Rolandt

More than a decade ago, Wired editor Kevin Kelly wrote an essay called “1,000 True Fans,” predicting that the internet would allow large swaths of people to make a living off their creations, whether an artist, musician, author, or entrepreneur. Rather than pursuing widespread celebrity, he argued, creators only needed to engage a modest base of “true fans”—those who will “buy anything you produce”—to the tune of $100 per fan, per year (for a total annual income of $100,000). By embracing online networks, he believed creators could bypass traditional gatekeepers and middlemen, get paid directly by a smaller base of fans, and live comfortably off the spoils.

Today, that idea is as salient as ever—but I propose taking it a step further. As the Passion Economy grows, more people are monetizing what they love. The global adoption of social platforms like Facebook and YouTube, the mainstreaming of the influencer model, and the rise of new creator tools has shifted the threshold for success. I believe that creators need to amass only 100 True Fans—not 1,000—paying them $1,000 a year, not $100. Today, creators can effectively make more money off fewer fans.

Sound unlikely? We’re already seeing this shift, according to creator platforms. On Patreon, the average initial pledge amount has increased 22 percent over the past two years. Since 2017, the share of new patrons paying more than $100 per month—or $1,200 per year—has grown 21 percent. On the online course platform Podia, the number of creators earning more than $1,000 in a month is growing 20 percent each month, while the average number of customers per creator is growing at a rate of 10 percent. Likewise, on Teachable, the average price point per class offering has risen roughly 20 percent, year over year. In 2019, nearly 500 Teachable course creators made more than $100,000; of those, 25 averaged more than $1,000 per sale. 

Now, 100 True Fans and 1,000 True Fans aren’t mutually exclusive, and the revenue benchmark of $1,000 per fan per year isn’t intended to be an exact prescription. Instead, this thinking provides a framework for the future of the Passion Economy: creators can segment their audiences and offer tailored products and services at varying price points.

Here’s how it works: A creator can cultivate a large, free audience on horizontal social platforms or through an email list. He or she can then convert some of those users to patrons and subscribers. The creator can then leverage some of those buyers to higher-value purchases, such as extra content, exclusive access, or direct interaction with the creator.

This strategy is closely related to the concept of “whales” in gaming, in which 1 to 2 percent of users drive 80 percent of gaming companies’ revenue (though that model is evolving). Put simply, if you can convince a small number of super-engaged people to pay more, you can also have a general audience that pays less. By segmenting the customer base and offering greater value to top fans—at a higher price point—creators can earn a living with a smaller total audience.

Again, returning to the examples above, this isn’t purely hypothetical. One creator on Teachable who advises artists on how to sell their art made $110,000 last year with only 76 students, at an average of $1,437 per course. Another creator who teaches physiotherapy made $141,000 with only 61 students, at an average price point of $2,314 per course. On Podia, the average revenue per user is increasing, as well. Creators who started out solely selling courses on the platform can now further monetize their audience by expanding into downloads and membership subscriptions. While making a living off the 100 True Fan model is far from commonplace, it’s increasingly possible.

How to earn these high-paying super-fans? 

There is a substantive difference between monetizing through 1,000 True Fans (at $100 a year) and 100 True Fans (at $1,000 a year). Whereas a creator can earn $100 a year from a fan via patronage or donations, collecting $1,000 a year per fan requires a wholly different product. These fans expect to derive meaningful value and purpose from the product.

This represents a move away from the traditional donation model—in which users pay to benefit the creator—to a value model, in which users are willing to pay more for something that benefits themselves. What was traditionally dubbed “self-help” now exists under the umbrella of “wellness.” People are willing to pay more for exclusive, ROI-positive services that are constructive in their lives, whether it’s related to health, finances, education, or work. In the offline world, people are accustomed to hiring experts across verticals (think interior designers, organizational consultants, public speaking coaches, executive coaches, and SAT tutors) and are willing to pay premium prices for the promise of measurable improvement and results. Now that mindset is filtering into our digital lives, as well.

This relates to Daniel Pink’s concept of intrinsic motivation: we’re driven by Autonomy (the urge to direct one’s life), Mastery (the desire to get better at something that matters), and Purpose (the yearning to do work in the service of something larger than one’s self). 

Regardless of the terminology, products and services in this category solve high-priority problems for consumers. Creators pursuing the 100 True Fans model recognize and monetize the desire for improvement and transformation. And better technology, such as video course platforms and improved real-time video streaming, allows for richer, higher-quality content than was possible a decade ago.

There are many examples of existing premium subscription services that have already conditioned consumers to pay high prices for services, whether $200 per month Equinox memberships, $159 per month subscriptions to Rent the Runway Unlimited, or $250+ per month subscriptions to Purple Carrot.

This trend is paralleled in the SaaS world, where paid versions of free software cater to power users or prosumers. Though free versions of these products exist, power users chose the paid version for the efficiency and heightened user experience. Compare, for example, YouTube’s wealth of free video tutorials versus a paid education platform like MasterClass ($90 per class) or Juni Learning ($250/month for private kids coding classes). While YouTube offers a massive amount of high-quality free content, it can be difficult to navigate and personalize. New paid creator platforms are less about mere entertainment or delight, and more about providing a full solution for the user’s desired outcome, including curriculum, accountability, and community.

The recipe for earning $1,000 per fan

The monetization strategy for 100 True Fans also differs from the 1,000 True Fans convention. Easy perks like offering users ad-free content and access to back-catalogs can help creators monetize at a lower dollar amount. But to gain fans who are willing to pay $1,000 a year—no small sum—creators need to offer a step-function increase in value. The recipe, then, is to go niche and to tap into users’ desire for results. Practically, what does that look like? It means providing differentiated content, community, accountability, and access. 

1. Premium content and community that has no close substitutes
2. Delivering tangible value and results
3. Accountability
4. Access, recognition and status

Let’s unpack each:

Premium content and community with no close substitutes

People are willing to pay high prices for exclusive, differentiated content and access to a network of like-minded individuals. In late 2019, two financial advisors-turned-podcasters launched a private, paid community called Advisor Growth Community (powered by the platform Mighty Networks). The online hub charges financial advisors $2,000 per year to collaborate with colleagues and learn how to grow their practices. It currently has nearly 100 members in its ranks. The career development program Reforge, a masterclass for growth and marketing strategies, charges upwards of $3,000 per seat to hundreds of participants each year.

Frequently, premium content and community are bundled together to enhance the student experience by providing valuable social reinforcement and support. 

Delivering tangible value and results

In China, the unicorn audio course platform Dedao sells paid audio courses that appeal to users’ desire for self-improvement and lifelong learning. The best selling topics include management, study skills, and public speaking. These classes can reach up to 199 RMB (approximately $28 USD)—a meaningful sum in a country where the average income is 21,600 RMB (~$3,100 USD). The most popular course is taught by former Peking University professor Xue Zhaofeng and has over 470,000 subscribers.

While the US podcasting industry is still modestly monetized through advertising, the flourishing ecosystem of paid meditation and audio wellness apps like Headspace, Calm, and Aaptiv—all of which charge subscribers directly—indicate that users are willing to pay for content that tangibly affects their well-being.

Accountability

The more a student pays up front, the more invested he or she is in achieving the desired outcome. Higher-priced creators don’t only offer more or better content, they also motivate and incentivize students to get what they paid for. For instance, the premium version ($699 vs. $499) of productivity expert Tiago Forte’s Teachable class on digital note-taking and productivity includes eight expert interviews, 16 note templates, six advanced tutorials, and access to a members-only blog. Tiago also shares his numbers publicly, reinforcing the perception of accountability.

Access, recognition, and status

On Patreon, the comedy podcast This Might Get Weird has $5 per month and $15 per month tiers, both of which afford access to a Discord community and extra content. The creator also offers a limited number of $69 per month ($828 per year) subscriptions, which provides a monthly, 30-minute livestream, among other benefits. But the highest-priced offering is a $500 per month ($6,000 per year) tier, which grants users personal coaching sessions with the podcast hosts, via video chat, every 3 months. The top tier offers a level of exclusivity and access that matches the price—100 times more expensive than the base tier.

There are also big, growing businesses in China, such as Bixin, Taobao, and Heizhu Esports (from Netease), in which people pay creators to play video games with them. Some of these users are earning tens of thousands of dollars per month as paid game companions. Beyond purchasing personal recognition from the creator, there’s also the potential recognition of other fans. In the gaming world, whales often lord their big spending habits over non-spenders, thus providing an aspirational target for everyone else. More broadly, products can be designed in such a way that super-fans receive social affirmation from “normal” fans, triggering a positively reinforcing network effect that increases the value of super-fans, beyond the monetary spend.

Twitch streamers can rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from donations and tips—in one recent case, a streamer received a $75,000 tip. The personalized shoutouts from the streamer, recognition, and elevated social status that such donations afford lead to higher levels of spending. It’s worth noting that limited access and recognition are unscalable, to some extent: people are, by definition, paying high amounts to gain exclusive access or to elevate their status above other users.

From 1,000 to 100: Fewer, truer fans

The creator economy is in the midst of a decisive shift—from a “bigger is better,” ad-driven revenue model to one of niche communities and direct user-to-creator payment.An emerging category of digital platforms is helping people to translate their skills and talents into businesses. But as the creator landscape evolves, the playbook needs updating.

Rather than viewing one’s fans as a uniform group, the 100 True Fans model calls on creators to distinguish between various subsegments based on affinity and willingness to pay. The relationship super-fans have with creators is different from regular fans: they become disciples, protégés, co-learners, and co-creators. As such, they require a whole new set of tools and platforms.

The key to monetizing at $1,000 per fan, per year is tailored offerings priced at tiered levels. A creator might have a broad follower base on free social platforms, convert some of those followers to one-time purchasers or patrons, then uplevel some of those users to high-paying super-fans. For founders and operators, that means building products that align monetization with the end user value.

The 100 True Fans concept isn’t for everyone, nor is 1,000 True Fans. Creators that have larger, more diffuse audiences with weaker allegiance or engagement are likely better off monetizing through sponsorships or branded products. For many, that path will be more lucrative—and require less heavy lifting—than designing the sort of high-value, personalized program 100 True Fans demand.

As the tech analyst and blogger Ben Thompson once said, “The internet enables niche in a massively powerful way.” For creators who earn the trust of a niche audience and who deliver what those users crave—whether self-improvement, connection, recognition, or belonging—100 True Fans provides an updated monetization model for the fast-growing Passion Economy.

Originally published at a16z.com

The post 100 True Fans appeared first on Li Jin.

• Old CSS, new CSS / fuzzy notepad
  Greatly enjoyed eevee's history of CSS and browser-based code; particularly, I enjoyed the moment where you're following along with things you knew… and then you viscerally go "oh, _here's_ where I began!" I twinged as I remembered where I began, my move away from table-based layout… and then the point where I started battling quirks mode for a living…
  (tags: css html webdev history web code programming markup )
• Everything is Someone – Vetro Editions
  "Everything is Someone is a book about objects, technology, humans, and everything in-between. It is composed of seven “future fables” for children and adults, which move from the present into a future in which “being” and “thinking” are activities not only for humans. Absorbing and thought-provoking, this collection explores the point where technology and philosophy meet, seen through the eyes of kids, vacuum cleaners, factories and mountains.

  From a man that wants to become a table, to the first vacuum cleaner that bought another vacuum cleaner, all the way to a mountain that became the president of a nation, each story brings the reader into a different perspective, extrapolating how some of the technologies we are developing today, will bur the line between, us, devices, and natural beings too."

  Simone has a book out!

  (tags: simonerebaudengo objects spimes things writing books )

Last week Jill Bennett in this  Global News video story  talked about the state of disrepair of the public sidewalk outside of Canada Place. It’s worth looking at the video which shows how shocking the existing conditions are.

The attention to detail for walking is fundamentally important to all cities. No matter who you are or where you live, the Metro Vancouver sidewalk is an extension of your public space, and it is equitable that sidewalk users receive the same level of treatment afforded to users of bike lanes and of roads. Everyone no matter their age or ability or level of accessibility should be able to travel easily and comfortably on walkable smooth surfaces, with drop down curbs at intersections, clean and readable. It just makes sense to provide people using the most sustainable way of travel the easiest and most effortless experience. This is no budget trade off instead of  housing affordability or density, it is an essential part of accessibility and movement at the most basic level to support a growing population.

One thing that has been an utter fail in the last decade in the City of Vancouver has been the management of the pedestrian environment, the sidewalks, and the standard of maintenance of the walking environment.  Even well respected urbanist  Larry Beasley has pointed out that Vancouver’s pedestrian public realm needed to be cleaned and polished up, and garbage off the streets. Right now several parts of the city have dangerously cracked sidewalks and supporting public realm infrastructure that looks like nobody cares. Repairing sidewalks was even offered as a voted on potential  “contribution” to the Denman west end neighbourhood.

Sidewalks and sidewalk repair are never an extra~it is part of the infrastructure of a well functioning city to maintain accessible and safe walking facilities. Pedestrians are supposedly the first priority in the City’s transportation plans. It’s time to invest in that.

Every Mayor likes to have their own stamp on things, and despite the fact that Greenways came out of an Urban Landscape Task Force of members of the public led by renown Landscape Architect Moura Quayle, greenways (and its budget) were squelched in favour of other new programming identifiable with the Vision council majority in 2008.

The creative Doug Smith  Greenways Engineer had left his post in 2005  to undertake important work in the City Works Yards and then the Sustainability Office. It was under his guidance that “greenways” became synonymous with great street design.

These were actually  streets where walking was the first priority. There was a network of 140 kilometers of streets that joined important destinations like services, schools and shopping that were strengthened by pedestrian public realm improvements.

You can see some of the work along 37th Avenue in the city, and also take a look at the map of greenways. Greenways were really “green streets” in that Doug Smith’s team explored innovative ways of creating infiltration bulges, baffled daylighted storm water,  public art, fountains, and  of making walking the first priority, followed by cycling. Vehicular use of these greenway streets was blocked or slowed by different means. The intent was to trial new ways of creating sustainable infrastructure that then could translate to other pedestrian and public space areas.

In the Greenways staff were several individuals whose job was to visit and walk every sidewalk and every street in Vancouver to rank the sidewalks needing repair work, and identify where new sidewalks needed to be place. Having them embedded with Engineering Greenways staff meant everyone had a real sense of “ground truthing” in how to create the best walking environments.

In a densifying city where streets are the outdoor living room, sidewalks are an important piece of societal connectivity.

Since the City is self insuring, the City has a Risk and Emergency Management Office which assesses claims from people that are hurt in the City’s public realm~and that does include damage caused by tripping, falling or getting hurt on City sidewalks.

The walkable public realm is something available to everyone, should be equitable and should be universally accessible. The investment needed to support the most sustainable way of moving needs to be valued and needs to be utilised. You can tell a lot about a place by how it serves its most vulnerable and its most disenfranchised. Walking on smooth continuous sidewalks is a basic human right. Let’s get back to basics and make it so everyone can.

 

 

 

The latest in my series of x-to-sqlite tools is shapefile-to-sqlite. I learned a whole bunch of things about the ESRI shapefile format while building it.

Governments really love ESRI shapefiles. There is a huge amount of interesting geospatial data made available in the format - 4,614 on Data.gov!

shapefile-to-sqlite

shapefile-to-sqlite loads the data from these files into a SQLite database, turning geometry properties into database columns and the geometry itself into a blob of GeoJSON. Let's try it out on a shapefile containing the boundaries of US national parks.

$ wget http://nrdata.nps.gov/programs/lands/nps_boundary.zip
...
Saving to: ‘nps_boundary.zip’
nps_boundary.zip                           100%[=====================================================================================>]  12.61M   705KB/s    in 22s     
2020-02-18 19:59:22 (597 KB/s) - ‘nps_boundary.zip’ saved [13227561/13227561]

$ unzip nps_boundary.zip 
Archive:  nps_boundary.zip
inflating: temp/Current_Shapes/Data_Store/06-06-12_Posting/nps_boundary.xml  
inflating: temp/Current_Shapes/Data_Store/06-06-12_Posting/nps_boundary.dbf  
inflating: temp/Current_Shapes/Data_Store/06-06-12_Posting/nps_boundary.prj  
inflating: temp/Current_Shapes/Data_Store/06-06-12_Posting/nps_boundary.shp  
inflating: temp/Current_Shapes/Data_Store/06-06-12_Posting/nps_boundary.shx

$ shapefile-to-sqlite nps.db temp/Current_Shapes/Data_Store/06-06-12_Posting/nps_boundary.shp
temp/Current_Shapes/Data_Store/06-06-12_Posting/nps_boundary.shp
[####################################]  100%

$ datasette nps.db
Serve! files=('nps.db',) (immutables=()) on port 8003
INFO:     Started server process [33534]
INFO:     Waiting for application startup.
INFO:     Application startup complete.
INFO:     Uvicorn running on http://127.0.0.1:8001 (Press CTRL+C to quit)

I recommend installing the datasette-leaflet-geojson plugin, which will turn any column containing GeoJSON into a Leaflet map.

If you've installed SpatiaLite (installation instructions here) you can use the --spatialite option to instead store the geometry in a SpatiaLite column, unlocking a bewildering array of SQL geometry functions.

$ shapefile-to-sqlite nps.db temp/Current_Shapes/Data_Store/06-06-12_Posting/nps_boundary.shp --spatialite --table=nps-spatialite
temp/Current_Shapes/Data_Store/06-06-12_Posting/nps_boundary.shp
[##################################--]   94%  00:00:00

I deployed a copy of the resulting database using Cloud Run:

$ datasette publish cloudrun nps.db \
    --service national-parks \
    --title "National Parks" \
    --source_url="https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/national-parks" \
    --source="data.gov" \
    --spatialite \
    --install=datasette-leaflet-geojson \
    --install=datasette-render-binary \
    --extra-options="--config max_returned_rows:5"

I used max_returned_rows:5 there because these geometrries are pretty big - without it a page with 100 rows on it can return over 90MB of HTML!

You can browse the GeoJSON version of the table here and the SpatiaLite version here.

The SpatiaLite version defaults to rendering each geometry as an ugly binary blob. You can convert them to GeoJSON for compatibility with datasette-leaflet-geojson using the SpatiaLite AsGeoJSON() function:

select id, UNIT_NAME, AsGeoJSON(geometry)
from [nps-spatialite]

Here's the result of that query running against the demo.

Understanding shapefiles

The most confusing thing about shapefiles is that they aren't a single file. A shapefile comes as a minimum of three files: foo.shp containing geometries, foo.shx containing an index into those geometries (really more of an implementation detail) and foo.dbf contains key/value properties for each geometry.

They often come bundled with other files too. foo.prj is a WKT projection for the data for example. Wikipedia lists a whole bunch of other possibilities.

As a result, shapefiles are usually distributed as a zip file. Some shapefile libraries can even read directly from a zip.

The GeoJSON format was designed as a modern alternative to shapefiles, so understanding GeoJSON really helps in understanding shapefiles. In particular the GeoJSON geometry types: Point, LineString, MultiLineString, Polygon and MultiPolygon match how shapefile geometries work.

An important detail in shapefiles is that data in the .shp and .dbf files is matched by array index - so the first geometry can be considered as having ID=0, the second ID=1 and so on.

You can read the properties from the .dbf file using the dbfread Python module like this:

$ ipython
In [1]: import dbfread
In [2]: db = dbfread.DBF("temp/Current_Shapes/Data_Store/06-06-12_Posting/nps_boundary.dbf")
In [3]: next(iter(db))
Out[3]: 
OrderedDict([('UNIT_TYPE', 'Park'),
            ('STATE', ''),
            ('REGION', 'NC'),
            ('UNIT_CODE', 'NACC'),
            ('UNIT_NAME', 'West Potomac Park'),
            ('DATE_EDIT', None),
            ('GIS_NOTES', ''),
            ('CREATED_BY', 'Legacy'),
            ('METADATA', ''),
            ('PARKNAME', '')])

Reading shapefiles in Python

I'm a big fan of the Shapely Python library, so I was delighted to see that Sean Gillies, creator of Shapely, also created a library for reading and writing shapefiles: Fiona.

GIS with Python, Shapely, and Fiona by Tom MacWright was particularly useful for figuring this out. I like how he wrote that post in 2012 but added a note in 2017 that it's still his recommended way of getting started with GIS in Python.

Projections

The trickiest part of working with any GIS data is always figuring out how to deal with projections.

GeoJSON attempts to standardize on WGS 84, otherwise known as the latitude/longitude model used by GPS. But... shapefiles frequently use something else. The Santa Clara county parks shapefiles for example use EPSG:2227, also known as California zone 3.

(Fun fact: ESPG stands for European Petroleum Survey Group, a now defunct oil industry group that today lives on only as a database of projected coordinate systems.)

I spent quite a while thinking about how to best handle projections. In the end I decided that I'd follow GeoJSON's lead and attempt to convert everything to WGS 84, but allow users to skip that behaviour using --crs=keep or to specify an alternative projection to convert to with --crs=epsg:2227 or similar.

SpatiaLite creates its geometry columns with a baked in SRID (a code which usually maps to the EPSG identifier). You can see which SRID was used for a specific geometry using the srid() function:

select srid(geometry) from "nps-spatialite" limit 1

SpatiaLite can also convert to another projection using the Transform() function:

select ':' || AsGeoJSON(Transform(geometry, 2227)) from "nps-spatialite" limit 1

(I'm using ':' || AsGeoJSON(...) here to disable the datasette-leaflet-geojson plugin, since it can't correctly render data that has been transformed to a non-WGS-84 proection.)

Pulling it all together

I now have two tools for imorting geospatial data into SQLite (or SpatiaLite) databases: shapefile-to-sqlite and geojson-to-sqlite.

I'm excited about Datasette's potential as a tool for GIS. I started exploring this back in 2017 when I used it to build a location to timezone API - but adding easy shapefile imports to the toolchain should unlock all kinds of interesting new geospatial projects.

I like to think of my new book, Advertising For Skeptics, as an undiluted bounty of heretical, unpopular, and aberrant thoughts about our industry. It is now available at Amazon.

The past decade was expected to be a golden age for advertising. We had amazing new tools and amazing new media.

Our ability to personalize advertising and reach consumers “one-to-one” was sure to make advertising more relevant, more timely, and more likable.

Our ability to listen to consumer conversations through social media and react quickly couldn’t help but connect brands more closely with their customers.

The opportunity for people to interact with media was certain to make advertising more engaging.

And yet, by the mostly unanimous opinion of people inside and outside the ad business, the past decade has been a shit show...

• Rather than creating advertising that is “more relevant, more timely and more likable” we are  creating advertising that is more annoying, more disliked, and more avoided. The New York Times says, “The Advertising Industry Has A Problem: People Hate Ads”
• Marketers are taking advertising in-house or hiring consulting firms to do what we once did
• Public regard for our industry is at an all-time low
• The ANA claims corruption in our industry is "pervasive"
• Between one and two billion devices are reportedly armed with ad blockers
• Regulators and governments are on our ass with a vengeance
• Tens of billions are being stolen by ad fraud
• Scandals involving privacy and brand safety are reported every week
• Social media is undermining confidence in democratic institutions
• Consumers are becoming disgusted with tracking and spying

What went wrong? Pretty much everything.

I hope this book will give you some things to think about that are antithetical to much of what the advertising and marketing industry now take for granted.

If you've ever wanted to stand up at a marketing meeting and scream, I can't stand this bullshit anymore...

If you've ever suspected that advertising people don't really know things they think they know...

If you've ever had the feeling that there are famous people in our business walking around with nothing but a powerpointful of jargon and bullshit...

....I think you will enjoy this book.

When Prime Minister Harper visited the Arctic on one of his several trips – once for 16 days – the words “climate change” never passed his lips.  In the Arctic – where the manifestations of climate change are more evident and fast-changing than most places on the planet.

That was a very deliberate strategy: ‘Never deny climate change, just don’t recognize it as a priority.  Sign on to policies and protocols so long as the deadlines are decades hence.  And send a message: Government will not do anything disruptive, particularly with respect to the economy, especially the resource industries, like carbon taxes or game-changing regulations.’

That message was targeted to other leaders and decision-makers, public and private, as well as his own base.  In short: ‘I don’t believe climate change is a priority worthy of immediate or drastic action.  So you don’t have to either.’

The strategy assumes two conditions: (1) The public believes you’re doing enough to take climate change seriously (but not crazily).  That you are still taking care of us.  And (2) Nature does nothing too disruptive.

It worked for Harper.  Unfortunately, it’s not working for the Prime Minister of Australia and his coalition party.

Nature did not hold up its end of the bargain.  And so the public isn’t either.

 

For the past ten years, Kevin Gibson has been a general manager with Toronto-based Cloud 9 AV, where he oversees the business’ day-to-day operations. The company designs, installs, and maintains audiovisual solutions for homes and businesses, with long-term customer support. The support team first helps its customers troubleshoot remotely, which allows much of their team to work from anywhere.

Cloud 9 AV opened for business in 2002, and since then they have been steadily growing. Kevin credits the company’s growth to word of mouth and attention to detail. As the company expands, Kevin makes sure everything is running smoothly-- good customer service management is the backbone of the business since it leads to more customer referrals.

What does Cloud9 AV offer its customers?

We are a small-ish custom audiovisual integration company, and there are 10 of us. We specialize in custom systems integration--anything you can see or hear in your home or office, that’s what we do. TVs, audio systems, automated lighting, automated shades, surveillance, alarm, and whole-home control.

Once a new contract is finalized and everything is installed, the client moves over to our support team.

What does an average day look like for support issues?

Over the last few months, we had about 104 new support tickets. The average is 6 or 7 a week, and some weeks it goes to 10 or 11. Not all of them are billable, like if they don’t become service calls--it’s often just a quick email and call.

What were you doing to manage customer support before SupportBee?

Before SupportBee, it was just regular email. I was using spreadsheets and entered everything manually, and would try and maintain its status. We always knew that the way we were managing it wasn’t sustainable and that things would slip through the cracks.

We did try a couple of other systems, but we stuck with SupportBee.

How are you using SupportBee?

We have a designated person who looks after the support tickets. Once a customer opens a ticket, they get an automated response from us (through SupportBee) saying we’ll get back to them within a given amount of time.  From there, the support overseer assesses it. If he can help them remotely, we’ll do that through SupportBee. If not, and it can be quickly dealt with, we’ll tell them we need to send a technician on to the site and orchestrate availability.

At that point, a ticket on SupportBee goes from unanswered to answered, and stays in the core feed until the technician is on the site, claims the ticket and it gets retired. Anything still opened, unbilled, or unclear remains in SupportBee until we have a definitive closure.

What features do you like best about SupportBee and what issues do they solve for you?

We have been using SupportBee for about five years, and something we’ve used a lot that’s helpful is the labels. We can divide tickets into billable and not billable, flag the ones that are open, and identify jobs that need to be invoiced.

We also use the notes feature. Internally we’ll write comments--for example, where the technician details what he did on the site, if he needs to return, etc.

We can definitely utilize it as we grow. We know we will need more people to manage the support, but SupportBee is very usable for that.

What is your customer service philosophy?

We take our work very seriously our clients are extremely important. We want to be considered a resource who is here to help. We don’t want it to be hard to contact us, we want to deal with things as quickly as possible. A lot of times support doesn’t get paid for, and trying to manage that is part of the process too.

We go above and beyond to help clients remotely without having to roll in a truck and bill them for it. We want to start by sending them an email and having them try stuff at home.

Our clients would say our support is better than most. When we sign up a client, it’s a lifetime deal.

If you met someone who was just entering their career as an AV customer support manager, what advice would you give them?

Be patient. Put yourself in the customers’ shoes. People get frustrated when things don’t work---everyone knows how it feels when they can’t get online or their movie won’t stream. They want somebody to talk to.

We love hearing our customer’s stories. Read on to hear how a McDonald’s franchise business improved customer service with SupportBee.

Google releases a preview of the next Android generation, when 90% of their user base don't even have the current one. The only thing that changed is that they have not updated their dashboard in 9 months.

I find it slightly ironic that I am writing these blog posts to guide my doctoral students when a few of them have already graduated and I have two so close to completing their dissertations.

I recently came to realize that a lot of students want to write their dissertations or theses AFTER some randomly decided milestone: after they are done their fieldwork. After they’ve collected all the necessary datasets. After they’ve finished archival work. After they’ve completed the literature review. From my own experience as a doctoral student and as someone who now supervises PhD candidates (as well as other thesis’ students), I can tell you that there is no perfect day to start writing your thesis.

My advice to my own students and anybody who will listen to me is always: “start writing the minute you start your degree”.

As I mentioned on Twitter, I know that different thesis and dissertation advisors will have varied opinions on when students should start writing. So what I am describing here is what I did and what my approach with my own students is.

On the thesis/dissertation structure

Contrary to other colleagues in my cohort, I did not rewrite my comprehensive exams’ papers to become chapters of my dissertation. I wrote a book-manuscript-style dissertation, though my advisor was very much intent on the three-paper model. My dissertation research could have gone either way, but we did not want to redraw my work altogether to build individual papers before submitting the dissertation to the external examiner.

We compromised in the following way:

1. I wrote a book-style dissertation with 3 empirical chapters that, standing on their own, would give me each a theoretical or an empirical contribution.
2. I was free to do a full literature review chapter if I wanted to, and a full-fledged historical overview chapter.
3. My advisor and I agreed that the introductory and concluding chapters should read like any book manuscript (you should read William Germano’s “From Dissertation to Book” for what’s perhaps the best guidance on turning a book-manuscript-style dissertation into a book, but also search for guidance on how to write introductions and conclusions there).

Most of MY PhD students’ dissertations read as follows (I ask them to develop their three-papers’ model with their Dissertation Analytical Table (DAT):

1. Introduction/set up/review of the literature/where my students’ thesis contributes and how/structure of the dissertation/summary of chapters
2. Paper 1
3. Paper 2
4. Paper 3
5. Conclusions/future research/limitations

Mine looks a bit like this one, with a historical chapter as chapter 2. But as I was writing it, when I developed my framework, I realized each one of the 3 elements of my framework could be framed as a stand-alone paper, so I wrote it as Element 1, Element 2, Element 3.

Many doctoral students I know will write a very long dissertation proposal/prospectus from where they can extract material for their dissertations. That’s what I did with mine. My prospectus was a mini-dissertation. I just had to expand with the 3 empirical examples.

So, when do I start writing my dissertation/thesis?

For ALL my doctoral students, the moment when they need to start writing the doctoral dissertation is when their Dissertation Two Pager (DTP), their Dissertation Analytical Table (DAT) and their Global Dissertation Narrative (GDN} present a coherent, cohesive body of work. That means, that their Red Thread/Throughline/Conductive Thread can be easily detected.

… idea that my prospectus, expanded, would become my full-fledged doctoral dissertation.

In summary: I don’t think there’s a perfect moment where you can wake up, and say “it’s February 15, I am going to start writing my PhD dissertation”. I think you can always write…

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) February 17, 2020

Important for those of you who do experiments/fieldwork/archival work:

When you plan progress of your dissertation research and you build your Gantt Chart https://t.co/YLCm2x6AMW using backcasting techniques https://t.co/wAmyejeoa0 you need to account for “time to assemble”.

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) February 17, 2020

As I said on my Twitter thread, it is useful to write bits and pieces of the dissertation as the research progresses.

On content and structure, simultaneously: Make time for the final assembly, and revisit the Red Thread/Throughline/Conductive Thread.

When you finally have completed experiments, fieldwork, data collection, archival work, you probably want to sit down and write everything up. But once you’ve written all of your analysis up, you still need time to ASSEMBLE the final product and create the Red Thread/Throughline.

(This process looks exactly the same when you’re writing a full book manuscript even if it’s not your doctoral dissertation – it also works similarly for an undergrad or Masters thesis). The assemblage process is important because that’s where you give coherence to your work.

Germano on “From Dissertation to Book” https://t.co/bSxVOEtPzx and @PJDunleavy ‘s Authoring a PhD Thesis https://t.co/0UIyI3Q7n0 should be required reading if you’re doing a book-style thesis.

If you’re writing a 3-papers-thesis, I recommend @ThomsonPat and Kamler and …

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) February 17, 2020

Belcher’s #12WeeksArticle.

My post on Thomson and Kamler https://t.co/vvvirqPfrY Writing for Peer Reviewed Journals

My post on Belcher’s 1st edition https://t.co/vvvirqPfrY (there’s a 2nd edition out now, you should read that one too).

Overall, let me re-emphasize this:

— Dr Raul Pacheco-Vega (@raulpacheco) February 17, 2020

YOU NEED CONSTANT CONTACT WITH AND FEEDBACK FROM YOUR SUPERVISOR (AND SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE).

There is absolutely no substitute for a conversation with your supervisor. No matter how many books on “how to PhD” you read, you need to be in constant conversation and communication.

A note to PhD advisors: I have heard from MANY graduate students all over the world, wherever I go and give talks, that they don’t get much/enough feedback/lack a lot of bi-directional communication – this is very important – students need your feedback and your sign-off on their theses.

In conclusion:

In this blog post I described how I wrote my doctoral dissertation and how my own doctoral students write theirs. Every supervisor/lab/student have their own processes and idiosyncracies. What I think is always important is to maintain open and constant communication between student and advisor.

So what’s going on with the SUMO platform? We’re moving forward in 2020 with new plans, new challenges and a new roadmap.

We’re continuing this year to track all development work in 2 week sprints. You can see everything that is currently being worked on and our current sprint here (please note: this is only a project tracking board, do not use it to file bugs, bugs should continue to be filed via Bugzilla)

In order to be more transparent about what’s going on we are starting a round of blog posts to summarize every sprint and plan for the next. We’ve just closed Sprint no. 3 of 2020 and we’re moving into Sprint no.4

What happened in the last two weeks?

During the last two weeks we have been working tirelessly together with our partner, Lincoln Loop, to get Responsive Redesign out the door. The good news is that we are almost done.

We have also been working on a few essential upgrades. Currently support.mozilla.org is running on Python 2.7 which is no longer supported. We have been working on upgrading to Python3.7 and the latest Django Long Term Support (LTS) version 2.2. This is also almost done and we are expecting to move into the QA and bug fixing phase.

What’s happening in the next sprint?

During the next two weeks we’re going to start wrapping up Responsive redesign as well as the Python/Django upgrade and  focus on QA and bug fixing. We’re also planning to finalize a Celery 4 upgrade.

The next big thing is the integration of Firefox Accounts. As of May 2019 we have been working towards using Firefox Accounts as the authentication system on support.mozilla.org  Since the first phase of this project was completed we have been using both login via Firefox Accounts as well as the old SUMO login. It is now time to fully switch to Firefox Accounts. The current plan is to do this mid-March but expect to see some communication about this later this week.

For more information please check out our roadmap and feel free to reach out if you have any questions

Paul Bradshaw, Online Journalism Blog, Feb 19, 2020

This is a pretty good article for journalists discussing how to map systems to come up with story ideas. It does lean heavily on a trait in journalism I dislike - the idea of picking one person to build your story around. I know (and the article makes much of this) that this depends on and brings empathy into the reporting. But it also leads to misrepresentation, and it also tends to push people into pre-set roles (like 'victim' or boss 'who calls the shots'). But still - this is a minor point to complain about in what is otherwise a strong article that gets into the sort of detail you want to get into not only when you're a journalist but when you're looking into anything at all. It's a good class exercise, for example. Make the connections and follow where they lead and you'll be much less likely to be fooled by fake news or even a shallow representation of the real news.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Goldie Blumenstyk, Chronicle of Higher Education, Feb 19, 2020

The short answer to the question in the headline is that they didn't provide financial support and services. "A focus on widening the recruitment funnel might be a start, but unless it’s accompanied by equally deliberate attention in a college’s admissions decisions and financial-aid packaging, it won’t accomplish much." Which I think should seem pretty obvious. But there's never been a shortage of people claiming that financial aid has no impact, so I guess the people at these unnamed colleges thought it didn't matter.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Social media is a powerful channel for businesses from virtually any industry. From its plethora of ecommerce features to its array of creative and unique ways to engage followers, it offers plenty for brands seeking to grow in 2020.

But beyond this, social media is about people, and it offers a great way to connect with your audience too. If you want to use social media for customer service in a way that delivers genuine value in 2020, read on to discover the basics.

Be proactive and agile with your responses

Customer complaints can quickly spiral out of control if left unchecked. A proactive attitude towards customer complaints and queries gives you the edge, letting you take control of the situation on your own terms.

You know already that a core tenet of increasing your follower count on social is speed and frequency, both in posting and sharing content and in reacting to real-world events. The same applies to your customer service too.

A quick and responsive attitude towards customer complaints prevents other people from noticing it on social. It also helps you take control of the conversation so you can direct it to a more private channel.

Social media monitoring tools, such as Keyhole, are helpful here. These let you monitor and track mentions of your brand across social media so you can identify potential issues as they arise. These often let you spot social posts where you’ve been mentioned but not tagged, so you can rapidly resolve situations and move them over to email where you can discuss it privately.

Create a base of loyal customer advocates

A third of consumers have reached out to a brand on social media to complain at some point or another. While it doesn’t seem like a lot in itself, that’s still a sizable number of customers. This means you’ll likely be resolving a lot of complaints about your own brand.

But instead of just responding to complaints as they arise, focus on creating a core base of loyal customers who will, of their own accord, respond to critiques of your brand themselves.

A customer advocate base is a selection of repeat customers (and employees) who love and trust your brand. They are willing to praise your brand in public, often unprompted too.

When you provide stellar customer service, you also build a faithful advocate base of individuals who willingly praise your brand, often heading off criticism from other users as it lands. This creates a buffer that protects you against complaints before you even have to intervene.

This is achieved by nurturing customer relationships, providing a good service beyond simple customer support. Respond to queries and comments online swiftly and genuinely. Eschew automated tones of voice in favor of a personal touch.

Such an approach gives your brand a human depth, helping develop the relationship between you and your loyal customers so they praise your brand readily and willingly.

Let your customers know you are responsive and present

In the same vein as being proactive, savvy brands must also be responsive in their use of social media for customer support. If your customers are angry, you need to make it clear that you are attentive and responsive.

Chatbot automation is a good way to quickly placate upset customers. These allow for option trees that direct customers to the right channel and, most importantly, take them off social and onto private channels.

But this doesn’t just cover complaints or queries. This also applies to praise and positive comments, whether it’s directly addressed to your brand or not. Simply liking a tweet is enough to make customers feel acknowledged, but comments also go a long way towards assuring your audience that you are present and aware of them.

If a customer says something positive about your brand on social, send them a quick thank-you or ask them what they think about your product or service. It’s a small act, but one that nurtures a positive relationship between you and your customer that lasts and lasts.

Strike the right tone of voice

As with every customer interaction, striking the right tone of voice is vital. There are countless examples of brands making an ill-timed joke or inappropriate turn of phrase, only for the customer to become even angrier or upset.

Of course, this can be tricky to perfect on social. Character limits and a lack of facial or verbal cues make it difficult to convey the appropriate tone of voice to distressed customers.

A good way to circumvent this minefield is to tailor your tone of voice to every situation by watching how the customer themselves is communicating.

For instance, if the customer is using emojis or exclamation marks, it’s generally okay to use them yourself. On the other end of the spectrum, if it looks like they are not a native English speaker, you might need to avoid certain turns of phrase which might sound alien to them.

If your customer is angry, it’s important to immediately make clear that you are empathic for their situation.

Social media is a great way to resolve customer queries, nurture relationships with brand advocates, and show that you are aware and attentive to their input for your brand. Follow the tips above and launch a social media customer support strategy that works for you and your audience in 2020.

The government of BC, the Canadian province where I live, just released a new budget which, among other things, raises tax on high incomes. Here is an overview. The top marginal tax on incomes over C$220,000 goes from 16.8% to 20.5%. This is just provincial tax; what with the Feds, the total top marginal rate is now 53%. Not everyone is delighted. For example Garth Turner, finance/real-estate blogger, who emits a howl of right-wing grief. I’m comfortable speaking about this since I’m personally affected.

[These days, a Canuck buck is worth about $0.75 American.]

It’s worth noting that our province is led by the New Democratic Party (everyone says “NDP”) who are Social Democrats; by and large pretty moderate by world standards. On the American spectrum they’re red-toothed commies; not too far off what Bernie Sanders would like to see.

Numbers

Let’s do some math, OK? Garth Turner points out how awful this will be for people living in super-expensive Vancouver and making a paltry $250K. Hmm, the marginal increase is 3.7% on income over $220K. So those poor $250K people are going to be paying an extra $1110/year. Garth also excerpts a letter from an aggrieved doctor’s husband who says they’ll be paying an extra $1K a month; by my arithmetic the doctor’s making over $540K taxable, thus taking home over $250K, ignoring the tax dodges available to the self-employed, then there’s the husband’s income. Maybe I’m missing something, but neither of these calculations yield what feel to me like lifestyle-changing numbers.

Side-note: I don’t want to diss Garth too much because he’s a really excellent writer on personal finance in general and real-estate in particular; if you’re in Canada and have money to invest you should totally read him. Also he’s funny and runs cute dog pictures. He becomes less interesting as he veers into overly-predictable right-wing tax-grouch tropes. And, disclosure: I’m a customer.

Saving and spending

Here’s the thing: A high proportion of people subject to the tax hike are taking home more than they need to live on, so the effect of this move is that their savings (and wealth) will grow more slowly. Most such people retire with enough to live on, and are in their forties or older. So the tax hike won’t result in any short-term spending decreases to speak of, but starting say ten years from now, a demographic of well-off retirees will have a little less to pump into that future economy.

And those slightly-smaller savings, what about them? They join a world-wide glut of capital, surging around looking for a decent return. Plenty will look for it outside Canada, or in ventures where most of the profits go to money people.

On the other hand, the extra $200M or so a year this tax maneuver pulls in will all get spent by the government, the vast majority in paychecks to middle- and working-class civil servants and contractors, who will in turn spend almost all of it in the next twelve months right here in BC. Maybe I’m missing something, but this policy feels like an economic win/win. The only losers are one-percenters like me; modestly, a decade or two from now. Maybe I’ll only be able to vacation once a year.

Or is that kind of thinking dangerously socialist? Here’s some data from The Economist: Wage gains for low earners have helped sustain America’s economic expansion. It’s data-rich and convincing. Inequality not only sucks, it’s bloody inefficient and generally bad for the economy.

In fact, redistributionist policies might improve the economy enough that the return on my savings will make up for their slightly smaller size.

Conclusion

Raise the minimum wage and the marginal tax rates on people like me. Both as a left-winger and an investor, I approve.

Apple is reportedly thinking about allowing iPhone and iPad users to set third-party apps as their default iOS apps.

This means that instead of the standard Safari browser, users could select Chrome, as reported by Bloomberg. Also, instead of the Mail app, users could have Gmail as their default email app.

Although users can already use these apps, Apple prominently displays its own apps. For instance, if a website has an email link, once you click on it then your phone automatically opens it up in the Apple Mail app.

Bloomberg also reports that the tech giant is working on letting third-party music apps like Spotify run on its HomePod smart speaker. This would no longer require users to stream Spotify from an Apple device over AirPlay.

This is interesting because last year, Spotify complained that Apple pushes people to use its own streaming service, Apple Music. This led to Apple being investigated by the EU over anti-competitive App Store practices.

Apple is still reportedly in the planning stage for these changes, but Bloomberg notes that they could be implemented in iOS 14 and an upcoming HomePod software update.

Source: Bloomberg Via: The Verge

The post Apple considering allowing users to set third-party apps as iOS defaults appeared first on MobileSyrup.

I was informed by WordPress this morning that my renewal of this site had not gone through.

It seems to me that there is very little value for me in continuing to keep this blog ad free and using its current address. I think what will happen is that it will revert to stephenrees.wordpress.com (in due course) and continue to exist but with ads (from now on). I have replied to WordPress and they have confirmed that.

I would like to thank the very small number of people who continue to read and “like” every post – your loyalty is greatly appreciated.

I continue to be active on Facebook and Twitter, and I have managed to hang on to my gmail address despite the activities of people who have the same – or very similar – name as I do. I suppose one of them may eventually take over the stephenrees.blog domain. If so, I wish them Good Luck with it.

Almost 30,000 Canadians across the country have united by signing an online petition – Solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en nation 2020 – started by Indigenous Solidarity Ottawa.  Canadians signed in support of members of the Wet’suwet’en Nation who have been “stewarding and protecting their traditional territories from the destruction of multiple pipelines”, including Coastal GasLink’s (CGL) liquified natural gas (LNG) pipeline.

 The petition addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs, John Horgan, Premiere of B.C., and Mike Farnworth, B.C. Public Safety Minister asks that the following demands are met:

• Stop colonial violence: stop using the RCMP or any other force to harass and criminalize Indigenous peoples from protecting their land, water, air and cultures, as well as dispossess Indigenous peoples of their traditional unceded territories;
• Immediately remove the RCMP from the Wet’suwet’en territory;
• Respect the sovereignty as well as the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples as stated in the UN Declaration on the Right of Indigenous Peoples – which Canada has signed and BC has put into provincial law – which includes respecting the refusal of pipelines and other resource-extracting projects that are damaging to the environment and for which the Wet’suwet’en nation have not given free, prior and informed consent to;
• Stop violently supporting those members of the 1% who are stealing resources and condemning our children to a world rendered uninhabitable by climate change.

The concerns for safety addressed in this petition are widespread. Video footage of an RCMP officer pointing his firearm at Indigenous land defenders was posted to the social media account of the Gidimt’en clan (one of five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation whose hereditary chiefs oppose the pipeline). It shows police moving into the clan’s camp on the Morice West Forest Service Road near Houston, B.C. on February 7. The RCMP defended the actions of their officers.

RCMP also arrested 28 land defenders and matriarchs during the enforcement of the interlocatory injunction approved by Justice Church. One person remains in custody. Charges are pending as CGL has requested Crown intervention. The rest of the land defenders are to appear before the Supreme Court in Prince George in late April 2020.

In his address to Parliament on Tuesday, Trudeau described the situation as “a critical moment for our country and for our future.” Trudeau says his government remains open to discussions.  He has said that he will not forcibly remove the blockades, but economic pressure builds.

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Perry Bellegarde, who joined other First Nations leaders in Ottawa on Tuesday, said “Our people are taking action because they want to see action. When they see positive action by the key players, when they see a commitment to real dialogue to address this difficult situation, people will respond in a positive way.”

 The below quotes are from petition signers across the country:

“RCMP invasion of Indigenous territory is wrong on every level, not to mention embarrassing. The RCMP is helping a foreign fossil fuel consortium build a pipeline to transport the very fuel whose extraction is ruining northern ecology and ultimately, our water supplies. The RCMP is protecting one of the most damaging industries on the planet.” – Carole Tootil, Nanaimo, BC

“Time to abide by the law and find another route, even if it costs more money. A mistake was made by not honouring the original land rights and only going to band councils. Time to fix it and not continue the mistakes of the past.” – Raisa Jari, Toronto, ON

“I am Wet’suwet’en and after 150 years enough is enough! My child and my family use this land for cultural activities and everyone made this decision except us. We can’t even return there anymore. By the time they have left their construction zone in their wake my boy will be a young teen. The rest of his childhood will be displaced from our favourite and most loved places. Not to mention the issues of climate change.” – Carla Lewis, Burns Lake, BC

“I’m in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en nation and other land protectors. Stop extracting and fracking, stop building pipelines and invest in alternative energy projects, and involve First Nations in that pursuit.” – Dr. Thilo Joerger, Sackville, NB

“I feel the Wet’suwet’en people are protecting land that is rightfully theirs.” – Doreen Mason, Windermere, ON

“There is so much injustice in the provincial government and Coastal gas not considering the Wet’suwet’en proposal for an alternate route and sending in the RCMP to unlawfully occupy their land. They should have the right of all nations to have consent to use their territory as they wish and not suffer violence and externally imposed laws forced upon them.” – Fiona Lee, Vancouver, BC

“Canadians are standing up for what they want. This is not going away. Canada, let all voices be heard.” – Jane Rathbun, Waverley, NS

For more information please see: https://www.change.org/wet-suwet-en

Daniel Davis, Feb 20, 2020

This article helpfully tells us about generative design while explaining why it will fail. "Generative design is an enticing vision. Rather than employing a designer to laboriously create a design concept, you can instead use an algorithm to quickly generate thousands of options and ask the designer to pick the best one. Effectively, the designer becomes an editor." So, yes, that is an enticing vision. But to see why it will fail, imagine writing an email that way. It turns out, comparing options is harder than it looks. It probably takes more time to read all the emails and pick one. "Ask any professor: would you rather grade 100 student essays or write one article of your own?"

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

You can probably tell at a glance that a “Chanel” handbag going for $20 at a flea market is fake. But you might not give a second thought to items that arrive on your doorstep via Amazon Prime. With the rise of third-party sellers on Amazon, maybe you should.

Kevin Nguyen @knguyen
Big ‘ol congrats to @susanthesquark! pic.twitter.com/hMD6EULth6

Want to hear what's going on in your webpages? This great little snippet plays sounds as DOM nodes update and gives you a weird new perspective on what's going on behind the scenes.

Aaron Davis, Read Write Collect, Feb 18, 2020

Aaron Davis comments, "I’m learning to better challenge scientists’ assumptions about how communication works. The deficit model, I’ve found, is difficult to unlearn. It’s very logical, and my hunch is that it comes naturally to scientists ... But the obstacles faced by science communicators are not epistemological but cultural. The skills required are not those of a university lecturer but a rhetorician." Indeed, as this article notes, "The takeaway is clear: Increasing science literacy alone won’t change minds. In fact, well-meaning attempts by scientists to inform the public might even backfire." The key here is that this is true not only for scientific communication, but learning generally.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Doc Norton, InfoQ, Feb 18, 2020

This might be review for a lot of readers, but this discussion of how events propagate through network is important to understand. "Doc Norton explores how things like disease, politics, and even moods travel through social networks, discussing the impact people have on others."

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Ton Zijlstra, Interdependent Thoughts, Feb 18, 2020

David Wiley's comments from yesterday notwithstanding, there are still some important things to take away from the Doc Searls article, and specifically, as Ton Zijlstra notes, the ways the commons - or the public goods - are being enclosed, that is, essentially converted from public to private ownership. Points of enclosure include service provisioning, 5G, censorship, the advertising-supported commercial Internet, protectionism, digital colonialism, our forgotten past, and algorithmic opacity. Now this is a mélange of issues including some from a free-wheeling libertarian perspective, but the danger, I think, is real. Yesterday I said that OER don't need regulation, and that's true. But they need protection, as do all our other public goods, because it's too easy to destroy them.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

watchOS 6.1.3, the latest version of Apple’s wearable operating system, is now available.

The update includes a fix for a bug that stopped the irregular heart rhythm notification from working properly in Iceland. Apple also released watchOS 5.3.5 for those still running iOS 12 on the iPhone.

The update’s notes don’t include any other information regarding additional changes. Apple is currently beta testing the developer version of watchOS 6.2, but it remains unclear when the update will get a public beta release.

To download the update, navigate to the Apple Watch app. Next, go to General > Software update.

The post watchOS 6.1.3 for the Apple Watch is now available appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Google is developing a new file system for Android that could allow gamers to start playing games before they finish installing.

Spotted by XDA Developers, Google has made a few patch submissions to merge support for the new system, dubbed the Incremental File System (FS), into the Linux kernel. Incremental FS is a virtual Linux file system that would allow the execution of a program “while its binary and resource files are still being lazily downloaded,” the submission reads.

In other words, Incremental FS would allow users to launch an app while Android continues to download it in the background. From the sounds of things, it would work similarly to the technology employed in the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One that allow you to start gaming while it finishes the installation. It’s worth noting that Blizzard’s Battle.net game launcher on PC also allows players to launch games that haven’t finished downloading.

Further, the documentation suggests that Android will start downloading the data packages that need to be used first. For example, a game’s intro file or menu assets might be downloaded first, while end-game content will download later. The documentation mentions loading ‘hot blocks’ in advance, possibly as filler content to avoid loading screens in case a data block hasn’t finished downloading.

Finally, Google says explicitly it will target large apps with the feature. While the company didn’t specify what size of app, it did use an example of a 5GB game file in the documentation.

Along with the Linux documentation, Google also merged related code into the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). Additionally, Google began using a Pixel 4 XL to test Incremental FS, which has been in the works for about a year. Unfortunately, the implementation of Incremental FS is still a ways off. It will likely not be ready for Android 11 expected later this year. Instead, Incremental FS may arrive with Android 12 in 2021.

Further, apps likely won’t require a rework to implement the feature. However, this early in development, things can and likely will change.

Source: Google, (2), Via: XDA Developers, Android Police

The post Future Android version could let you play a game before it finishes downloading appeared first on MobileSyrup.

It took me a long time to realize that I wasn’t being heard because I wasn’t taking the stage. I confused doing well in classrooms with having something to say worth hearing. It didn’t occur to me that getting called on was a teacher’s decision, not mine.

As I began to work in the theater, I was content to stay in the wings. For that matter, the actors might have been visible and their lines reached the back of the house. But actors’s lines are someone else’s words.

Having something worth saying and discerning the moments when it can be shared in a way that it will be heard is a much more subtle evolution. One of the steps on that journey for me occurred while I was stage managing a small production in college.

Remember, “drama queen” is a pejorative rooted in the theater. The two leads in this show had not been well cast. Their chemistry was virtually non-existent. For reasons long lost, the director had a poor rapport with the leads and couldn’t fix the problem. While all the technical aspects of the production were humming along nicely, an opening night disaster was the most likely outcome.

The leads didn’t trust each other and they didn’t trust the director. But they did trust me. I spent an inordinate number of hours before and after rehearsals listening to each of the leads pour out their anxieties and fears. They had to give voice to their nightmares and that called for someone to hear them. That got added to my job description.

We did make it to opening night and we ended up with a decent production. For me it was a lesson in what “the show must go on” can entail. Mostly, I filed that lesson away with the other ones about real people in real settings that didn’t fit into my preferred reality of technical rationality.

Some seeds take longer than others to germinate. One particular benefit of working in the live theater is that all the moving parts are readily observable. What I slowly came to appreciate is how it takes all the parts working together to create results to celebrate. That, and the value of human ingenuity to tackle the unexpected when it inevitably happens.

In more complex settings, it can be tempting to just focus on your little piece. This is the technocratic impulse that wants to believe there can be a policy and a procedure for every contingency. If you can step back far enough to see the whole picture, then this technocratic impulse is revealed as the fantasy that it actually is.

The more complex the environment, the more important it is to remember and promote the role of human adaptability and ingenuity. The voices of those ingenious people are often distant from the corridors of power. It is always worth finding them and listening to their perspective and insight.

The post Figuring out who to listen to appeared first on McGee's Musings.

It looks like Apple’s often-rumoured ‘AirTag’ is set to launch by the third quarter of 2020.

The rumour comes from reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and was first reported by 9to5Mac. Kuo says that Apple has plans to produce tens of millions of Bluetooth tracking devices by the end of the year. Given the Q3 2020 release date, it’s likely that the AirTags will be revealed during Apple’s September iPhone event.

There’s also a possibility the AirTag could be revealed at WWDC given its an entirely new product category for the tech giant.

Apple’s Tile-like Bluetooth tracker will reportedly be used to locate objects in the real-world like a backpack or luggage, though the company’s Find My app. While very similar to Tile’s trackers, Apple would be able to leverage the millions of iPhones, iPads and Macs already in the hands of people to create a crowdsourced network of devices capable of locating AirTags.

There’s also the U1 chip side to the rumoured AppleTag. This chip, which is featured in the iPhone 11 series, would allow the smartphone to more precisely view the location of the tag in augmented reality (AR). The feature would only work with Apple’s iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro max given these are the only devices that feature the U1 chip.

Rumours regarding the existence of the AppleTag first appeared back in April of 2019. Apple hasn’t confirmed that it’s working on Bluetooth tracking tags.

Source: Ming-Chi Kuo, 9to5Mac

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For the next month, I’ll be in Australia, returning to the island continent for the 11th time, and to the four cities in which I have spoken over the last two decades – Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.

In the past I’ve talked mainly about Vancouver, particularly about urban design and how we accommodate growth.  (Our Commonwealth cousins love exchanging views and advice on our similar cities.)

But this time, I’m there to ask the people I meet one particular question: How is Australia changing now that climate change is your new reality?  How are Australians changing?

I’m not the only outsider to be asking questions like that.

 From Damien Cave, the Australian bureau chief for the New York Times:

“We have seen …the unfolding wings of climate change,” said Lynette Wallworth, an Australian filmmaker … in Davos, Switzerland, last month.

Like the fires, it’s a metaphor that lingers. What many of us have witnessed this fire season does feel alive, like a monstrous gathering force threatening to devour what we hold most dear on a continent that will grow only hotter, drier and more flammable as global temperatures rise. …

In interviews all over the fire zone since September, it’s been clear that Australians are reconsidering far more than energy and emissions. They are stumbling toward new ways of living: Housing, holiday travel, work, leisure, food and water are all being reconsidered. …

Climate change threatens heavy pillars of Australian identity: a life lived outdoors, an international role where the country “punches above its weight,” and an emphasis on egalitarianism that, according to some historians, is rooted in Australia’s settlement by convicts. …

Since the fires started, tens of millions of acres have been incinerated in areas that are deeply connected to the national psyche. If you’re American, imagine Cape Cod, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the Sierra Nevadas and California’s Pacific Coast, all rolled into one — and burned.

It’s “a place of childhood vacations and dreams,” as one of Australia’s great novelists, Thomas Keneally, recently wrote.

Tourists in Lake Conjola, a popular vacation destination, took refuge on a beach on New Year’s Eve.

Signal, a privacy-focused instant messaging platform on iOS and Android, is set to go mainstream and take on WhatsApp, thanks to the help of a WhatsApp co-founder.

According to Wired, which sat down with Signal creator Moxie Marlinspike, the app has put a $50 million USD cash injection from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton in 2018 to good use, raising the number of Signal Foundation employees from three to 20 and pushing out several new features since then. Acton also joined the Signal Foundation as executive chairman after leaving WhatsApp following Facebook’s acquisition.

However, those new features aren’t for the privacy enthusiasts and the paranoid security researchers that previously flocked to Signal. Instead, they’re for regular folks looking for a WhatsApp alternative. The features include iPad support, ephemeral images and videos in the vein of Snapchat, downloadable, customizable ‘stickers’ and emoji reactions.

But while those things seem like simple additions, for Signal, these messaging staples are more challenging. The Signal app is fundamentally end-to-end encrypted and doesn’t store conversation metadata on its servers — something not even WhatsApp promises, despite using Signal’s open-source protocol to end-to-end encrypt messages sent on its platform. Not storing metadata means Signal doesn’t know things like who messaged whom.

Signal’s encryption means finding new ways to do simple things

Ultimately, adding these features required engineering new security solutions and in some cases, new research in cryptography, according to Wired. In the case of stickers, for example, Signal needed to design a system where every sticker ‘pack’ is encrypted with a ‘pack key.’ That key is also encrypted and shared from one user to another when someone wants to install a new sticker pack. That way, Signal’s servers never see decrypted stickers or identify the Signal user who created or sent them.

Signal also has plans for a new group messaging system, which would allow group administrators to add and remove participants from a chat without Signal servers ever knowing the group’s members. The foundation partnered with Microsoft Research to invent a novel form of ‘anonymous credentials.’ These allow a server to gatekeep who belongs in a group without ever learning the members’ identities.

But for end-users, it’s just group messaging and it works. For Marlinspike, that’s an important factor. Part of the ability to get an app everywhere is its simplicity to use. If Signal is simple, it’ll make it easy for people to get on board, especially if they don’t know their way around a smartphone as well as others.

Signal is developing a way to securely store contacts on its servers

On top of that, the Signal Foundation is also working on a new feature called ‘secure valley recovery’ that would allow users to create and store an address book on a Signal server instead of syncing the app with the contacts on your phone. This would help keep everything synced when users switch phones, but it would also need to work without Signal’s servers seeing those contacts.

Further, that feature may eventually allow Signal to abandon cellphone numbers, which it currently uses to identify users and allow people to connect. It’s one of the few areas that privacy advocates have criticized. Using phone numbers forces Signal users to hand out their number if they want someone to contact them. Secure value recovery would be the first step in fixing that, Marlinespike told Wired.

All this has contributed to increased growth for Signal. In 2016, Marlinspike told Wired that Signal had two million users. Marlinspike wouldn’t give Wired an exact number in 2020, but on Android, the platform has had over 10 million downloads, according to the Google Play Store. Acton told Wired that another 40 percent of Signal’s users are on iOS.

But there’s still room to grow. Acton told Wired that Signal could grow into a WhatsApp-sized service.

“I’d like for Signal to reach billions of users. I know what it takes to do that. I did that,” Acton told Wired. “I’d love to have it happen in the next five years or less.”

Source: Wired Via: Android Police

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