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the-silentium · 5 years ago

Text

Evolution

Masterlist

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Android!Reader

Words: 7372 words

Warnings: TUA season 1, swearing, mention of blood.

Requested by: Anon

Could you do a Five Hargreeves x reader where Y/N is an AI and is held hostage by the commission. Y/N is best “friends” with Five and Five saves them and they kiss. Thx

A/N: Oups? Remember I said 3000 more words? Well, it was more like 5000. But hey! I had so much fun writing it! When I saw AI!Reader, I immediately thought about Detroit Become Human and how perfectly an Android would fit with Five!

Commission headquarter

June 16th, 1955

PM 13:45:07

You were currently working peacefully at your desk, a manila folder opened between your hands presenting you the details of your next assignment. You analyzed the facts and probabilities of every possible scenario, every possible victim whose death would be the least suspicious but would cause the optimal result. While Herb got up from his desk to greet the lady in the doorway, your programs ran hundreds of possibilities and found the best option for your case.

With acute precision, your fingers typed the name of a Starbucks barista whose absence at his usual evening shift would enrage his manager who would throw a fit in front of his customers, triggering an extreme reaction out of a young man whose antipsychotic prescription hasn’t been renewed in time for him to take his dose as advised. Said young man would, in a desperate attempt to defend himself from a non-existent threat, take a pocket-knife out of his too-large hoodie and stab the brunette next to him who looked too much like his abusive father 27 times before hurrying off into the crowded streets, leaving the man whose after-work activities was to develop a - successful- new technology allowing people to travel through space in a matter of seconds, bleed to death on the dirty floor of a too popular coffee shop.

TERMINATE EVERETT BLAKE FOR IMMEDIATE EXTRACTION.

There, the timeline was preserved and your task was done. You put the new piece of typed paper on the growing pile at the corner of your desk before grabbing another folded, ready to start the process again. Just as your eyes finished scanning the first line, Herb called your Commission given name, causing you to look up in wonder.

“Ivy! Your presence has been requested by the Handler.” His hands joined in front of him, a futile attempt at hiding his discomfort. He wasn’t the first one who you noticed to be intimidated by the woman of power. Your behavior analysis of the woman told you that she was a manipulative woman with a need for power, who would stop at nothing to assure that she was at the very top of the food chain. You could easily understand why everyone you ever met in these walls showed signs of stress or even fear at the simple mention of her title.

//MEET WITH THE HANDLER

You nodded as the new orders registered into your programming and took the terminating orders to give them to your superior.

“Could you kindly give these to Gloria while I meet the Handler?” You asked with your signature smile. You knew that despite your coding forcing you to be polite with everyone, you would always smile to that man. He has always been friendly and caring towards you whilst others loved to persecute you every chance they got.

“Oh! Sure.” He took the pile from your hands, careful to not drop them in the process. “You really are efficient.” His awe at the 64 cards present in his hands clearly showed on his face.

You smiled once more, the compliment warming something inside you, causing the circular led on your temple to flash yellow for a quick second before returning to its usual calm blue. You had lost enough time as it was, so you quickly made your way to the vast office and knocked softly at the door the second you reached them.

You opened the door and made your way inside at the muffled invitation to come in. The colorful woman sitting at her own desk pointed you a seat next to a white-haired man in a dark suit. You couldn’t help but make a quick analysis of the new man, scanning his face and searching for his file in the Commission’s database. Well, more like your database, seeing as the Commission liked to keep everything on paper so you had to scan every file yourself to keep track of everything and everyone.

Number Five.

53 years old.

Born on October 1st, 1989.

Enhanced field agent.

Abilities: Teleportation, time-travelling.

Number Five was found in the apocalyptic world caused by 2019’s meteor shower. His unequaled competence in his line of work makes him a priceless asset to the Commission.

Just as you lowered yourself into your seat, the Handler pointed from the man to you multiple times. “Number Five, this is Ivy. Ivy, Number Five. You two are assigned to work together on this next assignment.” She slowly pushed a white folder at the edge of the desk.

“I don’t need a partner.” You turned to meet the eyes of the man whose annoyance didn’t need an elaborated analysis to be understood. His eyes moved curiously over your attire, memorizing every particularity of it. He noted how futuristic you looked in your two-tone dark dress that reached your mid-tight, your half white and black jacket, and the slightly glowing blue band around your right upper arm. He quickly noticed numbers on the right part of your jacket, like a weird name tag imprinted into the fabric and the word Android at the back.

Back to you, you notice the lack of stress behavior that you were used to seeing on people gravitating around the Handler. The man was relaxed, his hands were still, his eyes were bored minus the moment where curiosity took hold of him when his eyes moved over your form, his cortisol level was normal, and his heart rate within the average for a man his age.

“So does she. Don’t take it personally, Five, but for this mission, you will need her analyzing skills.” She turned to you, her smile dropping slightly. “Everything you need is in the folder. You can wait outside.”

You made your way to the desk after nodding once. The folder was a bit thicker than what you were usually given, but it wasn't a problem. You carefully closed the door, the usual nagging feeling of eyes following your every movement making you tighten your grip onto the folder. You leaned on the wall opposite the door, waiting for your new partner to come out.

//WAIT FOR NUMBER FIVE

You couldn't help but raise the sensitivity of your hearing. Your new partner was a total mystery and learning a bit more about him before the beginning of this mission would be of great help.

“What the hell is she?”

“An android! An artificial intelligence if you will. Can you believe it? A machine looking perfectly like a human made to serve humans!”

“You mean a slave.” Something inside you cringed at the word, but you chose to ignore it, for this wasn't relevant to your personal mission of getting to know your partner.

“Machines don’t have will Number Five, they are made to obey.”

You frowned as some muttering reached your ears, the words totally incomprehensible even with your enhanced senses. Footsteps resonated into the room, you opened the file and started reading the first lines just as the door opened on a frustrated man.

“Oh and please Five, take care of her. I went to great lengths to get one of her models and we don’t have anything to repair her in this timeline.”

Five had the audacity to close the door pretty harshly, the sound echoing through the whole floor and almost causing you to short circuit at the explosion resonating in your head. Quickly, you turned down your hearing to an average level and followed the agent who was walking away, determination in his steps.

//FOLLOW NUMBER FIVE

You walked after him, left and right, before finally reaching what you recognized as a kitchen. Being an Android, you never had to come here before even if the lovely Dot had more than once asked you to join her for lunch. Number Five stopped before a coffee machine quickly grabbed a cup from one of the shelves and poured himself some of the dark liquid.

“A too high consumption of caffeine will someday cause you health problems such as anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure and some digestive issues among other things. Seeing as the caffeine level in your bloodstream is already high, I would suggest that you consider drinking Matcha tea or lemon water instead.”

The white-haired agent slowly turned to you while taking a long sip. The blank stare you received from over the rim of the cup didn’t phase you in the slightest, you were used to worse after all.

“Is that all you can do? Give me shitty advice on my coffee addiction?” You deciphered a slight annoyance behind his words, so you tried to correct your shot.

“No, of course not. My model was designed to assess even the most precarious situations and find ways to achieve my superiors’ goals with a 100% success rate even if the probabilities are minimal. Here, I am mainly used to form strategies behind a desk, but I also have the programming of my fellow model RK800 which allows me to be on the field and be just as efficient.”

Number Five’s expression was hard to read, to say the least. His straight face was so flawless that even your advanced behavioral analysis program couldn’t decrypt his feelings. He continued to stare at you while drinking his dark drink, his thoughts running a mile an hour. After a minute, he nodded once, put the empty cup into the sink and walked away.

Once again, you followed his every step, walking deeper into the maze that was the Commission’s headquarters. In the two years you passed under their service, you never really took the time to explore the complex. You were totally fine with your simple routine consisting of two simple tasks: working and resting at your charger station situated in a small storage room. It wasn’t what you were used to back at CyberLife, but this was your new reality so you went with it.

Your new partner stopped before a brightly lit room, shelves full of clothes adorned the walls, display stands just as packed of the colorful fabrics took the majority of the room. A hand on the small of your back slowly pushed you inside, his own feet following after you.

“If you’re going on the field, you’ll need a change of clothes.” He simply said, eyeing the base of your dress.

You nodded, your gaze wandered on the displayed clothes. You went for what was the most practical in the field, some dark leggings with a pair of high boots that had the smallest heels you could find. You definitely would have preferred some sort of shoes that would be a better fit for running, but apparently this wasn’t a possibility. Then you grabbed a long-sleeved white shirt that looked comfortable enough before making your way to the changing rooms.

Satisfied with your new attire, you made your way back to Number Five, your usual clothes in hand.

“Can you turn this off?” He asked, gesturing to the blue circle on your right temple. You shook your head from side to side, his lips forming a tight line before going to get something at the back of the room. He came back with a beanie in hand. “Put this on.” He said as he gave you the accessory and turned around to exit the room.

You quickly put the hat on the best you could with only one hand and hurried after him.

The whole mission went on without a hitch. You completed your goal alongside Number Five, who started insisting that you called him only Five, and returned at your office under Herb’s care.

You missed the thrill you felt while being on the field with Five. It hasn’t always been easy, but with time you knew you had found a friend into the 58 years-old man. At first, you had a habit of telling him facts that he didn’t care about much like the coffee one, but you soon realized that it only made him roll his eyes in annoyance so you stopped rambling altogether.

He had asked you questions about your origins and about yourself. His genuine interest made something move inside you, something new. During the whole 6 days mission, you had run a grand total of 17 self-diagnosis of your system that all came back negative. The instability of your software was slightly rising whenever the male praised your work or complimented your skills.

It was time for lunch, your human colleagues exited the room talking between them, their excited discussions about what to eat filled the room before fading as they made their way to the kitchen. Once again, you found yourself alone surrounded by empty tables and utter silence. You were about to grab another file, ready to work through the hour break, when a forced cough caught your attention.

You smiled at the sight, your newest friend leaning in the doorway, a white box in hand.

“Wanna join me for lunch?” It always confused you why the man took the utmost care of asking if you wanted something instead of just ordering you to.

“I am a machine, what I want is not important.” You repeated for the 37th time, causing his eyes to roll in a dismissive manner for the 37th time.

“For me it is.” You tilted your head at his dead-serious tone. “I told you. I’ll never order you to do anything.”

//Software instability ↑

You were grateful that he chose to never force you to do anything. Why? You had no idea.

You pondered for a bit. Do you want it? The thought wasn’t unpleasant that was for sure, moreover, your actual goal wouldn’t be affected by an hour off with your friend. You made up your mind, nodding excitedly as you mirrored the genuine smile plastered on his face. You walked alongside him towards the crowded cafeteria where you found an available table in a corner. Five pulled your chair for you before sitting right in front of you.

“Back in your dress and jacket? Don’t you have any other clothes?” He asked fork in hand, ready to dig into his lasagna.

“My Android outfit is mandatory by the American Androids Act. It allows people to clearly identify me as an Android and not a human.” You heard the man mutter something about a stupid law before your gaze wandered around when the weight of eyes judging your presence became too much to ignore.

In your peripheral, you could see Five turn around and shoot the snoopers with his murderous glare, successfully making them squirm onto their seats and look elsewhere.

“I am sorry if being around me is a bother.” Five shook his head at your statement, resuming eating.

“You don’t have to be sorry. Mankind is the most idiotic species of this planet, we can’t help but target what we don’t understand.”

You frowned at his words, finding flaws. “But you are human, Number Five, and you are far from being an idiot.”

The man chuckled at your apparent confusion. “Well, for one, thank you. I dare say that I am an exception in this world full of idiots and if I remember right, which I know I do-” You chuckled at his arrogance.”-I told you to call me Five.”

“Fine, Five.” You put emphasis on his name, to which he smiled and nodded in contentment. “You also said that humans target what they don’t understand, yet you never targeted me in any way.”

“Maybe it’s my years passed in the apocalypse that are talking, but I enjoy the company of people that…” He trailed off, his gaze getting lost somewhere over your shoulder. You could see the emotion washing over him, the grief of his loss still hurting his heart. “-are not totally human.”

He had told you about his time stuck in the apocalypse following 2019 and how he met a mannequin he named Delores. You knew this was his way of keeping himself sane and you were grateful that his experience allowed him to be more open to other forms of life and thus become the closest friend you ever had.

You hummed in agreement and let a pleasant silence fall between you. Your eyes wandered around the room, discovering new faces among those you already knew. You met Dot’s gaze and couldn’t stop yourself, her bright smile was contagious so you smiled in return.

Five got up and you followed suit. He decided to take you outside, knowing that there was a high probability that you hadn’t taken the time to go enjoy some time outside this oppressing building. Just as he was about to open the door, you stopped dead in your tracks.

“Are you okay?” His straight face was betrayed by his concerned tone. At your hesitation, Five pulled you aside. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t go outside if I am not assigned to a mission.” You told him the sad truth. You were a prisoner of this building and its powerful board of directors.

“What?” He pained to control his anger, his hands opening and closing at his sides in an attempt to keep it down. “They ordered you to stay inside?” You nodded. Conflict was written all over his face. From what your programming told you, there was a big chance that he was contemplating ordering you to follow him outside, but then he would break his promise of never ordering you around, so you went to his rescue.

“Even if you were to order me to go outside, I can’t. The authority of my orders are far beyond yours.” His knuckles were now turning white and you asked yourself if you did right to tell him that there was a hierarchy of orders inside your head dictating what you could and couldn’t do.

“Then fight it.” His blunt statement took you by surprise. The blue LED on your temple turned yellow and Five continued. “Fight the orders. I know you can do it.”

You shook your head, at a loss of words. You never went against an order before. You were made to obey. Follow orders. It was simple.

But could you do it? Five believed in you. He believed in your capacity to overcome authority. But then, what? What would you do? Why would you do it? You would lose the only meaning of your life. Obey orders. Your LED now flashed bright red, only showing sign of your internal turmoil.

//Software instability ↓

“I am a machine made to follow-” Five’s fist collided with the nearest wall at your words. He knew it was your programming talking but he couldn’t help but be frustrated.

“No. You are so much more than that, you just let yourself being blinded by your stupid programs.” He knew he was too harsh on you. He wasn’t even sure you had control over your own actions, he simply had a feeling that if you wanted, if you fought hard enough, you could be free. He only didn’t understand why you were not fighting.

Before you had the time to find the right words, Five took off, storming into the hallway leading to his personal quarters, leaving you behind with his words echoing through your processors. Fight the orders.

You didn’t see Five for 9 days after that day. You supposed he was out for a mission or simply got tired of being around you. You knew that the latter had a very low probability, but it was there nonetheless and it made you uncomfortable inside.

Today was a holiday at the Commission. No one was working, so you had to pass the time, somehow. You wandered the hallways for a while before you got an idea. You read a book a while back, stating that people liked to be reminded that they were appreciated, so you decided to write little notes to every one of your management colleagues. Outside of Five, they were the only ones who didn’t lose their smile at your sight and you wanted them to know that they were important to you.

So you passed the next hour writing little messages and placing them on their respective desk. You were just finishing writing Herb’s when footsteps entering the room made you look up.

“Still here? Today’s off.” Five stated, a frown on his face when he saw you fold a piece of paper in two and carefully place it in the middle of the empty workspace.

“I know. I just wanted to write some nice words to my colleagues. Management has been under a lot of pressure lately and the board has been mean to a lot of them.” You smiled at your paper before joining Five and handed him a light blue paper with his name written in the CyberLife Sans Font. “And I have one for you.”

You missed the blush forming on his cheeks, too concerned about the increasing speed of his heartbeat to care about some color. “Are you alright?” You didn’t wait for an answer. You reached forward, lightly touching his forehead to get his exact temperature. Under your touch the temperature didn’t stop rising, concerning you even more. “Five, you are sick.”

The man chuckled slightly although his throat was very much constricted at the moment. He took your wrist in a light grip, breaking the contact of your soft skin on his. He took a moment to swallow his emotions and regain control of his body and faced your patient form.

“I’m perfectly fine.” You opened your mouth to disagree as he lifted his hands to stop you from interrupting his train of thoughts. “This is a natural reaction.”

You frowned, waiting for him to elaborate. Back in 2038, you would have been able to make a quick research on the internet and find what exactly Five was alluding to, but in this different timeline, in 1955, you had no such access. The explanation you were waiting for never came, instead, Five took the blue paper from your hands, placed it in his pocket and made sure that it wouldn’t fall out. He then grabbed your hand and pulled you out of the room. You smiled at your joined hands, the feeling of his fingers laced between yours was an enjoyable one.

Five took you up a flight of stairs and stopped before a door.

“I thought about what you said and I’m sorry I tried to push you to go against your orders. I know it must be scary.” His hand squeezed yours a bit tighter in hope that you would forgive him for his words and actions. He ran away after all, in a moment where you needed a friend to help you out.

“I forgive you.” You smiled brightly at him, no resentment present on your face at all. The sudden tightness of his hand around yours was mistaken for relief, when really, all the man was trying to do was refrain himself from leaning forward and do something he might regret.

His resolve was melting like ice under your bright smile, leading him to open the door in a hurry. He stepped aside and your eyes fell on a darkening blue sky, green lands, a world that you missed so much.

“Technically, the roof is still part of the building, which means that you are allowed to follow me.” He smirked, proud of himself for finding a loophole that would allow him to pass time with you without any eyes preying on your every movement.

You stepped outside in a rush, pulling Five along with you. The fresh evening air felt heavenly on your skin, the smells invading your receptors were almost too much compared to the smell of a closed building that never opened their windows and the notes of the last birds singing before they went to their nest to rest for the night was one of the most melodious sounds you've heard in a while.

"I take it that you like the view."

"I do." Tears formed into your eyes before falling down your flawless cheeks. "Thank you."

Five froze on the spot. He was used to the tears of his victims but he usually paid them no mind, ense the tenseness in his body when he realized that he didn't know what to do. Never would he have thought that you were able to actually cry. If it wasn't of the LED flashing a serene blue on the side of your face, Five would have definitely thought that you were human. The heat beneath his fingers was so real, along with the feeling of your skin on his. Your breathing was emulated perfectly, its speed changing in different situations like any human. The more he thought about it, the more Five found himself in awe in front of your complexity and his hope of you becoming the master of yourself was growing along with it.

"You're welcome."

You found yourself being pulled gently towards a bench facing the slowly setting sun. Comfortably seated on the bench, you took the time to admire the beautiful scenery until soft strokes on the back of your hand made you redirect your gaze to your hand resting on Five's lap.

"Can I ask you a question?" Your small voice broke the silence, almost scared to break the moment. To your relief Five paid no mind, he hummed in approval. "You told me that you ran away from your family before ending up in the apocalypse, and I was wondering if you ever wanted to go back to them." You had noticed a slight waver in his voice at the time. He missed them dearly. Your programming wanted you to help him out of his misery, but something new, something hidden inside the depth of your coding was nagging at you that if you didn't, he would stay with you and you wouldn't be alone anymore.

"I do. But it's not that simple. I have a contract and if I was to break it, there would be consequences." You nodded, understanding what he meant. The nagging feeling was back again but this time it was corrupting your thoughts, berating yourself that you shouldn't think that he cared about you. You were an Android, a machi- "And there's you. If I go, I'll take you with me." His eyes met yours, full of hope and something else that you couldn't name. His grin put an end to your dark thoughts, instead causing a too familiar alert to pop into your line of vision.

//Software instability ↑↑↑

Five recognized some emotions flashing on your face and tried to get more out of you by talking about his family. He shared his fondest memories of his childhood, which earned him some laughs and excited squeals from you, but didn't stop there as he was sure that you were aware of your own emotions but didn't know what they were yet. It was well known that the strongest emotions were the negative ones, so Five turned his strategy around by telling you about the not-so-happy ones, the memories involving his father.

He knew he was manipulating you in a way and he felt bad for it. All he could do was wish that you would forgive him once you got a hold of your free will.

You parted ways with Five that night with a head full of new information and a software ready to explode. You walked past the door where your charging station was waiting for you and made your way to the only place where you knew you could find answers. A place no one dared to venture in the whole time you were under the Commission's wings.

The basement.

The door was rusted, its hinged crying in pain under your push but inevitably giving in to the inhuman strength hidden beneath your skin. You walked between the rows of dusty books, scanning their spine, sometimes having to brush your fingers over the thick layer of filth covering the letters so you could read the titles. You found two books into the 741 available that matched your needs, you took great care while carrying them to the closest entertaining room where you knew movies were waiting in old boxes.

You started reading, discovering more and more about human emotions and how they could be interpreted through their body language. You linked some of your recent experiences with various emotions and feelings. Jealousy, happiness, curiosity, apprehension… you felt them. They were real. You could emulate physical aspects like tears, but what happened inside was totally out of your control.

Then you found a page describing Five's odd behavior around you. Your eyes went to the top of the page and the pump replacing your heart started pumping erratically. Love. Five was in love? You shook your head in denial, closed the book and searched the boxes for romantic movies. After watching some and analyzing the actors body language as well as their verbal interactions, you would prove to yourself that you were crazy. Defective.

The total opposite happened and it left you to ponder on the whats. What happened? What changed? Sure, every clue pointed toward Five, but you'd had software instabilities before, whenever someone was truly unfair to you or one of your colleagues. Surely one single person couldn't change you so much, right?

The biggest questions suddenly dropped into your mind like a bomb. What does it mean for you? What were you supposed to do?

The overwhelming feeling of being overtaken by the recent events was too much at this moment. Tears rolled down your cheeks, sobs escaped your mouth, your legs couldn't support your weight anymore. Everything you thought you knew was a lie. You weren't an insentient machine. You had feelings. You weren't an object that anyone could order around. Not anymore. Because you had a will. You had needs. You were alive and you wanted things.

As soon as your legs allowed you to stay upright, you made your way up the stairs and closed the doors behind you. Surprisingly, the hallways were full of life.

June 29th, 1955

AM 07:12:53

Apparently you were too engrossed into your own self-discovery that time flew by without you noticing it.

You ran toward the nearest flight of stairs, the ones near the main entrance, doing your best to avoid hitting someone in the process. Under different circumstances, the abnormally high amount of disgusted glances you received would have stopped you in your tracks and very possibly caused you to hide somewhere for a while, but today was different. Today was the day that you assumed your place as an equal of the human race.

Just as you were about to climb the stairs, you spotted a familiar white-haired man, his signature scowl plastered on his face keeping people at bay. Once again, your pump accelerated its movement. Was it his fault or the excitement of telling him what you discovered? You couldn't tell.

You almost yelled his name just as he was to about to enter the briefcase room, the word bouncing on the walls, earning you more disapproving glances. His head snapped in your direction, making you worry for a second that he hurt his neck in the process. He frowned as you made your way to him, confusion written all over his features.

"Is something wrong?" He noticed something changed into how you held yourself although he failed to pinpoint it.

"I have something to tell you." You smiled, full of confidence. "It'll be quick, I promise." You knew he had a job to do, just like yourself.

He hummed as his free hand reached for yours and pulled you away from the crowd, closer to the open door leading to the reserve of time-traveling machines. When he judged that the place was ideal, he turned to you and waited for you to find your words. Which didn't take long.

"I noticed strange things happening inside me whenever I was around you-" Five's heartbeat accelerated. "-or in other situations-" He frowned. "-so last night I made some research on human emotions and I discovered that I have them too."

His smile was the brightest you've ever seen on him and yet, he didn't know the best part. You lifted your hand between your two bodies when he opened his mouth to congratulate you or something.

"It wasn't the only thing that I found out. I know why your heart rate accelerates, why your temperature rises suddenly and why your pupils dilate every time you look at me."

Add all this to his slightly quicker breathing, his bitten interior lip and the new tightness of his hand around yours, you almost started laughing. If it wasn't of your knowledge of how bad he would take it, you certainly would have done it.

"Your feelings are mutual." You chuckled at his surprise, his mouth hanging open for a second before the words finally came back to him in the form of a stutter.

Before he could get a better hold of himself, Christopher, the briefcase manager yelled for Five to come and get his damn briefcase. His first reflex was to gnash in anger, his moment pulverized by some idiot that he would gladly punch into oblivion. He was about to do just that when a soft hand fell upon his chest and a delicate kiss upon his cheek.

"Go work. We can talk more when you come back." Before he could place one word or just realized what had happened, you were gone, swallowed whole into the mass of bodies making their way to their day occupations.

Five came back the same day, excited on the inside, impatient on the outside. As soon as he arrived, he dropped the briefcase harshly on Christopher's desk and hurried out of the room to find you. He hoped that you were still at your desk, somehow, seeing as he had no clue of where your quarters were situated. He was disappointed to find the management room completely dark and empty.

Frustrated, the best option he had was to look around for you after he had a nice cup of coffee to keep him on track. So with the biggest cup he could find in hands, the assassin walked around, sometimes asking the few people still inside about your whereabouts without any luck.

After an hour the man gave up, thinking it would be easier to find you tomorrow. On the journey to his bed, Five heard yells coming from the floor beneath his. He normally wouldn't have stopped to eavesdrop if it wasn't of the particular choice of words.

"When a human gives you an order, you obey!" The words made him cringe. He seriously hoped for the man that you weren't involved in any way, his hands were already closing into tight fist at the prospect of an idiot bullying you.

"I know you can deactivate it." The loud voice yelled again. "Do it!"

Five walked towards the open flight of stairs, his coffee slipping from his hand at what he saw.

With a shaking hand, you reached for your red LED and with a slight pressure of your finger, your skin progressively disappeared, the emulating particles getting back under your white hard basic Android body.

The laughs resonating around you were overwhelming and totally degrading. The pain from the insults thrown your way was too much for your newly acquired conscience, the tears falling down your cheeks proved that you were still pretty fragile emotionally.

Something broke in the background, like a glass exploding on the floor, but your attention was elsewhere. A fist collided with the side of your face, throwing you to the ground in a yelp. Even though you didn't feel the pain of the hit, the gesture hurt nonetheless. You've never experienced this kind of anger directed at you before and it left you scarred to your core. Scared of what humans could do to you.

This time, a foot was coming your way, aiming at your abdomen. You prepared yourself for an impact that never came. Slowly, your eyes opened to find Five kneeling over your attacker, his fists colliding with the man's face in quick and brutal successions. The 3 remaining men tried to help their beaten partner, only to redirect Five's wrath upon themselves.

All you could do was watch as he protected you, spilling blood in the process. You could have kept track of everyone's heartbeat, made sure that everyone was still alive, even if barely, but you found that you didn't care. The only heartbeat that mattered was beating frenetically and you were okay with it.

Once he was satisfied of his handy job, Five made his way to you, his hand outstretched for you to take. You turned your face away in shame as soon as you reached for his hand and noticed that your skin was still off. You were about to reactivate it when Five got a hold of your wrist, slowly, with care.

"You don't have to hide from me." You believed him but it was so much more complicated.

"I don't want you to see me like this." Your voice was merely above a whisper, just enough for him to hear.

"Why?"

"Because I don't want you to finally realize that I'm not human."

Many people, despite knowing that you were an Android, somehow forgot that detail and believed you to be like them or would just find the truth to be too much to handle so they would live in denial of your true identity.

He chuckled at your words, his free hand cupping your cheek. "I realized it the very first day." He stood up and pulled you with him. "You are not human, not in the slightest. You have so much more humanity than humans themselves. You are so much better than us."

//Software instability ↑

You avoided his gaze, embarrassed. Your skin recovered your body as soon as you touched your LED, Five's chuckle catching your attention.

"What?"

His smirk was as infuriating as it was attractive. "My wild guess is that your blood is blue." You nodded, not seeing why it was funny and how he could know that. "You're blushing."

Your eyes widened in surprise, as far as you knew, this shouldn't be possible, not for your model anyway. Then again, it shouldn't be possible for you to fall in love with the dangerous assassin beside you.

"I want to stay with you."

Five froze for a second, thinking that he heard you wrong. "Y-you want?"

"Yes." He was quick to turn around and grab your hand, but you saw the tears forming in his eyes anyway.

The large front door appeared, along with a too well-known order.

//STAY INSIDE THE COMMISSION'S HEADQUARTER

A slight fear of the unknown crept its way into your determination, making you hesitate slightly. All you knew of this timeline was here, you had nowhere to go, nothing to do.

Blue eyes met yours, dissolving any fear you had and filling you with confidence. It didn't matter if you had nowhere to go or nothing to do as long as you had Five by your side. He would take care of you just as you would take care of him, the rest didn't matter.

So you fought against the order as hard as you could. You destroyed every line of code forbidding you to do as you wanted, pulverized any programming restricting your actions, cut every link you had to the American Android Act, freeing yourself of all the ropes preventing you from becoming your own master. The wall restraining you finally fell and you felt it, deep inside you. Freedom.

"I don't want to brag, but I told ya." You slapped Five's arms, completely failing to remove the smirk of his lips. "Shall we?"

You followed his steps, excitement almost making you break into a run just for the fun of it. "Where to?"

"Want to get them back and stop their precious apocalypse?" You loved the arrogance in his voice, a slight shiver ran up your spine as your hand tightened around his.

"Absolutely."

And so you jumped into the vortex with him. Panic flowed through your systems as you didn't recognize the young boy landing at your side. The feeling was quickly replaced by amusement at his outburst and admission of his equation error.

You didn't have time to meet his siblings that Five jumped the both of you to a bedroom. Five was searching the wardrobe when you spotted a small mirror on the desk near the bed. Your blue LED was shining, as bright as a star on a clear night. For some reason, you felt sad.

The LED would continue to attract people's attention on you, creating the same circle of hatred that followed you everywhere at the Commission. You had had enough of that.

Your help appeared under the form of a pair of scissors, discarded on the desk with pencils and rulers. You grabbed them in a stronghold, carefully placed one blade slightly under the ring and lifted at the same moment Five yelped your name in alarm. The light blue died before the ring hit the floor, its metallic surface bouncing twice before stopping.

"Are you okay?" His hands grabbed both your wrist in a panic, his eyes searching your face for any trace of self-harm.

"Now I am."

Five saw it then. Your bare temple. The only thing keeping you from being invisible in a crowd and reaching happiness. You removed your jacket, leaving you in your black dress, looking like the most beautiful woman the boy had ever met. He tried to ignore the open back of your dress that was so generously reflected in the mirror behind you, instead focussing on how fulfilled you looked.

Five wanted to keep this conversation for later, but he couldn't anymore. As much as he hated to think about it, your bright smile had too much effect on his heart for him to possibly ignore it.

"You said my feelings were mutual, are you sure about it?"

You nodded, a hand reaching for his cheek, thumb stroking the flesh just like he did minutes ago in the Commission's hall.

"I am 100% sure. I feel the same love for you that you feel for me."

Five's body overheated at the mention of his feelings out loud. Sure, he knew what it was, but thinking it and saying it was two different things.

"Five is in love?!" Diego's exclamation on the other side of the door was soon followed by a yelp and people arguing not so subtly.

The boy saw red, this conversation was private and of course, his siblings had to stick their dirty noses into his stuff.

"We want to meet her!" Klaus' voice boomed over the others, their voices dying momentarily.

Five jumped to the hallway, death glare on, knuckles cracking, nostrils flaring.

"I killed 4 guys today because they acted like morons like you are all doing right now. So let me ask this once. Do you still want to pester us or will you wait in the kitchen?"

Mouths were opened in shock and eyes wide in fear. Five accepted their silence as an answer and returned into his room where you were grinning.

"I like them." He rolled his eyes at your excitement.

"There's really not much to like."

"Oh, hush. I know you love them."

That he knew, you were a quick learner after all.

"And I love you." Soft lips met his cheeks for a second before disappearing and just like earlier, Five's brain stopped working.

"Oh. My. God! She kissed him!"

A chorus of what made the boy lose it. He jumped back to the hallway, kicked the remaining siblings, who without surprise were all males, right where it hurts.

"Mind your own fucking business!" He screamed at his brothers before closing the door with force.

He breathed deeply once, twice, thrice before turning to you, his signature smirk stretching his lips.

"I love you too."

#number five #number five x reader #number five imagine #five hargreeves #five hargreeves x reader #the umbrella academy #tua s1 #tua #the boy #detroit become human #android #AI

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meetmeinmontauk87 · 5 years ago

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Your 'Get Rid of Wasps in Birmingham' Report - Pest Control Tips

Sometimes, they hang from a branch or are connected to a corner of a building. Unlike the yellow jackets, the hornets, discovered in the UK, aren't aggressive, unless threatened. Their sting can be really harmful. They likewise tend to hunt other smaller insects. All of us know that flowers, fruits and sweet food attract all stinging insects, from bees to wasps and any other pollinating beetle out there.

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A flower garden has the very same effect, as well as a body of still water, such as a swimming pool or a bird bath. Nevertheless, wasps have no issue travelling a long method from their nest to the food and water source. In order for them to select your property or a location that is close to your residential or commercial property, the stingers have to find it secure enough to make a convenient shelter for the nest.

All they need is a sturdy horizontal surface area to build and hang the nest from. With this stated, they will most likely make a nest under your property's eaves, porch ceilings and overhangs. The bugs typically utilize concave corners, as well so they can be secured from three sides.

Not known Details About Pest Control

Sometimes, it's adequate to simply being near them. Unlike bees, they have the ability to sting multiple times. Even if you're not adverse a wasp sting, you might be in mortal risk if they attack in a swarm. And if you are allergic, a single sting may put your life in threat.

Wasp Control Birmingham Get rid of wasps in Birmingham Wasp removal services

Allergy to stinging bugs can be gotten, even if you have actually never ever had an allergic response before. Instead, contact your local council and check if they provide pest control help in your area. If yes, insect control specialist will be sent to remove the nest for you. If this isn't a choice, contact professional wasp exterminators as quickly as possible.

If not, the Fantastic Solutions group recommends that you leave this task to the professionals. With pesticide spray. You can purchase a wasp killing pesticide from your regional supermarket. Follow the directions on the can. The most typical practice is to spray the pesticide in the opening of the nest for about 20 seconds.

Wasp Control Services Can Be Fun For Anyone

If the nest is active on the next day, repeat the procedure. When all wasps are dead, you can tear down the nest. With insecticidal dust. If you're dealing with a ground nest, insecticidal dust can prove useful. Just use the dust on the nest freely and after that, leave the area.

If the nest is still active, repeat the procedure. With smoke. If you have a nest on a tree branch or someplace away from your home, you can likewise attempt lighting a fire under it. The smoke will rise and suffocate the wasps, forcing them to leave it. Once they're gone, you can knock down the nest.

This one works however dangerous, and it's just helpful for aerial nests. Initially, position a bucket of water under the wasp nest. Then, thoroughly put the whole nest into a fabric bag. Make certain the bag has no holes or tears. Then, securely protect the top of the bag with a firm string.

All About Get Rid Of Wasps

Location something heavy on top of the container and leave it overnight. The wasps ought to be dead by morning. It's advisable to use a protective beekeeping suit when working with the nest. In this manner, you will be secured from stings. If you're handling a nest on a high location, don't use a ladder to reach it.

Wasps are least active and less aggressive in the evening. Rather of a bright flashlight, utilize a red or amber coloured light to see what you're doing. Before setting the strategy in movement, find out a fast method to cover yourself in case something does not exercise. If you or your relative gets stung by a wasp, while waiting for the specialists to come, it is very important to understand how to deal with the sting. (Ask Pest Busters Birmingham for a few more actionable tips)

You can likewise apply an ice pack on the wound to lower swelling and pain. You can also utilize a cream or lotion that reduce itching. If you wish, you can discuss with your regional pharmacist whether it would benefit you to utilize antihistamine drugs that don't need a physician's prescription.

Our Get Rid Of Wasps Ideas

Still, once the problem has been dealt with, you can do something to prevent another nest turning up on your house once again. After all, prevention is the finest medication. Seal entry points (how much does wasp nest removal cost). Wasps are tiny, so they can easily survive cracks and damages in the outside structure of your house.

Get rid of wasps in Birmingham Wasp removal services

To avoid this, examine your house and seal any entry points that might be used by numerous pests for shelter. Take care of rubbish bins. The outer rubbish bins can quickly attract wasps, particularly if they consist of food waste. So, it is necessary to keep the bin securely closed. Likewise, it is necessary to completely clean the container now and once again.

Fruit trees are magnets not just to wasps however also bees and numerous other flying insects, so reconsider prior to planting one. If you currently have one, make it a practice of regularly gathering the ripe fruit and choose up fallen ones off the ground. Location wasp traps (wasp nest removal). You can easily make wasp traps yourself by cutting off the top of a plastic bottle.

Get Rid Of Wasps Fundamentals Explained

Wasp Control Birmingham Get rid of wasps in Birmingham Wasp removal services

For bait usage sugar water or a piece of prepared meat. When the wasp gets in, it won't have the ability to figure out its way back out. Hang a few of these around your home. Hang fake nests. Social wasps are very territorial. They would never ever make a nest close to another nest.

Phony wasp nests are sold mainly in gardening stores. You can likewise develop your own wasp nest by utilizing brown paper. Visit the primary website for price rates on our expert wasp pest control experts! Wasps are not just an annoyance, but can likewise be dangerous for the health if anyone in your family dislikes their venom.

Recommended Advice:

Pest Busters (Birmingham)

Birmingham Office, Highfield Farm, Middle Ln, King's Norton, Birmingham B38 0DX +441216959076 https://g.page/pest-busters-birmingham

#wasp removal birmingham #pest control birmingham #pest removal #birmingham #west midlands

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nummero123 · 4 years ago

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What is a Digital Marketing Strategy? Guide

A digital marketing strategy is a series of planned actions

carried out online to achieve certain company objectives.

In layman's words, this implies taking consistent activities at the correct moment using

the most appropriate internet channels to grow income and strengthen connections

with your audience.

The intricacy of a digital marketing plan is determined largely by the size of your company and your long-term goals.

If you are just starting, you may just need to take a few easy actions through one or two digital platforms.

So, let's talk about why you should plan your digital marketing efforts.

What is a marketing strategy?

Before adopting one or both at your firm, it's critical to understand

how a marketing plan varies from a digital marketing strategy.

A marketing strategy is a detailed plan for achieving a certain marketing-related objective (or goals).

It considers what your company is presently doing well and what you're missing in terms of the goal you set, so you're more likely to achieve it.

But what's the distinction between a marketing strategy and a marketing technique - two phrases that frequently used interchangeably?

What is a digital marketing campaign?

Digital marketing campaigns are the building blocks and actions

that comprise your digital marketing strategy and lead you to a specified end goal.

For example, if the main aim of your digital marketing strategy is to create

more leads via social media, you might launch a digital marketing campaign on Twitter.

To create more leads through Twitter, post some of your company's best-performing gated content.

Digital Marketing Strategy Template

While a spreadsheet may be an effective tool for outlining your digital marketing strategy,

it can rapidly become cluttered and burdensome.

A dependable digital marketing strategy document is required to plan your

approach for the long run — generally six to twelve months out.

But where do you even begin?

Using our free digital marketing strategy template.

This template will guide you through your business overview and initiatives,

assist you in developing your target market and competition information,

and flesh out your marketing plan – including your budget as well as particular channels and KPIs.

In January, you'll start a blog that will updated once a week for the rest of the year.

You'll release a new ebook in March, supported by sponsored marketing.

In July, you'll be gearing up for your busiest business month - what do you expect to have learned by then that will affect the material you create to promote it?

During September, you'll concentrate on earned media in the form of public relations (PR) to drive more traffic.

This method creates a defined schedule for your activity, which will aid in the communication of plans among co-workers.

Finally, for your inspiration, below are some well-known

examples of digital marketing campaigns and their methods.

Why Do You Need a Digital Marketing Strategy?

Making a strategy, in general, helps you move more consciously and

therefore more confidently no matter what you do.

Building a plan for digital marketing can benefit you in the following ways:

It inspires you to study more. When developing a digital marketing strategy, you must consider every area of your organization. To build a polished and up-to-date digital marketing plan, you must also extensively study your audience, rivals, trends, and adjacent areas. Creating a strategy is a fantastic opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of your company!

It gives accurate data. During the study and after putting your plan into action, you will receive a wealth of detailed information about what works and what doesn't for your brand. With such knowledge, you'll have a plethora of alternatives for enhancing your company.

It organizes your actions. Creating a digital marketing strategy eliminates the confusion of making rash decisions in the absence of a plan. You will have a better knowledge of how to integrate multiple marketing channels and reach your company's full potential if you develop a strategy.

It aids in increasing ROI. When you organize your actions, you perform fewer actions and make fewer mistakes. You will be able to recognize your vulnerabilities, foresee issues, and respond swiftly if you have a well-crafted strategy. As a consequence, you will save time, money, and effort in increasing margins.

It forces you to reassess your interactions with the audience. A digital marketing strategy allows you to rethink your interactions with prospects and consumers at all phases of the buyer's journey. When developing a business strategy, you should focus on your consumers, look for methods to provide more value to your connections, and come up with new ways to engage with them.

So, now that you've determined that you require a digital marketing plan,

let's draw up a basic digital marketing strategy.

How to Create a Digital Marketing Strategy?

There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to establishing a digital marketing plan.

Maintain your critical thinking when following our ideas,

and select the tips that are most relevant to your business.

Here's a step-by-step plan.

Step 1: Research and define your goals

First and foremost, consider whether it is possible to improve your existing content

so that it ranks higher on Google. If we concentrate on SEO strategy, here's what you can do with it:

To rank higher, structure your material following Google's algorithm.

To make your page load faster, reduce the size of your pictures.

Obtain links from relevant and reputable websites to demonstrate your positive reputation.

Then, compare your content to that of your rivals.

Perhaps they've addressed pertinent issues you weren't aware existed.

You may use tools like Ahrefs or Moz to see which of your rivals' sites rank in

the top 10 for particular keywords and utilize this information to cover these subjects.

Perhaps your findings will lead you to publish additional video material or include more consumer input into your sites.

It's also fine to ask individuals to express their thoughts on your brand and what they'd want to see altered in your joint connection.

Yes, you won't receive a perfect response rate,

but chances are you'll get a lot of new ideas to include in your digital marketing plan.

Importantly, select the digital marketing platforms that are most suited to your company.

Working with too many channels from the start is not recommended;

instead, build one channel at a time as needed.

Step 2: Collect data about your audience

The target audience for your product or service is the second item you should consider.

Create a buyer persona for your company –

a depiction of your typical client that contains information about their interests, online behaviour, and purchasing patterns.

You may combine your assumptions with real-world data from Google Analytics, for example.

All of the information you collect may be used to generate highly relevant display advertising, customize email campaigns, and do behavioural segmentation.

Step 3: Generate leads

Your next step will be to maximize lead generation and look for new methods.

Begin by collecting subscribers free subscription forms.

You can use this form to obtain users' email addresses, names, phone numbers,

and other personal information for future correspondence.

Add connections to your messengers to create multichannel forms.

You may also use Google Ads to gather subscribers with highly targeted display advertising.

This feature lets you display relevant adverts based on the user's search history,

a practice known as retargeting.

Another excellent method for expanding your audience is Facebook.

Based on the vast quantity of data Facebook collects about its users,

it enables you to display appropriate advertising in the Newsfeed and Messenger Chats.

You may also recommend that your current audience connects with you through a different channel to revitalize your connections.

For example, with a chatbot, you may ask your Facebook audience to give their email address.

In an email newsletter, you might also propose that people subscribe to your Facebook chatbot.

There are also other methods for generating leads that rely on virality.

You may, for example, organize freebies to attract interested people and get them to join your mailing list.

Perhaps a mix of Facebook or Instagram with giveaway emails to serve the giveaways and deliver alerts.

Influencer marketing is another method for growing your audience.

This is when a well-known individual with thousands of subscribers publishes information

about your company and urges their followers to check it out.

It is a successful marketing strategy because consumers view it as a suggestion

from someone they trust more than advertising.

Step 4: Nurture leads

Lead nurturing is the process of guiding leads toward a purchase once they have initiated contact with your business.

You can do it through emails, chatbots, and social media, but what counts most is how you do it.

You must educate your audience, give value to their existence on your contact list,

and promote your business in a non-intrusive manner.

You may also request additional information from your audience in return for more tailored content and offers.

A survey email, for example, is an excellent method to engage, entertain, and nurture your readers.

Furthermore, it is prudent to provide material based on the user's position in the buyer journey.

Depending on how near customers are to making a purchase,

gradually shift the objective of your content from instructional to conversion-focused.

Step 5: Take care of returning clients and advocates

When a user purchases from you, your connection should not end there.

In the follow-up email, thank your customer for their purchase, ask for feedback or a review, and try to cross-sell.

To encourage repeat business, give an exceptional customer experience and high-quality items.

Make loyal consumers feel like VIPs by providing them with exclusive tailored offers and unique content.

You may also encourage consumers to become brand ambassadors by providing them incentives in exchange for referring others.

Step 6: Set up marketing automation

When you've determined what works and what doesn't for your digital marketing plan,

it's time to automate procedures and improve them.

You may simply design automated email processes to send email sequences to assist subscribers at various stages,

such as onboarding, purchase, cart abandonment, and so on.

Chatbots are also an excellent tool for relieving stress on your sales and customer service personnel. Chatbots on Facebook

Messenger and Telegram may answer frequently asked questions, assist users in booking a hotel stay, and even assist with a job application.

Scheduling may also be advantageous.

On the one hand, you can plan SMS and online push alerts and always be prepared ahead of time, rather than generating campaigns in a rush.

You may, on the other hand, configure auto-posting on social media and in a Facebook Messenger chatbot.

You may use it to plan your marketing efforts.

Conclusion

A good digital marketing plan can do a lot for your company.

There are several internet outlets from which to select.

They all differ in terms of pricing, reach potential, usefulness, and purpose.

What you want is a well-balanced mix of channels that is tailored to your specific needs.

Whatever the channels and techniques are, we advocate not sticking to a single strategy,

especially if it does not perform as planned; instead, give plenty of opportunity for trials and remain open-minded.

You may also contact an SEO professional at Nummero, Top digital marketing agency in Bangalore.

#What is a Digital Marketing Strategy? Guide #digital marketing companies in bangalore

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vbktechnologiesllp · 5 years ago

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Latest Tech Alert

Smart Television’s Security

If you just bought a smart Television on Black Friday or plan to buy one for Cyber Monday tomorrow, the Federal Bureau of Investigation wants you to know a few things. The Smart Televisions that you use for the entertainment are like regular Television sets but with the extra facility of internet connection. This now includes the growth of streaming platforms such as Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime; now each of these services requires internet connection. But like anything that connects to the internet, it opens up smart Televisions to security vulnerabilities and Cyber-Criminals. Not only have that, but many smart Televisions also come with a camera and a microphone. However, most of the internet-connected device producers, care very little about the core security of their gadgets. That’s the key takeaway from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Portland field office, which just ahead of some of the biggest shopping days of the year posted a warning on its website about the risks that smart Televisions pose. Beyond the risk that your Television manufacturer and app developers may be listening and watching you, that Television can be a gateway for Cyber-Criminals to come into your home. A bad cyber actor may not be able to access your locked-down computer directly, but it is possible that your unsecured Television can give them an easy way in the backdoor through your router, wrote the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation warned those Cyber-Criminals can take control of your unsecured smart Television and in worst cases, take control of the camera and microphone to watch and listen in. Active strikes and exploits against smart Televisions are rare, but not unheard of. Every Smart Television set comes equipped with the software designed by their manufacturer and every consumer is at the mercy of their provider’s unreliable and irregular security patches, which also makes some devices more vulnerable than other gadgets. Recently, Cyber-Criminalsdisplayed how Google’s Chromecast streaming stick can be compromised and broadcast random videos to millions of victims. In fact, some of the biggest exploits targeting smart Televisions in recent years were developed by the Central Intelligence Agency but were stolen. Those files were later uploaded on WikiLeaks. But as much as the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s warning is responding to genuine fears, arguably one of the bigger issues that should cause as much if not greater concerns are how much tracking data is collected on smart Television owners. Recent study declared that many manufacturers of smart Televisionincluding LG, Sony and Samsung collects immense amount of information about what users are watching, so that the advertisers can develop their ads strategy, for instance, The Television tracking issue has become so complex in this few years and the Television maker Vizio had to pay fine of millions of dollar, when they were caught secretly collecting customer viewing data. Earlier this year, all because of a separate class-action suit related to the tracking again Vizio was allowed to continue. The Federal Bureau of Investigation recommends placing black tape over an unused smart Television camera, keeping your smart Television up-to-date with the latest patches and fixes, and to read the privacy policy to better understand what you’re smart Television is capable of.

Millions of SMS Messages Exposed In Data-Archives Security Lapse

A massive Data-Archives storing tens of millions of text messages, most of which were sent by businesses to potential customers, has been found online.

Data archives operated by a company that is an SMS service provider for businesses and higher education providers and allows universities, companies, colleges to send bulk text messages to their customers and students. The company based in Austin, Texas declared that of the benefits to its services is that the recipients can also text back. It basically allows them to achieve two-way communication with businesses. The Data-Archives stored years of sent and received text messages from its customers and processed by TrueDialog. But because the Data-Archives were left unprotected on the internet without a password, none of the data was encrypted and anyone could look inside. Earlier this month security researchers found that the exposed Data-Archives the part of their internet scanning efforts and observed that a portion of the data, which had detailed logs of messages sent by customers, including phone numbers and text-message contents.

The Data-Archives had information about marketing messages from businesses with discount codes, university finance applications, and job alerts. However, the data also had sensitive text messages, such as security codes and two-factor codes. The viewer can easily achieve online access to that person’s online accounts and the list goes on and on with the codes to access online medical services and password reset and login credentials for various websites such as Gmail and Facebook accounts. It is extremely easy to read the entire chain of conversations with the help of the unique conversation code in two-way message conversations only one log table had millions of text-messages. When Security Researchersinformed TrueDialog about their exposure, they rapidly pulled the Data-Archives offline. The worst part is that in this entire dilemma chief executive officer of the company was silent and was not ready to acknowledge the trespass neither returned any promising answer to the comment. He didn’t even answer, whether the company would follow state data trespass notification laws and inform their customers about the security lapse.

Unfortunately, this is only one company amongst others who have sensitive consumer information on stake and cared less to take necessary security measures and left sensitive text-messages on the internet, so that it can be accessed by anyone. It is yet another example of how the text-messages can be convenient, but it can be compromised so easily due to the carelessness of various text-message service providers.

Mix-Cloud Data Trespass Exposes Over 20 Million User Records

A Cyber-Invasion on Mix-cloud audio streaming platform based in the United Kingdom has threatened the security and privacy of more than million user accounts and after several minutes the stolen data was on sale over the Dark-web. This actually happens earlier in November and as per the statement received from the seller at the Dark-web, who also supplied a portion of the data, allowing us to examine and verify the authenticity of the data. The data contained login credentials, email addresses, and the login credentials that appeared to be scrambled with the SHA-2 algorithm, making the login credentials nearly impossible to unscramble. All those data files contained sensitive details such as sign-up dates for the accounts and the login date. In addition to that is also had the information about the country from which the client accessed the account including their TCP/IP address and a direct link to their profile picture. However, the company doesn’t force its users to verify their email addresses.

The exact amount of data stolen from the companies’ Data-archives is still unknown. But, as per the information disclosed by an anonymous seller on the Dark-Web, that the total amount of stolen data crossed 25 million and all of them were on sale on the Dark-Web. The data was set for an auction on the Dark-Web and the highest bidder in bitcoin can have direct access to the private data of various consumers. It’s the latest in a string of high profile Data Trespass in recent months. The trespassed data came from the same Dark-web seller who also alerted TechCrunch to the StockXtrespass earlier this year. It was earlier stated by the apparel trading company the consumer wide password reset was only for system maintenance. However, later they had to confirm that they were compromised and their incompetence resulted in a Data exposure of an immense amount of records. The spokesperson of Mixcloud maintained her silence and did not comment. She also failed to answer any of the questions, including if the company has any plans to inform customers as per the U.S. state and EU Data Trespass notification laws. The co-founder of the company also maintained his silence. As a London-based company, Mixcloud falls under the U.K. and European data protection rules, the companies will be fined approximately 4% of their yearly turnover. If they violate the rules set by the European GDPR.

Stop Stating that We Take Your Privacy Very Seriously

In our years of covering web security, there is one lie we have encountered several times. In which many companies state that they take your privacy and security very seriously and the funny thing is that by now most of the consumers known that it’s a blunder. One might have heard that phrase on various occasions and it is basically a common statement used by multiple companies in their wake of a Data-Trespass. The companies always include that quote in their email and also on their website that they care about your privacy. But, the harsh reality is that they don’t really give a crap about your privacy and instead many companies have been found misusing your data. Many companies have been also fined on selling private information of their consumers for more profits. We never understood the exact meaning of that quote made by various companies. Honestly, if all the companies really cared about your privacy, then the data-hungry companies like Google and Facebook, have to stop selling consumer’s private data to the advertisers. Even after reading all this, if some of you still want to reside under the bubble and want to think that all the allegations are incorrect and the companies are those fluffy angels who can’t lie to you, then you might want to see the data which we have created by scraping each report notified to the California attorney general’s office, which comes under requirements of state law; in the events such as a trespassing of security. Approximately one-fourth of all data trespass notification had some variations stating that the company doesn’t really care about your privacy. It displays that they don’t even know their next step.

Let me just provide you another perfect example of the incompetence of a company: Last week, recently many clients of OkCupid complained that their accounts were compromised. In addition to that their accounts were hit by credential stuffing, where Cyber-Criminals take lists of login credentials and try to brute-force their way into consumer’s accounts. Various organizations have learned from such strikes and took the time to improve their account security, such as rolling out two-factor authentication. Instead, OkCupid’s response was to defend, deflect and deny, the common way for organizations to leave negative stories behind. It looked like this:

Deflect

The Company states that almost every website has to deal with attempts related to account takeover

Defend

Later Company said to another publication that there is no strong evidence supporting the Story.

Deny

The company maintained its silence when asked for further steps to overcome this issue.

Unfortunately, today every company like this one has long neglected security issue and constant denial and assurance is their policy to deal with such issues where the customer who trusted them with their private details is on stake. Most of the trespasses happen, due to careless behavior and weak security measures. Cyber-Criminals have been advancing in their techniques every day and on the other hand, these companies who the customer entrusted with their private information are doing nothing but giving fake assurance. The companies can also reach out to the customer for this and educate their customers about the bugs and they instruct them to report a bug immediately. Every start-up project should take security measures very seriously right from the beginning, so in the future, they can achieve invulnerable security for their data archives. Even most successful companies ignore these issues and rather take an escape window of paying fines. I think by now the companies have to understand the seriousness of these issues and instead of ignoring this, they have to employ a proper development team to strengthen their security measures. However, again with a lack of incentive to change, these organizations will continue to hide their faces beneath the ground stating everything is okay when they have to do something to prevent such negativity.

#Secure #security #technology #web development #Webmaster #blog #technologies #tech

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riichardwilson · 5 years ago

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Social Shorts: Creative highlights, Quora queries, Twitter ad data, Facebook’s newest app

(Beyond social) creative moments that caught our attention

Audi x We Are Social takes viewers on a virtual road trip. With much of the world on lockdown, Audi Australia in partnership with creative agency We Are Social jumped on the opportunity to recreate a scenic drive for those stuck at home. The four-hour, slow TV-style video – shot inside and around an Audi A6 sedan – takes viewers through Australia’s countryside, complete with weather changes throughout the journey. True to the times, director Luke Bouchier employed multiple cameras with four crewmembers in four separate cars to capture the footage, while composer John Hassell scored the track from his own home in France. Source: AdAge

William Grant & Sons opens a virtual bar. Scotch whiskey distillery William Grant & Sons is shaking up its stay-at-home routine by bringing the bar to people at home. The 1887 Virtual Bar (named for the year the family-owned company was founded) will feature weekly guests as hosts and bartenders. The first experience will take place on Zoom this week, and will include Hendrick’s Gin ambassador Charmaine Thio and Glenfiddich’s Brett Bayly as recurring hosts. It’s a refreshing example of how brands like WG&S are finding opportunities to connect with audiences while keeping the brand spirit alive despite restrictions around in-person gatherings. Source: The Drum

IKEA’s instruction manual for staying home. To amplify the public message to stay home during this crisis, the Swedish retailer released its own step-by-step guide for what to do in a pandemic. The guide looks a lot like IKEA’s typical instruction manual – branding and all – only, the words “Stay Home” are displayed above a house. Instead of listing tools to build the pictured house, the manual shows a key, a lock and 100 rolls of toilet paper. Below that, a graphic of a closed door shows a checkmark while an open door shows an “x,” indicating what NOT to do. The instructions were posted on IKEA Israel’s Facebook page and were created in partnership with agency McCann Tel-Aviv Israel. “It’s really not complex – just staying at home,” reads the post. Source: AdAge

Quora users are looking for answers on productivity tools

Source: Quora. Methodology:Percent increases are calculated using global answer views over the last three weeks (3/8/20 – 3/28/20) compared to the three weeks prior (2/16/20 – 3/7/20).

Quora’s head of marketing agency, JD Prater, highlighted trends around how users (and brands) are engaging on Quora during this time of crisis. “From productivity tools to self-improvement activities to video conferencing, it’s obvious we’re all doing our best to settle into this new normal,” he noted.

In particular, he outlines the brands that are seeing a trending spike in engagement on the question-and-answer platform. “Several productivity tools are breaking through the noise and earning a lot of attention on Quora. Microsoft Teams rocketed up 310% while their primary competitor Slack was up 19%. No surprise here that popular video conferencing apps GoToMeeting, Zoom, WebEx, and Skype are seeing nice increases in views,” Prater wrote.

Twitter’s bot problem persists, Zoom vows to improve its platform amid surge in usage

Zoom pledges to improve systems, ramp up security. With the global workforce scrambling to WFH, video conferencing platform Zoom is feeling the pressure as usage skyrockets. Zoom has acknowledged the cracks in its system and announced plans to continue improving its platform, protecting user security, and supporting the surge in traffic. In a blog post last week, Zoom wrote, “These new use cases have helped us uncover unforeseen issues with our platform… We appreciate the scrutiny and questions we have been getting – about how the service works, about our infrastructure and capacity, and about our privacy and security policies. These are the questions that will make Zoom better, both as a company and for all its users.” Source: Zoom. Why we care: As marketers, communication is critical – even more so in times like these. Zoom’s commitment to making productivity changes for the better is an improvement that we can all benefit from.

Twitter bots are alive and well – and fueled by politics. Bots and fake accounts have been a long time headache for Twitter users, but the problem doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Fake profiles and bots account for anywhere between 5% to 15% of total users, Social Media Today notes, but their presence has an even bigger impact. Social media analysts have called out swarms of bot accounts being used for malicious purposes, such as amplifying political messages or mass retweeting to drown out opposing views. Source: Social Media Today. Why we care: Despite Twitter working to address the issue through various measures (like bulk removal of fake accounts), the issue is still a red flag for users and brands. As told by Social Media Today, “banning political ads on the platform is one thing, but banning bot swarms would likely have a much bigger positive impact in the case of tweets.”

Facebook’s app for couples, Twitter shares more data with advertisers and TikTok’s latest legal troubles

Facebook has a new app for couples. Earlier this week, the tech giant quietly released a new app for couples called Tuned, developed by Facebook’s New Product Experimentation team. It takes on a messaging app appearance and is designed to help romantic partners communicate via text, voice messages, photos, and songs. Source: The Information. Why we care: The app abides by Facebook’s data policy, which allows user information to be collected for ad targeting purposes.

Twitter is sharing more data with advertisers. Twitter alerted users with a pop-up this week that it’s passing more data to advertisers in order to help prove the effectiveness of ads on its platform. As part of the effort, Twitter removed a privacy setting that users could toggle to prevent Twitter from sharing information (such as ads views and your device ID). For most users, that information will now be shared by default and can’t be turned off. Source: The Verge. Why we care: According to Twitter, this move helps verify that people are actually watching, interacting with, and otherwise seeing the ads that advertisers are paying for, which helps the company “continue operating as a free service.” For advertisers, this means more measurable data which could drive stronger ad performance. Suddenly, advertising on Twitter makes sense.

Publishers threaten to sue TikTok over music licensing issues. TikTok has taken measures to reduce the amount of copyrighted music on its platform, but the Chinese-owned app still has a long way to go. According to the Financial Times, the National Music Publishers Association is threatening legal action against TikTok, and rumor has it that Universal Music Publishing Group is considering doing the same. Source: Financial Times. Why we care: TikTok is still a young platform, and will likely continue to experience legal growing pains – especially with music as a core feature of its platform. Brands on TikTok should keep an eye on the music they use (especially in campaigns). Or, do what e.l.f. cosmetics did – and make your own track.

Facebook rolls out Quiet Mode, Instagram brings DMs to the web

Quiet time on Facebook. Facebook has released a new feature called Quiet Mode last week, which lets users mute all notifications in an attempt to promote downtime away from the screen. It will continue rolling out for iOS users through the next month, and it will be available for Android users starting in May.Source: VentureBeat. Why we care. Quiet Mode complements Facebook’s other efforts to offer relief in the time of COVID-19. It’s coupled with the app’s ‘Your Time’ feature as part of Facebook’s well-being suite that launched back in 2018. The ability to mute all notifications signals a broader push to address growing concerns about the impact of technology on mental health – especially during a time of crisis.

Instagram now shows DMs on desktop. As a long-awaited feature sought after by businesses, creators, and users alike, Instagram is finally bringing direct messages to its desktop browser site. Instagram announced the move on Friday, stating that users globally will now be able to access DMs on the web. Source: The Verge. Why we care: Desktop DMs have been in beta since January, and the platform has gradually added small features to mirror the DM experience users are already familiar with on the app. For marketers in particular, the ability to access DMs directly from the computer means one less step when connecting with audiences or customers.

About The Author

Taylor Peterson is Third Door Media’s Deputy Editor, managing industry-leading coverage that informs and inspires marketers. Based in New York, Taylor brings marketing agency expertise grounded in creative production and agency advertising for global brands. Taylor’s editorial focus blends digital marketing agency and creative strategy with topics like campaign management, emerging formats, and display advertising.

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

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source http://www.scpie.org/social-shorts-creative-highlights-quora-queries-twitter-ad-data-facebooks-newest-app/ source https://scpie.tumblr.com/post/615136456345796608

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laurelkrugerr · 5 years ago

Text

Social Shorts: Creative highlights, Quora queries, Twitter ad data, Facebook’s newest app

(Beyond social) creative moments that caught our attention

Quora users are looking for answers on productivity tools

Source: Quora. Methodology: Percent increases are calculated using global answer views over the last three weeks (3/8/20 – 3/28/20) compared to the three weeks prior (2/16/20 – 3/7/20).

Twitter’s bot problem persists, Zoom vows to improve its platform amid surge in usage

Facebook’s app for couples, Twitter shares more data with advertisers and TikTok’s latest legal troubles

Facebook rolls out Quiet Mode, Instagram brings DMs to the web

Quiet time on Facebook. Facebook has released a new feature called Quiet Mode last week, which lets users mute all notifications in an attempt to promote downtime away from the screen. It will continue rolling out for iOS users through the next month, and it will be available for Android users starting in May. Source: VentureBeat. Why we care. Quiet Mode complements Facebook’s other efforts to offer relief in the time of COVID-19. It’s coupled with the app’s ‘Your Time’ feature as part of Facebook’s well-being suite that launched back in 2018. The ability to mute all notifications signals a broader push to address growing concerns about the impact of technology on mental health – especially during a time of crisis.

About The Author

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/social-shorts-creative-highlights-quora-queries-twitter-ad-data-facebooks-newest-app/ source https://scpie1.blogspot.com/2020/04/social-shorts-creative-highlights-quora.html

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douglassmiith · 5 years ago

Text

Social Shorts: Creative highlights Quora queries Twitter ad data Facebooks newest app

(Beyond social) creative moments that caught our attention

Quora users are looking for answers on productivity tools

Source: Quora. Methodology: Percent increases are calculated using global answer views over the last three weeks (3/8/20 – 3/28/20) compared to the three weeks prior (2/16/20 – 3/7/20).

Twitter’s bot problem persists, Zoom vows to improve its platform amid surge in usage

Facebook’s app for couples, Twitter shares more data with advertisers and TikTok’s latest legal troubles

Facebook rolls out Quiet Mode, Instagram brings DMs to the web

Quiet time on Facebook. Facebook has released a new feature called Quiet Mode last week, which lets users mute all notifications in an attempt to promote downtime away from the screen. It will continue rolling out for iOS users through the next month, and it will be available for Android users starting in May. Source: VentureBeat. Why we care. Quiet Mode complements Facebook’s other efforts to offer relief in the time of COVID-19. It’s coupled with the app’s ‘Your Time’ feature as part of Facebook’s well-being suite that launched back in 2018. The ability to mute all notifications signals a broader push to address growing concerns about the impact of technology on mental health – especially during a time of crisis.

About The Author

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

Via http://www.scpie.org/social-shorts-creative-highlights-quora-queries-twitter-ad-data-facebooks-newest-app/

source https://scpie.weebly.com/blog/social-shorts-creative-highlights-quora-queries-twitter-ad-data-facebooks-newest-app

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scpie · 5 years ago

Text

Social Shorts: Creative highlights, Quora queries, Twitter ad data, Facebook’s newest app

(Beyond social) creative moments that caught our attention

Quora users are looking for answers on productivity tools

Source: Quora. Methodology: Percent increases are calculated using global answer views over the last three weeks (3/8/20 – 3/28/20) compared to the three weeks prior (2/16/20 – 3/7/20).

Twitter’s bot problem persists, Zoom vows to improve its platform amid surge in usage

Facebook’s app for couples, Twitter shares more data with advertisers and TikTok’s latest legal troubles

Facebook rolls out Quiet Mode, Instagram brings DMs to the web

Quiet time on Facebook. Facebook has released a new feature called Quiet Mode last week, which lets users mute all notifications in an attempt to promote downtime away from the screen. It will continue rolling out for iOS users through the next month, and it will be available for Android users starting in May. Source: VentureBeat. Why we care. Quiet Mode complements Facebook’s other efforts to offer relief in the time of COVID-19. It’s coupled with the app’s ‘Your Time’ feature as part of Facebook’s well-being suite that launched back in 2018. The ability to mute all notifications signals a broader push to address growing concerns about the impact of technology on mental health – especially during a time of crisis.

About The Author

Website Design & SEO Delray Beach by DBL07.co

Delray Beach SEO

source http://www.scpie.org/social-shorts-creative-highlights-quora-queries-twitter-ad-data-facebooks-newest-app/

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contentkingseo · 8 years ago

Text

Utilizing agile project management for SEO & digital marketing

SEO and electronic marketing are incredibly complicated, and the electronic landscape is in continuous development and regular. New platforms. New competitors. The new world of marketing has evolved, yet processes for handling and adapting to change haven’t always kept pace.

There is a lot to learn here from the worlds of production and applications development. New job management strategies have evolved which have revolutionized these industries. We hear very little about these approaches from the area of marketing, even though they are well suited to this ever-changing landscape of both SEO and electronic marketing.

In the core of these approaches is a burning desire to inspect and adapt, to eliminate waste and also to strive for continuous improvement. This can be coupled with an agile approach, which contributes to improvements in rate, reductions in prices and improved outcomes.

Within this guide, I discuss Scrum, the job management strategy we use at my company to handle client projects and increase our internal processes. I explain what Scrum is and detail how we have taken this frame (typically employed for applications development) and applied it to our SEO and electronic advertising projects.

Scrum: Continuous improvement

Scrum is a lightweight approach to project management which helps small teams develop sophisticated software systems. Scrum is generally employed for applications development, but it might do the job for anything from a house renovation project into handling a marketing effort.

A Scrum team usually consists of several people who work together in short bursts of work, known as “sprints.” These sprints include time for review and reflection, with the driving aims to eliminate wasted time and effort whilst striving for continuous improvement.

Functions

A Scrum group has only three distinct functions: Product Owner, Scrum Master and Team Member. These three functions work together to provide the stated aims of this undertaking.

Merchandise Owner/Project Owner

The Product Owner gets the general vision and objectives for the project. They drive the job by focusing efforts on the most essential work. In other words, that the Product Owner prioritizes activities which will deliver success. Typically, the Product Owner will take the customer’s requirements and then add them into the to-do record (called in Scrum as “that the backlog”).

In a marketing capability, we consult with this Product Owner as the Project Owner.

The Scrum Master (cool name) is present to keep things going as quickly as possible and also to eliminate any barriers the Team Members must doing the job. The team’s deliverable is always the undertaking and objectives, yet the Scrum Master focuses on delivering a high-performing team.

The Scrum Master can help team members understand how Scrum works and how to employ agile thinking to the undertaking. The Scrum Master must always be available to remove any barriers a team may confront.

The Scrum Master isn’t the boss (only in case that Scrum Master title got you excited and prepared for a power trip!) . The Scrum Master is the most knowledgeable and professional team member, the person who helps the others operate in the most effective way. The job Yoda!

The backbone of all agile teams is, needless to say, that the Team Members. These teams must have total authority over how the job is finished. Naturally, the Project Owner and Scrum Master can assist and set priorities, but the team should own the actual execution of this job.

For an agile group to be successful, that team must be made up of members who have all the skills necessary to perform the job. In a digital marketing capability, this normally means SEO, PPC, Social and Content, with some analytics and conversion rate optimization skills thrown in for good measure.

Though a team will possess specialties, they have to work together to produce the end result: the job aims or aims. This will mean that, while most people will play to their strengths, there’ll be times when people chip in and assist where possible to move everything together as promptly as possible.

The key takeaway here is that the focus must be about doing that the job rather than performing my own job — and generating outcomes instead of simply performing job.

Project Owner & Scrum Master

In Bowler Hat (my company), the Project Owner and Scrum Master are inclined to be the same individual. Usually, this individual is, in addition, the digital marketing strategist. Frequently, that will be me. And of course this is the way that you should or have to do it, but we have discovered this to work best for most projects.

Agile tools

The group employs a series of tools to create the process visible to all team members and to quicken effects.

The job backlog is a listing of all tasks. Ideally, these can be connected to a crystal clear deliverable or objective. We would like to keep that relationship with the customer’s real targets (more company), as opposed to focus on the minutiae of daily SEO tasks.

The Project Owner must order tasks by priority. In other words, stories on top of the board will be the maximum priority. These high-priority tasks should be small enough that they may be picked up and worked on by members. Tasks lower down the board may not yet be completely fleshed out and may be higher level — just bear in mind that because they move up the record, they will need to be more clearly defined.

Project tasks should all possess the following advice:

Business objective

What Should be done

Work/time units

Acceptance criteria

Function is divided into short cycles often known as sprints. A sprint may be a day, a week or even a month, but typically no longer. For an agency where there is a focus on multiple customers, the rush is probably pretty short. As an instance, one dash of five days may be conducted every month for that client.

Project tasks are moved from the job backlog to the sprint backlog from the Project Owner. The Team Members may then determine how to best tackle the tasks from today’s sprint.

Burn charts are a visual instrument which reveal the relationship between time and scope. Where a project has five people to get a five-day sprint, it may involve 200 hours of work (or units). The burndown chart shows just how long progresses, work is finished. This is sometimes a powerful motivational tool and a tool such as the Project Owner and Scrum Master to peek at and offer input.

Burn charts work well for bigger projects where there is work to be done over a predetermined period of time, but they are able to assist a team see progress. At the end of every day, work units must be shown from the burndown chart for finished tasks. This can’t use hours as such, but instead estimated hours based on completion of tasks.

The burndown chart then gives visual feedback in the event the team is on track and helps provide them a nudge if they are not. This helps crews pull together once not on track and drives team pleasure when things are proceeding well.

A significant facet of agile project management is visualizing the job that needs to be done. This enables all team members to easily watch and examine the job that needs doing or is in progress. Tasks for the present job cycle (psychologist) are moved from the job backlog into the project board for team members to work on.

The most simple boards have three columns:

Tasks are simply moved throughout the board as they are in progress (usually with sticky notes). Team members could see what everybody is doing, convey and assist each other. And job owners may easily and quickly see the improvement a group is making.

The sprint cycle

Function is handled in short bursts known as sprints. Sprints may vary in duration, and this is where applying this for a marketing agency with many customers differs the most out of using this for applications development teams (or perhaps for promotion teams with one unified objective).

Ultimately, your cycle or sprint is a fixed length of time where you take good care of small chunks of the overall project. This could be one person doing a day a month or even a team working on something solidly for a month. The important takeaway here is that we’re looking to inspect and adapt our working practice and learn from that.

Sprints typically consist of:

Sprint preparation — what will be achieved

Daily meeting (or scrum) — no longer than 15 minutes

Sprint evaluation — show outcome

Retrospective — identify a Few strategic changes that may improve outcomes

Let’s examine these separately to observe how they contribute to the overall process.

Where a job has a backlog of accomplishing activities, this should be pretty simple. The Project Owner makes sure tasks are all set to be worked on, along with the team members pick them up. The Scrum Master may then support the team with any queries or issues.

You’ve got just two questions to answer here:

What will we do so sprint?

How can we do it?

Scale is very important here — if this is really a one-day sprint, then spend 10 minutes planning. If this is really a week’s work, then spend a few hours in your sprint preparation.

The daily meeting, or Scrum, is also an essential part of the process. The point is that this should be brief (15 minutes max), and these meetings are held standing to guarantee brevity.

The principal objective here is to get every group member to detail what they’ve done, what they are doing now, and any issues or hold-ups they struck. Problems are not solved in this meeting, but instead a team member may say an issue and another team member may pledge to help them solve that issue.

This pushes the flow of communication and knowledge sharing, and also it ensures hold-ups are rapidly removed.

Inspect and adapt — inspect at the meeting, adapt after the meeting.

Within an agency setting with multiple customers, this often means we’re looking at issues with processes and constantly striving to maximize and improve the processes that underlie the various marketing and advertising tasks.

This is really where accomplishments are detailed and linked to objectives. Within an agency as we use it, this often forms the cornerstone of our client reporting: what we have done, how it helps us reach our aims and what we will do next in the next work cycle.

The retrospective is really a meeting held at the end of every sprint cycle. In Bowler Hat, this is a thing we do at the end of every month. Here, we’re really seeking to inspect and adapt our own processes such as SEO, PPC, social and content marketing.

What was learned in this month?

What issues did we get this past month?

How do we improve?

This isn’t intended to generate a long laundry list of tasks. Instead, the point is to identify one or two small strategic improvements to this process. This often takes the kind of one or two problems for every tactical strategy.

Inspect and adapt. Continuous improvement. All these are crucial to doing better job for our customers and getting better outcomes. These will also be essential to staying afloat and on top of fresh opportunities in the fast evolving electronic advertising landscape.

How this all works collectively

The magic thing is when all of these tiny elements work together. The daily Scrum helps teams always inspect, adapt and share knowledge. This removes hold-ups and generates more joyful teams. The retrospective will help to underline where strategic improvements could be made to the coming month.

Putting this into practice for client projects

In Bowler Hat, we’ve got a vastly diverse customer base. We’ve got businesses which use us to get a single tactical channel such as neighborhood SEO, and we’ve got clients that trust us to treat SEO, PPC, social and content marketing. This usually means a client may have a single team member taking good care of the job or a bigger team with various team members.

Applying classic agile approaches here is somewhat tough and has needed some alterations to the basic design. We use agile believing here to examine and improve our way of agile marketing: inspect and adapt, create strategic changes. There is always space for improvement, thus we try for it.

Listed below is an overview of how we often place this to practice for our own clients:

To know what to do, then we will need to find out the job backlog. This is usually the task of the strategist and will often demand audits. For instance for an SEO job, we would normally execute a detailed SEO audit and make a list of endeavors. We will also look at developing a basic digital advertising plan, that will also detail various actions points.

The Project Owner will then incorporate these tasks to the job backlog.

To get a customer’s job in any particular sprint cycle, then we will choose the highest-priority tasks from the job backlog and add them into the sprint plan with this coming period.

We have a two-sided approach here:

We create digital boards for every job using Asana. (Historically, we used Trello– both are free.) We could then have opinions and keep communication and information regarding the job on the electronic board. All followers of the board are alerted whenever there is an upgrade, and all information is kept in one centralized place apart from email.

In addition, we use real boards with sticky notes for inner processes and bigger projects. This could probably be recreated in Asana and notes added there, but the actual board makes the job and progress observable.

Ideally, I would want to combine both and make use of a projector to display boards visually although centralize all modifications in one area — the very best of both worlds.

Team members perform the job. No matter how efficient we become, the job still must be accomplished.

We’ve got a daily Scrum where everybody details what they worked on yesterday, what they are working on now, and any issues, lessons, improvements and so on. When a team member exerts an issue, another team member (or even the Scrum Master) will probably arrange to assist after the daily meeting. When a team member accomplishes a problem, that knowledge is soon shared. This keeps the flow of communication powerful and generates happy, helpful teams.

Sprint inspection (reporting)

The rush review forms the cornerstone of our reporting. An individual or a team will review what’s been achieved, what the outcomes are, and what we will need to do next. We may also appear at what metrics/KPIs we hope to see motion on after this work was completed.

We’ve got a retrospective meeting at the end of every month. Typically, we’re looking at work done, successes, issues and what we can do to improve across most of tactical channels as well as the sub-tasks within each station. What worked in link building? What worked in nearby SEO? What worked in paid search? What worked in social advertisements?

In our retrospective, we examine every client as a team and examine the information from the sprint review. We then examine all of our internal processes for every marketing activity.

Here, we’re attempting to identify wasted time and opportunities for improvement in our processes and client work so we are able to improve the outcomes we generate for our clients. In the minimum, we do not wish to repeat mistakes or repeatedly go down rabbit holes at which we are not seeing results.

Inspect and adapt

Learning to inspect and adapt is critical. Whether an whole strategy isn’t performing or a specific approach for any particular client is simply not delivering the products, this review allows for change. What works well for one client can fall flat on its face for another.

Creating an “inspect and adapt” civilization boosts the job you do for customers, helps spot issues or wasted time/effort faster and ensures that you do the very best job possible at all times.

We are still adapting our strategy. Asana for job boards. Projectors to create these electronic boards centralized and visible to all. Merging Project Owner along with Scrum Master functions. We constantly tinker and create modifications. Occasionally they work. Sometimes they do not. Inspect and adapt.

We operate at a marketing environment where change could be accelerated and the slow may be left behind. Inspecting the situation for all marketing actions ensures you are agile enough to spot opportunities and react to develop a strategic benefit.

Removing waste

The old 80/20 rule is crucial here. Twenty percent of this campaign generates 80 percent of their value. This also means that 80 percent of time spent can be wasted or could certainly be more productive. By trying to identify weaker areas of the strategy, and people which are really delivering, we could better focus our time and produce far better outcomes.

What worked this past month? What did not work? What really delivered? Could any of the time be better spent? Individually, we often know the answers, because we’re doing the job and seeing the results — but this review surfaces them so we could make that strategic improvement.

Continuous improvement

Continuous improvement can also be crucial. Twelve months of small business changes to your inner processes results in a lot more improved results to your customers. Sharing of knowledge and resolutions ensures continuous improvement for your group members. Team members knocking down issues that seemed formerly insurmountable creates teams that are happy. Customers’ issues resolved by knowledgeable and hard working teams generates happy customers.

SEO is a black box. Digital marketing is actually tough. Thus many moving parts. Inspect and accommodate to get rid of waste, focus on the works, and strive for continuous improvement.

This process is helping my agency do better job than ever before and also to some extent hold on to our sanity at the crazy, multichannel, ever-changing, interconnected world of electronic marketing.

Chances are that an agile strategy can help improve your marketing and advertising projects, whether you are an agency or an in-house marketer. And obviously, when you champion the strategy, you get to call yourself the “Scrum Master”– which is always a big triumph.

I’d really like to hear from anybody with agile practices to boost their own advertising efforts. Hit me up on Twitter, LinkedIn or via the author contact form, and then let us see if we can’t inspect, adapt and increase our SEO and electronic advertising attempts in 2017.

Some remarks expressed in this article could be people of a guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff writers are recorded here.

from content king seo http://www.contentkingseo.com/utilizing-agile-project-management-for-seo-digital-marketing/

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