#and maybe it’s because it’s not a super common overlapping skill set

[officialbabayaga]

when i visited my cousin after a christmas party he had 18 bottles of champagne left over so his mom made me take like 4 of them, anyway i finally opened one for the first time today because i got a 3.93 semester gpa, which has bumped my cumulative gpa up enough to be a competitive candidate for PhD programs i’m applying to in the fall. and it’s great champagne

[sanstropfremir]

i really liked ur long post re. kingdom! and agree with ur points; when i was watching the clips, i didn’t really consider the production design and camera set up but the points you made makes a lot of sense why i felt the 4th gen groups were so awkward to watch.

(also, i read ur post once and haven’t fully digest so i’m sorry if i mix things up!)

and GAH, thank you! whenever i read ateez’s comments, they praise jongho for being the only 4th gen vocal but like... ya he sings live yay but also it sounds like he’s hurting his throat and it isn’t very pleasant. i’m not familiar with technique or any of that but as a casual listener, i’ve always been drawn to seonghwa’s vocals and think he has potential if given great training!

also, yes to bobby! he was the only one who looked happy during the stage (and the rest of ikon when they weren’t performing). maybe it’s because it’s their FOURTH competition show and they’re just over it (but hey, it’s better than not working at all). i feel like 4th gen bgs have adopted so many ‘dark’ concepts to be considered ‘good’ or whatever but it all blends for me. they keep giving me blank stares and i don’t feel anything lol i hope as the show progresses, they play with different concepts (pls i hope btob doesn’t feel pressured to mimic the same things as 4th gen to win).

ah thank you!! part of the reason why i decided to do these reviews in the first place is precisely because there are SO few people talking about the production design+staging in kpop. designers are the last rung of people in the performance hierarchy to get properly acknowledged and paid for their work (in canada for example, there is no union for theatrical designers), and this is me doing something to give credit where it’s due and to bring up an INSANELY important element of kpop that like....never gets talked about.

hanya’s vocal technique primer and breakdown does a really good job of explaining the flaws in ateez’s performance, much better and in more detail that i did, so i’d recommend reading that if you're interested in learning more about technique! seonghwa and wooyoung have some of the most promising potential because they do actually have the ability to switch between head and chest, whereas jongho is trying to force the ceiling of his middle without making the jump. i think he actually might be able to switch to head because there is a clip somewhere that i saw of him doing a semi-passable ‘parody’ queen of the night aria from magic flute, but i have only seen it once and my memory is garbage. long story short is there would be a lot more ability in all of these 4th gen boys if the companies paid for vocal lessons instead of tricking.

i often equate dance and acting because dance IS acting. yes, they are uniquely different skills, and not everyone who is good at one is good at the other, but they both have the same core motive of trying to communicate. what one is trying to communicate and its authenticity is another question altogether and i have some real weapons-grade hot takes about that, so i will leave that alone for now, but there is an overlap of skill between dance and acting that often gets overlooked, especially in commercialized hiphop dance (which kpop is). 

in the case of 4th gen performance face, there’s two common causes. the first is ‘focus face,’ where the dancer is so focused on actually dancing that they just don't do anything with their face. yunho from ateez is a good example. he's very sweet and i know he has a personality somewhere but as soon as he steps on stage his face absolutely shutters. not technically a flaw, since he is a talented dancer, but that’s the difference between him and san. san knows how to work his stage charisma, and yunho doesn’t. this is super common among even professional dancers, but it can also be unlearned. the second is ‘serious face,’ which conversely, is a product of overthinking. this is extremely common within 4th gen boy groups because of the uptick of ‘dark’ concepts. there isn’t anything wrong with dark concepts as a whole, but because there has been a huge glut of them in the last couple of years and especially since rtk, they've lost some of the visual punch but also a lot of them in the first place don't have a strong underlying theme. for a dark concept to work there needs to be very clear visual intent and narrative. ‘look at me im wearing all black and looking serious’ isn't a concept, it’s a cardboard standee of gerard way. obviously there’s been a general geopolitical trend towards ‘dark and gritty’ things that's been happening over the last...since whenever man of steel came out, but within kpop specifically there’s the hole that vixx left and the new groups are scrambling to fill it, but they don't have the experience or stage presence or frankly the stones to pull off what their ADs are trying to get them to do. the only group that’s come even close to pulling off a vixx level concept is oneus with to be or not to be and i stand by my decision. more shakespearean concepts please and thank you. this got derailed from me talking about serious face but tldr of that is that because the dark concepts have become mostly aesthetic rather than emotionally or narratively fueled, it means that performers don't really have much material to work with, so it manifests especially in inexperienced performers as ‘im going to look serious because serious is sexy.’

this got way too long but unfortunately that is just how i am as a person. i agree anon i do hope that btob (and every other group tbh) doesn’t fall under the dark concept/4th gen pressure, and that we see more creative stages in future episodes. if i have to look at another royalty concept i will scream.

[jebazzled]

should you open a site?

Hi there! If you've been around the block a time or two in rp, you've probably thought about opening a site of your own - or maybe you've already given it a go. How did it go?

Mixed reviews, yeah?

Here's the thing: the Venn Diagram of people who want to staff a site & people who are well-suited to staffing a site actually has very little overlap. You probably should not open a site, or if you are going to, you should make sure you're doing it in a way you can sustain and for the right reasons.

In today's tutorial, we're going to unpack the reasons people are drawn to staffing - both good reasons and bad reasons - as well as the things that most frequently close sites. Hopefully, this will give you some good shit to think about next time you get that itch. You know the one.

Before we launch into some troubleshooting, I'd like to talk about staffing more broadly, and why it should matter to you whether you are doing a good job.

Of course, it's important to do a good job managing your site so that it has some longevity, builds a positive community, and becomes a place that people enjoy spending time.

But it is also important to remember that

when you staff a site, the site becomes part of your reputation.

The roleplay community is both very large and very small - there are always people you've never met before, but there are also always people around who you recognize. Stick around long enough, and you start to see people who always seem to be buzzing a project that doesn't open. You see people who are always staff searching. You see people who habitually buzz, open, and ghost two or three or more projects a year.

Maybe you are one of those people.

Folks notice, dude. There are a number of folks in the rp community who I am sure are perfectly nice, but whose sites I will never join, because I know from observation that they will ghost or formally close the site within three months.

No one will straight up tell you, "hey, you have a reputation for being super flaky." But it might be why you have a hard time filling a staff search. It might be why a buzz or opening is lackluster. It might be why none of your members seem to be super committed to your site: they assume you, too, are not very committed to your site.

It is in your best interests for future projects that your current projects go well. So you should consider carefully, before asking a dozen or more people to invest their time and creative energy towards your site, whether you will be able to sustain the project.

A lot of people treat staffing a site as the inevitable next step when you've been in rp a long time, and that is simply not the case. Staffing isn't about having ideas or talent. Staffing is about project management.

Staff don't need plot and lore ideas: you can crowdsource these from members.

Staff don't need coding or graphics skills: you can commission these from creators in resource communities.

Staff don't even need to be excellent writers.

Staff need to be able to set goals and achieve them, delegate and accomplish tasks, mediate conflict, and manage and recalibrate expectations. This is, of course, very unsexy, and often is tedious: updating claims, monitoring activity, engineering and executing events. I think a lot of people remember what a fucking pain it is to do ads all the time and it's the first thing they stop doing, which then means they don't have new blood to replace the folks who joined and ghosted after the buzz, and then the site dies. None of it is open heart surgery, but all of it is at least somewhat important.

If you don't want to do the boring day-to-day work of staffing, you shouldn't staff! Members on site don't have to do that shit, and also get to opt out on the emotionally exhausting work of conflict mediation, app review, etc. You can be a longtime roleplayer who never staffs. It's allowed.

But you want to open a site. Or you have opened sites and it's been underwhelming. For whatever reason, you're here. So sure. Let's talk about opening sites.

Reasons to open a site

There are lots of reasons why someone might want to open a site. Some reasons are better than others, with the broad distinction that writing-centric reasons are generally much stronger reasons to open a site than psychology-driven reasons.

GOOD REASON: Control

If the pro of not running a site yourself is the lack of responsibility, the con is the lack of control. Being a member means you're dependent on admins to keep the site open - and we've all been in situations where the staff of a site lost interest before we did. Being a member also means being at the mercy of the staff for plot, lore, and etc, depending on your community. On a "member-driven" site you might feel more empowered to have a hand in the worldbuilding - but if the staff decides to double down on the one subplot you thought was stupid and boring, you're left navigating having a good time by yourself.

Opening a site because you want to be able to rely on the site's availability and attractiveness to you for your own writing needs isn't a bad reason to open a site. After all, we build the community and the environment we want to see. So if you don't like something in a writing community, and it's not something you can work with staff to fix - it might make sense to build a community that does fill those needs.

GOOD REASON: Ideas

"Having ideas" is, in my opinion, the least important thing when it comes to staffing. But it can be a reason to open a site of your own! If you have a fictional world you can't find elsewhere, or a really specific overarching plot idea, or a rich vision of lore, it might be easier for you to develop your own playground for these ideas than to bend them to fit an existing site.

BAD REASON: Control

"JB, JB, how can it be two things at once?" Because! Haven't we all been on sites where the admin staff were on a major power trip? When admins start making decisions for members and against a member's wishes, whether it be for character progression or plot development, admins are being unreasonable and demanding. Remember: this is a collaborative hobby. If you can't handle the idea of a member writing something without your eyes on it, you are likely getting too invested in having power over what other people write, and you need to back way off.

BAD REASON: Influence/Importance

Writing is such a personal and intimate thing, and it becomes so easy to get too emotionally invested in how people write or don't write with you. We all know people in the rp community who base their sense of self around rp (I go in on it at length in my troubleshooting tutorial here). These are the people who will have 5 characters accepted within a week of joining, with 20 threads written with 2/3 of the site's members, and who will leave in a tearful hurry within a month saying they feel excluded.

Do you feel Seen?

If you are relying on rp to tame your insecurities, it is never going to work. Staffing a site, claiming the most important canons, and having your hands in every subplot won't automatically make you the most popular person on the site. And even if it did? You would still be insecure, because that is some shit you have to work through offline, dude.

Do not open a site because you think being the admin will make you feel important/popular/beloved. It is not about whether or not you actually are included or excluded in a community - until you unpack your insecurity and your sense of constantly being overlooked or excluded, you could plot with literally every character combination possible and you wouldn't be happy.

If you are wanting to staff because you like to feel special/important/etc, the problem is not the site. It is you. You are never going to get that fulfillment from staffing a site.

You need to work through this without the pressure of running a site.

Why do you want to open a site? Is it for a good reason, or a bad reason? Is it just because you feel like you should? I shouldn't have to tell you that that is a stupid reason.

Opening a site for the wrong reason is a losing proposition.

If you open a site because you want tight creative control, you are going to frustrate your writers, who will likely go elsewhere to write more freely. If you open a site because you want to feel important, you're going to take it very personally when people get mad at you for admin things like denying their apps, handling their interpersonal conflicts with impartiality, or turning down their proposition to turn your Harry Potter site into a Harry Potter/Doctor Who crossover.

If people feel driven out by your power-hungry attitude and rigidity, your site's activity will die, and it will get harder to recruit new people, and it will fizzle out until you either ghost or tell your four remaining members that you're throwing in the towel.

If you feel personally attacked by the thankless work of staffing, you will emotionally burn out, and likely either ghost your own site, or close it. If you are a person prone to lashing out, you might first encounter massive interpersonal drama.

If you are going to open a site, do it for the right reason.

Reasons to close a site

Let's also talk a little about those of us who have opened sites before. Most of us - if not every single one of us - have also closed a site. Sites close for a lot of reasons, and they aren't all admin's fault: a site is, after all, a community. Sometimes the community loses interest, grows apart, or otherwise dissipates. But it is true that staff sets the tone, and that ultimately, staff are who decide to put the board offline.

So maybe you've closed a site. Maybe you're one of the people I mentioned earlier who buzzes, opens, and closes three sites a year. Let's take a good, hard look at why your site closed. It might be a good reason not to open a site again - at least not until you figure out your root issue.

Time

One of the most common reasons why admins will close a site is a lack of time. Real life gets too busy, and the grind of keeping the site up is just too much. It happens! RP is no one's real job. Everyone has a real life.

Not having time to staff won't necessarily be a nail in your reputation's coffin. But it is a reason that you should take into account next time you have the itch to staff.

Some situations are more understandable than others, as far as scheduling goes. For example, if you open a site the summer after graduation when you have a lot of time, and then realize how time-consuming job-hunting is, you might close your site to make time. If you open a site while sitting comfortably at a low-stress job and then you switch to a fast-paced, customer-facing position, you might have less energy and less downtime for the site. If you opened a site when your kid went to grade school, and now you're homeschooling them during the pandemic, you simply might not have time anymore.

The commonality here? A circumstance changed, and the person living the circumstance didn't expect the change. It was a surprise.

By contrast, if you're a tax accountant, you know when your busy season is, and it would be stupid and irresponsible for you to open a site in December knowing that you're about to be bogged down in tax season until April. If you're a school teacher, you know that the start of the year is a whirlwind, and it would be stupid and irresponsible to open a site on the first day of school. If you know that normally your workload doesn't even allow you time to participate on a site as a member, it would be ridiculous for you to open a site during a two-week slow period.

You can close a site because you're too busy for it. You can do it again, a couple of years later. But if you make a habit of doing it - and doing it often - people are going to notice that you just don't have time for the sites you want to open.

I remember being on a site several years ago that closed seemingly without warning. The staff said they didn't have time to run the site anymore, a claim I took at face value - until a month later, when they opened a new project.

I remember being deeply annoyed: either they had been dishonest about the reason for the site's closure, or they were stupid enough to think that a month-long lull was reason enough to expect to be able to maintain a site. If you are too busy to keep your site open, that is fine - but you then shouldn't open another site until you have been distinctly not-busy for a while.

You can take steps to mitigate time constraints, on your next project: you might build out your site's world and administrative process around what tasks you can automate with scripts and etc, to minimize the amount of administrative tasks you need to do. You might go no-app to skip another task. If you're a person who experiences time-blindness, and you have no idea how long you spend on any task, you will need to deliberately select your staff based on their ability to execute tasks on time and efficiently in ways that you cannot.

Staffing may also just not be for you! And there is nothing wrong with that.

Burnout

You might find yourself worn down with the grind of staffing: the ads, the claims, the app review, the mediating conflict, the way your own writing can often come last. The concessions you might make to plots you'd like to do in the interest of pleasing the greater site community. Etc. It's a lot, and it's a thankless job.

And it's always going to be like that. You can counter some of the things that suck up your time - automate claims, go no-app, narrow down your advertising to a tiny list of blogs and servers rather than a dozen directories - but staffing is always going to be, at times, exhausting and thankless. If it's too exhausting and thankless to be worth sticking around - that's fine! But you can't keep being surprised that staffing is like this. It isn't really a realization you can have more than maybe twice, and it's not a realization you can keep having at two months in and expect it not to be a sticking point.

Premature Death Calls

Listen: your site is not dying two weeks after the site buzz. The swarm of activity when you opened was an artificial high caused by bottlenecking your membership intake. Keep posting your ad after your site opens to keep new members coming in so even when your site buzz population moves on to the next buzz, you've got members there. Don't throw in the towel too early, Denise!

Boredom

Unlike the above, where site buzz members move on to the next buzz because they're always chasing the next big thing, you being bored with your site is a potential reason to close. After all, you're the one putting in the time and energy. If you're not vibing with it, it's not like the community is entitled to you keeping the site open as charity work.

But similarly to the time reasoning: this is a rationale you can only use sparingly.

If you have a habit of losing interest on an idea, you should not be opening sites. It is one thing to misjudge your interest and its longevity once. But if you do it two or three times a year - it's a pattern, and you shouldn't ask a dozen or more people to invest their creative energy into something if you know there's a strong possibility you'll lose interest within a few months.

(It will not be different this time, dude. It is never different.)

Drama

Any community of people is not without conflict. Sometimes, the conflict gets to be too much, and whether your members scatter to avoid it or you close to be done with it - it's worth evaluating if it happens more than once. If site drama keeps closing your site, the call might be coming from inside the house.

If you came on staff because you wanted to feel special and important: you are likely causing some of the drama. When you take it so personally whether or not people write with you, how much they write with you, etc, you are setting up for your expectations to 1) be unreasonable 2) to not be met.

If you came on staff because you like control, you might be too rigid, and your controlling and unyielding approach to your site may be driving your members away.

If every site you run closes due to drama, you might look at their common denominator. What behavior do you exhibit that might be unwelcoming, abrasive, or toxic?

(Linkin Park voice) Breaking the habit

People notice, if you are constantly opening sites that die after two months. RP is a weird atmosphere where two things are constant:

Sites often have a shelf life of 2-4 months before they die either due to admin neglect, lack of new membership, or infighting with the existing members

Sites are often being launched by the same people over and over again

Which is to say, I think some of us in the resource/admin chat space tend to think of early site death as a problem of member attention - people being drawn away from existing sites by new and shiny buzzes. This is true to an extent - but I think we latch onto it because it absolves us of the truth that some admins are not just bad admins, but habitual bad admins.

To be clear, I don't mean that they are nasty people - just that they have a track record of not being great at keeping a site open. But just as some people are perennial site hoppers - some admins are perennial site starters, and that doesn't seem to be something talked about with as much depth as site hoppers. And perennial site starters feed the site hopper problem: if the perennial site starter wasn't opening a new buzz every two months, the site hopper wouldn't have a new flashy thing to get instant gratification on, would they? They would need to do some more long term plotting and character development.

I've staffed my site for two and a half years now, and the relief of having a space with such longevity is incredible. Because my community trusts that the site isn't going to close on a whim, people invest in long-term plots - for example, when we polled members in March asking if they wanted a specific event to happen in the spring or in the fall, an overwhelming majority opted for fall. Six months out, six months to plot and thread and worldbuild - on so many other sites, it would feel risky to count on anything that far in advance.

Wouldn't it be nice to have more stability in the rp world? More opportunity for deeper plotting and character development, slow burn plots that are legitimately slow to burn, the satisfaction of executing a plot years in the making. We can have that, if we focus less on having a vast number of short-lived sites and more on building sustainable, welcoming communities that allow for ebb and flow without going straight to closure any time there's a slow or difficult period. We can have that, if we're more thoughtful in our staffing - even if it means not staffing at all.

I hope this tutorial was helpful to you! As always, feel free to drop your requests for future tutorials in my askbox. In the meantime, all best, and happy writing!

[highladyluck]

I've taken a bunch of self-reporting Autism Spectrum tests and I always come out borderline (like, just under whatever the threshhold is, or just under half of a list of items) but I'm really starting to wonder... (detailed thoughts under the cut).

I guess really the most practical thing to do about it is continue to lurk in autistic spaces and maybe see if their tips for alleviating masking stress/communicating with others are useful to me? Idk I just really felt like a space alien who does not know how to human at work this week, and it's starting to get to me. 

One of my autistic friends has said that the way I think makes sense to her, which means I must be non-neurotypical, because she doesn't get how neurotypicals think. It's possible that I'm just open-minded and empathetic towards others, and that reads as non-neurotypical to autistic people because they're used to hostility or confusion from neurotypical people. My therapist told me a story about a straight female friend of hers who kept getting hit on by wlw, and when she finally asked why she was pinging everyone's gaydar, someone explained that this straight person wasn't homophobic /at all/ and that was so rare in straight people, in their experience, that they'd assumed it meant the person was queer. So like. It could just be that. But this year I feel like I've accumulated a lot of little hints that maybe it's more than just the bare minimum of drinking my respect autists juice?

There seem to be a lot of triggers in common between 'what makes me anxious' and 'what triggers autistic burnout', as well as symptom overlap. I find descriptions of what happens when you stop masking (in terms of emotional/social consequences and anxiety about that), or what masking looks/feels like, uncomfortably relatable. I once got really excited talking about something I love with a stranger at a party, and they were really supportive and nice about it and in fact were like 'wow you're so genuine and interesting, I never have conversations like this with strangers' and on the way home and at home afterwards I felt so anxious about having someone see me unfiltered- and recognize that I was unfiltered, and point out that I wasn't following a normal social script- that I had anxiety nausea afterwards thinking about it. The experience was completely positive in the moment, and the feedback about it was totally positive, but being *seen* and *called out* like that really shook me afterwards in a way that I found very difficult to understand. But it sounds *a lot* like what happens if you're afraid someone's caught you being your real self when you are normally always masking.

Another thing that seems masking-related is that I'm really good at cover letters (and explaining how to write them to both my neurotypical and autistic friends) because I have developed a script for them and know what they are supposed to accomplish and why. I've had people tell me after an interview that I wasn't actually qualified for the job, but they brought me in because they liked my cover letter so much. Which like... what. Who does that? And friends who adopt my cover letter formula have gotten more interviews afterwards. I'm also suspiciously good at writing to a set structure and aping a set style, once I can see an example to imitate, which tells me that I'm pretty analytical and have a vested interest in mimicry.

I've had employers tell me that I picked up on the house writing style and content rules much quicker than other people in my role, and my creative hobbies tend to involve parodies and riffing on other people's ideas (filk music) or surrealist or part-to-whole juxtaposition (collage, mosaic). In both cases I'm kind of jamming existing structures and ideas together to make something new, that has direct and inescapable relations to what it came from, but is also internally coherent. But the fact that I need referents for both content and structure, and that exploring part-to-whole relationships is incredibly key to my creative experiences, suggests that on some level my creative practice is 'arranging things I like in an idiosyncratic, complex, and pleasing way', which also seems somewhat characteristically autistic?

I have also always felt like my friends 'rub off on me' and that I absorb their beliefs/mannerisms/skills etc. I feel like I can't control the fact that I'm porous at all, but I can control what I absorb insofar as I pick who I hang out with pretty carefully and with an eye to self-improvement. That could have other explanations than 'I'm conciously or unconciously imitating people who seem to have their shit together', but it seems like part of a pattern when I put it with all of the other things.

Also in my professional life the stuff I get told I need to work on and the stuff I'm good at seem to be autistic-coded things. I tend towards systems thinking (good and bad, I can grasp complex systems, but can't always turn it off and I feel like people call out that I always want to put stuff in context.) I need a lot of preliminary information about a task before I can do it, but I'm also pretty reluctant to get that preliminary information if it involves actually talking to someone else, especially someone I don't interact with regularly. I tend to assume I have the information I need about their motivation up front, and it's just the technical details that I might need to follow up on, when often it turns out I was misled about what they wanted. That's either because I wasn't aware of something about their context (and didn't think to ask), or because they used a technical term that is very meaningful and specific for me, so I assumed they knew what they were talking about, but it actually means something totally different to them and maybe wasn't the correct term for what they really wanted.

I also want to stick to past precedent/established routine/previously used patterns and formulas in a professional context so strongly that I've been chided for my lack of flexibility when new situations come up a couple of times at my current job, although in my super-chaotic toxic former workplace it was a huge asset, because it was my job to develop the standards and make people stick to them and not use 3 different formulas 3 different times to calculate the same metric. I have tendency to infodump on technical stuff that sometimes gets me in trouble, because I feel like I'm providing all of the info needed to explain and contextualize my decision, but it sometimes comes off as overexplaining, which can make you sound less confident/authoritative, or it can just confuse people because all they really need is your decision. It's especially bad in person or if I'm writing a response fast and don't have a chance to edit for that specific audience (or I misjudge what my audience is).

One thing that gives me pause on any kind of self-diagnosis (beside the fact that it seems you have to be traumatized to really fit any of the formal diagnostic criteria fully, which is horrifying and sad) is that I've never had much of the sensory stuff as far as I can tell, and most autistic people I know do tend to have unequivocal sensory neurodivergence. I do really like textures, tend to talk with my hands, and am usually unconsciously jiggling my legs when left to my own devices, and my anxiety results in nausea, but that's about it for sensory stuff.

[imagine-fe]

matchup trade with me in disguise

aka @edelgoth sorry u know i live for bad jokes

sorry it took me almost a month to finally finish it but at least i can say that its one of the longest thing ive written in years haha. ive written one matchup for fe4 and one for fe16, both with two alternatives each! (i think u can tell in which order i wrote them bc they just kept getting longer askdsjfg) i hope u enjoy your girls and Token Guy, friend ✨

also i feel like i ended up being quite repetitive, sorry about that ;;; this isnt super edited bc my perfectionism will tell me to keep working on it instead its long and time is Against Me so please tell me if theres any mistakes

so without further ado, here it is! (under the readmore)

for fe16 i match you with…

...petra!

✧ she, too, is a very curious person and absolutely loves to learn everything she can! she’s particularly interested in other cultures, so i think you two would find common ground quite quickly! petra enjoys talking about her home country as much as she does hearing about yours and other places you know about, so there would be a quite active exchange and you definitely won’t run out of things to talk about easily

✧ speaking of talking, it’s definitely something she enjoys, even if she’s no chatterbox. she’s perfectly capable of letting you know if she ever feels overwhelmed or it’s just not a good time, so there’s nothing to worry about in regards to whether or not you might be bothering her

✧ petra has a good head on her shoulders so if you’re stressing out about something, she’s very good at grounding you and finding a solution or giving some reassurance depending on the situation. if needed, she will gladly take the time to go through everything step by step. as long as she can help you, it doesn’t matter how long it takes.

✧ she still struggles with the language a little and keeps stumbling over things that are just… different from brigid. it’s sometimes a little overwhelming, so she really appreciates your patience and understanding. with her, you’re always ensured the same in return!

✧ she’s no social butterfly, but has no trouble starting conversations with someone. she would try her best to help you overcome your shyness a little, but wouldn’t be overwhelming about it and gladly take over if something gets too much for you or you let her know that it really isn’t something you can handle

✧ she’s used to seeing animals as a source of food, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t like them! in fact, not having to rely on hunting anymore definitely opens her up to come to care for them in a completely new way. (the first time she gets to pet, say, a bunny she’s so moved and completely understands why everyone seems to love them so much)

✧ i think your sense of fashion would also mesh! of course, petra would be more than happy to share what she can about brigid’s fashion too and would be absolutely delighted if you ever expressed interest in trying it out!

✧ depending on the situation, i feel like she could also maybe help with you being unforgiving? obviously she’s not the type who would push yourself to forgive someone who really doesn’t deserve it though, in that case she would only bring it up if you were, say, holding a grudge that really affected you negatively

✧ overall, i feel like it would be a very warm and supportive relationship, full of curiosity, often discovering and exploring new things together!

some alternative matches would be:

hilda

✧ you want someone to chat with? she’s your girl! hilda isn’t really the type for deep philosophical conversations, but otherwise pretty much anything is great in her books. she’s quite talkative too (without talking over anyone) so it would fit quite well!

✧ she loves fashion so you’re definitely at the right address with her, too. doesn’t matter if it’s more theoretical or practical, it’s one of the few things she’s openly passionate about, after all.

✧ while she’s no artist, she loves seeing your art! if given the chance, she would absolutely make some accessories inspired by her favourite pieces. same goes for your stories, too!

✧ i can’t see her being all that interested in your other hobbies, but if you play your cards right, she’ll listen to you and perhaps find a thing or two she’d like to know more about!

bernadetta

✧ as you know i was especially torn up about who to give this last spot to, and bernie is someone who i kept on deleting and adding to the list in general… but in the end i think she’s who i’m happiest to put here, after all

✧ now, for the most obvious, your negative traits are very similar, just with a special Bernie Flavour™. it’s the biggest reason why i felt she wasn’t as good of a match, however i’d like to think it could help you out, too. you know those moments of like. “i’m anxious about doing this but this person with me feels even more anxious so i somehow become able to do it after all”? kinda like that. plus, while it’s obviously not the same, having at least partially similar troubles definitely helps you relate to and support each other

✧ your nature i feel would really help her open up to you and feel… accepted? i can see it definitely aiding her in building up some self esteem and also starting to… trust people. she’s still gonna leave most of the talking to you, but you definitely get to see a side of her nobody else does very quickly and she’s a great conversational partner if you want to talk about the… deeper things

✧ if there’s ever a competition for “most creative couple”, then the two of you definitely have a good chance at winning! she, too, is very artistically inclined after all. it takes her a while to share her stories especially (since they tend to be rather… personal) but once you overcome that, bernadetta loves having someone she can talk about writing and drawing with! she definitely understands feeling negatively about your creations, too, and i think a lot of mutual support could come from that understanding of each other in this regard, too. i can see the both of you eventually getting to the point where you openly share everything in this regard, give each other critique, share tips you learned or certain skills you have, and just help each other improve in every way! also just… a lot of mutual inspiration

for fe4 i match you with…

...diadora!

✧ having spent most of her life in a remote village with little contact to the outside world, she’s a very curious person herself and enjoys learning too, so i think that would fit very well!

✧ she… tends to be rather spontaneous when making her decisions and will rarely change her course of actions once she’s set, so i think that could definitely help with your tendency to overthink and indecisiveness! on the other hand, you could also help her learn some, well, impulse control (and that sometimes thinking things through properly really is the way to go)

✧ she’s naturally a very supportive and encouraging person which would probably help with reassuring your more insecure side at least a little

✧ diadora is pretty… mellow in regards to most things so i think she would be very interesting in hearing about your opinions on things! it might help her gain a stance of her own, too

✧ not the most talkative, but definitely enjoys good conversation. even if she’s not in a mood to talk herself though, she will always gladly listen! she’s a very attentive listener

✧ whenever you start talking about something you're passionate about though, she's not only going to be an attentive but also a passionate listener. she really enjoys not only learning something new but also seeing that wonderful spark in your eyes!

✧ your positive qualities are quite similar, so i can see it being a very warm and supportive relationship! even if you do have a fight, she isn’t the type to push too far, so it would usually be resolved quite quickly, especially because of the willingness to listen and (trying to) understand to each other

✧ in general, i think she would absolutely eat up your interests! in the beginning she would mostly just listen to you talk about them and absorb all the information she can, but with time she would absolutely inform herself and you would end up having mutual conversations!

✧ diadora adores your creative streak and nothing would make her happier than being able to see your writings or drawings! she’s going to be your biggest fan without a doubt

✧ writing in particularly opens a whole new world up to her. she’s always been an avid reader, but with learning of the possibility of writing yourself… with some encouragement, she will gladly join you in that hobby in particular and loves trading bits and pieces of stories with you! 

✧ she absolutely loves forest animals (those she is familiar with) so you would be in good company in that regard! she will gladly teach you more about them, too, if youre interested in that

some alternative matches would be:

sigurd

✧ he’s got lots of love to give and is endlessly supportive, as long as it’s nothing that goes against his moral code, of course. basically, he’s your biggest fan and in constant awe of the things you do, especially because he doesn’t have any artistic skill himself at all. so, while he doesn’t really understand your insecurity, he’s also always more than willing to drop as many positive comments as you need to at any given time

✧ again, he… has a tendency towards rash decisions, so i think you might be able to positively influence each other in that regard, too

✧ sigurd is, especially at the start of his “journey”, a pretty naive person who doesn’t really know much about the way the world works. as such, i feel he would really enjoy getting to talk to someone knowledgeable in different fields than he is! 

✧ overall, i feel like your positive qualities especially overlap a lot, which i think would bring a lot of positive energy into the relationship. also, you know, if you want to make a difference in the world, what better way to try it with someone in a position of power at your side?

lachesis

✧ she’s strong in every sense and almost always knows exactly what she wants, when, and how. while that may lead to heads being butted sometimes, i think in general it’d be a good driving force with a set direction and may bring some stability, in a sense

✧ not one for mincing words so what she says is what you’ll get. well, that isn’t to say she can’t change her mind or anything like that, but you definitely won’t ever have to worry about her not being honest, especially when in a close relationship

✧ another one who starts out pretty naive and maybe even a little spoiled. she does grow into her role rather quickly, but even then she would definitely appreciate having some guidance. highly values your input, as long as it’s not delivered in a way that hurts her ego (especially in the beginning, she’s a little… sensitive in that regard)

✧ absolutely loves fashion so you’re definitely on the right page with her on that! while lachesis rarely does it openly, i can actually see her liking to draw too whenever she gets around to do so! by herself she’s not terribly passionate about reading but would gladly exchange thoughts on books the both of you have read or read whatever you wrote, if you let he

[toasttz]

How to make games: Hero Shooters

So, class, today I posit this little question to you all: Do you want to be the next Blizzard? Fuck no, you don't want to be "Don't you guys have phones?" Blizzard; you wanna be Blizzard from 5-10 years ago when they were at the height of their popularity. But that's not what I'm shooting for here. Do you want a fount of endless revenue? Do you want to do the absolute baseline minimum in terms of engine and game design to actually create a game but aren't creatively and ethically bankrupt enough to make a gacha game? Do you want to build a game whose rules, designs, and themes were just stolen from the effort of others? Do you really like Rule 34? Then it sounds to me like you want to make a Hero Shooter game! Hero shooters are easy to make on account they fundamentally have only three gameplay modes: push a payload, kill the other team, and kill the other team while standing on top of a glowing circular thing. They're also equally easy to design as they require no thematic consistency whatsoever and what little writing you'll be expected to bother with will simply be character bios, which you can keep so vague as to be virtually meaningless. There's never a 'story' in a hero shooter game and what semblance of one does exist is pretense for the non-canon aforementioned three game modes you'll be forced to build around. Best of all, the individual mechanics of each hero are easy to design - just steal them from whatever games came before. Now create about three or four maps with some different sorts of themes, but don't make them in any way mechanically varied - the most complex obstacles on any given map should be walls and maybe elevators that move at a very low speed. We're making a hero shooter, not Mario Party, dammit. If anyone asks why you are essentially just reskinning the same maps you can explain that it's to ensure that the game remains a "test of the players's skills" even though that's a bold-faced lie for the same reasons people who play Super Smash Bros as "tests of skill" are full of shit. Meta-gaming retards make games algebra homework instead of fun, but that's precisely what you'll be banking on in this genre. Once you have that, we need to get into the most important thing about hero shooters: the Heroes. Heroes in these games take one of three major roles: 1) The retard scrub DPS heroes - who will be played by the vast majority of your one-trick glory-chasing mentally-stunted community under the pretenses of being 'the most fun' and will be where the better part of your "cool" themes and motifs will be dedicated toward. These work under the key principle of "Shoot everything until it stops moving" and requires zero brainpower whatsoever. 2) The under-estimated doggedly persistent Tank heroes, played by those with either the willingness to learn something other than "Shoot bad guy with gun" or those who find pressing and holding a single button for the duration of the 10 minute match time to be the highlight of their bleak office-job lives. Though, on the other hand, some of the really cool designs will ultimately end up in this family. 3) The unsung gods among men known as the Support heroes, AKA: the ones no one will actually play. These characters will never be given cool or interesting mechanics or designs, but you'll be at liberty to make as many sexy nurse outfits as you can come up with and no one will be able to tell you otherwise. Like an ungodly amalgamation of tanks and DPS, your gameplay experience will boil down to pointing at your target and holding down the button the entire match - except unlike DPS heroes, you'll be shooting at the blue team and not the red team. Now, some might argue that there are technically other families of heroes, like flankers, zone controllers, pseudo-supports who can debuff enemies, but remember that the key to any good hero shooter is keeping everything rock-stupid. Every hero should have only enough abilities to fill a role for the left and right mouse buttons and the Q and E keys. F or R can be for reloading where applicable, but if you demand anything more of your players, you're going to lose their interest because Hero Shooters are hugboxes for sociopaths who care for nothing more than getting that sweet, sweet 5-second long "Play of the Game" replay at the match's end. This is why the character who invariably rips off Team Fortress 2's Demo Man and can kill people he doesn't have direct line of sight with will always be the most popular, without exception. I mean, sure, you can have 30 or 40 heroes, each with incredibly detailed outfits, backstories, kits, and personalities but everyone will just play the Not-Demo Man so you might as well accept that your userbase is going to be the only thing more toxic than a puffer-fish or a modern-day feminist. But I repeat myself. I don't have the time nor particular inclination to tell you exactly what you need to make but I can give you some character types that are obligatory by law to be in any hero shooter game. This will at least give you a start before you realize that being creative is hard and just steal kits from better games than your own. Call of Duty Man - The main DPS hero and usually the face of your game. Typically a grizzled war veteran man and almost exclusively an American if your game is set in the real world - remember, creativity is hard! He'll have a medium-ranged assault rifle and precisely one movement skill and one healing skill in his kit making him a jack-of-all-trades. Will either be loved or hated by your community with no room for in-betweens. Sexy Healer Lady - The main support hero who is literally just TF2's Medic reskinned and with tits. You really don't need to do anything more with her, as the fanbase will handle the rest. And the less said of that, the better. Big Knightly Dude - The main tank hero who has a big shield that, regardless of origin, will be transparent so Call of Duty Man and Not-Demo Man can fire through it while guarded. Probably wields a melee-ranged weapon even if in a modern warfare setting. By law, they can never be shorter than 6'6" (or 7200 cm. Pretty sure I did my conversion right on that). Flamethrower Guy - Literally just TF2's Pyro. Mechanic - Literally just TF2's Engineer. Sniper - Literally just TF2's Sniper. Probably also a voluptuous woman in a tight suit because creativity is fuckin' hard, man. Not-Demo Man - The cancer in your fanbase you will never nerf. Doesn't matter that he can party-wipe the enemy team single-handedly without being anywhere near them because Hero Shooter maps are literally just a set of narrow corridors so his kit is extremely OP. No, better just nerf Sexy Healer Lady again, since your DPS fanbase is pissing and moaning about her again and, this time, not in the same way a cat in heat does. Next, just make characters around elemental themes. Once you have 30 or so, you can get around to actually doing really mechanically interesting and varied heroes, since there's really only like 10-15 good FPS character ideas to begin with. So don't be surprised if you have some overlap. But by then we should hopefully have completed the next major step after the game is made: alienating your fanbase! This step is easy and requires no particular skill or coordination on your part. First, make some events seasonal, such that you have at least a major event every other month. Any more than that and your fans might actually think you're trying to be anything but another generic Korean eSport event, so be sure to space them out and have at least half of them be terrible. Valentine's Day is a good excuse to dress your female heroes sexily, summer games are a fun and not-at-all tired motif, and of course you need some kind of Christmas event. Just make sure these events only run maybe 2 weeks out of the year, have lots of stuff that you can only get during those times and, as said, that most of them are terrible and not fun at all to play. And don't -EVER- make any of them PvE, as that requires coding AI characters and effort and shit - what do you think think this is? Warframe? No, terrible gimmicky PvP events will be a good start because there is no frustration quite as severe as being told you didn't grind hard enough for: Loot boxes! Shit yeah, your hero shooter's gonna have loot boxes in them! Remember, we want maximum money for minimum effort and there's nothing like a Skinner Box within the hugbox that is the sweet dopamine high of popping a loot box open only to get common drops every time! If MMORPGs have taught us anything it's that Sub-1% drops are TOTALLY good game design and aren't at all unethical and an artificial, cheap tactic to keep people hooked on your game. This is why, in addition to the e-peen bolster that is your arbitrary profile ranking also drip-feeding a loot box upon level up that you have "Weekly Resets" for additional loot boxes. This runs on essentially the same principle as a cell phone games making you wait for additional tries to make it more a habit than a game - but that's okay! You can just rationalize it away as "it was the player's CHOICE to buy 300 loot boxes for the low, low price of 799.99 USD!" and not at all a psychological compunction found in human psychology! You're not an unethical douchebag in the slightest! And speaking of douchebags, it's time for the third and most important step in alienating your fanbase: Balancing the Game! What do I mean by that? You might think it's something like "Oh, this one character has an attack that is way too powerful and so it should be retooled in such a way that it either isn't available as-often, or maybe make its hitbox narrower to make the game more skill-based" but you're dead wrong. That requires actual effort and we all know how we feel about that. So, instead, just start an eSports team. Why? So you can listen only to the DPS players from each team and only implement THOSE changes. That way, only tanks and supports get nerfed into irrelevance and since no one in eSports is ever going to play those roles anyway, who cares? Who needs healers when you respawn to 100% after 7 seconds of dying?! Who cares if the majority of your fans hate these changes and that you end up completely destroying the kits and frameworks of their favorite heroes with needless, superfluous, unwelcomed tweaks? God-damn it, the Not-Demo Man needs to be able to wipe out an enemy team with a 3-second Time to Kill! No questions! I have a very specific vision!! Once your fanbase has been alienated - congrats! You're no longer obliged to release new heroes and levels! The responsibility of server upkeep and releasing new content twice a year are lifted! Now, just reskin the entire game top-down and release a new, better hero shooter founded on the same grounds to re-capture your fleeing audience and fleece them all over again! Now repeat ad infinitum and gain unlimited money. Congrats, you're now another Chinese game manufacturer that shits out products with no care for their fans or reputation but you get to go whaling every single day and fill your bathtub with money. You're ready to work for actual Blizzard now! You're welcome.

[sanamulla-blog]

The Hybrid Business Analyst Roles In Demand

Nowadays a new trend has started, the hybrid Business Analyst roles. In this article, we discuss thoroughly about Hybrid Business analyst.What is a Hybrid Business Analyst?A hybrid Business Analyst is a professional who has good knowledge and expertise in another field that complements business analysis.

The hybrid Business Analyst is the mirror image of the specialist. A BAs specialist has deep expertise in a specific area of business analysis, at the expense of other areas. The hybrid Business Analyst, by contrast, is a super-generalist–knowledgeable of business analysis generally in addition to a related field. They are all known as a “jack of all trades” but master of none.Who hires the Hybrid Business Analyst?Often times the small business organization will hire a hybrid BA. Smaller businesses have made more with less. They are more likely to need an individual with a cross-functional skill set because they can’t afford to hire people who just stick to one thing.

Nowhere is this truer than in the startup world. You will rarely find a job posted for a dedicated Business Analyst at a startup. Why? Because they are shoestring operations that have to rely on individuals with a wider range of abilities, even if that means they don’t specialize in any one area.

Sometimes larger organizations end up with hybrid Business Analysts too, though. In fact, this is often where hybrid BA’s begin and get their start. Given how flexible the field of business analysis is, a BA is likely to float around and do different things as he goes from project to project. Sometimes that will require the BA to step outside the usual bounds and learn new skills that are not non-BA skills. Presto! A new hybrid BA is born.

Here we are discussing five hybrid Business Analyst roles that are in especially high demand.

1) Business Analyst / Project ManagerAll of the hybrid roles, this is the one you are probably most likely to encounter. BAs Business Analysts and project managers (PM) work very closely together. They work so closely, in fact, that their roles often overlap with each other.

A BA is responsible for ensuring the requirements get done. The PM (project managers) ensures the requirements get developed on a schedule. A BA negotiates with stakeholders to resolve the requirements problems. The PM (project managers) negotiates with stakeholders to resolve logistical or other obstacles. The BA (Business Analyst) prioritizes requirements, and the PM (project managers) slices them up into project phases.

See the trend here? A lot of what a project manager seems like an extension of work that the Business Analysts start. So why not have the Business Analysts take the tasks to their logical conclusion?

A PM does a lot and is really essential to the completion of a project. But her core responsibility is to “smooth the waters” to make sure things get done on schedule and on time. A BA “smooths the waters” by shepherding the project’s requirements. The hybrid BA/PM can do both.2) Product OwnerThe product owner is one of the three cardinal roles in the Scrum method for doing Agile software development that is increasingly popular. (The other two roles are a developer and scrum master.)

The product owner (PO) is The key stakeholder for a project. He is literally the Voice of the client and Customer. The product owner has a vision for what the solution must accomplish and works closely with others to make that vision happen.

The product owner (PO) requires many of the traditional skills of BAs (business analysis), including the ability to deeply analyze business problems and working with other stakeholders. But he doesn’t merely write down what the business wants. He is the business owner, for the purposes of the project, and its success or failure depends greatly on him. As such, possibly the most important BA skills a product owner (PO) uses may well be the “soft” skills of communication, leadership, negotiation, and advocacy.

The Scrum Agile development method and its major players. Image by Dr. Ian Mitchell | CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Additionally, the product owner must know how to work in a Scrum environment. There are specific things that the Product Owner (PO) has to do to keep his Agile team working properly. Here we explain with an example, the product owner (PO) must keep an ongoing, prioritized backlog of all desired requirements (usually as epics and user stories). These requirements are then committed to the future “sprints” of the software development activity. The product owner will also keep a “burn-down chart” that tracks the on-going completion of committed user stories during a development “sprint.”

The world is increasingly moving to Scrum and Agile for developing software. That’s good news for the product owner.3) Programmer / Analyst (or Developer / Business Analyst)When a business needs someone who can run the gamut from the requirements all the way through coding software, it will call on the programmer analyst.

Do some businesses believe that if an analyst can gather requirements, why stop there? The same person could also develop the software solution, especially if it’s not overly complex.

Don’t expect a programmer analyst to bring deep expertise in either business analysis or programming. They are super-generalists, not specialists. The Complex requirements or the coding algorithms may require bringing in the big guns. But for some business requirements, organizations and their solutions are just not that complicated. The system may have been there for a long period of time, for example, and just need someone who can quickly “tweak” it to respond to the business need. You don’t need dedicated BA’s and developers to do that.

In another scenario, especially in places like a startup, the programmer analyst may need more than a passing acquaintance with software coding. It may form the bulk of their responsibilities. In that case, she will focus mostly on software development, while applying “BA-lite” skills to gather technical requirements.

In any case, someone who can do both business analysis and software programming at the same time is valuable, indeed.4) Data AnalystIn this article on specialist Business Analyst (BA) roles, one field I mentioned was the Business Intelligence (BI) Analyst. This analyst takes data and uses a tool that helps them to create compelling stories and insights based on that data. But how does the data get to where it is ready for use for BI (Business Intelligence) in the first place? Enter the data analyst.

The data analyst lives in the world of databases, columns, fields, bytes, and bits. Data doesn’t just appear spontaneously in perfect condition in the database, ready for a Business Intelligence (BI) analyst to just pluck it. Data is a messy, complex business.

Consider some of the issues that the data analyst contends with:

What is the best source of data? You want data that is as original as possible, not a copy, not a repetitive not a duplicate of other data.

Are there any issues with data quality? Maybe there are some errors in the data that must get fixed before it can be used for Business Intelligence (BI ).

What is the relationship with data to the other data? You can’t have meaningful Business Intelligence (BI) without having a strong conceptual and logical structure for how one bit of data interrelate to a different bit of data.

Where does a piece of data come from? Sometimes an analyst has to trace the data across the multiple systems back to its original source (source of the data), which may not be known.

So where does business analysis come in? Several BA (business analysis) techniques are used for data analysis. They include gathering (data) requirements, logical data models and creating conceptual, and working with stakeholders to make sure the required data is available. But it also, obviously, requires an understanding of the inner workings of data and its relationships. By the same token, while they fully understand the data they may not be the deep experts that someone like a data architect might be.

And yes, sometimes a data analyst and a BI analyst are the same people! Such an individual must master front end BI (Business Intelligence) techniques in addition to knowing the “back end” data stuff.

A simple example of a logical data model that a data analyst might create. Image by Ethacke1 | CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

5) User Experience Designer (UX)Last but not least is the User Experience (or UX), designer. User experience is the field that specializes in capturing everything about the experience that the system user has when he interacts with some kind of software system. This includes emotions, feelings, and sensations in addition to rational thought processes.

Should the field appear on the left or the right side of the website? Is the user able to navigate the sequence of the event, on the interface with a minimum of confusion? Does the user intuitively understand the purpose of the interface elements? (think of a video gamer quickly grasping what the buttons do). Does the user experience joy or frustration? These (Q&A) questions, among many others, are the ones that the UX designer seeks to answer so, as to build the best interface possible.

The UX designer employs Business Analyst techniques like management and traditional requirements gathering and creating wireframes. But there are some techniques that are specific to UX design such as the use of focus groups for testing out UX approaches. They are also well versed in creating the working prototypes that can be quickly and iteratively improved with Agile methods.

With the advent of exciting new ways of interfacing with technology such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), a lot of UX design hasn’t even been invented yet. It’s a very exciting time to be, in this fast-moving field, and UX design skills are among the hottest on the planet.

For the Business Analyst job, preparation MCAL Global Provide you the best Training, MCAL Global Have there Master Business Analyst Training. They guide you in every situation regarding to the job. In Master Business Analyst TrainingFor the Business Analyst job, preparation

MCAL Global

Provide you the best Training, MCAL Global Have there

Master Business Analysis Training

. They guide you in every situation regarding the job.Master Business Analyst Training is our flagship business analyst course. We have trained 1000s of professionals on the business analysis processes, concepts, tools, techniques, best practices, business analyst certification, and software tools via this program. Through active feedback collected from individuals & corporates, we have perfected this business analyst course via numerous updates and revisions to deliver the best possible results for individuals or corporates. We conduct classroom for this business analyst course in Pune and Mumbai, else you can join our live online business analyst course from anywhere. We have trained professionals from the United States, UAE – Dubai, Australia, United Kingdom and many major cities from India through our online business analyst course. You can send your interest by registering for the 

for more information visit: https://www.mcal.in/page/the-hybrid-business-analyst-roles-in-demand

[webanalytics]

Five Strategies for Slaying the Data Puking Dragon.

If you bring sharp focus, you increase chances of attention being diverted to the right places. That in turn will drive smarter questions, which will elicit thoughtful answers from available data. The result will be data-influenced actions that result in a long-term strategic advantage.

It all starts with sharp focus.

Consider these three scenarios…

Your boss is waiting for you to present results on quarterly marketing performance, and you have 75 dense slides. In your heart you know this is crazy; she won’t understand a fraction of it. What do you do?

Your recent audit of the output of your analytics organization found that 160 analytics reports are delivered every month. You know this is way too many, way too often. How do you cull?

Your digital performance dashboard has 16 metrics along 9 dimensions, and you know that the font-size 6 text and sparkline sized charts make them incomprehensible. What's the way forward?

If you find yourself in any of these scenarios, and your inner analysis ninja feels more like a reporting squirrel, it is ok. The first step is realizing that data is being used only to resolve the fear that not enough data is available. It’s not being selected strategically for the most meaningful and actionable insights.

As you accumulate more experience in your career, you’ll discover there are a cluster of simple strategies you can follow to pretty ruthlessly eliminate the riffraff and focus on the critical view. Here are are five that I tend to use a lot, they are easy to internalize, take sustained passion to execute, but always yield delightful results…

1. Focus only on KPIs, eliminate metrics.

Here are the definitions you'll find in my books:

Metric: A metric is a number.

KPI: A key performance indicator (KPI) is a metric most closely tied to overall business success.

Time on Page is a metric. As is Impressions. So are Followers and Footsteps, Reach and Awareness, and Clicks and Gross Ratings Points.

Each hits the bar of being “interesting,” in a tactical oh that’s what’s happening in that silo soft of way. None, passes the simple closely tied to overall business success standard. In fact, hold on to your hats, a movement up or down 25% in any of those metrics may or may not have any impact on your core business outcomes.

Profit is obviously a KPI, as is Likelihood to Recommend. So too are Installs and Monthly Active Users, Orders and Loyalty, Assisted Conversions and Call Center Revenue.

Each KPI is of value in a strategic oh so that is why we are not making money or oh so that is why we had a fabulous quarter sort of way. A 25% movement in any of those KPIs could be the difference between everyone up and down getting a bonus or a part of the company facing layoffs. Often, even a 5% movement might be immensely material. What metric can say that?

When you find yourself experiencing data overload, don an assassin's garb, identify the metrics and kill them. They are not tied to business success, and no senior leader will miss them. On the ground, people will use metrics as micro diagnostic instruments, but they already do that.

A sharp focus on KPIs requires concentrating on what matters most. Every business will have approximately six KPIs for a CEO. Those six will tie to another six supplied to the CMO.

After you go through the assassin’s garb process above, if it turns out that you have 28 KPIs… You need help. Hire a super-smart consultant immediately!

2. Focus only on KPIs that have pre-assigned targets.

This is a clever strategy, I think you are going to love it.

Targets are numerical values you have pre-determined as indicators success or failure.

Turns out, creating targets is insanely hard.

You have to be great at forecasting, competitive intelligence, investment planning, understanding past performance, organization changes and magic pixie dust (trust me on that one).

Hence, most companies will establish targets only for the KPIs deemed worthy of that hard work.

Guess what you should do with your time? Focus on analysis that is worth your hard work!

Start by looking at your slides/report/dashboard and identify the KPIs with established targets. Kill the rest.

Sure, there will be howls of protest. It'll be John. Tell him that without targets you can’t identify if the performance is good or bad, a view every CEO deserves.

John will go away and do one of two things:

1. He will agree with you and focus on the KPIs that matter.

2. He will figure out how to get targets for all 32 metrics along all 18 dimensions.

You win either way. :)

An added benefit will be that with this sharp focus on targets, your company will get better at forecasting, competitive intelligence, investment planning, org changes, magic pixie dust and all the other things that over time become key assets. Oh, your Finance team will love you!

Special caution: Don't ever forget your common sense, and strive for the Global Maxima. It is not uncommon for people to sandbag targets to ensure they earn a higher bonus. If your common sense suggests that the targets are far too low, show industry benchmarks. For example, the quarterly target may be 400,000 units sold. Common sense (and company love) tell you this seems low, so you check actuals to find that in the second month, units sold are already 380,000. Suspicion confirmed. You then check industry benchmarks: It is 1,800,000. WTH! In your CMO dashboard, report Actuals, Target and Benchmark. Let him or her reach an independent, more informed, conclusion about the company’s performance.

3. Focus on the outliers.

Turns out, you are the analyst for a multi-billion dollar corporation, with 98 truly justifiable KPIs (you are right: I'm struggling to breathe on hearing that justification, but let's keep going). How do you focus on what matters most?

Focus your dashboards only on the KPIs where performance for that time period is three standard deviations away from the mean.

A small statistics detour.

If a data distribution is approximately normal then about 68 percent of the data values are within one standard deviation of the mean, about 95 percent are within two standard deviations, and about 99.7 percent lie within three standard deviations. [Wikipedia]

By saying focus on only reporting on KPIs whose performance is three standard deviations from the mean, I’m saying ignore the normal and the expected. Instead, focus on the non-normal and the unexpected.

If your performance does not vary much, consider two standard deviations away from the mean. If the variation is quite significant, use six (only partly kidding!).

The point is, if performance is in the territory you expect, how important is it to tell our leaders: The performance is as it always is.

Look for the outliers, deeply analyze the causal factors that lead to them, and take that to the executives. They will give you a giant hug (and more importantly, a raise).

There are many ways to do approach this. Take this image from my January 2007 post: Analytics Tip #9: Leverage Statistical Control Limits…

Having an upper control limit and a lower control limit makes it easy to identify when performance is worth digger deeper into. When you should freak out, and when you should chill.

Look for outliers. If you find them, dig deeper. If not, move on permanently, or at least for the current reporting cycle.

Use whichever statistical strategies you prefer to find your outliers. Focus sharply.

4. Cascade the analysis and responsibility for data.

In some instances you won't be able to convince the senior leader to allow you to narrow your focus. He or she will still want tons of data, perhaps because you are new or you are still earning credibility. Maybe it is just who they are. Or they lack trust in their own organization. No problem.

Take the 32 metrics and KPIs that are going to the CMO. Pick six critical KPIs for the senior leader.

Cluster the remaining 26 metrics.

You'll ask this question:

Which of these remaining 26 metrics have a direct line of sight to the CMO’s six, and might be KPIs for the VPs who report to the CMO?

You might end up with eight for the VPs. Great.

Now ask this question:

Which of these remaining 18 metrics have a direct line of sight to the eight being reported to the VPs, and might be KPIs for the directors who report to the VPs?

You might end up with 14 for the directors.

Awesome.

Repeat it for managers, then marketers.

Typically, you'll have none remaining for the Marketers.

Here's your accomplishment: You've taken the 32 metrics that were being puked on the CMO and distributed them across the organization by level of responsibility. Furthermore, you've ensured everyone's rowing in the same direction by creating a direct line of sight to the CMO’s six KPIs.

Pat yourself on the back. This is hard to do. Mom is proud!

Print the cascading map (CMO: 6 > VPs: 8 > Directors: 14 > Managers: 4), show it to the CMO to earn her or his confidence that you are not throwing away any data. You've simply ensured that each layer reporting to the CMO is focused on its most appropriate best sub-set, thus facilitating optimal accountability (and data snacking).

I’ll admit, this is hard to do.

You have to be deeply analytically savvy. You have to have acquired a rich understanding of the layers of the organization and what makes them tick. You have to be a persuasive communicator. And, be able to execute this in a way that demonstrates to the company that there’s real value in this cascade, that you are freeing up strategic thinking time.

You’ll recognize the overlap between the qualities I mention above and skills that drive fantastic data careers. That’s not a coincidence.

Carpe diem!

5. Get them hooked on text (out-of-sights).

If everything else fails, try this one. It is the hardest one because it'll demand that you are truly an analysis ninja.

No senior executive wants data. It hurts me to write that, but it is true.

Every senior executive wants to be influenced by data and focus on solving problems that advance the business forward. The latter also happens to be their core competence, not the former.

Therefore, in the next iteration of the dashboard, add two more pieces of text for each metric:

1. Why did the metric perform this way?

Explain causal factors that influenced shifts. Basically, the out-of-sights (see TMAI #66 if you are a subscriber to my newsletter). Identifying the four attributes of an out-of-sight will require you to be an analysis ninja.

2. What actions should be taken?

Explain, based on causal factors, the recommended next step (or steps). This will require you to have deep relationships with the organization, and a solid understanding of its business strategy.

When you do this, you'll begin to showcase multiple factors.

For the pointless metrics, neither the Why nor the What will have impact. The CMO will kill these in the first meeting.

For the decent metrics, it might take a meeting or three, but she'll eventually acknowledge their lack of value and ask you to cascade them or kill them.

From those remaining, a handful will come to dominate the discussion, causing loads of arguments, and resulting in productive action. You'll have known these are your KPIs, but it might take the CMO and her team a little while to get there.

After a few months, you'll see that the data pukes have vanished. If you've done a really good job with the out-of-sights and actions, you'll notice notice that the focus has shifted from the numbers to the text.

Massive. Yuge. Victory.

If more examples will be of value, I have two posts with illuminating examples that dive deeper into this strategy…

Strategic Dashboards: Best Practices, Tips, Examples | Smart Dashboard Modules: Insightful Dimensions And Best Metrics

You don't want to be a reporting squirrel, because over time, that job will sap your soul.

If you find yourself in that spot, try one of the strategies above. If you are desperate, try them all. Some will be easier in your situation, while others might be a bit harder. Regardless, if you give them a shot, you'll turn the tide slowly. Even one month in, you’ll feel the warm glow in your heart that analysis ninjas feel all the time.

Oh, and your company will be data-influenced — and a lot more successful. Let's consider that a nice side effect. :)

Knock 'em dead!

As always, it is your turn now.

Have you used any of the above mentioned strategies in your analytics practice? What other strategies have been effective in your company? What is the hardest metric to get rid of, and the hardest KPI to compute for your clients? Why do you think companies keep hanging on to 28 metric dashboards?

Please share your ideas, wild theories, practical tips and examples via comments.

Thank you.

Five Strategies for Slaying the Data Puking Dragon. is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik

from Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik http://ift.tt/2EKCNf9 #Digital #Analytics #Website

[myupdatesystems-blog]

Are You a Good Sports Parent?

New Post has been published on https://myupdatesystems.com/are-you-a-good-sports-parent/

Are You a Good Sports Parent?

Recently I read about a town in Australia that actually implemented laws that govern parent behavior at sporting events. Stepping out of line is punishable by banishment from the play area, and/or fines. My first thought was: “Really? Is that necessary?” Then after reflecting on our own American sports parents, I realized that the Aussies are right on track. We have seen cases as extreme as the case in Texas where the cheerleader’s mother killed a rival cheerleader to promote her own daughter’s chances of “making the team”; to something as common as bad-mouthing the umpire at a little league game. Being in the kids/sports industry I can say that I have seen some curious parenting styles out there that run the gamut.

Working as an administrator, coach, and teacher for over 30 years, I have seen some cases that would be unbelievable to the average person. I have also seen some parents that taught me a thing or two about how to behave when I became a parent, and I try to emulate those role models every day.

The goals of a good sports parent should be the same goals held by a good coach; develop the whole athlete. As a coach and parent, I have tried to teach my children values and model virtues, I have focused on developing character. Yes, of course as a coach, I do like to win; but as it states in our Gymfinity team handbook, “when the trophy is more important than the smile, then there will be no true way to win.”

Sports parents have a very important job, without them, and without them doing their “job” the coach’s job becomes nearly impossible. First off, a parent must provide the athlete; that is not just getting the kid to the gym, but providing a sport ready child. To clarify, let’s compare athletes to race cars: cars need good parts, good fuel, and a good driver. Just like children need a healthy body (car), with a good diet of food, sleep and other various ingredients (fuel) as well as a good sound mind (their driver) to understand not only the “how to”, but the “why” of their activity. Without the race car in good shape, the coach has nothing to work with.

Next, the parents need to balance reality for their child. They need to have their children juggle one ball for sports, one for school, and one for the family. When a child/athlete drops a ball, they need to be there to help them recover and get the ball aloft again. Those two tasks, providing and balancing, are the parent’s most essential. Beyond that, they need to sit back and observe, allow their child/athlete to do what they can, make decisions on their outcomes, wrestle with the results and unconditionally love them regardless of the win or loss.

Like parents, coaches and the athletes have their own jobs to do too. Though a coach’s job is more technical, they rely on the parent and athlete to fulfill their roles in order for them to carry out their own. Problems arise when the three sides of the triangle (coach, parent, and athlete) start to blur and overlap. When one steps into another’s role there is confusion, and for the child, that can cause great stress and usually results in the opposite of the one thing everyone intended to enhance; the performance. Problems also arise as well when the balance I spoke about is lost, when winning and sport is prioritized over education and family it will lead to the destruction of the child athlete. It may not happen overnight, but the slow attrition of breaking the child down is in action.

There are some common parents perspectives that lead to a child’s failure (understand that the term failure is not only in reference to sport). Most parents will read this information and disassociate themselves from the familiarity of the problems; they agree that it must be hard for a kid with parents like that, but not see that they might be “those parents.” I think we should remain open-minded. My son tried playing soccer last year but it didn’t take. I found myself in the position of having some degree of all of the characteristics evident in problem parents, and I am supposed to know better! I found that I wanted my son “winning” or playing well because I was never a good soccer player and really wanted to be. I wanted to be a part of the team at my school (after they cut gymnastics I sought out other sports) but I was not very good. I was a good athlete and I knew the value of training hard and always believed that hard work is its own reward. I knew that every parent on the team and other teams knew I was the “Gymfinity guy”, I had a reputation. I felt that I needed to show, not only that I was a good coach, but a good parent. So, all of the mistaken views parents have, the ones that caused me such pain over the years, I now embodied. I wanted my son to show that we are capable of playing soccer; I wanted him to do what I couldn’t. I wanted him to train with vigor and desire, the reaching and surpassing of his personal goals. And I wanted everyone to know, that when Owen scored his goal, it was because I was a great parent. Wrong, wrong and in so many ways, wrong. Owen was Owen. He played until it wasn’t fun. Like me, he isn’t a big fan of team sports, so I guess in a way I did get the “mini-me” I was after. And as for parenting satisfaction, at least I was better than the guy on his phone the whole game, which will have to be good enough.

There are some very definitive descriptors between the over-zealous parent and the supportive and positive parent. Sometimes they are subtle and sometimes they scream. The obsessive parent always seeks to have their child noticed, overtly or covertly, they want their child recognized. How else will anyone know that they are a good parent? They are often dissatisfied with an effort being good enough, they are only happy with tangibles; like a “W” in the column or a trophy or a medal. These parents don’t give their child/athlete any room to make decisions or the strength to deal with the repercussions of those decisions. Yet when the parent is the one dictating the game-plan they only have criticism for the child who carried out their failed plan. These parents often don’t see they’re to blame for the failure. “I just want what’s best for her,” is a mantra and every time I hear it, I know that the next sentence is going to be all about the parent. A good sports parent allows their child/athlete to make some of the decisions that affect their performance. Obviously the younger the child, the harder it is to allow them to make decisions, but you might be surprised how much thought is happening in that little brain. You have to listen to it, but to be supportive you should develop that skill. After the soccer season, my Owen tried basketball. The first day of practice, he stood, motionless, for 15 minutes holding the ball. Other kids played around him, the coach encouraged him, other parents cheered for him to at least bounce the ball, but nothing happened. I stepped out to change my other son’s diaper (ah, parenting), and when I returned was told that he hadn’t even flinched. That didn’t take “super ears” to hear that message. So Owen wasn’t a baller. OK.

But what if you think you have a really talented kid (everyone thinks they do) and you want to see him/her excel. As a coach let me offer you the game plan, the same one that I would ask you to follow if your child is training with me, the same one I follow with my sons.

Step 1: Focus on the basics. Work on the character skills that lay the foundation for success. Model and reinforce traits like hard work, dedication, integrity, humility, trust, respect, responsibility. Show and provide support regardless of the outcome. Get them healthy food and plenty of sleep. Reinforce their education; there is nothing sadder than an NFL millionaire who can’t string together a simple sentence.

Step 2: Focus on the skill basics. Simple physical literacy can be learned by interaction with a variety of activities. Not to be self-serving, but gymnastics is a great activity for any child; it lays, not only the basic physical foundation for success but provides all of the traits listed in step 1.

Step 3: Teach them that decisions have repercussions and that they have to be OK with however things turn out. Explain possible outcomes on either side of a choice and allow them to choose. The only way to change the outcome of any particular action is to make better decisions before acting. This is also called developing lifelong strengths.

Step 4: Teach your child how to set goals. Teach them how to make S.M.A.R.T. goals and they will understand all of the lessons in Step 3.

OK, got it? This is pretty easy stuff. But like me, you may think you have the concepts but do you have the practical application? I learned a lot about coaching and parenting from my first son. Though I wanted him to be a champion, I will have to wait for him to show me the vehicle he wants to use to do it; maybe gymnastics, maybe architecture (he’s amazing with Legos). Maybe my other son Emmett will be a great soccer player; I’ll have to wait for them both to show me their strengths.

In summary; here is a quick quiz to see if your child has a chance to be a champion. It’s written regardless of age but it focuses on children before high school. Record your “Yes” answers.

Q1: Do you believe your child could be a champion?

Q2: Do you find yourself telling other people that your child is a “high achiever” or something synonymous?

Q3: Do you talk about your child’s sport away from the play area, over meals or at least once a day?

Q4: Are you prepared to realistically sacrifice any part of your child’s education so they may have a better chance to become a champion?

Q5: Do you regularly ask the coach to work your child harder or to change something about the way your child plays the game?

Q6: Do you get emotionally involved in your child’s TRAINING successes and failures? (As opposed to game day success and failures).

Q7: Do you allow your child to show poor attitude, poor sportsmanship or poor behavior as a part of the game knowing that it is a natural part of the result of strong effort?

Q8: Have you ever fought with another parent/person about the results of a game/match/meet?

Q9: Do you refer to your son/daughter as my son/daughter the gymnast, hockey player, goalie etc.?

Q10: Have you spent more than $500 on equipment?

Quiz results: no fair peeking! If you answered “yes” to 2 or more of these questions, your child has a decreased chance of excelling in a sport. And what’s worse, your obsession may be the cause for their failure. We know that such obsession or over-drive is often not shared by the child and their mere participation in sports, under such conditions, causes them to develop strong negative feelings toward physicality, the specific sport and worst of all, the parent. But wait J; there are examples of “pushy parents” that had champion children. Look at Tiger Woods, his father Earl was on the sports side of Joan Crawford for parenting skills. To that I say, yes….let’s look at Tiger. His resentment of his father and golf, in general, led him to behave in questionable ways and perform acts disrespectful of his own family. He only returned to golf when he realized that he had nothing else. He seems happy, right?

So here is another quiz, this time from the positive perspective. Let’s see how we do on this one.

Q: 1 Can you provide encouragement and support regardless of outcomes?

Q2: Do you believe that the most important thing for your child to “get” out of sports is confidence, self-belief, integrity, and humility?

Q3: Do you believe that having a day or two a week just to be a kid is of value?

Q4: Can you promise not to make discussion of your child’s specific sport away from the practice area a common thing?

Q5: Do you encourage your child to develop skills in other activities and pursue their education over sport?

Q6: Can you provide a loving caring and stable family environment?

Q7: Can you stay away from gym/field/rink for a few days without getting symptoms of withdrawal?

Q8: Can you unconditionally support your child’s coach even during a patch of rough progress?

Q9: If your child wants to quit will you still show love and care unconditionally?

Q10: Can you show dignity and maturity when your child is defeated in play?

Quiz results: 2-3 answered “yes”, call me, we need to talk. 4-6 “yeses” and you’ve got a good start on a positive sports experience. 7 or more and you are a champion parent.

In closing, let me say that there is no parent’s manual to follow and our best lessons are learned by trial and error. It’s OK to make mistakes but it’s how you change and grow that makes it better. Children are under our sole influence as parents until they start school, this is the time to instill character and reinforce values. When children get to school, they will have influence on teachers, kids, friend’s parents, and more. When children are enrolled in sports at an early age, don’t be afraid to ask about the general (and specific) philosophy of the program or the coach. There was a study done in Canada back in the 80’s that showed that the hierarchy of influence on a child approaching teen years is #1 their friends (can’t get away from that), #2 their coaches, #3 their parents and #4 their teachers.

How can you influence the quality of the influencers? You can guarantee the quality of the circle of friends by reviewing the programs you have your child in. Friends: good programs= good people, and good people have good kids. Coaches: they rank high in influence because they have the “golden ticket”. They have direct control of the activity that validates and gives happiness to the child, so don’t underestimate the value of a coach with integrity. Parents: I have said it before and I’ll say it again (now validated by actual research), kids really want nothing more than to make their parents happy. That is an awesome responsibility on us parents. Lastly, Teachers: they are brain coaches so they too have a golden ticket. All the rules of coaches also apply to the teachers.

In knowing that our best time to influence our sports children is when they are very young. At that age we can focus on all of the basics, mental and physical, that will ensure future success. Working with children on decision-making skills and goal setting not only helps them develop lifelong strengths but allows them to feel ownership in their own success. It is also imperative that we are all on the same page and that we have the same priorities. We must all agree that parents, coaches, and athletes work together in their respective roles, without infringing on anyone else’s roles. It is the only way to assure a successful sports child. So are you ready to parent a champion?

[netmaddy-blog]

Are You a Good Sports Parent?

New Post has been published on https://netmaddy.com/are-you-a-good-sports-parent/

Are You a Good Sports Parent?

Recently I read about a town in Australia that actually implemented laws that govern parent behavior at sporting events. Stepping out of line is punishable by banishment from the play area, and/or fines. My first thought was: “Really? Is that necessary?” Then after reflecting on our own American sports parents, I realized that the Aussies are right on track. We have seen cases as extreme as the case in Texas where the cheerleader’s mother killed a rival cheerleader to promote her own daughter’s chances of “making the team”; to something as common as bad-mouthing the umpire at a little league game. Being in the kids/sports industry I can say that I have seen some curious parenting styles out there that run the gamut.

Working as an administrator, coach, and teacher for over 30 years, I have seen some cases that would be unbelievable to the average person. I have also seen some parents that taught me a thing or two about how to behave when I became a parent, and I try to emulate those role models every day.

The goals of a good sports parent should be the same goals held by a good coach; develop the whole athlete. As a coach and parent, I have tried to teach my children values and model virtues, I have focused on developing character. Yes, of course as a coach, I do like to win; but as it states in our Gymfinity team handbook, “when the trophy is more important than the smile, then there will be no true way to win.”

Sports parents have a very important job, without them, and without them doing their “job” the coach’s job becomes nearly impossible. First off, a parent must provide the athlete; that is not just getting the kid to the gym, but providing a sport ready child. To clarify, let’s compare athletes to race cars: cars need good parts, good fuel, and a good driver. Just like children need a healthy body (car), with a good diet of food, sleep and other various ingredients (fuel) as well as a good sound mind (their driver) to understand not only the “how to”, but the “why” of their activity. Without the race car in good shape, the coach has nothing to work with.

Next, the parents need to balance reality for their child. They need to have their children juggle one ball for sports, one for school, and one for the family. When a child/athlete drops a ball, they need to be there to help them recover and get the ball aloft again. Those two tasks, providing and balancing, are the parent’s most essential. Beyond that, they need to sit back and observe, allow their child/athlete to do what they can, make decisions on their outcomes, wrestle with the results and unconditionally love them regardless of the win or loss.

Like parents, coaches and the athletes have their own jobs to do too. Though a coach’s job is more technical, they rely on the parent and athlete to fulfill their roles in order for them to carry out their own. Problems arise when the three sides of the triangle (coach, parent, and athlete) start to blur and overlap. When one steps into another’s role there is confusion, and for the child, that can cause great stress and usually results in the opposite of the one thing everyone intended to enhance; the performance. Problems also arise as well when the balance I spoke about is lost, when winning and sport is prioritized over education and family it will lead to the destruction of the child athlete. It may not happen overnight, but the slow attrition of breaking the child down is in action.

There are some common parents perspectives that lead to a child’s failure (understand that the term failure is not only in reference to sport). Most parents will read this information and disassociate themselves from the familiarity of the problems; they agree that it must be hard for a kid with parents like that, but not see that they might be “those parents.” I think we should remain open-minded. My son tried playing soccer last year but it didn’t take. I found myself in the position of having some degree of all of the characteristics evident in problem parents, and I am supposed to know better! I found that I wanted my son “winning” or playing well because I was never a good soccer player and really wanted to be. I wanted to be a part of the team at my school (after they cut gymnastics I sought out other sports) but I was not very good. I was a good athlete and I knew the value of training hard and always believed that hard work is its own reward. I knew that every parent on the team and other teams knew I was the “Gymfinity guy”, I had a reputation. I felt that I needed to show, not only that I was a good coach, but a good parent. So, all of the mistaken views parents have, the ones that caused me such pain over the years, I now embodied. I wanted my son to show that we are capable of playing soccer; I wanted him to do what I couldn’t. I wanted him to train with vigor and desire, the reaching and surpassing of his personal goals. And I wanted everyone to know, that when Owen scored his goal, it was because I was a great parent. Wrong, wrong and in so many ways, wrong. Owen was Owen. He played until it wasn’t fun. Like me, he isn’t a big fan of team sports, so I guess in a way I did get the “mini-me” I was after. And as for parenting satisfaction, at least I was better than the guy on his phone the whole game, which will have to be good enough.

There are some very definitive descriptors between the over-zealous parent and the supportive and positive parent. Sometimes they are subtle and sometimes they scream. The obsessive parent always seeks to have their child noticed, overtly or covertly, they want their child recognized. How else will anyone know that they are a good parent? They are often dissatisfied with an effort being good enough, they are only happy with tangibles; like a “W” in the column or a trophy or a medal. These parents don’t give their child/athlete any room to make decisions or the strength to deal with the repercussions of those decisions. Yet when the parent is the one dictating the game-plan they only have criticism for the child who carried out their failed plan. These parents often don’t see they’re to blame for the failure. “I just want what’s best for her,” is a mantra and every time I hear it, I know that the next sentence is going to be all about the parent. A good sports parent allows their child/athlete to make some of the decisions that affect their performance. Obviously the younger the child, the harder it is to allow them to make decisions, but you might be surprised how much thought is happening in that little brain. You have to listen to it, but to be supportive you should develop that skill. After the soccer season, my Owen tried basketball. The first day of practice, he stood, motionless, for 15 minutes holding the ball. Other kids played around him, the coach encouraged him, other parents cheered for him to at least bounce the ball, but nothing happened. I stepped out to change my other son’s diaper (ah, parenting), and when I returned was told that he hadn’t even flinched. That didn’t take “super ears” to hear that message. So Owen wasn’t a baller. OK.

But what if you think you have a really talented kid (everyone thinks they do) and you want to see him/her excel. As a coach let me offer you the game plan, the same one that I would ask you to follow if your child is training with me, the same one I follow with my sons.

Step 1: Focus on the basics. Work on the character skills that lay the foundation for success. Model and reinforce traits like hard work, dedication, integrity, humility, trust, respect, responsibility. Show and provide support regardless of the outcome. Get them healthy food and plenty of sleep. Reinforce their education; there is nothing sadder than an NFL millionaire who can’t string together a simple sentence.

Step 2: Focus on the skill basics. Simple physical literacy can be learned by interaction with a variety of activities. Not to be self-serving, but gymnastics is a great activity for any child; it lays, not only the basic physical foundation for success but provides all of the traits listed in step 1.

Step 3: Teach them that decisions have repercussions and that they have to be OK with however things turn out. Explain possible outcomes on either side of a choice and allow them to choose. The only way to change the outcome of any particular action is to make better decisions before acting. This is also called developing lifelong strengths.

Step 4: Teach your child how to set goals. Teach them how to make S.M.A.R.T. goals and they will understand all of the lessons in Step 3.

OK, got it? This is pretty easy stuff. But like me, you may think you have the concepts but do you have the practical application? I learned a lot about coaching and parenting from my first son. Though I wanted him to be a champion, I will have to wait for him to show me the vehicle he wants to use to do it; maybe gymnastics, maybe architecture (he’s amazing with Legos). Maybe my other son Emmett will be a great soccer player; I’ll have to wait for them both to show me their strengths.

In summary; here is a quick quiz to see if your child has a chance to be a champion. It’s written regardless of age but it focuses on children before high school. Record your “Yes” answers.

Q1: Do you believe your child could be a champion?

Q2: Do you find yourself telling other people that your child is a “high achiever” or something synonymous?

Q3: Do you talk about your child’s sport away from the play area, over meals or at least once a day?

Q4: Are you prepared to realistically sacrifice any part of your child’s education so they may have a better chance to become a champion?

Q5: Do you regularly ask the coach to work your child harder or to change something about the way your child plays the game?

Q6: Do you get emotionally involved in your child’s TRAINING successes and failures? (As opposed to game day success and failures).

Q7: Do you allow your child to show poor attitude, poor sportsmanship or poor behavior as a part of the game knowing that it is a natural part of the result of strong effort?

Q8: Have you ever fought with another parent/person about the results of a game/match/meet?

Q9: Do you refer to your son/daughter as my son/daughter the gymnast, hockey player, goalie etc.?

Q10: Have you spent more than $500 on equipment?

Quiz results: no fair peeking! If you answered “yes” to 2 or more of these questions, your child has a decreased chance of excelling in a sport. And what’s worse, your obsession may be the cause for their failure. We know that such obsession or over-drive is often not shared by the child and their mere participation in sports, under such conditions, causes them to develop strong negative feelings toward physicality, the specific sport and worst of all, the parent. But wait for J; there are examples of “pushy parents” that had champion children. Look at Tiger Woods, his father Earl was on the sports side of Joan Crawford for parenting skills. To that I say, yes….let’s look at Tiger. His resentment of his father and golf, in general, led him to behave in questionable ways and perform acts disrespectful of his own family. He only returned to golf when he realized that he had nothing else. He seems happy, right?

So here is another quiz, this time from the positive perspective. Let’s see how we do on this one.

Q: 1 Can you provide encouragement and support regardless of outcomes?

Q2: Do you believe that the most important thing for your child to “get” out of sports is confidence, self-belief, integrity, and humility?

Q3: Do you believe that having a day or two a week just to be a kid is of value?

Q4: Can you promise not to make discussion of your child’s specific sport away from the practice area a common thing?

Q5: Do you encourage your child to develop skills in other activities and pursue their education over sport?

Q6: Can you provide a loving caring and stable family environment?

Q7: Can you stay away from gym/field/rink for a few days without getting symptoms of withdrawal?

Q8: Can you unconditionally support your child’s coach even during a patch of rough progress?

Q9: If your child wants to quit will you still show love and care unconditionally?

Q10: Can you show dignity and maturity when your child is defeated in play?

Quiz results: 2-3 answered “yes”, call me, we need to talk. 4-6 “yeses” and you’ve got a good start on a positive sports experience. 7 or more and you are a champion parent.

In closing, let me say that there is no parent’s manual to follow and our best lessons are learned by trial and error. It’s OK to make mistakes but it’s how you change and grow that makes it better. Children are under our sole influence as parents until they start school, this is the time to instill character and reinforce values. When children get to school, they will have influence on teachers, kids, friend’s parents, and more. When children are enrolled in sports at an early age, don’t be afraid to ask about the general (and specific) philosophy of the program or the coach. There was a study done in Canada back in the 80’s that showed that the hierarchy of influence on a child approaching teen years is #1 their friends (can’t get away from that), #2 their coaches, #3 their parents and #4 their teachers.