#Imke David

[musicwithoutborders]

Carl Friedrich Abel / Imke David, Prelude

 https://youtu.be/q51dlvo9SgI

[johnnyiscaged]

[ID] an idea for the jewish anarchy symbol. the symbol is the star of david in a circle with an A in the middle. the first image is a digital version of symbol on a white background, the second is it on a pin i made zoomed in on and being held in my hand and the third is the same as the first but with an image mask over it to look like a button/pin [END ID]

fellow jewish punks what do we think of my idea for a jewish anarchy symbol? came up with it last night when messing around with beer bottle pin making and i think it looks pretty neat

design isn't final so if you have any cooler ideas Imk! i think it could work with just the anarchy symbol in the middle without the circle around the star too but my sharpie was bleeding too much for it to look good on my pin Imao

tag me if you use it in any crafts i'd fucking LOVE to see this be a thing

[regioonlineofficial]

Oss - Woensdag 30 augustus vindt voor de de 24e keer de culturele manifestatie het Vierde Beeld plaats in het Barbara park, naast de Groene Engel in de gemeente Oss. Voor dit jaar is gekozen voor het thema ‘Oss got talent’ en we hebben een aantal bekende en minder bekende namen die hun wortels in Oss hebben, weten vast te leggen. Talent dat zijn vleugels heeft uitgeslagen en furore maakt op de Nederlandse podia, maar voor het Vierde Beeld graag terug naar Oss komt. Van gypsy jazz door Alessio Rooders en Roy van der Lee tot doorleefde country van Garden in Gloom, van hiphop door Donker Oss en het unieke talent van singer/songwriter Robin Borneman, dat alles gepresenteerd door Lotte Velvet en omlijst door dans van Daily Dance. Garden in Gloom Twee vrouwen en een gemeenschappelijke liefde voor liedjes die schitteren in hun soberheid: zo simpel is de kern van Garden in Gloom. Het duo bestaande uit Imke Loeffen en Mariska Petrovic eert helden en heldinnen uit de country, folk en bluegrass en voegt hier eigen verhalende songs aan toe. Gespeeld met banjo, gitaar en mandoline en met veel gevoel voor harmonie vervlechten hun stemmen en snaarinstrumenten met elkaar in ongecompliceerde, akoestische liedjes over het leven: bitterzoet, maar o zo mooi. Imke is geboren in Oss en haar opa Louis Jansen was er van 1963 tot 1980 burgermeester. Alessio Rooders en Roy van der Lee Alessio studeerde af aan het conservatorium als flamenco gitarist, maar gaat bij het Vierde Beeld een andere kant van zijn talent laten zien. Samen met vriend en collega gitarist Roy van der Lee speelt hij hotclub jazz, swing uit de jaren 20/30/40, later ook gypsy jazz genoemd. De muziek van Django Reinhardt en het welbekende Rosenberg trio is hij tijdens de pandemie intensief gaan beoefenen. Alessio zal samen met Osse gitaar held Roy van de Lee (die ooit nog met Jimmy Rosenberg heeft opgetreden) een aantal standards uitvoeren. Bij een van de standards, een oud accordeon stuk gearrangeerd voor 2 gitaren, zal Osse wereld muziek danseres Senta Schuijers een dans uitvoeren. Lotte Velvet De presentatie is in de kundige handen van de in Oss geboren en getogen, maar inmiddels in Rotterdam woonachtige cabaretière Lotte Velvet. Ze schrijft gedichten en theaterteksten en speelde in verschillende bands viool, gitaar en toetsen. Haar helden zijn onder andere PJ Harvey, David Lynch en Andy Warhol.​ ​Ze maakte onderdeel uit van het cabaretcollectief CabaRot en studeerde in maart 2019 af bij Studio Selma Susanna in Amsterdam. Ze treedt op als sneldichter en schrijft actuele liedjes voor het programma Andermans Veren. In 2020 won zij de jury- en publieksprijs van het Amsterdams Kleinkunst Festival. In oktober 2022 ging zij in première met haar debuutvoorstelling ‘Ondergrond’ en was al een paar maal te zien in de Lievekamp. Donker Oss Rapcollectief Donker Oss schept een beeld van hun woonplaats en loopt niet weg van het grauwe imago, maar omarmt dit juist en vergroot het misschien zelf wel uit. Zij brachten in 2020 hun tweede album uit en lijken enigszins uit het beeld verdwenen, een van hen woont inmiddels in België, maar we zijn blij dat ze voor het Vierde Beeld uit het duister willen komen. Robin Borneman Tja, wat kunnen we nog zeggen over dit unieke talent dat nog niet geschreven is. In de afgelopen jaren heeft Robin Borneman met zijn verhalende muziek een enthousiaste en trouwe schare fans om zich heen verzameld. Met het in 2019 uitgebrachte ‘Folklore III: The Cradle Tree’ voltooit Robin zijn ‘Folklore’ drieluik, waarvan deel I en II in respectievelijk 2015 en 2017 verschenen. Folklore project ‘Folklore’ is een ambitieus folk-/roots-project en vertelt het verhaal van een reiziger zonder naam die op zoek is naar zijn identiteit. Hoewel muzikaal duidelijk één geheel, hebben de drie delen ieder een eigen karakter. Deel I is vooral avontuurlijk en experimenteel, deel II bovenal duister en zwaar en deel III is liefdevoller en universeler. De trilogie

is met zijn eigen band én met behulp van bevriende muzikanten uit de band Navarone, opgenomen in de studio van Wouter Budé. Voorafgaand aan de Folklore trilogie brengt Robin in eigen beheer maar liefst zes albums uit. Landelijke aandacht krijgt hij met het zesde album 'Home' (2012). Daarvan wordt bij een groot aantal winkels in het land evenveel of zelfs meer exemplaren verkocht dan veel gerenommeerde bands: een nieuwe folk/roots ster was geboren. Robin treed 2 maanden per jaar op voor miljoen fans In 2013 wordt Robin, via een Tom Waits cover, opgemerkt door het Amerikaanse (hard)rock-orkest Trans Siberian Orchestra en ingelijfd als zanger van één van de grootste stadionacts van Amerika. Sindsdien speelt hij jaarlijks gedurende twee maanden - in november en december – zo’n 60 stadion shows op rij voor gemiddeld 20.000 bezoekers per concert. Daarmee komt hij aan grofweg een miljoen toeschouwers op jaarbasis, een statistiek die door geen enkele Nederlandse act wordt geëvenaard. Folklore Trilogie Na de voltooiing van de Folklore Trilogie begint Robin, nu het Folklore verhaal losgelaten kan worden, in alle rust te werken aan nieuwe muziek. In deze nieuwe periode is Robin ook op de Nederlandse TV te zien. Eerst in oktober 2020, in het RTL4 tv programma “I Can See Your Voice”. Zijn deelname daaraan is zo indrukwekkend dat Talpa Robin in 2021 uitnodigt mee te doen aan het succesvolle SBS 6 tv-programma ‘We Want More”. Het programma bestaat uit meerdere rondes en Robin weet door een imponerende versie van Adele’s ‘Skyfall’, de hoofdprijs van €100.000 binnen te slepen. Enige optreden van Robin Borneman dit jaar Robin is momenteel bezig met het schrijven en opnemen van een nieuw album en heeft nog wat andere projecten op stapel staan en wil pas volgend jaar weer de planken opgaan, maar maakt voor het Vierde Beeld graag een uitzondering. Het enige optreden van Robin Borneman dit jaar is dus op 30 augustus in het Barbarapark in Oss. Woensdagavond 30 augustus Barbarapark in Oss, aanvang 20.30 uur, toegang is gratis, maar je kan natuurlijk altijd een vrijwillige bijdrage doen in de collectezakken.

[lesser-known-composers]

Nicolo Borboni (1591-1641) - Solo e pensoso ·

Jean Tubéry · Stephan Van Dyck · Imke David · Christina Pluhar · Jean-Marc Aymes · Gebhard David

[telegion]

undefined

thaT’S MY OPINION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jakegyllenhaalsupportgroup]

ok hear me out: there’s a karaoke night and jake performs ‘and I’m telling you I’m not going’ (like he did in that snl sketch) maybe as a dare or for losing a bet but then everyone is like “shit this is actually pretty good/funny” what would the others sing ?? I feel like Loki would do ‘tequila’ and just stand there with some drink in his hand and the mic in the other just glaring at the group

HOLY SHIT YEAH THIS IS SO GOOD OMG

like Loki is forced up by all his friends (other than David bc Daves a sweetheart and knows how shit peer pressure can be in that kinda environment and also really doesn’t want to go up bless him) and is holding this glass of tequila and all he does is say ‘tequila’ in a really monotone voice while GLARING at the others

And then Robert and Donnie go up and bc they’re cute af they sing a duet of Breakinn Free but start giggling midway through bc they’re SO FUCKING DRUNK

David doesn’t go up bc ANXIETY NO

And Edward gives a DELIGHTFUL drunken rendition of Somebody to Love dedicated to his girlfriend who literally dies on the spot

Jamie uses it as an excuse to pick up girls and coerces one to sing a painfully gross sappy romantic duet with him

Morf Quentin and Lou give a strangely good sing along to Bohemian Rhapsody

And Jack goes up last and is such a little shit that he goes and sings 5, 6, 7, 8 by Steps and finds himself HYSTERICAL bless him

I feel I’ve missed someone out so Imk

[imkarchitects]

Top Architect Quotes Of All Times

Whether you are a hospital architect, hotel architect, educational architect or a residential architect in India take look at daily quotes to feel inspired. You are sure to feel encouraged and motivated with your day-to-day work. Here is a collection of inspiring and timeless quotes about architecture that are everyone’s favourite.

"Architecture should speak of its time and place, but yearn for timelessness" - Frank Gehry

"If a project is intense, valid, and has a powerful idea, its imperfections will be in the background" - Alberto Campo Baeza

"We should attempt to bring nature, houses, and human beings together in a higher unity" - Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

"Any architectural work that does not express serenity is an error" - Luis Barragán

"The difference between good and bad architecture is the time you spend on it" - David Chipperfield

"Recognizing the need is the primary condition for design." – Charles Eames

An idea is salvation by imagination." – Frank Lloyd Wright

"A doctor can bury his mistakes, but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines." – Frank Lloyd Wright

"When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty. But when I’ve finished, if the solution is not beautiful I know it’s wrong." – Buckminster Fuller

"To provide meaningful architecture is not to parody history but to articulate it." – Daniel Libeskind

"To create, one must first question everything." – Eileen Gray

"There are 360 degrees, so why stick to one?" – Zaha Hadid

"One of the great beauties of architecture is that each time, it is like life starting all over again." – Renzo Piano

"The mother art is architecture. Without an architecture of our own we have no soul of our own civilization." – Frank Lloyd Wright

If we learn to build with local materials, we have a future – Francis Kere

"Form ever follows function" Louis Sullivan

"Architecture is the stage on which we live our lives." Mariam Kamara

All the above quotes will inspire you to stay on the top of your work. It will help you build well-designed spaces – one that will be equally valued by a discriminating buyer in the future.

IMK architects one such firm that offers well-designed spaces. One of the top architecture firms in India, IMK expertise's in various sectors from healthcare, hospitality, university, residential to self-redevelopment, etc. With years of experience, the team has stood by the aim to do extraordinary work - to make buildings that serve the users beyond their expectations.

If you are looking for a hotel architect, hospital architect, university architect or a residential architect – look no further than IMK. The team will give you a sense of satisfaction, that the investment done is worth the money spent.

[prettylittleliarsxxxx]

Speaking as a Brit, Troian's accent for Alex was very strange. At some points it sounded Australian :') I love Troian but the Cockney route Marlene seemed to have went with was weird. It's a very niche accent I guess. She should have suggested an Estuary (sp?) accent, which is the one the Tenth Doctor has in Doctor Who (David Tennant is Scottish). I don't like Twincer as a reveal, but I love seeing Troian be able to really act on this show.

I don’t think it was IMK’s decision haha I think IMK just said to go British and Troian wanted to do something the total opposite of Wren. 

I have seen people say like the idea is Alex is a street kid, she’s been in different parts of London, of the UK, been around different people, and so the accent was an amalgamation of all the accents she had heard haha and I like that idea tbh 

[newstfionline]

The Busier You Are, the More You Need Quiet Time

Justin Talbot-ZornLeigh Marz, HBR, March 17, 2017

In a recent interview with Vox’s Ezra Klein, journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates argued that serious thinkers and writers should get off Twitter.

It wasn’t a critique of the 140-character medium or even the quality of the social media discourse in the age of fake news.

It was a call to get beyond the noise.

For Coates, generating good ideas and quality work products requires something all too rare in modern life: quiet.

He’s in good company. Author JK Rowling, biographer Walter Isaacson, and psychiatrist Carl Jung have all had disciplined practices for managing the information flow and cultivating periods of deep silence. Ray Dalio, Bill George, California Governor Jerry Brown, and Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan have also described structured periods of silence as important factors in their success.

Recent studies are showing that taking time for silence restores the nervous system, helps sustain energy, and conditions our minds to be more adaptive and responsive to the complex environments in which so many of us now live, work, and lead. Duke Medical School’s Imke Kirste recently found that silence is associated with the development of new cells in the hippocampus, the key brain region associated with learning and memory. Physician Luciano Bernardi found that two-minutes of silence inserted between musical pieces proved more stabilizing to cardiovascular and respiratory systems than even the music categorized as “relaxing.” And a 2013 study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, based on a survey of 43,000 workers, concluded that the disadvantages of noise and distraction associated with open office plans outweighed anticipated, but still unproven, benefits like increasing morale and productivity boosts from unplanned interactions.

But cultivating silence isn’t just about getting respite from the distractions of office chatter or tweets. Real sustained silence, the kind that facilitates clear and creative thinking, quiets inner chatter as well as outer.

This kind of silence is about resting the mental reflexes that habitually protect a reputation or promote a point of view. It’s about taking a temporary break from one of life’s most basic responsibilities: Having to think of what to say.

Cultivating silence, as Hal Gregersen writes in a recent HBR article, “increase[s] your chances of encountering novel ideas and information and discerning weak signals.” When we’re constantly fixated on the verbal agenda--what to say next, what to write next, what to tweet next--it’s tough to make room for truly different perspectives or radically new ideas. It’s hard to drop into deeper modes of listening and attention. And it’s in those deeper modes of attention that truly novel ideas are found.

Even incredibly busy people can cultivate periods of sustained quiet time. Here are four practical ideas:

1) Punctuate meetings with five minutes of quiet time. If you’re able to close the office door, retreat to a park bench, or find another quiet hideaway, it’s possible to hit reset by engaging in a silent practice of meditation or reflection.

2) Take a silent afternoon in nature. You need not be a rugged outdoors type to ditch the phone and go for a simple two-or-three-hour jaunt in nature. In our own experience and those of many of our clients, immersion in nature can be the clearest option for improving creative thinking capacities. Henry David Thoreau went to the woods for a reason.

3) Go on a media fast. Turn off your email for several hours or even a full day, or try “fasting” from news and entertainment. While there may still be plenty of noise around--family, conversation, city sounds--you can enjoy real benefits by resting the parts of your mind associated with unending work obligations and tracking social media or current events.

4) Take the plunge and try a meditation retreat: Even a short retreat is arguably the most straightforward way to turn toward deeper listening and awaken intuition. The journalist Andrew Sullivan recently described his experience at a silent retreat as “the ultimate detox.” As he put it: “My breathing slowed. My brain settled…It was if my brain were moving away from the abstract and the distant toward the tangible and the near.”

The world is getting louder. But silence is still accessible--it just takes commitment and creativity to cultivate it.

[psychotherapyconsultants]

A Room of One’s Own: Why We Need Space and Quiet

Virginia Woolf believed that if a woman was to write fiction that she must have money and a room of her own. I would say the same for a mental health blogger or anyone in a creative field. Money can be hard to come by. But a creative soul should at least have a fort or office somewhere in her home or in the neighboring vicinity that is hers alone, where she can hang up a “Do Not Disturb” sign. A space to spread out notes and books and journals for days or months on end until the project is finished is, in my opinion, critical to the creative process … and also to your mood.

Toenails, Laundry, and my Bedroom Office

When I left my full-time job at the start of the year, I was back to my desk in my bedroom. The white fold-up table is so close to the bathroom that it prevents the door from opening all the way. On the other side is the dirty laundry baskets. With my son clipping his toenails three feet from me and my husband whisking his dirty t-shirt over my head into the basket, you can imagine how hard it was to form a cogent sentence or to synthesize a study from the Archives of General Medicine. Spotify and earplugs only went so far to a create virtual reality.

One day, in tears, I informed my husband it would be best for our marriage and family life for me to have my own working space, a quiet room somewhere for my brain to wander off and get lost, four borders to protect me from the distraction of toe-nail clipping and dirty laundry. After exploring different options, I set up shop in the building next to his office, which was temporarily vacant.

Four Walls of Quiet and Creativity

Moving into my own office was transformative. I always knew that your environment affects your cognitive process and mood, but I hadn’t realized to what extent your surroundings can either breed or thwart creativity. My own four walls promoted better concentration and fostered imagination. The physical isolation seemed to generate synapses in my brain that helped me to conceive original analogies and be more deliberate in my prose.

Looking back, I’ve always needed space to create. Claiming it hasn’t always been easy. Toward the end of my junior year in college, I went against the wishes of three of my friends who wanted to go in a quad dorm room for our senior year. We could have scored a spacious, plush room on campus. However, I opted instead for a single. As a theology major studying the spiritual writings of the Christian mystics, I need a quiet space to absorb their wisdom, not Bob Dylan blaring in the background or someone chit chatting with her boyfriend on the couch.

In his 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature acceptance speech, Ernest Hemingway wrote:

Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer’s loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day.

The Benefits of Silence

Surely, writers and creative folks require more space and quiet than the average person, but science shows that all humans benefit from a reprieve of noise. Our brains run like the Energizer Bunny. Even when we’re not engaged in a conscious activity, our neurons are synthesizing data and filing memories and making sense of stimuli. According to a roundup of studies by David Gross, silence bears neurological blessings, spurring new cell development in mice.

Imke Kirste, a biologist at Duke University subjected three groups of adult mice to three types of music: music, white noise, and infant mouse calls. A fourth group listened to two hours of silence per day. While the first three groups experienced some positive results, the fourth group developed new brain cells in the hippocampus regions of the brain, responsible for concentration, memory, and mood.

Another study published in Heart journal tested how the human brain reacts to different types of music, again using silence as the control between different music clips. Results showed that when compared to relaxing music, two-minute silent pauses between the music proved more relaxing on than the music. The effect of silence seems to be heightened by contrasting it with noise.

Graduating into Adulthood

There’s also a sense of independence to be gained by having a room of one’s own. The day I carried my initial load over to my office, I felt as if I were graduating into adulthood, or becoming my own person. This sense of autonomy builds confidence and boosts your mood. It’s why mental health professionals encourage people with depression and other mood disorders to learn skills like balancing a checkbook. Just as new brain cells are born to mice in silence, they are generated in humans pursuing activities that make them feel more independent.

It involves an act of empowerment that combats the sense of learned helplessness, a theory conceptualized by psychologists Martin Seligman and Steven Maier in the 1970s — defining the way people feel when they believe they have no control over what happens to them. Every time I heard the clip of a toenail or caught sight of the mound of dirty laundry, I felt like a prisoner to my environment and sulked. The first strategy Seligman and colleagues provide to overcome learned helplessness is to “Change the likelihood of the outcome. Alter the environment by increasing the likelihood of desired events and decreasing of negative events.” In other words, remove yourself from the toenails and the laundry.

Virginia Woolf was wise beyond her years. Creative souls could certainly use some cash because their efforts usually won’t get them rich. But more importantly, they need a place of their own. In fact, we all do — as well as the silence that comes with it.

from World of Psychology https://psychcentral.com/blog/a-room-of-ones-own-why-we-need-space-and-quiet/

[itojikutumasteryjournal-blog]

Wrapping up the course on Internet Consumer Behavior Analysis (IMK 592), I can comfortably express the fact that Professor David Butler went above and beyond the set goals on the course. On the final note after going through the course I did realize there are a lot more for review with the new trends in consumer behavior and analysis especially within the global village(internet) in perspective.

The first objective, which is exploring consumer behavior that is specific to the Internet and analyzing methods that motivate consumers to purchase products and/services, the stages of consumer buying process which were need recognition, information search, product variables, conversion and satisfaction. In relation to my case study which is a B2B and its clients are small and large companies, government establishment etc. The same process actually does apply with a variation of a buy team doing the same thing that individual consumer does.

On the second objective, which is to learn to identify specific Internet marketing campaigns and develop the ability gauge their success and/or failure in inspiring the consumer to purchase the product or service.  The course extensively dealt with retargeting and market segmentation using the demographic and psychographic behavioral classification of Consumers into different categories for marketers to have a segmentation or classification tool. Thus, evaluating my case study company’s products with the objective of segmented or created market in line with its prospect.

Finally, on the third objective I learnt how to develop Internet marketing plan that incorporated consumer behavioral analysis. The E-mail marketing rules and laws guiding it, getting consumers to be attractive to your survey request and developing a survey for review and feedback on the company’s position as seen from the view of a consumer.                                  

Finally, my strategy for the course was inadequate due to the job that disrupted my plans but I did have a very good understanding with the resources provided for this course which were quite adequate incorporating both the past, present situation and the expected future of consumer behavior and its analysis.

[alamante]

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – The United States sought to woo Europe and Japan with free trade deals on Saturday to gain leverage in an escalating tariff war with China but its overtures faced stiff resistance from France at a G20 finance ministers meeting dominated by trade tensions.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters at the gathering of the financial leaders of the world’s 20 largest economies in Buenos Aires that he was renewing President Donald Trump’s proposal that G7 allies drop trade barriers between them.

“If Europe believes in free trade, we’re ready to sign a free trade agreement,” Mnuchin said, adding that such a deal would require the elimination of tariffs, non-tariff barriers and subsidies. “It has to be all three issues.”

Trump has angered European allies by imposing import tariffs of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, causing the European Union to retaliate with similar amounts of tariffs on Harley-Davidson motorcycles, Kentucky bourbon and other products.

Trump, who frequently criticizes Europe’s 10 percent car tariffs, is also studying adding a 25 percent levy on automotive imports, which would hit both Europe and Japan hard.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said the European Union would not consider launching trade talks with the United States unless Trump first withdraws the steel and aluminum tariffs and stands down on a car tariff threat.

“We refuse to negotiate with a gun to our head,” Le Maire told reporters on the sidelines of the G20 meeting.

Mnuchin’s offer to the European Union and Japan – along with a renewed effort to jump-start stalled talks with Mexico and Canada to modernize the North American Free Trade Agreement – come as the United States and China are at loggerheads in an escalating trade dispute with no talks in sight.

The world’s two largest economies have slapped tariffs on $34 billion worth of each other’s goods so far. Trump on Friday threatened to impose tariffs on all $500 billion of Chinese exports to the United States unless Beijing agrees to major structural changes to its technology transfer, industrial subsidy and joint venture policies.

Mnuchin is not meeting formally with any Chinese officials at the G20 meeting, but said that was because his normal counterpart, top Chinese economic adviser Liu He, is not attending.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also warned that the recent wave of trade tariffs would significantly harm global growth.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde presented the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting in Buenos Aires with a report warning that existing trade restrictions would reduce global output by 0.5 percent.

In the briefing note prepared for G20 ministers, the IMF said global economic growth may peak at 3.9 percent in 2018 and 2019, while downside risks have increased due to the growing trade conflict.

Lagarde’s presentation came shortly after Mnuchin said there was no “macro” effect yet on the U.S. economy.

Mnuchin said that, while there were some “micro” effects such as retaliation against U.S.-produced soybeans, lobsters and bourbon, he did not believe that tariffs would keep the United States from achieving sustained 3 percent growth this year.

“I still think from a macro basis we do not see any impact on what’s very positive growth,” Mnuchin said, adding that he is closely monitoring prices of steel, aluminum, timber and soybeans.

Finance ministers and Central Bank presidents pose for the official photo at the G20 Meeting of Finance Ministers in Buenos Aires, Argentina, July 21, 2018. REUTERS/Marcos Brindicci

G7 ALLIES

The U.S. dollar fell the most in three weeks on Friday against a basket of six major currencies .DXY after Trump complained again about the greenback’s strength and about Federal Reserve interest rate rises, halting a rally that had driven the dollar to its highest in a year.

The last G20 finance meeting in Buenos Aires in late March ended with no firm agreement by ministers on trade policy except for a commitment to “further dialogue.”

Brazilian Finance Minister Eduardo Guardia said participants agreed the risks to the global economy had increased since their last meeting, citing rising trade tensions and higher interest rates by major central banks.

He said the final communique would reflect the need for members, particularly in emerging markets that have been roiled by currency weakness, to undertake reforms to protect themselves against volatility.

German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said he would use the meeting to advocate for a rules-based trading system, but that expectations were low.

“I don’t expect tangible progress to be made at this meeting,” Scholz told reporters on the plane to Buenos Aires.

The U.S. tariffs will cost Germany up to 20 billion euros ($23.44 billion) in income this year, according to the head of German think-tank IMK.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said he hoped the debate at the G20 gathering would lead to an easing of retaliatory trade measures.

“Trade protectionism benefits no one involved,” he said. “I think restraint will eventually take hold.”

Slideshow (4 Images)

Reporting by Luc Cohen, David Lawder, Eliana Raszewski and Scott Squires; Additional reporting by Gernot Heller, Stanley White and Leika Kihara; Editing by Nick Zieminski and James Dalgleish

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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[phennigar-blog]

WAO...WOW

IMK 661 Web Analytics and Optimization Goal: Get more fluent in using and understanding metrics tools. Strategy: Take time to be more active in researching and understanding Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, and HootSuite. Goal: Learn about what other metrics and analytics tools internet marketers are using. Strategy: Start a discussion on the LinkedIn group, Social Media Marketing, or ask questions to other internet marketers privately about what analytics tools they use and why they like them best. Goal: Learn at least one new analytics tool to use. Strategy: Take the course, Up and Running with Adobe Reports and Analytics with David Boothe on lynda.com.

I stepped into this class with a plan, knowing that I had the opportunity to become Google Analytics certified. I thought this was such a great thing for a class to incorporate because we as students intending to enter a professional field, or be better in our current profession, will utilize something like that. The whole course was geared nicely towards helping me achieve more knowledge of understanding and utilizing metrics tools and analytics as well. I felt like my understanding was more well-rounded on those subjects by the end of my final week. In looking at how to create a analytics plan using goals, actions, KPI’s, etc. I felt like I could walk into a company and implement that practice right now. That feeling of being confident in a subject or a task is what one needs to have when entering into a professional field as well. I recently started sending out resumes to dozens of jobs or companies in order to just start getting my name out there and see if a door might open. In speaking to some companies I realized how nervous I really was about entering this new career that I had minimal knowledge in. Yet, when I truly thought about the knowledge I have gained from such courses as this one, I realized I’m not as “in the dark” as I thought. Taking the goals I’ve accomplished here and applying them to a professional aspect is something I’m very much looking forward too now that I have the skills to take forward with me.

[newstfionline]

The Busier You Are, the More You Need Quiet Time

Justin Talbot-ZornLeigh Marz, HBR, March 17, 2017

In a recent interview with Vox’s Ezra Klein, journalist and author Ta-Nehisi Coates argued that serious thinkers and writers should get off Twitter.

It wasn’t a critique of the 140-character medium or even the quality of the social media discourse in the age of fake news.

It was a call to get beyond the noise.

For Coates, generating good ideas and quality work products requires something all too rare in modern life: quiet.

He’s in good company. Author JK Rowling, biographer Walter Isaacson, and psychiatrist Carl Jung have all had disciplined practices for managing the information flow and cultivating periods of deep silence. Ray Dalio, Bill George, California Governor Jerry Brown, and Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan have also described structured periods of silence as important factors in their success.

Recent studies are showing that taking time for silence restores the nervous system, helps sustain energy, and conditions our minds to be more adaptive and responsive to the complex environments in which so many of us now live, work, and lead. Duke Medical School’s Imke Kirste recently found that silence is associated with the development of new cells in the hippocampus, the key brain region associated with learning and memory. Physician Luciano Bernardi found that two-minutes of silence inserted between musical pieces proved more stabilizing to cardiovascular and respiratory systems than even the music categorized as “relaxing.” And a 2013 study in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, based on a survey of 43,000 workers, concluded that the disadvantages of noise and distraction associated with open office plans outweighed anticipated, but still unproven, benefits like increasing morale and productivity boosts from unplanned interactions.

But cultivating silence isn’t just about getting respite from the distractions of office chatter or tweets. Real sustained silence, the kind that facilitates clear and creative thinking, quiets inner chatter as well as outer.

This kind of silence is about resting the mental reflexes that habitually protect a reputation or promote a point of view. It’s about taking a temporary break from one of life’s most basic responsibilities: Having to think of what to say.

Cultivating silence, as Hal Gregersen writes in a recent HBR article, “increase[s] your chances of encountering novel ideas and information and discerning weak signals.” When we’re constantly fixated on the verbal agenda--what to say next, what to write next, what to tweet next--it’s tough to make room for truly different perspectives or radically new ideas. It’s hard to drop into deeper modes of listening and attention. And it’s in those deeper modes of attention that truly novel ideas are found.

Even incredibly busy people can cultivate periods of sustained quiet time. Here are four practical ideas:

1) Punctuate meetings with five minutes of quiet time. If you’re able to close the office door, retreat to a park bench, or find another quiet hideaway, it’s possible to hit reset by engaging in a silent practice of meditation or reflection.

2) Take a silent afternoon in nature. You need not be a rugged outdoors type to ditch the phone and go for a simple two-or-three-hour jaunt in nature. In our own experience and those of many of our clients, immersion in nature can be the clearest option for improving creative thinking capacities. Henry David Thoreau went to the woods for a reason.

3) Go on a media fast. Turn off your email for several hours or even a full day, or try “fasting” from news and entertainment. While there may still be plenty of noise around--family, conversation, city sounds--you can enjoy real benefits by resting the parts of your mind associated with unending work obligations and tracking social media or current events.

4) Take the plunge and try a meditation retreat: Even a short retreat is arguably the most straightforward way to turn toward deeper listening and awaken intuition. The journalist Andrew Sullivan recently described his experience at a silent retreat as “the ultimate detox.” As he put it: “My breathing slowed. My brain settled…It was if my brain were moving away from the abstract and the distant toward the tangible and the near.”

The world is getting louder. But silence is still accessible--it just takes commitment and creativity to cultivate it.