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MEXICO CITY – An immigration bill that appears headed for approval in the U.S. Senate has drawn the ire of Mexican officials who claim that the initiative's heavy focus on border security is harmful to the relationship between the two countries.
Foreign Relations Secretary José Meade said that instead of expanding a border fence, as proposed in the bill, the United States should modernize international bridges linking the two countries in order to expedite commerce.
"Fences do not unite," Meade said while reading a statement to reporters during a news conference where he didn't take questions.
"Fences are not the solution to migration and are not consistent with a modern and secure border," Meade added. "They do not contribute to the regional development both countries seek to propel."
It was the first time the Mexican government had publicly addressed current U.S. legislation on immigration reform. But the southern neighbor has weighed in previously on the U.S. legislative process, a move that did not play well with many in Congress who felt Mexico was meddling in domestic affairs.
A respected Mexican columnist and academic, Lorenzo Meyer, said on Mexican radio that in retaliation for the bill, Mexico should kick out of the country the CIA and Defense Department agents helping the fight against drug cartels.
Meyer added, jokingly, that Mexico should also stop allowing American retirees to move to the country.
The U.S. Senate could have a final vote Thursday or Friday on the bill, which could offer a chance at citizenship for millions living in the country illegally while also calling for beefing up border security.
Labeled a "surge" by supporters -- after the 2007 troop deployment to Iraq -- the bill would add nearly 20,000 Border Patrol officers and fund the completion of 700 miles of border fencing and 24-hour surveillance flights by drones.
Even if the Senate approves the bill currently being debated, the U.S. House still has to approve its own version, no easy feat given that conservative Republicans in the majority oppose citizenship for anyone living in the country illegally.
Meade acknowledged the bill might benefit several million Mexican migrants living in the United States, but he said the measure "that could affect ties between communities move away from the principles of shared responsibility and neighborliness."
Meade's statements are the first of their kind from the administration of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who has mostly avoided becoming involved in discussion about the immigration north of the border.
The president's silence has drawn criticism across the country for failing to speak out more forcefully against the bill.
"The passivity and negligence of his government is incomprehensible; it's as if this had nothing to do with him, as if this was not going to seriously affect millions of Mexicans," said Jorge Ramos, news anchor of the Spanish-language network Univision, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Peña Nieto's passivity on the issue may be due in part to the backlash his predecessors received for voicing their opinions on U.S. immigration policy. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox was hit with criticism for conservative U.S. lawmakers when he lobbied Americans to accept immigration reform in 2001.
"Mexico can't say nothing in the face of a reform that includes doubling the number of Border Patrol agents," Jorge Castañeda, Fox's former foreign secretary who now teaches at New York University, told the Los Angeles Times. "It strikes me as shameful."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Kaylee Mulder
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Walt Disney Pictures' Aladdin. Autodesk Maya, Pixologic Zbrush, Adobe Photoshop, Chaosgroup Vray.
Skeleton by Andrew Paquette, Muscles in Nurbs, Autodesk Maya
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Heard a good conspiracy theory lately? Try this one! John Owen Brennan. Do you know who he is? Well, Barack Obama appointed him Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), succeeding General David Petraeus, who fell out of favor with the Administration over his conduct of the war in Afghanistan (He wanted to win!).
Brennan spent 25 years with the CIA, serving the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations. In 1999 he was appointed chief of staff to George Tenet, then Director of the CIA, was later named deputy executive director, and was credited with having originated the now discredited terrorism color alerts. During Christmas 2003, Brennan issued an "Orange Terror Alert," which didn't do much to encourage holiday spending, thus ending his CIA career. Upon leaving government service, Brennan became the CEO of The Analysis Corporation. (Remember that name!)
Now fast forward to the year 2006. A northern Virginia firm, Stanley, Inc., was awarded a $164 million contract to print new U.S. passports. In 2008, two employees of Stanley, Inc., along with a third individual employed by The Analysis Corporation, broke into the US Passport Office on three separate occasions and "improperly accessed" the passport records of presidential hopefuls, Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Sidney McCain, III. It is important to note that the CEO of The Analysis Corporation at the time of the passport office break-in was the same John O. Brennan.The accepted and unchallenged motive for the breach was that the perpetrators were looking for passport and biological data on all three presidential candidates in some sort of "exploratory" mission. However, it is now believed that the searches of the Clinton and McCain files were a cover-up, and that their real quest was for files that could prove embarrassing to candidate Obama; his personal and diplomatic passports, his real birth certificate, his passports from Indonesia, his college transcripts showing a "foreign" student visa, plus all the other oddities that have been discussed, but never produced or proven. The three break-in operatives were summarily fired from their jobs and disappeared into the night before they could be interviewed by investigators working on the case.
What took place next, however, is a bit more reminiscent of the days of the Clinton administration. It was reported that an employee within the U.S. State Department shared the passport information with a man identified as a Lieutenant Quarles Harris Jr.
A month later, the body of Lt. Harris, 24, was found slumped dead inside what was only identified as "blue car" in front of the Judah House Praise Baptist Church in the northeast section of the District of Columbia.
Emergency medics pronounced him dead at the scene. City police said they did not know whether his death was a result of his cooperation with federal investigators, or a drug deal gone bad. His mother said that she suspected the former, but, as usual, a State Department spokeswoman declined to comment, saying only, "The investigation into the passport fraud is ongoing."
Before he was murdered, Lt. Harris told federal investigators that he received "passport information from a co-conspirator who worked for the U.S. Department of State." What became of the "co-conspirator"? Why wasn't he/she brought to trial? Who knows?
"So what?" you may say. Is this significant, or just a coincidence? I have no idea. That's why I call it a conspiracy theory. All we do know is that after a thirteen-hour filibuster by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) and after receiving the most "NO" votes of any previous candidate ever nominated for the position of CIA Director, John Owen Brennan, CEO of the firm that broke into the US Passport Office, and probable recipient of information that could declare Barack H. Obama ineligible to hold the office of the president of the United States, has suddenly been skyrocketed to a position of immense power.Don't forget to Like Freedom Outpost on Facebook, Google Plus, & Twitter. You can also get Freedom Outpost delivered to your Amazon Kindle device here.


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I have a new EP finished and will have it available here soon. For this project, called "Where the Heart Is", I recorded 4 new original songs and a cover of Leonard Cohen's well known song, "Hallelujah". The album has been available at live shows already and will be online here soon. Check out iTunes and other online stores to get it now.
Please explore these pages to hear my original songs, see performance videos, and find out about upcoming live shows. Purchase CDs and Downloads directly from me on the Music page. Read what others are saying on the Press page.
You can also find me on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, ReverbNation, Sonicbids, and Myspace.
Thanks for stopping by,
Live at Arizona State University
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As well as schools we welcome youth and community groups, special interest or sports and overseas groups.
Universities & Colleges
University Departments use our Centres for a variety of reasons. They like the novel and creative learning environments, the close proximity to sites of interest, and the support from SOEC specialist tutors to help with logistics and to safely access the outdoor places you wish to visit.
Activity Weeks
SOEC run an activity week programme that can focus on a range of outcomes and be delivered to any type of group.
Study & Music
SOEC has long welcomed groups who use our Centres as the ideal base for study and music residentials. Orchestras, university field study groups, music groups and language schools are all regular customers of Scottish Outdoor Education Centres.
Field Studies
As sustainable development practitioners at SOEC, we're conscious of the need to enthuse, inspire and motivate young people about the world they live in and depend upon. Please contact us to explore how together, we can create amazing fieldwork for young people.
Groups with Additional Needs
The Staff at SOEC love to work with people. By spending time with many different organisations and people we can understand their specific needs and collaborate to develop exciting new programmes.
Sports groups find that our Centres provide them with excellent opportunities for intensive training or match preparation thanks to large open areas of ground for training and classrooms for indoor sessions.
Music, drama & cultural groups and other visitors from overseas find that our Centres provide the perfect setting for rehearsals, exchanges or event preparation.
Our Clients
Below are just a few of the amazing groups to have visited our Centres:-
- Scottish Young Carers Festival
- Lothian Autistic Society
- Rathbone
- Action for Children
- NCS The Challenge
- Jobs & Business Glasgow
- World Challenge
- Marr Mini Rugby
- Edinburgh University Engineers
- Glasgow University Psychology Dept.
- Aberdeen Wanderers Rugby Football
- West of Scotland Mini Rugby
- Strathclyde Concert Band
- Napier University
- Edinburgh University Musical Society
- African Drum Village
- Junior Orienteering Cup
- Fife Music (no hyperlink available)
- Perth & Kinross Music (no hyperlink available)
- Scottish Borders Music (no hyperlink available)


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Beverage Container Recycling Grant and Payment Programs
Recycling Market Development and Expansion Grants
Note: This program had a sunset date of January 1, 2012. There are no funds available for the Recycling Market Development and Expansion Grant Program.
Assembly Bill 28 (Chapter 753, Statutes of 2003) created the Beverage Container Recycling Market Development and Expansion Grant Program that authorized the Division of Recycling to expend up to $10 million annually until January 1, 2007 to award grants for recycling market development and expansion activities. Assembly Bill 3056 (Chapter 907, Statutes of 2006) extended the Grant Program to January 1, 2012, and increased the funding up to $20 million annually. (Public Resources Code Section 14581 (a)(11)).
To improve the beverage container recycling rate in California and to encourage programs to achieve sustainable containers, packaging materials or systems, the Department sought innovative, but realistic projects that (1) created market opportunities for new, sustainable products or packaging made from recycled beverage container materials; (2) expanded market-related activities for existing products made from recycled beverage container materials; (3) improved the quality and supply of beverage container material feedstock for use in manufacturing sustainable products or packaging; or 4) created market opportunities for new, sustainable beverage packaging.
Projects that were eligible for funding under the program, as specified in statute, included:
- Research and development of collecting, sorting, processing, cleaning, or otherwise upgrading the market value of recycled beverage containers.
- Identification, development, and expansion of markets for recycled beverage containers. Research and development for products manufactured using recycled beverage containers.
- Research and development to provide high-quality materials that were substantially free of contamination.
- Payment to California manufacturers who recycle beverage containers that are marked by resin type identification codes "3", "4", "5", "6", or "7" pursuant to Section 18015 of the Public Resources Code.
- Solicitation, April 3, 2008
- Questions and Answers, April 15, 2008
- Award Notice, Nov. 18, 2008
- Phase I--Concept Notice, July 1, 2008
- Sample Terms and Conditions
- Full Proposal (Completed by applicants whose concepts received a
"pass" score in the concept phase.)
- Attachment A--Cover Page, April 3, 2008
- Exhibit 1--Project Budget, April 3, 2008
- Exhibit 2--Project Schedule, April 3, 2008
- Exhibit 3--Project Estimated Impacts, April 3, 2008
- Exhibit 4--Supporting Documents, April 3, 2008
- Market Analysis for Recycled Beverage Container Materials (2009 Update) February 24, 2010
Beverage Container Recycling Grants, http://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/BevContainer/Grants/
Contacts: https://www.calrecycle.ca.gov/BevContainer/Contacts


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From Vikram:
Over the course of my summer at the Transgender Law Center (TLC), I had the opportunity to hear from 152 members of the transgender community, and their friends, allies and advocates. In these conversations, I was able to answer their legal questions, point them to the resources they needed and assist them navigate legal and administrative systems to ensure that the state recognized their lived experiences. In addition, I was able to work on major priorities for TLC such as accessibility to transition-related healthcare for low-income transgender individuals and combating the pervasive employment discrimination against California's transgender communities. Along the way, I have learned a great deal about a developing area of law and the major policy and political challenges facing the transgender community. The summer was an invaluable learning experience and a springboard to a career in the LGBT movement.


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CALGARY - Syncrude Canada Ltd., the consortium that runs one of Alberta's oldest and biggest oilsands mines, is about to get a new boss.
Canadian Oil Sands Ltd., the largest Syncrude owner with a 37 per cent interest, says Mark Ward has been appointed as Syncrude CEO, effective April 1.
He will replace Scott Sullivan, who's returning to U.S. energy giant ExxonMobil.
Most recently, Ward oversaw ExxonMobil operations in Nigeria.
Under a management services agreement, ExxonMobil and its Canadian subsidiary, Imperial Oil Ltd. (TSX:IMO), are in charge of operations at Syncrude, north of Fort McMurray Alta.
Other Syncrude owners include Suncor Energy Inc. (TSX:SU), Sinopec, CNOOC, Murphy Oil and Mocal Energy.


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Get Cameron Diaz's Sexy LegsBy Teddy BassExercise for Women, Fat Loss, Fitness & Exercise, Healthy Living, Sculpted Body, Strength Training, Teddy Bass, Tone Body, Toned Muscles, Toning, Weight Exercises, Women's FitnessWith 0 comments
In her movie Bad Teacher, Cameron Diaz makes being bad look so good. Talk about rocking the short shorts! Here are three exercises that will get your stems in Hollywood shape. For an extra challenge, I like to add a squeezable ball (in the Fall, keep a lookout for my own line of exercise balls) to my workouts. Check out these moves when you watch the video.


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Mohammed AlBalushi
Mohammed AlBalushi Poems
- How Beautiful Is How beautiful is the Belief, when we belief ...
- A Letter A letter with pigeon I will send A letter with two ...
- A Tree On The Other Side Of Th... A tree on the other side...
- Mother The Biggest Gift Of All... Mother the biggest ...
- Blue Sky Blue Sky, White Stars Me And You Catching ...
- Dream I had a dream, a dream of you You and Me in far ...
- Don't Think That I Will Die Wi... Don't think that I ...
I am not a poet, i feel some thing and i change it to words, hope my reafers wil enjoye it.I too write in arabic.
I am 38 years old from Muscat-Oman, BSc from UK, working in Royal Court, married, I got 3 lovely kids.
If any one like to contact me on my personal e.mail, he or she most welcome (email@example.com)
wish all the best, nice day more »
Click here to add this poet to your My Favorite Poets.
Comments about Mohammed AlBalushi
How Beautiful Is
How beautiful is the Belief, when we belief in the God
How beautiful are the Creatures, when we belief in the Creator
How beautiful is the Motherhood, when we belief in the Sacrifices
How beautiful is the Fatherhood, when we belief in the Battles
How beautiful is the Childhood, when we belief in the Innocence
How beautiful is the Dream, when we belief in the Ambition
How beautiful is the Contentment, when we belief in the Simplicity
How beautiful is the Life, when we belief in the dead
How beautiful is the Love, when we belief in the Care
How beautiful is the ...
PoemHunter.com Updates
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Footsteps of Angels
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The second half of a back to back in the early NBA regular season grind is always tough. That's doubly the case when the exact same team trots out against you the second night. Fortunately for Portland in this case that team was the thoroughly sloppy and marginally prepared Sacramento Kings. Keyed by a monumental performance on the offensive glass (41% ORR led by Robin Lopez's 6 caroms) Portland cruised out to a 20 point lead. Sacramento cut it to 6 late in the game when the Blazer offense became lazy and stagnant while DeMarcus Cousins racked up points, but Wesley Matthews and LaMarcus Aldridge were on hand to see out the win without too much trouble.
On the shotmaking side, the aforementioned pair were the clear heroes, as each topped 20 points. The Kings had no answer for Aldridge in the first half, and Matthews keyed the run in the third quarter where the Blazers put the game away. This wasn't a vintage offensive performance, but Portland did enough on a night when Damian Lillard couldn't even beat Jimmer Fredette on a pick and roll.
Defensively, while DeMarcus Cousins put up an efficient 35, the Blazers did an excellent job forcing the other Kings into contested jump shots and hoovering up the rebounds (80% DRR). The Kings seemed to struggle to generate any flow in their offense when unable to easily find Cousins in the low block, which is I suppose a natural consequence of paying John Salmons and Marcus Thornton way too much money. In the end this was a drab contest, and far from an advertisement for the NBA regular season, but the Blazers won it primarily on the glass by being more organized and slightly more interested in grabbing the ball than the Kings. Which is not exactly an accomplishment, but it's a win either way.


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President of Diverse CTI, Josh has over 10 years of experience in telecommunications and IT services. An expert in the industry he is a Registered Communications Distribution Designer, a certification he has held with BICSI since 2004. Josh consults various national companies and speaks at several national events and conferences. Find out more about Josh.
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Learn more here!
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What does being a Kerrits Ambassador mean to you? Being a Kerrits Ambassador means that I will have an opportunity of a lifetime to help out a company I truly adore. To have this connection with Kerrits would make me very proud as a rider to showcase your brand. I feel like this experience would give me a true understanding of what it is like to be a part of the Kerrits family.
What are your passions as a rider and ambassador? My passions as a rider are to spread the love of horses and show throughout college in hunter/jumper to become the best rider I can possibly be. My passions as an ambassador are to spread the news about my favorite equestrian company to make people aware of the Kerrits brand.
What is your connection to Kerrits? A couple girls at the barn I ride at told me I absolutely had to try Kerrits breeches. My two favorite pairs of breeches are the Kerrits Ice Fil grey breeches and the periwinkle/black riding tights. I sometimes get overheated in riding in hot weather, so the Ice Fils really help me stay cool and do my best during the hot summer days. I also tend to get overly cold and numb in the winter, so the Kerrits winter headbands help keep me nice and toasty. I look forward to exploring what more this brand has to offer.


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The Silver Beaver Award was established by the National Council, Boy Scouts of America, in 1931. This award is the highest honor a local council can present to a volunteer leader. It is made for noteworthy service of exceptional character to youth in the local council. A council is permitted to recognize one leader for every 60 chartered Scout units (or portion thereof) annually.
Please note that completed nomination forms are due October 31 of each year. Individuals submitting a nomination are required to use the national form available at the link above. Please note that multiple nominations of the same individual are discouraged, but multiple letters of recommendation attached to one nomination are encouraged. Nominations should be presented in a professional manner: typed, and with complete information for all areas.
Signatures of the "Silver Beaver Award Committee Chair" and "Scout Executive" will be secured by office staff upon confirmation of recipients of those nominated.
Silver Beaver Awards will be given at the Council Annual Dinner.
For questions related to the Silver Beaver nomination and selection process, please contact CeCe Bowden.


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Mason Wright Staff
Eileen Drumm Moore, MS
Executive Director
Eileen has joined Mason Wright as Executive Director after spending a year commuting more than 70 miles each way to Sweetwood of Williamstown Retirement Community, where she served as their Executive Director.
Previously, Eileen served as the president of the Greater Chicopee Chamber of Commerce and as the Director of Marketing and Community Relations for a senior living community in Westfield, MA that provided independent living, assisted living and memory care support. Prior to entering the Senior Living arena, Eileen worked in hospice care for several years as a chaplain, Coordinator of Bereavement & Volunteer Services and as a Hospice Service Representative.
Eileen is a Frances Perkins Scholar graduate of Mount Holyoke College , where she earned her Bachelor's Degree in Religious studies. She went on to receive her Masters Degree in Nonprofit Management from AIC (American International College).
Nicole Burns, MSW
Director of Admissions & Marketing
Nicole Burns, MSW, joined Mason Wright Senior Living as Director of Admissions & Marketing in February 2017. Nicole has a Master's Degree in Social Work and has worked in many different healthcare settings, including community health centers, veterans' hospitals, long term care and sub-acute care. Prior to joining the Mason Wright team, Nicole worked in medical sales selling to acute care hospitals. After taking some time off to raise her three children, Nicole felt compelled to work with the senior population once again and decided to bring her gifts, experience and passion to the Mason Wright team!
Ruby Pessima, LPN
Resident Care Director
Ruby joined Mason Wright with 15 years of nursing experience, which, along with being a Health & Wellness Manager, includes skilled nursing and Hospice care.Prior to joining the Mason Wright team, Ruby worked, locally, at Chapin Center Skilled Nursing & Rehab as a floor nurse. She has been part of the Mason Wright Team for 8yrs and has a passion for helping others and that never gets old. Ruby's door is always open if you need to know more about what services our Health & Wellness Department can offer.
Deb Peavey, LMHC, ATR
Life Enrichment Director
Deb comes to Mason Wright after serving, initially, as Life Enrichment Coordinator then as Resident Services Director at the Lathrop Communities, an affiliate of the Quaker-based Kendal Corporation. A registered art therapist and licensed mental health counselor, she has found her true calling working with seniors in the life enrichment field.
While completing her Masters degree research on the benefits of art therapy for memory impaired elders in assisted living facilities, Deb worked at Hebrew Health Care in West Hartford, CT, where she not only gained comprehensive experience in programming for the memory impaired, but also conducted a highly productive art therapy program for residents. Prior to joining the Lathrop Communities, Deb earned her license as a mental health counselor (LMHC) while working at River Valley Counseling Center, an outpatient mental health agency based in Chicopee and Holyoke, MA, where she worked both inside schools and on an outreach basis to provide cognitive behavioral therapy, traditional mental health therapies, and art therapy.
Bringing life-enriching programming to elders to keep them as engaged and independent as possible, for as long as possible, is a goal she feels passionately about.
Janine Kent
Finance Director
Janine joined Mason Wright as their newly-established, Corporate Finance Director earlier this year. Janine's career began in public accounting, preparing taxes and performing audits, where she was exposed to multiple industries. As her career progressed, this exposure allowed her to gain an in-depth knowledge of businesses and their operations.
Prior to Mason Wright, Janine served as the CFO, for an insurance agency in West Hartford, CT, where she was responsible for all areas of the business. Previously, Janine worked for Colfax Corporation, and assisted with their initial public offering.
Janine is a graduate of Western New England University where she earned both her MBA and her Bachelor's Degree in Accounting. Janine was on the Dean's list during each of the semesters she attended WNU. Janine resides in Hampden, MA with her husband and two sons, and loves being a babcia to her granddaughter!
Alan T. Popp, M.S.
Chief Executive Officer
Mason Wright Foundation
413-733-1517 x2011
Alan joined Mason Wright in 2008 when the Foundation trustees created the position of Chief Executive Officer. His previous experience includes Head of School/CEO at White Mountain School, a college preparatory school; and Chief Operating Officer at Pine River Institute, a residential treatment center. He has also served as a consultant to more than 200 New England nonprofits, many of them providers of services to seniors, and as a caregiver to a mother-in-law with Alzheimer's.
He serves on the boards of LeadingAge/Massachusetts, Salvation Army-Citadel Corps, the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County, OnBoard, Inc., and on the Leadership Council of the Alzheimer's Association of Massachusetts/New Hampshire. He also serves as a trustee of Antioch University New England and is a member of the Rotary Club of Springfield. Previously he served on the campaign cabinet for the United Way of Pioneer Valley.


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Articles and success stories
Pipedrive – an Estonian company in Shaq O'Neal's investment portfolio
The Estonian company, Pipedrive, has developed valued customer management software, which provides wise and practical help to any salesman. Recently, the Silicon Valley technology guru, Vivek Ranadive, and the former star basketball player, Shaquille O'Neal, invested in the company.
Pipedrive is another example of a successful Estonian start-up which has the potential to conquer the world. Founded in 2010 without much fuss (or advertising), it has managed to stand out in the vast ocean of customer relations management (CRM) tools, where each "drop" claims to be the best in the world.
The facts speak for themselves: the company has almost 10,000 paying customers (and 50,000 users) in over a hundred countries. It makes millions of euros in sales revenue, while claiming that everything – even the product itself – is still in the early phase of development.
One of the founders of Pipedrive, Urmas Purde, says that, typically for many remarkable inventions, the idea for the product grew out of the frustration of the founders themselves. Purde and Timo Rein worked as trainers and salesmen with one of the most famous Estonian training gurus, Peep Vain.
"We had to manage the sales of our own training sessions. We had invested a lot of money in three different CRMs in a row but none of them were suitable for sales people. We asked ourselves, how we could fail with customer management software three times in a row. And we were still keeping an overview of our sales activity as post-its on the wall," says Purde.
Five years ago, while giving a training session to a start-up company, Purde was sketching some principles of sales pipeline management on a whiteboard when someone from the audience asked: isn't there software for that? The idea was born and the group of founders – Rein, Purde, Ragnar Sass, Martin Henk and Martin Tajur – came together to develop Pipedrive. The first seed money came from Peep Vain.
Why is Pipedrive such a high-flyer? Whereas most customer management software is meant for supervisors and focuses on providing them with an objective overview of sales activity and the working sales people only tick boxes in each stage, Pipedrive has kind of turned it upside down: it starts from the needs of the sales person who is working on developing customer relations. It aims to provide feedback on the effectiveness of sales activity in the "sales-pipe". This new logic quickly won over the first users, who started to use the product's beta-version in autumn 2010. The following spring the company was established enough to start charging its customers.
Pipedrive helps sales people to maintain focus. Purde explains that sales involve many external impulses and demands: email, meetings, calls and requests from supervisors and colleagues. It is therefore difficult to keep up the pace of work.
"Doesn't this sound familiar: you work like crazy for a week, making loads of calls, sending tons of emails, but you do not achieve what you set out to do? Pipedrive is here to help. It gives you a clear answer on what you have to do in order to get the best results. What is holding your money up? You maintain the pace and do the right things at the right time," Purde explains.
Pipedrive has generally received positive media reviews and feedback from clients. Customers include those who have never used customer management software before and have used Excel, notepaper etc, and those who have experience with Salesforce, for example.
Pipedrive can be used to sell anything, from advertising and trucks to journalism. The company targets both small and large customers, and most have found the products without any advertising. They just heard about it from other users. The product sells itself. It may be ironic that Pipedrive, a company selling sales software, has no sales team of its own. Purde says a third of the company's customers come from Europe, a third from the US and a third from the rest of the world.
In order to use Pipedrive, it does not matter whether a sales company has five or five thousand staff, Purde says. At first the company thought of focussing on bigger customers who made tempting offers to help the company fine-tune the product to their needs. But the founders of Pipedrive stayed true to themselves, believing that this was not the way to reach the masses.
Starting a start-up often provides many lessons. Purde says that they have not just learned a lesson about celebrating success. Estonians are modest in this regard.
When the first customers came on board, they thought this was not a cause to celebrate. Customers began to pay for the service and they still did not think it was worth shouting about. The number of customers grew to ten, then a hundred and then a thousand. It was only with the thousandth client that the founders celebrated in a restaurant. The second big celebration was the opening of the new office in Tallinn.
Pipedrive has now attracted nearly USD3.5 million in investments, including support from two business angels of the Estonian start-up community, former Skype employees Ott Kaukver and Taavet Hinrikus. The company is a graduate of the AngelPad incubator.
Last autumn, without much attention, the former NBA superstar, Shaquille O'Neal, and his multimillionaire business partner, Vivek Ranadivé, invested in Pipedrive. "They were the ones who called us, looking for a partner to serve a couple of customers," Purde says. "We met and seemed to understand each other. The proposal to invest came from Vivek. We understood that we had a lot to learn from him, especially with regard to building a company like an organisation. If we want everyone to use Pipedrive in the future, we have to integrate with many systems. And this is exactly Vivek's speciality."
Whereas the charismatic basketballer O'Neal may be a more familiar name, Ranadivé is no less colourful a character. Growing up in a small village in India, he built up the successful stock-exchange listed IT-services company TIBCO. Ranadivé also "wired up" Wall Street in the 1980s. Since last year, Ranadivé and O'Neal have been the owners of the Sacramento Kings basketball team.
Pipedrive continues to grow and is about to reach puberty. Now it needs to be clever in order to allow the inner life of the company, customer relations and the office side to grow in parallel.
Currently, nearly 40 people work in the two offices of Pipedrive in Tallinn and Silicon Valley.
Purde says: "We are going to reach a 10 million annual revenue run-rate by the end of this year or the beginning of the next. Some smart guys say things get a bit easier as a management team grows with the company. Until then, as is normal for start-ups, we have to deal with all questions fast and at the same time. We have to maintain focus and not get tired."
Source: Life in Estonia magazine
French household goods retail chain cooperating with Estonian companies
by Maarit Koobas, Enterprise Estonia
GIFI is a French household goods retail chain with a turnover of € 900 million. The company was founded 32 years ago when Philippe Ginestet opened his first shop in Villeneuve-sur-Lot in the south-west of France. Due to customers' big demand a second store was opened a few weeks later. Today, the number of stores reaches 405 - 377 of them are located in France, in addition there are shops in Morocco, Italy, and Spain. 70% of the company's goods are acquired from Asia and 30% from Europe. European suppliers include France, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Italy, the Netherlands and now also Estonian companies.
The cooperation project of GIFI and Estonian companies started when Estonian ambassador met with Philippe Ginestet, the President of Gifi Group, who was interested to find out whether he can find products that are suitable for the profile of his goods in Estonia. While the company acquires its goods generally from big fairs in China and Germany, Estonia represented for them, so to speak, a special project — as they wished to test if such a state-based cooperation would be possible and effective in the first place.
GIFI business model requires that 80% of goods should cost less than 5 euros in shops. Thus, on the one hand, they were looking for products with a cost price about 1-2 euros, but at the same time they were very interested in expanding the assortment of their goods and also in products with higher price. As to products acquired from Estonia, however, the most important criterion was not a favorable price, but companies had to have previous export experience.
In October 2012, Estonian Ambassador to France turned to the Enterprise Estonia (EAS) to find Estonian producers of commodity groups proposed by GIFI who might be interested in selling their products in the GIFI chain stores.
In June 2013, 8 companies chosen by EAS went to France to visit GIFI stores and meet individually purchasing managers of respective commodity groups. In September 2013, under the leadership of EAS, GIFI, in turn, visited Estonian companies and made the final choice of the companies for cooperation there. At the moment goods are supplied from two Estonian companies: Wendre and Mivar-Viva.
Marianne Lehodey, purchasing manager of GIFI interior design goods said that Estonian companies are so far among the strongest and best suppliers of blankets. Until now Wendre has been supplying circa 4000 - 5000 blankets per month to GIFI.
Jane Jaakson, account manager at Wendre said that they hope to expand the range of products sold to GIFI in the fall, during the high season. She added that so far, their cooperation had been smooth.
Estonia: Big Lessons From A Small Country
At the 2014 State of the Province dinner held in Fredericton January 30, New Brunswick Premier David Alward announced the creation of the Brilliant Labs project. Funded by both the government and private sectors, it will provide grants to students and teachers so they can create projects through coding, robotics, and the arts. The plan is to stimulate creativity in schools and to grow entrepreneurship in the province, he said.
The program builds on a previous project. Coding Kids is a pilot project that teaches computer programming to students across the province and is led by David Alston, CMO of Introhive.
The Brilliant Labs project is a smart first step. It will put some badly needed money in the hands of both teachers and students, and it will start to prepare students for the future.
But it is just that – a first step. New Brunswick needs more than just this one project if we are going to stem our economic decline and turn the province around. We need a change in culture and we should be looking towards a tiny Baltic nation for inspiration.
Estonia is home to just 1.3 million people yet it is considered a world leader in the use of technology. Internet access is considered a human right, the country enjoys one of the world's fastest broadband speeds, and medical records are stored online. People pay for parking spaces via their cell phones, file their taxes in less than five minutes online, and register businesses through a government website.
Computer programming – a basic skill in this new age – is taught alongside math and history and children as young as seven are being introduced to the basics thanks to a program called ProgeTiiger or Programming Tiger.
Huh. Children in the first grade are being taught to create games and to write computer code. Hmmm…
Last December, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who once lived in Vancouver, BC, spoke with CNN's Isa Soares. He credited the country's success with starting from nothing. Quoting from the interview:
"We did, in the 1990s, look around us and see a lot of things that we needed to do in the world," he said. "We were behind in many areas. When it came to IT… we were starting more or less at the same base as everyone else. We started with a tabula rasa, a clean slate," he told CNN.
Estonia now generates one per cent of its Gross Domestic Product from IT solutions, Ilves said.
All of this success adds up to three advantages for Estonia – a civil service that is lean and agile saving taxpayers money; citizens who have the tools needed to take advantage of a robust economy; and a business climate that attracts and fosters investment and growth.
Consider a small sample of the data. In 2013, 19,166 new businesses were created in the country, a three per cent increase over 2012, according to data released by Estonia Statistics and published in Baltic Business News. And 2200 of those businesses were self-employed. Tehnopol, a business hub in the capital city Tallinn, has more than 150 tech companies.
Still not convinced? Consider this accomplishment. Estonian programmers developed Skype, the internet-telephone that is now used by corporations worldwide. In 2005, it was sold to eBay for $2.6-billion.
In New Brunswick, it is a different world as presented in two publications. Last year, the province's unemployment rate was 9.7 per cent, as published in the Labour Force Survey December 2013 by Statistics Canada.
And in November, the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council, a think-tank dedicated to studying the region's economics, released its annual report. The APEC does not have much good news. New Brunswick's real GDP growth is expected to grow by 0.9 per cent in 2014 and we don't have any major projects scheduled for the year.
Estonia? The country's economy is predicted to grow by three per cent in 2014, better than both Germany and France.
None of these ideas changed Estonia over night; it took a decade of solid change before the country began to see success and the drive towards prosperity is still happening in the Baltic nation.
And change will not happen in New Brunswick overnight. It will take time and effort by politicians, teachers, and citizens.
But East Coast people are no strangers to hard work. In the past, we built the province from a rural economy to a world leader in shipbuilding and other technologies. We can have it again. We only need to answer one question.
Do we want success?
Source: http://wickedideas.ca/p/nbimpact/estonia-big-lessons-from-a-small-country/
Lampserve - Internet based on light
Värska Vesi establishes subsidiary and opens foreign representation in Shenyang, China
The representation began operating at the start of this year, the company announced. The first 60,000 litres of Värska Originaal mineral water arrived in China on 31 December. Jiang Tao was named managing director of the representation. The company hopes to significantly increase its export volumes with the help of the representation.
The company's turnover in 2012 was 6.1 million euros and net profit 1.3 million euros. 10.8 per cent of sales revenue came from export. The company's biggest export market is Latvia.
Below is a short interview with the company's CEO, Urmas Jõgeva.
Why did you choose China as the location for your foreign representation?
Our partner in China used to import mineral water. We met at a trade fair in China in 2010. We then sent them samples. They liked our Värska Originaal and Värska Joogivesi mineral waters. The interest was mutual. The Chinese market is big and growing.
How much time and money did you invest in the opening of the new representation?
We took the first steps two-and-a-half years ago. I don't know the exact amount of the investment at the moment.
How much do you expect your exports to grow this year?
We don't export much to countries outside the European Union. According to our forecasts, exports should increase to 25%.
What are the quantities of the products you will send from Estonia to China in 2014?
We've dispatched the first four shipping containers. Now, a lot depends on how the goods are received by the end consumers. Asia has historically not been a big consumer of mineral water, but that trend's changing. We plan to sell six shipping containers per month at first, but we're ready to supply larger quantities if necessary.
How tough is competition in the mineral water segment on the Chinese market and what do you see as your competitive advantages?
We do have competitors there. There are local bottled products that are cheaper than imported water. However, their quality is not the best. The imported water sold in China is expensive, even more expensive than in Europe. Almost all of the brands known around the world are sold in China. Our partner and managing director have a lot of experience selling soft drinks. The lower price and higher quality of our products are our competitive advantages. Both sides are interested in the project and there are local specialists on our team who know the market.
Are you planning to open other foreign representations in the future?
We're not planning any more at the moment.
Do the Chinese like the products of Värska Vesi products?
We've held some tasting sessions there and the feedback has always been positive. The Chinese visited us with their
Webpage: http://varskavesi.ee/en/
Source: http://arileht.delfi.ee/news/uudised/varska-vesi-asutas-hiinas-tutarettevotte.d?id=67582204


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Hartford Public High School teacher Pat Russell allowed two sections of her senior philosophy class to discuss issues of race last week. The students, black and Latino, exchanged stories, opinions and insights.
Madeline Sebastian, 17, was describing what happened when she went to a downtown bank to cash her check from her job at Travelers Corp. A white security guard stopped her and said, "Excuse me, the welfare line is over there."


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Strap in, get ready to start your engines and see where it all began.
From an early age, Declan Reede's only goal was to race in the ProV8 Championship Series. One thing he couldn't anticipate was that a blistering kiss shared with his best friend, Alyssa Dawson, might derail his plans.
Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance
Release Date: 27th August 2015
Cover Artist: Soxsationalcoverart
Principal photography by: NSP Studios
Cover models: Ashleigh Johnson and Jarah Armstrong.
Michelle Irwin has been many things in her life: a hobbit taking a precious item to a fiery mountain; a young child stepping through the back of a wardrobe into another land; the last human stranded not-quite-alone in space three million years in the future; a young girl willing to fight for the love of a vampire; and a time-travelling madman in a box. She achieved all of these feats and many more through her voracious reading habit. Eventually, so much reading had to have an effect and the cast of characters inside her mind took over and spilled out onto the page.
Michelle lives in sunny Queensland in the land down under with her surprisingly patient husband and ever-intriguing daughter, carving out precious moments of writing and reading time around her accounts-based day job. A lover of love and overcoming the odds, she primarily writes paranormal and fantasy romance.


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The double helix nebula. The spots are infrared-luminous stars, mostly red giants and red supergiants. Many other stars are present in this region, but are too dim to appear even in this sensitive infrared image.
The double helix nebula appears on the right side of the reddish inset image; the larger-field greenish image is a shorter-wavelength infrared image made recently with the IRAC camera on the Spitzer Space Telescope by Susan Stolovy and her colleagues. The spots are infrared-luminous stars, mostly red giants and red supergiants. Many other stars are present in this region, but are too dim to appear even in this sensitive infrared image.
Astronomers report an unprecedented elongated double helix nebula near the center of our Milky Way galaxy, using observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The part of the nebula the astronomers observed stretches 80 light years in length. The research is published March 16 in the journal Nature.
"We see two intertwining strands wrapped around each other as in a DNA molecule," said Mark Morris, a UCLA professor of physics and astronomy, and lead author. "Nobody has ever seen anything like that before in the cosmic realm. Most nebulae are either spiral galaxies full of stars or formless amorphous conglomerations of dust and gas — space weather. What we see indicates a high degree of order."
The double helix nebula is approximately 300 light years from the enormous black hole at the center of the Milky Way. (The Earth is more than 25,000 light years from the black hole at the galactic center.)
Originally posted by neonine
beautiful picture a1ex, can any one say DNA, its amazing how we can find depictions of organic life millions of miles away
Originally posted by Johnmike
I don't see what indicates order there.
While organic compounds have been discovered in meteorites that have landed on Earth, this is the first direct evidence for the presence of complex, important biogenic compounds in space. So far evidence suggests that PANHs are formed in the winds of dying stars and spread all over interstellar space.
"This stuff contains the building blocks of life, and now we can say they're abundant in space," Hudgins said. "And wherever there's a planet out there, we know that these things are going to be raining down on it. It did here and it does elsewhere."
Originally posted by Orwells Ghost
We may finally be emerging from a gravitational dark age.
Originally posted by damajikninja
Isnt that spiffy?
Originally posted by interestedalways
Originally posted by damajikninja
Isnt that spiffy?
Spiffy and Wow, great choice of words. I like the way you think!!!
Honest words.
It will be interesting to see where this takes you. It is always fun when a subject can open up wider upon it's discussion.


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The ISE: Hardware overview
ISEs, as mentioned in the previous section, provide a carrier-grade scale-out high-performance storage infrastructure, with a five- to seven-year operating lifespan, and provide 2 to 10 times the performance of alternatives, at 30-70% of the total cost of ownership of those alternatives.
The ISE achieves that kind of scale and performance by focusing on the effective interoperation of hardware and software, in concert with one another. The basis of the ISE performance and reliability lies in its proprietary, patented hardware design.
The ISE 3 rack-unit (3U) chassis is designed to shield the storage media from environmental anomalies, and to eliminate adverse environmental factors that are introduced by the storage media themselves. Sensors monitor all aspects of the chassis' environment, and custom-engineered cooling systems pull (rather than push) air from the cold aisle through the unit. This produces a unique operating profile: the ISE is whisper-quiet (relative to conventionally-integrated storage arrays) and the temperature differential, front to back, is typically less than 8 degrees Celsius: far cooler than conventional storage arrays.
Managed reliability controllers
The Managed Reliability Controllers (MRCs) are based on current-generation, multicore, Intel low-power processors, and include hardware RAID cores. They run in precisely-synchronized tandem, as a truly active-active pair, during ISE operation. All data within the ISE is available to either controller at any time for reading or writing. This synchronized tandem operation means that the loss of one MRC during operation will have no appreciable effect on the performance or capacity of the ISE. It enables MRCs to be hot-upgraded, in operation, without taking the ISE offline. Each MRC:
- Provides the storage fabric connectivity for the ISE—up to four 8 Gbps Fibre Channel connections per MRC (for a maximum of 64 Gbps of connectivity per ISE)—and two 10/40 Gbps Ethernet connections per MRC for iSCSI (for a maximum of 160 Gbps per ISE).
- Manages the ISE DataPacs and their constituent media, while using a proprietary on-controller software stack (discussed in detail in the next section) that (a) joins the DataPacs together into a single logical pool, (b) spreads data across the entirety of the constituent media in the DataPacs for optimal performance and data protection, while (c) retaining a portion of each DataPac and each disk as online spare capacity. MRCs also manage the staging and online installation of media-level firmware updates.
- Monitors the operation of each storage medium within each DataPac, as well as the telemetry from the chassis' sensor arrays, at the sub-second level. They also collect operational telemetry for reporting and detect environmental conditions, soft and hard faults, and operational anomalies that indicate failing media, requiring the attention of the ISE in-situ remanufacturing services.
- When required, takes portions of single media offline (without disruption or loss of data access) for in-situ remanufacturing and restoration (discussed in detail in the next section), without disrupting operation, and while preserving the rated capacity and performance of the ISE.
- Hosts the ISE CorteX REST web services, integrating each ISE into the CorteX service pool and allowing all ISEs to be interrogated via a single connection to any one ISE within the service pool.
- Transmits summary and detailed (near-real-time) operating telemetry to X-IO for customer service purposes.
The DataPacs
The storage media themselves—whether all enterprise-grade SAS hard disk drives (HDDs) or a mix of hard disk drives and enterprise-grade solid-state drives (SSDs)—are fitted with custom X-IO firmware that provides the ISE with low-level control over the internal components of each media device.
These media are mounted in custom, sensor-laden carriers called DataPacs, which:
- Eliminate the effects of vibration introduced by the media's electromechanical operations
- Pack drives closely together for density improvements
- Organize the drives for optimal airflow and cooling
- Enable low-level access to each media device's power and data lines, for low-level internal control of the media device.
DataPacs alone improve the reliability of storage media by 2 to 3 orders of magnitude.
DataPacs act, within the ISE, as multi-spindle "superdrives" that the ISE can treat as a single storage unit, while relying on the DataPacs to manage the components of that storage unit—the individual media—as granular units of storage within the superdrive. ISEs use 100% of the performance and capacity of each storage medium within the DataPac in unique and sophisticated ways, to contribute to the performance and capacity of the superdrive, as required by the performance and capacity rating of the ISE itself. Currently, ISE DataPacs are configured either in all-HDD models or in hybrid HDD/SSD models, and they provide between 6 to 48 TB of raw capacity for the ISE.
The DataPacs and their constituent media are managed by the dual, active-active managed reliability controllers (MRCs), located in the rear center of each ISE.
Power and cooling
Redundant power and cooling units, based upon a proprietary design featuring aeronautic-grade blower designs, sit in the rear of each ISE, consuming only 700 watts of power at maximum load, and shedding a similarly small heat load, while powering and cooling the chassis and all of its components.
Protecting data that is taken into cache but not yet written to the DataPacs is an essential feature in any well-designed storage array. In traditional storage arrays, lead-acid batteries are used to supply enough power to move cached data to disk. Over time, these batteries lose their capacity to hold a charge and must be replaced, which often leads to array downtime.
Instead of using batteries, the ISE uses supercapacitor arrays, located in the front of the unit. These supercapacitor arrays store sufficient power to guarantee orderly shutdown of the unit in the event of a power loss—with no cache corruption or data loss. Supercapacitors do not harm the environment, and are not susceptible to degradation like lead-acid batteries, and will last for the life of the ISE without the need for replacement.


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I've discovered a great way not only to use less energy in food preparation, but to serve tastier and more nutritious meals at the same' time! It's great-grandma's nonelectric version of the modern Crock-Pot: the haybox cooker.
My family first used this once-popular pioneer cooking method about two years ago, and we've been haybox cooking fans ever since! Here's how we went about it:
We began by building a sturdy, attractive, nearly airtight box out of tongue-and-groove knotty pine. The crate measures 30" x 30" x 30", and has a snug-fitting hinged lid. (You might already have a reasonably sound trunk or lidded box that will serve the same purpose.)
Next we glued heavy paper to the container's inside surface (overlapping the edges of this insulating layer to cover any cracks or open spaces) ... selected fresh, fine hay (coarse or clover hay won't do) ... packed the box about three-quarters full ... and hollowed out a large enough "nest" to hold our two-and-a-half-quart, cast-iron Dutch oven. (We chose such a heavy metal utensil because we knew it would retain heat well.)
Finally, we made a pillow casing out of strong fabric and stuffed the sack with hay until it was large enough to fill the rest of the space in the box.
When using the haybox method (as when preparing food with other slow cookers), you start the evening meal in the morning ... while the following day's breakfast is begun at night.
The necessary initial cooking time (use your stove or whatever heat source is handy) will vary, depending on the type of food you prepare. Just make sure that the dish you want to cook is boiling briskly when it's transferred from the flame to the hay box. And remember ... you can use less liquid than you'd normally need for a given recipe, since you won't have to allow for evaporation.
(Unfortunately, I can't provide you with any absolute rules on how to time your meals, since the amount of haybox cooking needed will depend on the length of the preliminary boiling and upon how tightly the hay is packed around the kettle. If you've done the insulating job well, the haybox will hold usable heat for up to eight hours.)
Should a meal have to be postponed for a short while, it will make little difference in the quality, taste, or temperature of the food ... because a dish in a haybox oven won't burn, overcook, or dry out. (You will, of course, need to use common sense about the length of time you allow food to remain in the box beyond the meal's cooking time ... as you would with food left in any cooling oven.)
Naturally, foods won't get crisp when prepared with this type of cooking ... but any recipe that calls for boiling, simmering, steaming, or roasting will often taste better— hot from the haybox— than it would with regular stove preparation ... and you'll save heat energy in the bargain!
I have been using one Haybox cooker, prepared by villagers of Srikakulam, with the help of volunteers of AID (association of India's Developement). It works quite well. Detailed AID report of Haybox benifits : http://aidindia.org/main/content/view/787/279/
I can add some help to the time needed to cook meals in a haybox of other thermal cooker. I've been collecting information and recipes on such methods and posting them here: http://thermalcooker.wordpress.com/category/thermal-cookers/haybox/
Whether you want to learn how to grow and raise your own food, build your own root cellar, or create a green dream home, come out and learn everything you need to know — and then some!LEARN MORE
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Earlier this year I was asked to speak at the Brighton Digital Marketing Festival and host the content session during the afternoon.
After some consideration on what to speak about, I came up with the concept of 'The Content Cycle' – a process that helps marketers ensure they have a really good content strategy in place.
The Content Cycle as a concept is based on the way we work with clients and construct digital marketing campaigns. However, the process can easily be applied specifically to the subject of online content.
This can be used as a process for your whole content strategy, or you can apply it to individual campaigns.
What is the Content Cycle?
Put simply, The Content Cycle is:
- A way of helping to plan and implement your content strategy.
- A way of making you focus on objectives and audiences.
- A way of reporting fully on your content production and help to justify the ROI.
The process is visually represented in the image below.
Each of the different stages has distinct and important functions as part of the process, which must all be used.
The discovery phase is really your 'investigation' stage. It ensures you have all of your content fundamentals in place. This stage helps to guide your content strategy and future campaigns.
Technically, it's outside of the cycle itself, but is just as important as any of the other phases. In many cases you may carry out this discovery phase just once. That said, it's worth reviewing regularly or even conducting from scratch if you are going to apply this process to a one-off campaign.
The key areas for you to look at during this discovery phase include:
- Content audit. Audit your current content and build a S.W.O.T analysis. Consider areas such as technical limitations, structure of content, internal and external resources, user metrics, and competitor activity.
- Audience personas. Build personas for your various audience groups (if you have more than one). Who are they and why would they want to view (and share) your content?
- Popular content and opportunities. Use Google Analytics to review popular and unpopular content, plus tools such as Social Crawlytics to see what content is popular from social shares. Reviewing your internal site search, if you have one, can also provide clues as to what information or content people are searching for.
- Identify internal experts. Who are the experts in your business that could help provide content? Can they write content for you or even be interviewed?
- Repurpose content. Have a hunt around for any old content that's not online (company brochures, photos that have not been uploaded, magazine articles etc.) then review if it could be repurposed on your website.
Once this stage is completed, then you will have a great handle on your current content and you are in a position to move onto the next phase.
Planning and setup
Now you've got a good base of knowledge about your current content situation, then this next stage aims to ensure that your content strategy or campaigns are well thought-out and have purpose.
The important areas for consideration include:
- The customer journey. What does your customer journey look like and how should your content best fit this? For example, consider which type of content is great for awareness and which type is better for conversion.
- Objectives and KPIs. Simply put, this focuses you on why you're producing the content (objectives) and how you are going to measure its performance (KPIs).
- Tools for ideas. Which tools do you have at your disposal to help generate a wide-range of content ideas? Tools can include alerts, such as Talkwalker, topic trend trackers, such as BuzzSumo, and social tools, such as Topsy.
- Briefs. Ensure that you always produce detailed briefs for your content producers so they know exactly what you want produced. This includes elements such as the intended audience, dependencies, deadlines, objectives, keywords, and calls-to-action.
- Responsibilities. If there is a team of people working on the content campaigns then you need to make sure everyone is aware of their roles and responsibilities. If you have a larger team, then pick and choose the people who have the best skills for the specific task.
- Environments, Think about your content and how it is going to be viewed. Will people be viewing it on a mobile device (or, in the future, even Google Glass or on a 'smartwatch')?
Having solid planning in place before you start producing content will help to maximise efficiencies and also the potential ROI of that content.
Execution is the actual 'doing' stage. It's when you get a chance to now produce your content and promote it.
For execution, it's important to consider areas such as:
- Basic content optimisation. Make sure your content is search friendly. Despite Google's algorithm changes, it's vital that your content can be found easily, recognised for its relevance and that users can read it. Make sure you check things such as H1s and H2s, image usage and alt tags, structure, readability, tone of voice, grammar and spelling.
- Content marketing or promotion – Consider all of the options you have available to promote your content. These may alter depending on the type of content and its objectives, however can include outreach and PR, paid advertising (PPC, display or social ads), social seeding and bookmarking, forums, email.
- Influencers vs brand advocates – Influencers can be really useful for helping to promote your content, however don't forget about your brand advocates too. These are your loyal customers who have an affinity to your business and therefore are likely to share it.
- Make it shareable – If you're going to the trouble of creating great content, then make sure that your users can share it easily. Ensure you have active social sharing buttons visible on your site and that they are optimised correctly to provide the right support for the shared links (correct page titles, relevant thumbnails and good descriptions).
Getting the content 'right' is important, but equally important is how you are able to promote this in order to give it the best chance of visibility to the right audiences.
Reporting, analysis and insight
So you've started producing your content now and are getting it out there, but is it working?
This stage is for analysing and reporting on what has happened as a result of your content campaigns and can include elements such as:
Content tagging. Tagging the URLs before they are promoted means that at this stage you can better report on the activity you did.
Use Google UTM tags on your content URLs, ensuring you correctly label the source, medium and campaign name. Then check your results within the 'Campaigns' section of Google Analytics.
- Metrics. Contrary to what some people think, the performance of content can be measured. There are a number of metrics to consider, including links (who is linking to your content?), reach (the number of 'eyeballs' that have seen your content), social reach, brand mentions and sentiment, Google Analytics metrics (traffic, time on site, etc.), conversions and assisted conversions.
- Reporting tools. For each of the metrics above there are a wide range of tools that can be used, including Open Site Explorer and Majestic SEO (links), Google Webmaster Tools and tracking pixels (reach), Social Crawlytics and SharedCount (social reach), Social Mention or Brandwatch (brand or sentiment measurement).
This is the final stage and is vital in order to complete the cycle. At this stage, you take a look back at your content campaigns or strategy and review it, asking questions such as:
- What worked?
- What didn't work?
- Did it meet your objectives?
Another useful thing to help refine your content is to gain feedback on your content from the people who you are producing it for – your audience. Look at your comments under articles, plus directly ask people via your social media channels.
You are bound to get the extremes of people saying they either 'love it' or 'hate it', but filter through this and you should find some gems of useful feedback.
Taking this information, you then combine it with the results from the reporting phase, then feedback this learning into either the execution phase, if only minor amends are required, or back into the planning phase if you need to start again with a different approach.
The cycle is complete
The Content Cycle is a simple process that can be adopted by any business, big or small, to help ensure that they are producing online content that reaches their digital objectives.
It's vital that each of the phases are given equal attention, as they are all required to make the process work effectively.
Implementing it is a sure-fire way to not only improve the efficiency of content production, but also to prove that content can most certainly deliver ROI for your business.
To find out more about The Content Cycle then you can view the full presentation from the Brighton Digital Marketing Festival.
Comments (7)
This is a solid write, Mr. David. I'd say it's about time someone formalized the "Content Cycle," with a name and procedure.
"[Making] sure your content is search friendly," is an often overlooked tactic after spending weeks creating.
Keep up the nice work,
Evan VanDerwerker
Also in regards to tools BrightEdge does a fantastic job of aggregating all of your GA, GWMT and page insights data in to one place so that you can create promotion strategies around your most successful content : )
This article has helped me to understand the importance of creating relevant content for the audience of my company and i have to start from the scratch, very helpful. Loved all the tools for monitoring and reporting :)
It's interesting that a process that can be described so simply still seems to cause difficulties with implementation. I often find that developing a content strategy with a client reveals a lack of clarity in who they are marketing to, the buying process customers go through, and the pain-points, needs, objectives and potential barriers to purchase that they have.
Developing a content strategy and publishing cycle like the one you describe generally has a wider-reaching healthy impact on the business.
This is a great post David, thanks for sharing. It compliments a recent post of mine about content scheduling rules such as 411, or 80/20 or even the rule of thirds.
The content cycle helps i the development and refine of content - of course, the most crucial element in content marketing.
Hi David, to keep you updated on our product: Talkwalker Alerts are now also available on HootSuite! To try it out yourself, simply install the Talkwalker Alerts app on HootSuite to monitor and share content the fastest way in one single platform. More info at http://bit.ly/1aW01hb - let me know how it works for you :)


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Alex Jones Warns of "Orgy of Mass Murder"
Blog ››› ››› CHRIS BROWN
Richard Andrew Poplawski was convinced in early 2009 that America was secretly controlled by a Jewish cabal that was moving fast to eradicate free speech and use the military to enslave the American people. Naturally, federal agents and law enforcement officers would first have to seize all privately owned firearms, he believed.
According to the Anti-Defamation League Alex Jones' website Infowars.com was among Poplawski's "favorite" venues for conspriracy theories:
One of Poplawski's favorite places for such conspiracy theories was the Web site of the right-wing conspiracy radio talk show host Alex Jones. Poplawski visited the site, Infowars, frequently, shared links to it with others, and sometimes even posted to it. One of his frustrations with the site, though, was that it didn't focus enough on the nefarious roles played by Jews in all these conspiracies. "For being such huge players in the endgame," he observed in a March 29, 2009 posting to Infowars, "too many 'infowarriors' are surprisingly unfamiliar with the Zionists." Another time he was more hopeful, noting that "racial awareness is on the rise among the young white population." *
Less than a week later, Poplawski ambushed and shot to death three Pittsburgh police officers who responded to a domestic disturbance call at his residence.
One might think that such a tragic outcome would give Alex Jones pause before he started another round of promoting his wild-eyed theories about the U.S. government coming to take our guns.
Alas, Jones is up to his old tricks. A "bunch of Hitlers," he says, are running the country, and they're just itching to douse us with Ebola and nerve gas.
In an August 1, 2011, video posted on PrisonPlanet.com, Alex Jones states:
I have confirmed through two Texas gun dealers and through someone in my office that when you buy two rifles, and by the way it's in this letter, or two handguns, revolver or pistol, that you get an ATF or FBI visit to your house. And they demand to come in your home and see your guns without a warrant. It's a chilling effect, it's intimidation, just like in Nazi Germany.
The system does not want armed citizens, they want to set a precedent. And as our country goes into designed banker depression, as we implode, they are coming after our guns.
The system is having the police and military start a fight where they know gun-owning constitutionalists are not going to along with it. They are going to start responding as things degenerate. And they are going to be called terrorists. The system, the social engineers, are sending the ATF and the Feds on a collision course with law abiding patriotic Americans so they can kick off a civil war in America.
During an August 2 segment of the Alex Jones Show, he suggested the so-called "Super Congress" proposal of the recent debt-ceiling deal, which Jones labeled the Council of 13, was a vehicle to advance gun control (among other nefarious plots). Jones also labeled the debt-ceiling deal "treason," claiming it signals the transition of the Congress to a "dictatorship." Jones has hosted Gun Owners Of America executive director and former militia movement leader Larry Pratt twice in the last thirty days most recently going over the perceived threat of the super congress proposal.
In a later segment on August 2 Jones responds to a caller suggesting he was scared to death about what the future holds for his children telling him: "We're just approaching the event horizon of the orgy of mass murder and death." Growing increasingly agitated, Jones started screaming about how the government has "robot helicopters with airborne Ebola and nerve gas waiting in spray quadrants to kill everybody. That's who runs America. OK? Total psychopathic, 110-percent mack daddy murderers!"
Jones also posted a piece on his website titled "Super Congress To Target Second Amendment" in which he states that "it represents another final nail in the coffin of the American Republic and its replacement with an executive dictatorship run by the political elite."
He also reprinted a Gun Owners of America bulletin that states that the super congress would be "a super highway for gun control legislation."
*This post has been edited since originally published.
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- Justice & Civil Liberties, Guns
- Show/Publication
- The Alex Jones Show
- Stories/Interests
- Guns
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"I'll bet you a million dollars your dad's not a nurse."
Belinda didn't know how to respond to the girl she'd just met in her new school. "Then you owe me, because he is. That's why the Army moved us here."
"Men can't be nurses," Kelly stated as if she knew what she was talking about. "You mean he's a doctor." Kelly's friends snickered and bobbed their ponytails in agreement.
"I know the difference," Belinda said. "My dad's a nurse. He just finished college for it." It had been kind of boring at Daddy's ceremony, but everyone clapped when he stood up to speak. Mommy said it was because he got such good grades and everyone was proud of him.
Belinda was proud of him too. Her dad was smart, and handsome, and fun to be with. And he was definitely a nurse.
"You're a liar," Kelly said. "I'm going to tell Mrs. Reardon." She turned and stalked off, her troupe of friends in pastel skirts following closely.
"Okay." Belinda went back to doing pullovers on the bar like she'd learned in gymnastics.
Obviously, Kelly was not going to be a friend. Belinda didn't bother with stupid people.
Today's Squirrel was inspired by a conversation I had on the playground more than 25 years ago about my own father, who is retiring from the Navy nurse corps next month. I've had the good fortune to meet many male nurses over the years. They are nothing like the stereotypes perpetuated by the little bit of popular culture that even bothers to consider the possibility. Even the TV show Heroes–which I applauded for having a main character who was a male nurse that wasn't gay, creepy, effeminate, or evil–buckled to social mores and brought Peter back as an EMT in later seasons.
I challenge you to question your own ideas about "men's work". No one blinks twice at female doctors, engineers, or police officers anymore, but in the so-called "caring professions" where women are the majority, men still have a long way to go to gain social acceptance.
Thanks for reading!
[tweetmeme source="Gwen_Hernandez" only_single=false]


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SOURCE: PrintingHouse Press
February 06, 2013 08:00 ET
NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire - February 06, 2013) - PrintingHouse Press, a premier provider of appellate printing and litigation support services, launched a new web portal encompassing all New York State Court of Appeals' briefs filed for the 2012 term and beyond. The PHP-NYSCA Brief Repository is designed to provide the legal community with universal online access to a searchable archive of New York State Court of Appeals' briefs. Access to the portal is open to all attorneys as well as support staff at law firms and corporate legal departments and is offered free of charge.
The PHP-NYSCA Brief Repository is live at PrintingHouse Press' website (www.phpny.com) and can be accessed with online registration. The portal features a two-level search function, in which briefs can be searched for by full or partial caption/case name. All briefs are hyperlinked, bookmarked and fully text searchable. In addition, users have the option to either view briefs in a display window or download the pdfs, as well as compose notes on each brief, and keep track of their search history. "The PHP-NYSCA Brief Repository is the proverbial 'tip of the iceberg' on the appellate landscape rising before us", comments Roy G. Nelson, Managing Clerk of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and a published author on the "Electronic Court Environment". "This is a meaningful tool to be included in every appellate practitioner's 'litigation arsenal' that will undoubtedly be developed further by PrintingHouse Press' talented team to offer user applications beyond the scope of the company's well-known appellate printing services," further comments Mr. Nelson.
PrintingHouse Press will maintain the PHP-NYSCA Brief Repository as a permanent archive for all future briefs filed with the New York State Court of Appeals. "We have always strived to provide high value services to the legal community while embracing the latest technological advances. Now that we have built on our already strong relationship with the New York State Court of Appeals, we are pleased to offer this new tool to legal professionals," states John Farrell, President of PrintingHouse Press.
PrintingHouse Press has been the East Coast's leading appellate printer for over forty years, providing the legal community with unparalleled appellate printing and litigation support services. The in-house paralegals and appellate consultants are renowned for their knowledge and familiarity with the rules and internal operating procedures within all State Courts, the thirteen Federal Circuit Courts and the United States Supreme Court. For further information regarding the PHP-NYSCA Brief Repository or PrintingHouse Press' services, please call 212-719-0990 or visit www.phpny.com.
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Mike Baur, ScanSource, Inc. CEO, shares the ScanSource story in celebration of the Company's 20th anniversary and first-ever joint Partner Conference. He also provides insight into strategies for growth and new opportunities for reseller partners, while also taking a look at trends in the industry. Baur looks forward to What's Next, sharing several ScanSource, Inc. announcements of new programs and services.
Watch on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un3mrHb0Nv8Learn more about this topic at scansourcecatalyst.com >Learn more about this topic at scansourcecommunications.com >Learn more about this topic at scansource.com >Learn more about this topic at scansourcesecurity.com >


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Sampler Platter: Make a bacon lamp, meet the White House Crustmaster, testing Campbell's Soup's noodles claim
November 9, 2009 | 4:19 pm
--Meet White House pastry chef Bill Yosses, a.k.a. the Crustmaster. CBS4 Denver-- Elina Shatkin
--Restaurant groups unhappy about health-care bill. Nation's Restaurant News
--"Emeril Live" may return to TV -- but not on the Food Network. ABC Action News
--The 10 most beloved and unhealthy gaming snacks. Topless Robot
--100 things restaurant staffers should never do: Part 1 and Part 2. New York Times
--Campbell's claims every can of chicken noodle soup has 32 feet of noodles. KING5
--Who would Jacques Pepin most like to cook naked with? Nigella Lawson. Gastrobuzz
--Original Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce recipe found. Daily Mail
--How to make a bacon lamp. Oddity Central
--Diners plan to spend 20% less on restaurant meals. Bloomberg
Photo: Jacques Pepin's dream date, Nigella Lawson. Credit: Tina Fineberg / For The Times


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Red Norfolk puppies available now.
Portuguese puppies due to be born around 10 August.
We are looking for local pet homes for both Norfolk and Portuguese Water dog stud dogs. Local being Selby, Castleford, Pontefract, Goole, North Doncaster areas.
About Belleville Show Kennels
Cathy Thompson-Morgan has owned Norfolk terriers since the late 1980's as pets.
She enjoyed them so much that she decided she would like to breed from her pets. Having reared her first litter in the early '90s, and being a responsible person, Cathy thought that she should know more about them prior to breeding another litter.
After some research into the breed she joined the Norfolk Terrier Club and attended shows and most importantly talked to experienced breeders and investigated pedigrees. The result was a Champion in her second litter, Ch Belleville Cloudscape. Cloudscape went on to produce Ch Belleville Cloudvoyager who is behind all future Belleville Champions except for his mother and siblings.
The Belleville affix was registered with The Kennel Club in 1994 after the name of the house in which Cathy lived at the time.
To date Cathy has won over 300 CC's, made up 42 Norfolk Terrier Champions, 12 Norwich Terrier Champions and 3 Portuguese Water Dog Champions. Others have become champions overseas.
Four different Belleville Norfolks have won 6 Groups between them and a Reserve Best in Show at All Breed Championship Shows in the UK. Several others have won Group Placings.
The Norfolk Ch Belleville Sweet Nothings won Group 2 at Crufts in 2004 having also been Best of Breed and Best Puppy in Breed at Crufts in 2003. Her father Ch Belleville Smart Alec was BOB at Crufts in 2002 and her son Ch Belleville Rumour Nothing did it in 2008. Smart Alec's Great Grandson, Ch Belleville Burning Passion was BOB at Crufts in 2012 with his sire Ch Belleville Blacklace reserve. In 2013 his half sister Ch Belleville Honey Nut Crunch was BOB and in both 2014 and 2015 his son Ch Belleville Seduction was BOB.
In September 2008 Portuguese Water Dogs were added to the kennel. Ch Hooligan Meia Noite at Belleville was imported from Arja Koskelo in Finland. By the famous Int Ch Smooth Da Pedra Da Anixa she produced Ch Belleville Anjo De Noite using fresh semen from Finland, Anjo De Noite produced Belleville Anjo Negro and his sister Asas De Anjo, both have 2 CC's. Anjo Negro was Top Working puppy in the UK in 2016 and 2nd Top All Breeds. In 2014 two more Hooligan PWD were imported from Finland, This time by "Mr G" Int Ch Aquafortis Energiser. Ch Hooligan Song for Belleville became the youngest ever UK PWD champion at just 16 months old in 2015.
On a more personal note, Cathy met Ed Morgan in 1999 and they married in April 2002 and have a daughter. In 2007 Cathy Thompson-Morgan became a member of the Kennel Club and In July 2008 became a Kennel Club Assured Breeder. She has been awarded The "Assured Breeder Accolade of Excellence" by the General Committee of the Kennel Club. There werre only a dozen Breeders to have been awarded this accolade up to November 2009.


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