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Archive for the 'Stirring' Category
Predictive Ads…? Or Email Address Targeted Advertising…?!
As I get was getting increasingly annoyed by large flashing display ads in my feedreader this morning, the thought suddenly occurred to me: could Google serve me ads on third party sites based on my unread Gmail emails?
That is, as I check my feeds before my email in a morning, could I be seeing ads that foreshadow the content of the email I've been ignoring for way too long? Or could I receive ads that flag the content of my Priority Inbox messages?
Rules regarding sensitivity and privacy would have to be carefully thought through,m of course. Here's how they currently stand regarding contextual ads delivered in Gmail (More on Gmail and privacy: Targeted ads in Gmail):
By offering Gmail users relevant ads and information related to the content of their messages, we aim to offer users a better webmail experience. For example, if you and your friends are planning a vacation, you may want to see news items or travel ads about the destination you're considering.
To ensure a quality user experience for all Gmail users, we avoid showing ads reflecting sensitive or inappropriate content by only showing ads that have been classified as "Family-Safe." We also avoid targeting ads to messages about catastrophic events or tragedies. [Google's emphasis]
[See also: Ads in Gmail and your personal data Share Comment]
Not quite as future predictive as gDay™ with MATE™ that lets you "search tomorrow's web today" and "[discover] content on the internet before it is created", but almost…!
It's also a step on the road to Eric Schmidt's dream of providing you with results even before you search for them. (For a more recent interview, see Google's Eric Schmidt predicts the future of computing – and he plans to be involved.)
Here's another, more practical(?!) thought – suppose Google served me headers of Priority Inbox email messages that were also marked as urgent through Adwords ads, in a full-on attempt to try to attract my attention to "really important" messages?! "Flashmail" messages delivered through the Adwords network… (I can imagine at least one course manager who I suspect would try to contact me via ads when I don't pick up my email! ;-)
Searching the internet of things may still be a little way off though….
PS thinking email address targeted ads (mailads?) through a bit more, here are a couple of ways of doing it that immediately come to mind. Suppose I want to target an ad at email@example.com:
1) Adwords could place that ad in my GMail sidebar; (I think they'd be unlikely to place ads within emails, even if clearly marked, because this approach has been hugely unpopular in the past (it also p****s me off in feeds ); that said, Google has apparently started experimenting with (image based) display ads in gmail;
2) Adwords could place the ad on a third party site if the Goog spots me via a cookie and sees I'm currently logged in to Google, for example, with the email@example.com email address.
As Facebook gets into the universal messaging game, email address based ad targeting would also work there?
PPS interesting – the best ads act as content, so maybe ads could be used to deliver linked content? Twitter promoted tweets – the AdWords for live news?. Which reminds me, I need to work up my bid for using something like AdWords to deliver targeted educational content.
So What Do Universities Sell?
When I joined the OU as an academic over a decade ago, I spent my first 6 months or so asking everyone I met what it was the OU sold, only to be met with "go away, silly boy" sort of looks. (I still don't know: courses/modules? degrees/qualifications? CPD products? consultancy? research interests, or capacity (though not development or innovation;-)?! If nothing else, the demographics of our paying customers has changed over that period ("Open University may be in its 40s – but students are getting younger"); but does that mean that what we're selling has actually changed too? Who knows?!)
That universities are now businesses competing in a marketplace is undeniable, and increasingly looks as if it is opening up to private enterprises (Publishing giant Pearson looks set to offer degrees) who are
allowed expected to talk up the ability to generate profits (rather than, err, building up reserves and new buildings;-). See for example Doug Clow's piece on Apollo Group results – BPP and University of Phoenix where he starts to unpick Apollo Group's reported financials. (It's worth remembering where the profits are expected to come from, of course… e.g. Doug again: Tuition Fees and the costs of HE).
So what happens when the market hots the university? More and more marketing, maybe…?
Here's a round-up of the latest OU job ads…
- Director of Communications (£88,769 – £100,763): "The Open University has been providing life-changing learning experiences for over 40 years and now has 250,000 students. We make a major contribution to choice and innovation in higher education, social mobility and enriching the skills of the workforce through world class teaching and research.
"The Director of Communications works closely with the Vice-Chancellor and Executive to develop and implement a communications strategy to support delivery of the corporate strategy, build and develop relationships with key external stakeholders, ensure consistent delivery of brand, protect and develop reputation and develop organisational culture.
"This is a rare and exciting opportunity for an energetic and visionary person with a passion for education to drive communications activities to build our reputation as the world leader in flexible learning."
- Marketing Planning and Programme Manager, Marketing (B2B) (£46,510- £52,347): "The post has been created to assist the University to develop its marketing capacity specifically to the B2B Employer Engagement area. It will be essential to harness the energies of academic and academic related staff in the University's Business Development units, service units and regions to develop a more effective marketing strategy. This will require planning, modelling, project management, influencing and networking skills of the highest order, and an ability to adapt leadership/management style to an academic context."
- Two Programme Communications Managers, Marketing (£36,715 – £43,840): "Working within a small team, you will be responsible for planning, developing and delivering a broad range of marketing acquisition or retention campaigns to meet student number targets.
"The position requires a proven ability to develop & implement successful marcomms strategies that have the support of key stakeholders. The successful candidate will have a full mix of marketing experience, including a clear understanding of disciplines such as direct & digital marketing, advertising & event management to name a few. This role requires excellent communications & project management skills, ideally twinned with a strong commercial background."
- Web Assistant Producer Open Learn (Explore), Open Broadcasting Unit (£29,853 – £35,646): "Earlier this year the OU launched an updated public facing, topical news and media driven site. The site bridges the gap between BBC TV viewing and OU services and functions as the new 'front door' to Open Learn and all of the Open University's open, public content. We are looking for a Web Assistant Producer with web production/editing skills.
"You will work closely with a Producer, 2 Web Assistant Producers, the Head of Online Commissioning and many others in the Open University, as well as the BBC."
And whilst the OU – like many other HEIs – is doing its utmost to keep recruitment of new academic staff to a minimum, and allowing natural wastage to reduce staffing further, it's good to know that at least posts like the above count as academic related:
PS if you have any ideas about what it is that universities actually sell, please let me know in a comment…;-)
PPS Relevant to the above ads, and picking up on a couple of tweets I posted last week, I'm intrigued to know how university communications departments measure their impact? Presumably (despite being academic related) it's not got a lot to do with being referenced in academic journals?;-) But how do they measure their impact? Answers in the comments, please…:-)
@SOU_Airport No ads, thanks, just info… A Flight Tracking Autoresponder Would Be Handy Though…
A few minutes or so, @sou_airport tweeted:
Welcome to new followers of Southampton Airport. Since the snow, followers have doubled and we will keep you up to date with news and offers
With recent news stories deploring the state of information provision, the occasional tweets from @sou_airport regarding the status of the airport have been handy…
- "Southampton Airport is to open from 06:30am today- some knock-on delays are expected due to the weather. Pls check with airlines for info."
- "Southampton Airport currently has capacity on Flybe flights to Amsterdam, Paris, Dusseldorf and Brussels up to Christmas."
If they're just going to start tweeting ads and offers, though, I'm not interested, and will likely unfollow… Just because a company suddenly opens up a comms channel that folk sign up doesn't mean it needs to be a marketing channel – the payoff is in having fewer disgruntled passengers, and folk turning up to fly to find cancelled flights and adding to the airport's problems…
If they want to consign me to following a backwater channel, such as @sou_airport_status, that's fine… Just don't add noise to the signal if all i want is signal…
Something that would be quite handy would be an autoresponder. The Southampton website already has live flight arrival/departure info, and a form that lets you enter either a flight number or a departure/destination airport for arrivals and departures respectively.
The "accessible" page provides a simpler view of the information, though the URL is not as friendly as it might be…:
The search URL is even more hostile:
which looks like it requires the presence of tokens or dynamically created data.
So what might an autoresponder look like? Even if all we do is redirect the flight status information, we might imagine an exchange like the following:
@sou_airport_flightStatus BE173
would return something like:
@example BE173 dep 15.40 Tues 21/10 LEEDS B/FORD SCHEDULED
or for BE3646:
@example BE3646 BERGERAC sch_dep 14:05 arr ESTIMATED 19:03
Alternatively, the airport could just re-factor its (paid for) SMS service (which I think is operated by BAA, as it seems to be available for several other UK airports):
Flying Messenger – check flights by SMS
Need flight updates on the move? Flying Messenger lets you check flights at Southampton Airport by mobile phone text message (SMS).
How to use it
Text sou (for Southampton) plus your flight number to 82222.
So for example, if your flight number is BE1846, your text should read:
sou be1846
You'll receive a reply giving the current status of your flight.
When to use it
This service is available up to 12 hours ahead of the flight's scheduled time, and up to four hours afterwards. Requests must be sent on the scheduled date.
If you need to set up an alert in advance, please see Flying Messenger PLUS.
What it costs
Each Flying Messenger request costs 25p plus your network's SMS message rate. If you're using a pre-pay phone, you need to have enough credit to cover the cost of the service.
As to the amount of distress caused to folk traveling over the last few days, and the stress that several UK airports have been under because of travelers turning up for already cancelled flights, it amazes me that BAA aren't willing to buy a bundle of free texts and offer a free SMS autoresponder information service…
New "Study at OU" iOS app for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch
I haven't managed to find an official announcement of this yet, but it seems as if there's a new addition to the Apple App Store in the form of a "Study at the OU" app: StudyAtOU.
So what does it do? Essentially, it seems to provide and app way in to the Open University course catalogue. Here's the opening screen
(Err – wot? No OU logo? Is it not an *official* app then?! Though the iTunes does carry branding… If it is an official app, how well does it sit with OU ice/brand police guidelines, I wonder…?;-)
The app provides a convenient way of navigating through the OU's course catalogue, providing a brief overview of subject areas:
and research degrees:
Clicking through on individual course links also leads through to a description of the corresponding course.
Looking through some of the descriptions, it seems as if there isn't any information about forthcoming presentation dates, course fees, and other 'administrative' information (such as level information), nor does there appear to be a 'click here to register' option. (Hmm… I don't think the OU course registration system accepts Paypal yet? If it did, I guess something like the PayPal Mobile Payments library would allow this to be integrated into the StudyAtOU app?)
If you want to share a link to a course with other people, there are several ways of doing this:
Facebook and Twitter based sharing requires you share access to those services, of course. Here's the prompt you get when you try to share a link using Facebook:
and the corresponding prompt from Twitter:
(By the by, seeing this app reminds me of my old, old WAP demo for navigating Relevant Knowledge short course descriptions… TSCP Experimental WAP Service;-)
Also in passing, I asked where the data that feeds the app come from. It seems to be an XML source that also feeds the data.open.ac.uk Linked Data store, rather than being fed from the Linked Data Store itself. Whilst the Linked Data store was presumably not available whilst the app was being developed, it would be nice to think that services such as the app might call on the datastore and actually start using the data contained within it.
One thing worth noting about the app is that it is not self-contained. The qualification, subject area and course descriptions are all pulled in live from the web, which means if you lose your network connection, you get this:
In that sense, the StudyAtOU app is therefore a hybrid app, with a small amount of offline functionality, complemented by network sourced content. I guess there's a trade-off between going on here between connectivity/bandwidth requirements and memory requirements/app size.
If the app was displaying course start dates/pricing, then I could see why there might be a good reason for the app to want to display 'live' data, but for course descriptions? (I guess you could argue that you always want the catalogue to only list current courses, but that could easily be managed with a time to live field associated with each course on the app, given the review dates for the expiry of courses are well known?)
Anyway, the app's there, and usable, and available for download, and offers a great starting point…but will it be allowed to evolve, I wonder, in an agile fashion, now that it's there…?
PS just because, I wondered where http://www.open.ac.uk/studyatou might point to. At the moment, it seems to resolve to http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/explained/how-do-i-apply.shtml:
The top-level "Study at OU" web presence, and the one you get to from the OU website's Study at the OU top level navigation actually seems to have its home at http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/. Just sayin'…;-)
So How Does the Twitter Backchannel Work When The Chatham House Rule Is in Place?
As I type, there is a spinoff meeting (that I'm not at) from the #RSWebSci event operating from a location near Milton Keynes (@martinjemoore: "At tremendous Kavli Centre, Royal Society's base in Buckinghamshire, for satellite meeting about future of the web & web science #rswebsci") and being held under the Chatham House rule:
"When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed".
In the RSWebSci event, from the backchannel we can identify the participants and their affiliations from any tweets they make from the event:
So for example, when @timdavies mentions: "Nigel Shadbolt asking "What are Chatham house rules for Twitter" at #rswebsci… Opps, er, I mean Someone asking." we know that both Tim Davies ("Consultant and action researcher focussing on civic engagement and social technology. Specific focus on youth engagement & open data") and Nigel Shadbolt are at the event. And from tweets like "#RSwebsci hilarious moment when one unattributable person forgets other unattributable person's name", we can assume that the originator of that tweet is also at the event (and maybe that they are not either of the unattributable persons mentioned?)
If we know an event is happening, and we know the sorts of people it is likely to attract (e.g. by looking at the Twitterers from the last couple of days of the #rswebsci event), if a Twitter blackout is in operation we can look to Twitter histories to see who was not tweeting during the event who might normally be expected to be tweeting over that period, and tentatively locate them at the event. We can also rule out people who have declared they aren't there (@cameronneylon: "I decided not to go to #RSWebsci and satellite meeting because I had too much "proper" work to do. Think I probably picked wrong…"), unless they're bluffing…?!;-)
From tweets so far, we know via @lescarr that there are several sessions taking place (""Breakthroughs in Web Science", "Dark Web", "Networks in web science", "Govt open data" and "Collaborative Science" sessions at #RSwebsci"). From clustering the folk who we know to be at, and suspect to be at the event, we might tentatively allocate them to different sessions, with a particular probability. If different hashtags are used for each session, the sort of thing @briankelly (who I don't think is at the event) often lobbies for, it makes conversation analysis maybe a little easier?
On the topic of conversation analysis, or at least time series analysis (using a tool such as TimeFLow, for example?), we might be able to use some form of it to identify who said what from inspecting the timeline. For example, if @ianmulvany is a truth teller, and says at 9.47 "#RSWebsci time to pitch my idea", we can monitor tweets over the next few minutes to see if any ideas that are reported are the sort of thing he might have come up with, given we can find out easily enough that he works for Mendeley. So maybe @timdavies' mention at 9.53 that "#rswebsci @? "Crowdsourcing & crowdcurating more an art than a science right now" <– Shd it develop as science? Or best in domain of art…", that crowdsourcing thing is something that I could imagine Ian saying (P=0.7?) The idea as to whether it's science or art is presumably Tim Davies'?
Just by the by, TIm's use of @? comes from a suggestion I made about a possible "chatham bot" that would accept DMs, anonymise the sender and replace any @name attributions with @?. Thinking about it a little more, it would be easy enough for folk to see who was friended by the chatham bot, and narrow down at least the sender of the tweet to someone on that list. [If by implication we assume @? is a twitterer, rather than a participant not on twitter, we might further narrow down who said what in this case to someone on Twitter whose Twitter username the person who 'mentioned' them knows.] Chris Gutteridge, who is also not at the event ("@lescarr eh? I didn't know there was a Wednesday bit! #rswebsci any of it streamed?"), suggested "…creat[ing] a rswebscichatham twitter account and tell all people in the room the username/password. #rswebsci" which gets round this problem of preserving anonymity of the sender, which the creation of a Birdherd account (via @jamestoon) might also do?
Okay, enough of that… except to wonder: what other sorts of traffic analysis might we apply to a hashtag twitter stream and a "likely candidates" twitter use analysis over the duration of the event. Would it be easier to preserve the sense of the Chatham House rule if a hashtag was not used?
PS doh! I forgot to raise the point that first came to mind: how would it be possible to remotely attend a Chatham House event via a public backchannel? (Which is where the chathambot anonymiser came in…)
PPS just to note, as the clock ticks on, and the day warms up, other folk who were at #rswebsci on Monday and Tuesday, but who are not at today;s event, are now tweeting again using the hashtag, which means that the channel now has added noise on top of the discussions from today's satellite event… The easiest way I can think of following today's events is to create a list of folk known or suspected to be there, and follow that list through an additional #rswebsci filter?
PPPS [via @timdavies] Chatham House rule FAQ covers Twitter as follows:
Can I 'tweet' whilst at an event under the Chatham House Rule?
A. The Rule can be used effectively on social media sites such as Twitter as as long as the person tweeting or messaging reports only what was said at an event and does not identify – directly or indirectly – the speaker or another participant. This consideration should always guide the way in which event information is disseminated – online as well as offline.
It also says:
Q. Can a list of attendees at the meeting be published?
A. No – the list of attendees should not be circulated beyond those participating in the meeting.
which can in part be inferred from various uses of Twitter, and maybe also any public geolocation services used by participants. Which is to say, if you know where an event is, you can maybe look for people near there..?
Open Courses: About 10 Weeks Seems To Be It, Then?
Consternation on the twittertubes this morning about Wolverhampton's i-CD: Intelligent Career Development, which seeks to offer "a completely new approach to higher education":
Historically, people have either gone to university or, more recently, universities have tried to come to them. That is to say, they have opened themselves to part-time students in the evenings or projected learning materials via distance learning or tailored their programmes to employers' needs. However, they have never previously attempted to do all these things in a single programme. Via i-CD, the University of Wolverhampton is for the first time providing low-cost, flexibly-delivered, workplace-based, market-driven, fully-accredited, higher education.
(Err… I think the OU does that actually, through work based learning, an increasing number of vendor qualifications from Cisco and Microsoft that also provide academic credit, sector based courses and qualifications, and so on… All part-time, at a distance, with support (and online community), and some of them in the workplace too.)
So for example, I think @dkernohan sees parts of his nightmare vision coming true?
What struck me is that the Wolverhampton offering is being built around 10 week courses, the same length as the OU short courses (which in the OU case result in 10 CAT points of academic credit, corresponding to a nominal 10 hours study a week).
Also coming in at 10 weeks is the currently running PLENK2010 Massive Online Open Course (hmm.. does that URL scale for other courses?), and close behind, at 12 weeks, the forthcoming openEd 2.0 course on "Business and management competencies in a Web 2.0 world":
a FREE/OPEN course targeting business students and practitioners alike. The course consists of two strands: an academic and a professional practice based strand, though both strands can be taken together. Furthermore, the openEd 2.0 course is MODULAR, thus learners can also "pick" the individual modules they are interested at.
Whilst I'm encouraged to see the rise of open courses (and there's an increasing number of them: for example, P2PU are currently running a course on Open Journalism on the Open Web, I do think the OU is maybe missing a trick, and not leading the way in terms of innovating around open online courses…
…becuase the OU has being doing online education for years. Our first fully online course (T171, as authored by Martin Weller and John Naughton, amongst others) first presented in 1999 (I think), with thousands of students per presentation. The current Royal Photographic Society (RPS) recognised short course on Digital Photography regularly pulls in large numbers of students (in the OU, courses with less than 250 students are small…) and the new CompTIA approved Linux course is already a middle sized course… (Notice anything about those courses…? Recognition from outside academia too…)
So why isn't the OU experimenting with running massive open online courses, with an option to "upsell" accreditation to students who want the formal academic credit? Maybe providing the support typically offered to students taking OU courses wouldn't be cost-effective in an open course, although the wholly online short courses at least have already foregone personal tutor support. Expecting forum moderators to act as sales reps for accreditation is maybe not the sort of support we'd like to see being offered…?!
I've mentioned before that open educational resources might benefit from being created in public, possibly in an open course setting… SO maybe the time is now right to start trialing open courses (uncourses?;-), maybe informed by requests from (potential) students about the courses they'd like to see, creating the materials in near real-time (and drawing on other open resources, "educational" and otherwise) for the open presentation, then providing students who want to gain formal credit with some sort of assessment and accreditation?
How might this formal recognition be achieved?
- possibly via a semi-formal OU certificate that can be formally recognised through a credit transfer route?
- maybe using variant of the Career development and employability course container that lets students "use [their] workplace as a context for learning, and develop [their] ability to apply [their] learning to improve [their] practice at work")?
- or how about the Make your experience count course container, which "gives you the opportunity to gain 30 credit points towards higher education qualifications by drawing on your past learning experiences"?
With a little bit of wit and imagination, I'm sure we could wither finesse one of our current "prior experience" courses to support the award of credit to open online courses, or come up with a new 10 point container: Open Education Course Credit
PS Hmmm, as an experiment, I wonder what would happen if someone who had taken an open online course tried to get it accepted "in partial fulfilment" of one of the accreditation of prior experience containers mentioned above? If you try it, let me know how you get on…;-)
Linked Data and the Leaders' Debate – My Challenge
Over the last few weeks, there has a been a smattering of challenges to the Linked Data community baiting them to demonstrate some of the utility of the Linked Data approach (e.g. A Challenge To Linked Data Developers (followed up in Response To My Linked Data Challenge) and Linked Data: my challenge, with some other possibilities here: 10 Ideas For Web of Data Apps).
So here's my challenge, inspired by the #leadersdebate last night:
That is: each party should be required to tweet a link to #datagovuk sparql query to justify every "factual" claim they make.
For example – can someone write me a Linked Data query to show how much is spent by the government on UK education quangoes?
PS doing something similar for any claims made in the manifestos should also count…
OU Facebook Apps, Reprise
I was at a meeting yesterday looking at rebooting the OU's Facebook strategy. With a bit of luck, this means that we'll be doing another push on the OU Facebook apps that were developed several years ago now and which I still believe provide a sound basis for a range of community building and social learning support services (Course Profiles – A Facebook Application for Open University Students and Alumni).
The apps were largely developed out of time and in stolen time, and it seems that things are likely to continue in this way (which is both a plus – freeing us from constraints of interminable committees wanting to plan strategies rather than jfdi, and a minus – @liamgh is the only person we trust with the code which means any maintenance falls to him ;-)
For those who don't remember the apps we developed, there were two: Course Profiles, which allowed students to declare the courses that had taken were taking and intended to take, and then provided a range of services around that information (find friends on a course, find a study buddy, link to course information or course related OpenLearn resources, get course recommendations); and My OU Story, where students could maintain a "status diary" about their progress on a course, along with a mood indicator so they could track their mood over a course, and other app users could add supportive comments. (I'd be surprised if anyone in the Student Services retention project has even heard about this project, but looking at some of the peer support that has gone on within the context that app, I'd argue it might be contributing to retention…)
Course Profiles quickly attracted several thousand users following the initial push just after it was first launched, so it evidently served a need then that presumably still exists today, i.e. a badging mechansims for celebrating course achievements and declaring future study intentions. One thing that might be worth looking at is the rate at which early adopters of Course Profiles have continued to update it, and report on the extent to which their original "future study" intentions converted to actual course registrations.
There's also going to be a push on growing the number of fans on the official OU profile page. I'm not sure what plan @stuartbrown has for growing the numbers (for the task appears to have fallen to him…;-) but with a bit of luck the apps as well as the fan page will get highlighted through some of the official communication channels.
We also had a bit of discussion around other potential apps. Something I'd quite like to see would be a gallery app pulling images from the various flickr groups that have popped up around the T189 Digital Photography short course. Alumni of that group are already pretty active, and have just launched their first online exhibition, so if we could provide a channel that increases the audience for their show, and if they're happy for us to amplify it via an OU Facebook app, that might be quite a fun thing to try as a community building app… (For more about the background to the exhibition, see Inspiring Learners; also see the T189 Graduates' Exhibition).
(I also wonder if a similar gallery style app might work to showcase some of the games that students on T151 Digital worlds manage to create, all with their permission of course…)
Someone (I forget who) also suggested a "Share on Facebook" button within the gallery environment students use to build their portfolio whilst they take T189 (limited so that sharing was limited to photographs that a student had uploaded themselves, of course). This would amplify a student's work and progress on a course to their Facebook friends, and provide their friends with a glimpse of what sorts of activities are involved in this particular OU course.
One thing I never even half managed to convince anybody that it was important was the data that was collected by the Course Profiles app in particular, though I did have a go at a few quick'n'dirty takes on this, such as OU Course Profiles Facebook App – Treemaps, Hierarchical Course Clusters from Course Profiles App and Tinkering with Google Charts (which started to consider what a course team dashboard view might look like). I was mulling this over again last night, and the following uses came to mind if we started to reconcile Course Profiles with institutional data (something we were always wary of, but anyway – here's the thinking…;-)
- predictors and conversion rates: I'm not sure if Liam is logging when/how users change their status updates, but it'd be useful to know what percentage of users are updating their Course Profiles (e.g. from 'currently taking' to 'taken' courses, or more interestingly 'intend to take' to taking) and whether an "intend to take" course declaration is a good predictor of whether students do actually take a course. There's an obvious quick win here for a possibly intrusive marketing campaign chasing folk who've declared an 'intend to take' course but don't appear to have followed up on it;
- predicting course sizes: with several thousand users, does the sample of users on Course Profiles predict future course enrollment numbers? As far as I know, no-one in planning ever came to us asking to peak at our data to explore this. Nor did any more than a couple of Course Chairs ever seem to think it was interesting that we had stated intentions about course pathways, and that for new courses in particular we might be able to spot whether students were signing up for a course based on a pathway the course team was hoping for?
- retention: is the retention rate of students on a course who are on Facebook with Course Profiles and/or My OU Story different to the retention rate across the course as a whole? Does the fact that students who have declared 'intend to take' courses on the Course Profile correlate with their likelihood of completing an award?
- course planning and recommendation: on the one hand, courses appear to have natural numbers; on the other, working out what courses to take in what order for a particular degree given various factors (such as courses already taken, course exclusions etc) can be a confusing affair. At the moment, I believe a rule based support tool is being explored to help with course recommendations, but how well do those suggestions compare with a simple clustering based on Course Profiles data?
PS Just in passing, it's worth noting that as with other groups who've used Facebook to mount campaigns against unpopular corporate decisions, OU students are no different… Open University curbs Tesco 'clubcard degree' scheme .
Getting Started with data.gov.uk… or not…
Go to any of the data.gov.uk SPARQL endpoints (that's geeky techie scary speak for places where you can run geeky techie datastore query language queries and get back what looks to the eye like a whole jumble of confusing Radical Dance Faction lyrics [in joke;-0]) and you see a search box, of sorts… Like this one on the front of the finance datastore:
So, pop pickers:
One thing that I think would make the SPARQL page easier to use would be to have a list of links that would launch one of the last 10 or queries that had run in a reasonable time, returned more than no results, displayed down the left hand side – so n00bs like me could at least have a chance at seeing what a successful query looked like. Appreciating that some folk might want to keep their query secret (more on this another day…;-), there should probably be a 'tick this box to keep your query out of the demo queries listing' option when folk submit a query.
(A more adventurous solution, but one that I'm not suggesting at the moment, might allow folk who have run a query from the SPARQL page on the data.gov.uk site "share this query" to a database of (shared) queries. Or if you've logged in to the site, there may be an option of saving it as a private query.)
That is all…
PS if you have some interesting SPARQL queries, please feel free to share them below or e.g. via the link on here: Bookmarking and Sharing Open Data Queries.
PPS from @iand "shouldnt that post link to the similar http://tw.rpi.edu/weblog/2009/10/23/probing-the-sparql-endpoint-of-datagovuk/"; and here's one from @gothwin: /location /location /location – exploring Ordnance Survey Linked Data.
PPPS for anyone who took the middle way in the vote, then if there are any example queries in the comments to this post, do they help you get started at all? If you voted "what are you talking about?" please add a comment below about what you think data.gov.uk, Linked Data and SPARQL might be, and what you'd like to be able to with them…
Due Out Soon – The Google "Qualified Developer Program"
A blog post on the Google GeoDevelopers blog last week announced:
Currently we are in the process of piloting certifications for several new APIs. We are building out certifications for KML, Google Earth Enterprise, and 3D in preparation for our first master certification, the Google Qualified Geo Web Developer. We're also working on certifications for the AJAX Search API, Enterprise Apps, and Android.
(It seems like I was a little ahead of the curve when I blogged this almost 4 years ago: Google/Yahoo/Amazon Certified Professionals…;-)
There are already certified programmes for Cisco and Microsoft, of course, so it was only a matter of time before we started seeing badges like this one:
I wonder when we'll be seeing a Google curriculum for computer science degrees too, building on the resources collected as part of the Google Code University? It seems they're already trying to compete with the OU's new short course Linux: an introduction with their Tools 101 tutorials, which includes intros to the Linux command line and grep;-) (It would be no loss to HE, of Google did take on compsci education, of course, because Computer Science degrees are ever harder to find, and much harder to do (too much reliance on logic and algorithm design) than Computing degrees… (Hmmm, a case of HE dumnping the academic in favour of the, err, more practical?!;-)
Of course, it may be that the Goog will get into delivering teaching qualifications?
One school subject area I think they could drive curriculum development is in geography – you do know they have a Geo Education website, don't you…?;-)
Why does this matter? The internet based communications revolution hasn't yet had a huge impact on the way we examine, assess and validate learning in formal academic education or on the curricula that are delivered. Maybe it shouldn't. But whilst corporates have always produced educational promo packs, their reach has been limited to those students studying under teachers who have made use of those materials. And now we have search engines, and students will be coming across learning materials with corporate branding in the course of their own research. Maybe the kids will discount these materials as 'tainted' in some corporate way? Maybe they'll see them as training materials and discount them as irrelevant to their academic educational studies? Or maybe they'll see them as part of that userguide to the world that they'll be referring to for the rest of their lives?
See also: Education, Training and Lifelong Learning, and Towards Vendor Certification on the Open Web? Google Training Resources.


text:
This 10km trail meanders through broadleaf woodlands, wildflower meadows and along the lake shoreline. The trail utilises the landscape contours and the natural habitat around the park to create a challenging and also scenic riding experience. The trail is suitable for all cyclists with basic off-road riding skills. The majority of the trail is purpose built singletrack linked with some wider tarmac sections. Some sections are more challenging than others and may include obstacles such as roots and rocks with some sharp turns.
|6.5 miles
|Nearest Town
|OS Map
|19 and 20
|Route Type
|Lakeland, Woodland
|Route Shape
|Other Area
|Grid Ref (Start)
|Public Roads
|Off Public Road
|Grid Ref (End)
This is a 10km circular route following the natural landscape contours around the lake and through woodland. The route is well signposted with markers at all of the 60 sections, as well as boulders on the ground to guide the cyclist in the right direction. There are no steep inclines but the trail is narrow in places where the route becomes more challenging.
This route has accessible toilet facilities.
Walking and Cycling in Craigavon and Adventure Northern Ireland Brochure.
it is indeed so nice to be trailing in here..disappointing though, there are a lot of irresponsible dog owners who left their dog-poops especially along the gravel route near the lakes..apart from that, CRAIGAVON MTB TRAIL IS ONE OF THE BEST THERE IS....
The following downloads are available for Craigavon Lakes Mountain Bike Trail:
Cycled on Craigavon Lakes Mountain Bike Trail? Please share your rating and feedback comments.
Click the link below to open a printer-friendly version of the information for Craigavon Lakes Mountain Bike Trail.
The NEW Cycle Northern Ireland Brochure is now available to order and download. Visit our brochures website to get your copy today.
Subscribe to the free CycleNI.com E-Newsletter to get regular updates on new cycle routes and cycling news in Northern Ireland.Sign Up Today >

subset: commoncrawl


text:
UF Plaza Block Party... Blocked
GAINESVILLE - After winning the first Gator football game of the season fans who went out to celebrate the big win may have noticed something different. The game day block party at the University of Florida Plaza is off. The businesses in the UF Plaza located on University Avenue and Northwest 17th Street seem to be disagreeing on a thing or two.
For the past three years during game days, fans have been able to enjoy party-filled tents on that parking lot, what they call a block party. However this year that won't be the case as the tenants could not come to an agreement.
"It's really disheartening and I hope that whatever issues that are existent can be worked out," said Tyler Redden, a student at the University of Florida.
Rowdy Reptile, Cooper Monkey, Pita Pit, Relish, Designer Greens and Flaco's could not come to an agreement for this year's block party. They were all sent a letter from their landlord, that the party had been called off. And that's mostly because of the event's set up, the owner of Designer Greens Steven Kay tells me. "I just wanted to unblock the sidewalk so that our patrons that wanted to go to designer greens knew we were open and could get to us. Without having to fight around mobs of people and wonder if we were actually open," Kay said.
If tenants wish to serve beer outside on game days, they need a temporary license called "Extensions of Premises," and that setup blocks off Designer Greens, Kay said. This is why he requested not to shut down the party but instead "remove the outdoor alcohol sales" so that the sidewalk near his entrance could open up.
However neighbors like Cooper Monkey disagree.
Libby Kesselring, mother of owner Rob Zeller and manager of Cooper Monkey said, "For us it does help us get through the summer months which are really slow... It gives us students. You know we bring on 4-5 extra students to run that tent and it gives them a job... It makes it fun for the community, the students, the staff... They party down there afterwards. We had live music, it was just fun," she said.
Kay says Designer Greens has lost revenue as a result of the sidewalk being blocked. "I am all up for finding a solution. I would like to sit down with all of the owners in the plaza and have an amicable business like conversation and maybe we can figure out a way for myself to be happy and everyone happy and then games 2-6 go back to partying for the game days," Kay said.
Other tenants I spoke to also fear losing revenue without the block parties. This is why most of the owners I talked to, say they hope things can be fixed for the games to come.
Related Stories
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- Religion & Politics
- UF Receives Grant To Digitize Historic Newspapers
- Should College Athletes Get Paid? Former Gator Players Weigh In
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35-01 Morlot Ave, Fair Lawn, NJ 07410
Thomas Jefferson Middle School uses the house model, emphasizing the cultivation of a sense of ownership and…More identity for students and teachers and enabling them to develop close working relationships. Teams of four teachers meet regularly to plan learning activities or to discuss instructional strategies and student concerns.
Instrumental and choral music instruction is available in addition to core academic subjects, and extracurricular activities include intramural sports, drama club, math league and student council.
The school's Parent Teacher Organization publishes a newspaper and runs events such as Back to School Night, American Education Week and Education Recognition Night. To highlight respect and responsibility as cornerstones of the school, citizenship signs are posted in all classrooms and common areas.
John Dunay is the school's principal.


text:
Notre Dame Fighting Irish safety recruit Max Redfield figures to be a candidate to contribute immediately in South Bend.
Top safety recruit Max Redfield commits to Notre Dame over USC.
Max Redfield is expected to choose Notre Dame over USC.
Many of the top prospects in the 2013 class have already made decisions with less than four months until Signing Day, but five of the six top safeties in the country, according to 247Sports, have...
USC loses a commitment from top safety recruit Max Redfield, who is now leaning to Notre Dame. The move was not unexpected, but it is costly.
USC lands an elite safety recruit in Max Redfield.
Film breakdown of Mission Viejo (Calif.) High School's Max Redfield. The safety recruit has great cover skills.
Will Justin Davis join Ty Isaac in committing to the USC Trojans this week? More updates on Max Redfield, Eddie Vanderdoes, Elijah Qualls, Derek Babaish, Sebastian LaRue, Tanner Vallejo, and...
More updates on Su'a Cravens naming his decision date, Max Redfield putting up a top 5, Sefo Liufau committing to Colorado and Kylie Fitts announcing for USC.
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text:
accessibility & help
Whether in the UK or overseas, we respond to hundreds of disasters every year. From floods and fires to terrorist attacks, we're among the first to arrive, and we stay long after the crisis is over.
Find out how you can help us support disaster survivors.
See our current appeals >
When emergencies occur, the Red Cross supports the police, ambulance and fire services, local and health authorities and utility companies.
About UK emergency response >
Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers are usually the first to respond to disasters around the world. Find out why.
How we work overseas >
We are working in several countries to help communities recover from devastating disasters.
More on our recovery work >
Day or night, in an emergency you'll be there to help when someone needs it most.
Read about the disasters we've raised money for in the past, and find out how we've made a difference to millions of people, thanks to the public's support.
This fund provides financial assistance to Britons who have been seriously injured or bereaved by terrorism abroad. Find out who's eligible and what the fund provides.
A little bit of knowledge can go a long way. Learn what to do in a flood, fire, terrorist incident or other unexpected emergency.
One month after widespread floods hit the Balkans, people are beginning to return home.
A British Red Cross plan to rebuild homes, boost people's health and incomes and repair schools in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan has been announced.
A global Red Cross leader has warned of "dire humanitarian consequences" if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut drastically and soon.
Help the Red Cross prepare for disasters. Your donation will be used in the UK or overseas.
© British Red Cross 2014
All images © British Red Cross 2014
unless otherwise stated
British Red Cross, UK Office, 44 Moorfields, London EC2Y 9AL Phone: 0844 871 11 11. Fax: 020 7562 2000.
The British Red Cross Society, incorporated by Royal Charter 1908, is a charity registered in England and Wales (220949) and Scotland (SC037738)
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text:
The article you requested is
Olanzapine Increases Slow Wave Sleep and Sleep Continuity in SSRI-Resistant Depressed Patients.
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| 188.8.131.52
Method: We measured the effect of open-label olanzapine addition (2.5 mg/day initially) on the polysomnograms of 12 patients referred from primary care sources who met DSM-IV criteria for major depressive disorder and who had had an unsatisfactory response to therapeutic doses of an SSRI. Patients were first enrolled in November 2001; final assessment occurred in November 2003. Sleep polysomnogram recordings were made on 3 occasions: before olanzapine addition, on the first night of olanzapine treatment, and after 3 weeks of olanzapine treatment.
Results: After the first night of olanzapine treatment and during the third week, subjects showed improvements in sleep efficiency (p < .001), subjective sleep quality (p < .05), and SWS (p < .01). Scores on the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression fell significantly (p = .001), with the majority of the decrease being apparent after the first week of treatment.
Conclusion: Olanzapine improves sleep continuity and increases SWS in patients receiving SSRI treatment. These effects are apparent after the first dose of olanzapine and are maintained for the next 3 weeks. The ability of olanzapine to increase SWS is probably attributable to 5-HT2A/2C receptor blockade, which has been identified as a relevant mechanism in the therapeutic effect of olanzapine in SSRI-resistant depressed patients.


text:
The Texas HIV Medication Program (THMP) has developed a one-page "Emergency Relief ADAP Application" that may be completed by displaced residents of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama that have sought refuge in Texas and would normally receive their medications through their state AIDS Drug Assistance Program.
Copies of the Emergency Relief ADAP Application can be obtained by calling the THMP at 800-255-1090 or 512-533-3000
|FEMA English & Español
You will need Adobe Acrobat® Reader™ to view PDF files located on this site. If you do not already have Adobe Acrobat® Reader™, you can download here for free.


text:
UPDATE 10:40 PM: Phone service to the affected areas has been restored.
A damaged fiber optics line is to blame for phone outages in the Lake Okoboji area.
9-1-1 and mobile phone service is currently out in large parts of the Lakes area and Dickinson County because of that cut line.
To report emergencies, residents are asked call one of the following numbers.
In Spirit Lake: 336-2525In Okoboji & Arnold's Park: 332-2341In Milford & Wahpeton: 338-4889In Lake Park: 832-3527In Superior & Terril: 712-362-3515
Crews are working to fix the problem, but it's not known when they might be finished.
Siouxland News
100 Gold Circle
Dakota Dunes, SD 57049
Main Phone: 712-277-3554
Main Fax: 712-255-5250
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com


text:
Insight and analysis for enterprise IT professionals
20 April 2012 | 0
ComputerScope, in publication since 1985, is Ireland's only journal for enterprise IT end users.
With a reputation for thorough analysis, ComputerScope enables IT professionals to stay ahead of the curve on emerging technologies such as cloud computing, virtualisation, mobile applications and security, and trends like 'bring your own device'.
Every month ComputerScope features, news and expert opinion.
• News, analysis and features at the cutting edge of enterprise IT
• Controlled circulation to end users
• Inside Track offering predictions and insight from industry leaders
To find out more about receiving ComputerScope, e-mail email@example.com.
If you wish to change your address for receiving ComputerScope, e-mail email@example.com.
If you would like your marketing message to reach this audience, e-mail email@example.com.


text:
The rent at The Elms Apartments ranges from $599 for a one bedroom to a $835 three bedroom. Apartments in this building are about 1% less expensive than the Appian average.
This apartment is in the Appian neighborhood in Columbus. Nearby parks include Cherry Bottom Park, Strawberry Farms Park and Parkridge Park.
The Elms Apartments has a Walk Score of 40 out of 100. This location is a Car-Dependent neighborhood so most errands require a car.
Nearby schools include Kindercare Learning Center, Northeast Career Center and Columbus Performance Academy.
The closest grocery stores are Nature's Path Market, Jenny Craig Weight Loss Center and HSU & Co. Health Food Store North East.
Nearby coffee shops include Starbucks, Starbucks and Starbucks. Nearby restaurants include Donatos Morse Road, Sakura Japanese Steakhouse and SUBWAY® Restaurants (C-Store / Gas Station).
The Elms Apartments is near Cherry Bottom Park, Strawberry Farms Park and Parkridge Park.
There are minimal bike lanes and the terrain is flat as a pancake. The Elms Apartments is somewhat bikeable, there is minimal bike infrastructure.
SPACIOUS APARTMENTS IN AN UNBELIEVABLE LOCATION, The Elms is conveniently located in a secluded wooded area just off I-270 and Morse Road less than a mile from The Easton Town Center. Our premier location provides easy access to I-270 and is a short distance from shopping and restaurants; in addition to downtown Columbus, OSU, Polaris and Port Columbus Airport. We offer spacious and affordable 1, 2 and 3 bedroom air conditioned apartment homes. Pets allowed, The Elms is a pet friendly community-cats allowed and small dogs allowed. We offer washer/dryer hookups, dishwasher, private patio or balcony, swimming pool with sundeck, fitness center, hardwood floors and so much more. Our professional courteous staff is ready to meet your needs. Call us today to see how we can make The Elms your new home!


text:
Pre-Fall '12 Look Book
Women's Wear Daily review and images of VPL's 2012 Pre-Fall collection.
Women's Wear Daily review and images of VPL's 2012 Pre-Fall collection.
In a continuation from resort, Victoria Bartlett cruised into spring with a familiar VPL lineup. Her signature layered pieces were punctuated by varying contrasts — techy meets organic fabrics, structured meets draped silhouettes — with bold, graphic pops of color (fluorescent pink, kelly green) adding a sporty flair to neutrals.
VPL by Victoria Bartlett Posted Monday June 13, 2011 From WWD.COM With the collection's focus on easy layering and color-blocked bras and bikinis, VPL's Victoria Bartlett has a knack for resort. This time, she paired those graphic swim and innerwear styles with sheer grandfather cardigans and tanks, at times worn with shorts over leggings. Bartlett [...]


text:
Hyperlite AJ Wakeboard Boots 2014
Jimmy LaRiche and Hyperlite spent a lot of time this offseason re-creating JL's signature model wakeboard boot. Jimmy likes a boot that is supportive but still offers a good amount of flex. Learn More
Hyperlite Shim Wakesurf Board 5'4 (2014)
Brian Grubb and Hyperlite hit a homerun with the 2014 Shim Wakesurf Board. This lightweight board has the feel of a high-end EPS wakesurfer with the durability of a compression molded surf. Learn More
HO Sports Neoprene Youth Life Vest - Black/Blue
Regular Price: $59.99
Special Price: $49.99
The HO Sports Girl's Youth Vest is a USCGA vest designed to keep the young guns safe while riding the wake, cruising the beach or chilling at the pool. Killer graphics and concealed straps keep them looking good while they are enjoying the water. Learn More
Hyperlite Franchise Wakeboard 2014
Jimmy LaRiche and Hyperlite are bringing the party back to the waterways for another rendition of his Franchise pro model. This years Franchise features a continuous rocker, easy carving and edging and a fast feel on the water. Learn More
Hyperlite Team CT Wakeboard Bindings 2014
The Hyperlite Team Closed Toe Wakeboard Bindings are the perfect all around boot. The Team CT was designed by Hyperlite and Shaun Murray to provide great support while offering a medium flex boot. Learn More
Hyperlite System Wakeboard Bindings 2014
Regular Price: $180.00
Special Price: $159.99
The 2014 Hyperlite System Wakeboard Bindings have been completely updated for this season. Get ready to experience the latest in wakeboard technology design for boat and cable riding. Learn More
Hyperlite Marek Wakeboard Boot 2014
The Hyperlite Marek Boot offers true footwear construction and unmatched technology. The 2014 Marek boots seamlessly integrate with the System Pro Wakeboard Bindings for a perfect fit and maximum board control. Learn More


text:
Brent Budowsky: Elizabeth Warren makes me prouder than any candidate I have ever supported in since this once-young man supported a gentleman named Robert Francis Kennedy.
Who (What) Is Forescee?
On Mission Street
Franco Folini moved to San Francisco from Italy in 2001. He has a degree in computer science, and in Italy, taught at the Mechanical Engineering Facility at the University of Parma. He says he sees homeless everyday going to work and coming home. He enjoys talking to them, learning their names and listening to their stories.
Will the GOP Find a New Reagan?


text:
Do you enjoy Shakespeare but don't really have the time to sit down and deconstruct one of his plays? Well, you're in luck, since the beginning of motion pictures, his work has been adapted into film and TV productions like these ...
Latest in Anglophenia Video Series
Why Fans Love Benedict Cumberbatch - Anglophenia Ep 9View All Episodes
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Ninety-nine percent of the time, the Internet is an expat's best friend. Not only does it provide incredibly convenient ways […]Read Now
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Join us on Twitter (@MindTheGap_BBCA) for a #MindTheChat at a special time, Thursday, July 24 at 2-3 pm ET, when […]Read Now


text:
Political eyes on TN in March
MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Some of the Republican Party's presumed presidential hopefuls will be in Memphis this March to meet with party activists and try to gain momentum for their campaigns.
The Southern Republican Leadership Conference will meet March 9-12 at the Peabody Hotel.
A number of presumed candidates, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee and Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, are scheduled to attend and speak.
Also confirmed are Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, another possible presidential candidate, and Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.
"I'm the only keynote speaker they could find who's not running for president,� Alexander joked.
Two dozen others have been invited, including party heavyweights John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Karl Rove, and many will attend.
Political experts say the event can boost the chances of success for some candidates, or put a damper on the hopes of others.
"I think the leadership conference will be the first major cattle show before the 2008 election, and it should be pretty much mandatory attendance for any candidate seeking election in 2008,� said Charlie Cook, author of the Cook Political Report.
Alexander said he predicts a big crowd of both candidates and conferees. He likens the conference to a spring training game before the real competition of the primary campaign season begins in 2007.
"It's as close to an early national forum as one can find,� he said. "It attracts a large crowd of Republican activists who could help candidates in the early primaries. It ought to be a lot of fun.�
Their theme: "Keeping the Myth Alive".
Entertainment will be provided by Zell Miller, who will tapdance to a tune played by virtuoso organ grinder Ken Mehlman.
Also, members of the PNAC Troupe will pull rabbits out of their hats, no doubt to the delight of glassy-eyed onlookers.
Romney is going to come out of this meeting looking like a star.
No Republican will be electable to the presidency in 2008.


text:
News: Cassidy Fired First Shots At Meek Mill, Says "Repo" Producer [Audio]
Saturday, Dec 29, 2012 7:52AM
Philadelphia producer Jahlil Beats has weighed in on the current war of words between Cassidy and Meek Mill days after he found himself stuck in the middle by producing the hard-hitting "Repo" diss.
Although he feels Cass fired the first shots, Beats said he thinks lyrical sparring is good for the rap game.
"It's kinda crazy because 13, 14 weeks ago, we were at the 40/40 and everything was cool," Beats said in an interview referring to himself, Meek and Cassidy. "Actually, that was my first time ever meeting Cass, he was showing major love. We were actually supposed to work on some stuff, but it's all a competitive thing. I feel like it's a good thing for hip-hop, whether Cass is fine or not. But you know, Cass threw the first two jabs on wax, then Meek dropped his bomb. It's good for hip-hop at the end of the day, and I hope it doesn't go past staying on wax." (Power 99 Philly)
On his "Repo" track, Meek uses the beat to verbally attack Cass and his Larsiny Family crew.
"What you made this year, what you worth n*gga," Meek continues. "I dropped Dreams & Nightmares, I made 'Church' n*gga, I did 'I'ma Boss,' young'n set the summer off/Now these old n*ggas mad at me 'cause they fallin' off/Get your hate on, Cass, and we ain't talkin' Larceny 'cause they all trash/Your goons ain't riding with you 'cause they all mad/You ain't never put no food up on AR Ave/My dog caught a body for you, d*mn, he ain't eatin' from it/Now you mad at Swizz 'cause you can't get a beat from him/Once my n*ggas come at you dog, we gonna keep coming/Weird ol' Forrest Gump a** n*gga, better keep running." ("Repo")
The record did not sit well with Cass associate Chubby Jag who responded with his own diss, "Worst Nightmare."
"I can't give your State Prop's, 'cause they put on this fake Peedi," Chubby Jag raps. "Sh*t sounds like you lost n*gga, get robbed if you floss n*gga/You work but you ain't no 'Boss' n*gga, it's f*ck you and your boss n*gga/Red dot, get off n*gga/Head shot, get tossed n*gga/When I shoot, I'm on holmes/Ain't a day I been off, n*gga/Sh*t sounds like you soft n*gga -- 3 million downloads, 250 on sales, now I ain't saying I'm a brainiac but that sh*t sound like you cheated Meek ... See the sh*t on Twitter holmes, you handle sh*t the gay way/I know why n*gga's acting b*tch, you look just like Shanaynay/Or better yet, RG3, the crackhead version..." ("Worst Nightmare")
Last week, the Philly rap veteran dropped his unexpected "Me, Myself & iPhone" on Meek's head.
"That ain't nothing new I raised son/I was around when that clown couldn't even get his braids done/Why he dropped that I'm a boss sh*t?/Cause his boss say he a (Boss) and he just on his boss d*ck/I usually don't get mad, but I had enough/When he dropped that song amen that was the last from us/He should praise his heavenly father the creator/But yo I gotta go I'mma holla at you later easy." ("Me, Myself & iPhone")
Check out Jahlil Beats' interview:


text:
BBVA Compass Bank is currently offering up to $150 in banking bonuses when you open a new BBVA Compass Build-to-Order Free Checking account online, valid through April 30, 2010.
To take advantage of this BBVA Compass Bank promotion, you must have a permanent residence within a state where BBVA Compass has a banking center, including Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, or Texas, and your permanent residence must be located in close proximity to a BBVA Compass banking center.
You'll get a $100 BBVA Compass bonus when you open a Build-to-Order Free Checking account and set up a payroll direct deposit.
You'll receive an additional $50 Hotel Card if you pay at least 1 bill online.
Check out this BBVA Compass Build-to-Order Free Checking Promotion to open your new BBVA Compass account today.
$100 BBVA Compass Bank Bonus
A $100 minimum opening deposit is required to qualify for the bonus offer.
This promotional banking offer is available for consumers only.
Accounts must be opened online by 4/30/2010, and you must establish a recurring payroll direct deposit by 5/31/2010 to receive the $100 bonus.
The bonus deposit will occur within 120 days of account opening in the checking account that receives the recurring payroll direct deposit.
The account must be open at time the bonus is rewarded.
$50 BBVA Compass Bank Hotel Card Bonus
The online Bill Pay $50 Hotel Gift Card offer cannot be combined with any other Online Bill Pay offer.
This offer is valid for consumer checking customers only.
BBVA Compass employees, relatives, and household members are not eligible.
To receive a $50 Hotel Gift Card, you must:
1. Not be participating in any existing online bill pay promotion.
2. Not have paid bills using online bill pay from any BBVA Compass consumer checking account on which you are a signer or owner for at least 90+ days.
3. Pay at least 1 bill for at least $25 to an unrelated third party via online bill pay between 3/01/10 and 4/01/10.
Customers who meet these criteria will be mailed a $50 Hotel Gift Card to the address on file for the account from which the qualifying payment was made.
Customers who meet these criteria by 3/31/10 will be mailed their Hotel Gift Cards on May 31, 2010; customers who meet these criteria by 4/30/10 will be mailed their Hotel Gift Card on June 30, 2010.
Special Note
Please note the discrepancy between the above requirement #3, where it indicates you must make your online bill payment by 4/01/10, and both the final date of 3/31/10 that is given for customers to receive their hotel gift card on May 31, 2010, plus the final date of 4/30/10 that is given for customers to receive their hotel gift card on June 30, 2010.
Hotel Gift Cards are offered through Destination Rewards, Inc., which is not affiliated with BBVA Compass.
This offer is valid only for hotels booked at www.myhotelgiftcard.com and requires a 2-night minimum stay.
Only 1 certificate can be applied to a reservation, and this offer cannot be combined with any other offers.
BBVA Compass Bank Build-to-Order Free Checking Details
Review the Build-to-Order Free Checking for more details on this personalized checking account from BBVA Compass Bank.
You can also earn a $25 account anniversary bonus for meeting certain account feature qualifications with the BBVA Compass Build-to-Order Checking account.
Take advantage of this BBVA Compass Bank bonus offer to get a $100 checking account bonus and a $50 hotel gift card bonus.
You may also be interested in this BBVA Compass Bank Referral Promotion to receive referral bonuses from BBVA Compass Bank.
Open your Build-to-Order Free Checking account today to receive up to $150 in cash rewards from BBVA Compass Bank.


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Belgrave Agency will recruit immediately and will have suitable candidates the same week you register.
Yes we can, our agency can facilate any part-time position. We feel that part-time childcare is very important and we will be delighted to help in any way.
The hourly rate is 10-12 euros per hour depending on experience, qualifications and if a driver is required.
The agency can provide Nannies with a full clean driving licence and car. This requirement is very common.
The agency can arrange for you to meet the candidates at your house, office or convenient meeting place nearby. If you prefer to meet the candidates at our offices this can also be arranged.
Belgrave Agency interviews everyone in person. We verify all written references, request photo i.d. and a strict Garda Vetting process is carried out. Copies of certs from relevant courses are obtained, an up to date C.V. is mandatory and a detailed application form is required to be completed for the agency.
The agency was established in 1996 by manager/owner Susan Dunn
Belgrave Agency can provide live-in candidates no problem, we can facilate any type of placement.


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Plein Air Pastels of the High Country
One of the High Country's most talented pastel painters, Paul deMarrais, has devoted his artistic efforts entirely to pastel since discovering the medium as an art student in the late 1970s.
He is happy to continue in the tradition of French and American impressionist painting. After many years of "plein air" painting, deMarrais has begun to work from his own photos of the rolling landscapes near his home in northeast Tennessee.
A restless experimenter, he is known for making his own pastels for himself and other artists, and exploring different surfaces and techniques in pastel. His paintings reflect his lifelong love of nature and the outdoors. He finds beauty and interest in simple scenes and attempts to get a feeling of the moment in his paintings through his use of bright and subdues colors. His paintings are included in the private and corporate collections throughout the United States.
Blowing Rock Frameworks and Gallery has received nearly 20 new paintings from deMarrais in the last week and will be displaying them in the gallery. deMarrais has been working on these pieces for the past six months.
"The colors are vibrant and fresh, each piece beautifully capturing the spirit of the High Country," gallery owner Tim Miller said. "All pieces are custom framed and ready for sale. Stop by the gallery and check out this master of pastel's work."
Blowing Rock Frameworks and Gallery is located near the Food Lion in Blowing Rock, at 7539 Valley Blvd. Hours are Monday through Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call (828) 295-0041 or visit http://www.blowingrockgalleries.com, where a sampling of deMarrais's paintings can be viewed.
Gallery Times
Gallery Times is a weekly news feature of the Focus section of The Mountain Times, featuring short news items submitted by local galleries.
For more information, contact editor Frank Ruggiero at (firstname.lastname@example.com) or (828) 264-6397.


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Luke Wilson makes his directorial debut with The Wendell Baker Story, a twisted comedy about a good-natured con man who turns his life around after spending time behind bars. Luke Wilson not only directed the film, along with his brother Andrew, but also wrote the screenplay and plays the lead. Brother Owen appears in a supporting role and their mom Laura handled all the still photography on the set. Even Luke's dog, Brother, got in on the act, making his feature film debut by tackling the role of Junior.
The Advantages of Working with the Wilson Family: "I think the pluses are that we get along," said Luke Wilson. "You do kind of know each other and you are able to hit the ground running. Sometimes when you get on a new movie, you kind of have to figure out the way other people work and it can be like being the new kid in high school where you're just trying to find out where your place is on the movie or on the set. I don't know what the minuses would be."
Andrew Wilson added, "We didn't really have time to have any sibling [arguments]. We were on such a tight time constraint. You know, we had 35 days to shoot it and the producers called it an ambitious schedule, which is euphemism for impossible so we were just trying to get the thing done. We were always aware we really didn't have time to mess around and argue about this and that. Just try and get the best shot."
The Wilson Sense of Humor: Andrew said they all share a similar sensibility. "I think we think the same things are funny. I mean Owen, obviously, is a really funny, funny guy and he has been since we were little. I can remember like my dad always saying 'You think you're the funniest person in the world don't you?' In a very negative way. And it turns out he may be one of the funniest people in the world. But yeah, we think kind of the same things are funny. When Luke showed me the script I thought it was funny and really well written. So, we tend to read the same things and be drawn to the same kind of interests."
Divvying Up Responsibilities on the Set: It was kind of a play it by ear situation in terms of deciding who would do what. Luke explained, "It just kind of worked out where I would block the scenes out with the actors and Andrew and Steve Mason, the cinematographer, would kind of work out the shots. It was never the kind of thing were I had one idea and Andrew had another and we kind of had to take 10 minutes to figure it out. If anything, I feel like we kind of moved a little faster in doing it that way because we really would be able to… I would be able to block it and he'd be able to lay it out and figure out what shots they were going to do, and I can be rehearsing at the same time with them. Yeah, I think it worked out pretty well."
"There wasn't the kind of auteur effect where you had a director with a vision of what it should be and a writer with a different vision and then a big star that wanted to do something else that only benefited him," offered Andrew. "We were all trying to do the same thing which was get the script, which we all really liked, shot in the amount of time we had. That was really a very simple goal. And also I think when you also have a short amount of time - and I've worked on some bigger movies where there is a ton of money and a ton of time - you find that there isn't the kind of creative tension that we had on this. When you know you only have a short time with a limited amount of money, it helped us come up with some kind of good creative solutions. Things we came up with quickly and on the fly that we knew made it better."
Luke Wilson added, "And we knew we that didn't want to do the conventional like one master over the shoulder and then a tight shot. We knew wanted to do a lot of oners, just because we know that's what we like, like Woody Allen movies and things like that. So when you do have a close up it can have a little more of an impact. That's where Steve Mason was really helpful, the cinematographer, to tell us certain times what you have to get just to make it work and that you can't always do that. You can't always just have a master, just the one shot and move on. You really need it for the story and to keep people kind of interested. So, that was really helpful to have something like that."
Following in Brother Owen's Footsteps: Luke Wilson credits brother Owen with inspiring him to write. "Just kind of seeing, like the time he and Wes would put in. You get the script and you read it and it seems so kind of fluid and you just think, 'Well, it just must have rolled right out of them.' But you find out it does kind of take time and hard work. So I think in between watching Owen and Wes [Anderson] and the way they work, I think that kind of gave us a good feeling that you do really have to sit down and take the time and it's not always really fun. You can't always think, 'Oh, I'm gonna wait till I get inspired.' Sometimes you just have to like sit down together and grind it out."
Page 2: On Will Ferrell's Cameo and Future Projects Including Old School 2


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Your Search Returned 19 tagged news reports
Posted by Derek As longtime readers know, one of my spare-time occupations is amateur astronomy. I often get asked by friends and colleagues for telescope recommendations, so (just as I did last year), I'd like to provide some, along with some
John Allseits of Pearl City said his passion to collect telescopes began when he was a teenager growing up in Chicago. The soft-spoken man said he used to build telescopes back then, long before he became an antique collector and founding member of
Thanksgiving; and at the end of the year, the Geminids meteor shower will light up the sky. Hubble may have cornered the market on breathtaking deep-space imagery, but even a modest telescope can bring astonishing views of the universe to your
EDT , June 14, 2013 Orlando Science Center will stay open later on Fridays and Saturdays through mid-August. In addition to its regular offering of exhibits, summer night-sky viewings will be held in the Crosby Observatory after 7 p.m. on those
High in the hills of East San Jose, a world-renowned institution is marking its 125th year of pioneering explorations of the night sky. And to think the plans to build Lick Observatory almost lost out to a giant pyramid. Instead, the science
Jimmy Westlake/Courtesy The last "great comet" to grace northern hemisphere skies was Comet Hale-Bopp, back in the spring of '97...Telescopes won't be of much use when these comets are big and bright in our sky, but binoculars will enhance the view...
Niles West High School astronomy student Audrey Opfer was so moved by textbook pictures of the Orion Nebula that she taped them on her bedroom wall. At Yerkes Observatory, just across the state line in Williams Bay, Wis., Opfer went a step make that
It was a little strange for the Cypress Palm Middle School students coming to school at night, and then hanging around in a darkened parking lot where anyone driving up and shining their headlights on the group was quickly told to douse the light.
Earth and Space Science Lab co-director Jeff Grills said Thursday that entering the old observatory at Hood College was inspirational to view the stars through its 8-inch refracting telescope. Grills won't have to make many more trips to Hood's
Catch them from your balcony through a basic telescope that may cost no more than S$300 (US$242). And for no cost at all, you can join public sessions led by experts. They have the equipment needed, ranging from off-the-shelf telescopes to giant


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Erik Kain, Contributor
I write about video games: the industry and the culture.
A color mod for Battlefield 3 might result in user bans. Look no further than Skyrim to see how user-generated content actually enhances a game.
There's a new mod out for Battlefield 3 that overhauls the game's color scheme, bringing lush, vivid colors to the shooter.
As you can see in the above screenshot, the blue-gray original is replaced with a full spectrum of colorful beaches and bright green palm trees.
This video shows off a pretty stark contrast between the vanilla and modded versions of the game:
It reminds me a bit of those commercials, say for cleaning products, where the "bad" cleaning product is shown in black and white and the "good" cleaning product is shown in living color. (The same thing is done with body-building and weight-loss commercials, etc.)
Quite frankly, though, it's all a matter of taste. Neither version, as far as I'm concerned, is better.
Some people will prefer the washed out look while others will enjoy a bit more color.
There's just one problem.
According to PC Gamer, one of the developers at DICE (the EA developer behind the Battlefield franchise) has warned users that the banhammer could come crashing down if they use the mod.
Gameplay designer Gustav Halling said the game was "too colorful" on Twitter, adding "Also, I wouldn't use those hacks if you don't want a permanent ban on your account. FYI warning."
The Tweet in question, however, has been deleted, as has a follow-up Tweet in which Halling clarified that he believed the "hack is not only a 'brightness modifier', its a proper cheat."
Now, Halling may indeed have a point.
In an online competitive game a brightness and color modifier could, in fact, give players using the mod a competitive advantage, especially if the modified visuals make it easier to see opponents.
Still, after watching the video and looking at some of the screenshots, it's hard not to want a mod like this for the game – if, that is, you happen to be a person who enjoys colors or who is tired of all the colorless first-person shooters that have come out lately.
More importantly, I think mods are an important, inexpensive way developers and publishers can extend the life and value of their games for users.
Bethesda remains one of the best examples of a video game company that understands the importance of facilitating the modding community.
Say what you want about Bethesda as a whole, but their support for Elder Scrolls mods has been fantastic, and has made each of the games in that franchise far, far better and more fun.
Everything from Harry Potter and Dark Souls mods, to texture and weather overhauls have made the PC version of Skyrim far more than just a huge, open-world action RPG.
Exploration doesn't end with the game – it continues on and on into the wide and ever-expanding universe of user-generated content.
The latest amazing Skyrim mod that's come across my desk brings Super Mario Bros. to your PC.
Load this mod into Skyrim, find the right bed in the right abandoned house, and you'll enter into a whole new area – a dream world populated by Gumbas and other denizens of the Nintendo universe.
Wielding hammers and fireflower staffs, you won't do battle quite like you might in a real Super Mario game, but it's still a good example of how mods and user generated content can make games more valuable over time.
Whether you're just touching up the color or creating whole new maps, armor, weapons, and villains to fight, mods can be great, terrible, or both and still add value on the whole.
With online games like Battlefield 3, there would seem to be a pretty simple solution. Have servers dedicated to the vanilla game and have servers that allow the use of mods and hacks. Make it obvious for players who want to join either one what they're getting into, and throw the ban at anyone who breaks the rules. Since they have a choice there's really no excuse.
But banning people for adding color to a game strikes me as a touch extreme.
I've reached out to DICE for an official statement on the bans and will report back if and when I hear something.
Follow me on Twitter or Facebook. Read my Forbes blog here.
I do understand how, in a subjective aspect, someone could prefer the ungraded version. Objectively, though, it does loose the game's style completely.
Also… "Princess Toadstool"?
That was her name for a good while. I think Mario 64 was when it was changed.
Princess Toadstool is best Princess.
I dislike washed out graphics, I don't know why developers insist upon using them. The real world is vibrant and colorful. So why do they insist on making games look so washed out and lifeless?
Does this "mod" give a player an unfair advantage? in certain areas yes it can and therefore i can understand why DICE would ban for it.
From where I see it, the reason they choose that color palette is style and mood. Most of the real world might be vibrant and colorful… but not war. I mean, the world doesn't get desaturated when you're on a Battlefield… but the mood IS different to a regular day in town, and washed out colors DO help providing that feeling.
There's also a technical reason for this kind of color palette in games; it's difficult to get certain lighting effects to look right even with modern graphics cards. For example, if you have a room with a very red carpet, in the real world that carpet will cast a reddish tint to everything in that room, even if it isn't a source of light in itself. To a degree, the can be faked using an ambient lighting of red, but you don't get the effect where the red reflection of the carpet on a wall is more pronounced near the carpet than far away. You can get away with using a texture to give that effect, but only if hte object is static and you'd need an artist to go through and make sure every texture looks right. Finally, you can go to ray-tracing techniques, but those are horribly expensive to do (though raytracing is very parallel processor friendly, so real-time raytracing may become possible as GPUs and CPUs get more cores).
Otherwise, desaturating colors will simply get around this issue entirely.
They do it because if the screens displayed even a hint of appropriate saturation, all the little thirteen year olds would be pissy about how it's not "mature enough".
I understand the reasoning for banning people using the mod (easier spotting enemies), but I'm wondering if the no mod stance might be due to other motives. One is that they might feel mods will compete with their paid DLC, but also that if the longevity of BF3 is extended, it can mean a smaller potential customer base for Battlefield 4 and Medal of Honor games.
Maybe they should be focusing on improving the gameplay rather than worry about what modders are doing.
Team Fortress and Counter Strike have endured long term success because not only are they mods on other games already, they support the ideas that mods can help improve a game and make it last longer and be more fun.
Of course Bethesda has the great mod support, if they didn't they probably wouldn't exist as a company for everything else they do. It's just too bad they try to sell DLC that is inferior to the community DLC only because it has the Bethesda brand, and they don't do what Valve does and work with the community to pay forward work that has been done.
Not only do they release the creation kit for Skyrim, they also provided some excellent tutorials for it. I tried, awhile back, to design a small dungeon but didn't know how to load cells in the render window. Watching one 10 min tutorial (and they have a series with 10 in total I think) taught me more than enough to start tinkering around.
Developer support for modders in the form of tutorials (and other things) can really get a scene going. On the other hand lack of support can cripple the community of modders (see SC2).
Vibrant ENB (Skyrim Mod) does something similar to this mod (turn up the saturation and, I am guessing, the bloom). If you have a strong GPU and want a more colorful "fantastical" skyrim, check it out.
this is about battlefield 3. I would like to see 1 thing and 1 thing only from DICE bots thats right bots from good old battlefield 2, battlefield 1942, battlefield 2142 cause the after the campaingn there is nothing else to do aside multiplayer yes that's all and good but for those people out there who dont have really good bandwidth or unlimited internet access bots is another alternative to enjoying the battlefield 3 game and if DICE won't release a SDK pack so users can make their own things to share, then release one yourselves DICE since there is not enough trust in the people you make the game for. I love the game but i would like to see the love recieved back to the people.


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How is Montessori designed to prepare children for the "real world?"
Thank you to those parents who recently attended our Elementary Admissions Information Meeting. Remember, if you have a child who is moving into 1st or 4th grade next year, this meeting is MANDATORY for both parents. Also, if you are currently still in process of deciding whether your Kindergartner or 3rd grader will continue with us next year, we recommend you come to the next meeting where Margaret, our Elementary and Middle School Program Head, will answer your questions regarding curriculum as well as social develpment of Elementary age students. Many of the attendees of our meeting last Friday were especially excited by the brief overview of the Montessori Math materials.
During the meeting some questions were raised about Montessori students transitioning to schools with a more traditional approach to education. Tim Seldin wrote an article entitled "What are the real benefits of sending a child to Montessori?" which sufficiently explains the ways in which Montessori children are prepared to transition to other environments. I recommend this article for any parent who has a child enrolled in a Montessori program or who is considering a Montessori education for their child. Read Tim Seldins article here...
We invite any parents with questions regarding enrollment for your child next year to make an appointment with either your students teachers or a member of our Administration where we will be happy to address any questions or concerns you might have. Also, dont forget that our next Elementary Admissions Information meeting is coming up this Friday, December 7th @ 8:30am.
This Upper Elementary student works on the Peg Board during work time.


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This week a friend greeted me with "Happy New Year!" I was puzzled at first but now I get it and he was right I think. Somehow the beginning of September each year seems to be the start of a new year. Of course, those with school-age children orient their lives around the school calendar. September marks the time when daily routines become tied to school openings and closing, after school activities, and team schedules.
I don't have school-age children any more, but I realize that l feel the dawn of a new year when September comes. The lethargy of the long hot summer days and evenings, while much looked forward to in June, becomes boring. An itch to get started again on activities that were left adrift in June is exciting. Perhaps it was too hot in the summer to get moving on projects; perhaps it was the fact that friends and colleagues were all operating on different schedules and were often away; perhaps it was just a necessary time to recoup and recharge. Whatever it is that summer gives to us, I believe most of us are anxious to get back to "normal" schedules come September.
Some might say that the cooler temperatures of September brings an end to things—gardens stop producing, leaves turn colors and fall to the ground, the heat gets turned on again, houses and equipment need to winterizing. I think another way of looking at these things is that they are just the preparation for starting the next year.
From September to early January, most of us look forward to many holidays, both secular and religious that fall in those months. At this time of year, in September, we start making our plans and preparations for these events. Come January, we are exhausted again and content with the steady plodding of the short winter days only to be reawakened again when the days get longer in spring. In my mind the summer culminates and fulfills the year's promise with its lush greenery, bountiful gardens, days of outdoor living, and freedom from rigid schedules. That is the year that begins in September.


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Welcome to the ProcureCon Knowledge Portal! On this page you will find download content of relevance to your profession. Ensure that you keep up with the latest industry developments and benchmark with procurement industry leaders.
Download your content below including featured procurecon presentations. Keep coming back as procurement Case Studies, interviews with industry leaders, White Papersand Industry Publicationswill be added.
In this brand new report/whitepaper from Global eProcure (GEP), we take a deeper look into the world of spend analysis and give you real-world takeaways that you can apply to your business to positively impact your bottom line.
Over the last years, however, that picture has changed dramatically. Today, the pressure is growing as generic drugs continue to enter the market.
As buying organisations get smarter with their supplier base, regular tender exercises and subsequent negotiations can yield significant cash benefits. Whether the results can be sustained in the long run depends on a buyer's ability to understand their costs and its constituents and keep them under tight control.
Find out what you can do to improve your commodities management in this detailed whitepaper from Efficio.
In light of financial crises, increasing environmental unpredictability and spiralling energy costs, companies are finding it more important than ever to ensure that they manage risk effectively in their procurement processes.
These, among many other factors are reshaping the procurement function, which is resulting in significant changes in how businesses as a whole are achieving maximum efficiency.
As companies continually strive to deliver ever-increasing value to shareholders, they will search out and implement new strategies, practices, and tools across their organizations. In the supply chain and sourcing domains, companies are changing the way they source, produce and distribute goods or services to their customers, in search of reduced costs and greater efficiency.
The need for procurement to be a more strategic function has never been as important as in this current volatile scenario. The strategic role of procurement as a leader or a support function extends to as diverse areas like developing business in new countries to meeting regulatory requirements.
The survey results presented in this report provide food for thought and suggest a range of actions to help raise the status of procurement as a profession and expand the contribution it can make to business success.
The growth of supply chain financing (SCF) has accelerated in response to continued credit and liquidity challenges in today's market. As more companies adopt SCF programs, the dialog has moved from conceptual solution to fast and practical implementation, and SCF is beginning to be acknowledged as a process that is delivered through a robust technology platform resulting in an enhancement of operating efficiency. But how important is it?
What you may not know is that they also have an entire division that offers procurement solutions as a service. To tell us more about what they do and how they cope with the challenges of client and supplier demands on a global scale, we caught up with Jean Godde, APJ/EMEA Agency Contrator & Contact Center in HP Global Procurement...
Throughout its almost 70 year history, the group has been through massive changes, developing and acquiring many different brands and enterprises along the way. The result of this means a massive challenge coordinating the indirect procurement efforts across these brands in harmony. To tell us more about how they manage it, we spoke to Rob Douglas, Retail Support Purchasing Director at Dixons Retail Plc...
For those in North America, Big Lots is a household name, but to those outside the United States the name may be a bit less familiar. A Fortune 500 company with annual revenues of over $4bn, Big Lots' 1,400+ department stores and website biglots.com focus mainly on selling closeout and overstock merchandise in everything from gadgets to groceries, creating both a huge supply chain challenge, but also immense opportunities to leverage supply chain finance for the benefit of the entire chain.
To find out how they do it we caught up with Jared Poff, Treasurer and Vice President at Big Lots...
In order to approach this process with the utmost awareness and preparation, risk researcher and specialist, MacDonnell Ulsch, CEO, ZeroPoint Risk Research, has devised a strategy that will help businesses feel more secure as they form outside partnerships. Watch him outline these topics in this video and understand why every procurement organization needs to assess risk before starting a third party relationship.
Ensuring Inflation Management Becomes Embedded in the Day-to-Day Work of Procurement
eSourcing: Maximize Spend Under Management
Stephen Wills, Director of Group Procurement at AXA UK, talks to ProcureCon about his strategy for driving value and achieving top-line growth. He also discusses the long-term future of procurement in the context of shifting economic circumstances, as well as the immediate challenges facing procurement practitioners.
Angela Porter, Group Procurement Director, shares her views on maximising value through supplier relationship management.
Consolidating meetings activities is no easy task for a $35 billion global technology and multiindustry conglomerate that has four strategic business groups plus its corporate group where the meetings department resides. The diverse business groups have varying profiles of meeting activity, business cultures, leadership styles, and policies. It can be challenging to break through silos and provide cross-business processes and management, especially when each entity manages its own payment processes/systems, general ledger codes, and policies.
As the report's title recommends, 'Follow the Procurement Leaders,' – dig deep into what the industry's leading lights had to say about what they have done, are doing and will be doing in order to stay at the top of their game.
These, among many other factors are reshaping the procurement function, which is resulting in significant changes in how businesses as a whole are achieving maximum efficiency.
The Schindler Group is one of the world's largest suppliers of elevators and escalators, having operations in more than 100 countries and 43,000 employees. Schindler mobility solutions move one billion people every day, and a large proportion of the company's activities are dedicated to the installation, modernization and maintenance of these transport systems.
Read more on their most complex spend category with the CombineNet sourcing platform.
Low-cost apparel retailer Primark wasn't content with just a tool for capturing ocean transportation bids. It needed a reliable way to commit weekly business to select carriers so they would be there when it needed them prior to the peak holiday shopping season.
Get an insight into the subject with our brand new case study and apply to your business!
While access to certain specialised supplier networks and eMarketplaces can be a useful part of an overall strategy for supplier integration and enablement, their operators often overstate the extent. The following myths and realities in this report from leading provider of spend control and eProcurement solutions Proactis, address some of the inaccurate concepts buyers might pick up from reading all of the claims that are out there today.