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Welcome To
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Professional Database Tools
The FlySpeed series of database tools extremely simplifies database management, having all essential weapons to deal with routine database tasks. Being professional database administrator or a first-time database application developer, FlySpeed database software tools will provide you with the right tools to achieve the maximum productivity possible!
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subset: commoncrawl


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Due to flood irrigation, Montana mosquitoes are horrendous. So, what can I do to protect myself? This is a question that gets asked a thousand times and the answer is really simple: choose a repellent that interferes with an insect's ability to detect your carbon dioxide flume that you emit when you breathe! Carbon dioxide is the main scent that insects zero in on for their next blood lunch. With one exception virtually all of the repellents available on the market require you to cover your entire exposed skin with their product.
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A seamless flooring journey starts with effective communication. This guide will empower you with the knowledge and skills to articulate your preferences, lifestyle, and budget, enabling you to receive tailored flooring recommendations that blend perfectly with your home's aesthetics.
Choosing the perfect flooring for your home doesn't have to be daunting. Set the stage for an enriching and informative collaboration with your sales associate by outlining your style preferences, lifestyle needs, budget parameters, and maintenance capabilities.
Let's take a look at a few flooring consultation tips when it comes to understanding your flooring style preferences:
Stay on par with the latest flooring style trends. Whether you are drawn towards the timeless appeal of hardwood, the versatility of vinyl, or the contemporary elegance of tiles, understanding what resonates with your style will guide your journey.
Aesthetic preferences play a pivotal role in flooring selection. Share your design vision and color preferences with your sales associate to receive recommendations that match your personal taste. Are you looking for white oak look to fit with your European farmhouse-style home or a rustic tile floor for a more industrial vibe?
Flooring is not just visual but sensory. Discuss your preferences for materials and textures with your sales associate for a more tactile experience. Do you prefer the natural graining of authentic hardwood or do you desire something softer, like a plush carpet underfoot?
One of the first questions your sales associate might ask is "What are the needs for your space?" When shopping for new flooring, always consider your lifestyle needs to find a floor that will function well in your home. Think about the number of residents in your home and their ages. Are they young? Do they need slip-resistant floors?
In terms of lifestyle preferences, you'll also want to discuss the following with your flooring consultant:
Identify high-traffic areas in your home that need durable flooring options. Discuss your lifestyle with the sales associate to get recommendations that withstand the test of time. Do you need flooring that can withstand heavy use without showing significant wear and tear?
Pets can affect the longevity of your floor. Different flooring materials handle scratches and stains from pets differently, so ask about pet-friendly and durable flooring options for a harmonious co-existence.
Highlight any allergies or sensitivities that could influence your flooring choice. Hypoallergenic and easy-to-clean flooring could be your best bet.
Among the most important questions to ask flooring sales associates, discussing your budget is key. This can help your salesperson give more personalized flooring recommendations that fall within a realistic price range for your new project. The good news is that there are plenty of budget-friendly flooring options that your sales consultant can walk you through from luxury vinyl to laminate, that still offer the style and quality you need.
Flooring projects vary widely in cost. Share your budget with the sales associate to receive suggestions that are cost-effective while not compromising style and quality.
For more tips and information on how to establish a realistic budget, read our flooring guide here.
Don't let budget constraints curb your choices. Ask your sales associate about available financing programs or promotions to fulfill your flooring desires. At Carpet One Floor & Home, we offer several financing options with a flexible payment schedule, so that you can start living on your dream floors now without breaking the bank.
When discussing flooring options, it's important to inquire about various durability factors to ensure the chosen flooring meets your needs. These factors vary from scratch- and dent-resistance to waterproofing and thickness of wear layers.
The thickness of the wear layer is crucial for hardwood and vinyl flooring. For vinyl flooring, the wear layer is a clear, protective coating that shields the floor from scratches, dents, and general wear and tear. If you know you have a high-traffic home, ask your sales associate to show you vinyl products with a thicker wear layer.
Similarly, for engineered hardwood flooring, the wear layer refers to the top layer of real hardwood veneer. A thicker veneer ensures the floor remains beautiful and functional for years down the line. When selecting your flooring, discuss this aspect with your sales associate to choose the right product that meets your durability needs.
Stain and scratch resistance are key features to consider when choosing your floor, as they directly impact the floor's appearance and longevity. Floors that can withstand spills, pet claws, and the daily hustle and bustle of an active household are essential for maintaining a pristine look over time. Your sales associate can guide you to options that are specifically designed to withstand these everyday challenges, ensuring your investment remains protected and visually appealing.
Many of our products at Carpet One offer extended warranties that provide peace of mind, knowing that your floor is backed by robust protection against common wear and tear. Ask your flooring expert about our extended warranties that cover everything from stains, fading and wear to the installation process.
Every flooring type comes with its unique set of maintenance requirements. Ensure that these align well with your lifestyle and cleaning habits. Share how often you clean and what type of cleaning methods you prefer (e.g., vacuuming, mopping).
And of course, a big part of your future maintenance routine depends on how the installation goes. One of the biggest headaches homeowners have when it comes to flooring is the installation process. The good news is that when you shop with us, our team of professional flooring installers can handle the installation for you!
Exploring flooring samples and visualizing options are essential steps in finding the perfect floor for your home. By examining flooring samples firsthand, you can get a true sense of the color, texture, and quality, making it easier to imagine how they will look in your space.
Request for flooring samples from the showroom to visualize the options in your space. At Carpet One, we offer a wide range of flooring samples to help you visualize different options and make an informed decision. Seeing and feeling the samples allows you to match them with your décor and lighting, ensuring a harmonious blend with your interior design.
Natural light can significantly alter the appearance of flooring, affecting its color, texture, and overall look throughout the day. By observing flooring samples in different lighting conditions, you can see how sunlight, shadows, and artificial lighting interact with the flooring. At Carpet One, you can order flooring samples to take home. View them in various rooms and lighting conditions to ensure they complement your space perfectly. This hands-on approach helps you make informed decisions, ensuring your new floors look stunning at all times of the day.
Hardwood can be a sustainable flooring choice when sourced responsibly, offering a long lifespan that reduces the need for frequent replacements. By choosing hardwood from certified sustainable forests, you ensure that your flooring supports responsible forestry practices.
Your journey to perfect flooring starts with effective communication. Empowered with these insights, you can now confidently navigate the flooring selection process while enjoying the personalized service at Carpet One Floor & Home. Our professionals make communicating with flooring experts as easy as conversing with a friend.
Ready to transform your space? Shop our catalog and get a free estimate today.
Thank you for contacting Carpet One Floor & Home. Your local flooring expert will reach out to you regarding your inquiry.


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Directory macros/latex/contrib/psfrag
This is the 00readme.txt file to accompany PSfrag, a system for LaTeX to integrate LaTeX equations with Encapsulated PostScript figures. These files compose the April 11, 1998 release of PSfrag 3.04. This is a maintenance release, and fixes some bugs and shortcomings in version 3.03. If you decide to install this release, you should not need to re-compile any of your files, unless you happened to encounter one of the bugs in an earlier version. +-------------------------------+ |QUICK INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS| +-------------------------------+ 1. Run LaTeX on psfrag.ins, generating the package file psfrag.sty and the PostScript header file psfrag.pro. 2. Place psfrag.sty anywhere in your TeX search path; for kpathsea-based systems such as teTeX, this is determined by the TEXINPUTS variable. 3. Place psfrag.pro where your DVI-to-PostScript driver (e.g., dvips) can find it. For kpathsea-based systems such as teTeX, this is determined by the DVIPSHEADERS variable. For dvips in particular, this includes the directory containing tex.pro and special.pro. More complete instructions are found in pfgguide.{tex,ps}. The files example.eps and testfig.eps are needed to typeset the documentation, so do not delete them if you want to re-generate pfgguide.ps. In fact, a good test to see if your TeX/LaTeX/PSfrag installation is working properly is to rename pfgguide.ps, generate a new pfgguide.ps from the .tex file, and compare the two files. +------------------------------------+ |IMPORTANT NOTES FOR PSFRAG 2.X USERS| +------------------------------------+ Note that PSfrag 3.x is quite a bit different from previous versions. The interface has been preserved, but the most notable difference is the absence of the preprocessing script ps2frag. That's right: _you will no longer need to run the ps2frag script_. This is a relief, of course, to users who could never get Perl working on their OS. However, PLEASE HEED the following differences between PSfrag 2.x and PSfrag 3.x! You will be soundly flogged with wet noodles if you ask about these and you haven't read this warning or the ones in pfgguide: 1) PSfrag replacements no longer show up in their proper positions when viewing the file with Xdvi. Instead, they show up in a vertical list along the left side of the figure. So, you can check if they are typeset properly in Xdvi, but you can't make sure they are properly placed. To do that, you should use a PostScript previewer like GhostView and GhostScript. This is an unforunate but necessary consequence of the elimination of the preprocessing step. 2) If you use the \tex command, note that it has been _deprecated_. Now, you have to explicitly turn it on, either for the entire LaTeX document or for each file individually. pfgguide.{tex,ps} describe how to do this in detail. The reasons for this once again turn to the elimination of the preprocessing step. I think that the elimination of the ps2frag script far outweighs either of these two (possible) disadvantages. +---------------+ | RELEASE NOTES | +---------------+ This is a bug-fix release, which fixes the following bugs encountered in PSfrag 3.03: 1. Attempting to use EPS figures as PSfrag replacements would cause an infinite loop. This should work properly now. 2. Since the last release, the DVI-to-PS driver DVIPSone changed in a way that made PSfrag replacements appear upside down. 3. Small improvements to the psfrag.pro file have been made, which will hopefully allow you to make EPS files out of PSfrag-ged figures. I can't make any guarantees about this yet. 4. The manual has been improved slightly; the known issues for XFig and Seminar are now discussed. In addition, a more complete discussion about ``valid'' tags is included. Bug reports and suggestions should go to firstname.lastname@example.com, the PSfrag maintainer's email-list. However, before submitting a bug report, please make sure that it is not already covered in the "Known issues" section of pfgguide.tex! Michael C. Grant
Download the contents of this package in one zip archive (122.7k).
psfrag – Replace strings in encapsulated PostScript figures
Allows LaTeX constructions (equations, picture environments, etc.) to be precisely superimposed over Encapsulated PostScript figures, using your own favorite drawing tool to create an EPS figure and placing simple text 'tags' where each replacement is to be placed, with PSfrag automatically removing these tags from the figure and replacing them with a user specified LaTeX construction, properly aligned, scaled, and/or rotated.
Package | psfrag |
Version | 3.04 |
Licenses | Free license not otherwise listed |
Maintainer | Craig Barratt David Carlisle (inactive) Michael Grant (inactive) |
Contained in | TeX Live as psfrag MiKTeX as psfrag |
Topics | Graphics text |
See also | psfragx |


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Labradorite is the most powerful protector of the mineral kingdom, creating a shielding force throughout the aura and strengthening natural energies from within. It protects against the negativity and misfortunes of this world and provides safe exploration into alternate levels of consciousness and in facilitating visionary experiences from the past or the future.
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A stone of wisdom, intuition, and truth, Lapis Lazuli is a powerful crystal for anyone seeking to deepen their connection to self. The Lapis Lazuli crystal properties are known for opening the third eye chakra, the center of intuition and inner wisdom. By enhancing your ability to turn inward and uncover your truth, the Lapis Lazuli crystal healing properties can support anyone ready to step into their power and authentic self.
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Help Site Map
Of particular concern, S. 936 would: (1) contrary to the Bipartisan Budget Agreement, reallocate funds from the Department of Energy's (DOE) 1998 defense discretionary budget request to Department of Defense (DOD) programs; and (2) unconstitutionally infringe upon the President's authority to protect national security information. The President's senior advisers would recommend that he veto a final conference bill that fails to address these concerns.
In addition, (1) if an amendment is adopted that would revise the 1995 Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission's recommendations pertaining to Air Force Depot maintenance facilities, or (2) if any amendment is adopted that would mandate a date certain for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Bosnia, the President's senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill.
Violation of Bipartisan Budget Agreement
S. 936 is inconsistent with the Bipartisan Budget Agreement. While authorizing overall appropriation levels for National Defense consistent with the Agreement, the bill would reduce authorization levels by $2.5 billion from DOE programs intended for vital environmental cleanup activities and ongoing construction projects. At the expense of these high priority activities, the appropriations are reallocated to unrequested procurement programs for the DOD. For example, the bill would reduce DOE's $1.0 billion privatization initiative for nuclear waste cleanup by about 80 percent ($791 million). Failure to invest in privatization contracts for cleanup activities promotes the continued use of more costly, traditional DOE contracting approaches. This would result in a substantial increase to DOE's cleanup costs in future years. In addition, DOE would not be able to support critical environmental projects required under legally enforceable compliance agreements. Also, without the advance funding for ongoing construction projects requested by the Administration, DOE would incur a substantial budget shortfall in critical departmental functions, including stewardship of the safety and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile.
Whistleblower Provision Section 1068 would require the President to inform Federal employees that disclosure to Congress of classified information, falling into certain categories, "is not prohibited by law, executive order, or regulation, and is not otherwise contrary to public policy . . . ." This provision is clearly contrary to the Supreme Court's explicit recognition of the President's constitutional authority to protect national security. Congress may not vest lower-ranking personnel in the Executive Branch with a "right" to furnish national security information to a member of Congress without receiving official authorization to do so. By seeking to divest the President of his authority over the disclosure of such information, the Department of Justice advises that section 1068 would unconstitutionally infringe upon the President's constitutional authority. The Administration believes that existing congressional oversight mechanisms, as well as inspector general statutes, have proven effective in bringing instances of illegality, fraud, waste, and abuse to the attention of Executive Branch managers and congressional committees.
Bosnia Withdrawal Amendment
The Administration understands that an amendment may be offered that would mandate a date certain for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Bosnia. Such an amendment could jeopardize the safety of our troops and damage our national security interests. It would seriously undercut the U.S. commitment to help implement the Dayton Peace Accords and successfully complete the NATO-led mission in Bosnia, resulting in a serious loss in U.S. credibility with the Bosnian parties, with our allies, and with other countries participating in the Stabilization Force (SFOR) operation.
The Administration continues to believe that the duration of SFOR's mission should provide sufficient time to establish conditions to maintain security and stability in Bosnia without an outside military presence. However, this effort can only succeed if the parties and the international community remain assured of U.S. leadership and commitment to peace in Bosnia.
Base Closure and Realignment
The Administration is disappointed that the bill does not adopt the Department's proposal to authorize two additional rounds of base closure and realignment in 1999 and 2001. Defense's base infrastructure is far too large for its military forces and must be reduced if the Department is to obtain adequate appropriations for readiness and for modernization requirements for the next decade.
Funding Levels
Threat Reduction Programs. The bill reduces appropriation authorizations for DOD's Cooperative Threat Reduction program by $60 million from the Administration's request. The request of $382.2 million is a bare-bones figure based on a difficult prioritization of a long list of pot ential projects. The proposed reduction would force us to delay several projects in the Former Soviet Union in critical areas such as the destruction of nuclear delivery systems and chemical weapons, improvements to the safety and security of stored nuclear warheads and fissile material, and the cessation of production of weapons-grade plutonium. The Administration urges the Senate to restore appropriation authorizations to the request level for this important and highly effective means of enhancing U.S. security through eliminating former Soviet weapons of mass destruction and preventing weapons proliferation.
The bill also reduces the Department of Energy Materials Protection Control and Accounting Program by $20 million and the International Nuclear Safety program by $50 million. The Administration strongly urges the Senate to restore these two authorizations to the requested level to ensure the success of our efforts to prevent the theft or diversion of weapons-usable fissile materials and reduce the risk of accidents at Soviet-designed nuclear reactors in the Newly Independent States.
Increases for Programs Not In the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP). S. 936 adds $4.2 billion to the Administration's request for procurement and about $1 billion to the request for research and development. Some of these increases, however, are for programs that are not in the FY 1998-2003 FYDP and are of questionable value to the Department's overall plans to modernize military forces. These additions include: $40 million for the Armament Retooling and Manufacturing Support program; $45 million for two CH-47 Cargo helicopters; $75.2 million for an oceanographic survey ship; $118 million for Spaced-Based Laser Technology; $50 million for the Clementine II Program; and $80 million for Kinetic Energy Anti-Satellite technology.
Dual Use Applications Program. The bill authorizes only $125 million of the $225 million requested for the Dual Use Applications Program (DUAP). This program helps to develop and incorporate technologies used and tested by the cost-conscious commercial sector into military systems. By adopting these dual-use technologies, DOD will be able to take advantage of cost savings that flow from the production efficiencies of larger-scale commercial manufacturing lines. Reducing funding for DUAP would result in higher costs for future defens e systems. The Administration strongly opposes reductions from its requested amount for this high priority program.
Incremental Funding of the CVN-77. The bill would authorize incremental funding for the tenth Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier, CVN-77, by adding $345 million in FY 1998 to accelerate advance procurement and construction. Although the Administration is committed to building CVN-77 (the requirement for which was validated by the Quadrennial Defense Review), it opposes incremental funding of procurement programs. The FY 1998-2003 FYDP fully funds CVN-77 construction in FY 2002. This schedule is consistent with force structure requirements and aircraft carrier replacement schedules.
F-22 Fighter Aircraft. By delaying $420 million requested for the Engineering and Management Development program until 1999, S. 936 could jeopardize implementation of the program's recent restructuring. The Senate should restore the funding requested in the President's Budget so that the program changes identified by the Joint Estimate Team as necessary to control costs and maintain F-22 affordability can proceed.
Strategic Sealift Ships. The bill does not authorize the Administration's request for two strategic sealift ships because of concerns regarding justification, cost, and schedule. The requirement for these sealift ships was originally identified in the Mobility Requirements Study (MRS), revalidated in the MRS Bottom Up Review Update, and confirmed in the QDR. Despite some early cost and schedule overruns, the program is now proceeding satisfactorily. The Administration urges the Senate to restore the President's Budget request and allow continuation of this urgently needed program.
Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) Programs. S. 936 reduces the appropriation authorization for ACTD programs by $20 million. This program supports work on new and innovative defense system concepts. It could provide the basis for systems providing a decisive military edge over adversaries in the next century and should be authorized at the requested level.
TITAN IV. The Administration opposes the $100 million reduction for the Titan-IV program. DOD currently plans to reprogram $82.5 million as part of the FY 1997 Omnibus Reprogramming; a subsequent reduction in FY 1998 would result in reduced program scope, increased risk, and a necessary restoration of funds in future years.
Other Objectionable Provisions
Strategic Forces. The bill's provision that prohibits retiring certain strategic nuclear delivery systems during FY 1998, unless START II enters into force, restricts the President's national security authority. Until START II enters into force, the United States will draw-down and maintain strategic forces at levels consistent with START I.
Ready Reserve Mobilization Income Insurance Program. The Administration is gratified that S. 936 responds to concerns about the Ready Reserve Mobilization insurance program and authorizes payment of all promised benefits. The Administration objects, however, to returning premiums to members who were not deployed and, therefore, did not receive "income loss" benefits. Returning premiums sets a precedent for destroying the integrity of Federal insurance programs.
Executive Compensation. The Administration does not support a uniform cap on contractor executive compensation. The Administration believes that limitations on contractor executive compensation should reflect the position taken in the Administration's February 28, 1997, legislative proposal. That proposal recognizes that contractor executive compensation limitations should reflect pay levels based on industry norms considering the size and nature of the companies and the positions concerned.
Delay of Federal Agency Actions Determined to Affect Readiness. The Administration opposes a provision that would authorize the Secretary of Defense to delay any administrative action by a Federal agency if the Secretary believes the action would impact military readiness. The term "administrative action" is overly broad and could include anything from directives to comply with existing regulations to delay of new regulations. Further, the term "impacting military readiness" is unclear and too broad. It could enable the Secretary to block actions without consideration of other public concerns. The existing regulatory review process provides a venue for a full airing of all Federal concerns including military readiness and national security.
Naval Petroleum Reserve (NPR) Leasing. The Administration also opposes section 3402, which would provide for the leasing of NPRs 1, 2, and 3 by the DOE. This provision is contrary to an agreement recently reached between the Department of the Interior (DOI) and DOE, under which DOE would transfer these lands to DOI for leasing under the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA). Section 3402 would also deprive the State of Colorado of its share of leasing royalties under the MLA.
Panama Canal Commission (PCC). The Administration opposes the authorization of unlimited or excessive recruitment, retention, and separation incentive payments for the PCC. The Administration also opposes the waiver of restrictions on certain dual compensation payments for members of the PCC.
Procurement Reform. We understand that consideration is being given to a floor amendment to address procurement. We would strongly support adoption of the Administration's government-wide procurement provisions through such an action.
The Administration, as it continues its review of the bill, may identify other issues, and will work with the Congress to address these concerns and to develop a more acceptable bill.
The Budget | Legislative Information | Management Reform/GPRA | Grants Management Financial Management | Procurement Policy | Information & Regulatory Policy Contact the White House Web Master Privacy Statement


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© 2024 MJH Life Sciences™ and Pharmaceutical Technology. All rights reserved.
Eli Lilly released its annual report containing updates on progress and new initiatives in corporate responsibility.
Eli Lilly released its annual report containing updates on progress and new initiatives in corporate responsibility. The Corporate Responsibility Report contains updates on longstanding programs, as well as data for 2011. The report also serves as the company's annual Communication on Progress to the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). As a signatory of the UNGC, Lilly shares its progress annually on 10 principles related to human rights, labor, the environment, and anticorruption.
Included in the report are highlights indicating that Lilly:
"Increasingly, we are integrating the concept of 'shared value' into the way we operate," said John C. Lechleiter, PhD, Lilly chairman, president and chief executive officer in a company press release. "Using our business expertise to help address pressing social needs opens up new opportunities for us to provide solutions to health challenges the world over. We believe this approach will help to create enduring value for society and for Lilly."


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Wed, Oct 04
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12:30 PM AdLife Academy Informational Session
Experience the Ultimate Learning Environment: Learn more about AdLife Academy at this live 20-minute informational session followed by an optional 20-minutes question and answer session.
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Join us for a live 20 minute informational session to learn more about AdLife Academy. Our knowledgeable team will be available to answer any questions you may have about our Academy and immersive programs.
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Friday, 5 July 2024 - 1 hour 2 minutes
The Kris Fade Show is off for two weeks
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One of the most talked about comedians in the world takes over The Kris Fade Show. Watch the full interview here...
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Hear Maz & James chatting to the featured artists every month with Flash Entertainment.
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The Power of "Independent" Senior Executives
Top leaders appointed by previous CEOs can help rein in the incumbent.
(originally published by Booz & Company)
Title: Bottom-Up Corporate Governance
Author: Augustin Landier (Toulouse School of Economics), Julien Sauvagnat (Toulouse School of Economics), David Sraer (Princeton University), and
David Thesmar (HEC Paris)
Publisher: Review of Finance, vol. 17, no. 1
Date Published: January 2013
Need new evidence on the value of speaking truth to power? According to a recent study, firms with more "independent" top executives—those appointed before the current CEO took over—exhibit superior decision making, see better returns following large acquisitions, and post higher profits. The study's authors say the implication is clear: These leaders can act as a powerful counterbalance to and disciplining force on their CEO, irrespective of organization hierarchy.
Previous research has shown that in the absence of effective monitoring, CEOs often engage in self-interested strategies that prove damaging to shareholders. The consensus recommendation has been to install strong boards of directors. But evidence that independent boards boost performance is lacking. Not so with independence in the executive suite, which this paper finds is a "strong predictor" of positive performance.
The authors looked at five data sets collected between 1992 and 2009 that covered some 1,850 of the largest U.S. corporations each year. They calculated how many high-ranking subordinates came aboard after the then current CEO's appointment, reasoning that these executives would be more disposed to share their leader's outlook, and less likely to challenge him or her, than those who worked under a predecessor. Controlling for a variety of factors, they found that even the smallest uptick in the nonindependence of executives caused a decrease in the firm's annual return on assets of between 0.5 and 0.8 percentage points.
The authors also examined all acquisitions above US$300 million. Although acquisitions, on average, led to decreases in shareholder value for the companies in the study, firms with fewer independent top subordinates fared much worse, losing about 45 percent four years after they made an acquisition, almost triple the 16 percent loss posted by firms with more of those executives.
The authors explain that CEOs typically interact with members of the executive suite daily, in contrast to their dealings with board members, who meet infrequently—meaning that CEOs must continually weigh their subordinates' opinions. Through that steady connection, independent subordinates can subtly affect their firm's strategic direction.
Because of the value of such "bottom-up governance," the authors write, "the human resource role of the board should not be limited to the usually emphasized CEO succession problem, but should also be concerned with the choice of key executives."
Bottom Line: Having a high number of independent senior leaders is an effective way to keep the CEO on a tighter leash and produce better returns.


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Creeley, Robert: Ballad of the Despairing Husband
Ballad of the Despairing Husband (Angol)My wife and I lived all alone, contention was our only bone. I fought with her, she fought with me, and things went on right merrily. But now I live here by myself with hardly a damn thing on the shelf, and pass my days with little cheer since I have parted from my dear. Oh come home soon, I write to her. Go fuck yourself, is her answer. Now what is that, for Christian word? I hope she feeds on dried goose turd. But still I love her, yes I do. I love her and the children too. I only think it fit that she should quickly come right back to me. Ah no, she says, and she is tough, and smacks me down with her rebuff. Ah no, she says, I will not come after the bloody things you've done. Oh wife, oh wife -- I tell you true, I never loved no one but you. I never will, it cannot be another woman is for me. That may be right, she will say then, but as for me, there's other men. And I will tell you I propose to catch them firmly by the nose. And I will wear what dresses I choose! And I will dance, and what's to lose! I'm free of you, you little prick, and I'm the one to make it stick. Was this the darling I did love? Was this that mercy from above did open violets in the spring -- and made my own worn self to sing? She was. I know. And she is still, and if I love her? then so I will. And I will tell her, and tell her right . . . Oh lovely lady, morning or evening or afternoon. Oh lovely lady, eating with or without a spoon. Oh most lovely lady, whether dressed or undressed or partly. Oh most lovely lady, getting up or going to bed or sitting only. Oh loveliest of ladies, than whom none is more fair, more gracious, more beautiful. Oh loveliest of ladies, whether you are just or unjust, merciful, indifferent, or cruel. Oh most loveliest of ladies, doing whatever, seeing whatever, being whatever. Oh most loveliest of ladies, in rain, in shine, in any weather. Oh lady, grant me time, please, to finish my rhyme.


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The Crocheron's Blog
Welcome to Quinn and Miles Crocheron's Blog
I'm "Jazzy" Miles, I was born on April 8th at 10:05 PM. I was exactly one month early!
And I am "The Mighty" Quinn. I was born on January 23rd at 1:39 PM. I am the big brother.
Pictures are archived each month, so to see all the pictures since the beginning, click the year and month just below the "About Us" to the right.
Robin, Scott, Quinn, and Miles...Lucy too.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Quinn's first smile on video!
Newer Post
Older Post


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Conscientious Objection: A Practical Companion for Movements - now available online!
Conscientious Objection: A Practical Companion for Movements is now available online here.
You can also buy a paperback version.
This book is intended as a practical companion for conscientious objection movements and all those whose work forms part of the continuum of war resistance.
It has been written by activists who are campaigning against all kinds of injustice, all over the world. Learning from the lived experience of these activists, the aim is to help movements work together, surmount the external challenges they face, and enhance the concept of conscientious objection, using it in new and innovative ways - such as against war profiteering, or the militarisation of youth. The book also has a specific focus on gender, and the often invisible role of gender, both in the war machine, and in the movements which oppose it.
To read this book is to be encouraged, not just to notice gender and the other power structures upholding militarism, but to actively work to undermine them - and in doing so, to start dismantling militarism itself.


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Updated at 6 a.m. ET Saturday
Hurricane Irma is again a Category 4 storm as it slowly moves along the Cuban coast. The storm made landfall on the Camaguey archipelago of Cuba late Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center. As of 5 a.m. Saturday, the hurricane's center was just off the northern coast near central Cuba. The report puts Irma's traveling speed at 12 mph, about 245 miles south-southeast of Miami.
About 5.6 million people in Florida have been ordered to evacuate; forecasters expect the hurricane to hit Florida early Sunday morning.
The hurricane center continued its alerts about not just high winds and rain, but also the expected storm surge, saying surge warnings have been "extended on the east coast of Florida to the Volusia-Brevard County Line and on the west coast of Florida to Anclote River, including Tampa Bay." Hurricane warnings cover the same area.
Earlier Friday evening, Florida Gov. Rick Scott warned his state's residents that Hurricane Irma could be a major catastrophe and, in no uncertain terms, urged people to heed orders to evacuate.
"Our state has never seen anything like this before. The majority of Florida will have a major hurricane impact with deadly storm surge and life-threatening winds," he said in an evening news conference.
He said the lower half of state will soon be in danger of a life-threatening storm surge.
"If you have been ordered to evacuate, you need to leave now. Not tonight, not in an hour. Now."
Scott said there is no area in the state where people will safe on their own.
"This storm is wider than our entire state, and it is expected to cause major and life-threatening impacts from coast to coast." he said.
Early Saturday, the National Weather Service warned residents of the Florida Keys to leave immediately, saying, "The Keys are not safe."
It's not too late to get off the Keys!!! You still have time, this morning, to get out! Please, the Keys are not safe. #FLkeys #Irma pic.twitter.com/9NYqL7PsPT
— NWS Key West (@NWSKeyWest) September 9, 2017
In South Carolina, Gov. Henry McMaster ordered a mandatory evacuation, starting Saturday morning, of barrier islands in Jasper, Colleton and Beaufort counties.
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has declared a state of emergency in anticipation of Hurricane Irma's arrival.
Hurricane Irma slammed through the Turks and Caicos Islands en route to a destructive encounter with Florida this weekend. It began hitting Cuba and the Bahamas with hurricane conditions Friday as a massively powerful and "extremely dangerous" system, forecasters say.
Irma's dangerous "eye wall," has been threading its way through the gap between Cuba and the Bahamas on its way toward Florida.
The extent of the Irma's damage to the low-lying Turks and Caicos island chain, located just east of the Bahamas, still isn't clear. Preliminary reports from the BBC say that the islands were "pummeled" and that at least 14 people were killed. The islands' emergency management agency issued an "all-clear" shortly before 1 p.m., but it also warned that "many roads have been flooded and power lines and transformers are down." Forecasters had predicted Irma would hit the area with powerful winds and waves as high as 20 feet.
The National Hurricane Center says the center of Irma "will move near the north coast of Cuba through Saturday, near the Florida Keys Sunday morning, and then near the southwest coast of Florida Sunday afternoon."
"Some fluctuations in intensity are likely to continue during the next day or two," the agency said in its 11 p.m. briefing, "but Irma is expected to remain a powerful hurricane as it approaches Florida."
Forecast for Irma: Cuba, the Bahamas and Florida
Irma, which is one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded in the Atlantic, is set to barrel between the northern coast of Cuba and the southern Bahamas on its way toward Florida.
Meteorologists believe that after making landfall as "at least a Category 4 hurricane" in the Keys by around 2 a.m. Sunday, the storm will move up through Florida toward Georgia.
"After landfall, a fairly quick decay in maximum winds is expected due to land interaction and increased shear," the hurricane center says, "although Irma's large wind field is likely to still produce hurricane-force winds over a large area."
Irma's hurricane-force winds extend up to 70 miles from its center, and its tropical-storm-force winds extend up to 185 miles.
A massive evacuation was ordered for islands in the southeast of the Bahamas chain. The Tourism Ministry in the Bahamas said thousands of tourists had left ahead of Irma's arrival.
Cuban residents on the northern coast were under a mandatory evacuation order and thousands of tourists were evacuated from low-lying keys off the Cuban coast on Thursday in anticipation of the storm surges, according to the AP.
Florida girds for Irma
At a news briefing early Friday, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long warned that parts of Florida could be without electricity for days or weeks and that more than 100,000 people in the state may require shelter.
"Hurricane Irma continues to be a threat that is going to devastate the United States in either Florida or some of the southeastern states," he said.
Florida Power & Light CEO Eric Silagy said Friday that given Irma's current strength and path, the storm is likely to impact 4.1 million electricity customers — or some 9 million people, NPR's Greg Allen reports.
In Miami, officials are opening new shelters to handle the thousands of people who are looking for safety during the storm. Anticipating possible water outages due to Irma, the Miami-Dade County emergency agency advises residents to fill "bottles, pots/pans and all containers you have."
The emergency agency is also encouraging people in Irma's path to download a variety of apps, from local 311 information services to Florida 511 for traffic status and Gas Buddy for updates on fuel availability.
Describing what areas hit by a hurricane the size of Irma can expect to experience, the hurricane center says, "Well-built framed homes can sustain severe damage with loss of most of the roof structure and/or some exterior walls. ... Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months."
Some areas could see a surge of 6 to 12 feet. Hurricane warnings are also in effect for Lake Okeechobee and Florida Bay.
With damage expected from wind, rain and water surges of 6 to 12 feet along the storm's path, Long said, "Anybody from Alabama to North Carolina should be watching this storm very closely."
Wreckage in the Caribbean
Bahamas Power and Light says electricity service in several of the Bahamas' islands was lost Friday morning. Preliminary reportssay Long Island and Crooked Island escaped major structural damage.
On Thursday, Irma skirted just north of Hispaniola, an island split between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, sparing those countries the full force of its winds and storm surge.
Earlier, Irma had also passed to the north of Puerto Rico, knocking out electricity to more than a million people in the U.S. territory. The island's fragile infrastructure is expected to present a major challenge, and authorities say it could be months before power is restored to some rural areas.
Two outlying Puerto Rican islands, Vieques and Culebra, got hit hardest. NPR's Jason Beaubien, reporting from San Juan, says that those islands got hit "incredibly hard" and that the territory's governor, Ricardo Rosselló, declared them a disaster.
"People there say the destruction was like the end of the world," Jason says.
Several other Caribbean islands, including Barbuda, St. Martin/Sint Marteen, Anguilla and the Virgin Islands, were not so lucky. The level of destruction on some has been described as nothing short of apocalyptic. And Hurricane Jose, another major storm close on the heels of Irma, is forecast to hit some of the same islands on Saturday before veering north.
The U.S. Consulate General in Curaçao says that it believes about 6,000 Americans are stranded on St. Martin and that it was working to try to get them to safety.
"We are exploring every possible option to assist U.S. citizens there," a State Department official tells NPR. "However, there is no U.S. Consulate on the island, and we currently cannot access the island."
At least four people are dead in the U.S. Virgin Islands, and officials there said they expect to find more bodies. Dozens of patients were rescued from a destroyed hospital on the main island of St. Thomas to neighboring St. Croix and Puerto Rico. A pair of Air Force C-130s were flying in supplies to the stricken islands.
U.S. Virgin Islands Gov. Kenneth Mapp imposed a 6 p.m. curfew, saying the focus is on "making sure people have meals, water and shelter." He called the magnitude of the storm "very chilling."
At least one person, a toddler, was killed in Barbuda, where officials said nearly every building was damaged or destroyed.
On severely damaged St. Martin, which is half-governed by France and half by the Netherlands, Dutch forces were helping maintain order and distributing aid, according to The Associated Press.
The news agency says Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte had told reporters Friday that the first planeload of relief aid had landed and that Dutch navy ships were also unloading supplies.
French Interior Minister Gérard Collomb said that a total of nine people have been confirmed dead on French-administered islands and that seven more are missing. Collomb says supplies and relief workers are being rushed to the area ahead of Jose's predicted arrival Saturday.
In French St. Martin, there were reports of looting as military planes transported in police and rescue crews, the AP says.
Still, the prime minister of St. Lucia, elsewhere in the Caribbean, sounded a note of resolve in his news conference Friday.
"While it's OK to use the word 'devastation,' but it doesn't mean 'annihilation,' " Allen Chastanet. "We are resilient."
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Chris, IL, USA
I recived my 1917 uniform order, and to be honest with you, it has exceded my expectations.
The canteen, M2 gas mask can are top notch. But the 1917 tunic, breeches and the mod.1908 kepi are perfect.
And i mean the fit and the quality and effort you put into the uniform are fantastic. And thank you for adding the ID bracelet, that was so very kind of you.
Jeff, Kansas, USA I receive the order. Excellent! Everything looks good…
This is one of the advantages when a country's uniform is
made in the country by serious historians. The little touches
of detail are quite nice to see.
Josh, Illinois, USA Received my uniform today. The fit and overall quality are wonderful,
I've attached some pictures. The little details like stamps and religious
medals add a lot to the impression. I will definitely be recommending
Khaki Depot to my friends!
David Day, Curator Minter Field Air Museum Shafter, California, USA I received the tunic and am VERY HAPPY with it. I was very impressed by
the quality of the tunic and
the attention to detail. It is truly OUTSTANDING!!! William, Indianapolis,USA Got the belt yesterday, very nice work.
The next thing I am going to need will be a uniform.
Bill, Dollard des Ormeaux, Canada I just got the uniform absolutely fantastic ,amazing, beautiful!
I'm super happy with it...The quality of the leather , hats, pouches
and the detail is absolutely second to none! You really are a
master of your craft .
I'm a fan for life.Thank you!
Peter, Köln Germany
Panagiotis, Greece
Panagiotis, Fort Roupel, Metaxas Line
Nikos, Giorgos, Apostolis, Theodora, Fort Roupel, Metaxas Line, Greece
Rockford WW1 Days Re-enactment 2019


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shopping_cart Cart 0
Roll Bag K17
Tax included
Product dimensions:
Length: 48 cmHeight: 33 cmWidth: 28 cmCapacity: ~ 39 L
Roll Bag K17
Assembly rivets are made of steel and may rust under the influence of atmospheric conditions.
The product is available in 3 versions:
- A - smooth - without rivets
- B - with rivets
- C - with rivets and fringes
You can buy a pair of pockets - the price depends on the model.
The formation of so-called "bubbles" filled with air, which form under the influence of atmospheric factors is not a basis for complaint of leather articles! Leather is a tough, flexible material that adapts to conditions (shrinks and stretches), which affects the risk of "bubbles".
As a manufacturer, we take into account all our disadvantages.


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About the Episode
As the world continues to rapidly change around us, it can be hard to keep up. But there's a new kind of technology that allows any employee to be agile and go digital. Tech expert Nile Frater explains how no-code and low-code software empowers anyone to rethink processes, launch ideas, and solve problems. Listen now to learn how agile technology can help you reimagine your world of work.
Episode Highlights
Meet Our Guest
Nile Frater has been immersed in technology and software since around the age of 9. What started out as an interest in hacking has grown into a powerful drive focused on using technology to empower people. His days are spent leading engineering strategy at Lloyd's Bank, which includes everything from DevOps to Operations. But Nile doesn't stop there! His nights involve acquiring, growing, and selling micro-SaaS companies as the Managing Director of ConcreteCapital. This includes NoCode.Tech, the Internet's biggest NoCode tool directory and education site.
Episode Transcript
Chris Byers: Welcome to Ripple Effect, I am Chris Byers of Formstack. This episode, we're focused on an area that many of us are starting to explore. And it's the low-code, no-code space. Nile Frater is on the show today to really teach us a little bit more about the no-code space, how it's evolving, how it's enabling teams across organizations to do really better work. Nile is the Head of Engineering Strategy at Lloyds Banking Group. He's also the managing director at ConcreteCapital and owner of NoCode.tech. Nile, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.
Nile Frater: Glad to be here. Thank you very much.
Chris Byers: Now, I've got a, you know, terrible American accent that, you know, I'm sure I did not pronounce your name right. So tell the world how you're really supposed to say it.
Nile Frater: Yeah, it's pronounced a Nile. There's a lot of debate over that because technically, I'm named after the river in Egypt. So people kind of debate how you pronounce that, but I pronounce it Nile. Most people pronounce it Nile.
Chris Byers: All right. Well, I know we in the U.S. are not not well regarded for our sophistication and our words. So I appreciate that. Well, maybe you could jump in for us and really define for us. Tell us maybe the difference between low-code and no-code for the audience who's listening and really trying to understand the space. Can you describe that?
Nile Frater: Yeah, totally. So I'll start with low-code, which is probably the easier one. So low-code is still very much coding, very much used by developers, but typically lets you speed up the things that you do a lot but take a lot of time, you know, think how many engineers it would take to build a log in interface or forgotten password feature, low-code is really a bit abstract in a way that these things that you do again and again or let you build things once so that you can free up your developers. No-code, on other hand, for me, is a real paradigm shift. So no-code is traditionally an ecosystem of tools and platforms that allow you to create reusable software without actually writing any code. You're still essentially coding under the hood, but you're doing it completely by a drag-and-drop, visual interface. You're connecting things together, you're using different tools to connect services.
Where I think no-code is really, really interesting is given the name, you know, no-code, people use that to refer to building an app or a website. But really, what no-code is doing for me, it's taking something that used to be done by professionals, software engineers in this case, and it's making it easy and accessible. Actually that a lot of tools which make, say for example podcasting easier, you know, they make it easier to record, to edit to Macs. They make things better and way easier. They make graphic design easier. I can settle all these things to fall under the umbrella of no-code. For me, no-code has taken complicated software related tasks on the computer and making that essentially accessible to the 99 percent.
Chris Byers: So tell us a little bit about how you got really you found the no-code, low-code space and how you got interested in it.
Nile Frater: Actually, I'm originally a coder. I've been coding probably since I was 8 or 9 years old, something like that. And I first got my start because I was really interested in hacking and making a claim to fame, for example, was hacking all the computers in Moscow and almost getting expelled. But as I kind of grew up a little bit and started to learn more about actual software and less about hacking tools, I really began to get an interest in product and market and this kind of thing. And I quickly found that for me, coding was becoming a bit of a chore. You know, I was really, really interested in the end product of the app that I may code, but I really hated the process. I hated sitting their two nights in a row, wondering why my software wouldn't work, and then finally find that I'm missing code and I'm missing a quotation or something like that. And any programmers or anyone who has tried that before, you were really familiar with that experience.
So around the time, you know, 2014, something like that, I discovered tools like Webflow, discovered tools like tree lighting, etc. and I found that these tools would essentially let me either, you know, write code faster or do the bits I wasn't good at. Just because you can code doesn't necessarily mean you are good at design interfaces or making that kind of thing work. And what no-code tools are really good at is not only simply take a recording, but also they tend to help you do things like design, like make a backend work quickly or, you know, even taking away having to worry about infrastructure in the first place. And so what I quickly found is I really care about building products and no-code essentially abstracted away everything that stood between me and the product to get into customers hands.
Chris Byers: Well tell us what's going on in this space. What are you seeing happen?
Nile Frater: So the size of the space, kind of over the last couple of years. I mean, the growth has just been incredible. I've been in what I would call the no-code space since probably around 2014. I think my first real taste of it was when Webflow launched and I started playing with that back in the early days. And, you know, most people would kind of say the no-code concept has been around for a very, very long time. And you maybe remember a tool called Adobe Dreamweaver, kind of allowed you to build websites with a bit of a drag and drop interface, with some code involved. But really since kind of 2017, 2018 onwards, the space has grown and more tools have started to come in and the real kind of concept of no-code started to evolve.
You know, back in 2014, 2015, you really needed to know how to code if you wanted to stitch together the three or four tools that existed, whereas today you pretty much have new companies come out every single day. I mean, if you look at producthunt.com and scroll down, there was a no-code company that launched yesterday that had the top spot. There is literally no-code companies launching every single day with new capabilities and new integrations with tools and new use cases you couldn't use before. And you know, a lot of people sort of refer to no-code as having a real kind of 80-20 problem, where you can accomplish 80% of what you want without code. But to really get that last 20 percent, at some point, you've got to get a developer. And in some ways I agree with that. But what I find is literally every week, every month, new tools are coming out. And that 80-20 is becoming 90-10, you know, 95-5 and so on, so forth.
Chris Byers: You actually mentioned a little bit of this, which is this idea that the tools that are out there now are getting people closer and closer to really producing what they're looking for. So what do you think the future is? What do you think the next few years are going to look like?
Nile Frater: So I think part of it is really just building on what we've got today. I mean, so many things have come out, you know, in the last year, like Andola or Parabola. And for people who don't know, Andola makes mobile apps, Parabola, essentially can let you drag and drop data signs or otherwise do things you would usually do in Excel. So that's probably a bit unfair but we'll stick with that. You know, these kind of tools are just coming out, people are just starting discussions on what's actually possible with them. And I think importantly kind of where the space is starting to go is as more and more of these tools come out, they're starting to integrate with each other, you know, Bubble, for example, which is probably the best known app builder out there. They just integrated with Airtable, which is kind of the best known sort of database, a spreadsheet, that kind of thing. But as more and more of these integrations come out, the things that you're able to do, the functionally to create, the services you're able to connect, every single time one of those connections becomes possible.
There's literally exponential growth in terms of what you can build with no-code and what you can kind of achieve. So, you know, I think that's a really, really exciting just growth that we're just waiting to see there. And I think on top of that as well, people's work will evolve in terms of their understanding. You know, when you learn to code you, as I sort of touched on earlier, you learn concepts like how to connect APIs, how logic works, how to do an if statement where if one thing happens you do something else, all these kind of fundamental blocks that let you build software and a lot of people who are committed to no-code don't necessarily understand that yet. They're just dragging and dropping their own affairs, figuring out how something works but actually over time as they start to play with these tools and you start to learn more about coding concepts and apply them visually, the things that these people are going to be able to achieve, the things that are going to be able to turn into templates, tutorials, and guides, and share with other people. That's going to be immense. And I think you're going to start to see the same increase you've seen over the last 10 years in terms of what tech could do in 2010 vs. 2020. You're going to see that in the no-code space as well, and more and more is going to become possible.
Chris Byers: Well, I'm curious as I think about our own product. One of the things I will tell people is, you know, it can be used by absolutely anybody in any company, anywhere. But there is a huge problem. And that really is it coming to mind when you have a problem. So if you have a problem and we happen to intersect you at the right time, that's gonna work out great. But I'm curious what you're learning as you're trying to introduce no code into kind of an organization, because I feel like that's got to be one of the most challenging places to get people to stop and say, oh, I'm not going to do the normal things I do when I want to solve a problem, like call IT or do it in Excel. I'm going to try to advance this a little bit. How are you learning what's working there?
Nile Frater: Yeah, it's a tricky one. And I think the biggest problem in both, you know, internally and within the enterprise, but also on the no-code side itself, the biggest problem is it's almost too good to be true. You know, people have kind of spent the last 10 years watching stuff with the social networks you know. Kind of starting to come to some sort of majority with Silicon Valley and the way people work there and the things people do. And so when you kind of turn to say, well, actually you can build all this complicated software yourself, and it's not just the, you know, 14 year old wiz kids at Harvard. People tend to need a lot of convincing to understand that. And, you know, the way we've been approaching it, certainly in Lloyd's is, you know, starting off small, showing people no code, showing people what it can actually do, and then sort of that it's less about the software and more about the mentality.
So there's this kind of concept of systems thinking, and systems thinking to me, and there's probably a systems thinker who's going to listen to this and think I'm really vilifying them here. But, you know, systems thinking to me is essentially taking the way a programmer thinks, that real logic, object-system based approach and applying that to business problems. Systems thinking essentially is the concept of, you know, looking at process as a whole, you know, looking at your job or your department or the work that you do and thinking about it from step one all the way through it to step 10, whatever it may be. Thinking, you know, how does work come into the system? How does it flow through?
How is it outputted and then based off the back of that, trying to make some adjustments to your process and that kind of thing. And I think the best thing you can do in terms of adopting no-code or adopting a tool like Formstack is to first teach people to think like this, to think in terms of process and how you fix up process or how you improve that process. And then for me, Formstack, no-code, this kind of thing, that's just giving them the tools to do what they can already imagine.
Chris Byers: I love that idea of teaching people how to think about process. I know for me, you know, my general nature is you know I see a problem. I just kind of dive into the mess and I don't really know what I'm going to do or how I'm going to solve it. And then I start to tinker around with processes. And then eventually I can kind of pull back out, zoom back out and say, all right, I think I can see how can a process come together? How do you teach that? How do you get people really thinking that way?
Nile Frater: I think it's definitely a tricky problem and it's one that I'm spending a lot of time trying to figure out. For me, it's very much about speaking to someone about the kind of work they do, have them describe what they're up to, who they speak to on a daily basis, and just sort of mapping that out. And then the thing I start to do is really just challenge the assumptions and sort of peel away things. OK. So why do use that? Why do you have to speak to, you know, Barbara in account? Why does it take as long as this? And it's really about pulling someone out of the work that they do every day to almost sort of, you know, eagle eye from above.
Okay, let's look at it together. Let's figure out why you do every sort of step. And I think when you'd improving a process or when you are trying to do systems thinking about software, the most important thing you can do is cut out things you don't need. You know, there's no point in going in looking at a process that someone doesn't say, okay, we're going to replace that with software, we're going to give you a software tool to do it. If you don't first look and say, well, do you have to be doing this, actually can we cut 50% out or can we make it easier.
And I think it's just really about making it feel relevant to someone. You don't want to kind of come in and talk about systems thinking, that's just the concept. You want to just look at what's the work that you do today? How can you do it? If we actually look at and examine it, what other bits can you peck out or what are the parts that, you know, you don't have to do that you could pass off to someone else. And I think it's really just, you know, there's a real growth there that if you start small with a little bit of work you build up from there. And hopefully people start to take an understanding what you're doing, understand the techniques and get it from there and, you know, eventually apply it themselves.
Chris Byers: One of the things you are talking about is this idea of reimagining work. Because as you give people tools and really the mindset to redo processes, even observe that there are broken processes or slow processes, you're really helping them advance the way that they do their work, saving time, which is ultimately saving money. How do you think this is going to impact workers around the world going forward?
Nile Frater: There's this concept called Crossing the Chasm. It was a book by Geoffrey Moore. And the idea is that when a new piece of technology comes out, there are early adopters and then over time, you know, the more conservative people pick it up and adopt that. And I think if you zoom out and look at that from the business world, then that is a pretty obvious thing to say but start ups, small companies, individual entrepreneurs. These people pick up technology fast and then over time it is adopted by enterprise. You know the interesting thing for me and I tend to think about it as if you go back, you know, say a century ago or maybe to the eighteen hundreds and nineteen hundreds, even as recently as sort of the 50s or 70s, if you wanted to create a big business, if you wanted to make one of these tech companies something the size of Google or Facebook, then you needed to own a factory. And that was going to cost you millions or whatever it may have adjusted to back in the day.
But then if you go back to just the year 2000, actually all you need is a laptop. You know, your laptop becomes your factory. And if you go back to, you know, even as recent as 2015, you know, OK. You had your laptop. But you needed to spend, you know, months and months learning to code, needed to spend a lot of money on servers and all that infrastructure that would let you run a business. And actually if you zoom forward to now literally all you need is a laptop. You can take anyone in this day and age who is familiar with something like Microsoft Office, you know, anyone who's got the skills to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and have them use a no-code tool to get to the point where actually they can create software. And so that's really, really powerful for small businesses. Right. Your average Joe can now come online, come to a website, like nocode.tech or YouTube or something like that. Watch a few tutorials, learn how to use these tools. And within a few days, they can have their own business up and running.
And I think as the enterprise starts to adopt that, then quickly, you're going to go away from this concept of the business and IT, where you have one group of people who are completely nontechnical, have nothing to do the tech. They simply make requests and they get something back. And you have this other group of people in IT who, you know, are the guardian angels of technology, who hold the keys and all the software, who know everything there is to know. And actually, you know, both of those premises are wrong. There are people in IT who know nothing about business or people in the business who know nothing about IT and can you know, the two shall never meet.
No-code is all about bridging that gap and no-code is essentially allowing more and more people in the business to prototype things, to better communicate their ideas, to eventually start to, for example, replace some of the processes I might use in areas like finance and accounting and HR. And on the IT side there are projects which a no-code tool could complete in a day, which IT are currently spending, you know, hundreds of thousands on. And that's where I think the really big impact is going to be over the next two, three years as people start to really get over that small software bump. I'm not saying no-code is ready to take on the big time yet. You know, you're not going to build the next Google with no-code necessarily. Not the next Facebook, but you might start it there. And I think when you look within the enterprise, that are a lot of little projects, a lot of things here and there. There are so many people in there with so many ideas, so many ideas that just don't ever see the light of day because enterprise is too big.
Chris Byers: So, you know, I will tend to tell people, if you can learn some of just the advanced formulas in Excel, you can get a lot accomplished that, you know. Otherwise you're going to think I've got to go use a developer or an engineer to get this done. And yet it's actually built for the non-technical user. You need to learn a little bit of what's the nomenclature, what are the words. But if you can do that, you can solve some pretty interesting problems and pretty fast, you can speed up efforts. I'm curious how you're seeing no-code really do this exact same thing for people and maybe some examples of where you've seen no code be successful.
Nile Frater: I think the Excel analogy is spot on. You know, we've seen a lot of people adopt no-code who traditionally, you know, mocked up items in macros or Excel or that kind of thing. And one of the interesting places where I've seen it used in that manor, as you know, often in enterpirse, a lot of people who've been responding to COVID-19 and, you know, that kind of thing as it's happened across the world, really, and disrupted operations and disrupted places like call centers and this kind of thing. You know, we've seen a lot of people trying to use no-code to bridge some of the gaps with the technology that they have working from home and that kind of thing.
A really good example, a really simple one. But from a call center, typically a few are working in an operational environment and you want to make sure that callers have been answered in time and that kind of thing. You know, you usually have a bunch of agents. They are taking calls. They all have a cell next to the computer, it brings the next call in call. They can put people in queue or they can take a break if they need to go to the bathroom, etc. The way that you attend to it and monitor productivity in the environment is you have a manager and they look up from their computer monitor and they look around and they see everyone then they see who looks busy and see who doesn't, see who's chatting etc. And the minute you go to remote working from home, that kind of becomes impossible.
You know, you might have status codes coming from the cellphone software, etc. But for the vast majority of industries where people are traditionally managed by other people in a very sort of oversight kind of way. It's kind of maybe different from say how a lawyer or a doctor works, it becomes really difficult to monitor productivity. And so one of the things that we've seen is just people building tools for this kind of use case. We've seen someone build a tool that let people write down what kind of calls they were getting and how long they were spending on them, where they were, where they were sort of taking place to go do this thing or the other thing, these kind of tools. I mean, I think this specific example probably took about a day to build. I think this was using Retool, which is kind of one the more popular internal tool builders. And that was literally just a day's work and probably saw a 5% productivity gain.
And when you look at the kind of dropoffs people are seeing, especially in the enterprise world, as a result of COVID-19, you know, that kind of thing is massive. And previously, that would have been let's go talk to a software vendor. Or let's bring in some, you know, five hundred thousand pound piece of software to do it. Or it would've been an Excel macro, difficult to use, difficult to have multiple people editing it at the same time. Someone's got to put it all together. You take 400 agents' Excel spreadsheets and figure out who would spend what where.
And, you know, the minute you start talking about that, you quickly see how some of the solutions that are available today, as amazing as they are, they get convoluted, they get expensive, they get really tricky to run. That's a really good example of something that no-code just takes away because, you know, you kind of imagine if you took everybody within your organization who knows how to do Excel macros and you give them the ability to build software. What kind of difference is that going to make for your business, in a month? In a year?
Chris Byers: I think you're right. I think just giving people who already have energy and as you know, there are mindsets that already exist out there of people who they can envision the process and how it's supposed to go. They may just not have spent the time to learn how to code. And so you're really just bridging that gap and kind of is this beautiful thing. I'm curious, how have you been able to see no code actually impact some of your company goals at Lloyd's?
Nile Frater: Probably the biggest advantage it brings to us is when we look at internal systems and internal software. You know, Lloyds is a company of somewhere around 65,000 people and the hometown that I grew up in, which is a place called Kilmarnock in Scotland, good luck translating that one, that's 44,000 people. So you quickly kind of look at a company that size and say that is huge. That is really gigantic. And the level of sort of internal processes and hierarchies and little groups here and there, they've got a little bit of knowledge but don't know about this other group, that kind of thing. You know, just the sheer size or complexity that emerges in a system as big as that, be it at Lloyds, be it any other organization, it really is just immense.
And where we're really seeing the benefit is not trying to come in and say, okay, how can we replace this big system with no-code or how can we deliver something to a customer with no-code, but actually just first of all, looking at the individual person on the ground and saying, let's just give this person the skills that they need. Let's make it really easy for them to build something. Let's make sure we've got some guardrails in place that mean that people are not going to build some software that's got some bug in that a coder would have spotted instantly.
You know, let's keep it safe, but let's just empower the person on the ground, because that's kind of what the technology is about. You know, the thing that kind of gets bandied around in the no-code space is no-code is all about democratizing access to building software. And it can be really tempting in an organization to come in at a high level and look down and say, you know, okay, we see these five projects, they try to apply no-code to them and that may save us money or make them feel faster. But actually, I think the really interesting thing is when you do a bottom up, you just give people the tools. You give people the environment, you give them the guardrails. But you say to them, okay, now you've got us power. How can you use it to save us money? How can you use it to help improve our processes, to make things go faster? And we are absolutely at the early stages of that in Lloyds Banking Group.
Chris Byers: Earlier, you mentioned some great sets of tools, Bubble, Parabola, Airtable. There's all kinds of varieties of ways, really you can tackle this. I'm curious, are there some use cases that you think if someone's listening right now and you knew they were thinking about a few use cases that come to your mind, what are those that you think about no-code fast because this may be the way you get the problem solved faster?
Nile Frater: First of all, if you want to create a job board, I mean, there are literally about 100 million tutorials out there. And doing that is kind of the hello to no-code. So if you're creating a job board at any other kind of less than or direct to the site, that's absolutely the way to do it. But I think the scope of no-code is really, really big now. You know, the majority of people are either building a mobile app or a website. And there's a lot of people who would build a marketplace, which is something like Airbnb or Ebay, where you have kind of consumers who want to, you know, rent an apartment or buy a product, and then you have sellers who want to rent that apartment or sell a product. And no-code is becoming really, really good at those kind of things. And I think the marketplace is a good example of a business that's really, really complex, because there are you know, those buyers, those sellers, transactions, et cetera. But now, there are no-code platforms which can let you build this, which make it really, really simple, and just take away all the complexity of the business logic.
Chris Byers: As you think about really helping people. You know, as people get into no-code, as they start to use it in their everyday life, what do you think are some of the things where it actually can go maybe off the rails a little bit and you need to help bring it in? And kind of keep some guardrails? Are you seeing places where that's happening?
Nile Frater: So I think, you know, the thing about no-code is much as you're dragging and dropping, you are in some ways still coding, you know, you still have to think about the little bugs or the little quirks or behaviors that emerge. When you're programming, one of the things people often say to developers is to make an estimate, and then that estimate may as well be, you know, plus or minus one hundred percent of the time. Developer says it's going to be two weeks, then it might be four. And the reason for that is when you actually really, really start to get into something, you start thinking about all of the edge cases and all of the things that could go wrong or make not good on.
You know, for example, you know, let's say you're building a login system. You start writing the part that lets you plan your full name or let your user put in a full name. But then you start to think, well, I actually need to think about how long am I going to let that name be? If I let that not be too long, then I'm going to be, you know, crowding out someone who, for example, does not have a typical Western name. Am I going to be missing certain characters from, you know, say Celtic or a language like that. And you start to get into all these little, you know, what ifs. And that's where the real impact the program. And that's why it takes so long and why it's so complicated.
The problem with no-code is it doesn't take that away, but what you are doing is giving these tools to people who haven't necessarily had that experience before because they haven't programed, you don't necessarily know that you're going to bump into these pitfalls. And so, you know, that can be a real danger. And then you get some other things which are sort of well known, for example, security concerns or things like that, again, a lot of coders know but people from the no-code space are just not familiar with yet.
I'll give you an example. Let's say you forget your password on a website and you go to the forgotten password and sometimes it will say, you know, give an email address and you put your email address in. And then one of two things happens. It pops up like most websites do and says if an email address with that account exists. Then we will send you an email. You can reset your password or we'll see that email address was correct, but the password is wrong or some sort of flavor of that. And the problem with that second option is essentially it can tell a hacker or an attacker that that email address does have an account here. And so if I let's say, for example, you are one of most people who, you know, reuse the same password for everything. And I know your password. I don't know what accounts you've got, I've got your typical email address set up, I can just go start trying it on Facebook and go start trying, you know, all these different places. It's called user intimidation. And it's as one of these little security quirks that most people don't know about, you wouldn't think about. But actually, you know, whether using code or no-code, your system still vulnerable to that kind of attack.
Chris Byers: Yeah, it sounds like there are just some new and interesting ways that people have to, you know, just start to think about things in terms of security. So that's a great example. You know, as someone who is listening right now, they might feel a bit overwhelmed, or a bit excited about the opportunities that you've talked about. But really, they're not sure where to start. What do you suggest as a first step to using no-code solutions?
Nile Frater: Well, the obvious first step I've got to recommend is my own website. If you go to nocode.tech/learn we've packed in over 500 lessons on using a bunch of different tools, building mobile apps, building web apps, etc. But, you know, more conceptually, I really have to say that the best thing to do is start small, you know, build a small bit of software. Don't necessarily jump in to, you know, your dream project.
For instance,a marketplace for cars where you're going to have to, you know, look up license plates or check for car makes and models or this kind of thing, you know, keep it simple. What's a simple thing you can start with? Why don't you build the website for your idea or, you know, once you've built a website for your idea, why don't you try connecting that to your service? Let's say you've got your website for your car marketplace. You've got to sign up button that connects you to a newsletter and you can email people.
For me, it's really about doing it step by step. And one of the stacks, a stack is essentially a collection of different tools you might use to achieve a kind of a no-code project about something. But one of the most popular ones out there is called the WAMZ stack. That's actually what it's called. It stands for Webflow, Airtable, Memberstack, and Zapier. And Webflow lets you build website. Airtable kind of acts as a database with a kind of Excel like interface. Memberstack allows you to have login and log out features, you know, users essentially on any website. And Zapier lets you connect to tons of different services, and I believe Formstack may well be one of them.
But that's a really, really, really good way actually of going through the different levels, you know, so build your website with Webflow. And then get a Webflow form sending data through to Airtable, then use Memberstack to build a login. Then use Zapier to do whatever, like send data to different places, maybe link it to go straight for payments or PayPal or something like that. But that stack is a really, really good way to build no-code software and one of my go-tos. But actually it's also a really nice incremental way to learn how to do it.
Chris Byers: I love that idea of grabbing really a few great tools, products and helping people kind of think about, you know, if you'll learn this framework, you're going to be way ahead in terms of being able to start coding effectively. And so I love that. Love that idea. As we begin to wrap up, I've got a couple of questions for you. First, what's the number one piece of advice for embracing simplicity in business processes?
Nile Frater: So the concept I've been thinking a lot about recently, and I can't profess to being an expert and it's quite difficult, but I've been thinking about high leverage actions. When I'm thinking of doing a task, what is the highest leverage possible where I could do that task? Let's see. I've got a business and I'm over the support team. And currently every day I check all the customer support emails. And if they are, you know, basic inquiries, like, can I get a refund? Then I ping that one onto my customer support team. And if they are, you know, more complex inquiries like do you make this wardrobe in mahogany or walnut or something, then I handle that myself because I'm the business owner and I know it from my head etc.
The high leverage is all about, instead of answering that email, I should use my answer to that email to create a standard operating procedure, you know, a document or a process I write down so that the next time that question comes up, I can just hand it off to the customer support person. And so it might mean that that task takes, you know, an hour instead of five minutes. But that just happens once. And instead of that being a task I do five minutes every day, it's now one task I do once and never again. And so high leverage is all about thinking what is the best way that I can spend my time? How can I approach a task to mean that my business is going to grow or that I can spend my time in other areas, but otherwise just not thinking of this task again.
Chris Byers: All right. And what is your kind of go to productivity tip for others?
Nile Frater: Well, that's a difficult one. So I probably have tried tons of different productivity tips, tons of different productivity tools. And the one that just keeps coming back to me, you know, everyone talks about kind of idea of a flow state. And you know that you get into the mood, you can get things done. And for me, the best way to achieve that, is every day I make a to do list.
It starts off with really, really simple stuff I have to do every day, like get up, work out, shower, and I'll literally put shower on my to do list as if I'm going to forget that. I'll put lunch on there. You know, all these little basics. I'll put tidy up, put this away, you know these tiny little things that take two seconds. But what it means is I'm quickly accumulating these little tasks and not really getting this feeling of productivity and I might have, you know, five boxes or five items stacked like, you know, take my lunch out of the fridge or shower or work out. But not such stupid things that are really, really small. Like, you know, put my shoes on, but very quickly, you know, I've done the basics that set me up for a good day, like working out, etc. I've got a lot more to do, less the stuff that started to get touched down. And it really, really gives me energy. And kind of a feeling of forward momentum as I start to look at my day and start tackling, you know, the really important business tasks of the day.
Chris Byers: All right. Well, how will you be reimagining your own work moving forward?
Nile Frater: So for me, the thing I've really tried to do is think about number one, for everything that I do, how can it turn into a piece of software or an automation or something that runs in the background? Someone, I can't remember who it was, but someone once said, you know, a data center is kind of like a little army of robots who just do whatever you want them to do. So everything I'm doing every day, I'm trying to think, how can I get a robot to do that tomorrow? How can I get a robot to do that the next day? Or how can I build a little bit of software? A little bit of something that can run in the background that's going to make this easier. And the more and more I do that, it really, really shapes how I start to do things. How I implement features, how I implement, marketing concepts or market strategies and everything I try to do now is automated so that it runs again and again. It can go on in the background. I don't have to worry about it. And I can keep thinking about the new things. The next thing I'm going to do tomorrow.
Chris Byers: Well, as we wrap up this episode featuring Nile Frater, there are a couple takeaways that I have heard from this conversation. The first is he provided a great definition for us of low-code versus no-code. And low-code really is about enabling people who probably have a little bit of technical skill really just to speed up getting the work done. And no code is really about enabling people in that more drag and drop way to get some pretty complicated processes built in software and get processes kind of moving quickly.
The other one was this idea that we really need to step back and think about what is the highest leverage we can get in this moment. I love that idea. Leverage is this idea that the boulder is too big for us to move by ourselves. But if we can get the lever, we might actually be able to move it.
And I love that idea and how no-code tools can really help make that happen. And maybe one other one is just this idea to look around your organization at things that you run on Excel or Google Sheets and ask the question, is this something we can get going and some sort of no-code tool or solution?