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smartcontractor · 2 years

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Why do we need a smart contract audit?

Blockchain enterprises are often troubled concerning smart contract implementation. Considering its irreversible nature, an attack once made can’t be rolled back. Furthermore, you also have the risk of losing the whole contract and the assets associated with it due to security vulnerabilities in smart contracts.

Learn what is smart contract audit in depth

Therefore, the smart contract audit becomes an important requirement because of the following reasons:

Better code optimization.

Improved performance of smart contracts.

Enhanced security of applications.

Security against hacks and thefts.

Smart contract security audits help you uncover potential vulnerabilities in your system. It gives you the time to fix these weaknesses before a malicious entity tries to exploit them and corrupt your platform.

Benefits of smart contract audit

Time and again, we’ve observed that a single bug in a smart contract exposes an entire project to a hack, resulting in significant financial losses. In order to avoid such a scenario, smart contract audit services are made compulsory in practice.

Here are some of the many benefits of a smart contract audit:

Avoid Costly Errors. Getting a smart contract audit prior to the deployment can avert any potential catastrophic vulnerabilities. The double-edged sword of blockchain immutability prohibits altering any smart contract errors after broadcasting it to the network.

Expert Review. Having dedicated security professionals analyze your code and help sort cognitive and behavioral biases that are born from auto-verification of code can make an enormous difference in the success of a blockchain project.

Attract Investors. With a stamp of a security audit, the project is bound to attract more investment opportunities. Potential investors will consider the security of the project for their own sake.

Easy Integration. Current tools are designed to integrate into heterogeneous development environments and to perform continuous security analysis.

Smart contract audits can help enterprises stay safe from notable security attacks and build a stronger foothold in the industry.

What is smart contract verification?

Are smart contract audits and smart contract verification the same?

The answer is No. The two are quite similar but not the same. Smart contract verification is a process often intended to check whether the smart contract is working or not, the correctness is not measured. Usually, it involves an automated tool in which the smart contract code is written and executed. The automated analyzer will publish a report, indicating the successful or unsuccessful execution of the smart contract.

What makes it different from a security audit is the fact that an audit involves a team of security professionals rigorously going through each line of code and finding any loopholes, combined with an automated code review tool to check the correctness of the smart contract code. A security audit involves the understanding of the project and then making sure it works as intended, not just its successful execution.

Concluding thoughts

Smart contract security audits have become a golden standard in the decentralized finance sector. It is always wise to take a look at the audit, even if you don't have the technical understanding, it’s helpful to read the auditors’ comments and take into account the severity of the potential risks.

#smart contracts audit #smart contract security audit #smart contract verifiation

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daeva-agas · 5 years

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I was thinking a lot of the things people take umbrage with when they say a character is “flat” or a story/world is dumb boils down to the issue that the stuff is portrayed in a “childish” way.

It’s like children’s books and cartoons. The pictures and big and bright. The shapes are simple. The hero is good-looking. The villain is scary. It’s easy too see and the audience doesn’t need to think too much to get it.

I think that people who complain about cliches feel that way not because the so-called cliche is bad in itself, but because they want to be challenged. They want to engage with the media intelligently, and so the easily digestible common tropes are not satisfying.

Like, the “show don’t tell” advice. Saying “X is angry” is spoonfeeding the readers information. Whereas if the writer describes that X speaks calmly, but having an unfriendly body language (crossed arms, a frown, hands on hips, tense posture, etc), the readers are allowed to analyze the scene and realize that X is angry by themselves.

Of course not everyone is looking for an intelligent narrative, so that’s why some people argue “it’s just fantasy, stop thinking about it”. Or “it’s for children!!” It’s like comparing between pizza from Pizza Hut VS an artisan pizza from an authentic Italian restaurant. If you’re just an average person looking to fill your belly, it makes no difference which one you eat, but a gourmet would likely not choose the Pizza Hut menu.

In otome, for example, I often thought that the SLBP MC to be pretty useless. And in-universe, it’s really stupid. When she marries the samurai, she shouldn’t be cooking and cleaning. This is not appropriate. Even with her commoner background she can learn. And then take up more important tasks, such as managing ladies in waiting. Or assisting in managing donations/offerings to the various temples. Or even handle negotiations in the absence of the lord.

And that’s my point that it’s “childish” for the sake of accessibility.

Cooking, cleaning, organizing things are the sort of chores that’s instantly gratifying because you can see the result right away, and also easy to do. It reminds me of those moral guidance children’s books, where it’s written that the “good” kids help out and do chores. In my experience, some of the time kids gladly help out, because it makes them feel like they’ve done something that’s a big deal.

This is how the game works IMO: MC makes food, the other guys are happy. If the guys are happy, things run smoothly. That means MC’s food makes things run smoothly, ain’t that great? It’s all very superficial, and whether or not it’s ok depends on what you’re looking for.

Like, if Voltage had written about the MC doing things that are actually realistically helpful, like tax reports, teenagers might find it utterly boring. I mean, TAXES, you know? Math is not fun, much less balancing budgets and all those icky adult stuff. Ew.

In the case of world-building, a criticism that often pops up against a dystopian or fantasy story is that the antagonist of the narrative is too blatantly evil in an unrealistic way. To take the most famous examples, there’s many reviews decrying the “anti Slytherin bias” in the Harry Potter series, or “the Capitol makes no sense” in the Hunger Games. One of the most common defense for this is that it’s purposely exaggerated to serve as a “symbol” of sorts. Slytherins are symbols of bigotry and prejudice, the Capitol a symbol of ignorant decadence and government oppression.

Except that’s the problem. The people who don’t like it think that it’s too simplistic, and wants a more nuanced antagonist and a more complex issue. They want writers to trust the audience to be intelligent enough to be able to appreciate subtleties, not be shown a blatant “good vs evil”, “us vs them” dynamic. That is “childish”. The audience aren’t three year old kids whose understanding maybe only amounts to “good guy beats up bad guy, everyone's happy”.

I don’t blame the authors sometimes, because I’ve seen people complain that the villain is such a “woobie” even though it’s not meant to be that way. It’s just the creator’s attempt to make a complex character. Some authors then go to their extremes avoid misunderstanding, and it results with ham fisted narratives, characters, or world.

Wow, this ended up being a big long babble in itself. I was just writing a big long analysis on Sengoku taxes again, all the while wondering if it’s possible to make something interesting out of samurai lords doing actual governing stuff. Paperwork and economy sounds very dull.

#personal #agas rambles

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wheremytwinwatches · 4 years

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[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 42

Last time: Frostbite continues to not be an issue for female cast members, Ed gave a chemistry lesson, and Kimblee was just the worst. Onwards!

Al still hasn’t woken up? That’s… probably not a good thing. For now, Winry’s watching over his disassembled parts in a cabin, while the rest of the Crew huddle around a small fire. Marcoh and May are still going over the notes, seems that “gold” keeps showing up and they think it’s some sort of pattern. I dunno, maybe the author just liked shiny things?

Winry wanders over to see what they’re doing, Marcoh says they’re trying to decipher whatever code the author’s using. Alchemist are very skeptical of peer review after all, he even wrote all his own notes on the Philosopher’s Stone in recipe format to pad out the Reveal episode. For now, they’re banking on all these gold references as the- oh hey, Al’s back! Al’s brought back up to speed on what he missed (not much, they broke him down for easier carrying and took shelter in this cabin), everyone gets to play puzzle and put him back together. May’s left holding the notes, probably wishing she was helping reassemble her husband… wait, reassemble? Pieces? Aha! Winry and Marcoh are just a little freaked out at May tossing all the pages to the ground in a big mess, but then she explains that they need to physically overlap all the references to “immortality” and “gold”. Even Scar get in on all the fun! Later, all the pages are down, and… yeah, I don’t see it. But now May’s taking some charcoal to connect all the symbols in the notes, and draws… [Al]: “It’s the country-wide Transmutation Circle.” Marcoh’s not doing too well, the Chimeras are yelling at him for these useless notes that aren’t telling them anything they don’t already know. Scar’s not happy either, to see that his brother’s research ended up being the Bad Guy’s plan… wait, but these paper notes weren’t the only thing your brother wrote, or rather drew. Don’t you have a bunch of ink on your arm? Calling it now, there’s more to this than just what was written in the papers. Al seems to think so too, although not about the arm being relevant, he just thinks that there’s more hidden past this first code. “Truth within the truth”, right? Or maybe he’s just trying to keep everyone hopeful. Whatever it is, it gets Marcoh out of his slump. Alright everyone, stare at the papers again to see if anything oh for Leto’s sake, Yoki, cover your mouth when you sneeze! Now the papers are all disorganized, “you can’t even tell which side of the page is right-side-up anymore” oh I get it. Turn the pages around, see what symbol you can make on the other side! So the pages are turned around, the new symbols connected, and it’s a new TC! An Xingese Alkahestry one, at that. So what does it do? Episode 42 - “Signs of a Counteroffensive” Hello? Xingese Alkahestry TC? Any explanation there? No? We’re just going to go back to the tunnels? Fine, let’s see what Ed and his own Chimera troops are up to. That’s not Ed, that’s Kimblee, being a creep and licking his cut hand. I get it, you’re weird and disturbing, just use your Philosopher’s Stone to fix your injury for Leto’s sake. Oh hey Ed was right, Kimblee did get lost wandering around the mines. Look, can Kimblee just die already and we can get back to the Goths? They were at least fairly competent, and aside from Bradley’s sudden case of Red Eyes and Evil Gloating at The Mighty Armstrong they made for good villains. Now we’re just following the wanderings of an idiot who won’t even heal his injuries and forgot to bring a map on his hunt. And again! You know, when I see a giant red X scrawled across a crooked door that reveals a staircase winding down into darkness, that’s generally a sign that Bad Things are below and you shouldn’t go. But Kimblee ignores that and continues down even when there’s no sign of his quarry. Bones, too! Huh, looks like this is connected to Sloth’s Tunnel. Well that guarantees that the Mine Crew didn’t come this way, otherwise they would have been seen by oh hi Pride. Kimblee reports that he’s searching for Scar, Pride tells him to hold off for now, go ahead and oh crap it’s time to “carve the Crest of Blood” at Briggs. And Armstrong the Great’s not there! But on the other hand, Pride is telling Kimblee to do it on his lonesome apparently. I changed my mind, this is going to be a hilarious curbstomp. Back at the Fort, Sideburns has returned to exposit that Kimblee’s missing after an explosion in the mine shafts. Hearing that no body was found Buccy and Falman exchange a look, and ask if any Briggs troops went missing with him. Sideburns has to come to a stop to say that they also couldn’t find Kimblee’s two flunkies, and the Fullmetal Alchemist. Aw, Buccy does care about the kid who snagged his crush. Sideburns is checking in with Breda, who’s reporting that a border war with their western neighbor is racking up quite the body count. Down south Fuery, no! Don’t hurt the radio operator, I’m almost completely over my annoyance that he took away my Fuhrer Fury joke! [Fuery]: “Damnit! I’m gonna survive this! I’m gonna live! I won’t die for this-” ...Fuery? Alright, so… Sideburns is staying in touch with Roy through “a messenger connected to the Armstrong Family” hey it’s Granny Armstrong! Got some more flowers for us? Uhhhh. Sloth just finished the tunnel. That’s not good. Uncle says it’s almost time. Mid-ep pictures of Pride’s Shadows and Beard. Now we’re in a town that looks a little worse for wear, did a Protagonist come through here or something? The work crews stop to get a lunch break from a woman with pink bangs, peaceful countryside guitar music starts as a worker tells Rose wait a minute *quick search to earlier recaps* It’s Rose! It’s Liore! Aw, the town’s rebuilding after the riots the Goths started. I’d honestly written off the place as a loss, but they’ve actually survived and have that good old wholesome community vibe going on. It’s not perfect yet, with those comments about how they don’t have any meat and have to ration food, but it’s a start. Almost everyone’s working, aside from those too old or young to, or… wait, Ling? Uh what. Beard. Why are you pulling a Ling. What’s with this “oh poor feeble starving me” routine? Guys. Beard is gulping down soup at an amusingly fast pace and smiling and oh my Leto is is flirting with Rose? Seriously he’s turned into Ling, what is this. [Beard]: “Don’t underestimate yourself. A delicious meal and the smile of a lovely young lady are more help than you can imagine.”

I can’t make this up, Beard’s even getting a thumbs-up from the cook for that line. OK phew we’re back to mysterious Beard asking for direction, this is more like I’m used to. He’s looking for… aha, he’s looking for the Church of Leto! Finally, we can invoke His Letoness to smite the Goths and restore peace to this world. About time! The church hasn’t gotten the same repairs as the rest of the town, and when they go further in Beard finds a pool of toxic water blocking the way. [Beard]: “I get the feeling this was put here to keep people from going any further. So…” *walks straight forward to shock of Rose and Cook* *Transmutes a stone walkway, without any hand movements or TC?* Now he’s wandering off into the darkness, asking Rose and Cook to wait for him to come back. Obviously they’re a little perturbed by all this. So I think that Rose and Cook are going to be waiting for a little while, Beard’s gone far enough in to run into Sloth’s Tunnel. I wonder if him knocking a hole in the side will mess up the pattern? He’s walking along the tracks, impressed at the scale of it all oh yeah Pride. Well, time to see how Beard fares against a Goth! Never mind, Beard’s employing a Ciaphas Cain and getting the frig out of there. Earthbent spikes from the wall? Nope. Giant pillars to try and trap Pride? Nope. Excuse me? “I’m afraid that’s all I’ve got?” What the Leto are you talking about man, you are the original form of Uncle, how are you so intimidated by a single Goth? Admittedly it’s Pride who seems ridiculously strong even by Goth standards, but still. And now he’s tripped over a rock! Seriously dude, this is Kimblee levels of bad, can you… manage to get into your tunnel where Pride’s shadows recoil and can’t touch you? Huh. That’s… and now Beard analyzing Pride, noting he can’t reach past Central or the Tunnel, it’s his container. Pride is actually freezing, his constant disturbing motion stopped in annoyance as Beard picks apart his weakness and is he taunting the shadow demon from a foot away? [Beard]: *head tilt, slight smile* “Are you angry?”

Wow. Turns out Beard is a sarcastic little shit like Ling. Who’da thunk? Pride is claiming that he’s never angry, that he’s left all other emotions behind with Uncle. Beard lists off the Seven Deadly Sins: Lust, Greed, Sloth, Gluttony, Envy, Wrath, “and of course Pride.” Beard snarks that Pride was Uncle’s biggest trait, and his fashioning of Pride in his original Toothy Shadow appearance is just a sign of his egotistical nature. Pride insists that Beard go with him to see Uncle, but Beard takes a rain-check on that. Before he leaves, though, he tells Pride to pass on a message: “Tell him Slave 23 will be dropping in quite soon. Just tell him to be patient and relax in his chair beneath Central, I’m coming.” Uncle is waiting for him, as are his four chess pieces… wait, which one is missing? Hey, Rose and Cook actually waited? You gonna explain what happened, Beard? [Rose]: “What exactly were you doing in there?” [Beard]: “Hmmm. Sending a declaration of war.” Wow. Beard is just hamming up his role as the New Ling, isn’t he? Back to Briggs! The guard is changing up on the roof, when they turn to dramatic music to oh crap it’s the Drachmans! Sound the alarm, close the door and turn off the lights! If they think nobody’s home, maybe they’ll just drop off a few Letoism pamphlets and leave! Or you can break out the artillery, that works too. I’m assuming this guy is the Drachman CO, given his uniform bling and impressive beard. He’s noting that they’re lucky The Northern Wall of Briggs is away (because they wouldn’t dare attack if they knew she was within stabbing range), good work Mister oh. Well, that’s actually not a bad plan Kimblee. Get the neighboring country to wage war on expansionist Amestris, make a Crest of Blood without having to dirty your hands. Or since this is Kimblee we’re talking about, kill to your heart's content while disposable mooks deal with those you don’t bother with. So, those are some big cannons pointed at Fort Briggs. Let’s hope their walls are reinforced enough to are you kidding me?! That’s the end of the episode? Boo! Ok then! A very interesting episode, the biggest thing for me is Beard’s characterization. Happily chatting with townspeople, going all Adventurer into the darkness, and I honestly can’t tell if he was actually running from Pride because he didn’t want to fight or to lure him towards the tunnel edge in a case of Obfuscating Stupidity. I’m curious to see where he goes from here, and if he reverts back to his standoffish Mysterious Absentee Father mode when he runs into Ed again. A good- Hold up, after-credits scene. Zampana? Oh it’s Boar! Wait who are you reporting to WHAT THE HELL DUDE. You’re selling the Crew out to Envy and Bradley? I liked you, why’d you have to be another Raven? Boo.

#wmtw #where my twin watches #full metal alchemist #full metal alchemist brotherhood #fmab #fmab 42

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mst3kproject · 6 years

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520: Radar Secret Service

So here’s a challenge. My stated goal for this blog is to watch and find something halfway intelligent to say about each and every movie the show ever featured. I’m not sure I can say anything intelligent about Radar Secret Service. I’m not sure I can say anything stupid about Radar Secret Service.

I don’t know if I can even describe the plot. The introduction is pretty straightforward, explaining to us that the men of the Radar Secret Service can find just about anything, from a school of fish to a hidden murder weapon. I wonder if anybody’s asked them about the g-spot. With a tool like that, they could go looking for the Ark of the Covenant or Jimmy Hoffa or something, but instead they’re keeping an eye on a shipment of radioactive material. Some crooks manage to steal the stuff despite the high-tech surveillance… and that’s where the movie starts to lose me. I can pay attention to this for about ten minutes, and then my brain just shuts the fuck down.

I mean, I keep trying to watch, I really do. I don’t know why I can’t. Radar Secret Service is only sixty minutes long, for crying out loud, surely I can pay attention to something dull and stupid for sixty measly minutes! I watched the sandstorm sequence in Hercules Against the Moon Men. I sat through the Rock Climbing in Lost Continent. Hell, last Thanksgiving I listened to my Dad and my brother-in-law talk about their unfinished home improvement projects for what felt like six days. Surely Radar Secret Service cannot be the thing that defeats me. I get myself a snack and my knitting and settle down, but without fail, by that ten minute mark I’ve lost track of who any of the characters are or what they’re supposed to be doing. My knitting’s on the floor and I’m playing Marvel Puzzle Quest. Shit.

I start over and try again. This time I turn off my phone. I close the blinds. I do my best to remove all distractions. I still can’t focus. The walls of my living room are more interesting than this movie. I find myself looking at them and wondering what happened to that National Geographic solar system poster I had when I was a kid, the one that showed all the moons to scale. I mean, it’s horrendously out of date now but it was my favourite poster for ages. Twelve-year-old me named all the characters in half a dozen unfinished fantasy novels after those moons. Out of sheer curiosity I googled, and found out that holy shit, you can still buy it! Well, damn, that’s kind of tempting, just for nostalgia’s sake.

Okay, no. I have to watch the movie. By twenty minutes in, I still don’t know any of the characters’ names but ‘radar’ no longer sounds like a real word. In fact, it’s not a real word. It’s an acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging. In the UK it’s also the Royal Association for Dis-Ability Rights, and the Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago has the Research on Adverse Drug events And Reports committee. I bet either of those would make a better movie.

Wait, I’ve gotten distracted again. This isn’t working. Maybe I can watch it in MST3K form. Radar Secret Service is so short that almost all of it got into the episode. I could cheat and do a review based on just that. I do remember snickering at the skit about the Quinn Martin nature preserve. I should look up some of those people on IMDB. Maybe I can find some material for Episodes that Never Were. It says Lee Meriwether was in a mad science movie called The 4-D Man, which looks remarkably bad. I definitely need to see that…

God damn it.

Okay, clearly having a computer at all is too much distraction for me to watch this movie. I’m gonna have to pop the disk into an actual DVD player and watch it that way. Some kind of drastic measures are definitely needed here because I’ve written almost an entire page of this review and I have not yet actually managed to watch the fucking movie right through in one sitting. There’s nothing there to watch. Where are these people? Who are they? They all look and dress and sound alike. They all have identical mustaches and drive indistinguishable cars – I can’t even tell which is the Radarmobile unless we’re in a wide shot that shows the Christmas ornament on top. The only reason I’m sure that Waitress and Leopard Lady are two different characters is because they had a scene together at the beginning. Are they both wearing the same wig? They’re so alike that when one of them shoots the other I’m tempted to say it counts as suicide.

The characters have no character. The script imparts nothing to us besides minimal so-called plot information and the performances are dismally bland. The music is boring. The direction is listless. It’s no wonder they picked Oh!! There’s a dead man there!!! as the stinger because it’s literally the only memorable moment in the whole film. I’m not using literally to mean emphatically, either. I’m using it to mean literally.

Why did they make this movie? I don’t understand. It’s not an action flick because there’s no action. It’s not a drama because there’s no drama. It’s not a comedy because nothing’s funny. It’s not sci-fi because there’s no science. What are we supposed to take away from this experience? What are we supposed to learn? The movie is like a black hole, sucking in our hopes for entertainment and hiding them away behind an event horizon of boredom and confusion, from whence they can never be retrieved. I feel actively stupider for having seen even part of it.

Even if I were to make myself watch it all the way through, from the finding of the gun to the final arrest, in a single sitting, even if I were to force my unwilling brain to recognize every frame of it, what could I possibly say? There’s nothing to analyze here, no meaning, no metaphor. Even on a technical level, there’s not much I could add to what Mike and the Bots already said. Yes, everybody looks the same. No, I have no idea which side most of these identical gray suits with meaty 50’s men in them are on. No, the people who made this movie have no idea what radar is or what it’s used for. The Radar Men from the Moon were more relevant to radar than this movie and I don’t think they ever even used the word.

I could just talk about the short. The short! A shining beacon of something I can actually pay attention to! Sadly, the very fact that I could fill a review with my thoughts on Last Clear Chance is surely a sign it deserves an entry of its own. Where does that leave me?

It leaves me sitting on the sofa, realizing I haven’t paid any attention for the last few minutes because I zoned out dreaming up flowery metaphors for my struggle. I’m starting to think the only way I could actually watch this is to strap myself into a chair with my head locked in place and tape my eyes open, like something out of A Clockwork Orange. Even then, I might still manage to get distracted. My entire body is rejecting this movie. I think I’m making antibodies to it.

I cannot tell you how much I’d rather be watching A Clockwork Orange than Radar Secret Service. Hell, I’d rather be watching Caligula. Caligula had stuff to look at. It had characters with names.

Maybe… wait. What if Radar Secret Service is actually a brilliant work of art and I’m missing it because I can’t pay attention for long enough? Maybe it’s a satire of 50’s futurism and tedious moviemaking! Maybe the ultimate-spy-tool-radar premise is a comment on the erosion of our privacy in an increasingly technological society! Maybe the reason it’s so hard to tell the heroes from the villains is because the modern world has rendered both concepts irrelevant! There is no good or evil anymore, just men in suits either giving or obeying orders, no one individual identifiable as the reason why something happens! Maybe the two women are identical because the filmmakers are trying to point out that patriarchal society turns women against each other and ultimately against themselves! Of course! It all makes sense! How did I not see it before?

I have no memory of typing that last paragraph. What’s going on?

Oh my god. Oh shit. I know what this is. It’s the hypno-helio-static-stasis! I’m already in its clutches! The world is fading. I need to inject something thoughtful and entertaining directly into my eyeballs immediately. There may still be time if I can only reach Netflix…

And suddenly, there it is, looming over me like a glittering spaceship above Devil’s Tower National Monument… like a saving angel… could it really be? It is! It’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind! I reach out for it. I can already hear its dulcet tones ringing in my ears like a siren song… doo-doo-DAH-doo-DAH…

And then the ship wavers and fades away, leaving only a brushed chrome ball. My browser’s not even on Netflix. It’s on DailyMotion, and all that’s playing is a shitty print of Radar Secret Service.

I hope you guys enjoyed my mental disintegration because it’s all the review you’re gonna get. See you next week. Fuck this movie.

#mst3k #reviews #radar secret service #tw: suicide #fuck this movie #50s

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elizas-writing · 6 years

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Thirteen Reasons Why is Torture Porn; Using Graphic Violence to Make a Point

CW/TW: Mentions of suicide, rape/sexual violence, physical assault, and everything the Thirteen Reasons Why crew were told NOT to do by mental health experts

If you are in a crisis, don’t let a poorly written TV show tell you what to do; call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or the Suicide Crisis Line at 1-800-784-2433. Surround yourself with people who will support you without judgement and are willing to take the extra step to understand. If you’re struggling to find regular mental health resources, check out here for more options. You still have a life ahead even if it takes some trial and error to figure out what the hell to do.

So Netflix released the second season of Thirteen Reasons Why, and, what a shock, people hate it for upping the graphic violence and rape. I have no plans to watch it myself after reading through all the triggers, but suffice it to say that so little was learned from the first season. Plus, I’d rather not subject myself to that much distress for a TV show I knew there was no point in continuing after the first season. Everyone’s accounts across Twitter and Tumblr of the new season seem to match up, so I’m going off of that for this piece.

If you haven’t seen my review of the first season (with and without spoilers), I found that it definitely went too far to make a point and had really confusing characterizations, but there were select scenes, when they were done right, were kinda worth the wait-- keyword being “kinda.” There was a germ of an idea begging for good writing, but got sucked into shock value for the sake of shock value. And the second season offers no promises to improve.

Of the multiple graphic scenes of this season, the one which sparked the most outrage was the final episode “Bye” as Tyler (a serial stalker) is brutalized and raped by his male classmates. As a result of being pushed too far, he brings practically a whole arsenal of guns to shoot up the school during a dance, but Clay peacefully disarms him before he can go through with it.

So apparently the creators saw the criticism of season one and thought, “So, you want to see more graphic violence, rape, and terribly confusing characterization?”

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, creator and showrunner, Brian Yorkey, wanted to explore more of Tyler’s psyche and “how a troubled man might be driven to consider this very difficult choice” after the bullying and ostracization he experienced in the first season. While I’d never wish rape on anyone, even fictional people--and a bunch of characters who mistreated him are total hypocrites--, Tyler is still beyond redemption for never understanding how his behavior destroyed Hannah’s sense of safety. The show puts him through that much brutalization to force audiences to feel sympathetic towards him while never critically analyzing why his stalking and coping mechanisms were wrong and unhealthy, regardless of what else was going on in his life.

It also promotes the dangerous idea that social outcasts and/or victims of bullying are likely to eventually become school shooters, which completely ignores factors like toxic masculinity or racist associations-- as was the case for shootings like Parkland and Santa Fe from this year-- which contribute to a white male sense of entitlement. Even though the lapses in logic are all over the place in the show-- particularly Clay having an emotional breakdown with Tyler, even though he made things worse in the first place by sharing revenge porn--, people had every right to distance themselves from Tyler as much as possible.

He’s a creep in how he objectifies his female classmates, constantly collects sensitive photos for blackmail, and his main outlet for anger becomes shooting guns at bottles and live animals, because society as a whole tends to only show men how to be emotional through anger and nothing else. This doesn’t help that when he testified, he apparently wanted to befriend Hannah to take photos of her to which she rejected (rightfully so) and thus his stalking began. It’s already so back-and-forth among viewers if Hannah committed suicide out of revenge or actual mental health deterioration, and subtly putting blame on her for rejecting Tyler is up there as one of the worst things they did to her. Not to mention throughout the second season, Tyler is anonymously putting up polaroids around the school of incriminating evidence in the case, particularly with Jessica, who is already stressed as is coming to terms that she was raped by Bryce.

It’s upon these scenes that I realized Netflix’s Thirteen Reasons Why can’t decide who it’s supposed to be for. It’s not for teenagers with how unrealistic and unidentifiable the characters are, especially coming from an adaptation of an 11-year-old book with an outdated understanding of teen mental health, bullying and suicide. It’s most definitely not for mentally ill folks with a history of suicidal thoughts because it’s so graphic, violent, and triggering, and on top of which, is grossly inaccurate on how depression works. Are they making it for the same people who can stomach Game of Thrones easily?

Above all else, does graphic violence have any point in film or television?

As mentioned in their first Beyond the Reasons special, the writers argued about needing that authenticity for Hannah’s rape and suicide scenes “to be painful to watch,” but it’s really not worth it if it has nothing else to say besides “look at this excess violence; you need to feel bad.” If you need to spoon feed your audience an explicit rape or suicide scene to emphasize how horrible those things are, it’s bad writing. They made the same mistakes with Tyler’s brutalization, which like I said, only exists to make you feel sorry for him and almost forget he’s an irredeemable character.

Film and television are super creative visual mediums; there are ways to convey an emotion or theme without triggering content or alienating your supposed intended audience.

I mentioned this before in my first review, but Perks of Being a Wallflower did incredibly well in portraying child molestation and an attempted suicide without going too far. The scenes of the molestation are cleverly cut and mostly in shadow where all you can see is Charlie’s aunt rubbing his leg and hear her whispering “Don’t wake your sister.” And when he’s mentally breaking down and suicidal, the camera just pans to the knife slowly before immediately cutting to the police breaking in, and then Charlie wakes up in the psychiatric ward. It’s a gut-wrenching scene every time, but it’s also smart in remembering the intended audience and walking that line before it becomes too much. It’s a great depiction of an anxiety attack where everything overwhelms you at once, and sometimes there’s gaps in your memory in what happened while in that state of panic. It’s never addressed what happened between the police arriving and Charlie waking up in the psychiatric ward. But it doesn’t need to give those answers; what matters most is that Charlie is safe and finally going to get the help he needs.

A scene can be way more powerful in what it omits rather than what it explicitly shows. What you imagine might happen can be more exciting and/or terrifying than what any director could have put on the screen themselves.

Early horror and thriller films are among the most successful of this, especially if they’re directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the Master of Suspense. Sure, these films seem pretty cheesy when we in the 21st century are used to seeing much more violence and body horror, but they have their mark on cinematic history for a reason, and for an audience in the 1960s, this was horrifying. Take the famous shower scene from Psycho.

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Instead of showing the knife penetrating flesh, it’s all edited in near-rapid cuts of “Mother” missing, Marion screaming and trying to defend herself, and shots of her feet with blood dripping into the water. It focuses more on the vulnerability of the situation, when there’s no chance for escape as you’re cornered against the wall and how quickly it all happens before you can react, complete with fast-paced editing and those high pitched violins. That kind of defenselessness freaked out actress Janet Leigh so much that she couldn’t take showers again without locking the doors and windows and leaving the shower door open. Hell, that still tends to be a common reaction for a lot of people who see this movie, and all without needing to show actual stab wounds.

And this trick in omitting some elements and highlighting others works well across genres for any scene motivated by any strong emotion. There’s probably about 50 different Disney films I can cite that do this well, but the one that sticks out the most is Tarzan.

Aside from Phil Collins singing, some animal noises, and a baby cooing, there is no spoken dialogue for the first 7 minutes, which is a really long time for an animated family film. Yeah, the song kinda hamfists in the themes of family and love from the get-go, but it’s otherwise a great introduction. You see these two families just starting out before they’re cut short by tragedy; one with the death of a baby gorilla and the other with the death of Tarzan’s parents, both at the jaws of Sabor. The former is only indicated by the sounds of the baby gorilla’s screams echoing in the jungle while we only see the aftermath of the latter through Kala’s perspective when she finds Tarzan.

Obviously with it being a Disney family film, they’re not going to actually show Sabor tearing up a baby gorilla or the human parents. As such, they have to rely on context clues for the audience to pick up and piece together everything else with their imaginations. When you think about it long enough, it’s a really dark beginning on how quickly unexpected tragedy can destroy everything you hold dear. And it’s all accomplished without going too far.

Does this mean we need to omit graphic violence entirely for a film? Not necessarily as it very much depends on what the film is and your target audience. But omission is a great practice in a story to explore what else you have to say besides “Look at this traumatizing shit. You should feel bad.” Of course, we’ll always have mindless films which just exist to be violent, and historical narratives and/or social commentaries in some cases need violence to portray the reality of a situation. But when you’re making something about mental illness with intent to help those like your characters, it helps to listen to what your audience and mental health experts actually want to see in such a narrative. And like I said before, the Thirteen Reasons Why creators completely ignored criticisms of season one and continued making the same mistakes just to milk their product beyond the source material. It has nothing else to say or do besides being needlessly gritty as opposed to creating likable characters or understandable motivations.

The only exception to this rule I can even think of is Deadpool 2.

I know it seems counter-intuitive to compare Deadpool 2 and Thirteen Reasons Why given the former’s more excessive violence, but bare with me here. I stand by that Deadpool 2 is way better at handling themes of suicide and violence in two hours than Thirteen Reasons Why ever did in 26 episodes.

The major differences? The intended audience’s expectations and well-written characterization.

Most everyone going in already knows what Wade Wilson is like. And this is definitely not the first time he attempted suicide in such grandiose and gratuitous fashion. The first film established itself as a wildly violent parody of superhero films, and the sequel continues that by poking fun at recent trends of these films going darker and grittier. In any other film, this would cross the line, but because it’s Deadpool, the excessively grotesque violence is to be expected. It succeeds in capturing the shock and dark humor (i.e Wade blowing himself up with his apartment, knowing fully well he can’t die) while still maintaining the weight of his emotional turmoil.

We actually get to know who Wade is and why he acts the way he does. There’s no drawn out mystery or fact-checking other sources or confronting side characters we don’t care about. We get his perspective alone, and that’s all we need to see his grief over Vanessa escalating to self-destructive behaviors and how he tries to find some family and meaning in life without her, even though her death is retconned in the end anyway. It’s all played for laughs, but you can’t help but feel sorry for Wade because he loved Vanessa so much, and they were a wonderfully sweet couple.

Another thing Deadpool 2 does significantly better than Thirteen Reasons Why is not forcing gray morality where it doesn’t belong, particularly when Wade tries to save Russell. It doesn’t matter if his actions lead to a horrible future; he’s just a traumatized kid who needs a proper family who will guide him. A lot of X-Men films try to play the heroes as the bigger people who are above murder and revenge. Yet Deadpool 2 doesn’t punish those like Russell with understandable hatred and motivations. It is very upfront that if you harm children, you deserve whatever hell comes your way-- which really hits home as Russell was put through metaphorical gay conversion therapy.

Meanwhile, I can’t even be bothered to care about anyone in Thirteen Reasons Why. The second season out of nowhere piles on excuse after excuse to justify the characters’ actions without them ever facing guilt or consequences. Anyone else with a remote chance at sympathy is just put through more emotional torture without rhyme or reason. I don’t care who has a drug problem, who’s gay, who dated who, the he-said-she-said, etc etc. If you’re trying to preach the ever-tired “it gets better” bullshit, when does it actually start to get better?

Sadly, Thirteen Reasons Why can’t find that point, and I don’t trust it will given how little the creators learned from the first season’s criticisms. They don’t care about creating a narrative to help mentally ill teens. They have nothing else to say or do than to make money and shoe-horned in so much graphic violence under the guise of being “authentic” to compensate for a tired Degrassi knockoff which would’ve disappeared if it wasn’t based on a well-known YA novel. Graphic violence in media is a tool to be used carefully, and of course it will vary project to project. But if it just exists to pad your “deep, meaningful” story instead of developing characters, motivations and relationships, then it’s cheap, lazy torture porn, and it’s bad writing.

If you enjoyed this analysis and what I do here, consider buying me a ko-fi to show your support!

#thirteen reasons why #13 reasons why #netflix #tv #tv show #graphic violence #deadpool #deadpool 2 #tarzan #disney tarzan #psycho #alfred hitchcock #perks of being a wallflower #analysis #my writing #essay #opinion #editorial

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sportsanimebreakdown · 7 years

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Breakdown: Initial D

Okay a lot of new fans of the genre will find this a weird one. Not because of the cars (which are aMAZing) or the character designs (which are not) but because the series -along with its ridiculous eurobeat soundtrack- is practically legendary. The memes make themselves. But even the memes are done with good humor because, to be optimistic, I’d say that the fans are very whole-heartedly enthusiastic. (In a pessimistic way, I’d say that the story reinforces a lot of ideas of gender roles and the fantasy of an effortless traditional masculinity and its dual, serving femininity.)

But I digress. Let’s get into the breakdown.

SPOILER FREE ZONE

Initial D: manga 1995-2013 by Shuichi Shigeno, 5 season of episodes alongside at least 4 movies and three OVAs, it’s a big one.

Tropes: Undiscovered Genius, Unbeatable Hero, Technical Sport, Cardboard Women, Teaming Up With Rival

Not-Your-Wikipedia-Summary: Fujiwara Takumi is a kid who’s been doing the deliveries for his dad’s tofu company (illegally) since middle school. Flying through the mountain pass in the wee hours of the morning, he’s developed, unbeknownst to him (though known to his ex-racer father), a killer instinct and technique for mountain pass racing (touge racing). When he trips into the racing scene by defeating one bigshot after another, it leaves everyone watching shook. He’s in for the long haul now, whether he likes it or not.

TL;DR Review: First off, I’d say if you want to get into this series, watch the three “Mugen” (Legendary) movies that have just recently been made because they go back and cover the battles and key plot points of the first few seasons of the series. Why would you do this instead of watching the actual seasons? Because they look like this-

It’s pretty bad. And you haven’t even heard the earworm beats they put this to. Just youtube it, dudes.

It gets better as the seasons go on, and I have to admit that there’s a certain “it’s so bad it’s good” quality about the first season, but yeah if you’re used to the quality of modern anime, definitely watch the movies.

That said, the story holds up well. Maybe it’s because ‘undiscovered genius’ is a catnip trope of mine, but I think it’s still a lot of fun. Unlike a lot of other sports in the genre, racing is a one-man sport so it’s much closer, pacing and story-wise, to something like Hajime no Ippo rather than a team-based story like Haikyuu or Slam Dunk. But, unlike in boxing, Takumi can team up with his rivals, as he does in the later seasons when he joins an expeditionary team.

The female characters, as I’ll get into later, are terribly written. This is one of those series where I skip all the parts where there’s a female onscreen, because they’re so problematic (emotionally weak, bad drivers, two-dimensional, only there to be a sexual/romantic target for a male character) that I’d rather skip them then cringe through them. Like ewoks in Star Wars, I’d rather just pretend they don’t exist than have that shit shoved in my face.

So yeah. Fun story, great races, it’s a classic. Like the Great British Baking Show, it’ll get you seriously into shit that you may never have thought you’d get into.

I’d like to think that’s the first time Initial D has been compared to the GBBO on the internet, and I want some credit for that, thank you.

PS: I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention how huge an impact this series has had on the street-racing and rally-racing scene, by the way. I’ve only heard about the tip of the iceberg, but this series has gotten a shitton of people interested in drift racing and the AE86, Takumi’s car model. Drifting is a thing in large part due to this series. Which I FUCKING LOVE cuz it shows the power of comics.

Objective Score: 6/10 and all of those points are for how awesome the races are. The character development exists insofar as each character has a trope that they represent and stick to, but it’s really just the backdrop for a whole lot of car nerddom and awesome racing.

Personal Score: 8/10 Excepting the ewoks, it will and always will be one of my favs. It helped get me into driving and cars in my teens and earned a spot in one of my top ten by that merit alone.

SPOILER ZONE

Full Thoughts: OKAY. I’ve loved this series for so long that it’s hard to feel that glow again, but I thought that since I’d gone back to watch it again (in between drawing pages and needing a break for the goddamn stress injury in my drawing hand) I might as well do a breakdown.

First off, can we give HUGE PROPS to Shuichi-sensei who somehow manages to make weird-shaped boxes zipping around corners LOOK DYNAMIC? Like how the fuck did he do that srsly

...haha for a moment there you thought I hadn’t actually analyzed it yet. Well joke’s on you cuz oF COURSE I HAVE. It’s actually not super complicated: Japanese sound effects, being one or two-characters long, means that they can be used more easily as visual onomatopoeia for the texture of the sound it’s conveying. He uses that a lot. Then there’s the motion lines and an ability to draw any fucking car from any angle and BOOM there you have it.

But on the flip side, his characters look like this so.... win some, lose some.

In regards to the issues with the women I discussed earlier... well. I can count on one hand with a pinky still left over how many actual female characters who last more than a wink-and-a-nod there are. There’s so few, I can tell you exactly who they are: first is the highschool popular girl who has a crush on Takumi for some strange reason we never discover (and who has Drama because she had a sugar daddy for a long time). Then there are the two-women-who-count-as-one-driver (???) driving team who take on Takumi early on. One of them has Relationship Drama with Takumi’s friend, and the other (an intimidatingly Mature Woman) starts crushing on/hitting on Takumi, providing us with the typical madonna/whore dynamic with Takumi’s crush that Japanese media seems to require even more than American. AND THEN we have the shit cherry on the shit cake, a female driver in the later season who’s actually talented (heyhey!) but OH WAIT she has insta-crush for Keisuke, Takumi’s rival and team partner, and she is now Emotionally Compromised for racing and.... also a total stalker and weirdo and if I hear her say ‘Darling’ one more time to a man who has no interest in her, I’m gonna report her to some sort of HR. EDIT: OH WAIT I forgot there’s two chicks who exist to be relationship bait for Takumi’s loser friend. One of them lasts like 3 whole episodes.

And that’s it! In probably the only sport where it’s impossible to have any kind of gender-based advantage or separation (such as in school sports, where there are girls’ teams and boys’ teams) there are only FOUR WOMEN in the entire series, and of those women only two of them actually drive.

It’s frustrating how common this is, and how it goes by so unquestioned. I mean, it wouldn’t be hyperbole to say that this series changed the sport it’s about. It popularized drifting, probably got a lot of young men traffic tickets, and got me into buying a junker to tear apart with my dad while he pointed at all the parts and taught me what they did.

What else could it have done? What seriously badass female drivers would we have if the author had just not let his misogyny get in the way? “But that’s what the racing is like, man!” someone in the back yells. To which I reply: Shuichi is a STORYTELLER. If he’s big in the racing scene and looks around and says “huh not many women here” it should be in his creative best interest to ask “well what if there were?” Storytellers are here to envision what the world could be, not to enforce the prejudiced systems that are already in place. If he can imagine a 17-year-old kid being able to beat a gazillion 30-somethings at drift racing with no formal driving education, then he can damn well imagine a talented driver with tits who doesn’t exist solely for the sake of sexual interest.

But as they say... if you want something done, you gotta get it the fuck done yourself.

#initial D #anime review #sexism in anime #hello patriarchy #sports anime #breakdown

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loyallogic · 6 years

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How to Craft an Effective Expert Witness Engagement Letter

Like any agreement, the relationship between an expert witness and the attorney and litigant should be memorialized in writing. While engagement letters are thought to be less formal than a more contractual-looking retainer agreement, both documents share the same purpose: to outline the scope of the relationship with the expert. Becuase each expert-attorney relationship is unique, the specific requirements of the representation will differ from case to case. But generally, there are certain topics that all comprehensive engagement letters should include. By taking the time to draft a solid engagement letter at the outset of the relationship, unnecessary future complications can hopefully be avoided.

Establish the Kind of Expert You’ve Retained

Any solid engagement letter should define the services that the attorney expects the expert to perform. The first issue that should be decided is whether the expert is expected to testify. An expert witness’ duties and responsibilities are largely different from a consultative (or non-testifying) expert. Notably, a non-testifying expert’s identity is oftentimes protected, which allows for certain obvious advantages in terms of trial preparation. Under Rule 26(b)(4)(D)(ii) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, a party may not discover facts known or opinions held by an expert who is not expected to be called as a witness at trial except upon a showing of exceptional circumstances. Thus, consulting experts can investigate facts and issues of the case without disclosing their opinions opposing counsel. Contrarily, experts that do plan to testify need to disclose their findings accordingly. Pursuant to Rule 26, these experts need to provide a written report to opposing counsel which contains their opinions and the basis for them. Therefore, it is critical that the expert’s specific role and corresponding obligations are definitively stated in the engagement letter.

Define the Services to be Performed

Once an expert’s role is decided, a detailed breakdown of the expected work to be performed should be stated in writing. The type of work performed can vary as widely as the types of fields of expertise that exist. Depending upon their particular field of expertise, an expert’s services may involve reviewing voluminous documents, conducting experiments, and analyzing scientific methodologies. It is helpful for the letter to set forth a general timeframe of when the work is expected to be performed, and if necessary, the letter can also include deadlines. In addition, if testifying at trial, there might be various exhibits and demonstrative aids that need to be prepared. With the advent of technology in the courtroom, these aids can be as simple as a PowerPoint presentation or as advanced as virtual or augmented reality programs. Anything that an expert is expected to prepare should be clearly stated for the sake of planning.

Clearly State the Expert’s Fees and Expenses

A breakdown of the expert’s fees and rates of compensation is a critical part of any engagement letter. Experts are compensated at vastly different rates depending on factors such as experience, training, expected work to be performed, and time requirements. Likewise, an expert’s rates for out-of-court work can differ from their rates for in-court testimony. If an expert charges per hour, opposed to a flat rate, the fee provision should specify any differentiations in hourly rates.

The engagement letter should also specify how expenses are handled. Typically, an expert’s expenses for printing, copying, mailing, materials, travel, mileage, lodging, and meals should be itemized. If necessary, the letter should state a timetable for when and how the expert should provide billing invoices to the attorney that must be paid subject to the time stated in the agreement.

Conduct a Conflicts Check

Prior to engaging an expert, a thorough vetting process should be conducted concerning the expert’s qualifications and potential conflicts of interest. Although courts infrequently disqualify experts on such grounds, a disqualification can have drastic consequences on a case. Therefore, it is critical to discuss any and all potential conflicts of interest with your expert, including whether their professional history could contradict or call into question their present work. Conflicts of interest may occur if the expert was previously employed by (or testified on behalf of) the opposing party. Conflicts may also occur if the expert’s opinion directly contradicts their previous testimony. As such, any potential conflicts should be thoroughly investigated. While it might not be possible to predict all potential conflicts that may arise throughout the course of litigation, it is helpful for the engagement letter to specify that a conflicts check was conducted and that the expert is in a position to properly work on the case.

Include a Confidentiality Clause

An expert is a direct extension of the litigation team and as such, they are often exposed to an enormous amount of attorney-client privileged materials and confidential work product. Many times, an expert will possess these materials as well as part of their preparation. To protect these materials, an engagement letter should include a brief clause stating the confidential nature of the information and that upon termination of the relationship, the expert must return or destroy the items at issue. Likewise, the engagement letter should also state that all communications between the expert and the attorney (as well as the litigant and support staff) are confidential and should be treated accordingly.

Experts should also be made aware of the importance of their own communications. Almost all written communications of a testifying expert are discoverable under Rule 26 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (as well as Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure) and many state courts have adopted similar disclosure obligations. An expert should be mindful of the written communications they produce, such as email correspondence and draft opinions. The engagement letter should note how and when the expert’s opinion should be rendered in order to avoid the unnecessary production of materials that could potentially tip off the adversary.

Don’t Forget a Termination Clause

Like any solid contract, an engagement letter should specify the timeframe of the relationship. In many cases, litigation can be ongoing with seemingly no end in sight. For a testifying expert, it may be difficult to state with certainty when their testimony would take place. But to the extent that a completion date can be defined, the engagement letter should so state. The letter should also list any justifiable reasons to terminate the relationship prior to the completion of litigation, such as the expert’s failure to perform the necessary services or the attorney’s failure to compensate the agreed upon amount. While many attorneys and experts work together seamlessly, it is possible for communications to break down. In such an event, it is important to have a thorough termination clause.

The post How to Craft an Effective Expert Witness Engagement Letter appeared first on The Expert Institute.

How to Craft an Effective Expert Witness Engagement Letter published first on https://namechangers.tumblr.com/

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legalroll · 6 years

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How to Craft an Effective Expert Witness Engagement Letter

Establish the Kind of Expert You’ve Retained

Define the Services to be Performed

Clearly State the Expert’s Fees and Expenses

Conduct a Conflicts Check

Include a Confidentiality Clause

Don’t Forget a Termination Clause

The post How to Craft an Effective Expert Witness Engagement Letter appeared first on The Expert Institute.

How to Craft an Effective Expert Witness Engagement Letter published first on https://medium.com/@SanAntonioAttorney

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fayeburnsus · 6 years

Text

How to Craft an Effective Expert Witness Engagement Letter

Establish the Kind of Expert You’ve Retained

Define the Services to be Performed

Clearly State the Expert’s Fees and Expenses

Conduct a Conflicts Check

Include a Confidentiality Clause

Don’t Forget a Termination Clause

The post How to Craft an Effective Expert Witness Engagement Letter appeared first on The Expert Institute.

from Legal News And Updates https://www.theexpertinstitute.com/how-to-craft-an-effective-expert-witness-engagement-letter/

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bizmediaweb · 6 years

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The Beginner’s Guide to Generating Leads on Social Media

Online advertising is now the new norm for many brands, but the big question is:

Does traditional marketing in an online format still produce the kind of results (leads and sales) that is needed or expected by the companies using it?

Over the years many brands may have become accustomed to using online mediums to share their marketing materials and perhaps even come to depend on it. But let’s be honest, the impact of online advertising doesn’t have the same results today that it used to.

There’s just too much advertising online.

Wherever you go, you’re bombarded with pop-ups, display network ads, banners and calls-to-action.

This scatters your attention and your brain learns to ignore it.

And what about the cost of online advertising? It has only gotten more and more expensive.

But that’s not even the whole story.

Even the nature of the B2B buying journey has greatly changed over the last few years. B2B buyers are now empowered consumers – they don’t just research a brand and its offerings – they have the motivation and the resources to do this in an extremely thorough fashion, and then analyze and draw conclusions from what they find.

Does this leave you concerned about the value of the money and effort you are investing in traditional marketing tactics used online? It should.

So, how do you produce the kind of results you want and need for your business when marketing online? The answer is social selling.

What is social selling?

Social selling is about building relationships with your potential prospects and customers as well as establishing trust and authority, using social media and other digital marketing tactics.

In contrast to popular opinion, social selling doesn’t mean abandoning email, phone calls or real-life meetings.

Quite the opposite. Successful social selling is about building relationships to the point where you can comfortably take the conversation offline.

What social selling often does do, is eliminate the need for cold-calling and similar practices for some industries. This is because social selling is based on the notion of working with your audience until you become the clear choice when they need someone who does what you do.

In short, B2B social selling uses social media platforms to find people and businesses looking for someone that offers a solution such as yours and then turn them into customers.

Does social selling work (for B2B)

It does.

Current research shows that salespeople who use social media outperform those who don’t, and that companies are more successful when they focus their attention on social selling.

There’s a common myth that social selling only works for B2C. The fact is that it’s as effective for B2B as it is for B2C. For example, thanks to their social selling program, IBM increased sales by 400%.

How to Use Social Selling

1. Find the right people

To begin, you need to locate potential prospects on social media that would be interested in your offerings.

For this, you can use a social media monitoring tool (try Awario) that will find mentions of your brand, company, product, industry, and, most importantly, competitors on all major social networks, blogs and forums.

Try monitoring all the different social media platforms at first. Over time, you’ll notice trends oh which social media platforms your potential prospects are using as well as where your leads are coming from.

However, I’d suggest keeping an eye on any of the platforms they use, even after you’ve figured out the most used ones. This can be very important for maintaining your brand image and customer service. For example, if someone posted an angry YouTube review of your product, you’d definitely want to know about it, even if none of your leads come from YouTube.

This seems clear, however, there is a couple of questions that you might have at this point, so let’s get them out of the way.

Why would B2B buyers show their interest on social media?

Buyers often openly express their interests and needs through the social selling process.

This is especially true for B2B buyers, as they usually have a large network of social media users who can give them advice on a product/service. They may even start a discussion to get as many opinions from their peers as possible.

Why is social media a good place to sell something?

In the B2B sphere, in most cases, it’s NOT.

Generally, in the B2B realm, because of the complexity that can be involved, the sale takes place offline.

This is why you will want to use the social selling process to locate, connect and build a relationship with your potential prospects. Once you have accomplished this you can take the conversation offline, where you can have a sales conversation.

Remember that social media is asynchronous and non-interruptive, which makes it a good place for reaching out to people who haven’t made their decision yet.

With a bit of effort, social media enables marketers and salespeople to help their prospects get to know, like and trust them. And as multiple studies tell us, people are much more likely to buy from people they know, like and trust. Which brings us to the next point.

2. Build relationships

Once you’ve found and connected with your prospects, it time to start with nurturing these relationships.

According to Forrester, sales reps tend to ignore this phase and push the sales instead of solving a customer’s problem. Forrester warns that if organizations don’t change their outdated thinking and create effective sales models for today’s digital era, 1 million B2B salespeople will lose their jobs to self-service e-commerce by 2020.

So as tempting as it might be to build a network of prospects and start bombarding them with your promotional content, it’s better to try the long-term way of making connections.

Now the question is:

How do you build a relationship on social media?

Don’t worry, you won’t have to take anyone out for dinner. In fact, building a relationship on social media is much easier than you think.

Engage with buyers’ posts: like, share or comment.

This is a way to get buyer’s attention and start social relationship building.

Try connecting and building a relationship with multiple decision-makers across various departments, when it makes sense, as this can make your job easier.

Post valuable content, relevant insights, and thought-provoking questions.

Content marketing is very important in B2B lead generation at the moment – it is now practiced by 91% of B2B marketers.

There’s a good reason for this: providing great content builds trust and credibility and presents you as an industry leader. Simply sharing industry news, third-party reports and any other relevant content builds a reputation for you.

Remember that you’re often working with the pre-purchase phases of decision-making when you practice social selling.

During this phase, buyers feel most motivated when they’ve been given something valuable in return for their interaction, and educational content is the easiest way to provide value.

Watch discussions about your/your competitor’s industry/brand/product for more information about your prospects such as their challenges, desires, frustrations and pain points.

Whatever you do, don’t push your product.

Stay visible and do your best to be helpful. Answer relevant questions, voice your opinion in Twitter Chats and Facebook Groups. This will help you make connections and become the person they recall when they need your company’s product or service.

3. Turn prospects into customers (when the time is right)

The key word here is “timing”. Let me explain.

Go back to point “one”. You’ve found some people who you’ve figured could be interested in the product. What kinds of mentions might you have found?

Here’re the most common ones:

1. Positive feedback

More often than you think, people leave positive feedback about brands on social media.

B2B buyers are more likely than other customers to leave a thoughtful, well written review about your product or service.

As you might’ve guessed, these are not the leads you’d have to start selling to: they know and like your services already. However, it’s very important to spread the good words for the sake of brand awareness and start building a relationship (see point “two” of the article) for the sake of customer retention.

2. Negative feedback

Everyone has to deal with negative feedback at some point.

In most cases, this is something that you should respond to. While it may seems unnecessary or even uncomfortable, reacting to negative comments is a part of social selling on its own. Reacting reasonably to the comment and offering a solution, an explanation, and an apology, might change the view of your brand in the eyes of the reviewer and the people reading it. Making a connection with a reviewer might be a good or a bad idea depending on the context.

3. Negative feedback (for your competitors)

Now that’s a whole different case. These are written by the warmest leads possible. They are interested in your niche and they may be happy to switch brands – all you have to do is make a personal connection and make it a seamless process.

This particular situation often requires very timely response – you need to react to the situation right away or someone else might jump at the opportunity.

4. Niche-related discussions

You will come across discussions where people are sharing their opinions about your industry and these discussions can hold influence with prospects who are in the decision making process.

These discussions can happen in places such as forums, social media communities and Reddit threads.

Don’t assume B2B buyers only read official press releases when choosing a company to buy from – just like regular customers, they read everything that catches their eye during the search process.

So, what do you do with this information?

The same as would in other situations, build relationships, contribute and establish yourself as an industry leader. Then, when the timing is right, you can point them at one of your content resources that addresses the specific problem the business faces.

4. Analyze

Social selling requires consistency and commitment. To ensure you are efficient and effective with your time and efforts, you will need to optimize the process. If you are just starting out, try focusing your attention on just one or two social media platforms that your prospects are spending most of their time on and then try to figure out which activities perform best and eliminate the ones that don’t yield adequate results.

Do you or your company use social selling as part of their lead generation process? What kind of results have you gotten? Let me know in the comments below.

Alina Gorbatch is an experienced web marketing specialist and content writer at Awario. Follow @BlondeAlina on Twitter.

The post The Beginner’s Guide to Generating Leads on Social Media appeared first on Top Dog Social Media.

The Beginner’s Guide to Generating Leads on Social Media published first on https://themarketingheaven.tumblr.com/

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unifiedsocialblog · 6 years

Text

The Beginner’s Guide to Generating Leads on Social Media

Online advertising is now the new norm for many brands, but the big question is:

Does traditional marketing in an online format still produce the kind of results (leads and sales) that is needed or expected by the companies using it?

There’s just too much advertising online.

Wherever you go, you’re bombarded with pop-ups, display network ads, banners and calls-to-action.

This scatters your attention and your brain learns to ignore it.

And what about the cost of online advertising? It has only gotten more and more expensive.

But that’s not even the whole story.

Does this leave you concerned about the value of the money and effort you are investing in traditional marketing tactics used online? It should.

So, how do you produce the kind of results you want and need for your business when marketing online? The answer is social selling.

What is social selling?

Social selling is about building relationships with your potential prospects and customers as well as establishing trust and authority, using social media and other digital marketing tactics.

In contrast to popular opinion, social selling doesn’t mean abandoning email, phone calls or real-life meetings.

Quite the opposite. Successful social selling is about building relationships to the point where you can comfortably take the conversation offline.

In short, B2B social selling uses social media platforms to find people and businesses looking for someone that offers a solution such as yours and then turn them into customers.

Does social selling work (for B2B)

It does.

Current research shows that salespeople who use social media outperform those who don’t, and that companies are more successful when they focus their attention on social selling.

How to Use Social Selling

1. Find the right people

To begin, you need to locate potential prospects on social media that would be interested in your offerings.

This seems clear, however, there is a couple of questions that you might have at this point, so let’s get them out of the way.

Why would B2B buyers show their interest on social media?

Buyers often openly express their interests and needs through the social selling process.

Why is social media a good place to sell something?

In the B2B sphere, in most cases, it’s NOT.

Generally, in the B2B realm, because of the complexity that can be involved, the sale takes place offline.

Remember that social media is asynchronous and non-interruptive, which makes it a good place for reaching out to people who haven’t made their decision yet.

2. Build relationships

Once you’ve found and connected with your prospects, it time to start with nurturing these relationships.

So as tempting as it might be to build a network of prospects and start bombarding them with your promotional content, it’s better to try the long-term way of making connections.

Now the question is:

How do you build a relationship on social media?

Don’t worry, you won’t have to take anyone out for dinner. In fact, building a relationship on social media is much easier than you think.

Engage with buyers’ posts: like, share or comment.

This is a way to get buyer’s attention and start social relationship building.

Try connecting and building a relationship with multiple decision-makers across various departments, when it makes sense, as this can make your job easier.

Post valuable content, relevant insights, and thought-provoking questions.

Content marketing is very important in B2B lead generation at the moment – it is now practiced by 91% of B2B marketers.

Remember that you’re often working with the pre-purchase phases of decision-making when you practice social selling.

During this phase, buyers feel most motivated when they’ve been given something valuable in return for their interaction, and educational content is the easiest way to provide value.

Watch discussions about your/your competitor’s industry/brand/product for more information about your prospects such as their challenges, desires, frustrations and pain points.

Whatever you do, don’t push your product.

3. Turn prospects into customers (when the time is right)

The key word here is “timing”. Let me explain.

Go back to point “one”. You’ve found some people who you’ve figured could be interested in the product. What kinds of mentions might you have found?

Here’re the most common ones:

1. Positive feedback

More often than you think, people leave positive feedback about brands on social media.

B2B buyers are more likely than other customers to leave a thoughtful, well written review about your product or service.

2. Negative feedback

Everyone has to deal with negative feedback at some point.

3. Negative feedback (for your competitors)

This particular situation often requires very timely response – you need to react to the situation right away or someone else might jump at the opportunity.

4. Niche-related discussions

You will come across discussions where people are sharing their opinions about your industry and these discussions can hold influence with prospects who are in the decision making process.

These discussions can happen in places such as forums, social media communities and Reddit threads.

Don’t assume B2B buyers only read official press releases when choosing a company to buy from – just like regular customers, they read everything that catches their eye during the search process.

So, what do you do with this information?

4. Analyze

Do you or your company use social selling as part of their lead generation process? What kind of results have you gotten? Let me know in the comments below.

Alina Gorbatch is an experienced web marketing specialist and content writer at Awario. Follow @BlondeAlina on Twitter.

The post The Beginner’s Guide to Generating Leads on Social Media appeared first on Top Dog Social Media.

The Beginner’s Guide to Generating Leads on Social Media published first on https://getfblike.tumblr.com/

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drkizerthoughts-blog · 7 years

Text

*10/25 Power

The critical question I decided to explore within this blog post is what is an example of a discursive formation and its elements? How does this discursive formation evoke a certain sense of power, and how is this power productive or unproductive.

The rhetorical artifact I decided to unpack was National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The organization was previously known as the Intercollegiate Athletic Association back in 1906. In 1952 it began regulating live televised coverage of college football in order to protect game attendance in the stadiums. The NCAA operates as a legislative and administrative authority for men’s and women’s intercollegiate athletics. The organization create and enforce rules of play and eligibility requirements for athletes. 90 national championship contest are conducted in two dozen sports.

The NCAA is an example of a discursive formation with discursive practices, rules, roles, power, and knowledge. The organization displays a sense of power by enforcing rules on all parties regarding college athletics and fire any coaching staff that violates their rules. This power is being used surprisingly unproductive they have created a system designed to exploit college athletes. For the sake of this blog discussion I am going to analyze the basketball division.

I’m sure you’re curious about what the heck is discursive formation? Allow me to provide you some context. Historically, a huge debate occurred pertaining to the middle-level theory. One of the communication scholars named Michael Leff argued that rhetoric as epistemic that tends to be meta-rhetorical and historical essays. Meta-rhetorical essays focuses on theoretical concerns, but lacks concrete points of references. Historical essays focuses on addressing the extent of theoretical significance. Leff did not like the specificity of the historical studies nor the grand abstractions from the meta-rhetorical essays. Leff reached out to Richard Gregg, who connects the middle-level theory to “symbolic inducement,” which focuses on knowledge from perception. This term stems from neuropsychological studies in perception. There was one scholar whose work has influenced countless communication scholars and help settled the “middle-level theory” debate, that was Michel Foucault. He stated an episteme as “the total set of relations that unite, at a given period, the discursive practices that give rise to epistemological figures, sciences, and formalized systems.” In other words, he argues that it’s a code of a specific culture, which governs language, perceptions, values, and the hierarchy of its practices. As time passed Foucault started to use the term “discursive formation” instead of episteme. The new term demonstrates how he views as discursive practices as a framework for structure of knowledge. He breaks down five primary units that are the basis of a middle-level epistemic theory, which are discursive practices, rules, roles, power, and knowledge (Foss, S., and Gill, A., 1987). We’ll explore each unit in depth within the next four paragraphs.

When Foucault defines discursive practices as rules understood to be true in a culture Interestingly, he believes that it is not confined just to written or spoken discourse, there’s also elements of non-verbals (Foss, S., and Gill, A., 1987). When you watch a college basketball game during March Madness, you’ll notice how there’s quite a few of verbal and nonverbal discourse before, during, and after the games. For example, on ESPN college basketball is the incredibly hyped. The commentators would host different scouting and basketball analysts to discuss how different teams will compete each other by comparing statistics and reviewing game footage. Occasionally, commentators and analysts disagrees with each other, which sparks good basketball debates. Of course, during the games the architecture of the basketball arenas are amazing. The arenas are designed to shift all of your undivided attention to the center of the room, which is the court. Besides that is where all the action takes place. Whenever, a sequence of great plays was made by one of the players. Foucault wouldn’t have an issue with the architecture of the arenas. He would not be interested in discursive practices created by the NCAA.

In addition, the NCAA definitely has some rules everyone must follow. Foucault defines “rules” as principles or procedures that govern a discursive formation, which creates a certain character due to these rules (Foss, S., and Gill, A., 1987). The organization’s rules are strict. For example, one of their biggest rules is not compensating college athletes because they’re amateurs and paying them would destroy the nature of college sports. There has been a long debate regarding should college athletes be compensated. Interestingly, the NCAA generated approximately $900 million from March Madness alone (Parker, T., 2017). Everyone gets their piece of the profits from sponsors to head coaches. In fact, John Calipari, who is the head coach for the Kentucky’s men’s basketball team made $8.6 million in 2016. The entire basketball program generated $19.5 million in ticket sales (Hobson, W., 2017). Millions of dollars are being exchanged from multiple different parties except the student athletes who’s fueling all this revenue. Foucault would seriously push back these rules because the organization is basically telling college athletes it’s perfectly legal for the NCAA to not pay you because you’re amatuer, but we can exploit your talents and hard work to generate profits. Also, a huge rule the NCAA that states: “A student-athlete may establish his or her own, provided the student athlete’s name, photograph, appearance or athletics reputation are not used.” (The NCAA handbook). Imagine college athletes from low-income households were awarded a full-ride scholarship to play basketball for one of the Division 1 schools. All they have time to do is go to class and practice. What about if an athlete suffers from mental or physical health? Then the athlete's scholarship will be stripped away from them, since they’re not playing the respective sport they have been recruited to play. Foucault would most likely suggest these rules to be changed. If college athletes are boosting ticket, jersey, and video game sales perhaps the NCAA should consider providing royalties to those players.

The third unit of Foucault’s theory include “roles.” Foucault’s notion of roles suggests the unimportance of individual rhetors in a discursive formation. He views rhetors filling certain vacant spaces to receive power or playing different roles (Foss, S., and Gill, A., 1987). As I mentioned before there multiple different parties that gets their piece of the profit pie. For example, during March Madness one of the NCAA’s biggest partner television sponsors such as CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting (Parker, T., 2017). Their role is to host the tournament on their networks. The media has the power to negotiate with the organization’s corporate partners. In fact, according to the NCAA’s website it states:

“Turner Sports and CBS Sports have the exclusive rights to license NCAA marks, tickets and taglines in commercial promotions with respect to the NCAA championships and hold certain exclusive media rights in the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship. Turner and CBS will negotiate the NCAA’s corporate champion and corporate partner agreements” (NCAA.com, 2017).

That’s exactly the role of media, but there’s still the role of advertisers. Since 2005 the NCAA Tournament has generated approximately $7.5 billion in TV advertising (Heitner, D., 2015). Now, that’s the business aspect of the NCAA, let’s discuss the operational aspect and unpacking their roles. Well, the tournament wouldn’t be complete without head coaches to guide the team. The head coaches have complete power over who’ll receive playing time, who makes the team, and practices. Let’s not forget about the administration that has influence over their athletic programs. They have power to hire or fire head coaches if they believe the program does not match their expectations. Finally, we cannot forget about the college athletes themselves. Their role is pretty straightforward give 100% of effort in their respective sport. The fans actually watch March Madness or the NCAA in general is to see the students compete against each other to see who’s the best. As a result, they have most influence in this ecosystem. Without them there would be no tournament, however, they rank incredibly low within the hierarchy of this ecosystem. Foucault would argue their role is actually to obey the orders from the head coach and the NCAA. It’s as if they’re just cogs within a system.

The fourth unit of Foucault’s theory include “power.” He views power as the overall system, process, or network of force relations spread through the entire discursive formation. In other words, his belief of power operates through conformity to norms or standards for correct behavior. There has been multiple reports charging head coaches of college football and basketball programs of mistreating their players or abuse. For instance, four female athletes accused their head coach of bullying from Boston University women’s basketball team. One of the female students made this comment:

“I was so grateful to go to such a prestigious and expensive school and be given a full scholarship to play there, I arrived feeling very confident and motivated. Then I felt bullied, threatened, and emotionally abused by the coach. By the time I left, she had demolished me as a person” (Conway, T., 2017).

Coach Kelly Greenberg called one of her players selfish for being out of the lineup due to a concussion. There were times when players had to do suicide sprints in 110° degree without water breaks. Player reported that Coach Greenberg said they were “worthless,” never should have been born.” (Wolff, A., 2015). Foucault would not approve of this type of treatment from coaches to their players. He would deem this type of power as regressive and unproductive. Instead of uplifting and inspiring their players by using positive feedback techniques, some head coaches decides to abuse their players just so they can perform harder and better. In fact, back in 2010 the NCAA assessed 20,000 college athletes paired with the American College Health Association (ACHA) assessment of 54,000 undergraduates. They found that 31% of men’s basketball players reported a coach “puts them down.” Only 39% of women’s basketball players agreed their head coach can be trusted. 41% of athletes reported they experienced severe depression where it was difficult to function. 59% of felt overwhelming anxiety. (Wolff, A., 2015). Foucault would have a serious issue with not only how the head coaches have and is currently their players, but also, critiques the NCAA’s bystander attitude. The organization may not be conflicting the abusive behavior, however, they have not created rules to protect players from this treatment, which is problematic.

The finally theoretical unit is knowledge. Foucault views knowledge as whatever appears to be truth in a discursive formation (Foss, S., and Gill, A., 1987). The NCAA organization can be summoned in three adjectives: emotional, intense, and fun. I would say emotional because everyone becomes emotional when it comes to sports. For example, during March Madness teams battle against each other to win championships. The players, fans, coaches, parents, commenters, and sports analysis are all expressing their emotions all at once. Whether the fans are booing the away team or a 6 foot 8 small forward performs a game winning dunk on his defenders, emotions are at their all time high during March Madness. In addition, emotions tend to build up high pressure situations that creates a lot of intensity. The idea of everything you’ve worked for all year along can be stripped away from you within minutes if a player makes the wrong decision at the wrong time or misses a shot when the game is on the line. If athletes do not perform at their best within this tournament, the head coaches could potentially lose their job due to the failure to capture a championship or at least advance all the way to the elite eight. Administration does not mind firing coaches, if they are not satisfaction with team’s performance. Lastly, watching the games are fun. This tournament has tendencies to bring people together. Fans share highlights from their favorite teams via social media. Friends hangout with each just to enjoy the tournament together. Foucault would see these observations as fair and accurate. In fact, he’ll even comment on the different ads Nike would run whenever a team that is sponsored by them advances.

Foucault has presented incredibly stimulated ideas regarding the theoretical units such as discursive practices, rules, roles, power, and knowledge that makes up a discursive formation. The question is does everyone agree with Foucault’s ideologies? To answer this questions I reviewed an academic journal title On Power: A Discussion of Richard Rorty and Michel Foucault. The author discussed the differences and similarities on how both scholars see power and knowledge. Rorty sees power and truth as solidarity and community. He believes power stems from understanding the human social world. He argues that things get done when people come together. Knowledge for him means coping successfully to meet the demands of the world. On the other hand, Foucault and Rorty share overlapping beliefs pertaining to power. They both agree that power and knowledge establishes normalization within a particular culture. Also, they both agree on the idea that modern world and its systems of rationality resides on a bases of human practice and history. These systems and beliefs were made, so they can be reversed as long as we understand how they were made. As it relates to the NCAA, I would say there are truths displayed when it comes solidarity and community during March Madness. Coaches and players definitely work together to win as many games possible. On the other hand, I would argue that Foucault's perspective on power would fit the NCAA versus Rorty’s notion. Rorty does not think it’s necessary to explore the micro-level conditions to understand normalization. However, Foucault does because the NCAA does not appear to be repressive with their power on the surface level, however, if you read between the lines you’ll come to a different conclusion.

Sources:

Conway, Tyler. “Kelly Greenberg, Boston University Basketball Coach, Accused of Bullying Players.” Bleacher Report, Bleacher Report, 30 Mar. 2017

Foss , Sonja K, and Ann Gill. “Michel Foucault's Theory of Rhetoric as Epistemic.” The Western Journal of Speech Communication , vol. 51, 1987, pp. 384–401.

Heitner, Darren. “The March Madness Advertising Business Is Booming.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 17 Mar. 2015

Hobson, Will. “As NCAA Money Trickles down, Even Tennis Coaches Are Outearning Professors.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 13 Mar. 2017,

NCAA.com. “Corporate Champions and Partners.” NCAA.com, NCAA , 2 May 2017

Parker, Tim. “How Much Does the NCAA Make off March Madness?” Investopedia, Investopedia, 13 Mar. 2017

Swartz, Omar. “On Power: A Discussion of Richard Rorty and Michel Foucault.” World Communication , 1995

Wolff, Alexander. “Is the Era of Abusive College Coaches Finally Coming to an End?” SI.com, Sports Illustrated , 29 Sept. 2015

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