In simple terms, a merger is when one company agrees to combine with another to cut costs, getting access to certain markets or reducing competition. From a business point of view, benefits of such mergers can be manifold in view of the ever-changing market boundaries and elusive business targets in the contemporary business world. Corporate mergers have become a critical task for management to create organisations capable of infusing products with irresistible functionality or better still, creating products that are needed by end users.
Whilst the business case for mergers is often well articulated, this is clearly a deceptive difficult task requiring radical change in management of an organisation. What is harder to see or even harder to acknowledge is how the added momentum to companies actually impacts on employees. Top American companies NEC and GTE are one of many such comparative cases that were analysed to understand the changing basis for such a merger in the 1970s. NEC articulated a strategic intent to exploit the convergence of computing and communications and called it 'C&C'. Management adopted the appropriate strategic architecture which C&C communicated to the whole organisation and the outside world during the mid 70s.
However, years later it was evident that no strategic intent and architecture appear to exist at C&C. Although senior executives discussed the implications of the evolving technology industry, no commonly accepted view of which competencies would be required to compete in that industry were communicated widely. While significant work was done to identify key technologies, managers continued to act as if they were managing independent business units. Problems to do with job stress, role conflict and frustration erupted among staff.
The C&C scenario revealed that poor management of the prerequisites of mergers have an impact on employees. Mergers have served as positive significant predictors of staff morale. On the other hand, working environment corporate governance policies have had a significant effect on staff significance zeal to take up new tasks, employee engagement retention and job satisfaction.
For that reason, the study concluded that mergers have a significant effect on staff morale. If you are a staff member you have got two things to worry about. Losing your job: There is no merger without layoffs because there are always redundancies when companies combine. Second worry to employees is that of losing their minds. A merger can be well thought out and executed or the strategists can be mindless resulting in time, resource and energy wastages. With most mergers an intense battle for control likely ensues. The excess staffs from each of the company are going to challenge each other for the right to remain in the new organisation and sometime it isn't that good. True to the cliché, that a happy worker is a productive worker, that's a cliché for a reason. Instead of delivering on the new mandate most of the employees start fights which are counterproductive. Such touts of wars impact on the workers mostly who will either take sides or find themselves involved in the brawls aimed at protecting turfs.
In addition to these tangles, there is a big challenge of corporate culture when a merger happens. Whose culture will prevail; think of NEC and GTE mentioned above. They ended up being run as two separate entities instead. There is need to be alert to the cultural and social issues and try to keep their sanity which is rarely done. Workers have in the majority been caught in the cross fire. For example, one employee was shocked when they were told one day that they were wearing a wrong pair of shoes. According to whom they wondered! For mergers to be successful, there is also a need to focus on training all employees to be aware of the new processes, procedures and policies and again employees often find themselves in the hullabaloo.
Employees feel that mergers need to fully prepare staff for a cultural shift. More often than not the new culture impacts negatively on employees because they will not have been enculturated into it. Such uncertainty has often led employees to seek employment elsewhere or other employees to take an unmotivated attitude.
Employees often bemoan lack of communication on the new company's vision and mission. If changes are mapped out in a clear manner, it keeps them informed, reduces uncertainty and minimises disruption. Employees feel doing it may even help them view the changes as positive.
Clearly mergers are not the most optimal time for employees. The time is filled with uncertainty even on new employment terms, new management style and competences required in the new organisation. Employees would want management to set aside time to discuss issues and seek clarity over roles and responsibilities. They feel there is not enough recognition and rewarding for employees in their roles of managing change. Employees feel that such rewards do not have to be in the form of bonuses but can be small gifts or recognition among peers. They would want time set aside for them to connect with the new organisation.
I have often come across the term Talent Management stated as a critical driver of organisational success. But really what is it? Does it exist in our organisations or it's a nice to have in our strategic narrative? Firstly, here is one of the commonly used definitions of talent 'those individuals who make a difference to organisational performance either through their immediate contribution or in the long-term by demonstrating the highest level of potential' Tinsley et. al. 2007.
It is, however, interesting to note that inclusivity is becoming a predominant talent philosophy resulting in talent being defined as all employees of an organisation. Once you have defined talent for your organisation your context of developing a Talent strategy becomes clear. This will also help in skilfully crafting a Talent strategy that is aligned to Organisational strategy which is the context within which Talent Management will take place.
Talent Management is about identifying/attracting, developing and retaining talent. At the heart of the most effective professional organisations are a handful of best practises for managing talent. Since people are at the heart of the organisation it is important to hire the right talent and keep them in sync with the firm's business goals. Organisations should have a task of branding themselves to job aspirants. What we have experienced is organisations battling for talent that often move from one organisation to another after being offered higher perks. This is because organisations know that they need to leverage on talent because it creates successful organisations or make lesser one's flourish. Exceptional talent like Albert Einstein put an organisation called Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study on the map. Marvin Bower essentially created McKinsey Company while Gordon Mooor spawned Intel. It is not coincidence that these organisations picked these top professionals that changed the faces of their businesses. There is need to make use of effective hiring methodologies to filter and get the right kind of talent for the organisation. Selected candidates need to fit perfectly into their roles as well as in the culture of the organisation.
Another key strategy to managing talent is early development. A human being's know- how is developed most rapidly through repeated exposures to the complexity of real problems. On the job training, mentoring and peer pressure can catapult professionals to the top of their knowledge ziggurat. Additionally, effective performance management are critical when managing talent. With the advent of millennials, performance appraisals are evolving at a rapid pace. Millennials demand a process that is objective and continuous and this category of talent has placed so much hope in performance appraisals. They rightly want it used as both as an evaluative tool against set objectives as well as identifying their needed training, advancement while providing a forum to compete with peers. Evaluation and weeding are necessary in this regard.
Clearly, differentiated workforce management strategies become a prerequisite in managing talent for excellence. Under such strategies employees are likened to an investment portfolio where choices are made to invest in different areas depending on the likely returns that the investment would give after assessing the risk associated with the same. With some employees, organisations will need to constantly increase their professional challenges. The reason is because talent grows most when professionals buy into serious challenges. Gordon Moore at Intel, set stretch goals and almost doubled the number of components per chip each year.
Mentoring is another very good talent management technique as it helps employes in garnering higher skills and move to the next level. By so doing employees feel a good sense of belonging. Also work on overcoming professionals' reluctance to share information. Information sharing is critical because intellectual assets unlike physical assets increase in value with use. Properly stimulated knowledge and intellect grow exponentially when shared.
Organise your employees around exceptional talent. There is a tendency by each profession to regard itself as elite with certain social cultural values. This becomes a challenge that may get in the way of Talent Management and affect information sharing. In aid of achieving business goals despite the odds, use organisational connectedness techniques. Develop internal local area networks that link all your employees. Some organisations refer them to as knowledge networks. Such nets have often allowed for tapping into dormant capabilities. These also help problem solving capacities through centrally collected and carefully indexed subjects. Such high organisational connectedness has been found to be effective in organisations. When organisations use such practices they would have embraced one of the key imperative to managing talent for excellence- embracing technology. Embracing technology in all aspects of a business plays a major role in facilitating all the aspects of business from hiring at the same time replacing all the traditional methods with real time and on-going pulse tools.
However, no one management approach is a panacea. Many different forms often co-exist successfully and if properly used each helps a company attract, harness, leverage and deploy talent for excellence. Each practice needs to be carefully developed with its norms and systems to support it.
The word "interview" is derived from the Latin language which means "see each other." It is a process to get to know each other and also to select and recruit a candidate for a job. Thrill and Bovey (1987) refer to it as a planned conversation. Selection processes however take different styles and methods of assessing. It is an area organisations need to continuously improve in order to yield desired results.
Organisations mostly employ the use of quantitative and qualitative interviews approaches which may be complimented by use of either the consensus approach or other approaches. Quantitative interviews make use of numerical values to evaluate participants' response. Methods like psychometric testing fall into this category and usually they contain close ended questions that are delivered in the same format and order to every respondent. Qualitative interviews are mostly useful for explaining individual differences between participant's experiences and outcomes. Participants through qualitative interviews are allowed to describe their responses using their own words as opposed to being restricted to predetermined categories. Though each method has its own pros and cons, businesses should be cognisant of the nitty - gritties of each if they are to increase chances of effective selection.
Unlike conversations in daily life which are usually reciprocal exchanges, professional interviews involve interviewers who are in charge of structuring and directing the questions. However, it is the selection skills of panellists that determine the calibre of the candidate picked.
Qualitative interviews method allows the candidates to reveal their level of emotions, the way in which they have organised the world, their thoughts about what is happening, their experiences and basic perceptions. Mostly the tasks of the interviewer is to provide a framework within which the candidate can respond in a way that represents accurately and thoroughly to their point of view about the job. Interviewers have the flexibility to use their knowledge, expertise and other skills to explore interesting or unexpected ideas raised by the participants. With this approach a participant may say more than intended. Conversely an interviewer maybe reactive to such responses as well as personalities, moods and other interpersonal dynamics between parties.
The challenge with this approach comes when the interviewers attach a numerical value to these responses. Compared to interviews based on standardised measures, qualitative assessments are prone to a number of intervening variables. Organisations need to make sure that all participants who have this role of conducting interviews have the prerequisite skills and experience to do so. Analysing and interpreting qualitative interviews is more subjective. Training interviewers who conduct interviews is therefore key.
From the interviewed four candidates ratters would have consistently agreed on their assessment of two candidates. To make use of this tool, there is also a need to set rules of thumb for what percentage agreement shows a high agreement and a low agreement. If for instance panellists agree on 90% agreement level at least there is all reason to go ahead with the recruitment. The establishment of an organisational intra ratter reliability score helps organisations to see the consistency in ratings given by ratters across multiple instances. The intra rate reliability shows the degree of agreement among ratters. If various ratters do not agree, it is an indication that ratters are not able to pick the candidate's attributes consistently. Effective selection takes place when ratters are more like automatons, behaving more like rating machines. By so doing they behave like independent witnesses who demonstrate their independence by disagreeing slightly. Candidates 1 and 3 from the table demonstrate that aptitude in panellists.
The need to focus on ratter reliability represents the extent to which the data collected is a correct representation of the variables being measured. Measurement then shows the extent to which ratters assigned the same score to the same variable.
In view of these glaring highlights organisations should seriously think about the inherent cons of averaging candidates out if the right candidate is to be offered the job ultimately.
Quality Circles were conceived in Japan in 1962 as a forum for discussing ways to improve quality of products. Typically, 8-10 employees including the Supervisor from the same workshop doing similar work join together as a group with clear objectives to improve quality, productivity and safety.
Team norms like listening to each other and feeling comfortable even in the face of disagreements and taking their decisions by consensus are adhered to. The major deliverable of the leader is not to dominate the group neither do they want to control but focus on how to get the job done. A Quality Circle will not tire until a solution is found. Where possible the employees will implement the solutions themselves. Clearly, they aim at giving a chance to employees to use their own wisdom and creativity in order to fulfil their self-esteem and motivational needs.
Management and employees world over have come up with more or less the same initiatives to improve organisational performance and the needed sense of business ownership by employees. Quality circles call for problem identification, solving and analysis from the employees who experience the problem. There is value in training Quality Circle members to equip them with these skills. Akin to Quality Circles is what is known as Intellectual webs/Spider webs. The main role of these webs is to tackle problems by making use of self-organising networks. These may be configured when problems become more complex and less well defined, such that no one person or group of people from the same department may know exactly what the full dimensions are and where key issues may ultimately reside. Typically, a spider web aims at bringing people together quickly to solve a particular problem then disbands just as quickly once the job is done.
The power of these spider webs is their interconnectedness which is so great that even with a modest number of collaborating professionals (8-10) a spider web can leverage knowledge capabilities by hundreds of times. The number of between 8-10 professionals was coincidentally used for quality circles.
Closer home, the popularity of these knowledge networks is mostly used in the developmental sector. Most international organisations and non-governmental organisations use and understand these networks to leverage professional intellect. Although these spider webs are generally very unique in their purpose, patterns and relationships, there is no single best way to manage them. International organisations using them leverage on technology to bring together highly diverse and geographically dispersed talents to work on a single assignment. These mostly become operational when calls for proposals with a wider geographical coverage are flighted. The same approach may be used in any organisation to harness diversity. The network mostly operates under a Supervisor whose responsibility is coordinating various activities and keeping the group focused on its objectives. Employees participating from the various Departments or geographical locations are free to use their wisdom and creativity. The Supervisor encourages team spirit and maintains a cohesive culture among the different participants. This structural arrangement resonates strongly with the original concept of quality circles although such networks may have other objectives as well. What most international organisations do is mostly to ensure success of a bid by leveraging on professional intellect through motivational measures. Spider webs used in this manner go beyond the current practice of managing the human intellect. Spider webs become the glue that joins together highly dispersed delivery centres by leveraging the critical knowledge base. Usually when such bid is won, it does not end there. The same intellect that worked on the bid comes together again but maybe this time narrowed to a regional level to implement that project. Team members with different skills and experts come together for the implementation of the project. Once the project life comes to an end usually after a minimum of two years or a maximum period of five years, the team then disbands.
However, since no organisational form is a panacea, many different forms often coexist successfully in the same organisation. As an example, one team may be working on pain points while another team maybe working on improving service or product quality. What has been observed is that the proper use of each network helps organisations to harness and leverage its skills as well as deploying intellect for a different purpose.
Although quality circles as originally perceived in Japan have been modified and changed over the period, its central tenets have been infused in the more current networks where professionals are brought together for a purpose. The focus of such initiatives has become technology leverage, pain points in the face of tough competition and seamless service delivery.
It is my view; quality circles will continue to evolve but will still serve the same purpose to businesses. It is important to highlight that employee-initiated groups tend to have an informal approach, high interaction and are more solution focused than management-initiated groups. It is therefore important to encourage Quality Circles and allow employees to configure them, define their purpose and where possible allow them to implement the outcomes.
In today's business environment with so much uncertainty, it is certain that if organisations do not change, they risk closing shop. Depending on industry of operation, change can be triggered by a number of things. In the development sector, changes in a planning periods for example, end of a quadrennial plan can trigger changes when businesses will have to focus on new areas in response to the global trends or other millennial development goals. In the manufacturing sector, the need to satisfy customers more may be a trigger while in the banking sector; technological advancements have become constant drivers of change.
It has been observed that in response to the various change drivers, Managers are known for melding multiple functions in response to new business needs. There is an assumption by some Managers that a change in one structure will naturally create a common understanding of a collective responsibility that will result in the needed change. The procedural requirement is that managers need to define the type of collaboration they want to achieve, let alone the means to be employed to encourage such collaboration. Consider an example of a company that restructured its Procurement and Manufacturing by melding the two functions into a team responsible for the entire process from price quotation to delivery. In this case managers only broadened the jobs of these two Departments but did not create the enabling environment necessary for the merger. Resultantly Procurement continued to spend their time buying parts and manufacturing continued with the designing and manufacturing of products. As a result, the two groups did not feel jointly responsible. Such a situation is not unusual. There is a tendency when implementing business changes to underestimate the difficulty of breaking the functional mindset. Often a lot of time and money is spent defining which tasks the changed units should perform and which people should be assigned to those units to drive change. Relatively, little thought is given to reconfiguring the work space, redesigning jobs, imparting new skills/knowledge required and restructuring procedures to encourage collaboration and collective responsibility as well as aligning performance management systems to the new configuration. Managers also give little thoughts to their own jobs despite doing away with functions. Under such change processes, some Managers continue to act as Functional Chiefs even though the functions no longer formally exist.
Can any major change be effected without taking a closer look at the organisational culture? Remember collective responsibility is an attitude, a value and concern. Change is not linear. It is not a top down thing; it should happen from every angle of the organisation. Change is a personal decision; people do not want to be changed by others. Changes happen from within.
Culture change implementation becomes easy if organisations introduce clearly stated outcome-based performance criteria. Individuals will need to be periodically invited for milestone review meetings. Such processes will go a long way in making employees feel collectively responsible for producing the outcomes required.
An international research done in USA showed that companies reap greater benefits by strengthening the ties among their functions than bringing a lot of changes that lack a collaborated culture. The same research has focussed on four critical means to building a collaborative culture. Making responsibilities overlap: 1) organisations should do this by designing jobs with a relatively broad range of duties as well as assigning people to multiple teams and rotating assignments. If skills are not made to overlap an organisation will end up with a set of specialised jobs by default, inadvertently creating the same problems that bedevil organisations with units operating in silos.
2) Base rewards on unit performance: these may take the form of bonuses or non-financial recognitions. Rewarding unit performance is important because it prevents employees from placing their individual needs above the team. 3) Change the physical layout: work layout can either prohibit or promote collective responsibility. Units with layouts that permit people to see others work had faster cycle times than those that did not. Layouts also help information sharing and the trying out of new ideas openly.
4) Redesign work procedures: in a research done on culture change, researchers asked employees to tell them what extent their units' formal or informal work procedures encouraged them to share ideas, involving everyone who would be affected by that decision and also, they will help others do their work.
As part of the culture change process managers should practically be committed to change by making themselves available for informal discussions for example in the canteen with all interested employees.
In conclusion, notably for any business change process there is no single cookie cutter. It also does not matter how many different methods are used. Managers need not be overly influenced by what others did but should ask their own employees what they would need in order to work well together. Change is effective when it's tailor made for an organisation. Finally, communication must be at the heart of any change initiative, to ensure staff buy-in, ownership of the process and to encourage a participatory approach.


The pace of this kind of travel has not much changed since Fogg set out in 1872. Trains may be a little faster, but there are certainly no high-speed rail links yet across India, China or the USA. Passenger services have practically disappeared from the world's shipping lanes, whilst at the same time the armoury of bureaucratic obstacles - visas, permits, passports and carnets - has proliferated. Recourse to air travel, even as a convenient means of escape, was not allowed.
But these were challenges and challenges help to make an adventure, and an adventure was what I was after when I signed up. This diary is a record of success and failure, of euphoria and deep gloom, of friends made and advice and help generously given on what must still be the ultimate terrestrial journey.
There was never time to dig very deep and those expecting profound international insights will be disappointed. I'm particularly aware of how traumatically China suffered only a few months after my visit. But my journey around the world gave me a sense of global scale, of the size and variety of this extraordinary planet, of the relation of one country and one culture to another which few people experience and many ought to.


Everyone in the music biz knows how crazy it can be. We live a weird life, it's just that simple. We live out of suitcases, moving from hotel to hotel, town to town, missing our family, friends, and loved ones. And thats the glamorous part. Just kidding, kind of. There are obviously tons of good aspects to this career, or none of us would do it. The weirdest part to me is what we are willing to do to be a part of it though.
Yet, despite all that, I trudged on. Why? No idea, other than I knew I had something to contribute to this crazy music world. And so I kept plugging along, taking singing jobs when I could get them. But despite the 2-3 gigs a year I was getting, somehow my bills were still mounting up. Who knew? So I did what every other singer in my position had done, I took 'normal' jobs.
95% (that's a 100% guess) of singers in the business have at one time or another had to work at a non singing job. I'm sure this happens to people in all kinds of professions, but for singers it's almost a requirement. So like many before and after me, I went on the search for 'regular' work.
The first major speed bump I found in my search was that transferring my somewhat impressive young singer resume into a professional real world resume. I have a two degrees in music, but it turns out most of those classes I took did nothing to prepare me for the 'real' world.
"What unique skills do you possess that would help you as a Barista?"
"Well, I can scream at customers in 4 different languages. 5 if you count Latin."
"Are you good with children?"
"I've portrayed the devil in no less than 4 different shows, so I'm sure kids will love me."
"How are your keyboard skills?"
"I passed piano 1-3. Oh, you meant computers. Yeah, I know what the buttons do."
'I once ate two Chipotle burritos in one sitting."
So I took the work I could get. It wasn't glamorous, but I got by. I had some good ones too (sarcasm).
Telemarketer- if you were called in the early 2000's by a sultry baritone asking if you'd be interested in a Discover card, it might have been me. 97.6% of the people I called hated me on principal. 1% were lonely and talked to me for that reason only. Another 1% just thought I had a pleasing speaking voice. .4% wanted the card.
Janitor- This wasn't actually too bad. I got to put on my headphones and vacuum carpets and clean toilets at elementary schools after school was out. I learned a good amount of new rep during that time. Just me singing opera with a vacuum strapped to my back for 6-8hrs. The best review I ever got came during that time. An 8 year old told me I sounded like God when he was angry. Ill take it. I should have been smarter though and not done the janitor work in the same school district I attended high school in. It's all fun and games till that one high school teacher who said you'd never amount to anything sees you scrubbing (what you hope is) chocolate off the bathroom stall and he gives you that smug 'I knew I was right' look... Random fact- elementary school girls don't like to flush the toilet. Not sure why, but they don't.
1. Taste tester for Wrigley Gum corp.
8. 'Booth Babe' at Comicon.


Very comfortable hostel located in a village of Sierra Nevada.
Very comfortable hostel and ideally located a few miles from Granada but already in the Sierra Nevada. Our room was nice, the kitchen very well equipped and the reading area with the stove very pleasant. We did not have the opportunity to enjoy it because of whole days spent in Granada, but even in winters, it would have been nice to spend time on the terrace in the sun to read or do nothing ... We were also kindly greeted by our host who gave us some tips on visiting Granada.
Très confortable auberge situé dans un village de la Sierra Nevada.
Auberge très confortable et idéalement située à quelques kms de Grenade mais déjà dans la Sierra Nevada. Notre chambre était agréable, la cuisine très bien équipée et le coin lecture avec la poêle fort agréable. Nous n'avons pas eu l'occasion d'en profiter pour cause de journées entières passées à Grenade, mais, même en hivers, il aurait été agréable de passer du temps sur la terrasse au soleil à lire ou ne rien faire... Nous avons aussi était gentillement accueilli par notre hôte qui nous a prodigué quelques conseils sur la visite de Grenade.
This hostel has a lot of charm and is located in a nice little village Quentar near Grenada. The staff is really friendly and helpfull. After check in you get proper details about place, traveling around and hostel. Your requests are wellcome. You feel immediatly confortable. The common rooms are designed with taste. You have also acces to a nice little sunny garden. This hostel is meanet to make travelers meet and sharing some stories together. The place is not easily accessible without a car. There is a bus, but if you choose this option, be prepared to spend some time in the traveling to Grenada. Avoid driving through the village center if you re not prepared to drive in very little streets, For the parking, you must find a place where you can (parallel parking). But just after booking, you get good descriebed way and acces to this place. The biggest bad point from the hostel is that you don't really have a good isolation in your rooms. That means that you can hear people normaly talking in the living room and in the kitchen, as well as the children playing in the next room, what can clearly disturb your sleep. Other little thing that disturb me was one bathroom for 4 bedrooms. That means that if someone take a shower for 20 minutes, you have to wait all that time before hoping to go to the toilette. Hostel is really nice. It is in great located spot near mountains in small charming village. I recomended it.
Clean and very noce views from this hostel. Good hostel dorms.
This hostel is in a pretty small village in the mountains. Very cosy.


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This is old (by modern standards), but I want to share it anyway. Johnny, you rock.
So you were late posting it, and I'm late commenting. I think that now that I watched this I am in love with Johnny Weir and want to be his friend! I liked him before (his routine to Poker Face may be one of the best things I have ever seen), but this was just so intelligent and wonderful.


text:
Dollars to Pounds: NZCA/LINES
By Kim Taylor Bennett
The first time I heard Michael Lovett's music I was shocked. Up until a year ago I knew the 24-year-old as the bassist for Your Twenties, the quite brilliant London (by way of Totnes) indie-pop troupe fronted by Lovett's brother Gabriel Stebbing (one time bassist of Metronomy. He's also responsible for the exclusive remix below). While Lovett is still working with Stebbing on a soon-to-be revealed new project, for the past 18 months he's also been busy with art school while working with producer Charlie Alex March, somehow finding the time to compose a pretty much perfect (analogue) synth-pop record. (Guitars and bass are entirely absent from the equation).
Thus far he's only released one single, "Compass Points" a heady mélange of neatly syncopated sighs, sumptuous synths, and surging falsetto harmonies. Check out Lovett's unflinching gaze and the clean-line graphics below.
With influences that include Anton Bruckner's motets, Ciara and The Neptunes, and authors Italo Calvino and H.P. Lovecraft, Lovett's songs are populated with journeying characters, alternate dimension landscapes and obsessive couplings.
Download: NZCA/LINES, "Compass Points" (Always Gst Remix 2.0)
Each of the tracks on this album has a pretty specific narrative. It's not very obvious because I didn't want to make it some kind of cheesy sci-fi concept record, but the ideas came from reading a lot of Italo Calvino. Specifically Invisible Cities—it's based on Marco Polo's adventures. The description of each city is reduced to one distinct trait—such as, a city where the inhabitants live suspended above the ground where the city itself is supposed to be, or a city where people continually run wires and string between each house until these buildings collapse, leaving only the connections. It's all very Italian and poetic, which got me going a few years ago but now I'm a bit more cynical.
And the track "New Magnetic North" is pretty central to the record. I came up with the phrase and the idea is that a different set of magnetic poles exist which, rather than being immovable and permanent, are periodically shifting. A map that describes places in relation to this new magnetic north would itself be as permanent as a regular map; yet as the poles move, place names on the map refer to different locations in the "real world." The city becomes defined by qualities rather than actual buildings. It's fantasy, but it's about looking at the real world in a different way. I was imagining groups of people using modified compasses to hunt through "our world" for traces of these notional cities. You might end up in a field, forest or housing estate, but it's about the sensation, not literal surroundings. You don't get this at all from listening to the songs I imagine! But I'd like to drive it home in interviews so at least people vaguely know what's going on.
What's "Atoms and Axes" about? It's about a guy trying to search for a girl he likes in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. He's part of a small group of humans who have survived a nuclear apocalypse and he's gone out to search for his lady friend. It's got this kind of sexy element to it."
It's quite a sexy record. It's exactly a sexy record. It's supposed to be as sexy as possible, which considering the circumstances, isn't very sexy. "Nazca" is the story of the guy who loves the airship and he wants to kill everyone else so he can be with the airship by himself. There's no way you'd get this from the song, but "Moonlit Car Chase" it is supposed to be about a man and woman who make a pact that they're going to be cryogenically frozen together and then stay young forever. But then the woman breaks the pact. The guy gets frozen and she doesn't and she grows old. When she's older he unfreezes and tries to hunt her down to kill her…maybe they have sex first.
But she's really old. Oh no, that's gross. He probably doesn't kill her in the end. Maybe he's just mad at her.
Because of your background in art, is it important for you to be fully involved in the live visuals and music videos? I really want it to be a holistic experience. I want people to be able to get into the ideas of the songs. Because that's what I really love about bands. It's all in the narrative, it's all outside of reality. I want to have lots of visuals, a little like Cornelius maybe, really cool stuff—nice, simple ideas, well executed. I really want the video stuff to be spot on. Grimes is quite good for that. I do really love that El Guincho video "Bombay".
That's my favourite video of the past year. It's that perfect mix of surreal, and humourous and sexy. Everyone in it is really beautiful even if they're smearing an egg on their face.
So it's important for there to be notable thread throughout? Yeah, although not to the extent that I'll be designing everything. Rather than being dusty and slightly nerdy and sci-fi-ish it'll be post-apocalyptic with really hot honeys.
So there are honeys in the album artwork? It's a bit more subtle, but yeah it is actually honeys in post-apocalyptic locations. I need to have honeys in the video.
You're the only honey in the video at the moment. But you are topless momentarily. I thought we didn't use any of those. Good! I wanted to do the whole thing topless—no one does that. No middle class white male does that!
More of that. We don't see male collarbones enough. No, we don't! People need to see the shoulders.
NZCA/LINES' debut album is out on Lo Recordings next year.
From The Collection:
your twenties Kim Taylor Bennett
Dollars To Pounds, Kim Taylor Bennett, NZCA/LINES, your twenties

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


This is my entry for Jennifer Nichole Wells' Color Your World challenge. I nearly crashed into Google's camera car to get these shots. What dedication! See that aquamarine? I was dazzled. It also seemed as though no one was driving, which caused me to swerve a bit more. Does Google use autopilot? Or is it a drone with wheels?
Posted on January 19, 2017 by teachezwell	• This entry was posted in Blogging Challenges, Photography and tagged #color your world, aquamarine, blogging challenge, drone with wheels, Google camera car, Jennifer Nichole Wells blog, Photography. Bookmark the permalink.


Religious education (RE) provokes challenging questions about the ultimate meaning and purpose of life, beliefs about God, the self and the nature of reality, issues of right and wrong and what it means to be human. It develops students knowledge and understanding of Christianity, other principal religions, other religious traditions, and other world views that offer answers to these challenging questions. It offers opportunities for personal reflection and spiritual development. It enhances awareness and understanding of religions and beliefs, teachings, practices and forms of expression, and of the influence of religion on individuals, families, communities and cultures.
At Hampton College RE is taught to students in their mixed ability teaching groups, 2 hours per fortnight.
Year 7 – Students study an introductory unit entitled " What is RE?." This is then followed by a unit that explores and analyses a variety of Festivals from all of the major world religions. Students also study 'Jerusalem: a place of conflict' before persuing a depth study in 'Resurrection - What is the message of Easter for Christians in the 21st Century?' Students the study and compare 'Rites of Passage' before concluding with a study of the five pillars of Islam.
Year 8 – Students start with a detailed study of Sikhism. This is then followed by looking at the question 'do you have to be religious to be moral?' Students then embark on a focused study of Buddhism and Buddhist communities. Students finish the year by looking at how religion has been a force for change in the world looking, such as the work of Martin Luther king Jr.
Year 9 – In Year 9 students are very much encouraged to engage with 'issues' and how people's views can be influenced by their religion. The year starts with an exploration in to ideas and views on 'suffering'. We also study religious views on how humankind treats the environment. We consider responses to the Holocaust before ending Year 9 with a study on Humanism.
Those students who opt to study GCSE Religious Studies follow the Edexcel Religious Studies (Beliefs in action) syllabus.
This GCSE provides a more modern approach to studying topics related to Christianity and Islam. Students will look at issues that face us all in society today.
All students will be encouraged to practice and develop their skills in interpreting and evaluating pieces of information, communicating and applying your knowledge, and problem solving. Students will also have many opportunities to contribute to class debates where a variety of views will be considered and respected. Below is an overview of the themes and issues students will study in class as part of the course.
Belief in God - the nature of God, the Trinity, the key events in the life of Jesus in the Bible, origins of the universe, the problem of evil of suffering.
Marriage and the Family - relationships, the nature of the family, marriage, divorce, contraception.
Living the Religious Life - worship, prayer, charity and pilgrimage.
Matters of Life and Death - the sanctity of life and death, non-religious views that support and challenge the concept of life after death, Catholic teachings about life and death. Gender prejudice and discrimination. Religious equality of men and women shown in the Bible.
Belief in God - the nature of Allah, the five pillars of Islam, the nature of angels and prophethood.
Religious Experience - Islamic beliefs about life after death, numinous experiences, miracles, visions and answered prayers.
Living the Religious Life - Muslim holy books, Shahadah, Salah, Zakat and Khums, Sawm and Hajj, Jihad and festivals.
Equality - the sanctity of life, Human Rights, inequality, social harmony and religious freedom. Wealth and poverty and social justice.
At Key Stage 5 we follow that AQA syllabus for Religious Studies. The course focuses on Christianity in both papers.
Paper 1 Philosophy of religion. 67% of the AS grade through a 2 hour exam and 50% of the A-level grade through a 3 hour exam.
Paper 2 Study of Religion (Christianity) 33% of the AS grade through a 1 hour exam and 50% of the A-level grade through a 3 hour exam.
A good starting point for researching any of the world's major religions, their beliefs and festivals.
A superb starting point. It is designed for KS2, but gives you the basic information that will make everything else make sense! This is an award winning site. It has some good links to other sites as well.
Suitable for parents, and for students who feel confident about reading.
Lots of clear and appropriate information – again, for those who feel confident about reading.
This site lists loads of links for every RE topic. A good starting point for wider research.
Another good starting point for research. You can search by theme or by religion.
Especially useful for Year 9 pupil. This is a challenging but very informative site. It looks at issues such as war and punishment.


I have been running the nodo-shop OTGW for about a year without problems.
But since a few days I see about 1000-2000 Error 03 per day in my logs.
I ran the diagnostic firmware and ran the tests.
The bit timings for the thermostat seem quite normal to me, mostly about 500 and 1000.
Any idea why suddenly this happened ?
Someone else has reported these kinds of timings as well. It looks like the boiler is mixing another protocol in between Opentherm messages. But for that other person it happened after the system board of the boiler had been replaced. So I assumed it was due to different firmware. If yours spontaneously started doing this, it seems that the boiler can dynamically switch protocols on (and off?). So maybe restarting the boiler (power off, power on) will get rid of the other protocol again.
Your guess is as good as mine for the reason why this happened. But if there are still opentherm messages coming through, the errors are mostly harmless.


Standards Australia is a standards organisation established in 1922 and is recognised through a Memorandum of Understanding with the Australian government as the peak non-government standards development body in Australia. It is a company limited by guarantee, with 73 members representing groups interested in the development and application of technical standards and related products and services. The Memorandum of Understanding between the Commonwealth and Standards Australia recognises Standards Australia as Australia's representative on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the Pacific Area Standards Congress (PASC).
Standards Australia develops internationally aligned Australian standards (AS) and participates in standards-related activities that deliver benefit to the nation. Standards Australia and Standards New Zealand work together to develop joint standards (AS/NZS). Standards Australia is also the Principal Sponsor of the Australian International Design Awards.
The standard costs an average of $120, and after negotiations broke down with National and State Libraries Australasia, the standards were removed from public libraries. As a result, many groups including the Building Products Innovation Council, Master Builders Association, an Australian Senate Economics Reference Committee and Choice have called for the standard to be brought back into government control and made freely accessible.
Heated discussions continue throughout the industry as many believe that a national standard should be provided free of charge to the relevant members of that industry. Imminent release of the new AS/NZS 3000:2018 Electrical Installations standard has sparked a renewed campaign to see this actioned by Standards Australia. The publishing agreement currently held by SAI Global is due to expire in 2018 causing increased pressure to liberate the standards.
^ "About Standards Australia". Standards Australia. 1998-04-10. Retrieved 2014-02-13.
^ "FAQ Standards Australia". Standards Australia. Retrieved 2014-02-13.
^ a b "Australian Construction Standards Should be Freely Available". Architecture . Construction . Engineering . Property. 2017-09-12. Retrieved 2018-03-27.
^ a b Cormack, Lucy (2016-06-07). "Free access to Australian standards no longer available in public libraries". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 2018-03-27.
^ "AS_NZS 3788: 2006 Pressure equipment - In-service inspection". SAI Global. Retrieved September 4, 2015.
3-MCPD (3-monochloropropane-1,2-diol or 3-chloropropane-1,2-diol) is an organic chemical compound which is the most common member of chemical food contaminants known as chloropropanols. It is suspected to be carcinogenic in humans.
It is primarily created in foods during protein hydrolysis when hydrochloric acid is added at high temperature to speed up the breakdown of proteins into amino acids. As a byproduct of this process, chloride can react with the glycerol backbone of lipids to produce 3-MCPD. 3-MCPD can also occur in foods which have been in contact with materials containing epichlorohydrin-based wet-strength resins which are used in the production of some tea bags and sausage casings.In 2009, 3-MCPD was found in some East Asian and Southeast Asian sauces such as oyster sauce, Hoisin sauce, and soy sauce. Using hydrochloric acid rather than traditional slow fermentation is a far cheaper and faster method but unavoidably creates chloropropanols. A 2013 European Food Safety Authority report indicated margarine, vegetable oils (excluding walnut oil), preserved meats, bread, and fine bakery wares as major sources in Europe.3-MCPD can also be found in many paper products treated with polyamidoamine-epichlorohydrin wet-strength resins.
AS 1100 is an Australian Standard for technical drawing including both mechanical and architectural designs. AS 1100 standard drawings contain attributes that are universal around Australia. The standard is published by Standards Australia.
AS 8015-2005: Australian Standard for Corporate Governance of Information and Communication Technology is a technical standard developed by Standards Australia Committee IT-030 and published in January 2005. The standard provides principles, a model and vocabulary as a basic framework for implementing effective corporate governance of information and communication technology (ICT) within any organization. The standard was the first "to describe governance of IT without resorting to descriptions of management systems and processes." AS 8105 later became the catalyst and main infrastructure for the creation of the international ISO/IEC 38500:2008 Information technology — Governance of IT for the organization standard.
Ad Standards manages the complaint resolution process of the advertising self-regulation system in Australia.It functions as secretariat for the Ad Standards Community Panel and the Ad Standards Industry Jury – the two independent bodies were established to determine consumer and competitive complaints against the advertising self-regulatory Codes.The advertising self-regulation system is funded by a levy on advertising in Australia.
Aspartame (APM) is an artificial non-saccharide sweetener used as a sugar substitute in some foods and beverages. In the European Union, it is codified as E951. Aspartame is a methyl ester of the aspartic acid/phenylalanine dipeptide.
A panel of experts set up by the European Food Safety Authority concluded in 2013 that aspartame is safe for human consumption at current levels of exposure. As of 2018, evidence does not support a long-term benefit for weight loss or in diabetes. Because its breakdown products include phenylalanine, people with the genetic condition phenylketonuria (PKU) must be aware of this as an additional source.It was first sold under the brand name NutraSweet. It was first made in 1965, and the patent expired in 1992. It was initially approved for use in food products by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1981. The safety of aspartame has been the subject of several political and medical controversies, United States congressional hearings, and Internet hoaxes.
The Australian International Design Awards is an industry body established by the Industrial Design Council of Australia (IDCA), founded in 1958. The awards are Australia's only national design awards for industrial design. Since 1991, the Australian International Design Awards has been a division of Standards Australia.
In 2007 the Australian Design Awards expanded its entry criteria to include all professionally designed products on the Australian market, including products designed in Australia. From 2007, the Australian Design Awards became known as the Australian International Design Awards to reflect the global nature of the awards.
The Australian International Design Awards has been recognised by the Commonwealth Government and the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design as a promotional body for the Australian design industry.
Erucic acid is a monounsaturated omega-9 fatty acid, denoted 22:1ω9. It has the chemical formula CH3(CH2)7CH=CH(CH2)11COOH. It is prevalent in wallflower seed with a reported content of 20 to 54% in high erucic acid rapeseed oil, and 42% in mustard oil. Erucic acid is also known as cis-13-docosenoic acid and the trans isomer is known as brassidic acid.
Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) (Māori: Te Mana Kounga Kai - Ahitereiria me Aotearoa), formerly Australia New Zealand Food Authority (ANZFA), is the governmental body responsible for developing food standards for Australia and New Zealand.FSANZ develops food standards after consulting with other government agencies and stakeholders. The recommendations made by the body are open and accountable, and based upon a rigorous scientific assessment of risk to public health and safety.
All decisions made by FSANZ must be approved by the Australia and New Zealand Food Regulation Ministerial Council, which is composed of the Health Minister from each of the Australian states and territories, and the Health Minister from New Zealand, as well as other participating Ministers nominated by each jurisdiction. This may lead to political interference in the decision: for example the decision made over hemp seed, when the Food Standards scientists recommended that hemp seed be allowed for sale, the ministers vetoed this because they did not want to appear soft on drugs.
Publications from FSANZ include the Australian Total Diet Survey and Shoppers' Guide to Food Additives and labels.
This authority is sometimes cited variously as Australia and New Zealand Food Standards/Safety Authority (ANZFSA), possibly incorrect nomenclature arising due to confusion with the non-acronymic older version of the short-name ANZFA, and with the acronym of the New Zealand authority, NZFSA (pronounced enzfissar, similar to anzfessar of ANZFSA) which previously managed such questions in New Zealand.
This article discusses topics relating to genetic engineering within Oceania. Currently New Zealand and Australia require labeling so consumers can exercise choice between foods that have genetically modified, conventional, or organic origins.
ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 40 IT Service Management and IT Governance is a standardization subcommittee of the Joint Technical Committee ISO/IEC JTC 1 of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 40 develops and facilitates the development of international standards, technical reports, and technical specifications within the fields of IT service management and IT governance, with a focus in IT activity such as audit, digital forensics, governance, risk management, outsourcing, service operations and service maintenance. The international secretariat of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 40 is Standards Australia (SA), located in Australia.
Owen Edward John Walsh is a former Administrator of the Australian territory of Norfolk Island.
Son of John ("Jack") Melvyn Walsh (1923-1972) and Beverley Dawn Essen (1928-2011).
Walsh was educated at the Hutchins School, and then attended the University of Tasmania, from which he graduated with degrees in Arts and Law. He worked as a barrister and solicitor for the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory, and as a senior policy adviser and legal officer for the Attorney-General's department, the Department of Transport and Regional Services, and the Australian Antarctic Division.On Norfolk Island, Walsh was Official Secretary to the Administrator, Tony Messner, from 1999 to 2003, and again from January 2006 to Administrator Grant Tambling. When Tambling retired in 2007, Walsh was made Acting Administrator of the island on 7 August. He was sworn in as Administrator by the Governor-General Quentin Bryce on 2 October 2008. On 30 March 2012, Walsh stepped down as Administrator at the conclusion of his term, and was succeeded by Neil Pope. Walsh indicated he would resume his legal career in Canberra. Walsh became the in-house legal adviser for Food Standards Australia New Zealand.
Standards New Zealand is the national standards body for New Zealand. It is a business unit within the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and works under the supervision of the NZ Standards Executive, an independent statutory role held by a ministry employee under the Standards and Accreditation Act 2015. Standards New Zealand had previously been a Crown entity and the operating arm of the Standards Council of New Zealand. Following the enaction of the Standard and Accreditation Act 2015 the council's role was taken on by the New Zealand Standards Approval Board and Standards New Zealand moved into MBIE on 1 March 2016.Standards New Zealand is an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) member organisation that develops internationally aligned New Zealand standards (NZS) and participates in standards-related activities that deliver benefit to the nation. Standards New Zealand and Standards Australia work together to develop joint standards (AS/NZS). The majority of standards are developed in this partnership.


There is no "man in the moon," except through the minds of people who see it. As we look at the moon, its form may trigger in us the suggestion of a face; however, it is each person's conscious mind that gives reality to "the man in the moon."
The presentation is available at The Obtuse Bard website http://obtusebard.org.


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Category: July 2014 - Marketing Analytics
Grey Group Japan welcomes Yasushi Ogata as new Senior Creative Director.
Ogata brings with him a wealth of experience, as he has worked on a huge number of internationally-renowned brands, including P&G, Unilever, Lipton, Philip Morris, McDonald's, Nichirei, Alfa Romeo, Volkswagen, Northwest Airlines, Amex, Financial Times, Motorola, IBM and SAP. He reports directly to Tatsuhisa Nakajima, VP, Executive Creative Director of Grey Group Japan.
Ogata joins Grey Group from DDB Japan, where he was Senior Creative Director. Prior to that he worked in agencies such as Ogilvy & Mather Japan K.K. and Beacon Communications K.K., which is part of Leo Burnett Japan. He is an experienced creative with a raft of awards to his name, including recognitions from Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, London International Festival, New York Festivals, Yomiuri Advertising Award, Tokyo Copywriter's Club Awards, Japan Radio & Television Commercial Confederation Awards, Dentsu Advertising Awards and Nikkei BP Advertising Award.
Opera just announced that it has completed its purchase of mobile video advertising platform AdColony.
The acquisition of AdColony will enable Opera to deliver the highest-quality mobile video advertising experience on smartphones and tablets, since AdColony is specializes in delivering TV-like HD mobile video uninhibited by latency and slow load times. In addition, Opera will increase the reach of its mobile ad subsidiary, Opera Mediaworks, to more than 700 million global consumers.
Will Kassoy, CEO of AdColony, will continue to run day-to-day operations at AdColony in addition to taking on a new role as CMO of Opera Mediaworks.
This acquisition under the Opera Mediaworks umbrella is aimed at strengthening Opera's mobile advertising offerings to publishers and advertisers around the world. Not only will AdColony's technology and expertise in the mobile video business be integrated into Opera's mobile ad business, including its programmatic offerings, but the team will also work to consolidate its mobile video technology across Opera's consumer and operator products.
Vserv.mobi, an award winning mobile advertising exchange, announced the appointment of Anurag Patnaik as Senior Vice President - Product.
Anurag Patnaik, a proven strategist in the mobile and digital sector joins Vserv at a pivotal juncture as a catalyst to the company's aggressive growth trajectory. In his role, he will bring his comprehensive experience to fortify Vserv's proven track record of delivering pioneering product technologies and strategically augment its award winning mobile solutions.
With over 17 years of multi-disciplinary experience across digital advertising, mobile, media & big data, Anurag has guided various marquee technology companies in the US to create data driven audience experiences. His repertoire of innovative product technologies is demonstrated by his contribution to 19 patents in the areas of advertising, proactive business intelligence, telephony/IVR and mobile data.
Previously, he has been associated with segment defining organisations such as Nielsen/McKinsey Co., OpenWave Inc., Yahoo! and Disney to name a few. In his last assignment, he spearheaded the next generation digital ads business on Jio 4G.
Care.com, the world's largest online destination for finding and managing family care, announced that it has named Caroline Sheu Chief Marketing Officer for the company. The announcement was made by Care.com Founder and CEO, Sheila Lirio Marcelo to whom Ms. Sheu will report.
As Chief Marketing Officer, a new position at Care.com, Ms. Sheu will be responsible for developing and executing a comprehensive marketing strategy that draws on both data-driven marketing metrics and emerging media trends to drive business growth and customer engagement, and enhance the Care.com brand equity. Specifically, Ms. Sheu will oversee outbound marketing and member communication; acquisition and retention marketing; product marketing; online and offline advertising; event marketing; creative design; public relations and communications; and overall corporate positioning and branding.
Ms. Sheu joins Care.com from Disney Interactive where she had served as Head of Global Marketing since July 2012. During her tenure at Disney, she launched seven #1 iPhone apps, and the console and toy game, Disney Infinity, among many other accomplishments. Prior to Disney, Ms. Sheu spent two years as Vice President, Global Marketing for Sony Network Entertainment, the Sony division charged with delivering digital entertainment content to all of Sony's Internet-enabled devices. Earlier, Ms. Sheu held various senior marketing positions during five years at Electronic Arts. Her career began with roles at both Adobe Systems and Walmart.com.
A member of the Advisory Board of iProspect, Ms. Sheu received her B.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles (1995), her M.A. from the University of California, Berkeley (1996), and her JD/M.B.A. from the University of Chicago (2000).
Havas Media Group India has won the integrated digital duties of Businessworld (BW), India's largest and most respected business magazine known for its incisive writing and independent opinions, in a multi-agency pitch. BW has spotted key trends in economy and business for three decades. Such as, rise of the IT sector in the 90s or more recently the Social Media, healthcare and e-tail boom. It is a brand that most professionals of today have grown up reading. The magazine now embarks on a new journey to create an international standard digital platform that will bring an enriching experience to its readers and customers across geographies. Havas Media recently also won the integrated media duties of Yepme.com and digital mandate for Xolo mobile.
Dentsu Media Thailand hired Nutchanun Chiaphanumas as the company's first ever Executive Creative Director.
Nutchanun (Nut), who has already started in his new role, will be leading the creative efforts for the 11 year old Bangkok based media agency, which is a member of Dentsu Aegis Network with its team of 70 staff.
Nut, a Thai native, most recently worked as Group Creative Director for Ogilvy & Mather Beijing. Prior to that, he had stints at agencies like Leo Burnett Hong Kong, BBDO Bangkok and McCann Erickson Thailand. His work has been lauded many times throughout his career, including, but not limited to, two Gold Lions, 13 Gold and one Best of Show Awards at AdFest and a Gold Award at Spikes.
Ogilvy & Mather (O&M) is further expanding the global footprint of #ogilvychange, a Behavioural Sciences Practice born in London in 2012 that utilises the latest thinking in cognitive psychology, social psychology and behavioural economics to influence people's behaviour and purchase decisions in the real world. Singapore is the third city globally to launch the Practice following Prague, and marks the first in Asia Pacific.
Building on the behavioural economics agenda long championed by O&M UK's Vice Chairman and Co-Founder of #ogilvychange Rory Sutherland, the Practice has the largest, most active community of behavioural experts in the world, available exclusively for Ogilvy clients. O&M Asia Pacific's Regional Planning Director, Sonal Narain, will oversee the practice in Singapore along with Sutherland and Jez Groom, also Co-Founder of #ogilvychange and Director of Strategy Integration, O&M UK.
Partnering with leading professors from institutions such as Nanyang Technological University's Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information in Singapore or the London School of Economics and Warwick University, a dedicated #ogilvychange resource works alongside agency and client teams to educate, stimulate and experiment with new and interesting ways to 'nudge' people to make better decisions in their daily lives.
Continuing activities for the Singapore launch of #ogilvychange, Ogilvy UK's Jez Groom will facilitate a series of Behaviour Change workshops for clients in Singapore in August 2014.
Grey Group Hong Kong expanded its account management team with the hires of Katherine Wong as Business Director and Christina Kwok as Group Account Director.
Wong brings with her 15 years of experience in the advertising industry, focusing on beauty & personal care category for the Greater China market. She has worked on internationally-recognised brands such as Neutrogena, Pantene, Kao, Wella, Pampers, as well as consumer electronic brands such as Samsung.
Prior to Grey, she has worked in numerous international agencies including Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis and DDB. She has a strong track record of developing holistic campaigns to help clients turn around their businesses and bring about sustainable business growth. This has led her to handle blue-chip accounts such as P&G, J&J, L'Oreal and Kraft (across the Greater China market).
Kwok graduated at the Queen's University, Canada, in Art Conservation. But the world of the advertising industry pulled her and she gave up her original thought of being a book conservator. More than 10 years later, Kwok has served in several top agencies such as BBDO, McCann-Erickson and DDB Group Hong Kong. She has worked as a business partner with local and international clients and has managed countless brands including Watsons, Nestle, Vitasoy, Abbott, San Miguel, Bank of China (Hong Kong), Hang Seng Bank, MasterCard, Huawei, The Venetian, PCCW and Microsoft.
Wong will report directly to both Desmond Chan and Keith Ho, Managing Partners of Grey Group Hong Kong, and Kwok reports directly to Chan.
BSA | The Software Alliance selects Bite as India communications partner to run integrated campaigns that promote compliance programs and growth in the digital world. Bite's brief for BSA in India includes strategic planning, content development, influencer outreach and running integrated campaigns using traditional public relations and digital channels.
Active in over 60 countries with a roster of some of the world's leading software publishing and hardware firms as its members, BSA tasks itself with an elaborate charter to promote a safe and legal digital world and in promoting the interests of its members. It's current India priorities include working with industry forums to educate enterprises and small-to-medium businesses on the benefits of using licensed software, advocating the adoption of Software Asset Management (SAM) as a means to better utilise licenses (and in avoiding security and operational risks). Cloud computing is another significant thrust area for BSA and it believes that India can benefit tremendously from the opportunities cloud computing presents provided strong policy mechanisms are in place. A consistent set of intellectual property rules (IPR) according to BSA are vital for software firms to thrive.
21Vianet Group, Inc., the largest carrier-neutral internet infrastructure services provider and the sole operator of Office 365 and Microsoft Azure in the Chinese Mainland market, and GigaTrust, the market leader for Microsoft-based email and document protection software solutions for mobile devices, have signed an exclusive partnership agreement for the China market.
Pursuant to the agreement, 21Vianet will market and sell the portfolio of GigaTrust security products to enterprises and Office 365 cloud subscribers in China. This partnership will provide Office 365 enterprise customers in China the ability to protect and render secure emails and documents from anywhere using Android and iPhone mobile devices.
21Vianet has more than 15 years' experience in internet infrastructure services, with its core businesses covering data center management, managed network service, content distributed network service and cloud computing. The Company worked with Microsoft to successfully launch Office 365 services this April, delivering for the first time the familiar Office productivity suite, now equipped with more advanced communication and collaboration tools, as a local cloud service to business and government customers throughout China.
According to Forrester Research, China is one of the fastest growing markets for public cloud services in the world and forecast to grow from $300M in 2011 to $3.8B by 2020. With the availability of GigaTrust's secure mobility products, 21Vianet will provide Office 365 customers with a comprehensive security solution for both Android and iPhone devices, enabling highly adaptable cross-platforms and cross-devices experience. Subscribers of Office 365 in China will be able to protect and consume protected emails and documents (Office docs and PDF formats) from anywhere securely to or from the mobile device. In the past two years, smartphone sales in China have quadrupled, making China one of the world's largest Smartphone markets in the world according to research firm IDC. Today, China has nearly 1 billion mobile phone users with roughly 40% or 400 million currently using smartphones, forecasted to reach 800 million by 2020.
Capillary Technologies, the market leader in cloud-based retail customer engagement management, announced that it has closed a $14 million Series B round of venture financing. This new investment adds to the $17 million of Series A funding received in 2012, providing a sizable balance to fund continued growth. Sequoia Capital and Norwest Venture Partners (NVP) led this round.
The funding will be used to enhance Capillary's cloud-based integrated marketing platform and grow its partnership ecosystem, which already includes Blue Label Engage in South Africa and the American Express US Global Merchants Services group.
Capillary's insights-driven, integrated marketing platform helps retailers to quickly and easily manage their customer data, gain insights and personalize engagement across multiple channels, driving a significant increase in sales and loyalty. Capillary's Intelligent Customer Engagement™ (ICE) suite of software solutions incorporates everything that retail marketers require to engage with their customers, weaving social and mobile experiences into any e-commerce platform or point-of-sale device from legacy terminals to the latest POS devices, mobile tablets, and online shopping platforms.
With the announcement of funding also comes the announcement of a new partner - Agilysys, a leading developer and marketer of proprietary enterprise software, services and solutions to the hospitality industry and operates extensively throughout North America, Europe and Asia and new customers such as Marks & Spencer, KFC Singapore, Lacoste or Courts.
MHI Global, the world's largest dedicated sales-performance company formed by the merger of Miller Heiman, AchieveGlobal, Huthwaite, Impact Learning Systems and Channel Enablers, announced the launch of its Asian operations with its regional headquarters based in Singapore.
Harnessing the combined resources and expertise from five customer-focused companies, MHI Global offers businesses globally and across Asia an end-to-end approach to driving customer management excellence and business growth throughout the customer lifecycle.
Collectively, more than 500 employees and contractors worldwide, in more than 40 countries, now deliver the voice of MHI Global, reporting to Sam Reese, CEO of MHI Global.
Greg Moore, formerly managing director of Huthwaite Asia, will lead MHI Global's regional go-to-market strategies and operational performance as managing director for Asia. Moore's immediate remit is to drive business integration to form one formidable entity that aims to be the undisputed resource for sales leaders and customer-focused organisations across the region.
As the largest dedicated sales-performance company in the world, MHI Global provides all of the key components of a multi-dimensional and interdependent sales system, based on the central belief that everything starts with the customer.
The company's tagline and promise to empower growth signify its goal to help sales leaders optimise their time, effort and potential to better create and manage customer relationships, while achieving business goals. MHI Global provides the following resources:
• Core management strategies that help organisations create opportunities, manage customer relationships and improve the effectiveness and professionalism of every customer interaction;
• Adjacent centres of excellence that offer solutions, such as leadership execution, customer service and channel sales;
• Strategic analysis and decision-making tools; and
• Proprietary research focused on understanding and codifying the best practices of the world's top sales organisations.
With regional headquarters in Singapore, MHI Global has direct presence across Asia, including Southeast Asia, India, Greater China, Korea and Japan. It plans to leverage Singapore's standing as a leading regional sales and services hub for regional expansion, through offering specialised in-country knowledge with global best practices and best-in-breed solutions that span the entire customer lifecycle to both enterprises and smaller businesses. MHI Global's regional customers include Citibank, DBS Bank, KPMG, Roche and SingTel.
TO THE NEW is launching 'Entrepreneurs At Work', a one of its kind entrepreneurship leadership program. It plans to hire 20 young professionals, expose them to challenging assignments across its group companies, train them over the next two years, and then let them take on entrepreneurial leadership roles across businesses and geographies, both existing and new.
The group selected for the 'Entrepreneurs At Work' program will consist of candidates who have graduated from premier management and technical institutes from across India, ASEAN and China, with 3 to 5 years of work experience. The program will place these candidates in high impact roles in business development, product management, product development and technology in the various TO THE NEW companies across Asia. Over the next two years, these candidates will operate in impactful roles and undergo intensive training programs, to help them take on entrepreneurial leadership roles across its companies.
TO THE NEW is an Internet products company that is accelerating the disruption in the digital marketing and video space in Asia with its social and mobile first approach in analytics, social CRM, digital video, content and influencer marketing areas. Its unique blend of freemium products that are versioned in local languages in Asia has helped it grow to a 600+ people company in 8 markets in Asia Pacific in a short span of two years.
TO THE NEW is accepting applications at www.tothenew.com/eaw and the last date to apply is 15th August 2014.
Havas Media India has appointed Hans Mathews as Executive Director of its West India operations.
Hans will manage the agency's Mumbai office and be based there. His key mandate will be to drive growth for the group in the Western region.
Hans joins with seventeen years of experience in the industry, having worked with international agencies in India, MENA and Malaysia.
Most recently he was the Chief Client Officer at Mindshare Malaysia where he led Ford's regional APAC media team managing partnerships with digital and content partners. He was also responsible for managing brands like UL, Maxis, Kraft, Nestle and HSBC.
Prior to this Hans has held leadership roles at Mindshare India, Zenith Optimedia and other leading agencies.
Founder and Group Chairperson Yoly V. Ong has handed over the reins of the Philippines' operations, Campaigns & Grey, to Boboy Consunji and Cherry Gutierrez starting July 2014.
Ong, who set up Campaigns, Inc. in 1986 and had since led it to become one of the top communications organisations in the Philippines, stated, "The time has come for me to pursue fresh challenges and satisfy my curiosity about what else is out there."
Consunji and Gutierrez will take over as Joint CEOs, with equal authority and responsibilities. Both will oversee the operations for Campaigns & Grey's extensive portfolio which include mainstream advertising, digital, public relations, activation, shopper marketing, design, government work, advocacy, and operations in Visayas and Mindanao.
Consunji cut short his law studies to join Campaigns, in its early years, as an account manager. He spent more than a decade managing projects and launches for Grey's global and prestigious local clients including Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, Sun Cellular, Universal Robina Corp., Emperador Distillers, Lamoiyan and Rockwell Land. In 2005, he set up Neuron, Campaigns' second agency, and steered it to become one of the group's most profitable business units. In 2013, he was promoted to Campaigns & Grey's COO.
Gutierrez's career in advertising was fated from the day she won a college scholarship from the Philippine Board of Advertising. She was immediately offered a job to join a top local agency upon graduation. In 1992, Gutierrez joined Campaigns as Management Supervisor where she steered successful launches of Procter & Gamble's Joy and Downy, and San Miguel's beer business. She was also the longtime leader of Del Monte Philippines' canned juice and fruits, and sauces business. In 2013, she was promoted to Managing Director. Thirty years since that scholarship, Gutierrez remains as an accomplished steward of key clients such as Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, Wyeth and Boehringer Ingelheim.
OMD has appointed Agnes Yee as General Manager for Malaysia.
She will be working closely with the management team at OMD to develop new business opportunities, enhance client service and mentor talent.
Agnes joins OMD with over 10 years of experience in senior leadership roles across the media and marketing industry. Prior to her appointment, Agnes was the Group Planning Director at Zenith Media, responsible for strategic planning, talent management and leading multiple key accounts in the telecommunications and luxury sector. In the course of her career, Agnes has been credited with increasing profitability and operational efficiency for the clients she has worked with.
Agnes reports to Margaret Lim in her new role, and her position is effective immediately.
Vserv.mobi bolsters the Southeast Asia management team to further strengthen market leadership
Riding on the backdrop of the rapid mobile user growth and fast adoption of mobile advertising in the emerging markets, Vserv.mobi, an award winning mobile advertising exchange, recently announced a series of senior appointments across the Southeast Asia region, including Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand.
The new hires form the core leadership team for the region to capture the next wave of opportunities and to further accelerate the company's continued expansion, including:
Eva Soputan, Country Manager, Indonesia
As a media industry veteran, Eva brings with her 15 years of experience in the areas of advertising sales, business planning and development. Having worked in both traditional (broadcast and print) and digital advertising with global leading companies such as Telkomsel and Exponential Interactive, Eva has equipped herself with comprehensive skill sets in advertising strategy and content.
As the Indonesia Country Manager, Eva is responsible in establishing and reinforcing Vserv.mobi's position as the leading mobile ad exchange in Indonesia through revenue generation and continuously strengthening publisher relationship.
Rovy Rivera, Business Director, Philippines
Rovy has more than 14 years of digital marketing, sales, customer service and business development experience in a wide array of sectors including Telco, FMCG, Beauty and Cosmetic, Consumer Electronics and Entertainment. His previous experience with Adz Central, Exponential Interactive and Benny D. Antiporda equipped him with great understanding and knowledge in digital and mobile marketing. As a digital sales veteran, he was among the industry pioneers who successfully introduced new digital solutions into the Philippines market.
Rovy joins Vserv.mobi as a Business Director. He will helm the business development and sales functions in Philippines.
Tony Kan, Business Director, Malaysia
Tony brings 12 years of media sales, business development and consulting experience with leading local and international media owners in Malaysia, including Catcha Media Berhad and Asia Media. His experience covers various sectors such as Technology, Airlines, FMCG, Financial, Entertainment, Consumer Electronics, Luxury, Automobiles, Beverages, Telecommunications, Educations, Retails and others.
At Vserv.mobi, he will steer the Sales and Marketing strategies for the Malaysia market and drive the business direction to ensure Vserv.mobi to be the top of mind as a one-stop mobile advertising partner.
Suwaree Yeesunyem, Business Development Director, Thailand
Having worked with broadcast company BBTV New Media and online and mobile content provider Sanook Online, Suwaree is well-versed in both mobile and advertising content. Over ten years of experience in digital and advertising media industry make her a right fit at Vserv.mobi.
As the Business Development Director, she spearheads business development with local premium Publishers helping accelerate Vserv.mobi's penetration with mobile content providers in Thailand. Thailand remains a lucrative market for premium mobile content and she will work with local mobile content players to help them market their products via the Vserv.mobi exchange.
Rati Otrakul, Sales Director, Thailand
Rati has over 13 years of experience in the media industry, having worked with MCN Asia, Admax Network, Inmobi and other leading media companies. She specialises in marketing, sales and business development, and has strategic understanding of integrated media engagement of Offline media (Prints, TV, events) and Digital Media (Social media, Online and Mobile Media). Rati has been successful in implementing various innovative media and monetization business projects.
As the Sales Director, Rati is responsible in building and further reinforcing the market awareness of mobile advertising.
The new appointments will contribute to Vserv.mobi's overall strategy to grow its Southeast Asia team strength by more than three times by the end of 2014.
Rockwell Automation, a leading provider of industrial automation power, control and information solutions, has appointed Servo Dynamics Engineering Co. Ltd. as its authorized distributor in Vietnam. Servo Dynamics Engineering is a subsidiary of the Servo Dynamics Group, one of the leading automation and industrial solution providers in the Asia-Pacific region. As part of the Rockwell Automation limited distribution strategy, this appointment will help to better serve customers in Vietnam.
Customers in Vietnam will be able to transition to Servo Dynamics Engineering for order placement, fulfillment, inquiries, full technical support and customer service. Servo Dynamics Engineering will provide added focus and value to customer relationships. Servo Dynamic Engineering's coverage and capabilities will improve Rockwell Automation's limited distribution performance, which is a critical component of its business model. Moreover, the relationship supports the Rockwell Automation Growth and Performance business strategy, which consists of enhancing market access, expanding its served markets and extending its geographic reach in this important region.
Grey Group announced the appointment of Sunil Lulla as Chairman & Managing Director for Grey Group India.
He joins Grey Group from Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd where he was President, Corporate Development. Prior to that, he was Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of Times Television Network.
Sunil is a 30-year media and communication veteran with proven expertise in building stellar brands and creating enduring, successful businesses. His experience spans across communication, media, consumer goods and the digital space, as well as across geographies of India, Taiwan and China with companies including John Walter Thompson, MTV, Diageo, Sony and The Times Group.
He will report to Nirvik Singh, Chairman & CEO of Grey Group Asia Pacific.
Jishnu Sen, out-going Chief Executive Officer for Grey Group India is leaving the network for personal reasons.
Mobext, the mobile marketing arm of Havas Media Group, has appointed Kat van Zutphen as General Manager for Singapore.
Kat will be responsible for managing the Mobext Singapore operations with a special focus on developing the mobile product across paid, owned and earned media. She will work closely with the offline and specialist digital teams at Havas Media Group Singapore to develop business opportunities from existing and new clients.
With more than 20 years of experience in the mobile industry, Kat is passionate about human centred design, and the user's experience (UX) in the mobile space. She has spent the past several years working with international businesses and clients to devise innovative digital channels for making financial services accessible to people not served by conventional banks.
An engineer by training, Kat successfully ran a team that planned and built a mobile operator in Brazil. She has also worked with Grameen Foundation's Technology Centre to develop and implement need-based technology across Asia and Africa to empower the bottom of the pyramid, while partnering with micro-finance institutions, international development organizations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
Kat holds undergraduate degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering and has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business in USA.
STRATA, a leader in media buying and selling software, hired Jamie Donnenfeld as Vice President of Digital.
A seasoned media professional with over twenty years of experience, Donnenfeld will lead and manage the development of STRATA's new programmatic buying solutions for video and audio. She will also provide insight and direction for STRATA's digital ad buying module along with cross divisional digital initiatives, and take an active role within STRATA sales teams to expand digital partnerships within the industry.
Donnenfeld comes to STRATA from ZUUS Media where she was the Vice President of Ad Operations and Analytics and was responsible for the agency's advertising operations and analytics platforms along with day-to-day operations. At ZUUS, Donnenfeld played a crucial role in integrating networks with ZUUS' ad server and video player. Prior to that she led advertising and operations teams at Canoe Ventures, where she successfully launched the first National iTV and VOD campaigns. She was also a Vice President at other pioneering start-ups, including Massive Incorporated and Joost, where she served the first dynamic advertisement within video games, on-line video and mobile devices.
Havas Media Group announced the appointment of Pranay Shah Singh as Head of Strategy for Indonesia.
In his new role, Pranay will be responsible for strengthening the strategic output on key clients including, XL Axiata, Danone, AXA, LG Electronics and Kakao Talk. He will also work closely with account leads, innovation and new business teams to drive the adoption of group's proprietary Meaningful Brands Research and Meaningful Connections Planning Process that helps brands connect with people and create shared value for brands and consumers.
Pranay joins the agency with ten years of experience in the dynamic Indian media industry, where he developed an expertise in strategic planning, media research, consulting and content marketing, working with multinational media agencies and boutique consulting. His last stint was with ZenithOptimedia India, where he led communications planning for FMCG companies like Reckitt Benckiser and Nestle. His involvement in social initiatives like Dhriti and recognition as a rising media star in India by Brand Equity magazine, are testamant to his interest in the evolution of communications, and how it impacts society and culture.
He will report jointly to SK Biswas, Chief Strategy Officer of Havas Media Group APAC and Riadi Sugihtani, CEO of Havas Media Group Indonesia.
July 2014 - Marketing Analytics
SAP Analytics helped Germany win the 2014 World Cup, so when is your turn to get your trophy?
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Digital Darwinism: Survival of the most adaptable to change
Facebook "Likes" among the most common social content effectiveness measurements
'CMO Compensation Report' provides insights on top earners
7 connected user trends to watch out for
Lead, don't follow is the key to success
Marketing analytics are indispensable for better management and performance
The conversion rate is the real deal for effective email marketing
Singapore Food Festival 2014 - Stir up the perfect cocktail for successful retail marketing
Get clever with mobile marketing analytics
DataMentors' Marketing Dashboard solution for real-time KPI reporting
Unified Inbox smart sorting algorithm gives users better control of their inboxes
Invigorating Marketing Analytics with Adobe's Cloud Services
Taking advantage of tomorrow's business opportunities today
Spikes Asia 2014 expands talent and training opportunities with new academies and competitions
Ernst & Young unifies analytics capabilities into Global Analytics Center of Excellence
Data usage: Which types of analysis are actually data protection compliant?
Progressive profiling gathers momentum
Singtel's fiber network hick-up