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11 Marketing Events That Will Boost Your Growth in 2017 | As a growth marketer, you’re not interested in theory. You want to learn methods you can apply today. You want to discover tactics that have helped other companies scale at warp speed. And you want to know how the best of the best have tested and optimized those tactics to achieve even better outcomes, so you can avoid any heavy lifting and jump straight to results.
That’s why attending typical marketing conferences is a waste of your time. If you’re going to invest in attending events in 2017 (and you should), they have to deliver proven strategic frameworks for growth, inspired optimization case studies, and hands-on workshops that’ll help you ramp up your game.
With that criteria in mind, we hand-picked 11 must-attend conferences:
“Learn from the people who do the absolute best work in their field.”
You won’t find “theorists” here. ConversionXL Live brings together leading practitioners like Michael Aagaard (Senior Conversion Optimizer at Unbounce), guillaume cabane (Segment’s VP of Growth), and Krista Seiden (Analytics Advocate for Google) for a single-track conference focused on optimization and growth.
One cool thing about ConversionXL Live: It’s all inclusive, and “everyone stays together for 3 days in a remote location.” That’s right: Your ticket includes all sessions of the 3-day event (including late-night parties), all meals and snacks, and your hotel room. All you have to do is arrange and pay for your flight.
P.S. If you need help convincing your boss, check out the pitch they prepared just for you.
When is it? April 5–7, 2017
Where is it? San Antonio, TX
What’s the cost? USD $1099–2028
“SCALE will teach you how to grow, how to hire the right team and give them the proper tools, how to buy traffic and build content.”
Founded by LAUNCH CEO jason Calacanis, SCALE helps transform startups into scaleups. Speakers include world-renowned founders, VCs, and growth experts — like David Sacks, Tomasz Tunguz, and Jason M. Lemkin— who have hands-on experience leading high-growth startups.
When is it? October 17–18, 2017
Where is it? San Francisco, CA
What’s the cost? USD $295–995
“Reach and network with the most important decision makers, the most disruptive companies.”
Created by the team behind Web Summit, Collision is a must-attend event for growth leaders who work in the tech sector. This conference attracts 20,000 participants from over 110 countries annually, representing both high-growth startups and large public tech companies, and features high-profile speakers like John Collison, Max Levchin, and Stewart Butterfield.
In 2017, Collision will newly be home to 12 independent conferences: TalkRobot, SaaS Monster, MusicNotes, AutoTech, Startup University, PandaConf, creatiff, binate.io, FULLstk, Pub Summit, Night Summit, and Planet:tech. Each conference will have its own stage, exhibition area, agenda, workshops, and networking events, open to all attendees but catered to a specific segment of participants. For example, whereas digital marketers might attend PandaConf, marketers leading growth at early stage startups might attend Startup University.
When is it? May 2–4, 2017
Where is it? New Orleans, LA
What’s the cost? CAD $227–5200
“Find out what is required to develop a high-performance growth team and program across the disciplines of product, design and marketing.”
What does it take for companies to grow today? That’s the question Gagan Biyani and Erin Turner wanted to answer when they founded GrowthHackers Conference in 2012. With the help of producer Sean Ellis, this one-day event curates expert insights from growth leaders across the planet. Past speakers include Aatif Awan, Brian Rothenberg, and Hiten Shah.
When is it? May 24, 2017
Where is it? Los Angeles, CA
What’s the cost? USD $395–1200
“Connect with our amazing community of industry leaders, chat with the speakers and Moz staff, pick up some cool swag, and even get a hug from our friendly robot, Roger.”
MozCon is a three-day event that features forward-thinking yet actionable sessions. You’ll have the opportunity to learn about niche topics (like analytics, SEO, and CRO) from speakers like Ross Simmonds, Justine Jordan, and Lauren Vaccarello — the movers and shakers of digital marketing.
Outside of the conference itself, you’ll find leisure activities like a pub crawl, an informal meet-and-greet, and an annual bash that resembles a games night (bowling, pool, jenga, karaoke, and photo booths) as well as some good old-fashioned outdoor recreation. No wonder this conference’s slogan is, “Not your typical marketing conference”.
When is it? July 17–19, 2017
Where is it? Seattle, WA
What’s the cost? USD $849–1349 (early bird)
“Learn how to supercharge your company’s growth — quickly, cost-effectively, and sustainably.”
With past speakers like Neil Patel, Sean Ellis, and Rand Fishkin, it’s not surprising that Growth Marketing Conference is the leading event in its category. Founded by Startup Socials CEO Vasil Azarov in 2013, Growth Marketing Conference brings insightful case studies, expert talks, and hands-on workshops to hundreds of growth leaders, marketers, and founders.
When is it? December 6–7, 2017
Where is it? Silicon Valley, CA
What’s the cost? USD $197–2009
“Join the smartest SaaS professionals for talks from the trenches, 1-on-1 advice and networking.”
Price Intelligently brings together the who’s who of SaaS for this one-day event, making it ideal for SaaS growth leaders. Attendees benefit from curated peer introductions, intimate networking sessions, and an agenda centred on relevant topics like acquisition, retention, and monetization. Past speakers include Brian Balfour, David Cancel, and Suneet Bhatt.
When is it? December
Where is it? Boston, MA
What’s the cost? USD $899
“A one-day conference that will teach you actionable strategies & tactics for IGNITING your distribution.”
Organized by 500 Startups, Weapons of Mass Distribution brings together growth experts like jascha kaykas-wolff, James Currier, and Susan Su for a day of practical learning. Speakers explore new trends, highlight powerful tools, and share cutting-edge distribution tactics that help growth leaders scale their businesses.
When is it? November
Where is it? San Francisco, CA
What’s the cost? USD $595–950
“Learn to be even more audacious and bold than you are now — free to grow your mind, grow your business, and grow your bottom-line.”
What would it take to achieve extraordinary growth and profitability? That’s the question tycoons like Steve Case, Mark Cuban, and Richard Branson attempt to answer at GrowCo. Produced by Inc. Magazine, GrowCo features 35+ interactive sessions over three days organized around four themes: Kick-Start Growth, Keep Growing, Grow Smarter, and Grow Profits. Growth-obsessed entrepreneurs benefit from proven strategies, tactical advice, and ample networking opportunities.
When is it? May 8–10, 2017
Where is it? New Orleans, LA
What’s the cost? USD $695–995
“Learn from the world’s best marketers, all in one place.”
Call To Action Conference brings together 1000+ conversion-obsessed marketers for a three-day, single-track event. Organized by Unbounce, this event offers actionable marketing insights from hand-picked experts, like Rand Fishkin, Joanna Wiebe, and Johnathan Dane.
When is it? June 25–27, 2017
Where is it? Vancouver, Canada
What’s the cost? CAD $599–999
“Get the playbook on how to scale from the world’s best SaaS founders, execs and investors with 2.5 days of amazing content and unparalleled networking.”
Regardless of whether you’re a seasoned growth leader or new to the field, SaaStr Annual is a worthwhile investment. One reason? Sessions are divided into three types — strategy, tactical, and hypertactical — making it easy for attendees to customize the experience to meet their needs. Plus, with more than 10,000 founders and executives in attendance annually, this event offers exceptional networking opportunities.
In 2017, this three-day event will feature sessions from industry leaders, like Josh James, Naval Ravikant, and Sam Altman.
When is it? February 7–9, 2017
Where is it? San Francisco, CA
What’s the cost? USD $627–2790
What conferences will you be attending in 2017? Did we miss any must-attend growth marketing events? Let us know in the comments. | https://medium.com/marketing-on-autopilot/11-marketing-events-that-will-boost-your-growth-in-2017-c94d3b8111ac | [] | 2017-02-07 15:27:00.865000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Startup', 'Digital Marketing', 'Growth Hacking', 'SaaS'] |
10 Tips for Writing a Query That Will Impress Literary Agents | 9. Don’t Claim Your Book Will Be a Bestseller
Being positive and confident is one thing, but boasting that your book will become a bestseller that interests millions of readers around the world, especially everyone who “has a mother,” is another. These statements are just too broad to wrap your head around.
While agents need to pay the bills, and love to put money in the bank, most prefer to do so by discovering books they think readers will fall in love with, rather than taking on something conceived and written for one purpose only — to make money. For instance, I love a great thriller, and can tell when one was written by an author who’s an adrenaline junkie having fun trying to keep me up all night worrying about how this great cast characters will overcome some terrible predicament. I can also tell when one was written by someone who’s just making a power-grab for the reader’s wallet with cardboard characters driving down a well-traveled and familiar road.
So, instead of a worldwide bestseller, focus on a smaller demographic. For nonfiction, for instance, a particular subject might interest “the million members of XYZ organization which hosts 400 groups in all 50 states.” But it might be a must-read for a certain subgroup of just 10,000 headhunters or project managers, for instance, who must keep up some yearly accreditation.
Or for fiction, try to narrow it down to a subgenre. Instead of saying the book will “interest millions of people who love thrillers,” consider something more like “this book will interest readers of legal thrillers or medical thrillers, or international espionage.” Or maybe “Chocolate to Die For is humor, set in a village bistro, that will be of special interest to bakers as it includes twelve original mouth-watering cupcake and cookie recipes.” It should be obvious that each of these are separate categories and not something that blends all of them together!
And while I’m on that subject: blending categories can be very problematic, as it can make focusing on a particular market more difficult. Where is the bookseller supposed to shelf the epic-fantasy, time-traveling, vampire-romance space-opera?
Also, while you might be tempted to compare your work to some wild bestsellers in the market, be careful with that. While it’s usually fine to say your thriller should interest readers of Dan Brown or Gillian Flynn, avoid saying your book is the next Da Vinci Code or Gone Girl. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/10-tips-for-writing-a-query-that-will-impress-literary-agents-4d525d17685 | ['Greg Aunapu'] | 2020-04-27 18:10:41.136000+00:00 | ['Literature', 'Publishing', 'Books', 'Fiction', 'Writing'] |
What Does a Psychopath Do When They Are Found Out? | Photo by Fabien Bazanegue on Unsplash
They will divert the conversation, redirecting your attention elsewhere through distraction.
You might end up asking about where they were at for the past five hours when they were supposed to meet you for lunch, but instead, you’ll end up talking about the cute puppy they saw on the drive home.
This tactic might surprisingly include bringing the conversation back to you as the subject — to make you feel important and satisfied as a result of positive attention. If you have a personal relationship with this person, you will understand just how “rare” this positive attention is, and will see it as a “treasure,” making it a psychological, emotional reward. You might have felt grumpy or upset before, but suddenly you feel better now, right?
Before you know it, you’ll forget all about what you were initially going to talk about — and you might even feel a bit guilty for even considering bringing it up. | https://medium.com/we-are-warriors/what-does-a-psychopath-do-when-they-are-found-out-6298eb6908ac | ['Samantha Clarke'] | 2019-11-25 00:48:08.312000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Personality', 'Relationships', 'Psychology', 'Domestic Violence'] |
10 Best Books for Python Practice | 1. Python Crash Course / Eric Matthes
The book, which starts from a basic level such as how to show command on the screen and proceeds with easy steps, then provides information on deeper topics such as variables, comparisons, lists, loops, conditions. Each concept is represented by small program snippets, first shown as a program list, then explained in detail, and then output. The biggest advantage is that the commands/methods used are a guide to what awaits the reader and how to fool it. The reader can then find himself imagining his projects.
About Eric Matthes
Image by Amazon (1)
2. Python in Practice / Mark Summerfield
It goes beyond the language itself, covering several useful libraries and mentions the possibility of extending Python with C routines that support python calls. Introduces parallel and multiprocessing, data structures, and different approaches to problems. Makes clear that there is always more to learn about Python and the libraries available for it.
About Mark Summerfield
Image by Amazon (2)
3. Head First Python / Paul Barry
It’s a great book to get started with Python. When writing a web app, it actually walks you through the basics of the flask — other video tutorials just say install flask and run these commands. Not only do you learn how to program in Python, but you also learn how to write your programs so Python developers can find their way to others.
About Paul Barry
Image by Amazon (3)
4. Python Cookbook / David Beazley
This book is certainly not for beginners, but it is an extremely handy reference for how to do most tasks of various levels of madness in python. The discussions are brief, but thorough enough to give you a solid grasp on the particular snippet of code. Most examples are self-contained and all the code examples that tried worked. Additionally, there is a GitHub that the authors created which provides all the code for the examples if you do not want to type it yourself.
About David Beazley
Image by Amazon (4)
5. Automate The Boring Stuff / Al Sweigart
The book begins with the essential skills and concepts necessary to build a solid foundation in not only python, but programming in general. The introduction is thorough, easy to follow, and broken down with enough examples for even the newest of programmers to digest. Those who found Learn Python the Hard Way a little frustrating will like the much more broken down process used in this book. The book’s focus on automation in the second half is fantastic. Also can recommend this book to anyone who has a boring job sitting in front of a computer all day.
About Al Sweigart
Image by Amazon (5)
6. Python Programming / John Zelle
In the book, the exercises are followed by discussion chapters and the chapters gradually increase the difficulty. The book provides an introduction to CS, not only the Python language. It’s perfect for those starting out without any programming experience. Well-structured and focused.
About John Zelle
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7. Python Pocket Reference / Mark Lutz
This book is a good reference for Python. But the biggest drawback is that it isn’t current with the latest version of Python. In addition, I must say, you will love to go through this book over and over to learn about the quirks and features of the language, and of course always striving to be more pythonic.
About Mark Lutz
Image by Amazon(7)
8. Python for Data Analysis / Wes McKinney
A good, thorough introduction to using Python for data analysis. The book is very easy to understand, and practical. Having a little bit of python knowledge would help you reading this book too. The book covers a lot of the jobs that a data analyst would do in a daily job. It is mostly about pandas,NumPy and matplotlib.
About Wes McKinney
Image by Amazon(8)
9. Python Workout: 50 ten-minute exercises / Reuven M. Lerner
Python Workout offers 50 exercises focusing on core Python 3 features. The solution to all of them is in the book. Expert Python coach Reuven Lerner guides you through a series of small projects, applying the skills you need to tackle daily tasks. Perhaps what readers would love most about this book is that the exercises are spot on. Interesting, attractive and sometimes fun.
About Reuven M. Lerner
Image by Amazon(9)
10. Learn Python The Hard Way / Zed Shaw
The book offers effortless options for beginners. Also, if you use the numerous help and tutorials about Python online, it’s fun to take care of your own questions other than writing and reading the first scripts yourself after a few exercises in the book.
About Zed Shaw | https://medium.com/an-idea/10-best-books-for-python-practice-f57a19cd6c94 | ['Kurt F.'] | 2020-11-05 13:10:17.859000+00:00 | ['Data Science', 'Python', 'Python Programming', 'Books', 'Programming'] |
Scaling a marketplace: Samaipata & Idinvest Paris event | Together with Idinvest, we hosted an event last week in Paris on how to successfully scale a marketplace.
Although we were born and are headquartered in Madrid, we are a multi-local European fund, with offices in Paris and London. And Paris is one of our fastest growing geographies, and a key focus for the fund moving forward.
Beyond location, as a founders’ fund specialised in marketplaces & platform models, the topic of the event was obvious! We strive to help entrepreneurs scale their marketplaces from 0 to 1, only investing in what we know best.
Thus, Matthieu, Idinvest’s managing partner, and José, Samaipata’s founding partner, reflected on 13 key success factors proper to marketplace models. Obviously, the list they went through is not exhaustive but we chose not to bore the audience to death.
They were joined by 3 great entrepreneurs: Vincent, CEO & Co-founder of Malt, Thomas, CEO & Co-founder of Meero and Alex, General Manager France for Glovo — who provided real-life illustrations of the theoretical concepts developed by the two VCs.
A lot of people asked for the slides, so we decided with Jonathan Userovici to make them available below! Hope you enjoy it and that they can prove useful for entrepreneurs building a marketplace.
And if you’re an early stage marketplace founder, do not hesitate to contact us ! We focus on pre-seed & seed rounds. | https://medium.com/samaipata-ventures/scaling-a-marketplace-paris-event-with-idinvest-be1077966679 | ['Aurore Falque-Pierrotin'] | 2018-09-20 07:49:44.614000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Marketplaces'] |
Kazutoshi Ono: Japan Inc. in the Cloud Era | Part I: Enterprise Cloud Trends to Date
How would you describe the progression of enterprise cloud usage in Japan thus far?
Until last year (2016), the general view among executives seemed to be that cloud was an option to be considered for specific uses. That was especially the case back in the early days of the cloud era.
Cloud is ideal for situations with a high variation in resource requirements or for short-term needs. For example, hosting a campaign website during a limited period, or for dealing with large spikes in traffic due to year-end shopping. It’s also suitable for systems that are only needed during the daytime.
Another situation is when resource needs are unpredictable. For example, if a TV commercial is unexpectedly successful or a product is introduced by a celebrity on a top TV program, and there is a spike in traffic to the website. Setting up and maintaining dedicated servers that can handle such high loads is both labor-intensive and costly. But, if you do not prepare for the peak, you could miss out on an excellent opportunity to make sales as the system is overwhelmed and goes down. In this situation, the cloud is really the only sensible solution because it can scale elastically in proportion to the demand and you only pay for what you use.
These types of situations are ideal for cloud usage, and this is where cloud vendors focused their marketing messages. It’s analogous to rental cars. If you own a car, it incurs ongoing costs. But, with a rental car, you only pay for the time you use it.
What about enterprises’ internal systems?
This was case-by-case. Generally, the loads experienced by systems performing in-house functions are highly predictable, without much variances in highs and lows. For example, the employee attendance tracking system may experience a mild spike when people clock-in at the start of each workday, but nothing extreme. So, if such a system was hosted on-premises, there was no significant incentive to migrate its functions to the cloud.
However, the cloud would be used in cases where a particular business division or team needed to set up a system for use in a project. If it wasn’t clear how long the system would be required, setting it up on the cloud was easier and more flexible. So, when it comes to internal systems, we tend to see the cloud used for isolated and specific functions within an organization with a temporary or indefinite use period.
Sometimes, a cloud-based solution such as Salesforce was chosen because it was deemed the most suitable option or circumstances demanded it. However, it was just for part of the business, rather than all functions within the organization as a whole.
Image Source: ElasticComputeFarm via Pixabay + edits.
Part II: Enterprise Cloud Usage Today
How have attitudes changed towards enterprise cloud usage among Japanese executives?
Things have changed significantly over the past year or two. Now it is no longer a question of whether or not the cloud would be suitable for a given use. Instead, the general attitude has shifted to regarding the cloud as a natural choice for most situations.
Compared to the total cost of ownership (TCO) of on-premises systems, having to set them up and then perform ongoing maintenance, the cloud is much cheaper. Speed is another defining factor — you can get started with something on the cloud very quickly.
So, since a couple of years ago, we’ve come to think of, “cloud first,” meaning that we’d first build and test a new system on the cloud before considering the next steps.
Has cloud usage become commonplace in the enterprise?
Until recently, most case studies of large-scale cloud adoption were seen in the game industry. Other than that, the cloud was mainly used for non-core information systems. In particular, it was relatively rare to see adoption by financial institutions.
Each year, I attend the giant trade show run by Amazon Web Services in Las Vegas, AWS re:Invent. In 2012, the NASDAQ OMX Group announced the launch of FinQloud, a new cloud computing platform powered by AWS and exclusively designed for the financial services industry.
From that point on, there was about one new major case study seen each year from the financial sector. However, it seems that last year (2016) was a significant turning point and several more have emerged since.
Across all industries, today, we are seeing more cases of large organizations that are “cloud-only” and “all-in-the-cloud,” including having migrated legacy systems to the cloud.
What changes have you seen in Japanese organizations?
Last year (2016), while there was a general trend of forward-thinking executives in Japan moving towards going all-in on the cloud, and becoming “cloud only,” the more conservative organizations were still taking a wait-and-see approach.
The decision to use cloud infrastructure tended to be made by the IT department or driven by a particular team’s need to use a specific online service. It was a departmental decision and not something that would reach the executive level. The CEO wouldn’t have gotten involved in such details.
However, in January this year, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group became the first major Japanese bank to adopt cloud computing with AWS as their provider. Significant cost savings and increases in operational efficiency were forecast. From that point on, even conservative executives began to ask, “If the financial institutions are starting to move to the cloud, why aren’t we?”
Decisions shifted from being technical choices to being strategic decisions made by the board. Of course, for an organization to migrate everything to the cloud is a huge commitment that affects its fate long-term.
While there are many cloud services available, behind each is a company that provides the fundamental infrastructure (IaaS — Infrastructure as a Service). Therefore, it is critical to consider what kind of relationship will be had with the IaaS vendor and whether they are going to be compatible and dependable for the long-term.
When choosing a cloud provider, are companies taking into account which ones are being used by their competitors?
Selecting a cloud provider is less about what technology is being used, but rather, a decision about what to use as the foundation of your enterprise and which provider to work with. As a result, there are cases in which, rather than just being a line item within the budget, the choice of cloud is reviewed holistically as a critical part of the overall business strategy by the board of directors.
Executives have moved beyond the stage of discussing whether or not to use the cloud. Nowadays, the cloud itself is treated with a level of priority and weight that we haven’t seen before.
Image Source: Carlos Muza via Unsplash + edits.
Part III: Migration from On-Premises to the Cloud
What is one of the major concerns for organizations thinking about moving their on-premises systems to the cloud?
In the early days, when people were starting to talk about enterprise cloud use, it was said that RDBMS (relational database management systems) would not be suitable for the cloud. Instead, everyone would switch to NoSQL (non-SQL or non-relational) databases.
What is the difference between RDBM and NoSQL?
When people talk about databases, they are typically referring to RDBMS. SQL (Structured Query Language) is a domain-specific programming language designed for managing data held in an RDBMS. This technology has been used widely in enterprise systems for many years.
Roughly, we can regard NoSQL as a term referring to databases other than RDBMS. A NoSQL database provides a mechanism for storage and retrieval of data that is modeled in means other than the tabular relations used in relational databases (RDB). NoSQL databases have seen a surge in popularity in recent years as they overcome many of the functional limitations of RDB and are better suited to the cloud, big data, and real-time web application usage scenarios.
Have many Japanese enterprises ditched RDBMS for NoSQL?
In my role as a member of the MIJS (Made In Japan Software Consortium) Product Technology Reinforcement Committee, I gave various demonstrations of how transactional processing would work for enterprise systems in the NoSQL era.
However, when you take a close look at most enterprises today, they are actually using RDBMS in the cloud. Of course, they wouldn’t use RDBMS for scenarios such as collecting data from IoT’s sensors. However, transaction systems are often still RDBMS.
This is because there are SQL experts who have been perfecting their craft for many years. By utilizing their experience and skills developed so far, they are able to build a stable system. Personnel skill sets don’t change so quickly. As a result, while systems have shifted to the cloud, many do not yet run NoSQL databases.
How have Japanese organizations been approaching their migration from on-premises to cloud?
A cloud migration option favored by many organizations is the “Lift-and-Shift” approach. Essentially, “Lift” refers to replicating on-premises systems in the cloud without re-building them. Then, later, they can go through their portfolio of systems and sequentially “Shift” them to be optimized for the cloud.
This enabled them to migrate to the cloud without changing to NoSQL. That was considered an acceptable first step. For Saison Information Systems as a system integration services provider and our customers, this was seen as a safer option because we weren’t changing everything just for the sake of it.
It was essential to “Lift” as the first step, get used to the cloud, and gain an understanding of it. This way, they could continue with the existing system architecture. However, to have the intention of never changing anything isn’t productive so they would look through to see what could be updated. For example, converting the storage to be cloud-optimized. Rather than changing everything at once, they would incrementally adjust and upgrade parts based on their current know-how.
Joi Ito, Director of the MIT Media Lab, emphasizes “Practice over theory;” the principle of first taking action. By starting small, you can learn from your experiences and begin to figure things out.
Rather than thinking that everything old must be immediately discarded, it is more practical to migrate to the cloud in phases. Therefore, first, “Lift” everything to the cloud. Later, the “Shift” can be made in parts so that eventually everything becomes “cloud-native;” configured to exploit the advantages of the cloud computing delivery model fully.
For example, in the case of AWS (Amazon Web Services), at first they might just move from on-premises, and next try their scalable storage service, Amazon S3.
How can organizations overcome internal resistance to this kind of transformation?
While it’s easy to talk about “digital transformation,” in reality, what is first required is “skill transformation,” which is not so simple. It’s not feasible for most organizations to suddenly switch to a system with NoSQL overnight.
On the one hand, it would be a waste to forsake the SQL skills and experience accumulated over many years, however, if nothing changes then the organization will fall behind in competitiveness. It’s, therefore, best to undergo a skill transformation gradually rather than trying to change everything at once. This applies to both systems integrators and end users. Ultimately, the key is mindset transformation.
Moving existing systems to the cloud is, in itself a major challenge. During the process, you will discover that things you thought would be obvious and easy turn out to be challenging. There is significant risk involved.
Therefore to avoid getting caught in a rut during the transition, it’s essential to carefully plan to do it in stages. For example:
Rather than moving all on-premises systems to the cloud at once, do it in phases, linking remaining on-premises systems with parts that have been moved to the cloud. It often makes sense to first transition the lower layers, which are closer to the infrastructure. Rather than rushing to convert to using NoSQL, start out by continuing to use RDBMS.
Part IV: Challenges Faced by Corporate IT
How would you describe the traditional approach of Japanese enterprises towards development?
Until recently, most large Japanese organizations seeking to develop business systems would go through the stages of planning a system, defining its requirements, external design, internal design, and detailed design. They would have a cumbersome planning process involving many meetings to decide the specifications and even preliminary meetings to prepare for those main meetings.
Then, when it came to coding, they might do it in-house. More commonly, however, they would outsource the coding work to a systems integrator. Of course, there are advantages to outsourcing such work. However, many organizations that used to build things in-house came to over-rely on external resources.
Often, the systems integrator would need to bring in someone from outside to implement the development. As a result, the person who did the planning and the person who wrote the code were quite removed from each other. There could even be several layers in between them. That was often just how things were done, and so everybody felt it was the natural course to follow.
What problems arose from this approach?
Since the customer has over-relied on outsourcing, their personnel no longer have development skills. They are making requests, but don’t really understand what is going on.
To make things worse, from about ten years ago, we started seeing new graduates join systems integrators. For some reason, although they had no development experience, they were put into the role of project manager (PM) and made to write specifications documents.
Satoshi Nakajima, Founder and Chief Scientist of Xevo, wrote in his article, “Software Specifications are Like Recipes” [in Japanese],
“A dish made from a recipe written by a chef who has never cooked cannot be delicious.”
The customer is entrusting the development of the IT system and risking the reputation of their organization by using a recipe written by a “chef who has never cooked.” Furthermore, the persons who actually write the code are following directions they don’t understand. Then, when problems arise, they are caught in the middle and scolded by both the customer and their employer. Unfortunately, this has become the standard arrangement within the industry.
They go through the arduous process of writing a document and doing the coding only to realize that it doesn’t work the way they wanted. The resulting system design is clunky, slow, and painful to maintain. However, at this stage, if you’re going to make changes or corrections, it results in further problems. Not to mention the additional time and cost.
Since all the development was outsourced, even to make small changes or adjustments require making a request to the subcontractor who is often subcontracting again. The party in between may take a margin of two to three million yen ($20,000 to $30,000) each time.
Later, when it is time to scale the system, there is pressure from senior management to increase the number of subcontractors being used to expand the scope of the project.
How should they change moving forward?
Some customers are beginning to realize the cost inefficiencies of this way of doing things and that it prevents them from moving at the speed required by today’s business environment.
People didn’t always take this inefficient route. They used to just get in and make things by themselves. Nowadays, we can return to that direct approach thanks to the cloud.
Affecting change is difficult. Furthermore, forcing change for the sake of it can be counterproductive. Of course, people can’t suddenly change their skill set, but the mindset can change quickly, and that’s what needs to happen first.
Today, the customer can hire someone in-house with the requisite technical skills. Then, the person driving the project can sit down next to them and have them build a prototype on the cloud. Next, it can be tested and adjusted until they achieve what they want.
Such in-house production on the customer side is becoming more common. This is partly because they have recognized that industry structure is twisted. However, it is also because they now need to be able to respond to the demands of the business climate with speed and flexibility.
Image Source: StartupStockPhotos via Pixabay + edits.
Part V: Changes in Mindset and Methods
How would you describe the philosophy behind this new approach?
One of Joi Ito’s quotes I like is, “Compasses Over Maps.” He was describing how our approach needs to change now that we are in an After Internet (AI) society.
In past eras, it made sense to plan in detail, create maps, live accordingly, and based on this, decide the organization’s direction. The path to success was learning from the experiences of elders and predecessors.
However, now the speed of change throughout the world has accelerated, and uncertainty has increased. The topography changes while writing the map. The value of maps and plans has not disappeared, but situations where drawing maps are not useful have increased. The times have changed.
We’re now in an era where we must depend on the direction in which our compasses are pointing. As a result, the ability to predict whether a particular course may lead to a cliff or a golden age has become crucial.
What milestones occurred that brought forward this change in thinking?
From around 1995 when the Internet explosively spread, the sense of incongruity that “There’s something wrong with this way of working” gradually grew.
Change was further ushered by the 2001 “Manifesto for Agile Software Development,” which began the so-called “Agile” movement.
How have things been evolving in recent years?
Things are changing. The Digital transformation (DX), i.e., the application of digital technology in all aspects of human society, has progressed to the point where the change is palpable.
In particular, younger organizations are more likely to take new approaches such as lean startup methodology, design thinking, extreme programming, and scrum. In such cases, the planning and implementation are closely linked.
I recently held a retreat for developers from the various business divisions and departments of Saison Information Systems to focus on topics such as cloud and agile software development. The great thing about such retreats is you can create an entirely new environment that departs from established norms.
In this situation, the end user is able to express their needs without much distance between them and the developer. In other words, the person who is saying, “We need things like this.” is sitting next to the person who is writing the code. They’ll also be living together, hanging out, and playing ping pong. It is a situation that isn’t usually possible, so the time from idea to implementation is short. As with the principle mentioned above, “Practice over theory,” once you experience it, you’ll quickly understand it.
Image Source: StartupStockPhotos via Pixabay + edits.
Part VI: The Outlook for Enterprise Cloud
How do you expect the approach to development to evolve in Japan moving forward?
I think that the use of methods which emphasize speed are becoming more common, even in large and long-established enterprises.
There are cases where the cloud accelerates things further. For example, when it is necessary to create an infrastructure environment, conventionally you would download, install, and set up a database, which could be time-consuming. But in the cloud, you can prepare the resources you need quickly.
As we move into the cloud era and adapt our approach to development accordingly, there is less distance between the end user and the coder. This accelerates the cycle of trial and error, allowing hypotheses to be validated.
These days, with platforms such as AWS, if you need an RDB, you can spin up Amazon RDS and try things out. Even if you want to prepare 100 databases, you can do so immediately. If you need to try something with a data warehouse, you can efficiently use Amazon Redshift. Then, if it doesn’t work out or you no longer need it, you can quit it immediately.
Developers obviously want to avoid building something and realizing they went down the wrong path. Building on the cloud is ideal because it allows you to get started quickly on a small scale and cancel any services you no longer need.
The old approach was spending hours creating documents and having meetings to deliberate over what kind of system to build, how to implement it, and what infrastructure to use. This would consume a lot of time before even starting. With the cloud, you can try things out immediately.
When you want to reduce the distance between the side wanting the system and the team performing the implementation by doing it quickly and taking an agile approach, the cloud is ideal. Indeed, the cloud is making this approach much more common.
The coder can sit with the person requesting the work, listen to their requirements, and if they work carefully, try putting together a prototype within fifteen minutes. Then, they can get feedback immediately, make adjustments right there, and check if the changes worked or not.
How are you developing the skills of your engineers?
I hold regular camps for our developers that allow them to exchange information and skills, use their cloud expertise, and experience what is possible with today’s technology. They quickly learn that there is a world which functions in an entirely different way from the traditional paradigm. We take a “Practice over theory” approach.
Of course, we shouldn’t blindly throw away all the past ways. As per the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, we acknowledge that there is value in the conventional approach, but we value the new method more. “Maps” and “plans” are still necessary, but nowadays, we focus on the “compass.”
If you actually try out the new way, you can begin to notice the fantastic things companies which use it are doing, and can evaluate it. However, if you just continue with the way you’ve always done things, will you be able to beat such a company? This process brings answers to questions such as:
Why use the cloud?
Why change the development approach?
Why do things in-house instead of outsourcing everything?
Once people’s mindsets shift, they understand what needs to change. | https://medium.com/enterprise-strategist/kazutoshi-ono-japan-enterprise-cloud-systems-integration-ea0a368ffccb | [] | 2018-01-25 02:57:05.915000+00:00 | ['Development', 'Agile', 'Japan', 'Cloud Computing', 'Enterprise Technology'] |
Laura Manipura | Laura Manipura
About the Author
Canva
Laura Manipura is a former librarian, currently trying to bust through the myth of the starving artist through her work on the blogging platform, Medium. As she is deeply analytical and detail-oriented, she is often called upon for editing projects. She has a gift for clarity and imagines that she would be good at writing technical manuals.
Her writing journey began with reading as a young child. Her mother has this to say, “You were always a voracious reader. When you were at the Day School, your class was often taken to the bookmobile. The other kids were amazed at the huge pile of books you checked out. You had so many that the boys had to help you carry them.”
She submitted her first story to a publisher at the age of 12 and was rewarded with a kind rejection letter. She would go on to win yearly English awards in high school. She had wanted to major in Creative Writing & English but then decided psychology would be more practical. When she graduated, she took a job as a waitress.
A few years later, she returned to school and received a master’s in Library Science. It was a good fit in many ways. To start with, there were books everywhere! Books to classify, organize, weed, and serve up vital information. Contrary to popular belief, Laura would like you to know that librarians do not sit around reading all day. Well, not why they are on the clock anyway!
Laura enjoyed teaching the students how to use the library databases and how to research and write papers. She got quite excited teaching the intricacies of keyword searching and so, was teaching SEO before SEO was a thing.
After a long dry spell, she took up writing poetry when introduced to the works of Hafiz and Rumi while attending “Praise Jam.” At praise jam, people would come together to perform music and read poetry out loud. Here, she found a voice. The shy librarian spoke. And, she found she had a knack for it. She could see how others were touched by her reading and her ego was deliciously fed. She would go home late at night and stay up late writing poetry that spoke of love, pain, and yearning.
She is currently working on a series of essays about the work of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. Always a creatrix, she is also starting a new publication to celebrate books and writers; titled From the Library. | https://medium.com/from-the-library/laura-manipura-ca3b4b09f22f | ['Laura Manipura'] | 2019-12-15 02:35:11.573000+00:00 | ['Books', 'Writing', 'Writers On Writing', 'Ftl Bio', 'Writers On Medium'] |
What Drives Power Laws in Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital? | Power Law Drivers in Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital
(1) Preferential Attachment
This power law mechanism is commonly expressed in the maxim ‘the rich get richer’. Or if you’re religiously inclined, the Bible says ‘for whoever has, more will be given to them.’
Academics call this phenomenon preferential attachment (or cumulative advantage). It’s when an initial endowment makes subsequent gains more likely. This leads to a privileged position where early wins lead to further benefits that cumulatively add up to an outsized advantage.
I’ve seen this privilege play out in my life in a small way. Getting my first book deal was a low probability event but once that door was open, getting the second, third, and fourth book contracts became more likely.
Preferential attachment isn’t always fair and it contributes to inequalities in the world that I won’t go into here. However, understanding it in the context of entrepreneurship and venture capital can inform strategy.
Preferential attachment in action. Notice how the larger blobs more easily scoop up the smaller ones. Original video here.
We see preferential attachment in entrepreneurship when an ex-Google engineer finds it easier to raise money and recruit talent for their startup because of their pedigree. We also see it in network effects, where each user added to a platform increases the likelihood that other users will flock to it.
Meanwhile in venture capital the best startups preferentially attach to funds which already have success in their portfolio. In other words, success begets more success and as Samir Kaji puts it: “One massive hit is often all it takes to “mint” an investor, regardless of how serendipitous the investment was.”
To benefit from preferential attachment, identify positive feedback loops in your field then look for ways to engineer them to your advantage.
(2) Self-organized Criticality
Despite the unusual name this power law driver is something you’re already familiar with. We see it in ‘overnight success’, which is actually an inaccurate description of something that’s so common in nature that theoretical physicists gave it a technical label 30+ years ago: ‘self-organized criticality’.
This power law mechanism is expressed in snow avalanches, neural networks in the brain, earth quakes, financial market crashes, and even social upheavals. It’s a process where lots of seemingly benign interactions in a complex system can ‘self-organise’ that system to a ‘critical’ state³ such that even the tiniest subsequent input can unexpectedly lead to dramatic change.
A useful analogy here is a pile of rice. If you build one by adding a few grains at a time, most of the grains don’t have much impact. But after a while, adding just one grain of rice can lead to an avalanche.
Video sourced and edited from Andrew Hoffmann
This is similar to overnight success. Except that even though the description suggests instant success from nowhere, most successful people make it only after years of metaphorically adding small grains of rice to a pile of effort.
You can read Sarah’s story here and from this tweet
In startups, getting to product-market-fit is a similar affair. Companies have to iterate continuously until something clicks so that the business can start to scale. Even in later years, those same businesses have to persevere before they can benefit from a step-change in growth.
One example I really like here is that of Microsoft when it was still a startup. In 1980 it secured a landmark contract to supply IBM with an operating system — an event that arguably changed the course of tech history.
However, this event didn’t pop into existence on its own. Lots of prior events had already placed Microsoft at a point of “criticality”. To name but a few:
Bill Gates and Paul Allen had been writing and selling software for almost 10 years already and were well-suited to getting the job done.
Among other reasons IBM had attracted decades of anti-trust investigations against it and to avoid further regulatory scrutiny, it accepted a non-exclusive contract with Microsoft.
The latter point meant that Microsoft was free to sell its software to other computer manufacturers and as PC hardware become commoditised, the business grew without restriction and saw its revenues balloon almost 10x, from $16m in 1981 to $140m in 1985.
Uneventful steps taken frequently can also lead to outsized outcomes in venture capital. Fred Wilson was writing and thinking about bitcoin for years before he met and invested in Coinbase. In fact he met the company because he was willing to persevere through a lengthy office hours session at Y Combinator with 16 startups across 4 hours of back-to-back pitches.
To benefit from self-organized criticality, play the long game and take heed of Seneca’s observation that “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity”. Or putting things more poetically:
“Chance can be on our side if we but stir it up with our energies, stay receptive to the glint of opportunity on even a single hair above the underbrush, and continually provoke it by individuality in our attitudes and approach to life.” — James H. Austin in Chase, Chance, and Creativity.
(3) Multiplicative Processes
Power laws also emerge when events are multiplicative instead of additive. One example is word-of-mouth. If you have a fantastic restaurant experience you don’t just tell one other person about it (which would be an additive process). You tell lots of friends who then go on to tell many others too.
Other examples of this process include population growth, the spread of viruses, and rapid wealth accumulation (getting rich through investing is a multiplicative process while building wealth through a salary is additive.)
Multiplicative processes are perhaps the simplest power law generator: a value is multiplied by some variable and the result is further multiplied by another variable. Repeat this process and you get exponential growth.
Viral growth simulation by Grant Sanderson
In startups, hiring a ‘10x employee’ is a multiplicative process. An elite performer can substantially change the trajectory of a business while most hires tend to be additive.⁴ For VCs, blogging is multiplicative networking. Ideas can spread faster online compared to offline 1–2–1 conversations.
To benefit from multiplicative processes, you have to identify and seek out multiplicative factors — much like preferential attachment — then look for ways to engineer them to your advantage. | https://medium.com/venture-capital-research/what-drives-power-laws-in-entrepreneurship-and-venture-capital-51b608f5f203 | [] | 2020-06-22 11:57:30.558000+00:00 | ['Power Law', 'Startup', 'Venture Capital', 'Entrepreneurship', 'VC'] |
Colonizers or Victims? | Colonizers or Victims?
A review of “The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties that Helped Create Modern China” by Jonathan Kaufman
Of all the outlets to get a history of China over the last 175 years, I would not have expected a story of Jewish family businesses in Shanghai. But Jonathan Kaufman does just that in his new book, The Last Kings of Shanghai, and I was pleasantly surprised with how enthralled I was to dive into this unique story.
If you want to tell the tale of the creation of modern China, it makes no sense to tell it through the eyes of rich foreigners. That’s, like, Historical Responsibility 101 stuff. But Kaufman pulls it off by telling the story of these Jewish families, the Sassoons and the Kadoories, alongside the story of China instead of chiefly through their perspective. The two narratives continuously overlap, and that means you get a legitimate narrative of a story for those who may not know the established beats, but also from a unique perspective for those who are already familiar.
The Sassoons especially act as quasi-villains in parts of the story because they participated in the European imperialism of China. Through the events of the Opium Wars, the Boxer Rebellion, and eventually the fall of the Chinese dynastic system in favor of a republican system, the Sassoons are seen by the Chinese as the foreigners that are causing all of their problems, and Kaufman even paints them as such at times. While the reader has also seen where they have come from and thus doesn’t see them only as villains, one decision stands out: the Sassoons and Kadoories, although living in Shanghai, were so separated from Chinese society that none of them ever learned to speak Chinese.
At the same time, however, the narratives of the Sassoons and Kadoories cannot be dismissed as white European stories because of the discrimination that they had to endure as Jews. Anti-Semitism provides a backdrop for a lot of the book, especially the 1930s and 1940s when Japan’s alliance with Germany combined with the Japanese occupation of much of China led to the systematic, prejudicial relocation of thousands of Jewish refugees in Shanghai. Kaufman writes:
SS colonel Josef Meisinger, who had earned the moniker “The Butcher of Warsaw” by sending thousands of Jews to their deaths in Poland, was dispatched to Shanghai accompanied by another SS officer. In August, Meisinger met the Japanese officials at the Japanese Naval Headquarters in Shanghai and laid out several options to “deal with” the “problem” of the 18,000 Shanghai refugees. The Japanese could send the Jews to Manchuria and elsewhere to perform hard labor to help the Japanese war effort. They could set up a concentration camp for “medical experiments” on a nearby island in the Yangtze River. Finally, Meisinger spread out a large map of Shanghai and outlined his preferred plan. In a few weeks, on the first night of the Jewish New Year, German SS units would round up Jewish refugees attending services with their wives and children at Shanghai’s synagogues. They would seize the rest at their homes. The Jews would be marched through the streets to the harbor, loaded onto ships slated for demolition, towed out to the ocean, and sunk.
This plan did not come to fruition, however, because Japanese officials refused. But if there was any doubt, this event proves that the “Final Solution” was not about German genetic superiority but about a genocidal campaign to murder Jews wherever Germans could find them.
These Jewish families also provide a fascinating lens through which to view this era of Chinese history because of all that they lost in the Communist takeover of 1949. Kaufman follows the Sassoons and Kadoories through their doomed alliances with Chinese Nationalists, the loss of almost all of the capital gained through their businesses, and finally to Lawrence Kadoorie’s eventual deal to provide nuclear power to Hong Kong and parts of China. Kadoorie provided a bridge between Britain and China at a time it was sorely needed, as the deal to give Hong Kong back to China in 1997 was quickly approaching. This was one of my favorite parts of the book, as it circled back to many of the themes throughout and showed how China had changed immensely since the Communist takeover in 1949.
While I would love to read more in-depth about most of the larger events in this book from a pure Chinese point of view (one reason my next read is the new Chinese-perspective-on-world-history Superpower Interrupted), Kaufman provides a surprising perspective on a fascinating era of world history. Whether you already know the narrative beats or not, The Last Kings of Shanghai is well worth your time.
I received a review copy of The Last Kings of Shanghai courtesy of Viking Publishing and NetGalley, but my opinions are my own. | https://medium.com/park-recommendations/colonizers-or-victims-717982614bbe | ['Jason Park'] | 2020-05-28 18:59:49.519000+00:00 | ['Nonfiction', 'China', 'Books', 'History', 'Book Review'] |
They solve the Schrödinger equation with the help of Artificial Intelligence | This is a review of some artificial intelligence news that happened throughout the week
Quantum chemistry aims to predict the chemical and physical properties of molecules based on the arrangement of their atoms in space, without time-consuming and resource-intensive laboratory experiments. This can be achieved by solving the Schrödinger equation, but in practice this is too difficult. A team of scientists from Freie Universität Berlin has developed a deep learning algorithm that can achieve a combination of precision and computational efficiency. The professor leading the research believes the approach may have a significant impact on the future of quantum chemistry. | https://medium.com/analytics-vidhya/they-solve-the-schr%C3%B6dinger-equation-with-the-help-of-artificial-intelligence-b9b7d8b0ec7 | ['Andrey Chi De Robles'] | 2020-12-28 16:36:14.391000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Science', 'Deep Learning'] |
Apple’s Master Sales Strategy: Upselling | 1.Marketing Strategies, Exposed: Apple’s way to generate enormous profits Definition of Upselling
Upselling is a special sales technique used by companies like Apple that invites us, the customers, to buy expensive items or upgrades for the product you want to purchase. Simple said the sellers try to sell you more than you actually want. This is exactly what Apple does on their website. Let me give you an example:
You’ve decided to buy yourself a new phone, an iPhone 12 Pro, to be exact. So, you go on their website, click on the iPhone 12 Pro, scroll a bit down, and find yourself forced to decide on a model: iPhone 12 Pro or iPhone 12 Pro Max? You may think “oh look, the iPhone Pro Max costs just $100 more than the iPhone Pro, so why not”. This is exactly the moment you got a victim of Upselling. Apple puts you multiple times before choices, where you can choose between a handful of options. This first decision you made, was only the first. Further, you’ll be forced to decide on the battery capacity of your phone and if you’d like to add AppleCare+ coverage. Especially the batteries create Apple enormous amounts of profit: Let’s take a look, why. | https://medium.com/passive-asset/apples-master-sales-strategy-upselling-83003790ec57 | ['Jakov Zauzolkov'] | 2020-12-22 20:04:06.750000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Apple', 'Economy', 'Web Design', 'Marketing Strategies'] |
The 10 Best Ways to Create NumPy Arrays | NumPy arrays objects are technically of the class numpy.ndarray . I'll refer to them as arrays below.
Without further ado, here are the essential ways to make a NumPy array:
Convert a list
Convert a list with array .
Create and fill a NumPy array with…
equally spaced data with arange , linspace , or logspace .
, , or . the same value with zeros , ones , or full .
, , or . the same value that matches the shape and dtype of a pre-existing array with zeros_like , ones_like , or full_like .
, , or . random floats drawn from the standard normal distribution with random.randn .
. random floats drawn from a uniform distribution with random.rand .
Convert from a…
pandas DataFrame with df.to_numpy .
. TensorFlow TensorProto with tf.make_ndarray(existing_proto_tensor) .
. PyTorch Tensor with existing_tensor.numpy .
. SciPy sparse matrix with existing_sparse_matrix.toarray .
Let’s see these in action! 🚀
First, import the libraries we’ll need under their usual aliases. The code in this article is meant to be run in a Jupyter notebook. The expected output follows --- .
import numpy as np
import scipy
import pandas as pd
import tensorflow as tf
import torch
import sklearn
from sklearn.preprocessing import OneHotEncoder
If you don’t have the libraries you need installed, run the code below and then run the imports again.
!pip install -U numpy scipy pandas tensorflow torch scikit-learn
Let’s check our package versions.
print(f'NumPy: {np.__version__}')
print(f'SciPy {scipy.__version__}')
print(f'pandas: {pd.__version__}')
print(f'TensorFlow {tf.__version__}')
print(f'PyTorch: {torch.__version__}')
print(f'scikit-learn: {sklearn.__version__}') --- NumPy: 1.19.2
SciPy 1.5.3
pandas: 1.1.3
TensorFlow 2.3.1
PyTorch: 1.6.0
scikit-learn: 0.23.2
Let’s make some arrays!
Convert a list with array
Solar array. Source: pixabay.com
You can convert a list into a NumPy array with the array constructor. First, let's make a list of tree heights that we can use in our example. 🌲
tree_heights = [55, 60, 62, 44]
Now let’s convert our list into a NumPy array so we can use all of NumPy’s ndarray method goodness with it.
np.array(tree_heights) --- array([55, 60, 62, 44])
Boom! 🧨
Passing array a list of lists will make a two-dimensional NumPy array.
np.array(list(enumerate(tree_heights))) array([[ 0, 55],
[ 1, 60],
[ 2, 62],
[ 3, 44]])
Cool! 😎
Next let’s see ways to create and pre-fill arrays with a range of values.
Equally spaced data
NumPy has several helpful functions for creating arrays filled with values spaced at intervals.
arange
A range. Source: pixabay.com
arange is the equivalent of vanilla Python's range , but for NumPy arrays.
np.arange(7) --- array([0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6])
Pass one integer and you get an 1-dimensional array of integers starting at 0 and up to, but not including the integer passed.
Pass two integers arguments and you get the starting value through the final value, where the final value is exclusive. Here’s an example with the keywords specified:
np.arange(start=1, stop=7) --- array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6])
Pass step — the third positional argument — to skip values. The default step is 1.
np.arange(start=1, stop=7, step=2) --- array([1, 3, 5])
Careful with the spelling! Array has two rs, but think of arange as a range. ⚠️
linspace
When you want to create an array of evenly spaced decimal values, use linspace .
linspace splits a pie into evenly-sized pieces. 🥧
You need to pass linspace the start and stop values.
np.linspace(10, 50) --- array([10. , 10.81632653, 11.63265306, 12.44897959, 13.26530612,
14.08163265, 14.89795918, 15.71428571, 16.53061224, 17.34693878,
18.16326531, 18.97959184, 19.79591837, 20.6122449 , 21.42857143,
22.24489796, 23.06122449, 23.87755102, 24.69387755, 25.51020408,
26.32653061, 27.14285714, 27.95918367, 28.7755102 , 29.59183673,
30.40816327, 31.2244898 , 32.04081633, 32.85714286, 33.67346939,
34.48979592, 35.30612245, 36.12244898, 36.93877551, 37.75510204,
38.57142857, 39.3877551 , 40.20408163, 41.02040816, 41.83673469,
42.65306122, 43.46938776, 44.28571429, 45.10204082, 45.91836735,
46.73469388, 47.55102041, 48.36734694, 49.18367347, 50. ])
By default you get 50 slices of pie. But you can change that by passing a third argument.
np.linspace(10, 50, 5) --- array([10., 20., 30., 40., 50.])
logspace
Logs. Source: pixabay.com
logspace returns evenly spaced numbers on a logarithmic scale with a base of 10 by default.
np.logspace(1, 2) array([ 10. , 10.48113134, 10.98541142, 11.51395399,
12.06792641, 12.64855217, 13.25711366, 13.89495494,
14.56348478, 15.26417967, 15.9985872 , 16.76832937,
17.57510625, 18.42069969, 19.30697729, 20.23589648,
21.20950888, 22.22996483, 23.29951811, 24.42053095,
25.59547923, 26.82695795, 28.11768698, 29.47051703,
30.88843596, 32.37457543, 33.93221772, 35.56480306,
37.2759372 , 39.06939937, 40.94915062, 42.9193426 ,
44.98432669, 47.14866363, 49.41713361, 51.79474679,
54.28675439, 56.89866029, 59.63623317, 62.50551925,
65.51285569, 68.6648845 , 71.9685673 , 75.43120063,
79.06043211, 82.86427729, 86.85113738, 91.0298178 ,
95.40954763, 100. ])
Passing logspace 1 and 2 for the start and stop values returns an array of 50 values ranging between 10 and 100 on the base 10 scale.
Here’s how to create an array of 10 values, equally spaced between 0 and 3 on the base 10 scale.
np.logspace(start=0, stop=3, num=10) array([ 1. , 2.15443469, 4.64158883, 10. ,
21.5443469 , 46.41588834, 100. , 215.443469 ,
464.15888336, 1000. ])
logspace can be handy when hyperparameter tuning in scikit-learn. 👍
Fill with a constant value
You’ll often want an array filled with zeros, ones, or some other value.
zeros
Create and fill an array with zeros by using the zeros function.
np.zeros(5) --- array([0., 0., 0., 0., 0.])
No e after the o! 😀
Note that yet get back floats for the dtype.
Pass a tuple with the number of rows followed by the number of columns to make a two dimensional array.
six_zeros = np.zeros(shape=(2, 3))
six_zeros --- array([[0., 0., 0.],
[0., 0., 0.]])
This time we used the keyword argument for demonstration purposes. We saved the array as a variable because we’ll use it in a minute.
ones
ones behaves similarly to zeros .
np.ones((3, 5)) --- array([[1., 1., 1., 1., 1.],
[1., 1., 1., 1., 1.],
[1., 1., 1., 1., 1.]])
full
Full moon. Source: pixabay.com
Fill an array with any value by using full .
np.full(shape=6, fill_value='Winner, winner, chicken dinner!') --- array(['Winner, winner, chicken dinner!',
'Winner, winner, chicken dinner!',
'Winner, winner, chicken dinner!',
'Winner, winner, chicken dinner!',
'Winner, winner, chicken dinner!',
'Winner, winner, chicken dinner!'], dtype='<U31')
Like zeros and ones , pass a tuple as the first argument if you want a multi-dimensional array.
np.full((3, 2), "I'm in a 2d array!") --- array([["I'm in a 2d array!", "I'm in a 2d array!"],
["I'm in a 2d array!", "I'm in a 2d array!"],
["I'm in a 2d array!", "I'm in a 2d array!"]], dtype='<U18')
Now let’s see how to fill an array with a value AND match the shape and dtype of another array.
zeros_like
When you want to create an array that matches the shape of another array, append _like to zeros , ones , or full . Then you're in business! 💸
Let’s see how to use zeros_like with our size_zeros array we saved earlier - it was a 2x3 array.
np.zeros_like(six_zeros) --- array([[0., 0., 0.],
[0., 0., 0.]])
ones_like
ones_like behaves similarly.
np.ones_like(six_zeros) --- array([[1., 1., 1.],
[1., 1., 1.]])
full_like
full_like acts how you'd expect. 😉
np.full_like(six_zeros, 22) --- array([[22., 22., 22.],
[22., 22., 22.]])
Note that you get back an array of the same shape AND dtype as the array or list you pass in.
np.full_like([1, 2, 65, 3], fill_value=22) --- array([22, 22, 22, 22])
Random data
Random dice roll. Source: pixabay.com
It’s often useful to fill a NumPy array with randomly distributed data. Let’s see how to do that.
random.randn
Create an array filled with random floats drawn from the standard normal distribution with random.randn .
np.random.randn(10) --- array([ 0.48141843, 0.33463071, 0.37107953, -1.16044437, -1.15956598,
1.24637982, -0.21480563, 1.61006107, -0.88036176, -0.52745888])
Strangely, unlike the functions above, here you don’t pass a tuple to indicate the shape, you just pass the rows as the first argument and the columns as the second argument. ⚠️
np.random.randn(5, 2) --- array([[ 1.13164593, -0.35241179],
[-1.81246707, 0.76773381],
[ 1.13485416, -0.50449109],
[-0.32666705, -0.90184535],
[ 1.38867755, -1.08018813]])
If you want to pass the tuple to indicate the shape, you have to use random.standard_normal . It does the same thing as random.rand . This is a bit of a historical artifact that doesn't really keep with the Zen of Python's one obvious way to do it, but it is what it is. I generally just use randn and then get error messages. 🙃
np.random.standard_normal((4, 5)) --- array([[ 0.22812825, 0.60446763, -0.42118075, 1.79680568, -0.33793378],
[ 0.07964594, -0.39447251, 0.60948288, -0.03175253, -0.30030963],
[-0.37746859, -0.33789088, -2.30195465, 0.19532716, -1.74321666],
[-0.40882198, 0.08589203, -1.29910817, 0.64159252, -2.13985143]])
If you want reproducible results, set the random seed like this:
np.random.seed(123)
Note, NumPy now has a new, more complicated way to make random numbers that it officially recommends in the docs. I expect most folks will stick with the random functions I use here because they are well known, require less code, and work fine for most situations.
rand
Create an array filled with random floats drawn from a uniform distribution between 0 and 1 with random.rand .
np.random.rand(10) --- array([0.69646919, 0.28613933, 0.22685145, 0.55131477, 0.71946897,
0.42310646, 0.9807642 , 0.68482974, 0.4809319 , 0.39211752])
random.rand is like random.randn in the sense that it takes the dimensions directly as arguments, and not as a tuple.
np.random.rand(2, 3) --- array([[0.18249173, 0.17545176, 0.53155137],
[0.53182759, 0.63440096, 0.84943179]])
Alright, you’ve seen how to use NumPy to make arrays. These aren’t the only functions for making arrays, but they should cover over 95% of use cases. 🚀
Convert from another library
Often you’ll be using another library and have a data structure that you want to convert into a NumPy array for processing. Let’s see how to do that with pandas.
pandas
pandas is a very popular library for data manipulation. It extends NumPy. Let’s make a pandas DataFrame of scores and turn it into a NumPy array. 🐼
df_scores = pd.DataFrame(dict(age=[22, 44, 67], score=[5, 6, 8]))
df_scores
The to_numpy method is the officially recommended way to convert a pandas DataFrame or Series into a NumPy array. It was introduced in version 0.24.0.
df_scores.to_numpy() --- array([[22, 5],
[44, 6],
[67, 8]])
The values attribute works, too, but is no longer recommended.
Now let’s check out TensorFlow.
TensorFlow
Water flow. Source: pixabay.com
TensorFlow is a very popular deep learning framework. Converting a TensorFlow tensor to a NumPy array takes a few steps.
First let’s make a TensorFlow tensor object.
tf_tensor = tf.constant([[3,15,2],[55,5,6]])
tf_tensor --- <tf.Tensor: shape=(2, 3), dtype=int32, numpy=
array([[ 3, 15, 2],
[55, 5, 6]], dtype=int32)>
Then let’s make it into a proto_tensor.
proto_tensor = tf.make_tensor_proto(tf_tensor)
proto_tensor --- dtype: DT_INT32
tensor_shape {
dim {
size: 2
}
dim {
size: 3
}
}
tensor_content: "\003\000\000\000\017\000\000\000\002\000\000\0007\000\000\000\005\000\000\000\006\000\000\000"
Now we can convert it into a NumPy array.
tf.make_ndarray(proto_tensor) --- array([[ 3, 15, 2],
[55, 5, 6]], dtype=int32)
This kind of fun is why PyTorch is becoming more and more popular. 😉
See my article on PyTorch vs. TensorFlow popularity here.
PyTorch
Blowtorch. Source: pixabay.com
PyTorch is the other large deep learning framework. It’s a bit more Pythonic than TensorFlow. 🐍
Let’s make a PyTorch tensor.
my_pytorch_tensor = torch.ones(5)
my_pytorch_tensor --- tensor([1., 1., 1., 1., 1.])
And let’s convert it into a NumPy tensor.
my_pytorch_tensor.numpy() --- array([1., 1., 1., 1., 1.], dtype=float32)
That was refreshingly straightforward. 😀
PyTorch is closely interoperable with NumPy. Note that after converting between Torch tensors and NumPy arrays they “will share their underlying memory locations (if the Torch Tensor is on CPU), and changing one will change the other.” — the docs. ⚠️
SciPy
SciPy sparse matrices are very efficient for storing data that is filled with mostly 0s (or some other single value). For example, after one-hot encoding an array in scikit-learn, the resulting data structure is a ScPy sparse matrix.
Sometimes you’ll want to convert a SciPy sparse matrix into a NumPy array so you can inspect it or do a certain operation on it.
We imported OneHotEncoder from scikit-learn earlier, so let's use that now to create a sparse matrix.
ohe = OneHotEncoder()
dummified_scores = ohe.fit_transform(df_scores)
dummified_scores --- <3x6 sparse matrix of type '<class 'numpy.float64'>'
with 6 stored elements in Compressed Sparse Row format>
The low memory usage is great, but let’s say I want to see the resulting data. I could pass the argument sparse=False at instantiation to get a NumPy array back. Or I can just use toarray .
dummified_scores.toarray() --- array([[1., 0., 0., 1., 0., 0.],
[0., 1., 0., 0., 1., 0.],
[0., 0., 1., 0., 0., 1.]])
Note that pandas uses to_numpy while SciPy uses toarray . This frequently trips me up. ⚠️
Summary
You’ve seen how to create NumPy arrays filled with the data you want. You’ve also seen how to convert other Python data structures into NumPy arrays. Now you’re ready to manipulate arrays in NumPy! Awesome! 🎉
I hope found this tour of this creating NumPy arrays useful. If you did, please share it on your favorite social media so other folks can find it, too. 👍
NumPy underlies much of the open source scientific computing revolution. Special thanks to Travis Oliphant and the other developers of NumPy who helped make this valuable tool what it is today. 🚀
I originally published this article for Deepnote here. You can run the article as a notebook there. 😀
I write about data science, Python, SQL, and other tech topics. If any of that’s of interest to you, sign up for my mailing list of awesome data science resources and read more to help you grow your skills here. 😀
Source: pixabay.com
Happy array creating! 😀 | https://towardsdatascience.com/the-ten-best-ways-to-create-numpy-arrays-8b1029a972a7 | ['Jeff Hale'] | 2020-12-26 19:08:37.049000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Python', 'Data Science'] |
Python ETL vs. ETL Tools | Python ETL vs. ETL Tools
Should you code it yourself or license an ETL tool?
Pick your direction: coding your ETL pipeline yourself or using an existing ETL tool (image by author)
If you’re researching ETL solutions you are going to have to decide between using an existing ETL tool, or building your own using one of the Python ETL libraries. In this article, we look at some of the factors to consider when making that decision.
ETL (Extract Transform Load) is the most important aspect of creating data pipelines for data warehouses. The market offers various ready-to-use ETL tools that can be implemented in the data warehouse very easily. However, recently Python has also emerged as a great option for creating custom ETL pipelines. In this article, we shall give a quick comparison between Python ETL vs ETL tools to help you choose between the two for your project.
ETL Tools
There are many ready-to-use ETL tools available in the market for building easy-to-complex data pipelines. Most offer friendly graphical user interfaces, have rich pipeline building features, support various databases and data formats, and sometimes even include some limited business intelligence features. The best thing about it is that all of this is available out of the box.
These tools can be either licensed or open-sourced. Most of them are priced on a subscription model that ranges from anywhere between a few hundred dollars per month to thousands of dollars per month. On the other hand, the open-source tools are free, and they also offer some of the features that the licensed tools provide, but there is often much more development required to reach a similar result.
A few of the ETL tools available in the market are as follows.
Avik Cloud
Avik Cloud is a relatively new ETL platform designed with a cloud-first approach. This means it’s created specifically to be used in Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud and is available in all three market places. Similar to the cloud-based pricing structure of those platforms, Avik Cloud charges on a pay-for-what-you-use model.
Avik Cloud’s ETL process is built on Spark to achieve low latency continuous processing. Avik Cloud also features an easy-to-use visual pipeline builder.
Informatica PowerCenter
Informatica’s ETL solution is currently the most common data integration tool used for connecting and retrieving data from different datasources. Informatica has been in the industry a long time and is an established player in this space. They have data integration products for ETL, data masking, data quality, data replication, data management, and more.
Alooma
Alooma is a licensed ETL tool focused on data migration to data warehouses in the cloud. Alooma seemed to be a great solution for a lot of businesses with its automated data pipelines and its easy integrations for Amazon Redshift, Microsoft Azure, and Google BigQuery. However, after getting acquired by Google in 2019, Alooma has largely dropped support for non-Google data warehousing solutions. This may cause problems for companies that are relying on multiple cloud platforms.
Xplenty
Xplenty is a cloud-based ETL and ELT (extract, load, transform) tool. It uses a visual interface for building data pipelines and connects to more than 100 common datasources.
AWS Glue
AWS Glue is Amazon’s serverless ETL solution based on the AWS platform. If you are already entrenched in the AWS ecosystem, AWS Glue may be a good choice.
Python ETL
Python needs no introduction. Every year Python becomes ubiquitous in more-and-more fields ranging from astrophysics to search engine optimization. So it’s no surprise that Python has solutions for ETL.
For ETL, Python offers a handful of robust open-source libraries. Thanks to the ever-growing Python open-source community, these ETL libraries offer loads of features to develop a robust end-to-end data pipeline.
If you are all-in on Python, you can create complex ETL pipelines similar to what can be done with ETL tools. But be ready to burn some development hours. These libraries are feature-rich but are not ready out-of-the-box like some of the ETL platforms listed above.
Some of the popular python ETL libraries are:
Pandas
Luigi
Petl
Bonobo
Bubbles
These libraries have been compared in other posts on Python ETL options, so we won’t repeat that discussion here. Instead, we’ll focus on whether to use those or use the established ETL platforms.
Python ETL vs ETL tools
The strategy of ETL has to be carefully chosen when designing a data warehousing strategy. Once you have chosen an ETL process, you are somewhat locked in, since it would take a huge expenditure of development hours to migrate to another platform. This is especially true of enterprise data warehouses with many schemas and complex architectures.
So, let’s compare the usefulness of both custom Python ETL and ETL tools to help inform that choice.
Cost
The license cost of ETL tools (especially for big enterprise data warehouse) can be high–but this expense may be offset by how much time it saves your engineers to work on other things. Smaller companies or startups may not always be able to afford the licensing cost of ETL platforms. In such a scenario, creating a custom Python ETL may be a good option. But it’s also important to consider whether that cost savings is worth the delay it would cause in your product going to market. One other consideration for startups is that platforms with more flexible pricing like Avik Cloud keep the cost proportional to use–which would make it much more affordable for early-stage startups with limited ETL needs.
Size and Complexity of Data Warehouse
If it is a big data warehouse with complex schema, writing a custom Python ETL process from scratch might be challenging, especially when the schema changes more frequently. In this case, you should explore the options from various ETL tools that fit your requirements and budget.
Simplicity and Flexibility
If the data warehouse is small, you may not require all the features of enterprise ETL tools. It might be a good idea to write a custom light-weighted Python ETL process, as it will be both simple and give you better flexibility to customize it as per your needs.
Scalability
The initial size of the database might not be big. But if you anticipate growth in the near future, you should make a judgment about whether your custom Python ETL pipeline will also be able to scale with an increase in data throughput. If in doubt, you might want to look more closely at some of the ETL tools as they will scale more easily.
User Friendliness
To use Python for your ETL process, as you might guess, it requires expertise in Python. But ETL tools generally have user-friendly GUIs which make it easy to operate even for a non-technical person to work. So again, it is a choice to make as per the project requirements.
Value Addition and Support
ETL tools, especially the paid ones, give more value adds in terms of multiple features and compatibilities. They also offer customer support–which seems like an unimportant consideration until you need it. However, the open-source tools do have good documentation and plenty of online communities that can also offer support.
You will miss out on these things if you go with the custom Python ETL. It will be a challenging work to incorporate so many features of market ETL tools in the custom Python ETL process with the same robustness.
Surprise Third Option: Data Virtualization
One other option that has been gaining some traction is foregoing ETL altogether in favor of data virtualization. Data virtualization is a logical data layer that integrates data across disparate silos. Data virtualization manages the unified data, and delivers it to users with centralized security and governance.
Denodo offers data virtualization as a data management/engineering option.
Knowi takes it one step further and uses data virtualization to power their business intelligence platform. Data virtualization’s ability to connect to disparate data sources natively allows Knowi to connect to and visualize data in real-time without first having to use ETL to move thing to a data warehouse.
Conclusion
There is no clear winner when it comes to Python ETL vs ETL tools, they both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Finally, it all comes down to making a choice based on various parameters that we discussed above. But if you are strongly considering using Python for ETL, at least take a look at the platform options out there. And if you’re feeling especially bold, consider going down the rabbit hole and learning a bit about data virtualization. Likewise, if you’re thinking about using an ETL tool for a simple ETL use-case, it may be worth giving Python a closer look.
About the Author
Sean Knight works as Head of Growth Knowi, a SAAS analytics company. He has degrees in both physics and data science and has worked at particle accelerators, NASA JPL, a research nuclear reactor, and is now in the startup world. He is a data geek who enjoys contributing to Towards Data Science, The Startup, and Hackernoon.
Find him on Twitter and Linkedin. | https://towardsdatascience.com/python-etl-vs-etl-tools-9709171c9e58 | ['Sean Knight'] | 2020-05-01 16:23:48.953000+00:00 | ['Etl', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Programming', 'Big Data'] |
How I Landed a Software Engineering Job with a Political Science Degree | 1 — Create a plan fueled by consistent habits
Learning anything new can be challenging and this was a problem I faced when I began to teach myself web development and cloud engineering.
If you look at everything you must learn with a big-picture mindset you will veer off track or get discouraged by the amount of ground that you must cover.
Analyze every aspect of what you are trying to learn as bite-sized pieces. Then take those bite-sized pieces and break them down into nano-sized pieces. From there we can begin to chip away at the nano-sized pieces of information one at a time.
This is why consistent habits are important. Schedule a set amount of time each day and start attacking each nano-sized topic that you’re trying to learn. If you replicate the same formula of consistent habits you will reap the benefits of compound learning. For me, this strategy made learning extremely difficult topics much easier.
It took me about two weeks to see the effects of compound learning but it completely enhanced the speed and depth by which I was able to learn to program. Learn, implement, repeat. There is no substitute for consistency, schedule out blocks of your time, eliminate all distractions, and train yourself to consistently focus on the topic at hand.
2 — Immerse yourself to grow
Programming languages are very similar to foreign languages. The only difference being, you practice programming languages by conversing with your computer through code, whereas with foreign languages, the best practice is done through interacting with people who speak the language that you aspire to learn.
Immersing myself was the single greatest accelerator of my programming skills. During my commute to work, I listened to podcasts about coding. During my lunch break, I watched youtube videos about coding. I read Medium stories involving coding tutorials and interacted with people via StackOverflow, to help them solve their coding challenges. Coding became embedded in my DNA because I constantly found ways to interact with it throughout my daily life.
One of my favorite YouTubers, Nathaniel Drew, taught himself to speak fluent Italian in 6 months. A large part of his growth can be credited to the fact that he lived in Italy during this time period. Nathaniel immersed himself and grew beyond the normal constraints of what is to be considered possible in a given timeframe. The key to agile growth is immersing yourself in whatever you want to learn. It could be programming, learning to speak Italian, or reading sheet music to become a better trombonist. Immersing yourself is a growth accelerator.
3 — Network, it matters
Once you have the skill, you must find an opportunity. Finding a job that will give you an opportunity in tech without a tech background or STEM degree is difficult. However, it is not impossible. The key is to accept a job that gets you closer to your goal without having taken any steps back.
My first job was in IT sales. This was by no means anything close to software engineering. Although it gave me access to engineering professionals, which ultimately assisted me in building a network of individuals who could vouch for my skills when the time was right.
When you are seeking a new career, your network is your net worth.
Because of my network, my first mentor found me. He’s a cybersecurity engineer, enterprise business consultant, and the author of “The Framework Life”. He helped me reconstruct my career plan into a tech-centric approach defined by descriptive goals and actionable steps towards my envisionment of success. If I wouldn’t have taken the IT sales job, I wouldn’t have met my mentor, and I wouldn’t be a software engineer today. It all started with building the right network. Focus on providing value to others, asking questions, and building friendships. The right people will take notice of your enthusiasm and get you closer to the decision-makers who are giving newcomers opportunities in tech. | https://medium.com/the-ascent/how-i-landed-a-software-engineering-job-with-a-political-science-degree-a4b53b058781 | [] | 2020-01-08 13:16:01.028000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Life Lessons', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Programming', 'Life'] |
The Literally Literary Weekly Update #1 | Photo by Joanna Kosinska on Unsplash
We have something new for you. Every Wednesday we will be going back and highlighting some of the top works of the week in Literally Literary. We want you to know we are always paying attention to everything we publish.
Top works do not mean best works as that is a wholly subjective concept. Top works will be segmented below into random categories and highlights of stories or poems we think you might enjoy.
We will also be highlighting some editor’s notes each week at the bottom to help you publish your best work.
Welcome and thank you for being one of our 27,306 followers. We appreciate you every day.
(All links below are friend links to the stories on Medium.) | https://medium.com/literally-literary/the-literally-literary-weekly-update-1-1c53a38cd92a | ['Jonathan Greene'] | 2019-12-11 13:48:34.334000+00:00 | ['Poetry', 'Nonfiction', 'Writing', 'Ll Letters', 'Fiction'] |
The Balancing Act of Ambiversion | Extroverts love being the center of attention
Some extroverts love being the center of attention. Some don’t. Even if we do, which more times than not, I don’t mind…it can be exhausting. I can’t recall the last time I wasn’t invited somewhere only to find upon arriving, the group seems to have been waiting for me to flip the ‘fun’ switch. While flattering, it’s a lot of pressure to assume I must be “on” at all times when I am with people. I’m looked to as the captain of conversation topics. I’m expected to fill dead silences with funny anecdotes from my past. They look to me to lead the reminisce train through the catalog (I’m keeping?) of our friend group’s antics — complete with voice intimations.
No one ever considers for a moment that maybe an extrovert just wants to chill like everyone else. Maybe they don’t feel particularly talkative or in the mood to mentally recall all the funny times you last hung out. Extroverts need a break to recharge too. If an extrovert seems like they want to be low key, don’t guilt them in acting the opposite. Just because I’m not entertaining you doesn’t mean you get to boo me off the metaphorical stage.
Extroverts are emotionally stronger than introverts
When the pandemic first started I had “friends” (i.e. people I hadn’t seen or spoken to in months and months) coming out of the woodwork texting, calling, trying to video call me all with the same general desire; cheer them up. Obviously the pandemic wasn’t affecting me the same way — because, duh, extrovert people don’t get sad. People reached out for words of comfort, a funny outlook on the global sadness befalling us all, or even just to have me personally tell them how awesome they were and how everything would be ‘Okay’.
I’m sad to say this was not reciprocated. Oh sure, I’d get the obligatory ‘But, how are you?’ only to be cut off half-way through my honest feelings with chuckles that I would be fine, I was an extrovert, I’d be able to laugh this all off and lift myself up. As an extrovert I am expected to do find the bright side of things, all the time. I quickly realized people I knew didn’t even consider that I could be just as, if not, sometimes more, sad than they were
Extroverts are not self-aware deep thinkers
The number of times I’ve seen someone look shocked when I start talking about philosophical, heady, topics is countless. Introverts are usually the ones who receive the gold stars for being thoughtful, self-aware, knowledge thinkers who process information before sharing their opinions. Nope. Sorry. Extroverts are just as capable of these things.
Personally, what has kept me from tipping over into the conceited, self-centered type of extrovert is my profound interest in self-awareness and conscious actions. My love for Carl Jung, Eckhart Tolle, Jay Shetty, the ever-expanding exploration of what the Universe means and our part in it keeps me grounded. I know that my circle is tiny and the world is much bigger than myself. I’ll admit I do have a weakness for flashy, shocking, trendy things but whoever decided that up-to-date and sociable equated to shallowness needs a reality check.
Extroverts do not need alone time
Being emotionally drained by social interaction is not solely owned by introverts. Prior to the pandemic I spoke to large groups of people (100+) around the country all year long. I traveled 10–15 times a year to other states for my speaking engagements. As much as I enjoyed sharing my thoughts and knowledge on certain things with others, I needed alone time. I would run and hide up in my hotel room many times after just to rest my mind and avoid being bombarded with endless questions or small talk.
There’s a flip side to that, some extroverts thrive in the company of others, as do I. However, that doesn’t negate the fact that we still need space to ourselves for a mental and emotional break. If it’s too much alone time, well that can cause us to feel antsy and get the blues. It’s about a healthy balance of social interactions and personal self-care time, with the scales tipping more into the social than our introverted counterparts, but we still have the need at times to just be on our own.
Extroverts are naturally impulsive
This one really hits me hard. I am a die-hard Type-A person. This notion paints all extroverts as reckless beings who act first and think second and the consequences be damned. We’re supposedly known for learning by doing — trial and much error I’m assuming. Personally, when I enter a situation with no plan, watch me sit down and formulate one.
This misconception plays off the introvert’s assumed ability of again being a deep thinker and therefore thinking carefully before doing anything. Wanna guess how many of my “introvert” friends come to me for help in sorting out a mess they’ve found themselves in after presumably planning? It’s human nature to plan, not plan, succeed, fail, and everything in between. The outdated idea that extroverts are thrill-seeking, mess makers, just doesn’t make sense. We’re also supposed to be talkers who like brainstorming ideas aloud, so which is it —are we impulsive or brainstormers?
While I appreciate the time and studies that have gone into distinguishing the two personality traits of extroverts and introverts, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking during the past few years that perhaps I am not as extroverted as I once was. I’ve happily made my way more of a middle ground — I’m an ambivert.
Personality scale courtesy of http://www.stretchedcounselor.com/
But wait…there’s a third option — Ambiverts
I’ve been encouraged since childhood to identify as extrovert. I was a child actor. I was ‘born to perform and entertain’ as my parents once put it. I was pushed to be a leader and sometimes a loud one to get my point across. I’ve had to adjust those extrovert traits accordingly for my career, when working in groups, if I’m sharing leader duties with someone, in friend circles where I don’t want to come across as domineering, when meeting new people when I want to make space for their personality to shine, etc. The older I get the more I notice that I have more introvert tendencies than I realize and it really depends on the situation. If we measure introverts and extroverts on a spectrum what’s hanging out in the middle? Ambiverts!
Ambiverts are the ‘gray area’ on the spectrum, the ones who have noticeable advantages over those who fall heavily into extroverts or introverts on the scale. Their personalities aren’t leaning one way or the other, rather they adjust their approach to others based on the situation. In turn, they’re able to connect effortlessly and in deeper ways with a wider array of people.
It was important to me (and maybe will be to you) on where I fell on the extroversion/introversion scale. All I had to do was increase my self-awareness, work on my emotional intelligence and then play to my strengths.
I found some of the key thinking for ambiverts were true for me:
Do I enjoy social settings but know when I’ve reached my social interaction bandwidth?
Am I able to lose myself in conversation just as easily as I am my own thoughts?
Is being the center of attention fun for me but not necessary for me to have a good time?
If I am asked to choose working in a group or alone, do I have no real preference?
Can I do small talk as non-anxious necessity but admit it can get boring?
Will I get bored with too much down down, after selectively staying busy?
Is it true I can equally appreciate alone time while understanding I can still be drained by others if around them for too long?
Are any of the above resonating with you? You might be an ambivert. I’ve been matching my approach to situations for years now— speaking engagements, planning events, hosting dinner parties, joining book clubs, creating mindful focused workshops, and more, all dependent on what the situation calls for. It’s allowed me to be more effective in most things I do. It’s not an all or nothing mentality. When I’ve been social at an event I am aware enough to know I need to start saying my ‘Goodbyes’. When I’ve been cooped up for too much I know to start looking for virtual dance parties.
If you’re open to gaining a better sense of self and where you fall on the personality scale, you can allow clearer insight into your preferences and natural abilities. Want to improve your overall performance in life? Take this quiz to see where you land on the spectrum, but no matter what it reveals, always listen to your true inner voice, and not what anyone else has told you that you have to be. Be yourself, it’s the only one you you’ve got. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/the-balancing-act-of-ambiversion-d455ba497297 | [] | 2020-09-14 19:58:54.385000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Personal Growth', 'Self', 'Life', 'Psychology'] |
5 Questions That Will Push You Through Your Fear of Rejection | I submitted an article to Forge on Tuesday, but it took me some time to gather the courage to do so. I was afraid of being rejected and feeling like I wasn’t good enough.
I wasn’t just scared of their rejection, though. What if Forge accepts the article, but no one reads or likes it? I’m not only afraid of being told no, but of being ignored.
I don’t know why rejection is as terrifying as it is — because if you think about it, it’s not really a big deal — but it is. What’s pivotal, however, is that you never let it stop you.
I don’t care how deep my fear is. I don’t let it stop me because I know if I don’t take the chance, either I (probably) won’t get the opportunity again, or I’ll regret it in the long run.
That’s why every time I’m in this position, I ask myself five questions that help me push through the fear of rejection no matter how tight its grip on me. | https://itxylopez.medium.com/5-questions-that-will-push-you-through-your-fear-of-rejection-358e9cc0660 | ['Itxy Lopez'] | 2019-08-10 15:01:01.322000+00:00 | ['Self-awareness', 'Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Advice', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
4 Golden Rules of Problem Solving | We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them — Albert Einstein
Photo by Sebastian Herrmann on Unsplash
The ability to solve problems and successfully navigate challenges is one of the few qualities that differentiate star performers from average ones, it also differentiates happy and fulfilled people from others who are anxious and miserable.
Problem-solving is important to success and happiness because it enables us to exert control over our environments, learn unique insights and improve personal performance and quality of our relationships.
Mastering the art of solving problems is not only restricted to work or business settings; it also has its place in everyday life scenarios. We all regularly encounter minor and major challenges in our personal and professional lives that require our attention, these problems could present with the following questions:
I don’t think my car is supposed to make that thumping noise, what do I do now? I recently got laid off, how can I find a new job in a pandemic? My business is now growing, how can I keep up with my bills? My proposal deadline got moved up to this afternoon, how can I finish everything on time? My academic performance has been sub-par this semester, how can I pass this course? Did I notice some strange swellings in my groin, am I sick? Geez! I made an ass of myself last night, did I damage my reputation? I am in a toxic relationship; how do I get out?
The bad news is that as long as we are alive, there will always be problems we have to deal with, this is inevitable. The good news is that we can do something about it, we can change our perspective and approach to our problems. Norman Vincent Peale famously said that “every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don’t have any problems, you don’t get any seeds”.
Our mindset is very important when it comes to successfully solving problems. If we approach problems with the wrong mindset, then we will most likely have a bad outcome. A problem well approached is a problem half-solved.
The problem is not that there are problems. The problem is expecting otherwise and thinking that having problems is a problem — Theodore Isaac Rubin
As an entrepreneur and consulting professional, I have had to regularly face many minor and major problems that demand my attention. These problems ranged from day to day business operations like finding business clients and resolving conflicts with irate customers to mundane challenges like learning how to edit videos or dealing with the stress and anxiety of living in a pandemic.
I generally have found success by using 4 rules to work my way through problems regardless of how small or big they are. These 4 rules are as follows:
Personality Trait: Understanding my natural preference for absorbing and analyzing available information. Stoicism: Focusing on what I can immediately control. Emotional Intelligence: Awareness of my emotional state, skill-levels and motivation to deal with the problem. Vulnerability: Humility to know when I need to ask for help.
Photo by Olav Ahrens Røtne on Unsplash
Problems are not stops, they are guidelines — Robert H. Shuller
Personality Trait
Personality typing is a psychological system of categorizing people according to their tendencies to think and act in particular ways. Personality typing attempts to find the broadest, most important ways in which people are different, and make sense of these differences by sorting people into meaningful groups. The most popular and well-known system of personality typing is the Myers Briggs Type Indicator or MBTI.
The MBTI system describes a person’s personality through 4 opposing personality functions, preferences in the use of these functions act as useful reference points to explain how and why you are the way you are. You can take a free 5 mins test here.
This model tests your natural preference for the following dimension:
Extroversion(E) or Introversion (I): How do you gain energy? Extroverts gain energy from people and their environments, introverts gain energy from alone-time and need regular periods of quiet reflection. Sensing (S) or Intuition (N): How do you collect information? Sensors gather facts from their immediate environment and rely on things they can see, feel, hear and touch. Intuitives look more at the overall context and think about subtle patterns, meanings and connections in their environment. Thinking (T) and Feeling (F): How do you make decisions? Thinkers look for logically correct solutions, whereas feelers make decisions based on their emotions, values and how their action impacts others. Judging (J) and Perceiving (P): How do you organize your thoughts? Judgers prefer structure and like things to be clearly regulated, whereas perceivers like things to be open and flexible and are reluctant to commit themselves.
While all of these domains are sliding scales with varying degrees of preference to each of them, having an understanding of your personality type and your natural preference will help you better understand how you subconsciously interpret, process and act on available information.
For example, if you observe your car making a thumping noise, and you have a preference for Sensing (S) as a way of collecting information, your natural preference will be to rely on what you can smell, see or touch to try and diagnose the problem.
An intuitive might prefer a holistic approach to diagnose the problem which might involve taking a step back to look at the bigger picture. They might try to connect different information they have gathered over the years about their vehicle from previous problems to diagnose the problem.
There is no wrong way to approach problem-solving, the issue arises when you don’t understand your preferred way of taking in and analyzing information and the potential blind spots these preferences can create as you make decisions.
Understanding the inner mechanics of your subconscious will help you to be better calibrated to adjust your approach as needed while working through problems.
Not everything that is faced can be changed. But nothing can be changed until it is faced — James Baldwin
Stoicism
Often, it is very easy to feel overwhelmed when faced with a problem, particularly big ones. Worrying about them is often useless and unproductive, however, focusing your attention on what is under your control can help you to assume responsibility and take your first step to solve the problem.
Focusing on what you can control will help you to stay levelheaded and centred regardless of external events. There are few things you usually can have full control over, they include your thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, actions and reactions. This is stoicism.
A stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking — Nassim Taleb
Stoicism is an ancient Greek philosophy founded in Athens around 300BC by a man called Zeno of Citium. Zeno was a former merchant who lost everything he had in a shipwreck before becoming a student of philosophy. You don’t have to be bankrupt to adopt this philosophy, you can choose to focus your attention on what is in your control when you deal with life problems.
How can you apply stoicism?
Choose to take responsibility whenever you can. Rather than just blaming the world or other people for your situation, you can choose to accept that at the end of the day, you are ultimately responsible for your own success and happiness, no one else! Draw a line between what you do and do not have control over. You can get easily sucked into the exhausting cycle of helplessness, powerlessness and bitterness if you don’t draw a line and acknowledge what you have control over. It is helpful to brainstorm and write down everything you have control over around the problem you are solving. For example, when I suddenly lost 2 key employees in my business, I still had control over how many job advertisements I could post to attract new candidates, I also had the option to hire temporary sub-contractors if I couldn’t find ideal replacements. Start acting on what you can control. The famous Chinese proverb says “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”, start acting on the items on your list to begin solving the problem. You can control your attitude towards the problem, your willingness to put in the work, hustle and do your very best.
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
Sometimes problems don’t require a solution to solve them; Instead, they require maturity to outgrow them — Steve Maraboli
Emotional Intelligence
Renowned psychologist and researcher Daniel Goleman defines emotional intelligence as the ability to identify and manage one’s emotions as well as the emotions of others.
Skills in emotional intelligence are critical to successfully solve problems; they help you to remain highly conscious of your emotional states whether positive — joy, love, gratitude or negative — frustration, sadness or resentment and helps you to build key relationships and collaborations that are usually needed to find solutions and help.
How can you apply emotional intelligence?
Emotional awareness: Awareness helps you recognize and label your emotions and feelings while they are happening. This awareness will help you to consistently align your response and actions with your long-term goals. Emotional management: Emotional management is helpful to control your feelings and how you express them. When we are frustrated, it is only natural to sometimes want to lash out or act impulsively. Emotional management helps you to stay calm and levelheaded during these tense and trying moments. This can often be the difference in escalating or de-escalating a tough situation. Empathy: Empathy helps you to notice and correctly interpret the needs and value you can add to others. Sometimes, solutions are found when you take an active interest in the concerns of others around you and when you are not just primarily motivated by your own self-interest. Self-motivation: Self-motivation helps you to continue to keep your actions aligned with your goals regardless of distractions or feelings as though nothing has changed. Self-motivation helps you to delay gratification and keep putting in the work even if you can’t see immediately see the light at the end of the tunnel.
A positive attitude may not solve your problems, but it will annoy people to make it worth the effort — Anonymous
Vulnerability
In your quest to find solutions, you have to show humility, drop your ego and be willing to be uncomfortable. Adopting this approach when solving problems helps you easily change course, ask for help or reach out to others in your network. This is vulnerability.
While you are working on strategies based on your list of what you can control, start making another list of people in your network who could help with your problem. Make a list of 10-15 people in your network you can ask for help or recommendations to someone in their network who could help.
Oftentimes, solutions to problems are found when you take a chance, put yourself out there and risk rejection. Rejection is OK because, in the end, it’s all a numbers game, if you talk to enough people, there is a higher chance of finding someone who can help you with your problem.
In Daring Greatly by Brene Brown, she shares her research on how the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love and lead. She explains that “when we shut ourselves off from vulnerability, we distance ourselves from the experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our lives”.
When we step back and examine our lives, we will find that nothing is as uncomfortable or hurtful as standing on the outside looking in and wondering what it would be like if we only had the courage to put ourselves out there and take a chance. | https://medium.com/swlh/4-golden-rules-of-problem-solving-5458b124a2a0 | ['David Owasi'] | 2020-10-27 14:51:53.452000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Work', 'Problem Solving', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Productivity'] |
Useful Tools for Writers | Useful Tools for Writers
Jumpstart your process.
There was a twisty windy journey that I skipped along before I came to a fork in the road. Path A, don’t bother with this stuff and go watch Dragon Ball Z (so tempting) or path B, write the damn piece, because this is one question you’ve been asked many many times.
If you want to get right down to the nitty gritty, skip this next part.
As a member of a few prominent ‘writing groups’ — I use the term loosely — on Facebook, I’ve run into my fair share — nearly all of them — of posts that are, in a nutshell, completely and utterly useless. They’re just a waste of time and an act of procrastination on the poster’s part, in my opinion.
“How many words go in a chapter.”
“How many pages should a book be these days.”
“What can I name this character that I will tell you nothing about because you’ll steal my idea if I do.”
“How can I kill this character in three sentences.”
“What’s a good plot for my book.”
“Do you keep a backup of your writing just in case your computer dies?”
Face-palm.
I am, sadly, addicted to scrolling through this nonsense, and I haven’t broken the habit of it quite yet. I don’t know what it is that draws me into this cascading whirlwind of nonsensical rhetoric, but once in a while a tiny glimmer of light shines out of the darkness.
This little light came in the aftermath of an infuriating thread, created by an infuriating user that is always there, on the edges, skulking around here and there and as soon as you’ve forgotten his existence, BAM he’s in your face again with brand-new steamy bullshit. Now, I’m aware that it’s immature to get into this stuff with these random people on the internet, but I’m flawed.
He made a was a thread asking about people’s processes in their creative writing.
What’s your process? Mine is categorising a list and using a word generator to create original word combinations because writers these days are too lazy to write original stories and I’m the only one who can.
Mind you, I’m paraphrasing 3–4 of his rants into one here, just to get the point across as to what we’re dealing with.
Fast-forward a little while and this guy is going on about how there are no writers that have a process (except for him) and his process will give him a leg up in the publishing world once the publishers learn about his amazing process.
Newsflash, your writing is irrelevant, it’s your process they want.
I’m not making this up. It’s just … it makes you want to pound your head on your desk, but I can’t do that because this desk is new and I can’t afford a new one if I break this one. I just finished paying it off to Afterpay, and I really want to go get the new God of War game. That’s irrelevant, so moving on.
Anyway, at the end of the day I got a few private messages from people asking me about my ‘process’ and how I go about my creative writing.
My tools and process to creating fantastical and confusing fictional worlds for a novel that is not yet finished, but I talk about all the time. I’m already working on №3 as well.
What you’ll need:
-Scrivener
-Scapple
-Aeon Timeline
-A notebook (one that has paper in it, you know, that dead tree stuff.)
-A pen or pencil (this is for writing your notes, not stabbing people. I know it’s confusing)
-Lots of orange juice and snacks (preferably healthy ones, but whatever, I like Doritos)
-Cat.
Scrivener
I can’t begin to tell you how much this program helped me get organized. When I started my work on The Galean Chronicles, I was a mess. My apartment looked like every writer’s nightmare. Paper, notebooks, sticky notes, note cards.
E V E R Y W H E R E.
Pinned to the walls, stuck to the doors, taped to the desk, wadded up under the couch, under the pillow, some in the litter box, more lost and never to be found.
My computer wasn’t much better. It was a barrage of files stuck everywhere and anywhere. Untitled documents all over the desktop, important notes in the pictures folder, finished scenes somehow in the trash folder, character sheets lost in the movie drive.
The ability to keep all of my documents in one place within a single file changed my life. Look at this beautiful binder.
You have the power to organize this in whatever works best for your brain. It comes with already built character and place template sheets, but you can create and import your own. As you can see, I created my own species template and folder as well.
Being able to flip through all of your notes without have 78 different documents open on your computer makes you feel less flustered and crazy.
(Colors are customizable, you can create your own night-mode)
My next favorite feature is the side-by-side layout. Or top/bottom layout, whatever floats your boat. Its great when I’m doing edits. Old version on the left, new version on the right.
Every document you create within the program will have a synopsis box(top right) and a notes box (bottom right). The synonpsis box is great when you’re viewing all of your documents like notecards and can help in outlining your chapters. If left blank, it’ll use the first words of the document, so you can see what’s in there at a glance.
Now maybe you’re more chaotic and scattered in your planning. Never fear, scrivener has a corkboard for you to plaster all of your random thoughts onto. Create as many boards as you want, create as many notecards as you like, add photos, ideas, notes whatever. You do you boo.
This program has way to many features for me to really get into all of them, these are just the ones I use most. Its very customizable and flexible.
Save all of your scrivener files to dropbox. They’ll sync across all of your devices, from your desktop, to laptop, to your tablet to your phone.
Scrivener knows when you have it open on another device and will prompt you to open a copy to avoid conflicts. However, should conflicts arise your work will not be saved over. Scrivener will save all of your ‘conflicting’ documents into a conflicts folder in the binder on the left. You never have to worry about losing something.
Scapple
Scapple. Your mind-map. I know lots of people use this for ideas, but I use it mostly for getting character relationships displayed visually.
Now I zoomed way out on this screenshot, because this is still a work-in-progress. Spoilers, duh!
But why do you use pictures?
Because something about that actor/character is similar to my character. Tone of voice, hair style, atmosphere, accent, nose, ears. Some are just place-holders because I like having a visual.
So you get the idea of the program. It’s like scrivener, utilize it however you like.
The app version has not been made yet, but I heard (a while back) that it wasn’t off the table. No promises.
Aeon Timeline
Oh my god, this one is my favorite!
Scrivener may have gotten my organized, and scapple let me visualize my multitude of characters, but Aeon really got me on track for my book series and helped me find plot holes I didn’t even know existed.
Create a timeline, any timeline. If you’re writing a fantasy then you can create a timeline from scratch, with your own months, days, years etc. I haven’t personally experimented with this feature yet however.
Now you can create different entities. Characters, places, events and arcs. When you create a character, you can see the age of that character anywhere on the timeline. Create events, and dictate which characters participated and observed (they’re different). Add a place (if you’ve created place entities) and an arc.
Personally I use my intended books as the arcs.
Ooh and for all of you color coders out there…You can color code your events! You can also add a timeframe if the event lasts for a duration of time, add sub-events, add a tension level and you have a note-box for a summary.
You can also change the view of your timeline. I prefer seeing it in the character view below. There, you can see exactly how old each character is anywhere in the timeline. I can see other character’s story’s in correlation with whoever or whatever I’m working on at the time. The colored lines are events.
In this next screenshot, you can see my characters down the left. Their events only show when I expand that characters menu. To the right you can see what locations the event has been tagged in, and further right you can see what other characters participated (full circle) or observed (empty circle). You can also see the two arc’s i’ve created at the top, One for the novel and short story I’m currently working on.
The Rest
Always carry a notebook, because what happens when your phone is dead and you think of something vital? You write it down, with a pencil. Don’t just smack the paper and grunt like a caveman.
Orange juice. Lots of people survive off of coffee. I love iced coffee, I love chai lattes even more, but the only thing that really gets me energized and keeps me awake is orange juice. I don’t know why, it just does.
Also, are you really a writer if you don’t have some kind of fluffy creature sprawled across your lap while you work? I feel like it’s a prerequisite, so here’s a photo of mine. Follow him on instagram: @the_moosifer
There you have it ladies and gentlemen. This is how I organize, plot and plan my work. It’s really fun, which is why I get more plotting than writing done, but I’m working on the third re-write of my novel, and boy is it different from the original, and still changing. | https://jaxonleerose.medium.com/useful-tools-for-writers-46eb0736d660 | [] | 2019-04-01 06:03:42.351000+00:00 | ['Tools', 'Scrivener', 'Fiction', 'Productivity', 'Writing'] |
Are You The Narcissist? | How to keep unhealthy narcissism out of your life
In relationships
As many of us know, recovering from narcissistic abuse is an extremely arduous experience that can leave survivors questioning their sanity and worth. In relationships, narcissists operate in a systematically parasitic fashion, latching onto their victims with manipulation tactics like love-bombing and presenting a charming mask. Though it often manifests through a superior attitude, narcissism comes from a deep feeling of lack within which can stem from early trauma or neglect thus, a narcissist’s constant urge to seek praise, admiration, and whatever else they believe they deserve with no regard for others’ feelings.
Beware of individuals who put you down constantly to lift themselves up and always trust your gut. Narcissists will try to warp reality by gaslighting you perhaps denying hurtful things they’ve said and done, refusing to take responsibility for their actions. At the end of the day, it always seems to be your fault “You’re overreacting”, “You’re too sensitive”. Grounding yourself in reality is essential as narcissists rely on their ability to make you doubt yourself. It’s usually best to leave but remember that you are this person’s source of narcissistic supply so, they won’t want to let you go, that is until you are replaced.
In preparation for your escape and the subsequent healing process, make sure you have a support system of individuals who can help you remember the reality of your situation, seek professional help, encourage the narcissist to seek help too, and constantly remind yourself that you deserve better treatment.
Before we enter a relationship with a narcissist, whether deliberately or subconsciously, they have targeted us because they know they can exploit our weaknesses to get what they want. A lack of confidence, the tendency to neglect one’s own needs, and permeable boundaries are attractive to narcissists since these qualities denote vulnerability. Many people who fall victim to narcissistic abuse later find that their traumatic relationship was a repetition of toxic patterns that have been at play throughout their whole lives. Protecting ourselves from narcissists can mean cultivating self-love before we ever have to deal with narcissistic abuse.
What if you’re the narcissist?
Maybe you’re reading this and all the warning signs of unhealthy narcissism are a reality in your life. First, avoid self-diagnosing and make sure you’ve sought a professional opinion. If you know for a fact that narcissism causes problems in your life, you should know that it’s difficult to have the self-awareness and honesty to identify your toxic traits and you should feel proud of your ability to do that. However, that’s only the first step to a healthier, happier life for you and your loved ones.
Though there’s currently no medication for NPD itself, symptoms that may accompany narcissism like anxiety and depression can be soothed by psychiatrist prescribed medications. Depending on the severity of your symptoms, talk therapy can be effective in helping you to develop more pro-social behaviors, build true self-esteem beyond the mask you might present to outsiders, and start having more realistic expectations of the people around you.
Narcissism is known to cause great pain to those who have a loved one with NPD but little recognition is given to how painful the condition is for the individual themselves. We should all take responsibility for our actions but it’s undoubtedly difficult to live with a personality disorder that adversely affects relationships, careers, and self-worth. I think that compassion for this struggle would encourage more people to seek the help they need and reduce the stigma around mental illness. | https://medium.com/the-pink/are-you-the-narcissist-db9cbe7922e2 | ['Tosin Sanusi'] | 2020-12-26 16:32:54.382000+00:00 | ['Narcissism', 'Relationships', 'Self', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology'] |
You Want a Successful Side Hustle — Get a Boring Job | The day is June 30, 1905.
Annalen der Physik, one of the biggest scientific publishers in Europe, receives a letter from a 26 years man. The letter contains four articles.
The editor is bemused. The author claims that he can curve time, expand space, and turn matter into energy.
His theories — blowing up 300 years of common sense about the laws of the universe — sound more like magic than science. The author doesn’t even have any affiliation with a university or a research lab. He’s just an office patent examiner!
Unknown to the editor, this side hustler will radically transform the way we understand the world. And 1905 will go in history as Annus Mirabilis: The Miracle Year.
On December 31, 1999, Time magazine named Albert Einstein, the author of these four articles, the most influential person of the 20th century, outranking Gandhi, Churchill, and Roosevelt!
Walter Isaacson, who penned the biography of Einstein, argue that Einstein’s day job as a patent office clerk was a blessing in disguise: “The work was very easy for him. He quickly went through each patent application and checked the math. He would finish his daily duties in about four hours.”
Bored and with ample mental energy to keep going, the physicist used his leftover focus to build his side hustle, i.e., developing groundbreaking theories in physics. | https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/your-side-hustle-needs-a-boring-day-job-752cee08a118 | ['Younes Henni'] | 2020-12-07 12:05:35.553000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Life Lessons', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Success', 'Side Hustle'] |
My OCD and Me | *Warning: this post contains vivid descriptions of mental illness which some might find disturbing.*
From when I was very small I have remembered having strange and often irrational fears and worries. My mother told me not to play with plastic bags for fear I would suffocate and as a result I would not touch plastic bags for a while after that and would wash my hands if I did. I also remember at an even younger age checking on my family members to make sure they were still alive, as well as having extreme trouble making my thoughts about death in general go away. I would picture myself under the ground or hold a black void in my head that was supposed to represent the nothingness of death. I would look outside into the night sky and fear that while I slept a meteor would crash into the earth and wipe us all out of existence. I could not get the fearful thoughts out of my head. These are my earliest memories that may be related to my obsessive-compulsive disorder, going back to the age of 8 or 9.
As I grew up I became known for getting overwhelmed in large situations or situations involving any amount of danger, often culminating in symptoms that I now believe to describe a panic attack. I also became more of a hypochondriac. My memories are hazy but I remember having my first fears about HIV in high school, despite not being sexually active in any way until I was around 18. When I was around 15 my parents divorced and I spent a long time taking care of my devastated mother. I took all my emotional issues and pushed them deep into the back of my mind where I could not see them. I developed a nasty temper; I did not talk to my dad for a year after the divorce; I began to set up a wall around myself to hide the pain that I was in.
College was when things kind of took off. Because I was having more sex I became pretty obsessed with HIV. I received several HIV tests, despite being incredibly low risk. I think this was the beginning of more clinical OCD symptoms, which corresponded with increased knowledge of disease. I remember become fixated on theoretical exposures to odd diseases that I never would have known about had it not been for my schooling. This is probably when I began to display more ritualized behavior as well — I washed my hands a lot and began doing more internet research.
I remember doing prints of our hands in agar, to demonstrate how much bacteria and fungi were in the ambient environment. My hands were possibly the cleanest in the class — the number of cultures I got was miniscule. I took a bit of perverse pride in this.
I soon took my obsessions online, looking for statistics on whatever current object of anxiety my brain had taken hold of. This was when I remember first seeking the counsel of other people to alleviate my fears as well. Because of the distractions of college, however, my OCD was not stable. It would eat me alive for a week or two, and I would spend hours each day on the internet and on worry, and then for a month after I would have no issue. This was when I began to consider myself possessed by some sort of anxiety problem. Note that I did not say disorder — I called myself a hypochondriac. Seeking therapy was not even close to being on my radar.
It was when I was working in the field near the end of college that I began to expand my obsessive repertoire. I was working with pine trees when I was bitten by something mysterious, causing a decent amount of pain and a vampiric looking mark on my hand. This was (I think) my first encounter with rabies obsession, which has become a key issue for me. I obsessed for weeks with the idea that a bat had bitten me and given me rabies, losing at least three hours a day obsessing and researching. I would find a small piece of online comfort, a refutation of my worries, and finally stop obsessing for a few days until a new dark thought came — a pretty classic OCD feedback loop. Worry, self-consolation, thoughts return, self-consolation, internet research, another intrusive thought.
During this time I was dating my ex-girlfriend, who abruptly suffered a major brain injury and was reliant on me for her care during recovery. I think this fundamentally altered my perspective on life, as I watched first-hand the devastating impact a diseases can have on somebody who was healthy just a few weeks before. I think I grew up quick, and thankfully she made a full recovery.
In other news, at that time I learned that I had a weird mole on my belly. I noticed it for the first time once I became privy to the frailty of the human body and from there on out I could not stop noticing. I obsessed over it, checked it multiple times per day, taking pictures, applying lotion, just barely falling short of crooning to it like a newborn. I ultimately broke down and had it checked by the doctor. This took a week or two, and a huge amount of research on the web and massive panic. The doc said to watch it, but not to worry. It looked okay (later I would discover it was dysplastic. It has since been removed). From then on I started to check my skin more and worry about moles.
My ex and I broke up not long after, and I fled to Europe for a gap year. Maybe I was running from her, or maybe I was running from that dark disturbance that was blossoming up inside me. I don’t know. Either way, leaving home was the last thing I should have done.
Mostar, Bosnia is definitely far from hellish but that doesn’t stop a restless mind.
Europe became hell. I was alone, working on my computer, and thrust into a different timezone with limited hours to contact family and friends. This made things much, much worse. My OCD was quiet until I reached Germany. I bumped my head in a bus stop full of people. As ashamed as I am to even type this, I became immediately terrified for my life. My fear was that some HIV infected blood was on the area I bumped and it then got into my wound. I scrubbed that area until it was raw and bloody.
This fear went away some weeks later, resulting in me having come to peace with my new disease and accepting a life of anti-retroviral medication. I was pretty convinced I had HIV. This too faded a month or so later. Not my proudest moment.
It was when I reached Poland that my problems became overwhelming. Alone, already anxious, homesick, and rapidly withdrawing socially, I became obsessed with my skin. Over the course of a month and a half I had checked every corner of my body, often looking at a given mole 10 times or more in a given day. I located one particularly odd looking one on my thigh and became possessed. I remember staring at it and sobbing because I felt so incredibly helpless against the force of will that my anxiety possessed. A foreign country, limited access to healthcare, and melanoma — I was going to die alone in another country, or so I had convinced myself.
I became cogent of the fact that I was picking at my arms until they bled, something that still carries into today. I also began to only rent single rooms, to myself, cloistered away from others. I regretted everything, regretted leaving the US, regretted not at least trying to soothe my pain earlier; but in the end I did not want to be seen as a quitter, a loser, somebody who couldn’t handle life. I turned everything inwards and began to have destructive thoughts, thoughts of taking a scalpel and cutting the mole out myself. I could do it, right? I just needed some booze to disinfect the wound and take the edge off the pain.
A collage of some of the many pictures of my moles I took over a few years.
Despite desperately not wanting to admit defeat and return home, I also knew something was wrong. I decided that if I couldn’t go home I could at least find a familiar place to stay, perhaps to heal. I needed a change, a calling, something I could immerse myself in. I began studying Mandarin, a language that only the most obsessive can master. Studying Mandarin made me forget about myself.
I had loved my earlier trip to Taiwan and so I decided to go there to study Mandarin. I flew into Hong Kong, which I liked a lot, and then finally to Taiwan. I enrolled in a local language school and began to study, which is also about when I met my wife. I consider this one of the three good things that came out of the whole trip, and why now I do not regret going abroad (the other two are 1. finally getting help and 2. becoming mature enough to do the first two things).
It was a few months into our relationship that I began to lose my shit again. My skin cancer fear became all consuming, leading to more arm-picking and obsessive skin checking. I also had HIV worries, similar to the earlier example. I became more germaphobic in the city, washing my hands obsessively and becoming extremely distressed by coughing people. I would sometime wear gloves when out and about. I had 2 moles removed as well, one of which was dysplastic (unfortunately this made me feel vindicated).
By the time I came back to the US to visit I was beside myself with the thought of returning to Taiwan. It was out of love for my wife that I went back, but I became more and more miserable. I cried often, more than I ever had in my life. It became weekly. I stayed in my dark little apartment and obsessed over more moles, leading to the second removal. I hated the city and I hated myself.
I had my first suicidal thoughts in Taiwan. I would picture throwing myself into traffic, as it seemed easier than all this worry. I began to have thoughts of cutting, burning, or stabbing myself. I began to think that the people around me were horrible people, and I began to hate humans and society at large. I wanted to be dumb and ignorant and began to drink a beer or two every evening to calm my nerves.
I had rabies fears if I saw bats, often scouring the scientific literature to analyze the probability of running into a rabid bat in a suburb of Taipei. For all of you out there with similar concerns: not likely. Later, a dog nearly bit my wife’s friend while we were all on vacation and I panicked, totally losing myself for the rest of the trip. It ruined our vacation. I had thought maybe the rabies became an aerosol, or that my wife touched the pants where the dog almost bit. It was a clear break with reality. Two years later and her friend still lives, thank heavens.
I think the straw that broke the camels back was asbestos. I saw funky ceiling tiles at school and became obsessed. I thought that I had been exposed to lots of asbestos during my many classes at the school. I would die painfully and there was nothing I could do about it but wait. I inspected the apartment and sealed off an area with a bit of broken wall, afraid it contained asbestos. I could not handle coming to school anymore — I would hold my breath and open the windows to the classroom, pretending it was too hot. Finally I began missing class, and then I dropped out. I kept a piece of the broken wall in a jar and often inspected it for fibers. I would stay up until four o’clock in the morning and sleep until two. I was at a breaking point and I knew it.
When I dropped out of school and started having suicidal thoughts I knew I had to come back to the US. I thought my wife and I were done, our relationship a victim of my OCD, but I surprised even myself by proposing to her that we marry upon my return. She surprised me even more by agreeing to the idea. I really love my wife, and I think my relationship with her has played a key role in helping me recover. I told her it wasn’t her fault and I, for the first time in my life, admitted that I had a serious problem.
It all fell into place after I returned home and was officially diagnosed. I’ve since sought treatment and been medicated after my last embarrassing incident involving a deer leg and the head of the Wyoming CDC. Fortunately my OCD was very receptive to medication and I was very receptive to therapy. There was something wrong with me — chemically. It wasn’t my fault anymore.
My OCD is both my curse and my teacher, the reflection of my deep insecurity about the uncertainty inherent to life, taught to me since birth by a society that fears death and grasps desperately at illusions of control. I don’t think we will ever be friends, but I will forever listen to what it has to teach.
If this story sounds familiar to you, please seek help. There is no need to suffer as long as I did, and I hope my story can help others find the courage they need to get the help they need. You will learn a lot and feel better. | https://jimmy-candou.medium.com/my-ocd-and-me-21442130c0e6 | ['Jimmy Candou'] | 2018-11-07 15:21:01.378000+00:00 | ['Anxiety', 'Obsessive Compulsive', 'Mental Health', 'Mindfulness', 'Psychology'] |
Focus: The Most Valuable Skill Of The 21st Century | If there’s one thing that many ambitious people struggle with, it’s staying focused on their work for longer periods of time without getting distracted.
Yet, it’s those who are able to focus deeply on their most important work — without getting distracted every few minutes — who actually get it done fast and of high quality. In fact, they are the ones who get ahead in work and life.
“The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.” — Alexander Graham Bell
Personally, I dare to say that implementing a daily deep focus session has helped me to shave off at least 2 hours of my entire workday. Through my focus process, I’m able to complete my most valuable tasks both much faster and of much higher quality — simply because I can direct all of my mental resources towards the task, without getting distracted.
The Distraction Epidemic
As mentioned before, the ability to focus deeply for long periods of time is a big problem for many of us. In fact, here are some extremely worrying statistics about how problematic it actually is:
A study led by Harvard showed that the average knowledge worker spends 47% of his or her day in a state of (semi)distraction. In other words, when you learn how to focus well, you can get the same exact task done twice as fast
RescueTime has researched that the average knowledge worker checks email 55 times per day (on average every 8.5 minutes in an 8-hour workday) and instant messaging apps about 77 times per day (on average every 6 minutes taking in an 8-hour workday)
If it weren’t enough, a study by Gloria Mark showed that, on average, each knowledge worker in the study spent only 11 minutes on any given project before being interrupted
All in all, these studies form the proof of that what we already intuitively know: most of us are terrible at focusing deeply for longer periods of time — and it’s hurting our productivity.
These numbers alone are already problematic, but if you compare it with another finding, you truly see how most people never reach their full focus potential.
It turns out that, whenever you get distracted or shift to another task, it takes on average 25 minutes (according to research) to gain back your full attention on the task at hand. This is because of something called ‘attention residue’, which implies that some of your attention is still ‘left behind’ at the previous task or distraction that you were dealing with.
However, considering the fact that most of us have already switched tasks (because of our addiction to multi-tasking) or gotten distracted by email, social media or instant messages by then, our attention is continuously split and never fully available for the important task at hand. This is exactly why people struggle with being productive and getting important work done on a daily basis.
Focus: The Most Valuable Skill Of The 21st Century
Yet, at the same time that our average attention span is declining, the ability to focus is required more than ever. In fact, it enables us to produce high-quality work at a fast pace — which is a highly valuable skill to master nowadays.
For example:
A programmer needs his or her focus to solve problems and efficiently write many lines of code
A CEO needs focus to make strategic decisions and to think deeply about the best course of action for the company
A writer needs focus to write high-quality thoughts onto paper and make consistent progress on a book
A student needs high levels of focus in order to study well for an upcoming challenging exam
A salesperson needs high levels of focus to listen thoughtfully to a prospect’s words in order to close a deal
And there are many, many more examples of why focus is so incredibly important.
Photo by Wes Hicks on Unsplash
For practically any type of knowledge work, we need the ability to sit still and focus deeply on one task for longer periods of time. Without this ability, we work much slower, make more costly mistakes and leave a lot of performance potential on the table.
That’s exactly why Microsofts CEO Satya Nadella said. “The true scarce commodity of the near future will be human attention.”
Human attention will be scarce simply because, on the one hand, the ability to focus is diminishing at a worrying rate, while on the other hand, it’s a highly in-demand skill as it’s essential for producing high-quality work.
And, according to the classic laws of supply and demand. Something that’s highly in demand but low in supply will increase in value. Those who have learned how to protect and improve their focus will stand out among the distracted crowd, as they will be able to do what others can’t.
Disproportionate compensation can be expected to those who master the ability to focus deeply.
Remove All Possible Distractions Beforehand
Distractions are the number one enemy of focus. Especially distractions in the form of smartphones, social media, email and news websites, but also distractions such as inner chatter or interruption from colleagues.
The problem is that, more often than not, these kind of distractions are a lot more enjoyable, stimulating and exciting than the task that we should be working on. At the same time, distractions are more easily accessible than ever before. Therefore, they are so appealing and hard to resist.
Photo by ROBIN WORRALL on Unsplash
It’s human nature to look for the easiest way to be stimulated the most. From an evolutionary standpoint, this makes sense. We’ve been wired to seek how we can get the most pleasure with the least amount of energy spent, as it used to increase our odds of survival thousands of years ago.
That’s why instant gratifications like fast-food, porn, drugs, alcohol and social media are so incredibly hard to resist. They provide us with immense dopamine hits (which is a reward-hormone) that instantly make us feel good without really having to put in any effort.
And when we can feel good and rewarded through ways that require almost no effort or energy, why even bother doing the things that do cost a lot of time, effort and energy (aka, our work)?
Essentially, we’re being rewarded for behaviour that doesn’t lead to a fulfilling, impactful life. That’s kind off messed up, isn’t it?
Furthermore, things like checking email, refreshing news websites or business statistics, watching YouTube videos, checking messages or scrolling through Instagram, Twitter or Facebook also releases a lot of dopamine in the brain. On a neurological level, the brain is incredibly stimulated and that’s why these things become so addicting.
In fact, most apps, websites and devices are actually designed to make you addicted so that you’ll feel a strong urge to check it repeatedly throughout the day. That’s why they steal away your valuable productivity time, energy and attention (I recommend the book ‘Hooked’ by Nir Eyal to learn more about this).
Most of our work, however, doesn’t provide us with as much of these instant feel-good dopamine hits. Most of our work has a benefit (whether financially, career-wise, emotionally, spiritually or in our health or relationships) somewhere in the future.
Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
In other words, our work offers us with delayed gratification — whether that means two hours or two months from now. Even though the rewards of our work are usually a lot more significant and impactful than any source of instant-gratification can ever provide, the problem remains that the reward is gained somewhere in the future, and not right now.
Our brain is rather rewarded and stimulated right now — especially when it doesn’t cost that much effort and energy — compared to the uncertainty of being rewarded somewhere in the future.
When instant gratification is only one swipe, click or bite away, you’re fighting an uphill battle. Against Mike Tyson. In his prime.
The best way to win this fight is by not even stepping into the ring in the first place. That’s why you need to take care of distractions ahead of time before you start working on your most important tasks. You need to create a distraction-free environment that enables you to focus completely on your work, for long periods of time.
Now Do It
I recommend you resolve to work for at least 2 hours per day in a distraction-free environment that allows you to do deep, focused work.
So, put your smartphone in another room or put it on flight mode. Remove all bells, rings and notifications so you can’t be disturbed. Close all tabs that aren’t necessary for your task at hand (yes, especially email, news and social media tabs).
Put in your earplugs with some techno, classical or other repetitive type music so you won’t be distracted by outside noises and conversations. And maybe even go to a different workspace so that your colleagues won’t disrupt your flow.
Do anything you can to eliminate distractions before you start working. This way, you won’t have to fight the temptation (which is a battle you’ll eventually lose).
To Your Personal Growth,
Jari Roomer
Founder Personal Growth Lab
Want To Upgrade Your Productivity?
Download my free guide ’27 Productivity Hacks For Superhuman Performance’ to learn how to get more results without working more hours, achieve your personal & business goals 372% faster and gain more free time (without feeling guilty about it).
→ Click Here To Download The 27 Productivity Hacks Guide (FREE) | https://medium.com/personal-growth-lab/focus-the-most-valuable-skill-of-the-21st-century-7ab3e1191430 | ['Jari Roomer'] | 2019-07-06 19:50:45.918000+00:00 | ['Work', 'Self', 'Productivity', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Focus'] |
Small Business Marketing Growth Strategies for 2017 | Any keen marketer knows how to keep up to date with the latest and emerging marketing trends.
It is important to bring innovative ideas to deliver your brand values amongst potential and existing customers.
Especially for entrepreneurs and startups, it is mandatory for them to implement the right small business marketing strategies at the right time.
As these small businesses have limited resources and smaller budgets than big organisations, they have to be more concerned about picking which plans are worth investing in.
Just like 2016, 2017 has also been a fantastic year for small business marketers as innovative strategies are coming such as mobile development and big data options, which allows these small businesses to scale the heights of larger organisations.
According to a survey conducted by Business Insider 2016–17, around 96% of small scale businesses have used social media in their business marketing strategy.
32% of small businesses start investing in social media marketing. 25% of them spend on online marketing, 17% in SEO and 26% in email marketing.
Here, in this small business marketing blog, we will discuss some trending and successful growth oriented marketing strategies which will help you in driving your business towards success in 2017 and beyond.
Marketing Growth Strategies for Small Businesses
1 — Email Marketing
Email marketing is not a new marketing trend and is often described as an old school tactic, not suitable for the long run.
However, these are misguided opinions as the data reveals exactly opposite to what has been said.
On average, automated emails have more than a 70% higher open rate and around 150% greater CTR than other approaches.
60% of respondents choose email as the preferred communication platform for receiving regular updates regarding promotions from companies with whom they like to do business.
The stats mentioned above indicate that email marketing is one of the most result oriented strategies today.
This approach is suitable for providing relevant, helpful and valuable information to the target audience and convert them into leads.
2 — Blogging
Blogging has now become one of the biggest sources of traffic online.
You can see that most major businesses have paid much more attention to their blogging elements in marketing.
As a small company, regular publishing and updating of blogs are not enough; you also have to maintain the quality of the blog content as well.
Related: Colors and Typography
High-quality content matters a lot.
Google tends to rank your web page higher if your content is original and meet their quality standards.
Therefore, never compromise on the quality of your blog’s content.
Also, make sure that your content is highly informative and excites the reader.
Otherwise, they will move on to a competitor’s blog.
One more thing to remember is, keep your web content up to date.
If you do not keep updating with fresh content, your competitors will easily surpass you in just a few months.
You can either write these blog posts on your own or hire a freelancer or agency to update your publications.
3 — Social Media Presence
Look at these stats, on average; a person spends more than 20% of their time on Facebook.
At the moment, there are more than 2 billion active social media accounts and every day around 1 million new people are added to these networks.
Around 80% people expect an instant reply to their query asked via Twitter.
These exponential figures are enough to tell you that social media usage is growing at a rapid speed.
People are quickly turning to social media for customer support.
That means social media is a certainly the best way to reach the maximum targeted audience directly.
These social media platforms are giving you a roadmap to manage your business more efficiently and provide much better customer experience.
Therefore, you should actively use social media for promoting your business.
4 — Video Content
Most experts agree that understanding content through visual terms is far more effective than just reading it.
People also love to watch videos, as approximately more than 60% of people prefer watching content than reading.
You can easily understand the power of video marketing.
According to HubSpot:
90% of online marketers prefer to use video content. Around 98% B2B business organisations use video in their marketing campaigns, out of which more than 70% receive positive results in their ROI. If you are using video content in your landing pages, it can increase your conversion rate to 80%. More than 65% of users are likely to purchase your product online after watching a video.
Videos are more of an attention seeker than an image or a post.
They are more engaging and entertaining.
One more thing to be added here is that videos do not need to advertise their services directly.
Therefore, you should include video content in your plans when making your small business marketing strategy in 2017.
5 — Mobile Marketing
As far as digital marketing goes, mobile marketing is the real future.
Related: What is Environmental Graphic Design?
For the past few years, smartphones have taken over desktops and laptops.
Almost all the activities from online searches, payment services, banking, and shopping now appear to be done on mobile devices.
Small businesses have to make sure that their web pages are mobile friendly when people use to find you on their device.
This would be your first step towards mobile marketing.
Here, I am mentioning some essential mobile technologies which should be implemented by small businesses:
Mobile Applications: Today, mobile apps have become popular amongst mobile users.
Every business, regardless of its industry, is now coming up with their mobile app to target more people.
If you still do not have a mobile app, get one now.
Although, you can say that app development is quite expensive.
However, there are lots of economical yet efficient apps that are coming to transform your business into a mobile-centric one in 2017.
Mobile Only Applications: This is also a new trend followed by so many business services and companies.
Many of the mobile apps are only known to be ‘mobile-only’ apps.
It means they are not available on desktop versions, just like Twitter or Facebook.
Mobile Payment Services: For the past year or so, people have been increasing to opt for mobile payment services such as Paytm, Oxygen Wallet, Apple Pay and Google Wallet.
With these mobile friendly apps, users can quickly pay their bills through their mobile.
It also motivates cashless transactions among customers.
Therefore, as a small business, you should not only provide this service to your consumers but promote it as well.
6 — Video Advertising
Video advertising has rapidly gained attention in 2017.
These days, you often see Facebook video ads or Instagram video advertising.
This trend will continue for longer and would be more associated with social media.
Small businesses especially need to focus on video advertising, specifically focusing on social media videos.
I would suggest you go with Facebook video ads, which will give you quick results in your small business marketing.
7 — Live Streaming Videos
Apart from traditional video ads, one more business trend that will grow in 2017 is known as live streaming videos.
In 2016, Instagram was the first to introduce this live trend into our lives.
Live video is quite different from standard videos.
It allows people to view more ‘exclusively’.
Live videos are amazing and certainly the best way to promote your business, allowing your customer to be aware that you have kept up with trends and ready to live up to their expectation.
It takes your marketing strategy to a new level.
You can add interviews and Q&A sessions related to your business in these live videos.
Related: How to Get Celebrity Endorsements for Your Brand
Another advantage that you will get with live streaming videos are the moment you uploaded on social media; you will get an immediate response from viewers.
8 — Facebook Ads
Facebook has recently announced that its audience network has reached to 1 billion per month.
Having such a large group means small business marketers can target demographics with greater precision than CPC and Adwords.
It may be difficult for small firms to afford and implement Facebook ads, but after this kind of impact, you can increase your advertisement viewership by around 20%.
9 — Get More Personal
Getting more personal with your audience has become more accessible, and some businesses have been using this as a vital part of their digital marketing strategy.
In this competitive environment, where consumers have so many options, it is tough for small businesses to get steady clientele.
Especially when bigger companies are investing such large amounts on their marketing front.
Therefore, what small businesses can do is to get closer and deepen their relationship with the customers.
This includes an increase in the number of interactions you have with consumers.
You can ask your client about their experience with your products or services.
Alternatively, you can add live chat options to your website so that your customers can directly ask queries in real time with a client representative.
Customers do not always expect this kind of interaction from your side, and they will undoubtedly positively support you.
Final Words
Our above tips show everything is becoming mobile oriented.
This is the real trend for small business marketing in 2017.
Everything that is passing over mobile is just icing on the cake for small businesses.
If you are operating a small business and are not satisfied with the results, just follow the above with immediate effect and you will see dramatic changes in your ROI.
It might take some time but will come up with positive results. | https://medium.com/inkbot-design/small-business-marketing-growth-strategies-for-2017-4fb733a42325 | ['Inkbot Design'] | 2017-09-29 14:25:31.216000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Design', 'Branding', 'Strategy', 'Small Business'] |
One of the Biggest Challenges in Digital Design | One of the biggest challenges in digital designing is figuring out what converts your target market into users and buyers and why. Many companies spend an inordinate amount of money on targeted ads that bring users to your website, landing page to capture the lead, and sales funnel to nurture that lead, only to find that their conversion is dismal.
One of the main reasons prospects in your target market may not convert is that they simply don’t understand your product or the value it would bring. The ease with which people process and understand something is called Cognitive Fluency.
A study from the University of Basel found that users process and understand websites with low visual complexity and a high Prototypicality. Prototypicality refers to how standard and predictable page layout a page layout is.
In other words, sites that didn’t have distracting images (low visual complexity) and followed a very common, predictable prototype of what they think a website looks like (high Prototypicality), are more easily understood by users. When your site matches the user’s schema of what they expect your website to look like, they are more likely to focus on and process your value proposition. Users form these schemas (i.e., way of seeing things) from seeing similar products or services in an industry.
In this example of an ad agency’s website, there are a lot of visuals (visual complexity) and it is unclear what actions I could or should take. I am unclear as to where to look to find the necessary information I’m seeking or understand what makes Libertine unique compared to other agencies. The result is mental overload or confusion and the visitor will most likely abandon the page. A shame, given that you’ve spent a great deal of money getting them to your website.
Now let’s take a look at a page with low Visual Complexity and high Prototypicality. Here we have Chargify, an online billing platform. You’ll notice immediately the following:
There is only one visual component that can easily be recognized as a graph where green arrow up is good, and red arrow down is bad.
The colors used fits our ‘stoplight’ schema of when to ‘go’ and when to ‘don’t go’.
The title (“Billing Built for B2B SaaS Companies) tells you exactly who the target client is for this product. If you’re a B2B SaaS company, you’ve come to the right website.
The value proposition ( “Specialized billing and data…”) is immediately visible below the title.
And, the Navigation bar has the main Call to Action (Talk to Sales) button which follows a predictable layout (e.g., top and upper right) that I’m sure you’ve seen many times.
Because this website follows a prototypical website we’ve visited in the past, you don’t have to hunt for information which means you can more easily focus on what Chargify actually offers with less mental effort. Familiarity increases Cognitive Fluency which requires less mental effort to consume the content and value proposition!
Applying this to your product website can be as easy as researching the layouts and styles of webpages in your industry. As you do your research, ask yourself these questions:
Where in the layout is the initial value proposition? What are common questions that are answered within moments of the user visiting the page? What visuals will enhance your user’s understanding of your product without distracting?
Making a few key changes can work with your target market’s habits, beliefs, and behavior patterns and can be the nudge you need to convert more of your email marketing list into real users.
Remember, low Visual Complexity + high Prototypicality = increased cognitive fluency which in turn increases visitor engagement and leads to a higher conversion rate. | https://medium.com/nyc-design/one-of-the-biggest-challenges-in-digital-designing-is-figuring-out-what-converts-your-target-eec7dffbea60 | ['Camille Gonzalez'] | 2020-10-20 18:25:49.895000+00:00 | ['Design', 'Cognitive Science', 'New York', 'User Experience Design', 'Customer Experience'] |
My First Book: What It Took Me | My First Book: What It Took Me
It was my fifth attempt to write something cool. The book I mean. The first try I made being 12-years old kid and what’s the most interesting — all issues remained the same.
A cover of my book, created by Eugenia Gordeeva
A few days ago I sent my book to the typography and in 10 days my first book will be printed and sent to me in those big boxes, each movie shows. It is 8 months since the moment I decided to start writing a book and I never thought it would be this hard living with the finished one. I got used to writing every evening and reading the same stories over and over again to find another mistake or place for improvement. Now, when I got more free time than during all of this year, I am writing about this book.
1. Idea
When the lockdown started, I was living with a boyfriend in a small one-room flat. And almost every day we had guests to talk to. I am talkative by myself and having conversations with different people always was a hobby to me. During the lockdown, accidentally, more and more talks were happening, more and more people were sharing stories with me, and I started thinking about “Woah, this story deserves being in a movie”. Then, I went to my parents on a weekend like I always do and my mom was talking all evening about the hard and heavy life of my granny. And that moment, I was almost sure, that there are plenty of people, whose stories can be the same impressive and can teach others a lot. And right the next day my boyfriend said after watching another interview:
Why don’t you make a book with interviews of all these people you’ve heard of or met?
And here the story began.
An illustration to the book, created by Eugenia Gordeeva
2. Interviews
I’m a sociologist by education and writer by heart. So, I’ve decided to mix science with art while working on the book. I’ve flooded all my social accounts with posts “we’re looking for stories” and contacted everyone who may have an interesting thing to tell. Finally, 35 people agreed to give us an interview. We’ve scheduled time and began.
Some were coming to my office, some were having Skype calls with me. But all the time, I was listening carefully and trying to define if this is what I looked for. I knew for sure, that the story was the right one when I started feeling emotions while listening to it. Touching, amazing, shocking, scandalous, unique — stories had to have this. Even if they were about everyday drama, they should have this to become a part of my book.
Once the interviews ended — it took me 2 months to listen to all people — I’ve started re-listening the stories. Some I deleted at that stage, others I’ve transcribed and deleted when they made no sense on the paper.
Finally, I had 16 stories to go.
3. Writing: 3 concepts and me
The initial idea was just to note down the live talks and fix mistakes. But when I’ve done that, stories seemed to be too wrong. They were good to listen to but awful to read about. So, I had to change the concept completely. And I’ve decided to add some more details and background. On this stage, I wanted to make a book-website, so everyone could have free access to the stories.
An illustration to the book, created by Eugenia Gordeeva
Yet when I was 12-years old girl, I had issues with creating a story. I am a good dreamer but in my head. And when it comes to the paper, it is hard for me to create a fairytale. So, I was adding dry facts and background, that should make characters more detailed. That was the second concept. But when I’ve done it, it still wasn’t enough for some of the gorgeous stories. At this stage, I thought that the mobile app would be better, so when I was not writing, I was thinking of the concept.
So, I’ve decided to make another try and create a complete story, with easy to understand characters, with an interesting plot and real story in a base. It took me around 2 months to re-work everything and make my vision of the book come true.
I was feeling emotionally sick. I was feeling like I’m losing my mind. When I was writing those stories, I was living them by myself. When in my story someone was dying, I felt like I was passing through it. When someone was heartbroken, I was too. A good writer always writes what s/he can feel. And I felt quite a lot during those 2 months.
At this stage, I understood: a book should be a book. We needed to go with the printed version.
An illustration to the book, created by Eugenia Gordeeva
4. Editing
I never was an attentive person. And finding mistakes for me is something similar to looking for a rare bottle of wine in the 10-floor wine shop. So, it was harder than anything else. I was reading the text myself 4 times, then I asked my boyfriend (but he reeds too few and actually couldn’t make it to the 7th story out of 16). Then I asked my super-attentive mom.
I thought now I could publish it. But when I decided to print a paper draft to re-check once again, I found a mistake on the mistake with another mistake. My book looked like it was written by a fifth-grade student. So, I had to take 4 more rounds of fixes.
When I fixed all the mistakes, I had to fixe comas. I thought I’d die actually (hah), but I needed to finish the book
5. Choosing a publisher
I wanted to give my book to the publisher. It took me 3 weeks to ask each and every publisher in my country to publish my book. But some wanted to add pictures, some wanted to change the name and make some parts changed, so I refused.
I thought it would be impossible to get my book in a print version. I even started searching for opportunities to publish them online. But then I thought, what if I just print the book by myself and will be giving it to people I know? I just called my dad, who has typographies as partners all over the city, we’ve chosen cover and pages paper and a book went to the typography.
An illustration to the book, created by Eugenia Gordeeva
8 months of work, around a litre of my tears, tones of wasted nerves and 16 lives I had a chance to live while was writing this book. Now I have people writing to me with requests to get a book and I feel like I’ve done something wonderful. And every time I am getting scared, that none will like my book, I remind myself, that it is not just a tale, it is 16 lives, that are frozen on the paper. And I am so happy that I had a chance to memorize these 16 lives.
I made a note on the cover, that the book is dedicated to my grannies. And I have quite a few time to present my book to them yet they are still with us, but I believe they will like it. And there is nothing better of a feeling, when you know, that once, in years and years, some child will accidentally run into my book and will read about 16 people, who probably will be dead or very old by that time. But their wisdom will be spreading. Because this is how love goes from one to another. | https://medium.com/the-innovation/my-first-book-what-it-took-me-50a714dcd310 | ['Kseniya Kovaleva'] | 2020-12-11 19:59:13.103000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Books And Authors', 'Books', 'Writing A Book', 'Storyofmylife'] |
Stop Being a Worry Wart — a Tutorial | Stop Being a Worry Wart — a Tutorial
Life is too short to spend it in a tizzy
Photo by niklas_hamann on Unsplash
I come by my worry gene honestly. My mother and my father both are worriers in their own special ways. I’m fortunate enough to be a hybrid crossbreed between the two of them.
My mom primarily worries about the future and things she can’t change. My dad worries about his family.
Me? I worry about everything.
Worry is an exhausting emotion. It’s draining. It’s your mind chasing itself around in circles, spiralling ever downward into a dark and uncertain pit called “the future.”
But through my own experience as a worry wart and with the help of some advice from my family, I’ve found a few ways to manage my anxieties and move forward with hope — instead of fear.
Find your mute button
Whenever I feel my worries start to kick into overdrive, I press the mute button. Everyone has a mute button, you just have to find out what yours is.
For me, my mute button is jiu jitsu. It’s a physical activity that helps me channel my nervous energy into something productive. It’s so effective as a mute button because it’s an all-consuming activity. It’s the hardest physical and mental thing I’ve ever done, to the point where my brain shifts into survival mode. I can’t worry about anything because my brain and body are too involved in trying to keep my reflexes sharp.
Your mute button is something that you can get entirely lost in, no matter what else is going on in your mind or in your life. Some people can get lost in a good book, a writing project, or some other artistic outlet like painting or drawing. For others, it might be a different physical activity like jogging, hiking, swimming, whatever.
Find whatever thing it is that you enjoy so much, the rest of the world melts away. Hold onto that — it’ll be your lifeline when the worries feel overwhelming.
Find your reset button
Right beside your mute button is your reset button. It’s a more extreme version of the mute button. It’s a fail-safe for when your mute button starts to lose its effect.
For me, my reset button is a place — my hometown. Whenever I’m feeling lost in life, or too caught up in the stress of a demanding routine and living in a big city, I always return home. I’m from a small rural town, so the stark contrast of my hometown versus my city life is enough to push me off of whatever anxious mental treadmill I’m on.
More than that, though, it’s returning to a place where I grew up and spent my formative years that helps me to recenter myself and remember who I am. It shows me how much I’ve evolved.
It’s a reminder that worrying about the future when I was a teenager didn’t make me into a better adult. Worrying wasn’t going to change who I became or what happened to me. It just made me feel more stressed about it than I should have. My reset button reminds me that worry and stress won’t make me more able to predict the future — it’ll just make me feel unnecessarily anxious.
Solo travel, or doing any activity alone, is also a reset button for me. The freedom of doing what I want to do, without being beholden to anyone else’s time schedule, allows me to absorb all the enjoyment I can. Doing something alone helps me to live in the moment and focus on the present rather than worrying about whatever else is going on in my life.
Let go of the outcome
“I can’t control what you do, I can only control what I do.”
Funnily enough, this quote is from Andy Bernard in the show The Office. But it’s a little nugget I think of whenever the worry starts creeping up on me.
It’s a reminder that I can’t control what other people decide to do. I can’t control what the universe decides to throw at me. But I can control the choices I make, my reactions to what happens to me, and how I move forward.
I may not be able to control the future, but I can control my own actions — and sometimes, that little reminder that I do have some control is enough to keep me from spiralling into endless worry.
Connect to your future self
My favorite method for abandoning my worries is trusting in my future self.
I first came across this concept in some sort of woo-woo meditation article. But as I dug into it a little more, I found the idea really interesting and less weird.
You can connect to your future self through meditation, visualization, or writing letters to yourself. For me, I do it through meditation and conversation — whether in my head or out loud. Do whatever feels natural for you. Maybe try starting out with a short meditation, and then try picturing yourself in the future and what your life looks like.
Thinking of my future self out there kicking ass and taking names — that gives me comfort. It makes me feel good to think that my future self is looking out for me.
I always think of her in times of high stress and when I’m extraordinarily worried about the future and all of its uncertainties. She’s always telling me, “It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you.” It’s nice to think of her out there in the future, established, successful, and happy. Because my future self is me, I can be her whenever I want to be. I will be her.
So knowing that my future self is out there and doing well makes me feel better about current me, and it makes my worries dissolve into the background where they should be.
Remember: You can’t plan for perfect timing
My cousin and I talk pretty regularly — in epic five hour phone calls or paragraph-long text messages. She has a lot of great tidbits of wisdom, and recently she said something that resonated with me.
She said that I’m trying too hard to plan everything and force things into happening. That I’m stressing too much and “it isn’t necessary.” That was the part that got me — that it’s not necessary to stress. That’s a completely foreign feeling to me.
I’m a high strung, high stress person. There’s always something to stress about. So to think that I don’t have to be stressed? That it’s not necessary? That just never occurred to me, because that’s not me. That’s never been a part of my existence.
But maybe it should be.
My cousin said to me, yes, you can stress and plan out every little thing and make your decisions that way — but you don’t have to. Try going with the flow, be open to whatever opportunities come up, and see what happens.
I plan so much, because I want everything to go perfectly. But you can’t plan for perfect timing. Some things have to happen in their own time, on their own schedule. Some things come from going with the flow. And worrying about it won’t make them happen any faster, better, or differently than they otherwise would.
Sometimes, things happen when and how they’re supposed to — without any input from you. | https://medium.com/moments-matter/stop-being-a-worry-wart-a-tutorial-f09a3cda0b2f | ['Megan Boley'] | 2020-08-04 15:37:22.907000+00:00 | ['Mindfulness', 'Self', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Life'] |
The Theory of Relativity Applies to Emotions | The Theory of Relativity Applies to Emotions
Opposite reactions are still equal
Photo by Guillermo Ferla via Unsplash
There is an inherent flaw in emotional logic. It stems from the fact that a good number of people hear those two words together and it does not compute. Emotions and logic are two great tastes that do not taste great together.
I am a highly sensitive person who has a high IQ. I have no idea what Myers Briggs category this put me into or what psychological term there may be for it. I do know that on most days I feel like it makes me one thing: a little weird.
My feelings have to make logical sense. Welcome to my overthought, self help steeped world. If you meet me on a street, I am the lady wandering around muttering, “My feelings are valid” to myself like a crazy person.
The difficulty is that the actions of others need to make sense to me, too. I don’t have a resting bitch face. I have a resting “why the hell would you do that?” face.
I struggle with all of this for one reason. People don’t take ownership of how their actions affect other people’s emotions unless one thing is present: joy.
Photo by Jeremy Cai via Unsplash
We love to make people happy and then put our flag in that mound of happiness and declare it our doing. We’ll own someone else’s happiness every day and twice on Sunday. We’ll tell everyone about it.
What we don’t do is take that same flag and stick it into a big steaming mess we’ve created as a means of showing everyone, “Look at some damage I did with my latest dick move!”
It doesn’t work this way.
There is what I call the Emotional Theory of Relativity. Making someone feel happy is equal on the scale of importance as making someone feel its emotional opposite.
I am a huge proponent of owning one’s shit. It’s not acceptable for us to take ownership of the actions that bring forth good feelings without also acknowledging ownership of the bad feelings that come along, as well. Selective ownership should not apply to emotions.
I understand this flies in the face of what we’re traditionally taught about emotions. I have lost count of the number of times I have heard someone say, either to me or someone else, “I am not responsible for your feelings.” Well, yeah. You kind of are. If you do something stupid and hurt someone, acknowledging that is a big sign of emotional intelligence.
Photo by Vale Zmeykov via Unsplash
I don’t mean to say that other people control our emotions or that we can blame all of our pain on other people. But, if someone hurts us we have every right to feel like that emotion is brought forth by more than our own brain.
You don’t get to gloss over your effect on other people and turn it into a well curated emotional Instagram feed with nothing but images of happiness.
Hurting someone doesn’t make us bad people. It’s going to happen. None of us are so self aware as to assume we have only good intentions that bring people joy. We make mistakes.
Making someone feel hurt should not be a hit-and-run accident. You need to stick around to look at the damage. You need to own up to what you did to made that fender fall off. It’s the other person’s job to fix the fender. The least you can do is give them a hand. | https://vanessatorre.medium.com/the-theory-of-relativity-applies-to-emotions-286dea1e364c | ['Vanessa Torre'] | 2019-06-03 03:47:07.626000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Self', 'Mental Health', 'Emotional Intelligence', 'Psychology'] |
How Having A Job Can Fuel Your Side Hustle | Many jobs I’ve had served me well for a while, but didn’t feel as fulfilling as I hoped they would. I’ve never made it anywhere past the 2-year mark in one position, for many different reasons. I also always thought that I’d be best off not having a full time job to have all the time to work on my various side projects and work harder on them so that these would provide me the income I need.
This previous year, I had a go at that, and it didn’t work out that well. Through working full time I had saved up enough money to last for a full year without needing any job, providing I’d live on a budget.
I planned to finish a YouTube project I had started two years before. Even though I did publish several videos, the pace was laughable. During that whole year my output was: 19 videos. Mental health issues surfaced and slowed down the pace further. I did not finish the project and most certainly did not turn that into a living of any kind. | https://graciakleijnen.medium.com/how-having-a-job-can-fuel-your-side-hustle-95e9d18d56c | ['Gracia Kleijnen'] | 2020-10-14 06:31:32.741000+00:00 | ['Jobs', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Productivity', 'Side Project', 'Side Hustle'] |
How To Promote Your Content, Write Cold Emails, and Grow Your Audience | A question creates value.
For the person who asks it, the one who answers it, and anyone who gets to consume that answer.
I’m answering questions on Twitter and it’s prompting me to consider and communicate things I haven’t necessarily addressed before.
You can ask me a question here and I’ll be happy to answer.
Collectively, we can create a whole lot of value.
Now, on to this week’s ideas…
1. The Two Ways To Grow Your Audience: Do More or Do Less
“You can’t control the growth of your audience, but you can control the volume of your output.”
I recently had an epiphany.
There are only two reasons why you may struggle to grow your audience: You’re either not doing enough or doing too much.
In this post I break down the two ways to grow your audience including how to figure out which issue you have and what to do about it.
Related: 100 things to publish in the next 100 days to grow your audience.
2. How To Use Your Newsletter To Create Art, Attract An Audience, And Grow Your Business
“You should do things and create things that you’d want to consume.”
I’m obsessed with newsletters and the power of email so it was fun to have this opportunity to chat about how I use them.
Bryan Kelly recently interviewed me in this episode of the Pushing Send podcast and we had a 20-minute conversation about how I create and use my newsletter, what it takes to attract subscribers, and the key components of an effective newsletter.
Related: A five-day plan to grow your newsletter.
3. How To Promote Your Content On Social Platforms
“May 2019. I wrote my first marketing article. A year later my email list hit 19,000. No ads. No connections. No existing audience.”
The best way to build an audience for your content is not to just share a headline and link to it on your social media platforms.
Harry Dry breaks down how to promote your content on social platforms and shares examples of how he presents his work on various platforms in ways that provide as much value as possible within those platforms.
For a deeper dive, check out his recent appearance on the Everyone Hates Marketers podcast where he goes into more detail about his approach and the success he’s seen from it.
Related: Eight ways to maximize the value you get from your content.
4. How To Write A Great Cold Email
“In a great cold email, the person receiving the email should benefit far more than you from a potential exchange.”
There’s nothing wrong with sending emails to people you don’t know…as long as you send them something worth their time.
Auren Hoffman explains how to write a great cold email including to personalize it, emphasize how responding will benefit the reader, and keep it short and clear.
Also: never ask to grab coffee or use the phrase “I hope you are well.”
Btw, I found this link in Khe Hy’s newsletter.
Related: How to write an effective follow-up email after meeting someone.
5. What If Your Target Audience Was A Single Celebrity?
“The best way to identify your celebrity persona is to ask you and people close to your project, ‘What celebrity should follow me but they don’t?’”
I’ve spent a lot of time studying and teaching target audience techniques, but this is a new concept to me and I love it.
Amber Horsburgh suggests you pick a specific celebrity as your target audience and explains how doing so can help you see your niche in a clearer way.
She also shares a series of questions to ask yourself about your new target celebrity to help you identify how to position yourself with potential fans.
Related: How to get more true fans.
My Final Words Of The Week
My uncle turned 60-years-old today.
To celebrate the occasion, his siblings — spread out around the country — wished him a happy birthday on a Zoom call.
Ten minutes into it, he was surprised when myself and his other nephew and niece popped in to wish him a happy birthday.
Ten minutes after that, he was further surprised to see extended family, cousins, and a dozen other relatives magically appear on screen with birthday wishes.
Ten minutes after that, he was shocked as one-by-one his close friends and childhood friends he hadn’t seen in decades trickled in to join the festivities on screen.
When all was said and done, more than 30 people had surprised him and helped make his birthday a happy one.
It was a cool thing to be a part of.
It’s also a reminder that even when the world gets grim, we always have an opportunity to make of it what we want…even if just for a moment.
Take advantage of it.
Have a great week.
Josh
PS — If you dig this newsletter, I’d love for you to share it with others who might enjoy it.
They can subscribe here.
Thanks! | https://medium.com/an-idea-for-you/how-to-promote-your-content-write-cold-emails-and-grow-your-audience-bed0cd50fa59 | ['Josh Spector'] | 2020-05-23 23:53:49.074000+00:00 | ['Newsletter', 'Social Media', 'Email Marketing', 'Marketing', 'Writing'] |
I’m Not Convinced the iPad Pro is Replacing the Laptop | I’m Not Convinced the iPad Pro is Replacing the Laptop
thoughts on deciding which Apple rabbit hole to jump down
Photo by Xiong Yan on Unsplash
As I write this on Word 365 mobile on my trusty iPad Air, which I bought as a good compromise between processing power and the knowledge I just did not do “Pro” stuff on an iPad, I’m weeks of reading and thousands of hours into watching videos about the glory that is the iPad Pro’s laptop-like capabilities. From a sample pool of one and on this 2019 Air, I can assert in comfortable sitting circumstances it makes for a decent word processor. With a screen substantially larger than the Air, the 12.9’’ Pro has the presence of a compact laptop. And with the roll-out of the iPadOS to give the iPads a more laptop-style feel, Apple threw down a serious challenge to its competitors and possibly to itself.
Except, they didn’t.
At least, not for me. Not yet. Like most Apple watchers, I was excited about integrating a cursor for the iPad. I didn’t even mind it was nested in the accessibility menu. Plugging the cursor in there was less a nefarious attempt at reminding users that iPads are touch first, as if anyone could forget, than expedience of programming. I suspect. Apple wants to court users, especially in the business world, with iPadOS. The productivity enhancements and the cursor, the horsepower under the hood, the heavy marketing about its capabilities compared to most laptops clarified this. Apple was already the brand of creatives. The iPad Pro did the creative things well; there was no doubt.
So, where did that leave me as a writer and low-moderate user?
For reasons I still cannot understand, I have lusted after the last missing piece of my Apple collection for two years now: a Mac. At first, I didn’t care what it was. Mini, iMac, MacBook, it didn’t matter. I wanted to experience the world of Mac just as I had experienced the world of the iPhone, iPad, Watch, Pencil, all of it. I had yet been let down by the ease of interface and intuitive design of these products. My computing life was always a Windows affair. My writing always Word. I wasn’t a man of complex needs. I was also a gamer, and any honest Mac user can admit the gaming world has moved on from Mac and Apple-until recently maybe-hasn’t been interested in this market. Gaming is the one major computing sector where Mac didn’t “just work.” Boot camp and then and then but possibly not…?
I wasn’t deterred, I just figured I was in for a two-state solution. One device for gaming and a Mac for whatever a Mac does. On the surface, Macs and Windows machines do necessarily the same things. (Put your hand down, Linux guy, I know yours is the platinum standard. I also know I’m not brave enough for Linux.) As far as I could tell from across the spectrum of reviews, Macs did it cleaner, more efficiently, with higher quality, and, again, more intuitively. Idiot-proof is a big plus for this big idiot. The gaming device would be a console, my usual solution, or a gaming PC. Eventually, I built my own.
I tried out the suite of tools that would matter most on the Mac on my iPad: iWork. I don’t know if it is mobile optimization or my lack of understanding of the design ethic of Apple fully yet, but I was turned off by Pages. I loved the one-click publish to Apple Books, but I was nowhere near ready for that to become a daily use tool. Word’s ribbon has tools for every flex you can imagine, and most you haven’t, and it can be a beast to navigate, but at least it was all there. And it is by significant degrees the world’s most popular word processing software. I don’t mind it, as I use it to this day as my primary writing interface.
Pages, I’m sure its advocates can tell me, is a full-throated writing tool and just not styled for the Office-wired brain. I agree, it probably isn’t, and the iPad version is perhaps not a great representation of its abilities. But it didn’t help sell the glory of the all-Mac integration I was dreaming of to me. Let me explain.
I like all my stickers to look the same. Although for everything they are not the best choice, I almost bought all ASUS TUF gaming branded PC parts for my recently built gaming rig. Why? Because I wanted my TUF wings logo shining on everything, dammit! Like a not crazy person, I bought compromises between quality and price, though it is an all AMD build.
With Apple, I was committed to the idea that I should 100% integrate into the Apple ecosphere. Frankly, that’s one of their greatest product strengths: their stuff works well together. I wanted my email to be an @icloud account; I wanted my writing to be Pages, browsing to be Safari, and so on. I wanted to divest from the non-Apple world. But on what device should I do this?
Quickly, it was evident that it would be a MacBook. I’d assume that is true for most Mac users. Something I was immediately critical about Apple was their choice to just ever so slightly under power the base models of their product lines. The MacBook Air, which would be my ideal use level, has an i3 and 8 gigs of memory? And it’s a grand? I know they build quality, and the MacOS is efficient as hell, but give me a break. Those are not the specs you put in a premium product. The base model pro, at thirteen hundred, was somewhat less offensive. I was okay with the i5. My last laptop, a Dell Inspiron, had one, and it served me well. But 8 gigs of memory again? Unacceptable.
It became evident that I was looking for at least an i5 and 16GB of memory. Thankfully, due to a reliance on cloud memory and my central hard drive at home, I needed little on-board storage. 128 or 256gigs of SSD storage would be fine. For months, I built and priced. And learned Apple doesn’t do sales. This would be an expensive transition.
Time wore on, and I chose the somewhat more practical iPad Air and a Bluetooth keyboard, then turned my sights on building or buying a gaming PC. That whole sad debacle was another story for another time, but it was July of this year (2020) when it was done in all its glowing glory. I had stopped thinking about the Mac Attack until some moving in our house and arrival of new furniture prompted my family to shift its primary sitting area from our bonus room, where my PC is, to our sunroom, where my PC is not.
I want to be around my family. I also want to write. Constantly. I needed to solve these two problems. I can’t lug the big rig around, so I needed something portable. I’m giving some thought to a foldout table for my iPad, but I’m not sold on that just yet. Thus, my thoughts drifted back to the MacBook. Mostly.
I love writing. But I L O V E video games. Remember what Macs do poorly? Video games. While there was a glimmer of hope in the news earlier in the year that Apple might make a splash back into the gaming world with a high-end gaming MacBook, so far that has not borne out. I think that rumor was likely the first whiffs of what was the ARM announcement at WWDC. I’m not sure of the technical background, but as I understand it, along with moving to ARM processors, or because of it, Apple is easing up game developer headaches for Mac game development. Don’t take my word for that; I may just misunderstand what I’ve read.
So, since I had exhausted my tech play money on the gaming rig, and I’m committed to out of pocket buying, I saved for the laptop. I bounced back and forth between a MacBook and a decent gaming laptop. Something with an AMD chip and a 1660ti GPU would be excellent. The news about the possibilities around the ARM chips had my head spinning again.
With ARM, as I understood it, iOS apps came into play, and Apple products would talk to each other better than ever. Efficiency and performance would rise across the board. Sweet!
This is where I am today. I’ve vetted the iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard or equivalent 3rd party keyboard. Still, I don’t think the iPad Pro is ready for prime time as a laptop yet. It’s coming, but until that cursor works like a mouse, which it does not now, and iPadOS works as close to a laptop as Apple wants us to believe, I need the laptop. As an educator, I can at least take advantage of the Education store discounts, however modest, so that will help me on the path. After doing my Reddit research on r/Mac, who is a reasonably helpful bunch, I am settled on waiting to see if Apple rolls out an ARM-powered Mac in my price range. I still want in the ecosphere, though I’m not as over the top committed to complete integration as I was.
Final Analysis? If I got an iPad Pro today, it would be for a larger screen. But my Air is great for everything I use it for, so shelling out close to a grand for a little more screen real estate seems the height of first world indulgence. I’m okay enough with the 13.3 Mac screens, though I’d prefer something in the 15 or 16-inch range, that it is mostly a non-issue.
Looking forward to writing about my no doubt bumbling transition from PC to Mac later on a new MacBook. I’ll let you know when I get there. | https://noah-ingram81.medium.com/im-not-convinced-the-ipad-pro-is-replacing-the-laptop-5b3e73764976 | ['Noah Ingram'] | 2020-07-27 23:51:48.563000+00:00 | ['Apple', 'Writing', 'Mac', 'iPad Pro', 'iPad'] |
#Interview: MY HOLY and the secrets of branding for women with creativity | Throughout history men have been trying to understand periods and not surprisingly feminine care products have been designed mainly by the male perspective. The “building empathy” part of the marketing equation was definitely a factor to be improved and not too long ago, many new brands made for women, by women started to appear globally. The idea of joining this segment came to Fiona right after quitting her job as a strategist consultant. At that time, she read a lot about entrepreneurship and enrolled on a course to learn how to code at the Le Wagon coding bootcamp. She came across the American brand MY LOLA, that produced fully organic cotton tampons, and immediately felt there was a real market demand for a similar proposition in France.
In the beginning of 2017, absorbing panties weren’t yet a big thing in France and no other brands were addressing the need of transparency regarding the internal absorbents composition. She was in the right place at the right time and the next steps to start executing the idea were clear: Finding a good supplier and building a strong brand.
Find your people
Alongside with good timing, finding people to join your entrepreneurial journey is a huuuge element of a company’s success. With a strong business idea on her mind and €20K euros in her pocket, Fiona headed to Spain to meet a potential supplier. She encountered a family business, with 15 years of experience, willing to create the first My Holy products with her and happy to build a long-term relationship.
“I think they’re the type of people that understood that when we can and when we want, with 20 thousand euros, we can create a great brand”. Fiona
She also started a partnership with Gabriel Pimont-Nogues, which she met at Le Wagon. She says finding a partner who have different skills and personality than you is crucial to grow a business.
Gabriel and Fiona worked together during 3 months to test how they’d get along professionally and then decided to move forward with the adventure. He has 49% of the company and she has 51%. Although, the idea came from her, she tells me it’s the execution that matters the most and that having people who take ownership of the project is what makes the brand vision come true.
Build your own brand universe
Without money to hire an agency to create the branding part of the business, she was faced with the challenge of searching for the “creative spirit” in herself. She selected some brands that inspired her, the type of brands that made her want to buy it without rationalising why and asked herself “If I could pick any brand in the world, which one would I like to have created and why?”. Then, she started exploring some creative directions on a mood board that would set the tone for the brand’s visual universe and personality.
My Holy launch night @ Appear Here
She told me about the importance of being intuitive when building a brand and that in order to build something bigger than the product itself, a pivotal point is to know what the brand wants to express. On My Holy’s case, it was the feeling of being free, its own “art de vivre” and the intention of talking about women’s health in an accessible and cool way.
All these ideas were translated in a coherent way through their colour palette, the funky illustration of Tiffany Cooper and by bringing other elements that weren’t at all part of the medical/health segment.
“Our strength was to bring the cosmetics codes to the world of intimate hygiene”
Lucie Bascoul — My Holy Film
Design your business for the people it wants to serve
The other building block of creating the business was designing the revenue model and making sure they’d have an accessible price. They came up with two different ways of capturing value: A subscription model, where they offer cotton bio tampons, delivered in France directly to their customers mailbox every month for a €5 subscription; and a one time charge model where customers can buy the My Holy tampons on-line directly from their website. Fast, safe and with real people on-line to help in case a client might need some help. Little by little their portfolio expanded and they now have a classic box with 16 tampons, a refill format and a traveling format. All products have a price range going from €5 to €15 euros.
Their idea in the near future is to continue listening to what their customers want and to expand their portfolio. They’ll soon be bringing tampons with applicator and pads. One step at a time as if they were crafting all the building blocks of a solid house. With patience, lots of creativity and hard work as all great business should be.
Looking forward to see how the next steps will look like!
You can follow My Holy on Instagram. | https://medium.com/swlh/interview-my-holy-and-the-secrets-of-branding-for-women-with-creativity-2a7d6c4063a8 | ['Fernanda Sigilião'] | 2019-08-02 10:35:45.875000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Branding', 'Brand Strategy', 'Business Strategy', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
An honest introduction to A/B testing for startups | In this post, we’re going to take an honest look at A/B testing, including when it’s important and when not to bother, what tools to use and how to design experiments that will get results you can actually use.
There’s a million great posts on A/B testing out there. We’ve included our favourites in the ‘further reading’ section at the end.
What is A/B testing?
Simply put, A/B testing is when you create two variations of a web page, email, ad etc and show variation A to one group of participants and variation B to another group. Think of a scientific experiment where the scientist gives one set of participants medicine and the other group (the control) a placebo. The scientist is essentially doing an A/B test to see if the medicine produces a significant relief in symptoms compared to the placebo.
Of course, you can have more than two variations, in which case, you’d typically call the experiment an A/B/n test or a split test, but for the sake of this post we’re going to keep it simple. In this post, when we say A/B test, we’re going to be referring to testing two variations of a webpage in order to compare the results.
Things to consider before A/B testing
The thing a lot of posts on A/B testing ‘forget’ to mention is that the first thing you should do is consider whether you actually need to do an A/B test. It’s easy to get caught up in the benefits of data-driven product development, but sometimes, this means we forget to trust our instinct and experience. We’ll cover this in a bit more detail in the “is it worth it?” section of this post.
Which takes me to the second point — can you afford it? There’s no point setting up an A/B test if you don’t have very much traffic. You’d have to leave it running for months to get a statistically significant result (i.e. a result you can trust isn’t down to pure chance), which kind of defies the point of testing and rapid development in the first place. If don’t have masses of traffic, you can always use paid ads (Google, Facebook, Twitter etc) to drive traffic, but it is going to cost you.
Thirdly, have you done your research? Its tempting to come up with a random idea (e.g. let’s change the header to something else!) without considering the deeper logic behind that idea (e.g. if we change the header to this, it will create a sense of urgency to buy our product and we’ll get more clicks on our sign up button). Take time to develop your tests based on research, experience and your goals.
Finally, remember what you’re testing. If you’re trying to get more people to create an account, an uplift in pricing pageviews doesn’t mean your test was successful. If you don’t figure out what to test and what success looks like beforehand, your results will be muddled and you’ll end up chasing a different goal than the one you set out to reach. Trust me, you don’t want to go down that rabbit hole.
What tools to use
We’ve always used Optimizely for A/B testing, and we’ve always been big fans but recently, Optimizely has moved into the enterprise market and priced themselves out of the water for most startups.
In response to this (or more likely the driving force behind it), Google has recently launched Optimize, a free Optimizely-style A/B testing tool.
While its free, we have noticed a couple of annoying things about Google Optimize:
Its buggy — it’s new, so bugs are to be expected, but bear in mind there’s no support for the free version so if you get stuck, you’re going to have to rely on kind people in Google support forums to help you. That being said, Optimizely’s support can be slow, especially for UK users who want to speak to a support rep in working hours (Optimizely’s support team are based in the US).
You need events and goals set up in Google Analytics — tools like Optimizely will track simple click goals for you as standard, but if you’re using Google Optimize, you’ll need to set up these goals yourself in Google Analytics. If you use Tag Manager, this should be pretty straightforward. If not, you may need a developer to help you get these goals set up.
There are other options that are worth looking into and with new tools popping up all the time, it’s certainly worth signing up for some free trials to find the right tools to suit you. You can also run A/B tests manually (i.e. create variations from scratch, send paid traffic to each variation) but it’s probably best to get dedicated tools to do the heavy lifting for you.
Running an A/B test
You’ll find loads of good posts on running A/B tests in the Further Reading section, so in this post, I’m just going to focus on some of the key gotchas to watch out for.
When designing an A/B test, you need to think big.
When researching A/B tests, you’ll see a lot of examples where the only difference between variations is the colour of a button, or a background image. This is fine for companies like Facebook and Amazon who have a practically unlimited budget and millions of users, but for most companies, it’s not worth the cost, effort or time. A 0.01% uplift in ‘buy now’ clicks could have a big impact for Amazon, but it probably won’t for you.
Instead, we find the most effective A/B tests are those that compare radically different variations. If your current homepage is all about product and features, create a variation that’s about lifestyle and benefits. Or you could try creating a landing page speaking directly to a specific subset of users and see if those people are more likely to buy from that page.
Remember that there’s no definitive right or wrong for your website. Sure, A/B tests are more scientific than trusting your gut, but that doesn’t mean the results are always accurate (watch out for: false positives, statistical significance, possible external variations, bugs and plain old coincidence).
What works now won’t necessarily work next year, next month or even next week, so you can’t just take the results of an A/B test as gospel.
So… is it even worth it?
Whether or not A/B testing is worth the effort depends entirely on your circumstances but, done right, you can learn so much about your product and your audience that you’d probably miss out on otherwise.
The only way an A/B test will work is if you:
Have enough traffic (whether it’s organic or you pay for it is up to you)
Do your research, be considered and think big
Know exactly what success looks like (e.g. success = an x% uplift in ‘buy now’ button clicks)
Understand how to interpret your results (think about statistical significance, external factors and don’t get distracted from your original hypotheses)
TLDR: If you’re going to do A/B testing, do it right.
Further reading
Beginner
A/B testing mastery: from beginner to pro in one post — ConversionXL
A/B testing for beginners: 70 resources to get you started — Quick Sprout
Intermediate
The ultimate A/B testing guide: everything you need to know, all in one place — Conversion Sciences
12 A/B Split testing mistakes I see businesses make all the time — ConversionXL
Most of your A/B test results are illusory — Kissmetrics
Advanced
How to build a strong A/B testing plan that gets results — ConversionXL
Get in touch with Simpleweb to grow your startup today. | https://medium.com/simpleweb/an-honest-introduction-to-a-b-testing-for-startups-c803eb4ba562 | [] | 2018-04-13 15:51:02.363000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Analytics', 'Startup', 'UX', 'Digital Marketing'] |
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly of Freelance Editing | Don’t get me wrong. I love editing, and I love being an editor. My work as a freelance editor has gifted me with a career I love and surrounded me with another love: books. But—especially in the beginning—it can be slightly chaotic when you put all the pieces together. I’m constantly balancing all the good, bad, and ugly parts that come along with the career. If you’re thinking about becoming an editor, I’m going to lay all my cards on the table for you.
The Good: if you love books, you will fall in love with being a book editor.
Photo by Aung Soe Min on Unsplash
When I first started editing, I didn’t realize how big of a role it would soon play in my future. At first, I really fell in love with using my skills as a writer to help another writer—and to make some extra money in the process. It wasn’t until I landed my first five-figure contract that I realized being a freelance editor would become a lucrative career for me. While I built my freelance editing business, I still worked a day job, which kept me immersed in the love fest I felt working with books. Here are the top ten things I learned about editing during that period of time:
The earning potential for editors is high. Most of the editing contracts I sign fall between the $1,000 and $2,000 range. With a healthy cycle of incoming clients/projects, a book editor can easily earn six-figures if they can manage five to six new clients each month. And on those joyful months that editors sign a contract amounting to $4,000 or more of work, it becomes much easier to hit that six-figure income.
Authors are looking for good editors all the time. Just pop into a writing group on Facebook, and you’ll find several self-publishing authors looking for referrals to skilled editors who won’t trash their voice in the process.
You can space your deadlines out enough so you aren’t looking at manuscripts for eight hours a day. I think this is one of the things that makes editing unique. Because your brain needs to be in top form to do your best work, it demands that you only edit a book for an hour or two every day to make progress on the project.
As an editor, you’ll get to read a variety of books in many different genres. Of course, you won’t fall in love with every single one of them, but as book lovers, we still love immersing ourselves in others’ words.
You don’t need a fancy advanced degree to be a book editor. In fact, just because someone has a degree in English or creative writing doesn’t mean they automatically have the skills to edit. I honestly didn’t begin to learn a thing until I jumped in and started editing with the guidance of an amazing mentor.
If you already have a decent computer and access to Microsoft Word, you don’t have to invest in any expensive equipment or software. You already have everything you need to get started!
New editors who have a passion for learning and growing will be the most successful freelance editors. The quality you offer your writers will evolve over time, and you will get more and more skilled with each project you complete.
If you get stuck on a grammar, spelling, or punctuation rule, Google is your best friend. There are so many resources online to give you quick and easy answers. And if you’d like to go a bit further, you can subscribe to Chicago Manual of Style’s searchable database for a low monthly fee.
There are several editorial associations out there that will support you throughout your career. Two of the ones I love are ACES and EFA.
You will find tons of opportunities for new gigs on freelancing websites, like Upwork or Freelancer.
The Bad: many self-publishing authors can’t afford high-quality edits.
Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash
There are a lot of book editors offering their services on Fiverr, which built their business model on the $5 freelance gig. But who really wants to edit a book for such a low cost? This is one of the main reasons why I stay away from Fiverr. Of course, you can charge much more for your services there, but you’ll get a lot of potential clients wanting to downgrade your quality so they only have to pay $50 or $100 to edit their full-length book. It’s simply not sustainable.
And this is an epidemic for freelance book editors in other places as well. I see complaints all over the web and social media that editors charge way too much. And some editors have capitalized on that complaint by offering their services at dirt-cheap prices. And when they do this, some authors think, Finally, an editor I can afford!
But can they really? I personally feel it’s better for authors to learn how to self-edit rather than hiring low-quality editors. Obviously, they won’t get the same level of service if they had hired a high-quality editor, but they’ll experience a similar effect if they hire an inexperienced editor. So, they are really better off saving that money for advertising, marketing, software, or cover design.
I don’t say these things to attack authors on a low budget or to shame inexperienced editors for their cheaper offerings. But my point is this: there are better ways to capitalize on that pricing divide between book editors and authors.
In my business, I do this in one of two ways: I either offer them an extended deadline for a lower investment, or I set them up on a yearly subscription plan that allows them to get a high-quality edit for a lower monthly payment plan. (They range from $25/month to $225/month for 12 payments, depending on what editing services they want or need.)
The Ugly: there is so much false or misleading information floating around online about editing.
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
This can lead to some heated arguments between book editors and their potential clients. This is what happened to me . . .
So, I had this [what I thought was an] amazing idea to get new clients: I created a profile on Freelancer and submitted bids for several editing gigs. On one of my proposals, I tried to clear up some misinformation the client had put in their project about the type of editing they needed. I tried to point out the differences between line editing and copy editing. Bad idea.
This person tried to engage me in an argument, telling me I had gotten my facts wrong about editing. And on top of that, he found several unprofessional websites to back up his expertise on the subject. I stopped the conversation right there because I knew it was a lost cause. Inside, I was screaming, If you know so much more than me about editing, it sounds like you have it all figured out and don’t need an editor anyway. But I wanted to remain professional, so I just walked away.
These interactions aren’t always this aggressive, though. Some authors simply don’t understand the differences between developmental editing, line editing, copy editing, and proofreading—and that’s okay. Why would they? They are not book editors. This will rear its ugly head a lot when an author thinks proofreading is synonymous with editing. It is not. Many professionals don’t think proofreading is even a form of editing, but I digress.
We’re up against a wall sometimes. But is it worth fighting that battle to make a living? I think so. In my frustration over that aggressive interaction on Freelancer, I actually wrote a book that attempted to explain it all. It’s not been very popular, but that’s okay. I didn’t write it to make money—it was more of a form of therapy for me.
At the end of the day, I still love being a freelance book editor. It’s improved my quality of life tremendously, and I always love things that challenge me to do something different. For me, that led me to an alternative business structure and a book I might not have written otherwise. If you’re an aspiring freelance editor, it might mean something different for you—and I hope you take that as a creative challenge rather than a stop sign. Those ten good things I mentioned at the beginning of this article? They still hold true, and they cover the challenges like a warm and toasty blanket, leading me to continue the fight for both authors and editors alike. | https://medium.com/swlh/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-freelance-book-editing-c698ccfee6a4 | ['Tina Morlock'] | 2020-10-13 18:22:50.293000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Editing', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Success', 'Freelancing'] |
Asshole Astrology: Week of 21 December 2020 | Asshole Astrology: Week of 21 December 2020
Horoscopes for horrible people. Christmas edition.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Here is next week’s horoscope for your sign.
It doesn’t matter when you read it, or which sign you are, as horoscopes are all made up.
What does the universe have in store for you? Let’s find out.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Aquarius: Try to get into the Christmas spirit this year. Ride a donkey, sleep in a barn, and lie about how you got pregnant. Spare a thought for those less fortunate than you this Christmas. You’ve got to admire those who volunteer to spend the holiday among the downtrodden, the needy, and dysfunctional social outcasts. But that’s family Christmas for you. I once tried to use the world supposedly ending on 21st December as an excuse to curtail visiting my folks for Christmas. Their response: “You won’t get out of it that easily.” Merry Christmas, everyone!
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Pisces: I wrote a letter to God but never received a reply. God is next to Santa on my list of unreliable people. Why didn’t you bring me what I wanted for Christmas, God? Sorry, wrong fictional old-man-with-beard. If God asked you to sit on his knee and tell him what you want for Christmas the Bible would read very differently. I’ve got some bad news for you: God doesn’t exist. Santa doesn’t exist either. Get over it. You ever noticed how Santa is an anagram of Satan? I’m just saying. As a belligerent fat man I seem to have missed my calling in life as an evil Santa.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Aries: You know something’s gone wrong with the world when it’s easier to buy crack on any street corner than to procure jam tarts for Christmas. When I was training as a journalist we met the Fleet Street Fox. But like when I met Santa, as a child, I spent some time wondering if it was really them. The Sun’s top story is probably going to be something horrendous like “Santa’s Sex Scandal Shocker.” Something to do with him coming once a year to empty his sack for the kids. Christmas is cancelled. I mean that in a good way. Don’t let the headlines ruin it for you.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Taurus: It’s beginning to look a lot like Doctor Who. Christmas. I meant Christmas. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. This time of year I have to stay offline or someone will spoil the Doctor Who Christmas Special for me. Spoilers! I usually record it. Christmas TV is notoriously bad so I like to have something to look forward to. I think one of the reasons I don’t watch much TV except for Doctor Who is people won’t shut up about it. It’s nonsensical if you stop to think about it and a bit of a letdown. I mean Doctor Who, of course, not the birth of Jesus.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Gemini: Don’t let the crass commercialsation of Christmas debase the true value of joyous drunken sex, gluttony, and debauchery. Maybe explain why you can’t afford presents and agree to spend family time together instead. Where others see Christmas holidays you could see free time to spend on your plans for world domination. Please accept this advice in lieu of sending you a Christmas card — life’s too short to spend it shopping. I can’t afford Christmas cards this year so I’m donating money to charity and holding Skype chats with people instead. Happy Capitalistmas!
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Cancer: One Christmas I found out that my Dad didn’t remember watching The Princess Bride. *mic drop* Inconceivable! It’s like finding out there isn’t a Santa Claus. Wait, you didn’t hear that from me. I’m just joking. Nearly had you going for a minute there, didn’t I? Anyway, I showed him the trailer and said: “Now do you remember?” He said: “Vaguely. It looks naff.” So I made my family watch The Princess Bride and they loved it. Which was of course the correct response. Miracles do happen. Christmas was saved. Was this a Christmas miracle? I’d like to think so.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Leo: This Christmas Eve: Be kind to each other, spend time with your loved ones, and watch Die Hard. Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho. Die Hard’s my favourite Christmas movie. Some people have made a tradition out of watching it every Christmas Eve. To me Die Hard’s the perfect Christmas film. I mean it’s no White Chistmas or Santa Conquers the Martians but it’s still a Christmas film. What films remind you of Christmas? Gremlins is etched into my brain, I know Princess Bride by heart, and Scrooged is usually on Netflix. Once I even watched Ant-Man. Don’t judge me.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Virgo: This year you ought to explore the Pagan roots of Christmas. If nothing else read up on Krampus the half-goat half-demon who punishes naughty children. You might spend Christmas hiding under your bed. Some say it’s not the right time to learn about such things. Fictional characters used to mock-celebrate a misappropriated Pagan festival in the name of a dead religion? Christmas is exactly the right time. Instead of decorating my Christmas tree with baubles and tinsel I’d rather decorate it with the heads and innards of my enemies. And, when you think about it, it’s more traditional too. Have a super Saturnalia. Krampus is coming to town!
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Libra: Do you hate Secret Santa? At my last job, without expressing my feelings on the subject, I was branded as some sort of Christmas-hating monster. As they planned Secret Santa they’d say to me stuff like: “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. We know you hate Christmas.” Secret Santa is the social obligation to go somewhere you don’t want, to spend money you don’t have, on buying people you dislike stuff they don’t need. The best gift you can give someone is to free them from the obligation to give gifts. Now I know what to get you for Christmas. Metaphorically I mean.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Scorpio: Christmas Dinner gives me the heebie jeebies. Is it wrong that I look forward to shoving oranges up a duck’s arse? Strictly from a culinary perspective, you understand, nothing kinky. I’ll probably spend Christmas day spooning and stuffing a greasy fat bird but my sex life is none of your business. The bane of my existence was brussel sprouts. I’d eat them at Christmas on condition that I didn’t have to eat them again the rest of the year. Last year my family forgot to cook them on Christmas Day and I was so obviously relieved that they took pity on me and decided I no longer have to eat them at all.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Sagittarius: Friends: I’ll be up north for Christmas. Burglars: my Pit Bull won’t. Before you send me email about this the Pit Bull is imaginary and I’d never abandon a pet. I dreamt a salesgirl showed me a cute little blue camera that was really a living Transformer robot in disguise. Now on my Christmas to do list: Kidnap Santa. What have you got left to do this year? Have you sorted out your playlist of Christmas Music? Trick question. There’s never a good time to play Christmas music! *shudder* As far as I’m concerned there’s only one good Christmas song. That’s Fairytale Of New York by Kirsty MacColl and The Pogues. Whatever else you do: Keep Calm and Enjoy Christmas!
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Capricorn: Make your own traditions. For several years running I sent real Christmas cards to internet friends who I only knew online. Postage is prohibitively expensive so in the end I had to stop. Even so that didn’t stop people from sending their replies. Some years I get more Christmas cards from people all over the world than I do from my family and friends back home. Underneath all the snark and sarcasm in truth I’m trying to connect with friendly creative humans anywhere in the world. That’s a noble tradition that’s worth pursuing at any time throughout the year. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/asshole-astrology-week-of-21-december-2020-7e9ba3ea4041 | ['James Garside'] | 2020-12-21 07:33:04.807000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Self', 'Psychology', 'Life Lessons', 'Writing'] |
Should I Care if I’m a Top Writer on Medium? | Should I Care if I’m a Top Writer on Medium?
Given that it’s just about frequency does it really mean anything and what designation might mean more?
Photo by LongTimeLurkur on Imgur
I keep seeing these articles with people announcing that they are top writers on Medium in some area or another. They then purport to give everyone advice on how they too can become a top writer. You don’t need an entire article to answer that question, not to mention that it’s been answered dozens of times, if not more. Here’s the answer:
Pick something you like to write about that has a tag associated with it and write about it a lot using the tag.
Period. That’s all there is to it. It’s all about frequency.
Okay, so maybe there’s a little more to it, in that some tags are far more popular than others so there are more people using them for their posts. This means you have to write more posts for topics like, “Psychology” and “Writing” than you do for “2016 Election.”
There’s also maximum of 50 top writers per tag. So, if a tag has 50 top writers listed there isn’t room to be added unless you knock someone off the list by publishing more on the topic than they have and hope no one else has published more than both of you still leaving you off. Since you don’t know exactly how many articles this will take, and these are more popular tags meaning there’s more competition, these areas are harder to become a top writer in.
If you write on a topic that there aren’t very many top writers in, you will have a better shot at achieving this goal with fewer posts. For example, the tag “2016 Election” only has four top writers meaning there are 46 spots open. One post, and you’re in.
So the more detailed answer to the question is, all you have to do in order to become a Top Writer is to find topics that don’t have 50 top writers or that do but that have a low number of tag hits which you can find in the article by J.J. Pryor. This means they don’t have a lot of competition so have a better chance of knocking someone off the list and replacing them.
Of course, this also means a lower number of people that your article will be distributed to so you have to decide how much top writer status is worth to you. Personally, since it’s a frequently changing indication of writes more, I’m always going to go with distribution and let the chips fall where they may regarding becoming a top writer.
The other thing about top writer status, especially on topics that are the most competitive, is that they can change from day to day. You can be a top writer in an area for a couple of days, them wake up to find out that you aren’t any longer. It’s not like Medium does some kind of tally at the end of the year and then announces the top writers in the different areas over the past 12 months, a title you’d keep for the next year until the new list is announced. You can be top dog today, and not tomorrow.
What’s Top Writer’s Status Good For Then?
Top writer status on Medium can be useful as a way for writers to define themselves on the site. The tags show up in your “About” section so anyone looking for more information about you will see what you are a top writer in currently. This can be helpful in gaining followers interested in that area.
Since our list of articles are organized chronologically and not topically and many of us write about many different topics, it can be hard to gain a sense of our identity in terms of what we specialize in or the things we write about most. Top writer status helps with that.
Problems With Top Writer Status
One of the main problems with the top writer label is that since it’s just a frequency measure, not a quality one, you can do all of your writing on a topic but unless you are one of the 50 writers who publishes the most on that topic it won’t be reflected anywhere. You can write the best articles about a topic, hands down, but not write that often. Chances are if it’s a popular topic, you will never appear on the Top Writer list for that tag.
Also, since most readers probably don’t know what the top writer status refers to, they will likely assume it does refer to knowledge, high quality writing, background, expertise or the like. If they see you are ranked a top writer one day but when they come back you aren’t, they may assume the quality of your work has fallen or compared to others you don’t know as much or don’t write as well and go off in search of those with the Top Writer label.
What Other Metrics Might Mean More to Writers and Readers Alike?
I would propose something that would better indicate quality and how well received our work is. This would be providing awards of some kind. Some could be determined by Medium, some by Medium writers and others by Medium readers.
Other platforms do this and may even awards a small amount of money, special badge on the winner’s home page or profile, or swag. This would be a much better indicator of quality and popularity than a metric that can change from day to day. The Top Writer status could be changed to “Top 50 Most Frequent Writers in Psychology” or whatever.
For example, on Hubpages they give awards once a year to the winners in the following areas based on peer votes:
Best All-Around Article:
Best All-Around Hubber
HubPages Lifetime Achievement
Most Helpful Hubber
Rookie of the Year
Most Likely to be a HubPages Employee
Funniest Hubber
Biggest Grammar Snob
Most Trusted Hubber
Hubber with the Most Obscure Knowledge
(For some reason I keep winning “Most Obscure Knowledge, but have no idea why!)
There are often also awards given by the staff.
Medium could include awards like:
Best Overall Non-Medium Editor Group Publication
Best Newsletter
Most Diverse Writer
Best Poetry or Fiction Writer
Writer Most Likely to Make You Laugh Out loud
Best Citizen of Medium
And others that could be serious or funny.
In addition to motivating writers, getting writers across the platform even more invested in Medium, and being something that would draw in new readers and followers, there’s always the general feel good factor that happens whenever we win anything.
I know each year I win the “Most obscure knowledge” award, consciously I think, “Why does everyone seem to find my writing so obscure? Does that mean that it isn’t clear or I just write on fringe topics? I write on mainstream topics! What do they consider fringe or obscure, exactly?”
But subconsciously, I can hear a voice yelling, “I won, I won, I won!” I won’t say it isn’t a bit of a high to win even a category I don’t understand and which may mean something I’d prefer my writing wasn’t.
So perhaps instead of the Top Writer status giving writers a check when they’ve written a lot about a topic, we could come up with something that actually reflects something that indexes quality or other desirable attributes. It would be a fun way to celebrate each other and our writing. | https://medium.com/the-partnered-pen/should-i-care-if-im-a-top-writer-on-medium-cfd48c4410a1 | ['Natalie Frank'] | 2020-12-06 11:02:40.797000+00:00 | ['Awards', 'Psychology', 'Advice', 'Ｍedium', 'Writing'] |
Prevent What Makes You Unhappy | Prevent What Makes You Unhappy
You don’t always have to do what makes you happy.
Photo by The Creative Exchange on Unsplash
I took the drink away from my lips, and I picked up the cap on the counter with my left hand. I flipped it over and was pleasantly surprised to see words on the underside. Being that it was a Snapple bottle, I should have remembered, but I hadn’t had a Snapple in so long. Each Snapple Cap comes with a Snapple Fact. On this bottle the fact read: “Cherophobia is the fear of happiness.”
Who could possibly be scared of being happy? I thought to myself. But then I remembered a time in college when I was volunteering at an Alzheimer’s center. I was having a conversation with the daughter of one of the Alzheimer’s patients. Her name was Jessica. Jessica’s dad was deteriorating mentally and physically quickly, and each day it took more of a toll on Jessica. I remember having an intense, dark, yet eye-opening conversation with her during her father’s final days. She told me,
“I’ll be happy when he’s finally at peace. But I’m just so scared for that day to come.”
While I ruminated on this powerful statement, I couldn’t help but try to come up with ways for Jessica to be happy now. Why must she wait for the inevitable? Why couldn’t she have some semblance of happiness each day until that day ultimately occurred? Sadly however, I didn’t have much time to consider this. Jessica’s father passed only a few days later.
When I checked back in with Jessica after a few weeks, I was eager to see a brighter, happier person. However, this was not the case. She mentioned how her fear of happiness, her fear that she’d be happy when her father passed, had washed away when her dad finally left her. She was ready to be happy. She honestly just thought she would be knowing her dad was at peace. But she wasn’t. She wasn’t happy because she didn’t know what made her happy anymore.
While Jessica no longer suffered from cherophobia, she suffered from something even more dangerous. It’s one of the most dangerous phrases in the English language. | https://medium.com/real-1-0/prevent-what-makes-you-unhappy-56861486d51b | ['Jordan Gross'] | 2020-10-19 23:11:56.004000+00:00 | ['Life', 'Mental Health', 'Motivation', 'Life Lessons', 'Inspiration'] |
Life in a Psych Hospital: Going from Green to Brown to Black | What we see when we don’t let ourselves turn around.
Cornfields look different before daybreak.
This is something you learn when you work at a locked, inpatient psychiatric hospital — that sits across the parking lot from a cornfield, that is. If you work at one that doesn’t, well, don’t worry — you’ll learn other things.
I worked there for five years. When I started I was thirty and, on my last day, I was ninety-four. And the cornfield that teased and mocked (“I’m MOCKING YOU, GABRIEL!” a particularly unpleasant patient would seethe in my face, from two inches away, just in case I was unsure about the sincerity of his Heil Hitler gestures) from across the way, like a flaxen-haired siren whose breasts heaved gently on the surface of the ocean, swayed and bent and beckoned and whispered my name in the twinkling, swirling, bluish breeze.
Iiiiiiii’m mooooccccking yooooooou, Gaaabbbrrieeeeel….
When you looked out the block-glass windows on the first floor — The Unit as we called it — the cornfield looked like Dali-esque and wrong. Like something that had known pain and had been wrestled to the ground amidst the chaos of keys and clipboards, flexed shoulders and taut veins. Corrupted and molested. Maligned and rejected. Even the staff members’ cars looked drunk through the warped glass. The warped behavior — of staff and of patient — what was documented and what was conveniently forgotten, lost to time.
“If you didn’t document it then it didn’t happen,” our betters told us repeatedly in red ink and in paper-trail notes. This admonition to be precise in our notetaking was also a tacit reminder to forget to write down what should remain forgotten.
I have documented the cornfield across the way, in stories and in photographs and on film. Because it happened. Because it happened to you, and it happened to me. I have walked in, silently, until it surrounded me, swallowed me whole, touched my skin and hair and I have mumbled prayers inside and fed you snow falling silently down into your mouth and I have run through those hallways with keys bouncing on my belt and I have thrown the clipboard down as the bell rang out and I have hurt and been hurt and you are there in the cornfield watching silently, bearing witness to the deformity and the corruption that inevitably takes place within cinderblock walls where the majesty of the cornfield has no chance.
On the day they took my photograph to put on my ID badge that read “GABRIEL N.” I looked as if I had seen a ghost. But, really, I had seen absolutely nothing yet. Knew absolutely nothing yet. I did not know that I was about to lose my virginity again and again and again and that I would bear witness to suffering and unite in unbreakable bonds of friendship and love with people I otherwise had very little in common with. I did not know that voices and faces and moments and sounds would permeate my consciousness in a thousand ways, dozens of times a day. I did not know that I would have to re-enter therapy, weekly, just to stay employed and alive. I did not know that, a year into my employment there, I would learn that I was going to have twins, and that I would, within a few short months of their being born, start to lose my effectiveness on The Unit as a group facilitator, that I would become listless, inattentive, unambitious, apathetic, and sometimes cruel.
Institutionalized, I believe, is the word most commonly used for what happens. My best friend, who was also a colleague of mine at the time, called it “going from green to brown to black.”
Maybe that happened to the cornfield, too. Maybe it looked green on my first day of work — beautiful and warm and kind. And I would park my car in front of it and I would sit on the hood and eat my lunch looking out at its endless swaying carpet and the comfort of the sky above, turning my back to whatever was going on behind me for 55 precious minutes. After a while, though, I found that I couldn’t look at it anymore. I would roar in at 5:15am — for my shift that started at 7:00am — and throw my car in some spot somewhere and just push myself into the building, almost resentfully shoving my key in the lock and throwing the door open, turning my back to it but making sure to listen to it slam with force.
Use-of-force.
Assisted patient to the floor.
Applied four-point restraints to patient.
Applied defensive maneuvers to patient.
If you didn’t document it, then it didn’t happen.
The cornfield happened, and it silently demanded to be documented, to be noticed, to be put down. To be restrained in some way. It was too beautiful, too fiercely loud and incongruous. What am I doing here, it asked, as my face asked when my photograph was taken on September 13, 2005.
Does the cornfield smile when I take its picture, or whisper its name? Am I getting this documentation right? Will the insurance companies grant me one more covered day after reading this? Will I be given my belongings in a brown paper bag with a bus token while “I’M MOCKING YOU, GABRIEL” booms in my ear as a door slams somewhere?
I want to believe that there was mysterious beauty somewhere in between those swaying bending stalks, that they led to something that was eternal, leaving something in their wake, my wake, your wake, other than just chalk or fire.
Maybe there is a part of me that is angry at them for not telling me that, after signing all those papers and forms and getting my picture taken and meeting the cornfield and going downstairs that nothing would ever be the same again — nothing — not lunch or keys or pens or clipboards or shoes, not family or friends, or driving a car or growing older, losing or loving, or maybe I’m more mad at myself for not being on-the-ball enough to have figured that out for myself.
Show, don’t tell. And I got shown.
I got shown a cornfield in the dark, and I am still looking for the way out. | https://nathanismylastname.medium.com/life-in-a-psych-hospital-going-from-green-to-brown-to-black-e79657ef51d6 | ['Gabriel Nathan'] | 2020-12-10 03:27:04.103000+00:00 | ['Memories', 'Mental Health', 'Essay', 'Creative Writing', 'Nonfiction'] |
Top 5 Underrated True Crime Books | Because who doesn’t want to know more about true crime? Let’s dive into it!
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
If you have heard of the serial killer H.H. Holmes, you should read this book. Larson delves into the world of 1893 Chicago and shares the story of two men: Daniel Burnham, an architect, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer. Even the two never met, the book brings their story together in a fascinating way. Larson paints an engrossing, historical picture of Victorian Chicago and the first known American serial killer.
Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker
A heartbreaking story about each of the known murder victims of the Long Island Serial Killer (LISK). As heartbreaking it was, I couldn’t put it down. Kolker paints the lives of each of the victims — talking about their childhoods, their struggles, their loved ones. It reads more like a mystery novel than a nonfictional book and it was incredibly thorough and organized — delving deep in their lives. Kolker did a great job bringing awareness to the LISK case as well, this unidentified killer needs to be stopped and this case needs to be solved.
I’ll Be Gone in The Dark by Michelle McNamara
Just published in 2018 after years of research and looking, McNamara’s book is heartstopping. McNamara, a true-crime journalist, examines the Golden State Killer (her moniker) and her obsession to solve who exactly this serial killer is. Unfortunately, she passed away in 2016 and did not see the day where law enforcement finally caught him. Nonetheless, her research and writing were relentless: she did not leave any rock overturned. McNamara did not sensualize the Golden State Killer or his victims and survivors: she told it how it was. Such an impressive book and woman who wrote it!
Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper — Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell
Everyone knows the story of Jack the Ripper, right? There are so many books, resources, theories out there about this serial killer — everyone wants it solved to have answers. Cornwell claims to have solved it and shares who Jack the Ripper is. My thoughts — I don’t believe she solved it but it is an interesting take on who Jack the Ripper is. Cornwell provides only circumstantial evidence by combining forensic techniques and looking into documents, pictures, files. While she goes into a lot of detail that some may not find so intriguing, I found it an interesting perspective.
Small Sacrifices by Ann Rule
Ann Rule is best known for her book, The Stranger Beside Me, which was about Ted Bundy. However, this book is just as intriguing! Rule examines what drove Diane Downs to shoot her children. Rule presents the story and facts through the eyes of law enforcement and professionals surrounding the case. She states the facts within the wild tale of Diane Downs and the lives she impacted. Rule also shares information about mental illness and psychological thinking of what drove Diane Downs down the road she took. While this book is upsetting and disturbing, Rule paints a picture that you can’t turn away from. | https://medium.com/curious/top-5-underrated-true-crime-books-9f4f0323059b | ['Sm Sommer'] | 2020-08-13 15:23:02.287000+00:00 | ['Book Recommendations', 'Books', 'Nonfiction', 'True Crime', 'True Crime Books'] |
Motivational Monday — 12/28/2020. About Me Stories — New Updates and New… | Motivational Monday — 12/28/2020
About Me Stories — New Updates and New Writers
Photo by Pablo Heimplatz on Unsplash
Hey everyone!
We’re officially entering the last week of 2020! What are your New Year’s resolutions when it pertains to Medium? What about your personal life? What goals are you seeking to achieve there? I’d love to hear them! Leave responses below.
Big Milestone
3 months ago, I didn’t even know what a Medium publication was. But fast forward to now and this publication, About Me Stories, has reached more than 1,000 followers! This has been the best Christmas gift ever for me!
I’ve been incredibly humbled by the amount of excitement, support, and eagerness in the Medium community to contribute to this publication. I had started this publication with no expectations and no direction. I simply wanted a publication to host my lonely self-published “About Me” introduction I had pinned in my profile.
But a few weeks passed and I noticed more and more Medium writers were self-publishing “About Me” introductions, both new and veteran writers alike. I wanted to create an inclusive and equal place where readers could read about the best part about Medium — the writers themselves!
Even though 2020 has been hard on the world, I’ve been going through some tough personal times. I started writing on Medium as a form of therapy to cope with my personal issues. Starting this publication and reading about Medium writers from all over the globe has been the highlight of my year.
So thank you from the bottom of my heart to each and every one of you for being here!
Cheers to 2021! | https://medium.com/about-me-stories/motivational-monday-12-28-2020-b558a9880655 | ['Quy Ma'] | 2020-12-28 07:35:42.712000+00:00 | ['About Me', 'Community', 'Motivation', 'Bio', 'Writing'] |
I’m No Longer Broken | Like any broken human, I was the queen of self-help books. Over two decades of thinking each book will be The One to solve all that ailed me. That’s a tall order for any single book given my (perceived) pile of flaws and trauma. Truthfully, most self-help books can distill down to a few sentences. The rest of the book is full of reiterated fluff so the author can meet page counts and seem like an expert in their field.
At the beginning of the COVID pandemic, I read “Girl, Wash Your Face” by Rachel Hollis. While reading it, I made the realization: I was sick of waiting for permission to live my life. Homegirl could churn out content for her books because she wasn’t sitting on a couch with a bag of Doritos reading about how to live.
I don’t remember even finishing the book. With resolve, I decided I was done being held back by my anxiety. Not that I was cured of my anxiety and psychological issues; I was going to move forward whether I had my issues or not. Life doesn’t stop just because you have anxiety attacks. I vowed to better function with generalized anxiety rather than fixate on how to cure it.
It’s worth noting that I still had issues. I was still plagued with insecurity and feeling worthless. I just didn’t let that stop me from doing the things I wanted to do. Given quarantine and social distancing, the list of what I wanted to do was limited. I splurged on a bike (that took four months to arrive because everyone else had the same idea). I exercised with goals beyond “lose weight and stop looking like trash”. I wrote for fun on Medium and shockingly made $5k in three months. I re-opened my Etsy shop I folded years ago. At the end of summer, I had surgery to fix a crummy tummy tuck I had done years ago.
The biggest change was telling my husband I no longer wanted our marriage. The future stopped looking scary when I decided that being in limbo made me more miserable than the unknown. | https://medium.com/change-becomes-you/im-no-longer-broken-e6f69cb0dcdc | ['Jennifer M. Wilson'] | 2020-11-24 15:33:32.765000+00:00 | ['Mental Health', 'Depression', 'Relationships', 'Psychology', 'Self Improvement'] |
Lessons From a Destroyer Captain to Startup Founders | Lessons From a Destroyer Captain to Startup Founders
And how to delegate better, faster, and with fewer mistakes.
Photo by Arron Choi on Unsplash
Most of my professional life I spent as an employee in multinational headquarters. Companies where you do not have much skin in the game, as Nassim Taleb explains.
All this changed in 2017 when I started my first business, in the tourism sector. Like any other first-time founder, there were difficulties with funding, planning targets, and establishing challenging-but-realistic goals. Problems that are already discussed in multiple places.
But once your business is up and running, there is a ghost that haunts entrepreneurs. An issue rarely approached, and with me, it was no different: the overwhelming amount of responsibilities, that often lead you to burnout.
When you invested your savings or investor’s money, it will be difficult to delegate responsibilities. Put together that in a new company you still didn’t build a trust relationship with your team, and the formula for hoarding multiple tasks is ready.
But this is not a problem only for business founders. Imagine the responsibility of the commander of an Arleigh Burke destroyer in the United States Navy. With a crew of near 300 people and responsible for a war-machine costing more than one-billion dollars, any captain should know more than one thing or two about delegation.
More than knowing, one of these captains even wrote a book about his experiences: “It’s Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy.”
The author, Michael Abrashoff, is the former head of the USS Benfold. He received the ship command in a time where the crew was demotivated and below the ideal performance. In only 3 years, he turned the Benfold into one of the best ships in the entire US Navy. They even won the Spokane Trophy, given to the most proficient ship of the US Pacific Fleet
Differently than what someone may think. his book is not about war adventures (although it has some thrilling passages during his stay in the Middle East). It is a book about leadership, people management, and, more than anything, task delegation.
Here, a closer look at some of the insights from Abrashoff’s book.
Create a sense of ownership
It is your ship, it is your company, it is your shift.
If your firm is still small, this is one of the easiest points to apply. But if your company already has hundreds of collaborators with very specific roles, it is not that easy. While specialization has advantages like experts with better task knowledge from experts, it also reduces the feeling of responsibility for the entire process.
Captain Abrashoff had a challenging task. To convince specialized sailors, like the ones responsible for the ship boiler, kitchen, or weapons room, that not only their sectors but the entire ship where their responsibility was difficult.
Lacking a sense of ownership creates a lot of other problems, like the distasteful blame game when one department makes more effort to blame others than looking for joint-solutions.
How captain Abrashoff created a sense of ownership?
First, by rotating people across departments, and understanding better the entire vessel. You cannot have a sense of ownership over something that you do not understand, and rotating staff among different areas solved this question. It has the benefit of increase inter-departmental understanding, bonding the team, and reducing the blame game.
Together with job rotations, he started to praised entire teams, from top to bottom, when a good task is done. And, maybe the most important: give more independence by trusting his people to solve matters on the spot. As he once said to one of his subordinates:
I should be called only in situations that put lives at risk, could injure others, or resulted in significant expenditures.
A phrase like this one above brings the best in people. During the beginning of my business, I was tormented by calls, multiple times a day, even during holidays or medical leaves. It just felt like I was in some kind of prison that I could not escape no matter what.
Then I realized that one of the phrases that I said for everyone that I hired until them, on their first day, was If you have any problem or doubt, you can call me.
While this phrase apparently shows your support for new employees and makes them feel more secure, it is dangerous. Very dangerous. People should not call you if they have any problems. First, they should try to solve the problem! That is why you are hiring and training them in the first place. This does not apply to someone that still didn't go through full training and is not at his entire capabilities. Obviously, in this case, the new-joiner should still be able to call someone.
So now, instead of saying to my staff to call me if they have any problem, I tell them to try to solve the problem first, unless it is something absolutely out of their reach.
Just remember that when people try to solve a problem, they may make mistakes. Do not punish anyone for making mistakes while trying to solve a problem, otherwise, you will just destroy the initiative that you are building in your team.
Walk around, recognize the good stuff, and plan for ‘What if’ situations.
There are two ways to kill the proactivity of an organization. The first, as previously mentioned, is to punish people for mistakes made while trying to solve problems. The second is to not recognize spontaneous and positive initiatives.
Numerous managers and entrepreneurs don’t do positive recognition. I was not doing it. And this is not because we do not know how to do it, or we don’t recognize the positive impacts. It is just because we are frequently isolated inside our offices.
When you walk around your people, you see them working, taking positive action, the recognition of their good performance naturally will come from your mouth. Unless they are doing a bad job, but even in this case, to stroll around and see by yourself, helps to identify flaws and correct the process. This is the job of a leader, according to a legendary CEO.
Positive reinforcement builds self-esteem. A competent and self-confident squad will handle complexities better. Positive, personal reinforcement is the essence of effective leadership. In Captain Abrashoff words: Don’t be disconnected. Don’t be the type of leader that never leaves your office. A compliment online is not as good as a personal one.
If, while walking around, you realize that you have low-performers, design a plan for their improvement. Clarify what they need to correct and train them if needed. Give them improvement targets, with the expectations and consequences of reaching (or not) them. But be clear.
When your organization is already smooth in regular scenarios, start to work with multiple What-If situations. Prepare in advance for unexpected situations turn them, well—expected. This will reduce your time of response for emergencies and avoid situations where you are demanded while out of the country, just because any disruption occurred and nobody was trained for this scenario.
The delegating part
After building the sense of ownership of your team, recognizing their daily victories and results, walking around, and see how they can handle their own tasks, and building your confidence and their self-esteem, delegating tasks happens naturally. You will feel comfortable trusting them in your absence, and they will feel ready to assume new challenges.
They may even ask for new responsibilities. That will be a victory from both sides.
Once you reach this point, together with developing reliable processes to absorb the multiple What-If scenarios, you may even take some holidays knowing that your team will handle everything smoothly. | https://medium.com/swlh/and-how-to-delegate-better-faster-and-with-fewer-mistakes-f0af7e07e073 | ['Levi Borba'] | 2020-10-30 18:02:57.670000+00:00 | ['Leadership', 'Self Improvement', 'Startup', 'Life Lessons', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
5 Useful Image Manipulation Techniques Using Python OpenCV | Introduction
Although many programmers don’t need to worry about processing images in their daily jobs, chances are that we may have to deal with images for small jobs. For instance, we may need to resize thousands of images to a particular size, or we may add a common background to all the images in a particular directory. Without a programmatic solution, these tasks are very tedious and time-consuming.
In this article, I want to introduce five basic image manipulation techniques using the OpenCV library that are to address some of these needs. If you haven’t installed OpenCV on your computer, you can install it very conveniently with the pip tool: pip install opencv-python . Please note that we use this library using import cv2 , which is just to extend the convention of importing the old version of OpenCV with import cv .
Once you’re able to import the library without any issues, you’re good to try some functionalities in this brief tutorial. For the sake of demonstration purposes, the present article will be using the image that is shown at the beginning of the article.
Before we can manipulate images, the first thing is to read the image, which can be done conveniently with the imread function, as shown below.
Read image
The generated data is a numpy array. Using a numpy array allows us to manipulate the data just as manipulating the numeric values of the array.
array. Using a array allows us to manipulate the data just as manipulating the numeric values of the array. The shape of the image can be accessed by its shape attribute. It tells us how large the image is, and it also tells us its composition of BGR scales (i.e., blue, green, and red). Each color constitutes a matrix of the 3D array. For instance, if we need to get the blue scale, we can use indexing original[:, :, 0] .
attribute. It tells us how large the image is, and it also tells us its composition of BGR scales (i.e., blue, green, and red). Each color constitutes a matrix of the 3D array. For instance, if we need to get the blue scale, we can use indexing . The total number of pixels can be accessed by the image’s size attribute.
attribute. It’s also important to know the data type of the numpy array. In many other applications, numpy arrays use the floating-point data type. However, in processing the images, the default data type is uint8 . If you take another look at examining the range of the values, you’ll find the following, which is what you can expect with a color expressed by the RGB values in integers. | https://medium.com/better-programming/5-useful-image-manipulation-techniques-using-python-opencv-505492d077ef | ['Yong Cui'] | 2020-10-01 15:04:50.742000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Python3', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Python', 'Programming'] |
The Existential Dread of Working from Home | My delightful red desk, warped after too many pools of condensation, no longer entices me. The bulletin board and stacks of neatly organized files no longer spark inspiration. My pens gather dust as my notebook patiently waits for me to open it and become productive again.
I cannot. All I can do is stare out the window, brain fried and unable to disengage from thoughts of my bed. My chore wheel bleeds into my task list even though I try to keep them separate. There is no longer any wall between my home life and my work. And I am a passionate individual who enjoys her job.
And so the inevitable has occurred:
All I do is work.
And I’ve realized that it defines my entire life.
A Bit of Stage Fright
I started working from home months ago, before it became a necessity. Being able to govern my work life was a revelation: I was much more productive, limitless even. I’d leave my house for only errands and fun, and that was the perfect balance for me.
Now that I’m trapped at home, it feels oppressive and suffocating. The warped red desk where I have spent hours immersed in the bliss of writing now feels like a torture device. It makes me wonder who I am and how dare I sit here working while so many cannot.
Existential dread is our fear of what the world holds in store when we discover that we are but actors on a grand stage. We can’t see all our castmates, we’re blinded by lights, and we don’t even know the end of the play.
The red drapes in my home are the stage curtains that mock me, a clumsy actor who doesn’t know her lines.
Too Late for the Worm
I attempt to get up early to secure the time I need to achieve my to-do list. But every morning is a battle with my snooze button, and the light filtering in through the curtains is anything but inspirational. It’s a reminder of the world outside my reach. It’s all I can do to drag myself out of bed for another fruitless day.
I didn’t use to be this way, I think to myself every morning as I pour my coffee.
If only I could roll out of bed with a spring in my step. I’d feel in control of my life, even during this controlled disaster. Work and life would go hand in hand rather than the former crushing the latter. Now, work is what I must do to deal with the … situation.
It was all so much easier when we could go outside. When there were boundaries. When work was my departure rather than my escape.
I remain half-convinced that if I did get up earlier, I’d get that darned worm.
Life in a Box
Life in a box is better than no life at all. — Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard
I’ve learned to appreciate the little things. The walk outside to get the mail. The steaming dark goodness of the coffee. The padding visits of my cats. And yet I cling to my home office. It’s where I need to be. My personal box. Even as the walls are closing in.
Am I a writer? I wonder, as I turn in another draft. What story am I telling? What story do I need to tell?
Working from home defined my life. Now, working has become my home. The work–life balance is a moot point. How can you balance what composes the same thing?
I am a writer, but not in the ontological sense. I’ve defined myself through my work. I write, but I am not yet a Writer. To do that, I need to learn to live.
My life is not pointless, I realize. I must relieve my mind. It needs rest.
And so I leave the red desk behind. I turn away from the red curtains and my dusty pens. It’s time for me to learn my lines and rediscover the joys of home. For now, I’ll shut the door to my office. | https://rachelwayne.medium.com/the-existential-dread-of-working-from-home-2a48118212e2 | ['Rachel Wayne'] | 2020-04-20 19:56:26.752000+00:00 | ['Work Life Balance', 'Work', 'Self', 'Mental Health', 'Productivity'] |
Is Fox News Becoming the New Kmart? | Is Fox News Becoming the New Kmart?
What’s your brand’s position? When you don’t “own’’ a clear marketing niche, you slowly die
Fox News in happier times: Courtney Friel in New York during the release of the iPhone. Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons.
Fox News — like Kmart — invented a new brand category and position it dominated for years. Kmart and Fox eventually allowed new rivals to encircle them, leaving both brands trapped in a squishy “no man’s land.’’
Kmart, now close to death, was a superstar money-making-machine in the early 1960s as it essentially invented the “discount store’’ position. Kmart was the child of Detroit-based S.S. Kresge, which dominated the “five and dime’’ category starting in1899.
In 1962, as the post-World War II migration into new suburban communities matured, Kmart was launched as something new and fresh, a discount chain designed for suburbia’s boom. Its “Blue Light Specials’’ were a hit.
What killed Kmart? Wal-Mart and Target
Allowing Wal-Mart to take over the “low prices’’ niche while Target took over the higher end “quality,” aka cheap chic end of the business.
When you’re neither the cheapest nor the best, what’s left? Kmart. The weakened Kmart becomes everyone’s second or third choice. With no clear strength or unique mission, Kmart eventually had to die.
How Fox News is another Kmart story
Like Kmart, Fox News essentially “invented’’ a category in 1996: a more conservative cable news channel positioned to the right of what Fox and the world now call “the mainstream media.”
From the start, Fox News was a bit of a hybrid network:
Its prime time line-up has always been dominated by commentary, replicating the AM conservative talk radio format pioneered by Rush Limbaugh starting in the 1980s.
Fox News’ daytime lineup pushed a more “fair and balanced’’ approach to news, hiring a host of Republicans to comfort Republican viewers who never felt they got a fair shake from “mainstream media.’’ But the lineup always included several traditional TV journalists from mainstream networks such as Chris Wallace (formerly of NBC), Brit Hume (formerly of ABC News), and Brett Baier (formerly of a CBS affiliate).
From 1996 to 2000, Fox News was relatively small, overshadowed by the much larger CNN and MSNBC. But Fox News made its name in the 2000 election, breaking the story about George W. Bush’s drunk driving arrest.
For the past 20 years, Fox News “owned’’ its category with its right-of-center news coverage and primetime conservative talk commentators, making it the Right’s network of choice.
It was Donald Trump’s favorite channel, too, as polls showed about half of its Trump stories were positive, and half were negative. At the same time, all Fox rivals ran overwhelmingly negative coverage of Trump.
The Kmart effect: The 2020 election marked a turning point
Back in 2001, George W. Bush famously set the stage for the Red/Blue divide by telling a joint session of Congress, “You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists.’’ America aligned in its fight against terrorism (for a while) but slowly split into camps: Red and Blue.
Fox News remained the “Establishment” source of news for the Right while rivals CNN and MSNBC became more partisan but very anti-Trump. But then Fox got competition from two new cable networks focused on conservative viewers: Newsmax and OAN.
That left Fox News literally in the middle of the five cable news channels: CNN and MSNBC on the Left, Newsmax and OAN on the right, and Fox News sandwiched into a middle position complaining about lockdowns and sounding like what many called “CNN Lite.”
Through summer 2020, the middle ground strategy seemed to work: Fox News became TV’s most-watched network, even briefly receiving more viewers than the traditional big networks: CBS, NBC, and ABC.
But throughout the election, Trump began complaining about Fox News “turning’’ on him, becoming far more liberal. By Election Night, when Fox’s Democrat-friendly “decision desk’’ was the first to call Arizona for Joe Biden, conservatives began leaving in droves.
Social media exploded with calls to move to Newsmax. Left-friendly news outlets fed the exodus by reporting that a defeated Trump would start his own conservative, pro-Trump media empire, maybe even buy Newsmax.
Newsmax ratings exploded as much as eight-fold. Fox hosts, long considered “suspect” by the Right, flashed moments of anger at Trump people sounding just like MSNBC hosts as they dismissed Trump people for floating “baseless claims.’’ More Trump people moved. Trump himself played up the rivals.
And Fox News is now officially in a Kmart position where neither Donald Trump nor Joe Biden and their teams has many good things to say about it. Biden won’t take their questions. Trump still grants Fox interviews but also blasts them on Twitter and during the interviews.
With CNN and MSNBC (growing for their knowledge of the Democrats) and Newsmax and OAN (growing by offering pro-Trump people “the Trump side,”) where does that leave Fox?
Add to that anti-Fox criticism from the pop culture establishment that skewers the network with films like “Bombshell.’’
No longer trusted by the Right and never trusted by the Left, Fox is now trying to cover two political parties that neither like nor trust them. Lou Aguliar of The American Spectator said he was one of more than 1 million viewers who have left since Election Day, calling Fox’s move leftward “ the most astonishing example of media suicide in my lifetime.’’
“Like the other networks, they were broken by Trump, who understands the TV business better than any of them,’’ he declared in a headlined story read line-by-line by Limbaugh (whose conservative radio show has exploded in ratings throughout 2020). Trump tweeted the article as well.
In our niche-channel world of hundreds of TV channels, we now have pro-Trump channels (Newsmax and OAN), anti-Trump pro-Biden channels (CNN and MSNBC) and all are growing while Fox falls.
Could Fox come back with a return to “fair and balanced’’ centrism? Other rivals, including a new WGN national newscast, focus on a “just the facts’’ fair news approach. Most partisans continue to look for someone “on our side’’ leaving Fox still complaining about Democrats but remaining unclear about Trump and Trumpism.
“Ironically, they also made the same hubristic mistake the other media sources did before FNC went live in 1996 — the belief that people had nowhere else to go,’’ Aguliar wrote. “And when they fall for betraying us, and Kathryn Murdoch has to start wearing less expensive attire to a Long Island soiree, we can make the same boast she did: ‘We did it.’” | https://medium.com/pop-off/is-fox-news-becoming-the-new-kmart-8ee49f8c382a | ['Joseph Serwach'] | 2020-12-12 15:40:43.567000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Branding', 'Politics', 'Television', 'Journalism'] |
A College Student Used A Language Generating AI Tool To Create A Viral Blog Post | As writers, we like to tell ourselves that we’re in a profession that can’t be automated, not anytime soon anyway. But artificial intelligence and machine learning are being refined at a rate that should probably begin to worry us.
Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 (GPT-3) is a powerful language model that produces text that is remarkably human-like. It was created by OpenAI in San Francisco and is the third generation of their language prediction model.
In late July 2020, a blog post about productivity and overthinking reached the number one spot on Hacker News. Upon reading the blog post, nothing seems amiss. The author, who goes by the screen name Adolos, makes the case for boosting productivity by engaging in creative activities and forms of thinking. Overgeneralizations about the human mind and a couple of dubious definitions of different forms of thinking are used to justify the point — it’s not unlike most self-help and productivity articles that are already published and perhaps that’s why very few people failed to realize that this blog post was written by GPT-3.
Liam Porr is the college student behind Adolos and this experimental blog. In a “tell-all” meta blog post, he describes the process of using GPT-3 to generate content for his blog:
Over the last two weeks, I’ve been promoting a blog written by GPT-3. I would write the title and introduction, add a photo, and let GPT-3 do the rest. The blog has had over 26 thousand visitors, and we now have about 60 loyal subscribers… And only ONE PERSON has noticed it was written by GPT-3. People talk about how GPT-3 often writes incoherently and irrationally. But, that doesn’t keep people from reading it… and liking it.
Writers who engage in more journalistic and fact-based writing may breathe a sigh of relief knowing that GPT-3 does not do well when producing facts-based content. Porr also writes:
There’s a reason I chose a self-help style theme for the blog. GPT-3 is great at creating beautiful language that touches emotion, not hard logic and rational thinking.
Porr set out to prove that the writing produced by GPT-3 could be passed off as something written by a human and he succeeded with a simple script and access to the API via a PhD student at his school. OpenAI granted access to the API to a handful of researchers in a private beta. The company chose to release an API rather than open-sourcing the models partly because it would give them insight on and a chance to respond to potential forms of misuse of the technology.
Porr isn’t the only one who’s proven how unnervingly human GPT-3 can sound. Manuel Araoz has also published a blog post chronicling his experience using GPT-3 which is best left for those who are interested to read on their own. (Seriously though, the post is well worth reading.)
What does this say about our writing and our future?
Part of coming to terms with AI generating believably human-written blog posts now is reflecting on the state of the writing that’s being produced by actual humans. With self-help and productivity both burgeoning niches within the content creation industry, it’s a little frightening to think that artificial intelligence can pick up enough patterns to write blog posts that sound human. Could this be telling us that most of the advice in these niches are just recycled sentiments of the same ideas? Perhaps.
I think it also reaffirms what we already know but are hesitant to admit: that most of the advice is arbitrary and without substance.
We read self-help and productivity articles because they make us feel better, not because they give us any concrete tools with which to transform our lives. They all pretty much echo the same sentiment: work smart not hard, show up every day and do the work, and avoid negativity.
While GPT-3 will likely remain out of reach for most laypersons for the foreseeable future, it’s not a stretch to imagine that it will eventually have large impacts on the content creation industry. While the technology is not perfect, if media companies chose to utilize GPT-3 for more feelings and emotions based content I suspect most content writers would be relegated to the task of editing and proofreading these articles rather than being paid to write their own. GPT-3 would allow companies to churn out content at a faster rate than ever before.
We may also see a migration of writers shying away from opinion-heavy niches like self-help, productivity, and self-improvement to more facts based pursuits such as journalism and other facts based writing.
And in a market that’s already cutthroat to begin with, only writers who have already amassed a following of people who are interested in what they personally have to say may survive. I imagine the barrier of entry to actually making a living off of writing online will increase tenfold as writers are pitted against the mind-blowing efficiency of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
While it’s safe to say that technologies like GPT-3 won’t replace writers completely within our lifetimes, I predict that it will have tangible effects on the industry of written content creation within the next decade or two. It will be up to us to adapt. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/a-college-student-used-a-language-generating-ai-tool-to-create-a-viral-blog-post-944e6b828342 | ['Janice Bae'] | 2020-09-20 16:47:49.978000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Writing', 'Data Science'] |
The Next 100 Things You Need To Know About People: #112 — More nouns = more clicks | If you’ve ever had to name a button on a website, app, or landing page, then you’ve probably had the moment where you’re going back and forth between options. Do I name the button “Sign up” or “Register”? Do I use “Donate Now” or “Be a Donor”?
Is there a way to word requests, or buttons that encourages people to take action?
Gregory Walton at Stanford studies connectedness and affiliation between people. In a series of experiments, he tested how different labels affect behavior. We tend to think that preferences and attitudes are stable. People like opera or they don’t. People like to go dancing or they don’t. Walton thought these attitudes and preferences might not be so stable after all. Maybe how people think of themselves — and how that influences their behavior — is more temporary and fluid. And maybe whether they act, or not, can be influenced by labels.
He conducted a series of experiments to test this out. In the first experiment, participants evaluated the preferences of others described with noun labels or with verbs:
“Jennifer is a classical music listener.”
or
“Jennifer listens to classical music a lot.”
He tested a wide variety:
Author
X is a Shakespeare reader.
X reads Shakespeare a lot.
Beverage
X is a coffee drinker.
X drinks coffee a lot.
Dessert
X is a chocolate eater.
X eats chocolate a lot.
Mac/PC
X is a PC person.
X uses PCs a lot.
Movie
X is an Austin Powers buff.
X watches Austin Powers a lot.
Music
X is a classical music listener.
X listens to classical music a lot.
Outdoors
X is an indoor person.
X spends a lot of time indoors.
Pet
X is a dog person.
X enjoys dogs a lot.
Pizza
X is a Pepe’s pizza eater.
X eats Pepe’s pizza a lot.
Sleeping time
X is a night person.
X stays up late.
Sports
X is a baseball fan.
X watches baseball a lot.
Walton tried to use statements that are used in conversation, for example, “Beth is a baseball fan,” and “Beth watches a lot of baseball.” He didn’t use “Beth is a baseball watcher,” even though that’s technically a better word match.
He found that when people read nouns to describe other peoples’ attitudes they judged those attitudes to be stronger and more stable than when the attitudes were described with the verbs.
In a second experiment, he used similar sentences and had people describe themselves. People would fill in the blanks, for example:
Dessert
I’m a ___ lover. (chocolate . . .)
I eat ___ a lot. (chocolate . . .)
Mac/PC
I’m a ___ person. (Mac/PC)
I use ___ a lot. (Mac/PC)
Outdoors
I’m an ___ person. (outdoors/indoors)
I spend a lot of time ___. (outdoors/indoors)
After the participants had filled in the blanks, Walton asked them to rate their strengths and preferences. For example, on a scale from one to seven:
“How strong is your preference for this topic?”
“How likely is it that your preference for this topic will remain the same in the next five years?”
“How likely is it that your preference for this topic would remain the same if you were surrounded by friends who did not enjoy what you prefer?”
When the nouns were “regular” (i.e, not made-up words or phrases) then participants evaluated their preferences as being stronger.
To vote? Or to be a voter
Christopher Bryan and Gregory Walton (2011) conducted additional studies to see if this idea of nouns and verbs would affect voting.
They contacted people who were eligible to vote, but hadn’t registered yet (in California in the United States). The participants completed one of two versions of a brief survey.
One group of participants answered a short set of questions that referred to voting with a noun:
“How important is it to you to be a voter in the upcoming election?”
Another group answered similar questions worded with a verb:
“How important is it to you to vote in the upcoming election?”
The researchers’ hypothesis was that using the noun would create more interest among the participants, and that they’d be more likely to register to vote. After completing the survey, the participants were told that to vote they would need to register and they were asked to indicate how interested they were in registering. Participants in the noun group expressed significantly more interest (62.5 percent) in registering to vote than participants in the verb group (38.9 percent).
Bryan and Walton didn’t stop there. They recruited California residents who were registered to vote but hadn’t yet voted by mail. They used the same noun and verb groups the day before or the morning of the election.
They then used official state records to determine whether or not each participant had voted in the election. As they had predicted, participants in the noun condition voted at a significantly higher rate than participants in the verb condition (11 percent higher).
They ran the test again in New Jersey for a different election and, again, the people in the noun group voted more than those in the verb group.
Invoking a group identity — I have a theory about this, too. In How to Get People to Do Stuff, I wrote that everyone has a need to belong. Using a noun invokes group identity. You’re a voter, or you’re a member, or you’re a donor. When you ask people to do something and phrase it as a noun rather than a verb, you’re invoking that sense of belonging to a group and people are much more likely to comply with your request.
Takeaways
When naming a button on a form or landing page, consider using a noun, not a verb: “Be a member” or “Be a donor” instead of “Donate now.”
When writing a description of a product or service, use nouns instead of verbs. For example, say, “When you’re ready to be an expert, check out our training courses,” rather than “Check out our training courses.”
Use common nouns. Don’t make up words just to have a noun.
If you liked this article, and want more info like it, check out my newest book: 100 MORE Things Every Designer Needs To Know About People.
http://ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?ServiceVersion=20070822&OneJS=1&Operation=GetAdHtml&MarketPlace=US&source=ac&ref=tf_til&ad_type=product_link&tracking_id=weinschenkconsul&marketplace=amazon®ion=US&placement=0134196031&asins=0134196031&linkId=PEIYH4UZXFFQNX33&show_border=true&link_opens_in_new_window=true&price_color=333333&title_color=000204&bg_color=E2E8ED | https://medium.com/theteamw/the-next-100-things-you-need-to-know-about-people-112-more-nouns-more-clicks-7132dd31e34d | ['The Team W'] | 2016-09-21 22:12:12.766000+00:00 | ['Psychology', 'Gregory Walton', 'Design', 'Research'] |
Look at That, My Stats are Up! | Isaac Smith for Unsplash
Why is this important, you might ask? Well, for one, improved stats means more eyes are seeing my work, a win in itself. Two, higher stats usually relates to money earned, and in my case, I earned about a dollar more than last month. Not great, yet it proves that more work equals more money- yes it’s hard, but at some point, if I keep writing, and improving at my craft, eventually I will be making enough to replace my part-time income. Maybe more…it’s all about how much one wants it. Of course, I have my hands in lots of pots trying to earn a buck from my writing. Some day all those bucks will add up to something. Am I right?! | https://medium.com/100-naked-words/look-at-that-my-stats-are-up-916dabd6af29 | ['Kim Smyth'] | 2020-02-18 09:01:01.471000+00:00 | ['100 Naked Words', 'Writing', 'Statistics', 'Productivity'] |
What’s Next? | Cartoonist for the New Yorker among other places. I love my mom and white wine. My graphic memoir MURDER BOOK out in 2021. Follow on Insta @CartoonsbyHilary!
Follow | https://medium.com/spiralbound/whats-next-2d396f33be9c | ['Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell'] | 2019-03-02 14:35:50.230000+00:00 | ['Anxiety', 'Mental Health', 'Nonfiction', 'Comics', 'Lifestyle'] |
Think You Need Microservices? Think Again | Microservices have been everywhere for the past few years. YouTube is using them. Facebook is using them.
But should you use them?
Spoiler alert: Microservices probably isn’t the best solution for your cloud architecture. In this article, we’ll explain why.
Let’s start with the basics.
What Are Microservices?
The two most popular paradigms are monolithic architectures or microservice architectures.
For years, a monolithic architecture has been a dependable way to compose systems. These systems have multiple components all under the same service. They leverage internal libraries and don’t require much network activity.
The other, newer, sexier option is microservices. Rather than a single service, microservices have many components, each with its own specific process. Each component has distinct lines of responsibility and is separated from one another.
Here’s an example:
When you log into your email, a few things must happen.
You visit a webpage You submit your login and password Your device connects to a database A server grants your access A new webpage loads with your email interface
In a microservice architecture, each of these steps would be contained within their own process. In order to complete the full task (logging you into your email), each of these components much communication over the wire. This breaks up your environment into tiny pieces of information and requires multiple connections to function.
Why Are Microservices So Popular?
We hate to see it.
It’s because the big boys are doing it.
We often hear things like,
“Microservices is scalable! I want to scale.”
“Microservices is reliable! I need reliability.”
“YouTube is using microservices and they are soooo cool!”
Tech giants like Facebook and YouTube are using this architecture because they’re operating at a scale larger than 99% of companies that exist.
They need a system that can process 6,000 user requests per second. They have two billion users.
But Here’s The Problem
Simply stated: Microservices are over-hyped.
The fact is that most software architectures won’t ever be difficult or complex enough to require microservices.
Most companies (read: your company) can handle a simple architecture. Rather than breaking out systems, you can copy systems.
Here’s What You Should Do
We repeat: Your niche software application probably doesn’t need the same architecture as YouTube.
However, like all things, it depends on your unique use case.
While you’re the subject matter expert of your domain, don’t underestimate the power and simplicity of a well-maintained monolith. Once you start using microservices, you put yourself into a design paradigm that you can’t easily get out of.
If your application requires certain functionality that isn’t easily internalized, such as NLP or a machine learning process, you would be a good candidate for separate service, while still maintaining the sanctity of a monolith application.
Overall, well designed monolithic architectures are simpler and easier to maintain. And when it comes to architecture, the simpler the better. | https://wintersieck.medium.com/think-you-need-microservices-think-again-b48b3e0caf33 | ['Allan Wintersieck'] | 2020-10-23 18:46:39.032000+00:00 | ['Microservices', 'Software Architecture', 'Software Engineering', 'Cto'] |
How to Create an Editorial Calendar | If you’ve made a writing goal to post more on your blog, Medium, or other writing platforms, creating an editorial calendar can help you achieve that goal.
Essentially, the editorial calendar is where you plan, schedule, and maintain your content. By using the calendar to plan out your next writing week, month, or year, you’ll never run out of things to write about. It will help you stay consistent, organized, and excited about writing. With your writing scheduled out for the future, you’ll know where you need to be and what you need to be writing to stay on top of your goals.
If you are ready to tackle your writing goals, here’s how you can create an editorial calendar for your writing content.
Backlog content
This is the hardest part, in my opinion. You want to list out everything you can write. The more you start listing out topics, the more you’ll develop. Start with listing out titles of articles you might want to write. If you have specific things you want to talk about within each article, write them down in bullets next to the title (never rely on your brain to “remember it when the time comes”).
You can also list out articles, webpages, or searches you’ve read that would have good talking points or things you can reference. Finally, list out keywords you can write about (this post came from the keyword “editorial calendar” which blossomed into several different post ideas).
Use this universal list as a collection rather than a formal, set in stone backlog. You don’t have to do any writing at this point, just keep collecting ideas. Continue to add to this list the more you come up with ideas.
Get a planner
I’ve never really liked searching for a planner because I’m always worried they won’t fit all my criteria. Usually I create one with a bullet journal, but in this case, I was more focused on the content piece rather than having the perfect planner.
Well, I found one that fit most of my criteria. This doesn’t have to be yours, but I liked the setup of the Simplified Planner by Emily Ley. This is by no means a sponsorship, but I liked the large monthly spread and the detailed weekly spread which highlights two sections: my day and to-do. My biggest complaint is the lack of notes sections or extra pages, but that’s a minor detail to others.
I’ll explain how I use it in a minute, but know that if you are searching for a calendar of your own, make sure it is big enough to fit a lot of content, ideas, and scribbles.
Set up your month
January is planned out, but I haven’t written all my posts yet. The notes section is for monthly related content and notes about weeks or contests. This only contains work written and scheduled for my personal publications.
Here is where you start applying your backlog. Start figuring out title ideas and order you want to write and post the articles. Once you have an idea, take a small sticky note, write out the content, and stick it on the day you want it posted.
When your month is finished, you should have a sticky on each day you plan to have a post published. I use this space for posts I am publishing on my page, rather than posts I have submitted to other publications. More on that later.
Once I write a post, I put the sticky note here and use the monthly spread to denote it as written and scheduled.
Now that you have your month of stickies, continue into the next month or start writing. It is up to you how far in advance you work out your content. I have a pretty solid first five months planned with a few flexible notes.
When you finish writing a post, it’s time to remind yourself that it’s written and scheduled. This is particularly important if you’ve written a post that is going to be published a few weeks down the road. You might forget about it by then. After you write it and schedule the post, transfer your sticky to a notes page in your planner dedicated to your ideas. Then, to make sure you know it’s scheduled, write it more permanently on your monthly page.
Set up your week
An example of a past week. Posts I have scheduled for myself are here as well as things that get written or published for other publications. I also write my to-do list for sharing or writing content.
After I schedule a post and complete the monthly tasks, I flip to the weekly spread. On the day the article is scheduled to post, I write down the full title in the day notes. When that day comes and I open my planner, I can remember which post is coming out so I can react accordingly on social media.
A future week that I have written but have not created the content for sharing yet.
With the remaining lines, I can take notes or list out other things I’ve done that day. I’ll mark where I’ve shared the article, other articles I’ve written that day, articles I’ve written/sent/published on different publications, and list out any future post ideas I might have.
The to-do section of future days helps me remember to share the content again. Sometimes I’ll wait a few days and remind my followers about previous content or I’ll take snippets of my work and use it as a separate post to get people engaged.
Track goals and progress
As I work on things, I need to make sure I’m staying on task. My goal this year is to stay at least a week ahead of schedule with my writing. I’m still writing daily and submitting often, but I want to make sure if life happens, I have a buffer.
I also keep track of daily goals and project progress. If I’m working on a bigger piece, I can write part of it and make notes that certain things still need to be completed. This helps me stay focused on the things I need to get done to have success.
Reassess your progress
The key to creating an editorial calendar is checking back to see how you’re doing. If you don’t reassess how the editorial calendar is helping your writing, you could keep doing the same thing over and over without seeing results. Every 4–6 weeks, look back and see which posts are doing well, which ones you could write better, or which ones you can expand on. Use this to study your success, build content, and move forward with better value served. | https://medium.com/the-winter-writer/how-to-create-an-editorial-calendar-1344bd652658 | ['Laura Winter'] | 2020-05-27 13:12:08.050000+00:00 | ['Writing', 'Content Marketing', 'Calendar', 'Writing Tips', 'Productivity'] |
Dynamic pivot tables in notebooks: atoti | Dynamic pivot tables in notebooks: atoti
Drill down to where it matters
If you are reading this article because of the title, you probably already know what a pivot table is. Otherwise, a pivot table presents summarized data in a table format that allows you to perform your analysis with the minimal effort.
Without further ado, let’s set some assumptions and see the content that will be covered in this article. Feel free to skip to the section you are interested in:
Creating Visuals
Adding data to a pivot table
Filters
Exploring atoti Pivot tables
Assumptions
We are going to assume:
you have some basic knowledge of Python and Jupyter Notebooks
A multidimensional data cube has been created using atoti library for this article
Some measures have been created with respect to the use case
Creating Visuals
To create pivot tables in a notebook with atoti, we need to visualize the cube by running the following:
Title is optional but it gives insight to the objective of the pivot table when you review the notebook. It will also be the name of the saved widget when you publish it to atoti’s UI. This will generate the below output for the cell:
As you probably guessed, atoti library supports 4 types of data visualizations:
Chart (Uses Plotly as its underlying component)
Featured values
Pivot table
Tabular view
Click on the Pivot table tile to start.
Take note of the 4 points marked on the screen above:
Click on “Add fields to create a pivot table” to open up the atoti Editor (point 3) Alternatively, click on the atoti icon to expand the atoti Editor (point 3) The expanded left hand panel is the atoti Editor Drag the ≡ to adjust the height of the visualization, or what we call widget
Adding data to a pivot table
There are 3 ways to add data to the visualizations. However, depending on the type of visualization selected, you may have to populate the data differently. For instance, depending on the type of charts selected, you may only have to provide the measure and x-axis members. For Featured values, you have the option to add a comparison. In our case, pivot tables only have Rows, Columns and Measures that may or may not have to be populated.
Below are the ways to add data to the visualizations:
Direct selection from the Data Explorer
Expand the tree nodes to access the hierarchies, levels or measures that you required.
You can click on the intended hierarchy, level or measure to add it to the pivot table. You can also use the Search data function to access the data field faster.
By default, measures will be added to Columns, and hierarchies or levels will be added to the Rows. You will be able to see the selected measures under the Measures section.
Alternatively, you can drag and drop the field from the data explorer into the intended sections.
Adding from sections
Click on the + icon to access the Data Explorer popup. Similar to the previous step, click on the field to add it to the sections.
Manual manipulation via MDX
If you are an advanced user and you are familiar with MDX, you can toggle over to the MDX Editor view.
This is how the MDX Editor will look:
Tip: use “Ctrl/Cmd +space” for auto-completion of the member coordinates when you edit the MDX.
Once your data is added to the visualization, you can drag the data field across sections or re-arrange its order. Data is aggregated on the fly as you switch the hierarchies between rows and columns.
Tip: The widget will re-render each time you perform editing. Although it is usually relatively fast, you might not want it to re-render multiple times when you have huge datasets. A workaround for this is to select the Deferred Update checkbox at the bottom of atoti Editor.
Rendering of the pivot table will only happen when you click on the Submit button.
Remember to uncheck it when you are done, otherwise you may receive some warnings as you move away from the cell.
Filters
Filters are an important aspect of a pivot table as it allows you to slice and dice the data. Let’s explore the filtering capabilities of the atoti library.
Switch to the Filters tab and you will find the Data explorer, similar to Fields tab. Underneath the Data explorer, you will be able to access the widget filters:
Widget: Pokemon Stats
Applying a filter at this level impacts only the selected widget which in this case is the “Pokemon Stats” widget.
If you publish the widget to a dashboard, you will also see that there are additional layers of filters on the Dashboard and Page level.
Clicking on the highlighted icon under the widget section will disconnect it from higher level filters such as user, dashboard or page filters. Only filters at the widget level will be effective.
After you understand the difference between the 2 levels of filters, you can add filters just like how you add fields to the pivot table. However, you will need to select the Filter type and the values to filter on.
Default filter type is Members, where you choose the members to include or exclude from the dataset.
Explore other filter types such as Top/Bottom count. It returns you the top/bottom number of the selected level objects that have the highest value in the selected measure.
If you are familiar with MDX, you can opt to write your own custom filter.
Exploring atoti pivot tables
We will be using a notebook based on Pokemon to demonstrate the various features of atoti pivot tables. The Pokemon cube is setup as follows:
Expand by…
Imagine you have a pivot table displayed and you would like to do some quick investigation against another level for a particular row’s member. Expand by… would be handy in this case. It is a feature of atoti’s pivot tables that allows you to expand an existing row of data by a newly selected hierarchy.
Let’s take the below pivot table as an example. It shows the highest Total Stats across the Pokemon in each generation.
It would be interesting to know which are the Pokemon accounting for these values. Now, suppose you add Name of Pokemon to the rows, all the generations will be expanded and you get a very long vertical scroll.
You can collapse the levels that you are not interested in.
Alternatively, if you are only interested in Generation 2, just click on the “>+” icon to expand the row as shown below. Choose the hierarchy you want to view from the popup.
From the GIF above, you can see that only Generation 2 is expanded by Name hierarchy. Notice that if a row has been expanded, the rest of the rows are able to expand by the same hierarchy too. However, if all the rows are collapsed, you will need to re-select the hierarchy to expand by again.
Sorting
There are still a lot of rows to scroll through to find the Pokemon with the highest Total Stats. One way to identify them would be to perform a sorting on the Total Stats columns.
Right-click on the column header and you will see a list of features available to the pivot table.
In this case, we will choose the “Descending” order since we want to view the highest value on top.
If you toggle to the MDX editor in atoti Editor, you should be able to see the resulting MDX uses DESC instead of BDESC. This means that we do not break the hierarchy during sorting.
You can see in the resultant table, generation is first sorted based on the highest Total Stats. Then the Pokemon under generation 2 are sorted within the hierarchy.
In the event you used non-hierarchical sort (BDESC), you can see that all the rows are sorted purely based on the Total Stats, regardless of hierarchy.
You can right-click on the column header to change or remove the sorting.
Calculated Measures
During modelling, visualization helps to inspire the type of data you want to view. For instance, in the above table, we do not know how strong a Pokemon is compared to its generation.
To enable quick prototyping, you can create calculated measures on the fly. Go to atoti Editor’s Field tab. Click on the + icon of Measures as you would add a Measure.
Select “Calculation” as you see in the GIF above. atoti’s calculation wizard supports:
Distinct Count
Percentage of Parent
Percentage of Total
Custom
In the table below, you can see the values generated by using the above options (other than custom). Refer to the documentation for the calculation logic behind each option.
Did you notice the icons beside the calculated measures that you created? You can edit the calculated measure using the pencil icon and publish the measure using the save icon.
When publishing a measure, you will see the below popup. In the community edition, the security feature is turned off, hence you only have an anonymous user. Hence you will need to take the default value for the read and edit access right. You can update the measure name and select a folder to publish the measure under.
Why do we publish measures? The newly created calculated measures are only available in the current visualization. If you wish to use this measure in other visualizations, you have to publish it.
Once published, you can select the measure from the data explorer. You can delete the measure but you will not be able to update the measure anymore.
Do remember to persist your session in a database if you are publishing the calculated measures. As we are looking at an in-memory data cube here, your published measure will be lost on restart of the kernel if you do not persist it.
Alternatively, you could create the measure using python:
Formatting
Formatting cells is an important feature that is expected for any pivot table. Just right-click on the column header and select “Formatting” just as you did for sorting. You will access the below pop up.
You can set a default format for the numeric column. Refer to Format String MDX Cell Properties at Microsoft.com for the formatting syntax. Click on the pencil icon to expand the styling section. This section is rather intuitive in terms of how you can change the type, size, color and weight of the font, as well as the color of the cell. You can preview the change in the cell below, as you modify the various style options. This section defines the default style of the column.
3. Click on “Add a style rule” to add conditional formatting. The types of conditions supported are:
You are not limited to these options. Behind the scenes, these styles are translated into MDX. You can modify or formulate your own conditional formatting by updating the MDX.
With the color styling below, we can have a rough gauge of a Pokemon's strength compared to the rest without looking at the exact values.
Freezing columns
During data analysis, more often than not, we will compare values of different members of a hierarchy. Comparison gets tough when you have a huge table and you need to scroll left and right.
atoti’s pivot table allows you to freeze and pin columns to the left to facilitate comparison. Right-click on the column’s header to access the “Freeze” option in the context menu as shown in the GIF below.
Keep Only
“Keep Only” allows you to quickly filter on a row and/or column. You can do so by doing a right-click on:
Cell — to filter on the selected cell
First cell of the row — to filter by the selected row member value
Column header — to filter by the selected column member value
If you need to keep more than one value, use the atoti Editor to add your filter instead.
Export to CSV
After performing all the aggregation, you could export the pivot table to a CSV. Right-click anywhere on the pivot table and you can access the “Export this data to a CSV file” function.
In the below popup, you have the options to:
Update the CSV file name
Change the default delimiter
Selecting whether to apply formatting on the cell.
You can see in the Excel below, the difference with and without selecting formatting for numeric cells.
Publish widget in App
As you can see, you will lose the fonts and color formatting once you export the pivot table to CSV. Alternatively, you could publish the widget to atoti’s UI and share the table in a dashboard with your peers.
Right-click anywhere in the table and you can find “Publish widget in app” in the context menu.
Select “Open App” to access atoti’s UI. Alternatively, you can run the command below to get the URL of atoti UI for your session:
Publishing the widget to atoti’s UI gives you access to the full range of functionalities such as Quick Page Filters, dashboard building etc.
If you are hosting your notebook on the cloud, you could share the URL with your colleague and they will be able to view the same dashboard. Any change in the cube’s structure or measures will be reflected in atoti’s UI automatically.
Summary
Hopefully, the article provides you more insight on how you can create dynamic pivot tables with atoti. atoti is constantly evolving. Look out for more updates on atoti.io. | https://medium.com/atoti/dynamic-pivot-tables-in-notebooks-atoti-e4e4fd334ebc | ['Huifang Yeo'] | 2020-05-25 15:51:15.652000+00:00 | ['Jupyter Notebook', 'Python', 'Pivot Tables', 'How To', 'Big Data Analytics'] |
Why a Good Swift Developer Doesn’t Need to Know a Ton of Patterns | Patterns are based on principles, so learn the principles and you’ll write better code
Modularity Reusability Easy to read Easy to modify.
These four principles should always be applied when you write code. These principles can be broken down into others. But at the end of the day, it’s these four core principles that matter. Focus on those principles and you’ll write great code.
When you first start an application, it’s difficult to know where that application will be in one year. Applications evolve. This makes it difficult at the outset to know what pattern is going to fit your scenario. So how do you counteract this?
If you understand the principles behind the patterns, then you can implement those principles from the start.
Making sure that you maintain modularity. Writing things to be reusable when you have the opportunity. Properly documenting your code.
All these things should always be applied. And they can always be applied, no matter what the scenario.
So don’t overly concern yourself over what pattern to use. Concern yourself over how to apply those four principles. | https://medium.com/swlh/why-a-good-swift-developer-doesnt-need-to-know-a-ton-of-patterns-484abdc633ad | ['Adebayo Ijidakinro'] | 2020-11-12 03:10:55.136000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Swift Programming', 'Startup', 'Swift', 'iOS App Development'] |
In my experience…entrepreneurship is an exercise in risk management | We all know entrepreneurs…and some of us are entrepreneurs. I hear many words used to describe them.
…Visionary
…Innovator
…Creator
…Expert
All true, accurate and could be applicable to non-entrepreneurs as well. The descriptor (it’s actually two words) that intrigues me most about entrepreneurs though is ‘risk manager’. This doesn’t mean non-entrepreneurs aren’t risk managers, rather that it’s a core characteristic (required?) of most entrepreneurs. It also doesn’t mean that all entrepreneurs are good risk managers all the time.
In my experience, entrepreneurs are not completely risk-averse, and their tolerance is generally calculated and informed given the various kinds of risk they encounter. These risks include, in no particular order and somewhat intertwined, Compensation Risk, Lifestyle Risk, Team Risk, Time Risk, Product / Service Risk and Funding Risk.
Compensation Risk
Simply put, what is the minimum amount of money you need to live on to survive…and how soon will your venture be able to provide that to you? Said differently, how much money can you afford not to make (i.e. the opportunity cost of a ‘regular job’) to pursue this passion? When I talk to entrepreneurs about this topic, I ask them if their minimum will be met if revenue is half and expenses are double what they estimate.
Lifestyle Risk
Are you willing to live and breathe your new venture to the exclusion of other things in your life…not forever, hopefully, but likely for some period of time? Some ventures are called lifestyle businesses because they inherently allow the entrepreneur to ‘have a life’. Many ventures are not lifestyle businesses and require more effort than seems humanly possible. Think about your willingness to make this sacrifice and how you’ll do it.
Team Risk
If you have a team…who’s on the team, why, and do they have the same level of risk expectations and tolerance as you do, or at least as much as is needed to fulfill their responsibilities? Teams change, sometimes drastically, and because of that it’s important the team on the ground at any given time is always able to move forward and manage toward successful outcomes. Think about how you’ll enable continuity when resource changes occur.
Time Risk
Time can be a friend or an enemy to an entrepreneur, and there is never enough of it. This includes time spent on the venture (see the Lifestyle Risk section) but also development-time, time-to-funding and time-to-market. Even if the product or service is amazing the timing could be wrong…market isn’t ready for it, market is already saturated with competitors, it’s a race to market. There is also risk when examining the trade-off between ‘time’ and ‘quality’ in product / service development.
Product / Service Risk
Are you building a better mousetrap or a brand-new trap for something that’s never been trapped before? Chances are you aren’t the first person to have your idea. However, if you are the first one or if you have a better mouse trap, are you ready to run the gauntlet of constant changes and tweaks? Iterative product / service development is important, but it can also lead to a lack of forward progress if “good enough” isn’t defined and enforced.
Funding Risk
How much funding is needed to launch and sustain your venture? Where will that funding come from? When and how often? How much will the funding ‘cost’? There is a lot of guessing (and hoping) that happens around funding, which is why it’s a risk. Obtaining funding doesn’t guarantee success, but lack of funding is one of the quickest ways a venture can die. Also, make sure your investors are prepared for multiple investment rounds…you’ll need more money, sooner than you think.
Each one of these risks could be an article in and of itself. Taken together they make entrepreneurship seem daunting and fraught with peril (i.e. risk), which is the point. It’s unlikely a person can ever be fully prepared for the experience of being an entrepreneur and my observation is that while you can’t avoid risk in entrepreneurship, there are ways to mitigate it.
These are just a few of the risks entrepreneurs face. Have you faced others?
Special thanks to Darcy Howe, whose passion for entrepreneurship is contagious and inspirational, and to Jeff Glasco, because I want to be a part of anything this guy does. | https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/in-my-experience-entrepreneurship-is-an-exercise-in-risk-management-16817904ac1e | ['Brett Simpson'] | 2020-11-20 03:27:12.840000+00:00 | ['Risk', 'Risk Management', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Entrepreneur'] |
Python Virtual Environment for Data Science | Python Virtual Environment for Data Science hiddenntreasure Follow Jun 19 · 8 min read
This article will describe everything about how to setting up a python virtual environment for data science. At the end of the article you will learn about virtual environment, Anaconda, conda, pip, package manager, packages installation, jupyter notebook etc. And how to cope with different project with different version of packages without any conflict.
1. What is Virtual Environment for python?
Virtual environment is a tool that helps to install of the required dependencies for different project. Its like a container or isolated environment for specific project. It helps to resolve dependencies issue , version of python package etc.
2. Why it is needed?
Suppose you are working on two different projects. And different project expect different dependencies and version of python packages. So, you will need to uninstall a version of package and reinstall required version of packages for your current projects. But its a bad practice. Cause when you work on the other project you may need previous version of python packages. So,you need to go through the process again. Besides, you can’t work on two or more projects at a time.
For example : some function is depreciated in the latest version of python (v_3.8.3). But you need to use that function. So, you need to uninstall latest version of python and reinstall previous version of python which allow your required function. But you can avoid the uninstall and reinstall part by creating different python virtual environment.
3. Different ways to create Virtual Environment ?
Python has three popular ways of creating virtual environment. They are virtualenv, pipenv and Anaconda. But we will learn about anaconda today.
4. What is Anaconda?
Anaconda is free and open-source distribution of python. It comes with 250 packages installed and can installed over 7500 packages using both pip and conda. You may asked what is conda? Then i think you know that pip is a python package manager. Where conda is a both package manager and environment manager. It is language agnostic that means conda support other languages like R,ruby etc. And conda package and environment manager is included in all versions of Anaconda.
5. Why Anaconda?
If you are engineer or scientist or enthusiastic in data science ,then you will need lot of packages like numpy, scipy, opencv, tensorflow, keras etc. You will find that it is hard and need lot of work to install these packages in python default approach. I personally experiences frustration to install opencv package in ubuntu os. But using conda i can easily install any version of opencv in my specific virtual environment or even in base environment. pip install packages from PyPI where conda can install packages from:
Install packages (written in any language) from repositories like Anaconda Repository and Anaconda Cloud. Anaconda Cloud provides third party repositories like Conda-Forge. If anacond default repository can’t provide a packages, then you can search in Anaconda Cloud for third party repository.
Install packages from PyPI by using pip in an active Conda environment.
6. How to install Anaconda?
First go to the below link:
You will find different edition like individual, Team, Enterprise and Professional etc. I choose individual edition.
Anaconda for Windows, MacOS and Linux
Windows : Install your required anaconda.exe then install.Its a graphical user interface. So,it easy to install just keep click on ‘next’.
Linux : you could download from above link or from terminal. In terminal change the directory where you want to download. Then use curl/wget followed by anaconda repository link to download in the specified directory.
$ cd /tmp
$ curl -O https://repo.anaconda.com/archive/Anaconda3-2019.03-Linux-x86_64.sh
Ensure the integrity of the installer with cryptographic hash verification through SHA-256 checksum:
$ sha256sum Anaconda3–2019.03-Linux-x86_64.sh
This will give an output:
Output 45c851b7497cc14d5ca060064394569f724b67d9b5f98a926ed49b834a6bb73a Anaconda3-2019.03-Linux-x86_64.sh
Now replace the downloaded file to your Downloads directory, replace ~/Downloads/ with the path to the file you downloaded.
$ cd ~/Downloads $ bash ~/Downloads/Anaconda3-2020.02-Linux-x86_64.sh
Note : Include the bash command regardless of whether or not you are using Bash shell.
The installer prompts “In order to continue the installation process, please review the license agreement.” Click Enter to view license terms.Scroll to the bottom of the license terms and enter “Yes” to agree.
The installer prompts you to click Enter to accept the default install location, CTRL-C to cancel the installation, or specify an alternate installation directory. I
f you accept the default install location, the installer displays “PREFIX=/home/<user>/anaconda<2 or 3>” and continues the installation. It may take a few minutes to complete.
Note : We recommend you accept the default install location. Do not choose the path as /usr for the Anaconda/Miniconda installation.
The installer prompts ask “Do you wish the installer to initialize Anaconda3 by running conda init?” . We recommend “yes”.
Close and open your terminal window for the installation to take effect.
Anaconda installation is complete. Let me remind conda is included in anaconda.
7. How to create virtual environment using conda?
Create an environment with conda for python development. Go to terminal:
$ conda create --name env_name python
This will output the location of enviornment
The following packages will be installed when installing a environment and ask for your permission to continue the creation :
input ‘y’ to proceed
The environment use the same version of Python as your current shell’s Python interpreter. To create a environment with different version of python use:
$ conda create -n env_name python=3.7
It will take some time to create your environment. After completing the process.
$ conda activate env_name
To see the packages installed when creating an environment :
$ conda list
pakages
To get out of the environment :
$ conda deactivate
7. How to install required packages for Data Science?
First activate your created environment for your projects:
$ conda activate env_name
Suppose we want to install pandas with/without specified version:
# with specified version
$ conda install pandas=0.24.1 # wtihout
$ conda install pandas
without specified version will install latest version of the package.
You can update a package using:
$ conda update pandas
Note : This installation or update is happen from default repository of anaconda. You can install these from third party channel which included in Anaconda cloud.
Suppose we want to install opencv. I already mentioned that i failed several time to install opencv in virtualenv. Most of the time opencv file is broken or previous version isn’t available. And obviously lot of step to carry on.
But in case of conda its quite easy. You can install it using conda from default anaconda repository :
$ conda install opencv
If opencv isn’t available from the default Anaconda Repository, you can try searching for it on Anaconda Cloud, which hosts Conda packages provided by third party repositories like Conda-Forge.
To install from third party you need to specify the third party channel name like:
$ conda install -c channel_name packages_name
to install opencv from Third Party Channel:
$ conda install -c conda-forge opencv
After completing installation. lets see the list of packages :
$ conda list
Opencv take lot of time. So, i installed pandas from conda-forge channel using
$ conda install -c conda-forge opencv
After completion
$ conda list
pandas from conda-forge channel
You can see that pandas from conda-forge channel. Those whose channel is missing actually they are installed from default Anaconda repository.
You could also install packages using pip. Where channel will be ‘PyPI’.
Required packages for data science and their installation process:
$ conda install -c anaconda keras
$ conda install jupyter
$ conda install matplotlib
$ conda install pandas
$ conda install numpy
$ conda install -c conda-forge opencv
8. How to add created virtual environment in jupyter notebook ?
Jupyter Notebook confirms that the IPython kernel is available, but you have to manually add a kernel with a different version of Python or a virtual environment.
First, you need to activate your virtual environment. Next, install ipykernel which provides the IPython kernel for Jupyter:
$ pip install --user ipykernel
Next add virtual environment to jupyter notebook:
$ python -m ipykernel install --user --name=env_name
This output
Installed kernelspec env_name in /home/dm20/.local/share/jupyter/kernels/env_name
Add is complete. If you open jupyter notebook, then you can use that environment for particular project python file.
9. How do work with a particular virtual environment in jupyter notebook ?
When installing packages for particular environment you need to activate that environment. If all required packages are installed, you are ready to work with.
But no need to open jupyter notebook after acitvate a virtual environment. You can access any virtual environment from jupyter notebook. And use the particular version of packages from that virtual environment.
$ jupyter notebook
Then go to kernel -> change kernel:
I have four virtual environment
You can have any number of virtual environment. Select the kernel/ virtual environment which is created for your current project.
Note : Interesting thing is you examine different virtual environment for a project .py file.
10. How to share your virtual environment details with your teammate ?
You may need to run the project in another person or teammate laptop. So,you wanna share your virtual environment details with your teammate. So that he could create his own virtual environment for the project in his laptop. There’s easy way to get out. You will perform the below operation and share the file with your teammate:
$ conda env export --file environment.yml
Note : it should be inside a active environment that you wanna share. And it creates environment.yml file in the current directory.
Now ,your teammate can create an exact copy of your environment using the file :
$ conda env create -n env_name -f /path/to/environment.yml
Or your teammate needs to active an existing virtual environment and use to update according to your virtual environment’s :
$ conda env update -n existing_env -f /path/to/environment.yml
Now use :
$ conda list
to see the installed packages and their channel.
Conclusion
Now you ready to enjoy data science packages. You can install any packages using conda or pip. Keep install packages whenever needed.
I tried to explain everything of how to create your laptop/pc prepare for data science and other engineering works. If anything missing please let me know. This blog written in simple way so that inexperience people cope with the python environment. Thank you.
Reference: | https://medium.com/big0one/python-virtual-environment-for-data-science-5a73cf1b360 | [] | 2020-06-19 11:59:16.010000+00:00 | ['Virtual Environment', 'Jupyter Notebook', 'Anaconda', 'Python', 'Data Science'] |
If You Only Read A Few Books In 2018, Read These | Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport Media consumption went way up in 2017. For most of us, that meant happiness and productivity went way down. The world is becoming noisier and will become more so every day. If you can’t cultivate the ability to have quiet, insightful, deeply focused periods of productive work, you’re going to get screwed. This is a book that explains how to cultivate and protect that skill — the ability to do deep work. I strongly urge you to begin this practice in 2018— if you want to get anything done or perform your best.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson To me, practical philosophy has always been the art knowing what to — and what not to — give a fuck about. That’s what Mark’s book is about. It’s not about apathy. It’s about cultivating indifference to things that don’t matter. Be careful, as Marcus Aurelius warns, not to give the little things more time and thought they deserved. Maybe looking back at this year reveals how much effort you’ve frittered away worrying about the trivial. If so, let 2018 be a year that you only devote energy to things that truly matter — get the important things right by ignoring the insignificant.
The Way to Love: The Last Meditations of Anthony de Mello by Anthony de Mello Coach Shaka Smart recommended this little book (and it’s a little book, probably the smallest I’ve ever read. It fits in your palm). But it’s an incredibly wise and helpful read. Written by a Catholic Priest who’d lived in India, the book has this unusual convergence of eastern and western thought. One of my favorite lines: “The question to ask is not ‘What’s wrong with this person?’ but ‘What does this irritation tell me about myself?’ I plan on regularly revisiting it throughout 2018.
But What If We’re Wrong by Chuck Klosterman It’s always good to remind ourselves that almost everything we’re certain about will probably be eventually proven wrong. Klosterman’s subtitle — Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past — is a brilliant exercise for getting some perspective in 2018. Whether you think it’s going to be a year of radical change for the better or a horrible year of excesses of dangerous precedent, you’re probably wrong. You’re probably not even in the ballpark. This book shows you why, not with lectures about politics, but with a bunch of awesome thought experiments about music, books, movies and science.
Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul Alinsky If Hillary Clinton had remembered the lessons of Saul Alinsky (who she wrote her college thesis on), the election may have turned out differently. Why? A notorious strategist and community organizer, Alinsky was a die hard pragmatist, but he also knew how to tell a story and create a collective cause. He could work within the system but knew how to shake it up and generate attention. This book is a classic and woefully underrated. Whatever you set out to do in 2018, this book can provide you with strategic guidance and insight.
The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser / Trust Me I’m Lying by Ryan Holiday / The Brass Check by Upton Sinclair I strongly recommend that you take the time in 2018 to read these books. In light of this year, you owe it to yourself to study and better understand how our media system works. In The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser warns of the danger of living in bubbles of personalization that reinforce and insulate our worldview. Though Sinclair’s The Brass Check has been almost entirely forgotten by history, it’s not only fascinating but a timeless perspective. Sinclair deeply understood the economic incentives of early 20th century journalism and thus could predict and analyze the manipulative effect it had on The Truth. I used that book as a model for my expose of the media system, Trust Me, I’m Lying. Today, the incentives and pressures are different but they warp our information in a similar way. In almost every substantial charge Upton leveled against the yellow press, you could, today, sub in blogs and the cable news cycle and be even more correct.
48 Laws of Power / 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene Robert Greene is a master of human psychology and human dynamics — he has a profound ability to explain timeless truths through story and example. You can read the classics and not always understand the lessons. But if you read Robert’s books, I promise you will leave not just with actionable lessons but an indelible sense of what to do in many trying and confusing situations. I wrote earlier this year that strategic wisdom is not something we are born with — but the lessons are there for us to pick up. Pick these two up before the year ends and operate the next with a strategic mindset and clarity.
Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue by Ryan Holiday — If you want to immerse yourself in the above topics of media and strategy, and are looking for one book to teach you lessons in both, my book on the nearly decade-long conspiracy that billionaire Peter Thiel waged against Gawker will do this for you. This is a stunning story about how power works in the modern age, and is a masterclass in strategy and how to accomplish wildly ambitious aims.
The Road To Character by David Brooks When General Stanley McChrystal was asked on the Tim Ferriss podcastwhat was a recent purchase that had most positively impacted his life, he pointed to this book. I agree. It can be a bit stilted and dense at times, but it should be assigned reading to any young person today (a little challenge is a good thing). Illustrating with examples and stories from great men and women, Brooks admonishes the reader to undertake their own journey of character perfection. In my own book, I explore the same topic (humility) from a different angle using similar stories — I’m attacking ego, he’s building up character. Both will be important for the next year.
The Dip by Seth Godin This book is a short 70 pages and it looks like something someone would give as a joke gift, but it’s anything but. Godin talks frankly about quitting and pushing through — and when to do each. Quit when you’ll be mediocre, when the returns aren’t worth the investment, when you no longer think you’ll enjoy the ends. Stick when the dip is the obstacle that creates scarcity, when you’re simply bridging the gap between beginner’s luck and mastery. I promise, next year you are guaranteed to find yourself in moments when you don’t know what is the right answer. This book will help you find it.
Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J. D. Vance / Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild You might describe Hillbilly Elegy as a Ta-Nehisi Coates style memoir about a community that — at least in progressive circles — gets a lot less attention: disaffected, impoverished whites (particularly in the mid-east and South). I thought the book was empathetic, self-aware and inspiring. The author pokes some holes in the concept of “white privilege” — certainly a third or fourth generation hillbilly in Kentucky doesn’t walk around feeling like they have it easy — and an explanation of some of the phenomenon behind Donald Trump (notice I said explanation, not an excuse). This is a sober but also hopeful book. I urge people on all sides of the political spectrum to read it, but progressives would benefit from the eye-opening perspective the most. Pair it with Strangers in Their Own Land, the author of which, a Berkeley native, visits and interviews people in the deep Louisiana countryside. (Remember: you don’t have to agree with the people you’re reading about — but you should care what makes them tick.)
It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis This book is one that will make you so uncomfortable that you’ll probably pick it up and put it down several times. It almost shocks you that this exists, that it’s not some work of fiction pretending to be 80 years old. But no, in fact, one of America’s most famous writers wrote a bestselling book about an appalling populist demagogue who won the presidency of the United States. Europe was a mess, the economy was in the toilet. Well meaning people talked earnestly about the need for “serious change” and “revolution.” The parties split, and a fringe candidate suddenly becomes viable. When people tried to question some of the ideas he campaigned on, they were shouted down: “This is how all politicians speak. He’s not serious about that extreme stuff.” Life imitates art and now, this is what actually happened. Change the dates, places and names and it’s no longer fiction, it’s real. Fiction is best when it puts a mirror up to us. This book does that. If you don’t read the book, at least please read about it. Because you need to know. It can happen here.
How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer by Sarah Bakewell The book is spectacular. It was a bestseller in the UK and was featured in a 6 part series in The Guardian. The format of the book is a bit unusual, instead of chapters it is made up of 20 Montaigne style essays that discuss the man from a variety of different perspectives. Montaigne was a man obsessed with figuring himself out — why he thought the way he did, how he could find happiness, his fetishes, his near-death experiences. He lived in tumultuous times too and he coped by looking inward. We’re lucky he did, and we can do the same.
Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging by Sebastian Junger Junger looks at many of the social issues we have today: PTSD. Depression. Political polarization. Contempt for our fellow citizens. Aimlessness. We’ve lost the bonds that tie a tribe and culture together. No wonder veterans feel alone and lost when they leave their tight knit tribe and re-enter solitary civilian life. No wonder manypeople feel that way regardless of whether they served or not. No wonder we have trouble agreeing on basic solutions to common problems. There is no sense of what is common or basic or shared. Given the divisiveness that we are facing as a society — that became painfully clear in 2016 — this is one of the most urgent and important book you need to read next year.
The Years of Lyndon Johnson (4 Volumes) by Robert A. Caro In January of 2016, I picked up my first book in this Caro’s series on Lyndon Johnson. It wasn’t until June that I finished my fourth, but I consider finishing all (~3,500 pages) of them to be one of my proudest reading achievements. If there is one line that sums up the whole series it’s this: It’s that power doesn’t only corrupt. That’s too simple. What power does is reveal. It’s also easy to be disillusioned by politics right now but for me, getting lost in these Lyndon Johnson books has been a helpful and educational process. Because you learn two things 1) that things have always been complicated and confusing but they tend to turn out alright 2) that our system, whatever its flaws, can still produce good results from bad men. And without a doubt, that’s a good reminder to have on the eve of 2018.
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill (3 Volumes) by William Manchester Don’t think an individual can make a difference in history? Then you haven’t read enough about Winston Churchill. The scenes in this book: warning about the looming threat of Nazism, the retreat at Dunkirk, persevering through the Blitz, vowing to fight on the landing grounds and the beaches and in the streets, whatever the cost may be. The sheer determination of this man, to take an entire country on your back and defy a horde which had overrun the European continent in a matter of months…it’s almost breathtaking to think about. (If you were to only read one thing in the next year, you could do a lot worse than either of these series. They contain dozens of books within them and will teach you about so much more than just the man they are ostensibly about. Please, please read them.)
Mr. Eternity by Aaron Thier / The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas These books really have nothing to do with the events of 2016 but they are long and entertaining and they will make you forget your problems for the next 12 months. I thought I’d read Monte Cristo as a kid, but clearly I didn’t. Because the actual book is a 1,200 page epic of some of the most brilliant, beautiful and complicated storytelling ever put to paper. What a book! When I typed out my notes (and quotes) after finishing this book, it ran some 3,000 words. As for Mr. Eternity, it’s a fun, epic jaunt through the distant future (as though it was the past) in the vein of Voltaire’s Candide. Candide isn’t a bad read for this year either: “We must cultivate our own garden.”
Like to Read?
I’ve created a list of 15 books you’ve never heard of that will alter your worldview and help you excel at your career.
Get the secret book list here! | https://medium.com/the-mission/if-you-only-read-a-few-books-in-2018-read-these-89d03fc149c6 | ['Ryan Holiday'] | 2018-10-19 01:53:10.336000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Books', 'Self Improvement', 'Life', 'Productivity'] |
Use the right words to show the seriousness of COVID-19 | Use the right words to show the seriousness of COVID-19
The conversation about this disease is being hijacked and politicized to put less emphasis on immediate risk to human life.
COVID-19 is, of course, something everyone is talking about, but I am not sure that we are paying enough attention to the words that are being used to talk about it.
Photo by Victor He on Unsplash
The narrative right now in a lot of countries is being dominated by word choices that serve very specific agendas, and many of them are not ones that have the best interests of the average citizen at their core. Instead of presenting dangers in a straightforward way, this language uses euphemisms to hide the dangers and obscure the facts.
I’ll give you an example. Lately, I hear a lot of people talking about “opening up the economy.” This is a loaded phrase. “The economy” is treated as a monolith, and it is either open or it is closed. When it is closed, this conjures up negative connotations because being closed is generally a bad thing for economies. When you go to the store and it is closed, it means you can’t use the store. This does not immediately call to attention that the person who opens the store could die.
There is still an economy right now. It is ailing, but it is not “closed.” Things are being bought and sold. Food is showing up in stores each day. Real people are risking their lives to make this happen.
What is really meant by this phrase is “making more money by removing disease-control measures.” Right now we have one weapon in the fight against COVID-19, and that weapon is social engineering. Medicine cannot save society from this, and all of us in or adjacent to the medical profession know it. Science may eventually give medicine the tools to save us, but not yet. Not even close.
So, being in a lockdown, we have not “closed” the economy. We have “taken necessary disease control measures.” And the opposite of that is not “opening” the economy, it is “removing disease control measures.” When phrased this way, it becomes obvious that this is only something that we can do when we have actually controlled the disease.
Looking at The Discourse on COVID-19 through my own limited perspective, I see a lot of phrases that are trotted out, like this example, and that load the conversation for one outcome before it starts. I think it’s important to walk through these and think of some alternatives that shed a different light on the situation.
I’ve built a short list below, and I’m interested to hear suggestions that others might have. Some of these reframe common phrases, others translate them in a way that puts the consequences and goals of swift action at the forefront instead of hiding them behind jargon. Here’s the list:
“opening the economy” → “removing disease control measures”
“essential workers” → “workers who risk their lives to allow us to fulfill basic needs”
“fleeing the virus” → “taking the virus with you to somewhere new”
“early reports” → “unreliable speculation”
“fire Fauci” → “please, God, I am terrified, I am so scared, please make this go away and allow me to pretend it never happened, I don’t want to die of something so random and incomprehensible”
“PPE” → “necessary equipment to save workers’ lives”
“flattening the curve” → “keeping the rate of sickness and death below the level that will destroy our healthcare system and economy”
“getting back to normal” → “risking lives without recognizing the situation”
“the most vulnerable” → “the virus can kill you, but there are people who it will kill even more of”
I recognize that there is a spin to each of alternatives I’m giving here. The point is that there is also a spin to each of the original phrases. We live in a time where the fundamentals of human society are being challenged by something that we have tools to fight, but only if we recognize the risks involved.
Our world has changed and we need to reframe our thinking to recognize that change. Normal is gone, and to try to bring it back without any changes is to live in denial. We must be honest with ourselves, and find new ways of thinking about the way forward. | https://johnskylar.medium.com/use-the-right-words-to-show-the-seriousness-of-covid-19-1271610d01c3 | ['John Skylar'] | 2020-04-22 17:57:15.328000+00:00 | ['Covid 19', 'Science Communication', 'Writing', 'Medicine', 'Science'] |
The Power of Memoization | For some, the concept of memoization may be new. For others, this may be a long-time familiar tool used to craft efficient components when building a web application. In my experience, I have learned there are certain situations when it is appropriate to memoize as well as situations when it is not. I’ll walk through what memoization is, how to use it, and when you should use it in your code.
Memoization. What is it?
In the simplest form, think of memoization as a cache. It is a programming concept that allows developers to save the results of some function in such a way that additional calls with the same parameters do not warrant the need for unnecessary processing. Typically, this is useful for pure functions which based off certain inputs (we’ll call these parameters), will produce the same output. As you can imagine, this concept is clearly a key tool when developing code that calls the same function multiple times to produce some calculated result.
For example, think of building a chart component in React using TypeScript. As new data is provided to the chart component, logic must exist to calculate the coordinates to draw the chart. By using memoization, the developer has the ability to cache the calculated results of determining the chart coordinates for future use. This saves the need to unnecessarily recalculate the coordinates given the same data set, thereby producing a more efficient application.
When should I memoize?
It can be tempting for a developer to want to memoize frequently. After all, if I process once and save the results, wouldn’t this be faster for future results? Well, not necessarily. It’s important to consider the overhead cost involved with memoization. For example, if we are writing a function with parameters expected to change frequently, there is a cost incurred with saving the results in a cache on the client. In typical use cases, the likelihood of having to call the function again with the same parameters would likely be rare. In these cases, the benefits for memoization is minimal.
On the flip side of the coin, there are many cases when it is absolutely beneficial to memoize functions. There are a few things to consider when evaluating whether to memoize. For example, consider how complex the logic is within a function. From a system resource perspective, how expensive is it to execute the logic within a function once? Many times? If the complexity is relatively trivial, the overhead involved in memoizing a function may not be worth it. How often do we expect the function to be called with the same parameters? This has a direct impact on the value offered by memoized functions. If we expect the same function to be called several times, where each time the same output will be produced given the same inputs, then this is a great candidate for memoization.
How do I memoize?
There are a few tools developers have on their toolbelt for memoization. Coming from the world of frontend development, I’ll give an example using React. Given the relatively modern introduction of React Hooks, a hook by the name of useMemo exists to solve this problem. If you are unfamiliar with React Hooks, I highly encourage you to learn more about them. Check out more documentation about Hooks here. The useMemo hook allows the developer to provide a pure function with an array of variable dependencies. The array of variable dependencies is expected to trigger a new execution of the memoized function when any of the dependent variables change. It is important to remember that the function passed to the useMemo hook does not accept parameters. This is because any existing parameters that are referenced in the method should already be within scope when called. See this page for more information about this topic.
Additionally, it’s worth mentioning the useMemo hook, like all other React Hooks, rely on functional components in React. This means they will not work with React class-based components.
There is another memoization tool available using Lodash. For those who may not be familiar, Lodash is a third party JavaScript utility library with several reusable functions for developers. When building class-based components in React, this is a great alternative because the useMemo hook is not available. This function is called memoize in Lodash. Check out more information here.
That’s cool. Now what?
All in all, it’s clear that memoization can be a powerful tool when used correctly. I highly recommend you check out the resources mentioned above to evaluate whether it’s right for your app. Go forth and memoize! | https://medium.com/swlh/the-power-of-memoization-40c19354beeb | [] | 2020-12-06 22:35:13.515000+00:00 | ['React', 'Typescript', 'Memoization'] |
Factory Design Pattern in Java | Photo by Science in HD on Unsplash
Have you ever look at a factory and wonder how things are created so quickly, in such an automated fashion?
When we are buying something that came up out of a factory, we are never concern how the factory produced what we are looking for. We are only concerned about getting what we requested, which is the item we are buying ourself.
That’s how the factory pattern works in java.
With factory pattern, objects are created without exposing the creation logic to the client and refer to newly created object using a common interface.
What? What does that even mean?
Photo by Will Esayenko on Unsplash
For example, let’s say we have a factory class that gets us some shapes. We can choose between a circle and a rectangle, let’s say. We specify the factory to give us a circle or rectangle without having to instantiate the circle or rectangle ourselves. In fact, we do not even care about how the circle or rectangle was created/implemented because the factory handles it for us.
Let’s take a look at how the factory is setup:
Over here, we have a shape interface. We created a shape factory that returns a specific type of shape. We throw in a parameter that will give us the corresponding shape we wanted.
Here is a real world analogy: it’s like going to McDonalds and choosing which burger to order. The fast food restaurant works just like a factory; the customer does not need to be concerned about how the burgers are created. All they cared about was what burger they ordered and the restaurant will give them exactly what they need.
Let’s take a look at how client code will handle:
Over here, we instantiate a shape factory. From there, we can choose what kind of shape to get, without instantiating the specific shapes like Rectangle and Circle ourselves.
One might ask: why should we use the factory design pattern instead of just instantiating the different objects ourselves(Circle, Square, Rectangle)?
First of all, it allows developers to support more objects with their factory class as times passes by, without affecting client code.
Take the example above: let’s say we need to support additional shape classes, such as triangles and pentagons. All we have to do is add a triangle and pentagon class that implements the shape interface and add a new logic in shapefactory.java to generate triangles and pentagons upon request.
How about the client code? Does it affect the client code when you add in additional code to support triangle and pentagon class?
Not at all since all the changes are happening at the factory level. Client code doesn’t have to change at all in this case. It’s like going into a fast food restaurant the next day and you realize there are new burgers you can order. It doesn’t block you for ordering the burger you always order though. That’s exactly how factory pattern works.
Let’s summarize pros and cons of factory design pattern in the following sentences:
Pros:
allow us to hide implementation of how the shapes and the factory is implemented. All user need to be concerned is how to get the instance it needs via the right call.
allows loose coupling between client code and factory logic. It allows factory logic to be extended and scale for additional code in the long run.
Cons
Troubleshooting can be challenging as the factory logic is all hidden due to abstraction.
That’s all to it for factory design pattern in java! | https://medium.com/dev-genius/factory-design-pattern-in-java-66e5afd61bfc | ['Michael Tong'] | 2020-10-26 08:29:49.379000+00:00 | ['Java8', 'Java', 'Design Patterns'] |
Psychology + design: Gestalt principles you can use as design solutions | I have always believed that Psychology and Design comprise User Experience. Our profession entails empathy whenever we deal with human needs whose our goal is to solve. And as I continue to dive deep into where Psychology comes in in the picture of Design, I then stumbled upon Gestalt Principles.
So, what is a Gestalt Principle?
Gestalt psychology is a school of thought that looks at the human mind and behavior as a whole. When trying to make sense of the world around us, Gestalt psychology suggests that we do not simply focus on every small component. Instead, our minds tend to perceive objects as part of a greater whole and as elements of more complex systems. This school of psychology played a major role in the modern development of the study of human sensation and perception. Source: verywellmind
This journey of discovering Gestalt Principle led me to a full understanding of how I can incorporate these principles into my design track. Thus in this article, I’ll be sharing with you of how I used these Principles as my design solutions to the following websites and apps I’ve encountered:
Disclaimer: The following design solutions provided are sample solutions using Gestalt Principles. Some design problems you’ll see will need redesigning, but I opted to stick with the original design and make it better using Gestalt. Thus if you have other design solution, feel free to comment your response. Also I do not own all the images used. CTTO 😀
1. Proximity
The idea that when objects are placed in close proximity to one another, those objects are seen as a group rather than seen individually. Source: Hubspot blog
One example of how we can use Proximity in solving design problems can be seen below:
Title and link are far from each other
As we can see, the Category Title (Online Booking & Cruises) and Links (Learn More) are too apart from each other, which makes them look as floating elements. If we will create a wireframe out of them, it would look like this:
wireframe
The whole component is out of context because nothing ties together the image, title, and link. Thus Proximity comes in as our solution. From having three individual elements floating in outer space into making them as one whole component —
Center aligned title and link
In our Design solution using Proximity, I removed the distance between Title, and Link by making them closer using center alignment. In this way, we are able to tie up the 3 elements together (Image, Title, Link), which helped us to resolve our missing context problem.
2. Similarity
Similarity occurs when objects look similar to one another. People often perceive them as a group or pattern. Source: graphicdesign.spokanefalls.edu
In the Design Problem A below, I’ve pointed out the blue text color. The reason for that is, on user interaction, Heavy Data User and Flexible Maximizer are related — they are actually Tabs user interface 😱
Design A
So, what makes these two elements unrelated to each other?
Answer, many things. But on a simpler note, nothing binds these two elements together which makes them look individually alone. As we can see, it is pretty obvious that the branding colors of the interface are green, but suddenly a blue text color pops out from nowhere. Thus, the Law of Similarity comes in:
As our solution, I created similarity by making the text color green and adding left and right padding to our active state, so that it will be in closer proximity to the other tab, Flexible Maximizer.
This Design Problem A, can be furthermore improved by redesigning it (this will really need redesigning) so that it can simplify user’s experience more. But for now, let’s just take the least minimal step in making it better using Similarity 😉
There is also another way to incorporate Similarity — Approach 2:
Design B
Now in Approach 2 let’s observe its nitty-gritty parts — the Type system which are:
Title: 40px Regular
40px Regular Body text: 20px Regular
20px Regular Text link: 20px Regular
At first glance, we might think that this is just an ordinary Type system that we could ignore. But as we look closer, the problem occurs between Body text and Text link, both are sharing the same Type system (20px Regular) which could lead to user confusion and lack of user trust. As they navigate through the site, they might hesitate, do trial and error if what they’re interacting with is a body text or a text link.
Okay, so how do we solve this?
As our Similarity solution, we need to tweak the Type system a little bit:
Title: 40px Regular
40px Regular Body text: 20px Regular
20px Regular Text Icon link: 20px Bold
We added contrast in our type by making Text link bolder, and an icon for visual dominance. By making these changes, we created similarity throughout the Text Icon link and made our user’s cognitive load faster.
Out of topic quick tip: In creating a Type system, choose a font that has various weights (thin, light, regular, bold etc). Our goal should not be various font sizes with few weights for better contrast, but to have few font sizes with various weights. For more click here
3. Focal Point
Focal points are areas of interest, emphasis or difference within a composition that capture and hold the viewer’s attention. Source: Smashing Magazine
In Focal Point, we’ll be showing two Design Problems in action:
from telecommunication website
In the example above, there’s actually no problem with how the elements were laid out. But it is the information hierarchy that we have — primary action and secondary action shares the same button system.
We can see that the goal of this interface is for users to download the app, and that the FAQ, is a supporting document to give users a better understanding of their application (and yes, I doubt that they want the users to read FAQs than to download).
Therefore, as our solution:
Design Solution A
Using focal point, I changed the View FAQs button interface into a border button, to give Download App button the spotlight effect it needs. Also I interchanged their order, having the Primary action on the right and secondary on the left. The reason for this is following the Gutenberg Diagram. It says that:
Based on this theorem, the two spots on the right (at the first point of the “Z” and the very end of it) are where visitors expect to take action. So there’s really no question here as to where your call-to-action belongs in terms of right or left. It should always be towards the right side of the screen. For more information, you can check it here and here 😀
Also just to add something out of topic, common button design problem we can usually see is, creating one kind of button interface for different functionalities (Fill buttons for Sign-ups, Cancel, Load more, Read more etc).
Isn’t it good for it creates consistency?
Yes, we all know that consistency plays a huge role in UX design but there’s what we call Consistency by Functionality. If we will create same kind of button design to cater different functionalities, it can lead to user’s inconsistent experience, and also might affect our client’s business goals.
Out of topic quick Tip: Button design consistency = Button Functionality.
Now moving to Approach 2 application:
Both buttons have the same visual hierarchy
The same problem occurs in this design. OK and Cancel button shares the same design style, which requires them reading thoroughly the button labels so that they’ll be able to know which is for Submission and Cancellation.
And using Focal Point, we lessen their time in reading through the labels, which leads us to Design Solution B:
We interchanged the buttons and renamed the button copy from OK to Submit, to make it more contextual and to inform our users that an action will take place once he clicks the button.
4. Common Region
The principle of common region is highly related to proximity. It states that when objects are located within the same closed region, we perceive them as being grouped together. Source: User Testing
The features like Spotify, Disney, Netflix aren’t grouped together with their category and seemed to be floating elements. And to make it much simpler, creating a wireframe out of it would look like this:
From the wireframe above, it is more likely numerous individual elements than 4 whole components. Thus as a solution, Common Region Principle:
Our new wireframe with Common Region Principle
In the wireframe, we used box border to enclose all the features to their respective category, so that they will be seen as one instead of individual elements. And below is the implementation:
Aside from the bounding box, we replaced the *Free Netflix for six (6) months for Plans 999 and up with an information icon at the upper right side of Netflix element (color yellow icon) to create more room for the feature list, that once clicked, a tooltip will appear. | https://uxdesign.cc/psychology-design-4-gestalt-principles-to-use-as-your-next-design-solution-fcdec423a6bf | ['Riel M'] | 2019-01-09 09:52:50.879000+00:00 | ['Sketch', 'Design', 'User Experience', 'Psychology', 'User Interface'] |
Transform your Data Science Projects with these 5 Steps of Design Thinking | An audio version of this Medium article is available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Skilled data scientists share something in common. They can build product solutions… with data.
It is no longer good enough to be a data scientist who can solve math and statistics problems applied to Python, R or Julia programming.
Modern data scientists require a new mindset: design thinking.
The data science field is transforming in 2020 at the speed that software engineering changed in 2010.
Products, frameworks, and programming languages will fade out of popularity; design thinking is always relevant.
What is design thinking?
At Stanford University’s Design School, programs focus on a deep interest in developing an understanding of the people for whom we’re designing the products.
Data scientists and students know me for the Data Science Standards¹, a framework I created to launch data science products in businesses.
Here are the 5 Stages of Design Thinking with step-by-step actions and questions to guide you in your data science journey.
Step 1: Data Collection
Your ability to ask actionable questions to aggregate, browse, and collect data can mean the difference between a successful product and research that is never implemented.
Product success requires thorough data navigation skills and a checklist that focuses on a repeatable process.
Ask yourself these questions when collecting data:
Where is my data stored?
How large is the data size?
What quantity and quality of data will I need to launch this product or service?
Who manages the data that I need to access?
When is the data updated?
Why is this data relevant for my product?
Step 2: Data Refinement
Large quantities of data are good; high quality data is better. World class Kaggle Grandmasters win competitions and Data Scientists are promoted at work when they invest their time to refine data.
Products managers and software engineers do not take responsibility for data refinement, which requires skilled data scientists to make the difficult decisions on what makes reliable and responsible data.
Start with these questions when refining data:
Who has insight into data dictionaries for data features?
What data requires querying, feature engineering, and pre-processing? By what techniques?
When will the required data be ready in a high quality/high quantity state to move to the next stage of the Data Science Workflow?
Where will the refined data be stored?
Why will data need to be refined?
How will the refined data be tested and validated for consistent performance?
Step 3: Data Expansion
Even with the best data available for a data scientist, a problem may not be solvable. Frequently, more data can be the difference between a dead-end product or a product that leads the market with unique insights.
Successful products in 2020 require both data refinement and data expansion. Integrations with APIs, similar datasets, and alternative data gives data science teams the confidence to potentially discover important insights from data. Data expansion enables feature enrichment and extends the data science workflow success rate for products.
Apply these questions when expanding data:
Who controls data access?
What budget is available to acquire or generate more data?
When do you stop expanding data or continue to iterate with machine learning?
Where can you acquire high quality data sources?
Why are more data features needed to improve your product or solution?
How will you decide what data is most relevant to expand your data?
Step 4: Data Learning
Analytics and business intelligence test what data variables may be important; data learning runs models on features to predict insights for a product.
Data Learning considers how compute, storage, and machine learning frameworks can accelerate your workflow.
Ask yourself these questions during the Data Learning stage:
Who determines what benchmarks are needed for a successful model?
What machine learning frameworks and algorithms will you choose for what you will predict?
When do you decide that your modeling results are significant or ready for production?
Where will you process data learning locally or on what cloud systems?
Why does your feature request or product need machine learning?
How much compute time and compute resources are available to model the data?
Design Think with Tidyverse in R (Credit: Researchgate)
Step 5: Data Maintenance
Your machine learning has exceeded benchmarks and you have implemented your solution into production with your data engineer and software engineers.
But now what?
All machine learning and data reduces in quality over time. Skilled data scientists monitor their machine learning to verify results and they maintain quality in production.
Apply these questions to better monitor your data:
Who is responsible for making changes to data models when performance changes?
What triggers, pipelines or data jobs do you implement to monitor the quality of your data in production?
When performance falls below required benchmarks, what data governance processes do you action?
Where will you commit time in your schedule on a recurring basis to monitor your data pipeline for quality control?
Why are your data modeling results reducing in quality in production?
How do you communicate data modeling results to your product managers, data engineers, and software engineers and with what frequency?
In Summary:
For your current and next data science product features, think about all 5 Steps of Design Thinking in your Data Science workflow: (1) Data Cleaning, (2) Data Refinement, (3) Data Expansion, (4) Data Learning, and (5) Data Maintenance.
And remember — design thinking is an iterative process!
With Design Thinking applied to your data science workflow, you will be a better data scientist starting today.
If you are interested to explore Design Thinking with AI, checkout a course called the IBM AI Enterprise Workflow, now available on Coursera.
Works Cited:
¹ Data Science Standards
More from David Yakobovitch:
Listen to the HumAIn Podcast | Subscribe to my newsletter | https://towardsdatascience.com/data-science-design-thinking-658a4f293a1c | ['David Yakobovitch'] | 2020-05-13 01:27:13.346000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Software Engineering', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
Emotional Advertising: Why Human Decisions Are Like Icebergs | Humans are inherently irrational. Our hearts are often stronger motivators than our heads when making day-to-day decisions.
So, you can blame your brain for your choice of Chipotle over Chop’t for lunch. Even Wall Street-ers are not immune to the power of emotions. Research has shown that sunny weather is linked to higher stock market performance. On rainy days, however, everything falls apart.
Source: TrueGif.com
Our emotions and decisions are truly inseparable. A series of studies by Antonio R. Damasio showed that people with damage to their orbitofrontal cortices, the brain’s emotional hub, struggled to make simple choices. While their ability to use reason was intact, they couldn’t store the emotions associated with things they liked and disliked. Therefore, they couldn’t easily determine which item they preferred.
Source: Giphy.com
Those of us with intact orbitofrontal cortices, however, use mental short-cuts to make our lives just a bit easier. These shortcuts are called heuristics and they allow our brains to operate on autopilot when making simple decisions. If you picture an iceberg, these heuristics would live under the water’s surface. This subconscious majority of decision making is called “System 1” (See Figure 1).
Figure 1. Source: The Long and Short of It
This is where long-term brand preferences and emotional brand associations come into play. System 1 is responsible for the automatic, emotional and fast responses that guide our day-to-day choices. For example, if you’re a regular Starbucks drinker and were given the choice between Dunkin’ Donuts and Starbucks, you would choose Starbucks without batting an eye.
On the other hand, “System 2” is responsible for the decisions that require slow and effortful thought. System 2 is activated when System 1 doesn’t have an automatic response, particularly when you are considering buying a product. While System 1 provides powerful emotional priming that can sway you in one direction, System 2 ultimately pulls the trigger on the purchase. In some cases, especially when you encounter a superior product or major discount, System 2 can overpower the preferences established by System 1. For instance, if you found out that Dunkin’ Donuts was offering coffee for $1, you might consider abandoning your Starbucks routine. Campaigns that focus on rational messaging and short-term gains activate System 2. Only customers that are close to the moment of purchase are affected by promotional and direct response tactics. Most other people screen out these messages.
Campaigns that activate System 1, however, affect long-term brand preferences and emotional brand associations. This approach provokes lasting feelings that accumulate over time and can lead to long-term sales growth and reduction in price elasticity.
Here are some great examples of iconic emotion-driven campaigns:
Apple: “Think Different” (1997)
Extra Gum: “The Story of Sarah & Juan” (2015)
Barbie: “Imagine the Possibilities” (2015)
These ads all make you feel something without explicitly selling a product. You may not feel immediately compelled to go and buy a packet of Extra Gum or a Barbie, but there is a little part of your orbitofrontal cortex that just stored a positive emotional association with these brands. And that’s awesome.
For an additional look at the insights behind human emotion and their effect on advertising, check out our piece on ‘The Illogical Logic Behind Rational Advertising’. | https://medium.com/comms-planning/why-human-decisions-are-like-icebergs-520cde8809be | ['Ali Goldsmith'] | 2016-06-27 19:36:07.664000+00:00 | ['Marketing', 'Branding', 'Psychology', 'Emotions', 'Advertising'] |
Meet Cochl.’s Team: Yunji Chung, UX/UI Designer | Meet Cochl.’s Team: Yunji Chung, UX/UI Designer
What does Cochl.’s design team do?
Could you briefly introduce yourself, please?
My name is Yunji Chung, a recent BBA(Bachelor of Business Administration) graduate from Emory University. I originally planned to start MHCI (Master of Human-Computer Interaction) at Carnegie Mellon University but decided to defer the offer due to COVID-19. Now, I’m working as a UX/UI Designer at Cochl. for a year, and also preparing for my own startup.
What is your role in the company?
My role is designing a product that can relieve the pain points of users using Cochl.’s machine listening technology. Currently, my primary focus is… ( blinded — because it is a secret project!). A project for controlling Phillips Hue using Cochl.Sense Human-interaction also really interesting, although there's still quite a long way to go.
This position is meaningful because the concept of “machine listening” might be still quite difficult for a general audience, and I can give a positive impact on people’s lifestyle by making this technology easier to approach in their daily lives.
What made you apply for an internship at Cochl.?
I was always interested in AI, but I was a business school student and had no access at all to it. Emory University is strong for business and medical school, but there’s no engineering department in the university, so obviously there are no professors and lectures in AI-related fields. So, I wanted to spend some time on AI during my stay in Korea.
What is your favourite part of daily life at Cochl.?
Every day is new, not repeated, and having quite a lot of freedom so I can manage myself to be productive. Also, Hyojeong (Cochl.’s UX/UI designer)’s seat is right beside me and she is really helpful for me in many ways. She is a good listener and mentor which I could not have around me when I was at Emory. I am still a student with lots of curiosity, wishing to try out many different things. It is happy that everyone is very supportive.
Yunji, Hyojeong, Donmoon, and Jeongsoo
What made you move from business to UX design?
Actually, I really loved designing things since middle school, so I played around a lot with Adobe Photoshop and After Effects. I decided to study Business administration because I was interested in consulting as well, then I came across the design thinking methodology which made me want to be a UX designer. It is quite a different field but I was thinking my background in business administration can create great synergy with UX design.
What do you think is the most important thing in UX design?
It is empathy, I believe. Good design comes from sincerely listening to others to understand what are their pain points and gain points. I try to not get influenced by any prior information or knowledge about the user when I listen to them. Along with user empathy, empathy for coworkers in other roles also very important. Especially, I am trying hard to improve my empathy with developers, so I spend some time studying programming which is extremely helpful for communicate with developers.
What was the most memorable event during your time at Cochl.?
It was the day when Apple released sound recognition functionality for iOS14. We were making a comparison video with Cochl.Sense, and it was just so fun to do this with everyone.
What do you want to study for your masters?
Studying HCI will be interesting and having a chance to meet people from various background will be even more exciting. I think I will learn a lot from people with new perspectives. CMU’s MHCI has a program called Capstone which is about doing a project with companies and it’s gonna be so fun I think.
What do you want to achieve in the future?
Well, I want to do something that can make most of my BBA and MHCI study. I think it is going to be super cool to establish an influential design consulting company like IDEO in Seoul.
What do you normally do in your free time?
Reading books, really a lot these days, and going to the gym every day. I am a member of two book clubs, one is about design and another one is about why we need side-hustle. Because I’m in Korea now, I enjoy hanging out with friends to visit café and restaurants in Seoul. Recently, I started to practice golf as well.
What’s your favourite food?
Olives!! I love olives so much and I think it goes well with any kind of foods.
Heaven for Yunji
One last word you want to say to readers?
I want to tell undergrad students that university major can’t decide the future, just because you’ve been studying it. I think people are allowed to keep seeking what they really like. I had a chance to work that is not related to consulting, and thanks to that courage, I could find what I like. Also, I think people should not hesitate to contact a stranger. I sent lots of cold emails and led me to luckily meet lots of good people. Courage is the most important thing, I believe. | https://medium.com/cochl/meet-cochl-s-team-yunji-chung-ux-ui-designer-8067b27fa2ff | ['Yoonchang Han'] | 2020-11-06 04:48:46.912000+00:00 | ['Internships', 'Design', 'Startup', 'Life', 'UX'] |
How to Write a Pre-Nup for Your Partnership | How to Write a Pre-Nup for Your Partnership
Sure, everything seems rosy now. But when you and your co-founder no longer see eye-to-eye, you’ll be glad you did the paperwork early on. Laura McCann of ADORAtherapy helps you prepare for the challenges of partnership.
Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Many of us, understandably, want a partner or co-founder at our side. But after 20 years, four companies, and six partners, I’ve learned that partnering doesn’t solve everything, and often introduces its own difficulties. Here are six rules that will help you set the groundwork for a great partnership — and a decent breakup, should you need one.
Imagine “The End”
Don’t agree to partner with anyone, or take on a partner, until you are clear in your own mind and on paper about how you would choose to end your business. The partnership agreement is going to be the equivalent of your business pre-nup, and now is the time to think about what happens in the event of a separation or divorce. Your buy-sell and partnership agreements should clearly spell out every potential scenario.
Just having this conversation will reveal more about your potential partner then you could ever imagine — or maybe more than you want to know. The best partnerships are built around clear and specific roles, operational guidelines and legal contracts.
Tough Talk, Not Love Talk
At the beginning, it’s great to be in love with your partner. They will undoubtedly be the person you spend the most time with, share secrets with and grow your business with — unless you grow to hate them. Have tough conversations before committing, and explore every possible relationship and business outcome you can think of: What if you work harder? What if they work smarter? What if they bring in the money? What if it was your idea? What if he/she wants to leave? What if the investors want only one of you to stay? Good partnerships set the foundation for a better break-up with honest, open communication. No scenario is too uncomfortable to consider. Anything can happen, and it probably will.
Who’s The Boss?
Don’t gloss over your job descriptions. Think of the contingencies: you swap roles, one of you steps away, or a family matter takes all your attention. Can your buy-sell agreement handle all of these?
Review your job descriptions every six months, and keep them updated. Working on your partnership is part of your job. Make it part of your mission statement.
The Paper Trail
Every partnership should be built document at a time. Don’t skip over any details, even if they seem like a pain in the neck at the time. And put it all in writing, especially your concerns. Keep a paper trail. Print everything important and relevant to the pulse of your relationship and put these documents in a file. You might not like to think about it now, but when you most need this information, you may not have have access to your computer or company email.
My Attorney
If you and your partner get into a dispute, your company’s attorney can’t take sides and shouldn’t. So when things get tense, your partner’s attorney will be sitting across the table. You need your own personal attorney. You need someone who not only understands how to build businesses, but has experience closing them down.
When you meet with your attorney, skip the storytelling — you’re paying by the hour. Just get clear on your legal standing, and what you can and can’t do to get your partnership on track or end it.
The Partnership Advisory Board
While the ultimate decision about who to take on as a partner is yours alone, you still need a personal set of advisors. These can be your attorney, entrepreneurs who have been through partnerships themselves, or a life partner — who probably knows more about your partnership than anyone else. These are the folks who will watch your back and can help you decide whether to love, mediate, or leave your partnership.
Ultimately, you are accountable for everything about your business, even picking your partner. So choose wisely and prepare that pre-nup.
Laura Mccann is a well-rounded senior executive with a proven record of success in Beauty, Fashion and Technology. She is currently the Co-Founder and CEO of ADORAtherapy, a vertical manager of organic aromatherapy products. She leads and has led global business strategy and delivery including software implementation and integration, product management, web and enterprise application development, marketing and product development. Laura has 20+ years experience in high tech, fashion, consumer products, design, sourcing and marketing. | https://medium.com/been-there-run-that/how-to-write-a-pre-nup-for-your-partnership-1359461cc8d7 | ['Springboard Enterprises'] | 2018-07-03 18:01:01.876000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Partnerships', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Women Entrepreneurs'] |
Late One Morning | For Salvador Dali (and you)
Photo by Sandra Klaas via Unsplash
It is always the same window
no matter how many other
windows
roll past
it is this window
that’s the first.
Always.
It is always the same window
on the third floor
in the house
on Argyle.
It is early
even when it’s late
one morning.
It is always the same window
hard to shut
unlike the other
windows
hard to open
it is this one I look out from
always.
Even when it’s closed
it is always the same
window. | https://medium.com/deja-vu/late-one-morning-c468c6459f0c | ['Jen Maidenberg'] | 2020-11-05 01:42:27.497000+00:00 | ['Love', 'Writing', 'Nonfiction', 'Salvador Dali', 'Poetry'] |
Draw a map of the districts of Budapest using the Overpass API of OpenStreetMap and Python | A map of Budapest. Source: https://hebstreits.com/product/budapest-hungary-downtown-vector-map/
Ever wondered how to draw a map of less common geographical areas? Perhaps even colour them based on some data? This is the first in a series of two tutorials that show you how to build this from scratch! First, you need to construct the border of your polygons — Part 1 is about this task. After that you need to create a map, and color those polygons according to some value of your interest. That will be shown in Part 2.
There are many tutorials on the internet for drawing maps in Python, even more sophisticated maps like heatmaps (where heat is basically the density of points in an area) or choropleth maps (where polygons on the map are colored according to some arbitrary value). It is important to note that while heatmaps are continous, choropleths assign a single value to a closed polygon unit.
However, these tutorials are mainly done on states of the United States (see some great ones with plot.ly or an also otherwise superb one with folium). For the US, these packages have some convenience methods, but they obviously do not for any area. Alternatively, they are based on some accidentally available JSON file like this one with Altair. Obviously, these are not general solutions to the problem of creating a map of some areas of your choice. I aim to give a general solution in these articles.
In this first part, you will
get to know the basic structure of administrative areas in OpenStreetMap (OSM), how to use the Overpass API to automatically access OSM objects, and how to create a polygon representation of the coordinates of districts of Budapest.
The code is also available on GitHub:
The relation of the 1st district of Budapest. https://www.openstreetmap.org/relation/221984#map=15/47.4969/19.0375
OSM structures
In OpenStreetMap these administrative areas (in our case the districts of Budapest) are called relations. A relation is an object that consists of (outer) ways, which constitute the borders of the area of interest. These ways are constructed by nodes. These nodes are basically points on the map having a latitude and longitude coordinate, and potentially some other tags. For drawing the map, we need the coordinates of those nodes.
Access OSM objects automatically
The Overpass API is a REST API designed to use OSM directly, interacting with it using the HTTP protocol. The API has a specific query language and can be drived by http requests sent using the programming language or way of your choice.
The query below looks for a Hungarian relation, with the name “I. kerület” (1st district in English), and returns a JSON document that incorporates all the ways bordering our relation of interest.
Overpass query for I. kerület in Budapest.
You can search on OpenStreetMap to find the best way to locate your relations of interest. Taginfo can help you find the specific tags to achieve your results. Also, look at the documentation for more on Overpass queries.
Now that we have all the ways, we are able to access all the nodes constructing those ways, hence our borders for the districts of Budapest.
Create a polygon of nodes
We aim to have something like this at the end. Source: https://100ujgyulekezet.blog.hu/2013/05/29/budapest_xxiv_20_01_resz_a_xxiv_kerulet_helye
Creating a polygon basically means ordering your points in the correct order. You will download ways and nodes in a random order utilizing the API. If you ask any map service to draw a polygon of your nodes, it will be a mess. Drawing a geopolygon needs an ordered list of what constitutes it’s borders.
Finding the correct order is not a trivial task, unfortunately. If the polygon were convex the task would be much easier. In this case, one would simply be able to fit a convex hull on the points. You can think of that as the shape of a rubberband stretched around the points. Scipy’s ConvexHull does exactly that, and returns (some) points in the correct order. To show that this does not work in our case look at the picture below.
Convex hulls are not fit for the task…
A born-and-raised Budapest native would not be fooled and recognize the picture, but this definitely does not fit our needs. The failure of the convex hull approach is because shapes of districts are not necessarily convex. Therefore, another approach would be simply starting at some point and continue with the closest point according to the Euclidean distance metric. However, this will almost certainly lead to the omission of some nodes when they should be the next in line, as a consequence of concavity, thereby deforming the polygon.
How concavity messes with the “always add the closest” approach
This is shown in the figure next to this paragraph. The algorithm goes on with point C after point A, as it is closer to A, while it should go on with B obviously (for us). As a consequence, not only the area is a little deformed, but point B is added at the end to our polygon borders.
OK, no problem, let’s try out what is outlined here. The method aims to connect the dots without crossing. It succeedes with that, but does not necesserily find the exact shape of the districts. Actually it occasionally does.
But we do not give up, do we?
My solution
We have more or less linear ways, and we can make use of that — which we never did before! Concerning ways, there is virtually no chance of omitting nodes (because of their linearity), and the endpoint of ways should be part of precisely one other way as well. Let’s use that! The algorithm will be as follows:
Select an arbitrary way. Find the first node by ordering coordinates based on primarily lat, and subordinately lon coordinates. Successively add the closest node on the way until there is no node left in the way. a) The last point should be part of precisely 1 other way. Continue with this way.
b) This may not always be the case. Then find the closest node and continue with the way this particular closest node is a part of. Continue until there are no ways left.
The plot below shows what we ended up with. It is not perfect, nonetheless we created all this from scratch. In Part 2, we will explore how to create a choropleth map from our neatly ordered points using folium!
The resulting borders of the districts of Budapest. https://github.com/morkapronczay/osm_bp_districts/blob/master/base_layer_bp.png
Takeaways
The blogpost covered the basic structure of administrative areas on OpenStreetMap, automated access of them through the Overpass API, and most importantly, how to create a polygon from a bunch of points to draw it on a map. The most important takeaway here is that if there is a will, there is a way. Of course one can download shapefiles (if he’s able to find), or use this great functionality to create a map of an area of choice. But IMHO automated access always beats one where you have to click with your mouse even once. In Part 2 a beautiful and functional choropleth map is made using folium.
Part 2 is available here! | https://medium.com/starschema-blog/draw-a-map-of-the-districts-of-budapest-using-the-overpass-api-of-openstreetmap-and-python-bd0417469935 | ['Mor Kapronczay'] | 2019-06-19 14:26:39.046000+00:00 | ['Maps', 'Dataviz', 'Python', 'Data Science', 'Openstreetmap'] |
How to Get & Stay “In The Zone” | How to Get & Stay “In The Zone”
A masterclass from research on the flow state.
Attention is our most precious resource.
It’s also one we’re giving away like free sweets. We give up hours of attention each day with little to show for it — scrolling Facebook, watching YouTube compilations.
What if we could spend this same time in an intensely rewarding way?
This is where the flow state comes in. In 1975, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a famous psychologist and founder of positive psychology, investigated which states people felt the happiest in: which enabled them to find meaning in their lives.
He interviewed rock climbers, surgeons, shepherds, artists, and scientists of all incomes and backgrounds. He found they all held the ability to attain a state of “effortless absorption and control” in common. They felt the most satisfied with their time spent in that state.
“Control of consciousness determines the quality of life.” — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
The flow state isn’t a magical, unobtainable superpower. All of us can, and do, enter flow when consumed by something we are passionate about.
However, most of us do this by accident — flow is the reason it’s so hard to say no to “one last match” before you sleep.
By examining how flow is induced, how it works, what it feels like, and how we reach it, we can channel this powerful state of mind to gain more from our lives, and our endeavours within them. | https://hannahdavies001.medium.com/how-to-get-stay-in-the-zone-2541550eaee5 | ['Hannah Davies'] | 2020-08-03 08:35:15.996000+00:00 | ['Positive Psychology', 'Attention', 'Flow', 'Psychology', 'Productivity'] |
How To Tell If Your Pricing Is Off | Versus your sales pitch, marketing funnel, or something else.
Pricing is one complicated cookie.
Entrepreneurs lose sleep over it, overthink it and question themselves, and change their pricing several times because they’re not confident in it.
Here’s the thing though, even with the amount of deep thought and deliberation that goes into pricing, pricing is actually difficult to get extremely wrong.
There’s a lot of simple math and tell-tale signs that make it easy to spot when your pricing is wrong for your business, and a lot of competitor data to use as reference points for market-proven pricing.
Here are the three tell-tale signs that signal that your pricing may be wrong for your product and business:
Drop Off Before Add To Cart
I love selling products online for the simple reason that you can see data slices from your marketing and sales funnel and see which parts are doing well and not.
If you don’t have a shopping plugin on your website that shows you conversion rates at each part of the sales process, do this now.
If you track your sales manually, set up a system that records it.
This data should show how many people visited a particular sales page, how many viewed your product, started checkout, and then actually purchased. This plugin should also allow for an abandoned cart feature that sends an email when someone puts a product into their cart but abandons it before purchasing.
With this data in hand, you should also know how many engaged followers you have on other mediums like your email list or a high-converting social media platform.
When analyzing your shop’s data, if you see that shoppers are enthusiastically clicking on your sales pages and viewing your product, but not putting your product in their shopping carts, then it could mean either your sales copy or your price is stopping them from taking action.
If you know that your sales copy is strong and an unbiased third-party says the same, then it’s likely your price that’s stopping shoppers.
If your audience size is on the smaller side, less than 200 engaged subscribers on your email list, then it’s very likely that your audience size may be too small to convert yet.
However if your engaged audience size is 500 or up and shoppers are dropping off right before adding your product to their cart, there’s a strong probability that your sales copy or price has something to do with it (to figure this out, tackle your sales copy first and if that change doesn’t work, only then should you change your pricing).
The key here is to look at whether shoppers are putting your product into their shopping carts or not.
If that conversion percentage is pretty below your industry-standard (Google average add to cart conversion rate for your industry), then it means that your sales pitch or your price is a bit off and not compelling shoppers to even think about purchasing your product.
Your Competitors Don’t Have Your Prices
If you don’t see any other small businesses (notice I said small business and not all businesses) with your price points and you’re struggling to make a sale because your price is too high or too low, then you may have a trust problem on your hands.
Competing with your competitors on price is definitely a sales tactic you can use effectively, but it doesn’t work if you do not provide education as to why your prices are so much higher or so much lower than your competitors.
Customers distrust pricing out of your competitors’ ranges if you don’t take the time to explain why or what you do differently.
If you provide education to your customers and cultivate a relationship with them, but still aren’t able to make a dent in sales, you either have to revisit your branding and marketing or reassess if your pricing is right for your audience segment and industry.
If competitors of yours have the same or pricing within your ballpark and you still can’t bring in sales, then it’s likely that you just need to get more leads into your pool, improve your customer cultivation strategy, or work on improving your sales pitch.
You’re Losing Money
If you’re not making a profit for every sale, then you absolutely need to change your pricing.
If you’re losing money because you need to hit a specific minimum before turning a profit, ask yourself this:
Is the minimum you need to hit before turning a profit reasonable and achievable within 2 years? Or is it more like a 500,000 unit, 5 year path?
If you’re a VC or angel investment-backed company with investments allowing for some breathing room until you turn a profit, then you’re in the clear.
However, if you’re self-funded or funded through other means, you need to fix your pricing so that you become profitable as soon as possible.
It’s really easy to lower your prices, but difficult to increase them.
If you find that your pricing cannot support a profitable business, raise those prices now. Don’t wait. Holding on to customers who won’t pay your prices will just leave you within that pricing bracket forever.
By ripping the bandaid off and raising your prices to where it needs to be quickly, you’ll have more time to build an audience of customers who will pay your prices, rather than undertaking the (mostly impossible) task of asking shoppers who chose you for your low prices to change their behavior and pay more.
If raising your prices is not a possible move, mercilessly slash your operating costs or negotiate lower product costs until your pricing can help you turn a profit.
If you’re constantly losing money in the first years of your business, you’ll never make it past year 2. Set yourself up for success so that you can make it to year 5 and actually be in a place to change your pricing how you please. | https://medium.com/swlh/how-to-tell-if-your-pricing-is-off-d365044fcdd4 | ['Sophia Sunwoo'] | 2019-12-13 16:18:27.530000+00:00 | ['Entrepreneurship', 'Startup', 'Ecommerce', 'Money', 'Pricing Strategy'] |
Hungry for Food, not Fame | By the time I immigrate to America in 2013, I’m lost for words, wondering what to make of it all, floundering.
Although I’ll be locked into denial mode for a long time, I sink into major depression, the kind that paralyzes you, renders you helpless.
I may have led an interesting and varied life to date, but the illness has somehow convinced me I have nothing to show for it.
After bending for years on end, I break.
As a result, my household is forced to struggle on one income that never stretches far enough in Seattle, one of the most expensive cities in America. As our financial burden grows, our marriage strains and groans under the weight of it all.
My writing voice is gone, I stop generating ideas, pitching… my mind is utterly blank, and not just editorially.
I haven’t a clue what to do with myself, how to move on, how to reboot this human who seems to have drifted so very far away from her original purpose.
Even my personal blog — which is directly responsible for my American life — falls to the wayside after almost a decade of writing it under one guise or another.
For five years, I’m a hermit with a library card, a yoga mat I keep by my desk so that it guilts me into using it, and the growing shame of someone with a great many dots far too incapacitated to connect them.
It takes me three years to face the page and tell this story and another two to put it to bed, and to put enough distance between my public media dream, the sporadic newspaper ramblings of a foreign woman at the heart of the Atlantic, beef ham, and me.
During this time, News From the Azores is erased, an institutional embarrassment never to be mentioned again save for a handful of screen captures from the Internet Archive Wayback Machine and a lone academic citation.
And yet, I have no regrets.
My faith in the power of words and in journalism as a public service remains intact.
After a long and painful hiatus that lasts for years, I start writing again, collapse some more, then finally get back on the horse this summer.
I’m relearning everything.
If vocation is a blessing, it can also be a curse.
And I have so far failed to get rid of it. | https://asingularstory.medium.com/i-was-hungry-for-food-not-fame-47f60aed8355 | ['A Singular Story'] | 2020-12-29 14:39:59.628000+00:00 | ['Memoir', 'Life Lessons', 'Mental Health', 'Journalism', 'Life'] |
How Batching and Stacking Can Solve Your Time Management Problem | Learning from open-heart surgery
Batching is a great way you can reduce the stress and overhead of having to keep track of lots of identical things at once. But what do you do when the things aren’t identical? Here I was influenced by Atul Gawande’s brilliant book The Checklist Manifesto. Gawande is a top surgeon in Boston, who also writes for the New Yorker about health policy, and his book is about the way that even the most experienced and talented doctors can make mistakes, particularly when they’re doing something complex that requires lots of steps and lots of concentration. It may sound bizarre, but surgeons have been known to forget about a sponge or even a scalpel, and mistakenly sew them up inside the bodies of a patient after an operation.
What Gawande realised was that a simple step-by-step checklist can help eliminate these errors. Airline pilots have used them for years; unfortunately, doctors haven’t, and many of them declared themselves insulted by even the suggestion that they might make a mistake. Hence the need for Gawande’s book. He has had to work hard to persuade senior doctors that they’re not infallible. As a result of Gawande’s work, a number of hospitals have managed to persuade their most talented people that following a checklist isn’t an insult to their intelligence — and the result is a higher success rate and a lower infection rate in operations.
I applied this in my own work by identifying the many small tasks that need to be done regularly, and turning them into checklists that can be easily followed. The items don’t have to be related, or part of a sequence that makes up a bigger whole. But there’s a benefit in doing them together, because that allows you to knock off a stack of small tasks in one go — and once you do this regularly, you’ve got a ‘habit stack’.
SJ Scott’s book Habit Stacking gives some valuable advice on how to create habit stacks. Pick a number of things that take less than five minutes each, that aren’t part of some bigger whole, and that are simple to complete and improve your life or your work. Put them in a logical order and create a checklist for them that takes 30 minutes or less to complete. And then do them every day or every week as required.
Scott has some good advice on how to make habit stacks work. Choose an appropriate time and location for them so that you can regularly get them done. Build one routine at a time, rather than trying to checklistify your entire life in one go. Start with small wins, and articulate to yourself why you’re doing this and how you hope to benefit. Make yourself accountable by telling someone else about the new process you’ve put in, and asking them to check with you how it’s going. Do your best to repeat regularly on the schedule you’ve decided, and finally give yourself some rewards, even if they’re small, for succeeding. | https://medium.com/lessons-from-startup-ceos/how-batching-and-stacking-can-solve-your-time-management-problem-330c859141ad | ['Tim Jackson'] | 2019-10-24 16:07:55.511000+00:00 | ['Management', 'CEO', 'Startup', 'Venture Capital', 'Productivity'] |
There’s No Bigger Betrayal Than Women Shaming Other Women About Their Assault | Few things “trigger” me. I was born of a generation where we were told to shut up and deal with it. Bury your pain as far down as it will go. Lock it in a box and swallow all the keys. Keep smiling through tears, through sadness. Never let anyone see you cry, my mother once said. Because tears were a weakness one could weaponize. Our Achilles was our collective vulnerability, and part of me wonders if this is why it took forty years to get diagnosed with severe clinical depression.
When my psychiatrist spent two sessions mapping out my life, depression was the omnipresent specter that refused to leave. Motherfucker pulled up a chair, lit a cigarette, and smoked it down to the filter. So, I’d found creative ways to dull the edges. Drinking, obsessive perfectionism, and eating disorders were my shovels burying trauma and sickness so far beneath the ground it couldn’t breathe. Schrödinger’s cat gasping for air and whatnot.
And then there were the doctors who hailed from a generation where mental illness was something you fought your way through. Also, women were hysterical creatures. It’s no secret I see doctors who are younger than me.
All of this to say — I know how to cope. How to deal with it. How to get rid of the body. But still. The one thing that sends me into a blind rage is how people talk about the traumatic experiences of others in a way that perpetuates and upholds stigma and shames us into oblivion.
And there’s nothing crueler than seeing women — often women of my generation or older — essentially blaming us for why we got assaulted and how we handled it. As if there’s a correct playbook for dealing with unimaginable violations. As if we asked for this.
For all of our warring, while she was alive, my mother was as strong as they come. She was the epitome of a survivor having raised herself after her mother had abandoned her. Defiant, calm, you could put a gun to her head and her pulse wouldn’t break seventy — she wouldn’t even set down the cigarette perched at the edge of her mouth.
When I was small, she lived with an enormous man, a man who stalked and towered. A man who smashed her head into walls and wood furniture. A man who painted her the color of a constant bruise. A man who did things to me. A man whom she finally, after two years, made a plan and summoned the strength to leave. Even if it meant we’d live on the street because it was better, she realized, than living with him.
There’s much I will never forgive my mother for, but I would never fault her for not leaving a man who beat her. Because I understood what it was like to feel like you deserved it, that this was as good as it was ever going to get. That maybe he’ll get better. He loves me.
A month or so ago, I read an article where a woman strutted her strength in 800 words. She couldn’t fathom the kind of woman who stayed with a man who abused her. Everyone’s playing the victim these days, she mused. The kind of woman. And I think of the street I grew up on in Brooklyn. The kind of woman who. A place where the trash was picked up faster than the bodies.
The kind of woman who stays.
Where I hid under the kitchen table as my mother’s face was being slammed into wooden tables and chairs. The kind of woman who stays with a man. Until blood stained her teeth and the carpet. All because he had been the first man who said he loved her. All because the women we came up with didn’t know any better. We heard the beatings, the thumping through the walls, but minded our own. How could we leave our world? Where would we go?
The kind of woman who stays with a man who abuses her.
Who can judge what you’ve never experienced first-hand? Who can judge even if you had? Who the fuck are you to rewind the tape and dictate how you would deal with the hand my mother had been dealt with? It’s easy to issue your bold decrees and faux Popeye strength from the confines of your computer screen and your considered gentility.
Had you ever considered the real strength lies in staying alive and maybe plotting and planning and hopefully one day getting out? Of course not. You’re too busy telling us we’re victims for staying. We’re weak.
Honestly, who the fuck are you?
But good on you for judging the complicated lives of strangers. Hold on while I grant you a doctorate in psychology.
In 2013, I resigned from a job that had been slowly killing me. That summer, I was lost and sick and confused and my cat was dying from a disease no one could diagnose. Her convulsions were violent and I finally did the humane thing and let her go peacefully in my bed, in my home.
I don’t handle loss well. I spent the next few weeks sobbing on subway platforms and day drinking. I couldn’t say the words aloud, but I blamed myself for not seeing how sick she was sooner because I was forever on a plane, in the office, attached to my laptop, stressed out by work.
I felt I deserved punishment. And in 2013 I experienced a form of it, in my home, in the bed where my cat’s final breath sputtered out.
The next day I woke, shaking. I showered. I called a friend and told her everything but what had happened. She only knew that I’d been mourning and drinking too much. We spent the day driving around Brooklyn in her car, and I wanted to tell her what happened but I couldn’t speak the words.
Because, for a minute, I felt like I had deserved it. If you read these words back to me in 2012 and all the years that had become before and all the years after, I would’ve laughed at you. I was the woman in college who stood up for a friend who had been date-raped. I shouted no means no. But assault isn’t about strength or knowledge — it’s about circumstance and power.
I remember saying no. I remember fighting back. But he was stronger. And I remember that summer in 2013, that brief moment in time when I believed I deserved it.
After, I did what I knew best — buried it in a box. Forgot it. Moved on. I didn’t want to deal with it, I wanted it to go away. I adopted a new cat and promised I’d be better this time. In the seven years I’ve owned him I’m much like those helicopter parents everyone jokes about.
I changed my life. I dated. I laughed. I strength-trained. Got bigger and better clients and, in a strange way, it did go away. It was as if the summer of 2013 had ceased to exist.
I read an article written by a woman who admonished women for not reporting their assaults, that they, in fact, were the reason other women were potential victims. It’s an interesting argument because for a moment this woman has empathy for future victims until they are victims and then they’re blamed for being victims. Sort of like an ouroboros where we’re choking on our own skin. And it’s an argument where she fails to understand that women don’t ask to be raped. We don’t wave our hands in the air and shout, PICK ME!
It’s funny, not haha funny, but funny how a man could attempt to murder me and I’m not shamed or second-guessed or vilified or cause for suspicion or called an attention whore for reporting the crime. Yet, somehow rape and battery grant us a backstage pass to become a complicit accomplice.
When we do report it, we’re given a jury trial before the rape kit is even complete. When we do report it, we’re ruining a man’s life. Especially if he’s white, monied, and well educated. When we do report it, people wonder what we did to cause it, deserve it. When we do report it, people treat us differently. Handle us like we’re strange, fragile objects — circus freaks. Will we break? Don’t get near them, they’ll break.
When we don’t report it, we’re the reason he raped someone else.
I wonder — why are we always implicitly the perpetrator? When will women stop being blamed for what men do? When will women stop vilifying other women for what men do?
When will women, who boldly stomp their little feet and say “I’ll never allow this to happen to me,” realize rape or abuse or battery is not something you prevent or allow when up until the 1970s it was legal for a man to rape his wife? In the early 1970s, the only way marital rape charges would stick would be if the husband and wife no longer lived under the same roof. Women couldn’t get jury trials and punitive damages for sexual harassment claims in the workplace until November, 1991. We’ve been carrying the weight of history that undermines the power of women in service of what men do.
And suddenly, fifty years later, the stigma and second-guessing and shaming have magically disappeared because a few laws have changed and we have a movement? What Disneyland are you living in? We have progress, certainly, but not betterment.
But let me pause and catch my breath. I don’t want to tell the story of laws, the patriarchy, and women’s perceived notions of equality and power. This is not that story. This is not a social justice rant.
This is my story, how I feel when I read articles and women bantering in the comments blaming me and my mother for what men did to us, for actions we didn’t invite, consent to, or deserve. Perhaps it’s naive to think women would understand, be on our side, and have empathy for our point-of-view, but ours is not a Pollyanna world. We are blamed and labeled weak by the very people to whom we seek refuge.
It’s no wonder we find it hard to speak out — we feel as if there are no safe spaces.
Inside us, there’s an equal measure of beauty and ugliness, and the two, like warring siblings, claw and connive their way to the surface. Sometimes, our ugliest side comes to bear and other times we are compassionate, calm, and kind. The one that abides is the one you feed most. While the other will often worm it’s way up and through, it’s what you feed that rises to the surface.
No matter how much we abide by the “correct” playbook, someone will make us the villain. Someone will remind us of our place, which puts me to thinking that maybe you’d prefer us to keep our mouths shut so you can feel good about blaming us when we do.
Maybe that’s how you exercise your power.
I don’t know. I don’t have a neat and tidy reply. All I do know is the greatest feeling of betrayal is women who eagerly and willingly blame other women for their assault.
That’s the thing that breaks my fucking heart. | https://medium.com/the-gathering-kind/theres-no-bigger-betrayal-than-women-shaming-other-women-about-their-assault-378f9c3c6172 | ['Felicia C. Sullivan'] | 2020-06-22 15:09:05.731000+00:00 | ['Rape', 'Mental Health', 'Culture', 'Women', 'Writing'] |
How Many Times a day do you Think About Dying? | Sunshine is gently warming the tip of my nose and I can make out different birds chirping.
I will myself to stay under the duvet a while longer and focus on the sensation of warmth on my face, on the sounds outside, and on how exhausted I still am. Perhaps if I resist wakefulness the birds will lull me back to sleep so I can try to start the day again a little later, with better thoughts.
No sooner has the possibility of more rest entered my consciousness that a train wrenches me out of my reverie again.
Every single detail of last night comes back to me, how I stood still gritting my teeth so I wouldn’t run, how I stood under the shower so I wouldn’t run.
How I stood staring at the kitchen counter so I wouldn’t run, how I stood staring at the page and months of work so I wouldn’t run.
How I stood my ground in the face of a brain that urged me to destroy absolutely everything, including the pain of being alive. | https://asingularstory.medium.com/how-many-times-a-day-do-you-think-about-dying-de0acc25dfb3 | ['A Singular Story'] | 2019-10-16 20:16:33.783000+00:00 | ['Relationships', 'Self', 'Mental Health', 'Psychology', 'Culture'] |
4 strategies for creating a culture of innovation | Creating a culture of innovation in retail’s era of disruption
Innovation is the number one topic among successful retail executives in this Amazon era. Facing relentless competition and disruption on multiple fronts, retailers and brands know they must push toward intelligent advancement to stay a step ahead of their customers’ constantly evolving expectations and their shareholders’ demands.
At its core, innovation means change, and progressive retailers and brands realize they must shift their strategies, processes and overall mindset. It’s essential for retailers to understand that they are not alone. This is the most challenging time in the industry’s history, and it is only getting more complex. While the path ahead is difficult at times, and not always clear, there are consistent strategies in place that characterize the most advanced and innovative retail organizations.
Empowered teams, fast decisions
Progressive companies that consistently deliver great results are generally operated by management teams that seek new opportunities through obsessively analyzing the details and data of their business. They tolerate the discomfort of change and incomplete knowledge, but compensate for that with nimble decisions based on a constantly updated view of their business and the market.
Those that lean the furthest forward constantly look for tools and frameworks to give their entire team an advantage, not just management.
They are on a quest toward improving their team’s ability to compete, innovate and repeatedly make smarter and faster decisions in a business that shows no signs of slowing down. Leaders at these companies empower their best people and seek to identify every wave of new talent with a full understanding of the power that technology can bring to amplify human decision-making. Additionally, they seek ways to multiply their team’s best efforts as they look for methods to reduce inefficiencies, waste and missed opportunities that arise from the natural biases inherent to every organization.
A connected culture
While an organization’s culture starts at the top, it also bubbles up from the bottom. In an industry where complexity, speed and competition are ever increasing, successful cultures value the actions of many independent decision-makers across the organization. Consistent and connected views of the business’s performance are critical to unite the organization across all levels, from the showroom to the boardroom. Once this information is communicated, employees can then interact on a set of interrelated subtasks that constantly drive to meet the plan.
Focus on the future
Innovative companies know how success is measured and are relentlessly evaluating areas of the business that are not aligned to meet those success criteria. They focus on future innovations and are never satisfied to rest on their laurels.
Retailers and brands today welcome the challenges presented by the exciting, engaging and increasingly demanding consumer, as they are constantly driving innovation beyond what retailers had ever dreamed up. The best companies are never satiated. Innovative leaders must live in a constant state of restlessness that keeps the entire organization focused on being greater tomorrow than it is today.
Technology that drives innovation
Beyond consumer shifts, technology is the greatest single catalyst propelling retail forward at a blistering speed. The challenge for every retail executive is understanding the benefit of the technology and how it will impact their business as it relates to their objectives. If technology is clearly part of a business imperative and is endorsed fully by the executive team, the entire organization will adopt the philosophy in order to reach a higher level of operation. The rising value of advanced retail analytics systems, not just workflow accelerating software, is requiring executives to rethink how their own management paradigms will need to change to lead a blend of human-driven and machine-driven decisions.
Retail is a business of people, and the top retail companies realize that their very best people will be the future of their business.
Whether they are in charge of customer interaction or managing any point along the product or customer journey, the next generation of great retail will certainly spawn from the careful enablement of people with better tools to operate the business.
Many of the skills fostered by retail organizations will continue to be relevant, while new highly valued skills will certainly be introduced. The digitization of retail has created precise data about every product, every SKU, every customer and every touchpoint across all channels. As a result, the amount of information has exploded exponentially, allowing retailers to get a deeper and more accurate picture of their business immediately. Innovative companies will need to invest in technology to improve the decision and service capability of their people at a rate far faster than their global competitors.
While the term “innovation” may hold an entirely different meaning to a pure ecommerce player than a multichannel retailer, one thing remains true: A nimble leadership and culture, as well as an employee base empowered by technology, are the vital elements to embarking on a journey not only toward innovation, but securing a successful (and profitable) future. | https://medium.com/nrf-events/4-strategies-for-creating-a-culture-of-innovation-5ee1f955fd21 | [] | 2017-11-22 14:58:31.779000+00:00 | ['Retail Technology', 'Startup', 'Retail', 'Innovation', 'Entrepreneurship'] |
Technology and the Future of Law | At 8VC we invest in technologies with the capacity to transform antiquated processes in old-line industries. In the private sector, one of the least tech-enabled industries is Law. We are excited by the opportunity for smart software tools to enhance lawyers in a new form of man-machine symbiosis. Legal technology of the future will allow lawyers and clients to visualize the “legal ontology” of deals such as company formation, investments, acquisitions, vendor relationships, corporate governance issues, transparency agreements and more. Software will hone in on contested terms, harness statistical analysis to flag unusual clauses, and provide historical context on standard ranges — allowing all parties to quickly understand, negotiate, and execute transactions.
AI companies have made great strides in automating basic repeatable tasks in the legal industry. Companies such as LegalZoom have “commoditized” basic legal documents such as deeds, leases, regulatory filings, trusts, patents, and insurance claims lawsuits. Automation of low level processes saves paralegals the headache of generating standard paperwork from scratch and is useful for small business owners who formerly had to consult lawyers for basic contracts at steep fees.
Technology companies will never succeed in replacing lawyers wholesale. The practice of law requires creative interpretation of precedent and deeply human intuitions about fairness, reasonability, and compromise. However legal technologies can succeed in streamlining legal workflows, empowering law firms and partners to better serve their clients and maintain their margins as technologists automate parts of the discipline.
The practice of law is currently governed by complicated emails and phone calls, and often breaks down in the course of negotiation. For instance, a typical round of fundraising for a startup often looks something like this:
Frustrated investors are badgering their CFOs to figure out why the round is taking too long.
CFOs are trying to make sense of jumbled emails and skimming legal documents to try to uncover irregular terms so that they can flag them for the investor; the investor may then interrogate the CEO of the startup about why a particular term has cropped up.
The CEO of the startup has to get on a series of calls with his lawyer who was trying to protect the startup’s interest by inserting favorable spikes into the contract, and with the investor’s lawyers who are demanding standardized terms.
In these kinds of situations — which, as any investor or entrepreneur will tell you, are quite common — all four parties iron out their differences over a course of many weeks. The clumsy, haphazard process of deal construction lends itself to misunderstanding, tension, and awkwardness, and ultimately risks the delicate relationship balance on which the deal is predicated.
To simplify to the legal workflow of a transaction we need software that seamlessly enables investors, entrepreneurs, and their respective law firms to upload core documents to a shared location, track edits between the firms on versioned documents, understand how quickly progress is being made, and determine whether there are unique issues to review. Deals should be resolved according to fair guidelines that mirror industry standards rather than through a tortured, opaque process that risks damaging relationships. Software that reveals the essential structure of a deal will give lawyers an edge in maintaining transparency with their clients, rapidly sifting information, and clarifying differences with lawyers at other firms.
In the future, machine learning algorithms will continually parse text in documents, match textual provisions to legal concepts, and pull real-time statistics on whether a given term is standard or unorthodox. Legal ontology software will create an intuitive visualization of the financial and temporal skeleton of a deal, extracting insights from documents such as voting agreements, stock purchase agreements, rights of first refusal and co-sale agreements, legal opinions, management and investor rights documents, indemnification agreements, certificates of incorporation and compliance, and schedules of exceptions. Stripping these files down to their most salient provisions will allow parties to refer to a shared schema in negotiations. | https://medium.com/8vc-news/technology-and-the-future-of-law-8cd8aad51295 | ['Alex Moore'] | 2018-11-26 21:40:00.665000+00:00 | ['Startup', 'Productivity', 'Blog', 'Workflow', 'Investing'] |
Q&A with Dorothy McGivney, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at The New York Times | Q&A with Dorothy McGivney, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at The New York Times
This week, we caught up with Dorothy, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at The New York Times who was hired last November to help build a travel standalone product and recently launched “Notes From Our Homes to Yours” — a new Times initiative where writers and editors share suggestions as they stay at home (check out round two of the project here). Subscribe to our newsletter on the business of media for more interviews and weekly news and analysis.
Tell me about your role.
I am an entrepreneur-in-residence at The New York Times. I joined in November 2019 and was hired specifically to explore how the Times can launch a standalone product in the travel space. The role reports into David Perpich. He’s the head of standalone products and also sits on the Times’ board of directors. There’s currently another entrepreneur-in-residence at the Times who’s working on a product in the kids space.
I’ve always been passionate about travel and previously had my own travel newsletter startup called Jauntsetter. I also worked in the tech and startup world for 20 years and love building new products. I was actually working at Google when they purchased what would become Google Docs.
So, when I saw this role pop up, I was very excited. It was a dream job — I could build a product in a space I’m super interested in and for a newspaper I have read almost every day for most of my life.
You recently launched “Notes From Our Homes to Yours.” Can you tell me a bit about how that came into fruition?
“Notes From Our Homes to Yours” was actually a side experiment that emerged from some of my previous travel research.
When I first joined, I started conducting research with my team in New York, New Orleans, and Detroit on people’s travel habits and needs. We were actually putting together some product directions when COVID-19 hit. This obviously impacted my role because people aren’t traveling the way they used to. That said, I wanted to see how we could apply some of the research I had done to something short-term while people are stuck at home.
One of the main trends we observed during our travel research was that people like using Google Docs to consolidate and share their recommendations and build itineraries. People preferred and trusted personal recommendations as opposed to institutional recommendations. There wasn’t a lot of positive sentiment for user-review sites like Yelp or TripAdvisor.
We figured that people were using Google Docs to collect and share recommendations in general, for things outside of travel. Prior to COVID-19, we had been thinking about having our journalists share travel recommendations and suggestions. For example, how could the Times share Sam Sifton’s recommendations of where to eat in New York or London in a scalable manner that also felt personal? Could we use Google Docs to achieve that? When the pandemic began, the question became: how can we use Google Docs and our newsroom talent to help readers navigate the lockdown? We were actually seeing some of our writers and editors going off platform to share their personal stories and recommendations.
Inspired by this, we wanted to give our journalists a medium that was intimate, communal, and alive. The cool thing about a Google Doc is that it’s never finalized. Journalists have the option of going through and updating their recommendations without having to go through the publishing process even though an editor does review the documents before they are published.
Google Docs can also offer users some serendipity, which feels like it’s missing these days while we isolate at home. There’s a bit of a thrill as a user when you can see a reporter or editor actually typing in the document. We’re hoping to actually experiment with having editors and writers leave comments on each other’s documents to introduce some dialogue.
And, how serendipitous it is that you were working at Google when the company first purchased what would become Google Docs and eventually Google Spreadsheets.
Yeah, I’ve always thought that Google Docs is a brilliant collaborative tool. I was actually messaging the co-creator of Google Docs, Jonathan Rochelle, about the project. It was really fun to see all my professional worlds coming together full circle.
Can you tell me about how journalists have responded to this initiative?
We’ve had a lot of support so far. I’ve noticed that without even asking writers and editors to update their recommendations that many are already doing that. Michael Kimmelman, our architecture critic uploaded a recording of him playing Bach one weekend. One journalist told me she was excited about being able to edit something after publishing it. Another one was excited that we used gmail account profile photos as opposed to the profile pictures on The New York Times’ site.
Google Docs takes away the formal mantle of The New York Times. It’s a cool way for our writers and editors to share their personalities in a way that we often only really see on Twitter. It’s a safe playground for them.
What metrics are you using to measure success?
Our aim was to understand engagement, specifically sustained engagement. This is the first time The New York Times hosted a bunch of google docs and spreadsheets. Our questions were very basic: Do people understand the objective? Are they clicking into the documents? And, if so, do they remain in the document? How are they now perceiving the brand?
One of our first responses we saw was someone saying they spent 45 minutes poking around the documents. Anecdotally, some users left comments thanking us for pulling back the curtain and humanizing our reporters.
How do you see this project fitting within The New York Times’ news and content strategy?
With all the news on the pandemic, we’ve been exploring counter-programming options as a way of providing readers a comforting and engaging space. I think “Notes From Our Homes to Yours” really fits into that category. We weren’t thinking too much about where it was going to live, our goal was to just get it up and see if it resonated with our readers. It’s really as simple as you see it. Our design team was able to quickly create a new article format to turn the piece into an interactive of sorts. And, because Sam Sifton was overseeing “At Home” we felt that that would be a good home.
What next steps are you looking to explore?
We currently don’t have commenting turned on for security reasons but one thing I’d like to figure out is how to make the Docs a place where readers and users can engage in a safe and scalable way.
I’d also be interested in doing some user research on how people are experiencing the documents based on demographic. For example, how easy is it for people in their 70s to navigate the Docs?
To pivot away from “Notes From Our Homes to Yours,” how else are you thinking about repurposing your travel research?
100% of the people we spoke to told us that food was driving their travel in some way. People might not have anything booked for a city, but knew exactly where they were going to eat. We started to think about what might the Times do that relates to not just travel, but food.
The Times actually invented the modern restaurant review. But, I was interested in how we might serve users and readers planning trips beyond just restaurant reviews. When the coronavirus began, I became interested in off-premise dining recommendations — for instance, take out. I envision this all being hyperlocal information that can be shared with others. For example, we might ask reporters to share local neighborhood recommendations in a Google Doc as places begin to reopen. I’d also be interested in finding a way to layer in community intelligence so that we can leverage reader knowledge. For the Cooking app, they made a deliberate decision to not call the comments on recipes “comments,” but instead “notes.” It’s a section where readers can help each other out and it’s supposedly the nicest place on the internet.
You mention that people don’t like institutional recommendations. How are you thinking about keeping recommendations personal while still maintaining The New York Times stamp of approval?
The New York Times brand is trusted and respected. Luckily, the Times can leverage this trust in the recommendation space in a way that not many places can. As a medium, Google Docs feels informal and a lot more personal. I also think that personality-driven recommendations are key.
New York Magazine actually does a great job with this in their profiles. I purchased a Yeti mug after reading Gail Simmons’ interview in The Strategist and she said that it was the one thing she could not live without.
What’s something interesting that you’ve observed in the media space?
There’s a local blog called Greenpointers. They’ve been super on top of tracking local businesses reopening and local charities and have been sharing this information consistently on Instagram. They’re so scrappy, but they’re doing such an important service for the neighborhood through their Instagram stories.
Rapid Fire
What is your first read in the morning?
The Morning Briefing from The New York Times
What was the last book you consumed?
I just reread The Design Sprint
What job would you be doing if you weren’t in your current role?
I love product work but I’m also a huge operations nerd (I’ve worn a COO hat before). I honestly love OKRs and (well done) 360 performance reviews and business planning. | https://medium.com/the-idea/q-a-with-dorothy-mcgivney-entrepreneur-in-residence-at-the-new-york-times-bf19acf26241 | ['Tesnim Zekeria'] | 2020-06-08 21:25:54.972000+00:00 | ['Journalism', 'Travel', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Subscriber Spotlight', 'New York Times'] |
Story or Article? | A writer has the right and responsibility of choosing their content’s attire. You can either go to the ball dressed classier that any royal face, or dirtier than any hardcore punk. Either way, the spotlight will shine on you; what’s to be done, is simply determine which way to attract it.
The publisher — or any private writer for that matter — may go with the benefit of freedom of speech. No boundaries to mention if one is to follow this path of free movements in terms of words, paragraphs and other basic parts of a text structure. However, this is not to be mistaken with your text’s flow. Regardless of your choosing in general terms, including format, you must always have a comprehensible order of ideas if you wish for someone other than yourself to ever read — let alone enjoy — your written work. Back on the structure principles, it should also be noted that the very fundamentals of a text’s base must always be present regardless of your preferences. Remember, not even freely-expressed poets got away with skipping commas, colons, semi-colons or apostrophes.
On the contrary, a fan of logic, order, and structured thinking would surely pave the way towards a more technically-based text. It might even come to a point where their writing partly becomes a form of art; just like a painter examines every small touch of their pen against the canvas, a writer forms paragraphs only where they believe it will make the reader feel more euphoric than any other part afterwards. Both make choices to the best interest of their work’s final result. Never should one forget, nevertheless, that this path is not limited to paragraph-aligning and certain spaces in-between phrases. Structure also implies means of logic, like the ones we previously explained that will lead to de facto; graphs, statistics, equations, official papers etc. | https://medium.com/the-coffeelicious/by-harry-samakas-8d1958e8e5bf | ['Harry F. Karoussos'] | 2015-09-14 12:07:31.411000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Writing', 'Medium'] |
Writing a Book Is Lonely | Writing, period, is a lonely pursuit.
What makes a book particularly lonesome is how deep into it an author must go. When you’re working on a book, that book becomes who you are. You feel the things you’re writing about — they’re as tangible as the clothes you wear, the food you eat.
It’s all you think about it.
The material finds its way into every moment of your life. A friend says something to you and you’re reminded of a scene. Instantly, your mind wanders. Or your significant other points something out — a park, a certain tree — and you wonder if the page you just wrote wouldn’t benefit from more description, more trees. The breeze you feel in the morning brings you back to a memory you’ve yet to fully flush out. The coffee you sip on a cold afternoon reminds you of a long untouched loneliness within yourself. Moments of happiness turn into opportunities to bottle and capture feelings of joy for your characters, and moments of sadness urge you to run back to your writing place and channel it into a downfall you’ve been meaning to paint.
For a short story, this heightened awareness for a week straight can be exhausting.
With a book, that heightened awareness lasts for months, if not years.
And it takes its toll.
When I was working on my first book, Confessions of a Teenage Gamer, I was tasked with perpetually reminding myself of what it felt like to be a troubled teenager for years on end. I would continuously listen to playlists of music from that era of my life. I would watch old movies, keep old yearbooks and other items around that reminded me of a previous version of myself. And the same was true for all subsequent books, including my most recent book, The Art and Business of Online Writing.
Everywhere I would go, I would think about my story. My mind was in a constant state of drawing parallels. My phone was filled with anecdotes and story notes that came to me while walking through the grocery store or even attending a college party. Quickly, I’d excuse myself to the bathroom to open my phone and jot down a few lines of dialogue or a potent description that was on the tip of my tongue.
This process went on for years.
The loneliest part of writing is that all this happens within yourself — and nowhere else. I know I’m not the only writer who prefers to keep my ideas-in-progress to myself. I don’t share much about the big projects I’m working on — too many unrefined ideas I’m still not quite sure what to make of.
For the years I worked on my first book, I didn’t share any of it with anyone. Hundreds, thousands of pages were kept in folders on my desktop for my eyes only. Storylines were constructed and then smashed. Ideas were developed and then thrown away. I re-wrote that book in its entirety 3 times over.
It’s lonely because no one is there to witness your labor of love.
No one is there to cheer you on, give you words of encouragement on a regular basis. Maybe that was by my own design, but I have found that even today (having made more of an effort to share my works-in-progress) acknowledgement is few and far between. A book is simply too long, the ideas too dense to be broken down into candy-sized bits for regular approval.
It’s no wonder, then, my first book was accompanied by an obsession with bodybuilding. I spent equal amounts of time lifting as I did writing, with the lifting allowing for daily doses of validation and acknowledgment of my efforts. “Looking big today, Cole!” Those words from fellow lifters filled the void of my nonexistent support group for my writing — a devotion I carried out in the confines of my studio apartment.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about giving up writing. During that first book, I thought often whether writing was “worth it.” All these hours spent in silence, alone, pondering old emotions and reflecting on lessons learned, transmuting them into something compelling, entertaining, thought provoking and open to judgement, yes I wondered often whether it was “worth it.”
But I never gave up.
And in all honesty, I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried (and I did try). There were several 1–2 month periods where I vowed I was done, the project was dead, and I forced myself to step away and find a new labor of love. But I could never stay away for long. I’d find myself walking through a brisk Chicago wind and suddenly feel the same wintery chill I felt as a fifteen year old, transporting me back to a younger me — with a compelling story to match.
I’d race back to my laptop to begin writing.
Loneliness is certainly a reason not to write. It’s also the best reason to write.
As I continue to grow as a writer, I’m learning the best writers aren’t driven by achievement, fame, success, or even hundreds of thousands of people all reading their work.
They’re driven by an internal curiosity, an itch to know themselves and their stories more deeply.
That’s the sort of writer I always hope to be. | https://medium.com/swlh/writing-a-book-is-lonely-98ed6f1a91d4 | ['Nicolas Cole'] | 2020-12-21 18:01:39.029000+00:00 | ['Writing Tips', 'Books And Authors', 'Writing Life', 'Books', 'Writing'] |
How to Declutter Your Writing Ideas and Finish More Projects | There is one significant problem both new and experienced writers encounter. Believe it or not, but the issue is connected with having too many ideas that overwhelm you. Some writers will be surprised by a statement like this. Most of them would say that experiencing crisis and writer’s block is a real problem, while having too many ideas is more like a blessing. We all know how hard it might be to keep yourself in track when working at writing services or keeping a blog. However, let’s approach writer’s block from another angle. Do you remember how many brilliant ideas were buried in your phone’s notes? What about those numerous moments, when a thought stroke your mind all of a sudden and then withdrew into the void? How many shower and night dream thoughts are there in your notebook? These are unwritten stories.
Unrealized ideas must be buzzing inside of your head when you are trying to start a new project. Even when your writing folder is full of ideas, there are moments when you sit in front of your laptop with a blank mind. You can write all of them, but how do you prioritize? What should you do with all those sketches and unfinished projects? Actually, there is no one-size-fits all solution here.
However, there are some tips to clear the clutter and help you focus on projects that are really important and worthy. Let’s discuss them.
Choose the projects that you could finish fast
Take a look at your projects and think if there is one you can finish sooner than any other. This might be a half-written novel or a blog post you have outlined a month ago. Maybe, you have forgotten about one of your articles and left it unfinished because something distracted you. The time has come to find and finish it.
If there is something that you can finish fast, then do it. Finishing a project is inspiring, so it’s great when you can do it quickly. When you are done with one project, it is easier to move further. However, be careful when choosing one. If you archived a certain project because you hated working on it, then you should remove it from the top of your to-do list. Chances are that you will get stuck again and your clutter will stay as it is. It’s crucial to choose something you like, when you start scooping through the heaps.
Get rid of the projects you don’t really need
Yes, giving up projects is not very pleasant. You liked an idea and was passionate about it once. What if this one is really great? That’s scary. But the basis of this fear is a thought that you won’t have any great ideas anymore. No worries — you will. Even when you abandon projects, your efforts are never in vain, because you learn and experiment. This helps you grow and get stronger and better ideas. Let your old and archived projects be some sort of exercising to improve your skills. If you don’t want to delete them completely, then just put them aside.
What do you need to finish every project?
Now when your documents are sorted, it’s time to think how to deal with them. Take a look at an unfinished project and think what steps do you need to take to get it done. Let’s say you have a large unedited novel to be proofread and polished. Or maybe you have an article that lacks research, blog post with a weak structure, partially written story that needs some feedback, etc. Have a plan in your head and this will help you move in a right direction.
Prioritizing your projects
When you are done with the first project, you should prioritize the rest. Choose other tasks that can be finished faster and stick to them. However, the longer ones also require your attention. If you have a piece you cannot finish for years, chances are that you don’t want to keep it unfinished for another year.
It’s great to keep your projects organized and set deadlines for your tasks. Do you want to have your article published next month? Two months? Time limits will motivate you to keep working.
Conclusion
When you have a heap of unfinished projects, it might be difficult to approach it. These tips are pretty general, but they will help you keep your workflow under control. Also, following these steps you won’t lose your previous ideas and keep moving forward.
Of course, new ideas will keep emerging. This means that you will have to organize, reorganize, outline, and prioritize your projects all the time. This is not a one-time procedure, so keep these tips in mind! Hopefully, they will help you stay in track and be less overloaded. Good luck!
Originally published at facilethings.com. | https://facilethings.medium.com/how-to-declutter-your-writing-ideas-and-finish-more-projects-ca3f842ed1ed | [] | 2019-06-27 17:03:03.458000+00:00 | ['Getting Things Done', 'Projects', 'Writing', 'Productivity'] |
The Surprising Way Your Professional Network Might Be Making It Harder to Fundraise | Some data on warm intros vs. cold emails
When I look back on my years of fundraising, I remember, at various points, thinking warm introductions to the investors I wanted to meet never seemed to get me any farther than cold emailing them. If anything, the warm intros seemed less effective than cold emails.
Unfortunately, I never bothered to look closely at the data. Instead, I mindlessly accepted the general wisdom that “warm intros are always better.” As a result, even though I wouldn’t have a problem sending cold emails to investors when I couldn’t find a mutual connection, I always prioritized warm intros whenever they were an option.
My fundraising days are behind me (woohoo!); however, I’ve recently had to dust off my networking skills for a different but somewhat related reason. I’ve launched a podcast exploring the history of Internet entrepreneurship, and, as part of that work, I’ve been sending lots of cold emails in order to get guests.
While the purpose of emailing investors and emailing podcast guests isn’t identical (FYI — getting podcast guests to respond is much harder!), the processes are nearly identical. Heck, a lot of the successful early Web entrepreneurs are now venture capitals, so, in some cases, I’m literally emailing the same people I used to target for fundraising.
For the first few months of soliciting podcast guests, I followed the same advice I used to religiously adhere to when fundraising. If I had a mutual connection to someone I wanted to speak with, I’d always prioritize a warm intro over a cold email. However, I soon began noticing the same pattern I’d recognized during my fundraising efforts: Warm introduction emails never seemed particularly effective. If anything, warm intros felt less effective.
When I was younger, I ignored my feelings because I assumed “wiser” entrepreneurs with more experience couldn’t have been wrong. In contrast, now that I’m one of those “wiser” entrepreneurs with more experience, I know we’re wrong ALL THE TIME! So rather than just shrug off my sense that warm intros weren’t as effective, this time I decided to review the data. Here’s what I’ve seen so far:
I’ve sent 54 cold emails to potential podcast interviewees and received warm intros for another 14.
Of the 54 cold emails I’ve sent, 37 people responded, and 32 of them either have been interviewed or have agreed to an interview. That’s a 69% response rate and a 59% success rate for cold emails. Hard to argue with those numbers. Every sales team in the world would kill for those kinds of conversion rates.
In contrast, of the 14 warm intros I’ve received, only four people have responded. That’s a 28.5% response rate. To be fair, all four responders have agreed to do interviews, so it’s a 100% success rate on responses. But still, the overall success rate — 4 of 14, or 28.5% — is exactly 50% lower with warm intros than what I’m getting through cold emails. That’s not just worse. That’s astoundingly worse.
I suppose I should acknowledge that my sample size here isn’t huge, so maybe that’s messing with the data. Still, it’s hard to look at those numbers and think warm intros are more effective than cold emails. And this has me questioning the standard advice that warm intros in fundraising are always the best strategy. | https://medium.com/swlh/the-surprising-way-your-professional-network-might-be-making-it-harder-to-fundraise-e41d17c9dc67 | ['Aaron Dinin'] | 2020-12-22 15:37:35.633000+00:00 | ['Fundraising', 'Startup', 'Venture Capital', 'Entrepreneurship', 'Networking'] |
Traversing the Customer Funnel | Traversing the Customer Funnel
What Product Managers need to know about Lead Management
Photo by Shengjun Shi
This post appeared in my weekly newsletter on Product Management. Sign up here to get new posts straight to your inbox.
Last week, we talked about the first principles behind a Customer Acquisition Funnel, and how you might think about designing and executing your own customer acquisition or lead funnel.
We also discussed the funnel’s underlying concept, AIDA, and introduced its stages — TOFU, MOFU & BOFU. Here’s a quick mental model of how everything connects thus far.
TOFU = Top of the Funnel → The Awareness & Attention Stage.
= Top of the Funnel → The Awareness & Attention Stage. MOFU = Middle of the Funnel → The Interest and Desire Stage.
= Middle of the Funnel → The Interest and Desire Stage. BOFU = Bottom of the Funnel → The “I am sold on this, I’ll pay” Stage.
In this post, we’ll discuss the different stages of the funnel in some detail, and look at how and what activities are typically planned for each stage.
Top of the Funnel (TOFU)
Your customer acquisition funnel is the widest here, which means you’ll have marketing material that will cast a wide but effective net to promote your product.
Wide — because at this point, you’ll want to target people that may be interested in your product — through broad/mass marketing content
Effective — so that you are targeting and generating quality leads — in other words, you are minimizing bringing people into your funnel that have absolutely no interest in your product.
Your marketing materials at the Top of the Funnel are geared towards
Introducing your product Capturing some basic information about the lead (Email, Name) — in a privacy-compliant way (look up GDPR)
Now, capturing at least an email address is important, and here’s why.
Remember in this stage, most leads may be learning about your product for the very first time and it’s highly unlikely people will be convinced right away to buy something that they hardly know enough about.
You’ll have to handhold them and nurture them — showing them the value proposition of your product, answering their questions, piquing their interest, ultimately bringing them to a point where they are compelled to buy your product/ subscription.
To do all this, You’ll need to communicate with them constantly — and hence the need for at least an email address.
Marketing in TOFU
Your marketing materials in this stage generally are Free Blog posts, Social Media content, Free videos & Podcasts, and of course, newsletters are pretty hot these days too. (I didn’t mention TV ads, Super bowl ads, etc. which you can certainly do if you have lots of dough — but returns on marketing investment are hard to measure)
Here are some real-world marketing activities to generate leads at the Top of the lead funnel
Paid ads on Google, FB, or other Social media → Drive traffic to your landing page→ Request to Enter email in exchange for some info, free sign-up
→ Drive traffic to your landing page→ Request to Enter email in exchange for some info, free sign-up Promoting a well-done Video, Podcasts, etc . — Asking them to Like/Subscribe
. — Asking them to Like/Subscribe Promoting eye-catching Blog content, ebooks, infographics, Newsletters around the problem that your product solves, and asking people to voluntarily subscribe in exchange for their email.
The Goal for Marketing Content in TOFU is to make a crisp, but solid first impression to a potential lead — with a clear Call to Action for them.
Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)
Middle of the Funnel marketing strategy is all about nurturing your TOFU leads, qualifying them, and ‘scoring’ your leads to identify the ones that are most likely to convert into customers and subtly nudge them closer to buying your product. As you’ll see in this stage, your Sales team begins to get involved too.
Marketing’s role in the Middle of the Funnel is
Nurture & Evaluate their TOFU leads Find the really high-quality/high scoring ones Get them to buy the product.
To do #1 & #2, Marketing will typically use drip campaigns that deliver periodic and progressive content to their TOFU leads to progress them through the funnel and simultaneously score them on purchase readiness based on their engagement with the marketing Content.
Here Marketing automation company Salesforce shows an overview of a drip campaign. See the full infographic.
The highest-quality/ highest scoring leads are then transferred from Marketing to Sales to execute #3. These leads are called “Marketing Qualified Leads” or MQL.
Let’s trace the journey of a Lead to an MQL with an example below.
My Runner’s World example
After I became a TOFU lead for Runner’s World, their marketing engines roared into action and started sending me these periodic emails about running. Of course, these emails are part of a drip campaign built into their Marketing Automation Software.
Anyway, some of these emails are “FREE” — I can read them without a paywall. The free emails provide enough value for me to not unsubscribe from their mailing list but at the same time tell me that I am missing out on a lot of value by not signing up for the “exclusive” membership. Runner’s World at this point is nurturing me, trying to convince me of their value proposition so I make am closer to make a purchase.
That’s classic Middle of the Funnel marketing — subtly trying to progress a FREE subscriber to a paying customer.
Once in awhile, they’ll send me an “Exclusive” email sitting behind a paywall to get me to sign up to their exclusive content — like this one below.
Typically these would be their most compelling stories that have perhaps proven to maximize the probability of converting a free subscriber to a paying one. (Thus far, they’ve been unsuccessful if you are curious). But their marketing machine will keep trying.
Lead Scoring
A Marketing Automation software (e.g. Salesforce, Hubspot, etc.) can track how a lead interacts with every piece of content, what emails were opened/read, what buttons on the webpages were clicked, etc. and based on this engagement the software will assign (pre-determined) scores as well as adjust the delivery of future content.
Here is a basic Lead Scoring Example
The software’s tracking ability enables marketing to understand the quality of the leads they are generating up the funnel and gauge the likelihood of a lead making a favorable purchase decision.
A high Scoring lead becomes an MQL and then handed over to Sales. This strategy ensures that Salespeople are not wasting their time on leads that are not likely to buy.
Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) now enter the Bottom of the Funnel — the final stage of your customer acquisition plan.
Ideally, your MQLs are very high quality and convert into customers without the need for much more selling. But some products need more handholding than others. So in such cases, Sales takes over these Marketing Qualified leads and further vets them for purchase readiness — all the time trying to get them closer to purchase.
Depending upon the product, industry, and customer expectations, Sales will carry out a number of activities to understand purchase readiness. These activities may be Demos & trials, face to face Consultations, webinars, Customer Events, and more.
Sales Qualified Leads
MQLs that are closest to the end of the funnel (i.e. closest to making a buy decision) are sometimes termed as Sales Qualified Leads or SQLs.
Typically, for an MQL to become an SQL, the lead must have a need for the product or service, the product and service should be meaningfully solving that need, they must have the budget to purchase the product, the infrastructure to use it, and finally at least a tentative timeline to make the purchase.
If a vast majority of MQLs are not converting into SQLs — its time for marketing to take a look at the top half of the funnel, diagnose and adjust the filters and parameters that define a Marketing Qualified Lead.
By the way, just because a lead was tagged as Sales Qualified doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to close. But if the funnel is designed well and the marketing and sales activities are well thought out and consistent — a vast majority of SQLs will go on to become real paying customers, albeit at different times. Therefore timely and consistent follow-ups are the holy grail of closing a deal successfully.
Customer Retention
BOFU is not the end of your customer acquisition plan. Your customer acquisition plan must also have a robust retention plan. Remember that it’s at least 5x–7x more expensive to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing customer — so treat your customers very very well, delight them. I’ll write about customer retention strategies in another post perhaps.
Conducting the Orchestra — The Product Manager
As you can see, there is a lot that goes on to create and execute a successful Customer Acquisition Strategy. And while a vast majority of these activities are carried out by Marketing & Sales teams — the Product Manager must act as the conductor of this orchestra — bringing everything together to ensure the execution details are aligned to that strategy.
If you are a Product Manager and are new to this process I recommend you to be involved at every step of the way of designing the Lead Management funnel.
Admittedly, the funnel might be a bit different based on the Product (hardware/software, etc.), Industry, Organization Structure (Inside vs. Field Sales) we are talking about, but the overall idea remains the same.
You generate leads → show them the value proposition of your product → get them to become your customers → Retain them as customers.
Alright, that’s all for this post. I hope you enjoyed the post as much as I enjoyed writing it! If you have questions, lets connect on Twitter!
Thank you for reading & take care. | https://chakrvyuh.medium.com/traversing-the-customer-funnel-59e4dc2c70f | ['Abhishek Chakravarty'] | 2020-11-26 08:48:06.159000+00:00 | ['Product Management', 'Startup', 'Marketing'] |
Typos. God’s Gift To The Self-Righteous. | I’m in the business of catching mistakes. I’m an editor, and I have the unholy job of pointing out the error of many author’s ways. Since I don’t have a huge sadistic gene, it’s not my favorite part of the job. But that’s what I get paid for, to show a writer where they fell short and help them get better, much better.
Most writers love to hear my praise, and the red marks that underline their shortcomings, not so much. After all, writers are people. We’re all sensitive about having our mistakes writ large on a platform where people can shred us for a typo. I’m talking to you, Amazon.
If you ever feel the need for a dose of flagellation, write a book, publish it on Amazon, and wait for the reviews. A slew of readers is in the wings sharpening their knives. Leave out an article in a sentence, write their for there, and you’re toast, I guarantee it.
I publish books on Amazon, and I know whereof I speak. I’ve gone over my books with a fine-tooth comb, had them proofread, and then slammed my palm to my forehead when a reader pointed out errors. One time, I published a book missing an entire chapter. In case that makes any writer’s day who’s been trolled for a typo this morning.
Shit happens, so do mistakes.
Most painful for me is when a client of mine reports a stinging review of a quality book because of numerous errors. Said writer is ready to give up her career, but after combing through the book again, we might find only one typo we missed. Because people are allowed to say any shit they want in a so-called review. One error, numerous errors? Who but the author will check? And hyperbole always makes the reviewer look good.
As if typing teh instead of the is a federal crime.
I’ve had the good fortune to have two books published by traditional publishers. The first book came out in 1976 and the second twenty years later. Publishing hadn’t changed much in that span of time. Publishing houses employed a staff of editors, proofreaders, and fact-checkers to guarantee the accuracy of their books. More or less.
I wrote my second book, as I did the first, in collaboration with a physician. In addition to recipes for a healthy lifestyle, it contained a myriad of scientific information for the consumer. Think many numbers, kilograms, Grams, milligrams, etc. We went over that book until we were blind, checking numbers. At least seven people read the manuscript and checked our data.
We had a highly-regarded publisher known for publishing quality books and a top-notch editor (who sadly died just before publication-RIP Jackie Killeen). I would have staked my life that we had no errors in that book. Jackie schooled me otherwise.
“Helen,” she said in her raspy voice, “steel yourself. You will go into a bookstore (in the days before Amazon), and pull a book off the shelf. I guarantee you will open to a typo. Every book has a typo.”
I wouldn’t have believed her until we got a letter from a medical professional telling us how much she loved the book, but we had used milligrams instead of Grams in one of our chapters.
Arghhhh! As Charlie Brown used to say when Lucy pulled the football.
And Jackie was right. I find typos in just about every book I read.
A few things about typos and proofreading before I get to my main point. The world has changed since I had my go-around with traditional publishing. In the old days, publishers had a staff to go over every book. Now, it’s very limited. Many writers have to do that on their own.
An ability to proofread professionally is a function of the brain, in my humble opinion. So many of us have little ticks that transpose numbers and read missing words to complete a sentence without being diagnosed as learning disabled.
This means you shouldn’t hand your manuscript to your cousin, who offers to proof your book for free just to save money. Maybe your cousin is a good speller, but how do you know she has the kind of brain that catches every error?
Typos aren’t a sign of stupidity. Writers who publish a story with a misspelled word know how to spell. Their brains just aren’t in sync with their fingers and eyes. Hence they need editors and proofreaders. Even if they are editors themselves.
We can see other people’s mistakes before our own because we know what’s coming in our stories, and our brains gloss over the mistakes. A fresh set of eyes doesn’t and catches things.
Okay, so I hope I’ve made my point that everyone makes mistakes, and typos show up everywhere. Writers hate them. Especially my client who was almost in tears this morning because someone left a cruel message about typos in a review of her new book.
Let’s get on to why someone feels the need to skin a writer alive because she left out a comma or a word in a sentence, or heaven forbid, misspelled a word.
Back when my error was discovered, the reader had to write an actual letter on a piece of stationery, by hand, put it in an envelope, add a stamp, and find a mailbox. She did this because she, too, was a medical professional and wanted to alert us, in the nicest possible way, as I recall, to an error we would want to address.
These days, you can just log on to your favorite social media site and rip someone a new one just because you’re having a bad day. What difference does it make to a reader if she reduces a writer’s months-long or even years’-long effort to create a beautiful piece of work to a snarky comment about a misspelled word? A reviewer, I might add, who would shrink from exposing herself to the kind of public scrutiny that requires a writer to build walls, literally or figuratively, to protect herself from such trolling.
I’ve been the recipient of these “reviews” enough times that I’ve developed my own attitude about them. My epiphany came when I wrote a diet book about soup. A reader left a one-star review (which seriously damages sales, by the way) to tell me that she’d rather chew her food. Direct quote, you can look it up.
So why did she buy a book with soup in the title? A question for the ages.
But it turned my head around about snarky reviews about typos and other examples of human error.
Where else would the self-righteous go for a sense of self on the spur of the moment? Perhaps the boss is reaming them a new one. The spouse has come up with a dodgy excuse for some late hours, and the kids are, well fill in the blanks. We all know about kids.
So for a quick boost for the ego, why not go on Amazon and trash someone’s reputation? Show that writer with 100k fans known for her mastery of deep point of view and rich characterizations what a bozo she really is. Write 500 well-chosen words on the difference between rain and reign and remind her that’s she writing a fantasy romance, bia-tch, about warring royal families. Duh!!?&&!!!!!!
Be sure to use lots of punctuation to get her attention.
When you’ve got all your vitriol out of your system, you can give thanks for such careless writers.
Realize that they are God’s gift to you, sent from on high to make you feel good about yourself. Because where else can you get such a cathartic experience for $2.99? Unless you scored a free copy in a promotion.
Thank God it wasn’t the old days when you had to fork over $25 for a book. And you couldn’t even complain to the world when you found a typo. God, how did we survive those dark ages?
Okay, I get it. I’ve got an inner asshole, just like you. Well, maybe not you, but definitely the guy sitting next to you in the cafe. I understand how sometimes it just makes you see red when you turn yourself inside out to produce a perfect report at work, and then you read an article or a novel that appears sloppy and half-cooked.
So, yeah, you want to ream out the jerk posting drivel on Medium or these simple-minded space operas you could probably turn out in your sleep if you just had time to sit down for two minutes. What’s the harm?
And if you’re really having a bad day, rub your hands together and hiss a little heh heh heh as you imagine the writer on the other end of the spectrum. She’s flaying herself with the sword of perfectionism for having exposed her total inadequacy as a human being for not catching the typo in the first place.
You know what they say, everything happens for a reason. So judge not too harshly the typo-rich tomes. They serve a purpose if only to make you see your exalted place in the firmament, catcher of typos. And won’t that look great on your headstone.
And for the typos you catch in this article, I put them there deliberately just to make you feel as superior as I know you are to this humble writer. | https://medium.com/rogues-gallery/typos-gods-gift-to-the-self-righteous-758db74d957c | ['Helen Cassidy Page'] | 2020-11-03 15:08:39.587000+00:00 | ['Humor', 'Writing Tips', 'Psychology', 'Advice', 'Writing'] |
10 Underrated Python Skills | #1 — Understanding the __main__ function
Using if __name__ == '__main__' provides the flexibility to write code that can be executed from the command line or imported as a package into an interactive environment. This conditional statement controls how the program will execute given the context.
You should expect that a user running your code as an executable has different goals than a user importing your code as a package. The if __name__ == ‘__main__' statement provides control flow based on the environment in which your code is being executed.
__name__ is a special variable in the module’s global namespace
is a special variable in the module’s global namespace It has a repr() method that is set by Python
method that is set by Python The value of repr(__name__) depends on the execution context
depends on the execution context From the command line, repr(__name__) evaluates to ‘__main__’ — therefore any code in the if block will run
evaluates to ‘__main__’ — therefore any code in the if block will run Imported as a package, repr(__name__) evaluates to the name of the import — therefore code in the if block will not run
Why is this helpful? Well, someone running your code from the command line will have the intention of executing functions right away. This may not be true of someone importing your package as utility code into a Jupyter Notebook.
In if __name__ == ‘__main__' you should create a function called main() that contains the code you want to run. Across programming languages, the main function provides an entry point for execution. In Python, we name this function main() only by convention — unlike lower level languages, Python does not ascribe any special significance to the main function. By using the standard terminology however, we let other programmers know that this function represents the starting point of the code that accomplishes the primary task of the script.
Rather than including blocks of task-accomplishing code within main() , the main function should call other functions stored within the module. Effective modularization allows the user to reuse aspects of the code as they wish.
The extent to which you modularize is up to you — more functions means more flexibility and easier reuse, but may make your package more difficult for a human to read and interpret as they traverse logical breaks between functions. | https://towardsdatascience.com/10-underrated-python-skills-dfdff5741fdf | ['Nicole Janeway Bills'] | 2020-11-20 12:10:39.328000+00:00 | ['Artificial Intelligence', 'Python', 'Computer Science', 'Data Science', 'Programming'] |
Which Evaluation Metric Should You Use in Machine Learning Regression Problems? | R-Squared (R²)
R² represents the proportion of variance explained by your model.
R² is a relative metric, so you can use it to compare with other models trained on the same data. And you can use it to get a rough a feel for how well a model performs, in general.
Disclaimer: This article isn’t a review of machine learning methods, but make sure you use different data for training, validation, and testing. You always want to hold out some data that your model has not seen to evaluate its performance. Also, it’s a good idea to look at plot of your model’s predictions vs. the actual values to see how well your model fit the data.
Let’s see how R² is computed. Onward! ➡️
Formula and code
Here is one way to formulate R².
1 - (SSE/SST)
SSE is the sum of squared errors; the sum of the squared differences between the actual values and predicted values.
SST is the total sum of squares (shown sometimes as TSS); the sum of the squared differences between the actual values and the mean of the actual values.
With more mathy notation:
1 - (∑(y - ŷ)² / ∑(y - y̅)²)
Here’s what the code looks like —adapted from scikit-learn, the primary Python machine learning library.
numerator = ((y_true - y_pred) ** 2).sum()
denominator = ((y_true - np.average(y_true)) ** 2).sum() r2_score = 1 - (numerator / denominator)
In words
subtract the predicted values from the actual y values square the results sum them
That’s the numerator.
subtract the mean of the actual y values from each actual y value square the results sum them
That’s the denominator.
1 - the numerator/denominator is the R². 🎉
R² is the default metric for scikit-learn regression problems. If you want to use it explicitly you can import it and then use it like this:
from sklearn.metrics import r2_score r2_score(y_true, y_pred)
Interpretation
A model that explains no variance would have an R² of 0. A model with an R² of 1 would explain all of the variance. Higher scores are better.
However, if your R² is 1 on your test set you are probably leaking information or the problem is fairly simple for your model to learn. 👍
In some fields, such as the social sciences, there are lots of factors that influence human behavior. Say you have a model with just a few independent variables that results in an R² close to .5. Your model is able to account for half of the variance in your data, and that’s quite good. 😀
It is possible to have an R² that is negative. Negative scores occur when the predictions the model makes fit that data worse than the mean of the output values. Predicting the mean each time is a null model. See more here.
Example
Say you have the following small toy test dataset:
All code is available on GitHub in this Jupyter notebook.
Here’s a plot of the actual and predicted y values.
The R² of the model is 0.71. The model is accounting for 71% of the variance in the data. That’s not too shabby, although we’d like more test data. 😀
As another example, let’s say the true values for y are [55, 2, 3]. The mean is 20. Predicting 20 for each y value results in an R² of 0.
A model that predicts [1 , 2, 2] for the true values above results in an R² of -0.59. Bottom line, you can do far worse than the null model! In fact, you can predict infinitely worse, resulting in an infinitely low R². 😲
As a brief aside, let’s look at the Adjusted R² and machine learning vs. statistics.
Adjusted R²
The Adjusted R² accounts for the addition of more predictor variables (features).
Adjusted R² will only increase with a new predictor variable when that variable improves the model performance more than would be expect by chance. Adjusted R² helps you focus on using the most parsimonious model possible. 😉
The Adjusted R² is more common in statistical inference than in machine learning. Scikit-learn, the primary Python library for machine learning, doesn’t even have an Adjusted R² metric. Statsmodels, the primary statistical library for Python does. If you want to learn more about when to use which Python library for data science, I wrote a guide here.
You can compute the Adjusted R2 if you know the number of feature columns (p) and the number of observations (n). Here’s the code:
adjusted_r2 = 1 — ((1 — r2) * (n — 1)) / ( n — p — 1)
n-1 is the degrees of freedom. Whenever you hear that term, you know you are in statistics land. In machine learning we generally care most about predictive ability, so R² is favored over Adjusted R².
Another note on statistics vs. machine learning: our focus is on machine learning, so prediction rather than causality. R² — and the other metrics that we’ll see, don’t say anything about causality by themselves.
Bottom Line
R² tells you how much variance your model accounts for. It’s handy because the R² for any regression problem will immediately provide some (limited) understanding of how well the model is performing. 😀
R² is a relative metric. Let’s see a few absolute metrics now. | https://towardsdatascience.com/which-evaluation-metric-should-you-use-in-machine-learning-regression-problems-20cdaef258e | ['Jeff Hale'] | 2020-08-06 14:20:00.958000+00:00 | ['Machine Learning', 'Technology', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Python', 'Data Science'] |
The Allure of the Bad Boy | Why do women love bad boys? Why did I?
1. You are an emotional adrenaline junkie.
Bad boys are always a little jittery, a little live-wirey, a lot unpredictable. You can hear the thunder, but never know where the lightning is going to strike.
The euphoria you get from them telling you that they love you or having sex with them is so intense that you crave it like an addict craves their next hit.
You want those highs so badly that you stick it out through the terrible lows, like when they aren’t calling, when you have a fight that was so bad it has you wondering whether it may or may not have been abuse.
Really, the lower the lows, the higher the highs feel, so to you, it’s worth it.
2. You know he has so much potential.
It’s always that fairy tale crap. You think he hasn’t met the right person. He’s listless, unfocused, drinks too much, doesn’t have the right job, and/or has some issues he needs to work out on a therapist’s couch.
What your ego tells you that he just hasn’t met you. You will be able to help him be the man you think he can be.
People who are afraid of commitment often attempt to commit to people who are inappropriate or unavailable. They choose them specifically because they subconsciously know a long-term relationship isn’t possible with them.
4. You’re ovulating.
I hate even writing that because it reads so incredibly sexist. Hormones are going to make women like bad boys?? But we are animals and thus are not immune to our bodies’ responses. In a study by Christina M. Larson and others, it was found that women are more attracted to “masculine” or “alpha” males during the ovulatory part of their cycle. The conclusion is that women (and other female animals) are drawn to “males with traits associated with fit genes that they can pass on to their offspring.”
In another study by Gregory Louis Carter and others, it was found that some men may have developed a “Dark Triad” personality as an evolutionary short-term mating strategy. The “Dark Triad” refers to men who exhibit narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Since women find “alpha” males more attractive during ovulation, they would inevitably be drawn to these Dark Triad figures who exhibit dominance, power, aggression, and assertiveness.
5. You’re young.
Sigal Tifferet and Daniel J. Kruger in their study surveyed 1,365 women, ranging in age from 14 to 68, about their preferences in a male partner. The women were asked to rate how likely they would be to have a long-term or short-term sexual relationship with a “dad” or “cad.”
Women generally preferred the “dad” type for a long-term partner and the “cad” for a short-term sexual affair. However, older women tended to prefer the “dad” type for all relationship lengths. Young women, in contrast, were more likely to consider brief sexual affairs, particularly with the cad.
The authors suggest that this effect might be due to changing fertility. Younger women may be more interested in securing “good genes” from attractive men, even if that means a short-term sexual affair. Older women, in contrast, may change focus away from sex and getting pregnant, toward securing good provisioning and resources for themselves and any existing children. | https://tarablairball.medium.com/the-allure-of-the-bad-boy-3071d48658c2 | ['Tara Blair Ball'] | 2019-07-08 16:21:49.890000+00:00 | ['Women', 'Relationships', 'Mental Health', 'Love', 'Psychology'] |
How To Record, Compress & Stream Audio in iOS | There are many ways to record audio on iOS, with the AVFoundation framework being a veritable Swiss Army Knife of tools.
At the basic level, AVAudioRecorder makes it dead simple to record audio in a variety of common formats, and save it to disk. However, the audio is only available after recording is complete. This is fine in most cases, but sometimes, we might need the audio while recording is happening, to do something with it — applying effects, streaming it to a web server, and so on.
This is where AVAudioEngine comes in. Introduced in 2014, it provides a lower-level set of building blocks, with which it is possible to write custom audio-processing pipelines. In this post, we’ll see how to use AVAudioEngine to record audio, and compress and stream it, even while recording is in progress.
AVAudioEngine Basics
An audio pipeline is built by using the AVAudioEngine class and connecting it with a graph of AVAudioNodes . As audio data flows from node to node, it is processed by each node, with the final processed audio reaching the final output node. Using this, it is possible to architect complex pipelines, which can process audio all in real-time.
There are a variety of types of nodes:
AVAudioInputNode: This node is responsible for connecting to audio input sources such as the device microphone. The captured audio is passed on to other nodes down the graph.
AVAudioUnit: This node is used to process input audio and apply various effects, such as speed, pitch, reverb etc in realtime. There are different subclasses of AVAudioUnit , each one responsible for a different effect.
, each one responsible for a different effect. AVAudioMixerNode: This node accepts input audio from other, possibly multiple nodes, and mixes them together. For example, multiple effects that were applied on AVAudioUnit nodes can be mixed together in these nodes, and the mixed audio can be passed on to the next node.
AVAudioPlayerNode: This node can be used to playback audio either from input buffers incoming from other nodes, or from files saved already.
AVAudioOutputNode: This node is responsible for connecting to the device output, such as speakers, and actually outputting the audio.
An AVAudioEngine instance by default has one input node, mixer node (called the main mixer node) and output node. Other nodes can be created and attached as necessary.
Using AVAudioEngine for recording
To demonstrate how recording using AVAudioEngine works, we’ll build a Recorder class, that encapsulates all the functionality we need.
The class holds a reference to an AVAudioEngine instance, which we will be creating. It also holds a reference to a mixer node, using which we will be capturing audio. We could use the engine’s inputNode directly, but having a separate node helps in case some additional processing is needed before accessing the audio. And finally, we also have a property that holds the current recording state.
When initialising the Recorder, the first thing to do is to setup the AVAudioSession :
Using the shared AVAudioSession instance, we first set the category to record , which allows the app to record audio. If there is a need to playback audio in the app as well, it can be set to playAndRecord . We then activate the session.
Next, we setup the engine:
Like mentioned earlier, AVAudioEngine works by having an instance of the engine and attaching nodes to it. In the above code, we’re doing the following:
We create the engine as well as the custom mixer node, in the setupEngine method.
method. We attach our mixer node to the engine. Attaching simply adds the node to the list of nodes in the engine.
We then connect nodes together, in the makeConnections method. This is where we actually construct the audio processing graph. For our purposes, we’re connecting the input node to our mixer node, and our mixer node to the main mixer node. So it looks like this:
Finally, we prepare the engine, so that the system allocates the necessary resources in advance.
When connecting nodes, we can specify the format of the audio, which will act as the output audio format for the source node (and therefore the input format of the destination node).
However, this cannot be any format — it needs to be a PCM audio format for reasons we will see later. If the format is nil, the input format of the source node is treated as its output format as well.
Capturing Audio
Once the session and engine are setup, we can start recording, so let’s setup a startRecording method.
A key feature of AVAudioEngine is that it is possible to tap (i.e capture) the audio at any point in the graph, again in real-time. Audio continues to flow through the graph — we just get access to the stream at that point of the graph.
Let’s see what’s happening in startRecording :
We get a reference to the node on which we want to install the tap on. In this case, it’s our custom mixer node. As mentioned earlier, this could’ve been the input node or the main mixer node as well. We also get a reference to the node’s output format.
We install the tap, providing a large enough buffer size, and the format of the node. We also pass an AVAudioNodeTapBlock closure, which gives us the audio buffer in return.
closure, which gives us the audio buffer in return. We then start the engine, which allocates resources, and connects the input/output nodes to the audio source/destination.
The main part is of course the tap. The buffer that the closure gives back to us is an AVAudioPCMBuffer . Remember how we had to use a PCM audio format earlier? This is the reason — the audio buffer is always expected to be in this format, and it’s up to us to take it and convert it into other formats.
Side note: In case your requirement is to just record audio, without having to do anything else, you’re pretty much done! You can write the buffer to disk using methods provided by AVAudioFile . Once the recording is completed by stopping the engine, you can read and playback the file in your app. Of course, do stick around till the end, because we’ll be discussing a few special considerations.
Using AVAudioFile to write to disk:
Pausing/Resuming audio
Pause and resume is simple — just implement the following methods:
Converting Audio
We have a buffer in PCM format, but this is uncompressed audio, and in order to avoid taking up too much disk space, or for faster data transmission, we’re going to have to compress it. We can compress audio by converting it into a compressed audio format.
There are a variety of formats, such as AAC and FLAC, some of which are lossy compressed formats and others lossless. Which format you choose would depend on your use-case. For things like Speech Recognition, it is better to use lossless formats, while for things like, say, audio notes in a notes app, a lossy format would suffice.
To convert audio, we need to use the AVAudioConverter and AVAudioCompressedBuffer classes.
For a project that we worked on, our requirement was to convert the audio into FLAC before streaming it. So let’s take a look at how we did that.
Phew, a lot of things going on here, let’s break it down:
We first create a couple of instance variables — an AVAudioConverter , and AVAudioCompressedBuffer . We’ll be using the converter instance to reset it when stopping the recording. The buffer needs to be instance variable, because there’s a bug where it gets deallocated too soon if it’s only a local variable, and the converter crashes.
, and . We’ll be using the converter instance to reset it when stopping the recording. The buffer needs to be instance variable, because there’s a bug where it gets deallocated too soon if it’s only a local variable, and the converter crashes. We create the converter inside the startRecording method. The initialiser accepts two parameters — an input format and an output format. The input format is the format of our mixer node. The output format is the format we want to convert to, which is created as follows.
method. The initialiser accepts two parameters — an input format and an output format. The input format is the format of our mixer node. The output format is the format we want to convert to, which is created as follows. The output format is constructed using an AudioStreamBasicDescription , which is a struct that allows us to specify the settings for an AVAudioFormat . In this example, we’ve used the FLAC format, along with settings recommended for the format. A note on sample rate: we’re using the same sample rate as that of the node. We faced audio stuttering and quality issues when we tried to change it. If you have suggestions on how to handle it, do let us know in the comments!
, which is a struct that allows us to specify the settings for an . In this example, we’ve used the FLAC format, along with settings recommended for the format. A note on sample rate: we’re using the same sample rate as that of the node. We faced audio stuttering and quality issues when we tried to change it. If you have suggestions on how to handle it, do let us know in the comments! Once the converter is constructed, we can use it inside the tap block. The first step is to initialise our compressed buffer with settings for the format, packet capacity and size. Again, these are the recommended settings.
When the converter starts converting audio using convert(to:error:inputBlock:) , it passes the data through an AVAudioConverterInputBlock . It returns the buffer to be used to convert audio. We also need to use the outStatus parameter to specify whether there is data available to be used or not. For our requirement, we need to stream audio, and we can expect there to always be data as long as the recording is in progress. However, if the converter is operating on files, which have a specified end, we would need to use endOfStream instead of haveData as appropriate.
, it passes the data through an . It returns the buffer to be used to convert audio. We also need to use the outStatus parameter to specify whether there is data available to be used or not. For our requirement, we need to stream audio, and we can expect there to always be data as long as the recording is in progress. However, if the converter is operating on files, which have a specified end, we would need to use instead of as appropriate. After calling convert(to:error:inputBlock:) , we now have data in the compressed buffer. We convert it to Data , so that we can use it for our purposes. In our case, we had to stream it, so it was just a matter of passing along the data to another class which was responsible for connecting over Websockets and sending data to a server.
Special Considerations
We looked at using AVAudioEngine to record and compress audio, but there are a few more things to keep in mind when using this in an actual app.
Microphone Permissions
Any app that wants to record audio needs to request permission from the user first. You would need to use AVAudioSession’s requestRecordPermission method at some point in the app before starting to record. You would also need to include the privacy description for microphone usage, in your info.plist .
Background Recording
To be able to record audio in the background, you need to enable the audio background mode in the Signing & Capabilities section of your project settings.
Interruptions
This is a crucial consideration, which is easy to overlook. When recording audio in your app, it’s not guaranteed that it will have access to the microphone at all times. It is possible that the recording is interrupted by phone calls, or by other processes that take over the microphone, such as Siri.
We need to take appropriate actions both when the interruption begins, and when it ends, and this is done by listening to notifications sent by the AVAudioSession .
The AVAudioSession.interruptionNotification contains info that lets us know when an interruption began and when it ended.
When the interruption begins, we need to pause the recording — this allows AVAudioEngine resources to be temporarily freed up, while the microphone is being used by some other process.
When the interruption ends, we need to activate our audio session again, and resume the recording. We also need to handle any pending configuration changes, which we’ll discuss next.
Configuration Changes
When there are changes to the hardware configuration, such as when an external microphone is connected or disconnected, the AVAudioEngineConfigurationChange notification is sent.
We need to listen to this notification, and depending on whether the session is interrupted or not, rewire the node connections in the engine.
Media Services Reset
According to Apple:
Under rare circumstances, the system terminates and restarts its media services daemon. Respond to these events by reinitializing your app’s audio objects (such as players, recorders, converters, or audio queues) and resetting your audio session’s category, options, and mode configuration. Your app shouldn’t restart its media playback, recording, or processing until initiated by user action.
So we’ll do exactly that:
Nothing but activating the session again, recreating the engine and its nodes, and rewiring the node connections.
Conclusion
In this post, we saw how to setup an audio recording pipeline using AVAudioEngine . We’ve however, just barely scratched the surface of what is possible with AVAudioEngine and the rest of AVFoundation . To know more about AVAudioEngine :
Here’s Apple’s official documentation.
Apple’s AVAudioEngine Sample Code is a treasure trove of best practices that are not documented anywhere else.
Ray Wenderlich’s AVAudioEngine tutorial talks about AVAudioEngine in general, and setting it up for playback purposes.
Working with AVAudioEngine has been a rewarding journey, but thanks to the breadth and depth of AVFoundation , it has also not been an easy one. Hopefully, we helped save you some time and effort, and made it easy for you to setup your own recording stack. | https://arvindhsukumar.medium.com/using-avaudioengine-to-record-compress-and-stream-audio-on-ios-48dfee09fde4 | ['Arvindh Sukumar'] | 2020-09-28 02:11:05.017000+00:00 | ['Mobile App Development', 'iOS', 'Development', 'Swift', 'Avfoundation'] |
5 Epic Stories to Help You Escape the Winter Darkness | Photo by Lola Guti on Unsplash
If you’re taking some time out from the real world this Christmas; whether voluntarily or not you may need a little slice of distraction.
And while stories aren’t just for Christmas, these tales may just make your festive period pass more gloriously.
Below are five stories that, between them will be available in hundreds of languages and various formats such as novel, audiobook, television adaptation or movie. They are epic tales that have the power to transport you away from the real world; at least for the duration of the story but ofttimes longer.
Stay safe, be kind and enjoy — if you digest any of the stories or if they are already favourites of yours I’d love to hear from you. The links below are not affiliate links.
Grave injustice, imprisonment, rescue and resurrection, smugglers caves and revenge. This novel is the most fun I’ve had reading as an adult. Dumas published the first part of Le Comte de Monte Cristo in a Parisian newspaper in 1884 during France’s inter revolution years.
The narrative follows Edmond Dantes. A young sea captain whose fortunes are coming together when three jealous associates plot to have him arrested on the count of treason — with Napolean on the loose this is an accusation that makes the government and law enforcers jumpy.
Dantes is locked up in jail; his freedom, wealth, impending captaincy, and great love Mercedes are all seized. Alone for years and bereft of hope that he will ever have liberty again, he unexpectedly meets his key to escape and great wealth and fortune.
Set in the bustling Mediterranean town of Marseille and the Island of Corsica the novel follows the transformation of Dantes from hopeless prisoner to the great Count of Monte Cristo and the revenge he takes on those who took away his life and love.
The sun had nearly reached the meridian, and his scorching rays fell full on the rocks, which seemed themselves sensible of the heat. Thousands of grasshoppers, hidden in the bushes, chirped with a monotonous and dull note; the leaves of the myrtle and olive trees waved and rustled in the wind.
With immense satisfaction we join the Count on his quest for justice and the universal question of the ability to avenge an injustice lingers on both of us.
Genre — Family, Adventure
Published in 1928 under the shadow of Stalin’s brutal economic and cultural reforms, The Twelve Chairs is the hilarious satirical adventure of a useless and entitled former aristocrat and his admirably skilled conman. They go on a quest to locate a set of chairs that hold a collection of diamonds sewn into them during the revolution.
This novel wasn’t subject to the same kind of censorship that plagued the contemporary writer Bulgakov, thankfully.
Despite his uselessness and buffoonery, you initially sympathise with the aristocrat Vorobyaninov, but this becomes tiresome. The star of the novel is the artful accomplice Ostap Bender who is a brilliant conman. Bender is singularly focused, swift-thinking, opportunistic, fast witted and endlessly optimistic. His companion moans, groans and consistently loses hope but Bender always picks them up again and finds another way to move forward. He is a problem solver.
This book is light and adventurous and had me laughing aloud at times and smirking all the way through.
The two men go on a journey through Russia to pursue the chairs; occasionally sabotaged by Vorobyaninov’s lack of focus and imagination.
Like The Count of Monte Cristo, this is a fun and energetic read though there are moments of violence, so perhaps it’s not a family film.
Genre — Satire, Crime, Adventure.
This 2013 retelling of the classic Middle Eastern folk tales, One Thousand and One Nights is a fascinating read and the first book I thought of for my escapism collection. You may be familiar with the frame story of Shahrazad and her quest to survive her impending death sentence through compelling storytelling.
Lebanese author Hanah al-Shakyk brings another level of depth and allure to the stories with her retelling. Nineteen stories are all under the umbrella of Sharahrazad’s storytelling quest, often interconnected with characters from one story turning up in another. The final ending to her collection once more inverts the role of narrative storyteller.
One Thousand and One Nights worlds are rich and vivid; they traverse faraway lands, visit exotic marketplaces, and encounter merchants, Jinni’s, demons, kings, princes, and humble fishermen. Each encounter gives the reader a story; a unique perspective of their world.
My favourite story is currently the first one, The Fisherman and the Jinni; perhaps this was the origins for Aladdin, or maybe that’s another story of forgiveness and redemption. In this story, a poor fisherman hauls another load of rubbish in his last catch of the day. Wondering how he will feed his family, he opens the contents of an old chest and lets out a Jinni who has been imprisoned for centuries.
Using storytelling the two battle out themes of justice, redemption and forgiveness. I wrote another blog specifically about this collection of stories being the ultimate tales for now.
There’s another theme of hospitality that runs through the stories. Doors are always open to strangers and tables laden with food. If you’re craving a Christmas feast this year, the vivid dinner tables of the stories may offer that additional comfort.
Genre — Classic, adventure
Adaptations of The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives have flowed in the ten years since publication; theatre plays, radio plays, and now Netflix has announced a television series based on the novel.
Bolanle, the merchant Baba Segi’s young fourth wife, is an outsider in her husband’s polygamous household. We first meet Baba Segi, anxious and on his way to Ayikara to seek advice on why he has not been able to make his new wife pregnant.
In Ayikara, it is so hot that the “men’s ears are curling” and in the shack of the Teacher, we are introduced to the ever-present orchestra of different voices. Why, Baba Segi mulls, when his household is bursting with the children of his three other wives is he experiencing so much trouble with Bolanle?
In his household, this polyphony continues as the mystery unravels, and each wife has her own secret to convey. We see the events of Bolanle’s arrival through all of the women’s lens and even when we don’t sympathise with the plights to remove the young wife each woman offers us a piece of wisdom about the world and the gender politics that has guided them there.
Each chapter brings a new piece of the puzzle and brings the reader closer to the centre of the mystery.
“I knew it would resonate with just about anybody. Some of the themes that I explore in the novel are universal themes. Everybody feels jealousy and insecurity.”
Genre — contemporary, world fiction, mystery.
This is not an easy read. Like The Secret Lives of Bab Segai’s wives, it has multiple characters and perspectives running through it, but they often appear unannounced in the middle of another section.
Ken Kesey, author of the colossal hit One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, wrote this in 1964, the same year of the famous bus tour captured energetically in Tom Woolf’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. We can imagine that his flow state wasn’t the one we hear about today; 8 hours of sleep and a high energy diet.
A wood-logging area in Oregon is the story’s setting The novel’s protagonist Hank Stamper battles against the town’s powers, the internal fractures within his family. Finally, he battles with the forces of nature as the river picks up ferocity as he battles to fill the order.
Each chapter commences with an inset story by an unknown narrator who knows the characters; sometimes, they are linked, other times not. The narrator of the inset stories gives a warm, campsite fire to the reading experience.
The direct address in the opening lines is my favourites. When I reread them, I’m in imminent danger of picking up the whole novel again.
Along the western slopes of the Oregon Coastal range…come look: the hysterical crashing of tributaries as they merge into the Wakonda Auga River.
There was an adaptation called Never Give An Inch with Paul Newman in 1971 who played a convincing Hank Stamper, but a ninety-minute film could never do justice to the novel’s epicness.
Genre — adventure | https://medium.com/curious/5-epic-stories-to-help-you-escape-the-winter-darkness-8d224ce346e | ['Sarah Thomas'] | 2020-12-25 23:18:38.844000+00:00 | ['Storytelling', 'Ideas', 'Books', 'History', 'Classics'] |
Create a Custom Annotation for the Kubernetes ingress-nginx Controller | Testing the Annotation
In order to test the annotation, we can perform the following:
1. First, let’s add memory to Docker Desktop. Although you can run with less memory, 8GB is recommended.
2. Now we can install all the required applications to create the development environment.
I am using OSX, so I will install using Homebrew, but these tools can be installed on other operating systems by other means. Click on each link for an install guide.
3. Create a development cluster running your version of the ingress-nginx controller. This is done with a few simple commands.
$ cd ingress-nginx $ make clean $ make build
go: downloading k8s.io/klog v1.0.0
go: downloading k8s.io/apimachinery v0.18.5
... $ make dev-env
[dev-env] building image
...
Kubernetes cluster ready and ingress-nginx listening in localhost using ports 80 and 443
... $ kubectl get pods -n ingress-nginx
NAME READY STATUS
ingress-nginx-admission-create-mjqhb 0/1 Completed
ingress-nginx-admission-patch-krjg8 0/1 Completed
ingress-nginx-controller-6fcd5657-vql5g 1/1 Running
4. Create a Deployment, Service, and Ingress. This step is needed so that we can test our new ingress rule.
Deployment
Here we are deploying gcr.io/kubernetes-e2e-test-images/echoserver:2.1 just responds with information about the request. The application runs on port 8080.
$ echo "
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
name: meow
spec:
replicas: 2
selector:
matchLabels:
app: meow
template:
metadata:
labels:
app: meow
spec:
containers:
- name: meow
image: gcr.io/kubernetes-e2e-test-images/echoserver:2.1
ports:
- containerPort: 8080
" | kubectl apply -f - # wait a min for the deployment to be created
$ kubectl get deploy
NAME DESIRED CURRENT UP-TO-DATE AVAILABLE
meow 2 2 2 2 # you should have 2 pods running
$ kubectl get pods
NAME READY STATUS
meow-5557bc7c54-cw2ck 1/1 Running
meow-5557bc7c54-kfzm5 1/1 Running
Service
This service allows other pods to access the application above via the Cluster-IP assigned.
$ echo "
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
name: meow-svc
spec:
ports:
- port: 80
targetPort: 8080
protocol: TCP
name: http
selector:
app: meow
" | kubectl apply -f - # wait a min for the service to be created
$ kubectl get svc
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S)
meow-svc ClusterIP 10.107.78.24 <none> 80/TCP
Ingress
This ingress allows us to access the service meow-svc via the /meow path. Since we didn’t specify a host, then we can access it from the cluster. We will send a request, just to make sure it responds appropriately.
$ echo "
apiVersion: extensions/v1beta1
kind: Ingress
metadata:
name: meow-ingress
annotations:
nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/nickname: \"crazzzzy-server\"
spec:
rules:
- http:
paths:
- path: /meow
backend:
serviceName: meow-svc
servicePort: 80
" | kubectl apply -f - $ kubectl get ing
NAME CLASS HOSTS ADDRESS PORTS AGE
meow-ingress <none> * 80 5s $ kubectl get pod -n ingress-nginx
NAME READY STATUS
ingress-nginx-admission-create-mjqhb 0/1 Completed
ingress-nginx-admission-patch-krjg8 0/1 Completed
ingress-nginx-controller-6fcd5657-vql5g 1/1 Running # Since we haven't exposed the ingress-controller, let's see if the routing is working from the pod
$ kubectl exec -it ingress-nginx-controller-6fcd5657-vql5g -n ingress-nginx -- curl 127.0.0.1/meow Hostname: meow-85d75dbf8d-lczd2
Pod Information:
-no pod information available-
Server values:
server_version=nginx: 1.12.2 - lua: 10010
Request Information:
client_address=10.244.0.6
method=GET
real path=/meow
query=
request_version=1.1
request_scheme=http
request_uri=http://127.0.0.1:8080/meow Request Headers:
accept=*/*
host=127.0.0.1
user-agent=curl/7.67.0
x-forwarded-for=127.0.0.1
x-forwarded-host=127.0.0.1
x-forwarded-port=80
x-forwarded-proto=http
x-real-ip=127.0.0.1
x-request-id=c183a12ae4aec14ea023b7e23d1e5246
x-scheme=http Request Body:
-no body in request-
5. Now let’s see if our changes propagated. We can do this by checking the ingress-nginx config file for changes.
$ kubectl exec -it ingress-nginx-controller-6fcd5657-vql5g -n ingress-nginx -- cat /etc/nginx/nginx.conf | grep crazzzzy-server -a5 -b5
7411- proxy_cache_path /tmp/nginx-cache-auth levels=1:2 keys_zone=auth_cache:10m max_size=128m inactive=30m use_temp_path=off;
7534-
7537- # Global filters
7556-
7559- ## start server _
7579: # crazzzzy-server
7599- server {
7610- server_name _ ;
7629-
7633- listen 80 default_server reuseport backlog=511 ;
7685- listen [::]:80 default_server reuseport backlog=511 ;
And there you have it, a working annotation! Now you can get started with creating annotations for all of the features available to nginx.
You can start by checking out which issues you would like to work on or by seeing what nginx directives have yet to be implemented. | https://medium.com/better-programming/creating-a-custom-annotation-for-the-kubernetes-ingress-nginx-controller-444e9d486192 | ['Fernando Diaz'] | 2020-08-20 18:06:27.350000+00:00 | ['Nginx', 'Programming', 'DevOps', 'Cloud Computing', 'Kubernetes'] |
ARK Messenger Tutorial — Part One | Welcome everyone to our series of tutorials based on the ARK Messenger Proof-of-Concept (PoC). By the end of this series, you will be able to set up your own autonomous and private messaging application. This tutorial was created in-part with documentation provided by Delegate Lemii as part of his ARK Messenger Proof-of-Concept which was funded by the ARK Grants Program.
In order to make the development process as simple as possible, we will be breaking down these tutorials into three major sections:
Part One
Set up a development environment
Create and deploy a bridgechain locally with a custom network configuration
Part Two
Develop the custom transaction
Test a custom transaction with the local bridgechain
Develop the client
Part Three
Deploy a bridgechain
Launch the client application
How Does ARK Messenger Work?
Before we dive in, it would be beneficial to understand how the ARK Messenger works!
The ARK Messenger is comprised of two major components: (1) the client; and (2) the bridgechain.
The client is the front-end application that you interact with as a user. It handles all user input and processes all incoming and outgoing data to the network.
The bridgechain is the blockchain component of the application. It acts as a decentralized database
If you would like to review the code for both components, they are listed below for your convenience:
The ARK Messenger application works with channels. A channel can consist of any number of participants. When a user creates a new channel, a new channel ID and password is generated. The password can then be shared with other users so that they can join the channel and send messages.
Messages sent to the channel are encrypted and decrypted using the channel’s password as the seed. All sensitive data is handled by the user’s local client and no unencrypted data is ever broadcasted. ARK Messenger runs on its own bridgechain with a customized network and node configuration. It also makes use of a custom transaction built with the Generic Transaction Interface (GTI) to handle the processing of the chat messages.
Try out ARK Messenger at https://ARKmessenger.io
Now that we have a foundation of what the ARK Messenger is, we are ready to start building. Let us review how to set up a development environment.
Setting up a development environment
The documentation on Learn ARK is an ideal way for developers to go through the processes for setting up a development environment. We recommend Linux (*.deb based) operating system as the default environment. We officially recommend and support Ubuntu operating system.
You can also set up your development environment using a Docker on macOS/Linux Docker or a Docker on Windows.
Step 1: User setup
Once you have your environment up and running using the links above, we can create a new user ark and add this user to the sudoers group (allowing root execution if needed).
If you are running on a fresh cloud box/vps, like for example DigitalOcean, then create a user with the following commands below:
sudo adduser ark
sudo usermod -aG sudo ark # login as ark user
sudo su ark
Step 2: Install Git Source Control System
As the most popular version control software in existence, Git is a staple of many developer workflows, and ARK is no exception. Downloading Git will allow you to clone the latest version of ARK Core. Download it by entering the following command:
sudo apt-get install -y git curl apt-transport-https update-notifier
Step 3: Install Node.js Runtime
As ARK Core is written exclusively in Node.js, the server-side framework for JavaScript and Typescript, installing Node.js is a necessity for core development. The code below installs Node.js from the source.
(echo "deb sudo wget --quiet -O - https://deb.nodesource.com/gpgkey/nodesource.gpg.key | sudo apt-key add -(echo "deb https://deb.nodesource.com/node_12.x $(lsb_release -s -c) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nodesource.list) sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install nodejs -y
Step 4: Install Yarn Package Manager
Yarn is a package manager that seeks to build upon the foundation of Node’s npm. Although yarn is not a strict requirement, in many cases it works faster and more elegantly than npm. Most ARK developers use yarn, and as such, you will see yarn commands often used throughout our documentation.
curl -sS https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/pubkey.gpg | sudo apt-key add -(echo "deb https://dl.yarnpkg.com/debian/ stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/yarn.list) sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install -y yarn
Step 5: Install Dependencies
Dependencies are needed for core to be compiled, run and controlled while living inside your Linux based environment. The command below installs some of those needed dependencies that are used by core or related scripts.
sudo apt-get install build-essential libcairo2-dev pkg-config libtool autoconf automake python libpq-dev jq -y
Step 6: Clone The Core Repository
Let’s clone our core repository and run the initial yarn setup command. We will also check out the latest develop branch.
yarn setup command leverages Lerna to clean, bootstrap and build the core packages (including transpiling typescript). For more information look into Core's package.json file in the root folder.
cd core
git checkout develop git clone https://github.com/arkecosystem/core cd coregit checkout develop #run Lerna to clean, bootstrap and build the core packages
yarn setup
Step 7: Setting Up The Development Database
ARK Core stores all the blockchain data in a PostgreSQL database. You have two options on how to set up your development database.
Follow Step 7.1 if you are working locally on your developer computer and have docker environment in place, otherwise follow Step 7.2 (for example if you are running on a cloud based Ubuntu instance or prefer native database install).
Step 7.1 Database Setup Using Docker
If you are already using Docker and have docker-compose installed, then you can generate docker files from the command line, with the yarn docker ark command where ark is the name of the network for which you want to generate docker files. For now, let's stick with ark as the default name of the network.
Executing the command yarn docker ark in the root folder of the previously cloned repository, like this:
cd core #root folder of the cloned repository
yarn docker ark
will generate the following docker files inside our core/docker folder (see folder tree below):
#core/docker tree in the cloned repository folder
├── development
│ ├── devnet
│ │ ├── Dockerfile
│ │ ├── docker-compose.yml
│ │ ├── entrypoint.sh
│ │ ├── purge_all.sh
│ │ └── restore.sh
│ ├── mainnet
│ │ └── docker-compose.yml
│ ├── testnet #this is the folder where we will start our PostgreSQL testned DB
│ │ ├── Dockerfile
│ │ ├── docker-compose.yml
│ │ ├── entrypoint.sh
│ │ ├── purge_all.sh
│ │ └── restore.sh
│ └── unitnet
│ ├── docker-compose.yml
│ └── purge.sh
└── production
...
To start the PostgreSQL docker container we must go into the corresponding folder and run the docker-compose command. For testnet we need to run the following:
cd core/docker/development/testnet
docker-compose up postgres #postgres is the name of the PostgreSQL container
The docker-compose up postgres will start PostgresSQL container and expose it to our core via standard PostgreSQL port 5432.
Step 7.2 Installing Postgres Database System-Wide
If you don’t want to install and run Docker on your local computer you can still install the PostgreSQL database natively on your running operating system. For *.deb based Linux systems the commands are the following:
sudo apt-get install postgresql postgresql-contrib -y sudo -i -u postgres psql -c "CREATE USER ark WITH PASSWORD 'password' CREATEDB;" sudo -i -u postgres psql -c "CREATE DATABASE ark_testnet WITH OWNER ark;" sudo -i -u postgres psql -c "CREATE DATABASE ark_devnet WITH OWNER ark;"
The commands above install the PostgreSQL database locally and create databases for running testnet and devnet networks with user ark as the database owner. If you have skipped the Step 1: User setup, you have to change ark user to your development username, usually, the logged-in username.
Run Above Commands Together In One Setup Script
While the above steps are helpful for getting acquainted with ARK Core, some developers may opt to run the above commands together in one setup script. First, create user ARK with a default password password . This will make it easier for us to work with default settings.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
sudo adduser ark
sudo usermod -aG sudo ark # login as ark user
sudo su - ark
After creating and logging under ark user, you can execute the following script to install development tools and dependencies from Technology Stack. If your default user isn't ark , you should copy and modify the script source below (database section).
bash https://raw.githubusercontent.com/learn-ark/bash-helper-scripts/master/dev-setup.sh
Create and deploy a bridgechain locally with a custom network configuration
For the last part of this tutorial, we will be creating and deploying a bridgechain with a custom network configuration.
To accomplish this, we will be using the documentation found at the ARK Deployer Hub. Once you have followed the steps outlined there, you will have successfully created and deployed your bridgechain.
By using a bridgechain, a lot of options to customize the network will open up. Here’s a summary of some of the parameters that ARK Messenger uses:
Ticker: Պ
Token: MSN
Block time: 4 seconds
Forgers: 11
p2p port: 11002
API port: 11003
Webhook port: 11004
But most importantly, a bridgechain allows you to run a network with your own custom transactions.
Next Steps
Our next tutorial will cover the development of a custom transaction, testing that transaction on our bridgechain, and developing the client which will serve as the front-end application.
If you become stuck at any point make sure to consult our documents on the Learn ARK hub. In addition, our team and developers are active on Slack so do not hesitate to reach out to us! | https://medium.com/ark-io/ark-messenger-tutorial-part-one-30068eb8619e | [] | 2020-05-13 09:46:43.745000+00:00 | ['Typescript', 'Development', 'Open Source', 'Blockchain', 'Bitcoin'] |
Can Language Help you Heal? | Something eery always happens the minute I step inside a plane bound for Portugal.
No matter how stressed out and overtired I am, all it takes is a “Boa tarde!*” or “Bom dia!**” to set me right. Greetings from the flight crew, captain chatter, and even the safety briefing all have a calming effect on me. By the time we take off, I’m relaxed and sporting a smile that stretches from ear to ear.
I just can’t help it.
I fall head over heels in love with the Azores — one of Portugal’s autonomous regions made up of nine islands — in 2007. My ending up on a remote volcanic rock in the middle of the North Atlantic is a result of happenstance, a last-minute work assignment as a tour director.
I’ve never even set foot in continental Portugal before, but in the time it takes to go from the airport to the hotel, I’m smitten. Within a year, I’ve made São Miguel island my base as I continue to travel around the world leading tours. Within two, I’m back into journalism working for Portuguese public media and newspapers, in English and Portuguese. By then, I’m deeply integrated into local society and feel at home for the first time in a long time.
Much as some places can upend your life when you least expect it, another language can unlock a whole new world.
Not only is Portuguese the key to accessing the culture of a wide community of countries spanning the globe, from Portugal to Cabo Verde via Brazil and Angola but it puts me in touch with a side of me I’ve never met before. In Portuguese, I’m more emotionally fluent and poetry sometimes happens, even though it is an art I’ve never practiced in any other language. Every now and then, a line, a stanza, or even a whole poem comes out of nowhere, unbidden.
Portuguese is that couple extra octaves my voice never knew it needed, a language that enriches my life and nourishes my heart and mind.
Alas, the 2008 financial crisis cripples Portugal for years and I struggle as much as everyone else even though I’m working. My circumstances become untenable and I have to leave in 2011. Numb, I watch the coastline disappear into the expanse of blue down below and my life with it as I fly toward the unknown once more.
As I immigrate to the US in 2013, depression fells me and destroys everything. | https://asingularstory.medium.com/can-language-help-you-heal-558113035722 | ['A Singular Story'] | 2019-12-27 13:40:26.313000+00:00 | ['Language', 'Travel', 'Mental Health', 'Portugal', 'Psychology'] |
The True Purpose Of Productivity | There’s a reason why most productivity advice fails to make any meaningful difference in your life over the long run. It’s not that the hacks and tricks and techniques don’t work. They do.
It’s that we see this kind of advice as the best possible way — the pinnacle, really — of improving our productivity. But it’s not. It’s based on a set of false assumptions. It misses the true purpose of being productive because it neglects how humans function at a biological and psychological level.
Imagine the perfect week. A seven-day stretch where you manage to do not just everything you aspire to do, but all the little things you conceive of along the way. The “I need to call mom”s and “I should pick up milk on the way home”s too. Where your plans fit into your calendar like a key into a lock, and your work assembles itself like a neat puzzle, perfectly abiding by the ever-looming deadlines of the ticking clock.
If you’re like me — a human being subject to their own, chemical reward system and a host of cognitive biases — this week has never happened in your life. And it never will. Because it’s a myth.
But that’s exactly what endless time optimization strategies are chasing. They pretend this week exists. If only we could chase it down once, we’d know how to catch it again and again. That’s nonsense, and its underlying assumption is deeply flawed: If you can hack yourself to do ever more, you’ll eventually reach a point where you can do everything you need to in any given week.
If you’ve ever had even a great week, you know that’s not how humans work.
First, our brains are wired to seek problems. Calm isn’t exactly our default state. So whenever we’re done fixing one thing, we naturally look for the next. Second, we love the dopamine hit of hitting even the tiniest goal way too much to just pass up on the opportunity to complete another one. Finally, we tend to think that all our time is ours, that life won’t interrupt, and that we know not just how much we’ll be able to do in advance, but also how long any given task will take. None of these are true, all victims of the planning fallacy.
Clearly, the do-more-until-you-can-do-everything approach can’t work. And that’s why gimmicks and tactics can’t possibly be the best productivity advice.
But what happens if we reject it? If we flip the basic assumption on its head? Maybe, we’d find an entirely new purpose of productivity. I think we would.
If you assume you can never get everything done, that you have no way of knowing how much time you’ll have available, and that you’ll often misjudge your own abilities and the hours required along the way, going for the maximum number of tasks instantly becomes a wholly futile effort.
By imagining the opposite, you’re forcing yourself to come up with a new definition of what being productive even means. To me, it means making good-enough progress on what I care about the most amidst the chaos of life.
The way you do that is by managing your expectations of time, much more so than managing your time itself.
Once you accept that life is riddled with chance, coincidence, luck, you’ll see productivity in a new light, with a new purpose. You’ll feel incentivized to build a different system. One with lots of buffers and room to fail. A system that’s optimized for minimum stress instead of maximum effort.
You’ll still have your goals, your to-dos, your milestones, but you won’t throw a tantrum every time you fail to check every one of them off your many lists. You’ll have compassion for yourself. More for others, too. You’ll learn to flow with life, around life, through life, rather than compartmentalizing it. You’ll be happier, less prone to burnout, and taste more of that elusive state of calm chasing checkmarks can never bring.
True productivity happens in your mind, not the outside world.
It happens when we learn to sit with our pattern-seeking machines without acting on them. When we say “thanks for the dopamine” and choose not to chase another hit. When we begin to find true comfort in the fact that we are imperfect beings acting in an imperfect world, rather than fighting the truth and the time we have so little of.
Only if we build our idea of this important concept on the fundamentals of what it means to be human can we erect a construct that lasts. An understanding that’s not sprawled with flawed assumptions.
Maybe, at the end of the day, we’d even get more done. Not that that matters.
Because that’s not what productivity is about, is it? | https://ngoeke.medium.com/the-true-purpose-of-productivity-58bcd8d430d1 | ['Niklas Göke'] | 2019-02-10 21:55:44.057000+00:00 | ['Self Improvement', 'Productivity', 'Life', 'Psychology', 'Culture'] |
Yemen’s Civil War and Social Media | Debate over showing the impact of the war
Facebook received backlash after it removed posts from users who shared images of emaciated Yemeni children published in the New York Times.
“At issue,” the Times explained, “was a photograph of a starving child.”
Image: Amal Hussain, a 7-year-old Yemeni girl, whose picture sparked a strong response. Amal was photographed suffering from severe acute malnutrition. Source: Tyler Hicks/The New York Time[iii]
“The article included several images of emaciated children. Some were crying. Some were listless. One, a 7-year-old girl named Amal, was shown gazing to the side, with flesh so paper-thin that her collarbone and rib cage were plainly visible.”
“Yes, Tyler’s images are hard to look at. They are brutal. But they are also brutally honest,” the Times’ Eric Nagourney and Michael Slackman wrote. “They reveal the horror that is Yemen today. You may choose not to look at them. But we thought you should be the ones to decide.”[iv]
Facebook has since emailed an explanation to the Times and republished the initial Facebook posts.[v]
“As our community standards explain, we don’t allow nude images of children on Facebook, but we know this is an important image of global significance,” a spokeswoman said in an emailed statement printed by the Times. “We’re restoring the posts we removed on this basis.” | https://medium.com/damian-radcliffe/https-medium-com-damian-radcliffe-yemens-civil-war-and-social-media-312c05715bd2 | ['Damian Radcliffe'] | 2019-07-29 14:49:36.861000+00:00 | ['Middle East', 'Social Media', 'Conflict', 'Yemen', 'Journalism'] |
Is a Pen Name for You? 5 Reasons to Consider it | What Are the Top 5 Reasons for Choosing a Pen-Name?
1. Drawing yourself from scratch
A long time ago, when the Internet was at its dawn very few people used their real names online.
All were enjoying building online personas that enabled free exploration of the Internet. Later on, when Facebook started, social interaction was redesigned to help us keep in touch with families and friends. Rather than making friends with strangers, people started using their real names to be searchable.
Empirically supported, the best reason for using an online persona is the liberty to explore. It gives you the possibility to draw yourself from scratch, which is rather difficult to do IRL, once you’re an adult with a real job, a real partner, and real children.
2. Maxing out creativity and authenticity
I don’t know about you, but I love to experiment. I don’t have a niche in which I predominately write but I do vent a lot. In fact, one of the reasons I started writing was to assist me in my therapeutic process. Since it’s been working wonders, I decided to make my own venting publication to serve other people as well. Why?
I’m tired of people telling me to look at the bright side. Or to breath in and breath out and relax. I need a good shout once in a while. Positivity doesn’t work. I’m tired of all the self-help books that promote a happy go lucky attitude towards life. Screw it! I need, and I’m sure that other people need it too, to stop being nice for a second, and just be me. I’m not always bubbly and fun. I come in shades and some of them are intensely dark. Which I am fine with, as long as I’m in a safe place to express it (sort of like Fight Club, haha).
But I can’t throw shit at my husband online and then not expect it to be used against me in case of a divorce. Yet, this is exactly what I need to do in order to make the relationship work. It’s strange, isn’t it?
3. Accepting criticism like a pro
There was a time when the slightest negative remark about the quality of my work upset me so much that I would ruminate over it instead of accepting it gracefully and moving on. I took all criticism very personally.
With age, I managed to overcome this issue. As I grew into a self-confident woman, I stopped letting my worth be dependent on outside validation. As a result, accepting criticism became key in my development. I became willing to mess up to learn, and it was fabulous.
Nonetheless, I don’t feel that I am there yet as a writer. Eir is ready to take the criticism, but I am not. I want to protect myself from unnecessary stress and thus, I will cowardly if you want, leave it on Eir. She has the strength to take whatever is going to be thrown at her.
At the same time, I also accept that success will be hers, not mine. But this is a small price to pay, and I am more than happy to accept it.
4. Using mystery as a brand strategy
I love puzzles. Who doesn’t? But a good puzzle is hard to build. This is why I love puzzles. In order for Eir to be a puzzle, she must be interesting enough for people to wonder: “Who is Eir really?”
And that’s on me. Eir’s stories should be so compelling that the reader will be entranced to learn who’s the wizard behind the curtain. And this is not an easy job. Building a brand for someone that has zero history is going to be damn hard. Eir can’t rely on friends, family, or colleagues. She must build a crowd from scratch. The only asset she has is writing.
To find out who Eir is, the reader will have to follow her stories and pick up on any details that could add up to the image of a real person. And that’s basically my marketing strategy.
5. Keeping things clean
Life is simple. Until we complicate it. For me, adding an extra layer to my current identity by letting people in my real life know about my pseudonym, would be a hassle. I like my privacy and compartmentation. I don’t want to mix things up. Also, I never plan to make writing a full-time job. If that would happen, I’d be very surprised.
I always struggled to say what my hobbies are because most of them were work-related. Therefore, writing should belong in its own drawer.
Using a pen-name is not for everyone. There are plenty of reasons against using it but the most important one is the lack of credibility. You’d have a missing identity and risk being called a hypocrite. Depending on what you write about, this could be more or less important in various topics. For example, I won’t care if an author of erotica is a 70-year-old grandma writing juicy stories about young handsome firefighters. But if the guy that offers financial advice is called Duffy Duck, I’ll probably say “No, thank you.”
It might be quite difficult to establish yourself as a full-time writer while not disclosing your real identity to anyone.
Finally, hiding behind a pen-name diminishes commitment if you’re prone to ditching the writing when things become difficult.
Before you take your pen-name, think a little about it. Take it for the right reasons and put it to good use. Also, close your eyes for a second and allow yourself to dream. When I’m famous, what does my name sound like?
Love,
ET. | https://medium.com/better-marketing/is-a-pen-name-for-you-5-reasons-to-consider-it-49619970ffd4 | ['Eir Thunderbird'] | 2020-12-22 13:32:24.082000+00:00 | ['Pseudonyms', 'Marketing', 'Feminism', 'Strategic Thinking', 'Writing'] |
The Art Of Perspective | The Art Of Perspective
A Cynical Take On Holiday Classics
Photo by Candice Picard on Unsplash
Thanksgiving has come and gone. The holiday season is in full swing. And that means something wonderful or terrible, depending on your point of view. No, I’m not talking about the repetitive, cheesy Christmas music that makes you want to shove an ice pick into your eye. It’s the other holiday tradition.
In a few days, the old-school Christmas specials will begin appearing on television in earnest. I had discussed this steadfast tradition at a holiday gathering. I turned a few heads when I shared my opinion of these happy holiday classics.
Let’s take the much-loved, Rudolph, The Rednosed Reindeer. The story wraps up with all the appropriate niceties when Santa grants Rudolph the reins of the sleigh team. The other reindeer, who previously bullied Rudolph, now ride his coattails and become his friends. Let’s not forget that Rudolph gains these friends only because Santa anoints him the lead sleigh driver. I explained my alternate perspective to the group.
The reindeer bullied Rudolph because of his perceived deformity. Even his parents, especially his father, felt the need to cover up his unsightly blemish.
Only when Santa deemed him cool did the other reindeer befriend him. It wasn’t some grand epiphany about Rudolph’s character that caused a change of heart. It was that the exalted leader proclaimed Rudolph desirable. On this pronouncement, the other reindeer decided he was worthy. How’s that for a storybook friendship?
The Art Of Interpretation
My interpretation contrasts with the happily-ever-after explanation of the 1950’s claymation take that has persisted on unquestioned.
Someone pointed out that I tend to find the negative in everything. I hate to admit it, but it’s true. I often look at stories and try to take an alternate perspective. What if the other guy was telling the story? How would it be different?
No, Not Frosty
Since I was already the downer at the party, I later pointed out the questionable message in Frosty The Snowman. You know, how these kids ran away from home to escort a snowman to the North Pole. Their parents must have been worried sick. In today’s world, these parents may have been arrested for allowing their kids to go on such an ill-advised journey. Can you picture the social media outrage?
“Never do that to us,” I told my kids.
Perhaps it’s time to rewrite the endings to classic holiday fairytales. How about Santa expels the other reindeer from his sleigh team as part of his zero tolerance on bullying.
The kids who run away to help Frosty, return home to find their parents in jail. Child protective custody whisks the children away to a foster care home.
You probably think that I must be the biggest buzz kill at holiday parties or any party. I’ve just ruined two-holiday classics for you. Or, maybe I’ve shown you how to look at these timeless stories from a different perspective.
Change Your Perspective
Perspective helps us derive meaning from stories. From Rudolph The Rednose Reindeer’s view, everything turned out great. Santa chose him to lead the sleigh team. All the other reindeer loved him. That was good enough for him.
A modern-day observer might question the happy outcome. The other reindeer only accepted him because Santa did. What if Rudolph injures a leg? Will the other reindeer bully him again?
Looking at stories, and even facts, from different viewpoints, opens your eyes to different interpretations of an event. Interpretation explains how two people can see or hear the same facts and come to different conclusions.
Rewrite Your Story
A more ambitious approach is to rewrite a story from an alternate perspective. Kind of like how Wicked is a retelling of the Wizard Of Oz, but from the witches point of view. You can tell the same story, without changing any facts, and leave the audience crying in sadness instead of crying tears of joy or rooting for the bad guy instead of the good guy.
The retelling exercise reminds us that one person’s villain is another person’s hero. One person’s saint is another person’s scoundrel. It’s not the facts that make a difference. The facts often aren’t in dispute. It’s the interpretation of those facts that determine how we cast our judgment. | https://barry-davret.medium.com/the-art-of-perspective-311fb7bfa0c9 | ['Barry Davret'] | 2018-11-24 03:40:51.803000+00:00 | ['Culture', 'Psychology', 'Self Improvement', 'Life Lessons', 'Writing'] |
Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud wins Product of the Year in BIG Awards for Business | IBM’s acquisition of Red Hat brought us new opportunities to lead in cloud, and our design organization wasted no time jumping at them. I’m proud to announce that Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud won Product of the Year in the BIG Awards for Business in the Enterprise category.
Launched in 2012, the BIG Awards for Business gives global recognition to outstanding companies, their products, their people, and their tactics. Alongside development, offering management, and marketing colleagues, this design team shows the importance of collaborative, multidisciplinary teams when building a product.
“We are so proud to reward Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud for their outstanding 2020 achievements,” said Maria Jimenez, chief nomination officer of the Business Intelligence Group. “This year’s group of winners are clearly leading by example in the global business community.”
Why Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud stands out
Create a managed OpenShift cluster in just a few steps.
Cloud providers are competing for market share in the rapidly growing cloud services space. In order to stand out in this market, this team strategically developed Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud to deliver a differentiated managed OpenShift experience from competitive offerings.
Users can deploy highly available, fully managed clusters with the click of a button. Even if a data center fails, the architecture protects user applications from downtime so business can go on uninterrupted. This means an expert system administrator no longer has to spend hundreds of hours manually creating and maintaining clusters over time.
IBM Cloud was first in the industry to support OpenShift 4. We continue to bring the latest OpenShift versions to our service before every other cloud provider.
Serving loyal customers among rapid changes
IBM acquired Red Hat in Summer 2019 for 34 billion dollars in one of the largest technology acquisitions in U.S. history.
This team was tasked with building and launching a managed OpenShift service as soon as possible. The acquisition of Red Hat technology brought a huge shift in strategy across our team and how we do work for our clients. Our mission was to design a solution that integrated this technology so that our clients had the best experience possible as we both navigated this transition..
Both IBM and Red Hat take pride in the relationships we form with existing customers. As many designers know, legacy customers can easily get left behind if their needs and engrained habits aren’t considered during research.
The IBM Cloud design team shares a bit about their design process for the integrated service.
As Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud introduced new concepts, the design team made sure to conduct extensive user research to ensure users weren’t tripped up by new features and functionality. As part of this effort, they carefully combined the IBM and Red Hat brands into one complementary experience for longtime loyal customers of both companies.
Hearty congratulations to the Red Hat OpenShift on IBM Cloud product team. I am proud of the great teamwork, vision and execution from design, engineering, offering management and marketing. | https://medium.com/design-ibm/red-hat-openshift-on-ibm-cloud-wins-product-of-the-year-in-big-awards-for-business-af6aa207b397 | ['Arin Bhowmick'] | 2020-11-10 18:38:07.647000+00:00 | ['Design', 'UI', 'Cloud Computing', 'Red Hat Openshift', 'UX'] |
Writing Begins with Reading | Writing Begins with Reading
My Journey
In the first part of this series, I talked about my mother’s earliest memories of reading, her parents and her childhood. In this post, I pick up with my mother’s earliest memories of me as a young child.
Writing Starts with Reading…
“I started reading to you when you were just an infant. I remember reading Mother Goose poems to you and you would like quietly in my arms and seemed to listen, starting about the time you were two months old.”
2. “You picked up reading so fast. Just a few weeks into first grade you were reading by yourself. You were reading third-grade books before the end of the school year.”
3. “You were always a voracious reader. When you were at the Day School, your class was often taken to the bookmobile. The other kids were amazed at the huge pile of books you checked out. You had so many that the boys had to help you carry them.” | https://medium.com/from-the-library/a-writers-journey-part-ii-956d36423593 | ['Laura Manipura'] | 2019-12-25 10:27:08.161000+00:00 | ['Libraries', 'Writing', 'Reading', 'Ftl Bio', 'Books'] |
How to Continuously Deliver Kubernetes Applications With Flux CD | Authorise Flux CD to Connect to Your Git Repository
We now need to allow the Flux CD operator to interact with the Git repository, and therefore, we need to add its public SSH key to the repo.
Get the public SSH key using fluxctl .
$ fluxctl identity --k8s-fwd-ns flux
ssh-rsa AAAAB3NzaC1yc2EAAAADAQABAAABgQCryxSADyA+GIxtyCwpO3R9EuRcjZCqScKbYO246LZknyeluxKz0SlHYZHrlqxvla+k5GpPqnbImLLhuAD+YLzn0DbI58hUZLsrvxPWKiku--REDACTED--MKoPyEtQ+JiR3ZiADx6Iq8tYRRR+WBs1k5Hc8KNpg+FSRP8I8+CJRkCG4JQacPwK8FESP4qr1dxVv1tE8ZXyb8CdiToKpK7Mkc= root@flux-b9b4cc4f9-p9w88
Add the SSH key to your repository so that Flux CD can access it.
Go to https://github.com/<YOUR_GITHUB_USER>/nginx-kubernetes/settings/keys
Add a name to the Key in the Title section.
Paste the SSH Key in the Key section.
Check “Allow write access.”
Flux CD synchronises automatically with the configured Git repository every five minutes. However, if you want to synchronise Flux with the Git repo immediately, you can use fluxctl sync , as below.
Synchronizing with ssh://
Revision of master to apply is 8db9163
Waiting for 8db9163 to be applied ...
Done. $ fluxctl sync --k8s-fwd-ns fluxSynchronizing with ssh:// [email protected] /bharatmicrosystems/nginx-kubernetesRevision of master to apply is 8db9163Waiting for 8db9163 to be applied ...Done.
Now let’s get the pods to see if we have two replicas of nginx.
$ kubectl get pod -n web
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
nginx-deployment-7fd6966748-lj8zd 1/1 Running 0 20s
nginx-deployment-7fd6966748-rbxqs 1/1 Running 0 20s
Get the service, and you should see an nginx load balancer service running on port 80. If your Kubernetes cluster can spin load balancers, you should see an external IP appear.
$ kubectl get svc -n web
NAME TYPE CLUSTER-IP EXTERNAL-IP PORT(S) AGE
nginx-service LoadBalancer 10.8.10.33 35.222.174.212 80:30609/TCP 94s
Test the service using the external IP. If your cluster does not allow you to spin load balancers, you can use the NodeIP:NodePort combination.
This is version 1 $ curl http://35.222.174.212/ This is version 1
Update the image to bharamicrosystems/nginx:v2 on workloads/nginx-deployment.yaml
$ sed -i "s/nginx:v1/nginx:v2/g" workloads/nginx-deployment.yaml
$ git add --all
$ git commit -m 'Updated version to v2'
$ git push origin master
Let’s now wait for five mins for the auto-sync, and meanwhile, watch the pods updating.
$ watch -n 30 'kubectl get pod -n web' NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
nginx-deployment-5db4d6cb84-8lbsk 1/1 Running 0 11s
nginx-deployment-5db4d6cb84-qc6jp 1/1 Running 0 10s
nginx-deployment-6784c95fc7-zqptk 0/1 Terminating 0 6m43s
And as you see, the old pods are terminating, and new ones are spinning up. Check the pod status to ensure all pods are running.
$ kubectl get pod -n web
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
nginx-deployment-5db4d6cb84-8lbsk 1/1 Running 0 1m
nginx-deployment-5db4d6cb84-qc6jp 1/1 Running 0 1m
Now let’s call the service again.
This is version 2 $ curl http://35.222.174.212/ This is version 2
And as you see, the version is now updated to v2.
Congratulations! You have successfully set up Flux CD on your Kubernetes cluster. | https://medium.com/better-programming/how-to-continuously-deliver-kubernetes-applications-with-flux-cd-502e4fb8ccfe | ['Gaurav Agarwal'] | 2020-05-27 16:08:00.390000+00:00 | ['Programming', 'Software Engineering', 'Kubernetes', 'DevOps', 'Technology'] |
26 Steps of Product & Dashboard Design | Set up Project Folder and Start Collecting Moodboard
There are plenty of sites for inspiration — Dribbble, Behance, Pttrns, Pinterest etc. It’s really easy to find similar projects to the one you shall be working on. Additionally, there may be already a solution to a problem you’re experiencing and trying to solve.
When I start working on a new project, I always setup a folder with folders named — Source Files, Screens & Export, Inspiration & Resources. I save everything I find on the internet to Inspiration folder to be able to use it later to create basic moodboards. This folder could be filled with anything from plugins, swatches or even full case studies from Behance.
2. Going Low Fidelity
Whiteboard
If anyone can remember, I didn’t care much about the quality of wireframes in my previous article. The methods I use now are the following:
If we want to add a new feature or redesign a process we sit down and everybody at the meeting starts sketching ideas on a whiteboard, paper or even an iPad. This action allows us to put everyone on the team in the designer’s position. Later we end up with two design options to see which one works the best. We always try to go through the whole experience and discuss most of the edge cases during this part of the process. It is really crucial to address them now as opposed to during the design phase, or even worse, during the development part. That’s when you can lose a lot time and energy instead.
Map out all of your screens info (What data a user needs to input)
This is the time to go beyond the whiteboard and list out all of the user’s inputs and stories. Write down what exactly should a user insert into a particular screen and how can a user achieve the desired goals.
Write down all possible states
Because all dashboards, apps or websites’ forms have different states, this is another important step you shouldn’t forget.
While designing we need to be sure to address all of them. It’s nice to have shiny graphs and cool profile pictures in our Sketch files or PSDs. However, most likely, users will see the opposite side of your app. Especially when they come to your product. It’s necessary to be prepared. Below is an example of how we deal with empty states in one of our data components. | https://medium.com/sketch-app-sources/26-steps-of-product-dashboard-design-c97af84c4146 | ['Jan Losert'] | 2017-12-15 08:12:25.961000+00:00 | ['Product Design', 'Sketch', 'Design', 'Dashboard', 'UX'] |
Recovering from Bleak Friday | My predictions for Black Friday weren’t good. I warned that the usual draws for Black Friday had disappeared. Deep discounting had already been the primary strategy that companies had been using to try to recover from Covid-19, which meant the massive sales had become normal. Plus, 70% of American adults report struggling to pay bills, leaving less disposable income for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. It looked like price-sensitive customers had temporarily disappeared, making cutting prices less effective than in the past.
I wrote an article forecasting that Black Friday and Cyber Monday were poised to disappoint. After all, over 60% of consumers had made no plans to shop on Thanksgiving weekend in the days before the holiday. Even if a few more people ended up browsing the sales, Black Friday disappointments seemed assured.
It wasn’t a popular opinion. No publication wanted to highlight my article. I don’t entirely blame them. Who wants to hear more doom and gloom about the retail sector in 2020? As a data scientist, however, I believe that we have to face the numbers head and deal with their reality— and statistically, we were heading for a reverse to the decade-long sales trend upwards for Black Friday weekend.
From Black Friday to Bleak Friday
And yet, somehow, the reality was even worse. Despite over $9 billion in online sales over Thanksgiving — a 21.6% increase over last year — overall Black Friday sales dropped by 20%. This kind of drop hasn’t happened since the 2008 financial crisis. Record online sales may have made the flashiest headlines, but those sales are overshadowed by the overall decline in revenues over the so-called biggest shopping weekend of the year. Unless you’re Amazon, reporting record-high sales, the holiday shopping season isn’t looking good.
Analysts have christened the days after Thanksgiving 2020 Bleak Friday. It’s an inauspicious data point for retailers.
Bleak Friday: a phrase I have not been able to get out of my head. 2020 felt like a bleak year, so it seems apropos. This was not an outcome I wanted for any retailer, but it is the one I saw coming. We sounded the alarm, but no one wanted to listen.
Yet despite this disappointing performance, it is possible that this is just an outlier. Perhaps, the trend upwards will return once the pandemic is over?
I don’t think so. Why? This is just a particularly stark example of the pull-retail trend I have been talking about for years.
So is there any way to recover? Can retailers compete against behemoths like Amazon? It’s possible when you use data effectively.
The pull model of retail matters even more post-Covid
Photo by Heidi Fin on Unsplash
For several years, we’ve been trending away from the traditional push model of retail where retailers themselves could dictate what consumers bought. Whatever was available in our local store was all that we could choose. The rise of online shopping transformed the retail industry. Consumers were no longer limited to the few stores in their area. Items can be shipped from around the world, allowing consumers to pull the markets towards their preferences and needs.
In other words, people today do not choose from what they can find, but rather search for what they want.
Covid-19 has magnified this trend. After all, we are all buying online now, so why not search for precisely what we want? We can dictate the color, size, style, and even the tiniest details of our purchases and get them shipped directly to our homes. The dream product is just a click away.
While we may venture out of our homes again once a vaccine becomes widely available, our shopping habits have likely changed forever. A study by the UN Conference on Trade and Development indicates that people are unlikely to stop primarily shopping online even once it is safe again. Studies by Deloitte and McKinsey have had similar findings. Online shopping is here to stay, killing the push retail model forever.
What does the triumph of the pull model of retail mean for companies? Success requires offering your customers the exact product they want at the exact right time.
Why Amazon is perfect for the pull-retail world
Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash
It’s no wonder that Amazon has grown so much during the pandemic. Practically anything you could ever want is available every day on one website. People have even bought prefab homes on Amazon! Amazon is the ultimate vehicle for consumer-driven retail. Ask, and you shall receive.
With the Amazon model, success breeds more success. As they sell more, they collect more data on consumers, allowing them to tailor their offerings to customer demand further. The more we buy, the more they know. As time goes on, the competitive advantage grows exponentially.
How to beat a behemoth: Data
Most retailers can’t be Amazon: they cannot offer such a massive selection or such low prices that they trounce the competition.
So how do you compete with the behemoths? Data.
Instead of endlessly discounting items that may not even interest consumers, you need to anticipate what your customers want and make it available at the right moment. Data makes that possible. When you use data to make decisions about what inventory to stock where you get much higher returns. Revenues rise, even when overall consumer activity is sluggish.
Photo by Blake Wisz on Unsplash
This Black Friday might not have been so bleak if retailers had made the right offers instead of assuming that any discount big enough would move merchandise. In a pull-retail world, sales come down to the right offer, not the cheapest one.
Data, not discounts, convert.
A better model for the holidays and beyond
But Amazon has tons more data, right? The average retailer collects only a fraction of the internal and transaction data that Amazon collects. How can any retailer hope to keep up?
That’s where data science expertise comes in. With the right model, you can still get an incredibly accurate demand forecast, down to the exact SKU needed in each store. What does that take? 2 things:
More, better data Well-designed algorithms
The best offense against Amazon’s massive cache of data is access to Big Data of your own. At my company Evo, we tap into a database that contains data on the transactions of over 1.2 billion people, as well as data on everything from weather to economic trends. The more information, the better.
Photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash
Of course, you have to select your data carefully to ensure that you aren’t adding noise to your model. Data quality is just as important as quantity. Carefully choose traditional and alternative data that will guide your understanding of what the customer wants.
Next, you need to process your data well. That requires a well-designed algorithm. You have to train your model to leverage the data efficiently to make increasingly accurate forecasts of what customers want and how to get products to them at the right time.
The result? 94% accuracy in predicting what your customer wants, where and when they want it with much less inventory. It may not be possible to compete directly with Amazon’s business model, but a data-driven approach means that any retailer can sell more with less inventory. Change your course now to reap the benefits of what’s left of the holiday season — and beyond.
Image by the author (rights reserved)
A data-driven path past Covid
The struggles of this holiday season aren’t going to disappear overnight. It will take time to transition into a true post-Covid world. Even once we have returned to some semblance of normal, things will never be quite the same. For retailers struggling to stay relevant and thrive in the Amazon Age, effective use of data is critical.
It is not enough to use your own data in the same ways as in the past. To compete with the biggest players like Amazon, you have to augment your data and deploy it effectively. A data-driven retailer today needs to commit to a pull retail model and then create the best possible algorithm to support that strategy.
I tried to sound the alarm about Bleak Friday too late, but it’s not too late to make 2021 a brighter year for retail. Anyone can find a path out of these difficult times, so long as they follow the data. You will find that upending traditional “best practices” with data-driven decision-making leads to even more optimal practices — and higher holiday returns. | https://medium.com/towards-artificial-intelligence/recovering-from-bleak-friday-b19e52d00b30 | ['Fabrizio Fantini'] | 2020-12-12 21:01:22.578000+00:00 | ['Big Data', 'Retail', 'Artificial Intelligence', 'Data Science', 'Business Science'] |
3 Easy Zen Ways to Boost Your Mood at Home This Winter | 3 Easy Zen Ways to Boost Your Mood at Home This Winter
Happiness lies in simple everyday actions
Zen monks quarters in the Kennin-ji temple area of Kyoto © by Simone Parisi is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Last spring, I found my peace in the middle of the COVID-19 panic. Of course, I hit the rock bottom first.
After four weeks of cooking, cleaning, and mothering two kids in isolation, I wanted to holler. I felt helpless and angry. We were locked in a skyscraper for four days every week. One night, I started to cough and panicked. Who was going to take care of the kids if I went to the hospital? Then I said to myself: “From tomorrow, you can’t check the news more than once a day.”
And so the change started. Every time I had enough, I went to the balcony. I’d put on a ridiculous straw hat and sit among the flower pots. I’d read a book, and soak up the April sun until my butt started to hurt. I was as Zen as you can be without a spiritual retreat around the block.
When we say Zen, we mean cool — not bothered by negative feelings. It’s far from the Buddhist Zen you achieve with a master and years of sitting meditation (Zazen). But you can practice Zen rituals to relax anywhere, even in a crowded city.
Zen is the enemy of productivity. You don’t multitask or work in bursts to do more. You do one thing at a time, slowly. Everyday chores become your meditation. You don’t ruminate. To be Zen, think like your grandma. Her life was slower, simpler, and harder — but probably happier than yours.
We haven’t finished with COVID-19 yet. The numbers of its victims are soaring everywhere again and you can feel panic in the media. Here are three simple habits that helped me focus on the present moment and they can help you as well. | https://medium.com/big-self-society/3-easy-zen-ways-to-boost-your-mood-at-home-this-winter-4a8ab7dd1fbb | ['Maria Milojković'] | 2020-12-07 22:27:00.930000+00:00 | ['Life Lessons', 'Self', 'Mental Health', 'Mindfulness', 'Psychology'] |
Using Riak as Events Storage — Part 1 | By Damien Krotkine, Ivan Paponov
This is a critical operational process, since our daily work always gives precedence to data. Relying on data removes the guesswork in making sound decisions.
In this series of blog posts, we will outline details of our data pipeline, and take a closer look at the short and medium-term storage layer that was implemented using Riak.
Introduction to Events Storage
Booking.com receives, creates, and sends an enormous amount of data. Usual business-related data is handled by traditional databases, caching systems, etc. We define events as data that is generated by all the subsystems on Booking.com.
In essence, events are free-form documents that contain a variety of metrics. The generated data does not contain any direct operational information. Instead, it is used to report status, states, secondary information, logs, messages, errors and warnings, health, and so on. The data flow represents a detailed status of the platform and contains crucial information that will be harvested and used further down the stream.
To put this in numerical terms - we have more than billions of events per day, streaming at more than 100 MB per second, and adding up to more than 6 TB per day.
Here are some examples of how we use the events stream:
Visualisation : Wherever possible, we use graphs to express data. To create them, we use a heavily-modified version of Graphite.
: Wherever possible, we use graphs to express data. To create them, we use a heavily-modified version of Graphite. Looking for anomalies : When something goes wrong, we need to be notified. We use threshold-based notification systems (like seyren) as well as a custom anomaly detection software, which creates statistical metrics (e.g. change in standard deviation) and alerts if those metrics look suspicious.
: When something goes wrong, we need to be notified. We use threshold-based notification systems (like seyren) as well as a custom anomaly detection software, which creates statistical metrics (e.g. change in standard deviation) and alerts if those metrics look suspicious. Gathering errors: We use our data pipeline to pass stack traces from all our production servers into ElasticSearch. Doing it this way (as opposed to straight from the web application log files) allows us to correlate errors with the wealth of the information we store in the events.
These typical use-cases are made available in less than one-minute after the related event has been generated.
High Level overview
This is a very simplified diagram of the data flow:
We can generate events by using literally any piece of code that exists on our servers. We pass a HashMap to a function, which packages the provided document into a UDP packet and sends it to a collection layer. This layer aggregates all the events together into "blobs", which are split by seconds (also called epochs) and other variables. These event blobs are then sent to the storage layer running Riak. Finally, Riak sends them on to Hadoop. The Riak cluster is meant to safely store around ten days of data. It is used for near real-time analysis (something that happened seconds or minutes ago), and medium-term analysis of relatively small amounts of data. We use Hadoop for older data analysis or analysis of a larger volume of data.
The above diagram is a simplified version of our data flow. In practical application, it's spread across multiple datacenters (DC), and includes an additional aggregation layer.
Individual Events
An event is a small schema-less [1] piece of data sent by our systems. That means that the data can be in any structure with any level of depth, as long as the top level is a HashTable. This is crucial to Booking.com - the goal is to give as much flexibility as possible for the sender, so that it's easy to add or modify the structure, or the type and number of events.
Events are also tagged in four different ways:
the epoch at which they were created
the DC where they originated
the type of event
the subtype.
Some common types are:
WEB events (events produced by code running under a web server)
CRON events (output of cron jobs)
LB events (load balancer events)
The subtypes are there for further specification and can answer questions like: "Which one of web server systems are we talking about?".
Events are compressed Sereal blobs. Sereal is possibly the best schema-less serialisation format currently available. It was also written at Booking.com.
An individual event is not very big, but a huge number of them are sent every second.
We use UDP as transport because it provides a fast and simple way to send data. Despite some (very low) risk of data loss, it doesn't impact senders sending events. We are experimenting with an UDP-to-TCP relay that will be local to the senders.
Aggregated Events
Literally every second, events from this particular second (called epoch), DC number, type, and subtype are merged together as an Array of events on the aggregation layer. At this point, it's important to try and get the smallest size possible, so the events of a given epoch are re-serialized as a Sereal blob, using these options:
compress => Sereal::Encoder::SRL_ZLIB,
dedupe_strings => 1
dedupe_strings increases the serialisation time slightly. However it removes strings duplications which occur a lot since events are usually quite similar between them. We also add gzip compression.
We also add the checksum of the blob as a postfix, to be able to ensure data integrity later on. The following diagram shows what an aggregated blob of events looks like for a given epoch, DC, type, and subtype. You can get more information about the Sereal encoding in the Sereal Specification.
This is the general structure of an events blob:
The compressed payload contains the events themselves. It's an Array of HashMaps, Serialized in a Sereal structure and gzip-compressed. Here is an example of a trivial payload of two events, as follows:
[
{ cpu => 5 },
{ cpu => 99 }
]
And the gzipped payload would be the compressed version of this binary string:
It can be hard to follow these hexdigits [2], yet it's a nice illustration of why the Sereal format helps us to reduce the size of serialised data. The second array element is encoded on far fewer bytes than the first one, since the key has already be seen. The resulting binary is then re-compressed. The Sereal implementation offers multiple compression algorithms, including Snappy and gzip.
A typical blob of events for one second/DC/type/subtype can weight anywhere from several kilobytes to several megabytes, which translates into a (current) average of around 250 gigabytes per hour.
Side note: smaller subtypes on this level of aggregation aren't always used, because we want to minimise the data we transmit over our network by having good compression ratios. Therefore we split types into subtypes only when the blobs are big enough. The downside to this approach is that consumers have to fetch data for the whole type, then filter out only subtypes they want. We're looking at ways to find more balance here.
Data flow size and properties
Data flow properties are important, since they're used to decide how data should be stored:
The data is timed and all the events blobs are associated with an epoch. It’s important to bear in mind that events are schema-less, so the data is not a traditional time series.
Data can be considered read-only; the aggregated events blobs are written every second and almost never modified (history rewriting happens very rarely).
Once sent to the storage, the data must be available as soon as possible
Data is used in different ways on the client side. A lot of consumers are actually daemons that will consume the fresh data as soon as possible - usually seconds after an event was emitted. A large number of clients read the last few hours of data in a chronological sequence. On rare occasions, consumers access random data that is over a few days old. Finally, consumers that want to work on larger amounts of older data would have to create Hadoop jobs.
There is a large volume of data to be moved and stored. In numerical terms:
Once serialized and compressed into blobs, it is usually larger than 50 MB/s
That's around 250 GB per hour and more than 6 TB per day
and more than There is a daily peak hour but the variance of the data size is not huge: There are no quiet periods
Yearly peak season stresses all our systems, including events transportation and storage, so we need to provision capacity for that
Why Riak
In order to find the best storage solution for our needs, we tested and benchmarked several different products and solutions.
The solutions had to reach the right balance of multiple features:
Read performance had to be high as a lot of external processes will use the data.
Write security was important, as we had to ensure that the continuous flow of data could be stored. Write performance should not be impacted by reads.
Horizontal scalability was of utmost importance, as our business and traffic continuously grows.
Data resilience was key: we didn't want to lose portions of our data because of a hardware problem.
Allowed a small team to administrate and make the storage evolve.
The storage shouldn't require the data to have a specific schema or structure.
If possible, it would be able to bring code to data, perform computation on the storage itself, instead of having to get data out of the storage.
After exploring a number of distributed file systems and databases, we chose Riak over distributed Key-Value stores. Riak had good performance and predictable behavior when nodes fail and when scaling up. It also had the advantage of being easy to grasp and implement within a small team. Extending it was very easy (which we'll see in the next part of this series of blog posts) and we found the system very robust - we never had to face dramatic issues or data loss.
Disclaimer: This is not an endorsment for Riak. We compared it carefully to other solutions over a long period of time and it seemed to be the best product to suit our needs. As an example, we thoroughly tested Cassandra as an alternative: it had a larger community and similar performance but was less robust and predictable; it also lacked some advanced features. The choice is ultimately a question of priorities. The fact that our events are schema-less made it almost impossible for us to use solutions that require knowledge of the data structures. Also we needed a small team to be able to operate the storage, and a way to process data on the cluster itself, using MapReduce or similar mechanisms.
Riak 101
The Riak cluster is a collection of nodes (in our case physical servers), each of which claims ownership of a given key. Depending on the chosen replication factor, each key might be owned by multiple nodes. You can ask any node for a key and your request will be redirected to one of the owners. Same goes for writes.
On closer inspection of Riak, we see that keys are grouped into virtual nodes. Each physical node can own multiple virtual nodes. This simplifies data rebalancing when growing a cluster. Riak does not need to recalculate the owner for each individual key; it will only do it per virtual node.
We won't cover Riak architecture in a great detail in this post, but we recommend reading the following article for further information.
Riak clusters configuration
The primary goal of this storage is to keep the data safe. We went with the regular replication number value of three. Even if two nodes owning the same data will go down, we won't lose our data.
Riak offers multiple back-ends for actual data storage. The main three are Memory, LevelDB, and Bitcask. We chose Bitcask, since it was suitable for our particular needs. Bitcask uses log-structured hash tables that provide very fast access. As data gets written to the storage, Bitcask simply appends data to a number of opened files. Even if a key is modified or deleted, the information will be written at the end of these storage files. An in-memory HashTable maps the keys with the position of their (latest) value in files. That way, at most one seek is needed to fetch data from the file system.
Data files are then periodically compacted, and Bitcask provides very good expiration flexibility. Since Riak is a temporary storage solution for us, we set it up with automatic expiration. Our expiration period varies. It depends on the current cluster shape, but usually falls between 8-11 days.
Bitcask keeps all of the keys of a node in memory, so keeping large numbers of individual events as key value pairs isn't trivial. We sidestep any issues by using aggregations of events (blobs), which drastically reduce the number of needed keys.
More information about Bitcask can be found here.
For our conflict resolution strategy, we use Last Write Wins. The nature of our data (which is immutable as we described before) allows us to avoid the need for conflict resolution.
The last important part of our setup is load balancing. It is crucial in an enviromnent with a high level of reads, and only 1 gigabyte network. We use our own solution for that based on Zookeeper. Zooanimal daemons are running on the riak nodes, and collect information about system health. The information is then aggregated into simple text files, where we have an ordered list of IP addresses, plus up and running Riak nodes, which we can connect to. All our Riak clients simply choose a random node to send their requests to.
We currently have two Riak clusters in different geographical locations, each of which have more than 30 nodes. More nodes equates to more storage space, CPU power, RAM, and more network bandwidth available.
Data Design
Riak is primarily a key-value store. Although it provides advanced features (secondary indexes, MapReduce, CRDTs), the simplest and most efficient way to store and retrieve data is to use the key-value model.
Riak has three concepts — a bucket is a namespace, in which a key is unique. A key is the identifier of the data; and has to be stored in a bucket. A value is the data; it has an associated mime-type, which can enable Riak awareness of its type.
Riak doesn’t provide efficient ways to retrieve the list of buckets or the list of keys by default [3]. When using Riak, it’s important to know the bucket and key to access. This is usually resolved by using self-explanatory identifiers.
In our case, our events are stored as Sereal-encoded blobs. From these, we know the datacenter, type, subtype, and of course the time at which it was created.
When we need to retrieve data, we always know the time we want. We are also confident in the list of our datacenters. It doesn’t change unexpectedly so we can make it static for our applications. We are not always sure about what types or subtypes will appear in a given epoch for a given datacenter. On some seconds events of certain types may not arrive.
We came up with this simple data design:
events blobs are stored in the events bucket, keys being <epoch>:<dc>:<type>:<subtype>:<chunk>
bucket, keys being metadata are stored in the epochs bucket, keys being <epoch>:<dc> and values being the list of events keys for this epoch and DC combination
The value of chunk is an integer, starting at zero, which keeps event blobs smaller than 500 kilobytes each. We use the integer to split big events blobs into smaller ones, so that Riak can function more efficiently.
We’ll see this data design in action when pushing data to Riak, in the next blog post of this series.
Next post: data processing outside of Riak
The next part of this blog posts series will explain how we enter and fetch data from Riak, in order to do real-time processing and batch processing.
Read the next part now! Using Riak as Events Storage — Part 2
Notes
[1] It is not strictly true that our events are schema-less. They obey the structure that the producers found the most useful and natural. But they are so many producers which each of them sending events that have a different schema, so it’s almost equivalent to considering them schema-less. Our events can be seen as structured, yet with so many schemas that they can’t be traced. There is also complete technical freedom to change the structure of an event, if it’s seen as useful by a producer.
[2] After spending some time looking at and decoding Sereal blobs, the human eye easily recognizes common data structures like small HashMaps, small Arrays, small Integers and VarInts, and of course, Strings, since their content is untouched. That makes Sereal an almost human readable serialisation format, especially after a hexdump.
[3] This can be worked around by using secondary indexes (2i) if the backend is eleveldb or Riak Search, to create additional indexes on keys, thus enabling listing them in various ways. | https://medium.com/booking-com-development/using-riak-as-events-storage-part-1-9b423f0ef97a | [] | 2018-02-28 22:08:28.781000+00:00 | ['Big Data', 'Database', 'Riak', 'Development', 'Perl'] |
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