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Center for Food Safety
Scientists at UGA search for ways to control pathogens on wheat berries
Consumers have long been warned against the hazards of eating raw cookie dough. As more cases of foodborne illness are linked to contaminated wheat flour, University of Georgia food safety experts are touting the risk in a louder, more forceful voice, while searching for ways to eliminate foodborne pathogens on wheat products.
In wheat-related cases, the common carriers of the pathogens are cookie dough, cake batter and raw wheat flour. The most recent outbreak started in May and was linked to wheat flour contaminated with E. coli 026 bacteria. Three brands of contaminated all-purpose flour were found at grocery stores in eight states, to date. So far, 21 cases of E. coli 026 infections have been reported.
In 2005, 26 cases in the U.S. were linked to cake-batter ice cream and in 2008 a cluster of cases in New Zealand were connected to an uncooked baking mixture. In all of these cases, the pathogen was Salmonella. In 2009, an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak resulted from consumption of raw cookie dough.
"In the past, the reason we warned people not to eat cookie dough was not because of the flour, but because of the raw eggs," said Francisco Diez, director of the UGA Center for Food Safety located on the university's campus in Griffin, Georgia. "The two main pathogens linked to wheat products are Salmonella and E. coli."
Diez says these cases could have been prevented if the flour had not been consumed raw.
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College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
Beuchat, Diez honored by International Association for Food Protection
Two University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences food scientists have been presented awards of excellence from the International Association for Food Protection (IAFP). Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus Larry Beuchat and Professor Francisco Diez were recognized at the association's annual meeting held July 21–24 in Louisville, Kentucky.
Beuchat received the Maurice Weber Laboratorian Award in recognition of his outstanding contributions in the laboratory. The award also honors his commitment to the development of innovative and practical analytical approaches in support of food safety.
He joined the Department of Food Science and Technology on the UGA Griffin campus in 1972 and has since published five books and 530 refereed scientific journal articles.
Beuchat is a world authority on the microbiology of fruits, vegetables, nuts and legumes; methods for detecting yeasts, molds and pathogenic bacteria in foods; metabolic injury of bacteria and fungi; relationships of water activity to microbial growth; antimicrobial compounds in foods; fermented foods; thermal resistance of mold ascospores; and food preservatives.
Most of Beuchat's research at the UGA Center for Food Safety in Griffin focuses on how food safety issues relate to foods of plant origin.
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NEW UGA FOOD SCIENTIST KEEPS FOOD SUPPLY SAFER USING COMPUTER SOFTWARE
Food safety research usually involves analyzing live populations of foodborne pathogens like Salmonella, Listeria and E. coli, but University of Georgia food scientist Henk den Bakker fights pathogens by developing computer software.
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Deng awarded UGA Creative Research Medal for salmonella classification software
University of Georgia food microbiologist Xiangyu Deng's work in the emerging field of bioinformatics led to his selection as a Creative Research Medal winner for 2017.
The medal is one of the prestigious honors bestowed annually by the UGA Research Foundation. Awards are given to outstanding faculty, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students in recognition of excellence in research, scholarly creativity and technology commercialization at UGA.
Deng, an assistant professor of food microbiology with the Center for Food Safety (CFS) on the UGA Griffin campus, was recognized for creating a cloud-based software tool that quickly classifies strains of salmonella, one of the most prevalent foodborne pathogens in the United States and worldwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 1 million foodborne illnesses and 380 deaths in the U.S. each year can be linked to nontyphoidal salmonella.
The SeqSero system identifies serotypes, or distinct strains of salmonella, from infected humans, animals, foods and the environment using whole genome sequencing. This system allows for accurate, fast "fingerprinting" of any salmonella strain and replaces a complicated, time-consuming laboratory protocol. Analysis time using SeqSero takes just minutes — analysis using the old system took days — while adding no extra cost.
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High school students complete one-year mentorship program at UGA-Griffin
Last summer, seven seniors from Pike County High School (PCHS) in Zebulon, Georgia, with an aptitude for science made a commitment to work alongside University of Georgia Griffin campus scientists three days a week for the entire school year. This month, they will complete their yearlong partnership.
The students, Courtney Bagwell, Dylan Blohm, Abigail Chasteen, Nikki Dodson, Megan Pitts, Taylor Thomas and Talisa Watts, are the first group to take part in the off-campus internship.
"The beauty and the flexibility of the (Pike County STEM) Academy is that we have a lot of standards, but we can pick and choose the ones that fit with science and math, and then add in the technology and the engineering through agriculture," said Greg Waits, the program's coordinator and the agriculture education teacher at the high school.
Students are selected for the program based on their test scores in math and science. Then they take advanced classes in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) areas during their freshman, sophomore and junior years before participating in the off-campus experience at UGA-Griffin.
Formally, the students earn Advanced Placement science credits for participating. They also gain a wealth of information and personal experience.
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Healthier eating, better tracking results in more produce-related foodborne illness cases
Mike Doyle doesn't eat raw bean sprouts, medium-rare hamburgers or bagged salads. He isn't on a special diet, but as director of the University of Georgia Center for Food Safety in Griffin, Georgia, he studies the food pathogens that sicken thousands of Americans each year.
Doyle works closely with the food industry, consumer groups and government agencies, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, on issues related to the microbiological safety of food. He also serves as a scientific adviser to groups like the World Health Organization, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Academy of Sciences.
For a time, foodborne illness was most often connected with undercooked meats, and most product recalls and outbreaks were connected to meat products. Today, 33 percent of cases are tracked back to raw produce, Doyle said. In an odd Catch-22, he says America's efforts to become healthier, including eating more produce, and efforts by the CDC and local health departments to do "a better job tracking sources" have led to the increase of reported foodborne illness cases linked to produce.
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Francisco Diez is new director of UGA Center for Food Safety
For years, food scientist Francisco Diez studied and admired the work of University of Georgia Regents' Professor Mike Doyle, but the two researchers' paths never crossed. For the next year, they will work closely together as Diez transitions into Doyle's role as director of the UGA Center for Food Safety in Griffin, Georgia. Doyle, a leading authority on foodborne pathogens, came to the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences in 1991 to establish the center. As director, he developed a research program that promotes collaboration among the food industry, the university, and federal and state agencies.
A native of Mexico, Diez earned a bachelor's degree in food technology from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education, and completed master's and doctoral degrees in food science at Cornell University in New York. He comes to UGA from the University of Minnesota, where he was a faculty member and head of the Department of Food Science and Nutrition. His research focuses on the family of pathogens known as enterohemorrhagic E. coli, an important cause of food contamination and foodborne illness.
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Fighting foodborne illness outbreaks
Researchers at the University of Georgia found that pathogens, like salmonella, can survive for at least six months in cookies and crackers. The recent study was prompted by an increased number of outbreaks of foodborne diseases linked to low-water-activity, or dry, foods. Larry Beuchat (pictured left), a Distinguished Professor Emeritus and researcher in the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, led a study to see just how long bacteria that cause foodborne illness can survive in certain foods.
"There have been an increased number of outbreaks of diseases associated with consumption of contaminated dry foods. We wouldn't expect salmonella to grow in foods that have a very dry environment," said Beuchat, who works with the Center for Food Safety on the UGA campus in Griffin.
Beuchat and study co-author David Mann, a research professional in the center, found that not only can harmful bacteria survive in dry foods, like cookie and cracker sandwiches, but they can also live for long periods of time.
For the recent study, published in the Journal of Food Protection, researchers used five different serotypes of salmonella that had been isolated from foods involved in previous foodborne outbreaks. "Isolates were from foods with very low moisture content," Beuchat said.
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Kitchen utensils can spread bacteria between foods, UGA study finds
In a recent study funded by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, University of Georgia researchers found that produce containing bacteria are likely to contaminate other produce items through the continued use of knives or graters — the bacteria latches onto the utensils commonly found in consumers' homes and spreads to the next item. Unfortunately, many consumers are unaware that utensils and other surfaces at home can contribute to the spread of bacteria, said the study's lead author Marilyn Erickson, an associate professor in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences' department of food science and technology.
"Just knowing that utensils may lead to cross-contamination is important," Erickson said. "With that knowledge, consumers are then more likely to make sure they wash them in between uses."
Erickson has been researching produce for the past 10 years. Her past work has mainly focused on the fate of bacteria on produce when it's introduced to plants in the field during farming.
In 2013, she was co-author on a study looking at the transfer of norovirus and hepatitis A between produce and common kitchen utensils — finding that cutting and grating increased the number of contaminated produce items when that utensil had first been used to process a contaminated item.
Read more about Kitchen utensils can spread bacteria between foods, UGA study finds
Georgia Tech President Visits Griffin Campus
Georgia Tech President Bud Peterson and Georgia Commissioner of Agriculture Gary Black came to Griffin on June 19 for a tour of the campus. The tour included updates on existing projects between Georgia Tech researchers and UGA Center for Food Safety scientists and research on parasites, pathogens on cantaloupes and an antimicrobial food rinse developed by CFS Director Michael Doyle and research scientist Tong Zhao. The guests also sampled Georgia blueberries in the sensory lab and heard updates on blueberry and poultry projects conducted in the Food Innovation and Commercialization Center. University System of Georgia Regent and local orthopedic surgeon Dr. Tommy Hopkins organized and attended the tour. State Representative David Knight was also on hand participating in campus tour.
Read more about Georgia Tech President Visits Griffin Campus
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Stephen: 00:00:00 Better product plan, again, a better product idea, find a better niche to serve.
Cool voice guy: 00:00:04 Welcome to the ecommerce momentum as well. We focus on the people, the products, and the process of incomers selling today. Here's your host, Steven Peterson.
Stephen: 00:00:18 Want to jump in and talk about two sponsors today? Sellerlabs scope. Uh, you've heard me say it, you know, and, and you know, you're probably sitting there saying, Steve, you say this every episode. I do because I believe in the product. Um, yes, a sellerlabs labs is a sponsor. Michelle, don't get that wrong. However, it's a sponsor of a product that I use, so I'm kind of lucky they pay me and yet I pay to use the product. And the reason I pay to use the product is because it allows me to, um, get better listings, right? That's what you need to do, right? If you're selling on Amazon, you need to understand keywords and you need to figure out what are the right keywords. And sometimes it's confusing as heck. Why does a certain keyword work a certain way? Well, the beauty of in scope as you can pull up your competitor who's really crushing it and see what keywords they're using, that's the lesson, and then you can find a similar one and pull them up and you're going to see a pattern and then you do that pattern for yourself and you can get those same results if you get lucky and figure out what the key word is for your product.
Stephen: 00:01:19 So take some of the luck out of it and use scope. Um, again, go to [inaudible] dot com, forward slash scope. Use the code momentum, save 50 bucks and try it and see if you can improve an existing listing. I think that's the best thing you can do is take one of your listings that's performing and then go in and try to enhance it and see if you see an improvement. Give it 30 days or what have you. And if you see an improvement, then there's a clue that maybe you can see an improvement on all your listings. That's why I use a scope and I just think it's such a great product because I don't have to reinvent the wheel. Right. There are much smarter people than I that have done a lot of other cool things to figure out what the keyword is and what people are searching for and using a whole bunch of other techniques and then you get to take advantage of it and it's really inexpensive and again, you're going to say 50 bucks.
Stephen: 00:02:04 So solar lamps.com, forward slash scope. Use the momentum, save 50 bucks. Second one is Karen Locker and I talk about her a lot. Right now they're reconciling of shipment and they're sending the note. Steve, you have to send in receipts because that's one of the big hassles. Now I've got to send receipts to prove that I bought this stuff so I can get my reimbursement and her team is all over me. Like, Steve, this is your third request. That's dishonest service. Sometimes I need. I've been traveling these last few weeks extensively. I kind of need somebody else. Yes, I could have somebody sitting in my office doing it, but that would be a full time employee and we don't want any full time employees. Um, this is my wife, my son and I. and so anyway, that's why I have members of my team in different areas and I don't want to have to manage them, you know, I know Karen uses some va's but I don't want to have to manage that team.
Stephen: 00:02:51 And so she does that and her team does that. Team leaders and stuff and they'd been doing it for me, for many of my wife or I don't know, two or three years. And we've been very, very pleased because the money they save the refunds, they get me the reimbursements, they get me the fixes when I'm on the road and hey, this isn't correct and they can fix it or I have a question. That depth of knowledge that I get from Karen because of her experience is so worth the price. So it is um, solutions four ecommerce. So the word solutions, the number four e-commerce dot com forward slash momentum. Okay. So use that code solutions four ecommerce.com, forward slash momentum. It's going to save you $50 and $50 a month is a lot of money. And what's really cool is she's going to do that inventory health report that I talk about.
Stephen: 00:03:41 If you've not done one, you should, you know, I mean you're getting a clue every week when they tell you your inventory health report. But if you want to dig deeper and again if you don't want to do the work, that's the beauty. She's going to send you a spreadsheet and then you can parse it and slice and dice and then send it back saying hey, kill this stuff, refund this, donate this Blahblahblahblahblah. That's what I do and I don't have to go through and do the work. And you know, it's just important to have a person on your team you can trust. And again, I've been paying for the service for two and a half, three years. I have to ask her how long it's been. And I'm very, very pleased with think of no one else to be on her team, but Karen and her team, because of what they've done.
Stephen: 00:04:19 I look for consistency over time. You've heard me say that and I've gotten it from Karen. So solutions the number four e-commerce dot com, forward slash momentum. Save the 50 bucks. Get your inventory health report, get 2019 in order and start this new year off. Right? It's going to be a great. Welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. This is episode 373. Jason Miles. Get ready to be inspired. Get ready to think bigger than what you've been thinking. Get ready to say, maybe I can do it too, because guess what? Jason's going to tell you. You could. You have the tools, you have the knowledge how to do it. It's really going to be are you going to execute it and when you do execute it, you do have to sit back and think, can I do more? Should I be doing more? Should I take a different approach?
Stephen: 00:05:10 And just instead of making money, can I make a difference? And I think, um, Jason and his wife cinnamon are good examples of what could be, now they're at the high level, but man, it just starts small and then he gives a good example at the end and it's just a great conversation. Phenomenal story. And again, he'll tell you he's no different than you and I, let's get into the podcast. Alright, welcome back to the ECOMMERCE momentum podcast. Very excited about today's guest because Oh, it's going to take me 10 minutes to get through what he is. Um, I'm going to define him and see if I'm, how accurate I am. But what I love is that he's built, he's built, he's helped build. I think he would correct me too. I'm an audience off of Amazon or Ebay or etsy. I guess it would be one of the other big dominant players, um, and has really understood what it takes and it's been able to replicate it into some charitable things that are just phenomenal. And I can't wait to get to talk about them all. So let me introduce him. He's a dad, a husband, a giver, trying to go into a decent order here and instructor, an author, a blogger. There's definitely something about dresses involved, which I'm not quite sure we got to get, get through all that and I'm very, very, very excited to have Jason Miles. Welcome Jason.
Jason: 00:08:09 do you get there? Sure. Okay. So here's. So here's the story. We actually, the story for me and my entrepreneurial journey starts in 1998, believe it or not, but just sort of this context. I had a 20 year nonprofit career, nine to five career, half the whole time was in hr and half the whole time was in marketing and fundraising for multibillion dollar charities. So, so that's my background. But in 1998 we were, we needed money. I, you know, it was early in my career I was working at two jobs. I was a compensation analyst contractor and that for charity. And then I was also working at Kinko's, I don't know if you remember Kinko yeah, yeah. Um, and then, but we still didn't have enough money to even on. So um, so yeah, so, so I went to our home group on Wednesday night and I said, you know, I just looking for another 10 hours a week or something like that.
Jason: 00:09:03 I have a part time job, if anybody has anything or they could just at least pray for me and I'm somebody said in the whole group, you should talk to this guy named Joe. He, uh, he's making a thousand dollars a day on the Internet, you know, it was like everybody's like, what the Internet and um, you know, back then we just had, you know, just the basics. I mean, as the dollars would be, I mean, hey, it's hours and hours a day, but if that was an hours a week would be huge in 1998. Dude, it was like mesmerizing to me. So I talked to this guy and I didn't work for him at the, in that moment because he, he only needed somebody for like two hours a week. But his story captivated me. It just literally I had whatever you might call it, gold fever, you know, just the dream was planted in my mind that there's a, there is a way to make money on the Internet.
Jason: 00:09:54 The answer, you found the answer. Yeah. Yeah. And that was 1998 now. So I didn't work for him. His story, just as a side note, is he, he got a traffic ticket and he went to all day traffic court school to get out of it being on his record and then he hated it so much he went to the judge afterward and said, if a, isn't there a website you can use for this kind of thing? And the judge said No. And he said, well, if I made a website, would you send people to it? And the Judd said, maybe I dunno. So he did it. He made a website traffic school. It was like one of the first online traffic school is on the Internet. We took it to the Sonoma county courthouse judge traffic judge. The guy started referring people like mad to his website and they cut a deal and then he just went right down the road to Napa County and then to Marin county.
Jason: 00:12:11 time and we had no money or you know, every time I had a negative interaction with my boss at work or you know, you just feel, you feel constrained in some way financially or in terms of freedom in your life. And it's like the escape hatch. It's like the, Oh, like if I had that online business.
Jason: 00:12:49 you're right. I mean that's how it was. And so, but I never had a moment where I encountered anything that was specific, tactical, you know, you, you know, compelling enough for me to say, uh, I've got a plan, you know, and then, um, but really what, what happened that turned the corner for us and got us selling on Ebay originally was we were just desperate for money again, you know, 10 years later in a nonprofit just aren't where you make money. And so in 2008 we were desperate for money. And um, we had three kids at the time and our baby daughter was going into kindergarten and so my wife had a couple of hours a week and, and um, so, you know, it was basically just out of sort of desperation, we said, well, you know, what activities could she do, you know, a couple of hours a day is all she would have and to help kind of add money to the household budget and you know, the usual things come to your mind as you know, side hustled, starbucks or become a realtor or you know, those kinds of things. So she love photography. So she started doing family photography, but realize that the selling aspect of photography is a total bummer. And um, but she also was making these American girl doll size clothes for our daughters and then getting an American girl doll was a big deal and you know, it's like $100 dollars.
Stephen: 00:14:15 Oh yeah. These expense, especially back then there wasn't the generic versions. I mean this was, they were it.
Jason: 00:14:21 So, but all the Brownie troop moms, we're asking all the time, where did you get this stuff? And these clothes, that sentiment was making. My wife's name is cinnamon and um, she was like, I just made them. I just made them. And, and as it turned out, here's the, this was our magical moment when I heard people repeatedly asking her if they could buy them and where she got them, you know, I said to her, maybe we just start selling this stuff on, on Ebay because I had heard about Ebay and I gotten Davis Binos TV course, but like dud a year or two prior, I just. But I still had no product idea. So, um, so she, she said yes and we started selling them at auction on Ebay and that really kicked in my marketing, copywriting, branding, you know, it started to meet a need in my life to just have sort of an entrepreneurial activity and as it happens, just as a backstory on her, her mom worked for a fashion designer in la when she was younger and so my wife grew up knowing how to sew and create stuff at what you might call it, you know, like a really super advanced level.
Jason: 00:15:29 She just didn't know it. She, you know, she didn't know how she picked it up through osmosis. Right. She just, by existing being around it all the time. Well in her and her mom, you know, they just did this their whole lives and so she just didn't realize the caliber at which she was could do it compared to everyone else was lights out crazy good. And so it made the Ebay selling really easy. We just did auctions. We started selling stuff. For first it was 30, 40, 50 bucks, you know, ending prices, and then we got it to hundreds, 100, 200, 300 highest option for any of her items was $500 and seventy five cents. Um, and so we got real good at selling on Ebay and we did that for 18 months. Uh, and that was really the origin. We don't do that anymore. That was the first business model we were in. They took the financial pressure off though. It helped. It helped.
Stephen: 00:16:21 And so when you were identifying roles. Okay. So obviously she's the talent behind the design and that thing. Right. She found her talent, right? She realized she had it, but she found it. Yep. How did you define your roles? I mean you was, it. Is that where your degree came in and your skillsets because this were the complimentary because it's hard working together. Husband and wife. Yeah.
Jason: 00:16:46 I, I think we got very, very lucky because she's an absolute fantastic artist with a such a high degree of attention to detail. She had also done that year of photography, so it became really easy. She was the creator and the photographer and I would work on the copywriting descriptions brand building, and then ultimately we started doing youtube design contest and youtube was our first social media strategy to get traffic to our ebay listings. And we really developed, um, specific tactical youtube strategies. I'm right, you know, almost right from the beginning that helped us blow up our youtube sales of, sorry are our Ebay sales and um, you know, so that was clearly my role and we, our daughter, youngest daughter, liberty was a, the company was named after her, so she was our celebrity spokes girl for the first three, four years. So that was fun.
Stephen: 00:17:43 You know, as I sit and think about that when I look at your pattern again, of all the stuff that you've been involved in, social media clearly seems to be the driver of what you've been able to figure out. And so you're saying that figuring that out for Youtube way back then? Right. Especially at pioneer level stuff. I mean now you know, grade, they're like you said, there weren't a million examples on how to do it and do it right with history as these new social media because I want to make sure people get valued here as these new social media platforms come out, right. I'm the facebooks right afterwards and the instagrams and blah blah, blah, blah, blah, name it, name it, name it are. Are you able to take what you applied back then conceptually at least a framework of it and then bring it forward as all these others rollout? Is that a, is that an advantage? And therefore. So if somebody is, you know, instead of learning all of them, master one and then go out and learn the others, I'm trying to look for some value there for somebody.
Stephen: 00:18:56 that will do that. No kidding. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because we were talking in the pre show about some other stuff. Consistency is the key, right? It's just consistently when you find a model that works or something that's working instead of looking at the next shiny thing, which is what Steve does, we're talking about Steve or second day, but if you stay doing what you're doing and build a process for it. And again, that's that skill set that you, it sounds like you bring to the table. Yeah.
Jason: 00:19:20 Yeah. And that's, I think that's my, you know, I think as a, as I've reflected on our work with the social media sites, what my clear pattern is that we've developed is I get into them relatively early and figure out how we can leverage them. And then, you know, I've been blessed to have three books come out with Mcgraw Hill. The first one was pinterest power, second one was instagram power and the third one was youtube marketing power. Those are at Barnes and noble and everywhere. In fact, instagram, power, the revised and expanded version comes out March 8th. So that's. So that's fun. But, but the lesson here for me was I get into these early and I figured out how to do basic marketing on them and I, and I been popularized writing these books from Mcgraw Hill and then what happens over and over is bigger, better internet marketers and celebrities or gurus or social media experts will, will come out with their own trainings and courses. But generally for me, I'm, I'm early onto the platforms and then I figured out a basic marketing plan that works for us and I like to talk about it and write about it. And um, you know. So that's sort of my pattern that we've developed. Yeah.
Stephen: 00:20:26 Because I see it in every one of these examples as we go through some of these things that you're doing, you know. And so, so you've written more than a dozen books. We more than definitely more than a dozen pens on if you count the ones that I removed from. Oh, okay. Well, I mean there's definitely a pattern to it. So it's. And the other, the other thing that I think you have done amazingly well, and I do want to finish the story how we get to how big we are, but, but I think that you've done the multiple streams thing. You know, I think about Jim Cockrum, that's one of his, his things that he preaches all the time. Don't rely on any one thing. You've got to have more than one. You've got to have more than one. Or Dan Miller always says to me, Steve, repurpose your content.
Stephen: 00:21:05 You know, he's always like, you repurpose everything because you know, you, you building a vending machine business, which I like to call what you guys do a lot of is a vending machine where you're filling it with something and then it sells over and over and over. But in multiple places. To me that's just so powerful. And then how you built that sells in multiple plates. I mean it's just like each one kind of builds on each other and I, where does, where does the big thinking for that come from? Because that's big picture stuff and that's like, you know, who's got, who's, you know, that's the stuff you go to a coachella and find yourself to figure this stuff out. Right? You go to that rock or whatever they call it. Right.
Jason: 00:21:43 I've never been to that place. Sounds awesome. I, um, I, I think one of my, I don't know, you know, you always do those assessments like Myers Briggs and that kind of thing. And I just, I do think that one of my core, I guess you could say core psychological needs is to really do stuff that is defensible and is strategic for the longterm. And that's just how I'm wired. That's just the stuff I think about. So, you know, that 10 year period where I was thinking about what does sell online, you know, it was a, I was thinking, I mean I, I was. So you were building a framework then? Well, I think I was disqualifying ideas at a much higher level than many people would, you know, I mean I, I just, I, there are a ton of business models I just don't believe in. And so the business model we're in today, even even on Ebay for example, I only wanted to do options. I didn't want to do buy it now items on Ebay, we only wanted to do auctions because I could control the, the potential upside was unlimited, you know, and so I, that's just how I'm wired is to think about stuff like that, you know?
Stephen: 00:22:49 Right. I think, I think it's still very cool. I think this is my opinion. Most people, Steve do not take advantage of the capacity that they have right there. They're looking for the next thing, looking for the next thing rather than maximizing the capacity that they've already done a lot of the hard work. And I think you guys have done a good job with her. Alright, so I cut you off because I just um, I have a story. Well these questions pop in my head up a million. I'm, I'm a guy. This is what happens. You turn left turn right? Yeah. All right. Go ahead and finish the story.
Jason: 00:23:21 So we did Ebay for 18 months and we got extremely good at selling the items at high prices, but the barrier to that business model became very obvious, which is my wife was toiling over making these items by hand and it could take her hours to two days to weeks to make some of this stuff. And so, you know, it was super easy for me to hit realist and then we'd have another auction go live. But then she had basically seven days to make the aisle and he sort of basically one offs like you said though, but then she would make another one, but it's one office. She was only, was she literally cutting and sewing and all that. Really? Oh my gosh. And so after 18 months she was totally burned out and I was literally like, we got it. We got a business.
Jason: 00:24:10 This honey, come on selling off. Here's some coffee. It's the, it's the culmination of my 10 year delusion or whatever, you know. Um, and, and we're excited to make this. No, no stress on the marriage there, right? There's no stress. So as it happens, I transferred jobs and took a different position which also took financial stress off of us. And so the summer of 2009, she just stopped and we did are we, you know, we had moved and I did my new job and so we really took a pause that summer to ask the hard questions about, well, what is the business model that would actually work and is this category even viable? And is there something here that we see value in for the long term? And you know, we could have stopped at that point. But what we did was, um, w, what we realized was the ultimate value in what she was doing was the unique original design work.
Jason: 00:25:14 And the, uh, the idea became pretty simple and we read Jim Cockrum, you know, silent sales machine hiding inside of Ebay was the original title back then. And his, one of his chapters was find an audience and sell them a digital good, a digital product. And so I, when I read that, I was like, man, we've got an audience and we've clearly got original creative work happening, could we sell this? And as it happens it's not, it wasn't too big a leap of logic to say, oh man, in the sewing industry, pattern making is a huge part of it. You buy fabric and you buy patterns, that's what these ladies do. And there's a, it's a massive market. And so we put together the first pdf document that was one of sentiments designs and she, I think she did four in the course of about a month.
Jason: 00:26:05 We sold 11 copies through our own shenanigans through our own website, which we built together. It was, we didn't build it. We kind of use, we use the software that was for photographers and it was like our own website. But nonetheless we got I think 250 people onto an email list and we sold 11 copies in the first month and that was enough for us to say this could work. And it literally in the next six months we, we just. Well, I suppose you could say for the next 10 years, to be honest, we've gone on a tirade in this space and we have a catalog now have about 2,600, uh, you know, patterns. We've done three point 3 million downloads in the last 30 days. We did about $100,000 in sales. Um, and we have a marketplace so you can go check it all out.
Stephen: 00:27:42 I sit down and think about this. So you know, again, it's a vending machine, right? It's those 2,600 patterns inside digital. Yeah. They just sell over and over and you don't have to have somebody put it in an envelope and ship it to somebody, which is really incredible. That's what. But you know, I'm sitting here thinking because this is, this is Steve, the guys' perception, I would have thought that sewing has been going downhill for a long time because old people are dying and that was something they did way back in the day. Now there's a walmart in every corner and people want Walmart stuff. It's cheaper, it's easier. A matter of fact that you can buy it cheaper and cheaper and cheaper. Walmart squeeze out a nickel, right? Yeah. And so that business is declining. I mean, is this, is this. Well I was going to say, is this luck that you guys have now? Because my granddaughters are all ended up precall they're talking about this, this experience thing is such a big deal. I mean it is such a big deal. They don't need stuff anymore. They need the experience, my daughter in law wants to spend time with them doing meaningful things. So making their own clothing is like incredible had, I mean, is that dumb luck or is that a pattern recognition?
Jason: 00:28:50 I think it's two things. First of all, what you're talking about is the evaluation of a sub niche and a niche. So the evaluation of a niche. Let's just talk about that for a minute. Sewing as an edge. Fishing as a niche. Waterskiing as a niche. You know, I mean you could just go through all the categories on every, you know, in every product type. And so the question is, is is my niche in decline or in growth? And what does that mean for me is in terms of prospects? Well, well one thing's for sure if most people who are internet marketers think it's in decline and they opt to not be in that niche because of it, it's good for me, you know, I mean it's like, so you're seeing an opportunity where everybody else sees it as a decline. Okay, I get it.
Jason: 00:29:35 Yeah. So, so, you know, it's like who would want to go into the newspaper business right now? I don't know. Maybe there's a lot of money to be made because no else is going into the newspaper business right now. So just because something's not trendy doesn't mean it's not profitable, you know? And so then the, and then what most people say to me when I tell them what we do is they immediately, without even thinking about it, I've heard this so many times as I've reflected on the meaning of it. They say to me, Oh, you guys should make dog clothing. And I, and I always, it's, I've heard that phrase so many times. It's like in your mind when I say I'm in the doll clothing pattern niche, which is a subcategory of sewing. You tell me I should make doll dog clothing, which isn't a pet category a completely different but, but I think in that split second in the synapses in their mind that they're immediately saying the niche you're in is too small and probably not profitable.
Jason: 00:30:32 And I want to give you an idea to help you because I feel so sorry for you and, or you know, just maybe dol rhymes with dog and some. No, I think you're right. No, I think you're right. In the beginning they were like, oh man, that's got to be. It's my perception that's a declining business. There's nobody selling anymore. There's no one and nobody does that anymore. Right. And yet, and the ones I'm telling you, the people who have said the phrase over and over it, so it's a cliche is that the riches are in the niches. But when a newbie comes into online selling, they want to be, for some reason a tee shirt seller or, or they want to sell like shoes. And I'm like Bro, you know, how many people you're going to be competing with. Like think about the numbers of people who you want to compete with. And what I would suggest to anybody thinking about a niche strategy is you want to find a niche where you're literally competing against grandmas who don't even know how to use the computer.
Jason: 00:31:34 But aren't they all on. I mean, Jason, you sit back and take about this. No. Oh, okay. No, I mean, I, if you want me to defend my niche, I'm telling you, your, your grandkids and the. So there's. What's happened in the space is really interesting is first of all, the American girl dolls are, have been very, very popular and they've been on their own skyrocketing popularity and then are other dolls. And so what happens is girls get exposed to dolls and doll clothing and doll making from the ages of let's say five to 11. Now if they're there, the homeschool type kids, maybe middle America may be, you know, um, have a parent that has time and attention for them, etc cetera. Then the mom might say, hey, let's make some of this ourself as a fun activity. And then, but that doesn't always happen.
Stephen: 00:34:23 let's take it a step further though, staying on this multiple streams. So there's books in that, but then there's courses and you know, there used to be a limit, right? You weren't able to teach. I think about, I've had some, uh, uh, some of the big Ebay class people that have been around for a long time and they would hold a class and they would get a bunch of people to come and learn how to do Ebay and Ebay. Right. But that's a limit, you know, you're geographically limited space, limited constraint time limited all that by setting up this, this vending machine business again with online classes, um, you can reach the masses.
Jason: 00:36:08 with auctions on Ebay. And I remember when we left Bay for sort of that re route weekly Eba selling. We had a 125 people on our email list and after 18 months and um, that, which was a pathetic number even back then. Even then we knew this is a horrible number. Um, and so with that, we know we started to work on getting those people connected. Now, you know, now it's well over 100,000 names and you know, you just, it's a commitment to a course of action that you might, I think a lot of entrepreneurs suit the shiny objects syndrome thing is interesting to me. I don't suffer from that actually, but what I, I mean, you know, everybody explores new things, but in a way I think because we found something that worked. What I've tried to do is say, how can we go deeper down this rabbit hole, not stick our head up and go find another rabbit hole. Let's just like how can we go deeper into this? And we've got, we've got plans to grow our revenue in an exciting way in our sub niche, uh, for 2019 and we haven't, there's just no interest in going too far afield into other things. Um, and it's really unlocked a lot of potential for, you know, our, our charity work and that kind of thing.
Stephen: 00:37:29 I want to make sure I get to this before we get to that because I just want to get this all the way out there. This. Then this model allows you to, to go to multiple channels. So on Etsy for example, right. I, I assume that there was a time you were selling on Etsy, I assume or something like that and maybe Amazon custom or something like that.
Jason: 00:37:48 Yeah. So what we would like to do when we talk about this as I call that whole topic sales channel management, and so, you know, the question everybody always asks us, because I'm usually, I speak at Amazon conferences that I'm usually the token shopify guy like, but which is becoming more and more on trend. Hello? Yeah. So, um, but, you know, for the last 10 years it was like, okay, all you Amazon sellers who were obsessed over, you know, Amazon let's hear from Jason for 45 minutes about something other than Amazon. Everybody would get up and go to the bathroom and stuff like that. So, but, um, so sales channel management is the issue. So for me, the question first, the first question wasn't you couldn't sell pdf documents on Ebay or Amazon when we started this, so nor can you now. So I actually didn't have the luxury of those to ecommerce platforms.
Jason: 00:38:40 So is etsy came along that was an option we sell about, I don't know, 4,000 bucks a month or so on Etsy, so it's a small, small part of what we do, but were there basically as a defensive position. So I'm not trying to find people on etsy to be honest. I'm not trying to make money on Etsy, I'm just trying to discourage our competitors and when they see that we've got a catalog of $2,600, close patterns they might say to themselves, wow, you know, I, there's no space for me here. And that's all. It's just defensive. Um, and so, so that's how we treat at etsy and um, but then we want people to transact through our own shopify site. I want the data, I want the transaction histories, I want the customers to be faithfully coming back every week to my site. So I'm not really a shotgun type guy in terms of overall a sales channel management ideas.
Jason: 00:39:34 I'm, I'm trying to build my own platform as best I can. And it really is its own marketplace in our niche, you know? Well you do have a blog, it's called winning on shopify.com. So I want to make sure if people go and check that out because you would say that today, Steve, there's no reason you can't create your own successful channel because what I keep hearing is it's so hard to get traffic. Jason. Oh my God. It's just so hard. You just, you can't compete. I mean, it's just, you know, you're just one of tens of thousands of shopify stores that start this month and that probably will end next month. You're saying on winning on shopify, that's not true. Fair. Yeah. Yeah. It's not true. I know it's not true that the traffic's not the problem. What most people have a problem with is they don't have a good product would that hurts?
Jason: 00:40:22 And they tune in and my mom made that come on that. So. So really with a lot of the people we work with, our coaching, we didn't want to coaching. We have a group program too and a lot of the work we do with them is get a better product plan and get a better product idea, find a better niche to serve and because if soon as you create a product that actually is compelling to a specific sub niche, I mean, I've never done anything in this space, but let's just say waterskiing, you know, I'm, I'm literally about 200 yards away from the lake. Um, let's say waterskiing, as soon as you create a product that actually has value to that community, the community will tell everyone in it about your product. The traffic is not. The problem is that the non, the non interest and non lack of them dialing interest.
Jason: 00:41:10 That's interesting. Actually. That's the problem. I mean, word of mouth literally turns everything and twitter and instagram and facebook, they turn everything interesting into an overnight top. Let's just pause a second because you just said something and a light went on. So word of mouth used to be the way to get business. You're seeing today's word of mouth. Steve here, this instagram, twitter, facebook, whatever it is. Today's word of mouth, and so it's 10 x or 100 x thousand x with a reason that somebody wants to hear it. Exactly. I would also put all of the, you know, facebook groups. I mean there's a facebook group for literally everything. So the only question is, do you have a product that actually may means anything to anyone in a compelling way or is it just an also ran? Yes, you can make money selling it on Amazon type product, which is fine.
Jason: 00:42:05 That's money. That's a business model, but the, so what, how do you know the difference though? How do you know? Because I, you know, I'm in love with my product so I have a relationship with them. Jason. Yeah. So for me, I mean, how do you distance yourself? How do you get an honest answer there? I think a lot of, as someone's, someone wisely said, it's easy to full. I forget the phrase, I'm butchering it, but you're the easiest person to fool you, you know. And, uh, the, the, uh, the, the phrase is, I'm the first rule is to be honest because you, you are the easiest person to fool something along those lines. But I think the, the, the question is you have to look at business models for online selling for ecommerce and ask yourself the question, is this a business model I want to be in?
Jason: 00:42:58 I'm like, just, I mean studying the topic of business businesses and business models as fascinating. Warren Buffet and Charlie monger speak to this on and on and on. I mean they talk about owning a retail chain of stores in the sixties and the math associated with that. And you know, all of us go through these lessons where we're like, you know, is the business model I'm employing a good one is. And if it's honestly sourcing product and China and reselling it, that is a business model that has got a very short shelf life. Why everyone can do that. If the barrier to entry is so low that anyone can copy you and beat you, you will be beaten. So even if you make 100 grand or a million bucks this year, you know, you've made a million bucks in the last five years. Doing that kind of stuff doesn't mean it's a good business model of being for the longterm.
Jason: 00:43:50 And so to me that was always the question, what is a business model that's defensible that I can honestly say that this is going to be strong. You know, Warren Buffet says of time as the friend of the good business and it's the enemy of a bad business. And so, you know, I mean, I, I, I don't try to be discouraging to retail arbitrage because I had my own fund retail arbitrage stories and I don't try to be discouraging to private label people because Chi, all my business partner for our coaching, speaking, he's got his own private labels and very successful. But what I always challenge people is find a better business model and grow towards it. Um, and, and, you know, that's sort of the heart and soul of what I focus on a lot.
Stephen: 00:44:36 Oh my God, that's such a great phrase. And grow towards it. Not give up what you're doing. You said my friend Andy always says you use, if you're doing ra, use it to fund what you're going to write. Don't, don't quit your day job funded and get it so when you can't afford to go to work anymore, that's what you want to get to that place. Yeah. Well one of the things that I think is pretty cool and I want to talk about this, is that you've been able to take this approach, this consistent approach. Again, the advantage of taking the social media approach pretty much to everything you guys have done and you've been able to do it to make a dent in the world. Now. I mean some people would say, hey, you know, you're selling millions of outfits and that's your big dent in the world. That's awesome, but it sounds like you guys have a different dent in the world that you've really taken an approach to and I'm talking about so powerful body of work. Can we talk about that a little bit? Because I just think that. I mean, I mean I'm sure that this was a very rewarding. This has got to be a big win and it's awesome, but what happens when something that's so powerful.org happens? What's that do for you?
Jason: 00:45:40 Yeah, no, that's the love of our life really in a lot of ways. It's our, this is our legacy. This is, you know, I, I always say to send them in, you know, 20 or 30 or 40 years, nobody's going to remember Pixie Fair. But people are gonna Remember? So powerful.
Stephen: 00:45:55 Give me the chills when you just said that. So let's talk about what it is, where it came from. A white exists. Yeah.
Jason: 00:46:02 So as I mentioned, I had a 20 year career in nonprofit management. I used to take major donors. I was a major gift rep for four years in Silicon Valley and so I would, and part of my role for a long time was to take trips around the world with donors who are major donors and we would see program work. And um, there was this trip we were on in 2009, right in the middle of all that creation story I was just telling me about, you know, where we were trying to figure out what to do with our little side business. Um, but I was on this trip work trip in Lusaka, Zambia. And um, long story short, we got asked if we wanted to go see a, a, a community school in the worst urban slum in Lusaka. And it, um, it's not a program at the charity I was a part of was funding.
Jason: 00:46:50 Um, and so we went to visit it, this sort of aside, separate dave out of our itinerary and, um, and uh, what I saw there that day basically changed my life and as a team helped us create this meaningful charity. And, and basically what I saw there was this amazing woman who, and a group of moms who had created their own little school in a partially built church. They had 475 kids. These were the poorest kids in the worst slum. And they couldn't go to the public school because they literally couldn't afford clothes and like, you know, the little book fees or anything to go to the freeze. Even the free school, technically they couldn't go to because they couldn't afford it. So the, these moms just gathered them in this partially built school and we're trying to teach them, you know. And um, so then when we got to this one and, and our hearts were broken, I mean, you know, half the kids are HIV positive.
Jason: 00:47:45 It is literally the worst, uh, urban slum I've ever been in. And it just, you know, two thirds of the kids have lost one or both parents to HIV, aids, TB, malaria. Just, I just think the worst possible social, but just disaster you could think of. And yet these moms were just the heroes of the story that day. And they got to this part and over the little program. And they danced. Whereas they had a kid sync for us. They made me dance for them, which is hilarious. And we get to this one part of the program where they stood around this little area in this, on this brick wall and on these little nails, they had beaded costume jewelry hanging and Esther the program directors explained that the moms are trying to raise money for an eventual school they would love to have for these children.
Jason: 00:48:33 Now these and they're trying to sell plastic beaded jewelry in a slum to poor people. I mean that was their plan. And we said to ourselves in our little group, hey, let's just buy all this stuff just to make them happy. So we, we said, well, how much are these little necklaces? And I got a dollar us a piece. Okay, okay. And how many do you have here? So they add them up. So it was like $75. So we said, well, we'd like to buy all of them and we will give them as gifts to our friends. And we were so grateful that you have them for sale. And the mom's literally went nuts. They started dancing and doing the African like, um, and just like so excited. And in that moment I was just a total God thing you could say, or some kind of epiphany or whatever.
Stephen: 00:50:28 giving money. They're not giving money or giving help. That allows you to get so much more. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. I just, I can, I can tell that that passion, when I heard it a couple of years ago, it's still here today, years later. We're getting old dude. It's never stopped till I know, but. Oh all right. Yeah.
Jason: 00:50:51 We're 10 years into this and we're just getting started. So. So we, I literally said to the astro, the lady, do you have email? And she said yeah, I have email. So I got her email and we started giving her basically a $100 a month to help the moms come up with fundraising or you know, activities like whatever they wanted to do. We, we. That was what we could give to them. And then we said we could do more in the future maybe as one time projects. And that began to happen in 2009. We started doing one off sales events and activities to fund their work. And so the first thing they did was they wanted, they propose to us that they learn how to sew and they figure out how to sew in and sell items. Oh Wow. And that, that wasn't just, hey, just write us a check.
Jason: 00:51:44 Well, they're not dumb. And they knew that we were in the sewing that cinnamon's work with. So unrelated, we had said what we do. And they were like, well, how about if we become sellers? And so it totally click there, you know. So they, so the first few years we got them training, we got the machines and other miracles kind of happened. We got them an amazing school, uh, their own land, their own school building. And I'm indirectly, we didn't give them money ourselves, but it was through a connection and it was a total miracle. And so they were, they got out of that little partially built church. And um, and so it turned into a, now today what we have there is 36 people are employed, um, it is, uh, so in cooperative where they make school uniforms for the children and they make reusable hygiene pads for the girls. The whole issue of girls never go into school when they're on their period, uh, and, and causing educational dropout at a huge rate we didn't know about, but that's a fact. And then we also have a soap cooperative. They make soap and sell it locally and also use it in their program work. And then we have a 10 acre farm where they grow food for the school lunch program.
Jason: 00:53:25 goal was, our goal is two fold with the program. One is job creation for the parents and the parents all are focused on creating what we call purposeful products, which is a phrase I just, I think I kind of coined the phrase, but it's, it's products that, you know, it's not exporting trinkets to America for sale or you know, stuff like that. It's, it's making a school uniform for the child right there who needs it. It's making soap for the, you know, the people right there in the community because they need it. And it's defensible. It's your phrase earlier, you're making a business. You asked me, Steve, is your business model defensible for the longterm that, like you're saying, make it a little trinkets, not defensible making soap 100 percent or uniforms 100 percent. Oh yeah. So, so we're in over 25 schools we created and just as a tie in so people understand how we've sort of done this.
Jason: 00:54:21 We basically send them and made a, you know, we, we have a catalog of 2,600 pdf sewing patterns. So about five years ago she made a cross body purse and we went to our customer base and said, would you help us make these crossbody persists? We're going gonna, take them to Zambia, we're going to have the seamstresses there. So reusable feminine hygiene product, um, which guys in America aren't familiar with, but it's basically, you know, a monthly period, you know, product that's a washable reusable product, um, and so, and the usable hygiene product and underwear go in this purse, these beautiful little purses that are our customers make. And then it goes to a girl in health class and she's trained on how to stay in school all month. How to manage your period with this new product she's never seen. And the goal of staying in school and never missing school because of being on your period will our customers five years ago went absolutely nuts into this.
Jason: 00:55:22 And it has become, I mean I literally, we literally have coordinators around the world now in country level coordinators coordinating so powerful purse work and projects. We just had our um, our collection in November and we had $8,500 versus a brought in this year and you know, by 2020 we want to have 20,000 purses and so 20,000 girls will benefit through our program. And so the, our, our customers around the world who are seamstresses, they all have fabric, they all want to know the story and they get excited about helping us make a difference in Zambia and creating the jobs for the moms because the moms are so uncooperative and Lusaka are paid obviously to make the reasonable hygiene pad product, you know, so they, they, they get a good job out of the deal. This is, well this is, this is an engagement thing that you kind of talked about it. It's back to the beginning of the story where you figured out that we do a contest and we do them all the time and that's to keep people engaged, period. Right?
Jason: 00:57:22 so much opportunity to help other people. You mentioned the, you know, poverty in America, homelessness in America has gone in completely insane lately. Um, you know, my heart has gone out lately just to see, to thought my heart has gotten out to the gold star families who have lost a loved one in, in Iraq, Afghanistan, um, those families could be helped. So I would always say to any ecommerce seller, I mean, part of your success is going to be thinking beyond just your transaction and your, can I make a buck? And so take a day off, go to the beach, go, go sit somewhere and think about if I, if I had a successful business, it was spitting out the adequate money to cover my household budget. And I wanted to make a difference in the world. Was what the rest beyond, uh, you know, the trinkets and toys that you want to get yourself, what would it look like and who would I help?
Jason: 00:58:17 And then, and then do that now, do it immediately in the tiniest small way, whatever you can and start to integrate that into your work and it will catalyze your own energy. It'll catalyze your customers, it'll give you a unique, um, you know, topic and a unique way to connect with people. And if it's authentic from your heart, it's not a Shenanigan, it's not a, Oh, we're going to do a Bogo and give away the money to fill in the blank charity, which we found two minutes ago on the Internet. Um, you know, I mean, I think there's a huge opportunity for all of us to go deeper with this stuff and it really make a difference.
Stephen: 00:58:53 You have a very specific set of skills and now you can use them for, to really make a dent in the world. Okay, so let's finish up with this. So if somebody wants to follow up with more questions. So again, you have, um, you have the shopify site, the winning on shopify.com and so somebody could message you there. It's a blog, but they can message you there that correct? Yup. Absolutely. Okay. And then if you mind, do I put your facebook contact? Is that okay?
Jason: 00:59:19 Sure, totally. And then you can follow me on at Mr Jason Miles, you can follow me on twitter, which I'm never on, but I'm on instagram every day.
Stephen: 00:59:26 Okay. So dot Jason Miles. Yeah.
Stephen: 00:59:34 Bueller instructor. We never even got to that. That'll be next interview. Alright, so let me do this because I think he just said it, but I want to, I want to see if I can nail you down one more time because I think a lot of people listening here are going to be mesmerized. They're going to sit there and say, wow, that's so much bigger than me. It's so much bigger than I thought. Right now you're expanding the boundaries, which I always love when people get to see. There's more to wait. I can do that. Yes. You have permission. Jason just gave you permission. What would you say though, to the person who stuck, who's sitting there saying, yeah, that's fine. Jason, you know you're successful. You've had 3 million downloads, but they're stuck. They can't get to the 300 downloads. What would you say to them on how to get past that point of the wall that you hit? I hit every single person hits. It's getting past that. What? What? What's your advice?
Jason: 01:00:21 There's no shortcuts to this stuff. I think it's constant learning and implementing, learning and implementing and experimenting. So you know, all of us in terms of the shiny object stuff, we all are mesmerized when a new topic comes out. Oh Manny, chats the answer. Oh, instagram stories are the answer, etc. Etc. So thE question is how do you learn something and then metabolize it into your routines and your business and there will be a few tried and true things that will absolutely work. I mean, building an email list is like so boring. No one wants to buy a course on email marketing, but honestly if you ask anybody, do you have any email list work? You're doing. Many, many online sellers will say no, and so it's, to me, it always goes back to the basics. I mean bruce lee'S famous quote, if he all his famous quotes or be asleep, I don't know if they, if it's really hammering up, but you know the quote of I'd rather I don't fear the man who knows a thousand kicks.
Jason: 01:01:20 I fear the man who's, you know, knows one kick and practice at a 10,000 times or you know, whatever. I put you on my quotes, but that's the gist of it. So, so I don't think there's any shortcuts. There's no magic secret sauce. There is learning something and trying to implement it and do they doing that over and over to grow your, grow your business and get better clarity on who your customer is and who you can serve. And then, as I mentioned before, growing into a stronger and stronger product strategy where you can serve them in a bulletproof way.
Stephen: 01:01:55 Defensive. All right, well, hey, thank you so much. I wish you nothing but success. Take care of my dog. Says thank you to know about you, but how could you not be inspired after that conversation? I'm just a phenomenal guy. Just a phenomenal story of a husband and wife who have figured it out and have figured out in such a way that they could. They could 10 x everything they do by helping others and letting them 10 x their network and their network and their network and their network. His comment about, you know, twitter and facebook and instagram being word of mouth is powerful and I think he's absolutely right. Yeah. It is hard to drive traffic. Um, unless you're the pet rock or unless you're the whatever it was hot the this year, you know, I mean, whatever the hot toy was then, then you can drive traffic because it's a good product. And so, you know, are, is your business defensible for the longterm? That's a, that's a hard question. One that's worth looking into. Ecommerce momentum.com, ecommerce momentum.com. Take care.
Cool voice guy: 01:03:04 Thanks for listening to the ecommerce mobile jazz. All the links mentioned today can be found at ecommerce momentum dotcom. Under these episode number, please remember to subscribe and the lake us on itunes.


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PL Kyōdan, in full Perfect Liberty Kyōdan, religious group or church (Japanese: kyōdan) founded in Japan in 1946 by Miki Tokuchika. The movement, unique for the use of English words in its name, is based on the earlier Hito-no-michi sect. It is not affiliated, however, with any of the major religious traditions of Japan. In the late 20th century the group claimed more than 2.5 million adherents worldwide.
Headquarters of the sect are at Habikino, near Ōsaka. PL Kyōdan operates a hospital, a golf course, and other sports facilities. Considerable missionary activity is carried on in Japan and among Japanese living abroad.
PL Kyōdan teaches that the goal of man is joyful self-expression. Forgetting God brings misfortune and suffering, but the believer may pray that his troubles be transferred by divine mediation to his patriarch, who is strengthened for his vicarious suffering by the group's collective prayers.


Pannell Discussions » 194 – "With respect, …" » Ideas in economics, environment, policy and more.
I struck a particularly prickly questioner after a conference presentation I gave in Sydney two weeks ago. The questioner clearly had a very jaundiced view of my work, and, I suspect, of economics in general. Responding to such a person is challenging, but can actually be quite helpful sometimes, as it brings issues to the surface that otherwise stay buried. I use it here as an opportunity to outline an approach we've developed to make economics relevant, accessible and useful in supporting decision makers.
When you give a conference presentation and, in question time, someone starts their question with, "With respect, …", you know you're in trouble. "With respect, …" generally means "I have a deeply held and fundamental disagreement with what you've just said", and that was exactly the case in this instance.
The context was a national conference in Sydney organised by the Bushfire Cooperative Research Centre and the Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council. My talk was about a project we are just starting, doing integrated assessment of various strategies for prescribed burning to reduce risks to life and property.
My questioner seemed to have (at least) three big problems with my presentation.
She objected to the idea that we could express important values and ideas in numbers. Or perhaps it was something like, "you can't express everything that matters in numbers".
Probably related to point 1, she suspected that we would exclude important issues from the analysis.
She seemed to feel that we would be taking control of the agenda and the decision process, imposing obnoxious economist values and economist judgments. To be fair, she didn't actually say "obnoxious", but it seemed to be the subtext.
The approach we'll be using in the project is based on 10 years experience of trying to help policy makers and managers make better decisions about complex environmental problems. The aim is not to turn people into economists, but to help them make decisions that are more in line with the goals of the programs they are running or delivering. The approach is to ask, how can we achieve the goal or goals to the highest possible level with the available resource?. In the case of bushfires, there are multiple goals that may need to be traded off (e.g. protecting life, property, water resources, the environment). We will be teasing out the highest combinations of these outcomes that can be achieved, and quantifying the trade-offs between them.
The approach involves working closely with policy makers and managers to understand the decision options that they think are potentially feasible, and the values associated with the outcomes that will be delivered. We use the available research and judgments from researchers and local stakeholders to identify what those outcomes would be, and to estimate the likely behavioural responses of people and organisations affected by the project. We bring all that together in a quantitative tool that allows us (and any stakeholder) to ask what-if questions about different decision options.
Having clarified that, will the project line up with our questioner's low expectations?
Starting with number 3, we certainly will not be taking control of the agenda or the decision process. The aim is to expand and clarify the options that are available, and to assess their consequences. The broad goals against which the options will be assessed are those of the funders and decision makers, not ours. Our job, in part, is to be advocates for the public interest, assessing whether particular strategies or interventions will contribute outcomes sufficient to justify the resources they use up, given that those resources could be used in other projects to pursue the same goals, or different goals.
We appreciate that the decisions are not up to us. We provide information, and others make the decisions. They are likely to include considerations beyond our analysis (e.g. political consequences). For that reason, we tend not to say which options are the absolute best, although we do indicate that some options are clearly not worth doing, usually because they are not technically or socially feasible given the budget they are likely to have available.
It's true that judgments will be required at times, but even there we use other experts to make them if possible. For example, there is often a lack of clear evidence to support a particular number to feed into the analysis. We collect the available evidence and ask relevant experts to help us by selecting a best-bet value, preferably by consensus. If consensus is not possible (e.g. there are differing scientific opinions on the matter), we include different values, and tease out their consequences, to see if the disagreement actually makes any important difference. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes, on particular issues, the best expert might be one of our team — that's fine. For example, that might be the case in relation to farmer adoption of new practices, or the farm-level economics of a land management option.
Although the approach is grounded in economics, we are not just economists. We also have expertise in biological, physical and social sciences, and we collaborate closely with experts from all disciplines. In 2009, we won the Eureka Prize for Excellence in Interdisciplinary Research.
Back to point 2 of the questioner's list of concerns. Obviously it's true that an analysis might not explicitly factor in every conceivable relevant consideration. However, if the decision makers and stakeholders we work with think something is important and ask us to factor it in, we'll try to do so. If something is excluded, it is because (a) the the decision makers and stakeholders haven't thought it important enough to include, or (b) there is too little information or understanding about the issue to warrant its inclusion.
The exception there is politics, which we don't include. We're interested in promoting real outcomes for the community, not political outcomes. If a decision maker promotes an option for political reasons, we want it to be clear what the resulting cost is in terms of lost community outcomes.
Finally, there is our questioner's aversion to numbers. Where appropriate, we do actually capture an issue qualitatively, rather than quantitatively, and report something to the decision makers in words, rather than numbers. One of a number of possible examples here is the quality of the information used in the analysis. It's important for decision makers to know whether the analysis of a decision option is based on really strong evidence, or expert judgments based on minimal evidence. We capture and report that qualitatively, not in numbers.
But where it is possible, and makes sense, doing a numerical analysis of the pros and cons of each decision option is crucial. Our experience provides abundant examples that reinforce this. It is not sufficient to describe all of the benefits and costs qualitatively, because every decision option has both benefits and costs. For example, a purely qualitative approach can't tell you that, for option 3, the ratio of benefits to costs is 10 times greater than for option 7, which is essential information for sound decision making.
I should acknowledge that our approach to this sort of research is actually relatively unusual for economists. Experience over a decade has helped us to develop an approach that makes economics accessible and helpful to designers, managers and deliverers of programs. It is pragmatic and participatory, but still firmly based on sound economic theories and principles. We make sure that the biological, physical and social science we use is not compromised to suit over-simplified economic models, which, sadly, happens too often in the mainstream economics literature.
This is not to say ours is the only relevant approach to economic analysis, even for these sorts of problems. It addresses a sub-set of the possible economic questions that are relevant to a particular group of decision makers. By demonstrating the value and usefulness of economic thinking and analysis, it may actually provide a vehicle for introducing more complex economic models to these decision makers.
Pannell, D.J. (2009). Why don't environmental managers use decision theory? Pannell Discussions, no. 150, http://dpannell.fnas.uwa.edu.au/pd/pd0150.htm.
Posted on 12 September, 2011 by David Pannell.	This entry was posted in Communication, Natural resource management.


Fight Fire not the Flu….
Its that time of the year again, the cold and flu season. Each year the common cold affects the average person two times, and can affect the fire rescue athlete even more. The sneezing, coughing, aching, stuff head, sore throat, and runny nose leave you wanting to curl up under the bed covers. To avoid this misery, prevention is the best cure. So with over 200 mutating cold-causing viruses floating around, what's a fire rescue athlete to do to avoid getting sick?
1. Drink Plenty of Fluids. General good health practices keep your body strong and ready to fend off cold germs and the flu virus and this especially includes drinking plenty of water. In fact, one recent study found that staying hydrated may boost a particular immune response to enable your body to better fight the viruses. Stay hydrated by drinking a lot of fluids, especially water, and by avoiding caffeinated drinks. Shoot for six to eight glasses of water per day, more if you consume caffeinated beverages.
2. Exercise to Strengthen Your Immunity. Exercise not only makes you perform your job better as a fire rescue athlete, but it also boosts your immune system. Additionally, warding off extra weight is important for overall health, particularly when it comes to preventing colds and flu. A recent study found that overweight and obese people were more likely to fall ill or be injured. Not only does exercise (need a good workout, click here) improve the circulation of white blood cells throughout your body, but it has been shown to increase the production of natural killer T cells, which are essential for maintaining an optimum immune response. The amount of exercise required to obtain an immune boost is relatively low, 20 minutes of brisk walking 4-5 times per week (which is basically a warm-up) has been shown to significantly improve the body's immune response. This is also a good opportunity to get a little bit of sunshine to stimulate Vitamin D production.
3. Get Plenty of Sleep. This can be difficult for the fire rescue athlete especially when the tones go off numerous times throughout the night. It is important to get as much sleep as possible especially on those days away from the firehouse. Studies have found that getting enough sleep is essential for healthy immune function and that insufficient sleep or poor sleep quality is associated with lowered immune function. Ultimately you want to get at least 8 hours each night. There is hope for those of us that can't sleep through the night, recent research shows that napping can boost health and the immune system.
4. Put down the sugar. When it comes to fighting cold and flu, it is essential to decrease your amount of sugar intake. Sugar has devastating effects on the immune system, and the fact that Americans consume an average of 2-3 pounds of sugar per person every year spells bad news come cold and flu season. Not only does sugar increase the production of hormones that suppress the immune system, refined sugar needs micronutrients to be metabolized. This requires your body to use stored vitamins and minerals, further harming your defences. Instead of eating high sugar foods try eating a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. This will make sure that your body is getting all of the vitamins and minerals that are essential to fighting of the cold and flu. Each and every fruit and vegetable is packed with thousands of phytochemicals. No supplement could ever match the power of eating a whole food.
5. Chicken Soup, Mom and laughing. I know that these things aren't backed with research but chicken soup warms the spirit, TLC from Mom is always helpful and laughing can't hurt (see the quote below).