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FOR572: Advanced Network Forensics: Threat Hunting, Analysis, and Incident Response
Live | Online
GNFA Certification
I've always found SANS training to be the best training available, and this one is even more so! The instructor's teaching methods and the course material are phenomenal. The instructor teaches you the way and how, not just the way to use a too. Really great!
Gary Sanders, LWCC
If you are into disk/memory forensics, you will need this, too!
Wouter Jansen
It is exceedingly rare to work any forensic investigation that doesn't have a network component. Endpoint forensics will always be a critical and foundational skill for this career but overlooking their network communications is akin to ignoring security camera footage of a crime as it was committed. Whether you handle an intrusion incident, data theft case, employee misuse scenario, or are engaged in proactive adversary discovery, the network often provides an unparalleled view of the incident. Its evidence can provide the proof necessary to show intent, uncover attackers that have been active for months or longer, or may even prove useful in definitively proving a crime actually occurred.
FOR572: ADVANCED NETWORK FORENSICS: THREAT HUNTING, ANALYSIS AND INCIDENT RESPONSE was designed to cover the most critical skills needed for the increased focus on network communications and artifacts in today's investigative work, including numerous use cases. Many investigative teams are incorporating proactive threat hunting to their skills, in which existing evidence is used with newly-acquired threat intelligence to uncover evidence of previously-unidentified incidents. Others focus on post-incident investigations and reporting. Still others engage with an adversary in real time, seeking to contain and eradicate the attacker from the victim's environment. In these situations and more, the artifacts left behind from attackers' communications can provide an invaluable view into their intent, capabilities, successes, and failures.
In FOR572, we focus on the knowledge necessary to examine and characterize communications that have occurred in the past or continue to occur. Even if the most skilled remote attacker compromised a system with an undetectable exploit, the system still has to communicate over the network. Without command-and-control and data extraction channels, the value of a compromised computer system drops to almost zero. Put another way: Bad guys are talking - we'll teach you to listen.
This course covers the tools, technology, and processes required to integrate network evidence sources into your investigations, with a focus on efficiency and effectiveness. You will leave this week with a well-stocked toolbox and the knowledge to use it on your first day back on the job. We will cover the full spectrum of network evidence, including high-level NetFlow analysis, low-level pcap-based dissection, ancillary network log examination, and more. We cover how to leverage existing infrastructure devices that may contain months or years of valuable evidence as well as how to place new collection platforms while an incident is underway.
Whether you are a consultant responding to a client's site, a law enforcement professional assisting cybercrime victims and seeking prosecution of those responsible, an on-staff forensic practitioner, or a member of the growing ranks of threat hunters, this course offers hands-on experience with real-world scenarios that will help take your work to the next level. Previous SANS SEC curriculum students and other network defenders will benefit from the FOR572 perspective on security operations as they take on more incident response and investigative responsibilities. SANS DFIR alumni can take their existing operating system or device knowledge and apply it directly to the network-based attacks that occur daily. In FOR572, we solve the same caliber of real-world problems without the use of disk or memory images.
Most of FOR572's hands-on labs have been developed together with the latest version of FOR508, Advanced Incident Response, Threat Hunting, and Digital Forensics. In these shared scenarios, you'll quickly see a hybrid approach to forensic examination that includes both host and network artifacts is ideal. Although our primary focus is on the network side of that equation, we will point out areas where the host perspective could provide additional context, or where the network perspective gives deeper insight. Both former and future FOR508 students will appreciate the nexus between these extensive evidence sets.
The hands-on labs in this class cover a wide range of tools and platforms, including the venerable tcpdump and Wireshark for packet capture and analysis; NetworkMiner for artifact extraction; and open-source tools including nfdump, tcpxtract, tcpflow, and more. Newly added tools in the course include the free and open-source SOF-ELK(R) platform - a VMware appliance pre-configured with a tailored configuration of the Elastic stack. This "big data" platform includes the Elasticsearch storage and search database, the Logstash ingest and parsing engine, and the Kibana graphical dashboard interface. Together with the custom SOF-ELK configuration files, the platform gives forensicators a ready-to-use platform for log and NetFlow analysis. For full-packet analysis and hunting at scale, the free and open-source Moloch platform is also covered and used in a hands-on lab. Through all of the in-class labs, shell scripting skills are highlighted as quick and easy ways to rip through hundreds of thousands of data records.
FOR572 is truly an advanced course - we hit the ground running on day one. Bring your entire bag of skills: forensic techniques and methodologies, full-stake networking knowledge (from the wire all the way up to user-facing services), Linux shell utilities, and everything in between. They will all benefit you throughout the course material as you FIGHT CRIME. UNRAVEL INCIDENTS...ONE BYTE (OR PACKET) AT A TIME.
Advanced Network Forensics: Threat Hunting, Analysis and Incident Response Course Topics:
Unique considerations for network-focused forensic processes
Domain Name Service (DNS)
Server Message Block (SMB) and related Microsoft protocols
Useful forensic artifacts from wireless traffic
Common attack methods and detection
Microsoft Windows Event Forwarding
Firewalls, Intrusion Detection Systems (IDSes), and Network Security Monitoring (NSM) Platforms
Meddler-in-the-middle
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS)
Focus: Although many fundamental network forensic concepts align with those of any other digital forensic investigation, the network presents many nuances that require special attention. Today you will learn how to apply what you already know about digital forensics and incident response to network-based evidence. You will also become acclimated to the basic tools of the trade.
Network data can be preserved, but only if directly captured or documented while in transit. Whether tactical or strategic, packet capture methods are quite straightforward. You will re-acquaint yourself with tcpdump and Wireshark, some of the most common tools used to capture and analyze network packets, respectively. However, since long-term full-packet capture is still uncommon in most environments, many artifacts that can tell us about what happened on the wire in the past come from devices that manage network functions. You will learn about what kinds of devices can provide valuable evidence and at what level of granularity. We will walk through collecting evidence from one of the most common sources of network evidence - a web proxy server - then you'll go hands-on to find and extract stolen data from the proxy.
The Linux SIFT Workstation virtual machine, which has been loaded with network forensic tools, will be your primary toolkit for the week.
Lab Environment Preparation
tcpdump and Wireshark Hands-On
Carve Exfiltrated Data
Data reduction
Useful command-line parameters
Network Evidence Acquisition
Three core types: full-packet capture, Logs, NetFlow
Capture devices: switches, taps, Layer 7 sources, NetFlow
Planning to capture: strategies; commercial and home-built platforms
FOR572.2: Core Protocols & Log Aggregation/Analysis
FOCUS: There are countless network protocols that may be in use in a production network environment. We will cover those that are most likely to benefit the forensicator in typical casework, as well as several that help demonstrate analysis methods useful when facing new, undocumented, or proprietary protocols. By learning the "typical" behaviors of these protocols, we can more readily identify anomalies that may suggest misuse of the protocol for nefarious purposes. These protocol artifacts and anomalies can be profiled through direct traffic analysis as well as through the log evidence created by systems that have control or visibility of that traffic. While this affords the investigator with vast opportunities to analyze the network traffic, efficient analysis of large quantities of source data generally requires tools and methods designed to scale.
Knowing how protocols appear in their normal use is critical if investigators are to identify anomalous behaviors. By looking at some of the more frequently-used and high-impact network communication protocols, we will specifically focus on the ways in which they can be easily misused by an adversary or a malware author.
While no one course could ever exhaustively cover the dizzying list of protocols used in a typical network environment, you will build the skills needed to learn whatever new protocols may come your way. The ability to "learn how to learn" is critical, as new protocols are developed every day. Advanced adversaries also develop their own protocols. As you will see later in this class, successfully understanding and counteracting an adversary's undocumented protocol is a similar process to learning those you will see in this section.
Log data is one of the unsung heroes in the realm of network forensics. While the near-perfect knowledge that comes with full-packet capture seems ideal, it suffers from several shortfalls. It is often unavailable, as many organizations have not yet deployed or cannot deploy comprehensive collection systems. When they are in use, network capture systems quickly amass a huge volume of data, which is often difficult to process effectively and must be maintained in a rolling buffer covering just a few days or weeks. The increasing use of encryption for most network traffic also provides a significant barrier to analysis when using full-packet capture, leaving logs from a terminal point of the communication as the artifact with the most potential impact.
In this section, you will learn various logging mechanisms available to both endpoint and network transport devices. You will also learn how to consolidate log data from multiple sources, providing a broad corpus of evidence in one location. As the volume of log data increases, so does the need to consider automated analytic tools. You'll use the SOF-ELK(R) platform for post-incident log aggregation and analysis, bringing quick and decisive insight to a compromise investigation.
Firewall and Zeek NSM Analysis
SOF-ELK(R) Log Aggregation and Analysis
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Part 1: Protocol
HTTP tracking cookies
HTTP/2 artifacts
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Part 2: Logs
Expanded mod_forensic logging
Domain Name Service (DNS): Protocol and Logs
Fast flux and domain name generation algorithms (DGAs)
Logging methods
Amplification attacks
Firewall, Intrusion Detection System, and Network Security Monitoring Logs
Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) and Network Security Monitoring (NSM) Platforms
Families of IDS and NSM solutions
Zeek NSM
Basics and use cases
Signature engine
Logging Protocol and Aggregation
Deployment model and capabilities
Windows Event Forwarding
Analysis mode
Evaluating a comprehensive log aggregation platform
Elastic Stack and the SOF-ELK(R) Platform
Basics and pros/cons of the Elastic stack
SOF-ELK(R)
Log-centric dashboards
Use as a data exploration platform
FOR572.3: NetFlow and File Access Protocols
Focus: Network connection logging, commonly called NetFlow, may be the single most valuable source of evidence in network investigations. Many organizations have extensive archives of flow data due to its minimal storage requirements. Since NetFlow does not capture any content of the transmission, many legal issues with long-term retention are mitigated. Even without content, NetFlow provides an excellent means of guiding an investigation and characterizing an adversary's activities from pre-attack through operations. Whether for moving within a victim's environment or for data exfiltration, adversaries must move their quarry around through the use of various file access protocols. By knowing some of the more common file access and transfer protocols, a forensicator can quickly identify an attacker's theft actions.
Just as even a fuzzy photo can provide valuable leads in a traditional investigation, NetFlow data can provide a network forensicator with extremely high-value intelligence about network communications. The key to extracting that value is in knowing how to use NetFlow evidence to drive more detailed investigative activities.
NetFlow is also an ideal technology to use in baselining typical behavior of an environment, and therefore, deviations from that baseline that may suggest malicious actions. Threat hunting teams can also use NetFlow to identify prior connections consistent with newly-identified suspicious endpoints or traffic patterns.
In this section, you will learn the contents of typical NetFlow protocols, as well as common collection architectures and analysis methods. You'll also learn how to distill full-packet collections to NetFlow records for quick initial analysis before diving into more cumbersome pcap files.
You'll then examine the File Transfer Protocol, including how to reconstruct specific files from an FTP session. While FTP is commonly used for data exfiltration, it is also an opportunity to refine protocol analysis techniques, due to its multiple-stream nature.
Lastly, you'll explore a variety of the network protocols unique to a Microsoft Windows or Windows-compatible environment. Significant time will be spent exploring the SMB protocol, used for file transfers and countless other purposes in a Microsoft Windows domain structure. Attackers frequently use these protocols to "live off the land" within the victim's environment. By using existing and expected protocols, the adversary can hide in plain sight and avoid deploying malware that could tip off the investigators to their presence and actions.
Visual NetFlow Analysis with SOF-ELK(R)
Tracking Lateral Movement with NetFlow
SMB Session Analysis and Reconstruction
NetFlow Collection and Analysis
NetFlow v5 and v9 protocols
NetFlow artifacts useful for examining encrypted traffic
nfcapd, nfpcapd, and nfdump
SOF-ELK: NetFlow ingestion and dashboards
SMB v2, and v3
FOR572.4: Commercial Tools, Wireless, and Full-Packet Hunting
Focus: Commercial tools are a mainstay in the network forensicator's toolkit. We'll explore the various roles that commercial tools generally fill, as well as how they can best be integrated to an investigative workflow. With the runaway adoption of wireless networking, investigators must also be prepared to address the unique challenges this technology brings to the table. However, regardless of the protocol being examined or budget used to perform the analysis, having a means of exploring full-packet capture is a necessity, and having a toolkit to perform this at scale is critical.
Commercial tools hold clear advantages in some situations a forensicator may typically encounter. Most commonly, this centers on scalability. Many open-source tools are designed for tactical or small-scale use. Whether using them for large-scale deployments or for specific niche functionalities, these tools can immediately address many investigative needs. You'll look at the typical areas where commercial tools in the network forensic realm tend to focus and discuss the value each may provide for your organizational requirements or those of your clients.
Additionally, we will address the forensic aspects of wireless networking. We will cover similarities with and differences from traditional wired network examinations, as well as what interesting artifacts can be recovered from wireless protocol fields. Some inherent weaknesses of wireless deployments will also be covered, including how attackers can leverage those weaknesses during an attack, and how they can be detected.
Finally, we will look at methods that can improve at-scale hunting from full-packet captures, even without commercial tooling. We will look at the open-source Moloch platform and how it can be used in live and forensic workflows. You'll receive a ready-to-use Moloch virtual machine and load source data from an incident we previously investigated, seeking ground truth from the previously-captured full-packet data.
Using Command-Line Tools for Analysis
Network Forensic Analysis Using Moloch
Lifecycle of an email message
Capture methodologies: Hardware and Software
Typical attack methodologies based on protection mechanisms
Common tools that can facilitate large-scale analysis and repeatable workflows
Full-Packet Hunting with Moloch
Moloch basics and architecture
Session awareness, filtering, typical forensic use cases
FOR572.5: Encryption, Protocol Reversing, OPSEC, and Intel
Focus: Advancements in common technology have made it easier to be a bad guy and harder for us to track them. Strong encryption methods are readily available and custom protocols are easy to develop and employ. Despite this, there are still weaknesses even in the most advanced adversaries' methods. As we learn what the attackers have deliberately hidden from us, we must operate carefully to avoid tipping our hats regarding the investigative progress - or the attacker can quickly pivot, nullifying our progress.
Encryption is frequently cited as the most significant hurdle to effective network forensics - for good reason. When properly implemented, encryption can be a brick wall in between an investigator and critical answers. However, technical and implementation weaknesses can be used to our advantage. Even in the absence of these weaknesses, the right analytic approach to encrypted network traffic can still yield valuable information about the content. We will discuss the basics of encryption and how to approach it during an investigation. The section will also cover flow analysis to characterize encrypted conversations.
We will also discuss undocumented protocols and the misuse of existing protocols for nefarious purposes. Specifically, we will address how to derive intelligence value with limited or nonexistent knowledge of the carrier protocol.
Finally, we will look at how common missteps can provide the attacker with clear insight to the forensicator's progress. This often leads to the attacker changing their tactics, confounding the investigator and even erasing all the progress made to that point. We'll address best practices on conducting investigations and in a compromised environment and ways to share hard-earned intelligence that mitigate the risks involved.
SSL/TLS Profiling
Undocumented Protocol Features
Mini-Comprehensive Investigation
Encoding, Encryption, and SSL/TLS
Profiling SSL/TLS connections with useful negotiation fields
Analytic mitigation
Perfect forward secrecy
Meddler-in-the-Middle (MITM)
Malicious uses
Artifacts of common MITM techniques
Investigation OPSEC and Threat Intel
How to mitigate risk without compromising quality
Plan to share smartly
Protect intelligence to mitigate risks
Students will test their understanding of network evidence and their ability to articulate and support hypotheses through presentations made to the instructor and class. The audience will include senior-level decision makers, so all presentations must include executive summaries as well as technical details. Time permitting, students should also include recommended steps that could help to prevent, detect, or mitigate a repeat compromise.
Capstone Lab
Present executive-level summaries of your findings at the end of the day-long lab
MANDATORY FOR572 SYSTEM HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS
BIOS settings must be set to enable virtualization technology, such as "Intel-VTx". Be absolutely certain you can access your BIOS if it is password protected, in case changes are necessary. Test it!
16 GB (Gigabytes) of RAM or higher is mandatory for this class (Important - Please Read: 16 GB of RAM or higher of RAM is mandatory and minimum.)
200 Gigabytes of Free Space on your System Hard Drive - Free Space on Hard Drive is critical to host the VMs and data sets we distribute
Wireless 802.11 Capability - there are no wired networks in the classroom.
MANDATORY FOR572 HOST CONFIGURATION AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
On Windows hosts, VMware products cannot coexist with the Hyper-V hypervisor. Disable Hyper-V and ensure VMware can boot a virtual machine. Disabling Hyper-V, Device Guard, and Credential Guard can be accomplished using these instructions.
Linux hosts cannot be supported in the classroom due to their numerous variations. Students that wish to use Linux hosts must be experienced users or administrators, and must also be able to access ExFAT partitions using the appropriate kernel and/or FUSE modules.
PLEASE INSTALL THE FOLLOWING SOFTWARE PRIOR TO CLASS
Microsoft Office (any version) w/Excel or OpenOffice w/Calc installed on your host - Note you can download Office Trial Software online (free for 30 days)
Download and install VMware Workstation 15.5, VMware Fusion 11.5, or VMware Player 15.5 or higher versions on your system prior to class beginning. If you do not own a licensed copy of VMware Workstation or Fusion, you can download a free 30-day trial copy from VMware. VMware will send you a time-limited serial number if you register for the trial at their website. Also note that VMware Player offers fewer features than VMware Workstation, and Workstation is recommended for a more seamless student experience.
Download and install 7Zip (for Windows Hosts) or Keka (for macOS)
Hunt team members who proactively seek adversaries already in their network environments through leveraging new intelligence against previously-collected evidence
SOF-ELK(R) Virtual Machine - a publicly available appliance running the ELK stack and the course author's custom set of configurations and dashboards. The VM is preconfigured to ingest syslog logs, HTTPD logs, and NetFlow, and will be used during the class to help students wade through the hundreds of millions of records they are likely to encounter during a typical investigation
Moloch Virtual Machine - a standalone VM running the free Moloch application. Moloch ingests and indexes live network data or pcap files, providing a platform that makes full-packet analysis attainable.
SB drive(s) loaded with case examples, tools, and documentation
Decrypt captured SSL/TLS traffic to identify attackers' actions and what data they extracted from the victim
Learn how attackers leverage meddler-in-the-middle tools to intercept seemingly secure communications
Apply the knowledge you acquire during the week in a full-day capstone lab, modeled after real-world nation-state intrusions and threat actors
"Essential to any investigators skill set. This course makes the advanced network forensics techniques easily graspable." - Casey Brooks, Leidos Cyber
"This course is fantastic. It has prepared me with new ideas to take back to work." - Ryan Fletcher, Fulton Financial Corp
"First course I've taken that gives insight into the forensic mindset required for investigating incidents." - Tyler Whittington, PWC
"Single word: Relevancy. Techniques and methodologies taught in his class will immediately improve your IR posture." - Nathan Hwang, Strategic Investment Group
"Useful, real world scenarios make the training relevant. Walkthrough labs are extremely helpful!" - Roisin Cullen, NCA
"All of the material has been very informative and beneficial. One of the best courses I've ever taken." - Chris Pardo, Relia Quest
"The exposure to top-notch instruction, relevant information, & hands-on activities (labs) provides a comprehensive learning experience." - Ryan Paros, NCCI Holdings, Inc.
"Content is excellent and the course is very intense. I've improved my knowledge and tool use skills. I think all IR engineers should take this course." - Yigit Turak, ING Bank
"We had to deal with a DDoS where the only available data was a 600GB PCAP file. We reduced to NetFlow and loaded that to the SOF-ELK VM. It quickly showed the waves of attack and how effective the countermeasures were." -David D.
"FOR572 is the best SANS course I have taken. The labs and course material are outstanding and everything I have learned is usable in real world application." - Lionel B.
"This was the best course I've ever been to. Nothing but the best to say about SANS and this course. SANS stuff is really expensive, but I know why now. It was incredibly helpful to our duties here." - Anonymous
"You won't get exposure to the breadth of info on network forensics in any other course." - Devin J.
"NetFlow is cool. We've been receiving massive NetFlow feeds but were unable to fully utilize them apart from DDoS. With this course, I'm getting so many ideas how to use them in hunting." - Anonymous
"I literally was alerted to a potential incident from work on day 5 and used things I'd learned in class to analyze and help remediate." - Patterson C.
"This is an incredible curriculum. This class NEEDED to happen, and I am glad it did." - Peter S.
"Very good real-world material." - Jason L.
"Great resource. Only true network forensics course I know of." - Jeremy R.
"If you are into disk/memory forensics, you will need this, too!" - Wouter J.
"This class is immediately applicable to my work environment." - Thomas H.
"No FLUFF - focused and targeted learning!" - Jackie S.
"Awesome! Best SANS course I have taken!" - Jim H.
"Although FOR572 is a network forensics class, it gets exactly right what most incident response courses get wrong. Instead of focusing on specific exploits and malware that quickly become outdated, 'Advanced Network Forensics' taught me about the full range of evidence sources available and how to effectively mine them for clues. Even more importantly, FOR572 taught me how to use different evidence sources to fill in missing gaps. This is critical, as most environments or incidents will not have every type of evidence available. A large-scale APT breach will not have full packet capture available for what could be over a year of attacker activity but making effective use of network log files can fill in those gaps. It also dove into advanced topics like analyzing unknown protocols, which is an important skill when dealing with the ever-evolving landscape of malware and odd but legitimate applications. Finally, the network forensics capstone investigation is a small but realistic simulation of an APT breach. Having to perform a realistic investigation under the pressure of limited in-class hours felt much like the pressures of investigating a live incident under the pressure of stopping ongoing data theft. It is an excellent class, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to bring their IR skills to the next level." - Alexander B.
"Phil shared an example of extracting cached content and identifying and extracting a GZIP file. These practical analysis examples I think are extremely valuable." - Anonymous
Course Authors' Statements
When I first became interested in computer and network security in the mid-1990s, the idea of "attacking" another computer network was still science fiction. Today, commercial, governmental, military, and intelligence entities have robust, integrated information security processes. Within the forensic community, we have seen developments that show the agility we must have to remain effective in the face of dynamic adversaries. Endpoint forensic practices will remain the keystone of digital forensics for the foreseeable future - this is where the events ultimately occur, after all.
"We created FOR572: Advanced Network Forensics: Threat Hunting, Analysis, and Incident Response to address the most transient domain of digital forensics. Many enterprises have grown to the scale that identifying which handful of endpoints to examine among thousands is a significant challenge. Additionally, the network has become its own medium for incident response and investigation. Our ability to use evidence from all kinds of network devices as well as from captured network data itself will be critical to our success in addressing threats today and tomorrow. From low-grade "script kiddie" attacks to long-term, strategic state-sponsored espionage activity, the network is one of the few common elements found throughout the life cycle of an incident. FOR572 will provide you with the tools and methods to conduct network investigations within environments of all sizes, using scenarios developed from real-world cases. You will finish the course with valuable knowledge that you will use the first day back on the job, and with the methodologies that will help address future generations of adversaries' capabilities." - Phil Hagen
"When I first started my career in computer security, the term "advanced persistent threat" was unknown, yet I had personally recovered terabytes of data obtained from both commercial and government networks. The biggest cybersecurity threat in the news was the latest worm that would propagate through unsuspecting systems and cause more of a nuisance than actual destruction. What was known as the Russian Business Network wasn't even around yet. Network security monitoring was still in its infancy, with very little formal documentation or best practices, most of which were geared towards system administrators. While the Internet has continued to expand, we have all become more interconnected and the threat against our networks continues to grow. We wrote FOR572 as the class we wish we had when we were entering the field of network forensics and investigations - a class that not only provides background when needed but is primarily tailored toward finding evil using multiple data sources and performing a full scope investigation. I am confident this course provides the most up-to-date training covering topics both old and new, based on real-life experiences and investigations." - Mat Oldham
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Low Carbon Diagnostics
Low Carbon Grants
Long Term Collaboration
The SME Low Carbon Project Team
Meet the SME Low Carbon project team who are here to help you with your program needs.
Prasanta Dey : Professor Prasanta Kumar Dey is a Professor of Operations Management at Aston...
Jamal Lea : Jamal is an enthusiastic business sustainability and low-carbon practitioner with a successful...
John Kyffin Hughes : John has worked in the field of environmental and carbon management for...
Adiba Amin : Adiba has diverse experience in Project Administration for Funded projects. Before joining...
Project Administrator
Jennifer Knight : Jennifer is the Project Administrator and School Support Coordinator as Aston Business...
Aston University's low carbon business support programme provides dedicated one-to-one academic support to assist SMEs in reducing their carbon footprint. Our Academics have extensive experience is supply chain management. Our Academics include
Operations & Information Management Group
Dr Pavel Albores
Head of Department/Senior Lecturer Operations Management
Dr Ahmad Beltagui
Lecturer Project and Operations Management
Dr Soumyadeb Chowdhury
Lecturer Information Communication Technology
Professor Ben Clegg
Professor of Operations Management
Professor Prasanta Kumar Dey
Dr Breno Nunes
Senior Lecturer Sustainable Operations Management
Teaching Fellow/Director of DBA
Ozren Despic
Lecturer Management Science
Dr. Oscar Rodriguez Espindola
Lecturer Operations & Supply Chain Management
Dr. Andrew Greasley
Lecturer Technology & Operations Management
Dr. Matthew Hall
IBAM Course Director / Senior Lecturer Information and Knowledge Management
School of Engineering & Applied Science
Dr Louise Knight
Reader in Supply Strategy & Systems
Professor Edward Sweeney
Professor of Logistics, School of Engineering and Applied Science
Dr Aristides Matopoulos
Dr Amit K Chattopadhyay
Reader in Mathematics & Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy UK (SFHEA)
Work and Organisational Psychology Department
Pawan Budhwar
Nicholas Theodorakopoulos
Prasanta Dey Project Director
Professor Prasanta Kumar Dey is a Professor of Operations Management at Aston Business School. He won Vice Chancellor award for research excellence in 2012. Prior to joining Aston University in 2004, he worked for five years in the University of the West Indies in Barbados as a Director of graduate project management program and 13 years in Indian Oil Corporation Limited, India as a project executive.
Prasanta specializes in supply chain management and project management. He has published more than hundred research papers in leading international refereed journals. He has accomplished several research projects in supply chain optimisation and project management maturity studies in manufacturing, services and construction globally covering both small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and large sectors.
Jamal Lea Project Manager
Jamal is an enthusiastic business sustainability and low-carbon practitioner with a successful track-record in delivering collaborative projects between academia and industry, with experience in Passivhaus construction, MCS certification, big data and emerging low carbon technologies.
Previous roles include Project Manager at the British Malaysian Chamber of Commerce; providing B2B support services to UK engineering and manufacturing SMEs seeking to do business in high growth markets. Jamal has also delivered one of Europe's largest domestic energy monitoring projects, in partnership with De Montfort University academics and emh Green Team, winning the KTP Regional East Midlands Energy Efficiency Retrofit Awards.
John Kyffin Hughes Business Development Manager
John has worked in the field of environmental and carbon management for over 20 years. Helping over 30 organisations, including Jaguar Cars Limited, achieve the Environmental Management Standard ISO 14001. His role expanded into delivering an extremely successful European funded programme aimed at improving sustainability in the automotive supply chain.John's carbon management experience includes managing the Climate Change Agreement and Emissions Trading Permit for Peugeot Ryton Plant, advising Coventry City Council on compliance with the Carbon Reduction Commitment scheme, developing the City Council's Carbon Management Plan and delivering various energy efficiency projects. John is a Practitioner of the IEMA and member of the Energy Managers Association.
Adiba Amin Project Coordinator
Adiba has diverse experience in Project Administration for Funded projects. Before joining Aston, Adiba worked as Project Administrator for Big Lottery Funded project aimed at increasing employability in Birmingham. The project exceeded outcomes in all areas. Adiba won the Best in Practice award at BT Fleet for excellent contribution in business process improvement to reduce cost and increase process efficiency.
Qualifications- MBA from Brunel University, London.
Jennifer Knight Project Administrator
Jennifer is the Project Administrator and School Support Coordinator as Aston Business School. Qualifications-
CILEX Level 6 (Legal Practice)
Post Graduate Certificate in Careers Education, CEIAG
Law LLM
Law LLB (Hons)
Dr Pavel Albores Head of Department/Senior Lecturer Operations Management Email : p.albores@aston.ac.uk
Pavel Albores (MIET) is a Senior Lecturer in Operations Management in the Operations and Information Management Group at Aston Business School (ABS) and co-director of the Centre for Research into Safety and Security (CRISIS) at ABS. He received his PhD on Simulation of e-business processes from Strathclyde University, where he also gained an MSc in Manufacturing Management. His first degree is in Chemical Engineering. Pavel's major research interests revolve around the fields of simulation, supply chain management, emergency management and humanitarian logistics.
Pavel has worked with leading governmental organisations in the field of preparedness in nine countries as co-investigator in an EC-funded project (Evacuation Responsiveness for Government Organisations (ERGO). He has participated in research projects in the areas of knowledge management in extended enterprises and supply chain management. He has acted as consultant in the area of modelling and simulation with the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM) -Fire Service directorate-, Highland Spring, Daks Group. He previously worked for Xerox. Pavel was a member of the EPSRC Manufacturing Futures Network.
Mass evacuations
Humanitarian Supply Chains
Dr Ahmad Beltagui Lecturer Project and Operations Management Email : a.beltagui@aston.ac.uk
Ahmad Beltagui is a Lecturer in Project and Operations Management in the Operations and Information Management Group at Aston Business School. He holds degrees in Engineering (MEng Product Design Engineering, University of Strathclyde) and Management (PhD Operations Management, University of Nottingham).
Service management.
Impacts of Additive Manufacturing and 3D printing on business and society
Dr Soumyadeb Chowdhury Lecturer Information Communication Technology Email : s.chowdhury5@aston.ac.uk
Soumyadeb is a Lecturer in Information and Communication Technology in the Operations and Information Management Group at Aston Business School. Prior to joining Aston Business School, he worked as a Lecturer in Information and Communication Technology in Singapore. His research concerns information management & visualisation, data science and analytics (big data, social media) to enhance business operations, technology adoption in business, user experience and engagement.
He has actively engaged with a broad range of industry including but not limited to Tourism, SMEs, ICT, and Health in Singapore to develop business solution catering to their needs so as to improve operations, business process and enhance visitor experience.
Carbon Footprint and Sustainability practices in business (supply-chain)
Data Science and Analytics (Big Data, Social Media) in Operations management
ICT and Technology adoption in business and Innovation
Professor Ben Clegg Professor of Operations Management Email : b.t.clegg@aston.ac.uk
Ben is Professor of Operations Management, in the Operations and Information Management Group at Aston Business School. Ben Clegg's research, teaching and consulting activities focus on operations and process improvement. He draws upon theoretical ideas, such as systems thinking and multi-organisation enterprise management, to implement practical solutions for organisations. In turn practical case studies and insights are used to further develop theory about operations and process improvement.
Systems thinking for business process improvement
Multi-organisation management of enterprises
Improvement of operations management practice: people, process and technology
Professor Prasanta Kumar Dey Professor of Operations Management Email : p.k.dey@aston.ac.uk
Professor Prasanta Kumar Dey is a Professor of Operations Management in the Operations and Information Management Group at Aston Business School. Prasanta has developed several decision support systems that include supplier performance evaluation, supply chain performance measurement, sustainability performance framework, risk management and currently engaged in developing decision support systems for optimizing bioenergy (including waste to energy) supply chain design and operations.
His work has helped numerous SMEs in the developing countries to deal with their sustainability issues and challenge. He is the editor in chief of International Journal of Energy Sector Management.
Project management,
Service operations management,
Supply chain management,
Total quality management and six-sigma,
Environmental management,
Applications of multi-criteria decision making in industry
Dr Breno Nunes Senior Lecturer Sustainable Operations Management Email : B.NUNES@aston.ac.uk
Breno is Senior Lecturer in the Operations and Information Management Group at Aston Business School. Breno has a background (BSc and MSc) in Industrial Engineering and PhD degree in management from Aston University. He joined Aston Business School in 2010. Dr Breno Nunes helps companies and governments to respond to sustainability challenges and opportunities. His work focuses on strategic decisions for operations function. Breno investigates sustainability strategies, environmental decision making processes, and green technology management in both developed and developing countries.
His recent research publications deal with a variety of sustainability issues, including: sustainable operations strategy, green innovation management, electric cars and sustainable mobility, sustainability performance and systems dynamics. Breno is currently Vice President of Education, Research and Publications for IAMOT – The International Association for Management of Technology.
Green Operations Management
Sustainability Strategies,
Sustainable Production Systems and Supply Chains,
Green Technology Management,
Environmental Decision Making,
Sustainable Development Policies.
Chris Owen Teaching Fellow/Director of DBA Email : c.owen@aston.ac.uk
Chris Owen is a Teaching Fellow in the Operations and Information Management Group at Aston Business School, before joining Aston, Chris worked in PwC Consulting in the Operations Competency, helping clients to tackle a range of issues including cost reduction, performance improvement and procurement. Chris has international experience having worked in Germany, Italy, the US and China.
Originally trained as a Manufacturing Engineer in the Aerospace industry, prior to PwC, Chris held a number of roles in manufacturing systems, operations and supply chain with companies such as Dowty, Lucas, Goodrich and Invensys.
Exploring complex situations in organisations and developing understanding through using methods of systems modelling including Soft Systems Methodology (SSM), System Dynamics (SD), Agent Based Modelling (ABM) and Discrete Event Simulation (DES).
Supply Chain and Procurement, Emergency Logistics and Rail Transportation.
Ozren Despic Lecturer Management Science Email : o.despic@aston.ac.uk
Ozren Despic is Lecturer in Management Science in the Operations and Information Management Group at Aston Business School. He received his PhD in Industrial Engineering from the University of Toronto, Canada. His research interest is in the area of mathematical modelling and decision making. In particular, his focus is on developing and constructing geometric DEA based mathematical models for their use in performance measurement and managerial decision making.
He is also actively helping various SMEs in optimising their operational and marketing activities. Ozren has a great amount of international experience, having lived, studied and worked in many different countries over the past 20 years. He is a devoted teacher and he brings his consulting work directly to the classroom.
Data Envelopment Analysis and Performance Measurement
Multi-criteria and Soft Decision Analysis
Machine Learning and Optimisation
Dr. Oscar Rodriguez Espindola Lecturer Operations & Supply Chain Management Email : o.rodriguez-espindola@aston.ac.uk
Oscar Rodríguez-Espíndola is a lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management at Operations and Information Management Group at Aston Business School and a member of the Aston CRISIS centre. He received his PhD in Operations and Information Management from Aston University. He holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering and a MSc in Transportation Engineering from the Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México.
His research is focused on Supply Chain Management, Operational Research, Humanitarian logistics and Project Management. His expertise includes de use of optimisation models, simulation and geographical information systems for the analysis of the supply chain and the development of tools to support logistics activities.
Humanitarian logistics
Dr. Andrew Greasley Lecturer Technology & Operations Management Email : a.greasley@aston.ac.uk
Andrew Greasley is a lecturer in Operations and Technology Management in the Operations and Information Management Group at Aston Business School. He has over 100 publications and my main research interest is in the area of discrete-event simulation (DES).
Modelling people's behaviour
Providing agent-based capabilities
As a tool for predictive and prescriptive analytics
Costing servitization strategies in product-service systems
ERP and IS implementation
Dr. Matthew Hall IBAM Course Director / Senior Lecturer Information and Knowledge Management Email : m.j.hall@aston.ac.uk
Matthew is the IBAM course Director and Senior Lecturer Information and Knowledge Management at Aston Business School.
Knowledge Work
Working and Learning across cultures
Internationalism of Higher Education
Knowledge and Technology Transfer
Skills for the Knowledge Economy
Dr Louise Knight Reader in Supply Strategy & Systems Email : L.KNIGHT2@aston.ac.uk
Louise is a Reader at School of Engineering & applied Sciences. Louise joined Aston University in 2007. Prior to that she worked as Research Officer to Senior Research Fellow; Deputy Director of Centre for Research in Strategic Purchasing and Supply (CRiSPS).
At CRiSPS, I was involved in a wide range of projects, in particular the research partnership with the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency. Other funders included the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply, UK research councils – EPSRC and ESRC, and GS1UK. She is the founder member of the International Study on Public Procurement and co-ordinator of its first workshop. I undertook various advisory roles with the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency and the wider NHS, the Office of Government Commerce, and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing.
Purchasing and supply management,
Sustainability agenda
Purchasing capability
Strategic change in complex interorganizational networks
Interorganizational collaboration
Network learning
Professor Edward Sweeney Professor of Logistics, School of Engineering and Applied Science Email : e.sweeney@aston.ac.uk
Edward Sweeney is Professor of Logistics, Head of the Engineering Systems & Management (ESM) Group and Director of the Aston Logistics & Systems Institute at Aston University. In this capacity he leads a multidisciplinary group of academics with interests in logistics, transport, supply chain and engineering management.
Edward was previously Director at the National Institute for Transport and Logistics (NITL), based at the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT). He has worked and lectured in over 50 countries in Europe, North America and Asia, and is currently a Visiting Professor at the University of Kuala Lumpur (UniKL). He is an experienced researcher with over 200 publications. Edward has also worked with many of the world's leading companies in his role as an educator and facilitator.
Supply chain design and integration
Environmentally sustainable third party logistics
Logistics and supply chain information and communications technology (ICT)
Supply chain learning and the learning supply chain.
Dr Aristides Matopoulos Senior Lecturer Email : a.matopoulos@aston.ac.uk
Aristides joined Aston University in August 2011, as a Lecturer in Logistics and Supply Chain Management. Prior to that, he was an Adjunct Lecturer for 4 years in the University of Macedonia, in the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and also in City College, the International Faculty of the University of Sheffield teaching Logistics and Supply Chain
In 2010, He was awarded a one year post-doc grant on "Innovation in the Food Chain" from the Greek State Scholarships Foundation. He also worked as a researcher in the FP6 European Project "e-Trust", which dealt with the exploration and analysis of the trust factors affecting companies in the food chain in their transition from traditional to electronic B2B relationships. I have also been involved in several consulting projects as a freelance consultant.
Resource Efficiency in Supply Chains
Sustainable/ Green Logistics & Life Cycle Assessment
Skills Requirements in Logistics
E-business Adoption & Impact on Supply Chains
Dr Amit K Chattopadhyay Reader in Mathematics & Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy UK (SFHEA) Email : A.K.CHATTOPADHYAY@aston.ac.uk
Amit is an 'interdisciplinary Complex Systems' theorist specialising in quantitative problem solving in physics, biology and finance, using techniques from statistical physics, nonlinear dynamics and numerical computation. He has so far authored or co-authored over 60 research publications and 2 books. One of these books ('Heat and Thermodynamics') is the internationally accepted standard text on the subject. He is the chief editor of an open sourced interdisciplinary journal. I am also a panelled reviewer of EPSRC. He is an Editorial Board member of the Nature Publishing group; independently, so an Editorial member of staff in the Frontiers in Physics group.
His research novelty lies in combining four diverse research strands –
Quantitative Biology
Soft matter science
Pawan Budhwar Professor Email : p.s.budhwar@aston.ac.uk
Pawan is a member of the Work and Organisational Psychology Group, Joint Director of the Aston India Centre for Applied Research and Joint Co-Editor-in-Chief of British Journal of Management, Pawan is globally renowned for his research into the international aspects of HRM, and has held many visiting professorships worldwide. He has examined HRM systems in emerging markets and established links with social, cultural, political and legal contexts, and this is increasingly being referenced by other researchers.
Pawan has received funding from a variety of funders such as the ESRC, Society for HRM (USA), British Academy, and ERDF to investigate a variety of HR aspects in different set-ups. Pawan regularly delivers keynotes at international and national events. He has received numerous awards for his research achievements.
Managing Human Resources in Emerging Markets
Expatriate Management
Employer-Employee Relationships
HRM and Performance
International and Strategic HRM
Nicholas Theodorakopoulos Professor Email : n.theodorakopoulos@aston.ac.uk
Nicholas Theodorakopoulos is Professor of Entrepreneurship Development and Head of Work and Organisational Psychology Department at Aston Business School. He is Director of the Aston Centre for People and Organisations, Academic Deputy Director of the Goldman Sachs '10,000 Small Businesses Programme'.
He has received funding from various organisations, including ESRC, ERDF, Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, Equality and Human Rights Commission, Leicestershire Learning and Skills Council, Centre for Enterprise and UK Trade and Investment to examine entrepreneurship in different contexts and has managed successfully research teams to deliver high quality output. Apart from contributing to a number of books and special issues as a guest editor, his papers have been published in a wide range of academic journals.
Entrepreneurial Learning and Innovation
Strategic Entrepreneurship and Change
Diverse Entrepreneurship and Inclusive Procurement
Low Carbon SMEs Team
Aston Business School, Aston University, B4 7ET
smelowcarbon@aston.ac.uk
http://www.smelowcarbon.co.uk/
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text:
The Stories Behind 8 of Cycling's Most Iconic Jerseys
The Stories Behind 8 Iconic Cycling Jerseys
Cycling's most legendary kits embody the feats of the riders who wore them
by chris sidwells Published: Jul 13, 2017
@bicyclingdesign
In his new book, The Art of the Cycling Jersey, published by Rodale, Yorkshire, UK-based author Chris Sidwells explores the history of cycling's most iconic jerseys (including some worn by his uncle and hero, British world road champion Tom Simpson). Here are some of his favorites.
Watch how the Tour de France yellow jerseys get made so quickly:
It was the manner and margin of Italian rider Fausto Coppi's victories that gave the Bianchi jersey its place in cycling. When Coppi won, he was almost always alone, and almost always minutes in front of the next rider.
RELATED: The Making of the "Colors of Victory" Poster
BIC, the maker of ballpoint pens, was the first sponsor to commit to almost the entire budget of a team. It had equipment suppliers, but BIC was the only name on the jerseys. The team existed from 1967 to 1974.
Gan-Mercier
Gan was a French insurance company that cosponsored a team with French bike maker Mercier, from 1972 until 1976, becoming part of a long history: Mercier sponsored a cycling team from 1935 to 1983.
In 1971 Molteni took over Eddy Merckx's Faema-Faemino team, with one objective: support Merckx. Merckx had one objective: win. Seven Grand Tours, two world titles, and 11 Monuments fell to him in Molteni colors. (Celebrate Merckx's Tour de France wins with our newest Eddy Merckx Alphabet T-Shirt!)
There has been a King of the Mountains title at the Tour since 1933, but the polka dot jersey made its first appearance in 1975. Lucien Van Impe won it that year, the third of his six Tour KOM titles.
Rainbow Molteni
The stripes on the reigning World Champion's jersey represent the colors on the flags of all the nations that participated in the first modern Olympic Games, held in 1896. Merckx was wearing the rainbow stripes during the 1975 Tour de France, when he was punched by a spectator on the Puy-de-Dome on Stage 14. He lost the race lead to Peugeot's Bernard Thévenet on the next stage, then crashed on Stage 17 and fractured his cheek, but still finished second in Paris.
Salvarani is a maker of stylish kitchen equipment. In the '60s, its design was inspired in part by Fiat and Vespa, and represented Italian chic. The company also sponsored rock concerts by groups such as the Beatles.
Yellow Peugeot
This jersey was worn by Bernard Thévenet (then on Peugeot) when he effectively ended Eddy Merckx's reign on cycling—and five-time Tour de France winning streak—by defeating him to win the 1975 Tour.
chris sidwells
Chris Sidwells is a bestselling author, journalist, photographer, and broadcaster who reports on every aspect of cycling and cycles. His work has been featured in Cycle Sport, Cycling Weekly, Men's Fitness, and GQ, and he is the author of A Race for Madmen: A History of the Tour de France, Tour Climbs: The Complete Guide to Every Mountain Stage on the Tour de France, The Long Race to Glory: How the British Came to Rule the Cycling World, Complete Bike Manual, and The Art of the Cycling Jersey. He lives in the United Kingdom.
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Gabriella Levy has always been enamored with the natural beauty of porcelain and created ImmerLit Designs ['immer' translates to 'always' in German] in 2013. From individually handcrafted lighting fixtures, candle votives and centerpieces, Gabriella's work elegantly illuminates spaces with the natural beauty of porcelain, translucency and light—and she's thrilled to be sharing it around the world.
'complex simplicity', immerLit lamps are customizable, from size to shape to color.
immerLit works closely with individuals, designers and architects to create unique pieces.
of Boston's best, and across from a beautiful reservoir. Equipped with a workbench (handbuilt), wall to wall shelving, a desk and a kiln, Gabrielle has all she neesds— oh and of course, ImmerLit fixtures are hanging everywhere!
What is it about porcelain in particular that fascinates you?
varied translucency and shadow from the fired porcelain.
that's starting new projects, working on existing ones, unloading or loading a kiln.
bartend a couple nights a week, which can be a fun change of pace.
hardware. It takes considerable patience and time until I'm satisfied with a new design.
And even then, there's still more work to be done.
beforehand, sometimes in the shower, sometimes on quiet walks or drives.
How do you find balance if your life/work/combination of both?
weren't self-employed, how would my boss feel about that?
2. Do as much research as you can, but know that you'll still be surprised.
3. Learn to separate yourself a bit from your creative work.
4. Never give up. 100% of people won't love your work. You cannot please everyone.
5. Be open to criticism and change. Art and design should always evolve.
6. Trust in yourself and your work. It will make others believe too.
is exponentially harder. Cut yourself some slack (just not all of the time).
including restaurants, bars, boutique hotels and spas in the coming years.
Thank you Gabriella for this interview. To learn more about Gabriella and ImmerLit, visit her website or follow along on instagram.


Rep. Brad Miller felt so bad about turning people away that he's showing the inaugural ceremonies live at a local theater for those who didn't get tickets.
And some lawmakers don't yet know what to do.
"Rep. Etheridge has not distributed his tickets and he has not made a decision at this time about what process he will use, given the overwhelming demand," read an e-mail from the office of Bob Etheridge of Lillington.
The demand has been overwhelming. Rep. David Price of Chapel Hill was asked for 25,000 tickets. Sen. Richard Burr and Sen.-elect Kay Hagan each had requests for more than 15,000.
A cousin called Watt and asked to crash on his couch; the cousin was denied. Miller will host two relatives on air mattresses in his Capitol Hill apartment. They received tickets, but he denied one of his best friends from law school.
Miller saved fewer than 10 tickets for family and close friends. A few more went to elected officials or community leaders who had sought tickets. Most names were chosen by a computer lottery this week, and a worker in Miller's Raleigh office began calling up voters.
"We tried to do the best we could," Miller said.
Darlene Hamilton, who owns a small home health care business in Greensboro, was so thrilled at the call that she screamed.
The odds might have been about as good.
Each of North Carolina's 13 House members received 198 tickets. Burr and Hagan each received 393 – and those include tickets for the lawmakers and their spouses.
Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, picked off fewer than one-fourth of his tickets for elected officials, ministers and other community leaders around North Carolina.
He called four schools from across the state – his office won't disclose which schools or where they are – and gave each 20 tickets. One of the schools had called back in December 2007 with its request.
The rest of the tickets were distributed based on the first callers who asked for tickets.
Watt, whose district curls across six counties, pro-rated the counties based on population, then held six separate lotteries. Constituents in Mecklenburg County received 44 tickets; Cabarrus County received two.
He also gave 70 tickets to elected officials and community leaders.
For some who did get tickets, the joy was quickly overtaken by concern.
Doland Brand, 39, of Raleigh was excited to get his call Wednesday morning from Miller's office.
But then he realized he had to pick up the tickets Jan. 19 in Washington, that he would have to drive up a day early, take an extra day off from his warehouse job, spend more money for the extra day in Washington, figure out how to get around.
He also had wanted to bring both his wife and his teenage daughter, but he received just two tickets.
Some offices have yet to distribute their tickets. Price, a Chapel Hill Democrat, will hold his lottery late this week. Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat, will make her decisions "in a few weeks," said her spokeswoman, Colleen Flanagan.
Eventually, most offices will send letters or emails to those people who didn't get tickets at all.
The tickets are good for one of some 240,000 close-in spots to President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony on the west lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Most spaces are standing-room-only.
But every member of Congress has been reminding constituents over and over: Outside the ticketed perimeter, the National Mall will be opened to accommodate an expected 1 million to 4 million people. No tickets are required.
Watt said he's tried to encourage people to come up while warning them about the cold, the misery of standing for hours, the traffic and the crowds.
"It's going to be a historic event, and people will love the fact they can go home and say, 'I was there,'" Watt said.


Compact radial maze solutions for evaluating spatial memory and non-spatial memory in rodents.
The "Eight Arms Radial Maze" is extensively used in behavioural laboratories for evaluating spatial memory but also non-spatial memory associated with motivational cues (classically food).
All radial mazes consist in a central area with eight sliding doors giving access to eight equally-sized arms. The maze, made of black Plexiglas, is mounted on a tripod with adjustable height high (until 1m). Each arm has lateral walls with a height higher in the proximal side of the arm than in the distal side. The arms are easily detachable by unscrewing an underneath fixing knob. In the distal extreme of each arm, a detachable recessed cup can be installed or replaced by cover (all included).
Automated doors operation can be controlled by the animal position throughout the test using the Mazesoft-8 software associated with photoelectrical cell mounted on the radial maze and the corresponding control unit. See the application sheet available in the Download section.
Manual doors operation can be made remotely by the user by using the switches available on the control unit.
Manual doors operation can be made in situ by the user by using the threads provided for opening of closing each door.
A water version of the radial maze is also available (see related aquatic radial maze and circular pool products).
Hohsfield LA, Humpel C. (2015 ) Intravenous Infusion of Monocytes Isolated from 2-Week-Old Mice Enhances Clearance of Beta-Amyloid Plaques in an Alzheimer Mouse Model PLoS One.


Last week, I announced that I was taking to the airwaves, as I began my stint at the helm of WQLN's Weekend All Things Erie -- a community affairs-based program previously hosted by Kim Young for twelve years.
You may have noticed that on my social media accounts, I've been rockin' a sweet portrait painted by Todd Scalise (the image associated with this story). The reason my avatar's been like that for a couple of weeks now became apparent Saturday, July 12, when my interview with Todd aired.
All good writers will admit that writing about certain subjects can be more difficult than others. Getting someone to hear what you heard at a live-music show or on an album ain't always easy. Nor is getting someone to taste the flavor arrangements you experienced at any given restaurant.
That is, using one sensory experience to describe another is challenging. But it always leaves room for great reward.
Writing about art and an artist's process of creating such art fall into that category. Thanks to Todd, though, those unfamiliar with his work could get a taste of it before tuning to the radio to hear about a visual medium.
Todd's no stranger to the Reader, though. Which is how I got to know him, and, after seeing him work, is why I knew he'd make for an excellent interview -- where we talked about things like the new YMCA mural in downtown Erie, the permanent installation at the Erie Art Museum, his current project at Mercyhurst Prep, receiving national recognition, and more.
And he's illustrated a metric-Sharpie-ink ton of Reader covers (more since this was written, including the Howie Glover cover, where he showed his design talents).
So Todd's no stranger to what we've done at the Reader, and I enjoyed the chance to further that conversation with him to expound on his work with Higherglyphics, the notion of Visual Public Relations, and what it means to him to be an artist from Erie.
In case you missed that episode, you can listen to it here. And if you're hungry for clues regarding what Saturday, July 19's episode is about, I have two words for you: "Unholy" and "Murder." And you might not want to be eating a meatball sub when you listen.
Ben Speggen can be contacted for print-related things at bSpeggen@ErieReader.com, or if you want to chat radio-related items, drop him a line at Ben@WQLN.org. You can tweet with him using @ERBenSpeggen and for Weekend All Things Erie-related thoughts, suggestions, and comments, use #AllThingsErie.


This week, there were reportedly 100,000 golden tickets tucked in candy bars located in different corners of the World. The lucky people who found the tickets got to enter the world of Google Wave. Okay, that's not exactly how it happened. Although a little of the imagination from a Jonny Depp or a Gene Wilder could tell you what this product is capable of, and it could be a major game-changer in many aspects of how and what we do today.
In the same way that CompuServe and America Online opened e-mail and the Internet to millions of people, Google Wave may do the same for enabling collaboration. Google describes their new platform as being "… equal parts conversation and document." In short, take instant messaging, e-mail, social media, documents, spreadsheets, blogging and photo sharing, put them into a blender, take them out and let people magically work together in real time. Users can simultaneously edit the same document and photo album while they converse over the Internet. If they need to, they can play it back to review what was updated. It will even translate into dozens of languages on the fly, allowing people who speak different languages to work together. [Read more about Google Wave].
Google may be the first to put this together, but there are others in the wings, and the common theme is collaboration in real time. This begs the question, what would happen if millions of people started to collaborate? It could result in the type of changes not seen since the computer hit the workplace.
Take education for example. We, like many nations, are still mostly tied to a pre-industrial education model that favors read, write, and rote over preparing students to read, write, reason and innovate. Need proof? Three words: The times table.
To borrow a page from Sir Ken Robinson, children starting school this year will retire in 2069. We have no idea what the world will look like in five years, yet we are meant to be educating them for this future with an ancient skill set. Yet there are teachers ready for the challenge.
I already know educators who can't wait to use Google Wave to have their students create multimedia presentations on history, music history and composers – and play it back in class. Others want their students to work together to capture and analyze the news of the day and extrapolate future opportunities. Even study teams can do multimedia work, all from their own homes – wherever they are on the planet. We may be entering a period where students take their own classwork to the next level – beyond where their parents and teachers can take them.
There are still many companies who demand workers come into the office every day, even on heavy snow days. This, even though they provided their employees everything they need to effectively telecommute. Some even have groundbreaking unified communications software to enable collaboration by voice, video or text without leaving their desk. We all know businesses that require the presence of their employees and others that allow the productivity from the home office. Will this collaboration tool be the one that empowers the change or will it be overruled by 1950's management rules?
The economic downturn started thousands of small businesses. Would the Wave platform allow collaboration to develop between companies to create new partnerships and opportunities? The answer: I already see this happening without Wave; it can only expedite the process.
The truth is that Google Wave is just another technology and collaboration is just another behavior. But in the same way that e-mail and social media are changing the landscape of our society, collaboration platforms like Wave could create a new wave of interactive learning, entrepreneurs and community involvement by simply making it easier to do great things together.
Paired with video conferencing, this technology enables more than just classes, but a local merchant to talk and teach about what they do to thousands of new potential customers. It can even allow similar stores in different places to share best practices.
This is a very rose-colored view of collaboration, but from what I've seen, I have good reason to believe that it could be closer to the developing reality. I have seen more people collaborating to different degrees in recent years than ever before.


Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are followed by Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and French President Emmanuel Macron outside the Vahdettin Mansion during a summit on Syria in Istanbul, Turkey, Oct. 27, 2018.
The leaders of Turkey, Russia, France and Germany met Oct. 27 in Istanbul for a summit to discuss the ongoing developments regarding the Syrian crisis. In a final statement issued after the summit, the four sides emphasized Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as the necessity of continuing the fight against terrorism in the war-torn country. They also underlined the need for resolving the Syrian crisis through a "negotiated political process," while calling for providing conditions for the "safe and voluntary return of refugees to Syria." The quartet also supported the Sept. 17 Russian-Turkish deal in Sochi on de-escalating the situation in Idlib.
The four-way summit, the first of its kind since the beginning of the Syrian crisis, was of prime importance in terms of its potential for establishing a connection between what has been pursued by Russia and Turkey within the framework of the Astana peace process and the European views toward Syria. However, this very point sparked speculation on why Iran, as the third pillar of the Astana track, did not attend the summit and whether Tehran had been sidelined by its Astana partners.
To address this matter, there is a need to consider what the summit in Istanbul was about and thus what implications it could have for Iran's role in Syria. Based on reports in the media prior to the summit as well as the joint statement of the four leaders, it could be argued that the discussions in Istanbul were focused on three main issues: the fate of the Sochi deal between Ankara and Moscow on the situation in Idlib; finding a solution for the return of Syrian refugees; and accelerating the political process — including the formation of Syrian Constitutional Committee agreed upon at the Congress of the Syrian National Dialogue in Sochi on Jan. 30.
The first part of the summit's agenda, namely the fate of Idlib, seems to be mostly an obsession of Ankara, which has been actively trying to prevent a military operation by the Syrian army and Russia to retake full control of the northwestern Syrian province. Moscow has repeatedly said that the Idlib deal is just of a temporary nature and that a military option will be on the table in case radical groups refuse to come to a compromise with Damascus. As a result, by trying to get the Europeans and Russia to sit together and having them declare joint support for a political solution to the Idlib issue, Turkey appears to have tried to maintain the status quo in the area and stop — or at least postpone — a military operation.
As for the issue of refugees, given the vast number of displaced Syrians currently residing in Turkey — and their persistent migration to Europe — providing conditions for their immediate return to Syria is a critical concern for Ankara, Paris and Berlin alike. This needs an urgent, coordinated solution.
However, Russia — seeing the results of the Congress of the Syrian National Dialogue as its own unique diplomatic achievement and trying to have the central role in all international frameworks regarding Syria — was mostly focused on the third part of the agenda. As such, having the Europeans on board would have meant an important endorsement of Russia's leading role in the formation of the Syrian Constitutional Committee.
As for the other topics discussed at the Istanbul summit, Tehran does not have any special position on the issue of refugees as this has not been a direct concern for Iran. Meanwhile, on the issue of Syria's constitution, Iran is on the same page as the Russians, supporting the immediate formation of the constitutional committee. Indeed, after a meeting between the representatives of Iran, Russia and Turkey in Moscow on Sept. 11, it was announced that the three sides had agreed in principle on the list of Syrian government and opposition figures to form the committee.
Thus, given the nature of the agenda of the Istanbul summit and the need for the participants to discuss the issues among themselves and try to reach common solutions, it would be safe to argue that there wasn't any real need for Iran's participation in the first place. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghassemi touched upon this point in a press conference Nov. 5, saying, "Iran is not supposed to take part in every meeting" regarding Syria.
On the other hand, the fact that other influential actors involved in the Syrian crisis such as the United States and Britain were also absent at the Istanbul summit indicates that Russia and Turkey were not about to form a new, independent framework for Syria from which Iran might or might not have been excluded. In fact, the four leaders' joint statement reiterated emphasis on the role of the Astana and Geneva peace processes, as well as the Sochi agreements on the issue of the Syrian constitution.
Finally, if one is to judge the overall implications of the summit for Iran, Tehran can be referred to as an absent winner. Given the US focus on Iran's presence and activities in Syria and France's close alignment with the United States on the Syrian issue, Iran's participation in the summit could have shifted the agenda — at least partially — to address Iran's role in Syria instead, which would have been considered a negative point for the Islamic Republic. Meanwhile, at a time when Tehran is striving to widen the gap between Washington and its European allies — borne of the US-EU disagreement on the 2015 nuclear deal — the very fact that France and Germany have entered talks on Syria without the United States is a positive development in the eyes of the Iranian leaders. This dimension of the equation, together with the two European countries' apparent retreat from insisting on the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, were important points that Iran achieved without even being present in Istanbul.
Hamidreza Azizi, an assistant professor at Shahid Beheshti University (SBU), is the fellow at IRAS.


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HomePolitics'Trust us' is Their Message – But They Don't Trust Us
'Trust us' is Their Message – But They Don't Trust Us
I am sitting on an airplane as I type these words, flying from New York to Florida. When my plane touches down, I will text my wife to let her know I have arrived safely.
I assume the spooks at the National Security Agency will also get the message.
They may not see my words – though if anyone out there is interested, I usually write something like, "Landed. Love you." It might take 24 hours or so before AT&T, my cell carrier, turns over the pile of "metadata" that will include the fact I sent a text, the number I sent it from and the one I sent it to, where I was when I sent it and whether I attached any files. If I phone my wife instead from our neighborhood Publix, the spies will know that, too.
It's a matter of national security. Or so I presume.
I can only make educated guesses at these details. I am not a Verizon (VZ) customer, so the disclosure this week that the government is Hoovering vast amounts of data about millions of Verizon clients does not, strictly speaking, apply to me. But simple common sense dictates otherwise. Unless the community of global terrorists maintains a Verizon family plan and does all its business there, the feds are just as interested in customers of AT&T and other carriers as they are in the communication patterns of Verizon users.
It's just that the press has not yet uncovered the secret court orders through which the FBI, which apparently is acting as the NSA's letter carrier in this endeavor, has in all likelihood commanded other carriers to turn over this data as well. Those same court orders prohibit the carriers, and anyone else who has knowledge of this operation, from breathing an unclassified word of its existence.
Perhaps it is not such a big surprise that it was the Guardian, a British news organization, that broke the blockbuster story last week in London. (It was Wednesday night here in the States.) It is ironic, though. If this same surveillance had been conducted by Britain's MI6 foreign service against the Queen's subjects, chances are that Her Majesty's government could have suppressed the news by invoking its Official Secrets Act. Here in the land of the First Amendment, we don't have an Official Secrets Act – but we have official secrets galore. The fact that this massive data-mining exercise, potentially affecting everyone in America, is one of those secrets says something about how easily power wielded in our name can be turned against us.
I am not a privacy die-hard. I understand that future terrorists do not advertise themselves as such. Time and again, somebody we never heard of emerges from the shadows only after doing something terrible, at which point law enforcement has to work backwards to find all the other shadowy figures who may have been involved. Having a database with all communication logged and cross-referenced makes this much easier or, perhaps, possible at all.
But this information can also be easily misused – and, humans being only human, that misuse is just a matter of time. A political adversary sends his wife an "I love you" message from the friendly confines of a brothel. A White House insider has unauthorized contact with a reporter who publishes embarrassing information. A couple of CEOs send a flurry of text messages shortly before a high-stakes merger is announced.
Maybe the fight against terrorism makes it worth risking that such information will be abused. Maybe it doesn't. That's a debate that all of us can have, as a society. But the power to have that debate was stolen from us by government officials, beginning in the prior administration and continuing through the current one, who invoked Section 215 of the Patriot Act to keep their massive surveillance of you and me under wraps until the Guardian pulled off the tarp.
Did we suddenly get less safe after this disclosure? Not as far as I can see. Terrorists were already well aware that our spy agencies monitor their communications. We certainly hear enough about "chatter" or the lack thereof any time awareness is heightened. The only people who did not know the feds wanted to see a record of everyone they called, every text they sent, every email they received and every web site they visited, were the 310 million or so of us who have nothing to do with terrorism.
The White House senses another major headache brewing. President Obama's minions wasted little time last week issuing a statement justifying the data mining on national security grounds and noting – irrelevantly – that the actual content of our messages is not being monitored. At least as far as they are willing to tell us.
The question is not whether the government should collect this data; it is who gets to decide whether the benefits outweigh the risks to our privacy, and even to our ability to object to official policy without being subject to potential blackmail. The administration claims it alone should have this power, acting in secret, supervised only by a secret national security court that apparently never says no and by a few select members of Congress who are themselves sworn to secrecy.
"Trust us," is their message. But they don't trust us. If they did, they would respect our right to collectively decide, through the political process, how much privacy we are willing to sacrifice in the name of security.
I'll go first. Here's my message: Landed. Love you.
Explosive Disclosures Still Yield Fallout
June 2, 2016 Larry M. Elkin
Supreme Court Decision on Cellphone Searches Huge Win for Privacy


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Welcome to Pljevlja
The road over the vertigo-inducing Tara Bridge, 23km east of Žabljak, heads north to Montenegro's third-largest city. Although it has a long and fascinating history – excavations have revealed life in the town dating back 20,000 years, and the Romans also had a long stint here – Pljevlja (Пљевља) today doesn't quite live up to its previous glories. It's an industrial town, with a large coalmine and thermal powerplant. That said, Pljevlja is not without its charms: Montenegro's most impressive mosque is found here, there's a pleasant park to idle in, and much of the surrounding countryside is extremely pretty.
Despite its prominent mosques, Pljevlja is predominantly an Orthodox town (73%) and nearly half of the population identifies their ethnicity as Serbian, no surprise given the Serbian border is less than 10km away.
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The Africa Sustainability Hub was launched on 10 June 2015 by the Kenyan minister for Finance during a Low Carbon Development Conference held in Nairobi, Kenya.
The hub's main focus is to support social research and capabilities of African researchers, policy makers and change makers to understand and solve some of the underlying social issues affecting the achievement the post-2015 SDGs.
The hub is established on a mutual partnership between Africa and UK leading research and policy think tanks on sustainability: the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS), the STEPS Centre at the University of Sussex, the Africa Centre of the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), and the African Technology Policy Studies Network (ATPS). The Africa Hub aims to utilize this North-South and South-South leaning opportunities to pursue, in a participatory manner, socially inclusive evidence on various sustainability pathways, something new and unique from the way much of the social research and policy/practice has been pursued.
Specifically, the hub aims to showcase a model of transformative partnership that harnesses research and policy on the kinds of sustainable technologies and innovations which could inform Africa's actions in the post-2015 SDGs. In a crowded global research environment, the hub is a platform of international, trans-disciplinary action-oriented work with a strong focus on practical responses – including the development of new concepts, tools and methods.
(1) How do different stakeholders – including local communities, farmers, policy makers, extension officers, and research and development agencies – frame and justify emerging technological schemes and where do synergies between various understandings exist?
(2) How can emerging clean energy and agricultural technologies be made more coherent with underlying socio-cultural and policy issues of Africa?
(3) What technologies have worked effectively in various contexts, how and for whom? And how can successful lessons be assimilated into policies and other contexts? What is the underlying political economy of technologies and what are the appropriate capabilities required to improve Africa's performance in the post-2015 SD goals?
Currently the hub's work focuses on transformative action research that generates evidence on the underlying socio-technical challenges to sustainability in Africa and capacity building that enhances skills and capabilities to address the challenges.
This theme aims to identify, analyze and present evidence on various social and technical options for enhancing access to clean energy especially for the poor segment of the society. The theme is particularly interested in the socio-technical interactions of various energy options in including solar, wind, and biomass in various socio-ecological circumstances of the poor in various parts of Africa.
This research theme aims to identify, analyze and present evidence on various social and technical options for robust and resilient agricultural practices and policies in various parts of Africa. The theme particularly targets to test and present how emerging agricultural transformation agendas such as the green revolution interact with social context of Africa.
This research theme aims to identify, analyze and present evidence on the enablers of suitable and inclusive governance framework for environmental resources including land, water and forests. The theme is particularly interested in the understanding the politics behind governance of these resources and to use this understanding to propose more inclusive governance framework for the three resources.
The Hub also convenes targeted capacity building initiatives aimed at establishing capabilities and skills for tackling underlying sustainability challenges facing Africa. The hub's capacity building work combines a range of strategies including short courses, learning platforms, expert platforms, summer schools targeted at both policy makers and young researchers.
To find out more about the hub and its projects, see the Africa Sustainability Hub page.


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How IntraLinks Used Social Media to Generate Twice as Many Sales-ready Leads as Any Other Channel
Do you think social media is better for researching prospects than for attaining face-to-face meetings where deals are won and contracts are signed?
If so, think again, and pay attention to the experience of Gari Johnson, Vice President Australia & New Zealand, IntraLinks.
If you hear about a merger, acquisition or IPO in the news, chances are IntraLinks was involved. It provides secure software-as-a-service virtual data rooms that allow collaboration with sensitive information between global banks, law firms and thousands of the world's major corporations.
In this high-tech world, social media has revealed itself to be a lead generation goldmine. In just four months, it has helped IntraLinks achieve:
Deeper brand penetration into its marketplace
A 50% connection rate with potential customers on LinkedIn
Twice as many sales-ready leads as any other lead generation channel
All it needed was the right strategy.
Setting social strategy
In February, Johnson enlisted the help of a B2B social media lead generation agency, to develop a lead generation campaign on LinkedIn. Three steps kicked off the process:
The team clarified the IntraLinks value proposition, which focused on virtual data rooms and their ability to remove risk in time-critical, strategic transactions and enable secure collaboration between multiple parties.
The team identified "Social Sellers," the IntraLinks sales specialists who would be responsible for connecting with potential customers through LinkedIn, and who would promote the company's value proposition via their personal brands.
Finally, they identified senior corporate executives, investment bankers and lawyers in Australia who would be most interested in that value proposition. The Social Sellers used LinkedIn's search functions to target prospects by:
And other relevant targeting criteria
Once the list of prospects was created, IntraLinks Social Sellers began sending each of these prospects an invitation to connect.
"We were able to segment the marketplace in a very targeted way," says Johnson. "The quality of prospects we were able to reach was superior in both marketing relevance and seniority compared to previous approaches, such as direct mail or telemarketing."
Using this approach, the IntraLinks Social Sellers were able to connect with multiple people in the same organization, creating more opportunities to engage and influence.
Changing the paradigm
"Typically, you meet someone and only then connect on LinkedIn. We reversed the process, so our invitations to connect had to be personalized, relevant and focused on achieving the connection, not the sale," says Johnson.
Johnson admits about half of the people they contacted did not respond to their invitations.
"But a 50% connection rate is still higher than anything we had imagined. B2B has always been a numbers game, so achieving that connection rate meant hundreds of valuable connections," he points out.
Resist the urge to sell
In the spirit of good lead nurturing, it became all about the prospect once he or she was engaged, and not the sales team's quotas.
This required a change in the sales professionals' mindsets.
"It's very tempting, once you find a prospect, to approach them and ask for that meeting, but that could be disastrous," warns Tom Skotidas, founder of the agency IntraLinks used.
Instead, he advises companies to:
Understand exactly who your prospects are, and what insights and information they need to do their jobs better
Identify and package the content that satisfies these needs
Identify the sales specialists within the organization who can distribute this content and engage with potential customers
"In essence, each Social Seller becomes a content distribution channel for Marketing, delivering key insights while also building their personal brand as subject matter experts and, by extension, their company brand," Skotidas explains.
"Over time, prospects begin to see the Social Seller as an industry expert," says Skotidas. "They begin to feel like this is a person they might want to meet someday and learn from. The process builds trust; instead of selling to prospects, the sales professional is adding incremental value on a consistent basis."
Building that trust takes time. Skotidas says there is an incubation period before sales professionals can even think about taking the relationship to the next level.
"It was a little painful for us to figure out how to realign our sales professionals' approach," Johnson admits. "They are salespeople, let's not pretend they're not, and they are going to try to sell. It's a matter of educating them – helping them focus on the longer-term outcomes and guiding them through the process to get there."
Enlist the marketing
Not surprisingly, Johnson's chief challenge was providing the relevant content that sales professionals could use to drive conversations with their new LinkedIn connections. The team curated content like whitepapers, articles and industry reports.
"If you want a surefire methodology that brings Sales and Marketing together, this is it," he laughs. "I've been in B2B marketing my whole life, and I've never seen Sales and Marketing depend on each other so much."
Marketing sourced and packaged content to ensure it was legally compliant, brand-compliant and channel-compliant. Sales ensured it was relevant to the needs of their specific LinkedIn connections. After all, distributing the wrong content on social media could be embarrassing at best and disastrous at worst.
"Sales and Marketing really began to understand the value that each team was bringing to the process," says Johnson. "Not only did social selling help us build trust between us and our prospects, it built trust between Sales and Marketing."
The team was quick to point out two details about content development:
It is not a once-and-done deal
"You can't go out and look for a whole bunch of content and say, 'Okay, let's kick off the project,'" says Johnson. "It's evolutionary; you have to pay attention to what your network is saying, what they are interested in, and provide content to address that. You have to be invested for the long haul and continuously refine what you're sharing to be more in tune with their needs and interests."
Fortunately, figuring out the most attractive content is as simple as observing which posts attract the most comments or likes.
"It's a good way to identify the issues that are important to segments of your market," Skotidas notes.
It requires regular feeding and attention
"You have to provide relevant content regularly. This is what will give insights to your prospect and isn't self-promoting. Companies produce plenty of the self-promotional stuff – that's advertising, not content," explains Skotidas. "I'm referring to content that benefits the industry and the prospects as they consume it. That's the kind of content most B2B companies don't produce often – maybe once a month or once a quarter."
To keep your content stream flowing, Skotidas advises subscribing to newsletters, RSS feeds, YouTube channels, iTunes and Google Alerts.
"There are dozens of sources of content," he says, "Use keywords to narrow the focus of what comes through the funnel."
Interestingly enough, some of IntraLinks' fresh LinkedIn connections ultimately turned out to be content sources. They responded with their own compelling articles and reports, and contributed to the campaign.
"It truly was a sharing of best practices," says Johnson.
The Payoff: Real-world meetings
Once a minimum period of time and status updates had taken place, IntraLinks Social Sellers leveraged the trust they had built over time by getting in touch with their connections and requesting a meeting.
"We acknowledged our LinkedIn connection, and expressed our interest in meeting and discussing our value proposition," says Johnson. "Our Social Sellers made it clear who they were, and that they wanted to share information and have a real-life conversation about best practices."
Even when the person was not the decision maker, he would often direct the Social Sellers to others whom he considered a better fit for the discussion.
"They'd thank us and say, 'I'm not the right guy, here's the name and phone number of the best person you should be talking to,'" says Johnson. "So the LinkedIn community actually looked after us and pointed us in the right direction. I don't mean to sound trite, but it was a very social experience."
In just over three months, the LinkedIn strategy has produced twice the number of face-to-face meetings of any other lead generation channel given the timeframes and number of contacts.
"Anyone who has lived and died by sales targets knows that in the end, you have to generate that meeting with stakeholders and sign that contract," says Skotidas. "With the right approach and engaged sales teams, social media allows you to take that conversation all the way there."
Johnson admits the outcomes surprised him.
"We were willing to test this because we thought there was an opportunity there," says Johnson. "We went in assuming we would see some kind of positive result, but we certainly weren't expecting to achieve so many meetings and to develop so many valuable touch points that have lead to active sales engagements."
IntraLinks
Skotidas– B2B social media lead generation agency used by IntraLinks
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Social Media Marketing: 6 tips for running a valuable LinkedIn group that attracts prospects
I love this quote from this success story: "In the spirit of good lead nurturing, it became all about the prospect once he or she was engaged, and not the sales team's quotas." This is powerful and require a mindset shift in the Sales teams approach to selling. Good work IntraLinks for being able to make that transformation.
Ayeen Benoza says:
Very strategic to reverse the process of connecting to the prospect. No pressure from the sales person to generate an immediate result, which enhances relationship with the marketing department. With regular updates and nurturing, the targeted prospect turns into a valued client at the right time. http://bit.ly/ayeen8
How to Use LinkedIn to Generate Leads
Better Social Selling, an Interview with Jill Rowley
Content Marketing Tips and Ideas for Lead Nurturing