#I mean I’m sure plenty of people who code and do programming are also bottom up processors

[dykesynthezoid]

Ahh I get why I never got into computer stuff now. Think we may have a fundamental difference in learning styles, modes of processing information, and structural perspectives on our hands

[kpopscenarios4u-blog]

Choose Your Own Romance: Series One - BTS (We Got Married) - Intro

Chapters: Start -> Athlete Path -> “The only thing I truly dislike is being in a place with stifling air. If the relationship was stifling, I think that would be the only deal breaker I would have.”

Your name: submit What is this?

Your morning was spent like most mornings. A nutritious breakfast, and then on to training. Since you lived at the Korea National Training Center, you preferred to walk from the dormitories to the training grounds. They were building a new center in Jincheon-gun, but it wouldn’t be opened for another year, so a lot of your seniors lived off-site. You enjoyed living at the Training Center, however. Your only living family member was your grandmother who lived in the countryside, so living in the dormitories was like having a large family. You liked having a family. One day, you wanted a large family with a lot of children. Of course, your dream to win a gold medal came first and there was plenty of time to still have a family.

Part of the reason you were so willing to go on this variety show was to experience what it was like to have a family. You parents had died when you were very young, and you’d lived with your grandparents until you entered the athlete training program on a scholarship. You’d been 11 and at first it had been exciting living away from home, and while you loved living with like-minded people, you did wonder what a real family was like.

Your training program started with some stretching before you moved on to a light jog to warm up. The camera crew began to show up just as you were completing your jog and moving on to your pole vaulting training. You watched them set up for a moment before pushing them from your mind and focusing on your training. If you were going to be someone’s wife, you’d be a wife to make them proud. Halfway through training, your coach called you over. 

“Y/N! Your husband will be coming to watch you train as part of your meeting.” He informed you. Nerves suddenly engulfed your stomach and you paled slightly. It wasn’t often that people came to watch you train. Usually, the other athletes had their own training to worry about. Occasionally your nutritionist or important committee members would stop by to watch you, but that was fine. The whole nation could stop by to watch you and that would be fine. You’d competed on the world stage at the previous Olympics, and that was fine, but knowing that your husband would be coming to watch you train made you nervous. 

You wanted to say that it wasn’t fair. He would have the upper hand and know who you were first. He’d get to see you in action. What if he changed his mind and decided that he didn’t want to marry you after seeing you? What if you weren’t pretty enough for him? You’d been told that you were beautiful. You’d even been in an article for the top 20 most beautiful athletes of the country, but that didn’t mean you appealed to everyone. You’d never cared what other people thought about your looks before, so why did you care now? This was only a fake marriage, so it didn’t matter.

Instead, you nodded and went back to training, unaware that your future husband was currently making his way into the grandstands.

“Hello, I’m V and today, I’m getting married,” Taehyung said, bowing to the camera and flashing his square smile. 

“What sort of marriage do you hope to have with your wife?” The interviewer asked, causing Taehyung to stop and think about it.

“I think I’d like to be good friends with my wife,” He couldn’t help but grin at the word, his ears turning slightly pink. “I’d want things to be like they are with my close friends, but obviously, we’d be married. As I’m quite young, it would be nice to experience a lot of firsts with her and learn how to be a strong couple together.”

“Who would be your dream wife?”

“I think it would be nice to marry someone outside of the music industry, so I can learn more about other industries - maybe a model or an athlete. Having an athlete for a wife would be very interesting.”

You finished off your training session with another run around the track and more stretching. You’d been a little distracted towards the end of your run, trying to spot your husband in the stands. He must have been taken somewhere else to meet you, however, as you hadn’t been able to find him.

Maybe your coach had just told you that he would be there to get you used to competing under pressure.

However, your end-of-training debriefing was condensed as you were sent off to the showers to wash off and prepare for your meeting. Your shower was followed by hair and make-up - something that felt very odd to be having done in the locker room. You were given clothes to change into, much nicer clothes to the skinny jeans and hoodies that you were used to wearing. Thankfully, the short blue spring dress was paired with a comfortable pair of gray vans. At least you wouldn’t have to move your lanky, long limbs around in heels and make a fool of yourself. 

It wasn’t like you weren’t used to dressing up. Occasionally, you’d be invited to a gala dinner or an award show. After the last Olympics, the athletes had been invited to a fancy dinner thrown by the President of South Korea. You’d barely been 16 - having celebrated your 16th birthday the day after your win - so you’d been dressed much more demure than you were able to get away with now. Still, you prefered flats to heels. Besides, you were already uncomfortable without having to worry about heels, as well. 

As you were leaving the locker room, you were met just outside the doorway with a camera. Attached to the bottom of the camera with a wire hanger, was a maroon envelope. You smiled shyly and reached out for it. 

Opening up the letter you read it out loud.

Dear Wife, Y/N

In this sport you can kick a ball Or you can also use your head Try not to do a bad tackle Or you’ll be shown a card that’s red

“Soccer? Do I go to the soccer field?” You asked the man behind the camera. He just looked at you with a tilted head. “Oh, you can’t answer me.” You laughed and held up your hands in a sorry gesture. Deciding that that was a good place to start, you made your way to the soccer field. It wasn’t too far of a walk from the track and field stadium. Arriving at the soccer ground you looked around to see if anyone stood out. The men’s Olympic soccer team was training.

“Is he a soccer player?” You didn’t really know any of the men on the soccer team, but one of them noticed you and jogged up to you with a red envelope. You both bowed awkwardly to one another as you took it before he jogged back to his team.

“Oh gosh, that startled me.” You laughed and opened up the next envelope.

Dear Wife, Y/N

Although I’m not a book I need two stories or more I go straight up and down To go to another floor

Well, that one was easy, but which elevator? Was there one nearby? Biting your bottom lip, you looked around confused. Did you interrupt the coach to ask? Surely they were in on this little hunt, or one of the players wouldn’t have had the next card. Stealing your resolve, you strode up to one of the coaches and bowed.

“Excuse me, are there any elevators nearby?” You asked as you straightened up. He nodded and pointed you in the right direction.

“There are dormitories over the road that have elevators. I think that’s where you need to go. Fighting.” He smiled, cheering you on. You returned the smile and nodded.

“Thank you.” 

Turning around you made your way in the direction that the coach pointed. It wasn’t long before you got to the building, but you stopped when there was an envelope attached to the keycode box. 

Dear Wife, Y/N

Solve this math question for the code and then press #: (5000+631)x2/3

Oh God. Math. You always carried a pencil around in your bag, so you dug around for it and used the card to solve the equation. It wasn’t too hard, you’d had harder questions on the CSAT. Once you had the code, you keyed it in and hit the #. The door beeped so you could push it open and make your way to the elevators. Pressing the button, you step back and wait for the elevator to arrive. Once the doors open, you see a cute mailbox standing in the middle of the elevator floor. 

This little treasure hunt had helped to make your nerves lessen, but you were beginning to grow restless. You quickly opened the envelope and read the riddle.

Dear Wife, Y/N

Well done on this hunt so far, just one more step and you’ll find your star.

A thousand wheels, but move I do not. Call me what I am, call me a lot.

What am I?

Grinning, you pressed the button that would take you down to the carpark. When the door opens, a black van is parked in front of you. You waited for a beat for the door to open but it didn’t. Was this even the right place to go? Hesitantly you stepped forward, maybe you had to open the door. As you took that first timid step, however, the door opened on its own and out stepped a familiar face.

“You.” You replied, slightly in shock. 

“Me.” Kim Taehyung replied with a grin, looking just as shocked but pleased. With a blush, you stepped forward and held out your hand.

“It’s nice to see you again, Taehyung-ssi.” You said politely with a bow. He took your hand and gave it a warm squeeze as he returned the bow, unable to take his eyes off you.

“Y/N-ssi, you look beautiful.” His voice was soft, almost like a whispered prayer, before he blurted out “I’m glad it’s you.”

You both blushed, him at his bold words and you because you were flattered and more than a little pleased it was him standing before you as well - not that you’d let him know that, but you laughed together anyway. 

“So, what would you like to do to celebrate our first day of marriage?”

How will you answer?

Take wedding photos

Have a wedding meal

A/N Each point will become a link when they become available. Thank you for your patience!

[nitro-nova]

“C’mon, tell me. Which open source project is the disaster mess?”

We see things like LibreOffice and Krita and VLC it’s like damn, open source software tends to be pretty freakin’ successful. This stuff is phenomenal.

And very hard to program. Not every project is a shining beacon of awesomeness. Sometimes, a project is a mess, especially when it’s ambitious.

Let me tell you about the couch potato of the group. Not necessarily a toxic community kind of place (because nobody wants to deal with that), I’m talking about the open source project that is admitting to their therapist that on a brisk tuesday morning, last week, they wore sweatpants with bed head to the local diner and ate a greasy cheeseburger in the corner before going home and getting a shower.

This is the project that wants to get its life back together but is an absolute mess, right now.

This is

Linux Multi Media System, LMMS, the music making program. Tagline: “It technically works, please forgive us!”

Allow me to introduce you to a contributor’s rendition of the program’s Cartoon Mascot that everyone VERY THANKFULLY abandoned.

H E L L O... H U M A N

It’s not easy to make attractive graphics, but LMMS seemed to have just incredibly bad luck. I won’t name and shame, but you have to admit, despite the amount of work it took to make some of these themes, we’re talking about basic violations of color palette theory.

The software itself is incredibly prone to crashing if you stress it too hard by, say, trying to preview the default sound of certain powerful synthesizers before you properly add them to your project. The UI is loaded with little issues like scaling and accidental mis-clicks triggering annoying effects.

Luckily, they’re on top of these problems because they use an online source code project software where everybody edits their own copy, and that prevents issues with the original version, right?

Oh dear.

One of the major reasons why the project looks so intimidating to contribute to is because half of the issues aren’t actually issues. See, despite its horrendous first impression, LMMS is actually a really cool music making software that is highly ambitious with lots of features for being completely free to use, so naturally lots and lots of fans registered accounts and made 342 open tickets with brainstormed ideas for it. It is an overwhelming amount of passion and support and suggestions for the few who actually do the programming work.

The other reason is that the documentation (as in, documents that explain to new developers what everything in the project DOES) is really lacking!! And it’s in C++, a language that lots of well-meaning newbie developers use to make lots of obscure, frustrating, and easily-made mistakes!

Let’s get into the tongue-in-cheek of these goofballs. Here we have a translation issue that has been labelled as an enhancement because shh we do not speak ill of The Father of LMMS

An ironically named fellow demonstrates that his dialog boxes and buttons and -- okay, actually it’s the ENTIRE appearance of the software -- has been scaled up like 400% and has no idea why. Yes, that’s his itty bitty little taskbar all the way at the bottom of the screenshot! Turns out it involved his configuration, of which he was none too pleased to hear about, considering that it didn’t do this in the previous release.

Poor bear.

Another major issue is with pull requests. When people have a rough draft of a new bugfix or a new feature, they make a “pull request” to merge their code in with the original code. Unfortunately, they’ve got pull requests from as far back as 2018. Peer review needs to happen so that everyone’s sure this doesn’t bring in a whole bunch of unwanted bugs, and they’re also supposed to review the coding style so that it stays consistent and clean.

But these requests are just sitting here. A couple of them don’t even work anymore because the project marched on without them. Maybe something happened to where that code couldn’t be merged in, but this is a rather long buildup of what should be polished up and approved changes.

That’s basically LMMS, right now. It’s a mess. It’s not a serious mess, but it’s a mess, all the same.

It’s not all that gloomy, however. The program works well enough, all things considered. It’s got lots of instruments, you can choose lots of chords to add, the workflow is actually pretty beginner-friendly, and there’s plenty of out-of-box plugins to work for practicing composition and mixing.

There is an interest from talented designers who have strong ideas for improving the software. Certainly it would take a significant amount of work, but the fanaticism is definitely there.

The developers are now looking for talent that can do the tough work of handling documentation, establishing setup and development guides, becoming more attentive with pull requests. A lot of the fundamentally necessary stuff for a project is sought after. And while this is an absolute nightmare project, it is stuffed to the gills with people who regularly show their appreciation.

You can in fact give the software a shot. The developers have a Discord, Github, a wiki, I think they still have a Facebook, and they’re looking for talent.

please help them

[artyrogue]

Blind Date Gaming: Bugs Bunny Collection

There was a time when Looney Tunes were like one of the staples of cartoons. They acted as an inspiration to other illustrators and paved the way for many of the cartoons we know today. As such, it's easy to understand why they were used in so many video games back in the old times. Nowadays they are more or less relinquished for cash grabs like the new Space Jam movie, but in the past...wait no, they were still cash grabs! Crud! There go my debate points on nostalgia! Well, I guess I at least have a case in point: meet today's blind date, Bugs Bunny Collection.

As it would turn out, this is a Japanese game that combines the thrilling action of a game just called 'Bugs Bunny' and its sequel with a clearly obvious name, 'Crazy Castle II'.

Man, the thumbnails look like they were the TI-83 calculator versions of the games

Oh-ho! A double date! Well, I'm not sure if dating the same-ish game twice counts as a double or not, but who cares! Semantics! Let's start with 'Bugs Bunny'. It's vague enough to be about nearly anything! Does it have to do with anvils? Outsmarting hunters? Understanding correct Google Maps directions to Albuquerque? Only one way to find out!

ok it's hotel mario

In a nutshell, you collect carrots by navigating doors, stairs, and pipes, avoiding enemies and using sparse attacking powerups to defend yourself. Out of a nutshell...uhhh...that's really it. There's no clever additions to the levels to spice things up or anything. About the only changes you get in the game is the count of Looney-Tune-themed enemies that want to walk into you. And sometimes that number is a ridiculous slap in the face (and I ain't talking slapstick, Looney-Tunes-type of slap).

Cats...cats everywhere

You can't tell from screenshots, but the controls are horrid. If you start to move down a staircase, you MUST walk down to the bottom. This makes avoiding foes your main issue. You can try to fight some enemies, but attack powerups are rare and the random items you can push into or onto them to defeat them are usually put in dumb locations that really don't foster their use. Enemies will stand still or gravitate back and forth without changing strategies. That sounds manageable, but they will stand still atop a pipe you need to go up, or other times they will refuse to go down pipes, blocking you off from a carrot you need to finish the level. Oh, and one hit and you die. One level had me racing to get a specific carrot before an enemy went up a specific pipe, as he would be stuck forever up there on a 2-tile wide platform. The saving grace for most of the game is that you can, for whatever logical reason, enter a pipe at the same time as an enemy and navigate through without getting hurt. You'll be using the pipe invincibility to avoid a lot of enemies, so get used to watching slow pipe bulges a lot. (That sentence sounds so gross...)

I'm sure there's some lame pun about getting a hare clog in these pipes, but I am plumb out of good puns

So there are 80 levels of this boring, mind-numbing game with shoddy controls and crappy music. And I, like an absolute goon, sat through them all. Some were ridiculously hard, most were simple. Difficulty wasn't linear either, because of course it wasn't! The cherry on top, though, was the lackluster ending that captured my sentiments of this game perfectly:

Brings tears to my eye. And like I mean that I am crying because I want those 2 hours of my life back, dangit

Ugh. Anyway. Let's go to the next! Maybe the programmers learned from their mistakes and improved their formula for Cah-razy Castle part deux!

This one has a story and cutscenes! Far as I can tell, a big doofy-looking witch kidnapped a duplicate of Bugs in drag and locked her in a castle that really doesn't look particularly crazy to me. False advertising, man. Nothing wacky here, just like ring the doorbell and ask to see her gas meter, then find your femme self and bolt! Well, you WOULD, but the navigation of this castle is apparently bloody terrible.

This looks like a really intense DDR song

Luckily, the programming is a bit better this time for movement, and the graphics look a bit better. The core gameplay...well, it's exactly the same. Okay, you can now cross ropes, use a couple new tools to traverse the map, and utilize jump and warp pads to get around, but you still go in doors, avoid walking enemies, use pipes, and collect junk to finish levels. This time, it's keys instead of carrots (because this witch has like 200 different locks on her doors?). Attacking items are more plentiful now, too, and there are FAR fewer levels. So at least there are better experiences somewhere, right? So we good now?

This castle would never get past any house reseller's inspection with a plumbing layout like that

Of course not! Things are still repetitive. The programming is still clunky at times, like when controlling jump pads (which either launch you into space or gently set you 2 block above your position...on the same jump pad). Enemy AI is still atrocious. The icing on the stale, store-bought red velvet cake is the amazing glitch I somehow triggered that replaced the typical non-skippable 20-second clip of Bugs walking slowly to a door that plays after you beat a level with fragments of his head shooting into the sky like fireworks. Now, that would actually be an entertainment upgrade, but all fun halts since the game was caught in some infinite loop, essentially locking me on the end level screen.

I think I found more than 13 bugs here, fellas

So, I figured I'd earned a break after getting an acme-sized headache from these dumb games and just looked up the password to the last level. It wasn't too bad, actually kind of fun, but still had no new features. However! There was another level afterward, and it was a boss fight! You get to shoot arrows at Gruntilda,but man is she cheap. She's invincible most of the time and clips through walls faster'n Wile E. Coyote.

I feel like that's bad broom posture, but whatever. You look like the mayor from Nightmare Before Christmas.

After some rough-ups, I finally nailed her and got a much better ending than the first game. Though like I still don't know who this love interest is? Also, why are there 2 Cupids, and why do they aim like my teammates in Overwatch? It's cool, it looks like Bugs'll get to go on a date of his own after this one. Take her to Crazy White Castle or something.

I like to think Bugs is actually just doing some soul-trapping stare into the eyes of this poor female rabbit while doing some creepy heavy breathing and profuse sweating

Well dang. That was a big ol' adventure, one that I wish I purge from my mind. I'm actually one of the potentially few people who love collectathon-like games (which I guess this one counts as?), but like...please put the collecting in a decently coded and paced game. The lack of building game mechanics, poor controls, boring level design, and overall shoddiness makes me not want to go on a second date with Bugs here again. Although I know of at least one more Game Boy Looney Tunes game, so no escape here. The corporate overlords demand more money! And you should demand this Sprite of Passage for surviving through my whiny rant on a cruddy 90's portable video game!

someone get that catatonic cat a tonic

[anyway-i-love-vanderwood]

Anon requested what romancing Yoosung in the MMO AU would be like, and so, I deliver a rough sketch of a design and the rough sketch of a route!

You are a profoundly busy college student juggling both school and work, so you haven’t had time to try Mystic Message Online - an incredibly popular virtual reality mmorpg - though you’ve heard your friend from school gushing about it basically non-stop since you met him. Said friend’s birthday is coming up though, and he’s ALWAYS wanted you to play MMO, so you decide that… hey, why not pick up a copy, level up a character a little, and then surprise him on his special day by telling him your screen-name so you can play together? It’d make him happy, and said friend is pretty cute, anyway. You can take a little bit of a break from work to have fun with him.

You go to the store and, by sheer chance, are awarded a special, milestone promotional code that will give you a number of rare items, along with a fully leveled character to try the game out with. Sounds great, right? You get home, launch the game, put on the special VR headset that makes everything feel so real, and put in you code.

after a flash of light, something weird happens.

You find that you’re logged into a max-level character with an inventory full of strange items, including a peculiar letter that you open up and read. All it says, in a loopy, elegant script, is you are the key that will unlock this world, and it promptly vanishes after you’ve read it, dissolving into particles that are carried off by the wind.

You don’t have much time to think about that, though, because you are IMMEDIATELY besieged by messages in the guild chat, one of them being from Shooting Star.

[the rest is under the read more!]

At first, Yoosung is so hopeful. He really thought, from the bottom of his heart, that RIka couldn’t be dead. There’s no way! So this has to be her, right? Returning after two years, coming back after having accomplished some mysterious work? She was always getting obsessive over things, always dropping her entire being into her job. She was always fascinated with innovation, so she just - she just -- she just did something drastic as a way to take a sabbatical, right?

Because she knew it was the only way she wouldn’t be disturbed...?

But it becomes immediately clear that, while you may be accessing Rika’s character, you definitely aren’t Rika... and Yoosung - or, as you know him, Shooting Star - becomes your staunchest proponent. He can tell you’re a sweet, gentle, generous person right off the bat! There’s no way you could be some kind of conniving hacker. While the others bicker about what to do, he offers to help you get acclimated to the game, and - as he’s done for so many newbies in the past - Yoosung gives you a tutorial.

He’s helpful, encouraging, sweet, informative, and during a stressful situation, he makes you feel miles better....

....but he also almost immediately starts comparing you to Rika.

“It’s kind of funny, that’s something Rika would say!”

“Keep this up, and you’ll be as good as Rika someday!”

“Good choice - Rika always liked using items like that!”

It makes you feel weird, but you don’t say anything, figuring that this is just a temporary state of affairs....

Until you get a panicked message from guild chat asking you to try logging out. You fail, predictably enough.

No one can log out.

Yoosung, perhaps to the reader’s surprise, immediately freaks out. You’d think this would be his dream come true, wouldn’t you? He’s doing badly in school, he spends more time in MMO than real life - but he immediately begs Seven to find some way to contact the outside world. He needs to talk to his mom! His dad!

His crush!

(his crush? you repeat to yourself, shocked. well, of course it made sense. of course. of course a cute, nice, wonderful, supportive boy like this has - has feelings for someone...)

Yoosung is miserable, but he also knows he can’t show a sad face to you, so he tries to smile and do his best in the world he wishes he could share with someone else.

Rather than trying to investigate how to get out of the world, Yoosung puts on his Paladin gear and goes out trying to help people. There are plenty of lost, scared, players - some are even kids who have been separated from their families! - that he needs to go help. That was what the RFA was supposed to do initially, right? Help people?

He’s a knight that protect’s other’s smiles! The other, smarter people can figure out how to get everybody out. He’s going to make sure they’re ok now. Thinking that this is a valiant mission, you accompany him, all the while trying not to fall too hard for him. He - he likes someone else, and... he keeps... treating you like you’re his cousin.

Like you’re Rika.

You have a long road ahead of you...

Events and story arcs -

Stray Children - Almost immediately, Yoosung gets embroiled in the affairs of the Cherry Hill, which despite the rather unassuming name, is one of the major cities in Mystic Message Online - and the one housing the RFA’s guild hall. Chaos immediately overtakes the city as players panic due to being trapped in the game, which particularly affects the youngest players, who are easy to abuse and take advantage of. You and Yoosung’s first order of business is to protect these players, and through your combined efforts, end up instating the “mentorship program”. You organize a charity society that finds higher level, more experienced players that are willing to “adopt” younger players and be their ‘big siblings’, basically. This helps form partnerships and bonds in a world where so many people have been cut from their friends.

You end up interacting with many of the children, and you and Yoosung have numerous interactions where you act a lot like parents. He jokes that you’d be awesome to raise kids with.

I’m Not Rika! - Fed up with how much Yoosung compares you to Rika - and how weird you feel, having another person’s appearance - you ask the rest of the RFA for advice. Zen JUMPS ON THE CHANCE TO HELP GIVE YOU A MAKEOVER, and the two of you go out to change what you look at!

Yoosung gets mad, saying that they SHOULDN’T BE CHANGING RIKA’S CHARACTER, but Zen fires back that YOU ARE STUCK LIKE THIS, FOCUS WHAT’S IN THE PRESENT, YOOSUNG.

...He apologizes to you, and says that you look really nice.

Cherry Blossom Viewing - Cherry Hill is so known because, in the middle of the city, there’s a hill with an enormous cherry blossom tree that’s rumored to be over a thousand years old. Since Day Zero happened near the beginning of March, about a month after, the Cherry Blossoms are ready to view... And Shooting Star decides to take you!

The players of Cherry Hill have banded together to create a festival, and you and Yoosung helped with the party organizing. The two of you have put a lot of work into helping the town come together, and under the cherry blossom trees, you see it come to fruition...

Seeing the falling petals makes Yoosung worry is this is only temporary peace, but you encourage him, saying that you’re with him 100%. Even if things do get hard - and the murmurings of hardship are stirring, as Mint Eye Cultists are recruiting among the players and promising them power if they swear a pact to the organization - you can handle it together!

Yoosung thanks you. You’re the best comrade-in-arms he could ever ask for! He feels as close to you as he did to Rika!

DAMMIT YOOSUNG YOU THOUGHT CHANGING YOUR APPEARANCE WOULD HELP THINGS

Dungeon Bungle - Seven is becoming more and more certain that the secret to what’s going on is contained within the game, and that it has something to do with you. You, Seven, and Yoosung go exploring some of the new areas added by the update, hoping that something will... happen because you’re there. While you’re exploring, Seven sees something that he wants to look over, and he asks for some quiet while he does it.

You and Yoosung leave, and start talking about... various stuff as you wait. Somehow, you end up getting on the topic of Yoosung’s crush.

This boy is clearly head over heels with how he goes on and on and ON about them, and you’re, uh, despondent but encouraging. T-This is only temporary, after all! You’re sure that.... you’re sure that there’ll be someone else out there for you...

You go take a walk, wanting to pull yourself together, when you’re captured by an ambush of Mint Eye cultists. Your distress call is heard by Seven and Yoosung, who immediately rush in to help you.

With their aid, you manage to escape, and Yoosung hugs you, telling you that he’s not letting you out of his sight! He already lost RIka, he can’t lose you too!

...While this should make you happy, somehow, it doesn’t...

I AM NOT RIKA -  After your encounter with the Mint Eye cultists, Yoosung is starting to stifle you. He wants to support you, he wants to protect you, and you know if you’re ever going to get over him, you need some alone time! When you say that, hey, maybe you need some space, he says that when he gave Rika some space, he missed her killing herself! He’s not going to let you suffer alone!

You emphasize that YOU. ARE. NOT. RIKA, stop comparing me to her! Much like in the canon game, he gets advice from everyone else (who basically all tell him, yeah, Yoosung, ur being dumb), and he apologizes again, saying that he will stop. Things get a lot better between you two - which, namely, means more domestic - and you fall harder for him instead of getting over him.

Shit! He likes someone else!

Festival of Starlight - Autumn approaches, and with the coming solstice, the players start preparing for an ingame holiday called the Festival of Starlight. It’s a week-long celebration of the harvest and a feast before the coming winter, and everybody hangs star-shaped lights up in the cherry trees around town. You and Yoosung go together, and during the night, when you’re looking up at the sky, Yoosung laughs and says that it’s getting harder and harder to keep track of time now. It’s just passing so fast! he wonders... he wonders if he’ll spend his next birthday in the game, too.

You’re like - next birthday???? Wait, has he already had one ingame? And he’s like, oh yeah, it was a few days after Day Zero! He was so caught up with other things that he forgot about it.

wait.

a birthday

a few days after Day Zero? when is his birthday.

March 12, he says, the same birthday as your cute friend who got you to play Mystic Message Online in the first place.

where does he live, you ask. where does he go to school?

He’s confused about your sudden interest in his real life, since the neither of you have really talked about it (since sort of painful to talk about a life you were ripped from...) But he answers your questions, and it’s your town. And your university.

Shooting Star, you ask. What is your real name.

“??? I haven’t mentioned? It’s Yoosung Kim!”

you realize you haven’t mentioned your real name either, and under the night sky, surrounded by a million lights, you tell him, and  Yoosung Kim realizes that, this entire time, he has been standing right beside his crush.

[sualkmedeiors]

The Big Deal About Corporate Social Responsibility

With all the hustle and bustle of the world, it is all too often that we forget the driving human lifeforce that exists in all of us: Helping one another and making an impact on someone else’s life. Why shouldn’t that apply to the business world too? As a social impact director, my job is to ensure that my organization is giving back to the community around us in meaningful and impactful ways.

Corporate social responsibility is a hot topic today and one that impacts everyone—from your corner bodega to Fortune 50 companies. Everyone is impacted. I’m not just referring to the direct impact on the companies that you’re donating to or the tax benefits that you’ll experience (though those are nice too.) Corporate social responsibility can have positive impacts on your business in ways that aren’t a tax write-off or simply feeling good.

In this blog, I’ll cover the “big deal” about corporate social responsibility and its massive impact for your business.

Corporate Social Responsibility Defined

Before we dive too deep, let’s talk about what corporate social responsibility really is—and what it’s not. Corporate social responsibility, or CSR, is defined as how a company integrates their economic, environmental, and social objectives with the goal of addressing stakeholder expectations to sustain or enhance shareholder value. To make it even more simple, CSR is what a company does to assess and take responsibility for their effects on the environment and community.

Corporate social responsibility is not ignoring your impact on the environment or community to then make a large donation to an organization to “clean up the mess.” It is not continuing discriminatory hiring practices and donating to a diverse organization. These practices are dishonest CSR, and they will ultimately prevent your business from progressing.

Here are four ways (of many) that CSR can positively impact your company:

1. Increase Employee Retention

I’m sure everyone has experienced a bad job in their career. You get up in the morning and you REALLY don’t want to be there. You hate the coffee, the smell, the people, everything about it. How proud were you to work there? Did you even tell anyone where you worked, or did you try to skirt the subject? Chances are, you felt zero pride in your work.

Now imagine a company that values you, understands that you have a family who needs you, and that you have a life outside of making them money. Imagine a firm that creates a diverse work environment where you feel not only that your voice matters but also that you bring value beyond your impact to the bottom line.

I imagine you’d feel differently about going to work every day to a company like that. Corporate social responsibility can infuse employees with a sense of accomplishment and pride, improving retention. When you’re doing good beyond selling products and driving revenue, the motivation to go to work every day is a no-brainer.

2. Manage Your Reputation

Companies who take CSR seriously as an opportunity to build their reputation experience improved brand image, trust and credibility within the community. It’s important to be both consistent and persistent in your CSR efforts. (This isn’t a one-and-done reputation fix!). Be persistent in your pursuit of creating a better world.

If your company doesn’t have a lot of direct exposure to customers, this doesn’t mean that you can’t reap the benefits of CSR. Responsible supply chain partnerships are part of a sound CSR strategy, and critical in securing new business. Plus, there is no hiding in the digital age so don’t even try! Instead, create honest and transparent practices that you won’t have to shield from public view.

3. Be on the Cutting Edge of Innovation

CSR is not just about avoiding potential pitfalls. It’s about seizing new opportunities. Not only can you garner new product ideas and deeper insight into your customer’s wants and needs, you can uncover robust new opportunities through innovation. Reporting on your CSR efforts gives you a chance to increase your engagement with customers and dive deeper into what motivates them to brand loyalty. Opportunity exists at every corner.

What’s more, change is truly the only constant. By having your ear to the ground through corporate social responsibility, you’re in a better position to understand and anticipate change. Whether it is changes to environmental regulations, understanding social movements and their purpose, or knowing your exact economic impact, being an informed member of your community will provide you with deep insights into what’s coming in the future.

4. Embrace Change and Make it Work for You

Whitney Houston said it best: I believe the children are the future.

If you’re in an industry where innovation is constant (that’s every industry, nowadays) creating further opportunities for innovation through funding education is imperative. By investing in education through CSR, companies can ensure a bright future not only for themselves but for future generations.

Currently, 78% of high school graduates fall below the benchmark readiness for one or more college course in math, science, reading, or English. Furthermore, STEM jobs are growing at three times the rate of non-STEM jobs between 2000 and 2010. Minorities are deeply underrepresented in STEM fields—just 2.2% of Latinos, 2.7% of African Americans, and 3.3% of Native Americans and Alaska Natives have earned a university degree in STEM fields. This presents a massive opportunity for organizations to help these underserved portions of the population through CSR efforts focused on STEM education.

CSR Opportunities at Marketo

Perhaps the most important part of corporate social responsibility is that the opportunity to create direct and powerful impact exists everywhere you look.

During our annual Marketing Nation Summit this week, we launched our Students at Summit program. Through the Marketo Innovative Academy and our continued partnership with the non-profit organization College Track, the Students at Summit program sponsors first-generation college students studying marketing and business to attend our annual Marketing Nation Summit. By attending, students gained valuable knowledge, insight, and networking opportunities that can propel them into their careers while providing direct access to Marketo employees, customers, and partners. With the Marketo Innovative Academy, our goal is to expose 10,000 youth to STEM by 2020.  As such, since 2016, our student engagement numbers have doubled.

It doesn’t stop there. During Summit, our volunteers and partners also created sensory kits for youth living with autism for the Autism Society of Colorado and partnered with G2Crowd to give a sizeable donation to the Second Harvest Food Bank. During our registration process, we offered a special registration code where a portion of the proceeds from tickets purchased went to the Peninsula Humane Society.

There are plenty of opportunities to give back, but it is up to you to make it happen in your organization.

What corporate social responsibility efforts does your company undertake? How have you seen your efforts impact the business? Tell me about it in the comments. I’d love to hear what you’re doing.

The post The Big Deal About Corporate Social Responsibility appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/modernb2bmarketing/~3/Me7lOWtbjlw/the-big-deal-about-corporate-social-responsibility.html

[racheltgibsau]

The Big Deal About Corporate Social Responsibility

With all the hustle and bustle of the world, it is all too often that we forget the driving human lifeforce that exists in all of us: Helping one another and making an impact on someone else’s life. Why shouldn’t that apply to the business world too? As a social impact director, my job is to ensure that my organization is giving back to the community around us in meaningful and impactful ways.

Corporate social responsibility is a hot topic today and one that impacts everyone—from your corner bodega to Fortune 50 companies. Everyone is impacted. I’m not just referring to the direct impact on the companies that you’re donating to or the tax benefits that you’ll experience (though those are nice too.) Corporate social responsibility can have positive impacts on your business in ways that aren’t a tax write-off or simply feeling good.

In this blog, I’ll cover the “big deal” about corporate social responsibility and its massive impact for your business.

Corporate Social Responsibility Defined

Before we dive too deep, let’s talk about what corporate social responsibility really is—and what it’s not. Corporate social responsibility, or CSR, is defined as how a company integrates their economic, environmental, and social objectives with the goal of addressing stakeholder expectations to sustain or enhance shareholder value. To make it even more simple, CSR is what a company does to assess and take responsibility for their effects on the environment and community.

Corporate social responsibility is not ignoring your impact on the environment or community to then make a large donation to an organization to “clean up the mess.” It is not continuing discriminatory hiring practices and donating to a diverse organization. These practices are dishonest CSR, and they will ultimately prevent your business from progressing.

Here are four ways (of many) that CSR can positively impact your company:

1. Increase Employee Retention

I’m sure everyone has experienced a bad job in their career. You get up in the morning and you REALLY don’t want to be there. You hate the coffee, the smell, the people, everything about it. How proud were you to work there? Did you even tell anyone where you worked, or did you try to skirt the subject? Chances are, you felt zero pride in your work.

Now imagine a company that values you, understands that you have a family who needs you, and that you have a life outside of making them money. Imagine a firm that creates a diverse work environment where you feel not only that your voice matters but also that you bring value beyond your impact to the bottom line.

I imagine you’d feel differently about going to work every day to a company like that. Corporate social responsibility can infuse employees with a sense of accomplishment and pride, improving retention. When you’re doing good beyond selling products and driving revenue, the motivation to go to work every day is a no-brainer.

2. Manage Your Reputation

Companies who take CSR seriously as an opportunity to build their reputation experience improved brand image, trust and credibility within the community. It’s important to be both consistent and persistent in your CSR efforts. (This isn’t a one-and-done reputation fix!). Be persistent in your pursuit of creating a better world.

If your company doesn’t have a lot of direct exposure to customers, this doesn’t mean that you can’t reap the benefits of CSR. Responsible supply chain partnerships are part of a sound CSR strategy, and critical in securing new business. Plus, there is no hiding in the digital age so don’t even try! Instead, create honest and transparent practices that you won’t have to shield from public view.

3. Be on the Cutting Edge of Innovation

CSR is not just about avoiding potential pitfalls. It’s about seizing new opportunities. Not only can you garner new product ideas and deeper insight into your customer’s wants and needs, you can uncover robust new opportunities through innovation. Reporting on your CSR efforts gives you a chance to increase your engagement with customers and dive deeper into what motivates them to brand loyalty. Opportunity exists at every corner.

What’s more, change is truly the only constant. By having your ear to the ground through corporate social responsibility, you’re in a better position to understand and anticipate change. Whether it is changes to environmental regulations, understanding social movements and their purpose, or knowing your exact economic impact, being an informed member of your community will provide you with deep insights into what’s coming in the future.

4. Embrace Change and Make it Work for You

Whitney Houston said it best: I believe the children are the future.

If you’re in an industry where innovation is constant (that’s every industry, nowadays) creating further opportunities for innovation through funding education is imperative. By investing in education through CSR, companies can ensure a bright future not only for themselves but for future generations.

Currently, 78% of high school graduates fall below the benchmark readiness for one or more college course in math, science, reading, or English. Furthermore, STEM jobs are growing at three times the rate of non-STEM jobs between 2000 and 2010. Minorities are deeply underrepresented in STEM fields—just 2.2% of Latinos, 2.7% of African Americans, and 3.3% of Native Americans and Alaska Natives have earned a university degree in STEM fields. This presents a massive opportunity for organizations to help these underserved portions of the population through CSR efforts focused on STEM education.

CSR Opportunities at Marketo

Perhaps the most important part of corporate social responsibility is that the opportunity to create direct and powerful impact exists everywhere you look.

During our annual Marketing Nation Summit this week, we launched our Students at Summit program. Through the Marketo Innovative Academy and our continued partnership with the non-profit organization  , the Students at Summit program sponsors first-generation college students studying marketing and business to attend our annual Marketing Nation Summit. By attending, students gained valuable knowledge, insight, and networking opportunities that can propel them into their careers while providing direct access to Marketo employees, customers, and partners. With the Marketo Innovative Academy, our goal is to expose 10,000 youth to STEM by 2020.  As such, since 2016, our student engagement numbers have doubled.

It doesn’t stop there. During Summit, our volunteers and partners also created sensory kits for youth living with autism for the Autism Society of Colorado and partnered with G2Crowd to give a sizeable donation to the Second Harvest Food Bank. During our registration process, we offered a special registration code where a portion of the proceeds from tickets purchased went to the Peninsula Humane Society.

There are plenty of opportunities to give back, but it is up to you to make it happen in your organization.

What corporate social responsibility efforts does your company undertake? How have you seen your efforts impact the business? Tell me about it in the comments. I’d love to hear what you’re doing.

The post The Big Deal About Corporate Social Responsibility appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://blog.marketo.com/2018/05/the-big-deal-about-corporate-social-responsibility.html

[maxslogic25]

The Big Deal About Corporate Social Responsibility

With all the hustle and bustle of the world, it is all too often that we forget the driving human lifeforce that exists in all of us: Helping one another and making an impact on someone else’s life. Why shouldn’t that apply to the business world too? As a social impact director, my job is to ensure that my organization is giving back to the community around us in meaningful and impactful ways.

Corporate social responsibility is a hot topic today and one that impacts everyone—from your corner bodega to Fortune 50 companies. Everyone is impacted. I’m not just referring to the direct impact on the companies that you’re donating to or the tax benefits that you’ll experience (though those are nice too.) Corporate social responsibility can have positive impacts on your business in ways that aren’t a tax write-off or simply feeling good.

In this blog, I’ll cover the “big deal” about corporate social responsibility and its massive impact for your business.

Corporate Social Responsibility Defined

Before we dive too deep, let’s talk about what corporate social responsibility really is—and what it’s not. Corporate social responsibility, or CSR, is defined as how a company integrates their economic, environmental, and social objectives with the goal of addressing stakeholder expectations to sustain or enhance shareholder value. To make it even more simple, CSR is what a company does to assess and take responsibility for their effects on the environment and community.

Corporate social responsibility is not ignoring your impact on the environment or community to then make a large donation to an organization to “clean up the mess.” It is not continuing discriminatory hiring practices and donating to a diverse organization. These practices are dishonest CSR, and they will ultimately prevent your business from progressing.

Here are four ways (of many) that CSR can positively impact your company:

1. Increase Employee Retention

I’m sure everyone has experienced a bad job in their career. You get up in the morning and you REALLY don’t want to be there. You hate the coffee, the smell, the people, everything about it. How proud were you to work there? Did you even tell anyone where you worked, or did you try to skirt the subject? Chances are, you felt zero pride in your work.

Now imagine a company that values you, understands that you have a family who needs you, and that you have a life outside of making them money. Imagine a firm that creates a diverse work environment where you feel not only that your voice matters but also that you bring value beyond your impact to the bottom line.

I imagine you’d feel differently about going to work every day to a company like that. Corporate social responsibility can infuse employees with a sense of accomplishment and pride, improving retention. When you’re doing good beyond selling products and driving revenue, the motivation to go to work every day is a no-brainer.

2. Manage Your Reputation

Companies who take CSR seriously as an opportunity to build their reputation experience improved brand image, trust and credibility within the community. It’s important to be both consistent and persistent in your CSR efforts. (This isn’t a one-and-done reputation fix!). Be persistent in your pursuit of creating a better world.

If your company doesn’t have a lot of direct exposure to customers, this doesn’t mean that you can’t reap the benefits of CSR. Responsible supply chain partnerships are part of a sound CSR strategy, and critical in securing new business. Plus, there is no hiding in the digital age so don’t even try! Instead, create honest and transparent practices that you won’t have to shield from public view.

3. Be on the Cutting Edge of Innovation

CSR is not just about avoiding potential pitfalls. It’s about seizing new opportunities. Not only can you garner new product ideas and deeper insight into your customer’s wants and needs, you can uncover robust new opportunities through innovation. Reporting on your CSR efforts gives you a chance to increase your engagement with customers and dive deeper into what motivates them to brand loyalty. Opportunity exists at every corner.

What’s more, change is truly the only constant. By having your ear to the ground through corporate social responsibility, you’re in a better position to understand and anticipate change. Whether it is changes to environmental regulations, understanding social movements and their purpose, or knowing your exact economic impact, being an informed member of your community will provide you with deep insights into what’s coming in the future.

4. Embrace Change and Make it Work for You

Whitney Houston said it best: I believe the children are the future.

If you’re in an industry where innovation is constant (that’s every industry, nowadays) creating further opportunities for innovation through funding education is imperative. By investing in education through CSR, companies can ensure a bright future not only for themselves but for future generations.

Currently, 78% of high school graduates fall below the benchmark readiness for one or more college course in math, science, reading, or English. Furthermore, STEM jobs are growing at three times the rate of non-STEM jobs between 2000 and 2010. Minorities are deeply underrepresented in STEM fields—just 2.2% of Latinos, 2.7% of African Americans, and 3.3% of Native Americans and Alaska Natives have earned a university degree in STEM fields. This presents a massive opportunity for organizations to help these underserved portions of the population through CSR efforts focused on STEM education.

CSR Opportunities at Marketo

Perhaps the most important part of corporate social responsibility is that the opportunity to create direct and powerful impact exists everywhere you look.

During our annual Marketing Nation Summit this week, we launched our Students at Summit program. Through the Marketo Innovative Academy and our continued partnership with the non-profit organization  , the Students at Summit program sponsors first-generation college students studying marketing and business to attend our annual Marketing Nation Summit. By attending, students gained valuable knowledge, insight, and networking opportunities that can propel them into their careers while providing direct access to Marketo employees, customers, and partners. With the Marketo Innovative Academy, our goal is to expose 10,000 youth to STEM by 2020.  As such, since 2016, our student engagement numbers have doubled.

It doesn’t stop there. During Summit, our volunteers and partners also created sensory kits for youth living with autism for the Autism Society of Colorado and partnered with G2Crowd to give a sizeable donation to the Second Harvest Food Bank. During our registration process, we offered a special registration code where a portion of the proceeds from tickets purchased went to the Peninsula Humane Society.

There are plenty of opportunities to give back, but it is up to you to make it happen in your organization.

What corporate social responsibility efforts does your company undertake? How have you seen your efforts impact the business? Tell me about it in the comments. I’d love to hear what you’re doing.

The post The Big Deal About Corporate Social Responsibility appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://blog.marketo.com/2018/05/the-big-deal-about-corporate-social-responsibility.html

[archiebwoollard]

The Big Deal About Corporate Social Responsibility

With all the hustle and bustle of the world, it is all too often that we forget the driving human lifeforce that exists in all of us: Helping one another and making an impact on someone else’s life. Why shouldn’t that apply to the business world too? As a social impact director, my job is to ensure that my organization is giving back to the community around us in meaningful and impactful ways.

Corporate social responsibility is a hot topic today and one that impacts everyone—from your corner bodega to Fortune 50 companies. Everyone is impacted. I’m not just referring to the direct impact on the companies that you’re donating to or the tax benefits that you’ll experience (though those are nice too.) Corporate social responsibility can have positive impacts on your business in ways that aren’t a tax write-off or simply feeling good.

In this blog, I’ll cover the “big deal” about corporate social responsibility and its massive impact for your business.

Corporate Social Responsibility Defined

Before we dive too deep, let’s talk about what corporate social responsibility really is—and what it’s not. Corporate social responsibility, or CSR, is defined as how a company integrates their economic, environmental, and social objectives with the goal of addressing stakeholder expectations to sustain or enhance shareholder value. To make it even more simple, CSR is what a company does to assess and take responsibility for their effects on the environment and community.

Corporate social responsibility is not ignoring your impact on the environment or community to then make a large donation to an organization to “clean up the mess.” It is not continuing discriminatory hiring practices and donating to a diverse organization. These practices are dishonest CSR, and they will ultimately prevent your business from progressing.

Here are four ways (of many) that CSR can positively impact your company:

1. Increase Employee Retention

I’m sure everyone has experienced a bad job in their career. You get up in the morning and you REALLY don’t want to be there. You hate the coffee, the smell, the people, everything about it. How proud were you to work there? Did you even tell anyone where you worked, or did you try to skirt the subject? Chances are, you felt zero pride in your work.

Now imagine a company that values you, understands that you have a family who needs you, and that you have a life outside of making them money. Imagine a firm that creates a diverse work environment where you feel not only that your voice matters but also that you bring value beyond your impact to the bottom line.

I imagine you’d feel differently about going to work every day to a company like that. Corporate social responsibility can infuse employees with a sense of accomplishment and pride, improving retention. When you’re doing good beyond selling products and driving revenue, the motivation to go to work every day is a no-brainer.

2. Manage Your Reputation

Companies who take CSR seriously as an opportunity to build their reputation experience improved brand image, trust and credibility within the community. It’s important to be both consistent and persistent in your CSR efforts. (This isn’t a one-and-done reputation fix!). Be persistent in your pursuit of creating a better world.

If your company doesn’t have a lot of direct exposure to customers, this doesn’t mean that you can’t reap the benefits of CSR. Responsible supply chain partnerships are part of a sound CSR strategy, and critical in securing new business. Plus, there is no hiding in the digital age so don’t even try! Instead, create honest and transparent practices that you won’t have to shield from public view.

3. Be on the Cutting Edge of Innovation

CSR is not just about avoiding potential pitfalls. It’s about seizing new opportunities. Not only can you garner new product ideas and deeper insight into your customer’s wants and needs, you can uncover robust new opportunities through innovation. Reporting on your CSR efforts gives you a chance to increase your engagement with customers and dive deeper into what motivates them to brand loyalty. Opportunity exists at every corner.

What’s more, change is truly the only constant. By having your ear to the ground through corporate social responsibility, you’re in a better position to understand and anticipate change. Whether it is changes to environmental regulations, understanding social movements and their purpose, or knowing your exact economic impact, being an informed member of your community will provide you with deep insights into what’s coming in the future.

4. Embrace Change and Make it Work for You

Whitney Houston said it best: I believe the children are the future.

If you’re in an industry where innovation is constant (that’s every industry, nowadays) creating further opportunities for innovation through funding education is imperative. By investing in education through CSR, companies can ensure a bright future not only for themselves but for future generations.

Currently, 78% of high school graduates fall below the benchmark readiness for one or more college course in math, science, reading, or English. Furthermore, STEM jobs are growing at three times the rate of non-STEM jobs between 2000 and 2010. Minorities are deeply underrepresented in STEM fields—just 2.2% of Latinos, 2.7% of African Americans, and 3.3% of Native Americans and Alaska Natives have earned a university degree in STEM fields. This presents a massive opportunity for organizations to help these underserved portions of the population through CSR efforts focused on STEM education.

CSR Opportunities at Marketo

Perhaps the most important part of corporate social responsibility is that the opportunity to create direct and powerful impact exists everywhere you look.

During our annual Marketing Nation Summit this week, we launched our Students at Summit program. Through the Marketo Innovative Academy and our continued partnership with the non-profit organization  , the Students at Summit program sponsors first-generation college students studying marketing and business to attend our annual Marketing Nation Summit. By attending, students gained valuable knowledge, insight, and networking opportunities that can propel them into their careers while providing direct access to Marketo employees, customers, and partners. With the Marketo Innovative Academy, our goal is to expose 10,000 youth to STEM by 2020.  As such, since 2016, our student engagement numbers have doubled.

It doesn’t stop there. During Summit, our volunteers and partners also created sensory kits for youth living with autism for the Autism Society of Colorado and partnered with G2Crowd to give a sizeable donation to the Second Harvest Food Bank. During our registration process, we offered a special registration code where a portion of the proceeds from tickets purchased went to the Peninsula Humane Society.

There are plenty of opportunities to give back, but it is up to you to make it happen in your organization.

What corporate social responsibility efforts does your company undertake? How have you seen your efforts impact the business? Tell me about it in the comments. I’d love to hear what you’re doing.

The post The Big Deal About Corporate Social Responsibility appeared first on Marketo Marketing Blog - Best Practices and Thought Leadership.

from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8217493 https://blog.marketo.com/2018/05/the-big-deal-about-corporate-social-responsibility.html

[wonderwallofthesoul]

Trove Hack

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The fact is that meaning the unique end using the item bot is still confused in the avarice end: there are several lovely co-operative buildings based in the ‘Clubs’, a sort of Guild/private shard crossbreed, but usually everyone’s racing greatly the same thing dungeons over and over wanting valuable experience, precious metal coin and apparatus. |This is certainly like a lot of different the world’s amusement areas mashed with each other, and that also i pray that practically never get offered from context to sound as being a advice. showing up out of Of course kids as if it. wands and masks by reaching points, I very likely could shell out my winnings on building up units that to put together other units or replace blocks together with other hues, I very likely could bit by bit enlarge my ‘Cornerstone’ lingering bottom therefore could incorporate every one of these gizmos, I very likely could strike points vibrant points vibrant points, and Rather than way too much in I very likely could media the amount of money 2 and move a bloody fine dragon for about ten minutes. It is this second option which happens to be most reply to Trove Promo Codes 2016’s achievement: if you want to contain the foundations using the Minecraft valuable experience without having to pay, on this website you want to go. It is effective. guided at a That seemed to be a fact when CoD and WoW had been the only real massive individuals in existence, even so there's a million many types of styles alluring to lots of many types of tastes both in the AAA and indie markets. One do not need having curly hair by themselves throat or maybe be immature/childlike in every experience important for achievement within the older earth as well as their capacity to partner sociably along with individuals to have the benefit of stuff that defined for for children. 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[yooperwolf]

State Infrastructure Project a Key to Michigan Agriculture’s Future

State Infrastructure Project a Key to Michigan Agriculture’s Future

Media contact: Jessy J. Sielski, MDARD Deputy Public Information Officer, 517-284-5725

Increasingly more difficult to achieve in today’s political climate are long-term strategies designed for the greater good—both for citizens and for multiple, diverse industries. However, when Governor Snyder released the 21st Century Infrastructure Commission report last month, it was quite clear that Michigan’s ambitions were exceptional. And when the coordinated, comprehensive plan to rebuild Michigan’s infrastructure comes to fruition, the state will secure its position as one of the nation’s best states in which to live and do business, particularly for those in the food and agriculture industry.

The report includes more than 100 recommendations to address the state’s infrastructure challenges, under the main categories of energy, transportation, water, and communications. Among the numerous areas of focus—and of particular interest to the state’s food and agriculture industry—are roads; water and drains; and access to high speed internet.

In an official statement, Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development Director Jamie Clover Adams said, “These recommendations are the first step in putting a better foundation in place to keep Michigan’s rural communities and food and agriculture growing. Through targeted infrastructure investment, we set the stage for new food and agriculture value-added opportunities and additional jobs in rural Michigan.”

Clover Adams was one of a select number of people chosen to represent the state’s agriculture community on the Infrastructure Commission since its inception in April 2016.

Michigan Farm Bureau Board of Directors member Ben LaCross, who also represented the agriculture community on the Infrastructure Commission said, “This report is the first of its kind in the nation—a blueprint to guide our state toward best-in-class infrastructure for the next 30 to 50 years. In it we addressed things farmers and rural communities really need, like improved road funding and expanded broadband capabilities. Those two issues are key to enhancing Michigan’s agriculture sector as it seeks to expand its markets for agricultural products, and as rural residents look for more opportunities to conduct business online.”

In a recent podcast, Clover Adams and MDARD Environmental Stewardship Division Director Jim Johnson discuss the report and what the endeavor could mean for Michigan’s booming food and agriculture industry.  

Clover Adams discussed the heyday of American infrastructure by saying, “We were the envy of the world in the ‘50s and ‘60s and ‘70s because of our river transportation and our railroads and our roads, and now we’re not anymore. And why is that? It’s because we haven’t put the dollars into that infrastructure to keep it up. And other countries have leapfrogged ahead of us.”

To most Michiganders, the words “infrastructure” and “roads” are synonymous. This also holds true for those in the state who rely on the food and agriculture industry for their livelihoods. One particularly noteworthy reason for this, as Johnson explains, is because of Michigan’s geography. Being a peninsular state surrounded by clean, plentiful water is clearly an asset, particularly for food growers and producers, but it does present some logistical challenges. As Johnson explains, “As a peninsular state, we really have one way in and out of the state of Michigan. So, obviously, quality roads for the movement of farm-related materials are extremely important.”

To address roads and bridges, the commission is looking to invest an additional $1.6 billion in state highway and bridge infrastructure annually, which would be expected to create or sustain 18,000 jobs, increase the gross state product by $1.5 billion annually, increase real  personal  income  by  $1.1  billion  annually,  and  decrease  economic  loss  due  to fatalities. This would be paid for through new revenue from state gas taxes and vehicle registration fees.

There is little argument that Michigan is a major player in American agriculture; however, Michigan’s food and agriculture businesses—as well as the state’s political leaders—recognize that there are tremendous financial opportunities in food processing, also known as “value added.” To take advantage of these opportunities, however, Michigan must first address capacity and environmental issues through infrastructure improvement, particularly regarding water and drains.

“Drain maintenance…is extremely important within Michigan,” said Johnson. “Much of Michigan is very wet—wet in the spring, wet in the fall. That makes it difficult to get onto fields for planting and getting crops off fields at the other end of the season. And so, being able to handle storm water within the agricultural context is extremely important.”

“We need good water and good sewer for these processing activities,” added Clover Adams. “Processing food takes a lot of water and creates a lot of waste water. Many of our rural communities weren’t built for this kind of volume, and so we need those kinds of infrastructures in our rural places so we can process those products and add value in our rural places.”

To address wastewater and drains, the commission is proposing a number of recommendations, many of which focus on coordinating efforts between state and local agencies, as well as updating the Michigan Drain Code to (1) remove inconsistencies and implement performance-based mechanisms, (2) help jurisdictions collaborate to manage storm water on a watershed basis, and (3) allow for performance-based (rather than prescriptive) incentives to encourage property owners to achieve water quality outcomes.

In addition to roads, water, and drain systems, another critical piece of infrastructure—which is often underestimated by those in urban areas—is access to high speed internet throughout the state and the role it plays in modern agriculture and food businesses.

“There’s a lot of high tech farming today that actually requires broadband,” said Johnson. “And this high tech farming, or site-specific farming, requires people to have a lot of very specific information where they’re at on that field, on the globe. Having access to broadband actually allows for a tremendous amount of efficiencies within the ag industry for planting, harvesting, and any other aspect of day-to-day operations…in terms of their decision-making abilities.”

Clover Adams added, “What I really appreciated about this report was that, for the first time that I’ve ever seen, there was an admission that 18-20 percent of the state’s population doesn’t have access to high speed internet. It affects even simple things, like if you want to watch a webinar…or do a video conference if you’re working remotely.

“I’m very much a free market advocate,” continued Clover Adams, “but there are times when the market does not do what needs to be done—and then it’s time for others to step in and make it happen. I think that this is one of them.”

The bottom line for Michigan’s rural communities is that not having access to high speed internet puts them at a disadvantage, both domestically and internationally. Having access gives them options. As Clover Adams explained, “If you’re a young person living in rural Michigan, and you’re not really sure whether or not you want to move to Chicago to start your career or start your business, you have an option if you have high speed broadband in rural places. If you like where you live and you can do it over the internet, you can stay. You don’t have to move to Chicago, and I think that’s really, really important to our rural places and keeping talent in the area as well.”

To help get broadband internet access to Michigan’s rural communities, the commission is proposing a number of solutions, including subsidies to entice investors to provide affordable mobile and fixed broadband access; creating a financing program to remove installation cost barriers for customers who want to pay for one-time costs to connect broadband to their homes or buildings; and establishing a grant or loan program to assist local governments and private broadband providers to support the sharing and joint use of existing assets.

To read the full report, visit www.miinfrastructurecommission.com.

[sualkmedeiors]

The Big Deal About Corporate Social Responsibility

With all the hustle and bustle of the world, it is all too often that we forget the driving human lifeforce that exists in all of us: Helping one another and making an impact on someone else’s life. Why shouldn’t that apply to the business world too? As a social impact director, my job is to ensure that my organization is giving back to the community around us in meaningful and impactful ways.

Corporate social responsibility is a hot topic today and one that impacts everyone—from your corner bodega to Fortune 50 companies. Everyone is impacted. I’m not just referring to the direct impact on the companies that you’re donating to or the tax benefits that you’ll experience (though those are nice too.) Corporate social responsibility can have positive impacts on your business in ways that aren’t a tax write-off or simply feeling good.

In this blog, I’ll cover the “big deal” about corporate social responsibility and its massive impact for your business.

Corporate Social Responsibility Defined

Before we dive too deep, let’s talk about what corporate social responsibility really is—and what it’s not. Corporate social responsibility, or CSR, is defined as how a company integrates their economic, environmental, and social objectives with the goal of addressing stakeholder expectations to sustain or enhance shareholder value. To make it even more simple, CSR is what a company does to assess and take responsibility for their effects on the environment and community.

Corporate social responsibility is not ignoring your impact on the environment or community to then make a large donation to an organization to “clean up the mess.” It is not continuing discriminatory hiring practices and donating to a diverse organization. These practices are dishonest CSR, and they will ultimately prevent your business from progressing.

Here are four ways (of many) that CSR can positively impact your company:

1. Increase Employee Retention

I’m sure everyone has experienced a bad job in their career. You get up in the morning and you REALLY don’t want to be there. You hate the coffee, the smell, the people, everything about it. How proud were you to work there? Did you even tell anyone where you worked, or did you try to skirt the subject? Chances are, you felt zero pride in your work.

Now imagine a company that values you, understands that you have a family who needs you, and that you have a life outside of making them money. Imagine a firm that creates a diverse work environment where you feel not only that your voice matters but also that you bring value beyond your impact to the bottom line.

I imagine you’d feel differently about going to work every day to a company like that. Corporate social responsibility can infuse employees with a sense of accomplishment and pride, improving retention. When you’re doing good beyond selling products and driving revenue, the motivation to go to work every day is a no-brainer.

2. Manage Your Reputation

Companies who take CSR seriously as an opportunity to build their reputation experience improved brand image, trust and credibility within the community. It’s important to be both consistent and persistent in your CSR efforts. (This isn’t a one-and-done reputation fix!). Be persistent in your pursuit of creating a better world.

If your company doesn’t have a lot of direct exposure to customers, this doesn’t mean that you can’t reap the benefits of CSR. Responsible supply chain partnerships are part of a sound CSR strategy, and critical in securing new business. Plus, there is no hiding in the digital age so don’t even try! Instead, create honest and transparent practices that you won’t have to shield from public view.

3. Be on the Cutting Edge of Innovation

CSR is not just about avoiding potential pitfalls. It’s about seizing new opportunities. Not only can you garner new product ideas and deeper insight into your customer’s wants and needs, you can uncover robust new opportunities through innovation. Reporting on your CSR efforts gives you a chance to increase your engagement with customers and dive deeper into what motivates them to brand loyalty. Opportunity exists at every corner.

What’s more, change is truly the only constant. By having your ear to the ground through corporate social responsibility, you’re in a better position to understand and anticipate change. Whether it is changes to environmental regulations, understanding social movements and their purpose, or knowing your exact economic impact, being an informed member of your community will provide you with deep insights into what’s coming in the future.

4. Embrace Change and Make it Work for You

Whitney Houston said it best: I believe the children are the future.

If you’re in an industry where innovation is constant (that’s every industry, nowadays) creating further opportunities for innovation through funding education is imperative. By investing in education through CSR, companies can ensure a bright future not only for themselves but for future generations.

Currently, 78% of high school graduates fall below the benchmark readiness for one or more college course in math, science, reading, or English. Furthermore, STEM jobs are growing at three times the rate of non-STEM jobs between 2000 and 2010. Minorities are deeply underrepresented in STEM fields—just 2.2% of Latinos, 2.7% of African Americans, and 3.3% of Native Americans and Alaska Natives have earned a university degree in STEM fields. This presents a massive opportunity for organizations to help these underserved portions of the population through CSR efforts focused on STEM education.

CSR Opportunities at Marketo

Perhaps the most important part of corporate social responsibility is that the opportunity to create direct and powerful impact exists everywhere you look.

During our annual Marketing Nation Summit this week, we launched our Students at Summit program. Through the Marketo Innovative Academy and our continued partnership with the non-profit organization  , the Students at Summit program sponsors first-generation college students studying marketing and business to attend our annual Marketing Nation Summit. By attending, students gained valuable knowledge, insight, and networking opportunities that can propel them into their careers while providing direct access to Marketo employees, customers, and partners. With the Marketo Innovative Academy, our goal is to expose 10,000 youth to STEM by 2020.  As such, since 2016, our student engagement numbers have doubled.

It doesn’t stop there. During Summit, our volunteers and partners also created sensory kits for youth living with autism for the Autism Society of Colorado and partnered with G2Crowd to give a sizeable donation to the Second Harvest Food Bank. During our registration process, we offered a special registration code where a portion of the proceeds from tickets purchased went to the Peninsula Humane Society.

There are plenty of opportunities to give back, but it is up to you to make it happen in your organization.

What corporate social responsibility efforts does your company undertake? How have you seen your efforts impact the business? Tell me about it in the comments. I’d love to hear what you’re doing.

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