#I may be biased but I liked the green a lot more! it resonated more with the peacekeeper type that he is to me | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aro-comics · 3 years

Text

Fashion Analysis (Part 6: Aro Fashion Speculations & Conclusion)

[Note: This post is a part of a series analyzing self-expression, fashion, aromanticism, and how they interact with other parts of identity. For full context please read the whole thing!]

My personal Aro Fashion Sense Speculations:

And now, we get to the most fun part. My personal, somewhat uneducated speculations! (Half-joking). Okay, but seriously - take everything I’m about to say with a grain of salt. This is no more than a little guesswork probably coupled with my own biases on fashion, and really I’m just throwing this out here to start a discussion. Feel free to let me know your own thoughts on where all of this might go!

First, with the influence of digital spaces on small screens, and algorithms on fashion and design, the nerd in me expects that specifically bright, flat green colours, potentially with bold silhouettes may do well within Aro Fashion of this century (flat colour blocking is overall popular for these reasons).

Another direction that aro fashion could develop is to play off the idea of connection with nature. I think this fits well with the ever-popular cottagecore aesthetic (which I do enjoy, although more casually/don’t really incorporate within my wardrobe), and perhaps many aros already like this aesthetic! I know at least two of my aro friends do.

The other way that this passion for nature could be interpreted is adopting an aesthetic more fitting of a scientist or a naturalist. Also, since that aesthetic tends to be less romanticized or seen as “attractive” (science overall has associations with a life devoted to career, which could be thought of in the stereotypical sense as a romance-free lifestyle), this aesthetic would also work well with the idea of subverting expectations within amatonormativity.

I’ve also noticed that there are popular archetypes that aros tend to resonate with - the archer in relation to the greek goddess artemis, for example. Personally, I’m not too familiar with the details surrounding this particular archetype, but I believe it may be possible that development in aro aesthetics can also be inspired by this figure.

And of course, all of this is not to forget symbols and signifiers within our community that already exist, such as the white aro ring, and the general prevalence of green in representing the community overall.

Conclusion

So … in conclusion, there’s a lot to talk about in terms of fashion, self-expression, and different factors that can provide other forms of pressure into presenting a certain way. A lot of these are Not Good because they reflect the ever present problems of society, patriarchal and other discriminatory beliefs. These should be acknowledged, and part of the discussion surrounding aromanticism and self-expression moving forwards.

But at the same time, as I have stated before in a different comic - these are exciting times to be Aro. For the first time on a major scale, our community is able to interact and communicate and keep records of developments, and it’s exciting to think about where all of this may go, and what subcultures and culturally significant means of expression may continue to emerge.

Finally, I hope you all aren’t tired of me re-iterating this anymore, but please. Wear what you want, and please don’t feel you need to dress a certain way. Obviously there are times where you have to do something to be safe (so prioritize your well-being over all else), but I think that those factors aside, it’s so important to express yourself how you feel comfortable.

I hope you’ve all found this essay interesting! I’m always happy to hear feedback, so feel free to let me know what you think and your personal experiences with any of the subjects I’ve described here!

#NotAComic #Fashion #FashionAnalysis #Annnnd we're done

35 notes · View notes

pistachi-no · 6 years

Text

Censorship: TKAM

In the United States, there is this wonderful list of books that are constantly challenged for the use of things like slurs, strong language, and graphic violence. These are the famous banned books, into which the American Library Association forms an annual list. Some of the books on the list you may recognize: The Outsiders by S.E Hinton, Paper Towns by John Green, and Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher are all on the list.

Among these books is To Kill A Mockingbird, a classic written in the 1960s about racial tension in the South. It’s a book that uses the n-word about 50 times within its pages, which is why it’s been challenged time and time again for its use within the school curriculum. And while there are valid points on other sides of the fence about it, there is something undeniably ironic about the idea of a book about racial tension and the hardships of African Americans from times during and before the Civil Rights Movement being pulled from curriculum for being supposedly racist. While the terms used in the book are not by any means acceptable in today’s standards, it does not mean that the book is inherently racist. Harper Lee, author of To Kill A Mockingbird, has even spoke out in defense of her book about how the people challenging it never see past the language used and into the context.

But is there a compromise here? Is the right thing to do to pull the book from the curriculums and appease the outliers who are so spokenly un-comforted by the word? Or is it fine just the way it is, racial slurs and all, in our curriculum?

While I have my own personal opinion on the matter, I can’t help but wonder what would happen if we tried to produce a version of this book that was a little softer for those so off-put by its use of the n-word. Could we censor the book and make it a “kid friendly” or a “school appropriate” version of Lee’s novel? Would it be alright to censor the book for its use of the n-word? After all, we did it with Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. So why is it okay to censor some books but not others? To Kill A Mockingbird would lose a lot of its meaning if we were to take out those offensive terms. It wouldn’t resonate as strongly, emotionally speaking, with the reader as it does now if we were to censor it. But a book like And Then There Were None, while I don’t agree with its censorship, does not lose its meaning by taking out those terms and replacing them with others.

To Kill A Mockingbird is a classic that, like many others, must be read while keeping in mind the context of the time period it is set in and the time period it was written in. If we were to censor the book, making it more “school appropriate,” it would lose much of its meaning and the themes wouldn’t be nearly as strong. Often times tampering with any media, such as books, and changing them to adapt and fit into what is socially acceptable by today’s standards will lead to erasing important pieces of the book all together.

It is more important that the book is taught in a proper manner than for the book itself to simply be taken off of shelves. There are some extremely important lessons to be learned from TKAM other than the fact that the n-word isn’t something you should say to someone. TKAM deals a lot with biases, racial profiling, racial tension and many other lessons that are important for children to learn about. Pulling the book from schools would only cause more issues in the long run then it would solve. If we were to simply pull the book, all of these lessons would not be taught or talked about with children and we would be doomed to repeat them. Ignoring history, such as the difficult history portrayed in TKAM, will never make it go away, it will only make it repeat itself.

#mod iggy #to kill a mockingbird #classics #literature #censorship #tkam #tkamb #harper lee #original post

1 note · View note

shirlleycoyle · 5 years

Text

At Cannabis Shops, Face Recognition Is Already a Thing

Mason Marks is a law professor at Gonzaga University and a Research Scholar at NYU Law School’s Information Law Institute. Find him on Twitter @MasonMarksMD

Imagine you are a medical marijuana patient driving to a cannabis dispensary. As you pull into the parking lot, surveillance cameras record your license plate number. You step out of the car, and walk toward the entrance.

A sign above the door reads “please look up for entry.” You crane your neck and gaze into a camera paired with artificial intelligence that analyzes your face. A red light suddenly turns green, and the door slides open. You enter the store and bypass a line of customers waiting at the register, opting instead for a self-service kiosk.

As you approach the machine, in-store cameras feed images to algorithms that analyze your appearance to determine if you might be carrying a weapon, and compare your face to millions of photos in a law enforcement database. When you finally reach the kiosk, it scans your face, identifies you as a returning customer, and greets you with a coupon for your favorite cannabis product.

This may sound like a scene from a sci-fi movie, but these tools are employed in cannabis dispensaries today. The cannabis industry is embracing new technologies like facial recognition and advanced video analytics throughout the supply chain—from grow rooms and processing facilities to distribution centers and retail dispensaries. The companies behind the technology say it benefits cannabis businesses, employees, and consumers. But in an industry marred by decades of mass-incarceration that has discriminated against communities of color, face surveillance poses serious privacy risks, and can easily be used for targeted harassment.

“It is hard, if not impossible, to find an example of a surveillance technology that has not been turned against groups that are already vulnerable in our structurally inequitable system,” said Shankar Narayan, Director of the Technology and Liberty Project at the ACLU of Washington, in an interview with Motherboard. Although legal for medical or recreational use in 33 states, cannabis remains illegal under federal law. Because it occupies a legal grey area, banks are hesitant to touch the industry, making it primarily an all-cash business and an attractive target for thieves. In Denver, Colorado, alone, there were 34 reported dispensary robberies in the first half of 2019.

Some tech companies see the risk of theft as an opportunity to sell facial recognition systems. Don Deason, VP of Sales for Blue Line Technology, claims his company’s platform has significantly reduced cannabis robberies. It works like this: When customers approach the front door of a dispensary, audiovisual cues prompt them to look up at a camera. If they comply, the system records an image of their faces, and the front door opens. If they decline or their faces are obscured, by a mask for example, then access is denied.

The system is also used to deter robberies and mass shootings in convenience stores, schools, and office buildings.

A facial recognition system from Blue Line Technology hangs above the entrance to a convenience store. Courtesy of Blue Line Technology

Deason told Motherboard that as long as customers don’t shoplift or cause a disturbance, “their information is deleted after 48 hours.” However, if a store’s management believes customers are misbehaving, they can tag each face with a unique number, and the system retains that information indefinitely. If tagged customers later return to the store, the system recognizes them and alerts employees of their arrival by email or text message. Deason said Blue Line encourages dispensaries not to confront tagged customers, but ultimately “store owners set the store security policy and procedures,” and, “the security response varies based upon store policy.”

Blue Line’s platform also controls access to restricted areas of cannabis businesses such as grow houses, cutting rooms, and safes, serving as a replacement for keys and access cards. When paired with other devices such as RFID tags, which are affixed to cannabis products, face recognition systems can track cannabis as it changes hands from one employee to the next.

“Many cannabis robberies are inside jobs,” said Matthew Heyl of Helix Security, a Denver company that provides surveillance products and services to cannabis businesses. He claimed video analytics and biometric access controls establish a chain-of-custody and deter diversion of legal cannabis to illicit markets.

For those reasons, government agencies that enforce cannabis laws are interested in facial recognition, said Steve Owens, the CEO of Adherence Compliance, a Denver consulting firm that has partnered with Blue Line. “This topic is really resonating with the regulators,” Owens told Motherboard. “When we mention it to Alameda County, they get it right away, because it helps them with their investigations.”

In addition to tracking employees and controlling access, facial recognition is used in dispensaries at the point of sale for age-verification. A Las Vegas based company called 420 Cyber markets its Badass Budtender kiosk as a replacement for human “budtenders” who check ID at the register. The kiosks can be equipped with facial recognition to ensure customers are of legal age.

Inside dispensaries, facial recognition can do far more. 420 Cyber markets what it calls “Video Active Security Monitoring” (VASM), which it says can determine whether customers carry concealed weapons, if there are warrants for their arrest, and whether their appearance matches “be on the lookout” (BOLO) alerts issued by police. It can reportedly recognize A-list celebrities if they happen to visit your store.

Consumers using 420 Cyber’s kiosks can also opt-in to personalization services: The units can scan and identify people’s faces, interpret their emotional responses to products, and help dispensaries learn which brands they prefer. 420 Cyber’s website says this data can be used to deliver targeted content “designed for individual viewing based on age, race, gender, location and daypart [the time of day a customer visits the store].”

Despite what vendors say, face recognition technology remains problematic and controversial. Algorithmic systems naturally adopt the objectives and values of their creators, and research shows that systems trained on insufficiently diverse datasets are often inaccurate and sometimes discriminate against women, racial minorities, and members of the LGBTQ community.

Even if the system is working as designed, face recognition can easily be adapted to target immigrants, activists, and other marginalized groups with little or no oversight. Citing those risks, at least three cities including San Francisco, Oakland, and Somerville, Massachusetts have banned municipal use of the technology. In June, the leading supplier of police body cameras, Axon, removed facial recognition from its services after an ethics board concluded it was “not yet reliable enough to justify its use.”

“Despite what developers may say, facial recognition technology has the potential to reinforce the racist and classist policies of prohibition”

“Technology makes a lot of promises, but there’s no guarantee they can deliver,” wrote Kamani Jefferson and Tyler McFadden in an email interview with Motherboard. The pair founded North Star Liberty Group, a DC-based government relations firm that advocates for ending cannabis prohibition while promoting racial and economic equality.

Jefferson previously served as President of the Massachusetts Recreational Consumer Council, where he helped push for a state-run social equity program that helps groups disproportionately impacted by the War on Drugs participate in the cannabis industry through professional training and mentoring. In July, Michigan announced its own social equity initiative. California created one last year, and San Francisco, Sacramento, and Los Angeles have local programs.

“Despite what developers may say, facial recognition technology has the potential to reinforce the racist and classist policies of prohibition,” Jefferson said. “It’s a classic case of a slippery slope, and until there’s a guarantee that not one innocent person will be thrown in jail due to the faults of this technology, I wouldn’t recommend cannabis facilities waste their money.”

Grayce Bentley is the Social Equity Coordinator for Cannabis Advising Partners in Long Beach, CA. In a phone interview, she told Motherboard: “I don’t think this is right at all, especially if facial recognition has been shown to be biased based on race, gender, et cetera.” Moreover, Bentley said most dispensaries serve a clientele consisting of both medical and recreational cannabis consumers, and “facial recognition should not be used in businesses where medical patients could be present.” She argued that collecting face data could violate federal health privacy laws such as the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Data breaches will likely be a growing problem for the cannabis industry as well. In 2017, a company called MJ Freeway, a major provider of software to cannabis businesses, suffered multiple hacking attempts. In one incident, hackers obtained consumers’ date of birth, contact information, and other unspecified data. If the company had also kept images of customers’ faces, the breach could have been more disastrous.

All the companies Motherboard spoke with said they make efforts to protect face recognition data through encryption. “But encryption is not a panacea,” said Ido Kilovaty, a law professor at the University of Tulsa who specializes in cybersecurity. “Hackers can launch brute-force attacks or look for other vulnerabilities, and there is always a risk of insider threats.”

“It doesn’t matter if the developers ‘don’t see race’ when their algorithm and security staff undoubtedly do.”

Even if impenetrable cybersecurity was achievable, it wouldn’t protect consumers from discrimination based on facial recognition. In recent years, there has been a rash of troubling AI systems that attempt to make assumptions about peoples’ sexuality and potential criminality based solely on their facial features. Tech ethicists have warned that the trend threatens to revive long-disproven pseudoscience practices like physiognomy, which have historically been used to justify racism and discrimination.

Shankar Narayan said he’s concerned about mission creep—when technologies implemented for a specific purpose are shifted to another application. A cannabis business might start out using facial recognition to analyze people’s emotional responses to different products, “but you can take that further, and start analyzing people’s propensity for violence,” said Narayan. Since facial recognition may be biased against vulnerable communities, it could disproportionately mischaracterize members of those groups as dangerous.

Narayan also noted that private surveillance systems can easily be repurposed for use by law enforcement and federal agencies. One example is police use of Amazon’s Ring doorbell cameras, which was recently reported on by Motherboard. “While being operated by an individual entity, it’s a private camera, and it need not conform to any rules around surveillance that apply to government cameras. But the company may turn the data over to the government,” Narayan said. “And then for all intents and purposes, it’s functioning as a government camera.”

Some companies marketing facial recognition to the cannabis industry have deep ties to law enforcement. Blue Line was founded by Joseph Spiess, Tom Sawyer, and Marcos Silva. Spiess is Chief of Police for the St. Louis suburb of Brentwood, Missouri. Sawyer, a retired St. Louis detective and DEA agent, built his career investigating drug crimes. Silva, an Army veteran who served in the Iraq War, is a St. Louis police detective who designed, implemented, and oversees the city’s real-time crime center (RTCC).

Michael Kwet, a fellow at Yale Law School’s Information Society Project who researches surveillance technology, expressed concerns: “For years, these officers locked people away for possession and sale of marijuana, with devastating effects on communities of color. Now they’re cashing in to protect the legal marijuana industry with facial recognition, while people previously persecuted languish behind bars.”

According to its website, the RTCC operated by Blue Line’s Silva “is focused on monitoring, deterring and evaluating criminal activity in real-time with the help of the advanced technology in the center,” which includes license plate readers, gunshot spotters, and crime analysis software. In 2015, former Police Chief Sam Dotson told St. Louis Public Radio the RTCC would tap into surveillance cameras owned by private companies and use “new software that would allow the analysts to better predict crime.”

Blue Line told Motherboard it does not have access to the face recognition databases of the cannabis businesses it serves, and therefore, it cannot share that data with law enforcement. However, because its clients set their own security policies and responses, store owners are free to turn facial recognition data over to police. Through this kind of sharing between private and public surveillance networks, police could gain access to face data stored by dispensaries even in cities where facial recognition is banned for government use.

Prior to his current role at the ACLU of Washington, Shankar Narayan was the organization’s Legislative Director, and he worked on Initiative 502, Washington State’s recreational marijuana bill. Before that, he worked on medical marijuana legislation.

“In the context of that medical marijuana law, we went through a lot of these same issues, and there was intense concern over patient privacy. Coming off of that very intense discussion, there’s some deep irony that in the name of security, entities that sell cannabis are now installing these highly invasive surveillance mechanisms. That is really the opposite of the spirit in which we had the discussions around medical marijuana dispensaries, and I think we should be deeply concerned about privacy in that context.”

Addressing concerns about bias, Don Deason told Motherboard that Blue Line’s face recognition system “recognizes everyone equally,” and that the company is “not tracking age, gender, race, or what products people buy.” He said the system sorts faces into only three categories: “known, unknown, or threat,” and people are categorized as threats based solely on their behavior inside a cannabis business, not on their physical traits or facial expressions.

Os Keyes, a doctoral researcher at the University of Washington who studies human-computer interaction, told Motherboard that Blue Line “has an incredibly shallow understanding of the concerns about bias in facial recognition.” They noted that whether security guards or police stop and search customers or accuse them of shoplifting may be influenced by personal prejudices.

“Whether someone is accurately matched by facial recognition is, similarly, something that we know has racial and gender biases,” said Keyes. “It doesn’t matter if the developers ‘don’t see race’ when their algorithm and security staff undoubtedly do.”

Despite tech company efforts to protect face recognition data and reduce bias, many cannabis industry experts remain uncomfortable with the technology.

Kamani Jefferson and Tyler McFadden implied it is unnecessary. They referenced statistics suggesting crime has decreased in states and neighborhoods with licensed cannabis dispensaries.

“There’s no reason to believe that trend won’t continue,” they added.

Griffen Thorne, an attorney with the law firm Harris Bricken, expressed doubt that adopting facial recognition technology would help businesses comply with state and local cannabis laws. “In California, cannabis businesses must have a security plan. They must have video recording, and doors that lock,” he said. “Beyond those basics, you don’t need to use fingerprint scanners or facial recognition technology.”

Shankar Narayan asked, “How can we be a free society with this level of surveillance? It kills free speech, it chills constitutional activity, it disproportionately impacts communities of color, it’s subject to abuse, [and] there’s not a lot of checks and balances here.”

One thing seems certain: legislators, government agencies, and the cannabis industry itself, should involve potentially affected communities in deciding how facial recognition should be implemented in the industry, and whether it should be used at all.

At Cannabis Shops, Face Recognition Is Already a Thing syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

0 notes

ginnyzero · 5 years

Text

Content Marketing: A Quick Take Away

*Once again, take away being the British Slang for takeout.

After an unintentional internet detox, I was scrolling through my WordPress reader to catch up on posts and came across this guest post list at fellow WordPress blogger, Nicholas C Rossis. The list was written by Patrick Del Rosario and the first thing on it was “have a content strategy plan.”

And I went, “What the hell is a content strategy plan?” (Me no likey jargon.) A grumpy tweet later, I had two content marketers liking my tweet and I had the beginnings of a place to start looking. ConvinceandConvert.com had 41 pages of blog posts about content marketing!

Once again, I thought I’d share briefly what I’ve learned.

First things first,

What is a Content Strategy Plan?

A content strategy plan is filling your blogs with posts that the different people you want to reach care about and answers their questions in order for them to do what you want them to do next. Whether that’s follow your blog/newsletter, give to a charity, or buy a product (or even buy someone else’s product.)

Meaning, you can’t just blog about any old thing. You need to produce the type of posts and share the type of information that will interest the type of people you want to purchase the product you’re selling. All without blatantly going “Buy this! Buy this!” Nothing turns people off more than poorly worded advertisements in their blog list. Remember from Book Marketing #5) keep your spam to once a week and space it with other content.

How do you figure this out? (Other than poking at other blog posts for six hours, no worries, I did that for you.)

Figure out your purpose and point of difference.

Before you start a blog, you need to do a little digging into yourself. There are some questions you need to answer. What’s the point of your blog? Who are you? What do you do? Why are you doing this blogging thing that everyone else is doing? And how are you going to stand apart from the pack?

Sorry, did I go to fast?

Look, I’m a writer. That’s who I am. I write science fiction and fantasy adventures. I’m not about thrillers or mysteries. I’m about adventures. The reason I write this blog is that hopefully (when I figure all this content marketing out myself) someone will buy my books. If I can create a little awareness about wolves and offer some writing advice that’s icing on the cake. But really, I want people to buy my books. With so many books out there, why should they buy mine? And how can I show this to people without outright stating it and sounding like a blowhard? I mean, those are some questions I personally have to answer.

Discover your audience.

There are a lot of people on the internet. There are a lot of websites and a lot of blogs. Who are the type of people that you want stopping by yours? Who are you writing to? What is your weekly or biweekly love letter into the void trying to attract.

These are your audience and your customers. In jargon, this is your target market. I’ve talked about target market before in my fashion business series. Your blog may have more than one audience, one customer. They will be distinctive personalities. And these distinctive personalities, they have questions. And they’re coming to your blog via google or WordPress reader or maybe a link in a forum or wiki to try and find the answers to those burning questions that are keeping them up at night or causing them to complain to their best friends over text or instant messaging or their captive family at the dinner table or in the car. (We’ve all been there, admit it.)

As a writer, I have at least two different personalities that I’m blogging for. I’m blogging for readers. And I’m blogging for other writers. (Though I probably don’t have to do so. There are a ton of writer advice blogs out there.) And yes, while a writer may read. They have different needs when they are reading rather than when they are writing. I need to cater to both of those audiences and answer their questions.

Find the overlap between what you do and what the customer likes (loves and wants), worries about and pays attention to.

Time for a handy Venn diagram.

The Overlap Between You & Your Reader

On one side, we have us, the blogger. As a blogger, we’ve got some sort of reason why we’re blogging. I’m a writer. I write books. I write blog posts in hope that someone will like me and buy my books. I write blog posts for other writers, authors and creators to help lift them up and go “It’s tough but we can do it.”

On the other side, I’ve got the people who I want to buy my books, the customer, the reader. The reader has things that they care about. There are things they need to know. They have questions about my books and about me and they want to come to my blog to see if they can find out stuff about them. There are also other authors, they want to know my story and if I’m remotely successful.

In the middle, that’s what I need to be writing about in my blog. Where what I do, the information I have, overlaps with what the customer and my blog readers care about.

Use your voice.

Be personable in your writing. Write like you speak. If you’re a warm and funny person who is full of jokes and asides, hey put in the jokes and asides. Be emotional. Be honest. Don’t be afraid to put out your personal truth. People respond well to that (both negatively and positively.) Your voice, the way you write and your style is individual to you. It can’t be necessarily duplicated.

I checked my overall WordPress stats for this year. One of my more popular posts is about how creativity is like making a risotto. It was a personal story about how my friend Becca and I create and cook differently. (And that it’s okay.) It was a funny personal story that resonated with me on a Monday morning so I wrote about it.

No matter what types pf blog posts you use to try and gain traffic to your site and motivate and retain your audience, whether their lists or Q&As or How to Posts or stories, use your personal experience and tone.

Yes. Some people aren’t going to read it properly or ignore what you say in favor of their own biases. Others will find the truth and the comfort in what you’re saying.

But at the same time…

Keep it Professional

What I mean by keeping it professional is, check your sources, keep profanity to a minimum, check your images for copyright and focus on how your personal life is intersecting with your professional life in funny and heartwarming ways. And for the love of little green apples, check your spelling and grammar!

Look, there are just some things that don’t belong on a professional style blog. Your readers don’t want to see 101 selfies of you unless you're a fashion icon. Sure, if you’re a writer, your readers would love to see pictures of you at events with them.

Let’s take the above example about me making a risotto. No one wants to hear about me making a risotto. It’s boring. That’s what personal Facebook and Instagram are for, but I took my foray into making a risotto and spun it to focus on my writing, on my craft, on what I do. I was able to link it to my professional life. Suddenly instead of being a silly story about me accidentally making a risotto, it’s a silly story about me accidentally making a risotto and writing all at the same time. As a post, it worked. It drew traffic. It was a funny story that my audience appreciated and has garnered a goodly amount of views for a post that isn't linked anywhere else.

Once you figure out the middle ground between who you are and who you’re trying to reach, then you’re well on your way to finding a good, personable, and professional content strategy plan.

Really, the last few days has been wading through blog posts full of jargon, on top of jargon, that leads to more jargon. There is apparently more, like types of blog posts and a “content amplification strategy.” I think that’s, how to go viral or close to it? Basically, how are you marketing your marketing?

There was a reason I wasn’t doing Fashion Business. But here I am. So, if you use my landing page as a way to view my blog, you may notice some changes in the upcoming weeks or days.

I need to make a plan. A content strategy plan because I think I’m leaving out my most important audience… my readers!

Good luck and I hope this helps someone else.

#writblr #wrtblr #blogging #content marketing #marketing advice #marketing tips #book marketing #self publishing #self pub

0 notes

wineanddinosaur · 6 years

Text

What We Ignore When We Toast the ‘Top Five’ Women in Whiskey

Heather Greene needs another article about women in whiskey like she needs a raging case of shingles.

“‘Top Women You Should Know in This Industry.’ ‘Top Five Women Who Are Busting It Up.’ It drives me nuts,” says Greene, the author of “Whiskey Distilled: A Populist Guide to the Water of Life” and all-around whiskey expert. “Are women supposed to be inspired just because another woman is in the job? That doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m not interested in women for women’s sake.”

By highlighting the success of women in whiskey, tech, politics, or other male-dominated industries, Greene says, these breathless headlines risk devaluing individual achievements. Besides, Greene has devoted her professional life to rigorous study of whiskey and is currently writing her second book on the topic. Should she be featured next to a semi-professional Instagrammer just because they’re both women?

Greene’s arguments are valid. Still, it’s slightly awkward because I am, indeed, interviewing her for an article about women and whiskey — specifically, the chain of mentorship and influence among women in the industry.

Young Kim, beverage director of NYC’s Flatiron Room, was a bartender when she met whiskey educator Heather Greene. Credit: TheFlatironRoom.com

My conversations with Greene and other women in the field reveal extremely modern truths. Instead of promoting tokens, or pretending gender doesn’t exist, we need to talk more about why having women and other minorities in visible leadership positions is important.

Recognizing the accomplishments of women and other minorities should be our first step, not our finish line. We need to explore the politics of being first, and the intense scrutiny that accompanies every freshman class, from distilleries to the U.S. Congress.

I can’t wait until the day when gender doesn’t matter. For now, it does.

An Extremely Short History of Women in Whiskey

Whiskey and all spirit distilling is male-dominated because, historically, the only paths in were via trades occupied by men.

“You might have worked your way up from a warehouseman to a mashman and so on,” Dr. Rachel Barrie, master blender at Glendronach, BenRiach, and Glenglassaugh, says. “There were very few if any women who got in. That route was closed.”

Only within the last few decades, as global appetite for single malt exploded and legacy brands were acquired by large multinationals, have there been more ways to get a job in whiskey.

“People are entering the industry who never would have had a chance before. You might have someone who has a history degree or a science background becoming a blender,” Barrie says. Her own career in chemistry put her on a path to become the first woman master blender of Scotch whisky.

Heather Greene first met Barrie 15 years ago while attending a sensory perception training at Glenmorangie. Barrie led the workshop, teaching the participants the science behind what they were smelling and tasting.

“I was in awe of her,” Greene says, “Not because she was a woman but because what came out of her mouth was fascinating. She made whiskey sound so enticing and wonderful.”

Barrie went on to mentor Greene, and the two found they had much in common beyond a shared passion for whiskey.

“Dr. Barrie sees the world as a poet does,” says Greene, who was a musician before making the leap to spirits. “The vocabulary she uses — I relate to that. I felt an affinity with her and the way she sees life. It’s not just whiskey; it’s beauty, it’s history, it’s how she views the world.”

Best Overall, or Best Woman?

When Greene talks about Barrie, the respect she has for her is clear. So is her stance that prioritizing Barrie’s gender over her work does a disservice to her accomplishments. When Barrie received an honorary doctorate from her alma mater, the BBC reported that she was “the first female master blender” to be so recognized.

Greene responded with her own article in the Daily Beast in October 2018. She clarified that Barrie was, in fact, the first master blender — male or female — to receive that honor from the University of Edinburgh. It was important to her to remove the metaphorical asterisk next to “female.”

“It bothers me,” she says. “The asterisk is crap. Let’s not reduce this woman’s career to ‘she’s achieved this among 50 percent of the population.’ She’s achieved this among 100 percent of the population. It’s not about who she is, it’s about what she accomplished.”

As Greene’s career in whiskey flourished, she became the director of whiskey education at the Flatiron Room in New York, where she briefly overlapped with a woman just starting behind the bar, Young Kim.

“I was wowed by Heather,” Kim says of Greene. “She was very knowledgeable and passionate. I wanted to be like that.” But, she is quick to add, “it wasn’t because Heather was a woman.”

As Greene did when talking about Barrie, Kim emphasizes that Greene’s gender is not the point. To express her admiration, Kim uses careful statements like, “she’s an individual person who worked very hard for her goal.”

“‘Top Women You Should Know in This Industry.’ ‘Top Five Women Who Are Busting It Up.’ It drives me nuts,” Heather Greene says. Credit: Instagram.com/thewhiskeyauthority

It makes sense that these accomplished “individual people” would bristle at being perceived as most notable for their gender. Doubtless, they have butted up against instances of tokenism or have had people presume that their career achievements are attributable to the trendiness of diversity, not because they’re the best at what they do.

Such qualifiers are devastatingly pervasive. In May 2018, when tennis’s Roger Federer told WSJ. Magazine he believed Serena Williams was the sport’s best player, writer Jason Gay requested clarification: “I have to ask: Did Federer, considered by some to be the tennis GOAT (Greatest Of All Time), just suggest Serena was the GOAT? Did he mean GOAT on the women’s side — or overall?”

(Federer, who has 20 Grand Slams to Williams’ 23, did, in fact, mean that Serena is the GOAT. Full stop.)

It’s worth noting that Barrie, who entered the whiskey industry a decade or so before Greene and Kim, seems less bothered by that persistent asterisk. This might be because Barrie came of age at a time when the idea that she might have risen in the ranks because of her gender, rather than despite it, would have been laughable.

Exceptionalism

Kim tells a story about a previous position she held, working in a Michelin-starred sushi restaurant where the chefs only spoke Japanese. The specials had to be translated to her by other servers, which annoyed the hell out of her. What if she was missing some nuance? So she taught herself Japanese, and two months later was reading the specials herself.

“You do have to hit the ball harder,” Greene says. “I knew that I had to be better. It’s just part of the game.” It’s a sentiment shared by minorities everywhere.

“You have to be excellent,” Barrie says. “Women don’t tend to be invited to the golf club — there’s not so much of that now, but there used to be — so you have to be extremely hardworking because you can’t rely on that.” Barrie recalls doing distillery trials in the middle of the night, staying up three nights in a row to take samples off the stills. “It’s just who I am,” she explains. “I always push myself.”

To have all that dedication and grit reduced to a novelty headline — “Whiskey: Now for Girls!” — must be tremendously frustrating.

Golf And Unconscious Biases

Last year, Greene led a session at the Women’s Media Summit in Provincetown, Mass., teaching a roomful of female filmmakers some basic whiskey vocabulary.

“Getting a film financed sounds like a nightmare, and it’s so hard for women,” Greene says. “What I was doing was teaching women the language of whiskey so that when they’re in meetings with men, they have a voice. Even if they hate whiskey, they need to know how to talk about it, just like women had to know about sports and golf.”

Perhaps Greene wasn’t drawn to Barrie because she was a woman. Maybe she was drawn to her because she saw a fellow traveler, someone with a similarly outrageous work ethic and a voice that resonated with her. As she says, they have a shared way of looking at the world.

And perhaps this is the same way men are drawn to one another — not because of conscious sexism or primal maleness but because of a common vocabulary, parallel life experiences, and kindred way of being. Because of golf.

When someone in a leadership role sees a glimmer of themselves in a plucky up-and-comer or when a bright young thing recognizes that they have something in common with a person in a powerful position, it can impact her career in both subtle and explicit ways. It would be foolish to think that gender — or race or sexual orientation or any of the other innate traits that impact how humans are socialized — plays no role in the forging of relationships.

Young Kim went on to become the Flatiron Room’s beverage director and a respected whiskey expert in her own right. Kim tells me that she delights in subverting customers’ expectations. “I don’t look like a boss,” she says. “It’s not only because I’m a woman; I just don’t look like somebody who knows a lot.” What does a boss look like then? “The tall male staff look — I don’t know, higher in rank?”

But Kim is a boss. And because of her — and Greene, and Barrie — maybe some young women just starting out in the world of whiskey will think a boss looks exactly like someone like Young Kim.

The article What We Ignore When We Toast the ‘Top Five’ Women in Whiskey appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/women-whiskey-politics-distilling/

0 notes

gonebravewoman-blog · 6 years

Text

Gone Brave Woman Weekend Retreat - Relax Into Life

Beautiful Sisters,

I’m writing you from a space where I actually experienced space – space from my stories, space from all the stuff I tell and label myself, life and people around me. It’s a new interesting thing for me to choose my reality. To stop being a victim of my circumstances but actually realize that I have such a huge power over how I show up in my life and experience the challenges. How can I relax more into life? Build trust? And keep moving at the same time?

Emptying out… Sounds scary to give all away…but what sweet relief. What sweet gift of seeing and feeling you are light. You are a soul – whaaaat. Yup. Radiating light. You are so beyond all that you tell yourself every day.

“COURAGE IS A LOVE-AFFAIR WITH THE UNKNOWN. (OSHO)”

I’d like to take you to that space – space of emptying out in nature with other amazing women – that have different stories attached but are the same essence, same light, same radiating heart calling them and your home.

I’m inviting you to join me from August 31st until September 2nd for a weekend in nature with sisters, joy, relief, sharing, caring, amazing food, good wine and sweet cakes in Ticino – the beautiful Italian part of Switzerland.

A weekend to empty out from the active summer season and moving in and beyond your body through yoga and many other helpful tools that you can take and bring into your everyday life to feel ALIVE. Because that’s what matters and sometimes we’re too caught up to see and distance ourselves from what’s happening outside and what’s actually calling from the inside.

EnJOY with me and 11 other sisters an intimate gathering for 2 nights and 2 days in beautiful Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland. Let’s celebrate the sweetness of life and liberate the wild courageous woman inside of us. You already are… the time has come to deeply recognize it from your heart.

Details:

~ max. 10 women plus Linda and I ~ we’ll sleep and spend time in a beautiful Rustico in Ticino with a big lush garden to relax and nurture yourSelf ~ we’ll move our bodies, touch our hearts, expand our breath for life and FEEL ~ we’ll enjoy amazing food, swim (naked) in wild waters, have wine and green smoothies, have adventurous walks in the woods, create ceremonies in nature and just connect to our true Self and practicing LIVING YOGA with the helpful tools that Yoga has to offer – from working with Wisdom Goddesses to find your voice and power center to complete relaxation and floating in Yoga Nidra and Yin Yoga – I’m a 300 hours certified Yoga Teacher and will be trained another 50h this June in Yin Yoga. I believe in Living Yoga and using all the tools I have to live a life aligned with my heart desires. Yoga offers tools to manage our systems and so be able to show up for ourselves and the world.

~You investment is CHF 525.- (early bird until 15th of May/454 Euro) and CHF 666.- after the early bird price (575 Euro) and includes 2 nights, 2 dinners, 2 brunches, coffee/tea/fruit/cake surprises, 1 opening & 1 closing ceremony, 3 x yoga play session, ecstatic blissful dancing, cacao ceremony with my friend and yoga teacher Linda and in between time to connect naturally either alone or with others ~ before the retreat you’ll prepare yourSelf with the Good Girl Gone Brave Woman Course which is included in the retreat

I’m offering one sister that is struggling financially the opportunity to join for a discounted price and instead invest her energy and love with me in the kitchen. just hit me an e-mail if you really wanna join and also love to help create beautiful nourishing meals for us and our goddess sisters. (note: this space is taken)

This retreat is for you if your heart calls you, it’s for you even if your knees might shake because you want to finally feel ALIVE, RADIANT and in TUNE with your inner guidance system. You want to LIVE FULLY WITH ALL THE INTENSITY OF LIFE – joy and terror, bliss and pain – instead of keep numbing yourself because of fear.

Reserve your spot now via [email protected] and let me know WHY you wanna be part of this journey.

TESTIMONIALS

“I believe that if there is something you need in order to move forward, the universe will send you on a journey. The 14 days of brave women was a journey like that. Aleks created space for everyone to go deep within and allowed us to examine our beliefs and patterns that no longer serve us. I loved that the exercises were simple, to the point and that I could really focus on the parts of me I used to look away from. I am grateful for connecting with all women who participated, the love and support that were omnipresent in any form of our communication. What I really enjoyed was that it wasn’t all positive affirmations and sugar coating. In the most loving way, Aleks made me face my own *shit* and lies I was telling myself. That helped me incredibly to dissolve the old concepts and I connected with the raw, authentic and wild woman that I am.” (Linda Bezdekova, Czech Republic)

“When I first read about this course the outline instantly resonated with me, even though I had no idea what it would be like exactly. And I am so so glad I joined. To kick the year off by tending to myself, facing my inner issues, shits and truths, turned out to be very insightful and precious. Every day’s ritual revealed another layer of my own truth and I can already feel a shift for me and notice that I am becoming more and more aware about situations, emotions and actions I need, or rather want, to work on. I especially enjoyed the journaling exercises and being connected to a community of truly inspiring women. Sharing my own insights with them, and especially with my soulsister buddy Céline (forever so grateful! ), and reading about their experiences pushed to continue working on myself. And made me realize: we are all connected, we all carry our package, we’re all walking each other home in the end. As I am not a superstitious person per se and have a rather skeptical nature, I have to say that I pushed all biases aside and approached the course rituals with an open mind and heart, not taking everything too seriously – thus I really enjoyed almost all of them and was able to take a lot out of this course. Thank you so much, Aleks, for this carefully thought out the course and all the love & heart you put into it for us! Much love to you and my soulsister community here ” (Karina Seidel, Switzerland)

You can find more feedback on my website wonderful sister..<3 but the truth is that if your heart is calling you, it is the right thing. No matter who says what – good or bad, amazing or fearful – your heart truth matters.

Once you registered, you’ll transfer the deposit of 200 Swiss Francs, which is not refundable. The investment doesn’t include any transportation or any extras you wish to enjoy for yourself. With paying the deposit, the process already is starting – it will build up until the retreat and you’ll also feel the effects of it. Also, I am able to offer you a space to sleep in Zurich if you’re arriving from another country.

So excited to do this amazing adventurous inner work in beautiful and abundant places with you my dears!

With much LOVE from Goa, Aleks

0 notes

bohotraveller-blog · 7 years

Text

Unravelling a Tiny Himalayan Town you are Hearing for the FIRST TIME!

Some places are special because they hold fond memories of the past and some are simply enchanting to the core, this really tiny town in the Himalayas is both! I am a little biased because Sujanpur Tira in Himachal Pradesh happens to be my hometown as well. I can probably never get over the reminiscence of my childhood when summer holidays meant escaping the scorching heat of South India and diving right into the lap of this quaint but beautiful town that enjoyed cool weather all through the blistering heat of Indian summers. The lofty peaks of snow-covered Dhauladhars were like soul therapy and wood oven cooked mutton curry with rice, a meal where an entire family came together. Those days Sujanpur was every bit Himalayan with signature mud house and slate roofs. All cousins would get together, climb trees, bath in springs and rivers, eat the most awesome food. To sum it all, that was the life! Today as I fondly remember those days, it strikes me that this town has quite a bit to offer to visitors who are looking for something offbeat. From restored ruins of old palaces, heritage structures to lip-smacking street food, this tiny lil thing packs a punch!

Baradari....The enchanting Military Palace

Baradari is actually known as Katoch Garh, it is a military fort palace that was built in 1750 by Maharaja Abhay Chandra of Katoch dynasty. It suffered heavy damage in 1905’s earthquake but now full-scale renovation has restored much of the older glory of this beautiful edifice. There are green grounds here for picnics and a view of the Sujanpur Tira town from the cliff. The complex is quite extensive and you can roam and explore the palace for hours. There is no guide here, and the place usually has only occasional local visitors. If you ever wanted to lose yourself in the corridors of history this is the place to be.

Narwadeshwar Temple

Just off the busy bazaar and its congested street, turn to this temple takes you to a different world in a matter of seconds. This temple was also built by the erstwhile rajas and this is why the architecture resonates with the fort and palace perched high up from the main town. Dedicated to Lord Shiva, it is made of stone and has a huge verandah and a terrace which overlooks the mighty river Beas. None of our visits to this temples have ever been complete without spending time on the terrace witnessing the sunset and chattering away to glory.

Goofa

This is one more of my favorite spots where this natural spring water flows from the deepest caverns of the mountains. The water is super cold and sweetest you will ever have! Remember those packaged bottles that boast of Himalayan spring water and charge you a bomb for it? Well come here and drink right from the source....you will know the difference!

The Mighty Beas

Before I even begin to talk about Beas, here is a word of caution about the Himalayan rivers. They are dangerous, unpredictable and have strong undercurrents. So even the water that looks calm may simply drag you off easily. So it goes without saying that entering the river has always been a big NO. We would venture into the river only with elders or cousins who knew where one could get into the water. We also had a technique of keeping an eye on the level of the river. The second we saw a rise, we would just run out the water. But that bridge you see in the picture, well that is where we usually carry amazing street food and watch the sun go down. If you want to go down to the river, always take a local and if that is not possible always check with a local about the safe zones and things to keep in mind.

Picnics in the Woods

As you take a walk to the outskirts of Sujanpur, either towards the old fort or towards Hamirpur, the woods greet you on both sides of the road. The pine forests are lush and give out the most amazing scent you would have ever come across. On a beautiful sunny day, it is just the place to spread a picnic blanket, put on your favorite music and eat some knick-knacks. It was always the best way to catch up with everyone and indulge in some harmless gossip!

The Rope bridge

When we were small, coming here meant we had this huge swing all to ourselves! Yes, it swings with the wind and if you stand and hold the railings while moving side to side, it definitely swings along! But it is completely safe, in fact not too long ago, even cars would pass on this bridge. Now they have finally made a concrete bridge that you can see on the right side.

Street Food

Every evening Sujanpur comes alive with locals thronging the grounds. Families come out, kids play around and groups of youngsters can be seen having a good time over street-side food. Juicy fried chicken, fish, momos, spicy chats, lip-smacking paneer pakora with chutney stuffed inside and Chinese food! In fact, they have a really popular chat corner called "Sonu ki Chat", people from all around the place come here to get some packed!

Festivities..........

The image above shows a local folk dance called "Tammak". The famous Indian festival of color, known as Holi, of this small town is quite famous. Holi sees a big carnival being set up in the town grounds for almost a month! Yep, I was lucky to have been here when the festival was being celebrated and it was unlike I have seen anywhere. Since its really cold, no body plays with water, instead Holi happens to be celebrated with a lot of civility here. It is all about shopping, eating out an enjoying on the giant wheels! It also provides a great opportunity to witness local culture, folk dances, artistes, handicrafts etc.