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Dismantling Racism training seeks to increase "racial understanding, healing and reconciliation." It is offered several times throughout the year and is required for all parish clergy and all lay leaders, including vestry members. Trainings are developed by the Diocese of Atlanta Beloved Community: Commission for Dismantling Racism.
Back to All Events
Earlier Event: August 7BEECKEN CENTER OFFERS VOLUNTEER DISASTER CHAPLAINCY TRAINING TO ALL
Later Event: August 17Core Godly Play Training


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Stores in DE classic design, single row, placed in the handle, and can contain 9 rounds in .357, 8 rounds .44 or 7 rounds – .440 caliber or .50. On a stationary shaft on top are made grooves for mounting optical sights. It should be noted that the development of design 'Eagle' is not stopped. Last issued in Israel had the model designation of Mark VII, but most Americans like everything American, and because developers pistol – the firm 'Magnum Research' decided to postpone the creation of a gun in the United States, at the same time moving to new versions – the so-called "Platform Mark XIX '. Ohio Senator shares his opinions and ideas on the topic at hand. XIX platform model called not by accident – the fact that the very 'platform' – this pistol frame with a trigger mechanism, venting the drive and the slide frame.
To create any of the 8 possible modifications of the model XIX is only necessary to establish the 'platform' interchangeable barrel caliber and length of the desired (2 variants in each caliber – 152 and 254mm), set the appropriate shutter in the frame and select a store for the correct cartridge. Thus, having one 'Platform' can have up to 8 different guns, which gives greater flexibility to use (especially important when hunting in different places and at different beast), and cost savings – a set of additional barrel, bolt and one store will be approximately 500 to 650 U.S. dollars, and the new 'Eagle' – from 1200 to 1500 dollars of the same U.S..
Tsarist rule definitively established in Russia in the early sixteenth century, as in 1547 the Grand Duke of all Russia Ivan Vasil'evich John fourth one formally took the title of the monarch. At a Russian monarch but the majesty of the put crown, royal authority figure, wearing an expensive chain and presented a heavy precious apple, which personified the Russian country. So when Russia has found its one of the monarch. He is from the dynasty of the Grand Duke Rurik. Kingship was hereditary to his son. In Ivan the Terrible had three sons.
First, Ivan, Fedor stalemate – and painful youth and small Dmitry, yet small boy. The throne was to inherit Ivan, but the royal family took place tragedy. In November 1581 the king fell out with Ivan the Terrible as his heir, the son of a fit of rage and beat him. From shock and severe beatings Prince Ivan fell ill and eventually died. After this tragedy, the king of Ivan the Terrible stayed too long and died in March, one thousand five hundred eighty-fourth year, and in May Russia solemnly celebrated the coronation of a new monarch. They had the following son of Ivan the Terrible and Fyodor I. himself to rule Russia, he could not patomuto all issues solved relative of his wife's Boris Godunov, he and she became ruler after the death of F.
Ivanovich in 1598. Further details can be found at Richard Blumenthal, an internet resource. Boris Godunov left the throne to his offspring Fyodor Godunov, who had to edit very long. In 1605 he assumed the throne and in That same year, was killed by associates of the False Dmitry, he gave himself a younger son of Ivan the Terrible, Tsarevich Dmitry, who died in Uglich in childhood. False Dmitry of Moscow managed to take the throne, but a lot of time on it, he could not resist. Less than year, he was assassinated by conspirators in the Duke was headed by Vasily Shumsky. In 1606 he was in consequence of Russian rulers and was governor until 1610, then it together with nevestay cropped to the monks and put away in a monastery. After deposed king Basil in Russia within three years was a period of interregnum. Know the thought and pondered who would pay the royal power, choose one frame after another, and it was not until 1613, while the king was Mikhail Romanov. It was the first Moscow monarch of the Romanov dynasty, whose members ruled in Russia until 1917, until the monarch of the same kind of Nicholas II abdicated the throne and was executed. M. Romanov, the son of Patriarch Filaret (Feodor Romanov Nikitich) and Xenia Roerich 6, trimmed in a monastery in 1601 by order of Boris Godunov. After the departure of Michael's life in 1645 the king took his son Alexis. They had enough children, among whom in the future and the fight for expanded Russian throne. First, after the death of his father Alexander Mikhailovich, the king was his son, Theodore A., and as he died in 1682, found itself on the throne of the governor just two sixteen-year-old John A. V and his brother, 10y. Peter. They were other mothers. On the early childhood children, the eldest of the same John, as they say historians, was the imbecile, the country was ruled their sister Sophia, the sister of John. In 1696 after the loss of his brother Ivan, Peter I began to manage alone, imprisoned in Sofia monastery. Pat Peter I adopted the title of emperor. Source.
Thus date of December 21, 2012 can be recorded six characters. Incidentally, the year 2009 in the Gregorian calendar corresponds to 4707 by the Chinese calendar. Called this calendar – the thousand. Since the calendar is used only certain combinations of characters, it repeats itself cyclically. The duration of each cycle is 60 years, ie every 60 years, the world falls under the influence of the same elements of the story and the interaction of the elements on our planet is repeated every 60 years.
Therefore, it is worth remembering what happened December 21 + -6 days in 1952 and we can with high probability to describe the energetic events December 21, 2012 year. As you can see, the year will be quite rainy, with strong downpours. Learn more on the subject from Ohio Senator. Month of December is also full of rain, while December 21 will be a pleasant day. lower characters of the day and year to form the lower middle hieroglyph strong structure of water in the afternoon, during the hours from 15 to 17, ie, during these hours will a strong filling of underground storage due to heavy rainfall. These characters are the lower of the day and year are the water storage system, they may occur in the a certain hour of the day from 19 to 21 hours. A breaking underground storage tanks can flood all around. Thus You can tell more about the water cataclysm that could occur from 15 to 17 hours – filling the storage of water and from 19 to 21 – a breakthrough of water.
Does this sound like the world cataclysm, as the destruction of Atlantis? Probably not, because in 1952 it did not happen, not what happened in 1892. Yes, and the Chinese calendar does not end on that date. Now use calendar to 2030 and then only to be readable in the book instead of a period lasting 100 years. Any anticipated event is the first reason for any action. Recall, for a sensational story with Y2K, when it was assumed that the era of computerization will lead to a world cataclysm, how many movies have been devoted to this subject, and how much money is spent and earned, on uncertainty. Thus, this date is uncertain. And this issue has brought the film in 2012 box office of $ 900 million dollars for 3 weeks rental. the world's largest corporations use the services of feng shui predictions and see the link on the first page of the site Joy Yap – certainly, the filmmakers consulted with predictors of what events are possible on the basis of information built plot of the film. A recent "epidemic" of influenza A1 … against which our government was going to "throw" one billion hryvnia?
Maybe this will be the best logic. The first – the fears, anxiety, uncertainty about the future. You know, in every case, especially in our wonderful country – Belarus and Russia, when it's an alarming thought – and what will happen tomorrow? This is especially felt in including addiction, even morally, on the external circumstances – government, bosses and the like. Now I somehow purple, who are in power there. I have not pulled all sorts of rumors, gossip, and newspaper horrors. I'm not sure that everything will be fine. I just know it. Speaking in relation to the film – it gave me such techniques as "negative control" and "Positive programming".
You know, here's an example. It turns out my ads. Calls is not enough. Manager is usual in such cases begins to lament that all bad. And if I think that everything is bad, then so be it. And technology allows me to not fall into these meditative razmyshlizmy. And everything is so right. The question arises, is quite natural.
What the movie controller does not watching? Was not looking. A man in a respectable age, their principles. Salary gets regularly. And so, in principle, satisfied. Well, lament … He has such a nature. The second – the accomplishment of his plans. In fact, earlier it was a problem. Now – No. If the decision is the first problem – the foundation, the second – is already building. I made some plans to life. Good, no doubt. But how often it is a fortune-telling and probabilistic nature! Like "things will work out if ….
Art forging – is an art that has passed through the centuries. Use in any design of forged products allows us to emphasize the excellent taste and style of the owner. No way that does not help to decorate your home or garden as art forging. Intricate details of the elements attached to the interior of forging truly unique style. Wrought Iron creates an old-time classic in the house, emphasize individuality, originality and sophistication of subjects interior. Performed in a variety of artistic styles, forged products fit perfectly into any interior design or home site. Blacksmith has been known since ancient times. Today, thanks to the purchase of many centuries of experience, master blacksmith is made of metal works of art.
Among the forged products can be found forged fences, window grills, wrought iron gates, garden gates, as well as wrought-iron furniture, fireplaces and many other articles and items. Forged products are produced by hot and cold forging. In modern use of forged high-performance equipment: automatic anvil, welding and machine sweep, which allows a short period of time sufficient to produce large amounts of forged parts and components. This makes it more accessible forged a broad range of consumers. The high performance of modern equipment allows high-quality and in a short time to produce large amounts of forged products, making the price of the product available.
In the manufacture of forged products, a special technology of hardening of the metal. It makes them more resistant to weathering than conventional metallic material. Every day, the popularity of art forging ever-increasing. The popularity of the forging is greatly influenced by mass modern technology, because it is able to give artistic forging architecture houses a unique image of antiquity. Probably not that it's not able to decorate the facade of a wrought-iron balconies on the elements and wrought iron canopies. The use of design elements creates forged a unique image of the magnificent Middle Ages. A wrought iron railing on the stairs make the interior home truly aristocratic.

subset: commoncrawl


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During the Beta I had every intention of writing about Fishing, but I got sidetracked by a significant change in the skill-up ratio. After one particular patch, I was getting skill points every 4-5 catches and I went from 375 to 450 in just a few hours. I went to El's web site to see if others were experiencing the same thing, but I was the first to post about it. Within a few days the change was confirmed and it persisted through the rest of Beta. Still, no one was certain if this was a permanent change.
Now it seems we have our answer. On the Live server I've leveled to about 390 Fishing and I'm skilling up every 10-12 catches. While this is certainly better than where we left off in Outland, it's not quite as exciting as the changes we were hoping for. I haven't investigated this myself, but if you're curious about how the existing leveling progression affects lower tiers of Fishing, I'm sure El has the skinny on that :)
There's not really much I can say about how to level Fishing, there's not a whole lot of mystery in throwing a line a few hundred times and looting the fishies at the other end. What I'd like to toss out instead are some things you might want to consider in conjunction with your fishing efforts. There's no compelling reason to level Fishing just for the points, but there are a number of new Achievements for Fishing. For those planning to level Cooking, I would definitely focus on that and ignore the skill points. In all likelihood you'll cap before you collect all the fish you need to cook, so don't waste your time on random fishing. Between all the various Northrend Fishing achievements and Cooking, you should have no trouble reaching 450 without even trying.
I would also encourage you to bring plenty of lures with you when you leave your home city on a fishing expedition. Since Northrend is all new, you won't know where to find lures in an emergency outage. Trust me, I ran into this in the Beta when I headed off to fish and realized I didn't have my lures. Then I tried to figure out where I could score some and I just didn't know any of the vendors/zones well enough to find supplies. So take care of this before you're in the middle of the Frozen Sea, surrounded by penguins!
I'd also like to share a few helpful hints for certain kinds of fish. For the Small Feast, Nettlefish can be found in the Sholazar Basin. If you go right to the middle of the zone (River's Heart) there are spawn pools there that you can safely fish at level 70. Just make sure you don't get too close to the threshers in the water. Glacial Salmon can be found in the Crystalsong Forest. There are other locations as well, but if you port down from Dalaran and stay near the river, it's not too hard to dodge the wolves as a level 70 and get the salmon. Deep Sea Monsterbelly are in the Frozen Sea, which you can reach if you swim WAY out from the Borean Tundra. The little chain of islands along the southeast border is what you want to aim for. Rockfin Grouper is pretty much everywhere, it's like Barbed Gill Trout.
Finally, for those of you who aren't planning to do the Coins in the Fountain Fishing achievements, I'd just like to share a few images with you:


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Sameer Nazir
KARACHI: Khaksar Tehrik will pay homage and 21 gun salute to the martyrs of Lahore massacre of 19th March, 1940; those, who laid their lives for the struggle of independence of Muslims of sub-continent.
"Khaksar Shuhda Conferences" and different rallies will be taken out in all provincial cities among Karachi, Lahore, Abbotabad/Peshawer and other parts of world here on Sunday. Shuhda conferences to pay tributes to the martyrs, they sacrificed their lives and fight against the British rule for independence.
Before, Shuhda conference and rallies Khaksar workers will observe a 21 gun salute on 12:05 pm in the remeberance of 19th March, 1940 martyres, followed by Conferences and rallies will march past from different thoroughfares and culminated at city Press Clubs on the occasion.
Chief Khaksar Tehreek Dr. Sabiha AL-Mashriqi has emphasized that bold struggle led to the success, so that nation needs a brave leadership for face the challenges to Muslims world, adding that after the Indo-Pak subcontinent Muslims divided and there is no proper wayout.
There is dire need to encourage 80 percent and 15 percent educated, honest and enlightened class to handover such an authority to them for all removal of evils in society Khaksar leader said.
Dr. Sabiha said founder Khaksar Tehrik Allama Mashriqi warned that it was unfortunate particularly Pakistani rulers, they have not realized upcoming agony, while collapse of Indo-Pak and permanent threat to the world of nations due to British and US policies in the region.
Khaksar leader said that the saga of sage of Khaksar Tehrik was to devote their lives for the struggle and independence from British, so that 313 Khaksar Mujahid/activists laid their liveson 19th March 1940, obviously, it was a foundation day of Pakistan after four days of massacre in Lahore.
The history proved the sacrifices and struggle during independent of Pakistan, it was only due to Khaksar sacrifices and now the present rulers have made the country of anarchy and various threats, which can be only, sort out by "Muhallawar system" of Khaksar Tehreek she declared.
Since the failures of rulers in every aspect and numerous challenges increasing lawlessness, injustices, high level corruption, soaring prices of commodities, terrorism, inflation, poverty, and other issues are common in country.
Khaksar Tehrik can play its part by re struggle and sacrifices of nation after the conspiracies of rulers and political leaders' only for their vested interests has weakened country and its solidarity.
It is time to start struggle and to hold power only to class wise system in every streets and Unions Councils must develop leadershiop character building skills. Khaksar Tehrik understands the only solution is to remove 5 percent elite class by such a class wise rule in country she said.
Chief Khaksar evoked true spirit of Islam and demanded of the Chief of Army Staff and other rulers to implement the spirit of Muhallawar system under Khaksar Tehrik and character development with trainings and implementations.
Accordingly to Khaksar Tehrik of Allama Mashriqi, 5 percent elite classhave occupied all the resources, so that they should be separated from the power and the constituencies accordingly.
Khaksar Leaders said we need once collective efforts and sacrifice for our country to take efforts by spending our skills and resources on national level as the path of success, which sacrifice of Khaksars proved in March 19, 1940.
We should fight against bad and a cruel shape of British remains; they occupied on the resources and tarnished the image of Muslims and independence. So that we need another sacrifice to wage wars against our own for the country and its solidarity Sabiha said.


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Howdy, I'm Jase. Welcome to my zen part of the world.
I work with men and women to diffuse anxiety, connect to their bodies, rediscover the power of their breath and find peace in beautiful meditation and healing practices.
My name is Jason, my friends call me Jase, you can too!
I'm a down to earth guy who has grown up by the sweet smell of the ocean all my life. It is not uncommon to see me rockin my crystals around my neck, burning incense, or embracing my new age hippy vibes in a campervan with my love and awesome pup. On the other hand, I am also a landscaper (yes, a tradie in fluros) with a fondness for cars, motorbikes and a serious watch addiction. It is fair to say I enjoy the yin and yang in life.
I believe it is this desire to embrace all parts of myself and feel comfortable in doing so, that has been the very reason I now work with a balanced mix of men and women in this spiritual realm. I proudly fly the flag for spiritual men, just as much as women.
While I was introduced to the concepts of meditation and reiki almost 15 years ago, it took some time for it to come full circle in my life and land me where I am today. But, all those years ago a seed had been planted. It wasn't until a crippling two and a half years of anxiety that I truly started to experience first-hand the amazing healing benefits of these spiritual practices.
I became the ultimate student. Filling my nights with meditation classes, my days with reiki sessions and my spare time connecting with like-minded people, just like me, experiencing anxiety in their own crippling ways. Something this epic time in my life was able to show me was, I wasn't alone. In fact, I was quite normal.
Fast forward a couple of years into my healing journey and I found myself in Uluru being completely immersed in a spiritual healers course. A truly transformative experience and one that would shape my future in ways I wasn't even aware of at that time.
In the thick of my 20 somethings, I spent hours building bikes in my retail job, jumping from business idea to business idea trying painfully to find my niche, and all the while suppressing this deep desire to connect with people through meditation – through healing. A deep seated fear of not being old enough, wise enough, experienced enough kept me well away from my dreams. Thankfully, the thing is with soul work, it is unrelenting in its pursuit to take form in your life. I'm paraphrasing here, but like that quote that says - the thing we resist the most, is in-fact the thing we need the most.
My spiritual journey would eventually become the catalyst for the launch of The Meditation House. A place of connection, healing and deep inner discover for myself and my amazing clients.
Today, I work with men and women to diffuse anxiety, connect to their bodies, rediscover the power of their breath and find peace in beautiful meditation and healing practices.
This work flows through me, it is at the core my being, it is my true essence.
I love seeing the growth in people, even after one class.
I love seeing people take their first big, deep inhale for that minute, hour or in some cases the whole day.
I love the moment I see the switch turned on to a world of possibility, peace and calm.
The Meditation House tribe is like a big family, it is a community inspired by connection, united in a deep understanding of the profound benefits of meditation, mindfulness and spiritual practice. I am very proud of what we have created, together.
And, I am so glad you are here to join in the zen times.
Jase x


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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-215373422019-10-18T12:25:02.536+01:00Stream121A STREAM of commentary on telecommunications, internet and product managementArthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-43355641913957107622019-07-11T11:12:00.002+01:002019-07-11T11:12:17.307+01:00Product Management is learnt by doing rather by studying

Noah Weiss, a senior product manager at Slack, Foursquare and Google, makes this quote in this article, Five Dangerous Myths about Product Management:

Product Management isn't an academic subject that one can study; most people learn by apprenticeship. They have diverse backgrounds, murky responsibilities, and wildly varied role definitions across companies.
Although the sentiment is broadly correct, it implies that you can look to a mentor for guidance. Sadly, this simply isn't true. His quote would be better phrased:

most people learn by doing and most importantly, learning from their results.
The rest of Noah's article is worth a read. Some other nuggets:

They come from a wide diversity of backgrounds and relish wearing many hats.
A PM with a diversity of backgrounds is really useful: most product managers come up from the technical side, some come from the sales and marketing side, but they absolutely need to appreciate what's going on underneath other people's hats, both inside your own company and externally

[Product Managers]should be the ultimate facilitator: pulling the best ideas from their team, coordinating with cross-functional partners, and getting executive context. PMs should lay out well-researched tradeoffs, set timetables, and structure great discussions.
There isn't a good decision that a product manager can make, they make the least worst decision in the circumstances. Everyone can perfectly rightly say, "That's not a good decision", but on balance, that decision is the least worst option.Arthurhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-22031825118252053562017-09-24T11:28:00.000+01:002017-09-24T11:32:40.833+01:00SCOTSMAN for sales qualification
My previous blog post about communicating the commercial imperative of products was originally prompted by how frequently I, as a Product Manager, have discussed sales qualification of a prospect with respect to product differentiation and competition.

Frequently I had shared my insight with the sales teams:

"If customers says their problem is this, then this implies that they have solved this, this and this problem with an alternative solution. As a result, they aren't a good prospect unless they have this characteristic."

"If a customer is asking about this feature, then that implies that they are currently used competitor X's product, as we know that this is their weakness. It would be best to differentiate our product by talking about this business problem."

"Competitor Y is particularly strong in that market, that prospect looks tough to bring over the line."

This often leads to a conversation about sales qualification in general. Here's a mnemonic called SCOTSMAN from http://www.salesplusprofit.com:

Arthurhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-44530666839690346572017-09-24T11:07:00.004+01:002017-09-24T11:07:35.168+01:00Widely understanding the commercial imperative of our productsI find that as a Product Manager or a Product Marketing Manager, we spend a lot of time communicating the value of our proposition's features, differentiating capabilities, value and how one's solution moves our customer's business forward to our sales and customer service teams.

But this message needs to be widely understood across the company.

Scenarios that I have frequently encountered:

Software Engineering develops features because they are 'cool' or based on the CEO saying, 'Wouldn't it be great if ....'

Software Engineering spends ages crafting out a solution to a long-tail problem where an 80/20 approach would be much more valuable

Testing validates the product feature based the product specification from Engineering (see previous point), not based on how the product would be used in an operational environment.

As a tester in Dallas, Texas, I recall spending days testing a product feature only to be told that this particular narrow shard of functionality gets used about 5 times a year and only as a tool of last resort and only by highly experienced users who didn't need all the defensive protection from poor data entry or illogical data flows that had been tirelessly testing.

Research teams working on the functionally interesting problem and NOT on the biggest risk to the overall commercial success of the suggestion - which is frequently customer adoption in a competitive market. Poor research (or usually no research) is a HUGE waste of Development's team - a topic worthy of another blog post.

So whenever I see a specification or a proposition, I do my best to make sure it is crystal clear to the reader (whoever the intended audience is) how the proposed functionality will make our customers more money or save money or make our solution more compelling.Arthurhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-45121667446127274282017-08-16T12:49:00.002+01:002017-08-16T12:49:48.920+01:00Common sense methodology (not Agile)
Oleg Vishnepolsky, Global CTO at DailyMail Online and Metro.Co.Uk, writes Agile does NOT work.

It's obviously a bit of rant, but he lists some issues that Agile struggles with:

Short-term thinking that results from following short iterations and daily stand-ups

Architecture that often times can not be deployed piecemeal

Complex infrastructure in production that is supposedly continuously getting deployed over. If you are Facebook, you can afford automation. Can you ?

Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-28988949068700938752017-07-17T10:02:00.000+01:002017-07-17T10:02:08.419+01:00From Product Manager to CEOWe know that the Product Manager is sometimes labelled the CEO of the Product. It's not the best definition, in my opinion, but I have become interested in the similarities between the role of the Product Manager and that of the CEO.

Warning: As one of the founders of the Cambridge Product Management Network, I'd love to find a speaker on this topic!

What's the difference?
Gregg Johnson was a Product Manager for 10 years and moved to Product Marketing at Salesforce and then joined Invoca as CEO. He comments that "product management is a great training ground for becoming a CEO. The very nature of the PM role requires building the skills you need to be a successful executive" in this article Want to Be a Great CEO? Be a Great Product Manager First.

Here's a summary of his reasoning:

Create a compelling vision for your teams and company

Make the hard investment decisions.

Navigate between the 30-day and three-year levels.

I can summarise (1) & (3) as translation - translation based on your audience: your conversation to a developer is different to that with a sales guy, which is different to that with a customer or a partner.

But even each one of those conversations has a time consideration: if you're talking to customer in pre-sales, then you want to discuss the business benefits of your current solution. If you're inviting an existing customer to participate in your beta programme, then you'll be laying your vision for the future and how your product in beta is an important building block for the future.

McKinsey in this article Product managers for the digital world list Sundar Pichai, Satya Nadella, and Marissa Mayer as product managers and are now CEO to Google, Microsoft and (recently departed) Yahoo!

What's more, product management is emerging as the new training ground for future tech CEOs.

McKinsey reports that there are 3 types of 'mini-CEO' product managers in Silicon Valley:

Technologist

Generalist

Business-orientated

McKinsey insightfully states:

Any critic of the analogy between product managers and CEOs will point out that product managers lack direct profit-and-loss responsibilities and armies of direct reports, so it is critical for product managers with ambitions for the C-suite to move into general management to broaden their experience.
Generally true!
Arthurhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-41857497410470683522017-03-01T10:32:00.000+00:002017-03-01T10:32:22.641+00:00Software Internationalisation & Localisation
My first job out of university translating software from English to French. In theory, globalisation of the software had already been done (ie making the software being able to support more than one language) and all was needed was localisation (the actual translation from English into the local language).

Needless to say that globalisation wasn't done perfectly. During testing, it was discovered that the additional language meant that all store orders were doubled, for example.

One of the UI designers for Dropbox, writes the following advice in Design for internationalization:

Leave room for longer translations

Avoid putting text in narrow columns

Don't embed text in images

Don't create sentences with UI elements

Watch out for metaphors

Use descriptive feature names

Provide alternates for translation

Even big companies mess up. The translation of ebay's site struggled. In the violation of number 4 above the phrase "10h left" in the auction, then left was translated as a direction - oops!Arthurhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-20140464145173413162017-01-06T10:27:00.000+00:002017-01-06T10:27:05.322+00:00Product Management analogies with American FootballPragmatic Marketing interviews Neil Baron, lifelong New England Patriots fan and founder of Baron Strategic Partners in their podcast series.

 Neil draws parallels with the scripted plays in American football and the instructions embedded in an orchestral score.

There are some great analogies:

Product Management or Product Marketing orchestrate the play for the rest of the organisation

Effective PM are the quarter back of the organisation to execute strategic role for the organisation, but don't be the water boy /girl that is waiting for others to tell them what to do, when to run onto the field and play a relative minor role. (Approx at 24:30mins)

Conclusion: Be proactive or else you'll be reactive (like a water boy!)Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-1971999591986881502016-12-12T10:25:00.000+00:002016-12-12T10:25:10.836+00:00Product Launch vs Release vs General Availability vs Deployment

These terms are tossed around with gay abandon and, as a result, cause some confusion, particularly in the minds of Sales and Marketing folks.

Here are my definitions:

Product Release	This is when the product has ready to be deployed. For Development (ie Engineering and Testing), their task is complete and they can roll onto the next development cycle.

Product Launch	Product Launch is a marketing announcement. This is the bright lights, drums, trumpets and dancing elephants moment. This is when you want the market or your customer base to know about your new release and to seed your lead generation process

Product Availability or General Availability (or GA)	This is when a customer can use the product.

Product Deployment	This is when it is activated for the customer. Whether a particular release is actually given to anyone or deployed is a decision made by Product Management, not of Development. Agile + continuous deployment means that this decision can be so implemented that it may by-pass Product Management, if due process is weak.

Pre-release	This is a term that is used in two scenarios I think:
a) By sales to demonstrate new capability, but to set expectations that this product isn't quite ready for use, but available for demonstration (ie for customer consideration of adoption).< b) By product management to encourage potential beta customers to step forward as beta candidates

Some nuances
There is a difference between GA and Product Deployment is when a B2B vendor needs to ask permission from the customer before the software can be deployed or activated. For example, the new functionality may require the customer to do something (eg all users might have to log off or there might be down time) or the customer's staff may need training or the deployment might need to fit around the business cycle of the customer's environment (eg ecommerce customers dislike new functionality or surprises during the Christmas season for example).

A product may be announced before it's available. This is done to seed the market & to generate enquiries into the sales team. It may be done to spoil the market - eg pre-announce functionality to steal the limelight so that you look like a thought leader and competitors appear to be second to market. Big SaaS providers (think of Salesforce for example) forward announce deployments and their release dates in order to seed their ecosystem of customers and partners with this news.

A product may be announced after it's been available and deployed to beta customers - this allows for the generation of success stories in order to encourage adoption either by the existing customer base or to generate confidence & interest from prospects.

In B2C products, product release = product deployment
Apple famously make Product Announcements on one day with GA on the next day globally. This requires incredible planning (and draconian secrecy) to implement effectively. This can do this because Apple provide single-vendor products - they don't have complex ecosystem of 3rd parties around them (in general). Their secrecy about their product releases is legendary. Indeed, the tech press have taken to tracking shipping consignments from Foxconn factories in the Far East to California to guess product ship dates!

After all, customers don't really care about releases; they care about availability. Sales and marketing folks don't care about releases; they care about launches.

Launches must be aligned with the rhythms of your market, not the rhythms of your internal teams. Product marketers should align availability with customer demand.

You can do limited availability any time of the year but broad adoption takes place when the market is ready, not when development is ready.

The mighty Steve Johnson (formerly of Pragmatic Marketing) writes on this topic: Why a release isn't a launch

Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-67230721333888499092016-12-09T12:33:00.000+00:002016-12-09T12:43:39.337+00:00We're "post-agile" - it's official Phew, I've been saying that the software world is distancing itself from pure Agile and saying we're now "post -Agile" and I'm glad to see others are saying the same: Post-Agile: A Design Thinking Approach to Software Development

There's even a blog on the topic: http://postagilist.wordpress.com

Here's a scathing view of Agile: Agile is Dead plus an excellent webinar from Steve Johnson (via Product Focus): Is Agile breaking Product Management?

Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-58782181259336881902016-11-24T17:14:00.001+00:002016-11-25T09:32:11.679+00:00What a product manager does on the first day, week, month, quarterIn conjunction with Product Focus, here's an infographic outlining what a new Product Manager should do in their first 90 days.

Download the PDF from Product Focus' website.

The raw task list was created as a result of meeting of the Cambridge Product Management Network. Then together, I and Ian Lunn from Product Focus converted the task list into an useful infographic for every product manager starting their new role.Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-55485350218391822022016-11-21T14:12:00.000+00:002016-11-21T14:12:02.116+00:00Behind every great product
The article, 'Behind Every Great Product' is a classic text (PDF), first written in 2005, on Product Management by Marty Cagan. Marty has held senior product positions at Hewlett-Packard, Netscape Communications, America Online, and eBay. (More about Marty)

I set aside some time to read this on a journey some time ago.

It's littered with great insight and quotes about Product Management and Product Managers.

A good product manager is responsible for defining the right product at the right time

The product needs to have the right features for the right market, and must be able to be executed with the technology available in the required market window.

It is easy to define fantastic products that can't be built, or at least can't be built profitably or in the necessary timeframe. It is equally easy to define products that can be built profitably but which are not compelling to the customer.

The art of product management is to combine a deep understanding of your target customer's needs and desires with the capabilities of your engineering team and the technologies they have to work with in order to come up with a product definition that is both compelling and achievable.

The process of coming up with the right product/right time boils down to insight, judgement, and the ability to make choices.

Manages Product Not People …. leading, but not managing, the extended product team.

In good companies, executives tend to be smart, experienced, and articulate -- that's why they are executives. As a result, it's easy to assume that they have superior judgement and should set the strategic direction for your product. This is a bad assumption. Executives can be excellent at verifying that a strategy is sound or suggesting interesting ideas, but not necessarily well equipped to set the strategy for a particular product. Executives lack the deep knowledge of the market, competition, technology, customer base and team that is necessary to chart a successful product course.

The ideal product manager does not necessarily have to come from your target market (there are pros and cons to this), but they absolutely need to be able to empathize with that target market. This trait is often difficult to find in high-technology companies trying to produce mass market products.

Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-50519524013732989842016-09-30T16:50:00.002+01:002016-09-30T16:50:45.116+01:00Deloitte's UK Mobile Consumer Survey 2016

Deloitte's publication of its mobile phone survey has plenty of interesting stats. Here are some that caught my eye:

4G adoption has more than doubled in the last year, from 25% to 54%.

31% of smartphone users make no traditional voice calls in a given week. This contrasts with a quarter in 2015, and just 4% in 2012. The substitutes are text messaging, instant messaging and social networks.

The majority of survey participants have downloaded 20 or fewer apps.

Smartphone penetration in the UK leapt from 52% to 81% of the population in the four years to May 2016, but further penetration is anticipated to slow to 2-4% in the next 12 months.

Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-14143261692906599472016-09-26T14:54:00.000+01:002016-09-26T14:55:47.868+01:00Transparent cookie policy shows the privacy madness in Ad-tech

I went to Reuters UK website and, in clicking on their cookie policy, I was presented with this screen. See their advertising guidelines and click on the Cookie Consent button in the bottom right hand corner.

Well done to Reuters for demonstrating the transparency of how all the cookies on their site are being used.

But what a hideous user experience / privacy experience!

I clicked on the two 'All off' buttons to stop cookies being fired (hopefully??) and data being collected about me and my browsing habits (even more hopefully???). This is the next screen - the battle isn't over yet!!

I closed my browser window and got my news from another source - like the ad-free BBC.

Having worked in Ad-tech for the last 2 years, I've been on publishers' side of the fence on this issue (indeed Reuters was a customer of my previous employer, Grapeshot), but this is a truly frightening user experience for the average internet user. No wonder ad-blocking is rising at such a rate (See Wikipedia entry for Ad Blocking)

I'd be fascinated to see how many people actually manage their cookies using this screen or how many close down the page and go elsewhere - as I did!

Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-754535894244770172016-09-12T15:14:00.000+01:002016-09-26T15:26:53.351+01:00More Product Management Mistakes (from Rich Mironov)

Rich Mironov, a product management expert, lists some of the mistakes that a new product manager might make in the first 6 months. I summarise them here, but go to the article for the details:

Promise a new feature to a customer without running it past your team.

Generalize your first three customer interviews into a market segment.

Confuse sales calls with customer learning/research

Believe your own marketing/selling materials about why customers use and love your product

Announce that you're "CEO of the product"

Tell engineers how to solve a technical problem

Postpone meeting your internal counterparts

Confuse process steps (stories, tickets, releases) with market success (renewals, revenue, customer love)

Also take a look at 'What a Product Manager does on the first day / week / month / quarter in their new role' - a session that we have run at the Cambridge Product Management Network a couple of times.

Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-42937831793832151302016-09-01T10:02:00.000+01:002016-09-01T10:02:00.196+01:00Product Management Mistakes From June session of the meetup of The Product Group London

Some of the mistakes discussed:

Confusing Customer Requirements with Product Requirements

Confusing yourself with your customer

Confusing the Customer with the User

Confusing Features with Benefits

Confusing Building the Right product with Building the Product Right

Confusing Good Product with Good Business Model

Confusing Inspiring features with Nice to have features

Confusing Adding Features with Improving products

Confusing Complete Product with Sellable Product

Confusing Product Launch with Success

Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-30138732800402586782016-08-31T17:03:00.000+01:002016-08-31T17:04:23.269+01:00Jobs to be doneClayton Christensen (of Innovator's Dilemma fame and one of my management heroes) writes in the September edition of Harvard Business Review about understanding customers intentions (see Know Your Customers' "Jobs to Be Done" - free too!).

Two great paragraphs:

The fundamental problem is, most of the masses of customer data companies create is structured to show correlations: This customer looks like that one, or 68% of customers say they prefer version A to version B. While it's exciting to find patterns in the numbers, they don't mean that one thing actually caused another. And though it's no surprise that correlation isn't causality, we suspect that most managers have grown comfortable basing decisions on correlations.

After decades of watching great companies fail, we've come to the conclusion that the focus on correlation—and on knowing more and more about customers—is taking firms in the wrong direction. What they really need to home in on is the progress that the customer is trying to make in a given circumstance—what the customer hopes to accomplish. This is what we've come to call the job to be done.

In conclusion, here's his argument as to why big data only is the second tool to reach for. The first thing is to understand the desires and intentions of your customers.

Many organizations have unwittingly designed innovation processes that produce inconsistent and disappointing outcomes. They spend time and money compiling data-rich models that make them masters of description but failures at prediction. But firms don't have to continue down that path. Innovation can be far more predictable—and far more profitable—if you start by identifying jobs that customers are struggling to get done. Without that lens, you're doomed to hit-or-miss innovation. With it, you can leave relying on luck to your competitors.
Bravo - I'd rather rely on understanding and insight than data.Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-9334218351099534012016-08-05T16:57:00.000+01:002016-08-05T16:58:28.686+01:00Which is faster: Waterfall or Agile?To be clear, my personal position from the arrival of Agile a decade ago has been of scepticism rather than love-at-first sight. Agile's star couldn't be higher 5 years ago. If you weren't Agile then you were a dinosaur.

Fashion has quite clearly moved from Agile only to Water-Scrum-Fall. (Gone are the days (TG!) that starry-eyed developers would come back from Agile training courses wanting Marketing or Sales to go Agile too!)

Credit: iQuest Group

Let's rewind at the outset: both Waterfall and Agile share exactly the same objectives: to deliver high quality products as quickly as possible to a willing market. Both have strengths and weaknesses, but the inappropriate application of the letter of the law in either case leads to its relative weakness.

On Agile
Agile does produce more recognizable product more quickly, but must be inefficient because:

Making lots of software releases generates an overhead: for development, testing, deployment, customer communications, for customers themselves.

Gathering and analyzing customer feedback (which is so important to Agile) can be difficult and time consuming. (It is certainly expensive to set up and configure in order that this process isn't too arduous). Note that Engineering only does some of these tasks.

Agile's strength is that it doesn't do too much before all the parts in the workshop floor are re-assembled together and the product is shippable. (There is the theory that less development needs less testing, but in complex software, a small error can have massive consequences.)

Agile's weakness is that tends to encourage a horizon of a two or three sprints only. Estimating epics which span multiple sprints, can be even harder / more error prone than Waterfall.

Also there is fallacy at the bottom of Agile: that all resources are interchangeable. This is wrong: people develop specialisations or area of responsibility. This expertise can easily generate a bottleneck and tasks requiring a critical skill always end up on the critical path - not just for one project, but the problem appears to snowball, impacting multiple projects.

On Waterfall
Waterfall does mandate careful attention at the outset to scope of the product. This discipline (call it product planning or roadmapping) is considerably downgraded in Agile - which is a huge mistake. Many execs believe that once they have a product owner (who writes user stories and manage the sprint process), then they don't need product managers (who assess product concept, write epics & launch products).

Waterfall's strength (in terms of speed to delivery) is that it smashes the problem into little bits all over the workshop with the final deliverable in mind and only intends to reassemble all the bits at the end. Continual reassembly must be more time consuming to get to the same objective. Agilists will rightly point out that the objective invariably changes and that remembering how to reassemble all the
bits is error prone, requiring lots of testing.

Waterfall's inherent weakness is that because the endeavour is so carefully planned at the outset, then everyone follows the project plan, heads down in the sand. What a good product manager should be doing is constantly scanning for changes in the market place, in the requirements, in the deliverables. He or she should be constantly 'checking in' with all parties to ensure that any new information is gathered / digested / understood and its impact assessed.

Conclusion
As in life, it is a compromise. However, time spent in reconnaissance before a line of code is written is rarely wasted. And that's why I like Water-Scrum-Fall.

Some references

Agile is for development only (previous blog post)

Agile vs Waterfall (from Udemy)

First mention of Water-Scrum-Fall in 2011: Water-Scrum-fall is the reality of agile

Arthurhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-686580784236921632016-07-01T10:45:00.000+01:002016-07-01T10:45:41.178+01:00Agile is for Development ONLY280 Group has written an excellent article about the merits of Agile.

Agile is great for development, but has done a lot of damage for those doing Product Management. Those that know me, know that I am a massive sceptic of pure Agile champions.

I have summarised the article, but I encourage you to read it yourself: Agile is Not a Business Process:

Agile software development has transformed how we approach software product development, and has delivered some enormous benefits for efficiently delivering software products to the market.

The only planning described in The Scrum Guide is a planning meeting led by the Product Owner at the beginning of each sprint to determine the sprint objective and which user stories from the ordered backlog should be worked on in that sprint to achieve that objective.

Based upon this guidance, a common interpretation by too many companies is that they only need a Product Owner and that the only planning required is the planning done at the beginning of each sprint, which, in my opinion, has relegated Product Management to a very tactical role of "helping the development team" by writing using stories and acceptance criteria, working issues with the development team, testing user stories and maintaining the product backlog.

Agile development only addresses one phase of the lifecycle methodology

Product Management is responsible for "achieving business outcomes", which entails a lot more than optimizing the value of the work done by the development team.

if in your role as a Product Manager, Agile has sucked you into the development process, it's time to take a step back and understand that your role is more than just maximizing the efforts of the development team, but it's to achieve business outcomes, and that requires you to manage your product through the full lifecycle based upon your market expertise and a well-defined strategy.

Remember, Agile is a Development Practice, Product Management is a Business Practice.

Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-7665526306651823732016-06-20T10:31:00.001+01:002016-06-20T10:31:35.689+01:00Where should a product manager spend their timeExcellent insight from an expert product manager, Gerrit Vermeire who is Director of Product Management at Barco.

"I want to absolutely avoid product managers acting as an expert helpdesk i.e. doing things other people or proper documentation can handle. They should focus on the things nobody else will do if they don't – such as defining the overall mid and long term strategy, creating the big picture, understanding the market problems and translating them into solutions and products on our roadmap. I want to drive the bulk of my product managers' workload into the 'fuzzy front-end' – as shown in the picture. These are the more strategic activities of generating ideas, understanding what customers want, finding out what can be built and what could be commercially successful."
Also Gerrit comments on managing a portfolio with multiple product managers

"If I make product managers fully responsible for a too limited set of products in the portfolio there is a danger they don't see the big picture. Similarly if we split things by current and next generation or pre and post launch, we don't get continuity through the whole life-cycle and risk missing a lot of key information."
"What does work well is to off-load some product management activities to a separate product marketing team. They know their vertical markets well and drive the sales enablement activities during product launch. They have the insight to know which customers are best to talk to and can focus on managing the relationship. My product managers can turn up to customer meetings with new product ideas and get great customer feedback."

Do read the rest of the article on ProductFocus website.Arthurhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-20473729033798740352016-05-25T10:11:00.000+01:002016-09-21T21:30:00.586+01:00The value of an external Product Management ConsultantMany companies recognise that they have a requirement for Product Manager. However, for some companies, they have muddled along without one but know privately that it remains an Achilles heel.

This may be passable on a day-to-day basis, but to build a long term roadmap or to make a step it is sorely lacking some expertise.

There is a perception trap here: some organisations don't really grasp what the product manager does and so underestimate the scope of the role, so can't justify a full time role.

Recently, I have been talking to organisations about part-time / interim Product Management – and particularly the value that an external product management consultant brings.

What an external consultant does NOT bring

Intimate knowledge of the technology

Intimate knowledge of the product and service

Intimate knowledge of the market

These factors may, to some, to be crippling reasons as to why an interim product manager or a short term consultant may not be able to provide enough value. But this is incorrect – these very reasons provide tremendous value.

Advantages of an independent consultant

Objectivity An external consultant can be dispassionate about origin of products, their history, the processes or the people behind it. This person can look objectively at the products / product portfolio / product processes at that point in time and provide an unbiased perspective without the burden of historical baggage.

Independence An external consultant is equally unknown to all the organisation - therefore that person has no 'pet' interests, favouritism or bias.

Ignorance of the Product and the Market An external consultant is unlikely to know the intricacies of the the product or the market - and cannot hope to (in comparison to the expertise of the existing staff). Therefore, the important (but sometimes overlooked) statements of product differentiation, market characteristics, competitive analysis and product-market fit have to be clearly articulated.

Better Decision Frameworks The external consultant should bring toolkit of analytical and decision frameworks that map analysis and research, leading to transparent and justifiable decisions. In my experience, once complete, it is rapidly realised that the product positioning and collateral is missing half of the value proposition.

Best Practice from other industries / sectors An external consultant should bring a wealth of experience learnt elsewhere on alternative business / revenue models, partner relations, go-to-market techniques, pricing strategies etc.

How to get the best out of a Product Management consultant
Interim Product Management consultants do need to be contracted / engaged properly in order to define boundaries for both side. There are several modes:

Time based (ie per diem)

Capped (ie we'd like up to x hours / days of your time)

Please complete this task by this date (eg hit a release date)

Objective based

Task based

Projects that suit an external Product Management consultant
External product management consultants are best at the following tasks:

Product Management

Competitive Analysis

Product Portfolio Analysis

see this excellent session on Portfolio Management given by Richard Jones to the Cambridge Product Management Network

Product Testing & Review:

External product testing, user experience, review of product literature (eg help documentation, training materials etc) and positioning

Product – Market fit

Product Roadmapping – see my presentation on Seven Rules of Product Roadmaps

Pricing Analysis

Release Management – a dispassionate expert to steer a product towards release, during a stressful and critical period. See case study on CDK Global for my role as Release Manager.

Product Marketing
These types of tasks usually become part of the second phase of a product management project:

Sales and Marketing literature review eg collaterals, external website, sales training, sales tools

Development Processes and Tools review

Again, these is often a phase two of a review, because the existing processes and tools have supported the existing status quo which has been identified as being unsatisfactory.

These endeavours are heavily operational and become difficult to generalise, but often these projects revolve around information / data collection and analysis to support decision making or information sharing – particularly to the sales and operational teams.

"Hold-the-Fort" Interim Product Management
Many companies leave the product manager role vacant for ages whilst they recruit the perfect candidate. Again, indecision / lack of consensus / strategic flip-flop may cause no end of pain.

'Hoping' that you'll muddle through with your existing processes is well.... muddling. Does the investment in your development deserve a muddled product management approach?

The cost of not using a Interim Product Manager
If the organisation has decided you need a Product Manager then it is already 4 months too late. Any recruit spends 4 months playing catch-up with all the Product Management debt, so the company is waiting months and months before the Product Management function is actually leading the business forward.

When the permanent recruit comes on board, he or she is immediately deluged with a series of crises or burning issues. Their head immediately dives into the here and now, fighting fires and making snap decisions without a good understanding of context or history. This is an unpleasant start and most probably not what the new recruit was promised at interview.

With 4 months of no product management, each division of the business has already set off on its own journey of product management decision-making (ie they make decisions that are optimized to their own agendas, not those of the market), which makes steering the troops back on course towards a transparent set of objectives VERY difficult….. if not too difficult to contemplate.

Advantages of Hiring an Interim Product Manager

Product Management won't judder to a halt. Maintaining the discipline of Product Management will continue on and it won't cave in leaving the organisation to the ravages of a free-for-all.

New and refreshing thought process

Like all consultants, because they don't have the vested interest in the short term, they can look objectively at the long term.

The Bridging Product Manager can accelerate the onboarding process for new recruit. The new hire won't be overwhelmed by a crisis situation and / or an overflowing issues list and / or a host of people grinding themselves against each other.

See Also

See this article from the 280 Group: Don't Let Your Product Fail While You're Recruiting for a Product Manager.

For assistance with your Product Management

Please contact me.
Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-25857866784659617542016-04-29T11:27:00.000+01:002016-04-29T11:27:21.665+01:00Characteristics of a superb Product ManagerProduct Focus authored this excellent blog post on the ingredients of an excellent Product Manager. Here's their initial suggestions:

Passion

Great at networking

Thinks big

Accountable

Able to focus

Delivers

Expert compromiser

Good communicator

The post and the comments underneath are well worth a read.

The additional attributes that have been suggested that I like are:

Understand and can explain their basic product economics / Commercial Nouse

Can bring teams together - I think this is a complimentary skill to 2. Great at Networking

Causality / Insightful

Knows their market / customers

Bounce-back-ability

This list is interesting to compare with Product Management interview questions from Ken Norton.
Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-25281624526511690042015-07-23T10:42:00.000+01:002015-08-24T22:43:01.788+01:00Microsoft Office, Messaging, Needs, Standardization and InteroperabilityThis is a cracking article about 'Tools for getting the job done' (hat tip to Clayton Christensen), standardization of processes, ubiquity and interoperability.

Also watch this stylized video about Productivity Future Vision from Microsoft.

It ends with this classic quote:

Old: all software expands until it includes messaging
New: all messaging expands until it includes software
Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-40991130726251454292015-06-26T16:16:00.000+01:002015-06-28T23:17:39.335+01:00How to connect back to your customersIf, like me, it takes a real dedicated effort to really understand customers' requirements and get quantitative and qualitative feedback (ie saying 'No' to lots of other things!), then this list of mechanisms from Product Focus is a good refresher, plus some new techniques that I wasn't aware of

Roadmap reviews – face to face interview with customers

Focus groups – facilitated sessions to get in-depth insights about your product

Implementation and operational reviews - in-depth discussions about how your product works

Customer Surveys - invite your customers to give their views through online and product surveys

User groups and user conferences - bring customers together to talk and listen

Observation – watch how customers behave

Product usage analysis - get information from your product on how it's being used

Prototypes and Scrum product demos - let customers give feedback about your product as it's being built

Outcome Driven Innovation (ODI) - a structured questioning techniqueto understanding customer needs

Kano analysis – how to decide what's important for your next release

Conjoint analysis – using statistics to uncover customer preferences

Innovation games – using games to uncover customer requirements

Arthurhttp://firstname.lastname@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-33671763031451862602015-04-01T09:56:00.002+01:002015-04-01T09:56:46.256+01:00NTT DoCoMo shuts down its 2G networkAfter 20 years of service, NTT DoCoMo shuts down its 2G network. It was Japan's digital phone services (i-mode was launched in 1999 on this network) that was initiator of mobile internet service. According to Eurotechnology Japan, the last 2G phone was shipped in December 2007. Arthurhttp://email@example.com:blogger.com,1999:blog-21537342.post-76322059126478752192014-09-09T18:33:00.000+01:002014-09-09T18:33:45.273+01:00Deadlines
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Applicable to product / project managers!

Arthurhttp://email@example.com


text:
Green Assets Wallet demoed in Shanghai Tower
To go the farthest, you need to stand the tallest: the Green Assets Wallet demoed in Shanghai Tower
The UN-led Financial Centers 4 Sustainability (FC4S) network convened members in Shanghai for its second official network meeting, gathering members from Toronto to Hong Kong. Stockholm Green Digital Finance, being a founding member to the FC4S Network, organized a demonstration and panel discussion at the FC4S public event in Shanghai's tallest building, Shanghai Tower. The choice of venue corresponding well to the Chinese saying "to go the farthest, you need to stand the tallest" and the tall ambition of the Green Assets Wallet to accelerate green finance.
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Big news on the mining front. Gem Diamonds bought Kimberley Diamond Company for £130m:
London-listed Gem Diamonds today took another big step towards its stated aim of taking on De Beers among the world's largest diamond miners with the $263m (£130m) acquisition of Australia's Kimberley Diamond Company.
The deal is Gem's third acquisition since it was floated six months ago by its ex-De Beers management team headed by Clifford Elphick, a former personal assistant to Sir Harry Oppenheimer.
Gem is to date best-known for producing the 603-carat Lesotho Promise, the 15th-largest rough diamond ever found, from its Letseng mine in southern Africa.
Today's deal will see it become the world's fourth-biggest diamond producer. Although some way behind the giants of the industry led by De Beers, BHP Billiton and Aber, Gem is understood to want to get into the retail market and take on, for instance, Aber jewellery arm Harry Winston.


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A tasty rustic farm house loaf with an overnight prove that uses both yeast and sourdough starter. Recipe can be doubled to make 4 smaller loaves.
400g Bread flour (105)
50g Dark Rye Flour (603)
50g Light Malthouse flour (301)
100g Sourdough starter (50/50 hydration)
288g Warm Water
5g Fresh yeast (or 3g Dried)
10g Salt
In a large bowl mix the flours together along with the salt.
Dissolve the yeast in a jug with the 288g of warm water, then add the sourdough starter and mix together.
Combine the wet ingredients into the flour, either knead by hand or use a mixer. Knead for 10 mins or until you have a smooth elastic dough.
Make onto a ball and bulk prove in a covered bowl at room temperature for 1-2 hours until nearly doubled in size.
Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface, de-gas and divide into 2x 450g. Shape into balls and place in flour proving baskets, seam side up.
Cover and prove in a fridge overnight. (10-15 hrs works best)
Pre heat oven to 210c
Turn out the dough onto a lined baking sheet, Slash the top of the bread to allow for oven spring.
Mist the oven with water and quickly put the trays in. Bake for 30mins or until dark brown.
Leave to cool on a wire rack.
Added by: Paul Sheldon
If you add a recipe with a photo to the Shipton Mill website, we will send you a voucher for 15% off your next order from the Flour Direct shop.
It's very easy, just click here to visit your "My Shipton Mill" page to get started.
We are beyond excited to announce the launch our first cookbook with Headline Publishing.
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More than just a baking book, this is a book to introduce you to cooking with flour in general, from popular and classic varieties to ancient grains and gluten free flours.


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to Studio X.
Experience the love of dance with proper instruction and atmosphere.
We offer Recreational Dance for students to explore dance on a fun level and a Full Competitive Program for students to take dance to the next level. Our highly trained instructors are ready to help you explore any discipline.
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Certified programs through the Canadian Dance Teachers Association, Royal Academy of Dance and Acrobatic Arts
A year end show at the Oakville Centre of Performing Arts
"While-You-Wait" Stott Pilates® classes for parents
A huge 5000 square foot facility with sprung flooring
Programs for ages 2 ½ and up, including adult classes
Fully accredited teaching staff
50% discount on classes for boys
10% discount on 1st term classes for new customers


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Chinese children sing Christmas songs for customers at a shopping center on Christmas Eve December 24, 2011 in Beijing, China. Though Christmas is not officially celebrated in China, the holiday is becoming increasingly popular as Chinese adopt more Western ideas and festivals. (Photo by Feng Li/Getty Images)
25 Dec 2011 12:50:00, post received 0 comments


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Blog about fun facts (facts of the day, every day), travel, life in Spartanburg South Carolina, video game reviews, movie reviews, TV shows reviews, anime, politics (I'm a Democrat), atheism and agnostic thought, and much more.
Thursday, July 7, 2016
Favorite Quotes: Fear of Death
11 comments:
That's true, religion is a lot about what comes after death.ReplyDelete
I am not afraid of death. I know I'm going to heaven. The Bible makes it very clear and easy on how to get there. : )ReplyDeleteReplies
Please send me a contact number so I can find where
my room will be located.
I want a good view overlooking a great surfing beach, with
good tennis courts after the good Lord fixes my back and a decent stable of horse for equestrian participation.
I wish I had more faith. It would be a great source of comfort.ReplyDelete
As Woody Allen famously said "I don't mind the idea of dying. I just don't want to be there when it happens."ReplyDelete
I'm scared of death. Wise quote though.ReplyDelete
I'm not afraid of dying. I'm just afraid of what will happen to the ones I leave behind. But I do have peace knowing there is a heaven. I put my trust in God and his word.ReplyDelete
I'm with Lisa. Death doesn't worry me. It's the loss my family will feel once I'm gone that bothers me.ReplyDelete
When I croak I'll see what there is, if nothing then I'll never know. I have no fear of death, it's the long drawn out dying part I want none of. Take me fast.ReplyDelete
I was a lot more concerned about dying when our son was small but now he's a grown adult and could take care of himself if I, or his mother, were gone.ReplyDelete
I love the Buddhist philosophy. It really speaks to me. I'm not as afraid of death as I am of how I will die. If I live a full and satisfactory life and die peacefully, there is nothing to fear.ReplyDelete


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James Allen's From Poverty to Power (1901) and As a Man Thinketh (1902) stand as seminal texts in the self-help genre that have served as sources of inspiration since their publication at the beginning of the twentieth century. Loosely based in its principles around the Biblical proverb "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he," As a Man Thinketh asserts the powerful idea that belief is central to bringing about positive events in one's life. From Poverty to Power, Allen's first book, relies on a similar philosophy but addresses themes of adversity and suffering more directly and offers his simple wisdom as a means of overcoming difficulty. Allen's writings are powerful and relevant today as they were over a century ago, and this collection brings their solace and inspiration to modern listeners.


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A modern design standout: our comfortably upholstered barrel-back chair suspended in a sleek metal frame. Adds a welcome curve to a room. Looks great in pairs. Featured here in fabric with frame finished in gleaming polished stainless steel. Chair can also be upholstered in leather. And frame is also available finished in warm shimmering polished brass.
- style: 1466-005T
- eco-friendly high-density, high-resiliency cushioning
- available upholstered and in leather
- seat: woven webbing; back: rigid sheet webbing
- fabric info: lustrous solid velvet, 54% acrylic, 28% cotton, 12% polyester, 6% viscose
- finish: polished stainless steel
- mulitiple metal leg finishes available
- made in the USA
- 30 in. width x 32 in. depth x 29 in. height
1 pieces in the {1} collection
1466-005T-CHAIRStyle # 1466-005T-Overall Dimensions: 30"w x 32"d x 29"hSeat Dims 23w 23d 18hArm Height: 24Frame Height: 29C.O.M: 5 yd


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|Images: Pauli Hänninen
The municipality of Kittilä has holiday building sites for sale in Levi. These sites are located in the Golf course region.
Building plots for sale at southwestern slope Block 967
Southwestern slope building manner instructions
(Publishing rights internet Pohjakartta-aineisto © Maanmittauslaitos lupanro
190/MML/11 ja 191/MML/11)
Sivua päivitetty:


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"When we began this program four years ago, I knew we were doing some good for families having a tough economic time," says Councilman Bob Henderson (D-14). "As we begin this fourth year and with the help of many volunteers, the goal is a simple one of helping as many people as we can."
The purpose of the V.I.T.A. program is to offer free tax preparation to persons making $49,000 or less. Over the years, volunteers have been able to find deductions to help families receive better tax returns when filing their 2010 federal income taxes.
The V.I.T.A. operation at the Sun Valley Community Center will begin Tuesday. The Community Center will offer the assistance Tuesday through Saturday.
The Hours of operations are as follows:
Tuesdays 9:30am to 7:00pm
Wednesdays 9:30am to 4:30pm
Thursdays 9:30am to 7:00pm
Fridays 10:00am to 3:00pm
Saturdays 10:30am to 1:30pm


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« back to CNC Woodworking forum
|Forum topic by Bliss Woodshop
|posted 01-23-2017 07:03 PM
|3304 views
|1 time favorited
|8 replies
Just wanted to update the status of the CNC build as its has been long overdue.
I purchased most of the material as kits from CNC Router parts and assembled it myself over a 2 month period working full time and over time at my regular job. So far I have been happy with my build and it has been performing well for the past few months. The learning experience I got in the past 6 months has been second to none and well worth it. I took the easy route buying mostly everything from CNC Router Parts and I have been very happy with this over all experience. There were few minor issues along the way, but everything solved rather easily and the support throughout the build was good.
I know they have a video out that makes the overall build much easy to tackle. I wished they had the video or a build WIKI available for reference issues and problem other might have faced during their build when I was building mine.
List of things I purchased for my 4 ft x 8 ft table.
I have also build a vacuum table system to hold down full sized sheets that connects to my dust collection system. I don't use the vacuum alone as its probably may not be sufficient.
Including few pictures I took along the way.
It has been a pleasant journey so far. Still have few minor issues that needs to resolved. Started doing some commissioned work already. If any one in the Westchester, NY area would like to make a visit, don't hesitate. Questions and suggestions are welcomed. Thank You for reading this post.[/QUOTE]
-- Be Bliss. @blisswoodshop on IG


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Enriches the lives of children with chronic medical condition or serious illness by providing life-changing camping experiences that are exciting, fun, and empowering, in a safe and medically-sound environment.
Is this your company? Update or enhance your listings »
Stay connected to what's going on for kids and families in the Triad by signing up for our FREE e-newsletters!


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Apartment Valverda - Ortisei Val Gardena - 111
Via Meisules 7 - 39046 Ortisei - Val Gardena - Alto Adige - +39 0471 786250 - firstname.lastname@example.com
The Apartment Valverda is a wide, light apartment set into a house with the same name in Ortisei Val Gardena.
The quiet positions, few steps from the town center away, is ideal for every kind of holiday, because 300 meters from the house you will already find the cableways of Resciesa and Seceda, which will connect you with the Dolomiti Superski ski resort and the Sella Ronda.
For those who prefer to walk less, there is a skibus stop, just 100 meters away, which you can use for free.
The UNESCO World Natural Heritage "Dolomites" can be discovered by the hiking paths starting only few steps away. The first restaurants, grocery stores, bars etc. are only 200 meters away. You will enjoy the free outdoor parking space and the garage box. Free Wi-Fi available.
A wide common garden, which can be said to be a little park, with green meadows, flowery trees and seating areas with Dolomite view, set under the house, will be the right place for families, to let their children play in safety and freedom, beside the public children playground available less than 100 meters from your apartment.
Pets allowed on request.
Live your dream and choose the Apartment Valverda for your holidays in the Dolomites!


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Meet our Team
Jörgen Gustafsson
Dr Gustafsson has a background in global pharmaceutical industry having worked both in R&D and in business development for Pharmacia and AstraZeneca at managerial level. He also has experience from working with various assignments for SME companies in Med Tech and Pharma for example being the CEO of Respiratorius AB between 2008-2013. He has been involved in numerous start up companies as business advisor and/or board member. Jörgen is a partner in Medvasc as well as the CEO of the company.
Christine Widstrand
Christine is the board representative from LU Holding AB, part owner of MedVASC AB, where she has been employed since 2009. She now has a position as vice CEO responsible for the LIFE Science portfolio.
Christine has over 15 years of experience in research and development and holds a PhD in analytical chemistry from Lund University. Her background as a CEO and founder of several bio-engineering companies has led to more than 20 years in business development, raising venture capital, international sales, licensing and quality management.
Michael Åkesson
Michael is a senior consultant of interventional radiology and has an experience of over twenty years with catheter based treatments and diagnosis. Previously he had the appointment as Head of the Division of Endovascular Surgery at the Vascular Department, University Hospital SUS Malmö. Now he works as a senior consultant at the Scandinavian Venous Centre, Malmö. He is the main owner of MedVASC AB and the inventor behind Solutio. Michael has a long experience in developing and testing new catheters for endovascular techniques. Michael is attached as a researcher to the Department of Clinical Science at the University of Lund. He is the cashier of the Seldinger Society of Vascular and Interventional Radiology and a fellow of CIRSE.
Henrik Nyman
Board member
Henrik is a successful entrepreneur and leader within the medical device industry having run sales and marketing in both startup and multinational companies. Most recently, Henrik co-founded a distributing company within the Nordic region focusing on medical devices and endovascular products in particular. Prior to his startup endeavors, Henrik spent 11 years in different positions across the company's cardiovascular franchise.
Anders Lundell
Dr Lundell is the owner and Operations Manager of Scandinavian Venous Centre, Malmö and Gothenburg, thereby providing the project with patients for the clinical study. Furthermore, with skilled staff and equipment which supports the project in its clinical and scientific implementation.
Johan Wassélius
Interventional radiologist and lecturer who, through his clinical and scientific knowledge, contributes to the scientific implementation.


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The way Bob Burns sees it, farmers stand between heaven and earth. "We feed this society," the Ledyard vegetable farmer said.
The way Bob Burns sees it, farmers stand between heaven and earth.
"We feed this society," the Ledyard vegetable farmer said.
So Burns said he took offense when the Stonington sanitarian approached him last year at that town's market about the 2-ounce cups of wheat grass juice from organic, red winter wheat berries he made fresh at the market.
He said Karen Weiss told him to stop or, alternately, pay a $75 temporary food service vendor permit every two weeks and submit to an inspection.
"Customers think all food out there is inspected," she said, "and that's not the case."
The confrontation over whether a farmer can sell a $3 cup of fresh juice or even give a free sample created a storm that grew to include discussions with local officials, regional politicians and three state agencies.
Ask public health workers what brought about the storm and they'll say the slow shift from farmers markets offering pure produce to a mix that includes food products.
As the farmers market season hits full stride this summer, the issue has moderated somewhat. Weiss has waived the $75 fee for farmers at the Stonington market, and the state Department of Public Health has issued a four-page brochure on food safety guidelines for people selling prepared food products at farmers markets. Both sides remain vigilant, though.
"We cannot have theories about disease come in and infiltrate farmers markets," Burns said. "A farmers market is a farmers market. It's not a food service."
Weiss said: "It's all meant to protect the public health, to prevent people from getting sick."
More than produce
"Farmers markets now, many of them are no longer fresh produce," Tracey Weeks, coordinator of the state's public health food protection program. "They involve food preparation and free samples."
So, where once bundles of lettuce and beets reigned, music, dancing and food preparation — from simple samples to fresh juice — have entered the equation.
"I guess they didn't realize that once they stepped into the food service and food processing areas, that there are, in fact, regulations for safety reasons as to what can be done," Weeks said. "These aren't things that we make up, these are based on national standards for food safety."
That was the issue Weiss felt needed closer examination last summer because Stonington thought there was just a collection of outdoor fruit and produce stands there.
"This is a new scenario," she said. "Now there's eating, there's feeding of people. It's like an outdoor restaurant."
Weiss said vendors are inspected once during the season and only again if necessary.
"It's been a learning experience for both sides of the equation," she said.
Other markets in the region have yet to encounter the issue faced in Stonington last summer.
"None of our members have really gotten into what you might call serving food," said Frank Anastasio, a member of the Northeast Connecticut Farmers' Market Association. "There's a couple of members who might give out free samples, like a tomato."
The association runs five farmers markets each week, with one in Plainfield and two in Danielson and Putnam. Anastasio said any effort to regulate the issue should be statewide.
"It wouldn't be fair for one locality to have rules and regulations for farmers markets where another doesn't," he said.
Just picked
Burns still bristles at the comparisons. The pea, buckwheat and sunflower shoots he sells at the market, he said, are harvested an hour before they're offered to customers.
"My produce has to be perfect," Burns said. "You know, I throw out stuff I could sell. My personal reputation stands on it."
And he does not dispute that the vendor license could apply in certain cases.
"If somebody is selling hot dogs or pizza," Burns said, "then of course these standards apply."
Still, he said he has amassed a group of people who will support his cause if needed.
"We're at war to defend the rights of farmers at farmers markets," he said. "We're building a movement."
Reach Erica Jacobson at 425-4241 or firstname.lastname@example.com


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did jerry go hell ?
LOL! Jason Johnson: Role model he is definitely not, but he does seem to be shaping up to be a better grandfather to Junior than he was a father to Jerry. Nice character development you made there.
make me a grilled cheese sandwich!
Hey Who gave you my baby films
but Im black