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|By Dana Gardner
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|August 5, 2014 10:00 AM EDT
Over the past five years, the impetus for cloud adoption has been primarily about advancing the IT infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) fabric or utility model, and increasingly seeking both applications and discrete IT workload support services from Internet-based providers.
But as adoption of these models has unfolded, it's become clear that the impacts and implications of cloud commerce are much broader and much more of a benefit to the business as a whole as an innovation engine, even across whole industries.
Recent research shows us that business leaders are now eager to move beyond cost and efficiency gains from cloud to reap far greater rewards, to in essence rewrite the rules of commerce.
Our latest BriefingsDirect discussion therefore explores the expanding impact that cloud computing is having as a strategic business revolution -- and not just as an IT efficiency shift. Join a panel of experts and practitioners of cloud to unpack how modern enterprises have a unique opportunity to gain powerful new means to greater business outcomes.
Our panelists are: Ed Cone, the Managing Editor of Thought Leadership at Oxford Economics; Ralf Steinbach, Director of Global Software Architecture at Groupe Danone, the French food multinational based in Paris; Bryan Acker, Culture Change Ambassador for the TELUS Transformation Office at TELUS, the Canadian telecommunications firm, and Tim Minahan, Chief Marketing officer for SAP Cloud and Line of Business Solutions. The panel is moderated by me, Dana Gardner, Principal Analyst at Interarbor Solutions.
Here are some excerpts:
Gardner: What has the research at Oxford Economics been telling you about how cloud is reshaping businesses?
Cone: We did a survey for SAP last year, and that became the basis for this program. We went out to 200 executives around the world and asked them, "What are you doing in the cloud? Are you still looking at it for just process speed, efficiency, and cost cutting?"
The numbers that came back were really strong in terms of actually being a part of the business function. Beyond those basics, cloud is very much part of the daily reality of companies today.
We saw that the leading expectation for cloud to deliver significant improvement was in productivity, innovation, and revenue generation. So obviously process, speed, efficiency, and cost cutting are still very important to business, but people are looking to cloud for new lines of business, entering new markets, and developing new products.
In this program, what we did was take that information and go out to executives for live interviews to dive deep into how cloud has become the new engine of business, how these expectations are being met at companies around the world.
Gardner: Are businesses doing this intentionally, or are they basically being forced by what's happening around them?
Minahan: Increasingly, as was just indicated, businesses are moving beyond the IT efficiencies and the total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits of the cloud, and the cloud certainly offers benefits in those areas.
But really what's driving adoption, what's moving us to this tipping point, is that now, by some estimates, 75 percent of all new investments are going into the cloud or hybrid models. Increasingly, businesses are viewing the cloud as a platform for innovation and entirely new engagement models with their customers, their employees, their suppliers and partners, and in some cases, to create entirely new business models.
Just think about what cloud has done for our personal lives. Who would have thought that Apple, a few years ago, would be used to run your home. This is the Apple Home concept that allows you to monitor and manage all of your devices -- your air-conditioning, your alarm, music, and television -- remotely through the cloud.
There's even the quasi business B2B and B2C models around crowd sourcing and crowd funding from folks like Kickstarter or payment offerings like Square. These are entirely new engagement models, new business models that are built on the back of this emergence of cloud, mobile, and social capabilities.
Gardner: Right, and it seems that one of these benefits is that we can cross boundaries of time, space geography, what have you, very easily, almost transparently, and that requires new thinking in order to take advantage of that.
Bryan, at TELUS as Culture of Change Ambassador, are you part of the process for helping people think differently and therefore be able to exploit what cloud enables?
Flexible work schedule
Acker: One hundred percent. It's actually a great segue, because at TELUS we have a flexible work arrangement, where we want 70 percent of our employees to be working either from home or remotely. What that means is we have to have the tools and the culture in place that people understand, that they can access data and relevant information, wherever they are.
It doesn't matter if they're at home, like I am today, on the road, or at a client site, they need to be able to get the information to provide the best customer experience and provide the right answer at the right time.
So by switching from some of the great tools we already offered, because collaboration is part of TELUS's cultural DNA, we've actually been able to tear down silos we didn't even know we were creating.
We were trying to provide all the tools, but now people have an end-to-end view of every record for customers, as well as employees and the collaboration involving courses and learning opportunities. They have access to everything when they need it and they can take ownership of the customer experience or even their own career, which is fantastic for us.
Gardner: Ralf, at Danone, as Director of Global Software Architecture, you clearly have your feet on the IT path and you've seen how things have evolved. Do you see the shift to cloud as a modest evolution, or is this something that changes the game?
Steinbach: We've been looking at cloud for quite sometime now. We've started several projects in the cloud, mainly in two areas. One involves the supporting functions of our business which is HR, travel expenses, and mail. There, we see a huge advantage of using standardized services in the cloud.
In these functions we do not need any specifics. The cloud comes standard and you can not change, as you can with SAP systems. You can't adapt the code. But that is one area where we think there's value in using cloud applications.
The other area where we really see the cloud as valued is in our digital marketing initiatives. There, we really need the flexibility of the cloud. Digital marketing is changing every day. There's a lot of innovation there and there the cloud gives us flexibility in terms of resources that we need to support that. And, the innovation cycles of our providers are much faster than they would be on premises. These are the two main areas where we use the cloud today.
Cone: Ralf, it was interesting to me, when I was reading through the transcript of your interview and working on the case studies we did, that it is even changing business models. It's allowing Danone to go straight to the consumer, where previously your customer had been the retailer. Cloud in new geographic markets is letting you reach straight to the end user, the end buyer.
Digital marketing
Steinbach: That's what I meant when I talked about digital marketing. Today, all consumer product goods company like Danone are looking at connecting to their consumers and not to the retailers as in the past. We're really focusing on the end-consumer, and the cloud offers us new possibilities to do that, whether it is via mobile applications or websites and so on.
One thing that's important is the flexibility of the systems, because we don't know how many consumers we'll address. It can be a few, but it could be over a million. So we need to have a flexible architecture, and on-premise we could not manage that.
Gardner: The concept of speed seems to come up more and more. We're talking about speed of innovation, agility, direct lines of communication to customers and, of course, also supply-chain direct communication speed as well. How prominent did you see speed and the need for speed in business in your recent research?
We're really focusing on the end consumer, and the cloud offers us new possibilities to do that.
Cone: Well, speed was important -- and it's speed across different dimensions. It's speed to enter a new market or it's speed to collaborate within your own company, within your own organization.
This idea of taking IT and pushing it out to the people, to the customer, and really to the line of business allows them to have intimate contact and to move quickly, but also to break down these barriers of geography.
We did a case study with another large company, Hero, which is a large maker of motorcycles and two wheeled vehicles in India. What they're doing with cloud- enabled customer-facing technology is moving their service operation outside of dealerships into the countryside, out across India. They go to parks and they set up what they call service camps.
There, the speed element is the speed and the convenience with which you are able to get your bike serviced, and that's having a large measurable impact on their business. So it is speed, but it is speed across multiple dimensions.
New innovation
Minahan: At the core, the cloud is really all about unlocking new innovations, providing agility in the business, allowing companies to be able to adapt their processes very, very quickly, and even create entirely new engagement models, and that's what we are seeing.
It is not just the cloud, though. This convergence of cloud, big data, analytics, mobile and social, and business networks really ushers in ultimately a new paradigm for business computing, one where applications are no longer just built for enterprise compliance or to be the system of record. Instead, they're really designed to engage and empower the individual user.
It's one that ushers in a new era of innovation for the business, where we can enable new engagement models with customers, employees, suppliers, and other partners.
We've heard some great examples here, but some others were very similar to the experience that Danone has seen. T-Mobile is leveraging the cloud not to replace its traditional systems of records, but to extend them with the cloud, to create a new model for social care, helping monitor conversations on its brand, and engage customer issues across multiple channels.
This convergence of cloud, big data, analytics, mobile and social, and business networks really ushers in ultimately a new paradigm for business computing.
So not just their traditional support channels, but Twitter and Facebook, where these conversations are happening and really it is empowered them to deliver what has become a phenomenal kind of "Cinderella-worst-to-first" story for customer support and satisfaction.
Now, they're seeing first time resolution rates that have gone from the low teens to greater than 94 percent. Obviously, that has a massive impact on customer satisfaction and renewals and is all powered by not throwing out the systems that they've used so long, but by extending them with the cloud to achieve new innovations and then drive new engagement models.
Gardner: Tim, another factor here, in a sense, levels the playing field. When you move to the cloud, small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMBs) can enjoy the same benefit that you just described for example from T-Mobile. Are you at SAP seeing any movement in terms of the size or type of organizations that can exploit these new benefits?
Minahan: What's interesting, Dana, is that you and I have been around this industry for quite some time and the original thought was that the cloud was the big, democratized computing power.
It allowed SMBs to get the same level of applications and infrastructure support that their larger competitors have had for years. That's certainly true, but it is really the large enterprises that have been aggressively adopting this on an equal pace with their SMBs.
All sizes of companies
The cloud is being used to not only accelerate process efficiency and productivity, but to unlock innovations for all sized companies. Large enterprises like UPS, Deutsche Bank, and Danone are using cloud-based business applications. In the case of UPS and Deutsche Bank, they're using business networks to extend their traditional supply chain and financial systems to collaborate better with their suppliers, bankers, and other partners.
It's being used by small upstarts as well. These are companies that we talked about in the past like Mediafly, a mobile marketing start-up. It's using dynamic discounting solutions in the cloud to get paid faster, fund development of new features, and take on new business.
There's Sage Health Solutions, a company started by two stay-at-home moms in South Africa that is really grown from zero to a multi-million dollar operation. That is all powered by the leveraging the cloud to enable new business models.
Cone: To follow on with what Tim said about the broad gamut of usage from company sites and also earlier mentioning mobile, what we saw in our survey is that mobile is of great importance to companies as a way of reaching their customers for internal productivity as well. But reaching customers is actually a higher priority and that comes down to the old adage: You have to fish where the fish are.
The cloud is being used to not only accelerate process efficiency and productivity, but to unlock innovations for all sized companies.
Look at what Danone is doing when they're setting up direct-to-customer technologies and marketing. They're going into markets where people don't necessarily have laptops or landlines. They're leapfrogging that to a world where people have mobile devices.
So if you have mobile customers, and as Tim said, think of the consumer experience, that is how we all live our lives now. No matter what size your company is, you have to reach your customers the way your customer lives now -- and that is mobile.
Gardner: Tell us a little bit about your research, how you have gone about it, and how that new level of pervasive collaboration was demonstrated in your findings.
Baseline information
Cone: In terms of the research, as I said, we went out to 200 execs around the world and asked them a series of questions about what their investment plans were. It was baseline survey information. What are you doing in the cloud, how much of it are you doing, and what are the key benefits that you're getting?
Then, as we went deeper in this phase of the project, we found that collaboration has different meanings. It can be collaboration within the company. It can be with partners, which cloud platforms allow you to do more easily. It's also this key relationship, a key area of collaboration between IT and the business.
What we see in this research is that IT is increasingly seen as a partner for the business as a way of driving revenue via the cloud. But across the four regions that we surveyed -- North America, Latin America, EMEA and APAC -- we saw a very high percentage of companies say that they see that IT is emerging as a valued partner of the business, not just a support function for the business. I think that's a key collaborative relationship that I'm sure our guests are seeing in their own companies.
Gardner: Just to be clear, Ed, this is ongoing research. You're already back in the field and you'll be updating some of these findings soon?
We're really interested to see how people are doing compared to the targets they set and what their new targets are.
Cone: Yes, we're really excited about that, Dana. We did this survey last year for SAP. Then, we jumped in about a year later using those numbers and did these in-depth research interviews to look at the use of the cloud to drive business. This summer, we're refielding the survey to see how things have changed and to see how the view of the future has changed.
We ask a lot of questions about where they are now, and where they think they'll be in three years. We're really interested to see how people are doing compared to the targets they set and what their new targets are. So we will have some fresh numbers and fresh reports to talk to you about by Q3 or Q4.
Gardner: Let us look into those actual examples now and go back to Bryan at TELUS.
Acker: I have a tangible example that might help express the value of collaboration at TELUS and something that people don't think about, and that is safety.
We have a lot of field technicians who are in remote areas, but have mobile access. A perfect example is that we can go into situation where a technician may be a little unsure of what to do in a situation and it's potentially unsafe.
Because of the mobile access and the cloud, we've enabled them to quickly record a video, upload it directly to our SAP Jam system, which is our collaborative tool suite that we use, and share it with a collection of other technicians, not just the person they can call.
Safer situation
What happens is then people can say this is unsafe, you need to do X, Y and Z. We can even push them required training, so they can be sure that they're making the right decision. All of a sudden, that becomes a safer situation and the technician is not putting themselves at risk. This is really important because people do not think of those real, tangible examples. They often feel that they're just sharing information back and forth.
But in terms of what we are doing and where we are going, I sit in HR, and we're trying to improve the business process. We now have all of our information, the system of record, an integrated learning management system (LMS), our ability to analyze talent, so we make the correct hires.
We now trust the information implicitly and we're able to make the correct decision, whether it means customer information, recruiting choices, hiring choices, or performance choices.
Now, we're in a situation where we're only going to maximize and try to leverage the cloud for even more innovation, because now people are singing from the same choir sheet, so to speak.
We now trust the information implicitly and we're able to make the correct decision, whether it means customer information, recruiting choices, hiring choices, or performance choices.
We have access to the same system or record of truth, and that's the first time we've had that. Now, recruiting can talk to learning, who can talk to performance, who can talk to technicians and we know they all get a consistent version of the truth. That is really important for us.
Gardner: Those are some excellent examples of how mobile enhances cloud. That extends the value of mobile. That brings in collaboration and, at the same time, creates data and analysis benefits that can then be fed back into that process.
So there really is a cyclical adoption value here. I'd like to go back to the cultural part of this. Bryan, how do you make sure that that adoption cycle doesn't spin out of control? Is there a lack of governance? Do you feel like you can control what goes on, or are we perhaps in the period of creative chaos that we should let spin off on its own in any way?
Acker: That's a great question, and I'm not sure if TELUS handles this in a unique way, but we definitely had a very detailed plan. The first thing we did was have collaboration as one of our valued attributes or one of our leadership competencies. People are expected to collaborate, and their performance review is dependent on that.
What that means is we can provide tools to say that we're trying to facilitate collaboration. It doesn't mean matter if you're collaborating through a phone call, through a water-cooler chat, or through technology. Our employees are expected to collaborate. They know that it's part of their performance cycle and it's targeted towards their achievements for the year. We trust them to do the right thing.
We actually encourage a little bit of freedom. We want to push the boundaries. Our governance is not so tight that they are afraid to comment incorrectly or afraid to ask a tough question.
Flattening the hierarchy
What we're seeing now is individual team members are challenging leadership positions on specific questions, and we're having an honest and frank discussion that's pushing the organization forward and making us make the accurate correct choice at all time, which is really encouraging. Now, we're really flattening our hierarchy and the cloud is enabling us to do that.
Gardner: That sounds like a very powerful engine of innovation, allowing that freedom, but then having it be controlled, managed, and understood at the same time. That's amazing. Ed, do you have any reactions to what Bryan just said about how innovation is manifesting itself newly there at TELUS?
Cone: When we spoke to TELUS, I was intertested in that cultural aspect of it. I'm sure the guys on the call would disagree with me on a technical level, but we like to say that technology is easy, and culture is hard. The technology works, and you implement it and you figure that out, but getting people to change is really difficult.
The example that we use in the case study, SAP on TELUS, was about changing culture through gamification, allowing people to learn via an online cloud-based virtual game. It was this massive effort and it engaged a huge number of employees across this large company.
It really shifted the employee culture, and that had an impact on customer service and therefore on business performance
It really shifted the employee culture, and that had an impact on customer service and therefore on business performance. It's a way that the cloud is moving mountains and it's addressing the hard thing to change, which is human behavior and attitudes.
Minahan: We talk about the convergence of these different technologies in cloud, social, and mobile and ultimately we had this convergence going on in technology that we talked about all the time. There is massive change going on in the workforce and what constitutes the workforce.
Bryan talked about how there is a leveling of the organization, doing away with the traditional hierarchical command and control, where information is isolated in the hands of a few, and the new eager employees doesn't get access to solving some of the tough problems. All that's being flattened and accelerated and powered by cloud and social collaboration tools.
Also, we're seeing a shift in what constitutes the workforce. One of the biggest examples is the major shift in how companies are viewing the workforce. Contingent and statement of work (SOW) workers, basically non-payroll employees, now represent a third of the typical workforce. In the next few years, this will grow to more than half.
It's already occurring in certain industries, like pharmaceuticals, mining, retail, and oil and gas. It's changing how folks view the workforce. They're moving from a functional management of someone -- this is their job; this is what they do -- to managing pools of talent or skills that can be rapidly deployed to address a given problem or develop a new innovative product or service.
These pools of talent will include both people on your payroll and off your payroll. Tracking, managing, organizing, and engaging these pools of talent is only possible through the cloud and through mobile, where multiple parties from multiple organizations could view, access, collaborate, and share knowledge and experiences running on a shared-technology platform.
Customer is evolving
Acker: That extends quite naturally to the customer. The customer is evolving faster than almost anything and they expect 24x7 access to support. They expect authentic responses and they now have access to just as much information as the customer service agent.
Without mobile, if you can't connect with those customers and be factual, you're in trouble. Your customers are going to reply in social-media channels and in public forums, and you're going to lose business and you're going to lose trust with your existing customers as well.
Minahan: I fully agree. The only addition to that is that they also expect to be able to engage you through any channel, whether it's their mobile phone, their laptop, or in some cases, directly face to face, on the phone, or in a retail outlet and have the same consistent experience and not need to reintroduce who they are and what their problem as they move from channel to channel.
Gardner: Clearly we're seeing how things that just weren't possible before the cloud are having pervasive impacts on businesses. Let's look at a new business example, again with Danone. Ralf, tell us a little bit about how cloud has had strategic implications for you. You have many brands, many lines of business. How is cloud allowing Danone to function better as a whole?
The cloud is definitely the best option for us to start these new businesses and connect to all consumers.
Steinbach: We have a strategy around digital marketing and, as you know, we're operating in almost every country in the world. Even though we're a big company, locally, we're sometimes quite small. We're trying to build up new markets in emerging countries with very small investments in the beginning. There, the cloud is definitely the best option for us to start these new businesses and connect to all consumers.
Money matters, even for a big company like Danone. That's very important for us. If you look at Africa, there are completely different business models that we need to address.
People in Africa pay with their mobile phones. Some sell yogurt on a bicycle. Women pick up some yogurt in the morning and then they sell them on the road. We need to do businesses with these people as well. Obviously, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system isn't able to do that, but the cloud is a much better adapted platform to do this sort of business.
Gardner: The C-suite likes to look at numbers. How do we measure innovation?
Metrics lacking
Cone: We're doing some research on another program right now on that very topic for a non-SAP program. That is showing us that metrics for success on basic things like key performance indicators (KPIs) for progress of migration into the cloud are lacking at a lot of companies. Basic return on investment (ROI) numbers are lacking at a lot of companies.
We're really old school. To go back to your definition of what a business is, we think it's an organization that's set up to make money for shareholders and deliver value for stakeholders. By those measures, at least by dotted line, the key metrics are your financial performance? Are you entering, as we mentioned before, new markets and creating new products?
So the metrics we're seeing that are cloud specific aren't universal yet. In a broader sense, as cloud becomes an everyday set of tools, the point of those tools is to make the business run better, and we are seeing a correlation between effective use of the cloud and business performance.
There are entirely new engagement models and business models that the companies hadn't even thought of before.
Minahan: What the cloud, mobile, and social bring to bear in addition to new collaboration models is that they kick off an unbelievable amount of new information, and oftentimes not in a structured way. There's a need to aggregate that information and analyze that in new ways to detect and predict propensity modeling on your customers, your supply chain, and your employees. Progression and development are extremely powerful.
I think we've just scratched the surface. As an industry, we provided the channels through which to collaborate, as we heard today. There are entirely new engagement models and business models that the companies hadn't even thought of before. Once you have that information, once you have that connectivity, once you have that collaboration, you can begin to investigate and trial and error.
To answer your question about measurement on this, yes, we need measurement of the business process and the business outcome. Let's not forget why companies adopt technology. It's not just for technology sake. It's to effect the change. It's to effect more efficiency, greater productivity, and new engagement capabilities.
Measuring the business benefit is what we're seeing and what we're advising our customers to do. And rather than just measuring, are we tracking towards an adoption of having more cloud in our infrastructure portfolios.
The focus today is largely driven by the fact that the lines of business are now more engaged in the buying decision and in shaping what they want from a technology standpoint to help them enable their business process. So the metrics have shifted from one of speeds and feeds and users to one of business outcomes.
Gardner: Bryan at TELUS in Toronto, you're closely associated with the human resources productivity and the softer metrics of the employee involvement and dedication that sort of thing. Are there any ways that you can think of that cloud adoption and innovation, as we've been describing, has this unintended set of consequences when it comes to employee empowerment or that innovation equation? How do you view measuring success of cloud adoption?
Simplifying the process
Acker: We measure our customers success by the likelihood to recommend. Will a TELUS customer recommend our services and products to friends, family, and peers?
We measure internal success by our employee engagement metric. If the customers are satisfied and the employees are engaged and fulfilled at work, that means that we're probably moving in the right direction. We can kind of reverse engineer to see what changes are helping us. That allows us to take our information and innovation from the cloud and inspire better behaviors and better process.
We can say, "You know what, in this pocket we've analyzed that our customers are likely to recommend it higher than anywhere else in Canada. What are they doing?" We can look back through the information shared on the cloud and see the great customer success stories or the great team building that's driving engagement through the roof.
We can say, "This is the process we have to replicate and spread throughout all of our centers." Then, we can tweak it for cultural specifics. But because of that, we can use the cloud to inspire better behavior, not just say that we had 40,000 users and 2,000 hits on this blog post. We're really trying to get away from the quantitative and get into the qualitative to drive change throughout the organization.
Gardner: What comes next? Where do you see the impacts of cloud adoption in your business over the next couple of years?
Steinbach: There are still some challenges in front of us. One of the challenges is China. China is one of the biggest markets, but cloud services are not always available or they're very slow. If your cloud solution is hosted outside of China, there's a big problem. These are probably technical challenges, but we have to find solutions with our partners there, so that they can establish their services in China.
That's one of the challenges. The other is that that the cloud might change the role of IT in our organization. In the past we owned the systems and the applications. Today, the business can basically buy cloud services with a credit card. So you could imagine that they won't need us anymore in the future, but that's not true.
As an IT organization, we probably have to find our role inside the organization, from just providing solutions or hardware to being an ambassador for the business and to help them to make the right decisions. There are still problems that will remain as the integration between different applications. It doesn't get easier in the cloud, so that's where I see the challenge.
And last but not least, it's about security. We take that really seriously. If we store data, whether it's employees or of our consumers, we have to make sure that that our cloud providers have the same standards of security and there are no leaks. That's very, very important for us. And there are legal aspects as well.
We've just started. There are still a lot of things to do in the next few years, but we're definitely going on with our strategy towards the cloud and toward mobile. And, at the end of the day, it all fits together. I think it was said before that it's not only cloud, but it's the big data, collaboration, and mobile. You have to see the whole thing as one package of opportunities.
Important challenges
Gardner: What do you think might be some of the impacts a few years from now that we're only just starting to realize?
Acker: On a more positive note, which is just the other side of the coin, obviously the challenges are there, but we're actually just starting to be able to experience the fact that innovation at TELUS is moving faster than it used to. We're no longer dependent on the speed at which our pre-assigned resources can make change and develop new products.
IT can now look at it from a more strategic point of view, which is great. Now, we're maximizing quarterly releases from systems that are leveraging the input from multiple companies around the world, not just how fast our learning team can develop something or how fast our IT team can build new functionality into our products.
We're no longer limited by the resources, and innovation is flying forward. That, for us, is the biggest unexpected gain. We're seeing all this technology that used to take months or years to change now on a quarterly release schedule. This is fantastic. Even within a year of being on our cloud-computing system, we're so happy, and that is inspiring to people. They're maximizing that and trying to push the organization forward as well. So, that's a real big benefit.
Gardner: Tim, do you have any thoughts about where this can lead us in the next few years that we haven't yet hit upon, things you're just starting to see the first really glimmers of it?
I think the biggest thing is that the cloud is going to unlock new business models and new organization models.
Minahan: A lot of it has been touched on here. We're seeing a massive shift in what the role of IT is, moving from one of deploying technology and integrating things to really becoming business process experts.
We talked a bit about the amount of data and the insights that are now available to help you better understand and predict the appetites of your customers to help you even determine when your machines might fail and when it's time to reorder or set a service repair.
I think the biggest thing is that the cloud is going to unlock new business models and new organization models. We talked a bit about TELUS and their work patterns, in which most of the workers are remote and how they are engaging the field service technicians in the field.
We talked about the growing contingent workforce and how the cloud is enabling folks to collaborate, onboard, and skill up those employees, non-payroll employees much more quickly. We're going to see your new virtual enterprises. We're talking about borderless enterprises that allow you to organize not just pools of talent, but entire value chains, and be able to collaborate in a more much transparent way.
We mentioned before about Apple Home. You're beginning to see it with 3D printers. It's this whole idea where more and more companies become digital businesses. This isn't just about on-the-channel commerce providing a single customer experience across multiple channels.
It's actually about moving more and more of what you deliver, the solutions you deliver, the former products your deliver, to digital bits that can be tested, experienced, and downloaded all online.
All of this is being empowered by this massive convergence of cloud, mobility, social and business networks, and big data.
What comes next
Cone: To follow on what Tim said about the borderless enterprise, when we ask people what's in the cloud now and what's going to be substantially cloud based in three years, three of the highest growth areas were innovation in R and D, supply chain, and HR. All of those go straight to this idea that boundaryless digital enterprises are emerging and that cloud will be the underpinning of these enterprises.
We're working with Tim right now on a big global study about the workforce. When I talk about culture and the way companies function internally, a year ago, when we started this research, HR was the least likely function of the ones we queried to be in the cloud, and it's going to have massive growth in the next couple of years.
These stories start to converge of boundaryless and culture, all coming together via the cloud.
These stories start to converge of boundaryless and culture, all coming together via the cloud. That's the segue to say that we're really excited to see how these numbers look when we refield this survey this summer, because that progress is snowballing and accelerating beyond even what people thought it was the last time we asked them.
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SYS-CON Events announced today Isomorphic Software, the global leader in high-end, web-based business applications, will exhibit at SYS-CON's DevOps Summit 2015 New York, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. Isomorphic Software is the global leader in high-end, web-based business applications. We develop, market, and support the SmartClient & Smart GWT HTML5/Ajax platform, combining the productivity and performance of traditional desktop software ...
Dec. 22, 2014 09:00 AM EST Reads: 2,015
ScriptRock makes GuardRail, a DevOps-ready platform for configuration monitoring. Realizing we were spending way too much time digging up, cataloguing, and tracking machine configurations, we began writing our own scripts and tools to handle what is normally an enormous chore. Then we took the concept a step further, giving it a beautiful interface and making it simple enough for our bosses to understand. We named it GuardRail after its function - to allow businesses to move fast and stay sa...
Dec. 22, 2014 08:30 AM EST Reads: 1,408
SYS-CON Media announced today that Sematext launched a popular blog feed on DevOps Journal with over 6,000 story reads over the weekend. DevOps Journal is focused on this critical enterprise IT topic in the world of cloud computing. DevOps Journal brings valuable information to DevOps professionals who are transforming the way enterprise IT is done. Sematext is a globally distributed organization that builds innovative Cloud and On Premises solutions for performance monitoring, alerting an...
Dec. 22, 2014 08:00 AM EST Reads: 1,346
In high-production environments where release cycles are measured in hours or minutes — not days or weeks — there's little room for mistakes and no room for confusion. Everyone has to understand what's happening, in real time, and have the means to do whatever is necessary to keep applications up and running optimally. DevOps is a high-stakes world, but done well, it delivers the agility and performance to significantly impact business competitiveness.
Dec. 21, 2014 07:00 PM EST Reads: 1,444
"Our premise is Docker is not enough. That's not a bad thing - we actually love Docker. At ActiveState all our products are based on open source technology and Docker is an up-and-coming piece of open source technology," explained Bart Copeland, President & CEO of ActiveState Software, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at DevOps Summit at Cloud Expo®, held Nov 4-6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Dec. 21, 2014 06:00 PM EST Reads: 2,756
The Internet of Things is not new. Historically, smart businesses have used its basic concept of leveraging data to drive better decision making and have capitalized on those insights to realize additional revenue opportunities. So, what has changed to make the Internet of Things one of the hottest topics in tech? In his session at @ThingsExpo, Chris Gray, Director, Embedded and Internet of Things, discussed the underlying factors that are driving the economics of intelligent systems. Discover ...
Dec. 21, 2014 02:00 PM EST Reads: 3,094
"BSQUARE is in the business of selling software solutions for smart connected devices. It's obvious that IoT has moved from being a technology to being a fundamental part of business, and in the last 18 months people have said let's figure out how to do it and let's put some focus on it, " explained Dave Wagstaff, VP & Chief Architect, at BSQUARE Corporation, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @ThingsExpo, held Nov 4-6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Dec. 21, 2014 01:00 PM EST Reads: 2,625
The major cloud platforms defy a simple, side-by-side analysis. Each of the major IaaS public-cloud platforms offers their own unique strengths and functionality. Options for on-site private cloud are diverse as well, and must be designed and deployed while taking existing legacy architecture and infrastructure into account. Then the reality is that most enterprises are embarking on a hybrid cloud strategy and programs. In this Power Panel at 15th Cloud Expo (http://www.CloudComputingExpo.com...
Dec. 21, 2014 11:30 AM EST Reads: 3,158
Verizon Enterprise Solutions is simplifying the cloud-purchasing experience for its clients, with the launch of Verizon Cloud Marketplace, a key foundational component of the company's robust ecosystem of enterprise-class technologies. The online storefront will initially feature pre-built cloud-based services from AppDynamics, Hitachi Data Systems, Juniper Networks, PfSense and Tervela. Available globally to enterprises using Verizon Cloud, Verizon Cloud Marketplace provides a one-stop shop fo...
Dec. 21, 2014 11:00 AM EST Reads: 2,661
Leysin American School is an exclusive, private boarding school located in Leysin, Switzerland. Leysin selected an OpenStack-powered, private cloud as a service to manage multiple applications and provide development environments for students across the institution. Seeking to meet rigid data sovereignty and data integrity requirements while offering flexible, on-demand cloud resources to users, Leysin identified OpenStack as the clear choice to round out the school's cloud strategy. Additional...
Dec. 21, 2014 11:00 AM EST Reads: 2,789
SYS-CON Events announced today that IDenticard will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. IDenticard™ is the security division of Brady Corp (NYSE: BRC), a $1.5 billion manufacturer of identification products. We have small-company values with the strength and stability of a major corporation. IDenticard offers local sales, support and service to our customers across the United States and Canada...
Dec. 21, 2014 10:00 AM EST Reads: 2,741
The move in recent years to cloud computing services and architectures has added significant pace to the application development and deployment environment. When enterprise IT can spin up large computing instances in just minutes, developers can also design and deploy in small time frames that were unimaginable a few years ago. The consequent move toward lean, agile, and fast development leads to the need for the development and operations sides to work very closely together. Thus, DevOps become...
Dec. 21, 2014 10:00 AM EST Reads: 2,800
SYS-CON Events announced today that Windstream, a leading provider of advanced network and cloud communications, has been named "Silver Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9–11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York, NY. Windstream (Nasdaq: WIN), a FORTUNE 500 and S&P 500 company, is a leading provider of advanced network communications, including cloud computing and managed services, to businesses nationwide. The company also offers broadband, p...
Dec. 21, 2014 08:30 AM EST Reads: 2,965
SYS-CON Events announced today that AIC, a leading provider of OEM/ODM server and storage solutions, will exhibit at SYS-CON's 16th International Cloud Expo®, which will take place on June 9-11, 2015, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. AIC is a leading provider of both standard OTS, off-the-shelf, and OEM/ODM server and storage solutions. With expert in-house design capabilities, validation, manufacturing and production, AIC's broad selection of products are highly flexible and are conf...
Dec. 21, 2014 06:30 AM EST Reads: 2,619
ARMONK, N.Y., Nov. 20, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that it is bringing a greater level of control, security and flexibility to cloud-based application development and delivery with a single-tenant version of Bluemix, IBM's
The BPM world is going through some evolution or changes where traditional business process management solutions really have nowhere to go in terms of development of the road map. In this demo at 15th Cloud Expo, Kyle Hansen, Director of Professional Services at AgilePoint, shows AgilePoint's unique approach to dealing with this market circumstance by developing a rapid application composition or development framework.
Dec. 20, 2014 11:00 PM EST Reads: 2,129
AppZero has announced that its award-winning application migration software is now fully qualified within the Microsoft Azure Certified program. AppZero has undergone extensive technical evaluation with Microsoft Corp., earning its designation as Microsoft Azure Certified. As a result of AppZero's work with Microsoft, customers are able to easily find, purchase and deploy AppZero from the Azure Marketplace. With just a few clicks, users have an Azure-based solution for moving applications to the...
Dec. 20, 2014 09:00 AM EST Reads: 1,718
"In the past year we've seen a lot of stabilization of WebRTC. You can now use it in production with a far greater degree of certainty. A lot of the real developments in the past year have been in things like the data channel, which will enable a whole new type of application," explained Peter Dunkley, Technical Director at Acision, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at @ThingsExpo, held Nov 4–6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Dec. 20, 2014 08:00 AM EST Reads: 2,279
The cloud is becoming the de-facto way for enterprises to leverage common infrastructure while innovating and one of the biggest obstacles facing public cloud computing is security. In his session at 15th Cloud Expo, Jeff Aliber, a global marketing executive at Verizon, discussed how the best place for web security is in the cloud. Benefits include: Functions as the first layer of defense Easy operation –CNAME change Implement an integrated solution Best architecture for addressing network-l...
Dec. 20, 2014 05:00 AM EST Reads: 2,162
"We help people build clusters, in the classical sense of the cluster. We help people put a full stack on top of every single one of those machines. We do the full bare metal install," explained Greg Bruno, Vice President of Engineering and co-founder of StackIQ, in this SYS-CON.tv interview at 15th Cloud Expo, held Nov 4–6, 2014, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Dec. 19, 2014 11:45 PM EST Reads: 2,161


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Health Information - Med Help
My MedHelp
paracentral disc protrusion
Information, Symptoms, Treatments and Resources
Posts on paracentral disc protrusion
Please Help Me Understand!!! - Back & Neck Community
- Mar 09, 2011
My MRI shows 1: deginerative change in right S-1 2: L4-L-5 moderate disc bulge resulting...
disc protrusion - Back & Neck Community
- Mar 17, 2009
Hi, I had an MRI taken last week, and they told me I had right foraminal disc protrusion C6...
Shallow central, paracentral protrusion at L5-S1 - Neurology Community
- Oct 23, 2011
I recently fell and hurt my back. I am in pain all the time, but can't see the doctor for m...
paracentral-foraminal small disc protusion - Back & Neck Community
- Dec 23, 2008
was told today that i have mild-moderate narroweing of the c5-c6 disc where there is an ass...
MRI shows disc protrusion - Back & Neck Community
- Dec 28, 2008
MRI says the following. C5-6 A large right central paracentral disc protrusion is seen c...
T6-T7 Disc Protrusion - Neurology Expert Forum
- Apr 23, 2002
Sept 98, I injured my back with much regret while trying to be helpful. The pain was immed...
T8-T9: 2mm left paracentral disc extrusion - Chiropractic Care Expert Forum
- Jan 21, 2013
I am trying to do research on my MRI results because my chiropractor said it was a rare her...
foraminal protrusion on disc bulge - Orthopedics Community
- Nov 10, 2008
what is foraminal protrusion at L5-S1 superimposed on a diffuse disc bulge with facet athro...
Left paracentral disc protrusion - Back & Neck Community
- Oct 23, 2007
what can this do for this type of problem? When is surgery considered an option?
paracentral disc protrusion causing compression - Peripheral Nerve Hyperexcitability (PNH) Community
- Sep 21, 2011
Hi, my dad just went to get an MRI scan because he has been experiencing numbness, difficul...
View more Posts on paracentral disc protrusion
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
|Name: _________________________
|Period: ___________________
This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Where does Cathy injure Adam?
(a) His back.
(b) His face.
(c) His shoulder.
(d) His leg.
2. What is Lee hired to do for Adam?
(a) Build shelves and bookcases.
(b) Work as a housekeeper.
(c) Take care of the farm animals.
(d) Repair the old stove.
3. What kind of soil is on Samuel's land?
(a) Dry soil.
(b) Moist soil.
(c) Fertile soil.
(d) Acidic Soil.
4. From whom does Mrs. Trask get her venereal disease?
(a) Her lover.
(b) Her cousin.
(c) Her husband.
(d) Her priest.
5. What is found on the porch steps on the day Cathy's parents die?
(a) A bloody knife.
(b) A puddle of blood.
(c) A suicide note.
(d) Feathers.
Short Answer Questions
1. Why does Horace think Cathy is not at the house when he comes to see Adam's wound?
2. How does Mr. Edwards discover how Cathy's parents died?
3. What does Cathy's father do to punish her for trying to run away?
4. What does Adam want Charles to do with his inheritance?
5. How large is the ranch Adam purchases?
Short Essay Questions
1. How does Ethel learn the truth about Faye's death?
2. How is George described when he is born?
3. What does Lee want to do after leaving Adam's service?
4. What is included in the first chapter of the novel?
5. Why does Cyrus not encourage Charles to join the Army like Adam?
6. Why does Kate keep pictures of her clients, and how does Adam feel about this?
7. What question does Cal ask Kate when he meets her?
8. How does Will make a lot of money during the war?
9. How does Samuel support his family?
10. How does Adam feel about Cathy shortly after they are married?
This section contains 632 words
(approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page)


text:
Best DD so far
I can't remember who wrote about her down days going better when she had "proper" tea with cream during the day. Let me say :notwrthy: Thank You! I just had the best DD ever and all I did was focus on fat. Coffee and tea with half and half, bacon, low carb tortilla, No Oodles (just like Miracle Noodles) with Parmesan and cream. It is the first time I haven't been hungry all day and everything was of course yummy.
It was so counterintuitive to eat fat throughout the day when the goal was to stay under 500 but it was successful and I feel great. This thanks to someone else sharing their experience. (I will have to do some digging to give proper credit.)
Congratulations cici52!! Isn't trying new things fun?
I wasn't the one who talked about fat ratios yesterday. But, I depend on my beloved hwc.
What a funny coincidence. I usually focus on low calorie, high volume eating on DD but can still find it unsatisfying and pretty carb heavy. I was just reading about a high fat diet in one of the other subforums and thinking it sounded more satisfying and here you post this. I take it as a sign. I'm going to try this on down days too. This makes a lot of sense. Thanks for posting it.
Nice :)
Well, if they used the word "proper", I bet they're British!!! :laugh:
PS: Found it!!!
http://www.lowcarbfriends.com/bbs/ju...l#post15956448 #137
You are a 'proper' little detective PJ, lol.
Thanks, PJ. Interestingly enough, when rereading flossyliz's post, I see she was using skim milk instead of cream. The fat in the half and half did it for me so I am repeating today, hopefully with the same results. Plan to try a sort of fat fast on my DDs for a while to see how it goes.
What is hwc?
cici, I noticed that too, that she used skim milk. I think the difference for her was using "proper" (black) tea, rather than "green or herbal" teas. So maybe it's the caffeine, in her case.
Still, I'm glad the "misunderstanding" resulted in your experimenting with fat!
It really works for some people...other people need the protein, others feel better with carbs; it's interesting how different we are!
Now you're talking PJ, we wish.
Oh yes! "Proper" tea is definitely black - as in English Breakfast Tea. ;)
I do like other teas too though, especially Earl Grey and vanilla rooibosh, both with milk. I also like green tea with spearmint, jasmine tea and fennel tea - all without milk of course!
I only like skimmed milk in my tea but I love HWC in coffee. Yumm.
Interesting point about the caffeine PJ. Something certainly does it for me. Everyone's body is so different and it's great to find what works best for us individually.
Today is a UD and I haven't been hungry at all - even without any tea, proper or otherwise! I've just had water so far today. It's 3.30pm and I'm eating some muesli because I don't want to be desperately packing in calories at 11pm. Sure seems a weird WOE but it works, it's easy and I'm definitely not complaining :laugh:
Ok, now I'm about to make myself a cuppa and enjoy your new posts.
Me too.
|All times are GMT -7. The time now is 10:32 AM.


text: Ok, so today I am supposed to blog ways I generally waste time. My biggest waste of time is probably on the computer. I love researching things. I will become curious about something so I will google it. 9 times out of 10 it will link me to something else which links me to something else and before I know it an hour or more has passed by. The hardest area with this is homeschool curriculum. I LOVE looking into new curriculum. I can spend days looking over it. My other big time waster is watching tv. By the end of the day I am so exhausted that all I want to do is sit and veg. Also, it is really the only thing my husband wants to do, so I will sit and watch so we can have time together. Three ways I think I can change these time wasters is 1) set a timer for my computer time each day. If I know that I am limited, it will keep me on track with what I need to do there and I wont waste so much time. 2) Get active during tv time. Instead of just watching tv, do some sort of strength training or cardio move during commercials. 3) Find activities that get me and my family moving that we can do instead of just tv alone.


text:
What's Next In Multimedia: 4 Questions For Chris Cramer, Reuters' Global Editor Of Multimedia
Newspapers are dying, magazines are closing and more journalists are finding themselves without paying gigs every day. Everyone is wondering: what does the future hold for the media? We brought the questions to the front lines, asking leaders in the field to tell us: what's next?
Chris Cramer, the global editor in charge of Reuters' multimedia initiatives, is working towards transforming the global news organization from a newswire to a multimedia content provider. He gave FishbowlNY a look into some of the projects Reuters has in the works and why the company invested $1 billion in "innovation and next-generation information products" this year.
FishbowlNY:What are some projects you are working on?
Chris Cramer: Among other multimedia initiatives, I am overseeing Project Insider, our new interactive TV experience that delivers personalized financial news and insight — available both live and on-demand — straight to the desktop and mobile devices of our customers around the globe.
This is something no one else is doing and we believe it transforms the viewing experience from a passive, one-way broadcast model into an interactive and powerfully personalized medium. Think narrowcasting rather than broadcasting.
Insider has been developed by some scary smart people inside the company and will leverage exclusive Reuters content and the editorial expertise from our 2,700 journalists around the world, packaged in a way that makes the most sense for our clients. Our programming will include market outlooks, live newsmaker interviews, deep technical analysis and market reactions to important events. We reckon that a combination of Reuters content with targeted content from third party financial information providers will enable our clients to cut through all the noise and clutter of existing financial news programming and receive a single, complete source of information.
The feedback from our clients has been very enthusiastic.


text:
Tag: scale
Road Tested: The Withings Scale, an Apple accessory you can stand on
In the Apple accessory ecosystem, there are thousands of different items for the Mac, iPhone, iPod, and iPad. Out of that huge world, I can think of only one accessory that you can actually stand on -- The Withings Connected Body Scale (US$159.00). I've had the pleasure of using one of these in...
GDC 2010: Ngmoco's Neil Young on how freemium will change the App Store world
On the third day of GDC 2010, Ngmoco's Neil Young took the stage in one of the largest rooms at the conference to talk about what his company had "unlearned" in its time in the App Store. Ngmoco has become a large and polarizing figure in the world of App Store development -- after starting out wit...
EazyDraw 2.0 - illustration and drawing for Mac OS X
EazyDraw dubs itself as a "balanced vector drawing application," and from browsing its feature list, that sounds just about right. It looks like it has a nice array of illustration tools and abilities including some CAD-related features like wall and window tools, as well as drawing on a grid. Eazy...
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X Ray Technician (Certified in Digital)/Medical Assistant is needed to start immediately. This is a full-time position and we would like all candidates to have a flexible schedule. You will be asked to work various shifts including weekends. The candidate must have the ...
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December 18, 2014
Stay Connected Anywhere
FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) _ The Army says it's postponing its annual Retiree Appreciation Day at Fort Leavenworth because of the federal government shutdown.
A spokeswoman for the northeast Kansas post said Tuesday the event for military retirees and their families had been set for Oct. 26 but will be rescheduled. No new date has been chosen.
More than 32,000 military retirees live near Fort Leavenworth. The annual appreciation day has attracted as many as 1,800 people in the past.
Other events impacted by the federal shutdown have included a change of command ceremony for the 35th Infantry Division and all community relations activities such as tours, displays, ceremonial drill teams and color guards.
Fort Leavenworth is home to the Army's Command and General Staff College and the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks.
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5 Vehicles You Want to Drive in a Rainstorm
Tons of cargo capacity, room for seven and a variety of road-grabbing suspension features? That's basically a rainy day school bus and grocery getter.
Its available Terrain Management System allows for a more aggressive throttle and less sensitive stability control in the mud, throws maximum torque to the wheels in sand and minimizes wheel slippage in the rain. The accompanying Intelligent Four-Wheel-Drive also includes Hill Descent Control to keep your car at a steady speed on steep grades and Curve Control that automatically slows the car on wet pavement when it senses you're going too fast. On top of all of that, the standard AdvanceTrac with Roll Stability Control uses gyroscopic sensors that detect wheel slippage and rolling motion to prevent catastrophic skids in wet weather.
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Looking for a Used 850 in your area?
CarGurus has 82 nationwide 850 listings starting at $1,000.
Average User Score
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Based on 27 reviews
Best Car Ever by Adan — turbo engine, 16" alloy wheels, auto transmission, windows, locks, and a/c. Premium 8 speaker sound system, am/fm tape and 6 cd changer. wood trim, leather seats, crystal clear white headlights, 24 mp... Read More
Volvo 850 Sportwagon - Does Not Break The Faith by Volvomaven — The 850 wagon replaced the venerable 240 wagon and was Volvos first foray into FWD, a first for Volvo. Also gone was the typical red block motor and in its place was the now renown Porsche designed 5 ... Read More
Love It. Would Buy It Again If I Didn't Want A Newer Car. by Kelley — I love my car... Call her a "Soccer Mom Car" if you will... But, for a 5 cylinder turbo with over 200k... She has got some gonads. Just saying. None the less, she is a freaking tank. No rust. Best tur... Read More
Looking for a Used 850 in your area?CarGurus has 82 nationwide 850 listings starting at $1,000.
Volvo 850 Questions
Fuel Relay Swich In 1994 Volvo 850 103
4 views with 1 answer (last answer about a week ago)
Fuel Relay Swich In 1994 Volvo 850 103
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I Have A Volvo 850 Sedan 1994 It Has Been Running Great Until I Brought It ...
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My 850 Was Charged At 60 Amps By Mistake And The Battery Blew. Now With Ne...
the problem began when combining a 94 and 95 the vacuum on the fuel injection did not work. initially it it ran but would shut off after 2 seconds. fuel pump fuse problem then with that fixed it wou...
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Jus Bought A 94 Volvo 850 Turbo Think My Headlight Switch Isnt Engagin. Did...
69 views with 1 answer (last answer about a year ago)


text: Evolution of life cycles in insects A great many organisms have geographic ranges that extend across several climate zones, and therefore across a broad range of environmental conditions. Many insect species are able to produce two or even more generations per year in the southern parts of the range, where the growing season is longer, but only one in the north where the growing season is short. Of course, with climate change upon us, a great many species are under evolutionary pressure to change the timing of their life cycles. Read more about Evolution of life cycles in insects


text:
Isn't he so adorable?
It's amazing what some yellow food colouring, coconut, chocolate chips, and a cut up dried apricot will do to improve the look of one's baking :D
A live link to a webcam of a mama cat and her 5 kittens. They were born on March 16 so they are still just little but even over the past few days I've been watching, they've grown. The gentleman is fostering the mama and kittens until they are old enough to be adopted.
I'm completely addicted to watching them, it's a good thing my work computer doesn't allow video streaming!!
Y'know what's awesome! Dealing with plumbing issues at 9:30 at night. Yay!
Ugh. Actually, I was taking a shower this morning and had just finished when Mark banged on the door to tell me to shut the water off because the basement was flooding. When we saw it wasn't going up anymore, we decided to leave it and see if it dropped on its own. The weather got incredibly nice incredibly quickly so almost all the snow is melted so the city sewer lines are very full so we figured that was what the problem was. It had dropped a little by lunchtime and a little more by after work so I went to yoga class and then when I got back at about 7:30 we took the shop vac and started hauling water up and dumping it outside. When we got it to below the floor level but couldn't get it any lower no matter how much we hauled, we called a plumber. He's downstairs right now using a ginormous drain cleaning snake thing and fixing the problem (we hope). It's pretty reasonable too, he quoted $250 for the fix.
And I'm really happy that I'll get to have a shower tomorrow morning :D
AND I still did Coach Nicole's Butt Blasting Video. Day 2 of the streak!
I used to do Coach Nicole's Butt Blasting workout everyday. It's 6 minutes long so it's easy to fit in at any time of the day. It's been over a year since the last time I did it and I just did it again tonight. Yikes! My bum hurts! Obviously my butt needs some work done. I'm going to make a streak of doing this workout every day.
Just signed up. Normally the steak of the month is delivered on the first Wednesday of the month but because they deliver every week, we're going to be starting for March and they will deliver it next Wednesday.
I'm excited. We've gotten meat from this place before and it's been tasty so I know it will be good. Mark is having iron level issues so eating steak 2-4 times a month (some of the steaks are ginormous so we'll be cutting them down for more meals) will be good for him and my iron levels are on the lower side of normal (not out of normal but at the bottom range) so it will be good for me too.
March is 4 - 10oz Top Sirloin Steaks. Mmmm steak...


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Related quotes
"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we're not alone."
"What a commentary on civilization, when being alone is being suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it - like a secret vice"
"Among men and women, those in love do not always announce themselves with declarations and vows. But they are the ones who weep when you're gone. Who miss you every single night, especially when the sky is so deep and beautiful, and the ground so very cold."


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ICYMI: Forbes Op-Ed on Obama Administration's Transparent Lack of Transparency
October 31, 2013
U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), top Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, has been scrutinizing the Obama Administration's problems with transparency, specifically focusing on secret "sue-and-settle" deals that Administration officials will make with far-left environmental groups to enact unnecessary and burdensome regulations without any input from those who will be affected, including States, local governments, and private citizens. Click here to read more.
"How can you tell when a politician is lying," an old quip begins. "His lips are moving." This whopper for the ages from President Obama is getting a lot of attention: "No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period."
It turns out that under ObamaCare, these oft-repeated, unequivocal assurances do not apply to as many as 12 million Americans.
The president has gone those outright lies one better by managing to mislead the American people even when his lips are motionless, a virtuoso performance of political ventriloquism. In spite of the president's promise that his administration would be the most transparent in history, on matters big and small his minions constantly misrepresent, misbehave and betray our trust.
High-profile examples include the stonewalling over the Benghazi murder of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, and the broken promises about ObamaCare. But there are plenty of other examples of gross malfeasance and mendacity by the Obama administration that are occurring largely out of the public eye.
One that has received attention lately from Sen. David Vitter and other Republicans on the Environment and Public Works Committee is the "sue and settle" maneuver that federal agencies, including the Fish and Wildlife Service and EPA, use to advance their radical environmental agenda in a way that substitutes a judicial mechanism for the customary interface of legislation and agency rulemaking. The way this works is that extremist environmental groups (some of which receive government grants) sue the federal government on the grounds that agencies are failing to meet their regulatory obligations, and then, behind closed doors, the activists and Obama administration officials concoct a settlement agreement that furthers activists' (and regulators') radical goals.
This process is typically pursued without consulting affected parties, including states, counties and municipalities that are the sites of the alleged deficiencies of regulation. Once a judge approves a settlement, the administration moves forward with implementing costly regulations that resulted from "wink-wink, nod-nod" negotiations between activist environmental groups and the government. According to Sen. Vitter, "Of the 250 species listings that could occur as a result of the 2011 closed-door settlements, many could have a significant impact on states and local governments, private property rights, energy development, and economic growth."
Leaving aside the merits of these agreements, they are arrived at via a flagrantly non-transparent process that evades the checks and balances of federal rulemaking and oversight.
Another exemplar of the administration's lack of transparency involves the irregular oversight applied to a genetically altered fish that has been treading water in regulatory limbo for years.
The only new characteristic that distinguishes the "AquAdvantage" salmon from its wild cohorts is that it reaches maturity twice as rapidly. Its genetic changes - the insertion into the genome of a growth hormone gene from the Chinook salmon and a regulatory DNA sequence from the ocean pout - confer no detectable difference in the fish's appearance, ultimate size, taste or nutritional value; it just grows faster, a tremendous economic advantage to those farming the fish in a closed water system. Its availability would also be a tremendous boon to consumers seeking low-fat and affordable options for sources of protein, especially in the face of food price inflation and the obesity epidemic.
After almost 13 years of floundering over how to review this fish, in 2009 the FDA opted for the most stringent, expensive and dilatory regulatory approach among various possible policy choices. The FDA's Center for Veterinary Medicine chose to subject genetically engineered animals to the same burdensome pre-market approval procedures and regulations as veterinary drugs such as pain relievers and anti-flea medicines. The rationale was that the new DNA construct in the animal and any proteins it produces are analogous to drugs that have been injected or ingested - even though animals with identical traits introduced by techniques such as breeding or artificial insemination would not be subject to any premarket review at all.
A more apposite and far less burdensome regulatory paradigm for animals used as food would be the approach taken by another FDA unit, the Center for Food Safety and Nutrition, whose policies put the burden of ensuring the safety of foods and food ingredients on those who produce them. Its regulations prohibit the adulteration (contamination) or misbranding (mislabeling) of food, but the agency does not inspect or evaluate every new food prior to its sale in shops, supermarkets, or restaurants. Rather, federal oversight relies primarily on market surveillance and post-marketing regulation, and the FDA takes action if there is an apparent problem. This approach has worked quite well over many years.
The law does require a premarketing safety review for certain food-related products judged to be higher-risk. These include most food additives - a class of ingredients that includes preservatives, emulsifiers, spices, sweeteners, and natural and synthetic flavors and colors, among others. In general, a food additive must be pre-approved if it will become a component of or otherwise affect the characteristics of a food and if it is "not generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by qualified experts for its intended use." (The AquAdvantage salmon would be GRAS.)
If the FDA had applied the food-regulation paradigm to genetically engineered animals at the outset, the fast-maturing salmon would have been on our dinner plates during the Clinton administration.
Not surprisingly, the FDA's several years-long evaluation concluded that the AquAdvantage salmon has no detectable differences and that it "is as safe as food from conventional Atlantic salmon." And because the fish will all be sterile females and farmed inland, there is negligible possibility of any sort of "genetic contamination" of the gene pool or other environmental effects. Even in a worst-case scenario, these fish would be maladapted to compete in the wild.
When in April 2012 the FDA completed its Environmental Assessment and was ready to publish it - the last necessary hurdle before approving the salmon - the decision-making was mysteriously expropriated by the White House. The review process vanished from sight and stalled until December, when the FDA was finally permitted to publish the EA (the unsurprising verdict: "no significant impact"), which should then have gone out for a brief period of public comment. (The comment period, which was extended, ended on April 26, but the salmon still has not been approved.)
The reasons for the delay in FDA's publishing the needed Environmental Assessment in April 2012 were revealed by the inspired investigative reporting of science writer Jon Entine. He related that the White House interference "came after discussions late last spring [2012] between Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' office and officials linked to Valerie Jarrett at the Executive Office [of the President], who were debating the political implications of approving the [genetically modified] salmon. Genetically modified plants and animals are controversial among the president's political base, which was thought critical to his reelection efforts during a low point in the president's popularity."
There's another influence at work here that is arguably even more sordid. According to several independent, reliable sources, the continued delay in the approval of the AquAdvantage salmon is due to opposition to it from assistant White House chef Sam Kass. A chef who has a bachelor's degree in history influencing critical governmental regulatory decisions that are typically made by Ph.D. scientists and professional regulators? What's next - the Obamas' chiropractor deciding whether a new Alzheimer's drug should be approved?
An example of the ripple effects of the government's malfeasance is this, from an email to me from Henry Clifford, vice-president of AquaBounty: "Next week I am going to our project in Panama (which I manage) [where the salmon is being grown] to harvest 15,000 lbs of beautiful 15 lb (mean weight) AquAdvantage salmon, all of which will end up in a landfill. I can't even donate the harvested fish to the poor. Our regulatory authorizations in Panama are only for 'R&D' (no human consumption) until we receive FDA approval."
Seven-and-a-half tons of high-quality salmon dumped into a landfill in an impoverished, protein-poor country - courtesy of a White House chef and Obama administration officials who claim they care about nutrition!
Not only are such governmental actions detestable, they're also probably illegal. Entine wrote last December:
"A question remains whether the White House or FDA could face legal challenges for intervening in a scientific evaluation process that is supposed to be insulated from politics. The Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act requires that Health and Human Services secretary approve the AquaBounty application within six months after compliance with Section 512."
That was almost a year ago.
These cynical machinations by the Obama administration should elicit outrage from scholars, the media and the public. Every corporate entity, like every individual, deserves fair, impartial and transparent treatment by the government. But in spite of the president's promises, often we are getting quite the opposite. As David Sanger, the New York Times' Washington bureau chief (who has worked for the paper there for two decades), said recently, "This is the most closed, control-freak administration I've ever covered."
One can understand the desire of the president and his minions to keep Americans from knowing what their government is doing, given that so much is amateurish, incompetent, heavy-handed and politically motivated. Wall Street Journal editor and columnist Dan Henninger wrote, "Mr. Obama's partners are concluding that they cannot do business with him. They don't trust him. Whether it's the Saudis, the Syrian rebels, the French, the Iraqis, the unpivoted Asians or the congressional Republicans, they've all had their fill of coming up on the short end with so mercurial a U.S. president. And when that happens, the world's important business doesn't get done."
Henninger might have added others to the list of those who have become disaffected: industries regulated by the U.S. government, from energy exploration to health care to biotechnology - and also Americans at large, to whom the failures of transparency are increasingly transparent and repugnant.


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im an anime geek. i love sports. mainly football. i like to dance krump. and pop.


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text: Raiders starting defensive left end Greg Ellis, who has been hobbled for the past few weeks with what was described as an arthritic knee, will have arthroscopic knee surgery this week. There was no estimate how long Ellis would be out. Ellis, 34, had four sacks after signing as an unrestricted free agent and is considered one of the leaders in the locker room. Source: Contra Costa Times