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Podcast | November 22, 2016
[SHOWNOTES] Ian Altman, Grow My Revenue: Invest in your attendees and they will invest in you – ECEO010
By Event CEO
Listen to the full podcast episode HERE
You are a growth strategist. Can you elaborate on what that means for the audience?
For a lot of businesses, they're really good at what they do, but they don't necessarily understand what are the levers that drive growth for their business. A lot of what I do is help organizations modify their message and their strategies so it triggers growth in their business, rather than just a lot of activity.
Because the premise of our podcast is that events should really be looked at as a part of an organization's growth strategy and be one of those levers, how would you suggest companies do that more effectively?
I think that the mistake that a lot of organizations make is they run an event, and they think the whole idea of an event is to sell stuff at the event. The reality is that you want to look at your event as a way to build community. If you build a community of people who say, "Wow! I look forward to this event every year, because I'm connecting with other like-minded people," then it creates stickiness to the business itself.
Whether you do that internally with employees or as a nonprofit doing it with their constituents, it still creates that sense of community that ties everybody together. The extent that you do that, then you start building these entities that are filled with people who are just raving fans. They tell everybody, "These guys are great! I met all these great people!" And now another vender who offers the same things as you from a products standpoint doesn't offer that community, so it's no longer apples to apples.
When you're in that moment of the event, how do you leverage that community to ultimately support that growth strategy?
Part of it is fostering an environment that supports that community. Basically, if your whole event is structured around "Come to this session and that session, hear this pitch, hear that pitch," people don't build a sense of community. If you start looking at it from the perspective of "What is in the best interest of my audience? How do I create value for this community that I hope forms?" then all of a sudden, people will see that and say, "Wow! They're doing stuff that's in our best interest, even if it's not in theirs." It's kind of like the same premise of if you have happy employees, they create happy customers. If people take care of their employees well, those employees take care of their customers well. If people take care of their clients and attendees well, those people will become fans, and there's kind of this law of reciprocity that says, "Wow! These guys really looked out for me. How do I now look out for them?"
Tell me how that ties into influence.
The people who host events are generally the thought leaders or the leaders in a space. If you're attending an event, that's fine. If you're speaking at an event, better. If you're hosting the event, well, you must be the expert. In terms of influence… If you host a great event, you all of a sudden now are seen in a totally different light than everyone else. People will say, "Wow. This is somebody who I want to aspire to be like. I want to be part of their community." That creates that level of influence. Now, as long as you're doing things that are integrity-based, and you're looking out for your attendees' best interests, then there's a great likelihood they're going to follow your suggestions based on that.
How do you sustain that after the event successfully?
The other thing that I see people do is they'll have an event, and they focus everything on what they're going to do at the event, and often times as a speaker what I'll ask is "What do you want people to accomplish six months after?" I get this blank stare. "I don't know. We haven't thought of that." Part of it is thinking beyond the event.
If you think a few steps beyond the event and say, "How do I want people's behavior to change? What do I hope to be able to deliver to the attendees in terms of their capabilities, accomplishments, those sorts of things?" Then you're in a position where you can actually make that impact down the road. If, after the event is over, you say, "Hmm, what can we do to make this sticky," it's too late. Six months before the event, you want to think about what happens six months after the event. If you're thinking about it six minutes after the event… too late.
How do these concepts, strategies and content align with your books?
Same Side Selling is all about figuring out where you can make the greatest impact and then working from a point of integrity on delivering the best results for your client. At an event, if you're thinking "How can I get this out of it? How can I attain these things for me personally as the event organizer?" you're probably missing the boat.
If you say, "What would create the most value for my audience and attendees?" if you deliver on that promise, the rest of it all will take care of itself. I'm not saying you can't host an event and say, "The way this is going to be successful is if we generate this much revenue, but we forgot to charge for it," that would be a problem. If instead your goal is "I want to create this level of community. I want to serve my audience this way," then by doing that, you're going to build that community, and then it creates that stickiness. It creates that level of influence, and people will be more inclined to do business with you.
Effective selling, I always say, is about uncovering the truth. It's not about persuasion or coercion. If you host an event and say, "Here are the issues we're going to be addressing at this event," people that care about those issues are going to show up, and if now you're seen as a thought leader in that space, when they want to solve those issues, who are they going to go to? You.
How does that tie into establishing at the outset what those metrics are of success, what the ROI is at the end?
It's critical, but sometimes people look at ROI a little bit differently. "I want to see how many things we sold at this event." Before I started my first business, I worked for this company that was a mainframe-based company, and I was running their client server division, which was basically a fancy word for PC-based stuff. We had this big annual conference, and on day one, there was a line 20 people deep at our client server PC-based booth, and all the other little booths that we had were empty.
The CEO came to me and said, "We've got to totally change this, because too many people are focusing on your stuff."
"No, what we have to do is realize that that's an indicator of where people have interest, so we need to focus our efforts there, because that's what people care about."
"No, but I want them to buy this other thing."
When you have an event, the first thing you want to do is make sure that you are observing and listening to what's going on, because if those are your potential customers that are all of a sudden expressing interest in something you don't serve, then who's the fool at that point?
That's a good point. I would suggest that most people don't do this: interview their stakeholders and potential attendees, whether they're a nonprofit or a corporation, and finding out what would be of value.
Yes, what would make this time well spent and a great investment for you? It's interesting. As a keynote speaker, often times what I'll do is I'll offer to do a survey of their audience in advance, and you'd be amazed that people will say, "We already know what people want."
And then I get the survey back, and they'll say, "No, no, that isn't what they want."
And I'll say, "No, no. 40% of your attendees responded, and 85% of them listed this as a top priority."
They'll respond: "I don't think that's it."
And I will insist: "I'm telling you it is, because this is what people are asking for! It may not be what you thought they wanted, but they're actually telling us what they want to hear about."
It's funny, because there are a wide array of topics that I talk about, but if I survey people in advance and say, "What do you most want to talk about?" I'll start my keynote and say, "We sent the survey out to everybody. Here's what the response was. 84% of you said you really want to learn about this topic, so I'm not going to cover that." Everyone laughs. I go, "Of course, I'm going to spend most of our time on that. Is that OK?"
And people say, "Wow! This is great! This keynote is tailored exactly to what I care about."
I usually make a joke that says, "If you're one of the people that didn't respond, then by definition, this session was great, because you didn't ask for anything!"
One of the things that I found fascinating in one of the conversations that we had is not everybody in the audience need to be there, that you've got to be kind of discerning from the perspective of the host of an event or of a client in general. What makes a good client?
A great client is somebody with whom you have a connection. There's a fit, in essence, between the challenges that they face or their goals and what it is that you can deliver. The best client is a person who really appreciates what they can achieve through working with you.
For example, the person who says, "Look, I want to put on an event. I don't want it to be that good. We don't really care if everything goes off perfectly. If it doesn't look totally professional, we don't care," that's not your ideal client. You tell those people, "Good luck." I speak at some of those events, and I think, "Oh my God!" People don't necessarily understand all the crossing the T's and dotting the I's that make for a great experience.
Similarly, in any sort of business, in any sort of event, what you want to think about is not "How do I cast a wide net and get as many people as possible?" but instead "How do I attract the right people to achieve my goals and to best serve them?"
There's an event called Mastermind Talks that's run every year by this guy named Jayson Gaignard out of Toronto. Jayson holds it at different places around the country and does some really innovative things. They curate a group of about 100 people for their event. They get, I don't know, 400 or 500 people who want to attend the event, and he curates and matches up the right people, and it's about a $5,000-a-head event, but the people who come there want to be there, and he makes sure of the right match and fit between personality. They do a ton of work setting it up to make sure that the right people are there. Those events, people come back and say, "Oh my God, it was the greatest event ever."
It creates value for both sides?
Yeah, there's an event that I've run a couple of times with a couple of other speakers, Marcus Sheridan and Joey Coleman, that we call the Remarkable Growth Experience. Same thing, we target 100 people. We would say, "Look, if you're going to come, bring a team of 5 people. Otherwise, don't come."
Some people will say, "Well, I think I'm just going to come, and then I'll share it with my team."
We say, "Don't do it, because you're going to spend a lot of money. You're going to come back all excited, and your team is going to look at you like you're nuts, because they didn't experience this for two days. Don't do that."
People say, "You could have had that event for 1,000 people. Yeah, but it wouldn't have been the same experience." It's not always the number of attendees; it's more the impact you can make on those people.
On my podcast, I've interviewed a number of people who attended the remarkable growth experience, and in many cases, they've doubled their business in the 18 months following the event. Well, that's a huge impact. That's pretty cool. But if we had 1,000 people, we might not have found anybody who doubled their business in 18 months, but there's a half a dozen of them that who said, "Wow. We implemented the stuff we learned, and here's the result we got." That makes us feel good.
That brings up another thing. You talked about raving fans earlier, and now you're talking about getting these testimonials, for lack of a better word. How are you cultivating those testimonials to then support that next event or that next thing that you're doing?
In some cases, it's people who volunteer. In other cases, we'll build private groups on either Facebook or Linkedin for people to stay connected afterwards, because remember: if I'm building a community, then it doesn't end at the last hour of the show. The community keeps going forever.
For example, Michael Port runs a program called Heroic Public Speaking, and he's got a Facebook group for anybody who enrolls in it, and that thing goes on forever. There's some private Facebook groups online for speakers, where we all connect about different events and what went well and what didn't. It's kind of funny, because the people who don't execute stuff well all of a sudden can't understand why they can't get the top speakers for their event. It's because we're all talking, going, "Yeah, this is a train wreck. You don't want to work for that one."
If you're in a fortunate position where you can pick the events that you do, you want to focus on the ones where you can have the greatest impact, and if you show up and all the technology has gone sideways at an event, really, does someone say, "Oh! I bet you the engineer screwed that up." When the session bombs, they say, "Oh, that speaker was horrible." If someone asked them later, they say, "Why were they horrible?" "Well, it was really just the slides were bad, the audio wasn't good," but all the other stuff is behind the scenes, so when those things work well, we're incredibly appreciative of the team putting it on, and when they don't, that's when you need a restraining order.
It's so interesting, because you have this very unique perspective. It's kind of this trifecta, right? You're a speaker, so you deliver content from stages at events, you host your own events, and then you attend events to expand your own growth, etc. Any thoughts about that triad?
You know what? It's just a constant learning experience. Every time I attend an event, I'm thinking, "Oh, that's a great idea," or "We have to make sure we don't do that." I become hypercritical of our own events, because if something doesn't go exactly right, I think back, "Man, that happened to me once when I was an attendee, and I hated it. I can't believe we just did that."
Are you incorporating in all that you see, all that you read, all that you do yourself, what techniques around about learning are you thinking about in hosting your own events, or even in making suggestions to event organizers around? "Hey, listen, having you up here for 3 hours doesn't make any sense."
Exactly. There's a lot of time that I and the people I work with spend time on, thinking about how people learn. We all know that some people learn by seeing, some by hearing, some by doing. For example, every time I speak, I try to incorporate each aspect of that, because otherwise, the people who aren't auditory learners and you're up there speaking, they'll say, "Yeah, I don't get it, because I have to actually be doing something to learn." The other people who are more visual learners, if you go up there and you have no slides whatsoever, they'll say, "Yeah, I don't get it."
But the mistake that some speakers make is they somehow believe that their audience is the only audience in the world who can actually read content on the slide and listen to them at the same time, which can't happen. You sat through my sessions, and I think if I speak for an hour and a half, there might be 15 words total across all the slides. There isn't a lot of text, but it's more the image that is a cue for that visual learner to say, "Oh, now I remember that. I saw this, and here's what I saw." I usually do some interactive things, where the audience will connect with each other, because that helps further build that community.
Talk to me about the notion of a lot of event organizers get intimidated by having activities or hands-on activities for large audiences. Can you shed a little light on how you've done that well or seen it done well?
Yeah. Here's the thing: it requires skill and it requires planning so that the speaker says, "Yeah! Don't worry about it! I have this figured out." If I was an organizer, I would say, "Really? How are you planning to do it?
For example, if I'm sending people off to do an exercise for 5 minutes, there's a few components to it. First, I'll say, "Listen, I'm going to trust all of you. We're going to do this exercise for a total of 5 minutes. I'm going to put a timer on the screen. At the end of 5 minutes, I'm going to do this. You're all then going to replicate and mimic that same thing, and it's a message for all of us to stop the activity and focus back up here," so that before the activity starts, I'm telling people, "Here's how it's going to end, and here's how you know when it's over."
The worst thing is when the speaker says, "OK, everyone go off and do this," and then they're standing on the stage going, "Hello? Hello?" They're trying to catch someone's attention, and at that point you're already lost. It's similar to the notion of "How do I create an impact six months later?" If you're just thinking about it at the time, if the way you're bringing everyone back together, you're just thinking of when they're not there, you've got a major problem. You have to plan in advance. It requires a certain level of skill.
There are times where newer speakers will say to me, "I was thinking about doing this. What do you think?"
"I wouldn't do that yet. You need to have a little bit more command of the stage so that when you say, 'OK, everyone, back up here,' they'll do that." I'll do things interactively, where I'll bring someone up on stage, and we'll roleplay something right off the cuff.
Someone says, "Oh, that's so cool. Should I try that?"
My answer is, "If you're asking me, the answer is no, because if you're thinking 'Should I?' the answer is no. If you know you can pull it off, great." I've done this hundreds of times.
They'll say, "Man, what if someone threw you a curve ball."
"Then I shouldn't be on stage."
As you pointed out earlier, content from the stage really makes or breaks events—the deafness of the speaker, the agility, all these kinds of things. What are some of the things that you would suggest event organizers or event CEOs think about as they look for speakers and look for content deliverers out of their own organization or elsewhere?
I guess the biggest thing is the question I always ask is "What behavior do you want to change through this session?"
Usually people go, "Oh, I don't know. I mean, we just wanted someone to speak about sales, growth, business trends." Whatever it is they're asking me.
I'll say, "OK, so let's say we speak about that. What do you expect people to do when they get back to the office? What do you expect them to do the next day? Next week? Next month? How will you know six weeks out whether or not this was successful?" If you can define all of that, then now you have objectives, so you know what you're trying to accomplish.
I'm speaking at an event in about a month. I said, "What are you trying to accomplish?"
They said, "Well, we have people who believe that the only way we can win deals is based on price."
I said, "OK. How will you know if it's successful?"
"If our people are discounting less coming out of that."
"OK, great." So, I have a whole session that's built around how they in the room… This is a small group of senior executives, basically presidents of lines of business for this multibillion-dollar company, so they have their 20 division presidents all coming in to talk about this. Basically, my session is not like a typical session I would do. It's "How do you make these decisions? What are the decisions that you've made based on price, and what are the ones where price isn't even one of your top 3 parameters?"
What they're going to realize is "When the stakes are high and it's really important, I don't care about price. But when it's just kind of a commodity, I care about price." Great. So, what does that tell you? Well, that means that now when you present your ideas, you want to make sure you're focusing on the highest value for your client, otherwise you're going to get beat up on price, but they need to discover that on their own. If I just told them that, they would say, "Yeah, I don't buy it." But once they experience it themselves, then it's more impactful.
Is that an experience you put them through, an exercise?
Yeah. In that sort of audience, I'll put them through an exercise.
Now, there are exercises that I've done where people say, "Look, I saw you do this with 50 people, but how many people can you do it with?"
Not that exercise that I described, but there's this certain exercise I've done, where I've done it with thousands of people, and the organizer says, "I saw you do this at one place, but you couldn't do that with our event. It's 2500 people."
I say, "Yeah, we can."
It's funny, because I was doing an event, actually, in Washington, D.C. I did this event where it's a very interactive thing, where everyone needs a partner, and they're doing stuff together, and it's not something that's talking. It's an actual activity interacting with somebody else for about 5 seconds.
The organizer said, "Well, this is really risky. I don't see how you could possibly do this with this many people." I guess there were about 2,000 people.
We started it. I set the expectation of when it was going to end. Everybody was laughing, having a good time. The organizer comes up to me afterwards and says, "I just can't believe that you got all 2,000 people to do this." And then they were right back there.
And I bet it was a highly rated session as well.
It was highly rated, because it was fun. People were laughing, having a good time, but they also learned something, and those people who learn by doing got something out of it, too.
I think that you touched on a big point. It's making sure that people are getting the value and then connected to those three things that you talked about.
Yeah, it's engagement. I mean, the thing is that you can have a Nobel Laureate get up and speak and have it be totally ineffective, and you can have somebody who doesn't have a lot of subject matter expertise be highly effective by how they deliver from the stage. If you get somebody who has a lot of expertise who can also engage the audience, that's where you get the homeruns.
If you think about it, you've seen many speakers. There are some who are masters of the subject, but just can't deliver from the stage. It's kind of funny, because the people who can deliver great from the stage and are kind of light on content often get rated well. Then there's a small subset where people say, "Man, that was a lot of fun, but it was totally packed with content." That makes me feel good. It's actionable, and you had a good time.
The president of one of the speaker bureaus said when he gets a speaker reel, what he does is… Let's say someone sends him an 8-minute segment. What he does is he basically makes 16 little 30-second slots, and as he listens to or watches the video, every time there's an emotive response by the audience, he puts a tick mark. He says if he ever sees two continuous segments without a tick mark, he doesn't want that speaker, because if within a minute, you don't have an emotive response from the audience, then you're not engaging them. They're on their cell phones or looking at something else.
How do you derive that emotive response? Is it by tapping into those three things?
Well, it's tapping into those three things. It's also by… It's a whole number of issues.
Is there a magic button?
Well, no. There's no great secret to it, it's more a combination of spending a lot of time thinking about the arc of your presentation and the stories that you tell and where you inject humor without looking like a comedian and making sure it's authentic and responding in engagement with the audience and having different medium.
You've seen me speak, and there's times where I include a still photo, and there's time where I include video, and there's times where you're interacting with other people. At any given part of the session, though you know where we're going, you don't necessarily know what's coming next, so you have to be engaged, because you don't know what's coming. The person who speaks in a monotone, the person who doesn't change their tone at all, you just kind of get lulled off to sleep, and it's like, "Are they still talking? I think so. Don't open your eyes." That's it.
As I'm sure you have, obviously you're helping clients vet speakers, but there's time where I'm speaking, and I'm watching the two-parter speakers, and there's two thinking. One is "Oh, this poor audience. They've got to listen to this." Then I think to myself, "OK, I think it's good that I'm going after them, instead of them going after me, because it's just…"
There are some speakers I know who are amazing, and I think to myself, "Man, I don't know if I'd rather be following them or them following me, because they're really talented."
Given the perspective that you have—again, you produce events, you attend events, and you speak at events—any thoughts around how they should be laid out? Timing or what that experience should be?
I think the best events… Once again, if we get back to this idea that the purpose of the event is to build engagement with your community, then part of it is structuring events and activities that help them connect with one another. If you're kind of shuffling people from place to place to place to place, and they don't have, in essence, either unstructured time or structured time around connecting with each other, then every happens to be in the same room, but they don't know each other.
Instead, what we want to make sure of is when people leave, they say, "Wow. I built a connection with somebody. In fact, when I go back to the event next year, I hope they're going to be here." Now they're selling your ticket for the next event to each other, because now they come in groups and say, "Oh, so-and-so has to come, too." It just builds that environment that people want to show up at.
I think too many events either say, "Look, the way we're going to pay for this event is we're going to have sponsors, so we're going to have a sponsor slot, and the sponsor gets to sit up there for 30 minutes and give a sales pitch." It's almost like the organizer say, "But no one's going to know."
Everyone knows. It's like the bane of everyone's existence.
When we put on our event, we had no sponsors. People said, "You guys could have made a fortune. People would have loved to have spoken to a room full of CEOs."
"Yeah, I know, but we're not doing it, because it'll make the event suck for everybody." If it's important for us to make the extra money, we're going to charge more for the ticket, but we're not going to have a sponsor for this, because that's not what we're trying to achieve.
If you have a sponsor and you say, "Look, as long as you craft a story this way and that way that delivers value and isn't pitching your stuff, we'd love to have you. But we need to see your session in advance. Here are the things that are acceptable, and here are the things that aren't acceptable."
If you're going to get up there and try to sell from the stage, it doesn't work. In one of these speaker groups on Facebook, someone just noted that they had hired a friend of mine to speak at this event, and I think his fee is $25,000. They had a free speaker, through some organization or whatever, who was going to speak before him for an hour session. The person went an hour past the hour. The person spoke for 2 hours.
He turned to this friend of mine and said, "Hey, you had a 90-minute session. Can you cut it to 45 minutes?"
Think about the irony of that. Someone is saying, "Hey, we're going to save money. We're going to have this guy for free. Now the person we payed $25,000 is going to cut his presentation for 45 minutes, so we can accommodate this schmuck during whose speak people were walking out of the room."
You ask yourself, "How did this happen? How did this thing go on for 2 hours?" Someone should be shot.
You talk about that connection, engagement, all of that. What are some of the ways that you're seeing that happen at events that you're finding really great ways?
Well, in some cases, people will use technology, but sometimes the technology can backfire. I've seen places where they'll say, "We're going to have a live Twitter feed," so people are going to tweet out. Guess what? If you're sitting there tweeting, you're not paying attention to what's going on. Here's the irony: people are interacting via Twitter, but they're not interacting with the person sitting next to them. It doesn't make any sense.
Now, if you can create environments where you say, "Listen, here's something we're going to try to do together." If you almost do teambuilding activities with attendees, then people get to know each other.
Michael Port and his wife Amy run this event, I think I mentioned, Heroic Public Speaking. They do it typically in Florida, and one of the activities that they do on day one is they put people in groups of eight to work through some stuff together. I don't think their expectation is that each participant is going to get a ton of really constructive feedback from the other seven people, but I will tell you that when I went to their program, there are seven other people who I'm in regular touch with who were part of that group, because now we all connected with each other there. We spent a half hour together. How much time is everyone spending? Four minutes?
Right. This is actually really interesting, because in a format, let's say, we're a nonprofit, and we're hosting our annual gala. 90% of the people there you're not really connected to. Maybe not 90%, but a good percentage you're not connected to, because they're guests of. How could you apply that? How do you create an activity at a dinner table at a formal gala?
Let's say it's a nonprofit at some charitable organization benefitting children, benefitting homelessness, something like that. You might even say to people, "Look, one of the things I want to do is I want to give you 5 or 6 minutes for people to share stories at the table about how something we do has impacted you personally."
People now communicate, "Oh, this one thing! I've got to tell you this story."
Then you don't say, "Who has a great story?" You say, "Who has someone at your table who told a great story you think other people should hear?" A few people raise their hand, and you say, "OK, what was the story?"
"It was so-and-so. Can you tell the story now?"
And now everyone at that table hears it, everyone else hears the story, and now they go, "Wow. That's really impactful."
And you've also engaged the entire audience at that point.
Exactly. Now everybody is engaged. When I'm moderating an event, I suggest something like that, and they're like, "Well, what if people don't have any stories?" Everyone's got a story. There's always a story.
Now, if you say, "Talk amongst yourselves," and you don't give any structure, then you're going to get lousy responses. It's all in how you facilitate that that generates that engagement.
I think you've just kind of blown up a mystique. I think people get very nervous about doing those kinds of things in those environments, but I also believe they work. People like to engage.
Some of the icebreaker stuff is kind of pointless. "Introduce yourself and where you're from." Well, they've probably already done that when they sat at the table, so really?
But if you say, "Hey, share a story about something that really impacted you associated with our organization, or something that you did that you felt like you gave a little and you got a whole lot back in return."
Someone is going to say, "Well, you know what? I donated this one thing, and I participated in this, and then I went, I saw this child, and now he's doing great. I get emails from him."
Everyone else is sitting in the room going, "Man, I want to have that experience." Then if you time it right, now you do the silent auction. People are just throwing out money!
There was a fundraising event that I attended. All sorts of options. We're all driving things up, and certain people say, "You think that's a good deal?"
I say, "Well, that's not the point. It's a charitable event. No, that bottle of wine isn't worth $1,000, but we know that, so it's OK, because it's benefitting this charitable organization."
At one point, they used live technology so that as people were making donations… They said, "While you're sobering up, you can go on this app, and you can write in any donation."
I'm like, "This is a good way for me to donate without it being so obvious what I donated, because I'm not looking for credit for this." I'm thinking it's going to make the tote board, and the tote board is going to go up.
"Here's how much we've raised at this point," and then the screen shows, "And thank you, Ian Altman," and then the number is a different number.
Everyone's like, "Oh," and I was trying to not get credit for it. I just wanted to do something that's nice for this organization.
That actually brings us to technology as a question. What are technologies often used at events? Some successes? Some failures?
Sometimes it's successful. Sometimes you can use live polling, so you can get feedback from people. Often times, for example, I'll do events where…
You just don't want your name there, though?
Well, it depends, right? I think the idea of Twitter feeds and stuff is distracting, because then, once again, people can either read what's on the screen or listen to the speaker, but not both. If you're putting words up there, someone is missing something, so I'm not a big fan of that.
But for engagement, you can have people either on their phones or through some other technologies, some other audience response system, to say, "OK, look, if you're in this situation, which one would you be motivated by: A, B, or C?"
People respond, and you go, "Wow! In this audience, 68% of you said B. Research actually shows that 94% of people respond to B, so I don't know what's with you people." It can kind of be fun.
Sometimes, the technology, like I said, will backfire. All of a sudden people are like, "Wait! It's working on a connection." So, you've got to test the heck out of it. If you're going to use technology, you've got to make sure you test it.
Often times, I think, where people don't make enough use of technology is prior to the event and after the event for further engagement. That idea of a private Facebook group, of, "Hey, by the way, here's a site. If you want to share when you're arriving you can coordinate with other people at the event. It's only open to people registered for the event," and that's where you can coordinate Ubers in from the airport or whatever.
People go, "Oh, that's kind of cool!" And now you connect with other people.
You are then creating that engagement from in the pre as well as in the post. In just thinking about CEOs and planners, and thinking back to you as a growth strategist, what should they be thinking about, back to that original question, to make their events more profitable? Outside of creating value for the audience, what should they be focused on? That's nonprofit and corporate potential.
It's funny. If you're trying to make your event more profitable, there's two angles to it. Part of it is if the way I measure profit of my event is how many people are paying to attend, then I have to deliver the right value. Sometimes, we often joke as speakers where someone says, "Oh, we don't have the budget for that for the speaker," and actually they're looking to pay the speaker less than they're going to pay for coffee at the morning break.
Most of us would agree that the difference between a great event or not a great event probably has less to do with the coffee and more to do with the speaker. In some cases, it's making sure that you've got good alignment between what you're trying to accomplish and who you've got on stage.
Sometimes, we'll also see for events where they'll say, "You know what? We're going to have one of our executives moderate." And as you and I well know, there's a big difference between a skilled professional who has experience moderating and an executive who says, "Oh, I can do this."
For example, there are some people where someone's talk begins at the introduction, so someone will say, "I'm just going to wing the introduction," and the speaker is thinking, "OK, well if you don't cover the stuff in my introduction, then I have to cover it, and if you didn't cover it, and I don't cover it, then people are going to say, 'Why am I going to listen to this person?'" It matters.
If someone knows you well enough, you say, "Yeah, I trust that you're going to get this right." There are some fellow speakers I know where I've attended events, and they say, "So-and-so is going to wing it," and literally they'll say, "Well, you know, one of my buddies, Ian, is here. Is it OK if he does the intro?" "Yeah, I guess that's fine," and then I'll intro them, because then I know it's going to get done right.
The real key is that you know not only what you're trying to accomplish, but how you're going to get there. Meaning if you say, "I want it to be more profitable," how would it become more profitable?
If the answer is "I get more attendees," then how do I create value that draws more attendees?
If the answer is "I have more engagement in my community," what behaviors drive that?
If the answer is "I want my employees who are attending to be more engaged and achieve better results," then what aren't they doing as well that you hope they do better? If you're constantly focused on "What behaviors do I want to change in my audience—whether it's employees, whether it's constituents, whether it's customers, then you're set up for success.
If you go there saying, "We're going to have this event, and good stuff is going to happen," it rarely does. If you plan it out, then good things will happen.
Ian, good stuff. It makes me think as I sit here I've got to bring you back, so we can talk about the speaker aspect, because I think you could shed a great deal of light for the event community on that aspect, too. What should the event community be looking for when they're thinking about a speaker?
By the way, I'll give you the quick answer on that. The quick answer is that very often the organizer thinks in terms of "How can I pay less for this speaker?" As a speaker, what I always think is what you should be asking is "How can you help me create more value at my event?"
For example, when I speak at events, what I'll often suggest is, "Look, if you're going to do a book signing, here's my suggestion. Why don't you talk to one of your sponsors and suggest I do the book signing in their booth?"
"Is there going to be enough room?"
"Here's what you've got to understand. The sponsor wants to bring people to their booth. If I come offstage and say, 'Look, the sponsor has provided a copy of my book for each of you, and I'll be signing it in their booth,' while there's a line of 100 people to get their book signed, they're sitting in their booth."
What will happen is someone says, "Well, gee, we only have this much budget."
"No, no. If you really think about this, that sponsor who's paid a quarter of a million dollars for their booth will happily pay $20,000 to ensure that everybody shows up at their booth. Now the speaker fee is largely covered just through their sponsorship."
Sometimes people just completely miss the point on that. It's funny, because the speakers who are most likely to discount their fee are probably not the speakers you want anyhow, because those of use who are busy enough, if someone says, "Oh, I have 80%, but I don't have 100%," we go, "OK, I can recommend somebody else," because we don't need the work. What you're going to get is the person who needs the work and says, "OK, I'll discount it." Well, why do they need the work? Because they may not be that great.
Let's face it. Like anything else, there are different levels in any industry, but the difference between people walking out and going, "Wow! That was amazing," is often… If you get the top-tier speakers, you get that wow effect, otherwise you get, "Yeah, that guy was pretty good."
And what you talked about, too, was that if you can have the expectation from an event perspective, then the speaker is going to engage in a conversation around what value they can bring outside of just the content. And that's huge!
Yeah. It's remarkable to me how often people have never thought about it when I say, "What are we trying to accomplish? What behavior do you want to change?"
I'm like, "OK, isn't that everything?"
On that note, what's the summary? What's the lesson we should walk away from as an audience?
The lesson is that it's all about engagement. It's engaging the community. It's engaging around people's outcomes and how you want them to behave differently. If someone just sits up there and speaks, then basically you want to think of it as the audience just lost an hour of their life that they'll never get back.
If instead they're engaged and they're a part of it, and now you leave them with actual things to do, then you might actually achieve results that pay for themselves a hundred times over, but if it's just kind of…
One of my articles in Forbes says, "Should you hire a speaker or a magician?" or something to that effect. Basically, it's like, "Look, if all you're trying to do is entertain people, then hire a magician or a juggler, because they'll be entertaining, and it will cost a whole lot less. But if you actually want to accomplish something, then you want to get someone who is skilled who can deliver that sort of capability."
Great, great stuff. Any resources that you might suggest to the audience? Your articles are always great. You want to talk a little bit about that?
I write a column every week in Inc. and Forbes in their digital editions, and actually, this whole notion of building a community, in my podcast, Seth Godin was a guest, and we talked about this idea of building a community. Seth said any smart business, what they should do is take 5% of their profits each year and allocate that to running an event that they don't even charge their customers for. They just bring all likeminded people together.
Then people will learn that "If you want to go to that event, you've got to be a customer of theirs," and then people will want to be a part of that, and now when your competitor comes to the client and says, "Oh, you should start buying our stuff," they go, "No, no, because then I won't get to go to the event."
That is brilliant! Everybody, listen up to that one, because that's a great idea. That's for a corporation, that's a nonprofit, that's an event company. I mean, it doesn't matter what it is.
If you go to my site and just type 'Seth Godin,' you'll get that podcast episode.
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GUEST: Ian Altman
Ian Altman is a multi-bestselling author, strategic advisor, and internationally sought speaker on integrity-based sales and business development. A successful services and technology CEO for two decades (value beyond $1B), Ian draws on years of success and research on how customers make decisions. You can find Ian's weekly articles on Inc.com and Forbes.com. He is the host of the weekly podcast Grow My Revenue Business Cast. Discover more at IanAltman.com.
Event CEO
Categories:Podcast
The Importance of Events – ECEO001
By: Event CEO | June 18, 2016
Indoor Skating Rinks and the "Wow!" Factor – ECEO003
[SHOWNOTES] Indoor Skating Rinks and the "Wow!" Factor – ECEO003
Diana Mayhew, National Cherry Blossom Festival: The evolution of event sponsorship engagement and activation – ECEO006
By: Event CEO | November 8, 2016


10%73°57°Cloudy with a high of 74 °F (23.3 °C). Winds from S to SSW at 12 to 14 mph (19.3 to 22.5 kph).Night - Cloudy. Winds variable at 5 to 12 mph (8.0 to 19.3 kph). The overnight low will be 52 °F (11.1 °C).
Today - Cloudy with a high of 74 °F (23.3 °C). Winds from S to SSW at 12 to 14 mph (19.3 to 22.5 kph).
Tonight - Cloudy. Winds variable at 5 to 12 mph (8.0 to 19.3 kph). The overnight low will be 52 °F (11.1 °C).


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Whitbread
Coca-Cola buys Costa Coffee from Whitbread for £3.9bn
'Other suitors weren't wearing the right suit or driving the right car' – Alison Brittain
Zoe Wood and Mark Sweney
Fri 31 Aug 2018 12.54 EDT First published on Fri 31 Aug 2018 03.37 EDT
When the deal completes in the first half of next year Coca-Cola will own 4,000 Costa stores in 32 countries, with more than 2,400 of those in the UK. Photograph: Rui Vieira/PA
The soft drinks giant Coca-Cola is buying the Costa Coffee chain in a near-£4bn deal that underlines the scale of the global coffee revolution.
The takeover will overnight turn Coca-Cola into the UK's biggest coffee shop player and give it a foothold in what is one of the world's fastest-growing drinks categories. The global coffee shop market alone is worth $165bn (£127bn).
Alison Brittain, the chief executive of Costa Coffee's owner Whitbread, said the coffee chain had been approached by a number of potential buyers but Coke's desire to snap up the 4,000-store chain was a "dream deal" for investors.
Coffee shop figures
Whitbread, which also owns the Premier Inn hotel chain, bought Costa from its founders Sergio and Bruno Costa for £19m in 1995 when it had only 39 shops. Shares in the UK group soared on the back of the deal, closing up more than 16% as delighted investors responded to the much higher than expected sale price.
"The other suitors weren't wearing the right suit or driving the right car," explained Brittain of the other approaches it received. "It's Coke we decided to go up the aisle with, with a very large ring on our finger."
The takeover is the latest in a series of blockbuster deals as drinks manufacturers reinvent themselves for an age in which the sugar-laden soft drinks that made their names are in decline. PepsiCo recently bought the fizzy drinks maker SodaStream while the Swiss food giant Nestlé has struck a $7.3bn deal to license Starbucks-packaged coffees and teas around the world.
The UK could be nearing peak coffee, however, with the number of shops growing from 10,000 in 2007 to 24,000 today, according to analysts at Allegra World Coffee Portal. There are nearly twice as many Costa Coffee branches in the UK as there are Starbucks and almost four times the number of Caffè Neros.
Alison Brittain, the chief executive of Costa Coffee's owner Whitbread, said: 'It's Coke we decided to go up the aisle with, with a very large ring on our finger.' Photograph: Nick Ansell/PA
For Coca-Cola the prize is a global one, as demand for coffee grows at 6% a year, far ahead of its traditional soft drinks heartland where sales are under pressure as consumers seek out healthier drinks. In potentially huge sales markets such as China, the coffee culture is still in its infancy.
High time: Coca-Cola needs Costa as drinkers shift from fizzy pop to coffee
"They [Coca-Cola] have no coffee in their range," Brittain explained. "You could see Costa absolutely everywhere, in vending machines, hotels, restaurants, pubs, cafes – in all the places you see Coke today." Alongside the world-renowned Coke drinks, Coca-Cola's fizzy brands include Fanta and Sprite, while its healthier products include Abbey Well water and Innocent smoothies. Last year Coca-Cola posted sales of $35.4bn, while Costa's revenues were £1.3bn.
When the deal completes in the first half of next year Coke will own 4,000 Costa stores in 32 countries, with more than 2,400 of those in the UK, as well as more than 8,000 self-serve Express machines.
"Hot beverages is one of the few [drinks] segments where Coca-Cola does not have a global brand," James Quincey, Coca-Cola's British-born chief executive, said. "Costa gives us access to this market with a strong coffee platform."
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Coca-Cola's move into coffee comes in the same week the government once again put fizzy drink makers in the spotlight over their role in the health of young people. On Wednesday the government announced a ban on the sale of energy drinks such as Relentless, which is owned by Coke.
Angus Grierson, the managing director of the advisory firm LGB Corporate Finance, said the lightning speed the deal was done – it was brokered in five weeks – reflected the urgency with which Coca-Cola wanted to reduce its reliance on sugary drinks.
"The deal is an attempt to adapt quickly to changing tastes, notably the continuing rise in popularity of coffee, particularly among millennial consumers," Grierson said. "Customers are choosing lower-sugar varieties of soft drinks more than they ever have, with sales of sugary drinks declining rapidly, down 11% in 2018, thanks in part to the introduction of the UK's first-ever sugar tax."
It'll be lonely this Christmas without the Coca-Cola truck
Coco Khan
Why is it always poor families who miss out on the fun, asks Guardian columnist Coco Khan
Premier Inn owner hit by £725m loss as local lockdowns dent bookings
Whitbread reports huge first-half profits slump after Covid crisis forces hotel closures
Coca-Cola scales back UK Christmas truck tour after protests
Campaigners call on company to hand out only sugar-free drinks on 24-stop tour
Premier Inn owner Whitbread to cut 6,000 jobs amid Covid crisis
Pub group Wetherspoon's also plans to axe up to 450 roles at six of its airport pubs
Joint venture: Coca-Cola considers cannabis-infused range
UK hotel bookings returning after Covid-19 slump, says Premier Inn owner
Whitbread raising £1bn from shareholders to bolster finances
More more on this story

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


BOSTON, MA, April 11, 2019 -- Fidelity Investments®, one of the industry's most diversified financial services companies with $7.4 trillion in client assets, today announced the launch of Fidelity Works, a comprehensive suite of benefits services created exclusively for small and mid-sized businesses.
Fidelity Works offers small and mid-sized businesses1 a single, integrated experience to help manage a suite of company benefits that include payroll services, HR and benefits administration, health savings accounts (HSAs) and retirement savings plans. It also includes emerging benefits such as student debt repayment programs and charitable giving programs. While small and mid-sized businesses often have to manage multiple technologies, solutions and providers to administer their company benefits, Fidelity Works is a "one-stop" shop that can help employers spend less time and money on administration and more time on activities that can help grow their business.
Building on years of experience as a trusted benefits provider for thousands of larger organizations, Fidelity Works extends Fidelity's breadth of best practices, technology and expertise to small and mid-sized businesses, as well as the third parties who work with these employers, which may include retirement advisors, employee benefits brokers, banks and certified public accounts (CPAs). Fidelity Works also improves the experience for employees of small and mid-sized businesses by providing an integrated view of their workplace benefits and delivering the same level of service and support that is available to employees at larger companies.
"Time is money. We hear that in all facets of our lives, but it's especially true for small and mid-sized business executives who are wearing multiple hats servicing all aspects of HR, payroll and employee benefits while trying to run their businesses as efficiently as possible," said Chris Hock, head of Fidelity Benefits Marketplace. "Not only does Fidelity Works offer a full suite of benefits services through a single provider, but with that comes Fidelity's unparalleled customer service and expertise that clients -- and their employees -- demand."
Fidelity Payroll -- full payroll and contribution processing, tax services, time and attendance management and Affordable Care Act (ACA) reporting.
Fidelity HR and Benefits Administration Services -- one solution providing employee HR data management, recruiting, compensation management, talent development, and administration of health, disability, life, dental, flexible spending accounts and vision benefits. It also allows employers to automate common HR tasks and offers self-service capabilities to employees.
Fidelity HSA® -- platform agnostic health savings account that seamlessly integrates with Fidelity payroll, retirement and benefits administration platform.
Fidelity Retirement -- traditional 401k retirement savings plan including recordkeeping, trustee, testing and reporting services.
Emerging Products -- an evolving suite of new solutions to address other employee needs and interests, especially those of millennial workers, including Fidelity's Student Debt Employer Contribution Program and Fidelity's recently-launched Workplace Giving Program.
Financial Well-Being and Advice -- financial education to help coach employees on their next step to financial wellness, as well as holistic investment advice to help employees create a financial plan and access to an investment professional to help them stay on track.
Fidelity's mission is to inspire better futures and deliver better outcomes for the customers and businesses we serve. With assets under administration of $7.4 trillion, including managed assets of $2.6 trillion as of March 31, 2019, we focus on meeting the unique needs of a diverse set of customers: helping more than 30 million people invest their own life savings, 22,000 businesses manage employee benefit programs, as well as providing more than 13,500 financial advisory firms with investment and technology solutions to invest their own clients' money. Privately held for more than 70 years, Fidelity employs more than 40,000 associates who are focused on the long-term success of our customers. For more information about Fidelity Investments, visit https://www.fidelity.com/about.


Normally, the WattNode® Pulse meter generates a 4 Hz full-scale pulse frequency. In other words, at nominal full-scale power (nominal line Vac, nominal rated CT current, power factor = 1.0), the meter will generate four pulses per second.
You want a nicely scaled output, like 10 pulses per kilowatt-hour or 1 kWh per pulse. The best way to achieve this is with Option Kh.
You are connecting the pulse output to an LCDA-P or LCDA-EP and want to set the full-scale pulse frequency to 20 Hz to improve the display of power (faster updates, can display a wider range of powers). See LCDA-P Power Display (AN-116).pdf and LCDA-EP Energy & Power Display (AN-115).
You need a very high pulse frequency (or pulse count) for maximum measurement resolution. The normal WattNode Pulse meter with bidirectional outputs can generate full-scale pulse frequencies up to 600 Hz nominal (900 Hz overrange). The WattNode Pulse meter with options P3, PV, and DPO can generate full-scale pulse frequencies up to 150 Hz nominal (200 Hz overrange). Before ordering a WattNode Pulse meter with a high pulse frequency, check that your monitoring equipment (data logger) can handle the desired frequency. Many data loggers have very limited maximum frequencies.
You need a lower than normal pulse frequency because your data logger or monitoring device cannot handle the normal 4 Hz output, or a lower frequency saves battery energy.
To compute scale factors with custom pulse frequencies, see the full WattNode Pulse manual for equations.
There are two ways to order Option Hz.
This is most common and sets all active pulse output channels to the same full-scale pulse frequency.
Example: WNB-3Y-208-P Opt Hz=20. This sets all pulse output channels (P1 and P2 in this case) to 20 Hz full-scale.
Example: WNB-3Y-208-P Opt P3,Hz=0.5. This sets all pulse output channels (P1, P2, and P3) to 0.5 Hz full-scale (one pulse every two seconds).
This sets each pulse output channel to a custom full-scale pulse frequency.
Example: WNB-3Y-208-P Opt PV, Hz=20/33.33/40. This sets the P1 channel to 20 Hz, P2 channel to 33.33 Hz, and the P3 channel to 40 Hz.
Example: WNB-3Y-208-P Opt P3, Hz=50/100/150. This sets the P1 channel to 50 Hz, P2 channel to 100 Hz, and the P3 channel to 150 Hz.


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Category: Cities Like Dreams
Does property serve a social function? You might think the answer is "yes, of course". The purpose of a house, for example, is to house people, to serve as a space in which to create a home. These days, though, it seems that houses are more often used as a financial good rather than to serve a direct use like that of providing shelter. This is evident in the vast international system by which land and property are bought and sold according to the supply and demand of the "property market". In many national contexts, you cannot really be secure in your housing situation until you own your own house. This in many ways dictates patterns of urban development: people will buy or rent property in areas where the property value is low enough that they can afford; meanwhile, wealthy developers have every right to buy up property and profit off of it as they see fit—after all, they paid for it.
But this is not an inevitable process; in fact, it reflects only one interpretation of what we call "property", one that fulfills a trajectory of urbanization that seems near impossible to challenge. It is therefore not surprising that the concept of the "social function of property" whereby property must fulfill a social function and cannot merely be used for profit, is increasingly taken up by social movements fighting for the rights to land and housing around the world.[1]
São Paulo is one city where the contradictions of the "property market" are especially apparent, and groups contesting the situation particularly active. The housing deficit is currently estimated to be at 230,000 homes.[2] Meanwhile, there are hundreds of vacant buildings in the city center. In response to this, dozens of sem-teto or "roofless" movements have formed, demanding the right to secure housing and undertaking occupations of vacant buildings to draw attention to the housing crisis. These occupations not only highlight the current urban reality of unequal property ownership, but also put into question the very concept of property.
The private ownership model of property
In his work Unsettling the City, Nicholas Blomley highlights the hegemony of what he calls the "ownership model" of property, where there is generally one definable owner to a clearly delineated piece of land, and property almost exclusively means private property. Private property indicates a certain form of power that seems to have "an independent, nonstatelike quality", as the idea that someone can exclusively claim a parcel of space is taken for granted.[3] This model came to dictate what kind of property we are supposed to value–i.e., private, owner-occupied, etc.–which in turn raises the overall perceived value of this kind of property, in a process seen as uncontestably determined by "the market". But only those who are able to buy into this market get the right to property.
People did not always conceive of property in this manner. This particular understanding of property arose to prominence out of a desire to provide order to the city, beginning with the colonization of land. Indigenous groups did not usually conceive of property in the same way as their colonizers, and so a new, more regulated, interpretation of property was necessary in order to physically "settle" the land: "the colonization of land, the physical substance, could not have proceeded without the simultaneous colonization of property, the mental structure for organizing rights to land."[4] Adrian Blackwell describes how this ownership model then enabled property to be carefully partitioned and therefore easily exchanged in a capitalist market:
The secret of capitalist property lies in the way in which the most grounded and immobile of things—land—can be made to move through its financialization and exchange-ability, while this same property is rendered absolutely solid, reified, as each absentee owner decides who can and cannot enter it.[5]
Thus property has come to be viewed as a parceled good to be bought and sold. Brazilian scholar and planner Raquel Rolnik argues that housing is viewed increasingly as an investment asset in a globalized financial market, rather than as a social good. She explains how, rather than a means to distribute wealth, housing has become a "means to wealth", where "the value is the possibility of creating more value, which depends on the speed and number of transactions capable of generating value appreciation". While ideas of housing as commodity confronted various national welfare models in different national contexts, many governments around the world have mobilized a range of policies to "extend market discipline, competition and commodification".[6] The result has been urban enclaves created for the wealthy and international elite, with the poor confined to peripheral areas (or, in the North American case, "inner city" areas), often with limited basic services and employment opportunities.[7] Clearly in Brazil as elsewhere, this has meant the growth of informal settlements, forming part of an agenda which Rolnik asserts is "to create an urban scenario where the poor don't exist and at the same time 'unlock' the value of land".[8]
Viewing property and the real estate market as natural and self-evident has a de-politicizing effect. It masks the actors and social processes involved in deciding the "value" and accessibility of property. It assumes that the value of property lies only in its exchange value, and that this value is to be decided by the "market". It makes it very difficult to imagine that property could be understood in any other way.
Continue reading "Does property serve a social function? Re-imagining real estate in Brazil and beyond" →
By Rafalafelin Cities Like Dreams, São Paulo October 9, 2016 October 9, 2016 2,394 WordsLeave a comment
Thinking back to this beautiful, breezy city with plenty of leftist street art at every turn. Photos taken on 29 August 2013.
By Rafalafelin Granada October 8, 2016 26 WordsLeave a comment
This post was originally published on the Development Planning Unit blog on 11 May 2016.
At the start of April, a number of civil society groups, members of NGOs and activists from across Europe met in Barcelona for the European meeting of the Global Platform for the Right to the City. This was in part to complement the Habitat III meeting on Public Space that was to take place later that week. Habitat III will be the third installment of the UN conference on human settlements, held every 20 years. At this Global Platform meeting in Barcelona, priorities relating to the 'Right to the City' in Europe and strategic aims for Habitat III, to take place in Quito this October, were discussed.
Global Platform of the Right to the City meeting in Barcelona
One of the main issues that emerged in the Global Platform meeting was the financialization of real estate. Financialization can be defined as a "pattern of accumulation in which profit-making occurs increasingly through financial channels rather than through trade and commodity production" (Aalbers 2009, p. 284). The financialization of housing refers specifically to the linking of housing markets with finance markets, where housing is viewed primarily as a financial good. This is what allows banks to speculate on land and housing, which causes house prices to rise far beyond what most people can afford. The linking of mortgages with financial products, especially in the United States, was a central factor in the 2008 economic crisis that had catastrophic effects across the globe.
In a working group on the topic, participants exchanged experiences of how financialization has manifested in their respective countries. A member of the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (Platform for people affected by mortgages) in Barcelona summarized the particularly dire situation in Spain, where over 400,000 evictions have taken place since 2008. While each European country has its own unique context, many common themes emerged, such as speculation, inflated housing prices, empty homes, the selling off of social housing, and an increase in evictions and displacement. These phenomena were linked to a systematic eroding of regulations that have allowed the financial sector to exploit housing for profit. Continue reading "If Habitat III wants to uphold the right to housing, it needs to address financialization" →
By Rafalafelin Barcelona June 8, 2016 October 8, 2016 1,288 WordsLeave a comment
Thousands of people were out on the streets of London Sunday to protest the horrific housing bill which is currently being rushed through parliament (article in the Independent here). As an outsider to the UK nearly three years ago I was initially struck by the institution of social housing which seemed much more vast and ingrained than in other contexts that I knew. Then I began to understand the many ways in which social housing (or council housing as it is known–referring to the local council in charge of each administrative area) in the UK is being steadily undermined. Namely, existing social housing is being sold off for private renting, no new social housing is being built, and discussions now center around "affordable" housing which falls on the whim of private developers to provide, which they usually don't, and which is allowed to be up to 80% of the market rent. Now, this bill really seems like the nail in the coffin of social housing in the UK, rendering housing even less accessible to both council tenants and private renters. I don't even understand how such a bill, that caters entirely to ensuring private developers make as much money as possible, has managed to pass so quickly through parliament (detailed explanations of the UK legislative system are most welcome).
The #KilltheHousingBill campaign has produced a great video explaining the housing bill.
Last week the Radical Housing Network also produced a spoof newspaper of the Evening Standard–they call it the 'Standard Evening', which was distributed at tube stops all over London. The paper, which detailed what London would be like many years in the future if this housing bill passes, can be accessed online here.
If you live in the UK, please sign the petition: https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-housing-bill
Let's kill this bill!
By Rafalafelin Cities Like Dreams, London March 15, 2016 March 16, 2016 312 WordsLeave a comment
Beirut Walk
Photos taken 12 September 2013.
By Rafalafelin Beirut December 16, 2015 October 9, 2016 9 WordsLeave a comment
Bobby Seale and D'Angelo discuss the Black Panthers
Recommended viewing, along with the new documentary The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution. Incredible to see how a movement that provided a radical view of social transformation came about and how it was slowly but effectively crushed by the United States government.
By Rafalafelin Oakland July 6, 2015 July 6, 2015 50 WordsLeave a comment
Exploring possibilities for community-led urban land development in Dar es Salaam
Originally posted on the Bartlett Development Planning Unit blog.
For the first two weeks of May, students of the MSc Urban Development Planning worked in three sites across Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as part of their field trip project supporting community-based initiatives for informal settlement upgrading.
Working with the Center for Community Initiatives (CCI), a local NGO, and members of the Tanzanian Federation of the Urban Poor, students have been trying to understand the realities of urban life in these three areas while developing ideas to guide more socio-environmentally just trajectories of urban development at the city-wide scale.
Incomplete houses on the Chamazi site
The three sites in which the groups are based—Karakata, Chamazi, and Mabwepande—have much in common: they are all growing peri-urban areas, they are all mostly "informal" or "unplanned", most residents are low-income, and they face similar interlinking challenges such as infrastructure, access to basic services, sanitation, and solid waste disposal. But they also represent different patterns of land acquisition and development within the Tanzanian context.
Learning about the Gulper machine, a mechanism that the Federation has been using for the emptying of pit latrines in Karakata
Continue reading "Exploring possibilities for community-led urban land development in Dar es Salaam" →
By Rafalafelin Dar es Salaam May 25, 2015 October 8, 2016 812 WordsLeave a comment


text:
A Selection of Non-Fiction Articles
by Bram Stoker
Bram Stoker's Non-Fiction Essays and Articles, Published 1872 - 1911
"The American Audience" (published with Henry Irving's byline, but today generally credited to Bram Stoker), The Fortnightly Review, New Series, Chapman & Hall, Ltd, London, 1 February 1885 (Full Article Linked)
"The Necessity for Political Honesty", presented by Bram Stoker to University of Dublin, College Historical Society,
November 13, 1872 and published by James Charles & Son, Dublin, 1872
An account of the "University Night" performance of Hamlet given by Henry Irving at the Theatre Royal, Dublin, on 11 Dec 1876. Written by Bram Stoker for The Dublin Mail, c. 12 December, 1876, and reprinted in Bram Stoker's Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving, Volume 1, William Heinemann, London, 1906
"Address to Henry Irving, Esq.", written by Bram Stoker and presented by the Graduates and Undergraduates of Trinity College, Dublin. Presented either 9 or 11 December 1876, read by Mr. Edward Gibson and printed in Henry Irving: A Biographical Sketch, by Austin Brereton, Scribner and Welford, New York, 1884; London: David Bogue, London, 1883
"A Glimpse of America: A Lecture given at the London Institution, 28 December 1885", Sampson Low, Marston and Company, London, 1886
"Actor-Managers", The Nineteenth Century: A Monthly Review, June 1890. Published as part one of a three part series, with part two by Henry Irving and part three by Charles Wyndham
"Dramatic Criticism", North American Review, March 1894
"The Art of Ellen Terry", The Playgoer, October 1901
"Sir Henry Irving: An Appreciation by Bram Stoker, His Longtime Friend", The Manchester Guardian, 28 October 1904
"Introductions" to each of the ten novels included in The Works of Hall Caine, William Heinemann, London, 1905
"Fifty Years on the Stage. An Appreciation of Miss Ellen Terry by Bram Stoker", The Graphic, London, 28 April 1906
"Irving's Fight for Fame", Success Magazine, New York, February 1906
(Full Article Linked)
"Sir Henry Irving's Audiences", was presented by Bram Stoker at the Westbourne Park Institute, London, on 2 October 1906. Afterward, some versions or excerpts of the speech were published in numerous newspapers in the UK, US & New Zealand.
"The Great White Fair in Dublin: How there has arisen on the site of the old Donnybrook Fair a great Exhibition as typical of the New Ireland as the former festival was of the Ireland of the Past", The World's Work "Special Irish Edition", William Heinemann, London, May 1907
"The World's Greatest Ship-Building Yard. Impressions of a Visit to Messrs. Harland and Wolffs Ship-Building Yards at Belfast", The World's Work "Special Irish Edition", William Heinemann, London, May 1907
"The Question of a National Theatre", The Nineteenth Century and After: A Monthly Review, Leonard Scott Publications Co., New York, May 1908
"The Censorship of Fiction", The Nineteenth Century and After, Leonard Scott Publications Co., New York, September 1908
"Americans as Actors", Fortnightly Review, Chapman and Hall, Limited, London, and Leonard Scott Publications Company, New York, 1 February 1909
"Dead-Heads", presented to London's Playgoers Club by Bram Stoker, then published in Fortnightly Review, Chapman and Hall, Limited, London, and Leonard Scott Publications Company, New York, 1 October 1909
"The American 'Tramp' Question and the Old English Vagrancy Laws", North American Review, Boston, 1909
"The Censorship of Stage Plays", The Nineteenth Century and After, Leonard Scott Publications Co., New York, December 1909
"Irving and Stage Lighting", The Nineteenth Century and After, Leonard Scott Publications Co., New York, May 1911
Conversations with Bram Stoker
"Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Tells of His Career and Work, His Sentiments Towards America, and His Approaching Marriage", The New York World, New York City, 28 July 1907; and as "Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Tells of His Work & Career", The Daily Chronicle, London, 14 February 1908
"The Tendency of the Modern Stage. A Talk With Sir W.S. Gilbert on Things Theatrical", The New York World, New York City, 1907; and The Daily Chronicle, London, 2 January 1908
"Mr. Winston Churchill talks of his Hopes, His Work, and His Ideals to Bram Stoker", The New York World, New York City, 5 October 1907; and The Daily Chronicle, London, 15 January 1908 (Read interview with Churchill)
"How Mr. Pinero Writes Plays, Told in an Interview by Bram Stoker", The Daily Chronicle, London, 15 Feb 1908
"Mr. De Morgan's Habits of Work. The Career of a Man Who Began to Write After He Was Sixty-Four Years Old", The World's Work (United States Edition) Doubleday, Page & Company, New York, June 1908; and "The Work of William De Morgan: An Artist, Manufacturer, and Inventor Who Began Writing Novels at the Age of Sixty-Four", The World's Work: An Illustrated Magazine of National Efficiency and Social Progress, William Heinemann, London. July 1908


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Turning the Tide: The Psychoanalytic Approach of the Fitzjohn's Unit to Patients with Complex Needs
Edited by Rael Meyerowitz, David Bell
Since it was founded in 1920, the Tavistock Clinic has developed a wide range of developmental approaches to mental health which have been strongly influenced by the ideas of psychoanalysis. It has... (more)
Counselling Children and Young People in Private Practice: A Practical Guide
by Rebecca Kirkbride
With statutory CAMHS services often heavily oversubscribed, and school and college services mainly offering brief therapeutic interventions, parents are increasingly turning to private practitioners... (more)
Normal Child and Adolescent Development: A Psychodynamic Primer
by Karen J. Gilmore, Pamela Meersand
Normal Child and Adolescent Development: A Psychodynamic Primer presents a complete picture of mental development, informed by contemporary research and psychodynamic thinking. Dr. Gilmore and Dr.... (more)
The Baby and the Couple: Understanding and Treating Young Families
by Elisabeth Fivaz-Depeursinge, Diane Philipp
The Baby and the Couple provides an insider's view on how infant communication develops in the context of the family and how parents either work together as a team or struggle in the process. The... (more)
Siblings in the Unconscious and Psychopathology: Womb Fantasies, Claustrophobias, Fear of Pregnancy, Murderous Rage, Animal Symbolism, Christmas and Easter "Neuroses", and Twinnings or Identifications with Sisters and Brothers
by Vamik D. Volkan, Gabriele Ast
This book examines adults' identifications and internal relationships with their siblings' mental representations. The authors believe that the best way to illustrate clinical formulations and... (more)
The Twin in the Transference
by Vivienne Lewin
Second Revised Edition
The universal phantasy of having a twin originates in our earliest relational experiences. This book is about twins and twinning processes. The existence of an actual... (more)
The Late Teenage Years: From Seventeen to Adulthood
by Luis Rodriguez De La Sierra, Joan Schachter
The problems which the individual has to deal with in adolescence are qualitatively different from those of childhood; they are related in particular to the adolescent's reaction/responses to the... (more)
Reading Anna Freud
by Nick Midgley
What place do Anna Freud's ideas have in the history of psychoanalysis? What can Anna Freud teach us today about how to work therapeutically with children? Are her psychoanalytic ideas still relevant... (more)
Relational Trauma in Infancy: Psychoanalytic, Attachment and Neuropsychological Contributions to Parent-Infant Psychotherapy
Edited by Tessa Baradon
This book presents an interdisciplinary discussion between researchers and clinicians about trauma in the relationship between infants and their parents. It makes an innovative contribution to the... (more)
Infant Observation at the Heart of Training
by Janine Sternberg
The study of infant observation is widely used as part of training to become a psychoanalytic psychotherapist; the skills learned through infant observation can be widely applied to practicing... (more)
Spilt Milk: Perinatal Loss and Breakdown
A collection of lectures by eminent members of the British Psycho-analytical Society. Includes papers on the experience of having a baby, pregnancy and the internal world, pregnancy after stillbirth... (more)
Adolescence and Psychoanalysis: The Story and the History
Edited by Maja Perret-Catipovic, Francois Ladame
This collection of classic and contemporary essays makes a major contribution to the reassessment of psychoanalytic understanding and treatment of adults.
Peter Blos, Raymond... (more)
Understanding Your One-Year-Old
by Sarah Gustavus Jones
How does a one-year-old's mind and personality develop and grow? How does your role as a parent change when your baby starts to walk, talk and really explore the world around her? How do you support... (more)
Understanding Your Two-Year-Old
by Lisa Miller, Your Child Understanding
What makes children in their 'terrible twos' behave as they do? How can parents decide when their child is ready for day care, and manage their child's transition to a trusted child minder? Lisa... (more)
Autistic Barriers in Neurotic Patients
Closely Observed Infants
Edited by Lisa Miller, Margaret Rustin
For many years the regular observation of infants during the first two years of life has been a vital element in the training of child psychotherapists at the Tavistock Clinic. This book presents... (more)
Mother, Madonna, Whore: The Idealization and Denigration of Motherhood
by Estela V. Welldon
To Freud, female sexuality remained something of a mystery: a riddle and a dark continent. He urged his female colleagues to enlighten him. Many have since done so - and this book is a most vivid and... (more)
Working with High-Risk Adolescents: A Collaborative Strengths-Based Approach
by Matthew D. Selekman
This innovative book focuses on helping high-risk adolescents and their families rapidly resolve long-standing difficulties. Matthew D. Selekman spells out a range of solution-focused strategies and... (more)
Teen Mental Health in an Online World: Supporting Young People around their Use of Social Media Apps Gaming Texting and the Rest
by Victoria Betton, James Wollard
This essential book shows practitioners how they can engage with teens' online lives to support their mental health. Drawing on interviews with young people it discusses how adults can have open and... (more)
Sexuality in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood
by Raymond Montemayor
Written in an engaging question-and-answer format, this accessible text synthesizes contemporary empirical research to provide a panoramic view of adolescent sexual development and behavior. The book... (more)
Developmental Perspectives in Child Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy
by Christopher Bonovitz
Developmental Perspectives in Child Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy incorporates recent innovations in developmental theory and research into our understanding of the nature of change in child... (more)
Transforming Despair to Hope: Reflections on the Psychotherapeutic Process with Severely Neglected and Traumatised Children
by Monica Lanyado
Transforming Despair to Hope: Reflections on the Psychotherapeutic Process with Severely Neglected and Traumatised Children offers a thorough overview of the problems and rewards of trying to help... (more)
Parenting from the Inside Out - 10th Anniversary Edition: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive
by Daniel J. Siegel, Mary Hartzell
Have you ever thought: "I can't believe I just said to my child the very thing my parents used to say to me! Am I destined to repeat the mistakes of my parents?" In Parenting from the Inside Out,... (more)
Engaging Infants: Embodied Communication in Short-Term Infant-Parent Therapy
by Frances Thomson-Salo
The book begins by describing, within a psychodynamic approach, some traits an infant may bring to an intervention, followed by descriptions of interventions in several specialised perinatal... (more)
Defeating Teenage Depression: Getting There Together
by Roslyn Law
Are you feeling down and irritable a lot of the time? Do relationships with your family and friends seem more complicated than they used to? Do you wish that someone would understand that you aren't... (more)
The Mentalization Guidebook
by Janne Oestergaard Hagelquist
The Mentalization Guidebook is a tool for professionals working with traumatisted and neglected people who want to use mentalization in their work. The intention of the book is to show the best... (more)
Being Present for Your Nursery Age Child: Observing, Understanding, and Helping Children
Edited by Jeanne Magagna, Patrizia Pasquini
This book represents an innovative project in which parents, teachers and other professionals work collaboratively to observe children, understand them at a deep emotional level through their play... (more)
Early Parenting and Prevention of Disorder: Psychoanalytic Research at Interdisciplinary Frontiers
Edited by Robert N. Emde, Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber
This book provides insight and findings from leading psychoanalysts who are involved in early prevention research and clinical work. Advances in the sciences of early development have brought a... (more)
Dream and Fantasy in Child Analysis
Edited by Samy Teicher, Michael Gunter
The contributions to this book, containing talks given at the Conference in Vienna on 'Dream and Fantasy in Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy', focus on the close connection... (more)
The Child Survivor: Healing Developmental Trauma and Dissociation
by Joyanna L. Silberg
The Child Survivor is a clinically rich, comprehensive overview of the treatment of children and adolescents who have developed dissociative symptoms in response to ongoing developmental trauma.... (more)


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Hyland: Digital transformation of the insurance industry
By Olivia Minnock
Hyland Software speaks with FinTech Magazine about driving operational efficiency in the insurance industry through its host of digital transformation s...
Hyland Software speaks with FinTech Magazine about driving operational efficiency in the insurance industry through its host of digital transformation solutions.
A major component of digital transformation is the migration from paper-driven back end operations to digital, accessible, and often cloud-based solutions that can not only store the deluge of data but also present it in a digestible and readily available format. The technology that enables this administrative disruption remains in the ascendancy, and Hyland Software's OnBase platform is one of the market leaders in this innovative space. Former Global Director for Insurance at Hyland, Ruth Fisk, spoke with FinTech Magazine about the shift from paper to data, how OnBase facilitates the digital transformation of insurance firms with a traditional reliance on manual data processing, and the culture shift surrounding the success of these burgeoning solutions.
Hyland operates through six verticals: insurance, financial services, government, higher education, healthcare, and a sixth category that serves as a catch-all for everything else. Its suite of digital transformation solutions, including OnBase, cloud-based sharing platform ShareBase, intelligent capture solution Brainware and many more, have had demonstrably positive impacts on operational efficiency and productivity in the insurance firms that have deployed it. "Typically, when you deploy the OnBase solution, most insurance companies see a minimum of 30 to 35% increase in productivity," Fisk says. "The greatest area we contribute to is in increasing capacity, helping companies with their growth strategy. For example, Matsui were able to increase their capacity by 600% just six weeks after deploying OnBase, so they can write 600% more business with the exact same headcount." Hyland's solutions achieve this in a range of ways.
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In the insurance industry, the data is both gargantuan in scope and highly complex in terms of the formats in which it is presented. Whether it be formal documentation, notes on napkins or handwritten forms, the information is essential to the accurate operations of an insurance company and has traditionally required significant manual labour to record and present the data effectively. OnBase, Hyland's single enterprise information platform capable of content, process and case management, incorporates artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies to read, extract, and store relevant information from an extremely wide range of media formats. The intelligent capture platform that makes this possible, Brainware, also boasts the flexibility of being able to learn new formats and distinguish them from others. "It's probably the first time that technology's been advanced enough to conduct that intelligent capture," Fisk says. "To be able to have the ability to automate some of the capture information in insurance is extremely difficult. You could have medical invoices coming in from bodily injury claims, but you could have 50,000 variations of them. The technology had never been in place to automate this capture of content because it was so unstructured in insurance, there's just too many variations or too many types of documents." With the capabilities of Brainware, this challenge is becoming increasingly relegated to history. The technology is capable of reacting to a format it doesn't recognise in such a way that it can effectively teach itself against its pre-existing knowledge. "Brainware doesn't need to be programmed to understand those 90,000 variations, but it can contextually see this is a medical invoice," she adds.
In the insurance industry, management of information is the crux of a firm's operations at practically every level, and Hyland's clients have been exceptionally receptive to the enhanced operations that it facilitates. In addition, an insurance claim's information stems from myriad sources and formats, and this presents a challenge not only of organisation but also of presentation. Not content with its laudable capture and organisation features, OnBase rises to the challenge of content delivery as well. "OnBase is oftentimes seen as a mission critical application because it's so important to be able to organise that information, and what OnBase can do very well is deliver information contextually," says Fisk. "So, if I am in a claims situation and I want to see all the things related to the damage to your vehicle, and maybe you were also injured in the accident and maybe I want to see everything related to the bodily injury claim, OnBase can contextually deliver that information dynamically so that it's already organised in a way that makes sense to the end user. They can be more productive and they can be more effective at what they do." OnBase's ability to display content dynamically, bringing up all the relevant information to the right person at the right time, drives operational efficiency in itself. The platform, not limited to print data, is compatible with a host of advanced media such as videos, medical scans, dash cam footage, and more.
The traditionally manual endeavour of claims processing has also undergone digital transformation through OnBase's autonomous capabilities. For example, a medical claim is made by an insurance customer. Brainware extracts line data information from evidence provided by the customer, and the platform ascertains what each document is, whom it belongs to, and then validates the information against a firm's core system. Details of the claim, such as additional services used such as physiotherapy, or anesthesiology and surgery, are validated by the system and the workflow engine clarifies policy validity. Should everything check out, OnBase will trigger payment for the claim, potentially handling the entire process without necessitating human input. "This is the first time in the industry that I've seen some really good innovation that allows you to conduct straight-through processing," reflects Fisk. "The invoice comes in, you get it scanned intelligently by Brainware, it determines what it is, extracts the information, the workflow engine reviews it against a particular item that's set up in the core system, and if it matches within a certain threshold then it's automatically going to trigger that payment. This is innovation that the insurance industry has never seen before, because now all of the technologies are starting to align."
Within the industry, this digital transformation of business processes is generating a cultural shift alongside the marked boosts in operational efficiencies. "Very profitable companies would just hire more people to solve a business problem. You would see these huge insurance companies throughout the world that had thousands and thousands of employees because they had to be able to do a certain amount of manual work to support the business," she says. The streamlining and cost reductions that run in tandem with this minimisation of manual processing is met with a shift in the staff an insurance firm needs. The restructured processing gives rise to a host of knowledge-based roles whereby staff are required to apply their experience, understanding and risk assessment skills when necessary. The result of this digital transformation's optimisation of business processes and reorganisation of employee structures ultimately benefits an insurance firm's customers. The translation of minimised business costs into cheaper premiums for customers is met with a vastly improved service and customer satisfaction, with faster turnaround times, fewer complications, and a smoothness of proceedings for claimants. "Everybody wants the Amazon experience," Fisk says, and Hyland's platforms are going a long way towards helping firms make this dream a reality.
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