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Strategies for Engaging Political Islam: A Middle East, U.S. and EU 'Trialogue'
Friday, February 5,2010 10:17
POMED and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung hosted a panel discussion on practical strategies for engaging political Islam. Current policies of engagement by the U.S. and E.U. (where they exist at all) often diverge on methods and objectives. However, as Islamists represent a major political force in the Middle East it will be crucial to determine a cohesive strategy going forward.
Panelists addressing this issue included Ruheil Gharaibeh, Deputy Secretary General of the Islamic Action Front in Jordan; Shadi Hamid, Director of Research for POMED; Zoé Nautré, Visiting Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin; Mona Yacoubian, special Adviser for the Muslim World Initiative, Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention at USIP; and was moderated by Nathan Brown, Director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University.
As Islamist parties are often seen in a negative light by the West, Ruheil Gharaibeh began the discussion by outlining the values and policies of the Islamic Action Front (IAF). He explained hat the IAF renounces violence and is committed to peace and social reform that is based on wide-ranging issues from enhancing education and philanthropic works to combating poverty and unemployment. The party participates in elections, holds seats in the Jordanian government, and is very much involved in the labor movement. In working on reforms at the national level, the IAF supports a new initiative calling for the transformation of Jordan into a true constitutional democracy. Gharaibeh argued that this must be done not through regime change or a military coup, but through the legitimate process of amending the constitution and reshaping relations between the different stakeholders in an effort to foster national unity. This initiative constitutes "a leap forward for Islamist movements," as it is supported by tangible policies and not just general rhetoric.
As for U.S. policy in the region, Gharaibeh expressed that while the U.S. calls for the expansion of democracy, its strategies have been fraught with double standards. This fact is not lost on the people of the Middle East, who have witnessed U.S. support of corrupt authoritarian regimes for strategic interests at the expense of democracy. These problems have only been exacerbated by the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine. Moving forward, he argued that the Obama Administration should put an end to supporting despotic regimes, enact fair policies toward Israel-Palestine, and make foreign aid to the region conditional on meaningful democratic reforms. He also urged the West not to fear all Islamist political movements as the moderate ones represent the best force in combating extremism and providing a legitimate voice for the will of the people. Lastly, Gharaibeh stressed that if the West and Islamists are to engage in fruitful cooperation they must move beyond talking about each other and begin talking to each other.
Mona Yacoubian continued the discussion by focusing on ways the U.S. should continue to build on efforts to engage political Islam. Citing the example of Algeria in the late 1980's, she outlined three lessons that should be learned from this experience. First, institution-building must play a key role in the way the U.S. interacts with Islamists. By focusing support on strengthening a system of checks and balances, transparency, and the rule of law, the oncerns over Islamists undermining democratic reforms can be assuaged. Second, there should be greater effort given to the formation of Islamist-secularist coalitions with an nterest in democratic reform. Third, an opening of the political space in these societies can contribute greatly to increased pragmatism of Islamist parties as political participation often begets moderation.
The notion that these parties are static because they are based in ideology is simply not true, Yacoubian argued. In order to survive as political entities, Islamist parties must be dynamic and capable of evolving. Through her research she has determined that in reality, Islamist parties are generally some of the more transparent and democratic entities in the region, working to combat fraud and implement social programs.
Democracy promotion continues to remain strategically significant to the U.S. For this reason, engagement must take place in the broader context of regional issues (vis a vis the Israel-Palestine conflict and U.S. military presence in the greater Middle East). Yacoubian stressed that extremism is pervasive and moderate Islamists provide a necessary and effective counterbalance. Furthermore, it is hard to advocate for democracy while excluding legitimate Islamist actors. In small ways, and often taking place under the radar, the U.S. has worked toward engaging Islamists and these efforts must continue. Funding to institutions such as NDI and IRI are important steps in building and strengthening political parties throughout the region. Going forward, it will be crucial to measure the successfulness of these programs and continue to build on efforts already in place.
In explaining the E.U. approach toward political Islam, Zoé Nautré emphasized that while there is no official policy on engagement, many governments have taken up various methods. From cultural exchanges to the appointment of officials responsible for interacting with Islamists, E.U. nations have been working on a brand of engagement that is more about gaining knowledge than it is about shaping politics. This, Nautré argued, is the main difference between U.S. and E.U. approaches. European nations involved in the region take on a more observatory role, while the U.S. tends to be more intrusive – this distinction allows the E.U. greater credibility among Middle Easterners. Nautré acknowledged that this policy may be effective in building relationships and mutual understanding; however, it does not address any of the real problems facing the region. She argued for greater U.S.-E.U. coordination and recommended a reevaluation of strategies so that governments in the Middle East can be held more accountable; but cautioned against the formulation of a "grand strategy" that could be viewed as imperialistic.
Shadi Hamid concluded the discussion by highlighting the issue at the very core of the Islamist dilemma – theoretically, the U.S. wants to spread democracy but at times it fears democracy's outcome. If the U.S. is truly serious about democracy promotion then it must also be serious about political Islam; there is no way around engagement. However, both sides have legitimate concerns if direct engagement is to take place. There is a chance that moderate Islamists will not continue on the path to moderation indefinitely. Nevertheless, it is better to engage now and build relations before these parties come to power, then to wait for the inevitable and have no leg to stand on. Moving forward, the U.S. will need a bold policy rooted in mutual interests and reciprocity. Hamid disagreed with Nautré's assessment against a grand strategy for engagement, arguing that it will be important to outline strategic objectives in order to determine a specific policy direction. The shared interest of strengthening democracy in the Middle East will form the foundation of the U.S.-Islamist relationship.
The next step will be determining what each side wants from the other. What does the U.S. want? Hamid explained that the main U.S. strategic interest involves security. There must be guarantees that if one of these parties comes to power there will be strong efforts made to combat terrorism, maintain or build relations with Israel, and determine its stance on militant parties such as Hizbollah and Hamas. In return, the U.S. could actively pressure regimes to allow Islamists a greater role in the political system and stand behind these parties in their efforts. These considerations represent significant political risks and the need to make difficult decisions. However, ignoring the issues not only disregards the reality of the situation, but will also make future engagement much more challenging.


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UN-Hamas Joint Venture To Build Multi-Functional School/Rocket Launching Pad Facilities in Gaza
by Rusty Sachs
© Lucidwaters | Dreamstime.com - Gaza War Photo
Amid rising tensions over lone-wolf stabbings, lack of progress in peace talks and increasing frustration over Israel's blockade of Gaza, and with the region looking well on its way to renewing its 68th annual "Palestinians and Israelis Fucking Can't Stand One Another" popular concert series, the UN and Hamas have teamed up to equip Gaza with a dual purpose elementary school and rocket Launchpad.
"In 2014 we received many complaints in our Facebook comment boxes about people being unhappy with using UN schools and hospitals as a launch pad for attacks," explained Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri. "We took this feedback to heart and have decided to work with our own United Nations agency (UNRWA) to address this issue. The main thought was that there was too much ambiguity during the conflict, 'Is it a school? Is it a terrorist base?' Now people will be relieved to see there's a clear answer: It's both!"
In a joint statement, Hamas and UNRWA have promised to work hand-in-hand to ensure students have a place to study, while insurgents will be able to conduct operations comfortably, all from the same location. The facility will include technologically state-of-the-art classrooms affixed with double-pane glass windows, due to the annoying noise caused by fixed-rocket launching pads and incoming Israeli Hellfire missiles.
When asked whether he thought this would cause even more casualties, Abu Zuhri brushed off such suggestions. "Don't be silly. Even though we've said this 20 years in a row, we know Israel won't respond because this year we will definitely wipe the Zionist entity off the map.
For updates on this not-so-old project follow us on twitter at @therealhamas"
Culture, Politics
Calling it a momentous step towards recognition of the LGBTQ+ community, Saudi Arabia announced that all homosexuals executed during pride month would be hung from a rainbow noose or beheaded with a rainbow-colored ax. Though human rights activists said much further process remains necessary, the announcement marks a major step forward for gay equality in the kingdom. "We have a...
Middle Eastern States Debate Whether to Intervene in Baltimore
Iranian Official: "We Would Have Given Up Nuclear Ambitions If Obama Had Gotten A Better Deal"
Trump: Israeli Security Wall Does Good Job Keeping Mexicans Out

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


GameFly puts video gaming where they should be in the possession of the players who enjoy 'em. The GameFly website, along with Mobile App for iPad, iPhone, & Android all, allow it to be simpler than in the past to get, rent, and in addition, play the games you like, for a lot less.
With more than 8,000 video games, GameFly gives the widest choice plus the accessibility of ready Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS4, PS3, PS Vita, Wii U, Wii, and 3DS, in addition to older systems– without having the troubles of late charges or trips to your video shop.
Exactly What is Game Streaming You Ask?
An extremely easy and instant method to play console games in the connected tools you would like.
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They support an evergrowing range of Smart TV as well as streaming media players just like the Amazon FireTV– no pricey game console called for. All you should start playing is a compatible game controller and in addition a broadband web link.
GameFly puts video games in which they belong – in the hands associated with the players that enjoy 'em. The GameFly site and Mobile App for new iPhone, iPad & Android all ensure it is less complicated in comparison to in the past to get, rent, as well as have fun with the games and also movies you adore – for less.
A magazine that is frequently growing of games covering every style conceivable. From intense action to family-friendly titles, they have something for everybody in your house covered! Fresh games are included monthly to uncover and also play.


Preppy Style Is Back? Oy...Get Me To The Moon » I Mean…What?!?
The Burka, properly styled, is so much fiercer then the typical "Preppy Look", which is filling the racks in every store.
The cast of NYC Prep, would you rather D-I-E- than dress like them? Does the word boring apply much? And by the way, the "quirky head band" is equally annoying as the "quirky man-hat".
But, heck…I really don't want to talk politics as much as discussing my fear that "preppy is in the air"…and I am vomiting. With the popularity of Gossip Girl and this new semingly horrendous NYC Prep, our youth culture are like turtles, keeping their necks un-stretched, and slowly going nowhere. This trend, if I dare use that word here, is all about conforming, a social need to look like everyone else. I'm even beginning to think that the Burkha, belted, with good heels, is a better look. And now that I found the above photo, you all have to agree. Is it me, or do these kids look ridiculously boring? What the world needs now is individuality. Holding onto the preppy look is like yearning for the way things were when the money was flowing. Now, this look screams "I went broke" or in this case, "My dad went broke". Maybe I am out to lunch when I say, "Keeping up with the Joneses got us into this mess". The real rich people, or those who will rise from the ashes, are the ones that seek a way out from under all the monotonous muck and make a statement. Please…I want to know your thoughts here.
I prefer a Burka with a nice tailored J. Crew jacket.


Nurture Nature Center (NNC) is a joint project of two nonprofits with a shared name and purpose: the Nurture Nature Center Inc. (NNC, Inc.), formed in 2007 and headquartered in Easton, Pennsylvania, and Nurture Nature Foundation (NNF) created in 1991 and headquartered in New York City. NNF maintains a separate website that summarizes all of its projects, including NNC, and its leadership is described there. The leadership of the NNC, Inc. is described below.
Jane K. Stanley is an attorney with over thirty years of legal and financial experience involving tax exempt organizations. She is an honors graduate of Columbia Law School and Harvard and a Fulbright Scholar.
Rachel Hogan Carr is a social scientist with a master's degree in environmental policy design from Lehigh University, who has been a community leader in the Lehigh Valley for many years and has recently gained national recognition for her work at NNC. A summary of her background is included below.
Nicholas Zumas is a lawyer who lives in Bethlehem and has practiced law there since 1975. He attended Lehigh University and has a masters of law degree from New York University, and a J.D. from Dickinson School of Law. Zumas has dedicated significant legal and financial expertise over the years to help a number of local nonprofits.
Rachel Hogan Carr is the Executive Director of the Nurture Nature Center. She holds a master's degree in environmental policy design from Lehigh University, where she focused her research on improving flood risk communication through social science. Rachel helped to found NNC, and prior to that, worked as a community organizer and in urban real estate development. She has served as principal investigator on several flood-related research and education projects in partnership with National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In 2011, Rachel was named Distinguished Informal Science Educator of the Year by the American Meteorological Society. She serves on the boards and leadership teams of several local organizations, including the Easton Hunger Coalition and Karl Stirner Arts Trail, Inc. She also serves on professional advisory boards including: National Weather Service Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center's Customer Advisory Board; Federal Emergency Management Agency's Residual Risk Subcommittee of the Technical Mapping Advisory Committee; State College Weather Forecast Office Integrated Weather Impacts Team. She has been active in Easton civic initiatives, including as a co-founder of the Downtown Neighborhood Association. Rachel is a Certified Floodplain Manager.
Kathryn Semmens is the Science Director of the Nurture Nature Center. She holds a Ph.D. in environmental and earth sciences from Lehigh University, along with a master's degree in marine policy from the University of Delaware and a bachelor of science in environmental studies from Ursinus College. Kathryn was employed previously as a postdoctoral associate at the Agricultural Research Service of the United States Department of Agriculture and has also worked for the Pew Environment Group in Washington, D.C. Her awards include a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship for doctoral research, a Udall Environmental Scholarship and a EPA Greater Research Opportunity Fellowship for her undergraduate studies. Kathryn's interests focus on the nexus of science, policy, and community. Her responsibilities at NNC are to help advance the organization's outreach efforts on scientific and environmental issues generally, with a special emphasis on floods, climate change, and social science research.
Keri Maxfield, Art Director if the Nurture Nature Center, has been working in the visual arts for over 25 years. She received her BFA with a double concentration in Studio Art from Kutztown University. Keri's work ranges from the creative to the highly technical. She is skilled in design and visual communication of scientific data and social messaging. As Art Director, Keri is in charge of supervising and unifying the visual arts and arts education components of the Nurture Nature Center in accordance with its mission. She coordinates art exhibits in the building's four gallery spaces and oversees the visual interpretation of science content both at center and its grant projects. She has worked on a number of social science research projects focusing on environmental risk messaging, including NOAA/NWS product design. Her interests lie in the overlap between art, science and society and she has managed five grants through the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts that engage local artists and community members in creating visual art in response to local environmental issues.
Allison Czapp is the new Local Program Director for NNC's Buy Fresh Buy Local of the Greater Lehigh Valley ("BFBLGLV") program, succeeding founding director Lynn Prior. Allison manages the Lehigh Valley's Double SNAP program, which allows people using food stamps to double their dollars for fresh, local produce. She also works to promote BFBLGLV partners and research various sectors of the food system, including producer-only farmers markets, infrastructure and low-income access. Allison attended graduate school at New Mexico State University, studying Cultural Anthropology with a focus on Food Studies. She currently chairs the Lehigh Valley Food Policy Council Steering Committee, and has been an active participant in various boards and organizations that seek to move the local food system forward.
Kelly Neetz has been working in the Accounting Field for more than 15 years. Her extensive experience ranges from handling the day to day accounting operations of a $30 million company to providing payroll and other financial accounting services for a group of twenty companies simultaneously. She has a degree in accounting from DeSales University. Kelly volunteers her free time for an organization dedicated to helping families impacted by the critical illness of a child, for which she creates custom cakes and other special treats.
Jeff Mucklin, NNC's Outreach Educator, graduated from Northampton Community College with a degree in journalism and a focus on science communication. Before working at NNC, he organized public science demonstrations on topics of popular interest, such as the chemistry of fireworks. At NNC, Jeff is a Science on a Sphere docent and helps develop programs for the Sphere, along with other educational programs. He also works at the National Canal Museum in Easton as a science educator.
Liesel Dreisbach, NNC's program coordinator, has been a Penn State Extension educator for nearly 25 years, first in youth development (4-H) and later in community and economic development with a focus on helping non-profits improve their sustainability. She has also been a high school classroom history teacher in New York City as well as Palestine. Liesel holds a masters degree in teaching. She is a member of the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. Gardening is her avocation.
Pam Ruch is in charge of NNC's Urban Recycle Garden, a stunning display case of the potential for such gardens in urban areas. She has a masters of environmental science and a degree in horticulture as well as years of experience working with volunteers and interns and organizing garden-related events for the Morven Museum & Garden. Ruch has also managed test gardens for Organic Gardening magazine and worked with the farm-to-table restaurant at the historic Glasbern Inn in Fogelsville. She writes for several online and print organizations, including the Home Garden Seed Association. Ruch has been a presenter at NNC's series on the Art of Journaling and now maintains a blog and website on that topic at Artofnaturejournaling.com.
Peter Reese, Facilities Coordinator, is responsible for building management. He has decades of experience as a mechanic and theater set builder.
If you are interested in an internship at the Nurture Nature Center, please contact our Program Coordinator, Liesel Dreisbach-Williams, at 610-253-4432 or Liesel@nurturenaturecenter.org.


IT is a house that was called the "ugly duckling" by neighbours, a 1930s extension at the end of a Victorian terrace in a conservation area.
But now the two-storey, brick-built home is set to become a swan, after an architect won planning permission to restore its original 20th-century features and add a modern extension on its roof.
The property's first-floor flat, on the corner of York Rise and Laurier Road in Dartmouth Park, was bought last year by architect Richard Keep. He learned last month that his latest plans have been given the green light by the Town Hall. Now he can start work to create a dream home for his family.
The flat roof boasts views in all directions and Mr Keep will use this to create a living area on the top floor with picture windows.
He said: "When I first stepped foot on the roof it felt so spacious. It will create a beautiful space. It will have sun all day long." The new floor will be built with zinc cladding around timber and offer a striking new look to a building that stands out sometimes for the wrong reasons.
With a mid-20th century brick building as the starting point, he explored different ideas. "I wanted it to continue in the modern tradition to the upper floor. I thought of creating a corner section using brick with a roof garden. After consultations and pre-planning discussions there were a lot of objections. The Dartmouth Park Conservation Area Advisory Committee felt it would be too tall so we looked at using more contemporary materials," he said.
He also plans to take out modern uPVC windows and put in modern Crittall windows, which would have been originally there. Mr Keep's work has covered a wide range of projects, from a 30-storey mixed-use block for a client in Nairobi, Kenya, to London-based extensions, conversions, basements and new-builds.
The house was built in a garden in 1930. It included a new dining room and a flat for a maid for the house next door. It was then turned into a stand-alone home before being converted into two flats in the 1980s.
Exterior work is set to start in March and the family hope to move in by Christmas 2018.


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Q: Excel: organizing inaccurate data collected by a recognition engine. I would like to calculate time worked from time first and last seen I have a large spreadsheet of data collected by an experimental recognition engine. It collects time started and time finished data according to facial data. The issue I have is that the varying angles and lighting cause the recognition system to think that one person is two or three (or in one particular case, 12). I have gone through and manually edited the spreadsheet to contain the correct names of workers, but I would like to calculate the hours worked by each person.
Currently, the spreadsheet looks like this:
Name        Date                    Time Started            Time Finished

Person A    17/05/2016 10:30:20 AM  17/05/2016 10:30:20 AM  17/05/2016 10:41:18 AM
Person A    17/05/2016 10:41:20 AM  17/05/2016 10:41:20 AM  17/05/2016 10:41:20 AM
Person A    17/05/2016 11:07:09 AM  17/05/2016 11:07:09 AM  17/05/2016 11:55:24 AM
Person B    17/05/2016 10:58:30 AM  17/05/2016 10:58:30 AM  17/05/2016 10:58:30 AM
Person B    17/05/2016 10:58:42 AM  17/05/2016 10:58:42 AM  17/05/2016 10:58:42 AM
Person C    17/05/2016 10:28:05 AM  17/05/2016 10:28:05 AM  17/05/2016 11:19:28 AM
Person C    17/05/2016 10:30:26 AM  17/05/2016 10:30:26 AM  17/05/2016 11:52:56 AM
Person C    17/05/2016 10:43:30 AM  17/05/2016 10:43:30 AM  17/05/2016 11:27:20 AM

This is a sample of the code, but it goes up to Person Q.
I have arranged it in order of time last seen, so basically I would like to add a column that subtracts the final time worked from the initial time worked.
For each name, the correct Hours Worked can be calculated by subtracting the first Time Started entry from the last Time Finished entry. So in this example, I can find the time worked by Person C by doing: 17/05/2016 11:27:20 AM - 17/05/2016 10:28:05 AM.
So far I have been doing this by hand, but I would much prefer a function that can look at data in the Name column, and then calculate the Hours Worked by looking for the first Time Started entry and subtracting it from the last Time Finished entry.
Can anyone provide some guidance on how to do this in Excel? If not, is such a thing possible in Excel-VBA?
Thanks in advance.

A: I tried various formula to extract Date and Time data like the effort shown inthe image given below.
Full formula used in D1 was
=(DATE(MID(TRIM(C1),7,4),MID(TRIM(C1),4,2),MID(TRIM(C1),1,2))+TIME(MID(TRIM(C1),12,2),MID(TRIM(C1),15,2),MID(TRIM(C1),18,2))-=DATE(MID(TRIM(B1),7,4),MID(TRIM(B1),4,2),MID(TRIM(B1),1,2))+TIME(MID(TRIM(B1),12,2),MID(TRIM(B1),15,2),MID(TRIM(B1),18,2)))

Then Difference as shown in D1 and E1 was leading to erroneous results perhaps due to external data and system native features. Though I am able to get correct results by taking trimmed string only containing Date and Time portion but it will require adjustments for AM/PM

Looking into these problems I suggest another approach, if it is conveinient for you to adopt.

*

*Copy / Paste your sheet data to Note Tab Light, a free text editor and save it as a text file.

*Import in Excel the saved text file with fixed delimiters but remove delimiting bar between date and time portion leaving the rest as it is.

*Put simple formula in I3 for time difference between Time Finished and Time Started i.e. =G3-E3

*You can total by native Excel function on Person wise grouping.
Sample data image as follows.

A: Add a column to your table. Call it Elapsed
In the Formulas below, note that I used Named Ranges.  You can either do the same; replace them with absolute addresses; or, if your data is in a Table, replace them with the appropriate structured references.
In Excel 2016:
=MAXIFS(Time_Finished,Name,$A2)-MINIFS(Time_Started,Name,$A2)

In earlier versions you will need to enter a somewhat different formula as an array-formula.  You do this by holding down ctrl+shift while hitting enter
=MAX(IF($A2=Name,Time_Finished))- MIN(IF($A2=Name,Time_Started))

This will give you an output looking like this:

You can then group by person in a variety of ways, depending on your requirements.

A: A pivot table is your friend here. I'm not sure how your date/time field is formatted, so in my screen shot I've divided into date and time fields for the start and end date/times.
Pivot the table which consists of the names and the start and end date/time stamps.
Row= Names
Values = the end date; end time; start date; start time
For each value, click on the drop-down and select 'Field Value Settings'.
For the end date/time select the 'Max' values.
For the start date/time select the 'Min' values.
Then just put in a simple formula, and format it to be a time.
Screenshot of excel pivot table showing setting

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Some States Look to Avoid Federal Obamacare Payments
By banding together, some states could minimize payments to the Obama administration for using HealthCare.gov technology.
By Rachel Roubein and National Journal
AP Photo/Don Ryan
The federal government is poised to start making state-based exchanges pay for using HealthCare.gov's technology, and that has some states mulling the possibility of sharing services with others to control costs.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed a rule last year requiring that certain states essentially "lease" HealthCare.gov through a user-fee rate of 3 percent of the monthly premium the issuer charges for each policy plan—meaning that, for the first time, using the federal platform for state-based marketplaces won't be free.
Last month, marketplace officials from several states gathered in Portland, Oregon to discuss the rule, increased collaboration, and long-term marketplace affordability and sustainability—a conversation especially pertinent to some states, such as Oregon and Nevada, that use HealthCare.gov to sign up consumers but maintain control over their marketplace.
States are left weighing the possibilities: Do they share another state's vendor technologies? How do they take advantage of exchange software that's already been built? Or is it cheaper to pay the fee?
Some are talking to one another about services they could share, such as technologies, call centers, and marketing strategies.
"We're looking for options that might be available," said Bruce Gilbert, the executive director of Nevada's Silver State Health Insurance Exchange. "I don't see [HealthCare.gov], given their pricing structure, as a viable, long-term partner for a state like Nevada."
Oregon is another state considering the costs. "I think we've known the federal government was going to begin charging for the technology," said Berri Leslie, Oregon Health Insurance Marketplace administrator, "but we didn't know how much. And so I think seeing the amount of the costs is certainly driving people to try and be innovative and creative."
Because of the proposed user-fee rule, Oregon put out a request for proposal in December seeking a technology platform for a state-based insurance marketplace. The state hopes not to create a whole new technology solution, but rather to analyze the cost and capabilities of what's currently on the market. That way, Leslie said, Oregon's legislature can have the different price points in hand when deciding whether to stay on HealthCare.gov (and pay the new fee) or switch to a different platform—data that could be illuminating to other states considering the same thing.
"The outcome of our process will really inform whether or not the federal cost is really affordable or reasonable given what else is on the marketplace," Leslie said. "So I think other states are watching Oregon's process pretty carefully."
For user fees, CMS is allowed to collect only "the amount necessary to cover the cost of unique services/benefits provided through the program assessing the fee," CMS spokesman Aaron Albright wrote in an email. He added that the agency is considering reducing the rate for 2017 to "ease the transition for states."
New Mexico is looking at leasing the federal site, but the state's history is different than those of Oregon, Hawaii, and Nevada—the three other state exchanges that use the federal platform. Their systems were plagued with technological glitches or weren't financially sound, forcing them to switch to HealthCare.gov. But New Mexico began using the federal website with the intention of moving to its own technological platform. In 2014, CMS notified New Mexico that its state marketplace, which hadn't yet launched, was noncompliant. So, the idea was put on the shelf.
While Amy Dowd, CEO of Be Well NM, said she has concerns about the cost and the payment mechanism, New Mexico isn't in any active discussions with vendors. At this point, it isn't contemplating doing so. First, the state wants to see the final rule, which—if last year's precedent for the annual rule serves as an indicator—won't be out until late February.
Dowd did attend the December meeting that discussed the possibility of sharing services, but not necessarily to get on the ground floor of a potential partnership. "My interest in attending the meeting was to hear from my peers about how each state-based exchange is approaching the challenge and to take any lessons learned back to New Mexico," she said.
Other state-based marketplaces, such as the one in Washington, are happy with the technology they created to sign up insurance enrollees. Still, they're looking at ways to partner with others in attempts to drive down the costs. (States are no longer getting federal funds to help them run their own exchanges.)
There are myriad pieces to this complex puzzle, said Michael Marchand, Washington Health Benefit Exchange director of communications and outreach. States are trying to figure out how they could save both financially and operationally, which includes the possibility of creating partnerships.
"We continue to have these conversations with states," said Marchand, who attended the Portland meeting, "and it's interesting because, again, we're all in the same boat. We want to do the best possible job we can for our state and our residents, but we also want … to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollar. And if we can find a way to work with someone to help lower those costs and still provide that great customer experience or that great operational solution to an issue, we're going to do it."


The government's plans for a new £30m fund to help promote the adoption of low carbon buses was given a green light from Brussels yesterday after the European Commission concluded that it did not contravene rules governing state aid.
The Commission ruled that the scheme was entirely in line with EU state aid rules, particularly given the release of guidance last year that confirmed state aid should be allowed where "aid measures will result in a higher level of environmental protection than would occur without the aid".
The move was welcomed by the Department for Transport (DfT) which, having seen the bidding period for grants close yesterday, can now move to announce the awards before the end of the year.
Under the scheme, which was announced earlier this year, projects designed to cut bus emissions by 30 per cent would be eligible for grants to help fund their development.
Speaking at the time, transport secretary Lord Adonis said the grants would "support the purchase of several hundred low carbon buses and, just as importantly, help to stimulate the development of a new green technology industry and help to safeguard up to 900 jobs in bus manufacturing".
The DfT said that the grants were expected to support a range of projects, including plans for zero carbon electric and fuel cell buses as well initiatives to roll out fuel-efficient hybrid buses.


text:
Houston History For Sale: $5
The estate sale from the residence of the late Mildred Yount Manion II, an heiress from an "Important Texas Oil Family," proved too hard to resist.
Texas Monthly and Mimi Swartz
https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/houston-history-for-sale-5/
A portrait of Mildred Jr., an heiress to the Spindletop oil fortune.
Courtesy of Greg Riley
I don't usually respond to email invitations from people I don't know, but the invite from Judy Robinson, who runs one of Houston's A-list estate sale companies, was hard to resist: "Estate Sale from the Houston Residence of the late Mildred Yount Manion II, Heiress from an Important Texas Oil Family and Kentucky's Famous Spindletop Horse Farm."
As a student of Houston social history, I'm addicted to estate sales, certain that among the flotsam of the rich I'll find some irresistible treasure to illuminate the past, and this one seemed particularly promising.
Mildred Jr. (as she was called, to avoid confusion with her mother Mildred Frank Yount Manion, also known as Mildred 1) wasn't just any rich lady. In 1915, Mildred Jr.'s grandfather, Miles Frank Yount, had founded the Yount-Lee Oil Company, a Beaumont enterprise that almost singlehandedly launched the second Spindletop boom and would thereafter become one of the biggest independent operators in the country.
I figured the sale of Mildred Jr.'s possessions would give me a chance to glimpse life inside one of the families who made Texas a center of the oil bidness way back when.
As sales go, this one was pretty small. The estate auction of Mildred Jr.'s grandmother, Pansy, was a spectacle that drew some 25,000 Houstonians to Rice University in 1962. It was Pansy's daughter, Mildred 1, who, in 1935 at the age of fourteen, was described by the Beaumont Enterprise as a successor to Doris Duke for the honor of "the richest girl in the world."
Mildred Jr.'s sale was quieter, the modest conclusion to a once-grand fortune. The nondescript brick house in Tanglewood, even accounting for the addition of some other family mementos for purposes of the sale, contained furniture and art that spoke of better days. The XXL sofas, Vatican-size paintings, and sprawling rugs all looked as if they belonged in another, bigger home, maybe even another time, when everyone had to have a silver punch bowl, Lalique crystal, and a horse or two, preferably a gaited one with a proud, arched neck and broken tail. (The family raised highly prized saddle horses at their farm in Kentucky.) In fact, many of the furnishings had come from Mildred's impressive Galveston beach house, which was essentially destroyed by Hurricane Ike.
Still, she left plenty for people like me. The crowd, while never very large, was certainly avid, more than eager to pick over offerings including but not limited to Tiffany flatware, Steuben and Lalique crystal, Royal Crown Derby English China, and French country antiques.
Many of the visitors looked like River Oaks and Tanglewood matrons. They knew their way around good antiques and better homes. They shrewdly appraised the $7,500 Aubusson rug that had been put to use as a bedspread; they skipped over the David Adickes and George Rodrigue Blue Dog paintings—actually, there were a lot of dog and cat paintings—and made for a rack crammed with at least eleven different kinds of fur coats. A few shoppers tried the piano by playing some nice tunes that spoke of early and rigorous lessons. "That's waaaay overpriced," I heard someone insist, dismissing a graceful side table. "I'm upstairs in the game room," I heard another whisper to a compadre on her cell. Others placed hushed and desperate calls to moving companies, whispering about the size of couches and oriental carpets.
"Isn't that precious?" I heard someone ask, studying a portrait of Mildred Jr. that carried a "not for sale" sign. It was a telling sort of painting, nicely executed, of a woman with a reserved fifties-style bouffant and a satiny, short-sleeved gown that looked like a debut dress. She sat before a lush green background that might have been someplace here in Houston. She wore a simple pearl drop at her throat.
Greg Riley, a co-author of the Yount family biography Black Gold to Bluegrass, was at the sale. He told me that Mildred Jr. never married and was incredibly generous. "She was somebody you'd want to have in your book club," he said.
I stared at her portrait. Houston today is flush with gobs of new money. A new fortune seems to be minted every three months, filling the city with ever more extravagant and innovative displays of wealth.
Mildred Jr. knew great fortune, of course, but she seemed to look back at me—at all of us bustling through her house—from another, simpler age, when being rich mattered, but maybe not quite so much, when you could dispense wealth quietly, and mix your fancy rugs with silly pet pillows. To gaze at her belongings was to be reminded of another, harsher lesson: that even the mightiest fortunes can dwindle and finally disappear.
I would have loved to have bought Mildred Jr.'s picture for that reason just as I would have loved the quaint glass "pickle jar with tongs" that dated anywhere from 1890 to 1920. But at $150, it was out of my price range.
Instead, I bought a set of pretty if not very rare wine glasses for $5, just enough to give dinner guests a tiny sip of Texas past.
In 'House of Ho,' a Vietnamese Immigrant Story Gets the Reality Show Treatment By Dan Q. Dao
Houston Shut Down Its Biggest Biking Event for Pandemic Safety. The Indie Bike Scene Is Less Concerned. By Laura Furr Mericas
On 'Good News,' Megan Thee Stallion Owns Her Well-Deserved Fame—and Gets Down to Brass Tacks By Kiana Fitzgerald
At the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, an Impressive New Exhibition Space Opens Amid Hard Times By Michael Hardy
With Theaters Closed, Austin Thespians Embrace Audio Dramas, Drive-through Musicals, and Plays by Mail By Trey Gutierrez
Tags: Society, The Culture, Houston, River Oaks


I've always loved to ride my bike. I'm a professional amateur. I have all the bells and whistles, yet I just cruise the neighborhood.
My husband bought me my first adult bike fifteen years ago. I love that old, green bike! We've taken it to the beach and almost everyone in our family has ridden it at least once. However, time, stress and a few mishaps have taken its toll, not to mention that it needs new brakes.
Last year I purchased a fancy, light-weight, thin-tired, sleek-seated, lightening-fast, silver bike. Then, my husband said I must have the padded biker shorts and loud printed shirt to go with. Next, gloves were added because these arthritic hands need the extra padding!
Truthfully, the padded shorts and gloves feel great, but when I get all decked out, I feel a little foolish, especially riding the one mile to our mailboxes. Oh sure, we've taken longer rides and occasionally I ride to the HEB for a few lightweight items (sans the outfit), but still I am an amateur in professional clothing.
I do feel conspicuous in my gear, but what I really feel is exhilarated! As I pedal through the neighborhood, I may look like a senior citizen in biker gear, pumping the brakes and weaving a bit; but inside, I'm riding like the wind! I'm blazing new trails and I'm a good twenty-five years younger!
As you pass me by on the streets, don't honk, just give me the "nod". That's what we bikers do…we're cool like that.


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Episode #305a - more thoughts about the Last Jedi
Overview: More thoughts (and spoilers) about Episode 8: the Last Jedi. I watched a bunch of reviews, and they got me to thinking about the film. So I wanted to share that...
Notes: There are a lot of varying views about the movie. Just take a a peek at youtube, and you can find good, bad an indifferent reviews. But there's no denying the popularity of the film; its already exceeded $60 billion in tickets sales.
Episode #305 - Star Wars Episode 8 and 20th Century Fox
Overview: I went and saw Star Wars Episode 8: The Last Jedi, and enjoyed it. I present a podcast that's part moview review - and part a look at Disney's acquisition of 20th Cenury Fox.
Notes: Here are the videos from Bad Lip Reading and Weird Al, which I reference in the podcast
Episodes #303 & #304 - Holidays Around the World
Overview: Just in time for the holiday season, I present a look at what was formerly known as Holidays Around the World - now renamed to International Festival of the Holidays. I talk about what there is to see and do, and present some audio from each of the holiday storytellers.
Notes: Check out videos from each pavilion, and other things to do and see. Although I say in the podcast that I hadn't seen the new Hanukkah-themed exhibition, I did find a video. Post any comments you have about the festival below!
Episodes #301 & #302 - My recent trip
Overview: I spent a few days up at the world recently, and I'm talking about it. I did the food and wine festival, checked out progress on Star Wars land, and visited Pandora for the first time. Of course, I have requisite observations and stories to tell.
Notes: I had fun riding on Soarin' without shoes, weird as that is.
Episode #300 - things we miss at Walt Disney World
Overview: Gary Miceli joins me on today's podcast to talk about some of the shows, attractions, and experiences we miss in WDW. Now there's a bit of a generational thing happening here, as Dave has some decidedly "old school" takes. But it's a lot of fun to think back to things from the past, whether it's recent or if they are long gone...
Notes: If you have some things you miss, post them below. I'd be delighted to do another show on this topic in the future!
Episode #299 - More miscellanous news.
Overview: Today's podcast covers a few items that I left off my last podcast - miscellanous items that cover a wide range of topics. From the family of the boy killed by the alligator, to espn-Disney-trump, to dessert parties, and mobile ordered, and a whole lote more!. Enjoy!
Notes: Link to articles I discuss on the podcast:
http://www.themeparkinsider.com/flume/201709/5748/
Episode #298 - miscellany and updates
Overview: Today's podcast takes a look at Hurricane Irma, some fun stories from around the world, Yogi Berra and Disney (really!) and a good article about the magic bands.
Notes: As I mentioned, I took a little break, and may take another short one soon. But I'll be back. Links to articles I discuss on the podcast:
https://gizmodo.com/how-i-let-disney-track-my-every-move-1792875386
http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2017/09/how_yogi_berra_turned_real_estate_swindling_into_d.html
Episodes #296 & #297- big changes are a comin'
Overview: Change is in the air! At D23, we heard about a number of new attractions, new experiences, changes, and other assorted announcements about the theme parks, movies, digital content and a whole lot more. And now that I've had time to think about it, I talk about it!
Notes: There were some announcements made prior to D23, and a few made after - plus there are a few rumors that won't seem to go away...so I've got those here too!
At the end of the show, I tell you my big three I'm looking forward to, and three that I'm not so keen on. What are yours? Discuss below.
I didn't mention it in the podcast, but the one thing I will absolutely miss are the dinosaurs in the Energy attraction!
Episode #295 - Canada and Expo 67
That's me looking at the Niagara Falls version of the Backside of Water!
Overview:What did Dave do on his Summer Vacation? He went to Canada! But here's the thing - I was amazed at how much I related Disney to things that I saw, and how various exhibits are influenced by Disney in some way...I also took some time to learn more about Expo67, and I share that with you.
Notes: You should check out my full post of thoughts, and link to the Musee McCord, which had an exhibit of Expo67.
Below is a composite of the St Laurent Hotel in Ottawa, and the Disney version of the hotel that appears in Epcot (which of course was inspired by the St Laurent)
See more about the trip and its connection to Disney, and a few pics here: http://mydisneyworldblog.blogspot.com/2017/08/daves-summer-vacation.html
Episodes #293 & #294 - Carousel of Progress history part 3 - current show
Overview: In the third part of the series, I talk about how the attraction changed in the 80s, when they lost the GE sponsorship, and 90s, when they made it more like the original attraction, except for the last scene which became a look at the turn of the 21st century. But they did restore the original theme song.
Notes: Jean Shepard took over as host in 1993. But the show is mostly the same today as it was back in 1964. Most of the props, set pieces, and the audio animatronics (with of course updates and maintenance) are the same ones used back then.
Episodes #291 & #292 - Carousel of Progress history part 2 - Disney World
Overview: On this podcast, I talk about the carousel of progress and it's move to Florida as a part of the expansion of tomorrowland at the magic kingdom. And a new song is introduced: it's the best time of your life, which evokes the idea of carpe diem.
Notes: the kitchen is the focal point in all the scenes because that's where family comes together, and perhaps more importantly, that's where you would be most likely to see many GE appliances in one place.
Episodes #289 & #290 - Carousel of Progress history part 1 - Progressland and Disneyland
Overview: On this episode, I start a retrospective of the carousel of progress. I first take a look at the general concept, then talk about its design, music, and it's installation at the worlds fair as Progressland. Afterward, I talk about the move to Disneyland.
Notes: "There's a great big beautiful tomorrow" is said to be One of Walt Disneys favorites because it considers the possibility of tomorrow. And the carousel of progress reflects a lot of good things - moments from the past, hope for the future, and family to name a few key themes.
Episode #288 - A Disney World Trip Report
Overview: I took a trip up to the world recently, so naturally I have to tell some stories about my trip. In particular, I tell you about my adventure on the Behind the Steam Trains tour.
Notes: Many of the tours offered at Disney World are quite good You should take some time to check them out on a future trip. https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/events-tours/
Episode #287 - a little Disney news
Overview: I take a look at some news from around Disney World. Attraction changes - including Ellen's Energy Adventure, The Jungle Cruise, and of course the Hall of Presidents. Also transportation changes, and a couple of pieces of odd news.
Notes: As I noted, the HoP was likely to undergo a change, regardless of who sits in the office. It was time. Be sure and check out the history here-
DDV #74 - audio from the Hall of Presidents (show through 2016)
Episode #286 - Pandora
Overview: Some friends of mine visited Disney World recently, and were lucky enough to be selected to get a preview of Pandora the World of Avatar. They were more than happy to share their thoughts about the land (hint: they loved it), so come and hear all about the new land and Disney's Animal Kingdom.
Notes: They also timed it well enough to see the end of Wishes and the start f the new nighttime show, so they tell us about that experience, too. My thanks to Mike & John for sharing their experiences and their photos!
Photo tour:
http://mydisneyworldblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/flight-of-banshee-12.html?view=sidebar
http://mydisneyworldblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/navii-river-journey-12.html?view=sidebar
http://mydisneyworldblog.blogspot.com/2017/05/pandora-13.html?view=sidebar
Episode #285 - If You Had Wings
Overview: If You Had Wings was a hybrid of dark ride, creative effort, and advertisement. I took a look back at how it came to be, what it was, and give you the ride audio. I also discuss the Omnimover ride technology. Remember, you do have wings...
Notes: If You Had Wings was quite memorable in spite of its limited effects, and lack of an immersive storyline. I suppose it was the music, the general fun of it all, and the fact that it was free in an era where you paid per ride. People talk about the attraction with reverence. Or at least I do.
Want to know more about the Omnimover? Check out Disney's Omnimover patent
Episode #283 & #284 - Norway pavillion
Overview: Today's podcast is a tribute to the Norway pavilion. I take a thorough look at the design, layout, and theming. Then, I spend some time talking about shopping and dining. This was the last new pavilion added to World Showcase, way back in 1988!
Notes: Norway is intriguing because it represents the area known as Scandinavia generally. I am not a huge fan of what they did to get the fictional area of Arendale into the real country of Norway, even thought it was cute and clever.
I did enjoy putting together this retrospective on all 11 World Showcase pavilions. I hope you enjoyed listening to it, and learning more about the history of Epcot.
Want to take a quick photo tour of Norway? Check out my post here.
A reminder that the general overview of Epcot's World Showcase is in podcast #208
I explored the Japan pavilion in podcast #209
The Germany pavilion is in Podcast #216
Mexico is in Podcast #233
Canada is in Podcast #240
China is in Podcast #245
The American Adventure is in Podcast #254
The UK pavilion is in Podcast #259
The France pavilion is in Podcast #261
The Italy pavilion is in Podcast #276
The podcast about other pavilions that were planned but never built is found in Podcast #277
And the podcast about Morocco can be found in Podcast # 279
Episodes #281 & #282 - Urban Legends at Disney with Kristi Petersen Schoonover
Overview: I welcome back to the show Kristi Petersen Schoonover. She's here to share a few not-so-well-known urban legends that include some ghost story-type elements. Put on your headphones and have a listen!
Notes: Maybe it is just a trick of the light, but who knows? The stories are fun, in any case.
Kristi Petersen Schoonover has been going to WDW since the 1970s, and her favorite ride of all time was If You Had Wings—but since that's long gone, the Haunted Mansion, Big Thunder Mountain, and the Peoplemover top her list. Her collection, Skeletons in the Swimmin' Hole, is a collection of ghost stories set in Disney Parks. Her novel, Bad Apple, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in December 2012, and her fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies. She lives in the Connecticut woods with her husband, occult specialist Nathan Schoonover, and still sleeps with the lights on.
www.kristipetersenschoonover.com
Thrill Ride, by Bruce Kimmel: http://a.co/bdCwtlc
Escape from Tomorrow (all formats): http://a.co/gv2D4Yx
Dark Discussions podcast episodes on Escape from Tomorrow:
Part 1: http://www.darkdiscussions.com/Pages/podcast_144.html
Skeletons in the Swimmin' Hole: Tales from Haunted Disney World: http://amzn.to/SkeletonsPrint
5 Disneyland Ghosts Caught on Video:
Episode #280 - a little news and a movie review
Overview: Today's podcast is a mashup of a little news, a few questions, and a movie review. The movie is Beauty and the Beast, and I also talk about Pandora, Memory Maker, and how I got my tag line. Enjoy!
Notes: The movie was quite enjoyable, If you want to know more about Horizons, check out the podcasts I did about it, starting in DDV #3 - An overview of the pavillion that was "Horizons"
Episode #305 - Star Wars Episode 8 and 20th Centur...
Episode #300 - things we miss at Walt Disney World...
Episodes #293 & #294 - Carousel of Progress histor...
Episodes #291 & #292 - Carousel of Progress histo...
Episodes #289 & #290 - Carousel of Progress hist...
Episodes #281 & #282 - Urban Legends at Disney wit...


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Q: Timed Alarm in Excel VBA I made a calendar to track tasks and similar items in Excel 2003.
What I need to be able to do is to set a timer via VBA. Something like this:
run_in_x_secs ( timetowait, function to exec)

Is there a way to do that in excel vba, or should I try and find an alarm to run via the command line and run that from VBA.
How would you do it?

A: Public Sub tt()

timerset = TimeValue("01:00:00") 'the time you want
Application.OnTime timerset, "myfun"

End Sub

Sub myfun()
 'do whatever you want
End Sub

A: This should do the trick:
Public Sub RunSubInXSeconds(secondsToWait As Long, nameOfFunction As String)
    Application.OnTime Now + secondsToWait/(24# * 60# * 60#), nameOfFunction
End Sub

Although you do have to be a little careful with OnTime, especially if you're going to be setting it to wait for a long period of time... E.g. if you close the workbook before the timer expires and the Sub executes, then you can end up with your workbook opening itself to run it. Confusing if you don't expect it!

A: two more options:
'Option 1
Declare Sub Sleep Lib "kernel32" Alias "Sleep" (ByVal dwMilliseconds As Long)

Sub Sleep()
 Sleep 1000   'whait 1 second
End Sub

'Option 2
Sub MyWaitMacro()
  newHour = Hour(Now())
  newMinute = Minute(Now())
  newSecond = Second(Now()) + 3
  waitTime = TimeSerial(newHour, newMinute, newSecond)
  Application.Wait waitTime
End Sub


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Building a Sales Team that Can Go from $0-$50M, Learnings from Algolia (Video + Transcript)
by Louise Lee | Blog Posts, Company Culture, Marketing, SaaStr Events, Sales, Sales, Videos
Building a sales team that can go from $0-$50M (Video + Transcript), from SaaStr Europa 2019.
Laura Bilazarian | SaaStr Venture Partner @ SaaStr and Former CEO @Teamable
Gaetan Gachet | SVP of Sales @Algolia
Laura Bilazarian: Good morning. It's an honor to be here with this mythical creature, this sales leader that goes from zero to 50 million in the same job. And he's also known for one other amazing feat. He has a whole French sales team and office that only speaks English in Paris. So that's an amazing accomplishment in itself. So I'm going to get into it, but this is meant to be interactive. So there's a great app called Slido, www.slido.com where you can ask questions. So the last 10 minutes we'll take your questions from the audience. So Gaetan, pleasure to be here with you. Hypergrowth is a thing that very few people have truly experienced. Can you walk us through the various stages and some of the great things that you did in sales and then the smacks in the face that you had?
Gaetan Gachet: All right, so usually the way I start this session is I ask the crowd which revenue stage they're in.. So can you please raise your hand if you are between zero and 1 million in ARR? Okay. One and 10? Okay. 10 to 50? 50 plus? All right. Okay, cool. So Laura asked me to sort of like bucket our different … Yeah, take pictures of that. Stages of growth.
Gaetan Gachet: So myself, I joined the company back in 2013. I was the second employee at the time, the first one in a non-technical role. And right after I joined, about three weeks after, we participated to Y-Combinator. I guess you guys are familiar with that program. So when I joined we're pretty much pre-revenue. I would say that my first year, that zero to little bit over 1 million was my first, literally first phase between one and 10 million, 10-20 million and in 20 million plus. Right now we're at about 50 million in AR. And pretty much the first stage took one year, 1 to 10 took two years, 10 to 20 took 1 year, 20 to 50 about a little over a year. So that was pretty fast. Those were the different phases. Do you want me to focus on any specific thing here?
Laura Bilazarian: Yeah. So Algolia started out mostly as an inbound long tail company. I looked back at our investment memo, it was a 2K ACV when Jason invested after Y-C. What's your ACV today?
Gaetan Gachet: Depends on the segment. I don't we can communicate that. Anyways. So mid-market, we're about 40 to 50K ACV enterprise. We're low six figures. So up to 100-150K and SMB, we're at 2K. And actually when we started, I see one face in the room that I recognize, Kurt Freytag, was one of our big customers at the time when I joined. So thank you so much Kurt for your help back then.
Laura Bilazarian: Awesome. So you were the first sales hire. Talk to me about the sales hires that you made back in the early days and talk to me about how it changed through the different stages.
Gaetan Gachet: Yep. So my first sales hire was beginning of 2015. So right after we hit the 1 million mark. The very first few sales hire are I would say not your typical reps. They're what we called renaissance reps. So it's people who he can wear multiple hats at the same time. One of them is in the room today. There you go. That guy. Talk to him. It's people who will do everything. They will do outbound, they will qualify inbound, they can close small deals, they can close large deals, they can write white papers, they will do everything and they like to do that. They really liked to do that. So they're very much entrepreneurial at heart. Then as you grow the profile starts to evolve and you need a little bit more specialization and you need some people who've done it before.
Gaetan Gachet: So us, we decided to move upmarket. So it really focused our efforts on selling larger deals and go after the enterprise space. And when we started doing that, we starting hiring reps who are more focused on that. These people were coming from already a sales background. We made the mistake. We made many, many mistakes that would take a lot more than 30 minutes to go over that. But our first rep that I would call like that, enterprise, was actually coming from a large group. Big failure when this rep joined because he was very familiar to large environments where he had a BDR that was working for him. He had all the sales collaterals. Basically, he had seen something at scale, but he hadn't gone through that sort of growth phase where you don't have everything at the tip of your finger.
Gaetan Gachet: Our first successful enterprise reps were folks who are coming from … One of them, Marketo, the other one, Microsoft Xamarin. There were the first one and their teams, they were the first one to open an office. For instance, my first rep from Marketo, he was the first rep at Marketo in New York. So he had known that sort of chaotic environment where he had to still be an entrepreneur, although he was in a large organization. So very, very specific kind of profile.
Gaetan Gachet: And now we're entering a phase where we're literally looking for people who have networks because we have built a structure now that can allow for these people to be successful. So as we were growing, we also had to anticipate the needs of the future people that we would hire. And now the people that we hire, for instance, one of them Carlo that covers Italy came with his network, we empowered him with all the organization and the enablement that we've put together and now this person is successful. So over time, don't hire resumes necessarily. They may not be the right ones for the stage you're in.
Laura Bilazarian: Okay. So how has your day changed from Y-C Mountain View to two sales offices? And are you still closing? Like …
Gaetan Gachet: So my days haven't changed. Okay? Let's be honest here. When you sign up for hypergrowth especially, you have to go after the US. When I started, our very first target country territory was the US, even though we didn't have an office. So what it means is that we had to look like a US company, although we were in Paris. You'll see in the first column US phone numbers. At the time, we used a service called Aircall. You guys probably know about it. They gave us a 415 number. 415, that's the area code for San Francisco. So in my signature I had a US phone number. The people would call me. Kurt, you had no idea we're in Paris at the time. Right? And we were doing support at like every hour of the day or night. I remember Julian getting on the call with Kurt at one in the morning Paris time. Never mentioned it. He never felt it. Never felt a difference.
Gaetan Gachet: But what that means is that you literally have two days in a day. Like you have two days in a day. I can't tell you exactly what time it is in San Francisco right now because I'm so used to that. To get in the Paris office around nine. The peak of your day starts around 3:00PM because that's when New York wakes up. Around five, San Francisco that wakes up, you'll have all your one to ones and your meetings between five and 8:00PM Paris. You get back home, you have dinner and then around 9:00PM, San Francisco has lunch and then after that they have their afternoon.
Gaetan Gachet: So you work with them and you end your days around one in the morning. So you do that for a few years. There's no miracle here. That's the recipe that works. Our reps did the same, especially the first ones who had to work on US accounts. They worked on the US accounts from Paris. It worked. We managed to go through hypergrowth. But what it meant is that a lot of people had to sacrifice some here to begin to achieve that.
Laura Bilazarian: And you have a sales team still in Paris and still in San Francisco. How did you like split that originally? And how do you split it now and maybe tell the story. I know you used to have a spreadsheet of salary transparencies. If you can talk about the benefits of that and how that grew as you scaled.
Gaetan Gachet: So as I was saying, so we started everything in Paris. So the Paris team covered all countries. Then we started to hire in San Francisco. For awhile, everybody was working on all accounts. So it was round robin, so which means that an account signs up, next in line gets the account. We did that for about a year, a year or two. And then at the time when we had scaled a team that was big enough in the US of probably about five, six people, we divided the world in two parts. So EMEA and the US. EMEA covers all Europe, Africa, Asia and US covers all Americas. So one head of sales in the US, one head of sales in EMEA. And then inside each of those two zones, we use round robin again and now we're at a stage where we have carved territories and stuff, but it's something like territories, it's something that we did only about 18 months ago. So at around 20 million.
Laura Bilazarian: Talk to me about, you know, from the outside it looks great, you know, in hindsight the story. But talk to me about the times and you felt like almost an existential crisis for the sales team.
Gaetan Gachet: Yesterday and the day before and the day before. So existential crisis, I think that was a big shift at about probably around between 10 and 20 million when, up until then, you're still riding the wave of your a trending company. There's a lot of inbound and everything is cool. You feel like you're king of the world. Except that when you sign up for hypergrowth, you realize very quickly that the leads that you get in are not necessarily the needs that you need because at the hypergrowth, especially when you decide to go enterprise, it needs to be fed by larger deals. Larger and larger deals. And large companies don't necessarily go on your website and don't sign up. It's literally a shift. You're crossing the chasm. For those who don't know that book, please read it. Like really advise you to read Crossing The Chasm because it's a paradigm shift.
Gaetan Gachet: The fact that you're new is actually becomes a negative. The fact that they don't read TechCrunch, they don't read Hacker News. They don't read all that. So you completely change your go to market and that also includes the fact that you need to start an outbound team. You need to scale the go to market team to feed that new sort of like next wave of deals. And for us that happen probably around 20 million mark. I wish we had anticipated earlier and done it before, but for us, that was really the huge … The sort of like I felt like we were going through teenager-hood in order to become adults as a company.
Laura Bilazarian: I know you're great that you started modeling the business earlier and you build a financial model. You said you stayed in your pajamas for a week and built the first model for the company. Where are the areas that constantly surprise you in the model or you're constantly under budgeted for? Or things that you didn't foresee in the model besides people going out on maternity and paternity leave? Like you know surprise you?
Gaetan Gachet: Yeah. I know it will sound stupid for most of you, but I did not anticipate for the fact that people would have babies. I know it's stupid because we start … Like the average age of the team a couple of years ago, it was probably like 23, four, five. But then as people start to build families and they take four months off is not something that we had initially put in the model. I know it sounds stupid, but when you again put those hyperscale model together, everything is super tight. So literally four month of a rep off means that it's four months of non-closing. Plus when the reps come back, it's another probably three or four months of ramp. So you'll literally losing half of the number of that rep. And the case, it's great thing. They're building family. But again, it's one of the things that we didn't necessarily anticipate. It's just a funny story. But now we do. And I used to call that a baby buffer now in our model.
Laura Bilazarian: And one thing I think I have always done really well is grow the sales team and maintain a good engineering culture as well. And one of the things your hiring process used to have reps sort of present to all the engineers. Do you still do that and what other recruiting things have you done that you think are unique and interesting?
Gaetan Gachet: I think we stopped doing that maybe six months ago, but we still have engineers who interview sales people, sales candidate. But yeah, the way we do that is we would have for the reps who would come on site, we will have one exercise where literally we're organizing a mockup, call where it was the first call between the reps or the candidate and a prospective account of Algolia. In that case, it was Gap. And we were acting as the CTO of Gap and whatever, another title. And we would do that in front of the entire company. So engineers would sit and literally look at the candidate and hear the candidate's answer to the question.
Gaetan Gachet: We did that for a few reasons. Our target audience is technical. So we needed to have the buy in and understand how the engineers felt about that candidate. But also it was for us, an opportunity to teach engineers about what is sales because we really wanted to make sure that we had good cohesion between our sales organization and our engineering organization so that both worlds really understand each other. Again, we sell to a technical audience. We really wanted to make sure that we acted as one company and that people would understand each other.
Laura Bilazarian: And how have you scaled your values over time?
Gaetan Gachet: That's a tough question. We interview on values during our recruiting process. So there's questions that we ask and there's a few sessions that are really dedicated to that. Is by sometimes making hard decisions on some people who may be successful, but don't really fit the value of the company. And those people, although they're successful as individuals, they have negative impact on many other folks. So ultimately, it's a negative sum here. So I guess by doing that. Yeah.
Laura Bilazarian: Awesome. So it seems everyone in the room has an experience with these earlier stages, but talk to me about the systems that you're putting in today. The playbooks and the territories and the TAM understanding.
Gaetan Gachet: Oh yeah. So that's the last column. We're literally going through that right now. One thing that I wished we had done before is put together an enablement program because moving from a phase where we can still rely on a few individuals who had the legacy knowledge to a world where, again, we're hyperscaling our head count. Right now, we're 350 people. A year ago, we're about 150 people. That tribal knowledge is in scale.
Gaetan Gachet: So if I had one piece of advice to share with you is anytime there's knowledge that you think could be valuable for others, write it down, put it somewhere because people don't last forever in companies. And when you have folks who've been here for years and who leave and you haven't extracted their knowledge, that's a huge, huge loss. So enablement program, playbooks, all of that. I know it sounds boring for a lot of you probably like at the stages you were in. It did sound boring for me a couple of years ago. But now I wish I had done it a little earlier. Again, the structure needs to scale and that's why you need all that knowledge to be stored stored somewhere.
Gaetan Gachet: Another thing that we're going through now that I wish we had done before is deeper territory understanding. Again, because you come from a world of inbound where everything is coming to you sort of like magically. You don't necessarily need to do that. But when you start to be a lot more proactive about creating pipeline, because again, you double your sales team year over year, pipeline needs to double. Us this year we need to create $250 million of pipeline. It cannot come from nowhere. So we have to understand our territories. It needs to be a lot of work on accounts that we go after and all that. Again may not resonate necessarily, but it's something that we're doing today and that I wish we had done a bit before.
Gaetan Gachet: One other piece of advice, try not to be too top down in your model. You know, everything works in Excel magically. And especially for the folks who are engineering first companies, everything works in theory. But the second you start to execute, you realize that there were so many, many things that you didn't anticipate for. So again, top down plan is great. When you hyperscale, you need to go top down, but you need to back it with a really solid plan.
Laura Bilazarian: And last question before we'll let the audience ask questions again on slido.com how do you scale yourself?
Gaetan Gachet: So I read a lot and one thing that I started doing very early is anticipate because you … Okay. I won't curse. Anticipate all the shit that will happen because it will happen. It will always happen. The only thing that you have control over is anticipate. Know about the things that are going to happen and when they're going to happen. So one thing that I started doing very early is to identify who were my peers in larger companies. Like for instance, when we're series A, I would try to talk to folks who were at series B stage, series C. And right now it's more about folks who went through an IPO. And what I need to understand is what are the walls that we're going to hit because we're going to hit them and how should we anticipate for those? For me, that was my way of doing it. Again, knowing what's coming up, buckle up and try to make sure that the organization is as ready as possible to go through that.
Laura Bilazarian: I'm just personally curious. I talked to some of your early sales people and from them, you had an opinion that no sales engineers or things like that. That the sales people could cover it. Has that opinion changed?
Gaetan Gachet: Absolutely not. I still think that a salesperson should be able to talk about a product in a intelligent manner. That hasn't changed.
Laura Bilazarian: Awesome. Cool. Let's go to questions from the audience if we can. Thank you. All right. You ready for that one?
Gaetan Gachet: Okay. Cold emails and cold calls. So there's one question, what's your take on cold emails and cold calls? You have to do it, but doing just that doesn't work. You need to warm up the territory and the accounts. So for instance, putting together webinars, LinkedIn campaigns and all that. I've personally never replied to a cold email. I don't know about … Okay, let's raise the hands here. Who has replied to a cold call or cold email positively in the past year?
Gaetan Gachet: There you go. Not that many. Reason why you probably answered it is because it was the right moment, but you need to warm ups … That's when actually answering to the other question, this is where you need the sales team to work very, very closely with the marketing team. Marketing is here to support air coverage for the overall revenue organization. And that includes the folks who do those outbound calls or outbound emails.
Gaetan Gachet: What amount of funding did you take to support each stage of the previous table? So it's public, our series A, so seed round was 1.2 million and it was back in 2013. Series A, early 2015 $18 million and Series B, early 2017. That was $54 million.
Laura Bilazarian: I think the fourth question there illustrates the point. How did you get native front sales team to sell successfully in the US?
Gaetan Gachet: So during the interview process, all the interview process is in English. Extremely important. If you have American or English native speakers in that process, it's even better. And then from a day to day standpoint, French is not allowed in the open space in our office. And the way we enforce that, I tried to make it funny. In the early days where I bought a French … I don't know if you people know that, but you know those moo box? meute for French people. Where you flip them and it makes that funny noise. I would buy one for every non-French employee who would join the office. That would be like a welcome present and what I would tell these people is anytime you hear French coming from anyone, and that includes the founders, in the open space, you flip the box. And very quickly, we gamified basically that mechanism and very quickly, literally, it took maybe a week or two for people to stop speaking French on the floor.
Gaetan Gachet: Now I want to test something else where I want to put a jar in the middle of the office and every time I hear French, five Euros in the jar. But it's a constant battle. But yeah, it's extremely important because right now, we have probably 17 different nationalities in the French office. All our communication on Slack is in English. Even our DMs, direct messages, right now it's become completely natural, but there's no way we would have scaled at that pace if we had not done that.
Laura Bilazarian: I think the second question is asking how did you structure in the early days? So it's clear from this chart how you structured later, but how was structure in the early days?
Gaetan Gachet: That's which question is that?
Laura Bilazarian: It's the second one. I'm just summarizing.
Gaetan Gachet: … structure for sales and at product market fit? So we didn't structure much. I'll guess that the initial structure that we did, so the first reps who do everything. First call all the way to closing. The next stage was we hired more junior people who would do the first call and work on SMB accounts and we would have the more senior work on mid-market and enterprise accounts. The stage after that, we carved out mid-market teams. So we had SMB, mid-market and enterprise. And for the more junior role, we had people who would just take care of the inbound. More senior people who would take care of outbound. So literally, we had five stages in the sales organization, which is also something that you need to anticipate because people one, you're in we'll ask you what's next for me. So you also need to build a path for these people.
Laura Bilazarian: And how did you structure sales compensation initially?
Gaetan Gachet: So my first year, I didn't have commission, which means I was on full pays. Based on what I closed, I set the target for the first rep, a 50/50 split.
Laura Bilazarian: That's really valuable, right? Because you can say you closed it, yeah. So any pushback?
Gaetan Gachet: No. No, that was fine. So 50/50 split and today we're still on a 50/50% mechanism for all the closing positions.
Laura Bilazarian: And has the quota gone up, gone down, change?
Gaetan Gachet: Gone up.
Laura Bilazarian: Gone up, got it.
Gaetan Gachet: Yeah, it always goes up because you want to constantly increase the productivity of your sales team. So $1 that you pay for a rep, how much did you get back? So increasing one of the mechanisms. Our quota today are half a million for SMB, 1 million for mid-market, between 1.5 and 1.8 for enterprise. And that's new ACV.
Laura Bilazarian: And what was the size of your sales team along these different phases, roughly?
Gaetan Gachet: Along the way? So me, 2014 to end of 2015, I had I think five people. End of 2016 about 10. And if I look at today, we have 50 account executives globally. Half US, half Europe. And about 25-30 folks in the BD team and AC team.
Laura Bilazarian: And what about these other functions like sales ops and enablement?
Gaetan Gachet: Sales ops, we have a little under 10 people today. The ratio that we use is one for 17 people in the revenue org. So one sales up, so one ops person for every 17 individual contributors on the team. So there's some ratios like that as well that you should be aware of. We have one CSM for $2 million of book of business. Two and $3 million of book of business. Sales engineering, it's one for about two to three account executives. That's kind of how you build the model. So you start with a target that define sales capacity, number of reps, number of SEs, number of CSMs, number of BDRs. So that's kind of how you do that.
Laura Bilazarian: And the model always works perfectly, right?
Gaetan Gachet: 100%. No.
Laura Bilazarian: How would you advise European companies looking to set up an office in the US? East Coast versus West Coast or when is the right time?
Gaetan Gachet: Good question. So if you have sleeping problems, you can do West Coast. No, but seriously, really, really think about it. It may sound like a detail, but having three more hours of overlap, meaning opening a New York office can change your life and the life of your people. It's very hard to work efficiently with people if you have less than four hours of overlap. San Francisco to get four hours, you need to extend the Paris days super late because people in San Francisco, they won't wake up at four in the morning. So at bare minimum they will start their days around seven, between seven and eight. But the you need those four hours. Then it depends on where your market is. So our market is mostly on the coasts. If most of your market is on the East Coast, no brainer. If you need to be really close to investors, so maybe the West Coast is a peak as well. But those are the variables that I would look at when deciding East versus West.
Gaetan Gachet: The other thing is the West coast is insane in terms of competition for talents. Literally you cross the street, you have a job. Like not even cross the street. I think they cross it for you. People will leave jobs after six months if they get a new offer for somewhere else. So also take that into account. You have the knowledge there in San Francisco. There's the skills, but it's very, very, very, very competitive environment.
Laura Bilazarian: And there's a little bit of difference in the interview culture, right? Like in America, everyone's great at everything. And how do you pierce through the ability to interview there?
Gaetan Gachet: Oh my God. Yeah. It took a while though because like the first time you interview people, you feel like they're the best obviously at what they do. And after a while, you realize that they answer the same way all your questions. So you start adapting your questions to them. Yeah.
Laura Bilazarian: How'd you get through that? I'm like serious, because I saw my Armenian co-founders go through this.
Gaetan Gachet: Like one thing for instance, if the same here, but like every time I look at the LinkedIn resume, if I see like succession of tenures under one year, I'm like there's something. And there's obviously always a good reason, but you just need to dig. There's one thing that folks do a lot in the US, I don't know if it's that common here, is back channel. So find someone who knows the person. It's something that is quite usual. I know it's not legal in France, but it's something that you can do a lot in the US.
Laura Bilazarian: I think we covered some of this. What was your playbook at the low ACVs?
Gaetan Gachet: What was my playbook at the low ACV?
Laura Bilazarian: Yeah. Early stage, like what was your playbook? Did you …
Gaetan Gachet: Didn't have playbook because we had no references. So it was tough. I guess in the early days, we're very heavy in terms of in presales on the technical proof. So building demos, that's something that really worked. We had no logos to communicate on at the beginning. So we had to prove ourselves. So we would literally do full fledge implementations for some customers. I remember Crunchbase. We built Crunchbase when we tried to go after that brand. So we were being very generous in our presales.
Laura Bilazarian: Gaetan, thank you so much. It's amazing to watch your journey. Congrats.
Gaetan Gachet: Thank you everyone.
Louise Lee


text:
Massive Luxury Overdose é o segundo álbum de estúdio da banda sueca Army of Lovers,lançado no ano de 1991.O álbum foi lançado em duas versões a versão da europeia inclui três músicas do álbum anterior: My Army of Lovers, Ride of Bullet e Supernatural. A versão a americana foi lançada em 1992,

conta com a presença Michaela Dornonville de la Cour substituindo a Camilla Henemark, o álbum vinha com quatro novas músicas, as músicas My Army of Lovers e Supernatural não foram usadas nesta versão.

As músicas de maiores sucessos foram Crucified que ficou em número em alguns países,Ride of Bullet e Obession também conseguiram uma ótima posição.

faixas

Primeira edição
1. We Stand United (3.44)

2. Crucified (3.32)

3. Candyman Messiah (3.24)

4. Obsession (3.39)

5. I Cross the Rubicon (4.01)

6. Supernatural (3.54)

7. Ride the Bullet (3.42)

8. Say Goodbye to Babylon (4.26)

9. Flying High (3.39)

10. Walking with a Zombie (4.09)

11. My Army of Lovers (3.27)

Segunda edição
1. Dynasty Of Planet Chromada (3.54)

2. Crucified (3.32)

3. Candyman Messiah (3.08)

4. Obsession (3.39)

5. We Stand United (3.44)

6. Say Goodbye to Babylon (4.26)

7. Ride the Bullet (3.27)

8. The Particle Song (3.26)

9. Someone Somewhere (3.18)

10. I Cross the Rubicon (4.01)

11. Flying High (3.39)

12. Walking with a Zombie (4.09)

13. Judgement Day (3.58)

Referências
Álbuns de 1991
Álbuns de eurodance
Álbuns de dance music
Álbuns em língua inglesa
Álbuns de música pop

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
Article Review On "Evidence Based Management(EBM), The Very Idea"
There has been a recent trend in commending evidence-based approaches for management and policy making decision in the public sector. Evidence based management(EBM) is an aspect that has been heavily developed and relied on in certain practices such as evidence-based policy and evidence-based medicine. These forms of approaches utilize recent best evidence in decision making and management. Evidence based management(EBM) involves managerial based decisions and organizational practices that are informed by the best and available scientific evidence with the best evidence in this case being the norms of natural sciences. Evidence based approaches have gained fame over the years. The same has not been without its ups and down.
This has seen evidence based management generate debate with writers such as Learmouth & Harding (2007) opposing the very idea of utilizing the widely acclaimed evidence based approach in fields such as health care. The document reviews the(Learmouth & Harding (2007) article with a look at the evidence provided by the two in support of their opposition to the use of evidence based management (EBM) in health care. The positives and negatives of their arguments will be reviewed. Evidence of the same will be based on the Learmouth & Harding (2007) article as well as literature from related articles.
The evidence based management as analyzed by Learmouth & Harding (2007) article presents a strong case that shows that there is reason to believe and support the research bothwriters have accomplished to discredit the use of this approach especially in health care. Both Learmouth & Harding (2007) raise a good debate on the development of evidence based approaches to management and organization. The researchers clearly raise the issues they feel plague the use of evidence based management(EBM) in health care and in any other setting.
To Learmouth & Harding (2007), this is an approach that is a misguided aspect with the unpredictable nature of evidence in the management discipline. Also, Learmouth & Hardin (2007) have the take that evidence based management is not there to help the public service and will not at the end contribute anything meaningful to the effectiveness in organizations (Axelsson, 1998). This is in spite of other systems such as evidence based medicine beinghailed as the best method of reducing uncertainty in clinical practice.
Learmouth & Harding (2007) opposition to the use of evidence based management(EBM) in organizational setting raises and opens the reader's eyes to a major issue in their debate-arriving at an agreement on evidence. One is made to agree with Learmouth & Harding (2007) debate that it is one thing to reach a consensus in medicine and other fields and another in reaching the same in social sciences so as to flag the appropriateness of the use of evidence based management(EBM) in health care. Such techniques as the use of the evidence based medicine has worked well but this should not be the assumption in all the cases as highlighted by Learmouth & Harding (2007). The fact that the two researchers also disapprove of generalizations in the different approaches is a positive aspect in the research.
The reasons the two give is valid in that the cause and effect connections that are there in organizational research are not in any way readily subject to controlled experiments such as those in medicine. However, there is an oversight and thus a disadvantage in Learmouth & Harding (2007) debate.
One can counter their opposition to the generalization point on the use of evidence based management(EBM)in that where the presence of clear necessitates the establishment of decision making rules which the scientific community is able to endorse. Learmouth & Harding (2007) would want their readers to believe that a solution to finding a cause and effect connection in organizational settings does not exist but this is not the case (Parker, 2001).This is a side that is missing in their debate in that over the years, there has been the establishment of consensus around the use of constructive reviews and meta-analysis in order to identify the convergent findings in the organizational research and the boundary conditions.
Learmouth & Harding (2007) do not leave any option to the reader to see a chance in the establishment of a movement towards evidence based management which would even be capable of fostering great attention to the convergent findings and their implications to practice and science. One feels that Learmouth & Harding (2007) are advocating and supporting the continued fragmentation and novelty in the current organizational research. By focusing on the high consensus areas, there will be a chance for EBM (evidence based management) to have efforts directed towards accounting for divergence and inconsistency in the areas of limited convergence in organizational research(Linstead & Grafton-Small, 1992).
Managerialism is also another major issue that Learmouth & Harding (2007) raise with the use of Evidence Based Management (EBM). The researchers support the opposition to the use of the same in such systems as organizations. According to Learmouth & Harding (2007), the use of EBM supports and reinforces Managerialism. The evidence based approaches are used to reinforce the managerial power with some forms of legitimized forms of evidence while they obscure non-managerial ways of understanding organizational life.
One can associate with such an argument in that the evidence given by Learmouth & Harding (2007) is that there have been long standing workplace ethnographies which have stood to benefit organizations by such acts as exposing power, inequality and conflicts in the organizations (Kovner et al., 2000). Thus elements such as Managerialism have no chance of prospering in such an environment. This greatly benefits the organization.
However, there is a downside to the evaluation of only one side of the effect of EBM as far as Managerialism is concerned. The evidence by Learmouth & Harding (2007) is hinged on bias on whether there has been enough inquiry to the effective ways of organizing and managing based on less non-traditional and hierarchical view of workers, governance and employment (Ferlie et al., 2001). It is not justifiable to brush off EBM on managerialism basis since the same would serve as a counterforce to the self- serving and arbitrariness bias observed in the form firms are managed and organized nowadays (Parker, 2001). Any innovation can be affected in that it can be misused. Evidence of such is the presence of a regulation in the use of evidence based medicine in the UK National Health Service. However, the use of EBM can act as the basis to develop effective organizational and professional competencies (Harris, 1998).
Learmouth & Harding (2007) are wary of the role that EBM may come to acquire in terms of power. The two are skeptic of the fact that EBM may become an avenue that serves interests. This shows how Learmouth & Harding (2007) have put a great deal of effort into all the aspects that may hinder the smooth operation of such programs as EBM in health care.
As researchers, they have succeeded in evaluating all the angles of a research issue. Learmouth & Harding (2007) show that it would be naïve to not think of politics as the same are pervasive and real. Such an aspect as the development and implementation of EBM to organization and management can affect such issues as how legitimacy, funding and influence is allocated to such groups as practitioners, teachers and scholars. Management is free of such aspects such as social and political interests as well as moral considerations. However, true as this may be and a correct inference by Learmouth & Harding (2007), power and politics cannot be avoided.
The real problem that Learmouth & Harding (2007) seem to be wary of is that qualitative research may not be able to meet the evidentiary standards that EBM may incorporate and employ (Linstead & Grafton-Small, 1992). Also, Learmouth & Harding (2007) seem to be wary that qualitative research may be devalued which will result in the decline of legitimacy as well as its funding. Evidence cannot be said to be of particular measure or method social science uses.
As opposed to Learmouth & Harding (2007) hesitation with unobstructed power in the use of EBM, this may not be the case as qualitative research is a sure way of identifying the areas in science that are not clear. Qualitative research is capable of being put into practice to identify the meanings underlying the observed patterns and also in helping to translate the evidence into practice through exploration of the politics, subjectivity and the conflicts that are involved in the changes to organizational practice (Carter, 2000).
The implementation and the design of the EBM is not an aspect that should be generalized and opposed without full evaluation. The implementation as well as the design of EBM should be subject to critical inquiry. The critique by Learmouth & Harding (2007) evades some aspects and in doing so mislead the audience. There is no denying that EBM may affect all the management aspects but the same should not be a reason to abandon the approach. There should and will be movements towards EBM which involve many of the community that are interested in the design of the same. There will be development, implementation, learning and redesign over time. Fear of loss should not hinder the focus for the opportunity on constructive change.
Axelsson , R . 1998 . ' Towards an Evidence-based Health Care Management ' , International Journal of Health Planning and Management , 13 , 307 – 17 .
Ferlie , E . , J . Gabbay , L . Fitzgerald , et al . 2001 . ' Evidence-based Medicine and Organisational Change: an Overview of Some Recent Qualitative Research ' , in L . Ashburner ( ed .), Organisational Behaviour and Organisational Studies in Health Care: Refl ections on the Future . Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan, pp . 18 – 42 .
Carter , J . 2000 . ' New Public Management and Equal Opportunities in the NHS ' , Critical Social Policy , 20 , 61 – 83 .
Harrison , S . 1998 . ' The Politics of Evidence-based Medicine ' , Policy and Politics , 26 , 15 – 31 .
Kovner , A . R . , J . J . Elton and J . Billings . 2000 . ' Evidence-based Management ' , Frontiers of Health Services Management , 16 , 3 – 24 .
Linstead , S . and R . Grafton-Small . 1992 . ' On Reading Organizational Culture ' , Organization Studies , 13 , 331 – 55 .
Parker , M . 2002 . Against Management: Organization in the Age of Managerialism . Cambridge : Polity Press
Learmouth, M., & Harding, N. (April 01, 2007). Evidence-based management: The very idea. Sage Public Administration Abstracts, 34, 1.)
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