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Best Practices Webinar for IECs Using College Essay Organizer
It's almost the November deadline for early applications, which means it's time to start turning to all those other apps and essays so that if any client doesn't get accepted in December, you can mobilize quickly.
Many consultants find that College Essay Organizer is most valuable when they're managing multiple colleges with multiple essays. So attend Tuesday's webinar in order to:
- Discover advanced tips on using all features (eg, uploading drafts, sending notes, and using the alert system)
- Learn how to best interpret each student's RoadMap
- Get answers to all your specific questions, no matter how big or small
This one-hour webinar is Tuesday, October 23, at 1 pm EST.
More Answers to More Educational Consultant Questions
Yesterday, we posted the first part of our Q&A series addressing common questions asked by educational consultants who want to learn more about College Essay Organizer. We will continue to post additional questions in the days to come, but if you happen to have a question that you do not see, please don't hesitate to email us at [email protected] and we would be happy to help you.
4. Students often choose not to apply to schools on their original lists. Will it be possible to make changes to the list of schools for each student?
Each account allows a maximum of 25 college selections. The Essay RoadMap allows for colleges to be selected and de-selected, and will automatically provide an updated essay writing plan based on the student's most current list.
5. How can College Essay Organizer enhance independent consultants who pride themselves on their 'high-touch' services?
College Essay Organizer is designed to increase the quality of 'high-touch' services. Researching and organizing essay questions on your own (or having your clients do it) wastes valuable time and opens up the possibility of overlooking program-specific, optional, and scholarship questions, which are usually not included on schools' regular applications or the Common App.
With College Essay Organizer, speed and accuracy are taken care of, and you can focus your energies on high-level essay responsibilities like brainstorming the best topics and editing drafts. This optimizes the real value you bring as a consultant and eliminates the tedious, time-consuming work involved in looking up essay questions and designing a personalized essay plan.
Our new note-taking and essay uploading features will make this process even easier, allowing you to use College Essay Organizer as your one-stop source for the college essay process.
6. How can I be sure that College Essay Organizer's data will be updated quickly and accurately?
We consider accuracy our top priority. Occasionally there will be a slight delay between the time an essay question is made available by a college and when it appears on our site, but we closely monitor all the universities in our database and upload their essay questions as soon as they have been released publicly and verified by our staff.
Our stellar track record for speed and accuracy speaks for itself, and this season we will continue to work hard to ensure that new essay questions are uploaded as early as possible.
Unfortunately, university admissions departments do not always post accurate information. In 2010, many colleges posted essay questions that contradicted different versions of their own applications. Ultimately, College Essay Organizer helped to resolve these issues for its users, and for the colleges who were unaware of their discrepancies. We plan to have even more researchers this year further increasing speed and accuracy.
College Essay Organizer at the IECA Conference in Dallas
We had a great time at the IECA Fall Conference in Dallas, TX! It was exciting to see so many of you face to face, and to encounter new members interested in learning more about College Essay Organizer. As promised, we also gave away a free CEO master account valued at $195 during the IECA raffle. Good times all around.
For those of you who weren't on hand for an in-person demo, you can email us at [email protected] anytime, and we can set up a time to walk you through it. IECA members are also entitled to one free student account per season, so please contact us if you have not already done so, so we can get you set up.
Thanks again to all of you who came by to introduce yourselves in person. Talking with our members enables us to keep making improvements, and lets us know that we are meeting your needs.
Why Do You Want To Attend This College?
The most frequently-asked-about piece of advice at College Essay Organizer revolves around how to tell a school that you want to attend. Surely they're not just looking for you to write about what makes them great, right? They already wrote their own guidebooks. They should know what makes them great.
And you're right. The purpose of these essays is not to talk about them but to talk about you. Your job in all of your college essay writing is to convince the reader that you're an interesting person who belongs in their highly-selective class. You're trying to get them to choose you instead of someone else.
Easier said than done, indeed. So today we direct you to a post written last year that has gotten a lot of traffic: How to tell a college that you're interested.
Always keep in mind that your job is to express what you have that they want. It's already implied that they have what you want - a great education and a raft of opportunities for your future, whatever that may be. Do this by identifying your own intellectual interests and developing them from a personal standpoint.
IECA and College Essay Organizer Announce Strategic Partnership
The IECA just put out a press release about our new strategic partnership. Here is the full text:
July 12, 2011
IECA and College Essay Organizer Announce Strategic Partnership: All Members Receive Free Accounts
Fairfax, VA—IECA is proud to announce an exclusive strategic partnership with College Essay Organizer. "We have always been committed to offering our membership the most innovative and unique benefits," said IECA Executive Director, Mark Sklarow. "Particularly in regard to new technology that saves members time and helps them work smarter." With this in mind, IECA will now provide interested IECA members with free College Essay Organizer student accounts during each college application season, in addition to the already specially discounted rates for IECA members. Each member of IECA will receive one free student account valued at $49; any member purchasing nine or more student accounts directly from College Essay Organizer will get an additional free account. (The more student accounts a member purchases, the lower the per student rate.)
Member feedback on this one-of-a kind web tool has been overwhelmingly positive since it was first unveiled at last year's IECA conference. In this short time, hundreds of members have begun working with College Essay Organizer. "We designed our Web site with independent educational consultants in mind," said Dan Stern, President of College Essay Organizer. "Our goal has always been to help IECA members optimize their time and ensure an even more professional way of running, and growing, their businesses."
For those who are new to College Essay Organizer, this partnership will give IECA members the opportunity to discover how this easy-to-use, groundbreaking technology will save time, reduce anxiety, and allow members to work more efficiently during the busy application season. IECA members who already know the value of College Essay Organizer will enjoy the additional savings with their free account(s).
Are you a school rep who wants to learn more?
College Essay Organizer is important to schools as well as students. Here are some frequently raised objections from school officials. Find your objection(s) below and see if our response(s) clarify things for you:
1. There are not that many essays to write.
This is the single greatest misconception. While some students may have only a few essays to write, many students have to address a vast number of essay questions, especially if they are applying to competitive or liberal arts colleges. Beyond that, there are program-specific and scholarship questions, most of which do not appear on the Common App supplements. Some students have to deal with more than 20 different essay questions.
2. Our students write great essays on their own.
Despite great resources for many aspects of the admissions experience, so much confusion, anxiety, and procrastination surrounds the college essay process for all. Much of students' stress comes from not knowing what is involved upfront, and having to discover it painfully along the way under tight deadlines.
Having a clear plan that lays everything out from the beginning allows students to pace themselves and plan accordingly, so they can spend their energy writing great essays rather than trying to figure out how to manage the details.
3. Our juniors write a college essay before they even meet with us.
It's great that they get started on their main personal statement before meeting with you, but this does not prepare them for the many additional essays their colleges will require. Supplemental, program-specific, department-specific, short-take, optional, and scholarship essays make up the majority of what students have to write, and most of these prompts are not posted on the Common App. Even if your students know to look for these essays, it takes hours to find and organize them, increasing frustration and stress—but often they don't even know about such essays until too close to deadline.
Having spent 15 years with high-school students on a daily basis, I can assure you that so much of the student and parental anxiety stems from being unprepared for the college essay workload.
Why not have all of those questions and a personalized essay writing plan delivered instantly in one simple document?
4. We do a great job at reviewing each student's essays.
Our goal is to empower you to continue this job with greater efficiency, by giving students a clear plan and freeing up your time to focus on more important issues, like helping students pick the right colleges and helping them brainstorm and edit their essays.
We now allow students to upload their essays to their College Essay Organizer accounts so school counselors can review, edit, and manage all essays smoothly and effectively through their master accounts. Keeping all your student essays in one place, with time-stamped updates, is so much cleaner than emailing drafts back and forth for multiple students with various essays and drafts.
5. Most of our students have private consultants or tutors anyway.
Many students seek outside help because they quickly see that there are more essays required of them than they ever anticipated. A simple web tool like College Essay Organizer can often replace the need for private consultants or tutors, while also cutting out the element of surprise and the confusion that comes along with discovering how much work they really have.
Plus, for those who still opt to pay for private guidance, College Essay Organizer will optimize the time they spend with their consultants/tutors, who would ordinarily bill for the time they spend manually doing what College Essay Organizer does instantly and inexpensively.
6. Our school cannot afford this.
Group rates for schools are as low as $5 per student. Considering the importance of the college essays and the potential return a successful college application represents, the value of College Essay Organizer is exceptional.
In some cases, parents associations have paid for group discount rates, leaving school obligations at zero.
In other situations, schools promote discounted rates that they secure for their students.
7. Students can do this organization on their own.
The reality is most students do not take the time to organize their essay questions on their own, and as a result struggle through the process without clear direction. We would not ask students to go to the library each time they have to look something up when they can use Google, or look up each college admissions' data by calling the college directly. It's no different for researching all the essay questions. Performing this time-consuming, confusing research on their own doesn't build character; it breeds frustration and procrastination.
Plus, students who decide to write their essays one application at a time inevitably end up doing more work and taking more time than they need to, since they do not plan in advance—it's like running a marathon without knowing beforehand how long the race will be. You need to know the course and pace yourself. College Essay Organizer lays out the path simply and clearly from the start, showing how to make it much more manageable than it may seem at first.
8. We want students to write unique essays for each college question.
If you've ever worked with a student applying to college during crunch time, you'll know that time is of the essence. That's why tools like Naviance and the Common App are so valuable. College Essay Organizer is simply the logical extension of these tools. Students naturally recognize that some essays can be used for multiple questions, and most colleges recognize this, too. The essays can (and should, as we recommend on our site) be modified as needed, so they answer the colleges' specific questions directly.
College Essay Organizer delivers a suggested plan for optimizing one's time during a hectic period. But when you're dealing with 8 or more different colleges and possibly 20 or more different questions, there is naturally going to be a good deal of thematic overlap. Our web tool simply automates what students have always done manually, doing work instantly that takes students hours.
9. Is College Essay Organizer an ethical tool?
College Essay Organizer is absolutely the ethical solution to the college essay challenge. A recent iParadigm report indicates the high prevalence of plagiarism among college applicants, and was supported by a Public Agenda study indicating that school counselors are so overwhelmed that they don't have time to properly focus on each student's essays. Some students have others write their essays or get unfair assistance because they do not have the time or the one-on-one support to do quality work, thus resorting to the short cuts we all frown upon. College Essay Organizer saves hours of time and provides great clarity. Procrastination is eliminated and the focus can shift from figuring out how to get started to actually writing great essays.
10. How can I place a value on College Essay Organizer?
Consider these key benefits. College Essay Organizer:
- Saves each student more than 3 hours with an instant, well-organized essay writing strategy.
- Helps students reduce their workloads by as much as 75%, resulting in higher quality writing and less anxiety.
- Makes student meetings with counselors more strategic by allowing discussions to focus on writing rather than organization.
- Allows counselors to manage all student essays in one platform, avoiding the need to email multiple drafts back and forth for all their students.
- Saves your school money by optimizing the counselor's time and increasing efficiency.
- Cuts down on calls and emails from concerned parents by delivering a clear essay plan from the beginning that parent, student, and counselor all agree on.
If you use any management tool for managing the application process, such as Naviance, know that only College Essay Organizer addresses the college essays, the most time-consuming and challenging part of the application experience.
Are you an educational consultant who wants to learn more?
We hope this clarifies the benefits of College Essay Organizer. Contact us directly if you have questions of your own.
1. I'm not sure I can afford College Essay Organizer.
Based on feedback from our members, the value of College Essay Organizer far exceeds our current price point. With our web tool, consultants save several hours per student, which means much less work required for the same number of billable hours. During the busy application season, this means your efficiency in managing clients and setting up new ones skyrockets.
In fact, many consultants have found that if they share a sample College Essay Organizer report with potential clients, it often convinces them that they could not possibly manage this process on their own without enduring excessive stress and confusion. In this sense, College Essay Organizer helps you generate additional revenue.
College Essay Organizer also finds program-specific essays that aren't included in schools' applications or on the Common App—questions that tend to get discovered late in the game or overlooked altogether. Rather than spending hours seeking these out or losing credibility when clients recognize that you've failed to address their particular needs, you can have all essay questions delivered instantly. You'll also discover a multitude of scholarship essays that can mean thousands of dollars in additional money for applicants.
Moreover, with our new feature that allows you and your clients to upload, edit, and track the status of essay drafts directly within the College Essay Organizer accounts, you won't have to email multiple drafts back and forth for multiple clients.
The alternative to using College Essay Organizer is researching all the questions on your own or assigning this task to your clients, which may lead to incomplete or inaccurate results, not to mention frustrated students and parents. It also means resorting to the cumbersome process of emailing drafts back and forth dozens of times. Typically after two clients, College Essay Organizer pays itself off in time saved while increasing the professionalism of your practice.
We offer various promotional discounts via our partner sites throughout the year and post new discount codes on our blog regularly, giving you many opportunities to make College Essay Organizer an even more valuable part of your business.
2. I'm not sure how to purchase College Essay Organizer for my clients.
There are three simple ways to purchase College Essay Organizer:
- Option 1: Purchase a Master Account here and absorb the cost as an operational expense. You can see the low-cost group rates on that page. You can then decide whether or not to share the accounts with your students or simply use College Essay Organizer on your end. The simple options will be explained once you create your account.
- Option 2: Purchase a Master Account here at the low group rate and bill the cost into your fee structure. For example, you can explain to clients that ordinarily you would bill 3 hours for this sort of research and management, but using College Essay Organizer will save you time and allow you to work smarter, and will save the clients money and allow them to work smarter too. If your clients created College Essay Organizer accounts on their own, the rate for an Essay RoadMap would be $49 per student. However, since you are only paying, say, $34 per student account at your independent consultant rate, you could bill the client $40, thus covering your expenses and then some. The alternative is to spread yourself too thin on time, forgo using an efficient management tool, and deprive your clients of the ability to access this cutting-edge technology that thousands of competitive applicants are using.
You can then decide whether or not to share the accounts with your students or simply use College Essay Organizer on your end. The simple options will be explained once you create your account.
- Option 3: Purchase accounts through CollegePlannerPro for $39.
3. I'm not sure whether to let my students access their accounts or to use College Essay Organizer simply as a resource on my end.
Your choice depends on how you run your practice and on each individual client.
You can choose to keep College Essay Organizer to yourself, referencing each client's report on your own. You can essentially use College Essay Organizer like an accountant might use TurboTax, as a tool that optimizes your time and productivity.
You can experiment and share College Essay Organizer with a few of your stronger students. For example, you can go over the essay plan with a student together. If the student has a diversity essay that will work for multiple questions, you can brainstorm with the student what diversity means to her and help her craft that piece. You can then help her see how that finished essay can be used for various questions, with some modification if needed. And then you can move on to the next essay together. As the process unfolds, the student becomes more independent.
You can immediately share College Essay Organizer with all clients, making clear that this website will save them hours of time and ensure a much smoother, more successful writing experience. Many consultants recognize from the start that their students are naturals at using online technology. Teens intuitively understand College Essay Organizer just as well as a professional and appreciate having this tool at their disposal. They often feel empowered with College Essay Organizer's clear, personalized plan and thus work more proactively on their essays. If you choose to share College Essay Organizer with all your clients, you can then of course use it as your one-stop website for the entire essay process. You'll also find that having clients access College Essay Organizer demonstrates the value of having a professional guide, for they see how time-consuming and complex the process is ("it's not just a couple essays anymore!"). Most parents and students are not aware of College Essay Organizer on their own, so they'll be glad you use this cutting-edge technology in your practice. Plus, College Essay Organizer hardly replaces your role; your greatest asset is helping students brainstorm the essay topics that work best for them and helping them bring out their most compelling voices.
4. I don't have many clients.
Businesses only grow when owners have the time to focus on the big picture, instead of organizational or managerial details. Technology makes that possible. It's like using Google instead of driving to the library. College Essay Organizer eliminates hours of tedious and frustrating work, elevating consulting practices to new levels of efficiency.
If you have only 5 clients, your total cost for College Essay Organizer accounts will be $195, minus any association discount or free accounts you are entitled to. If you are billing your clients $50 per hour, that is just over 3 hours of billing time (and if you bill a higher hourly rate, it could work out to less than one hour of billing time). For this low cost, you will save hours in tedious research and organizational confusion, work much more efficiently, free up your days to focus on growing your business and providing even better service, and ensure a level of accuracy and professionalism that is very hard to provide on your own.
Many consultants also find that sharing College Essay Organizer accounts with each client validates the client's decision to hire the consultant. Too many parents still believe that the essay process entails only one or two personal statements. Seeing the multitude of essays, including scholarship opportunities, allows them to appreciate the complexity of the process and the importance of your expert guidance.
Good word of mouth starts with using the right tools and knowing how to make them work for you.
5. I can do this research and organizational work on my own.
In our experience as admissions advisors, we found that manually collecting and organizing the essay questions took about 2 hours for each applicant—more if the student was applying to specific programs or had hard-to-find essay requirements. As students added and dropped colleges, we were forced to re-conceptualize their essay plans and determine if their previous essay topics were still sufficient. It's just too time consuming.
In the midst of a hectic fall, would you pay $200 to save yourself, say, 20 hours of work?
Independent consultants have stressed-out clients, who naturally make the job demanding. College Essay Organizer is designed to make your work simple and efficient, while cutting out redundant work, stress, and anxiety.
6. I worry that letting my clients know about College Essay Organizer will make them think they don't need my guidance.
College Essay Organizer is not a substitute for your expert insight and personal touch. It is an easy-to-use management tool that will allow you to optimize the time you spend with clients. Think of it as TurboTax or QuickBooks. Those programs hardly replace your accountant; instead, they prevent your accountant from wasting his time focusing on tedious details and frees up his time to address the more important issues. Independent consultants who share College Essay Organizer accounts with their clients often report nothing but positive feedback from both students and parents who find that they have a clearer sense of what's involved and better appreciate your support after seeing how time-consuming and complex the essay process can be.
7. The applications really aren't that hard to figure out on my own.
College Essay Organizer instantly finds all essay questions for any selected colleges and displays them in one place, saving you from the piles of paper, PDFs, and logins for non-Common App colleges. We also alert you as soon as applications are made available, saving you the time it takes to check and re-check colleges' sites and supplements.
But even if you find the applications simple to navigate, consider the amount of legwork College Essay Organizer does for you. We're tracking down the questions that aren't included on the applications themselves, like the optional, departmental, program-specific, and scholarship questions. We also note application deadlines, including those for specific programs within colleges. That kind of work is time consuming for any practice, and we can tell you from experience, some colleges can take hours. Consider USC with a total of 36 questions!
8. The applications don't change from year to year.
Some colleges keep their essay requirements static from year to year, but the majority changes them yearly, sometimes in small ways, but often to completely different prompts. Colleges have also recently been adding more and more questions. The problem is that you can't know which ones will change and which ones won't—so without an alternative, you'd have to check them all individually. College Essay Organizer provides up to date requirements as soon as they're available—all in one place, instantly.
College Essay Organizer also addresses each college's department-specific, program-specific, and special applicant questions, which can be much harder to find, and which many applicants don't even know to look for. College Essay Organizer also provides numerous scholarship essay questions.
As a member, you can register for our email notification system and be alerted as soon as the essay requirements for any college are updated for the coming season.
9. Some of the colleges my clients apply to don't have (m)any essay questions.
Just because a college does not require any essays doesn't mean you know that from the start. You still have to look, and even then it's hard to be sure since colleges rarely post their program-specific, departmental, or scholarship questions on their applications or the supplements. For example, USC has 33 program-specific questions, many of which are not listed on the Common App. And you aren't even told to look for those questions to begin with!
Most colleges changed their essay questions last year, or added new ones. You can check them all again manually, or let College Essay Organizer provide them for you instantly.
If you don't think students have many essays to write, we encourage you to contact us for a free trial account. You're in for a surprise.
10. My students are responsible for researching all their essay questions.
Leaving this to your students is a recipe for disaster. Inevitably they procrastinate and then fail to be accurate and/or thorough, overlooking many questions, especially the program-specific and hidden questions. We used to assign this task to students until we got tired of having parents complain that we were outsourcing responsibility that we were paying for, and making their children even more stressed and confused. If you want to be a professional, you cannot let your clients manage this time-consuming, frustrating task. Using College Essay Organizer is the difference between being a good consultant and an exceptional one.
11. I guide clients just through the Common App essays and let them manage their supplemental essays on their own.
Clients are paying you to be an effective guide. By helping with only one or two essays and leaving the rest to them, you run the risk of making your clients feel as if you didn't help them at all, even if you did an excellent job on everything else. You also run the risk of creating a disparity between the essays you've advised them on and the rest of their writing, which can cause the application to feel inconsistent.
Using College Essay Organizer and showing the reports to your clients is a great way to either convince them to utilize your services for the entire essay process or provide them a clear plan for finishing up on their own.
New referrals come when your clients feel like you chaperoned them through the entire process and led them to their destinations smoothly and successfully, instead of leading them only halfway there.
12. I don't guide my clients through the college essay process.
Leaving the essays entirely to your clients after helping them with other key aspects of the admissions process is a bit like guiding them deep into the Amazon jungle and letting them find their way out on their own. After all, the college essay process is typically the most time-consuming and stressful part of the application experience. By providing your clients with College Essay Organizer accounts or contacting us to ask for discounts on behalf of your students, your clients will feel like you gave them the necessary tool for completing the application process smoothly and successfully.
Even if you choose not to work with them on their writing, providing an easy, inexpensive tool for them to cut down on their workload will reflect well on your practice.
13. I don't bill my students for that kind of work.
If you're not billing your students for tracking and organization, then College Essay Organizer is especially right for you. Why spend hours on things you don't expect to be paid for? Our web tool instantly saves you the time it takes to search for, find, organize, and store the application questions, freeing up hours to grow your business and focus on high-end responsibilities.
14. How can I trust a third-party to ensure the level of accuracy that I expect?
Accountability is a challenge we are up to. We guarantee our work, and give you access to our staff by email and by phone. Ironically, it's the fact that we are a broad-service third-party company that makes our standards so high. We are being held accountable not by just a few clients but by thousands of users worldwide, not to mention some of the most elite and demanding high schools in the country.
15. Putting a brand on my work that isn't my own doesn't sound right to me.
You don't have to share these accounts with your clients. Keep the database to yourself and utilize it as you see fit. Provide the information as printouts to your clients and use it only as a tool for managing the information on your end. Like a professional accountant using TurboTax, your use of College Essay Organizer assures your clients that they're getting a high level of professionalism and efficiency.
Plus, many consultants find that sharing College Essay Organizer with their clients validates their decision to hire a professional. It shows clients how overwhelming the essay process really is, and that you know how best to deal with it. This kind of competence and forward-thinking drives positive word of mouth.
16. I want just the Essay Questions, not the Essay RoadMap.
Independent consultants cannot purchase accounts that include only the page listing the essay questions. We have integrated the essay questions into the RoadMap so that College Essay Organizer is an even more robust, flexible service for consultants.
What that means is you can remove any questions that do not pertain to an applicant (eg, department-specific questions, scholarship questions, etc). Plus, now that we've added an essay-sharing platform to the RoadMap to make communication between you and your students even easier, College Essay Organizer has become a one-stop shop for the college essay writing process. We see the RoadMap as the core of that experience. The overwhelmingly positive feedback regarding the RoadMap, as well as the upgrades that make the RoadMap even easier to interpret now, makes clear that this is the best approach for our users. Most skeptics, after using the RoadMap, realize that the Essay Questions page is simply the ingredients, whereas the RoadMap is the ingredients plus the crucial recipe.
17. I'm more interested in helping my students find scholarship money for college.
Our extensive database of scholarship essays is delivered along with your regular essay questions at no extra cost! This is especially helpful with large state schools. With so many programs and special departments, these universities provide a multitude of chances at scholarship money, but most students don't know where to find it. These include merit-based, need-based, and demographic-based scholarships. Your clients will greatly appreciate that you pointed these out for them.
College Essay Organizer at the IECA Conference in Philadelphia
We had a great time at the IECA Spring Conference in Philadelphia, PA! We were excited to meet in person so many of you who we'd only known through email. It was great to meet so many new people, too. As promised, we also gave away a free CEO master account valued at $200 during the IECA raffle. Good times all around.
Showing off our new improvements was definitely the highlight for us. For those of you who weren't on hand to get an in-person demo, College Essay Organizer users can now:
- Remove essay questions from the Essay RoadMap that are not relevant to a client
- Upload, edit, and track status of essay drafts within each client's account instead of emailing back and forth
- Gain access to our weekly webinars on topics related to the essay process
Thanks again to all of you who came to introduce yourselves in person. It makes running the site a more personal task for us and also helps us get concrete, usable feedback from our users. All of our most important improvements have come out of your requests!
College Essay Organizer at the 2011 IECA Conference
Tomorrow, May 6th, at 8am, we'll be at the technology seminar at the IECA Conference in Philadelphia. Make sure to stop by and get a sense of what College Essay Organizer can do for you!
This week in Philadelphia has been great. We've had many happy users coming by to introduce themselves in person, and lots of new people getting to know the site and what it can do for them. For those of you who haven't come to the College Essay Organizer booth yet - we're giving special discounts to all who make a purchase at the conference, so come find us and say hello. Most of the time we've been settled in at our table in Salon H.
College Essay Organizer is a product that reveals its benefits best with hands-on experience. We're giving demos all day long and have a lot of new features to show that improve the experience for both student and counselor, including the new Upload Draft feature and the new ways you can manipulate of the Essay RoadMap results to suit your needs. The site's scope and ease of use are improving every day and we're proud to show it off to the people we serve best.
College Essay Organizer at the 2011 IECA Conference in Philadelphia
We'll be at the IECA Spring Conference this week in Philadelphia, PA! We invite you all to visit our booth and say hello - we're looking forward to meeting the many people we've emailed and spoken with throughout the year, and to meeting new faces as well. This year, we will be giving away a free CEO master account valued at $200 during the IECA raffle.
We'll have a lot to discuss with IECA members this year, including College Essay Organizer's new improvements. Stop by our booth and we'll discuss with you how you can now:
- Remove essay questions from the Essay RoadMap that are not relevant to a client
- Upload, edit, and track status of essay drafts within each client's account instead of emailing back and forth
- Gain access to our weekly webinars on topics related to the essay process
It has been a terrific year for us at CEO, in large part because of IECA and its wonderful membership, and we're excited to be joining you in Pennsylvania.
Hope to see you all this week!


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Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'substacks'.
Found 2 results
Sub-Stacks Inside Of A Stack
pjsooner posted an idea in General Feature RequestsI think a glaring absence is the ability to put stacks inside of stacks. I would to have a "Work" stack that I can then add another stack underneath like "Personnel" with Notebooks inside that stack. I know you can nest things deeper on tags, but it's not nearly as convenient or efficient. Some of my notebooks need to be stacked inside of a stack.
I've looked over the 33 page long thread regarding more deeply nested notebooks and some other threads. The only posts from verified Evernote employees that I saw only offered alternatives to notebook nesting (which is usually the hierarchical tagging system), which seem to have been clearly identified as useful, but not identified as negating the use of a more "folder" or "directory" like hierarchy, which also clearly seems to be desired by many many users. Personally, I'm at the point where I will be looking for an alternative, or making my own.. probably using Github, and making a small OSX wrapper app that is just a text editor along side the repository so I can make many generations of happy little folders. I'm sad to say that, because Evernote is superb in every way except this one, but this is the one I need most. My question is to Evernote, what are your reasons for not implementing this feature?

subset: commoncrawl


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Nick Clegg has appiinted Lynne Featherstone to replace Norman Baker at the Home Office.
That strikes me as a shrewd appointment. Mrs Featherstone was previously a Home Office Minister – before being moved to International Development. Thus the obvious query as to whether she is capable of working with Theresa May has the retort that she has done so before.
Mr Clegg has also taken the opportunity to remove two more Lib Dem MPs from the Government. Mark Hunter and Jenny Willott both leave the Whips office. It is understood that they both jumped rather than being pushed – and the reason was that both wish to spend more time campaigning to cling on in their constituencies. Mr Hunter in Cheadle has a majority over the Conservatives of 3,272. Miss Wilmott on Cardiff Central has a majority over Labour of 4,576.
Baroness Northover becomes the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at DfID.
Lorely Burt MP becomes an Assistant Government Whip.
Tom Brake MP is Assistant Government Whip, as well as Deputy Leader of the House of Commons.
Baroness Garden becomes a Government Whip.


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Introduction: Visitors and locals to the Snowy Monaro Region have a hard time locating businesses, and finding the many events that happening in the region. The opportunity was seen to build a mobile app for the community, as a one stop shop for business listings, and things to do. About the Snowy Guide: The Snowy […]View Post
Prepare your app for iOS8
With all the hype around the launch of iOS8, and the iPhone 6 generation let's take a look at what app owners and developers need to do to prepare your app for iOS8, and what opportunities lie ahead. In this article we will cover three major areas of the device, the operating system and the marketing […]View Post ios8, iphone6, mobile apps
Boost downloads with iOS App Preview Videos
A little publicised update in amongst the big hitting news is one important for app marketing – the iOS App Preview video. This is a short 15-30 second video introducing your app to users in the iTunes app store. This is a feature that has been available on Google Play for some time. Video is […]View Post ios, ipad, iphone, marketing, mobile apps
iPhone & Android app for managing casualty data // Medic52
Introduction: This is a suite of applications to help ski resorts collect and manage casualty information better. The system is made up of three parts: Casualty / Patient reporting their location, and personal details Patroller logging incident report on their device (iPhone / iPad / Android) Resort dispatcher using system to visualise incidents and […]View Post android, efficiency, ios, ipad, mobile apps
Regional Community Mobile App // Jindy Guide
Introduction: Visitors and locals in Jindabyne have a hard time locating businesses, and finding the many events that happening in the region. The opportunity was seen to build a mobile app for the community, as a one stop shop for business listings, About Jindabyne: Jindabyne is a town in south-east New South Wales, Australia that […]View Post android, community, html5, ios, mobile apps
iPhone & Android Conference Mobile App // GrainCorp
Introduction: GrainCorp looked to do something a little different this year for the annual Global Leaders Group conference. 90 C-Level executives from around the globe came to Australia to get the latest on the company, update relationships and be inspired for the coming year. About GrainCorp: GrainCorp is an Australian ASX 100 company, founded in 1916 […]View Post android, conference, ios, iphone, mobile apps
Real Time Sampling // University of New England
Introduction: University of New England Professor Michael Bittman is one of the world's leading authorities on time use sociology studies. Random Time Sampling requests that a participant in the study record their activity in the past hour, and their attitude or feelings toward the work they are carrying out. This is a […]View Post ios, iphone, mobile apps
Office Intercom iPad Application // CoTen
Introduction: CoTen run a number of co-tenancy spaces in Australia and wanted to do something a little different in the reception area. Instead of a receptionist, or a clunky intercom system, they asked if a video link could be built on a tablet. Of course, we said YES! Overview: Services:View Post ios, ipad, ipadmini, mobile apps, user experience
How to generate a Facebook application to link to your mobile application
In order to allow your users to Sign in to your application with their Facebook accounts or to share data between the app and their Facebook profiles, you will need to set up your Facebook integration first. The first step of this configuration is setting up the Facebook connector application. Setting up the Facebook app – Part […]View Post facebook, help, how-to, mobile apps, social media
How to generate a Twitter application to link your mobile application
To take advantage of Twitter's API, and allow your users to log in with their Twitter accounts and exchange information between their accounts and your app, you'll need to complete the API integration process under the Settings -> Sharing settings -> Twitter tab in the mobile application builder. Setting up your app on Twitter.com First, navigate to https://dev.twitter.com/apps and […]View Post help, how-to, mobile apps, social media, twitter


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This will be my last blog here. Last as smarter cities technical leader as well. A new adventure beckons for 2014!
I have been given the chance to create something new. More details to follow in the near future. Look out for Know Now Information and the kn-i platform.
As the title suggests I want to take this opportunity to take stock of the smarter cities market here in the UK. I would argue that change is starting to happen. More partners and clients are thinking in the right way when it comes to being smart. Primarily this is a shift to managing your world through outcomes.
Procurement are being challenged to think outcomes. This is creating a demand for smart information. What is not yet in place are those wide industry adopted benchmarks. A lack of trust pervades this space.
I do see glimmers of hope though as trusted partners are now being tasked to drive outcomes-as-a-service for citizens. These are often seen as being 'Innovative'. So not the norm. Yet. This is triggering the 'right' type of conversation. Those involved in the discussion understand that having information is great, but what counts is acting upon it. Having the power to change approach, action or policy is key to being able to realise benefits.
What next though? Let us remember that this market is still immature. I would argue this means massive opportunity still exists for new services and innovations. Most of which have yet to be created. The first I think will be driven by the shift to more personalised and localised informatiion delivery. The relentless rise of the smartphone as your primary internet interface will continue to grow. Location based services will be first to have trusted business benefits. As they say it is all about Location! Location! Location!
A second positive trend is the growing positive track record of business' that focus on sustainability. This is simply good business, good for the balance sheet and your customers. Let alone CSR and environmental benefits. Sustainability and a gradual drfit to a circular economy re-inforces the outcomes-as-a-service mode of operation and consumption.
Barriers to entry are being reduced across a number of areas which is my third positive observation. The cost of compute - from the Cloud to the smartphone is following Moores law and benefiting us all; the adoption of standards to guarantee interoperability is reducing risk and allowing SME's to play on the same pitch as large corporates; the availability of pervasive 4G mobile is bringing your home internet experience to your pocket. This changes your consumption pattern and offers new opportunities, as well as providing us with vast amounts of data.
The final element is this growing realisation that collaboration, risk sharing and shared delivery mean the sum is greater than the parts. The net net is this behaviour further drives the need for smooth information flow. This is because it aids in establishing trust across partners and enables outcomes to be used as a measure of shared success. Especially if partners and stakeholders have different motivations and expectations from a collaboration.
What I can see though is that 2014 will be a year of change. Exciting times ahead for us all. Good luck!
I recently gave a presentation to the CPT Scotland Conference. The theme of the pitch was to look at the future of Smarter Transport in Scotland. The nub of the presentation was that change is in our midst and Scotland is in a great position to prosper in the future. This is because Scotland hjas a number of world leading transport providers; plus, with its regulatory freedom Scotland has a unique opportunity to become a smart transport champion and centre of excellence
The changes that I predict will happen include: The move to a multi-modal world; smart ticketing that will react to changes as the situation demands; closer alignment of traveler needs to providers ability to supply and better utilisation of assets. All as a result of harnessing the information now being generated by people, machines (buses, trams) and networks (roads, railways and IT!).
Check out this you tube video of Smarter Mobility
However, not changing behaviour in a smart transport world will see today's transport providers becoming marginalised. They will simply be providing moving assets that collect people and drop them off. Control of the customer, their experience and the travel outcomes they demand will migrate to other entities, (such as retailers or mobile phone companies).
The future of transport I envisage for Scotland is one that is collaborative, information intensive and outcomes measured. Fantastic rural connectivity is blown away by the quality of service that a seamless, safe and secure public transport network in the urban districts provides. Scotland is now multi-modal and covered by a single smart ticketing regime. The transport authority will rapidly respond and apply changes in capacity based on prediction.
How to go from today to the future outlined above is of course not an easy task. Yet, the first steps are being realised in Scotland. Firstly, a collaborative approach is being embraced. Secondly, using information to seek new outcomes is being investigated. Finally, the transport authorities are looking for new approaches that embrace a smarter transport model. Next step is to bring this all together.
Today I was at the Centre for Smart Infrastructure & Construction (CSIC) .
An excellent morning discussing structural health monitoring of bridges. The CSIC team were searching for for feedback from the industry partners that their research was heading in the right direction.
During the session I could not stop thinking about the similarities between monitoring of a physical infrastructure and the monitoring that is undertaken in the IT layer. The challenge when monitoring IT though is often striking a balance between delivering function and delivering a system that can be run efficiently. This same challenge is evident in the physical world too.
However, in the bridges, tunnels & structures domain, a clear business case for monitoring can be made simply on the operational cost reduction. The fact the same data can improve modelling, reduce risk and extend the financial health of an asset is a bonus.
I left the session with a spring in my step. Helped by some sunshine of course. But I do detect one grey cloud on the horizon. The asset owner was still sqabbling over who should pay! This is important and requires more focus. Yet I am confident that the case will be made that the business case for this monitoring data can be successfully made. Sunshine returns!
Just seen this annoucement regarding the new Transport Systems Catapult CEO Great news!
So alongside the appointment of Will Whitehorn as chairman the UK transport domain can hopefully see some activities being kicked off. So what should be the first project? Well I know that one area that would be good to solve is the concept of transferability....
Transferability is recognising the need for a collaborative approach to intelligent transport. Yet also being realistic about the needs of the different stakeholders and investors involved in delivering & using a smarter transport system. In that different entities will have different speeds and motivations when it comes to measuring any RoI in smarter transport. Plus, by enabling a collaborative approach the data is worth more collectively than stuck in a silo. Yet how to pay for this collective data and its successful exploitation? That is ensure sustainable transferability.
I would like to promote the idea of a 'Travel Hub' as the way we can all resolve this thorny issue. The Travel Hub is a data exchange and mart. Which allows for the easy transfer of data sets to different users. With some transfers attracting a payment. With a 'tax' on use to pay for the ongoing servicing of the platform.
Travel Hub needs a little cash to build a more detailed business case. I think it worthwhile as it would be an ideal road test for the coming together of all the transport disciplines. Plus, it will put the UK at the forefront of solving global transport dilemmas and a Travel Hub would assist the UK in its move to mobility, All good reasons to give it a go!
So looking at this Gartner curve from July last year on Emerging Technology, I would argue that the roller coaster of goodies that make up a Smarter City - Sensors, Cloud, M2M, Big Data - are all mooching in the trough. Which means that it can only go one way. Up.
I have over the last few weeks been having a number of discussions around the creation and standards for a smarter city. Culminating last week with a very interesting first review of PAS 181 - a Smart City Framework. This is activity being undertaken and led by BSI.
In a smarter city it is impossible to predict what technology will be able to do in the future. Therefore, establishing a set of principles will ensure that a certain amount of predictability and stability can be expected. This is important, especially when it comes to raising investment for smarter city projects.
A standard however is slightly different. It is a mark in the sand, (a starting point perhaps in a smarter cities context). Standards need to be kept, maintained and invested in. Standards sound like hard work...
However, I know that an outcome from the discussions to date is the need to recognise that a certain set of ingredients ensures a smarter city will have a greater chance of success, and thus worthy of being seen to operate to a standard.
One of these ingredients will be Governance. Not the most exciting topic I realise. But GOVERNANCE is probably more important than the decisions actually made. As at least a well governed smart city framework will at least have owners and a community that cares - i.e. you can change course!
The governance discussions I am now having at a project level are very similar to those I had during the early SOA deployments in the early 00's.
The key here though is that in a smart c ity, multiple engineering disciplines need to talk to each other seamlessly. So the dictionary in PAS 180 (A standard perhaps!?) will be critical to keeping all us engineers on the same page.
All in all, the coming standards from BSI PAS 180, 181 & 182 - are going to help make the smarter cities world a little more staid and boring, which is just what a young upstart sometimes needs.
I did a pitch today at the Winchester Business Conference where I focused on the positive outcomes that a sustainable and smarter world will enable for a community. The end message is that the citizens of Winchester are sitting on a gold mine of opportunity.
I listed the implications that are driving this opportunity. Which in their own right are worthy of a blog entry all of their own... Here is the list..
I will explore these themes in later blogs. Key though is that embracing a sustainable and smarter approach is not only good for the planet, but is great for your pocket too. Now that sounds smart!
I have been out of action for a few days and took the time to read an excellent book by Jeremy Rifkin - "The Third Industrial Revolution - How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World".
The message that Rifkin is providing in this book is incredibly compelling. In short, the world is entering its next revolution based on collaboration, renewable & sustainable energy, open data and looking for more than a simple profit statement.
The first Industrial revolution based on coal and steam power, then was taken over by the second industrial revolution based on Oil and Automobile. The Third industrial Revolution (TIR) is based on the premise that sustainable outcomes are the end game and that means renewable and sustainable energy coupled with open and collaborative data. This will allow smart grids & collective switching. But this is not just about technology this is also about society, economics and politics.
I have always thought that the sustainable approach to a smarter city construct would mean that the old measures of profit-loss and win-lose as they are no longer adequate in explaining why being smart is good needed to be added to.
Being sustainable does mean being smart. Therefore, being smart leads to a different set of measurements and motivations being required. Capturing what is measured and how that measure performs over time and against its peers will be an interesting study. These early studies will shape our thinking and the pace of change. We are right at the start of this journey. How cool is that!
In short, I recommend that you add this book to your reading lists. The Third Industrial Revolution is now on!
So we are having fun talking to various cities here in the UK. A common discussion point is how these cities and regions will become more sustainable and smarter places to live and work. However, a consistent question raised is: " This being smarter is all well and good, but can you prove it?".
The answer is of course I can prove that taking information from a sensor and doing something useful will work. After all, it is just a bit of data, some soggy string connecting it all and something of interest entertaining your eyeballs. The killer question is. So What?
So What is key, because if it cannot be answered then it does beg the question... why bother with the hassle of enabling information streams, then analysing this information, coming up with something new and then acting on it? Simply creating a stream of data to tell you what you probably know (e.g. in traffic jam) is not good enough. What is required is a suitable action to take advantage of intelligent insight. Therefore, a transformation in process & approach is also part of this move to sustainability.
Therefore, to maximise the value of a smarter initiative or outcome, it is necessary to change approach and delivery too. This then maximes the return on investment made in obtaining the 'Intelligent Information' in the first place.
However, because this planet of ours is still in the starting blocks of its smarter journey, what is not fully codified or understood is how for a specific outcome that is desired or a challenge to be overcome, what is it exaclty is made smarter. Who is the beneficiary of being smart and why the RoI for one entitiy is not the same for others.
NOTE: I do not see this as a weakness by the way. This is because in comparitive scenarios - e.g. healthcare - health professionals still do not have a cure for cancer, yet we still treat this disease successfully!
So for 2013, I think we have to start building on known facts. This is my focus for this year. It will be interesting to see how this unravels....
It has been a while since I last posted. Mainly down to shear weight of work! Bit like traffic congestion really!
Some exciting developments that have been keeping me busy. Firstly, an exciting new smarter transport pilot in London. Sworn to secrecy, but this is the start of a very important business case build to enabling a smarter London to begin.
Secondly, helping Southampton City Council with the Future City Demonstrator bid. Best of luck to the city that wins! The demonstrators are very key to unlocking the value in making a city smarter. Plus, the referenceability of the demonstrator as well as the showcase of doing things smarter, will be great for UK Plc.
I will be back for more musings later....
This link takes you to an excellent blog called the Urban Technologist, which is written by my colleague Dr Rick Robinson.
Rick interviewed me... and this is a record of our chat. More to come of these, as the topic of smarter cities is vast, complex, convaluted and brand new!
I hope you enjoy the read as much as Rick & I enjoyed the chat.
Smarter Transport in a Smarter city
A successful, sustainable London will need to have a sustainable transportation system. It is estimated that over 4,000 Londoners die early every year from air pollution, primarily due to traffic. Congestion is estimated to cost Londoners over £5 billion in wasted time, increased energy use and lost productivity. We cannot continue as we are, adding to the toll of unnecessary deaths, the congestion and the waste.
A sustainable transportation system is, by necessity, based on a strategy to lower emissions and lower congestion. We lower emissions by reducing the number of "combustion engines" and reducing the number and length of their journeys. Congestion occurs when our transportation system becomes saturated. Bottlenecks can be addressed by either better matching supply with demand or by providing more efficient throughput.
There are many well-recognised methods of managing supply and demand. Where a system has over-capacity, incentives need to be created to improve utilisation; where there is under-capacity (a system under stress) alternatives need to be encouraged. Price, time, convenience are all variables at the disposal of operators.
But this is all much easier said than done. How do we turn strategies into reality? At the heart of the answer lies data.
In today's highly instrumented and inter-connected world, travellers, transport providers and regulators can harness the data that technology creates and enables. Data is the common element that binds sustainable transport solutions together. From data we derive intelligence and the insight that can help London to sustainably move both people and goods.
As transportation and traveller data is collected, distributed, analysed and acted upon, it becomes a new data value chain of trusted Intelligent Information. Participants are not only travellers and operators but third parties too - who add value and create new business models for themselves. In such a scenario all parties are simultaneously providing and consuming (or reacting) to the same trusted information.
A key plank of a sustainable transportation policy is to move travellers out of their cars and onto alternative viable "transport outcomes". This can be realised not just through a shift to public transportation (which is generally considered more sustainable) but potentially to walking, cycling or even not travelling at all. It is access to Intelligent Information that enables smarter, more sustainable transport outcomes.
Although London is already blessed with great public transport, the ideal system is fully multi-modal. This is one in which the interchange between transport modes (train, car, bus etc) is seamless and the balance between available supply and demand is efficiently met. One way to achieve this goal is through the provision of a trusted and real-time integrated journey planner used by both travellers and transport providers.
A personalised journey planner would advise travellers of their optimum multi-modal travel arrangements based on criteria such as time available to complete a journey, current location, destination, the expected efficiency and comfort of the journey, carbon impact and even price! It would be fed by real-time information on the availability of transport options as well as taking into account what other travellers are predicted to do.
Smartphones are the catalyst that are driving personalised journey planners. In addition to GPS information, they enable a rich data experience and provide a platform for the increasingly useful new forms of 'apps'. Furthermore since the smartphone can be a wallet and a translator too, a person could potentially now travel unimpeded by traditional barriers, and with an unprecedented quality of information. One can easily imagine a tourist in London provided with access to all of the information needed to navigate around the city - in their local language and using the same e-ticket benefits that Londoners enjoy.
The technology behind IBM's Watson computer, might soon help make the daily commute a whole lot easier - and safer. Watson represents a tremendous breakthrough in the ability of computers to understand natural human language. It can digest the equivalent of hundreds of millions of pages of material from books, reports and articles. In three seconds or less, it can pluck the correct answer from an ocean of unstructured data.
So, what does all that mean for the London commute? London already collects massive amounts of traffic data from sensors embedded in the road, traffic cameras, taxis and buses equipped with GPS devices. Using Watson technology, drivers and travellers could receive personalised answers to a broad range of travel-related questions, such as: "What's the best route to work if I leave now?" or "Will it be better if I wait 15 minutes?"
The ability to seamlessly coordinate multi-modal transportation is a tough balancing act between many factors including, for example, schedules and the number of potential passengers. Watson-like capabilities would see patterns in the traffic and real-time information based on current passenger demand . Transport operators could pose questions such as: "What happens if we delay this train for a minute or two because the bus that most of our passengers use to get to this station is running late and the next train isn't for 20 minutes?"
When it comes to traffic, even real-time information is often not fast enough, predicting the future is much better. For example when you hear about a major traffic jam over the radio, it's often too late to do anything to avoid it. If you're lucky, you're far enough away from the problem that you can take an alternate route or use public transportation. Predicting the hold up before it has happened and then correcting the outcome so as to lessen the impact on as many travellers as possible is now achievable using sophisticated traffic prediction modelling.
Recent IBM research has highlighted that London's drivers spend, on average, nearly 20 minutes looking for a parking space. Quite apart from the inconvenience, the additional driving simply adds to the congestion. Worldwide experts estimate that this causes 30 percent of urban traffic congestion. However, Smart technology is already in operation in some US cities, which removes the hassle of finding a parking space. What's more, linking such schemes to revenue collection and demand management policies allows operators to offer flexible pricing according to circumstances.
Smarter Transport is not just about people but freight too. The movement of freight, and in particular bulky freight, is being impacted by the Low Emissions Zone in London. Initiatives, such as the increasing use of the River Thames to move bulky goods that are not time critical, have been successful and are growing in number. For example, shifting freight off the road and into rail/road modal transfer sites could deliver significant improvements in sustainable freight transport. However these modern versions of the once popular freight yards, require new investment to establish the sites, and so is realistically still some way away.
New technology could offer other alternatives. We could use enhanced data analytics to help bring goods to you more efficiently, by matching where you are to where the goods have come from. For example your Amazon order could be handed to you as you step off the platform at Waterloo station because the delivery driver for the logistics company is aware you are close by. Technology could also provide a mechanism to enable logistics companies to share free space in delivery vans. By encouraging the use and sharing of data many more opportunities will be created to achieve smarter, more sustainable outcomes.
Smarter transport is therefore about getting the best from the existing transport infrastructure and using data to make sustainable choices. After all, we cannot build many more new highways across London, nor add more lanes to existing roads. More and better use of the data we already gather is more cost-effective and our best hope towards improved sustainability. It will involve operators, travellers and third parties being active members of the data value chain and embracing new technology.
I believe that Londoners and London will lead by example. The evidence is already there: the open data available from the Digital Store and the Congestion Charge Scheme - which was ahead of its time. Furthermore, embracing the new or setting a global trend has never been an issue for Londoners. Together we can lower emissions and lower congestion. Let's make London smarter and sustainable.
Chris Cooper
IBM Smarter Cities Architect
Smarter Transport is really about mobility. Which is really about harnessing a number of trends (inside and outside transport) that are all converging. This convergence comes in the form of policy and regulatory shift, a desire for a more sustainable economic model, new behaviours and business models and the ongoing encroachment of pervasive technology adoption. Backed up by the engineering disciplines (civil, mechanical, electrical, IT) converging too. The common convergence thread though is data. Turning this data into knowledge and then to action is the smart bit.
UK, New Transit , 07/12/2012: Power List 2012: Innovators & Pioneers


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Credit: MyMotherLode.com
COLUMBIA (CBS13) – Two people are safe after the plane they were in caught fire at the Columbia Airport in the Sierra foothills.
The twin-propeller Beechcraft BE90 with tail number N350WA landed at around 5:30 a.m. Monday at the Columbia Airport. Shortly thereafter, the plane caught fire and the two people escaped unhurt, according to FAA spokesman Ian Gregor.
The FAA and NTSB are investigating the circumstances leading up to the incident.
Columbia is a town located 66 miles east of Stockton in Tuolumne County. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, it had a population of 2,297.


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There was a time when iPhone was considered to be a far superior to android phones. With time this difference is coming very close to completely disappearing. Android phones are now offering very comparable features and even more value for money to the users. Hence, we see many people migrating from iPhone to Android. Once users are accustomed to a specific OS environment, especially something like IOS, they tend to become conservative due to the tightly closed services. But if you are a new android user, especially if you are coming from an IOS device, we have something to make the transition smooth and improve your overall Android experience. AnyTrans is a simple yet very powerful files management tool for Android. It also specialises in transferring data from an iPhone to Android, which makes it stand out. Here is a complete review along with a brief feature tour for AnyTrans for Android.
AnyTrans for Android – All in one Manager Tool.
AnyTrans is a powerful all in one management tool for Android. It offers a complete package for all your Android management needs including, file management, android to android file transfer, PC to android file transfer and vice versa and the most specialised feature – iPhone to Android file transfer. Let us take a look at all these features in detail.
1. Switch From iPhone to Android.
One of the most impressive features offered by AnyTrans is its ability to transfer all your data from an iPhone to your new android phone seamlessly and safely. Over the years people hesitate to move from an iPhone to an Android is due to the fact that it was not easy to transfer all your files across the two platforms and there was a chance you'd lose your data. Most people relied on professional help. But AnyTrans is here to change it. The tool offers features that can transfer all your data including contacts, images and videos to your Android device in a few clicks. It has one of the most intuitive interfaces we've seen to do so.
2. Transfer Data and Files Android to Android.
The next feature we tested in the AnyTrans Android manager was its ability to transfer files from one android phone to another. It has a clean UI and offers to either completely copy one device to the other or you can choose the files you want to transfer. You can also transfer files by categories so if you want to transfer all your videos to another android phone, you can do it with the help of AnyTrans Android Manager. The transfer is quite easy and hassle-free. The files are automatically moved to the correct folders so you can see them in the right app on the Android ecosystem. We found out this feature to be quite handy.
3. Backup All Your Android Files.
With AnyTrans Android Manager, you can forget being worried about losing your adorable pictures, your travel videos, your important contacts and your conversations. AnyTrans is capable of safely backing up all your files and data stored on your android mobile. It creates a secure copy of all your files on your PC so if by chance you lose your files on your Android smartphone, You can quickly restore them using AnyTrans manager for android. These days, we all have a lot of important data on our phones and we highly recommend backing it up. AnyTrans for Android is a good and reliable way to do so.
4. Convert and Copy Media Files.
In the past, users have had to rely on special video converters for convert video formats and resolution to run TV shows and movies on their Android smartphone. But to add more to the convenience AnyTrans is already offering, it also has a built-in video downloader and converter as the icing on the cake. This video converter has the power to take care of all the entertainment needs on the go. AnyTrans for Android can download videos and music from youtube as well as 900+ other entertainment sites. The best part is that it automatically chooses the best format and resolution so that it is a breeze to run the downloaded videos on your android phone.
AnyTrans for Android – All in one Manager for Android is available both as a free version and a full version can also be bought. Use the download links below to enjoy all the features AnyTrans has to offer.
AnyTrans is one of the best android managers we've come across. If you are an iPhone user just switching to android, not only AnyTrans will help you in the transition, it will also provide the convenience of iTunes and with even more features. If you have any query, feel free to write to us. We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.


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Tiffany Lamps on Display at Burke Rehabilitation Hospital
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More About Tiffany Lamps on Display at Burke Rehabilitation Hospital
The Neustadt Collection of Tiffany Glass is taking its treasures on the road to help patients. The Neustadt recently opened a three-month exhibition in the lobby of Burke Rehabilitation Hospital's White Plains campus (785 Mamaroneck Avenue). Four lamps, made more than a century ago by the New York tastemaker Louis Comfort Tiffany, are on view for the hundreds of patients, guests, and staff who pass through every day through Feb. 7, 2020.
This new exhibition, Louis Comfort Tiffany's Shade Garden, features opalescent glass lamps with motifs including daffodils, apple blossoms, peonies, and pond lilies. It is the first major display of Tiffany's works in Westchester County. Prior to coming to Burke, the lamps were shown at the Montefiore Hutch-Metro site in the Bronx from June to October.
This collaboration with Burke continues The Neustadt's new exhibition program of loan shows for medical environments. Up to 10 floral lamps are available for display in hospitals and other healthcare facilities. The Queens-based Neustadt is a premier collection of Tiffany's iconic lamps, windows, metalwork, and rare archival materials, including over a quarter of a million pieces of Tiffany flat glass and glass jewels.
In a growing number of hospitals, artworks serve as powerful tools for reducing stress and increasing satisfaction with care. Studies show that art, especially with natural or floral themes, enhances patient recovery, promotes tranquility, and provides respite for visitors and staff. Burke, as part of the Montefiore network of 11 hospitals and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, is committed to utilizing the therapeutic benefit of art for its patients, staff, caregivers, and visitors.
This exhibition program is made possible through the generous support of The Fine Art Program and Collection at Montefiore Einstein, Bronx, New York; Simone Healthcare Development, Bronx, New York; and H. Guy Leibler, President of Simone Healthcare Development and Neustadt Trustee.
Tags: arts and entertainment
Event Details
January 22, 2020
Time: 9:00am - 5:00pm
This event also occurs on 01/23/2020, 01/24/2020, 01/25/2020, 01/26/2020 and 12 more dates. [see all dates]
Burke Rehabilitation Hospital
White Plains NY 10605
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text: A special petting zoo and animal observation area set in a tropical jungle environment. Meander through and interact with, pet and enjoy displays of a diverse array of animals from many regions of the world. Many of these animals have become acclimated and friendly to human beings and are free and roaming amidst the visitors. You are free to reach-out and pet many of these animals. Here you will find deer, ostriches, albino caribou, a bear, monkeys, an eagle, miniature houses, ducks bearcats, guinea pigs, ferrets, and much more.


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20 December, 2017 | (01 hr)
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Digital Transformation changes both the what of HR (what HR needs to do to deliver business value) and the how. Get an advance look at forthcoming research from The Conference Board and answers to these key questions:
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[NOTE: This post has been updated to include a statement from Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and my response to it.]
There's this Nov. 20 Huffington Post story that's getting shared around social media. It carries the incendiary title "Meet The 88 Democrats Who Just Voted To Enable Racial Discrimination In Car Buying," and it packs quite a punch. The story concerns House Resolution 1737, which is a very simple bill that negates a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) bulletin from 2013 that helps ensure auto lenders don't discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion, age and so on.
The bill passed the House of Representatives on Nov. 18 by a vote of 332 to 96. As the Huffington Post story noted, 88 Democrats voted for it. One of those Democrats was Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, who represents Hawaii's 2nd District (she was also one of the bill's co-sponsors).
This is problematic for at least two big reasons. First, and most importantly, because auto lenders in this nation have great power to discriminate when providing loans. The CFPB bulletin from 2013 makes this explicitly clear:
The supervisory experience of the CFPB confirms that some indirect auto lenders have policies that allow auto dealers to mark up lender-established buy rates and that compensate dealers for those markups in the form of reserve (collectively, "markup and compensation policies"). Because of the incentives these policies create, and the discretion they permit, there is a significant risk that they will result in pricing disparities on the basis of race, national origin, and potentially other prohibited bases.
Racist car loan policies run against every civil rights ideal you can name. For this reason, the CFPB bulletin urged the imposition of "controls on deal markup and compensation policies," "monitoring and addressing the effects of [compensation] policies" and "eliminating dealer discretion to mark up buy rates." The last paragraph of the bulletin is especially pointed:
The CFPB will continue to closely review the operations of both depository and non-depository indirect auto lenders, utilizing all appropriate regulatory tools to assess whether supervisory, enforcement, or other actions may be necessary to ensure that the market for auto lending provides fair, equitable, and nondiscriminatory access to credit for consumers.
According to the Huffington Post story, this didn't sit well with banks and auto dealers, which lobbied intensely for HR 1737. Now you'd think that opposition to the bill from groups like the NAACP, the Urban League and National Council of La Raza would be enough to sway progressives like Rep. Gabbard. But apparently no.
Look, we like Gabbard. She's very liberal on social issues and environmental matters, and her extensive military experience has led her to provide valuable insight into U.S. foreign policy–especially in matters of war. So why the vote for HR 1737, which is nothing more than a big wet kiss on the cheek of big banks and auto dealers? Especially when, on Mar. 7 of this year, she said this on the 50th anniversary of the "bloody Sunday" protest march on the Edmund Pettus Bridge:
We remember that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice, but only when we all stand up and speak out against bigotry and discrimination. As a nation, we must honor the memory of those courageous souls who marched on Selma, by continuing their work, and living aloha–treating all people with respect, compassion, and love. While times have changed, unfortunately we still see examples of bigotry, harassment, and discrimination in our country. Let this important day be a reminder that it is imperative that we understand and uphold the importance of protecting these sacred civil rights and equal treatment for all.
Those are wonderful and welcome words, but they conflict with Gabbard's voting for HR 1737. As for explaining Rep. Gabbard's vote, her spokesperson
hasn't respond to a phone message or email inquiry asking for comment finally got back to me on Nov. 27 with the statement below. It's somewhat lengthy, but I'll reprint it in full:
I have been a strong advocate for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), and have supported their work throughout my time in Congress. On this issue, I heard from many Hawaiʻi auto dealership owners who expressed frustration and concern about this particular CFPB rule and the lack of information on what caused it, how they are to comply with it, and the unintended negative consequences it would have on our communities. I requested the details and analysis CFPB took into account before issuing this guidance, but received no response.
That's why I joined 54 of my Democratic colleagues, including 16 members of the Congressional Black Caucus or Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in co-sponsoring HR1737, a bipartisan bill that would ensure that CFPB regulations related to auto loans would be transparent, allow a public comment period, and would share information about why the regulation is necessary and the impact it will have. This legislation only affects indirect lenders, such as auto dealers and community banks, and would allow CFPB to continue to do its job, while engaging the community in the process.
I support CFPB's work to prevent discrimination, which should not be tolerated in any form. But this policy would actually have a negative impact on all consumers, including minorities, by restricting access to credit and eliminating the buyer's ability to receive a discounted auto loan. The Department of Justice's Civil Rights division is committed to protecting consumers from discrimination, and the Congressional Budget Office has stated that this legislation will not in any way inhibit enforcement of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.
This sounds great, but it's also pretty much exactly the line taken by organizations representing auto dealers National Automobile Dealers Association (for instance, this recent op-ed from the National Automobile Dealers Association president also states that HR 1737 would make things more "transparent"). Their idea was to turn the issue around from racially motivated lending practices to robbing minorities of discounted loans.
The reality is different. The bipartisan nature of HR 1737 not withstanding, a large coalition of civil rights groups opposed HR 1737. On Nov. 17 of this year, a coalition of 24 organizations that included the NAACP, the National Urban League, the A. Philip Randolph Institute and the Center for Women Policy Studies issued a statement denouncing HR 1737. Their reasons stemmed directly from a history of discrimination–a history that compelled the CFPB to act.
In the mid-1990s, a series of lawsuits were filed against the largest auto finance companies in the country alleging discrimination. The data from those lawsuits showed that borrowers of color were twice as likely to have their loans marked up, and paid markups twice as large as similarly situated white borrowers with similar credit ratings.
Because of that history, and with current data showing continued discrimination, the CFPB has issued guidance telling lenders that they could eliminate the risk of fair lending violations by paying compensation to dealers in ways that do not involve manipulations of the interest rate. If, however, lenders chose to continue allowing dealers to increase the interest rate for compensation, then the lender would need to take steps to ensure that discrimination does not occur.
No, HR 1737 is still a bad bill, regardless of the bipartisan support it received in Congress.
Photo of Rep. Gabbard at a 2013 civil rights luncheon courtesy her office


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2018 - 2019
I just wanted to write to you to let you know that my son has settled in well to Meadow and much of that is thanks to the school. This is a great relief to us as parents, as we were apprehensive about it.
His teacher, has been fantastic and our son has also commented on how he finds the structure of daily routine very helpful. He has found it to be more academically stretching than his previous school and and has commented on the systems of self-assessment and peer assessment ("there's a pen for everything, mum!"), as well as the fact that if you don't complete your work you need to return to the classroom to do so at 12pm. I think the homework is also just the right amount and I'm pleased with the current focus on spelling and arithmetic.
I would also like to comment on the organisation and atmosphere that you have cultivated at Meadow as this is having a positive effect on our child.'
2017 - 2018
Thank you for all the positive comments following our parent questionnaire. Here are some of the comments that were made on the forms:
'Mrs Andrews is a great teacher, my son enjoys her teaching and I'm very happy with what she's doing.
'I am delighted by my son's progress at Meadow. It is a wonderful school with a high level of teaching.'
'Excellent dealings with bullying. Amazing school.'
'Thank you to the Reception team for making my child's time in Reception such a happy one. She loves coming to school and we are so pleased with the progress she has made. The weekly reception newsletters are really useful and informative. We are looking forward to the Tapestry software being available for parents to access so we can have a more regular insight into her progress outside of the 2 parents evenings.'
'Lovely School and lovely teachers and TAs! Thank you for all your hard work with my daughter. It is much appreciated.'
'We are so please we send our son to MPS. He is learning and making new friends. Thank you.
'We think the school is amazing!'
'I couldn't have wished for a better school and teachers than are at Meadow. Thanks'
'Deals with bullying brilliantly. Over all an amazing school.'
'We are very pleased with our son's progress. There has been a big jump in his learning this year under Mr Jelley and Mrs Dalglish. We are very grateful.'
2016 - 2017
Here are just some of the great comments that our parents have sent to us following their children's reports:
"I am so proud of my daughter. She has worked hard and all of her efforts are paying off. Keep up the good work! Your teacher has worked hard with you to get you to such a brilliant standard".
"Trying hard and number work looks good. Handwriting - we will practise at home".
"Lovely to see my son's improvement in his handwriting since starting Year 2. Still room for improvement but he has more confidence in literacy now. His numeracy is where he excels - good to see his way of working sums out and the process of that. Teachers comments are very encouraging and give areas to improve on".
"I'm very impressed with how hard to have tried to work with my son".
"Thank you very much - I'm very happy".
"We are very proud of how well our son is doing at school. He is confident at reading and his writing can be really neat when he wants it to be! He really enjoys coming to school and we enjoy seeing him changing into a confident young boy".
"Our son has progressed so well in Year 2 - he is loving having Miss Levers as his teacher too".
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