Apply now to be an Enterpreneur360™  company and let us tell the world your success story. Get Started » Netflix snagged headlines nationwide in August 2015 with the rollout of a groundbreaking new policy: unlimited paid maternity and paternity leave for its employees. Fast forward to last Thanksgiving, when Facebook extended its four-month paid parental leave plan to all employees worldwide. Even more recently, Etsy jumped on the bandwagon, announcing that both female and male employees would be eligible for 26 weeks of fully paid leave when they became parents through birth or adoption. Related: 10 U.S. Companies With Radically Awesome Parental Leave Policies All three companies continue to receive praise for offering these benefits -- which they absolutely deserve. But, progressive paid leave policies should be more than just a glamorous Silicon Valley perk to lure employees, in highly competitive environments. Entrepreneurs and small businesses are driving innovation on so many different levels. Shouldn’t we be at the forefront of this issue, too? Think about it this way: The process of changing an HR policy at a large, corporate company can take months, considering all of the necessary processes, approvals and red tape. Small businesses, however, have much more flexibility and can change their policies quickly, and with fewer hoops to jump through. With that in mind, one thing becomes clear: Small business owners have the opportunity -- and the obligation -- to change workplace policies for the better. Rather than simply wait for the government to pass a mandate, we should be establishing the expectations ourselves, setting the standards and encouraging other companies to keep up. Related: Johnson & Johnson Just Gave New Parents Seven More Weeks of Paid Leave Equal pay, equal benefits All that said, limiting paid leave policies to new moms -- or excluding new dads from receiving the same level of benefits that their female colleagues do -- reinforces the antiquated gender norm that says mothers are the primary caregivers. If we believe in equal pay for men and women, we should also believe in equal benefits, right? Just as women deserve to earn as much as men, new dads deserve equal time to bond with their children and to adjust to the new realities of parenthood. The financial factor Admittedly, not all companies can afford to offer such extended paid leave policies for their employees. But, that doesn’t mean it’s okay to skip out on the idea entirely. Consider at least a few weeks of fully paid leave, and then a “transition” period, where the employee is able to return to work, but from his or her own home. That way, you won’t lose too many weeks of productivity, and your employee still has plenty of time to bond with the newborn child. Also, consider this: Yes, you’ll need to invest some money to provide the paid leave period. But, that’s less expensive than the alternative -- what you’ll lose if someone decides not to come back to work after having a child. Offering flexibility is good for businesses and families. A cut-and-paste policy No time to think through your policy? No problem. I’ll let you borrow ours. Feel free to copy, paste and edit the policy we recently introduced at my agency, Geben Communication, to work for you. “[Company name] wants to support our team members if they choose to expand their families. If you’re a new parent -- whether you gave birth or adopted -- we want you to take time and enjoy the experience. We know team member needs vary, so we provide up to 10 weeks of paid leave for moms and dads alike. We also know that returning to work can be abrupt, so we offer the opportunity to transition back over a two-week period with a combination of remote and on site work. The return transition period should be worked out with your supervisor and approved before the beginning of your leave.” For our small businesses to be able to drive the economy, we have to be able to recruit and retain the best talent. A robust benefits packages -- including a more progressive paid leave option -- can be a differentiator that helps emerging businesses attract high-quality talent. Related: Does Your Company Have a Paid Family Leave Program Yet? So, what are you waiting for?

If your goal is to make money, one of the first things every growing business should have is a killer sales department. But how should you quantify that? We asked 10 entrepreneurs from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) the following question:  “I’m new to having a dedicated sales department. What is one thing I must know before I start building out a sales team?” How To Build Out a Sales Team Here’s what YEC community members had to say about building out a sales team: 1. Set Up a Solid Incentives Structure “Don’t start building your sales team until you know exactly what you want them to accomplish. Do they need to deliver a certain amount of revenue? Build your presence in a specific market sector? Figure this out and set up your incentive structure (i.e. compensation) to reflect that. Make sure that your sales team works towards your company goals, or you’ll move backward.” ~Aaron Schwartz, ModifyWatches.com 2. Measure Leading Indicators “Make sure you work with your sales team to set goals at every stage of the funnel. With a new team, you want to make sure you are looking at leading indicators and not just revenue. That way, when problems or underperformance occurs, you’ll be able to better diagnose where the problem lies.” ~ John Rood, Next Step Test Preparation 3. Expect Trial and Error “We built out our sales team in the last year and a half, and it took a lot of trial, error and turnover. When you’re selling a new product, it takes a while to find the best practices and what will work for your target audience. It can also take a while to build a team that excels at these practices and can connect with your customers. Be flexible in your approach and willing to change it up.” ~ Micah Johnson, GoFanbase, Inc. 4. Be Clear About What You Want Them to Achieve “You need to have a strategy in place that says what you want them to achieve as they hit the ground running. This includes annual and quarterly sales goals as well as how their role ties in with what marketing is currently doing.” ~ Zach Binder, Ranklab 5. Define Success for Each Salesperson “Salespeople are results-oriented people. I’ve found salespeople to be competitive and motivated by the opportunity to not only reach, but crush sales targets. If you set the objective, for instance, $10,000 in sales per month, they will be tremendously creative in how they get there. Equip your team with the right tools and technology to reach out to prospects and then let them close deals.” ~David Ciccarelli, Voices.com 6. Understand the Tools Available “There are so many sales tools out there to support sales, ranging from CRM and marketing automation to sales enablement and social selling software. It’s critical to understand which tools will be a good fit for your team and test process integration between them before you make your first hire. Knowing from day one what and how your team will leverage these tools can drive exponential growth.” ~ Nick Eubanks, I’m From The Future 7. Supportive Infrastructure “To give every advantage possible to your new sales team, don’t forget about or underestimate supportive infrastructure. This ranges from the technical (phone system and CRM) to personnel. Personnel can include talented sales management and training staff (and great sales training and management processes!). You may also need customer service/QA staff to keep sales retention high.” ~ Kevin Conner, WireSeek 8. Find People You Trust “For better or worse, the sales team is customer-facing, which means they might have more interactions with your customer than you ever will. Your sales team will require time to create their scripts and find their flow. You need to be able to instill your company values into them, but also give room for failure. It’s a delicate balance of providing them with systems and allowing for error.” ~Ismael Wrixen, FE International 9. Focus on Employee Retention “Hiring is easy. If you dangle enough carrots you can attract almost anyone. Keeping them is the hard part. Put them in a position to succeed with good sales infrastructure, accountability tracking tools, sales scripts, lead generation pipelines, etc. Build a strong house before you put people to live in it.” ~ Andre Chandra, I Print N Mail 10. Don’t Always Hire the Rockstar “Sales is a complex web of building trust through communicating value while constantly trying to close the deal. Rather than hiring an entire team of “rockstars,” understand that each consumer has different needs, and not all of them want to deal with your typical “closer” personality. Sometimes a light hand, and a soft voice can get the job done. Your consumers are diverse. Hire accordingly.” ~Blair Thomas, First American Merchant Business Team Photo via Shutterstock

Above: A great team composition! Image Credit: Jeffrey Grubb/GamesBeat Activision Blizzard has another blockbuster success. Overwatch reached 7 million players worldwide, Blizzard Entertainment said today. That’s on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. While one player does not equal one copy purchased, this definitely shows that Overwatch is massively popular. For comparison, Ubisoft revealed earlier this month that its shooter The Division has 9.5 million registered players, and that was after more than two months on the market. Gaming is a $99.6 billion industry, and Blizzard is one of the best companies in the world at capitalizing on that player base. Overwatch, which is a class-based team shooter that GamesBeat adores, is ensuring that stays true. In a canned statement, Blizzard chief executive officer Mike Morhaime noted that the company was aware of the anticipation for Overwatch following the open beta that attracted millions of players. “We poured a lot of effort into creating a game — and a new universe — that anyone could enjoy,” said Morhaime. “We’re ecstatic to have had such a successful launch, and we’re looking forward to all of the fun, competition, and new content still to come.” Blizzard shared a few more metrics that are difficult to put into context. This includes 119 million hours of combined Overwatch gameplay for all 7 million players. And players have swapped heroes, which is a key element of the gameplay, more than 326 million times. While Blizzard’s public relations team obviously picked these figures cause they sound impressive, it’s likely that the internal team at the company are more concerned about engagement and how many people are paying for in-app purchases. While Overwatch is a $40 game on PC and $60 on console, it also has an option to spend money to speed up your progression and unlock cosmetic items, which is something GamesBeat tested out already. Blizzard is expecting this will continue to bring in money for the next several years. Blizzard is also not going to give Overwatch the chance to grow stale over the summer. The company has already announced plans to update the shooter with a new competitive mode by the end of this month, and you can probably bet that gamers will see some new character skins and emotes before too long as well. For now, however, 7 million people are probably enjoying one of the best games of the year so far. Activision Blizzard Entertainment Michael Morhaime Activision (Activision Blizzard) is an American video game developer and publisher headquartered in Santa Monica, CA, but now operating worldwide. It was the first independent developer and ... All Activision news » Track Activision's Landscape to stay on top of the industry. Access the entire ecosystem, track innovation & deals. Learn more. Blizzard Entertainment® is a premier developer and publisher of entertainment software. After establishing the Blizzard Entertainment label in 1994, the company quickly became one of the mo... All Blizzard Entertainment news » Track Blizzard Entertainment's Landscape to stay on top of the industry. Access the entire ecosystem, track innovation & deals. Learn more. Michael "Mike" Morhaime (born 1967) is president and a co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment (originally founded in 1991 as Silicon & Synapse), a video game developer located in Irvine, Calif... All Michael Morhaime news » Track Michael Morhaime's Landscape to stay on top of the industry. Access the entire ecosystem, track innovation & deals. Learn more.

After another long-awaited year, Mary Meeker's 2016 Internet Trends report is finally here. I had the privilege of working with Mary and her team at Kleiner Perkins for two reports and continue to be in awe of the thoughtful and detailed research that Mary, Alex Tran and her team create.  Since last year, many of the internet trends remain the same (internet growth decelerating, China’s increasing viability as an internet leader), some of my predictions have come true (Large(st) US company (Apple) investing in Chinese powerhouse (Didi), increased cross border M&A / partnership consolidation (Didi+Lyft)) and many things have changed (global economy, private technology funding environment, mobile growth outlook). As it always does, Mary’s report sparks provoking questions and helps crystallize what the future of technology might hold.  Below summarizes some of my key takeaways and questions.   The Low Hanging Fruit for Internet & Mobile Has Disappeared & The Big Players are Best Positioned to Grow Their Share. Mary Meeker has been the #1 internet [mobile] cheerleader for the better of two decades.  When evaluating internet opportunities she is able to see upside that perhaps only founders of those businesses can comprehend.  She would always encourage me to “dream the dream.”  So, when Mary concludes section 1 with “New Internet Users = Continue to be Harder to Garner” and section 2 with “Easy Growth [is] Behind Us” + “Creates Rising Risks,” I immediately hear sirens going off (slides 13, 37, 40)*.  If the bull of all internet bulls is cautiously optimistic, I am scared, but should I be? In short, to a large degree yes, many of the fundamentals are challenged.  It seems as though the consumer technology cycle is at a fragile moment where consumers, investors and companies are yearning for the next distribution shift to drive future growth.  The “easy” growth that Mary describes comes when there are tectonic platform shifts (ie. desktop to mobile) creating a brand new pie that is growing off the back of new users, more time spent per user and the movement of advertising spend to match the explosive growth in time spent.  Internet saturation is nearly complete (at least in developed countries) and mobile saturation is happening faster than with other platform cycles.  Mobile feels to be won, the platform is mature enough from a scale, distribution and idea standpoint.   The big guys will continue to own more and more of a slow growing pie, leaving little opportunity for up and comers.  The data supports this argument, the top 4 mobile first companies all raised their series A’s over 3 years ago, when mobile was still in its pie expanding phase Instagram (Feb. 2011) /  Uber (Feb. 2011) / WhatsApp (April 2011) / Snapchat (Feb. 2013). So, compound poor fundamentals around aging platforms, the nascence of potential next-generation platforms and “Global Economic Growth = Slowing (17),” and you might begin to wonder how US internet [mobile] companies will find continued growth?  However, there are rays of sunshine that pierce through the darkness: a) Bet on The Big Guys: If you believe that the big will get bigger, align your upside with the biggest players who own distribution and are positioned to gain share (Facebook, Google, Amazon, Uber, Snapchat, Netflix). The advantages of scale are paramount 1) Network effect lock in 2) Operating leverage 3) R&D resources / investment 4) Captive audience to test new opportunities 5) Balance sheet for acquisitions. On average, three apps account for 80% of a mobile users’ usage (109), in other words, there are very few mobile companies that truly matter.  If you don’t believe that the “big guys” are winning, just open your phone and look at the top downloaded iOS apps over the last 24 hours #1) Snapchat / 3 of top 6 = FB properties / 2 of top 6 = Google Properties.  Mary nails this point at the end of her report, “Internet Leaders = Getting Bigger…Staying Aggressive” (186).  b) Mobile Video: Although mobile growth is starting to decelerate, mobile video growth is accelerating led by… the big guys: Snapchat (now more video views than FB), Facebook Core, Instagram (Faceook), Netflix, Youtube (Google). Mobile is also the only platform with an optimistic time spent vs. ad spend operating mix, creating a potential $22B of pie expansion (45). c) Increasing Ad ARPU: Annualized Revenue Per User (ARPU) continues to grow ~30-50% for Facebook and Twitter driven by more time spent on mobile (although decelerating) and higher return on investment or effectiveness of mobile ad units. Ad ARPU expansion should continue to drive growth in the short term (help fill some of the mobile ad gap described above), and also translate into benefits for other players that are in the earlier stages of monetization, like Snapchat. d) New Platform Shift: See point 2 directly below. What is the Next Tectonic Platform Shift? As mobile growth slows, the biggest (and potentially most important) question to ask is what will be the next mobile, the next tectonic platform shift that creates a brand new rapidly expanding pie?  Despite the reports detail, I was surprised to see that in mid-2016 Internet Trends did not have a single mention of Virtual Reality (VR) or drones.  However early or unlikely (many would argue it is very likely), VR offers the most promising future opportunity in all of digital media. Whether VR or something else, at some point there will be a new media delivery platform that gains widespread adoption.  In thinking about the shift from Internet to Mobile, two themes for the winners stood out 1) Some Big Players were able to do two things a) port their previous generation core offering onto the new platform (Facebook / Google) b) Make compelling acquisitions 2) The New Emerging Winners were not usually first, there are precursor companies with very similar businesses that pave the way before them (see chart below).  The most encouraging state of the US Internet is that because “easy growth” is over, our best companies are being forced to rapidly create a new pie.  This is different when compared to China, which added 93M smartphone users in 2015 (still sub 50% smartphone penetration) vs. US added 30M (80% penetration).  We can already see obvious evidence of our best companies spending billions of dollars to establish leadership positions in these emerging next generation platforms (see chart below).  As Mary points out with autonomous vehicles (147), the US has a lot of the right DNA and ingredients to spearhead the next technological revolutions, perhaps more so than any other country.  Does The E-Commerce Emperor Have No Clothes On? Mary has been tracking the growth of U.S. e-commerce spend from the early days of Amazon to $340B today.  In describing the retail intertwine of technology, media and distribution I realized that outside of Amazon and Ebay, Facebook and Google = E-Commerce.  It is next to impossible to think of a stand-alone billion dollar e-commerce brand that was not built off of the backs of Google and Facebook advertising.  The e-commerce emperor should run to Amazon to grab a robe, because s/he has been caught with no clothes on.  Facebook (including Instagram) is hyper aware of their strategic positioning as the always on shopping mall for the 21st century and will focus on ways to continue to capture value as it creates new brands.  I have tremendous respect for the many products, brands, retailers and direct to consumer businesses that have been built on Facebook and Google, but the catch is Facebook and Google marketing do not scale forever.  It is Facebook and Google that create the rapid expansion to $100M of annual sales (70), but it is that very dependency that has made it difficult for brands to transition into long-term multi-channel businesses with repeat direct consumers.  Until these transitions are proven in the long term, (there is a lot of evidence that crossing the chasm is possible, e.g. Warby Parker, Stance and Casper), the next generation of “e-commerce” will still remain a question in the eyes of strategic acquirers and public market investors. The most obvious takeaway from Mary’s report is uncertainty.  We are at a point in time when growth drivers are hard to see, a platform shift feels necessary, but it is unclear what is next, the global economic picture is ugly, exits options are limited with an overpopulation of Unicorns and public market farmers who won’t open their gates to the stable.  It is often during periods high uncertainty that the greatest opportunities arise.  Uncertainty can drive a fearful overreaction that leads to pockets of opportunities for the next great entrepreneur to start gobbling up what feels to be an ever expanding pie.  I am optimistic that with patience, focus and persistence the state of the internet will do what is has done for the past 20 years, continue to surprise us and surpass even our wildest dreams. Follow - https://twitter.com/MaxMotsch Max Motschwiller is a General Partner at Meritech Capital http://www.meritechcapital.com/

Let’s go back in time Back in 2012, my old co-founder and I had an idea to start a brand new code school called Steer where we taught people on intensive 5-day courses. We’d met at a General Assembly course (I was the teacher, she was a student) and we felt we could make coding courses a lot better. We raised investment money quickly. Too quickly. We were total newbies to investment and we gave away far too much equity (55% of the company for £100k!) to the wrong type of investors. To be fair, the investors cared about us personally but didn’t really understand the business vision. They weren’t tech- or education-focused, they just wanted a return on their money, Shark-Tank-style. Again, there’s nothing with this, but looking back, it wasn’t the right decision for us. When I left Steer about 2 years ago, I was determined to not make the same mistakes again. No giving away too much equity and yes to finding the right investors if I did want to take investment. I had one rule that I wanted to stick to before I raised any kind of money. “Make something awesome that people love.” I generally try and stick to that rule for most things — side projects, client work, etc. — but for the main project, it’s something you need to completely commit to. Now that quote might seem like some startup bullshit that WeWork would put on their walls, but if some of your first users aren’t saying “holy shit”, then you need to check if it’s something people love and not just like. How to bootstrap Currently, I’m working on a startup called SuperHi — it’s a combination of an online code school, a beginners code editor and a web hosting service. I’ve been working on it really hard for months and months. It’s not launched yet but you can sign up to the waiting list and I’ll let you know when it’s ready (hopefully in the next few weeks!). I launched a site called SuperHi School on Friday. SuperHi School is different than SuperHi. The schools are in-person whereas the dot-com version will be fully online. If you’re in London in late June and you want to learn how to create websites with me teaching you IRL, please come along! It’s only £100 for a day. Total bargain. There’s two reasons for wanting to do in-person classes as well as the online classes. Firstly, the in-person classes make the online classes better — the more I see going well, the more I can improve the classes going forwards. I’ve been trying out this material for around a year now, constantly improving it and it’s really good. Using SuperHi, I can teach the same type of material 3–4 times as quickly compared to how I used to teach at General Assembly or Steer, without any drop in understanding. I can teach what was a 3 day course in around 6 hours now. Secondly, the in-person classes help fund the online classes. A lot of people think that SuperHi is more than one person (I often say the royal “we” in copywriting) and others think that we’re a funded startup. I currently bootstrap, which essentially means I pay for it myself using freelance earning. The branding… I paid for. Freelancers… I paid for. Server costs… you get the idea. The downsides of bootstrapping It’s expensive to bootstrap. I’m lucky and privileged that I have a job where I get paid well for my skills and time. Not everyone has that same kind of income to get to the point where I am at with SuperHi (and I haven’t even launched). However, the worst thing about bootstrapping is the slow progress. I remember saying to people that SuperHi would be ready in March… of last year. When you’re a team of one or two working on an idea, it can be frustratingly slow progress, especially if you’re doing freelance work to pay your bills. You can see why people raise investment money so they can hire staff and ramp up the process a lot more. Should you raise investment? Probably not just yet. Hey! Why not? Last year, I mentored around 50–60 different early stage startups at Founder Institute and Escape the City. 80% of them had imminent investment plans. Of those 80%, most were without real proof that their business worked or had the potential to work. I would say that it would have been a better use of their time to work on their product and make their startup the best it can be rather than focus on raising money. Imagine you were an investor… Someone pitches you with an idea. No working prototype. No users. No revenue. No testing of the idea. Now imagine someone pitches you and they have a working prototype, a small amount of users but enough to test the idea, and a ton of feedback. Even if the design sucks. Or the name sucks. Or it’s buggy. Or you don’t have any revenue just yet. Investors are risk-adverse. They don’t want to lose money. The less risky you can prove your startup to be, the more likely you’re not wasting their and more importantly your time by pitching. If you are a non-technical person trying to start a tech startup, the best advice I have is to do anything you can that isn’t the tech. Do all the wireframes, work out how you can market it, fill in your lean canvas, write your business plan, use tools that are out there already. Anything but the tech side until you’re completely ready to do that. When will you be ready to take investment? July last year, I decided to go and pitch an investor — one of the best ones in London too — Eileen from Passion Capital. SuperHi was a lot rougher and way less feature-complete than it is today but it was working. It existed. I had a plan for launch, a plan for what I would do with investment and a plan for the future. As the meeting went on, I got so much useful feedback from her and essentially it was the nicest “no” I could have received. I won’t go into details but I was very happy leaving the meeting. A friend of mine is doing the opposite. I went to an investment meeting with her once as she wanted some back-up. She just had an idea of what the startup was. No prototype, no design work, not even a name. The investor ripped her to shreds. I sat there feeling very awkward and I felt so bad for her but the investor was right — she wasted his time. Do you need to take investment? Maybe not! There are plenty of companies out there who have never taken any kind of money at all. Basecamp are probably the most vocal of all the tech startups but companies like Mailchimp have never taken money either: MailChimp is weird in a lot of ways. One thing that makes us different from many other tech companies is that we don’t have investors. We’re privately owned, bootstrapped, and proud of it. We chart our own course, guided by our core values and the needs of our users. You can always think about taking money later too. The awesome Jonnie from Cushion talks about this on a recent blog post. When I started Cushion, if someone were to tell me I would one day take investment, I wouldn’t have believed them. I also wouldn’t have believed that I would hire a team. Over the past two years, however, Cushion has grown from an idea into something real, and I’ve grown with it. Considering where Cushion is now and where I want it to go, I know this is the right decision, and most importantly, with the right people. Always think about how you can fairly charge for your service. That money can be used to continually improve it for your users. Looping it around A close friend of mine is a personal trainer. He was showing me how to do pull-ups one day and I told him I can’t do them very well. The technique to do it is every time you go to the gym, grab the bar and just hold yourself as long as possible. First few times, you’ll drop off after a few seconds. Later, you’ll be able to hold for around 10 seconds. Further down the line, you’ll be able to finally do them properly. Startups are like that. You can’t be instantly good. Having someone hold your feet at the start doesn’t help you in the long term. Later, you may need help to go to the next level. But you may not even need to. This is the reason for me putting on SuperHi School. SuperHi (online version) isn’t live yet but I do have a few customers from the 200 beta testers but it’s not enough to pay the bills just yet. Putting on paid-for, in-person code courses helps me grow the startup and means I can continually make it better and better for everyone. Bootstrapping can suck and you may feel like you’re travelling up-stream very slowly. Features might take weeks instead of days. You’re busy with paid work. However, think of this as a good sign — it means that you’re learning from your mistakes early without the financial pressure of investors plus you give yourself breathing room to really think about how your startup is and how you’re solving the problem you set out to fix. As always I’m happy to give out advice if you’re running a new startup, just email me at [email protected]/* */ Sign up at superhi.com to be the first to know when I launch!

“In a groundbreaking partnership, The Ringer, Bill Simmons’ new publishing venture announced last week, is going to be the first premium content website to live on Medium at theringer.com.” This was the announcement Medium made in late February and I couldn’t have been more excited. It was a big deal to me particularly as a user experience designer and self-diagnosed sports addict living and working in the Bay Area. So I was even more thrilled waking up this morning to learn that the Ringer website finally launched. And while it’s less than 24 hours old, I thought I’d break down some initial reactions to experiencing the new site and platform for the first time. You could even call it a UX-focused unboxing only the breakdown is on the digital vs physical realm. But before I do that, a few quick notes: This is admittedly a hot take, not a hate piece. There is a special moment when you see something the very first time. While brief in duration, this fresh perspective is extremely valuable to those who build these experiences regularly so I thought I would get my thoughts down. Having a reaction to new things like this site launch is pretty natural for me (more on that in point 2). It’s just the first time I’ve actually documented my thoughts rather than slack message them to my design team / bitch to my friends / tweet random thoughts. I know that the majority of people don’t give a shit about most of these observations. But I am not one of them. I’m a user experience designer and being one is both a gift and a curse. The gift is that I look at things critically and the curse is that I look at things critically. I constantly feel like Larry David walking around analyzing stuff that’s probably best left alone. I’m a sports obsessed. My dog’s name is Baron after Baron Davis and his historic “we believe” run in 2007 (humor me and watch this). I’m also a huge Simmons fan. I’ve listened to almost every podcast and read every article of his since ESPN Page 2 days. Safe to say I’m pumped about The Ringer site launch. This is all based on the snap judgement of experiencing the ringer for the first time on my iPhone 6. I realize that this may differ from those who have Android devices or earlier model iPhones. It will also differ from iPad or desktop viewing. That said I imagine this was built mobile first so that’s how I’ll be reviewing it. The team over at Medium is top notch, so this is not a burn to them in any way, shape or form. I love what they do. Onto the unprompted design critique/rant. Observation 1: The featured article headline falls below the fold The first thing I noticed on theringer.com was that the featured article (or often referred to as the Hero) on the page was buried below the fold. Now I realize that the fold is becoming a creature of the past, as Instagram and other apps have made people comfortable with scrolling on their mobile devices. That said, the goal for any site is to capture attention at first glance. More specifically, articles are typically modeled around their headline which along with the photo is the hook to getting a reader to click. With the headline being pushed below the fold, it requires a user to take action before seeing the content. This is a pretty fundamental problem that frankly I’m shocked exists in the wild. What is even more bizarre is that this is only a problem on the homepage. If you click on any of the tags like “sports” for example, you are taken to a page which looks slightly different. Each article widget becomes smaller and height of the tiles is shorter, thus bringing the headline above the fold. Seems like this is how the entire site should function, including the homepage. Update: As of 12:30 PST, the homepage has been updated and no longer has this problem. Maybe I wasn’t the only one who had the problem with the headline getting buried. Observation 2: It’s unclear what exactly they want me to do. I would guess that the number one action theringer.com wants a person to take is clicking on an article to read. A quick secondary action they want you ton take is to share the article. Medium has built a super easy to use bar at the bottom that lets you do just this but one thing that becomes super problematic is just how many call-to-actions there are An initial count is 9! (see left ). To me this is super confusing. Am I following medium or the ringer? Am I searching within ringer or medium? It should be obvious to a user what they can do / how to do it and this is giving the user too many options. It also minimizes the amount of real-estate for the actual purpose of the page, to read the article! Observation 3: This is clearly a partnership between Medium and The Ringer. One of the things I was most curious to observe is how exactly Medium and The Ringer would co-exist. It’s easy to see why it would be a win-win for both companies to work together but when all is said and done, how the site is built/looks is really telling at just how equal the partnership is. I found it a bit shocking at just how much attention Medium gets around theringer.com as I just assumed that the platform would blend into the background allowing the website to stand in front. For instance, check out what happens when you click into an article. Look at the very top of the page: You notice that there is a double nav bar (a big no-no in the UX world) which not only calls to attention the medium brand (in the top left corner no less) but also the “open in app” / “install” calls to action. It not only is at the very top of the page but pushes all the other content down. Don’t get me wrong, I get why Medium would do/want this. It seems extremely heavy handed to be at the very top of every single page, even if it does go away after you download the Medium app. Observation 4: Damn, the footnotes are missing :( One thing I was hoping to find but did not see was the footnotes used at Grantland. For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, Bill Simmons first used footnotes in his book Now I Can Die in Piece, which wasn’t that unique. However, what was super cool was that he was able to incorporate these little footnotes into the articles on Grantland when it launched. It was not only beautifully executed but added a deep layer of detail for the readers. This enhanced reading experience was sadly left behind at ESPN. Wonder why they decided to not bring it back? (See below for an example. For the super geeky, there is a great tear down by Zac Schellhardt which you can read here ) This is so damn clean. Come on Medium, bring it back! Observation 5: There are padding issues all over the place Ok so this one is definitely a nitpick but I can’t help from calling it out. It’s an easy fix and I can’t be the only one that notices this stuff, right? Anyone? Please? Kind of how I feel right now. In the end, these things may or may not be fixed and that is fine by me. I will continue to be a big fan of Medium and The Ringer. Yet with Medium becoming the influential platform for long form articles and now websites, I hold them to an extremely high design standard. At the end of the day, this is a historic partnership and I’m excited to see it blossom over the years. Congrats to everyone involved. Major props.

By Jeff Kowalski, chief technology officer, Autodesk Today, Autodesk joined a group of leading scientific researchers in announcing a project aimed at reducing the costs of engineering and testing large genomes, including the human genome. This is huge news — for science, for human curiosity, for mankind. Knowledge gained from this project has the potential to fundamentally change the way we analyze, diagnose and treat a vast range of human health conditions and ailments. Some of the world’s leading biologists, chemists, computational biologists, engineers, social scientists and bioethicists have enlisted to drive this groundbreaking effort. But why has Autodesk — a maker of 3D design software for architecture, engineering, construction, manufacturing, and media and entertainment — signed up to collaborate on the project? Autodesk is invested in the future of making things. Living things are very complex. It’s not just big data, it’s insanely big data. Simply to organize the biological information takes state of the art computing. Understanding and synthesizing a genome is even harder. Software tools are going to be essential, even for the design of the simplest cell. Autodesk is committed to contributing its vision, support, software expertise and experience to ensure that HGP-write is a successful leap for humanity. We have also made a gift of $250,000 to help organize this effort and get the project off the ground. HGP-write is just the sort of potentially world-changing endeavor that Autodesk is proud to stand behind. For the past few years, the Autodesk Bio/Nano Research group has been focused on making the design of micro-scale things and living things easier. With an aim to explore and facilitate design opportunities enabled by synthetic biology and nanotechnology, the group collaborates with researchers around the world to anticipate the paradigms and tools needed to understand and exploit the intersection of design with life and materials sciences. HGP-write is just the sort of potentially world-changing endeavor that Autodesk is proud to stand behind. As a company, our mission is to help imagine, design and create a better world. The technologies that will be advanced because of this project — and the resulting improvements in human health — will help make that vision reality. Jeff Kowalski is responsible for shaping 3D design and engineering software leader Autodesk’s long-term technology vision, as well as driving innovation across the company. He and his team focus on research and development and strategy, turning emerging technologies into products and approaches that can help Autodesk’s customers.

CIS 500 Assignment 4 Information Technology Strategic Plan BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/cis-500-assignment-4-information-technology-strategic-plan/ CIS 500 Assignment 4 Information Technology Strategic Plan Strayer University CIS 510 Assignment 1 Error-Handling in an Activity Diagram BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/cis-510-assignment-1-error-handling-in-an-activity-diagram/ CIS 510 Assignment 2 Marketing Subsystem Use Case BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/cis-510-assignment-2-marketing-subsystem-use-case/ CIS 510 Assignment 2 Marketing Subsystem Use Case Abstract Overview of the Diagram Analysis of the Actors CIS 510 Assignment 3 Marketing Subsystem Model Class Diagram BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/cis-510-assignment-3-marketing-subsystem-model-class-diagram/ CIS 510 Assignment 4 Diversity Of Approach BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/cis-510-assignment-4-diversity-of-approach/ CIS 510 Term Paper Final Project Plan BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/cis-510-term-paper-final-project-plan/ CIS 510 Term Paper Final Project Plan Strayer University CIS 511 Assignment 1 BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/cis-511-assignment-1-global-bike-incorporated/ CIS 511 Assignment 2 BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/cis-511-assignment-2/ CIS 511 Assignment 2 Strayer University CIS 511 Assignment 3 BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/cis-511-assignment-3/ CIS 511 Assignment 3 Strayer University ECO 550 ECO/550 ECO550 Midterm (SPRING 2016) STRAYER BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/eco-550-eco-550-eco550-midterm-spring-2016-strayer/ ECO 550 ECO/550 ECO550 Midterm (SPRING 2016) STRAYER 1. The primary objective of a for-profit firm is to ___________. 2. In the shareholder wealth maximization model, the value of a firm’s stock is equal to the present value of all expected future ____ discounted at the stockholders’ required rate of return. 3. The flat-screen plasma TVs are selling extremely well. The originators of this technology are earning higher profits. What theory of profit best reflects the performance of the plasma screen makers? 4. The moral hazard in team production arises from 5. Economic profit is defined as the difference between revenue and ____. 6. Recently, the American Medical Association changed its recommendations on the frequency of pap-smear exams for women. The new frequency recommendation was designed to address the family histories of the patients. The optimal frequency should be where the marginal benefit of an additional pap-test: 7. The primary difference(s) between the standard deviation and the coefficient of variation as measures of risk are: 8. The standard deviation is appropriate to compare the risk between two investments only if 9. Generally, investors expect that projects with high expected net present values also will be projects with 10. The ____ is the ratio of ____ to the ____. 11. The approximate probability of a value occurring that is greater than one standard deviation from the mean is approximately (assuming a normal distribution) 12. A change in the level of an economic activity is desirable and should be undertaken as long as the marginal benefits exceed the ____. 13. A price elasticity (ED) of −1.50 indicates that for a ____ increase in price, quantity demanded will ____ by ____. 14. An income elasticity (Ey) of 2.0 indicates that for a ____ increase in income, ____ will increase by ____. 15. Which of the following would tend to make demand INELASTIC? 16. When demand is ____ a percentage change in ____ is exactly offset by the same percentage change in ____ demanded, the net result being a constant total consumer expenditure. 17. Iron ore is an example of a: 18. The factor(s) which cause(s) a movement along the demand curve include(s): 19. Auto dealers slash prices at the end of the model year in response to deficient demand/excess inventory but restaurants facing the same problem slash production because 20. The method which can give some information in estimating demand of a product that hasn’t yet come to market is: 21. One commonly used test in checking for the presence of autocorrelation when working with time series data is the ____. 22. In regression analysis, the existence of a high degree of intercorrelation among some or all of the explanatory variables in the regression equation constitutes: 23. The estimated slope coefficient (b) of the regression equation (Ln Y = a + b Ln X) measures the ____ change in Y for a one ____ change in X. 24. When using a multiplicative power function (Y = a X1b1 X2b2 X3b3) to represent an economic relationship, estimates of the parameters (a, and the b’s) using linear regression analysis can be obtained by first applying a ____ transformation to convert the function to a linear relationship. 25. In which of the following econometric problems do we find Durbin-Watson statistic being far away from 2.0? ECO 561 Economic Choice & Economic Decision Making (Phoenix) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/eco-561-economic-choice-economic-decision-making-phoenix/ ECO 561 Economic Choice & Economic Decision Making Phoenix University ECO 561 Week 2 Assignment Presentation BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/eco-561-week-2-assignment-presentation/ ECO 561 Week 2 Assignment Presentation Government Interventions vs. Market Based Solutions Phoenix University ECO 561 Week 6 Final Challenges of Expansion to a Foreign Location (Phoenix) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/eco-561-week-6-final-challenges-of-expansion-to-a-foreign-location-phoenix/ ECO 561 Week 6 Final Challenges of Expansion to a Foreign Location Phoenix University FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 1 Discussions BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-534-fin-534-fin-534-week-1-discussions/ FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 1 Discussions • * From the e-Activity, examine ethical behavior within firms in relation to financial management. Provide two (2) examples of companies that have been guilty of ethics-based malfeasance related to financial management and determine why their comeuppance was deserved. • * From the scenario, recommend two (2) actions that Trevose Fitness Center (TFC) could take in order to raise capital that will, in turn, enable it to reach its expansion goals. Defend your response. Support your recommendation with two (2) real-world examples of successful implementations of these actions. FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 2 Discussions BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-534-fin-534-fin-534-week-2-discussions/ FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 2 Discussions • * From the e-Activity, determine why it is sometimes misleading to compare a company’s financial ratios with those of other firms that operate within the same industry. Support your response with one (1) example from your research. • * From the scenario, determine two (2) strategies that TFC could utilize to reach its expansion goals. You may, for example, consider your analysis of TFC’s financial statements, as well as your knowledge of TFC’s excessive cash position. Provide a rationale for your response. FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 3 Discussions BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-534-fin-534-fin-534-week-3-discussions/ FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 3 Discussions • Examine the concept of time value of money in relation to corporate managers. Propose two (2) methods in which time value of money can help corporate managers in general. • Examine the pros and cons of a sinking fund from the viewpoint of both a firm and its bondholders. Determine the fundamental manner in which this knowledge could be helpful to a financial manager. Provide a rationale for your response. FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 4 Discussions BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-534-fin-534-fin-534-week-4-discussions/ FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 4 Discussions • * From the e-Activity, determine whether stock prices are affected more by long-term or short-term performance. Provide one (1) example of the effect that supports your claim. • * From the scenario, value a share of TFC’s stock using a growth model method and compare that value to the current trading price of a share of TFC. Determine whether the stock is undervalued or overvalued. Provide a rationale for your response. FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 5 Discussion 1 BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-534-fin-534-fin-534-week-5-discussion-1/ FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 5 Discussion 1 • Determine two to three (2–3) methods of using stocks and options to create a risk-free hedge portfolio can be created. Support your answer with examples of these methods being used to create a risk-free hedge portfolio. • * From the scenario, create a unique hypothetical weighted average cost of capital (WACC) and rate of return. Recommend whether or not the company should expand, and defend your position. FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 6 Discussions BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-534-fin-534-fin-534-week-6-discussions/ FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 6 Discussions • * From the e-Activity, analyze the reasons why the short-term project that you have chosen might be ranked higher under the NPV criterion if the cost of capital is high, while the long-term project might be deemed better if the cost of capital is low. Determine whether or not changes in the cost of capital could ever cause a change in the internal rate of return (IRR) ranking of two (2). • * From the scenario, take a position for or against TFC’s decision to expand to the West Coast. Provide a rationale for your response in which you cite at least two (2) capital budgeting techniques (e.g., NPV, IRR, Payback Period, etc.) that you used to arrive at your decision. FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 7 Discussions BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-534-fin-534-fin-534-week-7-discussions/ FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 7 Discussions o * From the scenario, cite your forecasting conclusions that support TFC’s decision to expand to the West Coast market. Speculate as to whether or not the agency conflict discussed in the scenario could become a roadblock to your conclusions. Provide a rationale for your response. o * From the mini case, recommend two (2) desired characteristics of a board of directors. Provide support for your response, citing the ways in which these characteristics usually lead to effective corporate governance. FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 8 Discussions BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-534-fin-534-fin-534-week-8-discussions/ FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 8 Discussions • * From the e-Activity, contrast the differences between a stock dividend and a stock split. Imagine that you are a stockholder in a company. Determine whether you would prefer to see the company that you researched declare a 100% stock dividend or declare a 2-for-1 split. Provide support for your answer with one (1) real-world example of your preference. • * From the scenario, examine the dividend rate that TFC is paying in order to determine if the company should receive a rate adjustment. Suggest whether TFC’s dividends should either (1) stay the same; (2) be increased; (3) or go down. Provide a rationale for your response. FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 9 Discussions BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-534-fin-534-fin-534-week-9-discussions/ FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 9 Discussions • Examine the key reasons why a business may not want to hold too much or too little working capital. Provide examples that illustrate the consequences of either situation. • * From the scenario, analyze TFC’s cash budget to determine key methods in which the budget may be optimized (e.g., by renegotiating terms and conditions on some of its payables, etc.). If you believe that there is room for improvement, recommend key strategies for TFC to use in order to optimize its cash budget. If you do not believe that this is the case, provide a rationale for your response. FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 10 Discussions BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-534-fin-534-fin-534-week-10-discussions/ FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 10 Discussions • * From the e-Activity, determine key reasons why a multinational corporation might decide to borrow in a country such as Brazil, where interest rates are high, rather than in a country like Switzerland, where interest rates are low. Provide support for your rationale. • * From the scenario, select two (2) potential international markets in which TFC may wish to do business. Compare the currency markets of the two (2) countries you have chosen with that of the U.S. dollar. Based on currency considerations only, recommend whether or not TFC should expand to the international markets that you have chosen. FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 11 Discussions BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-534-fin-534-fin-534-week-11-discussions/ FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Week 11 Discussions • Rate the three (3) most important concepts that you learned in this course in order of importance (one (1) being the most important; three (3), the least). Provide a rationale for your ratings. • Propose two (2) applications of knowledge that you have learned in this course to your current or a future position. FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN534 Assignment 1 Financial Research Report BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-534-fin-534-fin534-assignment-1-financial-research-report/ FIN 534 FIN/534 FIN534 Assignment 1 Financial Research Report A Closer Look Inside Proctor and Gamble Question # 1- Provide a rationale for the stock that you selected, indicating the significant economic, financial, and other factors that led you to consider this stock. Question # 2- Suggest the primary reasons why the selected stock is a suitable investment for your client. Include a description of your client’s profile. Question # 3- Select any five (5) financial ratios that you have learned about in the text. Analyze the past three (3) years of the selected financial ratios for the company. Determine the company’s financial health. Question # 4- Based on your financial review, determine the risk level of the stock from your investor’s point of view. Indicate key strategies that you may use in order to minimize these perceived risks. Question # 5- Provide your recommendations of this stock as an investment opportunity. Support your rationale with resources, such as peer-reviewed articles, material from Strayer Learning Resource Center, and reviews by market analyst. FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 1 Homework (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-540-fin-540-fin540-week-1-homework-strayer/ FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 1 Homework (Strayer) 1. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 2. You plan to analyze the value of a potential investment by calculating the sum of the present values of its expected cash flows. Which of the following would lower the calculated value of the investment? 3. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 4. Your bank account pays a 5% nominal rate of interest. The interest is compounded quarterly. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 5. A $250,000 loan is to be amortized over 8 years, with annual end-of-year payments. Which of these statements is CORRECT? FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 2 Homework Chapter 18 BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-540-fin-540-fin540-week-2-homework-chapter-18/ FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 2 Homework Chapter 18 1. Which of the following is generally NOT true and an advantage of going public? 2. Which of the following statements about listing on a stock exchange is most CORRECT? 3. Which of the following statements is most CORRECT? 4. Which of the following statements is most CORRECT? 5. Which of the following factors would increase the likelihood that a company would call its outstanding bonds at this time? FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 2 Homework Chapter 19 (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-540-fin-540-fin540-week-2-homework-chapter-19-strayer/ FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 2 Homework Chapter 19 (Strayer) 1. Operating leases often have terms that include 2. Which of the following statements is most CORRECT? 3. Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Statement #13 requires that for an unqualified audit report, financial (or capital) leases must be included in the balance sheet by reporting the 4. Heavy use of off-balance sheet lease financing will tend to 5. In the lease versus buy decision, leasing is often preferable FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 3 Homework Chapter 20 (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-540-fin-540-fin540-week-3-homework-chapter-20-strayer/ FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 3 Homework Chapter 20 (Strayer) 1. Which of the following statements is most CORRECT? 2. Which of the following statements about convertibles is most CORRECT? 3. Which of the following statements concerning warrants is correct? 4. Which of the following statements is most CORRECT? 5. Mariano Manufacturing can issue a 25-year, 8.1% annual payment bond at par. Its investment bankers also stated that the company can sell an issue of annual payment preferred stock to corporate investors who are in the 40% tax bracket. The corporate investors require an after-tax return on the preferred that exceeds their after-tax return on the bonds by 1.0%, which would represent an after-tax risk premium. What coupon rate must be set on the preferred in order to issue it at par? FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 3 Homework Chapter 21 (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-540-fin-540-fin540-week-3-homework-chapter-21-strayer/ FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 3 Homework Chapter 21 (Strayer) 1. The major contribution of the Miller model is that it demonstrates that 2. Which of the following statements concerning capital structure theory is NOT CORRECT? 3. Which of the following statements concerning the MM extension with growth is NOT CORRECT? 4. Which of the following statements concerning the MM extension with growth is NOT CORRECT? 5. Which of the following statements concerning the MM extension with growth is NOT CORRECT? FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 4 Homework Chapter 22 (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-540-fin-540-fin540-week-4-homework-chapter-22-strayer/ FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 4 Homework Chapter 22 (Strayer) 1. Which of the following statements is most CORRECT? 2. Which of the following statements is most CORRECT? 3. Which of the following statements about valuing a firm using the APV approach is most CORRECT? 4. Which of the following statements about valuing a firm using the APV approach is most CORRECT? 5. Which of the following statements is most CORRECT? FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 4 Homework Chapter 23 (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-540-fin-540-fin540-week-4-homework-chapter-23-strayer/ FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 4 Homework Chapter 23 (Strayer) 1. Which of the following are NOT ways risk management can be used to increase the value of a firm? 2. Which of the following statements about interest rate and reinvestment rate risk is CORRECT? 3. A swap is a method used to reduce financial risk. Which of the following statements about swaps, if any, is NOT CORRECT? 4. Which of the following statements is most CORRECT? 5. A commercial bank recognizes that its net income suffers whenever interest rates increase. Which of the following strategies would protect the bank against rising interest rates? FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 6 Homework Chapter 25 (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-540-fin-540-fin540-week-6-homework-chapter-25-strayer/ FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 6 Homework Chapter 25 (Strayer) 1. For markets to be in equilibrium (that is, for there to be no strong pressure for prices to depart from their current levels), 2. In a portfolio of three different stocks, which of the following could NOT be true? 3. You have the following data on (1) the average annual returns of the market for the past 5 years and (2) similar information on Stocks A and B. Which of the possible answers best describes the historical betas for A and B? 4. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 5. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 6 Homework Chapter 26 (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-540-fin-540-fin540-week-6-homework-chapter-26-strayer/ FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 6 Homework Chapter 26 (Strayer) 1. Which of the following is NOT a real option? 2. Which of the following will NOT increase the value of a real option? 3. Which of the following is most CORRECT? 4. Ashgate Enterprises uses the NPV method for selecting projects, and it does a reasonably good job of estimating projects’ sales and costs. However, it never considers real options that might be associated with projects. Which of the following statements is most likely to describe its situation? 5. Refer to Exhibit 26.1. Since the project is considered to be quite risky, a 20% cost of capital is used. What is the project’s expected NPV, in thousands of dollars? FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 7 Homework Chapter 27 (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-540-fin-540-fin540-week-7-homework-chapter-27-strayer/ FIN 540 FIN/540 FIN540 Week 7 Homework Chapter 27 (Strayer) 1. A firm’s credit policy consists of which of the following items? 2. Which of the following is not correct? 3. Which of the following is not correct for a firm with seasonal sales and customers who all pay promptly at the end of 30 days? 4. Which of the following statements is most correct? 5. Which one of the following aspects of banks is considered most relevant to businesses when choosing a bank? FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 1 Discussions (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-550-fin-550-fin550-week-1-discussions-strayer/ FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 1 Discussions (Strayer) “Investment Performance and Decisions” Please respond to the following: •From the e-Activity, predict the performance of the DOW for the next two years. Provide support for your prediction. •Analyze the factors that influence investment decisions at different stages in an investor’s life cycle, and make a recommendation at which stage the average investor should consider financial investments. Provide support for your recommendation. FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 1 Homework (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-550-fin-550-fin550-week-1-homework-strayer/ FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 1 Homework (Strayer) Chapter 1&2 Problems 5, 7, 9, 12, 4, 5, 6 FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 2 Discussions (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-550-fin-550-fin550-week-2-discussions-strayer/ FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 2 Discussions (Strayer) “Globalization and Efficient Markets” Please respond to the following: •From the e-Activity, analyze how national exchanges around the world are linked and suggest which exchange most significantly impacts the U.S. markets. Explain your rationale. •Analyze the most significant driver in an efficient market and whether or not you would characterize the U.S. markets as efficient. Provide support for your position FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 2 Homework (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-550-fin-550-fin550-week-2-homework-strayer/ FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 2 Homework (Strayer) Chapters 4&6 Problems 4, 5, 6, 7, 1, 2 ,3 , 4 FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 3 Discussions (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-550-fin-550-fin550-week-3-discussions-strayer/ FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 3 Discussions (Strayer) “Portfolio Management” Please respond to the following: •Assess the factors that contribute to someone being risk-averse and how risk aversion may be diminished for investors. •Explain how a given investor chooses an optimal portfolio and the most significant driver that determines if a diversified or single asset will be used. FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 3 Homework (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-550-fin-550-fin550-week-3-homework-strayer/ FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 3 Homework (Strayer) Chapters 3&7 Problems 3, 4, 5, 3, 7, 8 FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 4 Discussions (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-550-fin-550-fin550-week-4-discussions-strayer/ FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 4 Discussions (Strayer) “Asset Analysis / Risk and Return” Please respond to the following: •Recommend an alternative to the CAPM for analyzing capital assets. Provide support for your recommendation. •Assess the effectiveness of using multifactor models to help investors understand the relative risk exposures in their portfolios relative to benchmark portfolios. Make a recommendation on how investor understanding may be improved. Support your rationale. FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 5 Discussions (Strayer) BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin-550-fin-550-fin550-week-5-discussions-strayer/ FIN 550 FIN/550 FIN550 Week 5 Discussions (Strayer) “Business Risk and Analysis / Investment Valuation” Please respond to the following: •Determine whether a steel company or a retail food chain would have a greater business risk. Provide support for your rationale. •Discuss why you would not expect all industries to have a similar relationship trend to the economy. Provide an example of two industries that have a different relationship to the economy and explain the difference. FIN534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Final Exam 1 (SPRING 2016) STRAYER BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/fin534-fin-534-fin-534-final-exam-1-spring-2016-strayer/ FIN534 FIN/534 FIN 534 Final Exam 1 (SPRING 2016) STRAYER 1. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 2. Which of the following could explain why a business might choose to operate as a corporation rather than as a sole proprietorship or a partnership? 3. You recently sold 100 shares of your new company, XYZ Corporation, to your brother at a family reunion. At the reunion your brother gave you a check for the stock and you gave your brother the stock certificates. Which of the following statements best describes this transaction? 4. Cheers Inc. operates as a partnership. Now the partners have decided to convert the business into a regular corporation. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 5. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 6. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 7. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 8. You recently sold 200 shares of Apple stock to your brother. The transfer was made through a broker, and the trade occurred on the NYSE. This is an example of: 9. Danielle’s Sushi Shop last year had (1) a negative net cash flow from operations, (2) a negative free cash flow, and (3) an increase in cash as reported on its balance sheet. Which of the following factors could explain this situation? 10. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 11. For managerial purposes, i.e., making decisions regarding the firm’s operations, the standard financial statements as prepared by accountants under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) are often modified and used to create alternative data and metrics that provide a somewhat different picture of a firm’s operations. Related to these modifications, which of the following statements is CORRECT? 12. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 13. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 14. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 15. The LeMond Corporation just purchased a new production line. Assume that the firm planned to depreciate the equipment over 5 years on a straight-line basis, but Congress then passed a provision that requires the company to depreciate the equipment on a straight-line basis over 7 years. Other things held constant, which of the following will occur as a result of this Congressional action? Assume that the company uses the same depreciation method for tax and stockholder reporting purposes. 16. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 17. Which of the following items is NOT included in current assets? 18. Which of the following would, generally, indicate an improvement in a company’s financial position, holding other things constant? 19. Companies A and C each reported the same earnings per share (EPS), but Company A’s stock trades at a higher price. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 20. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 21. If a bank loan officer were considering a company’s request for a loan, which of the following statements would you consider to be CORRECT? 22. A firm’s new president wants to strengthen the company’s financial position. Which of the following actions would make it financially stronger? 23. If the CEO of a large, diversified, firm were filling out a fitness report on a division manager (i.e., “grading” the manager), which of the following situations would be likely to cause the manager to receive a better grade? In all cases, assume that other things are held constant. 24. Which of the following statements is CORRECT? 25. Arshadi Corp.’s sales last year were $52,000, and its total assets were $22,000. What was its total assets turnover ratio (TATO)? HUM 112 HUM/112 HUM112 Week 4 Assignment 1 ESSAY BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/hum-112-hum-112-hum112-week-4-assignment-1-essay/ HUM 112 HUM/112 HUM112 Week 8 Assignment 2 ESSAY BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/hum-112-hum-112-hum112-week-8-assignment-2-essay/ HUM 112 HUM/112 HUM112 Week 10 Assignment 3 Cultural Activity Report BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/hum-112-hum-112-hum112-week-10-assignment-3-cultural-activity-report/ LEG 300 Assignment 1 McCarty v. Pheasant Run, Inc BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/leg-300-assignment-1-mccarty-v-pheasant-run-inc/ LEG 300 Assignment 2 Alternative to the But-For Test BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/leg-300-assignment-2-alternative-to-the-but-for-test/ LEG 300 Assignment 3: The Tort of Battery BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/leg-300-assignment-3-the-tort-of-battery/ LEG 300 Assignment 4: Invitee or Licensee BUY HERE⬊ http://www.homeworkmade.com/leg-300-assignment-4-invitee-or-licensee/

When I first entered the tech world, it was 1995. Amazon.com had just started selling books online. Hackers, the movie starring Angelina Jolie that explored an…interesting view of technology, had just been released. And Hotmail was just an idea that needed funding. I was getting my computer science degree, and while most of my peers’ idea of a dream job involved working at a big company like AT&T or GE, I opted to work as a video game programmer for a startup. The company was far ahead of its time. We built an online role-playing game (RPG) that ran in our own data center, while players connected via our dial-up internet service. While we chuckle (or cringe) at the thought of dial-up video games now, this was quite cutting-edge back then. You could even say it was — to use a buzzword from today — “disruptive.” I loved working for a company that was changing the way people thought about technology. In 1999, while getting my Masters in Information Systems, I was enticed by the entrepreneurial path and co-founded what became known as GoFileRoom. It was the first-ever workflow and document management software that was 100% cloud-based, before the cloud was even a concept. In today’s terms, if the workflow of Salesforce and Google Docs had a baby, it would be GoFileRoom. GoFileRoom quickly became the #1 workflow and document management software for the accounting industry. We created an entirely new market, changing the way accounting firms manage their operations, resulting in increased profitability. We made the process paperless and all electronic over the internet. Then 2005 came. That year, Thomson Reuters acquired GoFileRoom. Our company’s platform became the underlying technology of Thomson Reuters’ ONESOURCE Tax platform. Today ONESOURCE is the #1 global tax platform that runs tax departments of the world’s largest multinational corporations. At the time of the acquisition, I was managing a team of 25 technologists. In the span of 11 years, in my role as Thomson Reuters’ VP & Head of Software Development, that number increased to 900 people across the globe. The acquisition of GoFileRoom was a defining moment in my career as both an entrepreneur and technologist. Today marks another milestone. I am excited to announce that I have joined CommonBond, the fast-growing NYC fintech startup, as the company’s first Chief Technology Officer. The path from video games to tax technology to fintech may seem circuitous but there’s a common thread through all three: disruption within an established industry. We hear the word disruption a lot these days. To some, it might not mean much. But my view of the concept is simple. At CommonBond, I’m leading a team that is tasked with building technology to disrupt a centuries-old industry that has yet to be disrupted: banking. To date, CommonBond has focused on funding and refinancing student loans. We’re transforming the user experience of taking out a loan with a process that is entirely online, while using a wide range of sophisticated data points to make lending decisions — and, thanks to the technology we’re building in-house, we’re doing it in record time. The incumbents in our industry will have a difficult time keeping up. However, what I’m most excited about — and why I am excited to be joining CommonBond — is not the now of fintech, but rather the future. My vision for CommonBond’s technology involves delighting our customers through an experience they never seen before in personal finance. Our technology strategy involves the application of machine learning to provide our customers tailored products and building software robots to automate the lending processes we have in place today. In 1995, machine learning was pretty much unheard of and robots were largely considered a thing of the future. Today, we have the capability to apply these concepts to the age-old lending industry and deliver a best-in-class customer experience. I’ve set some lofty goals for myself as CTO of CommonBond. While it’s a change leaving an established company and going back to my entrepreneurial roots, I’m energized by the greenfield opportunity to innovate and build a world class company. And, as another decade goes by, I’m even more excited to look back and see what we’ve managed to accomplish.

jQuery(document).ready(function($) { var cat_head_params = {"sponsor":"The State of Facebook Advertising","sponsor_logo":"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/abm-sej\/includes\/sponsored-category-images\/marinsoft\/2015\/march\/marinsoft_logo.png","sponsor_text":"Social media has become the pillar of the online experience. With over 1.55 billion monthly active users, hundreds of millions of people are interacting and engaging on Facebook. For Facebook advertisers, this represents a huge pool of potential customers. Read our report to understand current Facebook trends based on the Marin Global Online Advertising Index.Get the report today.","logo_url":"http:\/\/sejr.nl\/marin-software-social-media","ga_labels":["Social Media","SEO PowerSuite"]} $('#sponsored-category-header').append(''); $('#sponsored-category-header .sponsored-category-logo').append(''); $('#sponsored-category-header').append(''); $('#sponsored-category-header .sponsored-category-details').append(''+cat_head_params.sponsor+''); $('#sponsored-category-header .sponsored-category-details').append(cat_head_params.sponsor_text); }); A recent article on 15 Search Podcasts led to a lot of suggestions and questions around the availability of good digital marketing podcasts in general. So, as a follow-up, I’ve compiled 18 digital and social media marketing podcasts to add to your playlist. If you’re not already a fan of podcasts, give a few of these a listen and they may get you hooked. The list includes a mixture of long-running shows, newer additions, and varying lengths and formats to give you some options and variety in your listening life. Editor Note: Don’t forget, we also have Marketing Nerds, a weekly podcast covering everything social media, search, and digital marketing. Content Warfare Podcast Ryan Hanley Ryan is the host of the Podcast and author a book Content Warfare: Find Your Audience, Tell Your Story and Win the Battle for Attention Online. The podcast is mostly an interview style series where Ryan addresses trends and interviews content creators and thought leaders. Recently, Ryan dedicated 15 episodes of the podcast to air the audio version of his book. He also took five weeks off to start a new podcast on BLAB with Marcus Sheridan, The Hot Seat Podcast. Content Inc. Joe Pulizzi Joe bills this podcast as delivering, “one actionable content marketing thought each week in five minutes or less.” Think of this as the Twitter of podcasting where you get consumable, focused soundbites. The podcast is delivered in a straight-forward manner with Joe reading a prepared script – sort of a verbal blog. If you’re looking for quick advice on specific pain points, check this one out. Editor note: SEJ recently had Joe on our podcast, Marketing Nerds, to talk about content: Your browser does not support the audio element. Content Pros Podcast Chris Moody and Randy Frisch This interview-style podcast highlights the trends in content marketing and thought leadership from people leading content marketing strategy, operations, measurement, staffing, and other practices. Guests on this 30-minute podcast share “how to” tips and talk about the reasons behind the current trends in content marketing. The Marketing Companion Mark Schaefer and Tom Webster Mark and Tom offer humor and banter along with in-depth discussions about issues and trends in content, social media, and digital marketing. This 30-minute show is a good resource for anyone looking for advice on topics varying from starting a blog to trends on Twitter and Facebook. Duct Tape Marketing John Jantsch Every Wednesday John interviews experts and thought leaders to bring tips, tactics, and resources to his audience. Past shows have highlighted getting started with blogging, SEO best practices, understanding social media, and strategies for business growth. The 30-minute episodes are geared toward small business owners and marketers and entrepreneurs looking for tips and tricks for using digital marketing and search to grow their businesses. Marketing Over Coffee John Wall and Christopher Penn This weekly half-hour podcast features the hosts talking about news, trends, and devices in marketing. They keep the conversation fresh by interviewing people in the industry who are evolving marketing practices or authors writing about marketing innovation. Six Pixels of Separation Mitch Joel Every Sunday Mitch conducts an hour-long interview with thought leaders and authors of books around the areas of marketing, communications, and best business practices. This is not strictly a digital marketing podcast, as he talks to people who are innovating in other areas of business success. Mitch’s podcast has been around long enough to boast more than 500 episodes and he hasn’t run out of people to interview. This show is an inspiration to anyone considering starting their own podcast and wondering if they’ll have enough to say. The Bean Cast The Cool Beans Group Host Bob Knopp puts together a lively show every week with a panel of guests who weigh in on topics around marketing, advertising, and public relations. Bob keeps the conversation lively and fun while keeping the discussion relevant and newsworthy. This hour-long podcast is published every Sunday and includes a section, “AdFail5”, where Bob explores a promotion, ad campaign, public relations campaign, or marketing event that didn’t work. Social Pros Podcast Jay Baer and Adam Brown Jay and Adam team up every week to interview social media practitioners to discuss their insights and the current trends in social media. This podcast is completely focused on social media and all the issues and topics of interest to people actively using social for business. The 45 minute to hour-long episodes end with “The Big Two” – rapid fire answers to two important questions. Social Media Marketing Podcast Michael Stelzner and Social Media Examiner This show is a place for social media practitioners to get ideas for tactics and strategies to help make their efforts more effective. In addition to talking with guests about topics of interest in social, Michael includes information about new technologies and gadgets of interest to his audience. This nuts and bolts podcast gets down to talking about what works and what doesn’t for 45 minutes every week. The Mad Marketing Podcast Marcus Sheridan “The Sales Lion” uses this 30-minute podcast to offer advice to marketers and voice his opinion on trends. He weighs in on opinions from other thought leaders and talks about how he has applied strategies to his own business. Marcus is an enthusiastic speaker who lives by the mantra, “They ask, you answer” and dedicates his podcast to answering questions from marketers. Marketing Smarts Marketing Profs Kerry O’Shea Gorgone spends 30 minutes every episode interviewing marketing experts and authors about topics related to marketing including branding, social media, customer success, digital marketing, lead generation, and more. Every episode begins with a snippet from the interview to give the listener an idea of the focus of the conversation and the personality being interviewed. Social Media Marketing Happy Hour Dawn Marrs Ortiz and Traci Reuter Five times a week, Dawn and Traci discuss best and worst practices for using social media to grow a business. Focused on advice for small business owners and entrepreneurs, these two provide instruction and insights 15 minutes at a time. If you’re wondering how to leverage social media and use Twitter, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Facebook, and all the rest to grow your business, this show will give you the tips and tricks you need. Social Zoom Factor Pam Moore Pam has been named a “Top 10 Social Media Power Influencer” by Forbes magazine. During her show, she shares her considerable experience to provide actionable tactics and strategies for businesses of all sizes using social media as part of their marketing mix. The podcast airs five days a week for 30 minutes. If you’ve never heard this podcast you have over 200 episodes to choose from to ideas you can implement immediately. Content Marketing Rachel Parker Rachel uses her podcast as a platform to talk about the who, what, why, and how of content marketing, Each episode begins with a segment, “News you can use” where Rachel reviews current news and talks about recent content that either worked, or didn’t. The spotlight segment is the meat of the podcast where Rachel discusses an issue or trend and offers advice on content marketing best practices. Content Marketing lasts 20 min to an hour every week. Each podcast has a corresponding blog post that includes resources and links discussed on the show. Content Champion Podcast Loz James A list of podcasts isn’t complete without including at least one from the UK. Loz offers a weekly interview-style podcast where he talks to content marketing practitioners specifically about the strategies, tactics, and tools that have helped them succeed. The weekly podcast is educational in nature and often includes step-by-step instructions and how to’s to improve your content marketing practice. Content Matters   Andy Crestodina, Barry Feldman A fairly new podcast, Andy and Barry started this podcast in November 2015 to help educate content marketers and provide specific tactics to improve content marketing efforts. Content Matters airs twice a month and focuses on things that “matter” for marketers. “Your website is the mousetrap and your content is the cheese,” according to Andy and Barry. Each podcast addresses one bite-sized tactic with specific ideas and tips on how to execute that tactic immediately. First Click Inc. Chase Reiner First Click, Inc. is a fairly new podcast with 35 episodes to date. The podcast is recorded in two formats, interviews and tool reviews. The interview episodes last about 20 minutes and focus on experts in the fields of SEO, SEM, and social media. The First Click podcast varies in length along with its format. Interviews typically last about 20 minutes while tool reviews are around five minutes each. Like this list or have some suggestions of your own? Leave a comment or tweet me @TexasGirlErin and I’ll give it a listen.   Image Credits Featured Image: Image by Erin Robbins O’BrienScreenshot by Erin Robbins O’Brien. Taken May 2016.

“Ah so you learned to drive in a Ferrari” that’s what a new colleague said to me when I explained that I had joined Google straight after university.  This sentence echoed in my head, when in the months after that conversation; I got an offer to leave Google.  Deciding to leave Google was hard, really hard but I’m really glad I did. Here’s what I learned when I handed back the keys to the Ferrari. Lesson 1: Great Isn’t Always Enough Google is constantly named the best company to work for. And I think Google deserves those awards. Let’s be clear: I said goodbye to something I loved, not something I hated. And it was mutual. Google looked after me. They always gave me a strong package: a super competitive salary, every perk you could name and even a swimming pool! I also left behind a super-talented team: we were set up to succeed and we looked out for one another. In other words I walked away from a great job. A great job wasn’t enough to make me happy. My work life balance sucked.  No matter how hard you try if you work in Ireland for a California based company you cannot avoid some late nights and some travel, in my case many late nights and much travel. I became a bad friend and partner. I never made 7pm spin or mid-week drinks. I spent many Sundays on the plane to San Francisco and when I come back at 11am the next Saturday I would be tired and cranky. Over time, these patterns really began to negatively impact my life. I was in San Francisco last year when my grandfather had a huge stroke. My manager was amazing, he did everything he could to help me but at that moment in my life I felt more powerless than I have ever done. I was too far away from my family at a moment when I needed to be close to them. Ironically, a fantastic Google based training called ‘Search Inside Yourself’ (now a book and separate organization) helped me realise that my work and what makes me happy in life were mismatched.  It gave me the mindfulness to see that what made me happy was an awful lot more than job satisfaction. My job was great, but it wasn’t enough. Lesson 2: The Right Role Can Be In The Most Unexpected Of Companies If you told me a year ago, that I would be working for a bank, I would have laughed at you. I would have told you that I was a product manager, I liked tech and startups and those really weren’t things I associated with a bank. I do now. My narrow view of what the right company for me was could have resulted in me missing a great opportunity to work on the things I really like to work on. I got lucky, this role came to me. I’m not sure I would have found it. This is why platforms like Linkedin and Twitter and the good old fashioned drink coffee with your network technique are activities that should not be neglected. Lesson 3: Moving Company Doesn’t Mean Starting From Zero One of the things that scared me the most about changing role was the thought of having to start again in a new company. In Google, my reputation preceded me; people knew what it was like to work with me. I wasn’t looking forward to having to build that credibility up again.  This has been much easier than I expected. I realised that it wasn’t my reputation that had built up in Google, it was my behaviour.  I went into Google a graduate with no experience of working for a large company and came out with six years of experience; the experience changed my behaviour in Google and it meant my behaviour in Bank of Ireland was informed by it from day one.  Don’t let fear about being new or having to start again hold you back. Lesson 4: There Are Great People Everywhere My team in Google was superb. We not only got things done but we had fun doing it. We challenged each other and supported each other. I was happy to go for a pint with anyone from my team on a Friday night. That’s a great barometer for anyone you work with: are they sound enough for you to be willing to spend some of you non-work hours with them.  It turns out my team in Bank of Ireland is very like my team in Google – I’d happily grab an after work quiet one with any of them. And I do. The people I met in Google wanted Google to be the very best that it could be and the people I’ve met in Bank of Ireland want Bank of Ireland to be the very best that it can be. An 18 year old tech company and a 232 year old bank might not seem like they have a lot in common, but when so much of a company is determined by its people, these two actually have a lot more in common that you would expect. Lesson 5: Careers Are Journeys Not Final Destinations The days where you worked one job for your adult working life are gone. We will all have more than one role in more than one company. That’s good.  It keeps us thinking big and we can learn and leverage more than we could if we just stayed in one place. It also asks more of you. You have to be focused on your career. If you don’t want to stay in one place forever, then you should have a 3 year plan (I like 3 more than 5). If you don’t know what skill or interest you want to explore next, how can you possibly build the steps to get there? I have a lot of conditions, things a role must meet before I’m interested (a product angle, a startup focus, a customer focus, freedom to execute and a positive contribution to my work life balance) and I know that if a role has those, then I can grow from it. If it doesn’t I’m not interested because it's not going to help me on my journey. So 90 days post-Ferrari, did I make the right decision? Yes I did. What type of car is my new role? I don’t know yet, it’s still under construction. It’s new for the bank and it’s new for me but I know my team is passionate, driven and equipped to succeed.  And when I leave the office this evening, I’ll be in my favourite city close to my family, and when I meet my other half at home, at a reasonable hour, there’ll be no excuse not to go out for a jog on this sunny evening. Ok so there is a downside: jogging! My new jogging route!

by Leah Blackman, ICRAVE Before she became our best graphic designer, and before her interview, she sent an introductory email with a beautifully designed roadmap that showed off her unique skill set and graphic design prowess. And when I met her in person, she shared a 10-book paper doll series based on her extensive wardrobe. I knew this candidate was the right fit for our office because she was willing to take risks in her work, set herself apart with a unique presentation approach, and exhibited her personal style. As the Managing Director of ICRAVE for over 10 years, I’ve been responsible for recruiting creative talent — from interior designers, to 3D designers, to strategists, and everything in between. And when I receive an email like the one our graphic designer sent, it stands out, and I know she’s someone we want on our team. But her example raises a more general question: In such a competitive market, how do you set yourself apart? Here’s my answer to that question. Leave your nerves at home This may sound harsh, but when a candidate talks about how nervous she is, it doesn’t inspire confidence. As a designer, you’ll be tasked with presenting your work to your team leader, the studio, and clients. I want to know you’re ready for this task, and being client-ready during an interview is the first step. We all have our own ways of relaxing and restoring confidence, but in this context, I recommend thinking about why the work in your portfolio is so special before going into the big meeting. Photography by Blair BeydaYou’re never going to get an ‘A’ if you’re afraid of getting an ‘F’ This is an ICRAVE mantra. We challenge our clients to take risks and push beyond their comfort zones, so we look for candidates who aren’t afraid to challenge the status quo and aren’t afraid to fail. After all, no one wants to hire a merely good enough designer. So be ready — and eager — to speak about your past work and explain the risks you took and how it paid off. Explain the safe route you considered but dismissed for the sake of a greater, more compelling design and accomplishment. If you do that well, you won’t only impress your interviewer, but you’ll also inspire. Tell your story Now more than ever, it’s important to develop your personal brand. I’m not just hiring a designer or project manager with a certain set of skills — a set of skills that are shared with many other applicants — but I’m hiring you and what you do with those skills. This is why your portfolio — what it contains and how you’ve assembled it — is so important. It’s the one thing you bring to an interview that demonstrates your unique point of view and personality, and offers a window to how you collaborate with others on larger projects. Work hard to ensure that your portfolio expresses what you want and need it to: an expression of how you’ve shaped yourself to be the type of creative you are. Do your research American Express shares their best interview questions that help them find great talent, among them “How did you go about researching our company?” We want to know you are serious about working here and joining our unique culture, and why. Do your research on both the company and the person with whom you’re interviewing. What is that person’s position and how long has she been with the company? What are the company’s 3 most recently completed projects, and have they won any awards? Maybe even take the time to visit some of those projects, if they’re in the public domain. But be careful not to be too enthusiastic. After all, finding a new job is a bit like dating, and no one likes a stalker. Photography by Blair BeydaSpell check… and other table stakes When I establish application instructions in a job posting (e.g. specify the name of the position to which you’re applying, only send a 2MB file, include a PDF portfolio — no websites, please), it’s for good reason! When a candidate sends an email with an 18 MB portfolio and typos galore, she lost me at goodbye. This shows me early on that this candidate does not have an attention to detail, and so I know she won’t be a fit for our studio. You’d be surprised at how often these basic mistakes happen. And finally — follow up I’m all for the convenience of technology, but there is nothing like a thoughtful, handwritten thank you note. Because the majority of communication now happens digitally, a handwritten letter is a great way to stand out. Extra points if you have nice handwriting and beautiful stationery. A handwritten thank you note shows you’re willing to go the extra mile, and that you take care in what you do rather than rushing through a task. It’s a simple gesture and a great way to get noticed. Leah Blackman, Managing Director, ICRAVE

“Hold the phone Jack… What the heck is a UX Unicorn?!” — you might find yourself exclaiming at this point. Especially if Jack’s on the phone. Don’t worry, incredulous friend of Jack, let’s quickly jump back a few steps and explain the ‘UX Unicorn’ concept first before breaking down the skills needed to be one. (If you’re thinking that Unicorns can’t or even shouldn’t exist, thats fine too — stick with me…) - What the Unicorn? In case you’re not au-fait with Unicorn mythology, etymology and modern day usage, then this Wall Street Journal quote should bring you up to speed: “The myth of the unicorn, the pure steed with the single spiralling horn, goes back to antiquity, with legends of unicorn hunts memorialised in medieval tapestries… now a “unicorn” often refers to someone or something exceedingly special and worth seeking.” — Ben Zimmer, Wall Street Journal - From T-Shaped to Square-Shaped! So, it appears we are talking about experience design, but of course the term unicorn is also à la mode in the venture capitalist world of unstable silicone valley startups, meaning confusion thus ensues; so let’s be clear that The UX Unicorn we seek is that elusive Square-Shaped User Experience Designer that has multiple skills and expertise in the main areas required for innovative digital product design. This square shaped person goes a few large strides beyond a previously equally elusive T-shaped individuals as discussed in Agile & Scrum. “What’s better than knowing a little about a lot and a lot about a little? … Knowing a lot about a lot.” — Mike Arauz - The Birth of a Unicorn It’s a Great Time to Be A UX Designer by Jared M. SpoolSo what are these important multiple areas of expertise?Well, first lets start by explaining that the idea of a UX Unicorn certainly isn’t a creation of my own, however I have been a very strong advocate of it ever since I heard my UX Guru Mr Jared M. Spool talk about it at “An Event Apart” in Austin, USA in 2013 where he detailed why “It’s a Great Time To Be A UX Designer.” Jared spoke about all of the layers that it takes to really call yourself a designer for experience (not a designer of experiences, which of course is pretty impossible). He even opened a school called the Unicorn Institute to teach UX Designers these broad skill sets. (He later changed the name to Center Centre a play on words from UCD land). Basically, what Jared doesn’t know about UX Unicorns could fit on the back of a postage stamp. The basic principle of a UX Unicorn is that the old world of working in a silo of specialism within a single area and then passing work over to another specialist has so many pitfalls and inherent complexity that why wouldn’t we all (if we could) just do all of the steps involved in creating a digital product ourselves using our holistic skill sets. - UX is not UI (or usability, etc..) As I have heard first hand recently, both from Peter Merholz (Adaptive Path, Jawbone, Groupon) and also Louise Downe (Head of Design at the inspirational GDS): “All Design is Service Design”. So if the discipline of UX is not about improving how things LOOK, but instead how they WORK, then of course UX Design includes a multitude of varied deep specialisms and expertise. How could it not? Well, thats where the mythical part of this discussion comes in, many UX designers out there still believe very strongly (and for good reason) that this multi skilled ‘specialist-generalist’ cannot exist. They could well be correct in their current circumstances. For example if their company does not work like this, then how could they? Especially if their company is an agency, and their access to users is limited or non-existent. - My own ‘Blessing’ of Unicorns My own experience is that we must strive towards unicorn-ism. I have created and curated a fantastic team of UX Unicorns (yes a group of unicorns is called a blessing, Google says so) and more importantly together with my colleagues and bosses we have created the environment for them to survive and thrive. Ideally this environment is a Lean, Agile, User Centric, Product-led one where speedy failure is actively encouraged and celebrated in the pursuit of constant experimentation and learning. This of course needs buy in from everyone else that you will be working with too. Which is no small thing.  There are two key specifics about my UX Unicorns compared to other UX Unicorn definitions: Firstly, they are not expected to be active developers. This is a common mistake I think people make when talking about UX Unicorns. I believe that in a large business environment, they should not code, but instead actively collaborate with their co-located developers on a daily basis and understand in good detail how things are made. Secondly, they are expected to excel in visual design while at the same time being a top notch researcher, testing moderator, data analyst, information architect and interaction designer all while actively driving hypothesis-led Product Management towards providing measurable business value through true User Centred Design. Sounds easy right? This is my working definition of a UX Unicorn. And I have to say it’s working a treat for us. Also, creating an “everyone is a designer” environment of Design Thinking through design studios, design sprints, full product-team user testing involvement, transparency of data, information radiators and true open collaboration are all basic expectations of the unicorn role. Up-skilling of UX related skills (like usability testing moderation) for other non-UX product team members is a great added benefit from this too. Clearly these unique and talented people are notoriously difficult to find, however not impossible. It is also possible to grow them in-house, as long as you find the right people with a genuinely open mind, a thirst for learning, a passion for innovation, a desire for balancing science with art and a stubbornness for always doing the right thing for our users. I have somehow been lucky enough to do both with my team. - The Ten UX Unicorn Skills So, now that you’re down with the lingo of what the heck a UX Unicorn is, lets get back to the meat of this article: I believe there are ten prime cuts that make up a UX Unicorn… (I know, this metaphor is already starting to stretch…and I’m not sure if they allow poor puns like this on Medium either). These ten skill areas should be all be exercised by the UX Designer during every month’s work as a basic expectation. There are of course many moments of crossover within these ten skill areas: 1. Evidence: (What) [Data analytics, Behavioural Insights] This area of expertise focuses on discovering what is happening with your product on a regular and granular basis yourself, through analysing usage facts and turning this into meaningful insight and hypothesis to experiment around. 2. Empathy: (Why) [User Research, Usability Testing] This area focuses on trying to understand the attitudinal reasons behind users behavioural actions. Crafting new conceptual models from observed cognitive models and mental models. Understanding cognitive load and emotional response while also measuring behavioural response and effect. Qualitative research and testing is essential and invaluable in the UX toolbox. If you’re not regularly talking to your users, you ain’t UX-ing. Simples. 3. Exploration: (Who, When, Where) [User Journey Mapping, Experience Mapping, Task & Process Analysis] Before Moving into any UI discussions, these skills should be applied. Mapping out the current ‘as-is’ journeys and then crafting proposed abstract ‘to-be’ experiences. Visualising these as conversation provoking assets hugely help with Frank Lloyd Wright’s vision of understanding and agreeing before building. Having these artefacts (not deliverable assets) on walls as ever-changing discussion guides to constantly point at with your team is an invaluable part of the design process. “You can use an eraser on the drafting table or a sledge hammer on the construction site”. — FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT 4. Psychology [Conversion Optimisation, UCD Strategy, Persuasive Design] “Psychology-the science of the mind or of mental states and processes”.This is where we match the business return with human behavioural understanding, running A/B tests, coming up with specific behaviour analysis assumptions and experiments to prove/disprove bold hypotheses. 5. Experimentation (How) [Interactive Prototyping, Development Collaboration] The meat of what used to be an Interaction Designer’s job, we keep these prototypes as lean as possible. Sometimes they need to be created to do user testing, but if a conversation will suffice with a developer, then a deliverable is not needed. Outcomes over output, conversations over deliverables. And many other similar things listed in the Agile Manifesto.. 6. Creativity [Sketching, Wireframing, Interaction Design, Micro-Interaction Design] Sketching, sketching, sketching. The three S’s of rapid creativity. Throw away ideas are much easier to actually throw away if you spend less time on them. Micro-interaction design is growing more and more important, especially in the areas of UI delight and Motion Choreography as detailed by Rebecca Ussai. 7. Finesse [Visual Design, Creativity, UI Detail & Delight] As previously mentioned, the UI finesse is not to be farmed out to a “UI” designer. Thats why I don’t like seeing job ads for “UX/UI designers”. To me thats like hiring a “Secretary/Typist”. UI Design is just one of the skills of a modern UX Designer. And creativity isn’t a talent for the artistic few. Creativity can be learned and practiced. You may never be Leonardo Da Vinci, but anyone can certainly learn design principles and continue to practice them and over the years that will be more than enough to create beautiful digital products. (If you don’t believe me, read this book and then we’ll talk: http://austinkleon.com/steal/). 8. Philosophy [Information Architecture, Accessibility, Security] “Philosophy — the rational investigation of the truths and principles”. Yes the role of an IA (Information Architect) is certainly alive and well, it is just another skill of the UX Unicorn. Understanding, findability, clarity of information, labeling, taxonomy and content strategy are clearly super important and ensuring this information is both usable and accessible to all while still being secured correctly is not something to be palmed off to another person either. 9. Collaboration [Workshop Facilitation, Design Collaboration, Concept Presentation & Justification] Pretty self explanatory here. Agile Co-located Product Team setups are the best place for this type of activity to thrive. 10. Execution [Enough Coding & Technical Knowledge To Design For Feasibility] As mentioned, knowledge is needed but not daily practice. Understanding how an engine works is essential to being able to craft a car and premium driving experience. Building that engine is best left to the expert engineers. Great Medium post by Dan Nessler.These skills are not in any particular order because we have found that the old waterfall style method of Discover, Define, Develop, Deliver (that would encourage you to move step by step) has been replaced by short Diverge & Converge Double Diamond cycles towards Valuable MVP’s within a team setup to excel working in a Design Thinking framework. These rapid cycles can take any of these 10 stages into account at any time depending on the purpose of the upcoming sprints, with research and testing running in series or parallel. I’m not saying this way is the only way to do things, however if the set up is right, I can tell you that in my own experience it can be amazing to watch… Well, that was my 2 cents on UX Unicorns. I hope it was interesting. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the subject if you want to share? Drop me a line on twitter. Or follow me for more like this: Conor Ward — UX Much?™Cheers

Tom Davenport, a fellow of the MIT Center for Digital Business, gives his view on automation, jobs & the future of work in the a16z podcast. I share his theory that businesses are going to start taking a lot of the work in-house, which has been traditionally outsourced in the past decade too agencies. I wanted to get a deeper understanding of this trend, why it is happening and what that means for brands and businesses. It is clear that the indicators for this shift have been blinking for a while now. Furthermore, the opportunities this trend presents for industry and marketers are significant. So what are the indicators? With any major shift, changes don’t happen overnight. A number of businesses have been built to help brands bridge the gap to the in-house era. Companies like Oliver are designed to build in-house agency teams working “at the very heart of the organisations”. A major challenge for brands has often been idea creation and innovation. Traditionally, agency partners have done a lot of this work, but we are seeing this model change. A surge of brand innovation initiatives, brand based incubators/accelerator programs and labs / studios are being built in house (John Lewis, Visa, Shop Direct, Capital One, Unilver etc…). Brands are taking back control of the process to design more focused, relevant and owned solutions. They aren’t doing this on their own, companies like lmarks are serving this need to execute this work. The surge of innovation has also bred a new type of agency that is more consultative, transformational and entrepreneurial (excuse the buzzwords). From agencies developing their own incubators (Lucky Generals’ Lucky Enterprises) to companies like IDEO, a design and innovation consulting firm, that is recognised as number 2 in the global top 50 ad agencies by online presence. The 21st century agency is a different breed (Postshift). When talking with global brands, it feels like a lot of their work is based on engaging their audiences on non-proprietary platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Just East, Deliveroo etc… These platforms are also making a conscious effort to engage directly with brands as well as agencies. With brands developing a robust understanding, and subsequent plans around their target audiences on these platforms, the traditional role of the agency comes under threat. With supplier development services (and now design) becoming increasingly commoditized, the freelancer economy may be growing quicker than forecasted. Brands are building freelance but in-house teams working on brand projects and products. This could be driven by the value of proprietary products and IP, and, how the process of creating value has become easier (not easy). Consumers adopt technologies far quicker than businesses and brands can. Brands either have to react as quickly as possible to consumer behaviour, or predict how behaviour is going to change. Using partners and agencies adds an extra layer of decision-making, alternative agendas, management and ultimately bureaucracy, which is likely to slow down brands reaction and delivery times. Don’t believe me, check out this video on the what the digital services team do at Direct Line group. The volume of platforms and combination of options available to brands and marketers to achieve their objectives is vast. Whilst there is a risk of cognitive overload (LOOK AT THIS!), most of these platforms are designed to help people do their jobs more effectively and more efficiently. Platforms follow users and users move quickly, driving are requirement for a more adaptable work force and flexible products. Supplier agency partners often focus on their own specialisms, which is a good thing, but I think they will start to struggle unless they develop propositions that fully embrace and capitalises on the demand for platform based solutions. So what does this mean for brands and marketers? Brands will have to become responsive and adaptable. Beyond websites, mobile applications, dynamic ad-serving, media planning/buying, conversation UI, chat bots, IoT etc… it’s the core business behind the brands that will have to become organisationally responsive. Those who don’t won’t have the team, strategy, culture or skillset to respond to the pace of consumer behaviour change. Marketers will start to use platforms and technologies to augment, rather than automate, jobs and tasks. Augmenting will allow marketers to reduce the mundane tasks within our roles and focus on how technologies can be used to be more creative, entrepreneurial and enterprising. Businesses will have to provide management styles that support people, not employees. With more pressure to deliver, increasing change of job augmentation (and automation), flexible workforces, new ways of working, the people (not employees) we work with will require more support than ever before. Brands will need to be more purpose-orientated, rather than task orientated… Establishing a clear, human, purpose that defines an adaptable vision and mission will be increasingly important to attract and retain customers, staff and partners. Those that don’t will be in a race to the bottom. I.e. if a consumer sees you and all your competitors on Facebook, building an app, delivering a great customer service — how would you differentiate yourself? It will become harder for brands to find the people that fit the role, culture and organisation, and it will be harder for people to find the role, culture and organisation they want to work for. However, when teams are established around purpose, culture, agility and vision, teams will be more stable, for longer. As you can imagine, insights and the ability to uncover insights from focused and qualitative data will be more important to brands than ever. Brands will have to look beyond the data derived from platforms. To identify opportunities, understand audiences, plan projects, use platforms and improve products/services to build a better brands and business. We will need to find quicker and more accurate ways of gathering, analysing and utilising data. For another comprehensive and articulated perspective take a look at Jules Ehrhardt’s article — State of the Digital Nation 2016. With all this ahead, how are you going to adapt to and capitalise on the in-house era?

Innovation has been a buzzword in the office and amongst CEO’s for a while now. Innovation has become the key to all our business, career and development problems and if we create the right culture in the workplace we can encourage it to flourish and make all our business aspirations come true! Or so we’re told.  As a manager, how can you foster an innovative environment for your team? How is this different from any other creative process in which we look for ‘outside the box’ answers to daily trivial office issues? Here are my top tips on how to foster innovation in the workplace:  People As someone who prides themselves on investing in people with passion, I truly believe that it all starts with the people you have around you. Hiring talented people is only the first step in cultivating an innovative and creative environment. A lot of businesses fail to hire creative and innovative team members because their hiring process fails to make allowances for these types of candidates. I’ve seen hiring processes that are so structured that they almost seem to punish individuals who attempt to be creative and act differently during the process. The same can be said for the hiring process itself, if you do not provide an opportunity for candidates to express their creative side, what chance do you have of identifying your innovative team members?  It’s important to factor this into your hiring process if it’s important for the development of your business. Equally, I can’t think of anything more demoralising for an innovative thinker than being hired as a creative member of the team and then being micro managed out of their ability to foster new and fun ideas for the business to benefit from. Make time to think clearly and set some personal goals It’s never easy to find the time or the headspace to let the creative juices flow and just think. However, it’s important to do so in order for innovative ideas to flourish. Start to set aside a short amount of time every day or week to let your mind wander or do something which inspires you, this could be meditation or a walk outside, whatever gets your mind wandering. Set aside some time to help your head get the space it needs to think creatively and encourage your team to do the same. Get out of your typical routine and normal working environment to think about ideas you have and set your team or yourself targets to come up with one idea a week for each team meeting.  This really helps to foster an environment where ingenuity and change are embraced and valued. Communication and collaboration Use every conversation you have as a means of tapping your most valuable resources and contacts for creative ideas. An open and welcoming dialogue around ideas generation will effectively motivate and engage employees. Allow employees to present their ideas before important decisions are made. Provide feedback to employees, even when their ideas are not used, so that they know that they are not being dismissed. Encourage communication between departments: collaboration between members of different departments often results in creative solutions for problems, rather than blame when things don’t go to plan. The people you work with – colleagues, clients and suppliers – are your most valuable resources so bounce ideas off them.   Embrace failure I always encourage my staff to ask for forgiveness rather than permission and although this can sound a little risky for managers to consider, it really is true that the fastest way to kill creativity is to institutionalise a corporate culture that punishes failure. You need to give yourself space to fail because it’s inevitably going to happen at some stage. This isn’t me being a pessimist, the most successful people in the world have one thing in common: they all failed and learnt from their mistakes. When an idea hasn’t worked out, understand why and expand and develop it. Then tell the whole team to try again and come back with more ideas. Training: Not everyone is automatically wired to be innovative in the workplace, and so it’s important to invest in your people and offer training in this area for your staff, as well as factoring this into objectives too. If you want to encourage your whole team to think creatively and be innovative in how they approach their day to day roles this has to be a factored into a detailed development plan. For the past year I’ve been building a training platform for recruitment professionals. Recruitment Guide will be the world’s first recruitment training application and I’m really excited by the prospect of the careers and professions it will help build and the businesses that will benefit from a more motivated and upskilled work force. Because the key learn I’ve made over the years is that businesses that do not invest in their people suffer in the long run. Working environments that welcome brave decisions and unusual thinking, whether it works first-time around or not, are the key to the success of nurturing innovation. Thinking innovatively at work is not just about engaging the creative few, it should become the new normal across all departments and areas of the business.  By embedding innovation, creative thinking, and collaboration into the core of your business, and adding it to you and your team’s daily work activities, you will ensure that you’re seen as being someone who adds value to your company – as well as making it much easier to complete tasks, execute projects successfully, and reach your own professional milestones and objectives.  Be the first to gain access, pre-register for Recruitment Guide now. 

Geeky commerce startup Loot Crate is announcing that it has raised $18.5 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Upfront Ventures, with participation from Breakwater Investment Management, Time Inc., Downey Ventures (startup investment arm of Team Downey, the production company founded by Robert Downey Jr. and Susan Downey), M13 and Sterling.VC. When you subscribe to Loot Crate, you get a monthly box with four to seven mystery items, ranging from toys to clothing to books and comics, all tied into big pop culture and geek franchises. (The company says the majority of its products are exclusive to Loot Crate.) The basic plan costs $13.95 per month, plus $6 for shipping and handling. Founded in 2012, Loot Crate currently has more than 600,000 subscribers and more than $100 million in annualized revenue. And it’s expanded beyond the basic plan, with subscriptions focused on anime, gaming, individual franchises like Joss Whedon’s Firefly and more. (On that front, Loot Crate is also announcing a partnership with 343 Industries/Microsoft Studios for a new subscription around Halo.) The big funding round suggests that Loot Crate isn’t just aiming for that a niche, geeky audience, perhaps because those interests are becoming increasingly mainstream. “We definitely think it’s not just about that kind of stereotypical geek — we’re really going after the big, passionate fan groups,” said CEO Chris Davis. After all, The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones have audiences of millions of viewers, while Disney generates billions of dollars in merchandise sales. The vision, Davis said, includes delivering products that are personalized to your interests — not in the sense that each Loot Crate subscriber will get a different box, but in the sense of carefully curating what’s included in each subscription, then helping each user find “the right one of our subscriptions for you.” And yes, we can expect the number of plans to continue expanding. Related Articles Here's the first full trailer for the next Star Wars movie, Rogue One 'Captain America: Civil War' mostly ignores the real world, and it's all the better for it 14 Great Gifts For Your Geeky Guy Friends But even if you’re a big fan of Star Trek, Star Wars, superhero comics and so on, I did wonder how many toys a person can receive before their closets are overflowing. “We like items that seamlessly integrate into your life,” Davis said. “We’ve done BB-88 Star Wars socks, Yoda T-shirts, we did an Infinity Gauntlet mitt from Marvel — everyone needs an oven mitt. We want to make sure it’s not like your entire dresser is packed with figurines in a weekend.” There are also plans for international growth. Loot Crate already delivers to 35 countries, and it will open its first overseas office, in the United Kingdom, this summer.

Global Acrylic Acid Market Will Growing at CAGR of around 6.5% between 2015 and 2020 Zion Research has published a new report titled “Acrylic Acid (Acrylate Esters, Glacial Acrylic Acid Market & Others) Market for Superabsorbent Polymers & Surface Coatings, Adhesives & Sealants, Textiles, Plastic Additives, Printing Ink and Other Applications: Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis and Forecast, 2014–2020.” According to the report, global demand for acrylic acid market was valued at USD 15.50 billion in 2014 and is expected to generate revenue of USD 22.50 billion by end of 2020, growing at a CAGR of 6.5% between 2015 and 2020. In terms of volume, the global acrylic acid market stood at above 5.85 million tons in 2014. Acrylic acid is also known as prop-2-enoic acidis an organic compound with the formula CH2=CHCO2H. Acrylic acid is a colorless liquid with a pungent smelling and irritating acrid odor at room temperature. Acrylic acid & its derivatives are used in many industries for wide ranging applications. Acrylic acid is mainly used as raw material for production of coatings, acrylic resins, acrylates, adhesives, elastomer, and super absorbent polymers. Acrylic acid also finds host of applications in dispersants, flocculants, thickening agents, and adhesives, etc. It is miscible with water, ethers, chloroform, and alcohols. A large portion of acrylic acid is used as a feedstock for obtaining acrylate esters. Acrylic acid is used in the manufacture of plastics, latex applications, floor polish, emulsion polymers, paper coatings, and paint formulations. Browse the full “Acrylic Acid (Acrylate Esters, Glacial Acrylic Acid Market & Others) Market for Superabsorbent Polymers & Surface Coatings, Adhesives & Sealants, Textiles, Plastic Additives, Printing Ink and Other Applications: Global Industry Perspective, Comprehensive Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Segment, Trends and Forecast, 2014–2020” report at http://www.marketresearchstore.com/report/acrylic-acid-market-z41341 The global acrylic acid market is primarily driven by growth in the recent years owing to increasing demand from super absorbent polymers (SUP) and adhesives industry. Increasing demand from super absorbent polymers in emerging economies has remained the key driver for this industry. However, unstable prices of raw material and increasingly stringent environmental regulations are expected to be major concern for acrylic acid market. Major product segments of the acrylic acid include acrylate esters, glacial acrylic acid and others. Acrylate esters are sub-segmented into methyl, butyl, ethyl acrylates and 2- ethylhexyl acrylate (2-EHA). Acrylate esters are primarily used in surface coatings followed by adhesives and sealants, textiles, plastic additives and printing ink. Acrylate esters accounted for over 50% share of the total acrylic acid volume consumed in 2014. However, acrylate esters are expected to lose their market share to glacial acrylic acid and other derivatives during the forecast period. Glacial acrylic acid include in sub-type application such as superabsorbent polymers (SAP), poly acrylic acid market, others. Glacial acrylic acid was the second largest market segment in 2014. It is mainly used in the manufacture of superabsorbent polymers. It is used in manufacturing baby diapers, feminine hygiene products and adult diapers. Get Request Sample at http://goo.gl/6hLQMY Asia Pacific was the dominated the global acrylic acid market with around 45% share of the overall volume consumption in 2014. Asia Pacific was followed by North America and Europe in 2014. Asia Pacific is further expected to exhibit robust growth during the forecast period. The rapidly growing construction and building industry in emerging economies such as China and India has boosted the growth of the acrylic acid market in the Asia Pacific region. Some of the key player for globe acrylic acid market includesAkrilat, American Acryl, BASF SE, Formosa Plastics, Rohm and Haas, Dow Chemical Company, LG Chem, Mitsubishi Chemical, StoHaas Monomer, Nippon Shokubai, Arkema. Get Illustrative Sample before buying: http://goo.gl/5chbjP Acrylic Acid Market: Product Segment Analysis Acrylate Esters Acrylate Esters: Product type Methyl acrylate Ethyl acrylate Butyl acrylate 2-ethylhexyl acrylate Acrylate Esters: By Applications Surface Coatings Adhesives and sealants Textiles Plastic additives Printing ink Others (Papers, etc.) Glacial Acrylic acid market Glacial Acrylic acid market : By Applications Superabsorbent polymers (SAP) Poly acrylic acid market Others Acrylic Acid Market: Regional Analysis North America U.S. Europe Germany France UK Asia Pacific China Japan India Latin America Brazil Middle East and Africa About Us Zion Research is a market intelligence company providing global business information reports and services. Our exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trends analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. Zion Research experienced team of Analysts, Researchers, and Consultants uses proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather, and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge. Contact US: Joel John 3422 SW 15 Street, Suit #8138 Deerfield Beach, Florida 33442 United States Toll Free: +1–855–465–4651 (USA-CANADA) Tel: +1–386–310–3803 Email: [email protected]/* */ Website: http://www.marketresearchstore.com

With the rise of Social Media, there’s a great opportunity for the creative minds to grow. However, it can be extremely overwhelming to find a space to have their voices heard. SamyRoad was created to solve that problem. This real-time platform works around passion. In essence, it’s a marketplace to connect digital creators with brands to generate and distribute content.The users create a profile, search their passions and curate them for inspiration. They can also create their own content, earn money and shop items that are based on their taste. If there’s an event, those tickets can also be sold through the platform. The startup also provides content and other services for clients through Samy for Brands. SamyRoad was born 3 years ago in Madrid, Spain and later established a second office in New York City. They’re currently opening new markets from San Juan, Puerto Rico, as part of Generation 1 in Parallel18. “We were looking to establish headquarters in Miami to reach the Latin American market, but we learned about Parallel and our plans changed,” Sergio Mave, VP of Business for SamyRoad explains. “Puerto Rico brings up geographic and legal advantages that make it easier for us to acquire new clients. Plus, we save a lot in basic development and spending. The project (Parallel18) is lovely and done in the right moment.” Being a startup about giving visibility to creatives, SamyRoad is right at home with their fellow participants from Parallel18. “ The best thing is to be with people from other startups and different dynamics…there’s an entrepreneurship environment,” says Sergio. “We form a professional and personal support group”. Oscar Gómez from Stellup (another P18 G1 startup) and Sergio Mave from SamyRoad living our #WorkHardPlayTropical mottoAccording to Sergio, Parallel18 takes its commitment very seriously, “ it’s not easy, because there’s a variety of startups in different stages. But the team goes above and beyond… from helping everybody settle in the island and recommending local spots to connecting us with key players, and guiding the entrepreneurs through several government programs that allow us to hire and mentor young Puerto Ricans.” Sergio also mentions how the weekly follow-up meetings with the Startup Executives are useful as they keep Parallel18’s management informed of each company’s progress and let them offer help when it’s needed without interfering with the development of the team. There’s a new round of applications for Summer 2016 and we asked Sergio to give some advice to those interested in joining Generation 2: “Be open to the coaching by the accelerator’s team and mentors, but also by your fellow participants. We are so inside our own project that this is hard sometimes, but if you have this chance, you should make good use of it.”

Critical to the success of any early-stage startup is access to customers and partners. With over 30 Fortune 500 Companies headquartered in Chicago, we make it a priority to help make the connections between big companies seeking out innovation and partnership opportunities with the smaller, often more nimble startups in our portfolio. CDW’s eCommerce team, led by John Seebeck, has recognized the value in partnering with young startups to fill and supplement their technology needs. With the baseline goal of growing sales online, John’s team is tasked with bringing in new customers, improving web experience, delivering rich, smart content, and innovating on procurement at the enterprise level. As a notoriously startup-friendly company (CDW was one of the early supporters and sponsors of 1871), John and his senior leadership team recently met with a handful of our relevant portfolio companies to explore ways to work together. Innovation within the BigCo: CDW’s take on innovation and startup partnerships With over 8,400 employees, CDW has maintained a culture of innovation, according to John, by making it a priority to implement clear strategies that permeate through the organization. “Clearly communicating the company’s strategy and mission is important,” he says. “CDW is really good at connecting the vision at the highest level on down so it’s really clear what each team should be focused on. You know where you’re supposed to play so you can innovate in that area.” Customer interaction is also key to staying motivated to innovate. “We’re in technology — we have a duty, and it’s part of our DNA, to be constantly connecting with new partners and customers,” John adds. Both the eCommerce team and the company as a whole make it a priority to keep an eye on external innovation as well. “We want to serve startups,” John said. “We stay close to early stage companies so we know when it would make sense to partner with them.” Though sorting through the noise is tough, John notes that, from a big company perspective, having priority areas that are clearly defined (right now he has four) helps guide their process for selecting what startups to work with. He spends time vetting startups in advance to determine what partnerships would make sense. So, how do startups best plan for a meeting with CDW? Doing your homework helps, John says. “A lot of young companies look at CDW as a retailer, too often people don’t understand our business and how we work. Maintaining that knowledge throughout the discussion process with us is key.” And what about just getting in the door? As with many relationships, John says “you can’t underestimate the power of a referral.”

By Brandon Reynolds As America’s largest black-owned bank, OneUnited Bank has branches in Boston, Miami, and Los Angeles. But OneUnited Bank is focusing its growth on its online presence, connecting the offerings at its brick-and-mortar locations with what can be found at OneUnited.com. The bank is also trying to do something that all companies struggle with: getting to know its customers better. OneUnited Bank’s CIO, James Slocum, is handling this growth with a team of five in his IT department. In the latest installment of our IT Visionaries series, he talks about how the 50-year-old bank works to find a place for itself online while helping customers affected by the 2008 recession to re-enter the economy. 1) How has OneUnited Bank used technology to innovate? We’re a community bank, not a regional or national bank with thousands of employees that need to be supported. We don’t have a huge physical footprint, and we focus our footprint online. Like most community banks, we don’t have large systems that we’re running in-house. We run a very lean shop when it comes to hardware, and have pivoted over the last year and a half to building out on the Salesforce platform due to its flexibility. We’re focusing on engaging our users to make this new functionality successful. I think that’s what’s driven our success — that the platform is a stable and reliable tool that enables us to do so much more. Now, our IT team can innovate fast and build trusted apps for any device. 2) How did you make the shift to an online-driven business? After the financial crisis, we recognized that our customer base in particular was pretty hard-hit by the recession, that their credit was damaged, and that they lacked the financial tools to dig themselves out of that pit that had been created by the financial downturn. In 2013, we started building our UNITY Visa secured credit card product, leveraging Salesforce App Cloud to collect the applications and manage the application pipeline. That particular project was a strategic one for the institution, as we saw it as our re-entry to offering online products and services to our customers nationally. We then began to engage with our community online again, and focused on changing the lives of our customers by helping them rebuild their credit and put them back on sound footing. From that moment on, we looked at Salesforce as a platform that we needed to get as much data and business process into, because it gave us the ability to understand what was truly going on around this organization. We’ve been taking that lesson, and the lessons learned through the implementation of the UNITY Visa program, to implement Salesforce broadly across the organization. We also began an initiative around the bank called our Changing Lives Initiative, where we were trying to shift the experience our customers were having as they came into our physical branches. There was a training program going on to enhance the sales efforts in the branches, as well as the manner in which people were greeted, in the way that we approached customers. We began developing a 360-degree view of our customer through the App Cloud platform. We consolidated all those individual silos of data into one customer profile that the branches were then able to use as they interacted with customers on the branch floor. 3) What does Salesforce let you do that you couldn’t do before? This platform gives me the capability to engage with customers in a new way that I didn’t have with the legacy systems I had in-house. It gives me the medium to record the interactions with my customer, as well as reach inside of my secure firewall to some of the most important data that defines who my customer is. We immediately began to be able to measure our success, as well as tweak our process to be even more successful. That was kind of the “aha” thing — that Salesforce really is a fantastic engine, and when you fill it with data that’s meaningful for you, it can truly give insight to making corrections in your business to make you very successful. 4) Have you been able to use the platform to implement changes more quickly? We’ve had a couple of scenarios where we’ve had that happen. For example, the legal team came to us with a need to manage their workload, as well as the incoming requests from across the organization. We were able to easily fold them into some of the project-management tools that we had developed in the support ticketing system that we built. These are simple workflows that were easily adopted by the team, but had a tremendous impact on their day-to-day executions. We were able to integrate multiple departments. When accounts close, there’s money that needs to be moved or refunded. We built out a credit card refunding workflow right in the platform that allows our customer support department to communicate with finance, then accomplish the actual transfer. We were able to integrate that into a very sophisticated approval process that allowed collaboration across the departments. 5) What technology solutions were you using prior to the launch of Unity and your expansion into the app world? We’ve had a corporate strategy where we built out processes that had grown over the years into a SharePoint implementation, with some custom ASP apps behind it. Essentially we decided to go wall to wall with Salesforce after the UNITY Visa launch, and now everyone has access to that. We’ve begun migrating those older applications that we developed for internal process into Salesforce as a replacement. 6) How has this helped your business? As a financial institution, we have the obligation to ensure that there’s no way for people to get in and get access to any of the privileged information that our customers trust us with. For years, banks have been building up many security precautions, and unfortunately that left us with an environment that was very secure but that limited our customer interaction. Salesforce became the medium by which we’ve been able to both have a connection with our customers and be secure. It is the platform that’s enabled us to communicate, collaborate, and track interactions with our customers. For us, that’s what’s Salesforce represents: building new tools, things that we just didn’t have the capability to do before, and a platform that we knew could be secure and trusted. We built what we call our Offer Bar; it’s our visual representation of the next best product for our customer, and a way for our branch staff to understand what to try to sell the customer as they’re having that interaction with them on the branch floor or on the phone in the call center. While there was a small amount of code to build the interface, the actual workflow behind it — that sets off opportunities and journey campaigns and emails — was all done using the Lightning Process Builder. We were engaging with the customer as well as routing internal business opportunities across the organization with just a few clicks. 7) How will you build upon these innovations? Building an online community and engaging with a broader audience base is going to drive more interest in us as a bank and in the services that we have to offer. The bank is going through a strategic shift; we’re calling it the “Bank For The Future” expansion strategy, and this social aspect is a major part of that. We’re realigning our physical footprint and our focus in the online and digital spaces. We’ve found that there’s a large number of people who need that re-entry into the banking system, so we’re bringing one of our programs — our Second-Chance Checking Program — out of the branch and onto our website that just re-launched. While we didn’t build the deposit origination side on Salesforce, we’re integrating that data from the existing online deposit origination system into Salesforce. We’re going to be putting the workflow engine that we’ve been leveraging on the UNITY Visa side of the house to facilitate an excellent experience for our customers as they go through that deposit-opening program. What we’re expecting, as we start to put some true marketing dollars behind the social campaign and drive more traffic to the website, is that Salesforce is going to be the engine that allows us to grow and process that additional volume of customers, and gives them that same excellent experience online that they get when walking into one of our branches. _____________ To learn more about how OneUnited Bank is expanding its business online, connecting with its customers, and making the banking experience more personal and also more secure, listen to our talk with Jim Slocum. Originally published at www.salesforce.com.