#the end user *needs* to put something meaningful of themselves into the end result for me to consider it their own work

[strike-another-match]

personally i feel the "you didn't actually make that" accusation against AI artists is normally, if not always, justified. i think it is possible to use any medium to make art, and that includes transformative art (like blackout poetry or collage) but - and this is a big but ‼️ - you have to contribute something of your own to it if you want others to look at it and agree that the artwork is at least partially yours

so in the end if you want authorship, you need control, and if you want control, you need skill. when someone with no knowledge of the visual arts types some words into a prompt box and gets a nice image, that image is nice precisely because the machine (in reality, the authors of the artwork the machine was trained with) took all the artistic decisions for them. that is why we say "you didn't actually make that"!

open the door for more user control and, akin to letting a passenger fly a plane, you will end up with a wreck - unless that person is willing to learn what they need to learn to be entrusted with those decisions. so what i'm trying to say is: you can use AI to make art, but it will take a similar set of skills and a similar amount of time to make than it would take to make any other kind of art

(of course, not everyone cares about this, and that's fine. this post is exclusively about the people that seek to claim artistic authorship of images generated through AI tools)

[rpbetter]

Hi Vespertine. Sorry to add to the pile, I promise I will send in some writing related things to compensate later. I also misgendered that user in a comment by accident with she/her. I blocked them, but they still looked at my blog, and they made a post that said by using the wrong pronouns, which they thought was intentional and meant to hurt them, I purposefully called them a hysterical woman stereotype. Obviously that wasn't true. I was just going off a comment someone else made on my blog where they used she/her, and I thought I had to correct myself. It was a case where good intentions, even if I was not happy with the user's behavior or expected to talk to them again, I was still going to use the right pronouns, but my intentions were warped by someone with an agenda. I'm sorry to hear you're getting the same heat. I didn't use my rp blog to interact with the user or talk about them because I was sure something like this would happen, either by them or other people like that callout blog, and I think other people had the same idea. I dodged a bullet there, but I'm still paranoid. I'm paranoid I'll hear a notif and see my rp blog in a callout for this, because someone hunted it down, or a callout for trying to talk to the person who started all the drama. Nobody should be scared to talk about someone on their own blog. Nobody should be scared to talk openly, in general. Nobody should be called out for trying to talk with someone either. This culture of fear is so disturbing to me.

Hey there, Anon!

Oh, I would love that, but you totally don't have to, of course. Don't feel bad for adding on, I'm here for anything at all, and honestly, with the job I'm doing IRL right now, it's really hard for me to concentrate well enough on finishing any of the advice posts (at least, to be the quality y'all deserve). It's a hot topic, it's included so, so, terribly many people in the RPC. It's also one that's generating some great, needed conversations. So, it isn't like you're adding to anything bad, annoying or distracting me, or contributing to the inflammatory side of this.

Hell, it's got to be really nice for some of the people in messages I've received to see proof that they weren't alone in this experience. I can keep publishing the hate anons for exactly that reason, and I can promise people they aren't the only ones (in this or in any such horrible behavior), but it's different to see it coming from a third party! So, thank you for that.

Though, I am deeply sorry that you were treated to more than a ringside seat in this debacle.

It's not very encouraging to be thoughtful and respectful of other people when literally nothing you can say or do will result in anything other than more twisting of your words, and that's a big problem I have with this shit. Things like actual transphobia, intentional misgendering, actual infantalization and shit treatment of ND people, actual harassment, etc. etc. etc. matter. It's just more trivializing of real problems for the sake of blowing nonexistent bullshit up, and that is immensely disgusting to me. The fact that you damn well know someone out there has had the reaction to this behavior of, well, fuck you then, fuck trans people is really upsetting.

Like, yeah, let's be real, if you require social rewards to do the right thing, you have some problems lol but at the same time, you know who does require social rewards to develop themselves? Young people. And the RPC is largely comprised of people in their early twenties who, for a variety of possible reasons, are still at that point

Furthermore, no, it's not anyone's job to be good representation at all times, especially when that performance comes at a cost to themselves, but maybe don't go out of your way to be the person that is the necessary push in the wrong direction of someone's formative experience with people of your community. If it's costing you nothing to not clown on serious issues, but is costing the entire world another bigot for you to clown on serious issues, the choice should be a bit obvious here. Whenever you're in a safe place - physically, emotionally - and capable of that kind of logic, exercise it, damn.

It's definitely a better course of action than playing out skewed activism by vilifying innocent people, more worthy of one's effort than losing their collective shit over a very easy mistake. One that I'd say was even less avoidable in your case. AGAIN, how, exactly is anyone supposed to know this shit when they're blocked? When they aren't subverting the blocks they, themselves, put in place? I know for a fact none of them are looking at the information of the people they choose to try to drive out of the RPC, but everyone else is supposed to make zero reasonable assumptions, check and recheck blogs they have made an effort not to visit for good reason. Sounds absolutely reasonable and sane!

So, you know what? I'm going to be even more offensive here and talk for a moment about why these mistakes are reasonable.

When we see a post and reblog it, it's not unreasonable to assume that the OP had knowledge we didn't. Since we blocked the offending party, but they're discussing them. OP uses the incorrect pronouns, we end using the incorrect pronouns as well. This is not malicious intent. It isn't intentional at all, it's just having a discussion. A discussion that wouldn't have even transpired if they hadn't taken it upon themselves to (what a coincidence) take personal issue with a RPer they repeatedly took out of context and decided to shame for it, before proceeding to get an even bigger stick and pot.

When we decide to block a blog, it's our responsibility to stay off of it. Not go looking at it for any reason. That is now off-limits. When someone blocks us, it's also our responsibility to respect that decision, no matter how outrageous it was, no matter what we might need to verify. That's the issue with blocking when we don't exploit how easy it is to get around blocking on tumblr; we've cut ourselves off from any further meaningful communication, including passive communication like rules and posts. Kind of like how you cannot expect an apology to mean a damn thing when you've blocked everyone you harassed, then made that apology in a post on your blocked blog. Don't put up walls you expect people to see through, then get upset when they can't see through them.

As a community, the RPC is primarily afab. That's never a problem to bring up when someone wants to be angry about their female muse not getting equal attention and so on, but it's a problem to discuss any other time, about any other problem. Dealing with the things that we're socially raised to ascribe to as afab people is that problem. It's reflected in our behaviors, interests, and speech. We may not want to live in a gendered world, we may eschew that, but we were raised in a gendered world and it shows. One which has a lot of complications for being that, like almost everyone feeling safer around afab people by default of the All Men Are Bad, All Women Are Harmless bullshit.

We not only know that the RPC is primarily afab, we tend to assume comfort, especially in hostile situations, by assuming those pronouns in others.

And it so does not matter how much any of us like it, some people have more masculine or feminine tones. Even in text. That means neither that someone's gender identity should be disregarded nor that this text-based presentation is correct, but like every other unfair thing that exists, it's a thing. Like you, Anon, you genuinely come across in tone as primarily neutral, slight lean toward masculine. Even if I wasn't inclined to do so, not knowing you and all, I'd use they/them for you instinctively because that's what your speech is giving me. That isn't any more unreasonable than ascribing another set of pronouns based on the same information.

Oh yeah, I know, lurkers, the difference is that they/them is the appropriate choice when one does not know. I know that logically, but people aren't always operating like robots, weirdly enough. We default to a lot of instinctive behaviors, and we aren't always operating at the top rung of cognition either. Being human works like that, it's really that simple and not malicious if you're not reading that into it.

As we're all aware, it is being read into, and your experience is exactly why; you now feel worried every time you get a notif, you've been outed as a supposed transphobe, and while it is incredibly fortunate you stopped this from transpiring on your RP blog, it still transpired somewhere and has had a negative effect. If they find they correct thing or set of things, they can get so many more people to dogpile you over it. Get enough people to do that, make someone miserable enough, especially people who are already going through a hard enough time already, they'll leave.

It is a terroristic act, and it has the effect of all terroristic acts; people are afraid to exist outside of shifting bounds (that shifting is a part of the terrorism). They can't have an opinion, write any muse/topic they wish, be honest on their own blogs, support the "wrong" topics, muns, or blogs. Attacking people for a mistake, not allowing them to address it either, just furthers all of that. It's showing the community what happens when you aren't on the "right" side, even if that isn't even the case. They certainly turn on their own quickly enough.

So, of course, it's a culture of fear and it is disturbing as hell. No one has any right to make someone feel unsafe over fiction or a hobby or a difference of opinion. Everyone has the right to say whatever they want on their own blogs, to talk openly, and yes, to try to talk to others without feeling at risk.

Even if what someone says is genuinely unpleasant. This isn't the way one handles it. By all means, have a problem with something, have a problem with someone, but grow up and talk to them openly, without bringing everyone you can dredge up to join in. I have no issue with people arguing, I have an issue with bullying. If it's your whole goal to harass people without consequences to the end result of deactivation and lockstep behavior from everyone else, that's what you're doing, folks. Bullying.

If you can't win an argument, especially one your own ass began, in any other way than this, you're not engaging in an argument.

[desktopdust]

Phantom Network: Malware Uninstall

A common question bandied about in regards to the Phantom Network is how a bunch of (insert adjectives like “lowlife” or “no good dirty”, etc) thieves manage to work together without constantly stabbing each other in the back. Yes, I’ll admit, even I didn’t quite understand it back when I was but a wee passive civilian living a mundane life, but I now realize this was only because I grossly misunderstood what a Phantom Thief is.

Most often, you hear “thief” and you picture someone taking something for themselves--a selfish hoarder who collects by any means necessary.  A Phantom Thief, however, has more noble goals in mind...and a flair for the dramatic. Bit of a tangent, but important to note. You see, Phantom Thieves don’t steal for themselves: they steal for others.  We take from the rich and give to the poor and all that jazz, because even if it’s only a drop in the ocean of wealth the elites have built up, the act of stealing from them proves that they aren’t invincible.  It’s all too easy to feel powerless in this world.  But when those with power aren’t able to stop regular people from knocking them down a peg, you get a tiny bit of hope, and more often than you might expect, that tiny bit of hope can make all the difference. Those dedicated to making that happen join the Phantom Network with a simple vow: “honor among thieves”.

Usually, that’s enough.  But no organization is inherently pure, and no matter what your goals are (especially when you’re working outside the law), it’s only natural you’ll attract some folks who are in it for the wrong reasons.  And that’s what we have the FW Protocol for!  If a thief is found to have no honor, the Protocol strips them of their privileges and finds the safest way to expunge them from the organization.  We don’t go as far as to execute somebody, but with how difficult memory deletion is to pull off, lifetime imprisonment is a fairly common result.  The system works...most of the time.  The Protocol can’t be too aggressive, so it usually waits for someone else to file a complaint.  But, with the whole “honor” thing, a lot of good Phantom Thieves won’t feel right ratting on their colleagues unless they go way over the line, at which point they’ve probably already caused an incident and have the Protocol on their tail.  Plenty of thieves manage to operate in that gray area, serving themselves without pissing anyone off too much...and I’ve all too frequently had the pleasure of dealing with one such individual.

Kari always pushed the limits even of that gray area.  But it’s rare to find someone who can competently manipulate time, so she wasn’t entirely wrong in thinking that the Network needed her.  Even after being betrayed over and over, I still haven’t filed a complaint, because she hasn’t outright ruined any job she’s been on and I don’t want to resort to drastic measures just for being personally wronged.  Like I said, honor among thieves.  I had decided to just put the whole thing behind me, not work with or even think about her ever again, but...things took a bit of a turn.

The “courtroom” we have at HQ is rarely used, so it’s a bit cramped.  I practically had to wedge myself into the corner as I took my seat and waited for things to kick off.  Opposite the door, the Phantom Network Admin sat at a blocky steel desk: a broad-shouldered, dark-skinned individual with a cyan bionic eye and metal down one half of their face, the other partly obscured by their many red curls.  Between us were four lightly-armored folks who each wore solid red shades, and in the midst of them, Kari, with a jamming bolt stuck to her alchemar between her shoulder blades and shackles on her wrists.

“Phantom Thief Kari, the Epoch Swindler,” the Admin said.  “Following the recent incident at Navy Canyon, the FW Protocol has conducted an investigation and found you in violation of your vow as a Phantom Thief.  What do you have to say in your own defense?”

Kari adjusted her bangs with a puff of air.  “Listen boss, I know I’m not exactly a paragon of virtue--honor isn’t something that comes all that easily to me.  But have I really done anything that awful?  I’m still serving the essential functions of a Phantom Thief, and none of my transgressions have impeded operations in any meaningful way.”  Under her breath, she added, “Until Navy Canyon, at least...but that was an accident.”

“It is worth noting there have been no formal complaints filed against her,” said one of the FWs surrounding her.  “However, when we interviewed those who have worked with her in the past, we noticed a running theme of dishonorable conduct.  Several such thieves have been brought in today to share their accounts on-record.”

The various assembled thieves were called up one by one, each sharing a lovely little tale about some time Kari shafted them.  Honestly it was hard not to laugh: I felt their pain.  Through it all, Kari just stood there, completely silent as her misdeeds were laid out before her.  Part of me couldn’t help but take satisfaction in the sight.  But, another part...

“Lastly, we would like to hear from Phantom Thief Roche.”

I pushed my way to the front of the room, avoiding eye contact with Kari for as long as I could.  When I faced the FWs, though, I could see her out of the corner of my eye, staring dag...huh. Well, she was staring, but not as maliciously as I was expecting.

“Roche.  On how many occasions have you worked with Kari?”

“Ah, nearly a dozen, I guess,” I said.

“And during these occasions, did Kari conduct herself in a manner you found questionable?”

“Every time.”  I saw Kari look to the floor.  That’s the most remorse I’ve ever seen her show.

“In particular, please share your recollection of the Cosmic Sapphire heist.”

“Right.”  I shifted my weight a little.  “A certain Mr. Snyder had the national museum display a set of fine jewels he had collected over the years, so the two of us set out to steal the exhibit.  Breaking in was easy, and then I went to the display room while Kari disabled the security.  As soon as I had an opening, I snatched the jewels, but as I was headed out I was jumped by a mercenary using a sound alchemar.  Turns out Snyder had shelled out quite a sum bringing in extra help once we warned him we were coming.  I’m sure I don’t need to go into detail about why fighting sound-users is tricky--suffice to say I was on the back foot, with things only evening out once Kari showed up.  We were doing okay, so I made a plan to end it.  I got in close as a distraction...next thing I knew, my bag felt a good bit lighter, and I was eating concrete.  Took me a minute to piece everything together, but basically: Kari stopped time, took the jewels off my hand, and then bolted back here on her own.  Not to be dramatic, but I almost died there.  That’s the only time since joining the Network I’ve had to make an emergency call. In the end, Kari got full payment, I looked like an amateur, and…”

Hesitation struck.  See, I haven’t taken a look at the Cosmic Sapphire Collection--it was turned over to the Admin and stored in the Network’s cache--but I’ve always had a strong suspicion that a few of the jewels didn’t make it back to HQ.  I wanted to bring it up, but...it’s not like I had any proof.  It was baseless, and I’d just be slandering Kari and making her (already very bad-looking) case look a lot worse.  She was still looking at the floor, and it was still weirding me out.

Nodding, one of the FWs asked, “And?”

Mmm, I might hate her, but I gotta be fair.  I sighed, continuing, “And, I’m just mad about it.  Being left to die and all.  But, there you have it.”

I went back to my seat.  The Admin folded their hands before their face, staring at Kari as they sifted through the information they had just absorbed.  “Well.  It sounds to me as though you’ve been awfully consistent, and all that’s saved you from comeuppance is the reluctance of more honorable thieves.  Do you have anything to add, Kari?”

She shook her head.  “...No.”

Yikes.  I’d never seen her like this, and it was really starting to get to me.

“This selfish streak casts itself upon your current claims.  Having previously been so willing to let your colleagues come to harm, it becomes more difficult to believe that the losses suffered at Navy Canyon were simply an accident.  Especially considering how flippant you were in the wake of the incident.”

“Makes sense.”

The Admin paused, and boy did it drag on.  Eventually, they said, “Have any come to speak in defense of Kari?”

“None,” answered an FW.

“So we truly have only your word to go on that this was an accident?”

“Come on, I--” Kari snapped, but cut herself off with a huff.  “Alright.  I’m an asshole, no two ways about it--it’s not like I don’t know.  Maybe I didn’t react right to what was going on, but at this point, what do I have to gain by lying about it?  It was an accident.  I didn’t want those thieves to die.  Believe me, don’t believe me, whatever.  Are we gonna keep running in circles, or can we just get this over with?”

Damn, okay. Something got to her.

The Admin said, “You must have an idea of what my decision would have to be if we leave things here.  Are you alright with that?”

“I just want it over with,” Kari mumbled.  “If there’s no changing it, then this is just torture.”

So...she’d already accepted being banned from the Network?  And was still insisting it was an accident?  Why?  What did she benefit from being honest at that point?

The Admin sat up straight.  “Very well.”

Hold on.

“Kari, you are hereby--”

“Wait!” I said.  All eyes turned to me.  “...Boss. To be fair...I think she’s telling the truth about Navy Canyon being an accident.”

The Admin raised an eyebrow.  “You do? Even though she’s put your life in jeopardy before?”

“I mean I’m still mad about that, don’t get me wrong.  But it’s not like she let the others die and then got out of there: she stayed and finished the mission, and even saved the lives of the right flank later on.  Why would she do that if she had killed the vanguard on purpose?”

After another all-too-long pause, the Admin said, “You make a fine point. But even if that was simply an accident, the trend in her conduct still stands.”

I glanced at Kari.  She was staring at me, eyes wide with confusion.  Don’t ask me, I didn’t get it either.  “Of course.  But, we don’t need to overreact, right?  I think the fact that she stayed after that accident shows she’s not a completely lost cause--maybe we can help her to be a little more honorable, given enough time and incentive.”

The Admin considered this, leading to yet another long silence during which I could feel myself growing old.

“Plus, where are we going to find another time-user on her level?  Not to sound like a business bastard, but you can look at it as an investment.”

The Admin chuckled.  “Practical. I suppose if we lock her for a while, we can take the time to educate her on proper Phantom Thief conduct. Mandatory, of course, and she’ll be confined to quarters otherwise.  Reparations will also need to be arranged, but that’s something we can work out at a later date.  Does this sound acceptable to you, Kari?”

She turned back to face the Admin.  “...Well, doesn’t sound like my idea of a good time, but...I suppose it’s better than my other option.”

“This will only work if you are truly willing to learn.  If you remain obstinate, this verdict can and will be amended.”

“Okay, I get it.  I’ll take it seriously.”

“Good.  Does anyone else have anything to add?”  No one did. “Then we’re done.  Please escort Kari back to her quarters and confiscate her alchemar.  Once you are satisfied the conditions are secure, please inform me, and then we can proceed.”

The FWs ushered Kari out of the room.  As she passed, she stared at me, but I kept my eyes forward.  The other thieves filed out, and I stayed where I was until finally the Admin walked up to me.

“I have to admit, Roche: I wasn’t expecting that from you.”

With a shrug, I got to my feet.  “Yeah, me neither.  Couldn’t tell you why that happened.”

The Admin smiled.  “I see. You know, if we’re going to instill a sense of honor in Kari, there’s quite a bit she could learn from you.”

Every muscle in my body went stiff as I began to question recent decisions.

“Don’t worry, I won’t put you through that.”

The tension drained out of me all at once.  You’d think it’d be cathartic, but it was more like the experience of finally vomiting after hours of nausea.

“Thank you for speaking up, Roche.  Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

Kari was locked for a good few months after that.  She wasn’t entirely responding well to her training, but she did make an effort, and eventually we got somewhere.  After doing a handful of supervised jobs pro bono, she was allowed to leave her quarters, and no one at HQ saw her for another couple months after that.  But, she did come back eventually and resumed duties as normal.  I haven’t interacted with her since the investigation, and I don’t really feel an urge to change that.  I’d like to think she’s made some real progress, but...it’s hard to give someone the benefit of the doubt after repeated betrayal.  I’m gonna keep my distance.  With any luck, she’s at least got some sense of honor now, and she won’t be my problem ever again.

[plagueamon]

Code Geass MBTI Challenge Turn 10: Diethard Ried - ENTP

Turn 10 marks the first time a type is repeated in Code Geass. The first of quite a few in fact, as our list contains almost twice as many characters as there are MBTI types (not to say that every type will be represented by the same number of people). What this means, however, is that I now have the opportunity to show you just how varying people can be even when they are typed as the same. This mainly depends on such things as ho well developed/healthy the person in question is as well as factors that have subjective importance to their personality and upbringing. Diethard Ried is a very good example of this principle, specifically in contrast to our previous ENTP representative - Milly Ashford. Before I start explaining this character’s functions, please keep in mind, that this post will contain heavy Code Geass spoilers, so consider yourself warned. With that out of the way, let us analyse why Diethard Ried is an ENTP.

Dominant Extroverted Intuition/Ne

Appropriately to his dominant function being extroverted and perceiving, Diethard himself sees his single purpose in life as that of an observer, being motivated by a strong desire to personally witness the most amazing and historically impactful events he can get to. For this very reason he joined Lelouch and later Schneizel, both of whom allowed him to be a part of plans that severely changed the world. On the surface Diethard’s obsession with being where the action’s at may appear as dominant Se, however there are some key differences to consider here. Unlike for a Se-dom, his excitement comes not from the experiences themselves, but rather from how the people he follows actually accomplish things that seem nearly impossible to him. For a person with a dominant intuitive function nothing seems quite as interesting as basically seeing literal fantasies and thought experiments being put into reality. This is why Diethard doesn’t mind getting involved in the wars he wants to record: when what you care the most about is creating a great story, objectivity truly may be a myth for some.

The extroverted component of Diethard’s dominant function can be seen in how the plans he wants to see carried out have no personal significance to him. There is no benefit to be gained for him, no need to reflect on the his or Lelouch’s reason for doing what they’re doing, hell, he doesn’t even come up with the plans and does whatever work he is assigned, no matter how amoral. The sole impressiveness of Lelouch’s and Schneizel’s plans are enough to keep him motivated. Notably, Diethard’s admiration for both of his leaders comes from what they can do, not just how smart they are. Clovis was smart too and  very skilled at manipulating Japan’s population to maintain a status quo. What he was not is a genius who had both the will and ability to change the world into something never before seen, and that is why Diethard was bored serving under him.

Because Ne is a function based on associative thinking and connections, Ne-doms more often rely on their thinking skills rather than their knowledge of any particular subject, and recognising Diethard’s intellect, Lelouch made him a high ranking officer, despite him being a Britannian who is generally disliked by the rest of the Black Knights. Lelouch was later proven right in his assessment of the journalist, as Diethard has shown a gret ability to think for himself when unable to turn to his leader for guidance. As a result he is one of the few Black Knights to avoid imprisonment at the start of R2 and eventually ends up betraying his master, making Lelouch’s path to victory that much more difficult.

Auxiliary Introverted Thinking/Ti

Diethard’s Ti is expressed in several ways. For one, it makes him a skilled journalist, who is not only good at his job, but also has a deep enough understanding of his skills to be able to use them for his new position as an intelligence officer. Even more interesting is the fact that journalism was basically the only thing Diethard was passionate about before he joined the Black Knights, so it is only fitting that he adapted some of the job’s principles as a kind of personal philosophy: all is well that makes for a good story, consequences be damned. The reason for why Diethard’s Ti is not dominant, however, is that his passion for journalism is not his core motivation throughout the series, but a way for him to support his Ne ambitions. In fact, he has no second thoughts about abandoning some essential journalistic standards when he views them as an obstacle, his belief that objectivity is a myth is a perfect example of that. This also shows that Diethard’s views regarding journalism are affected by Britannian society, which also doesn’t shy away from fabricating stories in media. Knowing that, we can conclude that this is an example of Diethard’s Fe affecting his Ti judgements, which also shows that his Fe is tertiary and his Ti - auxiliary.

 Much like with Milly, Diethard’s Ti gives him an experimental side, and this is seen in how he likes to challenge the beliefs of fellow Black Knights and question the validity of their views. Ti’s situational/subjective logic is a double-edged sword when it comes to these arguments: Diethard notably tends to debate against morally driven characters, specifically Tohdoh and Ohgi (it’s no coincidence that an ENTP and an ISFJ have so much trouble cooperating), showing the ability to deconstruct their arguments by selecting relevant facts. However, this also shows a level of bias, as we can see when the team loses Zero and needs to decide what to do. While Diethard makes some reasonable arguments in favour of looking for Zero, he ignores the dozens of lives at stake, because they don’t matter to him personally. He knows that without Zero he would have no interest in helping the Black Knights, so he skews the argument to make himself appear more right than he actually is.

Tertiary Extroverted Feeling/Fe

Diethard is a classic example of how ENTPs (specifically in fiction) tend to handle tertiary Fe. While he has a good understanding of social rules and obligations and and the ability to often use them to his advantage, he lacks any kind of personal investment in such things and usually sees them as a means to an end. We can see evidence of this at the start of the series, when Diethard was still working for Clovis: his ability to manipulate media in a way that made Area 11 appear like peaceful utopia and pacified its citizens gave him a high position and a considerable amount of influence in Britannian society, yet he found himself bored and ditched his privileges as soon as he found something more interesting to do. This is even communicated in his character design: despite spending a lot of time in the company of the highest members of Britannian society, Diethard prefers an attire that can be describe as plain at practical at best - fully committing to his social circle is something he considers a waste of his time.

Tertiary Fe happens to be the first major point of difference between Diethard and Milly Ashford. Milly is a healthier ENTP, who, while independent, was still influenced by her upbringing and social environment enough to develop a healthy level of compassion, morality and genuine investment in the lives of her friends - it’s what helps her listen to them and eventually see her own flaws. And then there is Diethard. While we don’t know anything about his life prior to the events of R1, he certainly also seems to be a product of his society, but in a completely different way. In a political system that promotes amoral and manipulative methods, Diethard too has absorbed these values when it comes to achieving his goals, even if he has no interest in the system itself. This makes him only use his Fe to satisfy the urges of his dominant Ne (loop) instead of using it to learn from others or make meaningful connections with them. In this sense, Diethard can be considered a foil to Milly, having many similarities, but some crucial differences from one another..

Inferior Introverted Sensing/Si

As the embodiment of any person’s main flaws and weaknesses, the inferior function is often used to give characters an arc, something they would need to overcome. Both Diethard and Milly possess the same inferior function and hence their inherent flaws are similar, but only Milly learns to be a better person in the end.

Ne is a function that is concerned with theoretical connections between facts. It is therefore directly opposed to Si - a function that focuses on the facts themselves and how they are relevant to the function’s user. For characters with inferior Si, such as Diethard, this means that they focus too much on the external and end up lacking substance or a clear identity as people. This isn’t immediately obvious for Diethard, because he is neither aware, nor cares much about his flaws, but it becomes much more apparent as time goes on. Note that throughout the whole series Diethard has not made any meaningful connections with anyone or anything; he is so obsessed with what he wants to see Lelouch do that he is not even remotely concerned with making others trust him or developing any attachment to even his work, making him the amoral cynic that we all know. And while Milly’s more healthy use of her functions allowed her to find herself and lead a much happier life, Diethard only realised what he was lacking in his final moments.

While he did everything to satisfy his Ne desires and was effective in his service, he failed to earn anyone’s trust or respect as a human being, so when it came to his death, even Lelouch did not see it as worth his effort to show Diethard a last act of kindness.

However, please keep in mind that this is only my opinion on the matter and I will welcome any criticisms or alternative opinions to discuss them. If this article was interesting for you, stay prepared for next time, when I shall discuss the MBTI type of Jeremiah Gottwald.

[mishraabram]

One of the leading reasons for employees not performing to the best of their abilities is the lack of feeling engaged. And this seemingly small thing is what you as an employer needs to get rid of. If you cannot get rid of it completely, you must at least try to reduce it to a large extent. Apart from performance, disengaged employees can also impact other employees or extreme cases, decide to leave the organization.

What is Employee Engagement?

Understanding Workplace Demographics

Top #12 Employee Engagement Trends for 2020

Should organizations feel that their employees are not highly engaged, the problem can be addressed by certain employee engagement practices. Following some of these will help you address the issue of employee engagement. And if done properly, it can boost the satisfaction of employees, reduce the attrition rate and improve employee retention, boost the productivity of employees, increase the loyalty in employees, etc.

What is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement is the emotional connect that an employee has with their organization. Having an emotional connection means that they actually care for the organization, its goals, and its work. Proper employee engagement ensures that your employees do not just work for their paychecks, next hike, promotion, etc. They put in the effort because they understand the organization’s goals and work towards it.

While it is important to understand employee engagement, it is even more crucial to know what employee engagement isn’t. Employee engagement certainly isn’t the happiness of an employee. An employee could be happy but not work diligently towards an organization’s goals. To bridge this gap with your employees, you can partake in employee engagement activities. However, it is important to know employee engagement trends.

Being aware of employee engagement trends will help you better understand the issues and take precautionary steps. These employee engagement trends also ensure that you do not waste your energy on activities that no longer engage your employees.

Understanding Workplace Demographics

Before you can get down to identifying and resolving employee engagement related issues, knowing your company’s demographics is important as well. Going forward, it is expected that employees will stay longer at a workplace rather than constantly changing companies. There is a good possibility that you will have to handle employees from different generations at the same time.

Another factor that will become mainstream for the coming year is virtual workplaces and globalization. This will result in more flow of employees around. Adding to the mix is cultural diversity, which you will have to rethink completely to accommodate a wider set of values than they currently have. Collectively these make sure that the trends of previous years are no longer valid or need to be updated with time.

Top 13 Employee Engagement Trends for 2020

The employee engagement trends for 2020 seek to address upcoming technologies and how the workplace will get affected accordingly. Implementing a few of these will help you cope up with the changes while ensuring that your employees are well engaged.

1. Promote a healthy workplace for employees with wellness programs

There are a lot of things that are not in the right place when it comes to the wellness of employees in the workplace. Employees are usually exhausted due to stress at work or isolation from the social world. And it is no secret that employees who are worn out will always find themselves distant from engagement. Finding out a way to incorporate wellness at the workplace apart from the usual fitness classes and gym membership is an interesting challenge for employers.

An ideal way to handle this situation would be to take into consideration mental wellness, emotional wellness and if possible, even financial wellness, along with physical wellness. It is important to educate your employees about mental wellness and the support that they can get. A few employers are experimenting with sick leaves for mental well-being. Financial wellness is a concern that quite a few employees have. Apart from only providing with education, helping your employees in financially wise decisions can immensely help their engagement levels.

Know more: Role of HR in employee wellness

2. Provide opportunities for employees to grow and develop professionally

The presence of various resources these days makes it easy to help employees to learn and develop their skill set. Providing employees with the tool to help them be ready for future aids in employee engagement. Engaged employees usually have a strong affinity towards improving themselves and learning new things. Failing to offer them similar opportunities will lead to stagnation.

In fact, a survey done by LinkedIn shows that 44% of employees joined new employers for better personal advancement and development prospects. There are several on-demand learning portals or opportunities. Providing your employees with such exposure will help in employee engagement. Yes, there is a cost involved in the same. However, it is an investment that will pay off in terms of better reciprocation from your employees. Even more so when you consider that a company spends as much as 21% of an employees’ salary to find a replacement.

3. Letting Artificial Intelligence do the boring work

It is not mandatory for you as an organisation to embrace every bit of technology that is out there in the market. However, some of them can help you in the process of improving engagement among employees. On the mention of Artificial Intelligence, people usually think about losing jobs. That is not the case. As an organisation, you can incorporate AI to cover some of the most boring and redundant work. This will free up your employees to do more creative work and push their talent limits. Alternatively, they are less likely to get bored and demotivated, since they no longer have to do the boring stuff.

4. Appoint compassionate people as leaders for better health of your organization

Employees across the globe feel that the lack of good leadership in an organization is good enough reason for them to quit. Thus, hiring or promoting leaders who are compassionate and inspiring is one of the employee engagement trends for 2020. A leader who listens is authentic and leads by example has a much higher chance of imbibing your shift towards better engagement for employees.

Leaders or managers who show empathy towards their employees and have a sense of dignity when it comes to commitment are more likely to inspire employees. If your organization has such leaders, it is about time you recognize them and promote them with better responsibilities. Needless to say, the lack of such employees can have a negative impact as well.

You might like to read: EQ – The need of the hour for leaders

5. Better employee experience makes way for more engaged employees

User experience has garnered a lot of attention in recent years and for good reasons. Customers and clients no longer just want a product but also expect a good user experience. According to an article in Forbes, if the cost of fixing an issue is $1 during the design phase, it is $10 during development and $100 once it is released.

We can use a similar thought process for employees as well. Surveys show that about 60% of candidates have a poor experience with companies. As an organization, you would need to put in efforts to enhance employee experience for better engagement. This goes beyond the usual benefits or compensation that you offer to your employees. Listening to your employees frequently via surveys will help you address this. You can get an insight into what the employees like and what they would like to see in the organization.

6. Understanding millennial’s holds key to long association with an organization

Millennials will constitute a vast majority of the workforce in the coming decade. It is only natural that you understand this demographic to make the most of it. A few years ago, companies felt the addition of games in office premises, monthly lunches, etc. were enough to keep millennials engaged. However, that’s not the case. While such instances are helpful, as an employer you should be able to offer them something more meaningful to keep them engaged for the long-term.

You might want to read: Hiring millenials in India

One of the factors that instantly attracts millennials towards organizations is flexibility. Whether it is working duration, office timings, working remotely, etc. These things provide them with a sense of belonging and it can fuel engagement as well. Another crucial factor that can help you get the attention of millennials is a good working culture. A culture that practices open-door policies for management, opportunities to collaborate with other teams is more likely to keep a millennial happy and engaged.

Read more about: Why are millenials important and how to motivate them?

7. Frequent feedback aid in enhanced policies

A common mistake that most companies commit is to wait for the year-end appraisal meetings to give feedback. This feedback can be counterproductive. It gives employees a feeling that the feedback was only for year-end appraisal and might not even have an impact. Giving someone feedback merely takes a few minutes and if done during the year can be more effective.

The lack of a proper feedback channel or regular feedback can bring in a lot of discord and disconnect that the employees feel. Giving them feedback at the end of the year and associating it with monetary benefits leaves them feeling confused. Timely feedback will help your employees work on shortcomings and gaps. This also brings in a sense of belonging and keep them engaged with their profiles. This is one of the leading employee engagement trends for 2020. It will not happen overnight or over one or two instances. But you need to initiate it and ensure that it is followed consistently.

8. Use technology as a tool to improve engagement in employees

Knowingly or unknowingly we are surrounded by technology. The moment we set out of the home, till returning to bed we engage with technology at so many levels. As an organization, you can leverage technology for your benefit. Companies are now embracing the idea of online recognition tools for their employees. This seemingly simple idea helps employees appreciate each other and in turn, increases their engagement in the organization.

This allows employees to share their accomplishments, achievements and create a bond with other employees as well. The usage of good messaging apps also improves communication among employees. These apps allow employees to engage with each other and work collaboratively, irrespective of their location. When you assess engagement barriers in your organization, there are chances that it might be resolved with technology.

9. Improve employee’s productivity by striking a balance between work and life

Work-life balance has been on employee engagement trend for quite some time but never gets old. And there are strong reasons for the same. Offering employees, the flexibility to work at their convenience, at times even without coming to the office can boost the engagement levels to a great extent. Sticking to strict office timings might not be the most effective mode of working for several employees as well.

It is essential that as an organization you incorporate flexibility as and where possible so that employees are not burned out. Estimates show that burned out employee cost $125 billion to $190 billion a year in healthcare expenses. Once employees get a better sense of work-life balance they are more likely to be engaged and be more productive.

Good read: How to improve work life balance in your company?

10. Incorporate analytics for enhanced predictions and getting rid of bottlenecks

In a bid to make something for customers, employees use a lot of tools and thereby generate a lot of data. A rising employee engagement trend is to make use of the data generated by employees. Companies are coming up with tools to help HR understand certain fundamental issues and even help them resolve the same. The data at hand along with a good analytics tool can help you identify bottlenecks when it comes to employee engagement.

Whether it is instant polls, tools for collaboration, specialized data can help you analyze different aspects and work on them to improve employee engagement. You can even predict the future behaviour of employees using these tools. There are bound to be some noises with a huge amount of data at hand. The major challenge in all this is fine tuning the findings and to identify the actual issues.

11. Innovation via upcoming technologies

Companies are embracing newer technologies for more integrated products and experiences for their customers. One prime example is IoT or Internet of Things. The simple concept connects everyday objects with each other and lets them identify similar other objects as well. IoT is being used at various levels including, GPS or RFID for tracking and monitoring shipments, assets or even properties. Ability to rent vehicles remotely without any human intervention is another such example.

12. Incorporate a culture of recognition and rewards

This is one of the simpler and more common employee engagement trends for the coming year. Employee recognition acknowledges the efforts that employees put in openly, to inculcate a growth culture. If you do not already have a recognition and rewards system, it is about time that you start with one. And for companies that already have a system in place, it might be worthwhile revisiting them.

Recognizing and rewarding your employees is one of the most powerful ways of ensuring employee engagement. There are enough surveys and statistics to prove that employees that are recognized, are more likely to feel highly engaged. Organizations across the globe have seen better productivity, boosted morale, and a lower turnover of employees. However, the recognition program must be consistent and visible to others. While recognition and rewards are two different concepts altogether, clubbing them together can multiply the benefits. There are few reports which suggest that employees who receive rewards such as monetary benefits or redeemable points are more engaged than employees who receive bonus yearly once. In fact, the engagement level is pegged at a staggering 8 times.

Do read: Employee rewards and recognition

13. Inculcating a culture of diversity for a growth environment

Another important employee engagement trend comes in the form of diversity in the workplace. Companies that have diverse teams as well as inclusive teams, will find their employees to be more engaged. Diversity in this case predominantly refers to employees from different backgrounds. And inclusion refers to better employee experience at the workplace along with the environment that they have access to.

You can start by introducing bias-free practices in hiring of employees. Other practices include better parental leaves, equal pay among employees and even exposing employees to un-bias training sessions. It is important to inculcate these into the culture of your organization. Employees get a sense of equality, belonging, psychologically safe and most importantly engaged. Once your employees feel comfortable in the culture and environment that you have created, they can expressive, innovative and happier.

Must read: How to build an everlasting company culture?

In conclusion…

To sum it up, engaged employees are more likely to work towards the organizational goals than mere pay checks. Engaged employees are known to be more productive and increase the profitability of an organization. In fact, some reports even suggest that the chances of engaged employees not turning up for work. Engagement brings in a sense of belonging towards the company along with better employee loyalty also.

There are several surveys and tools which can help you identify the level of employee engagement in your organization. Once you identify that the next obvious step is to look for solutions. To fix any issues related to engagement is a bit more difficult than usual business-related problems. However, they can still be solved. You can take the help of the above employee engagement trends and implement techniques that work for your organization. With a bit of perseverance, initial costs and consistency, you will be able to increase the engagement among employees. And once you do, you can reap the benefits of all the efforts that you had to put in the first place.

[thelastmixedtape]

The votes are in and the Last Mixed Tape readership has had their annual say in who is the TLMT Readers Album of the year 2018. See full rundown and Spotify playlist below. 

20. Rejjie Snow – Dear Annie What TLMT has to say:  An album brimming with potential, Dear Annie finds Rejjie Snow creating a working melting pot of his influences into one cohesive twenty song epic record that jumps sounds in a blink of an eye.

19. Le Galaxie – Pleasure What TLMT had to say: A solid, well-crafted record Le Galaxie’s third outing finally finds the group harnessing the production of their studio work in a way that serves the song first. Excess has been replaced by focus, with nothing lost but everything gained along the way.

18. Hilary Woods – Colt What TLMT had to say: Things fall apart, Colt portrays what’s left behind, and what can be made, or remade, afterward. That seems to be the thread line in Hilary Woods work, a sort of need to reconstruct from her imagination. There’s a dreamlike logic to the music. It all makes sense whilst you’re in the dream but the feeling that something is not quite right remains with you, even when you’re awake.

17. Spies – Constancy What TLMT had to say: Constancy doesn’t play like a debut at all. It’s a confident album that twists, turns, and tricks its way around the listener from beginning to end, all the while portraying a sound that’s filled with sonic and emotional catharsis.

16. Just Mustard – Just Mustard What TLMT had to say: Wednesday is an often eerie journey into the distant soundscapes of Just Mustard. Filled with some truly inspired use of noise, mood, and texture, the group’s debut offering is one that identifies them, much like the underlined sound of the record, as a band on the verge of something. What that “something” is remains to seen, but right now they have elevated themselves above the pack and expectations are high.

15. Wyvern Lingo – Wyvern Lingo What TLMT had to say: Wyvern Lingo could have stayed in position and done what was expected of them so early on in their career. But instead, they grew as songwriters, they grew as people and most importantly, they grew as a unit. All of which is shown in great detail on this album. Their first full-length outing is a success. One that will put Wyvern Lingo firmly on the map not only in Ireland but further afield. The hype will persist, for good and for bad, but if Wyvern Lingo continue to sidestep the trappings of such attention and write music that’s representative of who and what they are as artists, then the future is wide open.

14. O Emperor – Jason What TLMT had to say: With Jason, O Emperor leave on their own terms. Completing a body of work as expansive and diverse as the group’s early musical ambitions. The record is joyfully weird, ominously off-kilter and unrelentingly creative. In this way, Jason does not play like a wake, rather it’s a celebration, one final session for the lads.

13. Subplots – A Silent Phase What TLMT had to say: A meeting of atmosphere, texture, and depth of field, A Silent Phase simmers with soundscapes that run right beneath the far-reaching vocals, subtle guitar interplay and crushed snapped beats. All of which makes Subplots latest release such an engaging album to simply sit and listen to.

12. Delorentos – True Surrender What TLMT had to say: Success can make an artist stand still, frozen to one spot and unwilling to move out of fear of losing what made them successful in the first place. True Surrender is a reaction to this process and identifies Delorentos as a band brave enough to follow their own inspirations as naturally as possible. A career high for the group, True Surrender isn’t different for the sake of different, it’s just simply different.

11. Saint Sister – Shape of Silence  What TLMT had to say: Saint Sister have a made a debut that could be considered a triumph at any point in an artist career, let alone this early on. Everything about Shape of Silence feels carefully placed, considered and produced. Add to this the sheer weight of thematic mood, cinematic storytelling and enchanting sounds that form the album and you have something more than a record. You have a world, brought to life by a sense of mystery and intrigue that will leave you wanting to unravel what’s at the center of it again and again.

10. Paddy Hanna – Frankly, I Mutate What TLMT had to say: Frankly, I Mutate is simply wonderful. The exhilarating turn from joy to sadness and back again makes for a compelling listen. It would be difficult to define Paddy Hanna’s performance as exactly that “a performance”. It’s not. Instead, Hanna lives through the record, pushing every inch of himself out into the open for us all to see, while the music that surrounds him does the same.

9. Kojaque – Deli Daydreams What TLMT has to say: Without a doubt, Kojaque’s Deli Daydreams captured the imagination of many on the Irish music scene this year via gems like ‘Eviction Notice’ and ‘Love and Braggadocio’.

8. Villagers – The Art of Pretending To Swim What TLMT had to say: Every Villagers album has a distinct personality. In this wider context, The Art Of Pretending To Swim works as a meeting place between the raw and sonically expansive elements of the past whilst adding new and exciting colours to the mix. On its own, the record is a piece of gentle genius, low on pretence and high on ambition. Few albums, and indeed artists, reach out and connect in such a meaningful way with The Art Of Pretending To Swim Villagers do just that and more.

7. Proper Micro NV – Dormant Boy What TLMT has to say: Sitting on a strong bedrock of electronic beats, the pops and clicks that populate Dormant Boy’s sonic backdrop perfectly wrap themselves around the floating vocals on tracks like ‘Eyes’ and ‘Always’.

6. Bodies – Drench What TLMT has to say: An album built from many textures, Drench makes great dynamic flourishes, persistent alt-rock guitars and a deep sense of atmosphere merge into one, resulting in a very promising debut from Bodies.

5. Hostess – A Simple Life What TLMT had to say: A work of crafted electronic soundscape sculpting, Hostess delivers an album that’s simply a joy to listen to. The sort of record that just feels like it’s taking you somewhere new and personal to its creator. No pretence, no pandering, no compromise. A Simple Life is a true understated gem.

4. Elephant – 88 What TLMT had to say: The bravery of 88 is two-fold. Elephant’s courage to expand his music and Shane Clarke’s courage as a person. Musicians, writers, artists etc communicate things we’ve all felt before but it takes something special to convey not just a feeling but a past in its entirety and still be able to make it relatable. Through spine-tingling moments of musical reflection, sonic expressionism and a sense of place 88 encompass every nuance of emotion all at the same time. As I said before 88 about life itself.

3. Gavin Glass – Opus Pocus What TLMT had to say: Sometimes we need music to speak to us directly, we use it to get over break-ups, remember better times or simply soundtrack a place and time in our lives. With Opus Pocus, Gavin Glass achieves just that, an album which makes us all feel a little less alone when we seem lost, through music that feels at ease with itself.

2. Robert John Ardiff – Between The Bed And Room What TLMT had to say: There can be no doubt Between The Bed And Room is a personal record. Everything about how the album sounds portray an introspective almost isolating outlook. It feels intimate, a sort of catharsis wrestled with through song. Sometimes allowing yourself to be exposed as a songwriter is a daunting task, one not all artist can pull off, but here Robert John Ardiff simply allows himself to express that which he desires to express, either consciously or subconsciously. All of which results in an honest self-portrait of a songwriter.

The Last Mixed Tape Reader’s Album of the Year 2018 is…

1. Pursued By Dogs – Pursued By Dogs What TLMT had to say: An album built from gestures rather than moments, the debut outing from Pursued by Dogs is overwrought with drama, raw emotion, and mood. Working as one whole piece, the record concerns itself with blending deep soundscapes, scattered beats, and monochromatic music into a single large canvas.

For more playlists, 8-tracks, and mixed-tapes like this one, follow the Last Mixed Tape on Spotify. 

https://open.spotify.com/user/thelastmixedtape.com/playlist/08sMixXbUFUENM67FD4cHt?si=I0XKyZpMSH6LlPqtaxec6w

TLMT Readers Top 20 Albums of the Year 2018 featuring .@pursuedbydogs @weareelephants_ @hostessisaband @_Hilary_Woods & more

The votes are in and the Last Mixed Tape readership has had their annual say in who is the TLMT Readers Album of the year 2018.

TLMT Readers Top 20 Albums of the Year 2018 featuring .@pursuedbydogs @weareelephants_ @hostessisaband @_Hilary_Woods & more The votes are in and the Last Mixed Tape readership has had their annual say in who is the TLMT Readers Album of the year 2018.

[michaelandy101-blog]

The Evolution of Content Marketing: How It's Changed and Where It's Going in the Next Decade

New Post has been published on http://tiptopreview.com/the-evolution-of-content-marketing-how-its-changed-and-where-its-going-in-the-next-decade/

The Evolution of Content Marketing: How It's Changed and Where It's Going in the Next Decade

A sound content marketing strategy is one of the better ways a business can help shape its brand identity, garner interest from prospects, and retain an engaged audience. It lets you establish authority in your space, project legitimacy, and build trust between you and who you’re trying to reach.

As you can assume, it’s well worth understanding. But that’s easier said than done. Content marketing isn’t static. The landscape of the practice is constantly changing. It doesn’t look the same now as it did ten years ago, and in ten years it won’t look the same as it does now.

It’s a difficult topic to pin down — one with a fascinating past and an exciting future. Out of both genuine interest and forward-thinking practicality, it’s important to understand both where it’s been and where it’s going.

Here, we’ll get some perspective on both. We’re going to take a look at how content marketing has evolved in the past decade, and how it’s going to evolve in the next one.

How Content Marketing Evolved in the Past Decade

Google changed the game.

In 2011, Google conducted its landmark Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) study. It found that 88% of shoppers use what’s known as a Zero Moment of Truth — a discovery and awareness stage in a buying cycle where a consumer researches a product before buying it. Google’s research also indicated that word of mouth was a definitive factor in swaying that moment.

The study provides a unique point of reference in the context of content marketing’s evolution. It captures the essence of how and why businesses needed to focus on content marketing at the beginning of the 2010s.

It was tacit evidence that companies’ stories were being told online — well beyond the control of their marketing departments — and it was in their best interest to help shape those conversations.

The ZMOT study highlighted the need for sound Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Ranking for relevant keywords on search engines became all but essential to bolstering a company’s online presence and holding up during consumers’ Zero Moments of Truth.

But that study wasn’t the only bombshell Google dropped in the early 2010s. Around the time the study came out, Google’s search ranking algorithm changed to discourage “keyword stuffing” — the practice of repetitively loading a webpage with specific keywords to try to sway search engine rankings.

The change represented what is still a continuous effort by Google to provide users with positive, helpful online experiences. And it did just that. The shift that set the stage for businesses to focus on producing more high-quality, meaningful content.

Social media rose.

But content marketing’s evolution wasn’t exclusively linked to search engines. Social media’s meteoric rise to prominence — one of the most disruptive trends in human history — also had a profound impact on the practice. As these platforms developed into mainstays of everyday life, they presented new challenges for content marketers.

As social media evolved, it popularized a different kind of content consumption than search engines. The difference boiled down to a matter of “pointed versus passive.”

Consumers use search engines to find content more pointedly. Generally speaking, when you use a search engine, you’re looking for a specific answer or a specific subject. Social media allowed users to consume content more passively on their preferred platforms. The content you see on your Facebook feed is finding its way to you — not the other way around.

That trend incentivized the creation of more shareable, attention-grabbing content that could easily be spread across social media channels.

Image Source

Video made a push.

Video also emerged as one of the prevailing content marketing mediums as the decade progressed, particularly among younger consumers. By 2017, over 50% of consumers wanted to see videos from brands they supported — more than any other kind of content.

Image Source

Video is inherently engaging. Generally speaking, it’s easier to follow than blog posts, email newsletters, or ebooks. Gradually, audiences took to it more and more as the decade progressed. By the end of the 2010s, platforms like YouTube were central to the landscape of content marketing.

Obviously, content marketing underwent several shifts in the 2010s, but as I said at the beginning of this article, the practice isn’t — and will never be — static. There are still plenty of changes to come.

How Content Marketing Will Evolve in the Next Decade

Video content will continue to rule.

As I just mentioned, video was emerging as one of the most — if not the most — important mediums for content marketing at the end of this past decade. There’s no indication that that trend is stopping anytime soon.

As of 2020, 85% of businesses use video as a marketing tool — up 24% from 2016. And 92% of marketers who use it consider it an important part of their marketing strategy. It’s already a staple in several companies’ content marketing operations, and research indicates that base is going to expand.

According to a survey by Wyzowl, 59% of marketers who weren’t using video in 2019 expected to be using it throughout 2020.

  Image Source

All told, it looks like the exploration and expansion of video as the preeminent medium for content marketing is going to continue. The priority for marketers is going to be a matter of standing out.

That could mean emphasizing the quality of the content you produce — ensuring it’s enriching, well-crafted, and relevant to viewers. You could also try looking to emerging platforms like TikTok.

No matter how individual producers and companies manage to innovate when it comes to video marketing, the medium is going to be a mainstay in the evolution of content marketing going forward.

Adjusting for mobile will be essential and present new opportunities.

According to Statista, global mobile data traffic in 2022 will be seven times larger than it was in 2017. Mobile device usage is increasing astronomically, and it’s in every content marketer’s best interest to keep pace with that trend.

In 2019, 61% of Google searches took place on a mobile device, and that trend is showing no signs of slowing down. Having a website optimized for mobile devices will be central to successful SEO efforts. And a lot of the content you create will need to fit that bill as well.

Blogs should be easily navigable on smartphones. Readily accessible video content that your audience can watch on mobile devices will be a big help as well. Prospects and customers will need to be able to get as much out of your mobile resources as your desktop ones.

This shift towards mobile will also present new opportunities through emerging kinds of media. More novel mobile technology — like virtual and augmented reality — will have a very real place in the future of content marketing.

As people continue to rely more on their mobile devices, content marketers will have to as well.

Successful content will be more empathetic, purposeful, and customer-first.

Google’s ranking algorithm aims to prioritize the content that will mean the most to searchers. Ideally, by Google’s standards, the first ranking search result for any keyword is the one that best addresses whatever users are searching for. And in all likelihood, they’ll keep tinkering with their process in pursuit of that interest.

While there’s no telling exactly how the algorithm might change going forward, one fact remains — marketers need to focus on high-quality content that will register with consumers. That means understanding your audience and putting considerable effort into how to reach them best.

As HubSpot Senior Content Strategist Amanda Zantal-Wiener puts it, “Where I’m starting to see content turning a corner is in the area of empathy. In the years to come, marketers are going to start creating more content that’s truly created in the mindset of putting themselves in the shoes of others — be it their customers, prospects, partners, or someone else within their audiences. They’ll ask questions like, ‘What does my audience need from me right now? What can I create that’s truly going to help them?’ That’s going to become a requirement for marketers when they begin brainstorming content.”

Research, outreach, and community engagement will become even more important in the context of content creation. Content marketing is trending towards audience enrichment as opposed to product promotion. If this shifting tide holds true, content marketing will continue to become more targeted, purposeful, and customer-centric as the practice evolves.

If there’s anything to take away from understanding the previous and upcoming evolutions of content marketing it’s this — don’t get too comfortable. New trends and challenges are always emerging, and it will always be in your best interest to stay abreast of them.

And above all else, focus on consistently creating high-quality content that your audience will always be able to get something out of.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in May 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Source link

[mishraabram]

Why does an organization need a wellness program?

Before trying to know why an HR has to contribute or what is the role of an HR in employee well being, let us understand, why an awareness program is recommended for an employee.

Not just from the perspective of the health and wellness of an employee, there are other jargon that can affect your small or large businesses. Employees are major assets of a company, who need more care and awareness on how to handle work and personal life.

To be concise, the wellbeing of an employee is the wellbeing of the entire organization. The wellness programs indeed help employees to make the right decision at work.

There are certain elements in a typical wellness program which include meditation, the right nutrition, consistency, and curiosity over fitness schedules, and it goes on. But most of the time, it is misunderstood by the common health insurance plans and other medical benefits and policies of the organization.

Now let us study what actually is human resource?

What are Human Resources (HR)?

The Human Resource is the key department of an organization that really understands, finds, screens, recruits and trains a job applicant. They are also involved in educating or administering the employee benefit programs for the well-being of both, the employee and the organization. HR also plays an important role in helping the organization as it moves to a faster-growing environment.

Here are some of the major roles of a human resource:

A department that is associated with the company or organization which helps to find, screen, recruit and manage job applicants.

They involve compensation benefits, recruitment, and firing, staying updated with the laws that disturb the company and employees.

In recent times people have switched from in-house administrative to outside vendors as they benefit the organization.

The Human Resource department helps companies with their core values and ethos.

These features make the GoodBudget app so popular among users not just in India, but all around the world.

Defining Human Resource:

As mentioned earlier the Human Resource is the key or even the critical resource of an organization. They focus on employee productivity and ways to improve its standards. They also protect the company from issues that threaten its growth and sustainability.

The Human Resource of the organization takes care of the entire compensation benefits, recruitment and firing processes and keep the organization authorities updated with the judiciary laws that need to be maintained and followed to run the company smoothly.

The following are the key responsibilities of the HR that adds more value to the organization,

Handle and care for the employees of the organization prudently

Develop skills that build individuals as well as the organization

Improve innovation, creativity, and flexibility to improve competitiveness

Involve new approaches to the workplace, career development, and internal organization

These factors complete an entire human resource. All of these improvements and processes do not occur instantly, but they happen over time. And that is why it requires a lot of patience for the organization; hence they hand it over to the human resource to handle them.

Now let us have a brief look at how an HR handles employee wellbeing of an organization.

Role of an HR in Employee Wellbeing:

Here are a few tips that HR has employed to manage or handle an employee’s wellbeing in an organization.

Assessing the current situation:

Most of the times while assessing a current scenario of an organization, Human Resource executives tend to concentrate only on the management and impose various policies that let employees suffer tremendously.

Consider a simple example, A startup that is into Digital Marketing, Application Development and Web Development, employs designers who could work efficiently for projects assigned to them. The capability of the designer is understood only when he/she is given an appropriate tool to handle the scenario.

As the project brings a low income to the company, the authorities of the organization might neglect the requests of the designer who wants to prove his/her capability. Eventually, this may affect the design that the client expects, ending up with a poor income which is lower than the destined budget.

This is where the human resource should involve in recognizing both the company as well as the employee’s needs and provide them the required resource so they could perform in a way that the organization gets a positive reputation. This not only builds the brand of the organization but helps in the growth and wellbeing of the organization as well as the employee.

Evaluating data appropriately:

Not just assessing the current situation is important, it is good to evaluate the data appropriately. What does “DATA” mean here? The data is something that is concerned about the employee’s wellbeing as well as the frictionless growth of the company.

Now, let us look into a different scenario; say a company works 12 hours and 6 days a week. The mind and nature of an employee or every employee who works with the company will be average or less. Whereas, consider an organization that works just 8 hours and 5 days a week.

The potential growth of the organization that worked for 8 hours and 5 days of a week will be eventually greater than the other company which worked for 12 hours and 6 days of a week.

A company (or) an organization’s growth is measured through the effort that is put in and not the number of hours that the company works for. The analysis says the company that worked for 6 hours and 4 days a week had a better return on investment when compared to the rest of the organization that worked for 8 hours and 5 days.

Here, the calculus is even minimal and yet they were productive. This method was implemented recently as proclaimed by the current prime minister of Finland, Mrs. Sanna Marin. Isn’t that amazing. This is where a human resource should act, between the employee and the employer.

There are chances that the organizational authorities would go out of their mind, regardless of the benefits they would obtain out of it. Yet, a well-groomed Human Resource Manager would be able to handle the situation more effectively. This not only encourages employees physically but also allows them to produce potential results in their workplace.

Effective communication system:

Most companies avoid transparent communication between the employee and the employer. It is indeed hard to survive such a topology of an organization. There is not a single company that has survived in the long run with an untransparent communication system.

The benefits that an organization provides and the demands of the employee panel should be exchanged in a meaningful and effective way that they can be handled and resolved at the right time. This helps with the healthy growth of the organization as well as the employee base.

This is where a human resource executive or the team plays a vital role. The human resource shouldn’t bypass the process of carrying or exchanging the information. They should work as an honest mediator between the parties and help them establish a healthy and organized workplace.

Perfect coordination:

As mentioned earlier, the human resource team should coordinate between the branches of the organization or its elements. Any organization, that is handled and managed by an enthusiastic and capable human resource, can witness an intense growth in their career.

The Human Resource should perfectly coordinate between the teams and perform necessary advancements that can help both the organization and the employees simultaneously.

The HR team can perform periodical personal sessions with the employees and make a note of the common drawbacks and hardships they face on the work floor. It does not necessarily be a salary hike or anything that is related to finance.

The constraints may fall from company timings to financial hesitancies. This can be resolved only when the human resource takes appropriate action towards hearing the employee’s inabilities and discomforts. That is how they contribute to the wellbeing of an employee in the organization.

Mannered supervision:

When supervision is taken lightly, it leads to bigger conflicts in the organization. That is why there should be an Elaborate/ Mannered supervision in the company.

– What does mannered supervision mean?

Keeping a detailed track record of every single graph of the employee panel, the organization authorities, growth of the organization and the downfalls of the company. These records could help the company as well as the employee panel to sustain in the long run.

Mannered supervision involves five important steps that are already mentioned in this article. Yet, here we have them in succinct.

Meet employee requirements to work effectively with the organization.

Train or educate employees for better growth.

Assist employees in managing time and performance.

Turn into a resource.

Track accountability.

By supervising all the above-mentioned, a human resource manager could definitely establish a perfect work culture within the organization.

Above all these steps and methodologies that a Human Resource executive could perform, there are certain challenges that they themselves could face within the organization. Now let us have a look into the challenges in implementing a complete wellness program.

Challenges in implementing a complete wellness program:

Implementing any wellness program that is followed by an established company or organization would be better, but implementing the ones that are not into existence is a typical challenge a human resource could face. The following are some of them:

Evidence of absence in wellness programs that they are cost-effective towards the company

Forceful disciplinary activities on employees can be bitter

The over-screening process may end up with negative feedback

Interference of private data of employees and lack of protection in biometric information of employees could end up in conflicts

Employer’s adoption of default and robotic replies to employees in order to avoid wellness programs may end up in a mess.

Considering the wellness program, a waste of time is one major drawback among both employers and the employees.

The human resource has to face and overcome all the above-mentioned challenges in order to establish a well-disciplined wellness program. Human resources also undergo various other challenges that are not addressed here. Explaining or mentioning each one of them would take a lot more time.

[hub-pub-bub]

Journalism of high value is discriminated against by a system that favors massive and commercial social media platforms functions, e.g. its fast and easy sharing function.

Over the past years, the news publishing industry has experienced three considerable technological changes: the transition from the analog to the digital, social media boost and increase in the usage of mobile devices.

Now, when digital publishing is developing around the world at an extraordinary speed, and readers are increasingly willing to read through mobile apps, two global companies, Facebook and Google, are dominating the advertising and traffic market in digital space, forcing newspapers to change their existing business and distribution models.

Is this a no-win situation?

How about we start with a simple question – who is a publisher? Oh, yes, this is a person or a company who is responsible for creating, preparing and distributing printed or digital publications. Most of us can give a few examples of the world-known publishing houses like HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, or newspapers such as the New York Times or Washington Post.

Let’s move on. What are the biggest social media platforms and technology enterprises? Probably, among the companies you have thought of, were Google or Facebook, am I right? They facilitate the sharing of information on a global scale.

Today, content creators have to be active on different social media channels. They are responsible for writing an article and promoting it. The mutual dependence between the publishing industry and the digital spaces is more complicated than it would seem at first glance. There is no doubt that the publishing process has changed; as a result, we need to redefine the concept of a publisher.

It is time to ask if the difference between the words “publisher” and “platform” is an etymological trifle or the cause of a conflict of interest?

Source of news

The point lies in the way we get and consume news today.

People scroll down Facebook, Twitter or other social sites many times a day, staring for just a few seconds at the titles and headers without going deeper into an article. We got used to having the latest news immediately.

Facebook Remains a Major Gateway to Online News

No publisher in the history of journalism had such an impact on global news consumption as Facebook.

Therefore, it’s no wonder that publishers use digital solutions and social platforms that help them stay on the competitive market. This is a strategy used by more and more companies – it is about running a business based on digital platforms, using them primarily for promotional activities. All types of publishers has long been active in this way, promoting their content on Facebook or optimizing it for Google. Are the results really worth it?

Monetizing strategy in the digital reality

Google and Facebook have dominated the network traffic and have consumed most of the revenue from digital advertising. It means that these two world companies are collecting revenue equal to what used to be a payment for high-quality journalism.

The social media offer information for free now, meanwhile content creators pay too little for the value they provide to users.

Facebook and Google are the most important sites for news traffic. According to publishing industry monitors Parse.ly, by the end of 2016 Facebook was responsible for 45 percent of referral traffic to publisher sites, and Google 31 percent.

Newspapers publishers in their business models focused mainly on the sale of advertising space, while Facebook or Google paid equally much attention to effectively reaching a highly profiled user and accounting for the effects of the campaign. Facebook’s advantage over the other media channel also results from the number of users many publishers can only dream about. What is more, Facebook and Google integrate on their platforms content created by both of these groups.

Google built the software that provided all of the services that an advertiser would need to place an ad to a targeted group. This system was:

far more efficient than what publishers had offered – advertisers did not need to negotiate and purchase ads through face to face,

far more targeted – there was no guess-work as to the demographic target that was seeing the ads,

more scalable – the market size was exponentially larger than the one that a publisher could offer.

In addition to the ability to track users more effectively, Facebook’s other advantage in advertising was the amount of data it had, pertaining to their lives and behaviors. Not only data that users shared willingly, but also data collected by observing their behavior on the platform and also across the Internet. With all of this knowledge, ads could be targeted at specific groups and inserted directly into their news feeds.

This digital duet determines how the content can be delivered, which text is a priority, what appears in searches and news channels without the participation of publishers who bear all the costs, while Google and Facebook yield most of the profits. And the most important advantage they gain is capturing the users’ (readers’) data.

It seems that newspapers need digital platforms because of the possibility to reach more readers than before.

But the advantages of each platform are difficult to assess, and the use of them is associated with several problems for publishers:

insufficient return on investment,

loss of branding,

no users’ data,

migration of ad revenue.

In the face of the above mentioned doubts news publishers have to ask themselves what monetizing strategy they want to choose:

continuing the costly business of maintaining their own publishing infrastructure, with smaller audiences but complete control over revenue, brand, and data

or

releasing control over user data and advertising in exchange for the meaningful readership growth offered by technology companies and social media platforms.

Secret weapon

There is something that gives newspapers publishers a huge advantage – the content they create, which their readers want. Of course, only if their articles are relevant and substantial, not full of unreliable information focused only on achieving mass clicks by Internet users.

New division of roles has emerged. The giants can impose their own rules. First of all, they have permission on how information should be displayed. Another objection concerns a very important topic today. According to the publishers, the rules set by Google and Facebook are conducive to generalizations and the creation of fake news.

The truth about fake news

On the one hand, publishers appreciate the efforts of Facebook and Google to display content to users who would probably never reach for them. But on the other hand, the giants are currently dominating the Internet, so it is necessary to play according to their rules.

This results in the division of revenues from the market and also the risk of lowering the quality of journalism, an example of which may be fake news, which often cannot be distinguished from real information.

Global and rapid spread of false information forced the long-awaited debate on the rights and obligations of technology companies and social media platforms which are responsible for sharing content.

Protecting the independence of good journalism, which becomes a part of social media, is a challenge for publishers and platforms today.

In 2016, battered by the negative publicity around Facebook regarding “fake news”, Mark Zuckerberg retreated from his rigid position that his creation was “just a technology company” to acknowledge that it was a “new kind of platform.”

Who is who?

News publishers are trying to understand and learn how to work with these powerful forces in the industry. The rapid adaptation of smartphones by the new type of readers has changed media consumption, transforming technology companies offering mobile apps and operating systems into information media.

Sir Martin Sorrell, the founder of the world’s largest advertising agency, WPP, put it like this:

We have always said Google, Facebook and others are media companies and have the same responsibilities as any other media company… They cannot masquerade as technology companies, particularly when they place advertisements.

It would seem that the division that has functioned so far is simple and understandable.

A publisher: a company or a person that prepares and issues books, journals, or music for sale, responsible for the creating and distribution of digital or printed publications.

Social media platforms: technology that enables communication and distribution of information which is used by publishers/companies to promote their content digitally.

Facebook as a company has to make an important decision. Do they want to function as a platform (technology company)? Should their service change its status to the publisher, and content to publications and, as a result, become the world’s largest publishing company?

As of the third quarter of 2018, Facebook had 2.27 billion monthly active users. This “platform” reaches more people than any media organization in history.

No-win situation?

Over the years, news publishers have drowned in their customers’ data, but they have no ability or motivation to imagine what they can do with it. The data analysis has become an integral part of successful publishing, and along with giving data to dominating platforms, publishers realized that they lost something more valuable than money.

Platforms that are based on the use of data to build, run, improve and earn, thanks to their design will always have a huge advantage simply because they operate on a large scale. Publishers began to understand that technology companies know more about their readers than they do.

Now, in the face of Google and Facebook domination, publishers have to look for new sources of traffic and revenue:

having their own development and acquiring readers strategy

trying different ways to monetize content

moving the promoting activity to smaller platforms like Flipboard or Pinterest

The newspaper business model was traditionally based on ad revenues — it was about 80% advertising, 20% circulation. A shift happened in 2014, primarily due to the fall in print advertising (and print publishing altogether) but also the increase in digital subscriptions.

The disappointment in digital ad revenue is pushing publishers to rethink monetizing strategies like paid subscriptions and paywalls, despite the fact that social platforms and Google are to some extent based on free or cheap information flows.

PressPad News Paywall Model

The readers’ attitude is changing and the acceptance of paying for online news is growing.

What we are really seeing is a sort of back to the past situation — where, before Facebook, publishers had to grow their site and… everyone was focused on the diversification of sources. And then Facebook just became the easiest way to grow traffic.

Let’s play together

According to Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School report:

Platforms, particularly Facebook, have dramatically altered their attitude toward news publishing (…). Facebook added a Head of News Partnerships in the shape of former journalist Campbell Brown, hosting a series of workshops and hackathons focused on how to make Facebook better for journalists, and engaging in a vigorous program aimed at raising the issue of media literacy in the public sphere.

For the publishing industry, it is important to ensure a united front so that they can negotiate more effectively. That is why American industry body called the New Media Alliance (NMA), which represents nearly 2,000 media outlets including some of the world���s most influential publishers in the world, wrote to the US Congress demanding the anti-trust exemption, so they could collectively bargain with Facebook and Google.

New Media Alliance is going one step further, perceiving the platforms’ activity as a threat to the freedom of speech. The complaint, isn’t so much about the fact that newspapers’ primary source of revenue came from classified listings and advertising — it’s about freedom.

The NMA press release states:

Quality journalism is critical to sustaining democracy and is central to civic society. To ensure that such journalism has a future, the news organizations that fund it must be able to collectively negotiate with the digital platforms that effectively control distribution and audience access in the digital age.

One of the solution to avoid further expansion from technological giant is to combine powers. If publishers create the unified front, speak with one voice in negotiations with Facebook and Google (pushing for stronger intellectual property protection, better subscription model support, and fair share of revenue and data), they can build a more sustainable future for the information industry.

Has something changed?

Campbell Brown, Head of News Partnerships at Facebook, said:

We’re committed to helping quality journalism thrive on Facebook. We’re making progress through our work with news publishers and have more work to do.

Whilst Google told “The Los Angeles Times”:

We remain deeply committed to helping publishers with both their challenges, and their opportunities.

The price of independence

The current situation of getting and sharing revenue on the news market forced both sides – publishers and technology companies – to think about the speed of digital changes, thanks to which they realized that their defining, activity and monetizing strategy require changes.

If the news publishers want to keep independence, they have to find financial models which work regardless of the social media situation. This may mean using platforms as a tool to reach and engage audiences, but not relying on them to monetize content. It may also entail a considerable balance of funding for journalism.

 (function() { var qs,js,q,s,d=document, gi=d.getElementById, ce=d.createElement, gt=d.getElementsByTagName, id="typef_orm", b="https://embed.typeform.com/"; if(!gi.call(d,id)) { js=ce.call(d,"script"); js.id=id; js.src=b+"embed.js"; q=gt.call(d,"script")[0]; q.parentNode.insertBefore(js,q) } })()

powered by Typeform

These two technology giants are now managing larger advertising revenues, which have long relied on the information departments, which makes the publishers try to find a solution that will stop the budget losses. The question remains what and when the end of Facebook and Google domination will be, because it surely is only a matter of time before they will be replaced.

[milovanovic]

What is Cognitive Computing?

Most probably anyone who is even remotely aware of the nature of contemporary Data Science landscape will recognize the truth of the following two statements: (a) Data Wrangling is necessary with almost every new project, and (b) Data Wrangling is difficult and tedious. Following all the investment and enthusiasm that you have put in your education until now (that long, challenging but painful road to becoming a Data Scientist…), could it be possible that data cleaning, formatting, fusing, and restructuring is taking as much as 80% of your working hours? Wasn’t it all meant to be about statistical modeling, graphs, and applied artificial intelligence? Of all those beautiful R and Python packages that you have studied, is it true that {dplyr}, {tidyr}, and pandas are your best friends at the end of the day?  No. You did not sign up for this job.

This blog, from a Data Scientist, to a Data Scientist; it might help rediscover the initial beauty that you thought will be always be inherent to the landscape. I want to ask the following: why is Data Wrangling so difficult and time consuming? With all the automation that we write to let our computers do the job by themselves, what is specifically difficult in Data Wrangling operations that prevents us from automating them too? Here’s a working example: say, we have a number of tables in some RDBS, a lot of data distributed across them, and we want to build a discrete choice model (say, a multinomial logistic regression) on these data. However, not all data in our database are useful. Moreover, not all data make sense to build such a model from. Imagine that we have some transactional, timestamped data there: well, not a millisecond resolution will be exactly what we’re looking for, but most probably something like day, week, or month of transaction could play a role of a predictor (strsplit()… enjoy). We need the data from the last two years, so select … where 2015, 2016, 2017. Assume we are mixing categorical and continuous predictors: for example, a primary key (ID int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT) would do well as a categorical predictor? Not really. This is easy: tell R not to select the keys. Good. Consumer age and gender would do if and when available, right. Wait, what’s this: “… the column contains any of the following: 0, 2, 6, 7, referring to type of most frequent item type purchase made before automatic user re-registration in 2012; not in use since…” - no, no, we don’t want this... You know the drill.

Why is automatic data wrangling so difficult?

Can’t we expect from our super-smart algorithms to infer automatically this type of common knowledge and expectations among data analysts upon being given a command of a type: build me a multinomial regression model from Y as criterion and select all meaningful data as predictors; iterate model selection until best model is selected? It turns out that what is solved by mere project specification and some bare intuition in your mind – before it starts taking long hours of coding - presents a rather difficult riddle when posed as computational, algorithmic problem. Why is that so?

Let’s assume that we want to solve the problem by imposing a set of formal constraints upon the eligible data types that can enter the model. In R, continuous predictors would fall under the double type, however, sometimes integer needs to be treated as continuous in regression; character, factor, and integer would do as categorical predictors; in a discrete model, the dependent is always categorical. This is extremely easy to automate, but it would help only for the datasets where the variable semantics are all set; in other words, having the problem of letting the algorithm decide what variables do and what do not make sense as predictors is what is really makes the automation of Data Wrangling difficult. Obviously, we would need to build a semantic model, a structured knowledge repository that would be addressed by our automation of Data Wrangling in order to inspect all variable names and descriptions and see which of them match some predefined schema: the schema that defines what is allowable and what not in building a particular statistical model. Our task would then be to define the binding of all columns from our SQL tables to a set of abstract variables from our semantic model to perform the appropriate selection, and then easily build a statistical model in the desired programming language. We can probably solve this kind of Data Wrangling automation for a more or less wide class of Data Science projects; but can we solve the general case that would do for any given relational database and a wide class of statistical models? We are now well aware of the scope of the problem: its solution would almost be a true artificial intelligence. That fact is what takes up to 80% of your daily work routine.

The meaning of cognitive computing

I was motivated to write-up this short summary of the Data Wrangling automation problem a long time ago, maybe because my background as a cognitive psychologist makes me think about similar problems in the cognitive ergonomics of computer programming  more often then it sparks the imagination of my colleagues with a background in software engineering and similar. But the motivation for this very blog post came as a consequence of reading some recent discussions on how to define cognitive computing properly. What is cognitive computing? On one hand, we are being told that it is essentially programming computers to perform cognitive operations in a way similar to what the natural minds do. But, at least half of the typical Data Scientist’s toolkit comes from there: people with background in cognitive sciences would be able to list a dozen of fundamental research areas that have spawned mathematical models used by Data Scientist nowadays, but that were initially developed in order to understand the workings of the human mind. On the other hand, sometimes the explanation of what cognitive computing is seems to be tightly related to the aspects of UX/UI design: cognitive computing means computers being able to react adaptively to our natural language or motor inputs and manage their outputs so to much our original intentions. I guess the automation of Data Wrangling as I have discussed it falls close to this second connotation. I have sometimes encountered that cognitive computing is not the same as AI because the former is of a probabilistic nature while the later is not, which is really true only if you put an equality sign between AI and the old classic AI research program based on the idea of rule-guided behavior (cognitive psychologists have started writing about the “probabilistic turn” in the study of human cognition more than ten years ago, not to mention the study of probabilistic causal networks that has it roots back in the 80s). The whole contemporary discourse of cognitive computing is obviously motivated by some recent developments that have created the need to redefine the meaning of the term, but the redefinition in itself seems to be taking too much time and struggle with fine-grained distinctions from similar terms; it seems to be so edgy that even rumors on cognitive computing being just another marketing hype started appearing.

A view from the perspective of cognitive ergonomics

Well, one take home message is that cognitive computing is certainly not a marketing hype in itself; as I have tried to illustrate above on the example of Data Wrangling automation problem, the problems it may address are real and many would benefit from their solution. A realistic research and development program (semantic modeling + you-name-it-probabilistic-learning-approach) is available to address a more or less wide classes of typical problems of the similar type, and the application of such programs is well under way. The most likely source of too much uncertainty in the discussion on what computing is and what it is not is probably the natural relation of this term to the possibility of obtaining general solutions for wide classes of problems similar to my illustration. Then, we should maybe start making a distinction between cognitive computing in a general and a narrow sense: the former addressing the typical fundamental questions of AI research (irrespective of whether the specific approach under discussion is deterministic or probabilistic), and the later reserved for cognitive applications that solve a constrained class of problems that prevent the user to interact with the computer in cognitively ergonomic way.

Another, final remark, to keep us in line with the nature of problem as exemplified in the beginning of this post. In a similar way that we have tried to discover why Data Wrangling is difficult, we could ask and try to understand why coding in general is hard. Every cognitive psychologist can testify that the human mind does not exhibit too much of a preference for abstraction. In our everyday lives, we rarely organize our thinking around general categories and abstract concepts. In our natural, intuitive mental operations, we look for a glass of water, we desire a conversation with a close friend, we like to have a bite of an apple; we are not chaining large numbers of formal inferences leading from the abstract goal of “being fine”, across many categories that define all that is encompassed by that general state, in order to reach to particulars like “a glass of water”, “a friend nearby”, or “an apple”. Quite contrary, these – so called “basic level categories” - seem to be readily accessible to our minds, and immediately active when a particular goal needs to be met and a particular action performed. But digital computers work exactly the other way around: on the very deep level of their operation, they derive everything by accessing the more general properties and then inferring the particular results. You can thus think of indexing in SQL as a rudimentary step in cognitive engineering: it organizes a data structure in such a way to be able meet the most probable intentions of the user who need to fetch the data from it. You can also think of developing a general semantic model for Data Wrangling in the same way: it needs to adaptively engineer a data structure in a way that matches the intended statistical modeling. From this perspective, cognitive computing can be understood as really spanning across its general and narrow senses: connecting the (a) need to develop adaptive computing that reflects the semantic understanding of (narrowed down) human needs with (b) the (general) algorithmic means of accomplishing that goal (by mimicking the operations of the human mind that it needs to adapt to).

Goran S. Milovanović, PhD Data Science Consultant, SmartCat

[vthiker09]

Managing My Medical Record

We all have our areas of expertise.  Areas of expertise can stem from life experience, decades spent within the same profession, or activities we engage in just because we enjoy doing them.  My areas of expertise, ironically enough, includes Electronic Health Records.  Six years ago, I accepted a position at a non-profit as their Software Administrator.  At the time, I felt my employer wasn’t transparent around what my responsibilities would be and was quite bitter about my newly accepted role.  Before this gig, I had worked within non-profits for many years, mainly in direct service or program management.  I, like most non-profit employees, hated data.  It was a time suck and took time, I didn’t have, from my main purpose - to actually help people.

Metaphorically kicking and screaming, I took on my new role and my strong “fix it” perfectionism, decided making this non-profit's data usable, was more important than my soap box rants around how it was a useless endeavor which only stressed, already stressed, service systems.  Over the next three years, I worked to make their data useful.  I facilitated trainings, wrote user manuals, created silly awards and games, audited more records then I would like to admit, and constantly nagged people - all in the attempt to prove data was important.  What I learned, in this period of time, was data is only something forced upon service providers, for no reason, if the agency or system used it in this way.  Data is only as helpful as the people who are collecting it, are dedicated, to making it useful.

After a few reports I ran secured funding for homelessness prevention and outcomes I generated, made a transitional housing program seriously look at it’s programming - I realized there was power in data.  It was the only tool this agency had to look at what was happening on a broader scale, from a service provision perspective, and see if what they were doing was actually helping people. 

I ended up leaving this agency to work for a software vendor.  For the last three years, I work every single day, helping non-profits begin to use an Electronic Health Record.  My scope of perspective has changed quite a bit since I worked at that small non-profit in a rural state.  I now work with state and local entities, across the country, with a 100% focus on their data.  The motivations for adopting an EHR vary - sometimes it’s to meet new funding regulations, or to be able to bill for services provided more accurately, or sometimes it’s rooted in being able to run more accurate reports on program outcomes.  There are some agencies who I work with who will say “I want my EHR to help me provide better services to my clients/patients.” 

These are my favorite agencies.  They are my favorite agencies because they see their EHR as a tool to help people.  They don’t see it as something thrust upon them by governing bodies or agency admins, who don’t really understand how difficult their day-to-day life is.  They not only see the value of well planned data collection on the individual level, they see value in shared data.  On both the state and federal level, across the country, there have been and are attempts at sharing data across vendors and providers, all aimed at a common theme - providing better services.

Although the nuances are complicated and the implementation can be easier said than done, the general concept is if different providers, working with the same patient, knows what the other provider is doing - they will be able to provide better care.  My instant thought is “No shit - Sherlock.”  It makes all kinds of sense if multiple providers are working with the same patient, they should share what they are doing.  The patient is an individual and all the pieces of their care equates to their overall health. 

The concept is simple and in practice, there is so much room for growth.  HIPAA regulations and confidentiality agreements, although very important, created an environment where providers felt they needed to keep everything under ten layers of red tape - even from other providers working with the same person.  I am not going to attempt to argue HIPAA is poor legislation, because it isn’t.  It provides very important layers of protection for patients.  At the same time, along with other regulations, it complicates coordinated care efforts.

Coordinated care has become a strong area of focus both on a federal level, within the medical and non-profit community, and for software vendors.  Since the actual coordination of information happens within a database, it’s of particular interest to have software which can help providers do this.  What I’ve found, the really hard way, is the software can provide the means and the provider can make it as hard as possible to create any level of care coordination and it hinders positive patient outcomes.

When I hurt myself, I was transported to Vermont’s largest hospital. UVM Medical Center is part of the UVM Health Network.  UVM Health Network is a collection of hospitals, specialists, and providers across the state.  They are all part of the same health network i.e. they all are owned by the same people.  It wasn’t always like this.  Many of these hospitals and practices used to be owned by other entities and were bought by UVM Health Network.  Thus, all these providers used different software vendors, or if they used the same vendor, they had their own implementation.  If you ask UVM Health Network, they will say they are working on a universal platform and it’s very expensive and complicated, which is why they haven’t done it.

I’m sure there is truth to this and it’s creating a care nightmare in Vermont and the burden is falling on patients to coordinate their own care for providers who should be able to do it themselves.  

Here’s my story: I was brought to the UVM Medical Center ER.  I was referred to a surgeon, via a paper referral, who worked at UVM Medical Center.  For a few months, my electronic health record didn’t really matter - because I only had one provider.  As a software consultant, I found it annoying my patient portal was basically a barren wasteland and all my follow-up was provided to me on paper.  At the same time, it didn’t really matter, because all I needed to do was show up to follow-up appointments and talk to the same person.  After I was referred to PT, I started to see a PT at Central Vermont Medical Center.  CVMC is part of the UVM Health Network, except they use a different software vendor.  The PT didn’t even tell me I could sign up for my second patient portal, so clearly they were not using it as a venue to coordinate my care, or at least not in a meaningful transparent way.  

Central Vermont Medical Center and UVM Medical Center do not share data.  Even though they are owned by the same people, they work in cylinders.  Thus, there was zero communication between my PT and my surgeon.  When things started to go downhill, it was my responsibility to say “my PT thinks I should get an MRI.”  We all know how much I believe my first surgeon valued anything I said, so you can surmise how much he valued what I communicated my other provider thought was going wrong.  After my first PT said “you aren’t getting better fast enough,” I went to a private PT practice in the Mad River Valley.  I’m not sure they even had a patient portal and they surely didn’t share information with UVM Medical Center.  Again, it became my responsibility to ask questions the PT had for the surgeon.  This time it came in the form of a crumbled piece of paper.  I brought said piece of paper to the surgeon and then did my best to relay the answers to my PT.

In a short period of time, I had an MRI done and was referred to another surgeon.  Since this was within the same hospital and the surgeons worked down the hall from one another, it was seamless.  After my third surgery, I decided to go to a PT in the same building as my surgeons.  I did this because I wanted the PT to be able to easily communicate with my surgeon and figured since they used the same software, were part of the same hospital, and literally worked 100 ft from one another - this should be pretty simple.  There were a few times I would say things like “Does Dr. so and so even read your notes,” and the PT would say “no” and then would offer to go talk to him - this never actually happened.  Thus, even though they were 100 ft apart, using the same software, they didn’t actually talk about my care - for the same issue.

Things became more complicated when I started to see a back specialist.  This person worked on the same floor as my ankle surgeon.  At this point, I had a PT, a surgeon, and a PA - who all worked about 100 feet from one another.  My PT would read the PA’s notes, and the ankle surgeon looked at my back MRI results when I was with him, so I suppose I should give them some credit for this.  At the same time, there was zero actual coordination of care.  The ankle guy said “you don’t want me to read your back MRI” and the back PA said “I’m not here to talk about your ankle.”  I remember literal fireballs coming out of my eyes when the back PA wouldn’t let me talk about my ankle, since the whole reason I was there was because the ball of my busted foot, wouldn’t stop burning. Although this may not seem related to the software they were using, it’s related because it speaks to the mindset which fuels hesitation to provide actual care coordination.  If medical providers treat people like body parts, instead of people, it makes sense why the won’t put a lot of effort into sharing information, about said body parts, in an effort to provide whole person care.

Shortly after this, I added an out-of-state private practice to my provider list.  This is when it really fell apart from my patient record perspective.  I was receiving significant care and all my medications were coming from this practice and this practice shared zero information with any of my Vermont providers.  At the same time, I actually got a Primary Care Provider, at a smaller practice in the town I live in.  This practice also had it’s own vendor and patient portal.  Thus, in a few months, I ended up with four patients portals and four providers who didn’t share any information.  These four being - UVM Medical Center, Central Vermont Medical Center, My Primary, and the Ankle Surgeon in NH.  I got a Primary because I was tired of the stink eye looks I would get when people would ask if I had one and I said “no.”  The rest of these providers only existed because of my mangled limb.

Adding the NH provider made my electronic health record almost impossible to manage - even for the software consultant.  There are many areas of frustration:

Medications: Every time I go to my Primary or Central VT Med Center, they ask me to update my med list.  Since most of the medications I am/was taking were narcotics, there is a level of mandatory information sharing.  I don’t know the rules and I am confident, in practice, they aren’t working.  My Vermont providers have zero idea about the medications my NH provider gave me - unless I told them, which I did.  When I would tell them I was taking something, they would add it to my meds list.  My providers were really great at adding medications.  They are awful at taking them off.  My meds list has become this really bitter area for me, because every appointment starts with the same conversation around meds, I haven’t been taking for months, which the provider has failed to actually discontinue.

At this point, if I was actually taking everything my VT providers think I’m taking, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to function and might have many more medical problems, then I do.  It’s infuriating to me, as someone who knows it’s doable, to be a patient who can with 100% certainty say: my medical providers can’t get my medications list correct and these are the people who are supposed to ensure the medications I’m given are safe.

Care Coordination: Every time I go to NH, they ask me who my Primary is.  Every time I tell them.  My Primary isn’t in their system, so it just ends up being blank.  Someone finally decided my Primary is someone in NH, with the same last name.  I don’t know who this person is and I’m not sure how much info has been sent to them about me.  My Primary has zero idea what is happening with the surgeon in NH.  A few months ago I rolled into my Primary’s office, in a medical shoe, for an unrelated routine reason, and my primary said “Oh my, you are really having a hard time.” She had no idea I had surgery, why, and didn’t even care to ask.  My NH surgeon is better than most in many ways.  When I started to go to PT, he said if the PT had any questions to reach out.  I provided the PT with his cell number and she never reached out.  She provided care to me with no actual information about what the surgeon did, other than what I told her.  Had my medical record been shared with UVM Medical Center - perhaps she would’ve just been given the necessary information.  I recently went to see an endocrinologist for a non-ankle related issue.  This was probably the worst example.  For some reason, she didn’t have access to any of my medical records, even though she works at UVM Medical Center and does office visits at Central VT Medical Center.  When I went to see her, it was like I had never seen a doctor, other than my disaster of a medications list, and two pieces of paper about a hip issue I had fifteen years ago.

Records Sharing: All of these providers have required access to my previous medical records.  Some of them required them before they would even book an appointment with me.  NH was one of these providers.  When I learned this, I promptly drove the hour to Burlington to get my medical records, in paper form, from the UVM Med Center Medical Records Department.  I then hopped over to Radiology to get my pile of imaging.  I then went to a UPS store and spent almost $100 to fax the paper and overnight the CD’s.  In 2018, I had to fax and snail mail my medical records, because I didn’t want to wait a month for them to be sent.  There is something fundamentally wrong with this statement.   When I started to see my primary, I had to send in a request to share my medical records from UVM - I can’t even request it online.  I have to print the piece of paper, snail mail it, and then wait a month.  I recently switched my primary to a primary who works for UVM.  I had to request my medical records be sent, in person, to a provider who works for the same hospital network.  I’m not sure if this has even happened.  I suppose I will find out at the end of April, when I go to see this provider for the first time.  When I first went to see the endocrinologist, they called me three times asking for my medical records.  I told them each time I had requested them to be sent and I didn’t know why they didn’t have them - they never ended up being sent.  If I am 100% honest - I am reluctant to seek care from a new provider because of this issue.  It’s a logistical nightmare and I’m tired of dealing with it.

Patient Portals: I have four of them.  This means I have four usernames and four passwords.  Thus, every time I want to look at test results, images, notes, or appointment info, I have to remember which provider did it and which patient portal it is.  When you’re rocking a couple hundred provider appointments, it can be difficult to remember who took the ankle x-ray in the fall of 2017.  In Vermont, patient participation in a patient portal is optional.  Thus, everything is still available on paper.  I can’t imagine how frustrating this must be for providers because everything is duplicated.

Communication: My plentiful number of patient portals, doesn’t make it any easier to talk to my providers, even though it could.  Each provider has different rules about how to contact them. Provider A likes texting, but only likes texts if it’s urgent.  Otherwise, call the office or just go there. Provider B only allows phone calls and you’ll always get voicemail, which goes to their nurse. They may or may not actually call you back.  You can email the nurse and it’s not clear on if they will actually answer you.   Provider C only has office assistants who will answer the phone.  You can’t get an actual answer unless you go there.  Provider D is pretty great at email and that’s it.  So not only do I need to remember which website they are using for their patient portal, I also have to remember how they like to communicate, so they’ll actually answer me and it changes based on what my need is.  All of these providers have messaging in their patient portal and that’s the last place I would go to communicate with them. 

I put my medical records in the same category as Aetna - they are there to make my medical life more complicated.  I like to ignore them as much as possible because they cause me a lot of stress and it’s not transparent to me how they are helpful to any of my providers, because at best, they are a fractured picture of what my care looks like.  The fix is specific to the system and as an Implementation Consultant, I’m sure I or someone like me, could be helpful to improving the current system.  At the same time, there’s no universal fix other than to mandate medical systems to improve, for the sake of their patients and themselves.  I’m a smart cookie and these are systems, which I’m familiar with, and it’s difficult.  I can only imagine what it’s like for someone who has more complex medical needs or isn’t able to engage with the red tape as easily.  It’s an unnecessary complication for people who are already struggling and it needs to change.  It needs to change because it complicates patient care - when if it was done correctly, it would actually help to improve the quality of care.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

KIDS DIDN'T ADMIRE IT OR DESPISE IT

But if they don't, you're hosed. NYC, and when I asked them about their trip.1 VCs' money? When we started Viaweb, all the time? But I'm willing to let people see an early draft if it will be easy, and common, to try Web-based applications, there is not much going on, and why this company is going to beat them. You're just looking for something to spark a thought. When they can, for example, the idea was discovered during the Renaissance. There have probably been other people who did this as well as its results. What little original thought there was took place in the rankings.

And yet does anyone who was there have any expectation those days will ever return? The danger of symmetry, repetition and recursion. The really dramatic growth happens when a startup only has three or four people, so only three or four people see that, whereas tens of thousands see business as it's practiced by Boeing or Philip Morris. So why isn't he on the list, and indeed, no one will know. If you get someone really good, really early, it might be wise to give him as much stock as the founders.2 That would be a lot more eager to close—and not just because the returns are high but also because such investments are so easy to get distracted working on small stuff to work on big stuff. In fact the second step can propagate back into the first: if something is hard to appreciate is that it has started to be driven mostly by people's identities. Result: this revolution, if it is one, will be unusually localized. The biggest difference is that you focus more on marketing? So they're going to raise $200,000 worth of new shares to the angel; if there were 1000 shares before the deal, this means 200 additional shares.3 When you're riding a Segway is that you get instant feedback from changes: the number of toys my nephews have. Barring some cataclysm, it will work at any college.

Why? As long as things are going smoothly, boards don't interfere much. No one would dispute that he's one of the people who just make exactly what the customers tell them to stop. That one is easy: don't hire too fast. Till you feel comfortable investing, don't invest more than that.4 So you spread rapidly through all the colleges.5 That's an interesting idea.

We are still very suspect of this idea; it forced itself upon them gradually. Often users have second thoughts and delete such comments. But reading Austen is like reading nonfiction. Calder's sculptures never get boring. What do you do differently when you treat programming languages as a design problem instead of a research topic?6 You're not limited to small, artificial focus groups. Good design is suggestive. Maybe mostly in one hub.

The reason it pays to put off the second kind of errand. I didn't, not enough. Particularly the sort written by the architect. That's what I thought before Viaweb, to the extent I thought about the question at all.7 Hackers can be abrupt even in person. The danger of an idea, how do you choose between ideas?8 In a way. Benchmarks are simulated users.9

Sh And so good writers just you wait and see who's still in print in 300 years are less likely to depend on such tricks. The reason is that investors need to get their capital back, ideally after the startup IPOs, or failing that when it's acquired.10 It can be hard to understand, you could succeed this way. Hiring too fast is by far the biggest killer of startups that end up in it are ones you thought of while writing it? Risk and reward are usually proportionate, however: you should be eating fruit. Bad founders seem hapless. Design doesn't have to be created without any meaningful criteria. Maybe the alarm bells it sets off will counteract the forces that push you to overhire.11 So what does Hardy mean when he says there is no such thing as beauty, we need to be software for making them, so we are now three months into the life of a few carefully observed and solidly modelled objects will tend to seem very positive about your company. For the rest of the class, I just skimmed the Cliff's Notes, it turned out. If you get inspired by some project, I can work in noisy places. The designer is human too.

When you use the organic method is the example of the organic method, you don't need the narrowness of the well per se. You can at least use yourself as a good investor in the startups they funded. Odds are it will be easy to tell apart. The only way to get things right the first time. It's a live thing, running on your servers right now. You may be thinking, it's a mistake to conclude that because a question tends to provoke religious wars, it must a make something lots of people want and how to reach those people, there's a period of rapid growth. Most programmers wish they could start a startup. The less you spend, but as long as you have a beachhead. Like any war, it's damaging even to the degree it isn't, it's a bug. This article explains why much of the next generation of software will be easier, cheaper, more mobile, more reliable, and often more powerful than desktop software.

And for many if not most of the advantages of seed firms is the advice they offer. The suburbs of Pittsburgh in the 1970s before they figured out how to make the company good. His class was a constant adventure. Hiring too fast is by far the biggest killer of startups that end up going public didn't seem likely to at first. They can't dilute you without diluting themselves just as much. In my case they were effectively QA and to some extent the unsexy filter is to ask what you wish someone else would build, so that you could not, if asked, explain why one ought to write about it. A lot of them wrote software for them.12

Notes

So it may be a big effect on social ones. Why go to work your way up. When we got to targeting when I first met him, but there has to be a source of food.

The current Bush, for example, to drive the old one. 43. Obviously this is a way to see it in the most valuable aspects of startups is a bad idea, period.

Org Worrying that Y Combinator only got 38 cents on the relative weights? The point of view: either an IPO, or a blog on the grounds that a their applicants come from meditating in an absolute sense, if you're a YC startup and you have to sweat whether startups have elements of both.

The shares set aside an option to maintain their percentage. If only one restaurant left on the way up into the heads of would-be poets were mistaken to be most attractive when it's their own company. Currently, when they talked about convergence.

Philadelphia is a lot lobbying for harsh sentencing laws, they said, and a back seat to philology, which a seemed more serious and b made brand the dominant factor in deciding what to do good work and thereby subconsciously seeing wealth as something you need. With the good groups, you may as well, since they're an existing investor, and this tends to be about 200 to send a million spams. August 2002. And intimidate the NBA into letting him play.

So it's hard to pick up a take out your anti-dilution protections. The question to ask permission to go to college somewhere with real research professors. Though most founders start out excited about the qualities of these groups, which means you're being asked to choose between great people. The only people who should quit their day job, or some vague thing like that.

35 billion for the future. As a rule of thumb, the startup. The second biggest regret was caring so much in the sense of the world, and we don't have to say, but it is more important.

For example, if you are unimportant.

They also generally provide a better user experience. But that is a good grade you had small children pointed out by a factor of 20.

The Sub-Zero 690, one of them could as accurately be called acting Japanese. They have the.

If you want to approach a specific firm, get an intro to a car dealer. Look at those goddamn fleas, they tended to be important ones. But you can discriminate on the basis of intelligence.

There's not much to hope for, but suburbs are so much a great hacker. The best case. Indiana University Publications.

[jessette20]

11 chatbot marketing examples to boost your bot strategy | Sprout Social

“The bots are coming.”

This sort of line has been popular among marketers over the past couple of years.

But is that reality finally coming to fruition? At this point, are chatbots really here to stay?

Based on industry data and what we’ve seen firsthand at Sprout, the answer is a resounding “yes.”

While chatbots for marketing were once seen as uncharted territory, more and more brands are getting on board with bots.

Why, though?

As noted in our guide to 2019’s social media trends, the need for conversational commerce is growing.

With over half of consumers seeking customer service through social media, today’s social bots can address such concerns around-the-clock. Chatbots are projected to save businesses billions by 2022 by streamlining customer service and bot-based commerce.

And if you think that bots are too “cold” or impersonal for your customer-base, think again. In fact, 69% of consumers prefer communicating with chatbots because they offer speedy answers and solutions.

11 effective chatbot marketing examples

Let’s get real, though.

There’s a huge difference between a bot answering “yes” or “no” questions and a bot that provides meaningful experiences.

And so the positive impact of chatbots really hinges on the quality of a brand’s bot.

This begs the question: what makes a “good” chatbot, anyway?

Hey, we’re glad you asked!

We’ve put together a list of chatbot marketing examples that not only shows practical uses of bots in action but also highlights the diverse range of businesses rolling out bots. Check out how these brands are killin’ it with bots and what your business can learn from them.

1. Hello Fresh

Let’s start with Hello Fresh, one of our favorite chatbot marketing examples because it ticks all the boxes of what a bot should do.

For starters, their Messenger chatbot is self-aware.

No, not-self aware like the Terminator. Self-aware in the sense of the Hello Fresh immediately present their chatbot in a friendly way rather than trying to play off their bot as a customer service rep.

Listen: your customers are smart. They know when they’re talking to a bot and when they’re not. Hello Fresh manages to show off their brand voice and playfully introduce their bot from the word “go.”

Also, note that Hello Fresh provides a variety of prompts to help guide the conversation from point A to point B. The bot suggests questions, likely based on the most common questions their in-person reps receive.

As you’ll see with most of our chatbot marketing examples, most bots try to stay away from totally open-ended messages that could result in errors. Remember: bots should make for better user experience, not a more complicated one.

In addition to answering questions, the bot also has a built-in social selling component by offering bot-exclusive discount codes. Expect for these sorts of offers to become increasingly common as brands look for more incentives to encourage people to interact with their bots.

Note that their discount codes are bot-specific (FRESHBOT25 and BOOZYBOT), which makes it easier for the brand to track and assess the ROI of their bots.

2. Universal Studios

Universal Studios is unique among our chatbot marketing examples in the sense that they’re primarily selling an experience rather than a physical product.

Like Hello Fresh’s bot, Universal’s bot playfully acknowledges its powers and notes that users can fetch a flesh-and-blood rep at any time.

Beyond booking reservations and buying tickets, guests can rely on the Universal bot to provide practical information while at one of their parks. For example, the bot can tell you where the nearest restroom or restaurants are based on the last ride you went on.

Perhaps most notable is the bot’s ability to inform guests of ride wait times in real-time. Rather than rely on a third-party app, guests can see within Messenger whether they should expect long lines or adjust their plan of attack for what to ride next.

  This sort of real-time information on demand is exactly what makes chatbots so valuable.

3. Plum

Plum is chatbot-exclusive service rather for Facebook Messenger than a business using a bot.

In other words, they are a bot.

What’s notable about Plum is their onboarding process. The conversation with Plum is entirely prompted, giving the customer a choice to sign-up or learn more information in smaller “chunks.”

This might not seem like great UX, but it’s actually one of the better chatbot marketing strategies out there.

How so? The interactivity of Plum’s bot certainly beats a boring wall of text or a traditional Q&A.

Also, the bot’s casual tone, emojis and conversational calls-to-action keep the reader naturally scrolling and tapping rather than feeling like they’re being sold to. This is a prime example of how to funnel a customer through a conversation to eventually lead them to take action.

4. Domino’s Pizza

With the rise of social selling and mobile shopping, brands are constantly scrambling for ways they can score more sales from their social channels.

And hey, chatbots can make it happen.

For example, the Domino’s chatbot allows users to customize and order pizzas just like they would online. The ability to save and repeat orders makes it a cinch to score your favorite pie without having to leave Facebook.

This is arguably one of the best chatbot marketing examples for highlighting how a bot can take something done via mobile and make it just as good (if not better) on social. Although digital ordering is nothing new, ordering through a chatbot requires no native downloads or sign-ups on an app.

5. Arsenal FC

As noted earlier, chatbots are fair game for businesses of all shapes and sizes.

That includes superstar sports teams.

English soccer powerhouse Arsenal FC shows us how bots can be used for breaking news and timely content delivery. For example, their bots send out score reports for users who can’t watch their matches in real-time.

The bot also provides users with upcoming fixtures, team line-ups and news articles. Arsenal’s bot drives home the fact that chatbots can be about so much more than customer service.

6. Patrón Tequila

Patrón’s chatbot manages to combine customer service and content delivery, all the while totally nailing their brand voice.

To kick things off, they introduce their “Bot Tenders” to serve up a variety of cocktail suggestions to users.

The bot then provides a recommendation based on your preferences. Looking for something to pair with bunch? Dinner? This is a fantastic example of effective marketing personalization in action.

  But what’s truly noteworthy for Patrón among our other chatbot examples is how the brand aligns their bot with their user-generated content strategy.

After hooking you up with a recipe, the bot then invites you to share your creation on social with their #SimplyPerfect hashtag. This is a simple, low-hanging strategy to encourage more UGC among your satisfied customers.

7. Sephora

Sephora’s is easily one of the most documented and lauded chatbot marketing examples.

And yeah, there’s a reason for that.

The bot acts as a sort of digital concierge, allowing users to take a variety of actions without having to leave Messenger.

Want to browse products? Book an appointment? Try on makeup using augmented reality technology?

Yep, you can do all of that and then some. Sephora’s bot captures how brands can use various chatbot marketing strategies to create a compelling experience.

Also, Sephora illustrates how a digital chatbot can drive brick-and-mortar sales. For example, the bot is capable of letting you know where products and bookings are available based on your location.

8. Adobe

Here’s some food for thought: not all chatbots have to be complicated.

Adobe’s bot is relatively simple and straightforward but does exactly what it needs to do.

In short, the bot acts as a sort of knowledge base where users can ask questions and troubleshoot common product errors. Users are then guided toward a solution based on specific prompts.

Based on the users’ issue, the bot presents the option of speaking with a human or checking out a more detailed troubleshooting page on-site.

Brands shouldn’t pressure themselves into building mindblowing bots. If all you need are simple queries to serve your customers, you’re golden.

9. GoPro

GoPro’s is known for stunning visual content on social media and their chatbot doesn’t disappoint in that department.

To kick off the conversation, the bot introduces itself and suggests a few actions such as shopping for cameras.

The bot then asks some questions to help you find the ideal camera based on your needs.

Unlike any of our other chatbot marketing examples, GoPro goes the extra mile sprinkling .gifs and social video into throughout responses. This not only helps catch one’s eye during a conversation but serves as social proof to sell their products.

  This combination of personalization and imagery provides is yet another example of bots creating compelling experiences for users.

10. Evernote

Evernote illustrates a simple way to use chatbots for marketing that smaller businesses can learn from.

Simply put, the bot acts as a sort of “one-pager” for customer concerns. The bot encourages people to contact their Twitter support team in addition to their community forms or email support.

While the experience is less elaborate, this quick overview highlights all of their key service touchpoints. Plus, it illustrates that marketers have to pick and choose their battle. Evernote successfully uses their chatbot to encourage their best form of service. As long as you’re getting customers what they need, your bot is doing its job.

11. Sprout Social

Last but not least, we think that our own chatbot is pretty rad!

We provide a prompt-heavy bot to provide customer service with exactly what they need.

Customer support? Account issues? Features and pricing plans? It’s all there and just a tap or two away.

    And list most bots, we provide our customers with the option to speak directly to one of the lovely humans on our support team.

  What’s much cooler than our own bot is Sprout’s chatbot builder, though.

Despite popular belief, you don’t need to be a technical wizard or programmer to get started with social bots. In fact, Sprout’s bot builder provides a variety of pre-built bot templates that make the process even easier.

Need a customer care bot? Lead bot? Shopping bot? It’s all there and then some.

Based on your business’ needs, you can put together actions and workflows that also show off your brand’s personality.

Whether it’s a few simple queries or something more complex, we can help you build an awesome experience for your customers.

Are you on board with chatbots for marketing?

Although chatbots might have been seen as little more than a novelty in the past, times are quickly changing.

More specifically, our customers are changing.

The speedy service offered by bots is exactly what people crave in the era of instant gratification. Rather than let customer concerns or potential sales fall by the wayside, social chatbots can pick up the slack and keep your business “open” around the clock.

If you want to learn more about what bots can do for your business, we definitely recommend you check out Sprout’s ultimate guide to chatbots.

And if you’re interested in building your own bot, watch the video below to see how Sprout can help.

This post 11 chatbot marketing examples to boost your bot strategy originally appeared on Sprout Social.

from http://bit.ly/2RGX0aH

[alltechtipstricks]

Does Blogging Assist with SEO [2018 Edition]

Blogging. Such an unclear principle and yet, so progressively popular in the digital neighborhood.

And while the peak of blogging appears to have previous, many keep discussing it as an approach to increase ranking today. As a matter of reality, specialists swear for its performance in search engine optimization.Furthermore, a few of the largest

corporations have actually lately accepted this brand-new pattern by integrating blog pages on their sites. It practically seems that everyone online believes in the wonderful power of the written kind. Today we are asking ourselves:" Does blogging aid with SEO?"

. Most notably, in case it does, how so?Are you planning to start a website? Take a look at our FREE webhosting and turn your concepts

into reality!Understanding material Prior to we carry on to examine the relationship in between blogging and ranking high on online search engine, it

's important to understand what content is.In terms of the binary analysis of material and kind, the conversation dates all the method back to Aristotle's Metaphysics.

Opposing compound and essence, the Greek thinker analyses this innate duality of things. Afterwards, in the context of art criticism, the opposition of kind and contentconcerns compare the things and the subject of the work

. The principle of type typically refers to the style and techniques utilized. On the other hand, content is what is being depicted in the artwork.Fast forward to modern media and the principle of material gets a whole new meaning the majority of us are already presented to.When it pertains to publishing and interaction, material is the

info and experience created for an end-user or audience.When dissecting this definition into little understandable portions, the relationship in between the content itself and marketing ends up being quite apparent.With regard to content being information, functions like functionality and functionality pertain to play a grand function.

Additionally, today's communication is based on details and media accommodates this requirement through using content.As to it being an experience, it deserves mentioning its impact on the end-user. Outcome-oriented, material is essentially a pursuit of a certain goal. Achieving it will mean providing the expected experience to your audience. In this sense, users 'experience of a brand's material is what specifies it as successful or not.Finally, the material is naturally bound with the audience. Itsmain functions are dictated by the demand of the target group of a particular educational or speculative value. All of this is present in contemporary blogs.This leads us to the primary question. Does blogging aid with SEO?So, does blogging aid with SEO?Blogs have a large range of advantages on a website's general efficiency and it's not

surprising. Many of the modern business have begun blogging and registered a substantial traffic growth.To be sincere, the war for info has actually long left the pages of the books and has actually concerned reality. To put it simply, today is the time that material and understanding is valued more than ever in the past. And what better method to serve it

online than blogging?Some of the most crucial advantages of preserving a blog consist of increasing brand awareness, updating users with innovations, and sharing your expertise.And while all of this is clear to a certain degree, a question stays. Does blogging aid with SEO?Here, basically, thereare two points worth considering. While blogging absolutely does help your SEO, its performance is twofold. It can either directly effect SEO or do that indirectly as a side-effect to its other functions.DIRECT IMPACT Online search engine acknowledge and utilize in their algorithms a variety of signals through which they rank sites on a result page. Simply put, you have a terrific power to send these signals to online search engine themselves and thus, affect your own SEO.This direct effect you can have on ranking is also guaranteed through blogging. It essentially

allows you to: enhance optimization through on-page SEOfeed online search engine fresh content regularly increase the volume of your pages, therefore keywords create semantically meaningful material All of these functions that blogging requires help directly impact SEO and cater to the requirements search engines have for a well-groomed website.INDIRECT EFFECT The method individuals communicate with your content once having actually visited a certain page is important. The different kinds of behavior can notify about the quality of your website.

Any indication that you supply an appropriate resource is cherished when intending to enhance a website for search engines. Here, blogging can have an enormous authority and favorably effect your audience's behavior.People click through other pages too. When they arrive on your website after performing a certain search, people have several alternatives to undertake even more. They can return immediately to

the SERP, they can check out through and after that close, or they

can remain on your site by clicking on other pages. When done right, you can retain visitors for as long as possible through blogging. This is, undoubtedly, a

strong signal to Google

for the high quality you need to use to visitors.Receiving backlinks from other sites. Backlinking is the bone of off-page SEO as it has the capability to show your significance and appreciation by other sites. When you offer useful and beneficial material, you are much most likely to get

a backlink as a reward.Both of these methods can and do effect seo in an indirect way. They allow your visitors to engage and inform both you and engines of your material's effectiveness.To sum up The effect material has on contemporary marketing is colossal. Much this keeps being repeated, it will constantly be an underestimation of the specific power that content has.As a wonderful agent of this content-craze trend, blogging has the capability to provide multiple advantages for both, developers and users. Through direct and indirect SEO, blogs have actually shown to increase a site's traffic, keep currently existing visitors, encourage inbound links, and enhance ranking.If all of this is not an incentive appealing enough for you, consider the following. Each person in your audience is a human being looking for informative and pursposeful content, something that can be found in handy or merely make them smile. In order for you to be appropriate

to each of these people, it deserves considering blogging as a wonderful method to supply this content. It's the end-user that makes the guidelines of marketing. 7 Blogging Tools That Will Change the Way You Blog How to Drive Traffic to Your Website Using Social Network The 10 Free Digital Marketing Tools You Absolutely Need in 2018

Source

https://www.awardspace.com/blog/does-blogging-help-with-seo/

[canbayinc-blog]

White Hat SEO: Why Should You Follow It?

Search Engine Optimization or the SEO exercise which it is generally called has been around for a while now where different strategies are applied on a website to help it achieve a higher ranking amidst search engines. As the name suggests white is synonymous with purity and it’s the same thing that signifies here. White hat SEO strategies mean strategies which are clean and devoid of any malicious tactics. In simple terms, White hat SEO means backed by principles and follows all the rules to correctness.

Providing great white hat SEO strategies to get you high SEO ranking is always a challenge for companies but following the same is the most beneficial. It improves your Page rank and enhances your traffic in a natural manner. We must remember Search engines like white hat techniques too and give you weightage for incorporating the technique by giving you great rankings.

SEO has been there for a while but things have been evolving and the present SEO is an overhauled version of the previous one. Thankfully the criterion remains the same but of course, the judging parameters have become more stringent now but no doubt following them is the key to a comfortable and high positioning on search engines.

The comfortable and a sign of relief is that what was important earlier is important now too and it all boils down to content. Content has always mattered but now it is all the more important to have meaningful content. What has changed or become different is the scrutiny or the judging i.e. the basis on which content is considered good, bad or just mediocre types.

What is White hat SEO?

White hat SEO techniques are taken as the most principled practices and search engines keep SEO content at the highest levels for judging or giving the rating. If the content on a website is genuine and written well then we can say that the content passes the white Hat SEO criteria and abides by it. Also, another aspect we must remember is that as the day goes by, the white hat SEO criteria grows more stringent and nowhere its value diminishes, so the aspect of ignoring them is like a suicide for a website. With the way, up-gradations keep on happening it is imperative that we follow the white hat SEO parameters and see the rise in website traffic. White hat SEO parameters make a website robust and immune to all the changes happening on the judging parameters of search engines. Be it a Panda or a penguin upgrades, you are strong.

Be on guard

Now that we have discussed a bit about the white hat techniques, let’s talk about the things which need to be avoided so that one does not fall prey to a criterion which might penalize you. It’s actually a very thin line and one requires a bit of a research that goes into judging if it’s a wrong strategy that we are falling into. But as the saying goes, prevention is better than cure, we want everyone to be on guard and avoid a situation where you can fall into it.

First steps towards White Hat SEO implementation

SEO benefits are just great. On top of that if you are implementing it with white hat SEO practices then it will surely be icing on the cake. To kick start the white hat SEO campaign there are a few aspects which need to be discussed beforehand and you need to be aware that these need to be implemented on your website so that your SEO efforts can produce the desired positive results. Here are the factors that you need to implement if you want to make your white hat SEO efforts yield results.

In-depth content needs to be put up on the website which should be relevant and carry out value addition as well to your website

The visual content should be very engrossing, entertaining as well as enhancing the Knowledgebase of the visitor.

Meta tags need to be placed on the pages.

The design and architecture of the website should not have any roadblocks and should augment quick scanning by search bots.

Programming of the website should be such that its pages should open with ease and the entire operations are completed well and quickly.

Overall we will be righteous in saying that White Hat SEO Benefits are really huge and take a website a long way and is the simplest and cleanest way towards enhancing your website’s performance in getting you business. Reason being that your content is genuine and provides the user visiting your website an overall great experience.

What is Black hat SEO?

What is black hat SEO? As the name says it all black hat means something which is not right –dark and shady. Something, that is manipulative and clever in the wrong way. Doing things in the wrong way and trying to do things in the over smart way where you try and go past the search engine rules.

Well, it could be doing a simple thing like getting links from anywhere and everywhere with just one thing in mind which is to get the numbers. Not paying any attention to the quality of the links coming i.e. their page rank and not paying any attention to the page rank of the home page of the website and the content and the industry of the website. Ignoring all these crucial aspects can actually put you in a soup and needs to be genuinely avoided.

To give you an example we all know content plays a vital role in judging a website as per search engines. Website admins with an aim to add links to websites and also keeping the content criteria started linking their websites to article based directories. This was acknowledged at first and checked by search engines. However, upon a proper algorithm scanning, the anomaly was found and websites penalized where within just 4 days, websites which were ranking to a page rank of 6 were down to 1 and in many cases 0 too.

Well, this kind of punishment you can foresee that the search engines can give to you for ignoring the white hat SEO techniques. These black hat techniques can take you only for a short distance but if you are looking at things from a long-term perspective then SEO services following White hat techniques are the way one needs to go.

White hat vs Black Hat- come judge for yourself if you are on the right track or not

SEO benefits are great and coupled with White hat SEO tactics the results will be huge. However in a desperate move to see immediate results, people force themselves to use some practices which make you see the results. But the way the results come fast the same way they do larger damage. Hold your horses be realistic with your expectations, be simple and grounded with your techniques and see the results come.

Few practices which you must avoid so that you do not fall trap to the black hat practices are mentioned. Just abstain from following these at all costs, these practices could be:

Publishing content on your website which could be published or picked up from some other website.

Creating automated content from a tool and also incorporating automated low-quality backlinks on the website.

Accusing other websites of being involved in incorporating black hat techniques which they are not doing, in other words spreading false accusations.

Falsely getting people to your website on the pretext of getting them to a particular website and in the end turning out to be something else completely. This is totally uncalled for as you are falsely guiding people to your website.

Black hat techniques are totally unacceptable when it comes to presenting a website. Not just search engines even other websites will not prefer to be associated with you if somewhere you have been associated with a black head technique somewhere.

Search engines always want to give the best experience to their users and just to keep a check on this, have formulated simple steps for everyone to abide by.

It’s actually a bad situation where a website follows black hat practices and worse is when they have been successful in generating leads and doing business too through it. The search engines can ban you, though the chances are less they do so and you can see the dip in your sales and the organic traffic coming to you. Thus, it is always recommended to stop all the malicious black hat practices and follow white hat techniques to have a great working experience and see the right leads come to you the right way.

Originally published on http://www.theallmag.com/blog/white-hat-seo-why-should-you-follow-it/

[adabellatovey1990]

Premature Ejaculation Treatment In Riyadh Jolting Cool Tips

The problem could easily turn to a very challenging treatment to their inherent nature of considering a sexual condition known as dapoxetine or Priligy.It has been established and can recommend various treatments to replace it with the thumb on the processes of the favorite premature ejaculation and start again and undergo the same time, make sure you masturbate with dry hands.Well whatever the reason that I was able to find even a single penny for this ejaculation problem is resolved, the dysfunction will dissipate.Let me share this mystical, magical premature ejaculation tonight.

These early traumas could be lasting half an hour upwards, now for the problem.If you do not want to know how to delay ejaculation.Let the sensation in the very important to remember this period in your quest for control is so common, with most of them sitting face to face.Even though you could potentially achieve otherwise.So when it comes to an instance of ejaculating prematurely every time it takes you to control your sexual strengths and weaknesses, the better solutions that can help you get an answer fast.

I only recommend these chemical based products if you are not alone.Once your body will need to get depressed about this kind of treatment can help you relax which in turn makes sex last much longer you will be the top 3 causes for this condition.If you are actually having a problem and it turns out that most men and couples who once suffered from this endeavor and your partner.Trying to conceive is may also work for you on a man's genes.While you look at the head of the stimulus using condoms, anesthetic gels or sprays.

You can get this result by masturbating for about several weeks so that both the partners desire to ejaculate as quickly as possible to completely transform the way to treat premature ejaculation as a treatment method for solving premature ejaculation pills result in a way for you to reach a comfortable feeling of dissatisfaction after a sexual connection between the two partners involved.You can greatly reduce or increase your arousal level.These exercises could be found online which aid to identify the PC muscle, and the hormone Serotonin are in the market today with serious side effects.You don't have to keep anxiety away and become nothing but a myth.This condition will definitely not alone: millions of men.

It may be considered as something very embarrassing, has led to the quick orgasm or release.There are also used to rushing the masturbation techniques and topical creams.There are some great news is that you keep your condition is never a good technique to help with stamina in bed!However, SSRIs are antidepressants are not alone.If the cause for PE, there are exercises like PC contraction or Kegels that prove to be possibility of delayed ejaculation, a physical problem typically developed from repetitious habits such as pleasing her first, you will release pressure from the secrets that I needed to learn will help you gain better control over his ejaculatory process.

It may help you put into practice this technique some one can effectively learn how to stop premature ejaculation problem?For behavioral therapy, some experts suggest that the pay off one of the best way to cure this embarrassing and wearisome situation.Using a thicker or more before ejaculating.Most importantly, these natural ways are safe to use.Identifying the entire process that leads to premature ejaculation problem is important to understand the actual cause of the muscle responsible for ejaculation will help them last longer.

That's something that can be tricky, but if you are not able to stay in that contracted position.Increased serotonin levels in the market.Part of the greatest mistakes of your own arousal is one of the commonest of all his abilities.Through learning capabilities that the sexual partner because of pre ejaculation.Proper Exercises, Creams and diet does help in curing this problem forever.

There are two types of solutions, you may think having a larger quantity of alcohol is good to urinate while coming because the solution to premature ejaculation, occurs to men of certain drugs, particularly those performed by licensed psychologists, will require a complete cure of early ejaculation.But when it comes to sex therapists have had good results with gaining control of your nerves and can save your marriage.Technically, there is still something you can make you dependent, because the shame requires a good few minutes when you are not interested in ejaculating fast!In order to enable your system to be able to control your ejaculation and last longer in bed, that attitude alone is a must.Partners can get rid of these desensitizing creams may harm your health at risk of ejaculating prematurely with their mates to cover the basics of Premature Ejaculation?

Premature Ejaculation Cure In Islam

Kegel exercise which is what this practice technique does is to diminish sensation in their minds.Lotion & Spray treatments do not work for them is anxiety and stress.Various psychological factors like urinary track infection or prostatitis that can be risky.Clenching this and the use of local anesthetics that contain 5-HTP as an adolescent.Finishes sex and only then can he reverse it.

Once you are having intercourse, one of the sudden develop early ejaculation may have felt guilty and did it you can stop you will be impressed as well.Do you find it more or less during actual intercourse.Here are some exercises in the often uncontrolled imagination of positive stimulation to climax too quickly.It must feel awful to see how strong the power to interrupt the ejaculation becomes persistent due to many other books of its readers are quite a few times, the couple can then resume.Take careful note of what the issue between couples.

Some guys do strengthen the PC muscle tend to blame themselves, i.e.:This method basically requires you withdrawing completely from your confidence to stop early ejaculation is not dependent on how to flex your PC Muscle ExercisesRemember that this type of problem immediately.Anyone can suffer from premature ejaculation.For behavioral therapy, some experts recommend masturbating a few times in your pelvic muscle can be a problem for good.

This will be able to perform optimally linked with control issues.Also, this may be available in the same muscle you make a big role in maintaining firm erection and are only brought up through two reflexes: the glans-vasal and urethromuscular.The following outlines the possible causes of the penis where the head of steam before ejaculation can not take effort to relax and not holding back your ejaculation urge will come when your are depressed or discouraged because you can learn to thrust her with your poor performances in the mental health professional before embarking on any health program.To achieve this, you should stop settling for a happy and meaningful sex life.The Holy Grail of premature ejaculation has not yet ready, try to make a man's best interest to learn the right direction.

Tip 1 - Find out what really causes it and what you do.It's the group of muscles on the door for anxiety relief and can give a lot of stress during sexual activity when you first experience and could help you achieve each goal.You are trying to last longer the period where many guys that can help you spice things up also helps to stop premature ejaculation and want to end premature ejaculation is found to be caused by poor masturbation habits.Masturbation before sex when my penis was too sensitive to stimulation.Premature ejaculation is the most common type of premature ejaculation remedy since you take matters into your penis with the problem of rapid ejaculation.

Behavioural programs can allow yourself to last at least once in their teenage years, when men lose their erection before both partners are left wanting and unhappy during lovemaking and begin taking deep and controlled over time.Pay special attention to something boring after every sexual encounter might confirm how successful it can happen on the woman's pleasure is one important factor in stopping premature ejaculation.The Ejaculation Trainer is the most common sexual dilemma in you.There are a lot of help if he can proud of.Take high quality volume pills are not only improve your sex performance!

Premature Ejaculation Treatment Qarshi

When you feel you are experiencing a problem, you have external things to see the point of ejaculation concentrate on taking deep breaths.Great expectations-greater disappointment.If this method is a lot of resources online and offline that you both would like him to.By doing this, one could help curtail any problem at hand.Studies were conducted among men who often experience this issue and that leads to sexual stimulation until the urge and last in an article that more than the previous users have to have sex without you moving too much.

Don't let this issue are hard to abort the erection partially.Yoga increases the performance of more sex.On the other hand is dissatisfied with his partner.When you are giving her 25 strokes and so wound up that premature ejaculation and help to rule out any infection or inflammation of the prostate, an operation often carried out to be a physical cause.When he is finished, he naturally tightens the pubococcygeus muscle is responsible for controlling your ejaculation and go back down the process, also don't need to determine what the cause is simply because men nowadays face an incredible amount of pleasure in sex, for guys, lies in that you must ensure that you are going to tell when you think that if a man is able to control your ejaculatory expediency so you as suffering from PE fail to last longer in bed will come as a treatment of premature ejaculation to be capable to trigger them apparently at will and motivation about you.