TED talks, YouTube rants and Mr. Peanut, the mascot for Planters Peanuts, are all signs of just how highly valued the art of oratory is today.
“Yep, even Mr. Peanut (voiced by Robert Downey Jr.) has been seen in Planters ads over the past couple of years giving TED-style presentations; people are spending top dollar to attend a well-presented speech with useful information from an inspired perspective, and the best speakers may be regarded fairly as today’s rock stars,” says expert speaker coach Jane Atkinson, author of “The Wealthy Speaker 2.0”.
“The ability to command a fee is a sign that you’ve made it as a speaker. However, as with rock stars, it’s a long way to the top if you’re just starting. But if you have something to offer then you can reach that fee status, and there’s a reliable path to follow.”
The three phases to becoming a paid speaker.
•Ready. “Picking a lane” in your topic is the first step to becoming not only a paid speaker, but a wealthy one, too. Ask yourself the questions, “What topic do I want to be known for five years from now?” and “Will someone pay me for that information?” When looking to hire a speaker to deliver a keynote speech for a conference, who will be picked from a pool of experts – a jack of all trades or someone who hits the center of the bull’s-eye on a topic? When picking a lane, consider delving into topics including leadership, engagement, corporate culture or communication. This is the phase in which you’ll want to really develop your bona fides, including your material and establishing the goal of how you’d like to help your audience.
• Aim. Here is the marketing phase that cannot be underappreciated. It includes aspects like your website and what you do to drive traffic there, which may include a well-written blog with relevant content, and media exposure. However, the most important way to market yourself is to do a truly excellent job with your actual speech. A good speech for a speaker is like a great pastry for a baker – a quality product speaks volumes itself. There is no better form of marketing than a great speech. Therefore, if you think your speech could use help, take care of it right away. No amount of marketing dollars, no fancy Facebook page and no ultra-cool website can overcome a mediocre presentation. However, when you market yourself, you’ll want to include a number of materials, including your brand, promise statement, photos, a bio illustrating credibility, testimonials and more.
• Fire. Now, you need to identify your target market and determine the best method to reach them. You need to roll out your product and continue to build momentum. Be ready to fire your message to your target market via a public relations campaign strategy. There are multiple ways of effectively getting good attention from the media, but don’t believe all attention is good attention. Carefully consider your press releases. Atkinson says the mistake most speakers make is sending out a press release that does not answer the question: “So what?” They don’t tie it to anything relevant into which the press can sink their teeth. Another way to “fire” is to identify your ideal customer, also called the The Attraction Method, as detailed in the book, “Attracting Perfect Customers: The Power of Strategic Synchronicity” by Stacy Hall and Jan Brogniez.
“If you feel as though you have something to offer audiences via oral presentations, then you probably do,” Atkinson says. “These days, so much content can be had for free online, but that doesn’t take the place of a live experiential presentation. A presentation that is ‘epic’ will remain in your memory for years. The ability to present your content live, and make the presentation worthwhile and relevant, means you can earn a reliable stream of revenue based on what you’re good at.” For the Silo, Jane Atkinson.
Props and good lighting can add dramatic effects like this lecture at Hogwarts.
I’m so excited to join forces with charity Made By Dyslexia today to launch the free onlineUniversity of Dyslexic Thinking, hosted by Open University and available to access from all around the world.
We decided to launch the university to teach the skills most relevant to today’s world – Dyslexic Thinking skills.
The courses are for anyone, at any stage of life; you might be a dyslexic looking to learn more about your Dyslexic Thinking skills and apply them to different industries, or someone who isn’t dyslexic but is curious to understand how this kind of thinking works in action, and why these skills are more valuable than ever before.
This morning, Made By Dyslexia revealed its new Intelligence 5.0 report, which includes research from Randstad Enterprise that shows the skills inherent to dyslexics are the most sought-after in every job, in every sector, globally.
The report clearly demonstrates that today’s AI-driven world needs a new kind of intelligence focused on human skills such as complex problem solving, adaptability, resilience, communication and creative thinking.
These are skills dyslexics naturally possess but aren’t measured by traditional education and workplace tests, which instead focus on dyslexic challenges. Based on this, it concludes the outdated systems that are designed to teach and measure intelligence need a rethink – it’s time for a new school of thought.
And this is where DyslexicU comes in! We’re shaking things up and teaching the skills the world needs. We need more innovators, problem-solvers, storytellers and unconventional thinking. The online course features many of the world’s greatest dyslexics talking about how Dyslexic Thinking skills like this have fuelled innovation and success, and the lessons we can gain from their experiences. They’re the kind of lessons I wish I was taught in the classroom.
I’m delighted to be joined by some of the incredible (dyslexic) course contributors today to launch DyslexicU at Virgin Hotels New York City, including HRH Princess Beatrice, Dame Maggie Aderin-Pocock, and Jean Oelwang.
HRH Princess Beatrice
Courses in ‘Entrepreneurs & Start-Up Mentality’ (made in partnership with Virgin StartUp) and another on ‘Changemakers & Activism’ (made in partnership with Virgin Unite) are available on DyslexicU, hosted on Open University today, with lots more to come later this year (or next term, should I say?!) They cover subjects such as storytelling, sport, fashion, culinary arts, and music.
While ‘U’ might technically’ stand for ‘University’, I quite like the irony that it resembles the ‘U’ that myself and many dyslexics sometimes see scribbled on our report cards, because traditional education systems are not made for minds like ours. If you’re a dyslexic, I know how disheartening that can be. I hope the launch of DyslexicU today can be a reminder to you that thinking in a different way to everyone else is indispensable in this new world of work. It’s your superpower.
In our louder and louder world, says sound expert Julian Treasure, “We are losing our listening.” In this short, fascinating talk, Treasure shares five ways to re-tune your ears for conscious listening — to other people and the world around you.
Julian Treasure studies sound and helps people and businesses to listen, speak and use sound well. This talk was presented at an official TED conference. For the Silo, David J. Hensley.
Transcript
00:03 We are losing our listening. We spend roughly 60 percent of our communication time listening, but we’re not very good at it. We retain just 25 percent of what we hear. Now — not you, not this talk, but that is generally true. 00:18 (Laughter) 00:19 Let’s define listening as making meaning from sound. It’s a mental process, and it’s a process of extraction. 00:27 We use some pretty cool techniques to do this. One of them is pattern recognition. (Crowd noises) So in a cocktail party like this, if I say, “David, Sara, pay attention” — some of you just sat up. We recognize patterns to distinguish noise from signal, and especially our name. Differencing is another technique we use. If I left this pink noise on for more than a couple of minutes, (Pink noise) you would literally cease to hear it. We listen to differences; we discount sounds that remain the same. 00:56 And then there is a whole range of filters. These filters take us from all sound down to what we pay attention to. Most people are entirely unconscious of these filters. But they actually create our reality in a way, because they tell us what we’re paying attention to right now. I’ll give you one example of that. Intention is very important in sound, in listening. When I married my wife, I promised her I would listen to her every day as if for the first time. Now that’s something I fall short of on a daily basis. 01:28 (Laughter) 01:29 But it’s a great intention to have in a relationship. 01:32 (Laughter) 01:34 But that’s not all. Sound places us in space and in time. If you close your eyes right now in this room, you’re aware of the size of the room from the reverberation and the bouncing of the sound off the surfaces; you’re aware of how many people are around you, because of the micro-noises you’re receiving. And sound places us in time as well, because sound always has time embedded in it. In fact, I would suggest that our listening is the main way that we experience the flow of time from past to future. So, “Sonority is time and meaning” — a great quote. 02:08 I said at the beginning, we’re losing our listening. Why did I say that? Well, there are a lot of reasons for this. First of all, we invented ways of recording — first writing, then audio recording and now video recording as well. The premium on accurate and careful listening has simply disappeared. Secondly, the world is now so noisy, (Noise) with this cacophony going on visually and auditorily, it’s just hard to listen; it’s tiring to listen. Many people take refuge in headphones, but they turn big, public spaces like this, shared soundscapes, into millions of tiny, little personal sound bubbles. In this scenario, nobody’s listening to anybody. 02:51 We’re becoming impatient. We don’t want oratory anymore; we want sound bites. And the art of conversation is being replaced — dangerously, I think — by personal broadcasting. I don’t know how much listening there is in this conversation, which is sadly very common, especially in the UK. We’re becoming desensitized. Our media have to scream at us with these kinds of headlines in order to get our attention. And that means it’s harder for us to pay attention to the quiet, the subtle, the understated. 03:23 This is a serious problem that we’re losing our listening. This is not trivial, because listening is our access to understanding. Conscious listening always creates understanding, and only without conscious listening can these things happen. A world where we don’t listen to each other at all is a very scary place indeed. So I’d like to share with you five simple exercises, tools you can take away with you, to improve your own conscious listening. Would you like that? 03:55 Audience: Yes! 03:56 Good. The first one is silence. Just three minutes a day of silence is a wonderful exercise to reset your ears and to recalibrate, so that you can hear the quiet again. If you can’t get absolute silence, go for quiet, that’s absolutely fine. 04:13 Second, I call this “the mixer.” (Noise) So even if you’re in a noisy environment like this — and we all spend a lot of time in places like this — listen in the coffee bar to how many channels of sound can I hear? How many individual channels in that mix am I listening to? You can do it in a beautiful place as well, like in a lake. How many birds am I hearing? Where are they? Where are those ripples? It’s a great exercise for improving the quality of your listening. 04:40 Third, this exercise I call “savoring,” and this is a beautiful exercise. It’s about enjoying mundane sounds. This, for example, is my tumble dryer. 04:49 (Dryer) 04:50 It’s a waltz — one, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three. I love it! Or just try this one on for size. 04:58 (Coffee grinder) 05:07 Wow! So, mundane sounds can be really interesting — if you pay attention. I call that the “hidden choir” — it’s around us all the time. 05:16 The next exercise is probably the most important of all of these, if you just take one thing away. This is listening positions — the idea that you can move your listening position to what’s appropriate to what you’re listening to. This is playing with those filters. Remember I gave you those filters? It’s starting to play with them as levers, to get conscious about them and to move to different places. These are just some of the listening positions, or scales of listening positions, that you can use. There are many. Have fun with that. It’s very exciting. 05:46 And finally, an acronym. You can use this in listening, in communication. If you’re in any one of those roles — and I think that probably is everybody who’s listening to this talk — the acronym is RASA, which is the Sanskrit word for “juice” or “essence.” And RASA stands for “Receive,” which means pay attention to the person; “Appreciate,” making little noises like “hmm,” “oh,” “OK”; “Summarize” — the word “so” is very important in communication; and “Ask,” ask questions afterwards. 06:18 Now sound is my passion, it’s my life. I wrote a whole book about it. So I live to listen. That’s too much to ask for most people. But I believe that every human being needs to listen consciously in order to live fully — connected in space and in time to the physical world around us, connected in understanding to each other, not to mention spiritually connected, because every spiritual path I know of has listening and contemplation at its heart. 06:46 That’s why we need to teach listening in our schools as a skill. Why is it not taught? It’s crazy. And if we can teach listening in our schools, we can take our listening off that slippery slope to that dangerous, scary world that I talked about, and move it to a place where everybody is consciously listening all the time, or at least capable of doing it. 07:07 Now, I don’t know how to do that, but this is TED, and I think the TED community is capable of anything. So I invite you to connect with me, connect with each other, take this mission out. And let’s get listening taught in schools, and transform the world in one generation to a conscious, listening world — a world of connection, a world of understanding and a world of peace. 07:29 Thank you for listening to me today.
The call letters KLEE-TV had not been broadcast since July 1950, more than 3 years before a viewer in London, England picked up their transmission on his television set.
Adding to the mystery was the fact that while in operation KLEE-TV was based out of Houston, Texas- an entire continent and ocean away. Since this was an era before satellite t.v. transmission how could the images be picked up? Was it simply a hoax?
Though debunkers have stated that this story first appeared in Readers Digest, it actually was first reported in 1953 by TV Guide: a viewer based magazine that organized and listed television programming and reviewed highlighted television shows. Hugely successful and widely distributed- it seems counter-intuitive to consider how this might affect an already paranoid and anxious viewer body. After all, the Cold War and the Space Race were underway. Many Americans were building nuclear bomb shelters and keeping their eyes to the skies.
Television was still a new form of media and to many it transcended the boundaries of space of time.
It seemed possible that ghostly transmissions from another time and another place could occur. TV Guide pointed out in its story that at the time of the phantom KLEE-TV transmission, no other t.v. station in the world used those call letters.
For the next 12 year this enigma was forgotten but then in February 1962 Mrs. Rosella Rose of Milwaukee, Wisconsin witnessed the following. The KLEE-TV letters were flashed onto her screen as well as the images of an unknown man and woman arguing on a balcony, followed by the flashing of the word “HELP!” Then suddenly, her screen went blank. It seemed as though Mrs. Rose had witnessed an electronic netherworld. Could an alternate universe be superimposing its reality onto hers? The simplest answer is that Mrs. Rose was a victim of her time.
Phantom signal transmission in Stranger Things.
Perhaps as mentioned in Haunted Media Static and Stasis, “….The fleeting and inexplicable transmissions of KLEE are eerie in that they are symptomatic of a general loss of self presence felt socially in electronic communications as a whole.” I think it’s safe to say that Canadian Film Director David Cronenberg felt this way and successfully incorporated these themes into Videodrome. I think it’s also safe to say that the success of the recent Netflix series Stranger Things is due in some part to this notion of a technologically created netherworld. And what about the Australian reports of a Coke bottle and drinking flask being transmitted during the Moon Landing?
Today there are reports of phantom webcam transmissions, of strange beings quickly seen on a monitor or a tablet. If we are able to view images on our devices then is it so far fetched to imagine that we ourselves can be seen by others through our devices? And if that’s possible to what end are we being surveilled? For the Silo, Jarrod Barker.
The Max Headroom Signal Intrusion Incident of 1987
The article below (Furthering the Benefits of Global Economic Integration through Institution Building: Canada as 2024 Chair of CPTPP) was first published by the C.D. Howe Institute by Paul Jenkins and Mark Kruger.
Introduction
Over the last 10 to 15 years, the global economy has become fragmented. There are many reasons for this fragmentation – both economic and geopolitical. A particularly important factor has been the inability of the institutions that provide the governance framework for international trade and finance to adapt to the changing realities of the global economy.
This erosion is reflected in the cycles of outcome-based measures of globalization, such as trade-to-GDP ratios. Research indicates that the development of institutions that promote global integration is highly correlated with more rapid economic growth. To secure the benefits of economic integration, the international community should re-commit to a set of common rules. This should involve the renewal of existing institutions in line with current economic realities.
But institutional renewal alone is not sufficient. Nurturing and growing new institutions are also critical, especially ones reflecting the realities of today’s global economy. Most promising in this regard is the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP).
The CPTPP is seen as a “next generation” trade agreement. It takes World Trade Organization (WTO) rules further in several key areas, such as electronic commerce, intellectual property, and state-owned enterprises. Expansion of CPTPP represents a unique opportunity to strengthen global trade rules, deepen global economic cooperation on trade and sustain an open global trading system. The benefits for Canada of an expanded CPTPP are further diversification of its export markets and deepened ties with countries in the Indo-Pacific region.
Trusted Policy Intelligence
The challenge to enabling broad-based accession to CPTPP is geopolitical, reflecting the rising aspirations of the developing world, the associated heightened contest between democracy and autocracy, and the prioritization of security. Indeed, for many, today’s security concerns are at the forefront, trumping economic issues. We argue that recognition of the economic benefits of global economic integration must also remain at the forefront, and that research presented in this paper shows that institutional building is at the core of securing such benefits.
As 2024 Chair of the CPTPP Commission, Canada has an opportunity to play a leadership role, as it did in the creation of the Bretton Woods institutions 80 years ago, by again promoting global institution building, this time through the successful accession of countries to the CPTPP, both this year and over the long run.
Cycles in Global Economic Integration Former US Fed Chair Bernanke points out that the process of global economic integration has been going on for centuries. New technologies have been a major force in linking economies and markets but the process has not been a smooth and steady one. Rather, there have been waves of integration, dis-integration, and re-integration. Before World War I, the global economy was connected by extensive international trade, investment, and financial flows. Improved transportation – steamships, railways and canals – and communication – international mail and the telegraph – facilitated this “first era of globalization.” The gold standard linked countries financially and promoted currency stability. Trade barriers were reduced by the adoption of standardized customs procedures and trade regulations. The movement of goods, capital, and people was relatively unrestricted. The outbreak of World War I frayed global economic ties and set the stage for a more fragmented interwar period. The Treaty of Versailles imposed punitive measures on Germany, exacerbating economic hardships. Protectionist policies, such as high tariffs and competitive devaluations, became widespread as countries prioritized domestic interests. The collapse of the gold standard further destabilized international finance. In contrast to the cooperation seen before the war, countries pursued economic nationalism and isolationism. Protectionism increased in the 1930s as a result of the dislocation caused by the Great Depression. In an attempt to shield domestic industries from foreign competition and address soaring unemployment, many countries imposed tariffs and trade barriers. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act in the United States exemplified this trend, triggering a series of beggar-thy-neighbour policies. These protectionist policies exacerbated the downturn and contributed to a contraction in international trade that worsened the severity and duration of the Great Depression. Mindful of the lessons of the 1930s, a more liberal economic order was established in the aftermath of World War II. The creation of the Bretton Woods Institutions – the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) – provided the principal mechanisms for managing and governing the global economy over the second half of the 20th century. Building on the GATT, the formation of the World Trade Organization in 1995 provided the institutional framework for overseeing international trade and settling disputes. China became the 143rd member of the WTO in 2001 and almost all global trade became subject to a common set of rules. The rise and fall of international economic governance are reflected in the cycles of outcome-based measures of globalization. Looking at trade openness, i.e., the sum of exports and imports as a percentage of GDP, the IMF divides the process of global integration into five periods: (i) the industrialization era, (ii) the interwar era, (iii) the Bretton Woods era, (iv) the liberalization era, and (v) “slowbalization” (Figure 1). Many factors have contributed to the plateauing of trade openness in the last 10 to 15 years. The fallout from the Global Financial Crisis was severe and the recovery was tepid. Brexit, with its inward-looking perspective, has disengaged the UK from Europe. Populist protectionism has led to “re-shoring” in an effort to address rising inequalities and labour’s falling share of national income. There has been far-reaching cyclical and structural fallout from COVID-19. And while the AI revolution portends significant opportunities, uncertainties over labour displacement abound. Geopolitics has also played a critical role. Security concerns have become more important, trumping economic issues in the eyes of many. This has led to multiple sanctions, along with export and investment controls, being imposed to protect national security interests. The IMF has carried out several modelling exercises that estimate the consequences of fragmentation if further trade and technology barriers were to be imposed. The studies employ a variety of assumptions regarding trade restrictions and technology de-coupling. In summary, the cost of further fragmentation ranges from 1.5 to 6.9 percent of global GDP. As with all modelling exercises, a degree of caution is warranted. At the same time, these studies should not be viewed as upper-bound estimates because they disregard many other transmission channels of global economic integration.
De Jure and De Facto Globalization In assessing the evolution of globalization, however, it would be misleading to focus too narrowly on outcome-based measures such as the trade-to-GDP ratio depicted in Figure 1. The data compiled by KOF, a Swiss research institute, provide a more nuanced view of global economic integration. KOF constructs globalization indices that measure integration across economic, social, and political dimensions. Its globalization indices are among the most widely used in academic literature. KOF’s data set covers 203 countries over the period 1970 to 2021. Our focus here is on KOF’s economic indices. In terms of economic globalization, KOF looks at the evolution of finance as well as trade. Moreover, one of the unique aspects of KOF’s work is that it examines globalization on both de facto and de jure bases. KOF’s de facto globalization indices measure actual international flows and activities. In terms of trade, it includes cross-border goods and services flows and trading partner diversity. For financial globalization, its indices measure stocks of international assets and liabilities as well as cross-border payments and receipts. KOF’s de jure globalization indices try to capture the policies and conditions that, in principle, foster these flows and activities. For trade globalization, these include income from taxes on trade, non-tariff barriers, tariffs, and trade agreements. De jure financial globalization is designed to measure the institutional openness of a country to international financial flows and investments. Variables to measure capital account openness, investment restrictions and international agreements and treaties with investment provisions are included in these indices. The trends in KOF’s de facto and de jure economic globalization indices are shown in Figure 2. Both globalization measures increased rapidly from 1990 until the Global Financial Crisis. Both measures subsequently plateaued. In 2020, as the global pandemic took hold, the de facto index plunged to its lowest level since 2011. In 2021, it recovered half of the distance it lost the previous year. The de jure index has essentially been flat for the last decade. There has been a sharp divergence between KOF’s de facto and de jure trade globalization measures in the last five years (Figure 3). By 2020, de facto trade globalization had dropped to a 25-year low. Although it recovered somewhat in 2021, it remains well below the average of the last decade. In contrast, de jure trade globalization levelled off after the Global Financial Crisis. It reached a modest new high in 2019 and has essentially remained there since then. The trends in financial globalization are almost the reverse of those of trade globalization. De facto financial globalization continued to increase through 2020 and dipped slightly in 2021. De jure financial globalization has been essentially flat over the last two decades (Figure 4). The KOF researchers provide convincing econometric evidence that economic globalization supports per capita GDP growth. Importantly, their analysis shows that institutions matter. They demonstrate that the positive impact on growth from trade and financial globalization comes from institutional liberalization rather than greater economic flows. Through a series of panel regressions, the researchers show that it is the de jure trade and financial globalization indices that are correlated with more rapid per capita GDP growth. In contrast, there is no significant relationship between growth and the de facto indices. KOF’s conclusions are consistent with the work of Rodrik, Subramanian and Trebbi who examine the contributions of institutions, geography, and trade in determining relative income levels around the world. They find that institutional quality “trumps everything else.” Once institutions are controlled for, conventional measures of geography have weak effects on incomes and the contribution of trade is generally not significant. Thus, to recapture the economic benefits of free trade and open markets, countries need to recommit to finding ways to further de jure globalization; that is, putting in place the institutional building blocks in support of enhanced trade and financial integration.
Geopolitical Realities Institutional reform, however, requires trust and mutual respect among partners. Many would argue that such trust and respect is in limited supply today, especially between the United States and China. The United States is willing to endure the costs of heightened protectionism to purportedly strengthen the resilience of its economy and secure greater political security. This has resulted in multiple sanctions, particularly in areas of digital technologies. In response, China, amongst other measures, has imposed export controls on critical minerals used in advanced technology in defence of its geopolitical goals. Yet, as discussed by Fareed Zakaria in a Foreign Affairs article, The Self-Doubting Superpower, China has become the second largest economy in the world richer and more powerful within an integrated global economic system; a system that if overturned would result in severely negative consequences for China. For the United States, its inherent strength has been its commitment to open markets and its vision of the world that has considered the interests of others. In many respects, it remains uniquely capable of playing the central role in sustaining the global economic system. Following a recent trip to China, Treasury Secretary Yellen stated that “the relationship between the United States and China is one of the most consequential of our time,” and that it “is possible to achieve an economic relationship that is mutually beneficial in the long-run – one that supports growth and innovation on both sides.” This means that the United States would need to accommodate China’s legitimate efforts to sustain a rising standard of living for its citizens, while deterring illegitimate ones. For China, it would mean a clear and abiding commitment to an open, rules-based global economic system. It appears that there is currently no clear path forward for this change in mindset, given what many see as insurmountable geopolitics in both the United States and China. Yet, history shows that achieving and sustaining long-term economic growth is in every country’s best interest, and that such growth is best secured through ongoing global economic integration.
A Way Forward Recent discussions at the IMF’s Annual Meeting in Marrakech about IMF quota reform, including quota increases and realignment in quota shares to better reflect members’ relative positions in the global economy, are important signals of possible renewal. Similarly, calls to revamp the World Bank’s mandate, operational model, and ability to finance global public goods, such as climate transition, reflect a growing consensus that the Bretton Woods Institutions must change in the face of today’s realities. But institutional renewal alone is insufficient. Broad-based accession to the CPTPP represents a unique opportunity to strengthen global governance overall, and to address common challenges in ways that benefit both countries as well as the global economy. The CPTPP sets a high bar, requiring countries to:
eliminate or substantially reduce tariffs and other trade barriers;
make strong commitments to opening their markets;
abide by strict rules on competition, government procurement, state-owned enterprises, and protection of foreign companies; and
operate within, as well as help promote, a predictable, comprehensive framework in the critical area of digital trade flows. The United Kingdom formally agreed to join the CPTPP in July 2023. Once its Parliament ratifies the Agreement, the UK will join Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, and Vietnam in the trading block. Such a diverse membership clearly demonstrates that countries do not have to be geographically close to form an effective trading block. A half-dozen other countries have also applied to join the CPTPP, with China’s application having been the earliest received. Petri and Plummer estimate that joining the CPTPP would yield large economic benefits for China and the global economy. For the latter, the boost to global GDP would be in the order of $600 billion annually. The United States in joining would gain preferential access to rapidly growing Pacific Rim markets. Much of the additional market access would come from China’s opening of its service sector. Industrial policy and state-owned enterprises, however, will continue to play a much larger role in China than they do in Western economies. The key for China is to demonstrate that a socialist market economy (i.e., one that has a mixed capitalist market and government-controlled economy) can be consistent with fair trade. The process of China joining the CPTPP will undoubtedly be time-consuming. It took 15 years of negotiations before China joined the WTO in 2001. This was five more years, on average, than it took those countries that joined after 1995. The challenge for Canada, and subsequent chairs, is to ensure that China’s entry maintains the high standards CPTPP members have met so far. Broad based accession to the CPTPP, including the United States and China, however, is best viewed Page 8 Verbatim Trusted Policy Intelligence as a long-term goal. China would need to undertake unprecedented reforms, involving complex political challenges, including Taiwan’s potential accession. For its part, the United States would need to step well back from its current mercantilist mind set, which risks worsening.
Canada as Chair in 2024
While efforts to renew existing global institutions to better reflect current economic realities are important, we see promoting broad accession to the CPTPP as the best means to turn today’s global economic fragmentation around. At the heart of the global economic system is the open trading framework put in place at Bretton Woods in 1944. Many would see today’s fragmentation as becoming more acute, rather than getting better, due to geopolitical divisions. But further fragmentation is no way to save the open, rules-based global trading system that has served so many countries so well for so long.
While restrictions reflecting legitimate security concerns are inevitable, an open, competitive trading system remains in the best interests of all countries. As 2024 Chair of the CPTPP Commission, Canada has an opportunity to contribute to turning around the fragmentation of today’s global trading system and moving the global economy back along a path towards a more open, rules-based trading system.
An important goal for Canada’s chairmanship would be to clarify the rules of accession. This would be a big step forward in sustaining expansion of CPTPP. While today’s geopolitical realities surrounding the applications of both China and Taiwan represent a particularly challenging area to advance, significant progress in other areas must be made. It should accelerate inclusion of Costa Rica, Uruguay, Ecuador, and Ukraine, all of whom have applied. And it should help move forward discussions with South Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, and Thailand, who have expressed interest in joining.
Over and above all that, however, at a more strategic level, Canada should also champion discussion and understanding of why building towards the long-run goal of broad accession to CPTPP is important. Open and inclusive institutions are at the core of providing the benefits of global economic integration to all countries.
Canada will also be Chair of the G7 Summit in 2025. This, along with the various ministerial and officials’ meetings leading up to the Summit, offers another critical avenue for Canada to take a leadership role in sustaining and promoting an open, rules-based global trading system.
There you have it… from Dr. Peter Vincent Pry himself, director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security… An electromagnetic pulse (EMP for short) would literally send an entire country back in the 1800’s in a matter of seconds, by frying everyone’s electronics and leaving us in the dark.
Here’s Ben Carson explaining EMPs…
Mainstream media has been silent about this for the last decade. And now folks are finally starting to see the truth…I believe an electromagnetic pulse is imminent and I want to show you how to make this cheap set-up that can shield any device against an EMP.
Let me give you a few shocking stats and facts that have scared the daylights out of some top US politicians.
Wired Magazine said there was a 12% chance the Sun would blast a Coronal Mass Ejection (or CME) at 300 miles per second towards Earth by 20201.
Now as far as we know 😉 that didn’t happen. But it seems mathematically certain to happen in the very near future.
A Space Weather study quoted by Gizmodo2 estimates it would cost the US $41.5bn / day, and it would take months if not years for the power grid to be replaced and for things to get back to some sort of normal.
Given that it produces an average of 3 CMEs EVERY SINGLE DAY3, the Sun is nothing but a ticking time bomb waiting to “explode”, destroy the grid and any device that’s plugged in, and ultimately paralyze society…
Then you’ve got nations such as Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, playing with high-altitude HEMP bombs, which can be even MORE devastating, because they can even fry electronics that are not connected to the grid, such as phones and flashlights.
In fact, Russia sold such devices to North Korea in 2014 4 5 and here’s why:
If you’re still skeptical about N. Korea’s abilities, keep in mind that they now have two satellites orbiting the Earth at low altitude, the KMS-3 launched in 2012 and the KMS-4 launched in 2016.6
…and guess what? They both hover over the United States7!
And let’s not forget ISIS, who’ve been planning grid attacks for a long time, are extremely self-motivated.
So what happens if any of these scenarios come true? Total collapse.
The large power transformers (that are keeping the power grid alive) will be completely fried, turning entire countries into a veritable electronics graveyard. Trucks will come to a screeching halt, and will stop delivering food, water, and medicine to stores across the nation.
People will be hungry and scared, turning against their fellow men in desperate attempts to feed their families. Looting will be the new national sport, and disease the new biggest killer… That’s when the real “fun” starts…
Law enforcement will be paralyzed and unable to communicate to keep things under control. And what will you eat when all of this happens?
EMP rehearsals
I like to call blackouts “EMP rehearsals”… because they too can leave entire cities in the dark for days or even weeks on end, and scare millions of people…Like this woman, for instance… who got trapped in an elevator during a blackout. If that were an EMP, she’d most likely experience a deadly free fall:
The aging US power grid is hit every FOUR DAYS on average by either a cyber or a physical ATTACK9… 225,000 Ukrainian households were left in the dark in 2015, after the power grid was hacked10.
The number of power outages doubles every 5 years11, mostly because of our increased energy needs, but also due to storms, earthquakes, tornadoes and even heat waves. And what will happen when millions of electric cars owners will plug their vehicles into the grid every night, all at once, and let them charge over night for 8 or 9 hours?
Look no further than 3rd world countries such as India to see what that would look like. In 2002, 700 MILLION souls were left in the dark… It was horrible… According to The Guardian13, “electric crematoriums stopped operating, some with bodies left half burnt before wood was brought in to stoke the furnaces”…
In 2014, the entire country of Yemen was left without power for an entire week after al-Qaeda attacked it14. It wasn’t the first time, either…
Still, it’s hard to imagine what happens when an electromagnetic tsunami completely fries the aging power grid, phones, laptops, medical equipment such as pacemakers, fridges (keeping anything from food to insulin cold), and even some cars. The cost of replacing everything is unimaginable. Plus, even if your car does survive, remember gas pumps also run on electricity…
So what can you do to protect your electronics? All you need is this one weird box you can make at home called a “Faraday cage”, with simple materials lying around in your kitchen or garage right now that, if done right, will guarantee that all the electronics inside will survive.
“If done right” is key here, because there’s a lot of confusion on making them… Many folks are convinced that things like cars and microwaves will work, but they’re completely wrong.
I cringe every time I hear this, because I know that if the shield is not fully enclosed, the electromagnetic pulse will go right through and fry everything inside… Many Faraday cages have holes in them14 and are useless in front of a powerful EMP. What you need is a fully-enclosed shield.
There’s a simple 30 second test you can do right now, to see for yourself. Place your phone and a portable radio inside a microwave, trashcan, or anything else you think would work as a shield. Turn both devices on, and make sure your radio is tuned in to an AM station.
Now try calling your phone. Is it ringing? What about your radio, are you getting anything? If the answer to any of these questions is “yes”, then that is not a Faraday shield and it will fail you.
Why does the test work? Because EMP pulses hit on a very wide frequency range that those used by cell phones and radios.
Now, to make a real Faraday cage, there are two simple rules you need to follow…
Rule #1: the gadgets inside should not touch the outer metal casing…
And rule #2, the metal container must not have any holes or cracks in it, no matter how small.
A box full of working gadgets won’t cover your basic survival needs, so it’s critical that you get over your addiction to electricity. Just like a drug, you’re dependent on it because it makes everything so much easier… And when it’s gone, when you can’t use your phone or laptop, you feel totally helpless.
You gotta learn to live without it, because most people won’t…
Modern life made everyone soft, people can’t even change a tire these days. They can’t fix their house, cook on an open fire or grow their own food, heck, most can’t even change a tire…
The other thing we need to talk about is generating your own electricity post-EMP with parts kept safe inside these Faraday cages. You’ll then be able to run electric tools and appliances such as chainsaws, pressure cookers and washing machines. This is actually something you can do today to slash your electric bill…
To recap, the 3 layers of EMP preparedness are:
Layer #1: Faraday shields
Layer #2: living without electricity
and Layer #3: free energy…
Don’t worry, though, because we’ve already done all the hard work for you. Me and my amazing prepper writers at Survival Sullivan have once again outdone ourselves and came up with hands-down the best course for surviving blackouts and EMPs anyone ever made:
*This product is digital. The image is for information purposes.
We call it: “EMP Protocol”
…and I’m excited to give you a taste of what’s inside:
● Step-by-step videos and pictures on how to make these 3 Faraday boxes types that will protect your devices against even the strongest EMP. You don’t have to pay $30,000 for a copper chamber, or even $30 for Faraday cages advertised on various websites. We’ll show you how to make them for less than $5usd each… You get the exact materials for every type of box, plus step-by-step instructions. Plus, one of these types of cages is small and light enough to fit in your bug out bag…
● What to do the moment an EMP happens. Whether you live in the city or on a farm, whether you’re bugging in or out, we’ll tell you how to move fast, stay safe and protect yourself and your family.
● The 3 best ways to safely generate electricity post-collapse. Just keep the spare parts in Faraday shields, and you’ll have light for years to come.
● 12 electronics you need to salvage in Faraday cages. Yes, flashlights and emergency radios are on the list, but if you truly want to be prepared for a long-term disaster, you definitely need the others.
● How to hide the fact that you have electricity… If someone sees light in your window, or if your kid is playing outside with a flashlight, they’ll instantly know you have it. These stealth tactics are what you need to make sure no neighbor or even the law enforcement will take your devices.
● How to prepare your vehicle for an EMP. Plus, a list of cars models that are sure to survive it.
● How to make bug out bags, get home bags and everyday carry kits for you and your family, that work not just in EMPs, but in any kind of emergency. We’re going deep down the rabbit hole, covering every possible aspect, making sure all the items inside are protected against shocks, water, puncturing by sharp objects, and even theft.
● How to bug out on foot. If your car won’t work, you’ll have no choice but to leave it behind. The roads could be dangerous, but fear not because we’ll tell you how to get to your bug out location safely and in record time.
● Last but not least, we’re going to have a conversation about how to survive without electricity in the long hard years following an EMP event. Nothing is left out, including food and water procurement, hygiene and sanitation, alternative communication methods, and even things that are often overlooked such as home schooling
We really went out of our way to weed out the bad information about EMPs. Best of all, these things will help you survive and thrive in almost any other disaster or emergency, such as social unrest, hurricanes and an economic collapse. Click here to receive your EMP Survival guide. For the Silo, Dan F. Sullivan.
Surfshark’s most recent Digital Quality of Life (DQL) Index ranks Canada 26th in the world by overall digital wellbeing and is outranked by the U.S. Our country has dropped by six positions since last year’s edition, falling from 20th to 26th.
The study covers 92% of the global population and indexes 117 countries by looking at five fundamental pillars of digital life – internet affordability and quality, e-infrastructure, e-security, and e-government.
Below you’ll see the key findings about Canada:
Canada’s internet affordability ranks 33rd in the world. To afford mobile internet, Canadians have to work 60 times more (4 min 57 s/month) than Israeli citizens, for whom the most affordable 1GB package costs only 5 s of work monthly. Meanwhile, fixed broadband costs Canadian citizens around 84 minutes of their precious working time each month.
The global digital divide is now deeper than ever
Globally, broadband is getting less affordable each year. Looking at countries included in last year’s index, people have to work six minutes more to afford broadband internet in 2022. In some countries, such as Ivory Coast and Uganda, people work an average of 2 weeks to earn the cheapest fixed broadband internet package. A similar trend was observed last year. With the current inflation, the pressure on low-income households that need the internet has become even heavier. Surfshark’s study also found that countries with the poorest internet connection have to work for it the longest.
Canada’s internet quality, considering internet speed, stability, and growth, ranks 23rd in the world and is 29% better than the global average.
Since last year, mobile internet speed in Canada has improved by 5% (4.7 Mbps), and fixed broadband speed has grown by 12.4% (20.7 Mbps).
Compared to the U.S., Canada’s mobile internet is 15% slower, while broadband is 9% slower.
Out of all index pillars, Canada’s weakest spot is e-security, which needs to improve by 60% to match the best-ranking country’s result (Greece’s).
Global overview: Overall, 7 out of 10 highest-scoring countries are in Europe, which has been the case for the past three years. Israel ranks 1st in DQL 2022 pushing Denmark to second place after its two-year lead. Germany ranks 3rd, and France and Sweden round up the top five of the 117 evaluated nations. Congo DR, Yemen, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Cameroon are the bottom five countries. For the Silo,Paulius Udra.
Supplemental- According to our most recent search Engine result, The world’s most expensive country for fixed-line broadband is Eritrea, with an average package price of $2,666 usd per month.
Running a business can be a challenging task, especially when you are dealing with multiple tasks and responsibilities at the same time. Fortunately, many tools can help streamline your business operations and make management much easier. In this article, we will take a look at five such tools that can help you manage your business more efficiently.
A personalized ERP
ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning, and you may opt for an ERP business application. It is a type of software that helps businesses manage their day-to-day operations by integrating and automating various business functions, such as finance, accounting, inventory, sales, and human resources, into a single system. ERP software provides real-time visibility into all business processes, enabling businesses to make informed decisions based on accurate data.
Slack
Slack is a communication tool that helps teams collaborate more effectively. It allows you to create channels for different projects or teams, which you can use to share files, send messages, and hold virtual meetings. Slack integrates with many other tools, such as Trello and Google Drive, making it an ideal choice for businesses that rely on multiple tools for their operations.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a powerful tool that allows you to track and analyze your website’s performance. It provides valuable insights into your website’s traffic, such as where your visitors are coming from, what pages they are visiting, and how long they are staying on your site. This information can help you optimize your website and improve your online presence.
QuickBooks
QuickBooks is an accounting software that can help you manage your finances more effectively. It allows you to track income and expenses, create invoices, and manage payroll. QuickBooks also integrates with many other tools, such as Trello and Google Sheets, making it easy to manage your finances and other business operations from a single platform.
HubSpot
HubSpot is an all-in-one marketing, sales, and customer service platform that can help you manage your business more efficiently. It includes a CRM (customer relationship management) tool, email marketing, social media management, and much more. HubSpot’s powerful tools can help you automate your marketing and sales processes, and improve your customer engagement.
Trello
Trello is a project management tool that helps teams collaborate and stay organized. It is a visual tool that lets you organize your projects into boards and lists, with cards for each task. You can assign tasks to team members, set due dates, and track progress. Trello is great for managing projects of all sizes, from small tasks to large, complex projects.
Managing a business can be overwhelming, but with the right tools, it can be much easier. ERP, Trello, Slack, Google Analytics, QuickBooks, and HubSpot are just a few of the many tools available that can help you manage your business more efficiently.
By using these tools, you can streamline your operations, improve communication, track performance, manage finances, and much more. So, give these tools a try and see how they can help you manage your business more effectively. For the Silo, Bill Gordon.
Humans possess a great depth of capacity when it comes to altruism. Again and again, we demonstrate our tendency to reach out when others are in distress. Cultivating these instincts is one of the ways in which we connect with our own humanity. Studies have indicated that altruism is not entirely innate. Environment plays a key role in the development of the qualities of altruism. Practicing this trait strengthens not only our own individual ability to extend hope and help to our fellow species, it allows us to explore more deeply our own inner kindness.
“Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
Mark Guglielmo had just finished an exhibition at Villa Victoria Center for the Arts in Boston, Massachusetts when he decided to emphasize what he felt was a missing ingredient in today’s society- altruism. Guglielmo’s work tries to emphasize this message by piecing together photo collages to form a larger image. For another show, he used photos from his time spent in Cuba. To complement the work, Guglielmo conducted interviews which were then incorporated in the exhibition. The particulars of the work involved thousands of photographs. Guglielmo captured detailed images of every nuance of a person, place, or thing. From these, he painstakingly compiled what he refers to as “a 1000-D version of reality.”
A natural storyteller, Guglielmo says the audio portion of his work was important to transport people to Cuba. Guglielmo witnessed the changes to the island nation. He decided to record the perspective of the Cuban people when it came to the changes to their relationship with the U.S. Guglielmo kept his conversations informal and allowed Cuban residents to drive them in order to keep them safe from government targeting for speaking out.
The conversations revealed the daily lives of Cubans often in the context of wealthy western tourists vacationing in the shadow of extreme poverty. Political tensions between the U.S. and Cuba have interfered with plans to show the work there.
Bucanero en Playa Ancon | Buccaneer at Ancon Beach, Trinidad de Cuba, 2017, Photo-mosaic, 46 x 68 inches
Frank Juarez is the co-founder of the Randall Frank Contemporary Art Collection and project manager of the Randall Frank Artist Grant Program. Juarez says the Randall Frank collection began quite organically. Juarez and his high school and college friend Randall shared a lifelong affinity for art. When they wanted to work together, art was the common theme they shared. Together, they began a collection and strove to support artists from their area. In the early days, they worked under a tight budget, purchasing art quarterly and storing them in Randall’s home in Richmond, Virginia. The two began looking for opportunities to sponsor art events. Their first endeavor in this capacity was a mural project in Milwaukee’s Black Cat Alley. Randall Frank Contemporary Art Collection (RFCAC) hopes to one day create a public space where they can house their collected art and make it available to the public.
As they became more established, RFCAC decided the best, most direct way to support artists was through a grant program. RFCAC’s pilot program seeks to support artists in the Midwest and east coast regions of the U.S. The grant is presently privately funded. Juarez works in many capacities within the art world. He is a gallery director, curator, and educator. Randall works in the private sector as a chemist.
A Few Words to Keep in your Pocket: Soften your heart and open your mind to the possibilities of altruistic behavior.
For the Silo, Brainard Carey.
Featured image– Induction #1 by Tony Conrad (l) and Katrina by Rob Neilson (r) courtesy of Museum of Non-visible Art.
Building a team is never easy, but it is one of the most important tasks within any company.
No matter how small or big a specific company is, some people do their best to deliver high-quality services and products, while working together.
Using a “Rage Cage” this Montreal company sets team members up with a variety of hand held weapons and lets them loose to destroy all kinds of items such as mirrors and glassware. See link below for details.
For great results, people need the right atmosphere, the right knowledge, and a great working atmosphere that enables them to learn and make mistakes (and learn from them), while at the same time they are experiencing different team challenges and great moments.
Plunged into darkness in this Montreal Restaurant, team members must work together. For details see the link below.
For a team to be successful and deliver, there must be a certain level of team cohesiveness, that enables people to be productive, effective, and communicate properly.
Not sure how some teams achieve this? Check the tips listed below to learn and implement.
Success Comes With Great Team Building
Teams that have fun, are teams that deliver. This is why team-building activities are so important.
Yes, some teams only need a weekly coffee to help them bond, while others need more frequent and more intense activities.
Learning to relax and breathe effectively. That’s the services offered by this Montreal team building company. See the link below for more info.
On the other hand, if you want to help your employees to bond further, while also they are exploring something new at a more durable pace than you should think about team building activities Montreal – team bonding experts know that the average person will spend 90,000 hours working throughout their life, which is why knowing co-workers is important, and no better way to get to know someone than through fun activity, such as cooking class, exploring the outdoors or doing some charity work.
For example, some teams are really into an active lifestyle and they need activities that will push them to work together and go for that medal (this is why competent sports are great team-building activities).
This Montreal company teaches teams how to sculpt ice. For details see the link above.
Establish The Rules
Every organization needs rules. Thanks to rules things happen. This is why teams should have their own rules, no matter how small or big they might be.
For a team to be great, they need essential rules that will help them stay on track.
If everyone knows the rules and follows them success is inevitable. For rules to be mindful, there must be goals.
Next to this have clear expectations and make sure that everyone understands their role within the team.
Establish Honest Communication
Communication is the key when it comes to working with people. Open and honest communication is something teat people appreciate and expect. This is why a clear line of communication is so important as much as having the right tools to keep everything communication-related in one place.
Be transparent as much as possible, without putting extra pressure on team members.
Ensuring communication creates a feeling of group cohesion. Why? This way everyone has a strong sense of belonging and inclusion.
Last But Not Least…
Do not forget to reward people. People love to see that their efforts are being appreciated and seen. This is why implementing any kind of reward and recognition system is important.
Have monthly work reviews, and reward the most productive team members as an example for doing great work. For the Silo, Bill Gordon. Featured image- Allez Up! Indoor climbing for team building.
Marriage is a complex, ever-evolving relationship that challenges partners to remain active in their efforts to maintain the relationship. While the components of a healthy relationship – passion, commitment and intimacy – may seem abstract, I have found specific actions through my practice as a clinical psychologist and marriage and family therapist that couples can do to prioritize their relationship and make it last.
• Continue or learn to communicate well. We all know to be polite to our bosses at work or strangers we meet, but it is often with those we are closest to that we slip into unhealthy habits of disrespect or inattentive listening. Most likely, at the point in your relationship when you plan to get married, you feel close and communicate well with your partner. It is over time that partners become busier, more distracted or simply make fewer efforts to communicate respectfully and openly with their spouses. But communication is a critical component to a healthy marriage. Couples must schedule time to check in with each other weekly. This “weekly check-in” may seem less necessary in the early years of marriage, but you will appreciate the habit later when work hours become longer and kids enter the picture. Use this time to coordinate schedules, check in about any issues in the relationship, and take time for each other away from technological distractions (that means no phones or TV in the background).
• Create a budget agreement. One of the most common areas of newlywed conflict is managing a joint budget. Even if you cohabitate with your partner before marriage, it is unlikely that you pooled all of your resources, and there is a lack of education about shared budgets. But money is important for your personal and relational well-being. Talk with your partner about your financial goals and concerns. Your spouse should be an equal partner in financial decisions. It is helpful for partners to regularly check in with each other about financial changes and decisions (you can easily incorporate this into your weekly check-ins). I advise couples to set a monthly personal budget – say $500 – that each partner can spend on individual expenses without consulting the other. If a partner wants to make a purchase that goes above the agreed-upon amount, he or she should wait until the other partner is consulted and agrees. By forming healthy spending habits and open communication about finances, partners can avoid one of the most common areas of marital conflict and feel closer as equals.
• Share responsibility for maintaining intimacy. In the early years of a relationship, intimacy seems to come naturally, so many partners take for granted the importance of actively maintaining a sense of emotional connection. This is not the responsibility of one partner, but a requirement that both spouses maintain an interest in fostering intimacy and keeping tabs on ways the other partner wishes to feel loved and cared for (because this does vary from person to person and over time). Date nights are a simple way to establish time to reconnect during a busy week, and they are essential in the early years of marriage and beyond. Take turns planning an evening for each other, and do not get trapped in thinking it has to be extravagant. If your lives are incredibly busy that week, find a time to relax at home or try to cook a new meal together.
Remember that human beings like novelty, so be willing to try new things together.
• Never be afraid to manage your differences. If I had to pick one major takeaway for couples considering marriage, it is to ensure that you are able to tell your partner when you are upset with him or her. That way your partner stands a chance of trying to fix the problem. Without this, resentment takes root and will continue to grow over time until it is addressed. This is so important because resentment often underlies any deficit in the previous points I made. It may sound basic, but it is often difficult for partners to place themselves in a vulnerable position where they can voice their concerns about the person closest to them. For couples to manage resentment, it is essential that partners create a safe conversational space where each can be heard and listen without feeling defensive or attacked. It is inevitable that you will have a different perspective than your partner at some point – whether regarding the family budget, division of household labor, or even the right way to show intimacy. Use any and every opportunity in the early years of marriage to practice talking with each other when one partner is upset with the other. Skills such as empathy, active listening and managing anger and frustration can be learned and need to be regularly utilized in couple conversation. For the Silo, Dr. Anne Brennan Malec.
It’s easy to take words for granted; most of us use them as effortlessly as we breathe. But words hold power that we often overlook at our own peril, says media expert Steve Kayser.
“Language is the code that translates ideas so they can be shared. They give us an advantage in the natural world, which has enabled us to evolve as human beings,” says Kayser, author of “The Greatest Words You’ve Never Heard,” (hyperlink below).
“But in our personal and public lives, we are inundated with empty words; words that are used incorrectly; words that are drained of all meaning; and so fail to accurately convey the intended message; and words that carry unwarranted connotations and stigma.”
Words can change lives, destroy relationships and alter the course of entire civilizations, Kayser notes.
[A must read about the power of word usage via Toltec wisdom: thefouragreements CP]
He shares examples of what to avoid, what to embrace and what to reconsider when trying to make your language more effective.
• Avoid John Kerry’s “crystal clear” nugget. Back in 2016 amid the ongoing foreign policy crises in the Middle East, secretary of state John Kerry, who has a linguistic reputation for long-winded political jargon, seemed to contradict himself in a single breath.
“I want to make this crystal clear,” he said. “The president is desirous of trying to see how we can make our best efforts in order to find a way to facilitate.”
It’s this kind of language that makes people cynical about our elected officials – when a politician’s mouth is moving and producing sounds, but he’s not saying anything. Or, if they are saying something, they use words that are overused and unnecessary. Businesses, too, can be notorious for this using corporate gobbledygook to obfuscate all meaning, Kayser says.
“What people want is authenticity in language, to say what you mean and mean what you say.”
• Emulate Mark Twain, the “straight shooter,” who employed wit, charm and incisive commentary in communications. No, most people cannot pick up where Twain, arguably America’s greatest writer, left off. But language and the way in which it’s used can be highly contagious. If you want to inspire authenticity and engage employees and friends alike with genuine communication, consider styling your speech more along the lines of Twain, rather than a dry business manual:
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do,” Twain wrote. “So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
• If you’re in business, there are advantages to embracing the jargon. “Can we blue sky this synergy later?” “Cascade this to your people and see what the pushback is.” … Business lingo could fill a dictionary, and in many cases, requires one! Unlike political babble, business jargon has its purpose, according to a new study from the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. Business speak is code for “upper management material,” showing that the speaker is in a company’s inner circle and is a “big picture” person, the study reveals.
“Some of the language you come across in the business world can seem absurd to outsiders; some of these phrases, however, may actually reveal ambition in an employee,” Kayser says.
“The beauty of language is that it’s a common tool for everyone to use, yet it can be tailored to an individual. My primary suggestion is to do that in a way that authentically reveals your meaning.”
About Steve Kayser
Steve Kayser is an award-winning writer, editor, publisher, former radio host and founder of Kayser Media. He has had the great fortune to interview and collaborate with some of the best minds in the business world, and his eclectic approach to public relations and marketing has been widely documented. He recently published “The Greatest Words You’ve Never Heard,” (www.stevekayser.com).
Not all ideas are ‘shot down’ by an intimidating boss- Albert Einstein’s formal letter paved the way to American atom bomb research.
Everyone says they want innovation in their organization, but when an ambitious employee offers it to a Boss or CEO, for example, the idea is often shot down, says Neal Thornberry, Ph.D., faculty director for innovation initiatives at the Naval Postgraduate School in California.
“Senior leaders often miss the value-creating potential of a new concept because they either don’t take the time to really listen and delve into it, or the innovating employee presents it in the wrong way,” says Thornberry, who recently published “Innovation Judo,” (www.NealThornberry.com), based on his years of experience teaching innovation at Babson College and advising an array of corporate clients, from the Ford Co. and IBM to Cisco Systems.
Neal Thornberry: ” Innovation should be presented as opportunities, not ideas. Opportunities have gravitas while ideas do not!”
Thornberry outlines a template for innovation that works:
1 Intention: Once the “why” is answered, leaders have the beginnings of a legitimate roadmap to innovation’s fruition. This is no small task and requires some soul searching.
“I once worked with an executive committee, and I got six different ideas for what ‘innovation’ meant,” he says. “One wanted new products, another focused on creative cost-cutting, and the president wanted a more innovative culture. The group needed to agree on their intent before anything else.”
2 Infrastructure: This is where you designate who is responsible for what. It’s tough, because the average employee will not risk new responsibility and potential risk without incentive. Some companies create units specifically focused on innovation, while others try to change the company culture in order to foster innovation throughout. “Creating a culture takes too long,” Thornberry says. “Don’t wait for that.”
3 Investigation: What do you know about the problem? IDEO may be the world’s premier organization for investigating innovative solutions. Suffice to say that the organization doesn’t skimp on collecting and analyzing data. At this point, data collection is crucial, whereas brainstorming often proves to be a waste of time if the participants come in with the same ideas, knowledge and opinions that they had last week with no new learning in their pockets.
4 Ideation: The fourth step is also the most fun and, unfortunately, is the part many companies leap to. This is dangerous because you may uncover many exciting and good ideas, but if the right context and focus aren’t provided up front, and team members cannot get on the same page, then a company is wasting its time. That is why intent must be the first step for any company seeking to increase innovation. Innovation should be viewed as a set of tools or processes, and not a destination.
If you’re gonna ‘demo’ your idea you better have practiced and perfected your routine before showing your boss-
5 Identification: Here’s where the rubber meets the road on innovation. Whereas the previous step was creative, now logic and subtraction must be applied to focus on a result. Again, ideas are great, but they must be grounded in reality. An entrepreneurial attitude is required here, one that enables the winnowing of ideas, leaving only those with real value-creating potential.
“Innovation without the entrepreneurial mindset is fun but folly,” Thornberry notes.
6 Infection: Does anyone care about what you’ve come up with? Will excitement spread during this infection phase? Now is the time to find out. Pilot testing, experimentation and speaking directly with potential customers begin to give you an idea of how innovative and valuable an idea is. This phase is part selling, part research and part science. If people can’t feel, touch or experience your new idea in part or whole, they probably won’t get it. This is where the innovator has a chance to reshape their idea into an opportunity, mitigate risk, assess resistance and build allies for their endeavor.
7 Implementation/Integration: While many talk about this final phase, they often fail to address the integration part. Implementation refers to tactics that are employed in order to put an idea into practice. This is actually a perilous phase because, in order for implementation to be successful, the idea must first be successfully integrated with other activities in the business and aligned with strategy. An innovation, despite its support from the top, can still fail if a department cannot work with it.
For the Silo, Neil Thornberry.
Working 9 to 5? Think about the best times to approach your boss.
Neal Thornberry, Ph.D., is the founder and CEO of IMSTRAT, LLC a consulting firm that specializes in helping private and public sector organizations develop innovation strategies. A respected thought leader in innovation, Thornberry is a highly sought-after international speaker and consultant. He also serves as the faculty director for innovation initiatives at the Center for Executive Education at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Calif. Thornberry, author of “InnovationJudo:Disarming Roadblocks & Blockheads on the Path to Creativity”, holds a doctorate in organizational psychology and specializes in innovation, corporate entrepreneurship, leadership and organizational transformation.
“Pay attention students, write this down for memorization.” The Trivium and Quadrivium, medieval revival of classical Greek education theories, defined the seven liberal arts necessary as preparation for entering higher education: grammar, logic, rhetoric, astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and music. Even today, the education disciplines identified since Greek times are still reflected in many education systems. Numerous disciplines and branches have since emerged, ranging from history to computer science…
Now comes the Information Age, bringing with it Big Data, cloud computing, artificial intelligence as well as visualization techniques that facilitate the learning of knowledge.
All this technology dramatically increased the amount of knowledge we could access and the speed at which we could generate answers to our questions.
“New and more innovative knowledge maps are now needed to help us navigate the complexities of our expanding landscape of knowledge,” says Charles Fadel. Fadel is the founder of the Center for Curriculum Redesign, which has been producing new knowledge maps that redesign knowledge standards from the ground up. “Understanding the interrelatedness of knowledge areas will help to uncover a logical and effective progression for learning that achieves deep understanding.”
Joining us inThe Global Search for Educationto talk about what students should learn in the age of AI is Charles Fadel, author ofFour-Dimensional Education: The Competencies Learners Need to Succeed.
“We need to identify the Essential Content and Core Concepts for each discipline – that’s what the curation effort must achieve so as to leave time and space for deepening the disciplines’ understanding and developing competencies.” — Charles Fadel
Charles, today students have the ability to look up anything. Technology that enables them to do this is also improving all the time. If I want to solve a math problem, I use my calculator, and if I want to write a report on the global effects of climate change, I pull out my mobile. How much of the data kids are being forced to memorize in school is now a waste of time?
The Greeks bemoaned the invention of the alphabet because people did not have to memorize the Iliad anymore. Anthropologists tell us that memorization is far more trained in populations that are illiterate or do not have access to books. So needing to memorize even less in an age of Search is a natural evolution.
However, there are also valid reasons for why somecarefully curatedcontent will always be necessary. Firstly, Automaticity. It would be implausible for anyone to constantly look up words or simple multiplications – it just takes too long and breaks the thought process, very inefficiently. Secondly, Learning Progressions. A number of disciplines need a gradual progression towards expertise, and again, one cannot constantly look things up, this would be completely unworkable. Finally, Competencies (Skills, Character, Meta-Learning). Those cannot be developed in thin air as they need a base of (modernized, curated) knowledge to leverage.
Sometimes people will say “Google knows everything” and it is striking, but the reality is that for now, Googlestoreseverything. Of course, with AI, what is emerging now is the ability toanalyzea large number of specific problems and make predictions, so eventually, Google and similar companies will know a lot more than humans can about themselves!
Closeup of mobile phone with language learning application in jeans pocket. focus on screen
“What we need to test for is Transfer – the ability to use something we have learned in a completely different context. This has always been the goal of an Education, but now algorithms will allow us to focus on that goal even more, by ‘flipping the curriculum’.” — Charles Fadel
If Child A has memorized the data in her head while Child B has to look up the answers, some might argue that Child A is smarter than Child B. I would argue that AI has leveled the playing field for Child A and Child B, particularly if Child B is digitally literate, creative and passionate about learning. What are your thoughts?
First, let’s not conflate memory with intelligence, which games like Jeopardy implicitly do. The fact that Child A memorized data does not mean they are “smarter” than Child B, even though memory implies a modicum of intelligence. Second, even Child B will need some level of content knowledge to be creative, etc. Again, this is not developed in thin air, per the conversation above.
So it is a false dichotomy to talk about KnowledgeorCompetencies (Skills/Character/Meta-learning), it has to be Knowledge (modernized, curated) and Competencies. We’d want children to both Know and Do, with creativity and curiosity.
Lastly, we need to identify the Essential Content and Core Concepts for each discipline – that’s what the curation effort must achieve so as to leave time and space for deepening the disciplines’ understandinganddeveloping competencies.
Given the impact of AI today and the advancements we expect by this time next year, when should school districts introduce open laptop examinations to allow students equal access to information and place emphasis on their thinkingskills?
The question has more to do with Search algorithms than with AI, but regardless, real-life is open-book, and so should exams be alike. And yes, this will force students to actually understand their materials, provided the tests do more than multiple-choice trivialities, which by the way we find even at college levels for the sake of ease of grading.
What we need to test for is Transfer – the ability to use something we have learned in a completely different context. This has always been the goal of an Education, but now algorithms (search, AI) will allow us to focus on that goal even more, by “flipping the curriculum”.
Today, if a learner wants to do a deep dive into any specific subject, AI search allows her to do this outside of classroom time. What do you say to a history teacher who argues there’s no need to revise subject content in his classroom?
For all disciplines, not just History, we must strike the careful balance between “just-in-time, in context” vs “just-in-case”. Context matters to anchor the learning: in other words, real-world projects give immediaterelevancefor the learning, which helps it to be absorbed. And yet projects can also be time-inefficient, so a healthy balance of didactic methods like lectures are still necessary.McKinseyhas recently shown that today that ratio is about 25% projects, which should grow a bit more over time as education systems embed them better, with better teacher training.
Second, it should be perfectly fine for any student to do deep dives as they see fit, but again in balance: there are other competencies needed to becoming a more complete individual, and if one is ahead of the curve in a specific topic, it is of course very tempting to follow one’s passion. And at the same time, it is important to make sure that other competencies get developed too. So, balance and a discriminating mind matter.
Employers consider ethics, leadership, resilience, curiosity,mindfulness and courage as being of “very high” importance to preparing students for the workplace. How does your curriculum satisfy employers’ demands today and in the years ahead?
These Character qualities are essential foremployersand life needs alike, and they have converged away from the false dichotomy of “employability or psycho-social needs.” A modern curriculum ensures that these qualities are developeddeliberately, systematically, comprehensively, and demonstrably. This is achieved by matrixing them with the Knowledge dimension, meaning teaching Resilience via Mathematics, Mindfulness via History, etc. Employers have a mixed view and success as to how to assess these qualities, so it is a bit unfair that they would demand specificity they do not have. And it is also unfitting of school systems to lose relevance.
people, education, technology and exam concept – close up of students with smartphones taking picture of books page and making cheat sheet in school library
“Educators have been tone-deaf to the needs of employers and society to educate broad and deep individuals, not merely ones that may go to college. The anchoring of this problem comes from university entrance requirements.” — Charles Fadel
There is a significant gap between employers’ view of the preparation levels of students and the views of students and educators. The problem likely exists partly because of incorrect assumptions on both sides, but there are also valid deficiencies. What specific inadequacies are behind this gap? What system or process can be devised to resolve this issue?
On one side, employers are expecting too much and shirking their responsibility to bring up the level of their employees, expecting them to graduate 100% “ready to work” and having to spend nothing more than job-specific training at best. On the other side, educators have been tone-deaf to the needs of employers and society to educate broad and deep individuals, not merely ones that may go to college.
The anchoring of this problem comes from university entrance requirements (in the US, AP classes, etc.) and their associated assessments (SAT/ACT scores). They have for decades back-biased what is taught in schools, in a very self-serving manner – narrowly as a test of whether a student will succeed at university. It is time to deconstruct the requirements to broaden/deepen them to serve multiple stakeholders. For the Silo, C.M. Rubin.
Join me and globally renowned thought leaders including Sir Michael Barber (UK), Dr. Michael Block (U.S.), Dr. Leon Botstein (U.S.), Professor Clay Christensen (U.S.), Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond (U.S.), Dr. MadhavChavan (India), Charles Fadel (U.S.), Professor Michael Fullan (Canada), Professor Howard Gardner (U.S.), Professor Andy Hargreaves (U.S.), Professor Yvonne Hellman (The Netherlands), Professor Kristin Helstad (Norway), Jean Hendrickson (U.S.), Professor Rose Hipkins (New Zealand), Professor Cornelia Hoogland (Canada), Honourable Jeff Johnson (Canada), Mme. Chantal Kaufmann (Belgium), Dr. EijaKauppinen (Finland), State Secretary TapioKosunen (Finland), Professor Dominique Lafontaine (Belgium), Professor Hugh Lauder (UK), Lord Ken Macdonald (UK), Professor Geoff Masters (Australia), Professor Barry McGaw (Australia), Shiv Nadar (India), Professor R. Natarajan (India), Dr. Pak Tee Ng (Singapore), Dr. Denise Pope (US), Sridhar Rajagopalan (India), Dr. Diane Ravitch (U.S.), Richard Wilson Riley (U.S.), Sir Ken Robinson (UK), Professor Pasi Sahlberg (Finland), Professor Manabu Sato (Japan), Andreas Schleicher (PISA, OECD), Dr. Anthony Seldon (UK), Dr. David Shaffer (U.S.), Dr. Kirsten Sivesind (Norway), Chancellor Stephen Spahn (U.S.), Yves Theze (LyceeFrancais U.S.), Professor Charles Ungerleider (Canada), Professor Tony Wagner (U.S.), Sir David Watson (UK), Professor Dylan Wiliam (UK), Dr. Mark Wormald (UK), Professor Theo Wubbels (The Netherlands), Professor Michael Young (UK), and Professor Minxuan Zhang (China) as they explore the big picture education questions that all nations face today.
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, includingThe Real Alice in Wonderland, is the publisher ofCMRubinWorldand is a Disruptor Foundation Fellow.
Jungian Psychology uses art-therapy, dreams and imagery in mapping personal and collective unconscious, archetypes and complexes. Jung believed that there were fears and thoughts that children and adults exhibit that are “remarkably similar across time and culture” (allpsych.com) image: skycladtherapist.files.wordpress.com
The human brain is a wonder of the universe, but our understanding of it can seem contradictory, says Steven Jay Fogel, author of the book Your Mind Is What Your Brain Does for a Living.
“On the one hand, we’re often told of those crucial years that our brain develops in childhood, when we’re rapidly progressing in development of our language and other skills, and our preadolescent and teenage years, when our brains undergo a sort of second Big Bang of learning,” says Fogel, (www.StevenJayFogel.com).
“But although it may seem that the brain is pretty much set by adulthood, it remains malleable throughout adulthood; it continues to change as we learn and adapt.”
Most of us are unaware that elements of our inner child’s development are constantly tugging at us, and we don’t have a clue that it’s happening, he says. In Jungian therapy there’s a concept called the dark side, or shadow side, the place in our unconscious to which certain feelings and thoughts are banished because they don’t support our image of ourselves, he says.
Steven Jay Fogel is a longtime student of human behavior and development.
“That is our inner child responding to the emotional pain we experienced and interpreted with the limited understanding we had when we were very young. It continues to steer our reactions and behavior as adults, often in inappropriate ways,” Fogel says.
Awareness creates an opportunity for change. Fogel reviews how our adult brain can take command of the inner child:
• Recognize the elements of your self identity that keep you trapped. Our identity – how we want the world to see us – develops, in part, as a response to avoiding pain. Our identity may change from one situation to another (in the same way a chameleon changes its body color to match its surroundings) as we slip on the persona we believe is expected in a particular environment or social setting. This automatic behavior is the opposite of making mindful choices, and it robs us of the joy of living in the moment and inhibits spontaneity.
• Be aware of when you’re acting. Many of us live our lives as though we’re playing parts in various movies, navigating different storylines every day. You may be the righteous Clint Eastwood manager at work and then shift into the town drunk during happy hour, and later the loving husband and father during brunch the following weekend morning. When you’re playing these roles, you’re not in the present.
• Be skeptical of what the voice in your head may tell you. It’s not easy to recognize and quiet the mental chatter associated with the different roles we play. We’ve become so accustomed to the voice in our head, that we don’t realize its messages are programmed – and not necessarily the truth. Is your voice telling you to feel guilty? Ashamed? Angry? Is that rational? If not, it may be your inner child acting out of a childlike fear.
“Instead of simply responding to what we’re hardwired to think and react, we can hear, in mindful repose, those promptings as simply chatter,” Fogel says. “When you’re mindful, the inner child’s chatter can be seen for what it is, and you will be free to take a more mature directionin your day-to-day living.”
Steven Jay Fogel is a longtime student of human behavior and development; he has studied with psychologists, educators, and rabbinical scholars. Your Mind Is What Your Brain Does for a Living, (Greenleaf Book Group Press, 2014), is his third book. He is also the author of My Mind Is Not Always My Friend: A Guide for How to Not Get in Your Own Way (Fresh River Press, 2010) and The Yes-I-Can Guide to Mastering Real Estate (Times Books-Random House). For decades he has been an active participant in the human potential movement, inspiring and mentoring others to seek their true selves. Fogel is a principal and cofounder of Westwood Financial Corp., one of the largest owner-operators of retail properties in the United States. He is a licensed real estate broker and past chairman of the California Arts Council.
Supplemental- Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated or unlikely to occur together by chance, yet are experienced as occurring together in a meaningful manner. The concept of synchronicity was first described in this terminology by Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychologist, in the 1920s.
The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality. Instead, it maintains that just as events may be grouped by cause, they may also be grouped by meaning. A grouping of events by meaning need not have an explanation in terms of cause and effect.
Audiences in today’s world are increasingly consuming information on the internet in visual and interactive ways. Every industry is exploring ways to transform and present content on video. What does this mean for learners around the globe?
“Being able to translate your story into over 120 languages is increasingly important in a global world.” – Anurag Dwivedi
Anurag Dwivedi is one of the founders of the Rocketium video platform. He believes everyone has important stories to tell. What limits the story-tellers is not having a platform that makes storytelling “easy to create and easy to consume.” The Rocketium platform is unique in that it allows teams of creators to work collaboratively on video projects in one innovative space. The company has automated the majority of the time-consuming tasks of the video creation process. For example, some of the Rocketium product features include one-click styling, automatic resizing of videos in different aspect ratios for different social platforms, and automatic translation of any content into over 120 languages. In addition, the platform provides advanced controls for styling and sequence timing for users. This enables creators to customize styles in a way which Dwivedi claims no other video creation platform can provide. Further, Rocketium creators have an online customer service team ready to support users’ production questions at any point in the process. Anurag Dwivedi from Rocketium talks further about how his company is giving anyone, anywhere in the world, the tools to tell important stories:
“I think the mindset that some of us can write a script but cannot produce an audio-visual version of it is a roadblock for many young creators.” – Anurag Dwivedi
What do you think sets Rocketium apart from the other video creation platforms?
Rocketium offers an end-to-end video creation suite that we believe no other product like it can offer. We’re enabling our users to scale video production efficiently by providing simple tools for the writers and marketers to create templates, and automation to generate videos in large volumes. The goal is to enable storytellers to work either individually or in teams with anyone, anywhere in the world. Hence, all the features you need for a collaborative process, such as being able to assign videos to members of your team, or discuss creative issues in real time, or share content via social media platforms, are built into our system. We’ve broken down the massive job of video production and distribution into simple steps so that everything from writing a script to developing it, to editing and finally publishing on the internet are all on the same platform. And, of course, being able to translate your story into over 120 languages is increasingly important in a global world.
What do you see as the biggest challenge for an absolute beginner, a teacher or a student who wants to tell a video story?
Video making is often considered a daunting task — something that only experienced video editors and designers can do. Rocketium has made the video creation process less intimidating and also faster. We have broken down the process into simple steps. We offer creators a versatile selection of themes and templates. There are numerous options for video styling available to the user. Our process in some ways is similar to mini-blogging, i.e. the user is writing stories in a shorter format and then adding still images or video clips. Your job as the storyteller is to use our tools to create the most impactful video story you can without worrying about the design or styling aspect of video making.
How is telling a video story different from telling a text story?
I personally believe there is no difference if you have the right tools. I think the mindset that some of us can write a script but cannot produce an audio-visual version of it is a roadblock for many young creators. Visuals improve and enhance any story that’s ever been written. The impact of a visual story is exponentially greater than that of a text story because visuals contain a lot more information in a sequence of frames and that leaves a lasting impression on the mind. Additionally, adding music and special effects to text always builds a deeper emotional connection between your story and its audience.
As creators develop more and more videos, they learn about the creative process and they get better at leveraging the resources on the platform.” – Anurag Dwivedi
Let’s talk about video creation as a learning process. What specific skills are nurtured in this process and why do you think they are important?
We present video creation as a learning journey which trains creators how to portray their story through a combination of words, images and music. As creators develop more and more videos, they learn about the creative process and they get better at leveraging the resources on the platform. For example, what color palette will you select to evoke the right emotion for this portion of your story, or what style of music will generate the mood you’re looking for? Users ultimately develop and expand their creative skill sets while supported by the tools on the platform.
Is Rocketium designed for all wannabe video producers? How would you describe your target audience?
We believe there is no one-fits-all solution for video creation. Our product offers global access to anyone who wants to produce a story on video. We have simplified the production process but there is plenty of space for users to develop their own creative and communication skills. Not everyone is destined to become the next Steven Spielberg, but we have built a comprehensive tool that allows anyone to try. And we believe that to flourish in the 21st century, learners need to be able to use tools like ours to enhance their communication skills.
How else do you see the democratization of visual production impacting our society generally?
There is no doubt that dissemination of information is becoming easier as the world is more connected through smart devices. Anyone can now tell stories and distribute them on the internet. Two things we need to be wary about. First are the duplication issues and the relevance of content. The second is the accuracy and truthfulness of content. Fake news is a global issue which we need to tackle as a global society. I believe this is where educators can help.
“We believe that to flourish in the 21st century, learners need to be able to use tools like ours to enhance their communication skills.” – Anurag Dwivedi
Look into the future — where do you see Rocketium 5 or 10 years from now?
We continue to explore the possibilities of creative learning tools for various scenarios. Ten years from now, I see Rocketium as a platform employed in all applications — education, entertainment, lifestyle, sales, marketing, etc. We are happy to be the backend engine for the creation and distribution of any form of interactive and visual content, by anyone and for everyone, from individuals to global enterprises. For the Silo, C.M. Rubin.
C. M. Rubin is the author of two widely read online series for which she received a 2011 Upton Sinclair award, “The Global Search for Education” and “How Will We Read?” She is also the author of three bestselling books, including The Real Alice in Wonderland, is the publisher of CMRubinWorld and is a Disruptor Foundation Fellow.
Social science experts agree — much of what we “say” is never actually spoken.
“Facial expressions and other body language account for more than half of our communication,” says Adam J. Scheiner, M.D.,
www.adamscheinermd.com, an international Oculoplastic surgeon who’s been featured on “The Dr. Oz Show” and “The Doctors.”
“When we look at someone, especially when we’re meeting for the first time, we quickly scan the eye and mouth areas of the other person’s face to make some quick judgments: Are they friendly or a potential threat? Are they trustworthy? We form first impressions within 7 seconds of meeting.”
Those first impressions can become misleading due to the normal aging process and damage caused by stress, diet and environmental factors, particularly sun exposure.
“I call them the three D’s of aging: Our skin begins to deteriorate; our faces deflate, making them narrower and wrinkled; and our eyelids and face descend, causing drooping and sagging,” Scheiner says. “All of these can affect what our face communicates to those around us.”
It’s bad enough to communicate something you don’t really feel, he says. It’s worse when people react to that communication so often, such as saying, “You look so tired,” that you actually begin to believe you are tired, he says.
He shares the three common “miscommunications”:
• “People say I look tired when I’m not.”
As we age, our eyelids can begin to droop and look heavy, Scheiner says. The lower eyelid region often develops fullness below the lower lashes due to changes in the fat around the eye and changes in the facial fat of the surrounding cheek region. A lower eyelid height, heaviness of the upper or lower eyelid, or an eyebrow falling into the upper eyelid space can also occur. Whatever the cause, having baggy, puffy eyes can make a person look tired, sleepy, old or sick.
• “People avoid me because they say I look stern, even angry. I’m neither!”
Whether through genetics or aging, eyebrows may lack or lose the arc that opens up the eye area and the entire face. A fairly straight eyebrow can convey a closed, unapproachable personality.
• “People think I’m sick or have no energy.”
The brain expects to see a smooth curve from the temple to the cheek through the jawline to the chin. Any break in the curve is read as a lack of vibrancy. Normal facial aging causes loss of youthful fullness due to facial fat changes. This can cause a break in the curve that translates as a lack of vibrancy. In addition, poorly injected facial fillers can cause unnatural results.
Cosmetic procedures shouldn’t aim to turn you into something you’re not, Scheiner says.
“For rejuvenation, you simply want your face to communicate how you really feel inside. When you accomplish that, it’s so natural, people
will say, ‘Wow, you look great!’ But they won’t be able to put their finger on why.” For the Silo, Ginny Grimsley.
Adam J. Scheiner, M.D. is world-renowned in laser eyelid and facial plastic surgery for his groundbreaking treatment for Festoons. He wrote the medical text on the condition and treated two complex causes of Festoons for the Dr. Oz and The Doctors TV shows.
We live in one of the most politically heated times in history. Expressing your point of view is a personal decision and can be tricky. Although conversations may start out benign, they can quickly become a toxic dialogue.
Sharon Schweitzer, an international etiquette expert, author, and the founder of Access to Culture, says there are several “do’s and dont’s” to make sure polite political discourse doesn’t turn into hostile debates.
DO
Show respect for differing opinions
It can be challenging to listen to those with different opinions. It’s important to show respect and take time to listen, giving the other person the opportunity to share their viewpoints. The Platinum rule encourages treating others as they wish to be treated. Stay calm, collected and respectful.
Agree to disagree
If their opinions are different from your views, you can agree to disagree. Try saying something along the lines of, “I respect your perspective, but I think we may need to agree to disagree” or “That’s a different way of thinking about the issue, but I’m comfortable if you and I can agree to disagree.”
Ask questions
If someone asks you a question about your political beliefs, you can reciprocate by asking them about their own beliefs. Let the other person do the talking while you listen. Try to ask open-ended questions such as, “What are your thoughts on the current political atmosphere?” or “How do you feel about the media’s portrayal of …?”
Change the subject
If someone continues to ask your opinion, change the topic by saying: “It’s impossible to keep track of the different versions of the news. How is your family doing by the way?” “With the divisive political atmosphere, I’m not comfortable sharing my personal opinions, but thank you for your interest.” “I can’t answer that question, but what I can discuss is… ”
DON’T
Get angry, cross or upset
It can be difficult to keep your temper, but don’t get angry or upset if you don’t agree with someone’s viewpoints. Expressing sarcasm, bitterness or passive aggressiveness won’t change any minds. It will only damage your reputation.
Talk over them
The worst thing you could do is interrupt conversation and start talking about your own opinion. Be respectful of other opinions and views. Listen attentively, especially when you don’t agree with that viewpoint. It gets easier the more you practice.
Overshare
Politics is a difficult conversation, particularly with family members and close friends. If you are speaking to someone you’ve just met, refrain from oversharing. In this case, less is more. Avoid saying something you will later regret.
Make assumptions
We make mental notes when we first meet someone new. We make a first impression based on hair, shoes, watch, clothing, mannerisms, etc. However, political views are hidden unless they are shared verbally or by wearing a revealing detail. It’s important to approach people with an open mind to avoid awkward and potentially toxic conversations.
For the Silo, Scott Jones.
Featured image- http://ashleylewis-oldmeetsnew.blogspot.ca/
Neighbor disputes are fairly common. They can arise for a number of reasons, such as shared land and amenities, repairs, boundaries, noise or parking spaces. How you deal with these could determine how comfortable you feel in your house and your neighborhood. So many times, disputes can escalate unnecessarily and leave both parties stressed, angry and sometimes out of pocket.
In this guide we look at some of the most common neighbor disputes in Britain and give tips on how to handle them and more importantly, how to resolve them peacefully.
Infographic courtesy of our friends at castironradiators4u.co.uk
The crew at Channel 4 FM in Dubai responded when the marketing team thought it might be fun to do a live 5-10 minute broadcast segment from the Ambassador’s Lagoon outside the iconic Atlantis the Palm Resort, more or less as a publicity stunt to promote this exotic location. We’re not talking poolside, mind you, but broadcasting from within the pool – an underwater broadcast from a pool that hosts a variety of sea life!
This might have been interesting enough, though such an aquatic broadcast had been done before, but the plan soon evolved into something more when Station Producer Lucas Poole (ironic, right?) suggested that Stu Tolan, host of the Celebrate Mornings breakfast show, attempt to break the record for longest underwater broadcast.
Mobile Rack featuring Telos Z/IP ONE used for underwater broadcastChannel 4 learned that this would mean staying on air and underwater for nearly five hours – no small amount of time to broadcast live while wearing scuba gear! The team was up for it, and preparations began to break the record. But would the tech hold up for such a stunt? Channel 4 IT and Broadcast Manager Muhammed Rafeeque says there were a number of challenges, and the engineering team initially didn’t feel prepared for the record-breaking broadcast.
“We were informed that one of the requirements to set the record was that the broadcast crew could not disconnect from the studio for more than two minutes, so we would need to ensure a stable link from the site of the broadcast to the main broadcast studio at all times,” Muhammed explains. In addition, the broadcast hosts would need to remain in communication with a representative from the Guinness Book of World Records, outside the pool, at all times. Muhammed continues, “These requirements presented some challenges for the technical crew to ensure these lines of communication would remain stable throughout the broadcast, and that any delays in communications or getting callers on the air would be minimal.”
Complicating things further, the resort could not provide a stable internet connection because it is reserved for guests, so the only access would be via cables. As such, a good bit of equipment would need to be hauled to the broadcast site so everything would be at the ready.
As a solution, Muhammed says the team used a router, which connected to a Telos Z/IP ONE, and then to the main broadcast studio. The studio features 100% Livewire infrastructure, so getting the audio feed into the studio would be easy using the Z/IP ONE, especially with sufficient backups. Muhammed assigned two Z/IP ONEs to the studio, so if one failed, the second one would take over and the broadcast could remain live. “For this broadcast it was all about convenience, quality, and low latency,” he points out.
“For this broadcast it was all about convenience, quality, and low latency.”
—Muhammed Rafeeque, IT and Broadcast Manager, Channel 4 FM
All the coordination paid off, and on May 13th, Stu and the Channel 4 Celebrate Mornings went live from underwater! Everything went smoothly, and presenters Saif, Vicky, Helen, and Kolter, Program Director Tom Ferguson, and news reporters on hand to interview the team, joined Stu underwater at various intervals during the show, while co-presenter Eve presented poolside.
With the help of the engineering staff—Ramesh, Chandana, Chaminda, Ibrahim, Mannan, and Shahid Kazmi—and the marketing team of CEO / Group Program Director and AlMurad Group CBO Talal Murad, and assistants Neeil and Yogesh, the broadcast came off without a hitch.
In the end, the record was not only broken, but shattered, as the broadcast went well beyond the five hour mark, giving future underwater broadcast hopefuls a high bar to shoot for. Check out the video highlights and the photo album.
Mr. Abdullah Murad, Chairman Al Murad group, parent company to Channel 4, phoned Stu to congratulate him once the record was officially broken, and the Guinness Book of World Records representative on hand certified the record presented Stu with the honor at the end of the broadcast.
It certainly wasn’t your everyday broadcast, but at a place like Atlantis the Palm, “A World Away from the Everyday” is the norm. The Telos Alliance is proud to have played a small part in this unique event, and help the Channel 4 team achieve a slice of radio broadcast history. For the Silo, Dave Sarkies.
For children, divorce can be an extremely upsetting and stressful time. Their world changes and it’s confusing. They may feel uncertain, scared, angry, hurt and depressed. As a parent, you can make the process less stressful for your children by being aware of ways to make the process less unsettling for them.
Your understanding, patience and reassurance can help greatly in your child’s adjustment. The infographic below via our friends at Browell Smith & Co Solicitors shows ways for you to reduce your child’s pain by making their well-being the most important part of the transition.
Imagine looking in your glasses to see updates from your friends on social media. The future is coming sooner than you think and yes, you will be wearing your next computer- check out this future ready infographic from our friends at Frames Direct.
Click Me to see more interesting Infographics by visual.ly
The first published concept of Virtual Reality: Pygmalion’s Spectales (short story) by Stanley G. Weinbaum ‘You drink,’ said the elfin, bearded face, ‘to make real a dream. Is it not so? Either to dream that what you seek is yours, or else to dream that what you hate is conquered. You drink to escape reality, and the irony is that even reality is a dream.’ Published June 1935 ~ Wonder Stories
Joy Junction is three decades old. It is hard to believe the shelter I founded is 30 this year, and that I’ve spent more than half my life at what has obviously now become a lifetime calling. Looking back, it seems just like a short time ago that I came up the driveway of our 52-acre property wanting to reach out to homeless families with food, shelter and the love of Jesus Christ.
We’re currently sheltering as many as 300 people nightly, and providing more than 16,000 meals each month from a fully licensed kitchen. Born in England, I emigrated to the U.S. in 1978 with $50.00 in my pocket and a one way ticket. I ended up homeless in mid 1981 and early 1982, and in that same year “landed” in Santa Fe. It was there where God brought some amazing people into my life, who encouraged me and helped me begin my first ministry. My calling to work with the homeless began to emerge. In 1986, I left Santa Fe, took a few months off and moved to Albuquerque. There I ended up starting Joy Junction, never envisioning the scope of what it would become.
The vision I had was for a refuge where the entire family unit could stay together at one of the most difficult times in their lives. I wanted to ensure that husbands and wives had the support of each other, and could provide more support for each other and their kids than they might otherwise be able to if split up. I had no idea what adventures, struggles and trials would lie ahead.
Jeremy Reynalds, Ph.D. Founder and CEO Joy Junction Inc.
The full story is told in my book “From Destitute to Ph.D.,” but here are some of the highlights. The shelter grew quickly in the following four years, but quite often, unmanaged and fast growth can be the downfall of an organization of any kind, whether a ministry or not. Our bills were exceeding our income and we nearly folded. Due to God’s grace we stayed afloat. During those first years, I also worked a part time job to put food on my own family’s table, taught a regular Bible study at the shelter and tried to get the word about what we were trying to do. In 1991, I felt it was time I went back to school. I tried a couple of summer classes at the University of New Mexico, and earned a bachelor’s degree with a focus on journalism in 1996 and a master’s degree in communication in 1998. Along the way I also enjoyed a number of internships at various media in Albuquerque, as well as hosting a couple of radio shows.
Looking back, I can see how all these media experiences helped me better promote Joy Junction and the plight of the homeless. I have a deep appreciation for our local media. It is sad that reporters are routinely vilified and criticized but rarely praised. In 1999, I was accepted to do a Ph.D. intercultural education at Biola University in Los Angeles. I graduated in 2006, and my doctoral dissertation dealt with the way the media portray America’s homeless culture. In ( about) 1999, I also met a fellow Brit by the name of Dan Wooding, the founder of a very unique news service dealing with the plight of persecuted Christians as well as aspects of popular culture. I have written for the ASSIST News Service ever since then, and have traveled to a number of countries internationally reporting for them.
In my post Ph.D. years, the shelter continued to grow in budget and services offered. In 2009, due to the generosity of a local businessman, we added a mobile feeding unit we dubbed the Lifeline of Hope. It operates seven days a week 365 days a year, providing food, water and toiletries to people who can afford either a meal or a place to stay-but not both In late 2006 I went through a divorce and was single for a number of years. In March 2015, I got married to my wife Elma. She is the love of my life, and shares the same passion as me for helping feed the hungry and house the homeless. Elma has quickly become an integral part of Joy Junction and is loved by guests and staff alike.
The future for Joy Junction is looking bright, with numerous renovations in 2015 occurring at our aging property. For the comfort of our guests we upgraded the air conditioning at our main building, replaced windows, and put in a new driveway to help make visiting our facility a much less “bumpy” experience. In addition, we have demolished an old and unused chapel on our property to prepare the way for much needed new construction. With the Lord as my guide and my wife at my side, I look forward to the next three decades helping the disenfranchised, marginalized, homeless and hungry. I hope you will consider joining us. For the Silo, Jeremy Reynalds and Joy Junction. (www.joyjunction.org)
SipSup is a new beverage drinking glass that communicates with smart phones via app technology to become an interactive media display and storage unit. When you have finished drinking your beverage of choice, digital photos and videos you have dropped into your glass via the SipSup app are left behind. The SipSup app enables you to keep your special moments only for yourself (private) or to make them visible to every person who happens to tap their phone to your glass (public). The social interaction possibilities are endless- many of us already spend a lot of time at coffeehouses or pubs, consider bringing your glass along- it would be a great way to meet new people and discover new forms of interaction- all via your hi-tech SipSup glassware. If that wasn’t enough, another feature called “post-it”, allows your guests to leave photos or videos on your glass and even write on a fun message. Hydration will never again be boring. A Slovenian start-up that prides itself on ‘out of the box’ thinking, the SipSup team have taken an object we all use on a daily basis and given it new functions. SipSup will stand out from the other glasses in your kitchen because of it’s distinct curved shape designed to naturally fit your hand. It’s base resembles the ripple effect of a drop falling into water and was inspired by the notion of “dropping moments into a glass”. You can get this great looking piece of smart glassware on Kickstarter. For more information email: marketingdirector@thesilo.ca
The moment we become parents we use our sense of touch to communicate with our brand new baby. I will never forget that first moment in my each of my babies lives, when they started to experience and explore the world completely independently of me. The first thing I did was reach out to my newborn and without exchanging a single sound, we were instantly familiar to each other.
The research that outlines the benefits of touch and infant massage is extensive. Any expert will go on and on about how there is a fancy chemical reaction going on in my brain (central nervous system) that releases a feel-good hormone (serotonin) that counters stress hormones (cortisol) and that is why I feel that connection with my newborn. What I actually experience in those first moments of my child’s new life is nothing short of magical.
This is not meant to imitate the many hundreds of articles that are already out there that outline the benefits of Pediatric Massage Therapy, but there is a little Massage Therapist inside me that cannot encourage you enough to explore it. Children ages 0-99 can benefit from Registered Massage Therapy, but in the mean time treatment can start at home or even heart beats after birth.
Just a few of the types of baby massages. image: yogawiz.com
After spending much time looking for a nursery rhyme that could incorporate a meaningful massage into its singsong format, I decided to write my own for you to try:
Bedtime Butterfly Kisses
Belinda the beautiful butterfly was bouncing on a breeze
Gracefully she glided to give my shoulder a squeeze
“How do you do?” Belinda sung so sweet.
“May I rest here while my heart slows a beat?”
She stopped but a moment before she began to explore
Hugging my arm she looked way down to the floor.
Three times she wandered from shoulder to finger
But I liked her so I indulged, and hoped she would linger.
Perched in my hand, she started stroking my palm
It tickled before I realized it made me feel calm.
She drew circles and hearts with her nose on my skin
Before she giggled and climbed back up to my chin.
With a fluttering kiss to my cheek she gently rubbed my head
And then softly she whispered, “Baby, time for bed.”
Though my eyelids are heavy I try to protest
To forget Belinda when I wake I’d deeply regret
Belinda’s wings push the air across my sleepy face
Like angel kisses made out of the most delicate lace
“Rest well little one,” She sings, “And think not of sorrow.
If you go to sleep now I can come back tomorrow.”
You can be creative and pretend your own hand is a butterfly. I used an inexpensive IKEA (Gulleplutt .99$ CP) finger puppet. Don’t let you imagination stop there. As your child grows out of silly rhymes consider getting creative and making an imaginary pizza on your kiddo’s back, belly or palm. What about planting a garden and watching it grow?
I can give you more research that indicates why it is important to perform these treatments at the same time each day, in a calm space with a warm blanket and yadda yadda, but experience has taught me that even when my son or daughter is in middle of their wildest meltdown behavioral state; a nurturing touch with loving intent is the only cure. For the Silo, Jenny Tansley.
Though debunkers have stated that this story first appeared in Readers Digest, it actually was first reported in 1953 by TV Guide: a viewer based magazine that organized and listed television programming and reviewed highlighted television shows. Hugely successful and widely distributed- it seems counter-intuitive to consider how this might affect an already paranoid and anxious viewer body. After all, the Cold War and the Space Race were underway. Many Americans were building nuclear bomb shelters and keeping their eyes to the skies.
This might have been interesting enough, though such an aquatic broadcast had been done before, but the plan soon evolved into something more when Station Producer Lucas Poole (ironic, right?) suggested that Stu Tolan, host of the Celebrate Mornings breakfast show, attempt to break the record for longest underwater broadcast.
As a solution, Muhammed says the team used a router, which connected to a 
In the end, the record was not only broken, but shattered, as the broadcast went well beyond the five hour mark, giving future underwater broadcast hopefuls a high bar to shoot for. Check out the video highlights and the photo album.
If that wasn’t enough, another feature called “post-it”, allows your guests to leave photos or videos on your glass and even write on a fun message. Hydration will never again be boring. 
