of the Branding Blitz podcast.