Source: http://moviesblog.mtv.com/2012/08/31/bond-a-thond-for-your-eyes-only/
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Friday, August 31, 2012
Bond-a-Thond #12: 'For Your Eyes Only' (1981)
MTV Movies Blog is currently running what we call the Bond-a-Thond. Every Wednesday we're taking a look back at a single (official) Bond film, giving you the vitals and seeing how it holds up, right up until the release of "Skyfall" on November 9. Feel free to watch along with us and share your thoughts [...]
Hi-Fun's call-receiving Bluetooth gloves, hands-in (video)
Sometimes the most fascinating bits from a tradeshow come from those booth in between major manufacturers, and while we're certainly not claiming that the Hi-Call is "the best product at IFA" as its spokesperson suggested to us with a smile, they're nothing if not interesting. Hi-Fun's gloves are Bluetooth headsets -- or, well, handsets -- with the speaker built into the thumb and the mic in the pinky, so you can talk by doing the traditional "call me" hand gesture.
Pairing is simple enough for anyone who's done the process on a more traditional headset -- the button is built into the top of the glove, along with a button to end the call. We took the gloves for a spin, as you can see in the video below, calling the rep's very confused boss. In spite of turning up the handset volume as loud as possible, we had a lot of trouble actually hearing something on the showfloor -- and the fellow on the other end seemed to be having similar issues, leading to quite probably the first time I've ever used the phrase "I'm sorry, I can't hear you, I'm talking into a glove."
Hi-Call will be out in the beginning of October, just in time for the cold weather. It'll run you a not particularly cheap €49 for the pleasure of speaking into your pinky. Video evidence after the break.
Continue reading Hi-Fun's call-receiving Bluetooth gloves, hands-in (video)
Filed under: Wearables
Hi-Fun's call-receiving Bluetooth gloves, hands-in (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 31 Aug 2012 09:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/Ac774icOrRM/
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CityIS: Video Conferencing & Telepresence Blog ? Blog Archive ...
More customers than ever are adopting video communications, but, it still can be difficult for users to make video calls across different platforms and networks. What the industry needs to bring widespread video adoption is for greater interoperability among the disparate video conferencing platforms available to customers. More customers are broadly adopting video, but consumption options beyond the firewall are still fragmented.
This year, Cisco joined other major tech firms in an industry consortium pushing for greater interoperability among the disparate video conferencing platforms on the market. The Open Visual Communications Consortium (OVCC) is a non-profit organisation of worldwide communications technology leaders working together to enable video collaboration across any network, vendor platform and device.
And according to a recent survey released by Cisco, there certainly is a demand for greater interoperability with most U.S. residents wanting the ability to place video calls to people using a different service provider, even though many consumer video services are currently locked behind proprietary walls.
Seventy-seven percent of the 1,000 people surveyed by Purple Insights said they want video calling to be as easy as making a phone call. Eighty-three percent of respondents said they wanted Skype, the leading video-calling service for consumers, to be interoperable with other video technologies.
?We think there?s a critical opportunity in front of us,? said David Hsieh, Cisco?s vice president of marketing for emerging technologies. ?Video calling is becoming increasingly prevalent. Interoperability will enable broad connectivity, and then you can unleash a whole set of economic and social benefits.?
The OVCC has called on video-calling vendors, both on the consumer and enterprise sides, to work together to create interoperability standards. While enterprise video-calling services have developed standards, consumer-grade services have not.
In the survey, 87 percent of respondents said they want companies to agree to a common standard for video calling so that programs will work together.
Do you think video calls should be easy and simple, without having to worry about software program or device? Help to support the drive for interoperability standards by voting yes on this facebook poll >
Post a comment
Source: http://blog.cityis.com/say-yes-to-interoperability-and-make-video-calling-easier-for-everyone/
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Thursday, August 30, 2012
Sen. Rand Paul says despite Supreme Court ruling, Obamacare unconstitutional (Star Tribune)
Choosing Negotiation Seminars For Corporate Sales Training ...
Choosing the just type of sales training for your organization is important to the success of your business. Whether you plan to send your sales staff to negotiation seminars or several another type of classes, there is a wide array of options that is about to fit your haves. Having a well trained team is the best method to be successful in all business.
Deciding over the best method for turnedting instruction may be difficult. The process of selling today is really a bit dissimilar than it was in the past. Customers today is about to be more verbal about their wishes as well as more is about toing to ask for a lower price for the items they would like to.
Learning how to effectively bargain is a amazing tool for sales staff as well as clients. Many times the clients is about to have an idea of what they are appear to being for as well as how much method they are is about toing to pay. Once the staff may work goes along with them to reach an agreement, a sale is made.
High pressure sales tactics are not really effective today. Customers who are feeling really pressured are more just perhapsly today to overly walk away from the process more than giving in.Corporate Sales Training Negotiation Seminars Sales Traini
business Articles over ArticleSnatch.com
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SEAL's book shows bin Laden raid up close
FILE - This book cover image released by Dutton shows "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden," by Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer. The firsthand account of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden contradicts previous accounts by administration officials, raising questions as to whether the terror mastermind presented a clear threat when SEALs first fired upon him. (AP Photo/Dutton, File)
FILE - This book cover image released by Dutton shows "No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden," by Mark Owen with Kevin Maurer. The firsthand account of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden contradicts previous accounts by administration officials, raising questions as to whether the terror mastermind presented a clear threat when SEALs first fired upon him. (AP Photo/Dutton, File)
This undated file photo shows al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, in Afghanistan. A firsthand account of the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden contradicts previous accounts by administration officials, raising questions as to whether the terror mastermind presented a clear threat when SEALs first fired upon him. (AP Photo)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? A Navy SEAL's firsthand account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden pulls back the veil on the secret operations conducted almost nightly by elite American forces against terrorist suspects.
Former SEAL Matt Bissonnette's account contradicted in key details the account of the raid presented by administration officials in the days after the May 2011 raid in Abbotabad, Pakistan, that killed the al-Qaida leader, and raised questions about whether the SEALs followed to the letter the order to use deadly force only if they deemed him a threat.
Bissonnette wrote that the SEALs spotted bin Laden at the top of a darkened hallway and shot him in the head even though they could not tell whether he was armed. Administration officials have described the SEALs shooting bin Laden only after he ducked back into a bedroom because they assumed he might be reaching for a weapon.
Military experts said Wednesday that if Bissonnette's recollection is accurate, the SEALS made the right call to open fire on the terrorist mastermind who had plenty of time to reach for a weapon or explosives as they made their way up to the third level of the house where he hid.
Bissonnette wrote the book, "No Easy Day," under the pseudonym Mark Owen as one of the men in the room when they killed bin Laden. The book is to be published next week by Penguin Group (USA)'s Dutton imprint. The Associated Press purchased a copy Tuesday.
For years, the primary weapon in the war on terror has been unmanned drones firing missiles from the sky. But the Bissonnette book reveals a more bloody war waged by special operators, one the public almost never gets to see close up.
The book offers intimate details of a special operations mission. The most memorable scenes are also the most human moments. Bissonnette describes one of the SEALs dressing the wounds of a woman who was shot when she lunged toward the raiders. In another scene, a terrified mother clutches her child, and a young girl identifies the dead man to the SEALs as Osama bin Laden, seemingly unaware of the significance of those words.
In that regard, the bin Laden raid seems destined to become an anachronism. Nearly every top al-Qaida figure killed by the United States since the 9/11 attacks has died in a remote-controlled strike by unmanned drone aircraft ? their deaths seen back in Washington via high-definition video. An estimated 80 top terrorist leaders have been killed in places like Pakistan and Yemen, according to The Long War Journal.com, which tracks such airborne strikes.
Special operations troops often conduct raids similar to the bin Laden strike a dozen times a night in Afghanistan, and previously in Iraq, killing thousands of mostly mid- and lower-level terrorists. It's all part of a war on terror that is winding down and giving way to the drone war outside traditional war zones, given the scheduled drawdown of most U.S. troops in Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
"No Easy Day" shows how routine such operations have become. But the public rarely hears about them. This raid to capture bin Laden, though, was historic.
The SEALS, according to Bissonnette's description, were prepared as they had been in other raids for a gunfight in close quarters, which likely would last only a few seconds, with no margin for error. By the time the SEALs reached the top floor of bin Laden's compound, roughly 15 minutes had passed, giving the terror leader adequate time to strap on a suicide vest or get a gun, he said.
Bissonnette says he was behind the point man going up the stairs in the pitch black hallway. Near the top, he said, he heard two silenced shots fired by the first SEAL into the hallway. He wrote that the SEAL on point had seen a man peeking out of a door on the right side of the hallway, but Bissonnette could not tell from his vantage point whether the bullets hit the target.
The author writes that the man ducked back into his bedroom and the SEALs followed, only to find him crumpled on the floor in a pool of blood with a hole visible on the right side of his head and two women wailing over his body.
Bissonnette says the point man pulled the two women out of the way and shoved them into a corner. He and the other SEALs trained their guns' laser sights on bin Laden's still-twitching body, shooting him several times until he lay motionless.
Once they wiped the blood off his face, they were convinced it was bin Laden.
The SEALs later found two weapons stored by the doorway, untouched, the author said.
National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor late Tuesday would not comment on the apparent contradiction between the administration's account and the book's version.
Bissonnette writes that during a pre-raid briefing, an administration lawyer told them that they were not on an assassination mission. According to Bissonnette, the lawyer said if bin Laden did not pose a threat, they should detain him.
"If they didn't feel like there was a threat, they would have captured him," co-author Kevin Maurer told the AP on Wednesday. "But from when they first hit the ground, all the way until they got to the third deck, they had encountered armed men, which made the use of force essential," said Maurer, a former AP reporter.
A former deputy judge advocate general for the Air Force defended the decision to shoot the man the SEALs saw in the hallway.
"In a confined space like that where it is clear that there are hostiles, the SEALs need to take reasonable steps to ensure their safety and accomplish the mission," said the former JAG, retired Maj. Gen. Charlie Dunlap, who now teaches at Duke University law school.
Bissonnette writes that none of the SEALs were fans of President Barack Obama and knew that his administration would take credit for ordering the raid. One of the SEALs said after the mission that they had just gotten Obama re-elected by carrying out the raid. But he says they respected him as commander in chief and for giving the operation the go-ahead.
In an interview scheduled to air Sunday on CBS' "60 Minutes," Bissonnette said the book was "not political whatsoever" and not timed to influence the upcoming national elections. He said it was to commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and credit those whose work made the mission to get bin Laden a success.
"My worry from the beginning is, you know, it's a political season. This book is not political whatsoever. It doesn't bad-mouth either party, and we specifically chose Sept. 11 to keep it out of the politics. If these ? crazies on either side of the aisle want to make it political, then shame on them."
CBS said Bissonnette was disguised and his voice altered for the interview. The network used only his pseudonym and not his name.
The Pentagon and the CIA, which commanded the mission, are examining the manuscript for possible disclosure of classified information, and could take legal action against Bissonnette.
In a statement provided to the AP, the SEAL author says he did "not disclose confidential or sensitive information that would compromise national security in any way."
The book does include information not previously reported about specific CIA officers' involvement in the raid.
Bissonnette's real name was first revealed by Fox News and confirmed to the AP.
Jihadists on al-Qaida websites have posted purported photos of the author, calling for his murder.
___
Associated Press writers Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman contributed to this report.
___
Follow Kimberly Dozier on Twitter: http://es.twitter.com/KimberlyDozier
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Top Reviewers Name Anytune Best iPhone and iPad App to Slow Down Music
[prMac.com] Ottawa, Canada - Anytune(TM), the ultimate music practice iOS app for musicians of all kinds has received rave reviews in the period following the launch of Anytune 3. Musicians, dancers and singers worldwide use Anytune to slow down music, choose the perfect pitch and learn to play by ear. The first app to offer features normally found on expensive desktop software, Anytune is consistently ranked as the highest-rated music practice app on the Apple App Store.
Damian Erskine, bass player and writer for No Treble was amongst the first to review Anytune 3. "The app's 'LiveMix' might be the coolest thing ever. If you use an iRig, iRiffPort or any kind of interface to play your instrument into your iOS device with headphones on, then you can use this to play along with the track." He ultimately concluded that "Anytune HQ 3 is now my all-time favorite slow-downer for iOS devices. The company spent six months redesigning the app and have integrated many new features users had requested. Job well done!"
AppAdvice Musician's Corner reviewer Lory Gil found that Anytune Pro HQ was great for learning cover songs. "After spending the past three weeks getting ready to record a new album with my band, I'm so happy to have found out about this 'slow downer' app. It was pivotal in helping us learn the notes to some of the more complicated solos for the cover songs on our set list."
"So what sets Anytune 3 apart from the competition? Features and sound quality. Anytune's features tower over other slow downer iOS apps, and are more comparable to desktop software costing much more and lacking the ultra-mobility of the iPad." wrote Stephan Earl of Home Music Production. Stephan also took the time to record an excellent video review of Anytune in action.
IPhone Life Blogger Mike Riley wrote "Looking for a variable audio playback program that will help you learn a challenging guitar solo or complicated keyboard harmony? AnyTune Pro HQ has come to the rescue. Going far beyond other trainers bundled in guitar or vocalist apps, AnyTune Pro HQ is strictly dedicated to flawless audio speed manipulation and instrument training." He concludes that "Of all the universal iOS apps designed to slow down audio for music practice, AnyTune Pro HQ is the current top recommendation on my list."
Anytune was also found to be useful as an aid for piano teacher Leila Viss of 88pianokeys.me. She writes "This app will be invaluable to me as a pianist and a teacher of those who enjoy playing pop music. Many times sheet music is not available or the arrangement is not as close to the original as a pianist would like. This app slows down any tune in your iTunes library-just one of the many favorite features of this app."
Band teacher Paul Shimmons found a rather unique use for Anytune during his review on his blog "iPad and Technology in Music Education." Paul believes that Anytune will be a great tool for marching band practice: "Touch a Mark and the song jumps to that spot in the song. Marching season just got a lot better! Now we can rehearse any given section of a song as many times as we want. The 16 count drill at Measure 30 need more work? No problem, open AnyTune, tap the Meas. 30 mark, set the loop points and 10 seconds later you are running that drill music for the band to practice marching to!"
Musicians agree with the reviewers, and have at times pushed Anytune into the top 10 Grossing iPad Music Apps in 24 countries.
"We spent over 6 months rebuilding and redesigning Anytune to best meet the needs and requests of our customers." said co-founder and CTO Sean Kormilo. "We've been absolutely thrilled with both the critical reception and customer reception to Anytune Pro HQ 3."
The team continues to innovate and improve Anytune. The recently released 3.0.1 update to Anytune includes some features to further help bass players learn their parts, and also simplifies the process of saving loops.
Language Support:
English, French, German
Device Requirements:
* 3/4Gen iPhone, iPad, or 3/4Gen iPod touch
* Requires iOS 5.0 or later
* Universal app optimized for display on all iOS devices
* 10.8 MB
Pricing and Availability:
Anytune Pro HQ 3.0.1 is $14.99 USD (or equivalent amount in other currencies) and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Music category. Free and Pro s are also available in the App Store.
Anystone Technologies Inc. was founded in 2010 by Tony Wacheski and Sean Kormilo who collectively represent 30 years of telecommunications product development experience. Anystone Technologies created Anytune to enhance the music learning experience by leveraging the latest tablet and smartphone technology. Through listening intensely to customer feedback since it's introduction, Anytune is consistently ranked as the highest-rated music practice app by it's customers. Copyright (C) 2011 Anystone Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.
###
Source: http://prmac.com/release-id-47322.htm
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Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Egypt's 'Google Earth pyramids' revisited
Google / DigitalGlobe / GeoEye
An intriguing site near an Egyptian town called Dimai consists of a large, square formation and smaller features.
By Alan Boyle
Remember that researcher who thought she spotted previously undiscovered Egyptian pyramids in Google Earth imagery? It turns out that there really are some ruins in the picture, but they?re not pyramids.
That's the verdict of an Italian archaeologist who has been surveying the area around the present-day town of Dimai in Egypt's Fayoum Desert.
"The features in Google images are well-known since 1925, when they were surveyed by G. Caton-Thompson and E.W. Gardner," Paola Davoli, an Egyptologist at Italy's University of Salento and co-director of the Soknopaiou Nesos Project, told me in an email. "They are natural mounds surmounted by a building (the biggest one) and by dug wells (in the other cases). For sure they are not pyramids, but their date and use are still not known."
The Dimai formations have been a subject of interest for many years. "We [have] still not dug them, but they will be the objects of future study by the Soknopaiou Nesos Project," Davoli said.
For more than a decade, the project has been doing a territorial survey of the area around Dimai, which was known as Soknopaiou Nesos during the Greco-Roman period in Egypt. The city is thought to have been founded by Ptolemy II in the third century B.C., on a site that shows evidence of habitation going back to the Neolithic period. During its heyday, it was situated on the shore of a large freshwater lake, but the lake has shrunk and gone salty since ancient times.
Davoli said the prevailing view is that the structures might have been watchtowers, designed to look over "an agricultural area or a paleo-lake just in front of them to the east," or perhaps tombs.
Dan Billin, a former newspaper reporter in New Hampshire who turned us on to the Soknopaiou Nesos Project, cites multiple reports about the Dimai site. "Micol was correct to think that at least one of the anomalies she saw on Google Earth was a man-made feature," Billin wrote in an email. "What she didn't manage to discover, however, was that archaeologists already knew about it, and that it's surrounded by numerous other archaeological sites."
Bob Brier, an Egyptologist based at Long Island University's C.W. Post Campus, said in an email that Billin's evaluation of the site "sounds like a reasonable scenario."
Google Earth via Angela Micol
Several eroded features can be seen in this image of terrain about 12 miles from Abu Sidhum, a city on the Nile.
"Note, there is no mention of pyramids," Brier wrote.
Micol had pointed to another intriguing area of the Egyptian desert with four mounds and a large, triangular-shaped plateau, alongside the Nile in Upper Egypt, 12 miles (19 kilometers) from Abu Sidhum. The prevailing view is that those formations are not mounds or pyramids built by human hands, but are buttes carved by natural erosion.
Such formations are commonly seen in that part of the desert, James Harrell, professor emeritus of archaeological geology at the University of Toledo, told Life's Little Mysteries.
More mysteries from Egypt:
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's?Facebook page, following?@b0yle on Twitter?and adding the?Cosmic Log page?to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out?"The Case for Pluto,"?my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Source: http://cosmiclog.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/28/13532567-google-earth-pyramids-revisited
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What Was Your New Baby Splurge? Reader Survey | Apartment ...
No matter how practical and minimalist you are (or try to be), preparing for a new baby's arrival, especially your first, will involve an influx of things into your home. Many of them will be gifts and, if you're lucky, hand-me-downs, but you're also going to make a lot of purchases, from small items like bibs to big pieces like a crib. Over and over we hear from readers, even the most frugal and budget-minded ones, about one thing they broke the bank for and really splurged on.
Does this sound familiar? Did you allow yourself one big splurge as part of your new baby purchases? Maybe it was something you thought would make life with a baby easier or more comfortable (like a beautiful glider). Or perhaps it was simply something that you'd had your eye on and couldn't resist.
You can define a splurge however you'd like. To some, it might be $1,000. To you, it might only be $100.
For my husband and I, it was our crib. It was an uncharacteristically expensive purchase for us, but we haven't regretted it.
Share your splurge, if you had one, and let us know in the comments if you would do it all over again or not.
(Products shown: Wing Recliner Glider by Jennifer DeLonge, Random Light, Cameleon Stroller by Bugaboo, Flamingo No. 4 by Sharon Montrose, Caravan Crib by Kalon Studios Dahlia Rug by Angela Adams)
Source: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/what-was-your-nursery-splurge-item-reader-survey-176229
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Business Plan Tools and Business Consulting Solutions
Whether you?re starting a business or curently have one, it is very important have a firm foundation. This foundation could be what you could call your small business plan. Your small business plan can be explained as a proper statement, wherein you state where you view your business is maneuvering to or setting your business goals. Your small business plan can also contain the reasons for setting your small business goals and just how you want to reach them, which can incorporate your.
Aside from having a strategic business plan, company owners also often choose to employ the aid of business consultants that can let them have management consultation for small business to help develop their enterprises.
Positive aspects of Strategic Business Plans and Services
Business planning can actively help improve all of the aspects of your small business, specifically the human resources. With employees as well as the managerial department involved in the implementation of the plan, it is possible to improve its quality. Company-wide involvement also can foster commitment and loyalty, not just to the plan, but in your company also. Business consultations, on the other hand, will let you build up your company performance, and gain external and objective advice or recommendations through the analyses of professionals.
Varieties of Strategic Plans
Strategic business plans are usually differentiated by the function they could give. All these varieties of functional strategic business plans are associated and dependent upon each other, and they are frequently classified as:
- Sales and marketing ? is used for the development of your merchandise and services and for devising marketing plans.
- Production ? is employed to create your products and services within your specified business plan stage.
- Financial ? can be used to fulfill your business financial needs and supply for your business capital expenditures.
- Personnel ? is used for the organization and training of human resources.
Business Plan Tools
There are lots of tools for a business planyou can utilize. Many of these tools tend to be offered online, and may include strategic business plan templates and financial wizards and report generators.
Strategic business plan templates may help you create your professional business plan in only a few hours. These templates will also be often associated with step-by-step instructions, and may contain precise wordings for different sorts of businesses.
Financial wizards may help you easily help make your professional income statement, by just entering your numbers and assumptions into it. Financial report generators can help you make professional financial reports, which can include charts and graphs that can be flawlessly integrated into your reports.
Business Consulting Solutions
Professional business consultants can offer expert consultancy about every one of the aspects of the business world. These expert instructors will often have broad backgrounds regarding the different fields in business. Some of them are already executives at large companies or have run their own small businesses.
Consultants may also offer their customers consultation for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They can be asked as many questions as you can manage, and answer you within two days or less. Almost all their answers are also proficiently processed and filed, so you may consult them another time.
Source: http://play2fun.com/?p=13354
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Google lands patent for automatic object recognition in videos, leaves no stone untagged
Google has already been working on patents that could pick out faces and song melodies in our YouTube clips. Now, it might just have the ultimate tool: the technique in a just-granted patent could pick out objects in a video, whether they're living or not. Instead of asking the creator to label objects every time, Google proposes using a database of "feature vectors" such as color, movement, shape and texture to automatically identify subjects in the frame through their common traits -- a cat's ears and fast movement would separate it from the ball of yarn it's attacking, for example. Movie makers themselves could provide a lot of the underlying material just by naming and tagging enough of their clips, with the more accurate labels helping to separate the wheat from the chaff if an automated visual ranking system falls short. The one mystery is what Google plans to do with its newfound observational skills, if anything, although the most logical step would be to fill in YouTube keywords without any user intervention -- a potential time-saver when we're uploading that twelfth consecutive pet video.
Filed under: Internet
Google lands patent for automatic object recognition in videos, leaves no stone untagged originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 28 Aug 2012 17:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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USPTO | Email this | CommentsSource: http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/28/google-lands-patent-for-automatic-object-recognition-in-videos/
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Strategic Planning Analogy #466: You've Got Personality
THE STORY
Over the past year or so, I?ve been splitting my time between looking for clients for my strategy consulting business and looking for a full-time strategy job.? This has given me the opportunity to talk to a lot of executives at a number of companies.
In the vast majority of cases, I eventually received a rejection.? Now, one might at first think that these rejections would make me feel more negative towards these companies.? After all, they rejected me.
However, just the opposite is true.? After meeting with the people at these companies, I like the companies a lot more.? I feel that I?ll be more likely to patronize them than before and I even feel a bit more loyal to them?even though they rejected me.
THE ANALOGY
Before I met with these companies, they were just faceless, impersonal businesses?just words and numbers.? There wasn?t much of any reason to feel any personal connection with them.? But after I met and talked with people in the business, that all changed.? I got to see the people behind the company.? I got to hear the passion in the voices of the leaders.? I got to see people enthusiastically working at the company to do something great.? I got to see the awards in the lobby display cases, hear the chatter in the lunch room.
In other words, the company was no longer a faceless, impersonal entity.? Now it was a real living breathing entity with a personality.? I could feel the drive and the passion.? I could see there were people who cared.? Now I could relate to the business on a deeper, more personal level.? The emotional bonds became stronger, because now because there was a deeper connection.
Most businesses would be tickled to death if they could create these deeper, more loyal ties with their customers.?? In my case, these great feelings continued in spite of being rejected.? Wouldn?t it be great if customers had such strong feelings towards your business that it could even overcome an occasional consumer disappointment?
In most businesses, it would not be practical to fly all of one?s customers to headquarters to talk to senior leadership about the business, like I was doing for interviews and business pitches.? But anything a company can do to move from being a faceless, impersonal entity to being a personality that customers can relate to is a move in the right direction.
THE PRINCIPLE
The principle here is that the personality of the brand or company matters.? If done properly, it can help deepen the bonds between company and customers.? If done improperly, it can create an image that will turn people away from the company.? Therefore, as part of a strategic plan, one should consider the proper personality for the business and tactics for bringing it alive to the potential consumers.? The personality needs to be managed, just like any other asset. I first realized the importance of this fact when I was working at Best Buy.? I was shown some research Best Buy had done before my time there.? I believe the research was from the early to mid 1990s.?
The research was asking customers their opinions of the various consumer electronics retailers in the US.? At the time, there was a dozen or so regional retailers in this space who wanted to become national leaders.? It included retailers such as Circuit City, Silo, Highland, Fretter?s, Best Buy, and many others.? Today, all of them have long since disappeared?except for Best Buy.
Did Best Buy survive when others failed because consumers saw it as a far superior consumer electronics retailer?? This research at that time would say no.? In fact, consumers saw all of these retailers as pretty much the same.? On all of the rational variables of retailing (price, selection, etc.), all of the brands were rated fairly equally.? There wasn?t much of any reason to prefer one retail brand over the other.
As I say in my book ?The Most Important Question,? one of the most important tasks of strategy is to discover and strengthen reasons for customers to naturally prefer your company or brand more than the alternatives.? In this case, the consumer electronics retailers were failing on this most important point.? There was no reason to prefer a particular store because they were seen as indistinguishable from each other.
That is, except for one little difference.? At that time, Best Buy had a person who would dress up in a costume which looked like a giant price tag.? This walking price tag would interact with customers in Best Buy?s advertising.?
According to the survey, people liked this giant walking price tag.? Why?? Because it helped give Best Buy a personality.? They liked the way it interacted with the customers.? It seemed to enjoy the same fun, entertaining things they did.? It had a personality as being like one of them.
In a sea of faceless competition, the personality which came from the giant Best Buy Tag gave customers deeper, more positive feelings towards Best Buy than towards any of the competitors.? It gave a reason to like Best Buy more, to prefer it.
Now I?m not claiming that all of Best Buy?s success was due to that giant price tag.? Success comes from doing a lot of things correctly.? But I do believe that the uniqueness of having a personality gave Best Buy an edge at a critical time when industry consolidation was about to occur.? It bought time in order for Best Buy to improve a lot of other variables, so that Best Buy could be the superior brand which survived the consolidation.? Without that personality edge, I am not sure Best Buy would have survived the transition.
Lately, however, Best Buy?s future seems to be under threat.? There are many reasons for that, and it will take many changes to return strength to the Best Buy brand.? But I am willing to bet that if you asked consumers to describe the personality of Best Buy today, you would get a lot of negative attributes.
Based on the chatter I read on the internet, Best Buy appears to have lost control over managing that personality.? It is being redefined by disgruntled customers in a negative way.? That is not a good thing.? Now Best Buy has to fight an additional war.? Not only does it need to fix the problem of becoming irrelevant in a changing marketplace, it needs to overcome a bad personality.? It would have been easier to transition to relevancy if it had the advantage of a likeable personality on its side.? Then people would be more forgiving during the transition, just as I liked companies even though they rejected me.
So how can we manage the personality for our benefit?
1.????? First, think about personality strategically.? Decide which personality is most in sync with your strategic point of preference.? Figure out how to instill that personality into everything you do.
2.????? Consider a more public profile for the leadership, so that they can bring their face and personality to an otherwise faceless firm.? Richard Branson is a great example of this.? His strong personality is very public and has helped give a strong personality to all of the Virgin divisions.
3.????? In lieu of real employees, one can use symbolic representations to make the personality come to life.? This can be things as crazy as a giant price tag, or the Geico Gekko.?
4.????? Actively manage your interactions with customers.? Some lowly sales clerk on the front lines may be the only human interaction a customer has with your firm.? If that clerk has a bad personality, it can reflect negatively on the entire brand, since it is the only human reference point.? Work to instill the proper personality into all employees based on the way you hire, the way you train, the way you reward.? Zappos provides a good example of this.? They were so intent on having a staff with the right personality that they only hire people with the personality which fits their culture and mission.? It? a huge part of the interview process.? To make sure employees are there for the mission and not just the money, after someone has been employed for a week they offer them $2000 if they want to leave.? That weeds out the people who only work for the money.
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5.????? Actively manage your interactions with society.? Society expects businesses to be good citizens.? They want you to give back.? This is particularly true with the younger adult generations.? If you are not seen as a good corporate citizen, it will damage your personality and you will lose business.
6.????? React quickly to threats to your personality.? ?Monitor what people are saying about you.? As soon as your personality is being threatened, act to rectify the situation.? Don?t let little issues grow into big negatives.? Be fast and aggressive in protecting that reputation. ?Cisco is a company which takes this very seriously and has developed tools to help others do the same.
SUMMARY
Personalities help companies build stronger bonds with their customers.? These company/brand personalities need to be managed like any other strategic asset.? Incorporate personality development/management/protection into your strategic planning.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Ask the marketplace this question:? If my company were a person, what type of personality would it have?? You might be shocked at what you hear.
Source: http://planninga-from-nanninga.blogspot.com/2012/08/strategic-planning-analogy-466-youve.html
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ALG Perceived Quality Study Results - Automotive Digest
ALG Perceived Quality Study Results
Eric Lyman
Direc?tor of Resid?ual Value Solu?tions
ALG
Click here to read ALG Indus?try Report for July-August 2012
ALG?s Spring 2012 Per?ceived Qual?ity Study con?tin?ues long-term trends seen since the incep?tion of study in 2008, most strik?ingly sus?tained rise of Ford, Hyundai, and Kia brands. Over past five years, Ford increased qual?ity rank?ings 37%, Hyundai 25%, and Kia?32%.
Honda Topped All Other Main?stream Brands for 5th Con?sec?u?tive Sur?vey:
Toy?ota com?ing back with largest score increase in past year, if trend con?tin?ues could retake top position.
2nd Tier of Main?stream Man?u?fac?tur?ers Includes Sub?aru, Ford, Nis?san, and Volk?swa?gen:
All of which are very near each other in per?ceived qual?ity, w/ score of approx?i?mately 70.
Lexus Took Top Spot in Lux?ury Seg?ment w/ Score of 85.4:
This is 2nd year w/ Lexus on top, after declin?ing some?what w/ Toy?ota recalls in?2010.
Source: http://automotivedigest.com/2012/08/alg-perceived-quality-study-results/
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Saudi plan to boost women's employment? Create a women-friendly city.
The Saudi government announced the formation of a women-friendly city in Hofuf, scheduled to open next year. The idea is to increase work opportunities ? without defying religious custom.
A version of this story published earlier today mistakenly reported that only women would work in the city. A Saudi government report said that it will create job opportunities for both men and women in the area. We apologize for the error.
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Women in the Westernized world largely take for granted being able to work and mingle freely with colleagues without fear of repercussions. That's not the case with women in Saudi Arabia: Among those who are allowed to work, most must operate in limited, segregated spaces.
But now the Saudis are addressing that, albeit in an unconventional way. A women-friendly industrial city with built-in segregated work spaces in factories and proximity to residential neighborhoods in Hofuf should create more job opportunities ? but in accordance with religious customs. The Saudi Industrial Property Authority (Modon) says it is slated to open next year.
"I'm sure that women can demonstrate their efficiency in many aspects and clarify the industries that best suits their interests, their nature, and their ability," Modon?s deputy director-general, Saleh Al Rasheed, told the Saudi daily al-Eqtisadiah, according to The Daily Mail.
The motives for the city's development are several. Women can help boost Saudization ? an ailing government program aimed at increasing the proportion of Saudi nationals in a labor market heavily reliant on foreign workers. Interest in diversifying away from oil also plays a role: about 5,000 jobs in textiles, pharmaceuticals, and food-processing industries would be created. And a growing cohort of female graduates who were sent abroad on a government scholarship aren't content with sitting at home anymore.
The Kingdom boasts one of the lowest national female labor participation rates of the region ? at only 15 percent of its active workforce, it's outpaced by Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait. About one quarter of those are unemployed, but highly qualified, according to a report issued by consultancy group Booz & Co.
But the number of women entering the workforce, eager to become financially independent from their families, has nearly tripled over the past 10 years. Saudi female business women are generally better educated than male workers ? only 1 percent of business women have no formal education, in contrast to 14.5 percent of the Saudi workforce according to the Monitor Group and the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce & Industry ? and are often regarded as more productive.
But not every woman is ready to give up on her religious beliefs and loosen the strict standards she was raised with. The new women-friendly city will allow such women to balance their religious beliefs and desire to work.
Modon said in a statement that the city would be "characterized by allocating sections equipped for women workers... consistent with the privacy of women according to Islamic guidelines and regulations.?
Trying to break with tradition at a media company
Mashail Almadi, a former human resources executive at Rotana, a media company owned by Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Al Saud, recounts the difficulties she had when trying to hire female employees. In defiance of the Kingdom?s strict dress code, the company does not allow women to wear their abayas at the office, where men and women work alongside one another. ?
?When I mentioned these requirements, some female candidates would just hang up or start yelling at me over the phone,? Ms. Almadi says. Many aren?t ready for such a change. "The prospect of working in a mixed work environment is a scary one for many Saudi women.?
She experienced some of that social resistance first-hand. At a previous job, she wore the niqab, or face-covering veil. At Rotana, this wasn?t necessary anymore. ?But my father didn?t want everyone to know I was working here,? she says, ?to protect the family?s reputation.?
Recent efforts in retail to allow women to sell lingerie and cosmetics are increasing employment, but fall short of addressing the many regulatory challenges female businesswomen face.
Indirect access to government services and capital, the requirement to appoint a male manager, and the absence of proper licenses for female business activities such as beauty salons and women?s fitness centers ? which can only be opened if affiliated with a medical establishment ? persist. Less than half of all female entrepreneurs register their businesses themselves.
Saudi businesswomen rate their experience as most challenging in terms of gender compared to their peers in the Middle East/North Africa region, but are also among the most optimistic about their prospects for growth, according to a survey. The women-friendly city, it is hoped, will contribute to this trend.
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Montero's the man
When Federico Higuain channeled his inner Beckham and nailed a second free kick goal of the evening, pulling his weight in a 4-3 Columbus Crew win, I was already writing up Player of the Week sentences to store away for today.
Who could possibly top that?
Well, Seattle Sounders striker Fredy Montero went and one-upped the Crew contender.
Montero scored three quality goals as Seattle took apart Chivas USA down in Southern California. The Colombian striker also supplied an assist and crossed another ball that Chivas USA turned into an own goal.
(MORE: Richard Farley?s analysis of Saturday?s butt-whuppin? at the Home Depot Center)
Three things to keep in mind as we hand the week?s ProSoccerTalk Player of the Week award to the Sounders? striker:
- Few around MLS can do a scoring streak the way Fredy Montero does them. The 25-year-old striker has scored in four consecutive contests foe Seattle. So, watch out, MLS.
- Montero has 45 career MLS goals, but Saturday?s trio was his first hat trick. Count me as surprised.
- Streaky as he tends to be, Montero has been pretty consistent around CenturyLink by year?s end. His goal scoring totals starting in 2009: 12 goals, 10 goals and 12 goals. With 11 strikes so far in 2012, he?s on pace to do even more this year.
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Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Waka Flocka Dedicates Salute Me 4 To His Flock Of Fans
'That reckless music, I'm the king of that,' Waka tells Mixtape Daily.
By Rob Markman, with reporting by FLX
Waka Flocka Flame
Photo: MTV News
Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1692564/waka-flocka-flame-salute-me-or-shoot-me-volume-4.jhtml
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Regular Aspirin Use May Aid Prostate Cancer Recovery, Study Finds
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Men treated for prostate cancer who took aspirin regularly for other medical conditions were less likely to die of their cancer than patients who weren?t taking aspirin, a new study shows.
Source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=8c675c44cd9e20e6608268d05bff0c9e
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Organization Revenue Instruction - Every Sales Manager is really a ...
As a sales manager you are in charge of the production of your sales associates. Consequently, it is important that you are capable and prepared to offer business sales training for your people. Your reps have to be correctly educated to work in the area. Giving sales training for your team will allow you to bridge performance spaces and have a stronger, bigger producing sales organization.After all, who knows better as to what type of sales training your team needs than you? You?re the sales manager so you should know the limitations and strengths of your sales experts. With that understanding, you are able to modify business sales training that addresses the requirements of all the members on your team.For instance, several specialists in sales challenge because they lack the practices and appropriate attitudes of a successful sales person. Since the sales manager, you may need to make a new tradition for your team so they will appear at sales from a different prospective.The sales manager of a sizable financial services company created a personal development reading system that consisted of having his sales team read personal development books. Within 60 days of beginning the reading program, the sales variety of the organization very nearly tripled.This may be the type of huge difference a simple change in mindset or practices can make in a sales organization. Obviously, there may be other reasons why your sales staff may perhaps not be performing the manner in which you think they will as well. For this reason you as a sales manager have to be willing to put on the sales coach cap. Help your staff by providing them the approaches, tools, and methods required to boost their sales performance.Just like any great instructor you have to identify what the problems are first before recommending any specific sales training solution. This may involve heading out to the area and making sales calls with your representatives.For example, your sales representatives may be doing a terrible job at pre-qualifying a possibility. They obtain a large amount of sessions but make not many sales. You may not understand this unless you venture out in the area and see that they are ending up in those who are not qualified order your product or service. For yourself causes it to be easier for you to advocate a training solution on the best way to pre-qualify prospects.The training solution experiencing this might be one or two small changes to a dramatic difference that can be made by the sales process. It?s likely you have an agent that continues to offer following the client has suggested that they are ready to get. Being an experienced sales professional, you know if you?re not careful that you could talk your path right out of a purchase. Creating the minor fine-tune of requesting the business and being silent can give a sales manager to a major return.As, it?s important that you are prepared to be described as a sales coach when necessary. You desire to make certain you?re able to supply the ideal business sales training for the group. Doing this will significantly increase your team?s performance.
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Monday, August 27, 2012
Bulk SMS That Helps You To Reach Out To Millions At The Same ...
In the present scenario of moving between a pace and run, everything has to be done as quickly as possible to secure that extra added advantage. This is where bulk sms takes its place. It is the dissemination of large number of sms messages for delivery to mobile phone terminals. It is used by media companies, enterprises, banks (for marketing and fraud control) and consumer brands for a variety of purposes including entertainment, enterprise and mobile marketing. It gives scope for more productive promotion as it is the best way to reach out to millions at the same time. It is also commonly used for alerts, reminders, marketing and also for communication between both staff and customers.
In business it is always an advantage that you have your strategies always updating, innovating and aggressive. There are many methods nowadays by which you can effectively reach out to your clients and one of it is through mass sms applications. This is effective especially in the marketing aspect. Instead of talking to your customers? one person at a time, explaining to them the process of change or simply an update of your product or service, with the help of bulk sms applications through mobile phones a business can easily relay important information for clients. SMS desktop application helps you to send sms from your computer to mobile phones around the world.
Earlier entrepreneurs and companies had to rely on sms service providers to send bulk sms to customers. But now with the era of bulk sms software, entrepreneurs can convey their updates to the customers with just a click. It is one of the simplest and cost effective ways to reach large number of prospects in time. It enables you to send your ad message in a sms form directly from your excel database. With the modern technology you don?t even need a cell phone if you have access to a computer with internet connection. You can directly send the sms from computer.? Sending a text message to a mobile phone from your computer is much easier and faster than doing it from the limited keypad and tiny screen of a mobile phone. This is one of the most affordable means for reaching the targeted audience. It is fairly a new type of marketing tool and many businesses, big and small, have benefited a lot by adopting this as their marketing strategy.
As bulk sms advertising is becoming popular in the marketing arena, it is also being used in other sectors such as financial institutions, corporate, educational institutions, FMCG marketers and by many other people. This software enables to send personalized messages to prospects and would stay in the inbox till the receiver deletes it so that he can contact you in future even if he has no immediate requirement.
Due to its effective performance in the marketing arena, even large scale organizations have started to make use of bulk sms strategy to boost their business productivity as they can reach out to the target audience instantly. Now it is your turn! Kickoff your marketing campaign using bulk sms marketing strategy and move ahead of your competitors.
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Author is an experienced business writer, has been writing in the business world for a long time. The article tells about the features and usage of bulk sms, send sms from pc, computer sms, sms messenger, sms desktop.
Source: http://www.articles-digest.com/bulk-sms-that-helps-you-to-reach-out-to-millions-at-the-same-time/
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Warren Rochelle ? Blog Archive ? The Great Traveling Guest Blog ...
LGBT?Issues in Fantasy:
This month the members of the Great Traveling Guest Blog Fantasy Roundtable pondered LGBT issues and themes in fantasy literature. Our ponderings are below and include a wide range of ideas and reactions, from the very personal to the philosophical.
LGBT Sexuality in Fantasy
by Sylvia Kelso
?When it comes to word-associations, heterosexual aka straight sexuality gets all the advantages. Synonyms Roget gives for ?straight? include:
direct, even, right, true, unbent, undistorted, unturned.
Antonyms however, include:
curved, indirect, twisted, disorganized disordered, disorderly.
And at the best,
different, unconventional, untraditional.
At the worst, deceitful, devious, lying, shady, and ?underhanded.
Attempts to redress this naming problem haven?t really worked yet. ?Queer? is good but still carries tricky associations. ?Gay? is omissive, even if better than the hiss-word equivalents. ?Lesbian? is a 19thC recycle of Ancient Greece, where the only surviving woman to woman love poems come from Sapho of Lesbos. ?Non-straight? plays into the opponents? court, while ?alternate sexuality? leaves the naming field unequal. ?GLBT? is inclusive but clumsy, and ?same-sex? works OK with ?marriages? but ?same-sex sexuality??
Any cursory backward glance affirms the 20th Century arguments that the whole straight/other sexual polarity is relatively young. A love affair between a Pharaoh and one of his generals turns up around 2400-2200 BC in Egypt. In Ancient Greece, a major cultural source of our ?civilization,? bisexuality was the male norm, while in Ancient Rome male to male love hardly raised an eyebrow. There were constraints: the thought of a relationship trading active and passive roles never seems to have occurred. Ancient Greek men were supposed to love boys, or extend such an affair to a long-term relationship, but keep the active-passive roles. Ancient Roman citizens had to be the active members, and get involved only with slaves, male prostitutes, or non-citizens. Women, as usual, are poorly documented. Sappho was only one of Nine Female Poets in the major Greek anthology, and who knows what the others wrote? ?Lesbians? are actually titled so by Lucian in 2nd CE Rome, but their depictions read like male-constructed butch caricatures.
All the same, Alexander the Great?s long-term relationship with his friend Hephaistion is famous. Less famously, two Roman emperors (Nero and Heligabalus, but emperors all the same) legally married men, in Heligabalus? case, ?amid great rejoicing.?? And, shades of the future, Martial and Juvenal note with disapproval that male couples are having traditional marriage ceremonies.
One would think the genres of elsewhere, would have a head start in combating our current sexual polarity, but SF was notoriously slow to admit any sex, and modern fantasy did no better. The exception comes, again, from fanfic, where Theodore Sturgeon?s mild ?60s depiction of gayness in ?Venus Plus X? is rapidly overshadowed by slashfic ?in the wake of Star Trek. The form hasn?t looked back since. But as Joanna Russ and numbers of irritated gay readers have pointed out, slashfic relationships are heavily marked by contemporary female constructions of sexuality. Waiting is important. UST is (still) important. A lot of anguish and maybe a male pregnancy are common. And not surprisingly, male-male sexuality has been a lot more attractive than female-female versions.
How MIGHT the 21st C fantasy writer deal with same-sex love, life, relationships? Obviously, if you can invent a world where things are NOT like here, you can also invent new names for the whole caboodle. Nevertheless, same-sex falls under the same minefield rubric as race. Depict same sex if you?re ?straight? yourself, and get caned for poaching or inaccuracy? Omit same-sex altogether, and get caned too? Include same-sex relationships as general, unremarked? Or highlighted, or as chief narrative parts? Worlds where the entire constructions of sexuality are alienatingly different? Worlds where same-sex becomes a part of alien sex?
My first attempt to include ?alternate sexualities? was a would-be multi-racial and otherwise inclusive SF novel for a Creative Writing MA, but there, same-sex people appeared marginally, or, because the secondary world was an ancient Macedonian colony, were already bisexual by culture, and the trend of the story was toward straight central relationships. In the sequel, I wrote a same-sex female relationship for a carried-over major character that made me (and her) much happier. ?But I only centralized such relationships in the Amberlight books.
In Amberlight itself the emotional focus is a straight love affair, but it happens in a matriarchy ? a literal matriarchy, where sexual inequity falls on men. Women rule the city, for a simple practical reason, which inverts Victorian mores: lower class men go out to work. Middleclass shame is needing to have men work. Aristocratic, or House men, live secluded as marriage counters and male odalisques.
In same-sex matters Amberlight reversed Ancient Greece. Women were bisexual, female-female ?partnerships? were general. But again, the pace and focus of the central story sidelined such relationships. I do seriously regret being unable to explore the men?s world, particularly that of the ?Tower? men.
Amberlight fell, in a pretty straightforward SF trope , matriarchy flattened by a patriarchal invader?s catalyst, though here fuelled by a straight feminist?s opposition to gender inequity. ?The sequel, Riversend, sent the main characters up country to start again, with the specific goal of leveling the field: in this case, letting all men share both work and privileges. ?Again, woman-woman relationships ended as givens.? But Tellurith, the House-head and female lead, had decided to flout custom by taking the patriarchal invader as a second husband ? House men were multiply married to cement alliance, House women took one husband. Since the m?nage a trois? became a real love triangle, I had not only a Tower man?s viewpoint, but two male povs on same-sex desire.? Tellurith?s second husband, learning his way in a woman?s world, was a familiar story.? Sarth, with his longings for his cosmetics and face veil and what he regarded as ?decent? male behavior, was a very different matter.
At the time I?d been reading Lesbian theorists, one of whom argued that heterosexual love desired the Other, but same-sex love desired the Self. I found it an intriguing concept, and when I had to depict a same-sex pov from the outside, so to speak, it worked powerfully in Riversend, particularly as the patriarchally raised Alkhes struggled to enunciate his desire for Sarth.
The emotional closure of Riversend was the cementing of the tripartite marriage to include both male-male and heterosexual relations.? But only the third book, Source, involved Tellurith in a fullscale, firsthand women?s relationship. And with Tellurith, the Black Gang, aka creative component, took the theory literally. Her new female love (she was partnered back before Amberlight), found at the end of a long and epic journey, was physically Tellurith?s doppelganger.
The relationship grew, interestingly, more from common interests and shared sympathies and less than the men?s ties did from physical desire. Later the plot forced me to divide them, so Tellurith got to do the great ?love forsaken? scenes, as she chose duty above love ? that ancient, usually masculine dilemma. But the Black Gang did not acquiesce in this too traditional plotline. The book closes with Tellurith home, her new society safe after a fierce war, and at last the mother of a daughter.? Yet in this traditional scene entered a suggestion that her female lover might not be wholly lost.? If, as usual, female same-sex relationships went short on time and attention, the Black Gang set up this tie to become a major presence in the future. I hope it?s an omen for our world as well.
Sylvia Kelso lives in North Queensland, Australia. She writes fantasy and SF set in analogue or alternate Australian settings. She has published six fantasy novels, two of which were finalists for best fantasy novel of the year in the Australian Aurealis genre fiction awards, and some short stories in Australian and US anthologies.
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Musings on GLBT themes in Fantasy
by Theresa Crater
I judged the Gaylactic Spectrum Awards for a couple of years, which gives annual awards for the best GLBT content in science fiction and fantasy. The number of books with GLBT characters has grown both in number and complexity. GLBT characters are just an ordinary part of life in many books, being main characters, side-kicks and even villains.
Last year the award went to Kathe Koja?s Under the Poppy. The title of the book is the name of a brothel, owned by Decca. She is in love with Rupert, who helps her run the place, but then her brother Istvan shows up. He?s a puppeteer?of puppets and humans?and a bit of a thief. Rupert and he have been lovers in the past and succumb to their life-long love affair again, with a few liaisons here and there. There was some question about whether this book could truly be called a fantasy, but the judges decided the puppets seem to have a life of their own. Besides, it was a delightful riot of gorgeous language and interesting characters carving out a life for themselves in the margins of prewar Europe.
One of my favorite series was Laurie J. Marks? elemental series, starting with Fire Logic, then Earth Logic. You get the idea. What I liked best about this series is that it normalized all kinds of sexualities. Karis G?deon rules Shaftal in this series, or she?s supposed to. She doesn?t really want to. Her lover is a woman; her friends have various sexual preferences, which begin to become just a small part of the overall picture of who these people are. Much like Bilbo tells stories or Hermione is very smart. We can see what a world that is sane about the variety of human sexual expression might feel like.
Will we return to a pre-1869 world? It was in that year that homosexuality and heterosexuality were invented. Not the practices, but as identities. Before that, people did have sex, of course, but their identity did not rest in what kind of sex they had. Much like Marks?s work. And even Koja?s.
Theresa Crater has published two contemporary fantasies, Beneath the Hallowed Hill & Under the Stone Paw and several short stories, most recently ?White Moon? in Riding the Moon and ?Bringing the Waters? in The Aether Age:? Helios. She?s also published poetry and a baker?s dozen of literary criticism. Currently, she teaches writing and British lit in Denver. Born in North Carolina, she now lives in Colorado with her Egyptologist partner and their two cats. Visit her website at http://theresacrater.com
Transgender, gay and lesbian characters in fantasy
by Carole McDonnell
In the course of reading, one always encounters folks one would generally not encounter, or folks one would not normally want to meet. Witness the enraged moviegoer racists who had to deal with the fact that Rue in the Hunger Games was Black. So what does a Biblical Christian do when she encounters a fantasy book that contains a gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender character?
Many of my stories involve interracial romances and I?ve had experiences where someone reads one of my stories and is unwilling to be pulled into the romance simply because they are disgusted, bothered, or nauseated by seeing two people together who ?in their worldview? should not be together. So, I try to understand. On the flip side, because I know how incredibly complex sexuality can be, I get wary of easy answers or easy stories about homosexuality. Too many of my lesbian friends were raped as children, too many of my male gay friends were seduced by older men, and too many of my gay male friends were adopted or were delivered by induced estrogen-laden deliveries for me to say that people were biologically made gay.
I suppose I can read a book about a homosexual character if I don?t feel I?m being subject to propaganda. In my experience, I?ve known people who were born gay or who have had their sexuality affected by sexual molestation, separation/adoption issues, the hormonal chemicals introduced into the womb at induced deliveries, or became gay after some trauma or hospital stay. So I take gay folks in stories and in real life as I find them.
I have never had a gay character show up and want to have me tell his story but I have had tons of conflicted heterosexuals, and I do have some gay characters in some of my stories who aren?t really gay but more characters who are conflicted heterosexuals. I think what bothers me is the vast amount of false history and false biology I would have to accept. In the same way people who study the Druids and the Celts or Native American religions get peeved when they are faced with false ?pop factoids? about certain things, I start rolling my eyes when I feel an author is attempting to propagandize.
The definition of ?gay? as an exclusive love of people of one?s own sex is relatively new. Back in the day, most homosexuality allowed for loving people of both sexes. It was often supplemental to a heterosexual relationship. Alexander the Great loved his companion but he also loved his wife Roxanne. Oscar Wilde loved Lord Alfred Douglas but he also loved his wife. While there were some rare exceptions, in ancient times, in most cultures (Japan, Greece, Afghanistan, etc), homosexuality was generally frowned upon while pedophilia/pederasty was accepted. One of the most famous Greek tragedies, the curse on the Oedipus clan, ?the curse of falling in love with the wrong people (incest, bulls, frigidity, etc) ?fell upon the family because Laius would not give up his young lover when the pederasty contract was finished and the boy was fully grown. The gods deemed it so heinous that Laius? descendants were cursed forever. Most people who speak of homosexuality being accepted by the past don?t talk honestly about the pederasty factor. So for me it depends on how honest I think the author is. . .
I recently read Kari Sperring?s Living With Ghosts, a great book that definitely could trouble the Christian reader. Not only did I have to deal with gigolos, homosexual attraction, and extra-marital sex, I had to deal with someone who dealt Tarot cards.
So what did I do?
Well, I actually read it. My very traditional heart had a few hurdles. For one, although I?m okay with prostitution in stories, I get a bit niggly about adultery. I kept hoping there would be no adulterous encounter I would have to be ?on board? for. Generally, I don?t watch movies or read books with adultery in it. (This isn?t a religious issue with me. My father was a serial adulterer so I have a painful spot there.) So if I read a book with adultery, my biggest fear is that I will be asked to be ?okay? with it.
But the reason I made it through this story was quite simply because the story was brilliant. True, I was in the POV of a high class courtesan who happened to be bisexual, but Gracielas was such a noble wounded character and the story was so intriguing and the world-building so solid and interesting that I totally got into the story. That said, once again, I didn?t allow myself But the reason I made it through this story was quite simply because the story was brilliant. True, I was in the POV of a high class courtesan who happened to be bisexual, but Gracielas was such a noble wounded character and the story was so intriguing and the world-building so solid and interesting that I totally got into the story. That said, once again, I didn?t allow myself to feel the homosexual attractions that happened in various characters. First because one of the homosexual pairs was married and I have a problem with being asked to be on the side of adulterers. Plus I?ve seen so many movies and heard so many accounts where some guy discovers he?s gay after being married for twenty years and suddenly divorces his poor wife. So yeah, I kept telling myself ?I like these two characters but if I?m asked to go along with adultery I?m not gonna be patient.?
So yeah, with me, the issue with me is wariness of being pulled into understanding anything I don?t morally agree with. Living With Ghosts had a lot my priggish Biblical mind couldn?t deal with but the skill of the author and the beautiful craft of the writing helped me overcome my reluctance. I suppose the best way to make me read a book I don?t want to is to make the book utterly brilliant.
Carole McDonnell is a writer of ethnic fiction, speculative fiction, and Christian fiction. Her works have appeared in many anthologies?and at various online sites. Her novel, Wind Follower, was published by Wildeside Books. Her forthcoming novel is called The Constant Tower.
?http://carolemcdonnell.blogspot.com/?
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Gay Characters in Fantasy: A Personal Journey,
by Deborah Ross
In my experience, the community of science fiction and fantasy readers and writers has been one of the most tolerant of, and welcoming to, those who don?t fit into the mainstream. This includes queer (non-strictly-heterosexual) and gender-queer (non-strictly-male-or-female-assigned-gender) folks as well. My own introduction included stimulating discussions of sexuality, gender identification, and sexual orientation. I remember reading Theodore Sturgeon?s Venus Plus X (1960, one of the earliest science fiction stories to challenge gender-role stereotypes), The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) by Ursula K. Le Guin, and Marion Zimmer Bradley?s The World Wreckers (1971). Four years later, Marion published The Heritage of Hastur, in which she created a sympathetic and heroic gay protagonist. The World Wreckers impressed me because one of the characters falls in love with a member of a hermaphroditic race and must confront his own feelings about homosexuality and his identity as a man. I had never read anything like it, and it opened my eyes to the question of who we are, apart from our plumbing and hormones. This led the way to the understanding that sexual orientation is not just about which body part fits where, but about the people who are the focus of our hearts: romance as well as hormones.
In general, the works I read during the 60s and 70s were serious and courageous treatments of gender, gender roles, and sexual orientation, well ahead of popular media. But popular media caught up, although perhaps not in the formats its creators intended. I suppose fanfic (fan-written fiction based on established characters, not limited to television and films but primarily so) has always been around, but slash fiction is usually thought to have originated with the original series Star Trek. What?s slash fiction? Beginning in the late 70s, mostly female fans created stories featuring romantic and sexual relationships between various male media characters.
Somewhat to my bemusement, my teenage daughters loved it. I say bemusement because of my dissonance between the in-depth examination-of-issues, coincident with the women?s consciousness-raising movement of the 1970s, with the irreverent, often whimsical character of slashfic. What was this all about? And why were my daughters ? who at the time were dating both boys and girls to see which they preferred ? so interested in male characters hopping into bed with one another?
Fast forward a bit, with the death of Marion and my continuing her ?Darkover? series (the setting for both of her above-referenced novels) plus my own writing career, with numerous portrayals of gay and bisexual characters. In 2004, I attended Gaylaxicon in San Diego, still scratching my head over slashfic and smiling nicely at all the campy humor. During a question and answer period, I put the issue to the audience. No one had a definitive answer, but there was a fascinating discussion about the differences between what appealed to women in slash characters and what appealed to gay men. (I suspect there?s a corollary in what lesbians find attractive in female slash characters versus what turns straight men on.) I came away mulling over the idea that within the slashfic context, readers of both sexes found a nonthreatening place in which to explore their own feelings about relationships, in particular sexuality. This lead to the disturbing question of whether this process objectified gay people, in essence projecting a distorted image of them for a purpose they have nothing to do with ? e.g., helping adolescent girls understand male sexuality.
And this led to an even more disturbing question, not meant as a criticism specifically of fanfic but of fiction and media portrayals as a whole: do we see what we want to see, or do we see what?s really there? Can a gay youth, who is struggling to figure out who he is and how he is different and if he?s okay, understand himself through the lens of an essentially heterosexual portrayal of sexuality? Can any of us find ourselves when we?re being defined by someone else?s needs (or stereotypes, positive or negative)?
Do we as writers have a responsibility to create gay characters that make sense in the experience of gay people? Do we have a responsibility to include them at all? Should the sexual orientation of a character even be an issue ? aren?t people just people?
I wish it were that simple, that we might live in a world in which gender, race, faith, or sexual orientation do not make some people invisible. Or worse, targets of hatred. I see value in both portraying worlds and cultures of diversity, and in stories about the struggles gays face now, in our imperfect world in their own terms.
Author Kyell Gold writes, ?I?d been more and more openly gay for about a decade when I moved in with my then-boyfriend (now husband), but I still kept it private from my co-workers and other casual friends until I got a better sense of how it would be received. What was fueling my writing then was the urge to show gay characters falling in love, the way I was falling in love. [ital mine] ? I have gotten many, many e-mails from teenaged boys (mostly) telling me how the book changed their lives, made them realize that it was okay for them to be gay. I have heard from people who said they didn?t realize that gay relationships were about anything other than sex until they read my book. Everyone has these intimate experiences and secrets that they keep close to them. One of the most terrifying things we face as a human is being alone. ? And when you read about someone, even a fictional character, going through the same things you did, that can be a revealing, momentous experience.?
One of the most humbling and inspiring projects I have worked on was completing the novel Marion began in the final year of her life, featuring the central character from The Heritage of Hastur. After Hastur Lord came out, I received the following email, used with permission: ?As a gay man who has had to live in the closet from much of my early adult life, I wasn?t sure how the [characters] would find their ways to peace, harmony, beauty, and honor. ? I always loved the way Marion gave primacy of love and honesty, no matter the culture or the perceived taboo. Those of us ? who have lived under the harsh lash of religious zeal, ideological repression, and the resulting personal constraint, cherish your ability to portray living honestly, openly, self confidently, at peace with ourselves. We know the cost, the loss, and the gain. And you have not shied away from the struggles to achieve that peace. It is hard won. But you have shown that the determination of caring people ? can make committed lives blend together beautifully, forging a family, while at the same time allowing each to express their own individual truest selves. Thank you for carrying on Marion?s vision and for touching me deeply.?
Hastur Lord was nominated for the 2011 Gaylactic Spectrum Award.
Deborah Ross began writing professionally in 1982 as Deborah Wheeler with JAYDIUM and NORTHLIGHT, and short stories in ASIMOV?S, F & SF, REALMS OF FANTASY and STAR WARS: TALES FROM JABBA?S PALACE. Now under her birth name, Ross, she is continuing the? Darkover? series of the late Marion Zimmer Bradley, as well as original work, including the fantasy trilogy THE SEVEN-PETALED SHIELD. She is a member of Book View Cafe. She has lived in France, worked for a cardiologist, studied Hebrew, yoga and kung fu, and is active in the local Jewish and Quaker communities.
?http://deborahjross.blogspot.com/
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Coming Out in Fantasy
by Warren Rochelle
I came out relatively late in life, in my 40?s, after much therapy and personal struggle. My therapeutic process included a lot of reflective and introspective writing, mostly in journals, and a fair amount of reading by gay authors about their coming out experiences. And I found myself looking back at my own fiction, beginning with my first novel, The Wild Boy (Golden Gryphon Press, 2001), which was originally written as my MFA thesis while in graduate school at UNC Greensboro.
Coincidentally (or maybe not) my coming out process began shortly after my MFA program, while I was a doctoral student at UNCG. When I began a post-doc teaching fellowship at UNCG I went back and revisited my thesis with the intention of revising the novel and sending it out. I did something that will sound crazy, I am sure: after printing out the entire novel, I erased all my files and then re-entered the novel, revising, rethinking, and reimagining it as I went.
It was during this process that I was finally able to read my own subtext; I was finally able to hear the story I had been telling myself for years. I was coming out in therapy to myself at the same time and I found in the novel that I had been telling myself that very story. The Wild Boy is the story of an alien invasion of Earth that results in humans becoming the pets of the ursinoid invaders. These great quasi-bears had come here seeking to recreate an intense psycho emotional bond they had previously had with a companion species of primates who have become extinct. The ursinoids are convinced that we are the star cousins of their lost companions, and take over the Earth, destroy our civilization, cull billions of us through manufactured plagues, and then began a selective breeding program. They want the lost bond: ?heart to heart, mind to mind, soul to soul.?
But they want the bond for same-sex pairs, human and alien. They seek soul-mates of the same gender. These bears do take opposite-sex mates, but not for love?for reproduction. The true emotional bond is with the same-sex partner.
Red flag, red flag! Ding, ding! Flags not seen, dings not heard.
One of the novel?s plot lines follows one such same-sex pair, Ilox, the human, and Phlarx, the alien. As I reread, revised, and re-entered the novel, the homoeroticism of their relationship was glaringly evident. They share a bed?as many people do with their cat or dog, but I could see the emotional intensity made it more than that. Ilox might be called bisexual by some?he does marry and have children. But his primary emotional relationship, his primary bond, the great love of his life, is originally with Phlarx, and remains so, so much so that it calls him back in the end. Ilox survives the death of his wife. Phlarx?s death kills him.
My own homosexuality, denied and repressed and not wanted, made me an alien in my world.? I made my same-sex pair doubly alien to each other and gave them a relationship that was as much about pain as it was about love.
Discovering my own gay subtext was a little less difficult in my second novel, Harvest of Changelings (Golden Gryphon Press, 2007), but it did take more than one draft to hear the story that my subconscious was insistent that I hear and acknowledge. The novel grew out of a traditional heterosexual love story of a human man and a fairy woman that had as its premise the notion that all fairy tales are true. The story ends with Ben, a widower, left alone with Malachi, his half-fairy son to raise. I wanted to know what happened to them.
To answer this question, I wrote Harvest of Changelings, which turned out to be about a lot more than Ben and Malachi. Fairies, it turns out, are either Airs, Waters, Fires or Earths, and form familial units of four, tetrads. They often pair off within the tetrad, thus having primary bonds to (usually) one other person, the secondary bond to the tetrad. Malachi needs to find three others, as they need to find him.? The other three are the descendants of all those changelings left here centuries ago. Two of his other three, his Fire and his Water, are boys, Russell and Jeff. The other, his Earth, is a girl, Hazel.
Malachi and Hazel, and ? Russell and Jeff.? But I had to write the entire first draft and re-enter it to have that Ah ha! Moment: Russell and Jeff are gay. They will grow up to be lovers.
Head smack. But the truth had always been there. Russell and Jeff would have to grow up, just as I was growing up into self-acceptance, but they were gay. They were born that way. I couldn?t edit their sexuality out of them anymore than I could myself. Not and tell the truth.
I started the sequel, The Called, having finally come to terms with my sexuality. Fairy tales are true, of course?and some fairies are fairies.? Now, some of my characters are gay and some are straight, but I can hear them telling me this. I have learned how to listen to them.
I have learned how to listen to myself. I grew up. ?When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me? (1 Corinthians 13:11). Metaphor and symbol and allusion, insistent, powerful, but I could only partially hear them.? But, through fantasy?and science fiction?I came to be able to hear my own story that I had been telling myself all along. As Virginia Woolf said, ?As for my next book, I am going to hold myself from writing it till I have it impending in me: grown heavy in my mind like a ripe pear; pendant, gravid, asking to be cut or it will fall.?
Now I can hear that ripe pear falling.
Warren Rochelle has taught English at the University of Mary Washington since 2000. His short story, ?The Golden Boy? (published in The Silver Gryphon) was a Finalist for the 2004 Gaylactic Spectrum Award for Best Short Story and his novels include The Wild Boy (2001), Harvest of Changelings (2007), and The Called (2010. He also published a critical work on Le Guin?and has academic articles in various journals and essay collections. He is currently at work on anovel about a gay werewolf and a collection of? short stories.
http://warrenrochelle.com
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GLBT in Fantasy
by Andrea Hosth
Fantasy novels ? Mercedes Lackey, in fact ? contained my earliest introduction to GLBT characters.? Wider reading brought me to other worlds ? such as the work of Melissa Scott, Laurie J Marks, and Lois McMaster Bujold ? where I found positive portrayals, and often complete social reengineering to examine and open up different possibilities for sexuality.
At the same time, the vast majority of the fantasy novels I read gave no indication that GLBT people existed.? It was an absence which did not appear to be pointed ? it was not an attempt to examine the impact of removing all the variations and nuances of human sexuality.? At the most (or least) it appeared to be an omission of indifference.
It?s easy to not write about things that aren?t a part of your mental landscape, and I?ve seen pushback against calls for more inclusive representation which run the gamut from ?It?s just not what I?m interested in? to ?I can?t be expected to include every possible minority and interest group!?? Is it ?any big deal? to leave green out of your spectrum, when the story you?re telling revolves around red?
The answer, of course, is more complicated than ?must?, or derailing talk of quotas.? If we look at our world, it?s clear that there is considerably more to the spectrum than heterosexuals (just as there?s a few more skin colours than white), and to create a world in which only heterosexuality is shown to exist, makes for a blander, less true to life creation.? Is it worse when it?s an unthinking absence rather than a deliberate choice?
And what of the choices made, once non-heterosexual characters are introduced?? Another reason I?ve heard for non-inclusion is fear.? Fear of bad portrayals, of backlash, of tokenism, of doing it wrong.
Although I had occasional characters who left the zero point on the Kinsey scale, the work of mine which made me seriously look at my own portrayal of GLBT characters was Champion of the Rose ? set in a socially bi-normative world.
In my usual discovery-writer way, I did not set out to write a bi-normative world.? I had created a situation where a lost (male) heir returns, threatening to displace the feared/loved (male) heir to the regent.? What, I wondered, would be the kingdom?s reaction to this situation?
And the general feel I had from the nebulous, still-forming kingdom was: They should get married!
I?m in two minds about how well I did with my bi-normative world.? I enjoyed exploring the social conventions and legal constructs which would form to support a bisexual norm, and I think overall the portrayal is positive, but the novel ends with a man and woman in a relationship, not my two heirs, which would perhaps leave some readers feeling cheated.? [Not to mention that, like many of my fantasy novels, it's set in a primarily white kingdom, with no major characters of colour appearing until book two.]
But all the same, I?m proud of that world.? Because an unthinking absence is, I believe, worse than a clumsy portrayal.
Andrea K H?st was born in Sweden but raised in Australia.? She writes fantasy and science fantasy, and enjoys creating stories which give her female characters something more to do than wait for rescue.? See: www.andreakhost.com
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