Rial, J. A. "On the Origin of the Long Period Sawtooth Shape of the Late Pleistocene Paleoclimate Records: The First Derivative of the Earth's Orbital Eccentricity." Geophysical Research Letters 22, no. 15 (1995): 1997–2000. doi:10.1029/95GL01811.
Rial, J. A. "Pacemaking the Ice Ages by Frequency Modulation of Earth's Orbital Eccentricity." Science 285, no. 5427 (1999): 564–568.
Rial, J. A., and C. A. Anaclerio. "Understanding Nonlinear Responses of the Climate System to Orbital Forcing." Quaternary Science Reviews 19, no. 17 (2000): 1709–1722.
Rial, José A. "Abrupt Climate Change: Chaos and Order at Orbital and Millennial Scales." Global and Planetary Change 41, no. 2 (2004): 95–109.
Rial, J. A. "Earth's Orbital Eccentricity and the Rhythm of the Pleistocene Ice Ages: The Concealed Pacemaker." Global and Planetary Change 41, no. 2 (2004): 81–93.
Rial, José A., Roger A. Pielke Sr, Martin Beniston, Martin Claussen, Josep Canadell, Peter Cox, Hermann Held, Nathalie De Noblet-Ducoudré, Ronald Prinn, and James F. Reynolds. "Nonlinearities, Feedbacks and Critical Thresholds Within the Earth's Climate System." Climatic Change 65, no. 1–2 (2004): 11–38.
Clark, Peter U., David Archer, David Pollard, Joel D. Blum, Jose A. Rial, Victor Brovkin, Alan C. Mix, Nicklas G. Pisias, and Martin Roy. "The Middle Pleistocene Transition: Characteristics, Mechanisms, and Implications for Long-term Changes in Atmospheric pCO2." Quaternary Science Reviews 25, no. 23–24 (December 2006): 3150–3184. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2006.07.008.
Rial, J. A., and M. Yang. "Is the Frequency of Abrupt Climate Change Modulated by the Orbital Insolation?" Ocean Circulation: Mechanisms and Impacts-Past and Future Changes of Meridional Overturning (2007): 167–174.
Rial, J. A., C. Tang, and K. Steffen. "Glacial Rumblings from Jakobshavn Ice Stream, Greenland." Journal of Glaciology 55, no. 191 (2009): 389–399.
Rial, J. A., and R. Saha. "Modeling Abrupt Climate Change as the Interaction Between Sea Ice Extent and Mean Ocean Temperature Under Orbital Insolation Forcing." Abrupt Climate Change: Mechanisms, Patterns, and Impacts (2011): 57–74.
Rial, J. A. "Synchronization of Polar Climate Variability over the Last Ice Age: In Search of Simple Rules at the Heart of Climate's Complexity." American Journal of Science 312, no. 4 (2012): 417–448.
Rial, José A., Jeseung Oh, and Elizabeth Reischmann. "Synchronization of the Climate System to Eccentricity Forcing and the 100,000-year Problem." Nature Geoscience 6, no. 4 (2013): 289–293.
Oh, Jeseung, Elizabeth Reischmann, and José A. Rial. "Polar Synchronization and the Synchronized Climatic History of Greenland and Antarctica." Quaternary Science Reviews 83 (January 1, 2014): 129–142. doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2013.10.025.
Yang, X., J. A. Rial, and E. P. Reischmann (2014), On the bipolar origin of Heinrich events, Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1002/2014GL062078/abstract.
Rial, J., and R. Saha. "Stochastic Resonance, Frequency Modulation and the Mechanisms of Abrupt Climate Change in the Arctic." In First International Symposium on Arctic Research, Drastic Change Under Global Warming (ext. Abs.), Miraikan, Tokyo, 94–97, 2008.
Oh, J., Rial J. A., and Reischmann, E. (2012), "Polar synchrony and the climatic history of Antarctica deduced from Greenland's", Abstract PP43A-2024 presented at 2012 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 3-7 Dec.
Rial, J. A., Oh, J., and Reischmann, E. (2012), "Forced nonlinear synchronization of the climate system by the orbital eccentricity explains puzzling features of climatic history, including the MPT switch, and the MIS11 amplitude anomaly", Abstract PP13B-2108 presented at 2012 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 3-7 Dec.
Reischmann E., Yang X., and Rial J. A. (2013), "Millennial scale system impulse response of polar climates – deconvolution results between δ 18O records from Greenland and Antarctica", Abstract presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 9-13 Dec.
Oh J., Reischmann E., and Rial J. A. (2013), "Synchronized dipole-like oscillations in global Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly (SSTA)", Abstract presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 9-13 Dec.
Yang X., Reischmann E., and Rial J. A. (2013), "Inter-polar climate evolution and the timing of the Heinrich events", Abstract presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 9-13 Dec.


People are on the move across the world in greater number than ever in history. The outpouring of refugees from Syria has captured the headlines and the attention of leaders in Europe and North America. The EU population agencies have estimated that 1.2 million migrants and asylum seekers will reach, or try to reach, EU and associated countries in 2015 alone. This has produced great challenges in security, welfare, and governance. But, if anything, the crisis of refugees and migration is not likely to abate – the prospects for 2016 are worse than 2015 as the conflicts in the Middle East, North and Sub Sahara Africa show little sign of slackening.
Population movement is set to become the defining issue of the century. People will leave their birthplaces in millions, driven by fear and a need for self-preservation, or by economic opportunism – the dream of riches in another land – or a sense of global entitlement to live securely wherever they want. Patterns of crowd behaviour not fully understood yet show that very large groups are prepared to risk life and limb on perilous journeys almost on a whim.
A great deal of statistical data reveals who the refugees and migrants are, where they come from and where they are going. But surprisingly little analysis enters the public domain about attitudes and aspirations, and disillusionment in the places of destination. [i] Why precisely do people decide to uproot everything, risking their own skins but also those of their children? Why does the place of destination so often fall short of the dream of destiny?
Among the big drivers for population movement, four stand out. First, there is demography itself – the doubling of the world's human population in just under a century and a half. According to the UN's revised population projection made in 2015, the global population is expected to be 11.2 billion in the year 2120. In 1990 it was just under the 6 billion mark. Africa is due to be home to nearly 5 billion humans in the second half of the 21 st century – raising huge issues of governance, security and migration. In the space of under three decades, Morocco's government expects the arrival of more than 30 million migrants from West Africa, doubling the resident population – with many likely to move on to Europe.
Demographic surge and movement will accompanied by demographic decline, and in one or two places demographic collapse. Japan, and much of Europe, Germany and Russia especially, are ageing and declining in numbers. Natality – the level of reproduction per fertile woman – is set to decline in China, despite the lifting of the one child policy. So, in the old maxim, will China grow grey before it grows rich? In 85 years time, in the year 2100 China's population is projected to stabilise at around 1.004 billion. A large proportion will be old, and the economy will be increasingly reliant on migrant labour.
The second driver will be the effects of environmental and climate change. Here the centre of gravity of debate is beginning to shift from political polemic – climate change deniers versus the rest – to scientific analysis. The World Climate Conference in Paris is another milestone for the world leadership grappling with the issue of toxic emissions – but the goals set at the preceding conferences still seem to be like the grapes of Tantalus.
The growth of desertification in Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa, Iran and North West Asia, and water stress in Yemen, Pakistan and across the Fergama valley are already generating movements of people, and even conflict. Coastlines are under threat of drowning in parts of almost every continent, and whole island chains, the Andamans and Maldives are at risk of drowning.
Added to this, the phenomenon of 'weird weather', violent storms and cyclones, which increasingly seem part of the pattern of climate change, will cause communities to up sticks and leave suddenly. The announcement of the Meteorological Office that the global average temperature had risen by one degree Celsius since the early industrial era, should have been a wake-up call on the eve of the Paris Climate conference. The Met Office has warned of "unpredictable consequences" as the rise in temperature heads towards the benchmark of two degrees average global increase since the late 18 th century CE.
Friedman points out the impact of globalisation, a belief that the migrant world is a part of globalised world and all the benefits and entitlements that concept purports to offer, including economic and personal security.
The raw numbers of people on the move in the late autumn of 2015 make a sobering audit. According to the EU compilation of figures 1.2 million migrants will have tried to get into Europe by the end of the year. The UN High Commission for Refugees puts the number of Syrian refugees outside the country at 3.5 million, with 6 million displaced inside the country. Local refugee monitors put the figure higher, up to 12 million of Syria's population displaced and over half set to move out of the country in the coming year. Some refugees are reported leaving the camps, so dire are conditions there – some even risking returning into Syria itself.
Meanwhile the flow of boats of migrants continues across the Mediterranean, despite the onset of winter. Around 200,000 are expected to have made the journey from Libya into Italy, and new routes are opening from Morocco and Tunisia.
Germany is now trying to restrict migrant arrivals with renewed border controls. Sweden is doing the same, the government stating it is finding it hard to accommodate the 200,000 who have arrived already this year. The eastern EU partners, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia say they are equally challenged. Slovenia has to put razor wire barriers along its border with Croatia.
The Syrian crisis has focused Europe's attention on the issue of economic, social and political migration, which has been under way for decades. The problem goes well beyond Syria and the Syrians. Among those that make the short but tricky boat passage from mainland Turkey to the Aegean islands, a high proportion has not been from Syria, but from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and beyond. They have learned to work the routes of passage, along routes to Europe established among others by drug traffickers. Informal networks of traffickers along the way aid them.
The surge of migration in and around Europe is now playing high in the agenda of political debate. Parties proposing a brand nationalist isolation such as Geert Wilders Freedom party in the Netherlands, the Alternative For Germany, Marine Le Pen's National Front in France, and the UK Independence Party in Britain, are flourishing. They benefit from very real fears of governance and security, accentuated by the ISIS operations in Paris in mid November 2015.
The cells of the ISIS terrorists headed by Abdelhamid Abaaoud appear to have moved between their training grounds in Syria and their targets in Europe by mixing quite easily with the migrant traffic. Another security issue is seen in the indications that refugee camps and ghettos in the new host countries are being used as incubators to radicalise and recruit new terrorists. This is neither easily ignored nor dealt with.
Closing off borders and closing off migration flows are missions impossible. It is something with which the governments of Europe are beginning to come to terms. In the summit of European 'north shore' leaders and leaders of 'south shore' African leaders in Malta in November 2015, the whole migration issue was aired in stark terms not heard before. But the remedies were hesitant and inadequate. The offer of €1.9 billion for improving governance in Africa looks less than timely, with no prospect of immediate effect on the migration outflow and very little in the longer term. The UK government's offer of £275m for the refugee camps in Turkey over three years looks like Band Aid for just a few short-term symptoms of the problem.
The Mediterranean represents a startling paradigm of the great migration and population phenomenon of the 21 st century – but it is far from the only one. It combines the converging demographic, governance and security crises of three continents, and can only be mitigated or resolved by international initiatives on a continental scale.
Other great swirls and vortices of migration and popular movement are now gathering across the steppe and the new Silk Route, in West and sub-Equatorial Africa, as well as to and through the great city ports of the southern Asian littoral. Some of these are the new monster cities, megalopoli, each as big as a medium size state – the likes of Mexico City, Cairo, the Sao Paolo-Rio sprawl, Shanghai or Mumbai. They present problems of displacement, population shift and abandonment from immigration to them and migration within the chaotic organism.
The down side to the phenomenon is the prospect of sheer wastage of human talent and human lives even. Millions of people face marginalization and statelessness, undervalued and underemployed vagrants on the fringes of society.
Governments need to follow the Collier script in investing in realistic productive development projects, governance and education and hard power security strategies for today and the future, and not harking back to doctrines and postures of the past. They must combine, share and cooperate on an international basis. Too much is being offered on a party political and parochially national basis. Even the generous £12 billion British overseas development and aid budget is being dispensed to an almost casual short-term political timetable.
The crisis and conundrum of migration and movement is set to preoccupy us all for a century to come. It is already with us, and needs to be addressed in the terms it requires here and now.
[i] In Murder in Amsterdam (Penguin 2006) Ian Buruma illustrates this in a discussion with Bellari Said, a Muslim psychiatrist in Amersfoort, where over 20 per cent of the population are immigrants.
[ii] The list of current armed conflicts compiled by Wikipedia, November 2015, from a variety of sources including the Uppsala Conflict Data programme is illustrative. Four continue to claim more than 10,000 fatalities, and 35 between 1,000 and 9,999 dead a year; some eight have been running for more than fifty years.
[iii] Walls, Borders, A Dome and Refugees, Op Ed by Thomas Friedman, NY Times 9 September 2015.
[iv] I tackle the problem of counting legal and illegal migrants in The Inner Sea, The Mediterranean and Its people, Knopf 1993, which addresses the new waves of migration then already under way across the Mediterranean.
[v] I am grateful for a series of private conversations about this during the summer of 2015 with the head of Britain's Royal Navy, Admiral Sir George Zambellas.
[vi] Exodus – Immigration and Multiculturalism in the 21st Century, Penguin London 2015 is his new essay on the problem. See also his groundbreaking The Bottom Billion, London 2007.
Robert Fox is Defence Correspondent for the London Evening Standard and author of The Inner Sea: The Mediterranean and Its People. He is currently researching a book on migration.


We've been remiss in teaching Teresa to ride a bike.
She had a tricycle, which she liked to pedal down the sidewalk and even a block over and across the street to the playground. She had a tiny two-wheeler with training wheels, too.
But somehow last year, she never got much time to ride it. At least, not enough time to make taking the training wheels off ever seem like a good idea.
She's sprouted a few inches since last summer, and now she's big enough for Caroline's old bike, one that's too big for training wheels anyway. So if she's going to ride it, she's going to have to learn how to balance on two wheels.
She'll be fine, I know. In her first 15 or 20 minutes, she's managed to glide a few seconds at a time without me holding on to the bike. Physically, she's pretty much got it. Now all she needs is the confidence — belief in herself and in the laws of physics — that if she keeps pedaling she'll stay upright.
Instead, as soon as she realizes that no one is holding on to her, she hits the brakes — and, of course, ends up leaning to the side, where one of three things will happen: she'll fall, she'll remember to put her foot down or I'll reach out and grab the bike, at which point she'll start pedaling again, this time leaning toward me.
I try to discourage that because you can't ride a bike that's consistently leaning to the side, at least not independently, and it makes for a tired and sore arm on my part.
I tell Teresa to try again, and she says, "Don't let go of me this time, Mom," and I don't answer, because if I say what I want to — "This whole riding a bike thing won't happen if I never let go" —will only lead to an argument, and agreeing while fully intending to let go anyway would be lying. It doesn't matter; she knows I'm going to let go when she seems steady, and she's not surprised when I do. She just hits the brakes, and we start again.
I'm not sure how many repetitions it will take until I let go and she keeps riding. As I recall from Caroline and Frank, it was at least several days of practice and encouragement and advice ("Start by pushing down on the pedal that's in front," "look where you want the bike to go," "keep moving"). We've only just started the process, and I'm sure we'll get through it soon.
In the meantime, I'll reflect on how what she really needs to do to move forward is get past her fear of falling, keep her focus on the path ahead and just go. God the creator — author of the laws of inertia and everything else — will take care of the rest.


text:
Journal of Financial Crime
The Journal of Financial Crime publishes authoritative, practical and detailed insight in the most serious and topical issues relating to the control and prevention of financial crime and related abuse.
The 38th Cambridge Symposium on Economic Crime
Sadly, due to the current Covid-19 pandemic, the 38th Cambridge Symposium on Economic Crime has been postponed until 2021. The team has created a page which includes contributions from a small number of speakers which give an indication of the symposium to come, and indicate its level of expertise relevance and depth. Visit https://www.crimesymposium.org/symposium-2020 for more information.
Aims and scope of the journal
The journal's articles are authored by some of the leading international scholars and practitioners in the fields of law, criminology, economics, criminal justice and compliance. Consequently, articles are perceptive, evidence based and have policy impact.
The journal covers a wide range of current topics including, but not limited to:
Tracing through the civil law of the proceeds of fraud
Cyber-crime: prevention and detection
Intelligence led investigations
Whistleblowing and the payment of rewards for information
Insider dealing prosecutions
Specialised anti-corruption investigations
Underground banking systems
Asset tracing and forfeiture
Securities regulation and enforcement
Tax regimes and tax avoidance
Deferred prosecution agreements
Personal liability of compliance managers and professional advisers
The Journal of Financial Crime is, with the Journal of Money Laundering Control, the official journal of the Cambridge International Symposium on Economic Crime.
The Undeserving Rich: can they be redeemed? An animation exploring policy options for curbing illegal wealth
A short video summary of a study in Journal of Financial Crime.
Professor Barry Rider OBE
Centre for Development Studies, University of Cambridge, UK, and Professor of Comparative Law, Renmin University China - People's Republic of China
Deputy General Editor
Mrs May Li - Hong Xing
International Director of Research, Centre for International Documentation on Organised and Economic Crime, UK, and Principal Lecturer in Law, BPP University - UK
Ms Angela Futter
Cambridge, CB5 8BL - UK
Melissa Close
Emerald Publishing - USA
Shalaka Dattatraya Surve
Dr Shazeeda Ali
Deputy Dean and Lecturer in Law at University of the West Indies and Former Assistant Attorney General - Jamaica
Professor Mads Andenas
Department of Private Law, University of Oslo, Norway - UK
Professor Georgios A. Antonopoulos
Teesside University - UK
Professor Fletcher Baldwin
Chesterfield Smith Professor of Law, University of Florida - USA
Professor Stuart Bazley
Barrister and Professor of Financial Regulation and Compliance, BBP University - UK
Professor Kiymet Tunca Caliyurt, CFE, CPA
Trakya University, Partner Herme Consulting Ltd. - Turkey
Professor David Chaikin
Associate Professor in Business Law, School of Business, University of Sydney - Australia
Professor Rita Cheung
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Chinese University of Hong Kong - Hong Kong
Professor Michael Clarke
University of Liverpool - UK
Hon. Justice Olayinka Faji
High court of Nigeria - Nigeria
Professor Siti Faridah Abdul Jabbar
Associate Professor, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia - Malaysia
Dr Ye Feng
Former Director General, Supreme People's Procuratorate of The People's Republic of China - People's Republic of China
Professor A V V Guido Ferrarini
Professor of Law, Instituto di Diritto Commerciale e dell'Economica, Universita di Genova - Italy
Professor Leonid L Fituni
Director of Centre for Strategic and Global Studies , Russian Academy of Science - Russia
Saul M. Froomkin QC OBE
Director, Isis Law Limited, Bermuda, Bermuda - Bermuda
Professor Michelle Gallant
Associate Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba - Canada
Dr George Gilligan
Senior Research Fellow, University of New South Wales - Australia
Jason Haines
Former Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London - UK
Professor Xu Hanming
Distinguished Professor and Dean of Hubei Strategic Academy for the Rule of Law, Zhongnan University of Economic and Law - People's Republic of China
Professor Andrew Haynes
Professor of Financial Law, University of Wolverhampton - UK
Professor Jiahong He
Renmin University of China Law School - People's Republic of China
The Hon. Justice Frank Iacobucci
Chief Justice, Supreme Court of Canada - Canada
Dr Dayanath C Jayasuriya
Corporate Governance Advisory Services Pte. Ltd - Singapore
Professor Louis de Koker
Chair of Law, Deakin University - Australia
Professor Michael Levi
Professor of Criminology, University of Wales - UK
Dr Wangwei Lin
Coventry University - UK
Professor Jonathan R Macey
Sam Harris Professor of Law, Yale Law School - USA
Dr George Millard
Special Adviser to the Commissioner of Police, Civil Police Service of Brazil - Brazil
Mr John Moscow
Partner, Baker & Hostetler - USA
Professor Chizu Nakajima
London Guildhall Faculty of Business and Law, London Metropolitan University - UK
Dr Massimo Nardo
Senior Manager, Banca d'Italia - National Finance Intelligence Unit (UIF) - Italy
Ms Catherine Pedamon
School of Law, University of Westminster - UK
Mr Marvin G Pickholz
Partner, Pickholz Law Firm LLP - USA
Mr Monty Raphael
Consultant, Peters & Peters - UK
Robert Rhodes
QC, Master of the Bench of the Inner Temple - UK
Mr Michael Ricks
Investigative Consultant - UK
Mr Marcelo J Ruiz
Cangueiro Ferrari & Ruiz - Argentina
Mr G. Philip Rutledge
Partner, Bybel Rutledge LLP - USA
Professor Yasunobu Sato
University of Tokyo - Japan
Professor Mario Serio
Professor of Comparative Law, University of Palermo - Italy
Dr Alain Sham
Department of Justice - Hong Kong
Mr Michihiko Takabe
Public Prosecutor's Office, Ministry of Justice - Japan
Professor Roman Tomasic
University of South Australia - Australia
Professor William Tupman
Professor of Criminal Justice Studies, BPP University - UK
Professor Xin Wang
Peking University - People's Republic of China
Dr Peter Whelan
Associate Professor in Law and Deputy Director, Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, School of Law, University of Leeds - UK
Professor Monica Whitty
University of Melbourne - Australia
Dr Mary Alice Young Young
Bristol Law School, University of the West of England, UK
Professor Simon Young
University of Hong Kong - Hong Kong
Professor Petrus van Duyne
If they think it might be suitable for the publication, they will send it to an independent referee for double blind peer review. Once the reviewer has provided their feedback, the editor may decide to accept your manuscript, request minor or major revisions, or decline your work.
Journal of Financial Crime - Literati Award Winners 2020
ABI/INFORM Complete / ABI/INFORM Global / Professional ABI/INFORM Complete (ProQuest), Banking Information Source (ProQuest), Business Source Alumni Edition / Complete / Complete: Government Edition / Corporate / Corporate (Select Edition) / Corporate Plus / Elite / Premier (EBSCO), Cabell's Directory of Publishing Opportunities in Economics and Finance, Criminal Justice Abstracts / Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text (EBSCO), Current Abstracts, Lexis Nexis, National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts Database, OCLC - Electronic Collections Online, Professional ProQuest Central / ProQuest Central, ProQuest Criminal Justice, ProQuest Pharma Collection, ReadCube Discover, Scopus, TOC Premier (EBSCO), Westlaw, Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC), Australian Research Council ERA journal list, BFI (Denmark), Polish Scholarly Bibliography (PBN), The Publication Forum (Finland).

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Home / Bodies / Op Ed: Why On Earth Do We Let Colleges and Universities "Handle" Their Own Rape Cases?
Op Ed: Why On Earth Do We Let Colleges and Universities "Handle" Their Own Rape Cases?
By Guest Contributor on May 19, 2014
By Kari O'Driscoll
Image credit: http://nyulocal.com/on-campus/2014/05/06/federal-investigations-bring-attention-to-campus-sexual-assault-problem/
On Tuesday, April 29, the White House issued a set of guidelines designed to address the hot-button issue of rape on college campuses. It would seem that the issue of sexual assault in the military has taken a back seat to the growing awareness of just how often college students are victimized sexually by other college students. There is a push to gather more information as well as to re-think the ways in which these incidents are handled when they are reported. While I fully support these efforts, I am astonished at what I have learned in just the past few weeks about the culture of silence and ineptitude that surrounds this issue.
Three days after the first shot across the bow, the US Department of Education released the names of 55 colleges and universities currently under investigation for their mishandling of sexual assault cases. While I am pleased by this progress, one enormous question remains looming in my mind: why are colleges and universities "handling" sexual assault cases? If I were raped in the bathroom at my local supermarket, I wouldn't expect the grocery store to "handle" it. I would call the cops and I imagine the grocery store would support that 100%. I'm not sure how or when this system of separate investigation and punishment began, but what it has created is a dangerous double standard that both perpetuates rape culture and allows some perpetrators to avoid well-deserved consequences.
Most colleges and universities are in a unique situation, given that a large number of students live in residence halls or school-owned properties. The majority of them have their own security force that is charged with keeping students and staff safe and most have also created some sort of internal judicial council, often comprised of staff and students. But there has to be a line drawn somewhere and it seems to me that these schools aren't doing themselves any favors by taking on responsibility for dealing with crimes that are clearly out of their league.
As I see it, there are two major issues with the way these systems are crafted. The first glaring problem is that these institutions are not set up to investigate crimes and mete out punishments. They never were, and they frankly have no business doing so. In a May 1st NPR report, Tovia Smith asserts, "…colleges have a fundamentally different mission than the criminal justice system," referring to remarks by Colby Bruno, senior legal counsel for the Victims Rights Law Center. Bruno's work with victims has taught her that schools are more often than not dealing with allegations of sexual assault through an educational lens rather than from the perspective of justice. This process is probably just fine when it comes to students who have stolen school property or engaged in drunken vandalism, but when it comes to felony offenses, it is patently absurd.
In 1986, following the rape and murder of Jeanne Clery in her dorm at Lehigh University, Congress enacted a law requiring all colleges and universities receiving federal financial aid to disclose information about crimes committed on or near their campuses. I would say that notifying potential students of sexual predators living in their midst qualifies under this statute. And notwithstanding the legal ramifications of failing to report such crimes, I can't imagine why any college or university would think it was a good idea to use their administrative or security staff to determine whether a crime had been committed when there are trained professionals who are paid to do just that.
Claire Gordon, a journalist for Al Jazeera America wrote an article on April 17th in which she also interviewed Colby Bruno. In one instance, Bruno is quoted as saying she has "met many school administrators who don't understand or believe in their own policies." If that is true, why would any school think it was a good idea to have their own policies and procedures in place to investigate serious crimes like sexual assault. Why wouldn't every school simply defer to the laws that are already in place and outsource the investigation and prosecution to those people who are qualified? The fact that we have separate systems for college students and military personnel than we do for everyone else means that a college student who is determined by their university's judicial process to be guilty of sexual assault is not held to the same standard as any other individual walking the streets of this country. Why is rape any different when it is committed on a college campus?
It has been purported that students are often reluctant to report rape and other sexual assaults to authorities because they feel they will be re-traumatized by the police investigation process. It may initially feel safer to report a rape to someone on campus, but that is not a good enough reason to allow schools to police themselves, especially when it is becoming increasingly obvious that they are not capable of doing the job properly. Given what we now know about the absolute train wreck most colleges have made of dealing with such complaints, this strategy ultimately doesn't serve the purpose of keeping students safe or punishing perpetrators adequately for the seriousness of their crime. Private investigations by university staff, who are not held to the same legal standard for information gathering as police officers are, could inadvertently have the effect of hindering a proper police investigation when and if the assault is reported.
In March of this year, a group of students at the University of North Texas created a petition on Change.org to pressure the school into providing rape kits in the health center on campus because the nearest hospital is five miles away. I have to say I disagree with this idea strongly. If I were a victim of sexual assault, I would want the most highly trained person to administer my rape kit so that I could be more confident that the evidence would result in a conviction. Imagine the chain of custody nightmare that could ensue after a college health center employee administers a rape kit and the field day a defense attorney would have with whether or not evidence was collected properly.
Beyond the fact that colleges are woefully unprepared to handle serious criminal investigations, there is an obvious conflict of interest in doing so. Claire Gordon's piece points this out quite glaringly. About fifteen years ago, Brett Sokolow, a consultant who works with colleges and universities around the issue of sexual assaults on campus, came up with a plan to "rebrand" rape for those schools. Sokolow explains that many of the schools he worked with, "had policies about rape, and recognized that rape happened. But when it came down to it, they just didn't want to believe their own students actually raped." Because he noticed that many college administrators were "squeamish" about the word rape, he ultimately coined the term "nonconsensual sex" which has been widely accepted by and integrated into the policies and student handbooks of a large number of schools over the last decade or so. Sokolow believes that this more bland term allows schools to have difficult conversations about criminal allegations more readily. Many victims' rights groups beg to differ, saying that the word rape is ugly and uncomfortable for a reason – because the act itself is ugly and uncomfortable.
Frankly, these schools often invest a significant amount of time, energy, and sometimes, money, in their students, and nobody wants to believe that someone they admitted is capable of a violent crime. But the fact that so many of them are so incredibly uncomfortable with the idea of rape that they have to rebrand it in order to have frank discussions about it is precisely the reason they ought not to be in the business of investigating and punishing rape. Yes, the stakes are high if you botch an investigation and accidentally punish an innocent person, but they are equally as high if you allow a rapist to get away with the crime because you don't want to ruin his life. How many sex offenders are on our college campuses offending again and again because their school lacks the resources and knowledge (or backbone) to adequately address the accusations of another student? How is that not a liability? And how is it fair to the students who remain on campus completely unaware that they are living among rapists?
In that same article, Gordon notes that, "According to a 2010 investigation by the Center for Public Integrity, only 10 to 25 percent of students found 'responsible' for a sexual assault were permanently kicked off campus." These students are not behind bars because investigations carried out by schools are not legally binding. But when an attacker is allowed to remain on campus to pursue his degree despite the fact that a preponderance of evidence showed that he was guilty of victimizing another student, exactly what is the college saying? It says to me that they have determined that one student's concerns are more valid or valuable than another's. By failing to properly address these issues, the university is reinforcing the messages that perpetuate rape culture, that rape doesn't really matter, or that rape victims don't really matter, that rape "isn't that bad." If I were raped by a fellow student who was determined to be guilty but not removed from school, I think it would impossible to feel safe on campus anymore. I wonder how many female students have left school because their attacker wasn't forced to leave.
In giving over the investigation and prosecution of all sexual assault cases to local authorities, colleges and universities would be doing themselves and their students an enormous favor. While there still may be some privilege or bias on the part of individuals involved in the investigation, it is less likely to matter whether the accused is the star quarterback of the football team. Yes, our legal system has a lot of room for improvement when it comes to rape, but if rape is so awful that colleges and universities can't even bear to use the word, they certainly can't be trusted to thoroughly investigate rape allegations on their own. And there is no reason whatsoever that a college student ought to be treated differently than any other individual when it comes to serious criminal behavior. Living on campus or in a fraternity or sorority house does not render you above the law.
The recent actions of the White House and the Department of Education are admirable as a first volley in this battle, but it is far past time for us to take rape and sexual assault inquiries out of the hands of colleges and universities forever.
Kari O'Driscoll is a non-fiction writer and book reviewer for BookPleasures.com. She writes about social justice, health care, parenting and spirituality, and her most recent work has appeared in "Get Out of My Crotch! Twenty-one Writers Respond to America's War on Reproductive Health and Women's Rights" and "The Cancer Poetry Project, Part 2." Previously, her work has been syndicated by BlogHer Publishing Network and published in the online magazine BuddhaChickLife, as well as The Feminist Wire.
Related ItemsDepartment of Educationhigher educationrapesexual violenceuniversitiesWhite House
← Previous Story The Politics of Turning Rape Into "Nonconsensual Sex"
Next Story → "Infiltrate What Exists, Innovate What Doesn't": Mentoring in the Academy, Leading By Example Part 1
– Luanda calling, Berlin burning – (Stop)
Black, Trans, & Still Breathing
some call it a comeback
Pingback: Why do universities "handle" sexual assault? | Feminist Philosophers
Pingback: Sexual assault in higher ed § Unqualified Offerings
Pingback: The Roundup for May 26th, 2014 | claim money trading


text:
Q: Google apps script: Form Submit trigger doesn't execute script properly, and script only works with a manual execution My script is supposed to send emails triggered by Form Submission. However, every time there's a new form submission, emails are sent using the previous submission and not the most recent.
When I execute it manually (click "run" in editor manually), the script then does what it's supposed to do : send an email using only the new form submission info (NOT the previous submission).
Any ideas on what to do?

  function checkPurpose()
{
  var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet();
  var sheet = ss.getSheetByName("Mostrecent").getRange('C3');
  var purpose = sheet.getValue();
    var lock = LockService.getScriptLock();
    lock.waitLock(2000);
    Utilities.sleep(2000);
    lock.releaseLock();

  if (purpose === "Agent Information Change"){
    var agentSheet = ss.getSheetByName("Agentinfo");
    var a = agentSheet.getLastRow();
    for (var b = 2; b < a + 1; b++ ) {
        var emailAddress = agentSheet.getRange(b,1).getValue();
        var subject = agentSheet.getRange(b,2).getValue();
        var message = agentSheet.getRange(b,3).getValue();
        MailApp.sendEmail(emailAddress, subject, message);

     }
  }
   else if (purpose === "Manager Information Change"){
     var managerSheet = ss.getSheetByName("Managerinfo");
     var x = managerSheet.getLastRow();
     for (var y = 2; y < x + 1 ; y++) {
       var emailAddress2 = managerSheet.getRange(y,1).getValue();
       var subject2 = managerSheet.getRange(y,2).getValue();
       var message2 = managerSheet.getRange(y,3).getValue();

     MailApp.sendEmail(emailAddress2, subject2, message2);

   }
   }

 else if (purpose === "Agent Onboard"){
    var onboardSheet = ss.getSheetByName("Agentonboard");
    var n = onboardSheet.getLastRow();
    for (var i = 2; i < n + 1 ; i++ ) {

    var emailAddress3 = onboardSheet.getRange(i,4).getValue();
    var subject3 = onboardSheet.getRange(i,5).getValue();
    var message3 = onboardSheet.getRange(i,6).getValue();
    MailApp.sendEmail(emailAddress3, subject3, message3);

  }

 }
   }

A: I found out what was wrong. I had another function (autoSort) in a different script, which automatically sorts Form responses on the Google Sheet by the most recent date of submission. The problem was happening because the email function (checkPurpose) I was using was still being executed too fast before the Form responses could be sorted. Hence, I made the lock function have a longer time, so the sort function can put the new value at the top of the pile to be read in time.
Instead of:

lock.waitLock(2000);
    Utilities.sleep(2000);
    lock.releaseLock()

I used:

lock.waitLock(10000);
    Utilities.sleep(10000);
    lock.releaseLock()

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Unusual Wine of the Month!
These are wines that are unusual – either to South Africa, or even just to me, and, sometimes, to you. I'd like to introduce you to the cultivar and tell you where you can get a good example, right here in the Western Cape.
This month, I'll be starting with a VERY unusual wine.
The Bukettraube (pronounced bu-ket-trau-be) is a varietal that is so rare that there are only 77 hectares left in the world! It is white grape varietal that is thought to have originated in Germany and is believed to be a cross between the Blauer Silvaner and Trollinger grapes. It has a few other names too: Bouquet Blanc, Bouquettraube, Sylvaner Musqué and Bukettrebe.
It was brought to South Africa in the 1960s and began to flourish here. South Africa is now known to be one of the few wine-producing countries in the world that bottles Bukettraube as a single varietal wine. However, it's not a very easy grape to grow. It's prone to rot and typically ripens late. Within South Africa, there are only a couple of wine farms producing this unique varietal and Cederberg is one of them. Cederberg's climate is well-suited as it's hot and not very humid, so the grapes have time to ripen and grow big, without being affected by diseases.
As you can see in the glass above, it's a pale, gold colour.
The grape varietal is known to have light-intensity floral, muscat-like aromas with hints of dried apricot. I also picked up a slight honeyed aroma.
First of all, it's off-dry, so you are hit with a delicate sweetness on the palate which is balanced out by the high acidity. The wine had the expected floral and dried apricot flavours that were picked up on the nose. I also picked up some tropical flavours, like litchi and pineapple. I'd say it's medium bodied with a long finish.
What temperature should it be served at?
Although it is a white wine, it's slightly sweeter than the dry whites, so I'd serve it chilled at 7 to 10 degrees celsius.
How long can it age for?
This wine won't keep for very long as it's meant to be drunk young, so I'd keep it for one to two years (if you can).
What food can it pair well with?
Due to it's good balance between sugar and acidity, and the fact that the acidity levels are quite high, it would pair well with spicy foods, like prawns with a touch of chilli or a mild, chicken curry. It would also pair nicely with spices like cinnamon and nutmeg, so I reckon it would be a real treat to pair with a warm, apple pie and a small dollop of ice cream.
Well, that is a challenge…but you can order the 2018 Buckettraube online from Cederberg HERE. It will cost R112 per bottle or R673 for 6 bottles. I have not seen it any local stores.
Disclaimer: I am a huge wine lover as I'm sure you know and am most certainly not a connoisseur, so this is just my opinion of this particular wine.


text:
Powerglove postpone show with Video Game Orchestra
Powerglove planned to perform alongside the Video Game Orchestra at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston on November 14th and film the show for a DVD. However, the band has cancelled their appearance there and issued the following update about it:
"We unfortunately have to postpone our concert with the Video Game Orchestra until February. Refunds will be available for everyone who bought a ticket. We're thinking of filming the show which means we want it to be as big of a production as possible and there just wasn't enough time with the date we had planned.
"We promise that this will mean a bigger, beefier, more bacontastic show for all of you!"


text:
Growth In The Days Of COVID: Leadership Lessons From Suntuity's CEO, Dan Javan
06/18/2021 by Steve Farber
Leaders come out stronger after overcoming difficult challenges. Steve Farber's guest today is Dan Javan, the CEO and President of Suntuity. Dan discusses the leadership lessons he learned during the COVID pandemic, the foremost of which was nailing down virtualization. A good leader ensures their people are all set up, and effective leaders put the right people in the right position. If you want more leadership lessons, then this episode is a must-listen. Tune in and learn how you can become a better leader!
Watch the episode here:
Listen to the podcast here:
It is my pleasure to welcome you back to the show, Dan Javan. When I say welcome back to the show, that means he was on once before. He was on in 2020, fairly early on in the pandemic. It has been an interesting time for all of us and also for Dan and his company, which is called Suntuity. I thought it would be fun to have him back on and see what lessons he's learned as the CEO of his company throughout the pandemic. You will also learn about an announcement in this conversation where we are making it official that Dan and his company are going to be working with me and my team at the Extreme Leadership Institute to continue to grow and foster an incredible culture that he has already begun at this great company.
Dan is a serial entrepreneur. He is a visionary, natural leader, founder of multiple startups, served on the board of various organizations and a recognized leader in clean energy, which is one of the fastest-growing industries in the US. He is the CEO and President of the Suntuity Group of Companies, which is 7 or 8 companies with 15 or 16 sub-companies under that. He's quite the entrepreneur. They are all focused on building a people-driven, customer-focused group of companies in the finance industry, energy industry, telecom industry, logistics and all kinds of stuff. Dan is a fascinating character, a deeply authentic leader and I know you will enjoy this conversation with Dan Javan.
Dan, welcome back to the show. It is great to see you again.
When you set the right leadership and the right expectation, you'll keep good talent. Click To Tweet
It's great to be back, Steve.
I will give a little bit of a reminder for people who haven't read the first show that we did. First of all, I highly recommend that you go back and read it. You don't have to read it first. You can read it after this conversation. I highly recommend you do that. There are a couple of things that I want to tag into. We talked about your story last time. You came to the US with a backpack on your back as a young entrepreneur and had built this incredible venture.
What we have all experienced collectively in greater depth is the situation with the pandemic. When we spoke last time, we were pretty early on. Now that we have had this turbulent water under the bridge, I'm curious to know how you have done and what you have learned as a result of doing business in COVID and what lessons you have pulled from that as a leader that you would offer to the rest of us. I will start with a broad question. How has it been going?
It has been great. If you want to put in one word, a lot of businesses have shrunk. During the pandemic, we have grown to a point where, frankly, most of the real estate we have, accommodated most of the people we have. Before the pandemic, we are about 350 to 400 employees. We are close to 650. That's almost a 60% increase in headcount.
Leadership Lessons: Make sure people feel they are part of the organization's culture during onboarding.
Since the last time, we talked in 2020?
That's right. To a point where a lot of the virtualization helped us grow our call centers and headcount. We had people in 11 to 12 states before the pandemic. Now we have people in 27 states across the US. Across multiple time zones playing different functions. Initially, when everybody got hit with the pandemic, you had this shock and awe moment where you were trying to figure out where things were going and you were trying to get your bearings. The people, the companies and the leadership that prospered were the ones that were able to take immediate action.
We did a lot of things internally and externally that helped us. On the internal side, we virtualized almost everything within a couple of weeks. That was not an easy task. We had a lot of virtualizations because we are across state lines and country lines, to begin with. To take that to the next level is what we had to do. Also, the externalization of being able to still touch and feel our customers, to do it virtually was a bit of a challenge for us and also with the employees. What we were able to do is take leadership and let them rise to the challenge. To enable and mentor them to drive that challenge is what sets us apart from a lot of our peers.
You said we, Suntuity is several different enterprises within the company. The primary ones is being Solar and Home building.
We have eight companies. Solar is one of them. Solar is our residential arm. We've got a commercial and utilities skill services arm, drone division and finance arm. Most of our personnel are in the electrical services division, our networks division, and the solar division. That combined is about 90% of the personnel we have. It's those people.
Be selfless and do something for someone other than yourself. Click To Tweet
You virtualized a lot of the work, isn't a good amount of that physical customer contact?
It is. I would say about 25% of our personnel are part of the installation crews. That was still in person. To even mobilize the install crews with booties, gloves, face masks and PPE was a bit of a challenge because you couldn't even get a mask and gloves if you wanted to. When we saw the pandemic increasing, we started lining up inventory to make sure we were able to do this. I talked about internal-external visualization. Also, we took the opportunity during the pandemic to give back.
One of the first things that we did when everything shut down, as an organization, we've got fleets of vehicles across state lines. We volunteered our vehicles to be used for delivering food for children that depend on the schools for the only meal that they get in a day. That externalization was another means of giving back. It's a show of leadership in the pandemic. Of course, different magazines wrote about us not because we advertise it but because they saw the soft side of it. Eventually, that came back to us in spades because people came back and said they wanted to work for companies like us because we were selfless in adversity and emergency. To me, those are signs of leadership that we have tried to mentor within our organization.
You stepped up to help in the community because it was the right thing to do. I have heard some great stories of companies doing similar things. The part that some people overlook is to grow, you have to attract the best talent and people whose values are congruent with the company's values. By reaching out in the way that you did by using your trucks to bring food to kids and people seeing that and saying, "I want to work at a company like that," you are automatically setting up a filter to attract the right people who were motivated by the same thing. As opposed to the person that says, "Why the hell are they doing that? They are not getting paid for it." You don't want that person working for you.
Attracting talent and then retaining. I always tell people, "People leave people. They don't leave companies." When you set the right leadership and expectation, you are going to retain good talent. For us, our biggest challenge is not financing and not the need on the consumer side. It is the ability to deliver that with the right people at the helm. We need good people and we are always looking for good people. Human capital is what drives us as an enterprise. Everything else is a commodity.
You have grown from 350 people to 650 people, how are you managing that on the people's side of things? There are so many new people coming on all at once in a time that's characterized by a virtual working experience. Tell us how you have been managing that.
It's a real challenge to make sure you meet and exceed expectations for people that come on board. The first week of somebody coming on board is what sets the relationship. The experiences that they go through within that first week are critical because they had to buy into the culture. You've got to drive this based on culture. You've got to deliver on promises or the checkout and then they are looking to leave and join someone else. One of the things that we have been trying to do is make sure we have processes in place so that when we onboard people, they feel like they are now part of the culture of the organization.
We are looking at bringing on Chief Cultural Officer, Jenna Lynch. She used to be the Director of HR for Tony Robbins. For us, driving culture and driving leadership are synonymous with success. Making sure that they are still made in culture, there are touchpoints and we make them feel like they belong, especially during a pandemic where everyone is remote and disconnected at some level. It was a challenge. There has been a lot of active management and leadership that's required that we were able to leverage to get us to where we are. We are not perfect but we made the best effort we could.
Leadership Lessons: Look at the pandemic as an opportunity to rise to the occasion.
That culture that you are referring to, how would you characterize it? What I'm hearing you say is right when they are coming on board, you want to give them a taste of this Suntuity culture and help them to feel that they are part of it. What is that experience for them? What does that culture look feel and sound like?
At the basic level, it is a sense of belonging to a purpose that's bigger than yourself that's driven by selfless morals that are externalized. You are in this for people, planet, and profit. If you are not in this for that order, frankly, it's not an assimilation of the right culture that you are looking for. If you are driven, passionate and looking at doing something for someone else other than yourself, of course, a side effect of that success is your compensation plan, your package and things like that. We have people that are extremely successful doing that, financially and otherwise.
We are one of the few organizations or few industries where you can have tremendous financial gains by doing good for others, the planet and the process. We try and promote that as much as possible. We want people that are coming in for the right reasons. If someone is coming in for the financial gains, there are probably twenty other opportunities on Wall Street and other places where there might be better financial gains. For us, it's got to be a happy medium and mix of that externalization of selflessness and the internalization of financial gain, which is a happy medium that we are trying to push.
If somebody is attracted to Suntuity, for example, because they have learned what you are doing in the community to help out. They look at the company and they say, "That's the place that I would like to work because their values are also important to me." They then come to work for you. Right away, that has to be reinforced as soon as they walk in the door, either literally or virtually. If I see, "Here's a company that acts generously and cares about people," I come in, look around, and see a different dynamic and people talking crap about each other. Nobody has reached out to me to even asked me my name then there's a disconnect. Is it a natural thing that you do? Have you thought about all those different touchpoints with employees, both new and those who have been around? Is it something that happens?
We have to make a conscientious effort to make that happen. We are bringing on more people on the onboarding side and the recruiting side. Every time you bring someone new into that initial funnel team, you've got to assimilate them into the culture so it becomes second nature to them. You have to keep reinforcing that to a point where it becomes second nature for most people. I look at it as a combination of process-driven with checks and balances in place for the verification to a point where it becomes almost like a checklist, second nature, where it is part of your formula and part of your mantra. That's something that you portray the moment you talk to someone saying, "Are you interested in joining us?" To the time, "How was your first week with us?" It's seamless. We are not there yet but we work every day extremely hard to build that and continue driving that to a point where we are close to perfection or as close to perfection as possible.
The way you are describing it so far is the pandemic hit, you grew, you have given back to the community and you've got great people coming in. There had to be bumps along the way. What challenges have you faced?
Our biggest challenge initially was when we virtualized almost 80% to 85% of our organization. The IT challenges, getting laptops out to people and making sure they are all set up. We virtualized phone systems and dialer systems. That was our biggest hurdle, initially, making sure people are in a position with the right tools to be able to do the job we want them to do. Communication was part of it, too. Communication still is because there are different people, time zones, work ethics and distractions. That is something where our management steps up to the plate to make sure they effectively communicate, not only save things but communicate with their reps. It's different because you've got to teach people about the difference. It's not the same as talking to someone.
At the same time, making sure that you have the tools necessary to be successful in a virtual environment, which was one of the major hurdles that we had to overcome. A lot of that was restricted due to external factors. You couldn't even get a laptop if you wanted to. Everything was sold out. When you did, half of the people didn't have the necessary internet access. Even if you've got a laptop, how do you get online? You didn't have access to several software solutions that we can accommodate more than 20 or 30 people in a meeting. It's small stuff like that that adds up. All of a sudden, it's like, "How do I address 350 to 400 people in a town hall meeting?" It's those challenges. We are better geared up for the next situation that arises. Hopefully, it doesn't ever do that. We have come out a lot stronger with what happened.
To be in a position to either make or break someone's thought process comes with a sense of responsibility. Click To Tweet
We are not out of it yet. At least here in the US, we are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. It's getting pretty bright, which is nice. That's called an understatement. It's a good time to look back to do two things for all of us, particularly leaders of companies and ask, "What did I learn from this? What do we learn from this that I can apply under all circumstances?" Along with that is having to look back at the experience that we had. Now, as I look forward to a new reality, a new future, a new normal, what do I want to do differently as a result of what we have been through? They are closely related questions. Another way of saying it is what future do I want to create? How do I want it to be going forward? That's a whole volume's worth of potential answers. I'm curious about what comes to mind for you.
When we've got into the pandemic, the one question I asked my leadership team is, "When you look back 1, 2, 3 years, however long this pandemic takes?" When you come back and think, "What is it that you did in this historic event that differentiates you from other people? What did you do to rise to the occasion, not just for the people that depend on you and your family but people that depend on you and your work, family, consumers, and customers? What would you do?" That set the tone of how we reacted to the pandemic. We looked at it as a historic event and as an opportunity to rise to the occasion, which is why we launched multiple initiatives, including the Rise with Suntuity. If you go to RiseWithSuntuity.com, it talks about how we onboarded and worked with Jordan Belfort and his team to set up different series of training for sales. These are not people in our sales team.
If you are trying to find a job, we will train you on how to look for a job, what to do and how to work on a career path. We've got Jay Jay French in there to talk. We've got Loren Lahav to compare some of the stuff you are on some of these sessions. We started putting things into place to start differentiating and also rising to the occasion. That's why it's Rise with Suntuity. Also, putting things in place so that we start acting like it's an ongoing pandemic going forward. Regardless of, whether you are in an actual pandemic or not, if you operate yourself with the same standards that you did while you were in the middle of a pandemic or after the pandemic, you are going to come out of it on top. Communication, leadership, thought-process and externalization are front and center. That becomes a powerful one going forward.
It was a life-changing event for a lot of people. You can take that and learn from that and help drive what you are doing forward, which is something that we do part and parcel within our day-to-day actions and activities. It changed the way we started thinking and the way we started doing business. That's what we saw in virtualization. You stop taking people for granted. You mentor, leverage and enable them, whether it's virtualization or in-person because now you had a pandemic, tomorrow it might be something else.
When you start doing that, people start thriving in that culture. You then become a force to be reckoned with, which is what we are beginning to look like. As an example, we are the eighth largest residential solar company in the United States. It happened during the pandemic. A lot of that is because of the talent we have been able to attract. When I say largest, I'm talking about the customer base, not headcount. To me, that is extremely important. We have gone from where we were to where we are now because of the adversity that we had to face. We can rise to the occasion and deal with it accordingly. Those are some of the changes that we have made.
Hopefully, this will never be the case. If you had to do it all over again and deal with this worldwide challenge, is there anything you would do differently knowing what you know now?
I'm fairly happy with the actions we were able to take when we've got hit with this. Would I change certain things? Maybe we would have got started a little sooner. On some of our communications, it took us a little bit of time to realize and get over the shock and awe for a couple of weeks. Other than that, we did well. One of the things that we should have done was more training with some of our managers on active management techniques. We had them lined up but they were lined up for in-person. We should have virtualized that. The problem is we couldn't virtualize it fast enough. That would have maybe changed things a little bit. Also, communicating a little better with our customers. Those are some of the challenges we ran into, not because we didn't want to communicate, we couldn't. We didn't have the tools available to us to make these things happen, especially with the volume of customers that we have. Other than that, we faired enough.
We are all trying to figuring that out. What's the new customer relationship? How do we continue to reach out when we can't reach out hand-in-hand? Unless you are in a company like Zoom where the entire world fell right in their lap. They had to do a lot of figuring out, too. They had to scale quickly. They had to make upgrades and all that. They did a pretty good job, I would say. We are at this juncture where we are starting to ask the question, "What is the future going to look like?"
I have had this conversation with people in a lot of different contexts. There is a temptation to say, "Everything is going to go back to normal," which implies that there ever was such a thing as normal. It depends on how you define that. Also, it's a little bit naive to say that there's going to come a time where this will all be a distant memory. There is a price that we have paid. There's a psychological price, mental health price, physical price, life and death price. These things are not something you erase from a balance sheet and move on.
We are at a juncture where having come through this adversity or almost through it, depending on where in the world you are, what do we want that future to be like? It's up to us to create it. The leadership question has always been around vision. What's the vision of the future that you want to create? That has always been true. It's a significant fertile opportunity for that. As you look ahead for your companies, what are you thinking about? What do you want to create for the future for you and your customers? A small question.
For us, even before the pandemic, our values were driven by People, Planet, Profit. We are a three Ps company. How you do that as a different discussion? We want to continue driving our values with a culture that we build that aligns itself with that. The pandemic has been almost a reset button for us. You can rise to the occasion and learn from it and leverage what you learned or you can forget about it and go back to the normal type of business that we talked about.
I don't think there's any going back. From a growth perspective, the way we virtualized, I don't see us going back to the old way of doing business with office space. That's the physical side of things. The non-physical side of it is don't take your customers and employees for granted. Make them feel like they belong to an organization that values contributions that have been made. Make sure you mentor, you drive and you enable that. Make sure you give them the tools needed to be able to participate and uplift them as they go along.
If you keep growing in culture and you use that going forward, you are going to outcompete your peers. You are going to beat your competition. You are going to drive an organization that is a force to be reckoned with. When people are passionate about what they do, when they feel like they belong to something greater than themselves, they answer to a higher calling than themselves. We can leverage the situation that we have, build and grow from there to a point where you are building so much momentum that it is difficult slowing you down. That's what we are looking at.
We are looking at leveraging and enhancing that regardless of, whether you have another pandemic or not. This is not going away anytime soon. This is going to be an on-and-off thing that we are going to deal with. Different countries have different situations that they are dealing with. Being able to rise to the occasion and differentiate yourself is what I see as my vision for the way we do business and as we continue to grow in addition to all the other good stuff that comes with it.
The conversation around what you want to create is part of that leadership practice that we call the vision thing. Part of our job as leaders is to establish a clear and compelling picture of the future that people can get excited about so we can all work together to achieve that. That's part of it. That's the vision thing. The question is, "What do we have to do now to make that future vision a reality?" With a company that's growing like yours, there's no one simple answer to that. It's a lot of different things.
Leadership Lessons: Stop taking people for granted. Mentor them and leverage them.
I want people to understand that your approach to this is both fascinating to me and gratifying. You have shared with me that you want to focus on as you grow, making sure that you are doing the right things from a cultural perspective. One of the things we have talked a lot about on this show oftentimes, entrepreneurs like yourself will build a company and give no thought to the culture. That doesn't mean they don't have one because every place has a culture. One day they look around and go, "What the hell happened with this place? We have grown fast. How come it doesn't feel like it used to?" You are anticipating that ahead of time and you don't want that to happen.
People must understand that you are bringing our team in, specifically to spearhead it, me and Jenna Lynch are going to be your Interim Chief Culture Officer from the Extreme Leadership Institute. The objective is going to be getting in the weeds and helping you figure out what all this looks like in every single touchpoint in the company. There aren't many companies that do that. There aren't many leaders that are willing to do it to that degree because they figured, "That stuff, you take care of itself," but it doesn't. It's an official announcement that we are doing that and I wanted to throw down the gauntlet, raise the bar and turn up the heat. You are going to be a great example. You already are. Over time, as you focus more intently on the things that are important to you and making that live and breathe for every employee and customer, it's going to be a great story to tell. I'm all about telling good stories.
From a personal level, I'm excited about this. I'm looking forward to getting in there and learning about your team. Let me ask a question. It's not an entirely fair question because I'm curious how you would answer on behalf of other people. You are the CEO and Founder of the company. You have a way of describing what's going on there. If I went around the company and talk to people that work in leadership, management or your employees, would I hear a different story? If so, what would be different? That's the unfair part because I'm asking you to answer on behalf of what somebody else might say.
The answer is you will hear different iterations of the culture or what people perceive as the culture. When you ask people what the mission of the company is, they will be unanimous, People, Planet and Profit. That's something that we talked about daily. Being selfless, being able to do something for someone other than yourself, being part of something bigger than yourself. That is synonymous. How you go about that is going to be different based on who you talk to.
Some people might come back and say, "To do that, I've got a manager." There are ones that come back and say, "I will lead us." There is no correct answer. It's based on people's life experiences and what they perceive is needed from life experiences, which is why folks like yourself and Jen are going to be integral to try and align them. I always tell people, "You learn more from failure than you do from success." Some people haven't failed. For some people, this is their first successful job. They don't have a variety of experiences under the belt to be able to determine the best way to do this.
Our goal is to make sure that they can learn what they need to learn without having to fail because if they are failing, that means a team is failing. If the team is failing, that means we fail. It's extremely important to make sure as we continue to drive the organization and success of the organization, we do it unanimously. People understand the formula. They understand the right way of doing it based on real-world life experiences that folks like yourself and Jenna and other people have under their belt. It's decades of experience of what works, what doesn't work and things like that so that we don't fall into the same pitfalls that growing companies do.
The biggest companies grow rapidly and they grow into this monstrosity. All of a sudden, they collapse and fizzle out. It's like somebody that you need to have in the sales because they forgot that the basics of building an organization are based on building a strong foundation. Culture and leadership are some of the strongest pillars of your foundation as you build an organization because then, that organization has value. Otherwise, you can go overnight from hero to zero because you didn't set it up the right way. All the hard work that you put in, all the success you have put in, they are going to come tumbling down. It's a house of cards. We are trying to make sure we don't end up in that situation.
You've got a certain percentage of your employees, it sounds like that it might be their first job or a new career. They are ambitious and they want to do great things. They've got the right value set. You don't want them to fail. How do you deal with the paradox that to not fail, to succeed such as not fail as a team or as a business, you have to get good at failing? That doesn't mean that there are no failures along the way. If you are not failing at something, that means you are not innovating. Innovating, by definition, means you are trying something new, which means you don't know if it's going to work or not because it hasn't been done before. How do you balance that between the drive to succeed and the need to fail along the way?
Failure is inevitable. Things happen. There's no right way of doing certain things. Occasionally, you do certain things that cause some failure. What you do when you fail is what differentiates you from other people. What leaders do when they see failure is what differentiates a style of leadership. If someone fails, depending on who you talk to in a leadership position, you can either reprimand the person for failing or mentor the person.
If you reprimand the person and you are going to turn that person off, they are going to see that as a failure of their life. They are going to probably get dejected and leave the company. They might be a tremendous resource to the organization. You can tell or mentor them because you are setting an example. What you do with them now is what they will do with folks that they lead tomorrow. Our goal is to try and get a message across that there's nothing wrong with failing. When you fail, taking ownership of that failure, rising to the occasion and being humble about it is the first step you take in overcoming that failure. That's part and parcel of what we do as individuals as we grow.
As an organization, our demographics are in their mid-twenties, which means you've got a lot of young minds extremely passionate about what they do. Sometimes, they've got the passionate excuse. That's what you've got to manage. The only way you can help and mentor them is by leading by example, which means you need them to see what you do when failure happens for them to replicate what they do when failure happens. That's where you rise to the occasion, you mentor, you build a culture with an open-door policy, and anyone can walk into your office and tell you what they feel without any thoughts or repercussions.
If there's an issue, you work on it as a team to resolve it. That's what leaders do. That's the culture that we drive in the organization. I can tell you, most of the people you will talk to in our organization will tell you we have an open-door culture where this is top-down humility, leadership and taking ownership is something that we drive, especially when it comes to failure. That's what is causing success within our organization.
That's a great perspective. I want to go back to people, planet and profit. You are suggesting that all three of those things are important but there's also an order of importance. You have chosen to put people first, followed by planet and profit. First of all, I like you to say a little bit more about that and how all that ties together for you.
To me, it's always been about people. If you are chasing money, money usually eludes you. That's my personal experience in life. People work to put food on the table for their families, to pay their mortgage and their bills, things like that. If you lose focus of why we are working, which is about the people in our household, within our organization and benefiting from what we do, we already lost focus on what we are doing because that's what it's all about.
The only way you can mentor people is to lead by example. Click To Tweet
You then align that with something that benefits your environment. That is a shell that you live in. There's only much of it to go around before you do certain things. What you do to leave that shelf and the next generation and the generations to come is a sense of responsibility that most people have to have. A lot of people have misused that over the last several centuries and we are paying a price for it in several places. If you focus on what's important, which is the people in the shell that exists and the ecosystem that exists, which is the planet if you do it well, you will be profitable because you have an alignment of your focus. There's no other way around it.
I always tell people don't chase money and profits. Chase success and excellence in what you do. The financial impact of that is a side effect of what you do. If you are focusing purely on the financial impact, you are going to do that typically at the expense of things that are far more important than the financials. Money comes and money goes. You lose people and relationships. You are not going to get that back. If you lose focus of that, frankly, then you have been doing the wrong business or you are with the wrong company. To me, that's important. That's how we tried this. This is what I talk about in my town hall meetings and with my leadership team. That is what drives us on a day-by-day basis. That's paid off pretty well.
Have you ever had an experience where you recruited somebody talented, had a good track record, maybe a great salesperson, and then after they've got through the door, you began to realize that this was not a fit? Their priorities were different. It was maybe profit followed by profit with a dose of profit at the end and the others were like, "It's the crap that I've got to put up with the work here."
It happens from time to time. I don't know if turning them is the right word. I have been able to sit across the table with some folks that are extremely young and absorb information like a sponge. They have never had anyone in their life mentor them. They have been in survival mode from day one to try and survive. In the process, I have been in that mode before. I know what it feels like to try and survive. I can relate to people that are in that mode but then to be able to take them and mold them into prioritizing what is important. A lot of those people, when they turn and flip that around, are the strongest supporters when it comes to the alignment of your focus.
You will still have some people who are in it for them. They want the money. They will go to the highest bidder. At that point, you let them do what they have to. What's amazing is we have had a huge number of people or a percentage of people that have left us and come back to us a year later saying, "We went there. We tried that. We realized that's not what we signed up for. We realized we could have made that money out here. We could have done that with a clear conscience."
We have people that come back to us sometimes 1, 2 or 3 years later saying, "I want to come back into the fold. I want to do this. I want to assimilate into the culture. I went there trying and I failed. I made a lot of money but I've never got any satisfaction out of it. I blew all that money up. I spent the money. I lost money in the stock market. My conscience kept coming back to me and saying, 'I didn't do what I could have done right the first time,' which is how do we work together again?" They then become your performers with that experience. To me, that is true success. The day someone comes back to me after 2 or 3 years of leaving me and saying, "This is what I left. This is what I missed the most. This is what I want more of," to me, it's a sign of us doing it right. That has happened quite a bit.
That's a great testimonial to the lesson that you are helping them learn. There are a couple of things that strike me as beautiful in that. One is true from generation to generation, the tendency for the older generation to look at the younger generation. At any point in history, you see this. They say, "These kids now feel entitled. They want everything handed to them." There has been some version of that. It has been going on for a long time.
I remember, in the '90s, when I was at the Tom Peters company and we had clients telling us, "These kids now, these Millennials come in." The executive told me, "I had a kid come in and sat down in my office for an interview. He said to me, 'What do you've got for me?'" What I heard you say is that sometimes, when somebody is motivated by profit, it could be because they have been in survival mode, which is different from somebody being entitled or greedy.
It's the knee-jerk reaction that a lot of people my age might have to a kid who says, "How much money can I make?" If It's about the money thing, you've got your priorities all screwed up but it's coming from a place of, "This is what I have learned to do to survive." Your awareness of that, maybe it's because that was your experience when you were younger. It is an important thing for all of us to learn.
Instead of making assumptions about people's motivations and where they are coming from, it's about getting to know them a little better and understanding where they are coming from and why. You then have an opportunity to teach and help them to never have to worry about that again on any level. That's a great lesson. You are fortunate to have many Gen Z. My other question about it as it relates to people, planet and profit, are you finding that this generation is more congruent with that set of values than previous generations? Are they more inclined to that to begin with?
My personal experience has been a conflict because depending on who you talk to. It might be a different answer. A lot of younger folks I have spoken to want to do something for the planet. It's not the money that they are looking at. Of course, you want to make the money in the process. Being able to align yourself and mold them into doing it right is the challenge because they want to do the right things but they want to do it now. They want immediate gratification. They want to see the money now while they are doing it. Of course, while they are doing good things for the planet. That's the challenge that we run into.
We can set a foundation for them where it's not just instant gratification that they are looking for that you are trying to fulfill. It's all gratification long-term by setting a piece of the puzzle in place now and let them benefit from that in their late 20s, 30s and so forth is where the challenge is. When you sit down across the table with someone young, I'm usually not asking how much they are looking for. I'm trying to understand what they are trying to achieve in life. Where do they want to go 3 years or 5 years from now? To me, that's more important than what they are looking for from a cost structure.
9 out of 10, we find ways to align what we offer with what they want to do 4 or 5 years from now. The path to getting to that from their perspective to our perspective might be different. When you show them that path, you can do that with credibility and conviction, and you can deliver on that to a point where you don't erode any level of trust that they have established in you and the respect, you have a proponent that will go to battle for you. That is what I spend more time dealing with or mentoring people for in the younger generation when I talk to them.
One of the things we talked about in our past conversation is that when you bring people into Suntuity, you want to help them with their lives in general. Not just the skills that they will need to succeed in selling solar, for example. It seems like that has continued. You are building on that still. It wasn't a flash in the pan, "Wouldn't this be a nice idea?" It's the way you are built around there.
That's how you get to retain talent. A lot of the folks that work for us, this is their first job. The way you mold and mentor them in their first career move is something they are going to carry for the rest of their lives. That is not something to take lightly. You are in a position to either make or break the thought process for someone and that comes with a sense of responsibility. You want to make sure you are doing it the right way, which is what we are trying to do. It's why people come back to us. They go out there and they try it out. They come back two years later and they say, "I liked your way better. I could sleep at night. I felt good about what I did. I felt like I belong to something greater than myself. I make the money anyways."
This is great stuff, Dan. I'm honored that we are going to be a part of the continuing story of Suntuity. Thank you for sharing some great lessons and insight that all of us can take as we look forward to the future that we want to create in our communities and enterprises. Once again, for people who want to learn more about Suntuity, where's the best place for them to go?
If you go to SuntuityGroup.com, it gives you a good understanding of the length and breadth of our organization. I would even suggest people go to RiseWithSuntuity.com. There are a lot of good life lessons that you learn from some of the leaders in the industry that we have about leadership. That's important, too. It gives you a balanced view of us as an organization.
If somebody wanted to reach out to you directly, they may have a question for you or would like your take on something, can they reach you through the website or is there another way to do that?
They can send me an email directly, send it to AskDan@Suntuity.com. Everyone in my organization uses it. It's open and I will respond.
I'm curious how many emails do you get every day?
Up to about 100 to 120. I read every one of them. We spread that out with our customers, out to the sales reps and different folks in the industry.
I love that idea. Dan, thank you for joining us. We will see you next time. Until then, do what you love in the service of people who love what you do. See you next time.
Thank you so much, Steve.
Suntuity
Extreme Leadership Institute
Dan Javan – Past Episode
RiseWithSuntuity.com
AskDan@Suntuity.com
About Dan Javan
Dan Javan is a serial entrepreneur, visionary and a natural leader. He is the founder of multiple startups, has served on the board of various organizations and is a recognized leader in clean energy, recognized as one of the fastest-growing industries in the US.
Dan currently spends his time as CEO and President of the Suntuity Group of companies leading a team of professionals that are focused on building a people-driven, customer-focused conglomerate of premiere Finance, Energy, Telecom, Logistics and UAV Service companies.
Dan holds a Masters in Information Systems from NJIT and is an avid aviator.
Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!
Here's How »
Join the Love Is Just Damn Good Business community today:
stevefarber.com
Steve Farber LinkedIn
Steve Farber Instagram
Steve Farber Twitter
Steve Farber Facebook
Love Is Just Damn Good Business YouTube
Filed Under: Podcast Tagged With: attracting talent, leadership during the pandemic, leadership lessons, talent retention, virtual environment, virtualization
About Steve Farber
Steve Farber, founder of The Extreme Leadership Institute, is a popular keynote speaker and leadership expert. He's the bestselling author of The Radical Leap, The Radical Edge, and Greater Than Yourself.
Leadership Keynote Speaker


text:
Sloane Talks To His Future Self In Emotive Anthem, 'Grow Up' ft. Paul McDonald
"Rewind, it's only gonna last for a moment." Sloane, Grow up ft. Paul McDonald Some say that in the present, we wear a blindfold. Mesh and barely transparent, our reality is skewed by a dark fabric cross hatching our vision: it is only when we slide...
The Sweet Kill presents 2 new singles: "One Love" & "Fuck Love"!
The Sweet Kill is ambitiously stepping up their game in 2019, with the double release of the singles "One Love" and "Fuck Love" out today, for Valentine's Day. Both tracks cover the topic of love, but in very different ways, musically going in very different directions and showcasing the...
Jenna Cunningham presents new single "Blood In The Water"
Los Angeles based singer/songwriter Jenna Cunningham is back with her latest single "Blood In the Water", a dark yet dynamic track, highlighting her skillful musicality as a piano player and letting the vocals take the lead. The emotive song lyrics float seamlessly over the resounding chords of the music, immersing the...
The Sweet Kill releases new single "Give it up" ft. Lolita
"Give It Up" is the power-pop anthem 2018 has been waiting for, and it's come just in time. LA based The Sweet Kill deliver a song that swells with emotion and spills over with messages of liberation from one's inner demons. The meaningful track is built upon the...
Track of the day: Honey by Slow Roar
By Olivia McAuley Rebecca Rosoff and Sonny Lanegan are the fire and water duo behind alt/indie outfit Slow Roar. The LA-based multi-instrumentalists/producers released the self-titled EP last year, winning over new fans and music publications alike. Nothing conveys the pairs ability to create a distinct moody wanton energy...
Text by: Olivia McAuley My chosen track of the day is Ever by Spare Parts for Broken Hearts. The LA based post-grunge trio SP/BH have been on the grind since their formation in 2010, consistently releasing work so aggressively emotive and thoughtfully crushing they have remained...
Peaks brings us new EP "patterns"
Moody, full of textures, but you can see the light at the end of the tunnel. To those who like electronic textures and the use of a wide variety of sounds, Patterns is for you! But wait, there's more! Peaks achieves a rather well rounded EP, with a continuous style...
Madus brings us "baby" and it will get stick in your head
If there ever was a song designed to stick in your head and annoy you there for days...
Hydes – "Bam Bam"
Now, stare carefully at this watch. You're feeling sleepy, you're drifting...
Alexander Vincent debuts with "I Won't" – An ode to vulnerability
Canadian artist Alexander Vincent has been around the music industry for some time, from touring with the band MAGIC! to producing with Sabrina Claudio. But for the first time in his career he is doing the music that comes natural to him. "A lot of the...