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Engaging the intellect and imagination from the height of childhood to young adulthood.
The journey through the Middle School continues to form students into confident and self-directed learners, ready for high school and beyond. Learning activities combine security with challenge. Playful exploration (both inside and outside of school walls) with rigorous expectation. A wide range of experience with a depth of inquiry.
This is why in fourth and fifth grade students devote three afternoons a week to a hands-on STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) program. Why sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students work together in academic teams. Why seventh and eighth grade students must complete eight academic exhibitions as a part of a graduation requirement. And why all Middle School students participate in a high volume reading program. This is just the start.
We want students to make connections across disciplines. So we have developed an integrated curriculum. A social studies unit on World War II and the Holocaust will also include a study of literature. Through the laptop program, Middle School students are taught the responsible use of technology. Research, writing, presentations, data collection, and analysis move to a new level with the aid of the latest software.
Service learning punctuates these years. Students experience the relationship between leadership and service by working with a reading buddy in the lower school. Guiding younger students at park time. Or leading a school-wide service project for a part of the world impacted by natural disaster.
Our faculty team supports students and their families through the high school application process. When the time comes for students to move on to high school, they're ready. We bid them farewell through tears of joy and sorrow. But they'll always be a part of the extended Mustard Seed family.
Academic Exhibitions: The Graduation Requirement
During seventh and eighth grade, the final big test at Mustard Seed School consists of a series of eight academic exhibitions. Students complete four exhibitions during each of these years. The eight domains of the exhibitions consist of visual arts, music, leadership and service, language and literature, history, science, mathematics, and an area of choice. Students must pass all eight exhibitions in order to graduate. For each academic exhibition, a student must
- address a significant academic domain and perform a demanding and relevant task.
- write a formal essay.
- deliver a public presentation for an audience that ranges from a small group of five to a large group of nearly a hundred peers and adults.
Through the exhibitions, students demonstrate the readiness and competence that they will need for many of life's demands, including high school level work. This is no small task. As students present and defend their work, they experience a test that is tangible, interactive, and consequential. And every year students surprise themselves by what they are able to do.


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Burns are a massive global problem that affect over 11 million people each year – the equivalent of 30,000 people burned every day. 95% of burn injuries occur in poor countries and over 70% affect children, causing enormous suffering, death and lifelong disability.
Tragically, a huge number of burn injuries lead to death and disability from infection, burn contractures and other complications that can be avoided through safe, cheap and effective treatments such as early skin grafting. In thousands of health facilities across the world, burn patients endure extreme suffering and distress. The long-term consequences of inadequate or inappropriate treatment are disastrous, leading to a lifetime of disability, disfigurement and exclusion.
Burns affect the poorest and most vulnerable members of society in low income countries. The high cost of treating burn injuries and the lifelong disability and disfigurement that often result from a burn can force a patient and their family deeper into poverty. The majority of burns occur in isolated and rural areas, where patients are often treated by staff that lack any training in burn care. This treatment is frequently delayed, inappropriate and inadequate. Patient follow up is problematic and rehabilitation services are often negligible or non-existent.
Despite these challenges, much of the suffering, death and disability that burn injuries cause can be prevented. Interburns works with local partners in Asia and Africa to achieve long-term and sustainable improvements in the standard of burn care and prevention.

subset: commoncrawl


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Story: Gotta Give Us a Yardstick to Measure the Meaning of What Happens
I read an editorial in yesterday's NY Times about mounting opposition to McDonald's Happy Meals, and I was struck how, by reframing the argument, McDonald's CEO completely shifted the meaning of the story – as far as he was concerned, anyway. First, the facts: 1. There are 640 calories in a standard Happy Meal, more than half the U.S.D.A. daily allowance for a sedentary child aged 4 to 8, as well as about half the allotment of fat.
2. McDonald's markets to little kids, who don't know a calorie from a cantaloupe, and covet the toy that comes with the meal as much as all that irresistible sugar and fat.
3. There is external pressure on McDonald's to curb Happy Meals calorie count and how they're marketed.
So how did McDonald's handle it? No way they could argue that all that fat and sugar is good for kids. Or even that it's the parents' own damn fault for taking them to McDonald's in the first place (after all, no good comes from alienating the designated driver, especially if she's the one picking up the tab).
So instead McDonald's CEO Jim Skinner sidestepped the issue altogether, accusing those calling for changes in Happy Meals of seeking "to deprive families of choice."
And in doing so he handed us another yardstick by which to measure the meaning of the anti-Happy Meals movement. A yardstick that casts the "food police," as he calls them, as bullies targeting families. Yikes! Hey, he's hoping we'll say, no one tells me what to do. It's my choice. That's what made America great, aren't we the land of the free and the home of the brave for gosh darn sakes alive?
Same event, different meaning. In life as in literature, it's point of view that determines the meaning we assign to the facts.
But wait, did you see my yardstick? The one I stuck in the sand in the beginning by saying that the CEO had reframed the story . . . as far as he was concerned, anyway? The subtext of which neatly translates to: geez, something that blatant wouldn't even fool an average sedentary 4 to 8 year-old.
The point is, all stories have a yardstick up front -- it's something we're wired to expect. They clue us into the meaning, weight and shape of what's to follow. So that we can . . . follow that is!


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5 Real Skills All Project Managers Need
Firstly, let's get one thing clear, calling these skills 'soft' is a complete misnomer, as they are the hardest things to develop and change.
American leadership author Seth Godin recently made a plea for us to call them real skills, 'Real because they work, because they're at the heart of what we need to today.'
It doesn't really matter what we call them, however, for any individual to be successful in any role, it's critical that they ask for feedback on what they do well and what could be done better, then continually work hard at them.
In the case of project management the feedback received will almost certainly always be on these real skills. In fact, in a recent ProjectNPS analysis that we undertook for a client, we found that only 1% of feedback was on the 'technical' expertise required to be a project manager – the methods and processes.
There was no feedback at all requesting:
- Improved PRINCE2 knowledge and application
- More regular GANTT charts
- Greater detail around the use of templates
- More meetings (although the need for them to be better managed made it onto the list)
- More detailed project meeting minutes.
Almost all – 99% – of the feedback (good and bad) centred on the personal traits displayed by the individual. And yet, these are the skills that organisations never invest in when they are looking for an improvement in their project management people.
Instead, they're sent on courses where they are required to answer a multiple choice questionnaire to attain a certificate on theoretical knowledge.
Imagine how powerful that certificate could be if that person had to change a behaviour? Imagine how it would make the individual feel, knowing that with some deliberate practice and willpower, they were able to change a habit formed over a number of years?
Maybe this is why, according to McKinsey, leadership development programs consistently fail. Organisations place too much emphasis on simply completing a course rather than ensuring that individuals have the self-awareness to understand what needs to be fixed, before committing to and then demonstrating personal change. Almost $7bn a year is spent on leadership programs in the US alone, yet it continues to be the number one challenge facing organisations.
As Abraham Maslow once said 'Self-knowledge and self-improvement is very difficult for most people. It usually requires great courage and a long struggle.'
If the appalling success rates of projects are to improve we have to start investing in programs that give project managers practical insight into how to change, in order that they can make the choice to change and become leaders. These are the skills that set great project managers apart from everyone else and ensure that their services are always retained.
These are the top five real skills project managers need to be successful:
1. Empathy
The ability to see things from someone else's perspective takes effort. It starts with working on our self-awareness and being open to our own emotions in order to help others open up too. Time spent getting to know the people you work with and for is never wasted – knowing their triggers, any cultural sensitivities or even which sports team they have been rooting for over the weekend will help you build genuine relationships and give you the tools to provide an empathetic response when the chips are down.
2. Variable communication
Different personalities require different communication approaches, so it's little wonder that emails go unread or that by being direct with someone they may get emotional. Great project leaders are able to tailor their communications and their style to whomever they are conversing with. Once learned, this is a life skill that is never lost
3. Humour
Dame Judi Dench once said 'I think you should take your job seriously, but not yourself - that is the best combination' and, of course, she's right. Everyone has a sense of humour, so project managers need to understand how and when to use this in order to keep motivation and productivity high. Humour can take many forms and must be in line with the team culture that has been created
4. Listening
It is often the things that aren't said that have the biggest effect on the work being done. In order to be able to hear these, project managers need to practice active listening. Sense what's being implied rather than said, consider how it's being delivered and process that against what's known about the individual (see 1. Empathy) before responding. Putting a device down, turning away from the screen and giving someone complete attention is the best way to find out what's actually going on
5. Flexibility
In our rush to make everything 'agile' it's important to remember that a flexible mindset is key to its success. In her book Mindset, Carol Dweck calls this having a Growth Mindset. One that is open to possibility and difference of approach and opinion. The waterfall approach isn't making projects unsuccessful, it's project managers with fixed mindsets that is. That's also what's holding a more agile approach back too!
The ability to be a role model for transformative change is a challenge that all project managers should take on. To do this, we need to fully understand what it means to lead and create great teams, then continually change the approach until we hit the sweet spot.
Organisations have been investing in project management programs that haven't worked for the last 20 years. My two-day Conscious Project Leader program focuses only on the things that make a real and lasting difference to how you deliver. I measure leadership performance before the program and then again three months after, to make sure that the learnings have been applied.
I'd love to work with you - wherever you are in the world! - and help you transform the way that you deliver projects forever, so please get in touch to arrange a time for us to talk further.
To get insights like these, exclusive content and links you'll love sign up to my dapper fortnightly newsletter Pocket Square here
BONUS 2 Free Ebooks when you subscribe: How To Hire Great Project Managers and How Are You Measuring Your Project Managers?


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(23 weeks)I sit here feeling you kick and turn in my tummy and it takes the lonely feeling of being in this little apartment by myself away. Which I am extremely grateful for. The past few weeks have been really difficult for me, and having pregnancy hormones does not help at all! Two weeks ago I accidentally spilled water all over the mac book your daddy let me get less than a year ago. Its costing lots and lots of money to fix. I cried for three days because I was so mad at myself for being so careless. Then just a few days ago I was driving and something felt weird... I was not sure what it was, and i foolishly kept driving on it for a couple of days. Once daddy got in and started driving he knew right away we had a flat tire. And yes, it was completely flat. A screw went straight through and because I kept driving on the tire, it was not reparable. Our car is all wheel drive, so if one tire gets replaced, they ALL get replaced. And 600 dollars later we now have what we could have had without spending hardly anything if I had just stopped driving it. And for the first time I felt scared... scared that you were on your way and I wasn't ready to take care of you. If I cant take care of a computer and a car how am I supposed to take care of a baby?
I have had dreams my whole life of the kind of mother I want to be and I am scared I won't be able to be that mommy I have dreamed my whole life of being. So I have started praying. Praying that I will be able to raise you well and that you will always know you are loved. I already feel like I don't deserve you and your sweet spirit. So I am trying harder to be a better person, to be the mom that you deserve to have. I am trying harder to keep the house clean, to be kind to those around me, to bring the spirit into our home, and so much more.
If anything, one thing I do know is that your daddy does deserve you. He works so much and so hard to be able to provide for our family. Last night he kept talking and singing to you while we laid in bed. We told you about the holidays and how much you will love them. He then asked me whether I thought you were going to be a daddy's girl or a mamma's girl, and I told him both... but secretly I know you will be a daddy's girl. He is the best!
It's getting awfully chilly outside so I hope you stay warm inside my tummy till March. We are so excited to hold you baby! We love you so much.


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Manga artists are supposed to have their face buried in a drawing easel, not shining from the cover of pop culture zines. Then again, Okazaki Kyoko isn't the type to live by someone else's rules.
Born December 13th, 1963 in the bohemian Tokyo suburb of Shimokitazawa, a teenage Okazaki muscled past the mainstream to make room for comics written by and for young women at a time when female artists had lost their voice. Later in her career critics praised her ability to juggle heavy social issues ranging from consumerism to celebrity worship to homosexuality. But the people who knew her best loved her not for what she wrote, but for the way she wrote it.
The other weekend I attended a talk show featuring Okazaki's closest friends, former assistant Anno Moyoko and contemporary Sakurazawa Erica. Okazaki matters to them because she's real. Her dialog sounds the way people actually talk. Her characters deal with problems that polite society could never understand. Most of all, Okazaki is true to herself.
Anno laughed about how Okazaki never fusses over small things, like having food in the studio. The assistants were left to fend for themselves. Sakurazawa joked that Okazaki's lipstick is always a bit smudged. This carefree attitude spread to the page--eraser crumbs stuck to screen tone, loopy lines applied in a flash with the same lack of care as her makeup.
When other artists stressed over deadlines Okazaki partied at the club. You know, for research. London Nite, the legendary new wave event at Shinjuku's Tsubaki House, served as the backdrop for the semi-autobiographical Tokyo Girl's Bravo. Music was a huge part of her life and she wrote what she knew. In Pink, when the boyfriend Haru "writes" a best-selling novel by copy and pasting lines from other books, the inspiration is more hip-hop sampling than the Beat Generation's cut-up method.
Maybe she got away it because she wasn't writing for traditional manga anthologies. She got her start in Pump (see top image), a zine of reader-submitted material that ran her high school doodles and short essays. After graduation she wrote a short one-shot, Girls At Our Best, for subculture magazine Tokyo Otona Club where she caught the eye of two editors, Ogata Katsuhiro and Otsuka Eiji, who brought her on board their magazine, Manga Burikko, in 1982.
Contemporary girl's comics had lost their edge and Okazaki represented something raw. Otsuka describes her in retrospect as the successor to the Year 24 Group, the loosely-knit collective of women writers from the 70s who matured the genre.
The publication was somewhere between an underground comic and mainstream serial, the stories a hodge-podge of fantasy, sci-fi, surreal comedy and pornography aimed at an audience that self-identified as lolicon--that is, guys in love with demure anime girls. So Okazaki stood out as the real thought pervert. She presented the slice of life that readers wanted to escape from. Otsuka later claimed that he kept her on as a reality check--Okazaki and the other women authors acted as a mirror that shot the male gaze back at the reader.
Regardless of the reasoning, the scheme worked. Manga Burikko developed a strong female fan base that included the original anti-idol, Togawa Jun. (Though why high school girls wanted to read porno manga intended for guys is another matter.)
Sakurazawa sent Okazaki a fan letter that opened the door for their friendship and a chance to join the publication's girl squad alongside Shirakura Yumi, Otsuka's future wife. Anno, the youngest of the three, read the magazine in junior high and later became Okazaki's assistant.
Their output--along with that of those they inspired--gave women's comics, better known as josei manga, a foothold in the market. Ironically this progressive genre exists thanks to lolicon manga that media watchdogs can't wait to stomp out. Trash culture makes the best fertilizer.
Okazaki continued to write in publications normally allergic to manga including baby boomer bible Heibon Punch as well as fashion magazines Moga, Me-Twin and Anan. She leveraged the college girl porn boom to titillate readers with scandalous stories of co-ed life in vending machine skin rags with names like Grand Eros, Love Cream and Collector.
Her mainstream break came in 1989 when street fashion style guide Cutie serialized Rock, a fly-on-the-wall account of hip and promiscuous club kids. Next thing you know she's interviewing techno-pop act Shi-Shonen for TECHII and Pizzicato Five in Takarajima, two magazines on the bleeding edge of cool. When Helter Skelter, her attack on the fashion industry hit in 1995, she was hailed as the voice of her generation--a voice that would soon be silenced.
The following May Okazaki was struck by a drunk driver. Everything after the accident is fuzzy. She suffered severe head injuries and was comatose for several months. She stayed on a breathing machine even after regaining consciousness. Her editors made hospital visits and hinted in their columns at her slow recovery.
In 2012 a wheelchair-bound Okazaki snuck into to a concert by Ozawa Kenji, ex-guitarist for Flipper's Guitar, a frontrunner of the Shibuya-kei movement. Her surprise appearance made Ozawa cry. Knowing that Okazaki will likely never pick up the pen again makes me want to join him.
When Sakurazawa saw Okazaki at the July 2012 premier for the live-action adaptation of Helter Skelter, she wrote in her blog that Okazaki couldn't give her opinion of the film. Is it because she was tired? Or because she never regained her speech after the tracheotomy? When the talk event moderator brought up the accident Sakurazawa fell silent to hold back the tears. We, the readers, will never know the things Okazaki's inner circle knows.
Sakurazawa and Anno spoke of Okazaki in the present tense like she was a part of their lives. But the rest of us can only remember Okazaki for her stories in the past tense. It's the same reason I've put off reading the entire bibliography of Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson or Ray Bradbury. Closing the page of that last book will be like closing the lid of a coffin.
Though she'd probably hate to hear something so morbid. It would be more Okazaki's style to think of her the same way her friends do--as energetic, carefree and smiling. If you ever need a reminder, just go back to that cover of Pump.


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Testing the limits of Role Play in Skyrim
I often here from Skyrim fans and fellow gamers how enamored they are with the "role play" capabilities of Skyrim. I tend to agree which it no real surprise for anyone who knows me. I have invested a lot of time in the game and have still not completed all the quest-lines.
This line of thinking got me to wondering what IS it about this game that makes it so compelling for a role player? I am not talking about definition in an anecdotal sense, I mean if we were to try and quantify in quasi-scientific terms what it was about Skyrim that make it special how would we do that and what would it look like?
In order to understand any complex or multi-faceted issue I have always found it helpful to build a model, this is just how my brain works. Professionally, I am a consultant in the software development business. I often find myself in the challenging position of having to describe complex systems to clients in the clearest possible terms. Quite often, critical business decisions depend on their understanding of the systems we are discussing and any confusion can lead to bad business policy or investments.
In this case, I elected to apply a fairly simplistic model but one that I think will serve us well in many podcast conversations to come. It's based on the might triangle! There is more power in the triangle than you might think and in this case it seems to apply perfectly. In order to build the model I first had to consider this question, "What are the general attributes that make Skyrim a more capable game for role players than others?" After much consideration, these are the attributes I came up with:
1. Appearance - We can make our character look like we want them to look and no two characters need look the same. I tend to lump into this category anything that makes our character a distinct individual included some less obvious attributes such as weapon choice, skill selections and even player home.
2. Choice - In nearly all the quests presented to us in game, we are allowed to make choices. The choices we make at these intersections tend to reveal our character's overall approach to life.
3. Action - While in game there are many things we can do, what we choose to do when NOT presented with an options further defines who we are. In other-words, when presented with downtime, how does our character choose to occupy it?
When I was attempting to come up with the points of the model I had to identify, in the most basic terms, what are the things we can control and players. Appearance, Choice and Action represent those aspects of the game that are ours to manage.
How does this model work anyway?
In the classic triangle model we start by plotting each of our three attributes on a corner of our triangle.
You may we asking, "Why the heck do we need a model if we are going to simply use these three attributes to determine why Skyrim is a superior game for role players?" There answer is that, in order for us to discuss why Skyrim is superior we must be able to draw objective comparisons to other games. There is really nothing to "scientific" about an of this however, models, especially visual ones, are great at helping the human mind understand and quantify things. This model will help us do just that!
To really make this work we must also have a standard scale for each point of our shape. In this case I am using six "degrees of fitness". By fitness I mean, the degree to which a game is good at delivering a particular facet of our model. I am defining our six degrees as follows:
- total
- high
- some
- low
- none
When plotted on our model it would look like this:
With the points plotted on our ACA triangle we are ready to do an evaluation. One important point to understand is that the value plotted furthest out on the point of our triangle is considered to be the highest or most perfect score. The other thing to remember is that this is a purely subjective exercise but if the values you attribute to a game conform to your preferences and play style this will serve you as well as it serves me...or anyone.
In this case we are measuring against Skyrim and given my high opinion of this game, in my model skyrim would rate a nearly perfect score. Here is my evaluation:
1. Appearance - Total - The game gives the player a nearly limitless combination of race attributes, clothing options, weapon options, player home options and even travel options. When considered with the addition of mods, the individuality that a player is able to achieve with a character is stunning. There are not too many games that can boast this.
2. Choice - High - In quest choices are pretty good for the most part. Generally we have options to go the good route or perhaps a darker route. We also have and option to not engage at all which sets this type of game apart from many others in which the choices are black and white. To not engage equates to not finishing the game. In some ways that same holds true for Skyrim but with so many question options it's a factor of lesser concern.
3. Action - Total - There are so many opportunities to make your own way in this game that I had to give it a "Total" in this category. It's possible to never do any of the main quest-lines in Skyrim and still have a rich experience.
Given this evaluation, my model for Skyrim looks like this:
If a game were perfect or scored a "Total" value in all three categories we would see a perfect triangle with three equal sides. Conversely, if a game were perfectly horrible and scored a "None" in all three categories, then too we would see a perfect triangle, however a much smaller one. In our Skyrim evaluation we are very close and the while a bit wonky due to our "Some" choice score, the model is right about where I want it to be.
The objective is to look at this as a measure of a game's ability to provide the framework required to do the deep style of role play we plan to discuss in this podcasts series.
In this way we are able to create a quick visual representation of a game's capacity to meet our role play preferences and determine rather quickly if this is a game we will enjoy of if perhaps we need to adjust our expectations.
In reality, we play different games for different reasons but given the intent of this web site and podcast is to bring the role play opportunities of games such as Skyrim into sharp focus, I feel this model help frame future discussions rather well.
Let's look at another example. One of my favorite games of all time is Mass Effect. The story, the style, the combat, everything about it sucked me in. What happens if we apply our model?
1. Appearance - Some - While not a flexible as Skyrim, the customization features in Mass Effect were great. Over the course of the game there were many different types of gear you could acquire and nearly all of them could be pieced together in various combinations and with many color options.
2. Choice - Total - The Mass Effect story was split into many interconnected quests with a wide variety of choices during dialog. The consequences of these choices has a big impact on your relationships with crew members and your reputation across the galaxy as a "Paragon" of wholesome goodness or a "Roguish" bad-boy. For this reason, I gave Mass Effect a maximum or "Total" score on my choice scale.
3. Action - Some - On the surface it seemed like Mass Effect gave you a lot of choices but in reality you were working your way through a set of very prescribed quests, purchases and upgrades. Once you had these items you had them, and that was it. As Shepard I was able to buy all the ship models to adorn my quarters but filling it with as many cheese wheels as I wanted was not an option.
My Mass Effect ACA model looks like this:
In the end, our objective is not to evaluate games to determine if we should play them. The model simply gives us a clue as to weather or not a game possesses the characteristics required to do the in depth style of role play we will be discussing here at Character Crusade. It's also a great way to introduce the concept of ACA to listeners as I will be referring to it frequently in episodes as we discuss play theory and character builds.
While the model will not always be helpful, the concepts of Appearance, Choice and Action will be present often and will be the concepts we cleave to as those key attributes that allow us to individualize our characters and impact the world that is Skyrim.
Go forth and experience!


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We play a prominent role in the luxury residential market, specialising in prime houses and feature apartments in luxury residential areas.
kamaco motto is "Team Work". Working closely with our Research, Leasing and Building Surveying teams, we provide a total kamaco solution for our clients that is based on sharing decisive views and information with each other.
Property owners, end-users and investors such as real estate funds or corporate clients.
kamaco Property allows you to find the best residential properties for buy/rent in Hong Kong.
kamaco Research & Consultancy aims to offer objective advice to clients in order to help them make well-informed real estate related decisions and realise pre-defined goals.


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Concrete sealing or coating are top coats used to protect or beautify the concrete substrate.
Coated or sealed concrete is where the concrete has either a penetrating or top coat sealer applied. This is different to polished concrete. Coated concrete can provide anti slip coatings. There are many variations so please contact us to discuss your safety requirements.
Depending on the types of coatings required, there are small but important preliminary steps.
The types of coatings vary and include;
Each application requires the right product for the type of use it may be subjected to. For example, a floor needs to be sealed in an aircraft hanger. Due to leaking chemicals used in the aircraft industry it would require a chemical resistant epoxy, resin, aliphatic polyurea etc. The wrong product will break down, letting the chemicals migrate into the concrete substrate.
All sealers are not made equal – to ensure a professional job contact Paul our sales consultant on 021 465 811 or email below.


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We are editing our 2009 interview with historian Patrick Wolfe. Actually this is the second time we are editing it. The first time we edited it we thought we wanted to combine excerpts from Dr. Wolfe's interview with interview footage from other scholars all talking about settler colonialism. But, with a little push from our friend Giordano who very correctly pointed out to us that there isn't enough Patrick Wolfe stuff on the internet, we are re-editing it to present a large portion of the interview as a stand-alone video. I guess we can always interview other people about settler colonialism later, then we'll just have lots of stuff on our website about settler colonialism. Which would be a good thing. The video will also feature a full introduction by Pinky.
Yes, we are slow. If you simply can't wait to get your PS PW fix, you can read (parts of) his great book Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetry of an Ethnographic Event here.
Posted by Bunny.


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Sleep Disorders Forum
6 Hours Max, Always Pain
July 25th, 2005
I would like to sleep between 6 and 8 hours per night. Unfortunately I usually get 4-6 hours because of the pain in my abdomen. It is almost as though my organs cannot be horizontal for that length of time. I thought this might be a symptom of adulthood, its been going on for the last 6 or 7 years on and off. I am 30. It is all the time now. I never sleep more than 6 hours.
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I changed my mind
replied October 30th, 2005
That's definitely not normal as far as organs go. Go see a doctor about that one as soon as you can I think. Could be your life on the line. Probably be fine if you deal with it sooner rather than later. Also 6 hours a night is terrible. If anyone tells you about how you're being a wuss for complaining about it don't believe it. Average adult needs at least 8. That's about how long sleep cycle takes. Go get the organs fixed and then start sleeping more. If you function well with just 6 you'll function even better with 8.
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I changed my mind
replied November 4th, 2005
Experienced User
Hey read your post and im the same have been since god knows when..... But I have to get up lots of times in the night because I alwys sleep on my side and its like my stomach and insides start aching from sleepin on one side for more than half an hour. I have to get up and even sit up for about 10 mins then go back to sleep turning sides. My mom n dad bought me a new matres some months back, its supose to make you sleep better as it foams to the shape of your body carnt remember the name of it and that hasn't helped either, I didn't think it was anything to take any notice about till I read your post. Let me know if u go to the docotors and find out what it is
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I changed my mind
replied January 20th, 2009
Hi read your post i am having the same problems
the doctors are not sure whats causing it. if you have any information please let me know
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replied June 9th, 2009
I have the same problem too... It seems that when I eat less dinner better I can sleep. I gonna go to the doctor soon because it became more painful recently.
I have also have lower-middle backaches from long sleeps. I'm not sure that is related or not.
We bought a new mattress recently. It was carefully chosen based on my weight an body type. It did'n help either.
Luckily I only feel it after 8 hours sleep but I still can sleep more then 9-10 hours but the pain increases.
As I said before less food/light food at dinner helps and also loosing weight specially from the stomach and specific back exercising helped too.
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Private Alexander Technique Coaching for Actors
New Options: 60 minute or 30 minute coaching sessions - all one-to-one.
Belinda Mello combines her 25+ years of teaching the Alexander Technique with her background in Directing and expertise in Movement to help actors reach new emotional depth and confidence in their acting, and a stronger sense of safety in their vulnerability.
Private coaching assists within the rehearsal process as you are developing a character or the relationship between characters, incorporating a physical impediment into a performance or freeing your voice for a different dialect.
"… After working with Belinda, I gained awareness of how my muscles would grip during extreme emotions. It was no wonder I'd leave the stage exhausted. With the Alexander Technique, I gained the skills to ease into myself while performing and I find I not only enjoy my work more, I feel energized!" —Mel House, Actress
Belinda will inspire you to free up your imagination as she guides you in adding texture and elemental sensuality to your embodiment of character. Bring in the beginnings of a character, sides for an audition, a piece of text or a song you're working towards performing.
For resiliency and longevity, actors also come to Belinda to restore and regain balance between performances on stage or working on camera.
Schedule Private Coaching
Steps to Scheduling a Private Coaching
1) Schedule Your Coaching on AT Motion's Online Calendar in Manhattan or Brooklyn
2) Pay For Your Coaching Online: you may also pay via cash, check, or credit in person, but let us know your plan via E-mail.
A Single Coaching Costs $80
A 30 Min Coaching Costs $45
3) If You Need More Information, Contact AT Motion by Phone, Text or E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.com or (917) 753 - 0624


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Our dedicated volunteers are key to our success.
Volunteers contribute a variety of services such as serving on the all-volunteer board of directors, supporting fundraisers, and helping out with other projects. Volunteers may also assist with lessons.
Our volunteers are critical to maintaining the quality of our program. Safety is always the focus of Rainbow's riding activities, so hands-on volunteer training is mandatory for all horse-leaders and side-walkers. Please check our events calendar about upcoming volunteer training sessions. (All volunteers must be at least 16 years old.)
Side-walkers work in unison with other team members, including the instructor or therapist, the horse leaders and the student. Side-walkers should be able to walk or trot alongside a rider, providing support to the rider if needed. Depending on ability, students who are not yet able to ride independently will have either one or two side-walkers.
Horse-leaders are selected by our lead instructor. Most horse-leaders have prior experience with horses and have been a side-walker at Rainbow. They are responsible for leading the horse during a lesson. They are confident controlling the horse while following the instructors' directions. Horse-leaders are also responsible for preparing the horse before the lesson and caring for the horse after a lesson.
We regularly recognize volunteers for their outstanding contribution to Rainbow. See the latest and who we've honored previously.
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Gothenburg is a port city with a strategic location between Oslo and Copenhagen. It has a population of around 533,000 and is Sweden's second largest city. The Gothenburg region, which spans 13 municipalities in Greater Gothenburg, has a population of 1.1 million.
Strategic location
The Gothenburg region is right at the epicentre of Scandinavia and the Baltic States, and the gateway to a market of 190 million people. 70% of Scandinavia's total industrial capacity is located within a 500-km radius of the Gothenburg region and 30% of Swedish foreign trade passes through the Port of Gothenburg.
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"Carols of gladness ring from every tree."
~ Frances Anne Kemble
Here We Come A-Wassailing…
Who knew the Danbo Brothers could sing? Tonight, they joined forces with a couple of choir mice who come around here every year to carol and they spent a glorious evening singing their little hearts out around the neighborhood. All those small voices blended together perfectly and, I have to say, they sounded very sweet, even if a bit squeaky.


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Putting print security on the C-Level agenda
Data breaches are rarely out of the headlines and compliance pressure, such as the introduction of GDPR, means security remains high on the corporate agenda. Cyber threats and data breaches are no longer the sole domain of the IT department, they must be considered at board level as the repercussions are simply too big to ignore.
Businesses of all sizes are potentially exposed to reputational, legal and financial losses as the result of cyber attacks. The increasing sophistication of attacks and the emergence of insider threats means businesses face a battleground to balance business productivity with the need for privacy and security. One area of the IT environment which is often overlooked is the print infrastructure. The majority of organisations rely on print to support business-critical processes, meaning it can be the gateway to valuable, confidential and sensitive information.
Quocirca's Print Security Landscape 2019 Report reveals evidence of this tension between productivity and security. It shows that print security is becoming a greater concern to businesses with 59% reporting a print-related data loss in the past year and print-related incidents comprising 11% of security events overall.
To understand how organisations are responding to print-related threats, Quocirca's print security maturity index assesses an organisation's print security posture on the basis of their adoption of key elements of print security best practice. The results of the index showed just 27% of organisations could be classed as print security leaders, with 17% laggards and the rest classed as followers. It is therefore imperative that businesses become more print security conscious, particularly as they look to close the paper to digital gap in their business processes. This ultimately requires print security to move higher on the C-level agenda.
Manufacturers respond to security threats
In response, print manufacturers are elevating awareness of print security risks. Today most offer a diverse range of product offerings encompassing built in hardware security, print security solutions and comprehensive security and risk assessments.
HP has cemented its lead as a visionary for print security, driving industry standards and offering one of the most comprehensive hardware, software and services portfolios. Nevertheless, most competitors are hot on their heels in developing their print security propositions. Leading players are moving to a secure-by-design approach, where security is built in from the ground up on new hardware.
What is setting the leaders apart in the market is their investment in security services such as assessments, monitoring and analytics. As the threat landscape becomes more sophisticated, machine intelligence will be key in being able to respond to or predict threats. This will enable an organisation to enhance their print security posture and mitigate potential risks.
Our top-level research findings show that businesses in the US and Europe remain reliant on printing, with 87% expecting it will still be important in two years' time. This dependence creates risk, however, with 66% ranking print in their top 5 risks, second only to cloud-based services at 69%.
Print security spend is on the rise
In response to increasing threats, 77% of businesses are increasing their print security spend. An average of 11% of security budget is currently devoted to printing and we expect the absolute amount spent will increase. There's good reason to invest in protection as the costs of breach are significant – an average of £313,000 per annum, plus less tangible costs such as lost productivity also a factor.
Knowing where to spend that growing budget is essential. Here we found a perception gap between what are believed to be the highest risks, and the factors that actually cause breaches. While the top perceived security threat is malware (cited by 70% of respondents), the most common cause of breaches is accidental actions of internal users – inadvertent insider threat – involved in 32% of breaches. This misconception could lead to too much weight being given to some threats and not enough to others. Organisations must take a data-driven assessment approach to identifying areas of weakness in processes and technology, before developing policies, procurement strategies and user education programmes to mitigate them.
Managed Print Services have a positive impact
Those who are getting to grips with print security tend to be MPS users. Overall 62% of organisations are using an MPS to gain access to print management and security skills which are often lacking in-house. This figure rises to 76% for print security leaders (as measured by Quocirca's index) compared with just 44% for the laggards.
When it comes to the key activities that support best practice print security management, overall 70% of organisations have carried out a security assessment, 51% have a formal print security policy, 48% apply regular firmware updates, 40% use pull printing, 37% use secure mobile printing and 36% third-party device testing.
Print industry vendors are responding to the growing demand for robust print security. Our report details the strategy and approach taken by key manufacturers and ISVs to give customers the security, visibility and efficiency that they need from trusted partners. As devices become more powerful and handle more data, manufacturers must embed security that will serve for the lifecycle of the product and integrate with wider IT security tools. In an evolving threat environment this entails automated patching and security updates to future proof these potential network ingress points against attack.
As businesses adjust to the risk of data breaches as a cost of doing business, organisations should take a more robust strategy being developed around identifying, managing and mitigating risks. In today's ever expanding threat landscape , every organisations must be vigilant and proactive about securing their data. Managing risk begins with understanding the threat environment, assessing risk and defining incident response plans. Ultimately, print security needs to be top of the board agenda. There is no room for complacency, given the far-reaching repercussions – legal, financial and reputational – of print related data losses.
Read the Quocirca's Print Security Landscape 2019 Report excerpt.
Digitisation: The key to SMB successdigitisation, Managed Services, print
Quocirca's Print 2025 Spotlight report Digitisation: the key to SMB success reveals that SMBs are accelerating their digitisation initiatives through the use of digital workflow services and solutions, as they seek to drive business efficiency and employee productivity.
Digital technologies are transforming the SMB landscape, creating opportunities for businesses of all sizes to compete on a level playing field. Increasing mobility, changing workforce expectations and customer preferences for seamless interactions, are pushing SMBs to improve efficiency, agility and productivity to stay ahead.
Heading towards a "paper-lite" workplace
The majority of SMBs expect to remain reliant on printed documents, with 76% of SMBs saying that printed documents are important to their business. However, this reliance comes at a cost, with over half of respondents indicating that they are struggling to reduce paper usage, consumables costs and enhance security. Consequently, fewer SMBs (66%) expect to be reliant on printing by 2025, reflecting that a transition, albeit gradual, to a paper-lite workplace is underway.
Although often hampered by budget and resource constraints, SMBs are positive about the impact of digitisation. Overall, 81% of SMBs believe digitising paper-based processes will be important for driving their organisation's digital transformation by 2025. In fact, 49% expect paper digitisation to be very important, compared to 13% today. Over 60% of SMBs believe all paper documents should be scanned and over two thirds (67%) expect greater use of document capture, workflow and collaboration tools to lead to reduced printing between now and 2025. There are some regional variations – 90% of large US SMBs see increased document capture and workflow as the biggest driver, compared to 64% of large European SMBs.
However, despite a drive towards improving employee productivity and business efficiency, today, less than 50% of SMBs are using digital workflow solutions such as document capture, mobile data capture or ECM solutions. However, there is certainly an interest to increase digital workflow adoption, with almost half expecting to expand usage of solutions in these areas.
For more key findings download the Print 2025 SMB Digitisation Infographic.
The opportunity for MPS suppliers
The appetite for digitisation, coupled with a continued need to use paper in certain circumstances, is a significant opportunity for managed print service (MPS) providers to articulate a clear proposition around integrated paper and digital workflow services and solutions.
By incorporating document workflow solutions that leverage existing investments in smart MFPs – such as document capture, document management or document collaboration, a managed print service (MPS) can provide the foundation for digital transformation. Most leading MPS providers offer a broad portfolio of digital workflow solutions – from simple tools for scanning and routing expense receipts directly at the MFP to more sophisticated business process automation and digital workflow services.
As SMBs look for guidance in supporting digital initiatives, MPS providers that offer the skills and expertise to drive efficiency and productivity improvements through paper and digital workflow
automation will be best positioned to succeed.
The Global Print 2025 Spotlight Report Digitisation: key to SMB success contains detailed analysis of the trends and opportunities amongst European and US SMBs. The report provides essential guidance for suppliers to help plan and position MPS and digital workflow products and services for SMBs.
Collaboration, communication and more effective meetings
The last visit to Unified Comms (UC) expo in London reinforced a view that this sector is slightly misnamed. The attempt a few years ago to tack 'and collaboration' (UC&C) onto the end seemed like a positive move as it valiantly switched the focus up the stack from 'plumbing' to 'people'.
This was necessary, but not in itself, sufficient.
Unifying communication may have delivered cost savings in the network for many, especially with the shift from traditional analogue telephony to carrying voice over internet protocols (VoIP). However, it often appears to have had insufficient impact on productivity. Or for that matter, on collaboration.
This might be now be changing.
The renewed interest in embedding video into the everyday and anywhere communications landscape and increasing focus on ease of use apparent from most vendors are very welcome. Combined with more intelligence and automation, this might move UC&C up into significant business productivity territory.
Familiarity from use and usability
The main obstacle to the adoption of new forms of communication is often confidence. In the past with conferencing tools using video, some of the lack of confidence was personal or social – how will I look on camera? Increasingly that is much less of an issue, especially for a selfie sharing generation. However, the biggest drains on confidence still remain – will it work and do I know how to use it?
Many communications products have become much better designed from a usability perspective. Getting onto conference calls and videos can now often be accomplished by fewer than a dozen keystrokes and without needing to jab arcane numbers and symbols onto a silver box with instructions somehow somewhere else. It can even sometimes be achieved seamlessly, automatically and wirelessly.
But not always. With some much focus on individual usability of devices, one thing has been missed. Unified usability or familiarity, ie is the ease of use of one communication technology similar to that of another? This is about much more than having a common set of icons. User experiences need to feel familiar, clear and obvious. Artificial intelligence (AI), or at least some automated augmentation and awareness of context can pay dividends here. Many vendors are talking about AI, often to pick up on current trends, but beyond the hype there are some promising developments. Some of these are starting to use it effectively to optimise the user experience.
Improving individual experience is a great step forward, but the end goal should be about improving overall (business) outcomes. This is where the combination or collaboration between multiple individuals needs streamlining. The most obvious business process element to address this in is meetings.
Valued added meetings build collaboration
Meetings are often the place when communication levels using technology are at their highest. But reaching successful and effective outcomes can be more of a challenge. Despite decades of training programs, funny videos and presentation technology, progress is often still undermined by inefficiently run meetings. This is where adding 'smarts' in the unified communications tools could now start to deliver more effective collaboration.
This automation should include the whole lifecycle around a meeting, not just the meeting (or remote meeting if using suitable teleconferencing tools) itself. Where could the process be optimised to achieve better outcomes? Communication might have been improved through the use of technology, and the five minute phaff of trying to connect laptops to projectors is rapidly disappearing. But what about scheduling? What about transcribing content for non-attendees, or creating an annotated precis? What about action point creation and dissemination?
These are productivity sapping opportunities where intelligent use of technology could add real value. Interestingly, the word 'meeting' was starting to crop up more and more at UCexpo. If those using it can deliver on the other elements to make the meeting process effective they may help organisations achieve the communications goal they are really seeking. Not simply unified for the benefit of the network, or one or two individuals, but productive and effective collaboration across the entire team.
Fixing the future of Fax – more important than you might have thought?
There is a term which crops up a lot in the technology sector – 'legacy'. Occasionally, especially when talking to very long-established companies, the term 'heritage' occurs. It is useful therefore to consider the important difference between legacy and heritage:
- Legacy tends to be used to refer to something previously purchased (probably by someone else) which you wish you no longer had. Or perhaps as part of a sales or marketing message trying to persuade you to think that way. "Rip out your legacy doodads and replace them with our new shiny widgets!" Once the term legacy has been deployed, the outlook turns negative.
- Heritage is something already in place that you cherish and still use. Typically, in the technology world, this is because it still works effectively, or no one can figure out how to replace it. Nurturing your heritage can be a very pragmatic approach.
For many businesses their pragmatic heritage needs are often ignored by an industry chasing the latest and greatest currently overhyped meme. If there's no blockchain, AI or virtual reality involved, then it's probably not worth considering. This means that significant business needs are being overlooked because they are perceived as 'a bit boring'. These are real opportunities typically with very convincing business drivers. They are also often fundamental parts of an overall 'digital transformation' trend. So, as well as bringing in revenues, should satisfy some of any 'legacy' need to appear 'cool'.
One such area of strong heritage within business communications is fax. Some may think that sending facsimiles of pages of paper over networks died out long ago. Perhaps replaced smartphone photos shared via cloud storage and social media? Not so. IDC's Fax Survey in February 2017 found that overall 43% of organisations had seen growth in fax usage. Only 19% reported a decline.
Getting the message
The reasons for the traffic are pragmatic and sensible and will not change readily. The same IDC survey predicted a growth in fax traffic going forward. The drivers for using fax are related to sound business needs:
- Reach – Fax is a globally adopted standard and pretty much every organisation has a fax number and machine somewhere. It can be simply deployed anywhere. It can support diverse communication needs without high performance Internet connectivity, with only a phone line and piece of paper. Apply it to everything from general purpose to application specific communications, such as meal orders into takeaway kitchens from food delivery aggregators.
- Verifiable source – the originating organisation is known and cannot be masked. This has given fax messages a legal status likely to be trusted where email will not be. Many organisations will only accept requests via fax.
- Data security – The content of a fax is encoded and transmitted as a burble of sounds. Interception en route is of no benefit, and images transmitted (including any signatures) are not stored in the network. Physical security at the point of receipt of incoming transmissions is the only requirement.
- Paper trail – Confirmation of receipt of document transmitted can be requested by the sender, which is only sent once a message gets through in its entirety. This does not require human intervention and cannot be vetoed. The claim of "I didn't receive it" is much harder to make with fax.
Sales of dedicated fax machines are diminishing with a shift towards software, fax servers and multifunction peripheral (MFP) devices with fax. However, despite the arrival of digital networks – with digital telephony (VoIP) and Fax over IP – there remains a significant number of dedicated hardware fax machines.
Respondents to IDC's 2017 fax survey still expected over a quarter of fax volume to be from standalone fax machines in two years' time. If traffic from fax servers and MFPs with fax is added to that using dedicated fax machines, over two thirds of all fax traffic will still be based around hardware. This is despite the anticipated strong growth in cloud-based fax services.
Pulling the plug
The reality is that these machines will mostly connect to an analogue phone line. The issue is that analogue telephone networks are being switched off by carriers in their move to roll out fully digital/IP networks. In the UK, BT is scheduled to stop selling any new analogue connections in 2020 and to switch off it off altogether in 2025. Telcos across Europe all have similar plans, which are often more aggressive in terms of timing. Businesses have already embraced VoIP for phone calls, but the heritage of fax communication embedded deep within critical business processes now needs attention.
It may not appear immediately urgent, but the impact on business process and change management required should not be underestimated. Fax is particularly heavily used in conservative and critical sectors such as legal, finance and especially healthcare. In many of these organisations the use of faxing messages is probably deeply embedded in processes. Or it was put in place by people who have long since left. Perhaps the organisation might be unaware that it uses fax so much. It will have probably been quietly performing so well that nobody took much notice.
As the analogue telco network switchover is looming, it would be wise to take another look at the fax sooner rather than later. Identify what use cases are required. Then consider a move to virtualise fax and shift from fax hardware and phone lines to fax software, networks and cloud services.
Commercialising Innovation – scaling tech start-ups
Innovation and innovative people are spread evenly around the globe. But there is more of an uneven challenge to bring products and services successfully to market. Many times this is due to a lack of resources or funding and sometimes a lack of a supportive 'community'. Hence all the 'Silicon Geography' models dotted in countries around the world.
However, despite many potentially 'disruptive' technologies and propositions, it is often the inertia of the marketplace, aided by the dominance of major players, that holds back the commercial success of technically interesting ideas and concepts.
Perhaps there is another way to tackle this market challenge?
It is an old adage oft-quoted in a now dispersed Californian hotshot open systems hardware company (Sun Microsystems), that the key is not to be first to market, but first to volume.
This requires momentum. The technology, and crucially connectivity, available to today's tech start-ups removes much of the friction and permits web scale growth, but they still need to focus on ensuring that commercialisation will scale as well.
DevCom 5
Perhaps the Agile and DevOps approaches to software development can offer some alternative thinking to help commercialise technology innovation and more rapidly scale? Here are a set of steps to consider:
- Keep the value chain short. If an innovation relies on aligning the agendas of too many organisations, it is going to get bogged down. The term 'herding cats' is popular for a reason. Get a tight, small and supportive supply chain and over-collaborate within that team.
- Ensure everyone gets their cut. Companies used to talk about 'money being left on the table' and then try to make sure they picked it up. This is a short term win from an accounting perspective, but rapid scaling of the value chain needs fuel. Make sure that all involved are sharing the revenues fairly.
- Deliver real value at the end (user). How do you know? Check. Get feedback, encourage interaction between users, accept what comes back and learn and adapt. "Lessons will be learned" rarely are in large monolithic institutions, but successful rapid scaling operations learn constantly.
- Innovate in rapid cycles. It is a worthy goal to get it right first time, but who knows what 'right' really is? Customer research may help at times, but only if the context is well understood. Being able to develop, test value to customer, refine and re-release allows innovative improvement to align most closely to customer needs. Innovation for its own sake is rarely going to bring in sufficient rewards to match the effort involved. Technology companies often try to out-innovate each other, when in reality they should be trying to be 'most relevant' to customer requirement.
- Automate to scale. Once the innovation/value cycle is gathering pace, accelerate the process by optimisation. Look for the opportunities that deliver most speed up and gain over the whole cycle, rather than within themselves. Halving a 24 hour configuration process is nowhere near as valuable as a 20% reduction in a 2 week deployment process. Take a holistic and systemic approach.
Using this model of tightly-focussed teams, innovating rapidly and delivering customer value is not just for small start-ups. The two pizza guideline employed in Amazon (any team should be small enough to be fed by two pizzas) seems to be at the heart of what has helped it to experiment, learn and scale rapidly since July 1994.
Perhaps there is something in the approach?
ThreatQuotient ups the ante for dealing with security incidents
ThreatQuotient ups the ante for dealing with security incidents
The hardware and software that constitutes the average organisation's IT infrastructure records millions of events a day which are recorded in log files. This is known as machine data. Nearly all such events are benign and of little interest to IT operators. However, some represent anomalies that may indicate problems arising. Dealing this with such incidents was the subject of a 2017 Quocirca research report sponsored by Splunk – Damage Control: The Impact of Critical IT Incidents.
Recognising incidents is one thing, understanding what they mean and prioritising how they are dealt with is another. This requires enriching the machine data with information from other sources. Splunk's operational intelligence platform does this for IT incidents in general but also specifically for security incidents, which Quocirca's report identifies as the top concern for IT managers.
When it comes to dealing with security incidents the process is known as security information and event management (SIEM). Here Splunk has several competitors including Micro Focus's ArcSight, LogRhythm, IBM's QRadar and McAfee's Enterprise Security Manager.
SIEM tools enrich machine data to provide context. However, any one tool may not provide all the insight needed to deal with and prioritise all security incidents. Some organisations use multiple operational intelligence and SIEM tools, furthermore, the range of sources for enriching and guiding the process of dealing with security incidents are myriad. These include:
- Threat intelligence feeds that indicate what a security incident might mean, for example, is a there known criminal activity that is leading to certain types of events. Providers of threat intelligence feeds include Digital Shadows, CrowdStrike, Recorded Future and FireEye's iSIGHT.
- Databases of know malware and scams such as Virus Total, Spamhaus and Malware Domain List.
- Vulnerability management tools which know about current software bugs, the threats they represent and fixes available, such as Qualys and Tenable.
Bringing together all the information from these sources and applying them to the security incidents is daunting task. That is the challenge the ThreatQuotient has taken on with its ThreatQ platform. All the organisations listed above are among the 70 plus partners that integrate with ThreatQ.
ThreatQ was first released in 2013 and launched in Europe in 2016, where ThreatQuotient now has operations in the larger countries and a growing customer base. This week it is upping in the ante with the release of a new interface called ThreatQ Investigations.
ThreatQ Investigations supplements ThreatQ's existing tabular interface with a graphical tool that shows core incidents with links to all the sources of information that may help deal with them. With a few clicks an operator may be guided from an anomalous event on a firewall to news of a recently detected surge in activity by a criminal gang seeking to exploit a newly found software vulnerability. ThreatQ Investigations aims not just to empower individual operators but to improve collaboration across the teams that come together, often war-room style, to deal with security incidents.
As cybercrime becomes ever more widespread and the actors involved diversify, targeted organisations must become more sophisticated and timely in their ability to detect and respond. ThreatQuotient and the tools its ThreatQ platform brings together can help achieve this.
Bob Tarzey is and freelance analyst and writer formerly of Quocirca:
Information Security the next generation
The position of Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) has become well established in recent years, but where is it heading next? For many it is often perceived as an inward directed role more accustomed to saying 'no' than anything else. But is this really fair and does it represent the modern CISO?
Most organisations are under intense pressure to be flexible as well as secure to protect their own assets as well as the privacy of customer data. Going forward, a more pragmatic approach has to blend the agile needs of the business with the continuing challenges of security.
All organisations like to base success on results. Part of the challenge is that when some initially look at what this means for security, it is often about preventing things from happening (bad things), rather than doing good things for the organisation. While this may still be true, it is not a great yardstick for encouraging best behaviours and attitudes. It runs the risk of fostering inaction and retrenchment, rather than moves in a positive directions.
The term 'Next Gen CISO' might not be entirely new, but it surfaced again in a recent discussion with LogMeIn CISO, Gerry Beuchelt. This revolved around the evolving relationship between business and security and how by changing behaviours CISOs can add real value to the business as well as keeping it safe.
So what are the attributes of a Next Gen CISO?
Outward facing
The first attribute that a Next Gen CISO needs is to be outward looking. It helps of course to be acutely aware of the challenges faced by other organisations and changes in the market landscape. However, the outward looking CISO needs to be much more than that. They need to be able to engage with, and understand, their organisation's customers. This should involve working alongside the sales force and channel partners. Why? To understand and appreciate the commercial challenges of any organisational security issue it really helps to see the impact it has on customers.
Risk in context
This outward perspective assists with another attribute for the Next Gen CISO, awareness of the business reward/risk spectrum. Good CISOs will already understand the risks being faced by their organisation and be aware of their vulnerabilities. But it is rarely their responsibility to decide if those risks are worth accepting, depending on the consequential impact on the business. Nor is this a decision for those who do have the business responsibility to take, without being fully aware of the facts.
The Next Gen CISO should be able to present the risks and consequences of different actions (or inaction) in the context of the consequences they will have on the business. It is no good simply presenting information about speed of patching, number of phishing attacks or level of malware exposure. These may be relevant performance indicators within the security function, but mean little in the context of the business overall. Neither should CISOs hide or diminish the risks being faced. The important thing is to make clear and transparent the impacts that different security issues will have on specific aspects of the business. This is about putting security and risk into a clear and understandable business context.
Employee engagement
As well as reaching out to customers and fellow C-level staff, the Next Gen CISO needs to be able to engage with employees from across the organisation. Security is not a pinpoint issue that affects only certain individuals or business processes. All roles have some element of security and risk for which they have to accept some responsibility. It might have seemed fine at one time to focus this in the hands of one individual, but that is too onerous. The risk then is the default reaction is that individual would be overly defensive and too often say "no".
The Next Gen CISO needs to be able to understand business progresses and empathise with the challenges faced by those that undertake them. This helps spread involvement and understanding of the importance of security and what everyone needs to do, to the widest possible audience. By reaching out and engaging with fellow employees, the Next Gen CISO is also extending their threat intelligence and impact assessment information network.
Embedding understanding
Building understanding and changing behaviour towards security across the organisation then becomes a realistic goal. But this is rarely accomplished with tick box assessments or tedious training courses. Computer based training can play a part in building awareness, but risks downplaying the importance of specific security threats. A Next Gen CISO will enthuse and engage using more pervasive training models. These will include simulation and live role play to ensure the security message hits home and remains embedded in the organisational culture.
The CISO role may be built around information and security. But it is delivered through a passion for protection that aligns and fits closely to the needs of the business. The Next Gen CISO needs hybrid attributes to which many management roles should aspire. That and an ability to assess the value of technical aspects, with a realisation that success will depend on human ones.
Why print channel partners must shift gears and build IT expertise
Quocirca's Global Print 2025 report reveals that print manufacturers are set to lose their influence on customer relationships in favour of IT service providers that deliver print services as part of a broader offering. Businesses are increasingly looking for suppliers that can demonstrate IT expertise and be strategic partners to both IT and various lines of business (LOB). Building IT services capabilities would present print manufacturers with the opportunity in the small and mid-sized business (SMB) market, helping to offset declining legacy revenue. However, to do so manufacturers must ensure the right mix of channel and technology partnerships.
Changing channel dynamics
The changing ways SMBs wish to purchase, consume and pay for their IT is redefining the role of the channel, fundamentally changing business models and relationships. While print channel partners are gradually transitioning to a managed print services (MPS) model, extending this to other aspects of IT will be the key to sustaining growth.
While printing is not set to disappear any time soon – overall 64% of businesses expect to still rely on printing by 2025 – digitisation efforts are also accelerating, and security is a top concern. This convergence demands a new breed of supplier that can support the business transformation needs of SMBs.
In the SMB market, print vendors have an opportunity to offset diminishing revenues from traditional hardware-centric business models by advancing services portfolios. The Global Print 2025 study reveals that by 2025, 26% of SMBs expect their organisations to have the deepest relationship with IT service providers, increasing from 23% today. This is at the expense of print manufacturers, which see their influence drop from 27% today to 13% in 2025. A further 17% of SMBs expect a stronger relationship with MPS providers in 2025, up from 14%.
The evolving technology needs of SMBs
SMBs are diverse, ranging in scale and ambition, from fast-growth start-ups to stable, medium-sized businesses. SME technology investment plans vary depending on business focus and size, but according to the Global 2025 report IT security and cloud top the agenda.
Just like larger companies, SMBs are interested in deploying new technology, but are constrained by budget and limited IT expertise. This lack of expertise is good news for suppliers which understand their customers' business and industry needs and have the technical expertise to deliver a broader array of solutions and services. SMBs are increasingly adopting low-cost, cloud-based services and managed services to reduce operational costs, remain competitive and improve efficiency. Consequently they are placing increased demands on suppliers.
Quocirca's Global Print 2025 research reflects these changing requirements. In organisations with 100-249 employees, 57% are looking for a provider that can be a strategic partner to both IT and LOB – this rises to 60% in organisations with 500-999 employees. Over half of SMBs expect a supplier to have strong IT security expertise, rising to 65% in SMBs with 500-999 employees. Other top requirements are industry specific expertise, business process automation capabilities and providing analytic insight.
Can the channel shift gear?
Although some print-focussed channel partners have successfully made the transition to managed print services (MPS), the majority remain focused on hardware-centric transactional sales. When it comes to IT services, traditional print partners often lack the skills, experience and capabilities to be credible providers. There may not be the incentives or knowledge in place to sell broader IT solutions, and provide a consultative sales approach which is a core capability of many broader IT service providers. As a result, many print channel partners may view a move to IT services as high risk requiring too much investment and time.
Typically, SMBs do not typically look to traditional print channel partners or print vendors as a source of innovative services beyond print. They are more likely to turn to existing IT service providers focused on business outcomes, rather than speeds and feeds.
So how can the print channel step up its game, and build IT services credibility and reputation? Consider the following recommendations:
- Change the conversation. Channel partners must change their expertise, shifting from the outdated print-centric reselling model to embrace a new role as trusted and strategic advisors to their customers. They must change the nature of the conversation they have with SMBs, engaging with the influential business decision-makers responsible for strategy. The conversation must be around the how to drive efficiency and productivity – not just about technology or products. As businesses turn to them for guidance and support, channel partners will need to be able to deliver consultative services and expertise. This also means tapping into adjacencies such as digitisation and security, which are increasingly part of the broader printing proposition.
- Partner for IT expertise. Partnering with accredited and experienced IT service providers gives print channel partners access to both a broader product portfolio and provides a direct route into the IT services market, supported by specialist technology sales and support resources. For instance, this enables partners to potentially offer print security services and solutions as part of a broader managed security service offering. For manufacturers or large channel organisations, acquiring IT providers can be an effective means of gaining specialised expertise to develop and augment IT services in-house. It is also a direct means accessing experience in selling or supporting IT services. Some manufacturers including Konica Minolta, Ricoh and Sharp have already made the shift, expanding their managed IT service capabilities largely through acquisition.
- Become specialised. The shift to margin-rich services means developing industry specific expertise. Invest in the skills needed to deploy and connect a range of technologies – both across hardware and software – and consider developing vertical specific offerings.
- Focus on delivering business outcomes. As SMB purchasing decisions are increasingly influenced by non-IT decision makers, channel partners will need to expand their influence to multiple stakeholders. For larger businesses, the channel needs to focus on building skills in delivering business outcomes to LOB buyers, while retaining a strong relationship with the IT department.
- Monetise solutions. Channel partners that invest in software development to expand their offerings should consider monetising and building the resultant intellectual property (IP) through delivering applications. Building a portfolio of applications wrapped around the core business – for example, MPS or document workflow – should lead to new opportunities. Consider including assessment or consulting services as well as integration services.
The channel must shift gears and change its business model in order to increase engagement with SMBs. Repositioning as an IT services and solution provider may seem high risk, but by developing credible converged IT offerings, channel partners may be able to increase their relevance, create differentiation and create longer term and more profitable relationships.
Learn more about the changing SMB printing landscape at www.print2025.com.
Meetings with outcomes, not just communicationCollaboration, Meeting
Despite the opportunities for technology to be really disruptive, it is surprising how often it simply digitally replicates existing processes. There is one common business process where the results could be described as patchy – meetings.
Meetings tend not to divide opinion that much. Most would say they have too many, they go on for too long and often appear to accomplish little. Decades of training courses and humorous videos have had some impact, but clearly not enough. Surely technology should be able to make it easier for people to work and collaborate efficiently and effectively in meetings?
Tools supporting collaboration (or claiming to) often try to impose a new working agenda of their own, or YACS (yet another communications stream). This might be innovative messaging based on timelines mirroring those that many have become accustomed to in personal lives via social media. It might include more visual interaction with video and screen sharing. But in most cases the focus is more on the media and 'unification' rather than their use. This is more like unified plumbing than unified communications from the individual's perspective.
Some tools might offer significant improvements, especially if all potential users can be compelled to switch over to them or be encouraged by grass roots adoption. The problem is this rarely occurs smoothly. There are often issues in the edge cases – individuals, processes and data – where the new super collaboration system doesn't fit well. So people move back to their trusty default approaches, typically email and more meetings.
Moves to reduce email sound good in principal, but the reality often disappoints. However, since meetings occupy probably even more working hours that email, surely it would be a good idea to shift the emphasis to them?
There are many important tasks that occur during meetings; sharing information, discussion, decisions, and allocating actions. Information and communication are important, but only on the path towards beneficial outcomes ie decisions and action. Otherwise the outcome is more, and more and more meetings….
Before and After, as well as During
So where is the effort actually expended in meetings? It is useful to consider the whole process as meetings have a 'before' and 'after' as well as 'during'. While there has been a lot of technology applied to 'during', not enough attention has been applied to the efficiency opportunities across the entire process.
'Before' has to mean more than sharing a calendar invite, of obtuse conference call codes, or to a far flung location via a fire and forget email. To get the right people together at the right time, even with decent remote audio or video conferencing equipment, requires some intelligent juggling and scheduling.
This requires time and effort. But since the information about potential meeting participants is often already there, the intelligence employed could be 'artificial'. More auto-scheduling effort to streamline and simplify arrangements would pay dividends in terms of time saved and would be appreciated.
Even during meetings, for many the use of technology has focused on the medium of sharing. Despite this, getting connected (the video adaptor challenge, followed by the function key shuffle) and getting remote colleagues involved (does anyone know the dial in code or where the remote is, or how to contact support?) seem to take more time than they should.
Capturing information during meetings and sharing accurately afterwards, jogging the memories of those present and informing non-participants, would be hugely beneficial in steering towards these positive outcomes. Technology to voice record, intelligently transcribe to text would make sharing and searching simpler, and is readily available. The key is to seamlessly integrate this into the collaboration tools that participants are already using for their meetings.
Shifting beyond collaboration
This involves a shift in thinking from the unified communications and conferencing industry. Most have already made the jump towards a focus on collaboration. This is necessary, but not sufficient. The next step is to recognise that the long-entrenched models of how people work together will be hard to change. The whole lifecycle of meetings needs to be enhanced, and where possible, automated.
Meetings might seem tedious and wasteful, but few organisations are going to replace them entirely with virtual timelines, shared repositories or interactive online realities. There is a need to look at the elements of greatest inefficiency, apply technology to make incremental improvements, assess the results and then repeat.
This looks a lot like the agile and DevOps approaches now being used in software development. These are yielding great results in terms of both speed and quality. Isn't that an outcome all organisations would like to see for meetings as well? Look for tool vendors that are moving beyond the audio and visual media. The ones that are extracting meaning and understanding from how people are communicating are putting real business value into collaboration.
DevOps – Pragmatic production, not evangelismDevOps
Despite the potential of 'digital transformation' and IT in general, many organisations find the reality a little disappointing. Development takes longer than expected, quality is lacking and what is delivered often fails to match the business requirements. Despite the continuous, rapid innovation and evolution of technology, with faster, cheaper and more readily available hardware, the software process seems to still struggle to deliver.
There have been many attempts to improve matters from computer aided software engineering (CASE) tools and methodologies to object orientation, 4th generation languages and tools for 'citizen development'. So far, no silver bullets in either tools, methods, or superhero developers. One problem is that the software challenge has expanded and become increasingly monolithic. Roles have become specialised and the process structured, typically around a traditional engineering model with well-defined stages. Fine in principle, but inflexible and slow to adapt.
A break with the model was inevitable and shifted (typically) towards fragmentation, blurring of teams and speed with the Agile 'manifesto'. This favours; individuals and interactions over processes and tools; working software over comprehensive documentation; customer collaboration over contract negotiation; responding to change over following a plan.
Agile often leads in turn to more fluid and continuous development and deployment processes, generically termed DevOps. Based on how Agile and DevOps are sometimes presented with almost alternative programming lifestyle enthusiasm, it might seem easy to believe they require some sort of cult following.
Certainly, the word 'culture' or phrase 'cultural shift' occurs very frequently when talking to enthusiasts. So much so, that many organisations become nervous of the almost revolutionary zeal. They wonder how they will be able to cope with adopting the apparently wholesale change.
While there are significant differences in its approach, DevOps should not be seen as an all-or-nothing dangerously disruptive force. It requires a certain way of thinking and organising teams, but this does not have to change and challenge the entire organisation. It might, over time, have more broad-reaching impacts, but these are based on its results, not its initiation.
Adopting a DevOps strategy
The primary requirement is commitment. Management must be bought into the process, and set out the strategic vision and goals. The starting point is – what are we trying to achieve?
While there are always clear end benefits to aim for – increase revenue, reduce costs, mitigate risk – it is the intermediate drivers that shape and derive value from DevOps. Being more responsive to customers, improving software quality, delivering services that meet business needs. The focus for DevOps adoption has to be decided upfront.
Some tasks are far better suited to the potential benefits of DevOps than others. Well-established software and systems that record and manage well-defined data requirements are unlikely to benefit the most. A better place to start would be aspects of customer or external engagement where changes in market, social, political or personal context open up opportunities for innovation. The questions are, what will be required and does anybody have any clear views yet?
So, next is an acceptance that this will require some experimentation. Some may call this 'fail fast', but a much better way to view it is 'learn fast'. The experimentation is being done for a purpose based on the strategy. Small steps are taken, tested, refined and retried in pursuit of the goal.
Doing this requires a tightly-coupled effort based around different skills; design, programming, quality assurance, build, deployment, customer feedback. Rather than distinct stages or disparate teams, these are provided by close collaborators aiming to simplify and streamline the process.
Pragmatic DevOps
The culture for accomplishing this does not need to pervade the entire organisation, nor does it have to be applied to every challenge. DevOps has to be done with serious intent and commitment – from the top as well as those directly involved – but only for one simple reason. To address a problem hotspot and get the results that the strategy was put in place to achieve.
The reality is that those who put DevOps in place for sound reasons do enjoy the benefits. The frequency of software delivery for assessment by the user is increased and 'good enough' initial solutions can be honed to be better. Plus, with direct feedback the whole team feels and takes on responsibility for quality.
DevOps is not a panacea or a cult requiring blind commitment, but nor is it a passing fad. Used pragmatically it moves software development away from either exacting engineering or casual coding to poised production at pace. Getting better business value from software should be what 'digital transformation' is all about. Find the right project, set suitable goals and give DevOps a go. Who knows, your business culture might change once it's benefited from the results?


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Check out this hilarious video from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits ! I love it! Edit: (I hope I did not violate any teacher blog rule; if so, it was truly a newbie error...this video was also posted Mrs. Poland at Think, Wonder, Teach . She posted it first...I just wanted to share for those who don't know both blogs, but I'm assuming I should've linked to both.)
Have a wonderful day! I'm off to the movies with my dear sweet husband. Between school and blogging, he is feeling neglected!
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Wickford – Runwell Primary SchoolChange location
Join classes anytime! You are welcome and encouraged to come to as many classes as you like. To join simply come to the location of your choice at the beginning of the class time and talk to the instructor.
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Parts Life, Inc. leverages a variety of engineering solutions for your part needs. From quality assurance to the creation of test plans and procedures, we handle all aspects of part engineering from manufacture to delivery.
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Parts Life, Inc. specializes in prototype part development and in the reproduction of obsolete parts. Our remanufacturing processes ensure your replacement parts meet or exceed OEM specifications.
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In today's current climate, mission-critical assets must be maintained beyond their expected life span. Parts Life, Inc. provides the engineering and manufacturing needed to sustain, upgrade, and increase the life of your assets, facilitating and enhancing systems readiness.
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What do you want to Sort today?
Do you have anything in need of automatic identification or sorting? Can it be recognized by its looks?
We can do that for you. We can hook up an identification unit to your existing material stream or we can supply the mechanics for a complete identification and sorting process.
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(Video Credit; Big Sean feat. Miguel - "Ashley," Location, N/A.)
Posted: by T.FM. Staff. / Written: by T.F.M. Staff. January 31, 2014.
Big Sean releases the video for "Ashley" and it immediately gets banned from television. Vibe Magazine is quoted as saying "Ashley" is definitely the craziest video of Big Sean's career thus far." The video begins with Sean starting off his night with a sexual tryst only to find himself kidnapped by a female serial killer. Does the G.O.O.D. Music rapper survive the ordeal? Press play above to find out. **Explicit Content - Viewer Discretion is Advised : Violence, Nudity, Language.** #ORGANIZEDGRIND


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We will have a selection of regular brioche and old fashioned donuts along with old fashioned gluten free donuts. The menu can be found on the event page on facebook the day before the pop-up!
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Earlier Event: July 18Beer and Donut Pairing at Orlando Brewing
Later Event: July 26Pop up at the Greenery Creamery