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Zipline's drone deliveries in Rwanda to increase threefold and provide nationwide instant logistics
Delivery by Drone, Pennsylvania, Zipline
Zipline, the world leader in instant logistics and drone deliveries, announced today a new agreement with the Rwandan government to perform approximately 2 million instant deliveries and fly over 200 million autonomous kilometers in Rwanda by 2029.
Rwanda will triple its delivery volume under the new collaboration by opening up Zipline's drone delivery service to additional government agencies and adding new delivery stations in rural and urban areas around the nation.
In doing so, Rwanda is introducing innovative and ecologically friendly logistics and delivery to the nation, and it will be the first country in the world with the potential to make autonomous immediate deliveries to its whole population.
Zipline's drone deliveries started six years ago with transporting blood, but have now expanded to include pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, nutrition, and animal health goods.
The new collaboration between Zipline and the Rwandan government builds on that foundation to help the country's banking, e-commerce, and tourist businesses.
In fact, any government agency can use Zipline's instant logistics and drone delivery system, including the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, the Rwanda Development Board, Rwanda Medical Supply, and the National Child Development Agency.
"With this new agreement, we will be incorporating Zipline into many aspects of our national operations from providing a reliable healthcare supply chain, to addressing malnutrition, to creating an unforgettable eco-tourism experience. Rwanda is an innovation hub and we're thrilled to be the first country in the world to launch a national drone delivery service," said Clare Akamanzi, Chief Executive Officer of the Rwanda Development Board.
Zipline supplies 75% of the country's blood supply outside of Kigali from its distribution sites in Muhanga and Kayonza.
Because of Zipline's quick drone delivery network, more than 400 hospitals and clinics get blood, medicine, and supplies within minutes of ordering, allowing them to address both routine and emergency medical situations.
In fact, using data from Rwandan public hospitals, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania discovered that Zipline's logistics and delivery system resulted in an 88% decrease in in-hospital maternal fatalities due to postpartum hemorrhage.
Simply said, more mothers are living today as a result of their attendance at a medical institution that uses Zipline's quick delivery network.
"Instant logistics has saved thousands of lives and is solving some of the world's most important problems – hunger and malnutrition, road congestion and environmental pollution, and lack of access to healthcare," said Daniel Marfo, Senior Vice President and Head of Zipline's Africa business and operations. "We are honored to expand our relationship with our first customer to support additional sectors of government and create more impact together."
Using Zipline, the Ministry of Agriculture distributed over 500,000 doses of animal health vaccinations and over 8,000 units of swine semen to veterinarians and farmers this year alone.
Access to animal husbandry goods boosted fertility by 10% among farmers that use Zipline delivery, compared to the national average.
Farmers may breed more pigs with a healthier genetic profile, expand their enterprises, and eventually offer communities with greater protein availability and enhance population health.
Zipline's drone deliveries enjoy a strong track record
Every two minutes, Zipline completes an immediate delivery on behalf of companies and governments on three continents.
Zipline has delivered over 450,000 shipments, 4.5 million goods, and flown over 30 million autonomous kilometers to date. Each trip generates around 30 times fewer CO2 emissions per mile than a typical electric car and up to 98% less CO2 emissions than a combustion engine vehicle, according to industry calculations.
The company's immediate logistics system is utilized internationally to assist the medical, health, and retail sectors, providing blood, vaccinations, COVID supplies, prescriptions, e-commerce and retail goods, food, and health-related products.
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Glendale residents tell Walmart to stop delivery drones: "Do it somewhere else."


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Home / Tech / Toshiba will challenge former executives to court
Toshiba will challenge former executives to court
Tech November 9, 2015 10:45
- Toshiba is challenging five former top officials in court in connection with the accounting scandal at the Japanese technology group. Toshiba requires them to an indemnity the equivalent of 2.3 million euros, the company made known Saturday.
Three of the five defendants are former presidents, including Hisao Tanaka who resigned in July because of the fraud. The other two occupied in the past, the position of Finance Director.
An external study showed in the summer that top officials for years had inflated earnings. That happened in a culture that subordinates were afraid to turn against the trickery of their bosses, the researchers said.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Newly elected EAPB president Mills meets Executive Director of the European Banking Authority, Farkas, in the midst of Brexit.
On June 28, the European Association of Public Banks (EAPB) organised its semestrial General Assembly in Helsinki, Finland. The event was kindly hosted by Municipality Finance PLC.


This free wallpaper includes a man and a penguin, both of whom well-dressed. Seen from their body gesture, the penguin might have been ill. And the man is caring enough to take it in his arms. This free wallpaper perfectly shows their friendship.


Boston is at the cutting edge for a large variety of sectors, from biotech to financial services, and indeed in January 2015, Boston was the biggest city on the East Coast for venture capital, even beating out New York, and behind only San Francisco and San Jose nationally.
The city also has a thriving software development scene, and there are a number of great mobile app dev companies in the area. These include some of the best talent in the country, from skillful start-ups to established professionals in mobility solutions and app development.
Main Activity: The main avenues of activity of the company, such as straight-up coding, UX/UI design, branding and others.
Industry Focus: Previous experience with companies and the sectors in which they operate.
Key Clients: The biggest and best-known clients of the developer, generally large enterprises.
Fuzz needs to be mentioned in any conversation on app development, let alone specifically to Boston. One of the best app agencies in the world, they've worked for top-line clients like L'Oreal Paris and Conde Nast, to name a few. As well as design, development and launch, they also forge long-lasting partnerships with their clients to keep their apps evolving and up to date with the latest tech. Specialising in native apps for both iOS and Android, their focus areas are fitness, mCommerce and mobile payments.
Raiz Labs has two key areas of focus: business solutions, and elegance in providing those solutions. Their client-base is varied, ranging from start ups to some of the largest companies in the world like Virgin and HP. Raiz Labs has 12 years experience in delivering digital products, and given that depth of knowledge they also formulate marketing and development strategy for your application, as well as UX/UI design (40% of their work) and QA testing. With an eye constantly on emerging tech, Raiz Labs have all bases of app development covered.
hedgehoglab defines itself as a technology consultancy, underlining the fact they do more than "just build apps". They have a keen eye for cutting edge technology, and are competent in all mobile platforms including WindowsPhone and Blackberry. They take a humble and thorough approach to their work, but their list of clients does the talking for them: they've worked with large enteprises like the FT and Booths while keeping fifty percent of their business with SMEs.
Zco Corporation has 25 years of experience in developing software, and now half of its total business is mobile app development. From games to media via utilities, social networks and business apps, Zco has done it all, and has worked with a number of large clients like Motorola and Samsung. Their model of development assigns each project a dedicated manager and account executive, and guarantees high levels of privacy and discretion.
Dockyard is a relative newcomer, having been founded in 2012, but they've set a high standard with their apps for the educational, finance, communication and fitness sectors. A small company with under 50 employees, their app development process covers creation, project management and research to create cross-platform applications using the Phoenix language.
Infrared5, as well as developing applications, also provides live media servers, which can be open source, making them a particularly good choice for streaming apps. They've also created a number of proprietary services such as Brass Monkey, which turns mobile phones into game controllers and data visualisation software Sick, as well as teaming up with Lucas Films to create a game of the famous Death Star trench run.
Mojotech has a strong focus on good software engineering, and prides itself in the fact its mobile app developers only work on one project at the time. Their iterative process, called User Stories, gives the app owner a chance to continually assess where the idea is going and how it works, day-by-day, in order to make decisions about how it should proceed. Using Ruby on Rails, Node and Angular, mojotech deliver polished, personalised native apps in both iOS and Android.
Rocket Farm Studios covers a wide variety of sectors with its portfolio, having created a sheet music application for Yamaha, a team management app, games and one for the famous humour site Someecards. They've even created Software Developer Kits for third parties, one of which was bought by Google in 2011. All rounders with competence in iOS, Android and WindowsPhone, their offices are based in central Boston.
Snappii offers two different solutions for mobile applications: they can either build a custom app for you, or supply you with the means to do so yourself. Their codeless DIY platform allows you to create apps for all sorts of uses, with over 26,000 applications delivered in the last four years. Based in Rochester, New Hampshire, they offer a full prototype in 48 hours, for native apps, and will take care of the publishing process themselves.
Snappii offers Guaranteed Apps in 5 Weeks for $5K.
If you're in the Boston area and looking for a mobile app to kick-start your business or resolve problems using a mobile solution, the above list should have the right candidate for you and your project, and we hope your project will see light of day (i.e. the appstore) soon.


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American University in Dubai
Library Services & Facilities
AUD Staff Library Guide
AUD Staff Library Guide: Welcome
This guide provides information to support learning/leisure for the AUD staff members.
New York Times Newspaper
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by using your AUD email.
"The New York Times, morning daily newspaper published in New York City, long the newspaper of record in the United States and one of the world's great newspapers. Its strength is in its editorial excellence; it has never been the largest newspaper in terms of circulation."
Chronicle of Higher Education,The This link opens in a new window
The Chronicle of Higher Education is the No. 1 source of news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty members and administrators. Online, The Chronicle is published every weekday and is the top destination for news, advice, and jobs for people in academe. The Chronicle's website features the complete contents of the latest issue; daily news and advice columns; thousands of current job listings; an archive of previously published content; vibrant discussion forums; and career-building tools such as online CV management, salary databases, and more.
Magazines from all over the world.
PressReader This link opens in a new window
Press Reader contains 1700 newspapers and magazines from 92 countries in 48 languages. A convenient way to read all your favorite newspapers and magazines on the day they are published, on one site, with a simple user interface and easy-to-use navigation tools. Use your tablet/iPad to download, read and browse newspapers and magazines.
Download magazines or newspaper issues on-campus to read off-campus and create an account.
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Oxford Arabic Dictionary
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Find thousands of translations from Arabic into and out of English on the Oxford Dictionaries Premium site, and learn more about Arabic language and culture.
by Systems Librarian Last Updated Jan 23, 2023 4 views this year
Britannica Encyclopedia-School Students
Britannica Academic This link opens in a new window
Encyclopaedia Britannica Online Academic Edition, containing over 73,000 articles, is a comprehensive, convenient, and accurate resource from which one can begin his or her research. Several bonus features are included in this online reference tool: Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary and Thesaurus; thousands of photographs, illustrations, and sound files; complementary Web site hot links; hundreds of relevant videos; hot links from Encyclopaedia Britannica articles to related magazine and journal articles from EBSCO and ProQuest online databases; World Data containing information and customizable charts and tables about nations of the world; over 4,000 Notable Quotations from historical and contemporary important men and women; and Gateway to the Classics, 225 works by 140 significant writers of the Western world.
URL: https://libguides.aud.edu/staff
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Success Education & Training is a well established place of learning that has been delivering vocational training in Computing and Business Administration to generations of families within the Hastings and wider Hawke's Bay region since 1994. We pride ourselves as being known by many as a kura kaupapa that reflects the heart of the people and our community.
The individual education and training of our learners is treated with the utmost importance and learners are provided with a robust yet flexible curriculum and teaching methods that utilize a variety of modes and methodologies, catering for a wide variety of learning styles. Many of our learners are referred to us through family members and friends so we enjoy and promote very close knit relationship between students and staff.
Our learners' pastoral care is second to none and is built on treating every student as part of a school family "Kura Whanau." Our team have a broad and dynamic history and experience working with learners from all around the country and so have wide knowledge and relevant experience in providing our students with an exceptional learning experience through the support "tautoko" each individual needs while with us and beyond.
We have built strong network relationships within our community so helping find our graduates great pathways into further training or employment is another important area we take very seriously. "Our ICT programmes provide fantastic entry level skills into every sector of the employment industry including technology & manufacturing, creative industries, social & community services, construction & infrastructure, service industries and primary industries. In an ever increasing "digital world" if you are considering a career in any area of the employment sector but lack the IT skills required, our programmes can assist you to follow your chosen career pathway. .
Success Education & Training is registered and accredited with the New Zealand Qualifications Authority.
Click here to view our NZQA status and our most recent NZQA audit report.
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Home » Africa » DRC Ebola outbreak increases to 62 cases, 35 deaths
DRC Ebola outbreak increases to 62 cases, 35 deaths
Between 2 and 9 September 2014, there have been 31 more cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), increasing the cumulative number of cases to 62 (14 confirmed, 26 probable, and 22 probable).
Democratic Republic of the Congo/CIA
In total, 35 deaths have been reported (9 confirmed and 26 probable). No deaths have been reported among suspected cases.
Nine health-care workers have been diagnosed with EVD, including 7 deaths. All the cases have been localized in Jeera county. The affected villages are Watsi Kengo, Lokolia, Boende, and Boende Muke. Currently, 9 cases have been hospitalized: 4 in Lokolia; 2 in Watsikengo; 2 in Boende; and 1 in Boende Moke. A total of 386 contacts have been listed and 239 contacts have been followed-up. All cases and contacts are linked to the initial index case reported to the World Health Organization on 26 August 2014.
During a regional meeting between the Ministry of Health of DRC and the Southern African Development Community on the management and prevention of EVD transmission, the following measures were recommended: standardization of the interventions for the prevention of EVD and enhancement of sanitary border control without impeding international traffic.
Contact tracing activities are being carried out by an assigned team with supervision from of a medical epidemiologist and a community worker, and when required, psychologists visit and dialogue with communities. Ongoing sensitization activities to mobilize community leaders are being implemented.
WHO does not recommend any travel or trade restrictions be applied except in cases where individuals have been confirmed or are suspected of being infected with EVD or where individuals have had contact with cases of EVD.
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Note: All Regular AF drops Are the Level 72 Pieces. All -1 Gear are Hands Pieces.
Cjkenji I'll put my name here because there's a 99.99% chance I'm not able to attend. 5th day wait on pc, it's already 1030pst and the person going to drop my pc is still not here.
Bojanglo - wife's birthday party im not going to be able to make it.
Tails - My PS2 exploded about two weeks ago, leaving me with highly limited PC access as well, but I'm getting a new shiny laptop on Saturday :D Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to this one due to updates, but after that I'll be back.
Anzell I might be able to make it, but as of now im feeling deathly ill.
Bale - I have guests coming down around 11 am~ I'm coming for the run and I'll stay as long as I can.
Valin- Will be out of town for the duration of the day.
Thesaintlucifer - have a few personal matters to attend to.


Targeted immunotherapy, such as anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD-1, has proven effective in treating cancer patients. However, despite these advances, cancer remains the second leading cause of death in the US. More effective strategies designed to maximize anti-tumor CD8 T cell responses are necessary to sustain long-term immunity. Agonist anti-OX40 and antagonist anti-CTLA-4 mAb augment the CD8 T cell response through different mechanisms. Therefore, we investigated the additive effects of these modalities on CD8 T cell responses. Combination anti-OX40/anti-CTLA-4 therapy more effectively primed antigen-specific CD8 T cells through enhanced expansion (82% of circulating CD8 T cells) compared to anti-OX40 (61%; P<0.05) or anti-CTLA-4 (41%; P<0.01) alone. Dual therapy also drove expansion of the polyclonal CD8 population. Moreover, combination therapy induced more proliferation (Ki-67) and differentiation (granzyme B, CD127, KLRG-1) following priming, suggesting potent additive effects of these modalities. However, it is known that tumors can induce T cell anergy, thereby limiting an effective anti-tumor response. We tested whether combination therapy could overcome anergy using a mouse model in which mice are tolerant to membrane-bound OVA. Combination anti-OX40/anti-CTLA-4 therapy was uniquely capable of driving robust expansion (12% of total CD8 in the spleen, vs. 2.5% anti-OX40, P<0.05, or 1% anti-CTLA-4, P<0.01) of anergic CD8 T cells, along with enhanced Ki-67 and granzyme B. To further drive expansion of antigen-specific CD8 T cells following therapy, we examined several methods of vaccination using nanoparticles, a Listeria monocytogenes vector, or anti-DEC-205 mAb (all conjugated to OVA) in the presence of anti-CD40. In anergic mice given combination therapy, vaccination with anti-DEC-205-OVA/anti-CD40 produced a 9-fold expansion of OT-I CD8 T cells compared to soluble OVA alone, greater than all other vectors combined. We next tested the efficacy of combination therapy with vaccination on anergy in a spontaneous model of prostate cancer. Combination therapy with vaccination drove expansion (2-fold over monotherapy, P<0.05) and differentiation (granzyme B, KLRG-1, CD25) of both anergic tumor-specific and polyclonal CD8 T cells. Importantly, dual therapy with vaccination enhanced the frequency and number of IFN-γ, TNF-α, and IL-2 producing CD8 T cells. These data indicate that anti-OX40/anti-CTLA-4 combination therapy with vaccination can uniquely augment and drive a robust CD8 T cell response capable of overcoming anergy.


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ASEAN South Asia World
Vietnamese refugees held in Thailand say they fear being forced home
Two Vietnamese refugees held by authorities in Thailand say they fear for their safety after being visited in detention by Vietnamese embassy staff who urged them to return home, where they face charges as political activists.
Nguyen Thi Thuy and Ho Nhut Hung, both members of the civil society Constitution Group promoting freedom of expression and assembly in Vietnam, had fled as refugees to Thailand in September 2018.
Both had taken part in protests against proposed laws on cybersecurity and the granting of Special Economic Zones to foreign investors that rocked major cities across Vietnam four years ago, leading to mass arrests.
Living on expired UN-issued refugee cards in a province north of Bangkok, Thuy and Hung were detained by Thai Royal Police on July 24, 2022, charged with "illegal immigration and residence" and sent to an Immigration Detention Center in the capital.
Speaking to RFA by phone this week, Thuy said that she and Hung were visited in detention in early August by staff from Vietnam's embassy in Bangkok who tried to persuade them to return to Vietnam.
"Surprisingly, they knew my room number and my prison identification number," Thuy said. "They told us they would create the best conditions for our repatriation, and warned us that if we did not agree and waited instead for help from the UN, we would be in trouble."
Both Thuy and Hung refused the embassy's request, she said.
"We told the embassy that we now use UN identification cards instead of Vietnamese passports, and that we would therefore wait until hearing from the UN, even if we have to die here," she said.
In February 2019, UN refugee officials issued cards with ID codes to Thuy and Hung, but the cards expired last year, Thuy said. Restricted by the COVID pandemic from visiting UN offices in person, the pair were told by phone that their cards had been renewed, but they were unable to pick them up and were still using their old cards when they were arrested, she said.
Detainees held at Bangkok's IDC have only intermittent access to water and are served food lacking nutrition, Thuy said. Her cell normally housing up to 60 women is now less crowded, though, as half of the detainees held there have been moved to other facilities, she added.
Social activists in Thailand have raised funds from different sources, including Vietnamese living overseas, to help Thuy and Hung pay around 114,000 baht ($3,233) for bail, fines for illegal immigration, and charges for COVID tests, Thuy said.
Release date uncertain
Two weeks have now passed since Thuy and Hung were detained, but they still don't know when they will be released, and Thuy's calls to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangkok have rung unanswered, she said.
Calls seeking comment on Thuy's and Hung's case from Vietnam's embassy in Thailand received no response this week, but an employee at the UNHCR office in Bangkok said they were aware of the situation and promised to report it to a senior official.
Also speaking to RFA, Nguyen Hoan An — a Vietnamese social activist also living as a refugee in Thailand — said that refugees held in detention are normally freed on the same day their bail is paid.
Detainees cannot be forced home if they refuse requests from their embassy to repatriate, An added. He noted however that Thai police have recently entered rented rooms without a warrant to arrest illegal immigrants, reporting falsely that the arrests took place in the street.
Refugees' requests to UNHCR and law firms for help are often handled slowly or receive no reply, An said.
"We are calling on communities, media groups and especially the organizations responsible for protecting refugees to pay more attention," An said. "We hope that they will take action quickly whenever refugees are arrested or face security risks so that they are not intimidated and extradited back to Vietnam."
In January 2019, RFA blogger Truong Duy Nhat was arrested by Vietnamese police agents in Bangkok and forced back to Vietnam just a day after submitting an application for refugee status to UNHCR. He was later taken to court and sentenced to 10 years in prison for "abusing his official position" in a purchase of real estate under Article 356 of Vietnam's Penal Code.
Translated by Anna Vu for RFA Vietnamese. Written in English by Richard Finney.
'I thought the police would immediately begin an investigation': #MeToo plaintiff
Pain at the pump for Myanmar motorists as fuel shortage sends prices soaring


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In this episode Benji talks to Maria Pergolino, Chief Marketing Officer at ActiveCampaign.
Jobs to be done vs. ICP
Marketing KPIs across multiple channels
The need for focus and iteration
Episode · 5 months ago
Iteration over experimentation, with Maria Pergolino
Conversations from the front lines and marketing. This is B two B growth. Today, on B Two B growth, I'm excited to have Maria Pergolino with me. She's a chief marketing officer at active campaign and we're actually welcoming her back to the show because she's been on three times, back in a couple of times in actually, and then back in, but Maria will welcome to be to be growth for the fourth time. Hi, thank you for having me. It is a pleasure to come back and such a on Oor. B Two B growth is such an important topic and such a good show. Yes, I'm excited to chat today because you in an active campaign. You guys host like a hundred eight thousand plus customers hundred and seventy different countries. So just a lot of moving parts, a lot of strategy that we could talk with you and I think it's fantastic for our B Two b marketers that are listening to this to get to tap into your wealth of wisdom and what you're seeing from your seat. So I will be chatting about a lot of different things today, but what I wanted to start with is you guys are really not just a pure like Sass enterprise marketing right. There's a lot of SMB work. There's this mix of like self serve and sales reps, and so it keeps you on your toes. I think when we were talking in the prep call you said it's a really fun challenge. So so talk to me a bit, Maria, about what you're focused on these days and what active campaign is up to in the world. Yeah, over are about half our businesses outside of the US. You said a D seventy different countries. That is more than McDonald's hosts, you know, in different countries. When you think about a d eighty thousand customers, if we were a pure consumer brand that that might not sound huge, but as we think about a B two B brand, that would be more customers than, I think, what salesforce has ever reported. I think they're last their highest was a hundred and fifty thousand that they ever reported. Now we obvious we are not as large as salesforce and that's because we would have a lower SP average sales price and that is because we served that strong mix of customers which includes smaller businesses. The smaller businesses often closed, but some larger through that self serve channel. But sometimes people want to learn more, they need more details and that goes through a sales rep that creates some awesome lovers right. When you think about marketing, it is when do you want to engage with a customer and when? When is it great for them to and, you know, not talk to somebody in the company? I just recently bought a new piece of fitness software and winning to me was not not getting great help, it was not needing help right and that's why you really want to think about that customer lifecycleism marketer on that self serve piece, but also make sure you have the right materials so your sales team can go deep when somebody needs it. Yeah, what's been the most unique challenge? Just making sure that you have everything they need to be to say that you can like be self serve and really like give people what they need at the right time. Is that a lot of what you're focused on? Yeah, I've been thinking a lot lately about what people come and say they're looking for and what they're really trying to solve, and I don't know that they're always the same thing. I always think back to uh there was a study and well over a decade agore an example that was published in Harvard Business Review. They talked about how people said as they got older they didn't need dining rooms. So all these houses started coming without big dining rooms, but actually it was hard to get them to transition because they didn't want to give up all their furniture. Right. And so what people say they want and what what's actually going to allow them to make that move or sometimes two different things. And I think the same as we think about the challenges that we have. What people you know, they may come...
...to us saying, Hey, we need crm or email marketing, but ultimately it's how do they grow their business? What do they need to help engage better with their customers and helping them with lots of different ways beyond what they originally come to us with. You know, how do we help them automate in a great way and how do we introduce that to them when they that may not be what they originally came to us for? Right? I imagine part of this too, is like with that many people coming to you and that's kind of scale. You can't just typically boil down like use cases into like these nice NEAT I C P. So how do you think of that and, like the customers that you serve? Yeah, I think what you'd call what I just described in that that dining room example, is jobs to be done. What are the jobs that somebody's trying to do? What are they really trying to accomplish and trying to solve for that, I think another way that marketers often talk about her what are the pains that people have and how do we help solve that? In our case it's not necessarily a pain somebody has. It's not a pain to engage with your customers. But how do we help them engage? How do we help them save times they can put more into their business? Uh, and how do we make sure you know, when you're a company that, let's say, is helping build homes or helping, you know, making pizza, whatever that is, you want to spend your time doing that. You don't want to spend it all day sitting behind a computer, you know, thinking about marketing or thinking about your sales. We want to help automate the pieces that are repetitive so that you can, you know, put your touch to those things, have a genuine conversation, but then also spend your time doing the thing that you're going to do best. Yeah, I know your marketing is is a bit unique in that you guys have chosen to take this route of going we're gonna have five main channels and they're pretty evenly dispersed. Walk us through the five, because I think that's a it's an interesting approach. Yeah, so we have, as you said, five sources, the way that we classify our marketing. That would be things that I'm sure every marketer thinks about in some cases and once you may not be thinking about. One is organic, just people that come to you through a Google search or through some type of search engines. That could be a social media search engine. The next is affiliates, people that go out and talk about us. You may think of it as influencer marketing. For us there are those influencers, but also people that are truly consider themselves affiliates and do that as a full time job. Next or agencies, people that are helping implement our services with our customers. Uh. Next would be paid marketing that we do and then finally, we group together those people that come directly to us. It's a little bit of the other bucket, but we call it direct because often the reason we don't have the data is not because our systems are bad. We get the great pleasure of using active campaign for all of our sales and marketing, but it's because they come directly to our website or they come directly to a page that has a free trial, and so we don't know what was behind that. But all of those may sound you may say, Hey, we do all of those wre we do three out of the five of those. But generally speaking those five have each represented, you know, equally in the business, are close to equally, and we've been able to use them almost like dial so is one, you know because of Covid, because of the changing macroeconomics. You know, do we want to dial one up or dial one down? And that's been really exciting. Yeah, take me a layer deeper on that, because I had the five always been around since you came on as CMO. It was this something that you brought in as as a plan? Like how have you guys build the business around this form of marketing in these five, five channels? Yeah, the CEO is definitely a visionary and he saw these channels is when he was starting the business. I think very similarly, he saw how important international was and thought about localization in our product very early on,...
...and so I think just you know, if anybody's on here that is a Solo Preneur, an entrepreneur. You know, the company is a twenty year old company and the CEO saw spent the first well over a decade until two thousand and sixteen, really learning the industry. He had an on premise solution and took all those learnings, which not only on the product but also on the go to market side, and really build an amazing model that we bring forward today. We continue to add to it and test new things and some of those channels have changed radically, for example digital marketing. Of course there's been PPC for a very long time, but Kudos to Google. They have figured out how to monetize every single piece of it. What worked years ago does not necessarily work today, and so there's definitely it's not just a carry forward. What has been interesting from my side is that one they can counterbalance to each other. So you know, we're right now, as as you and I are on this call. It's August and we see some countries may have more vacation or not be doing business the same way we see some of our agency partners that may not be selling as much this month but will have really strong business in September. The flip of that is we can then increase paid or we can roll out some organic campaigns to counter that. And so really we've been able to learn a lot about each of the channels and use the the opposite, you know, the other channels, to create some even flow for our teams, which is pretty amazing. When I look at those five, I think especially the affiliate and like marketing has evolved so much in the last five years. I mean they all have developed in their own right, but that's the one that's really standing out to me, and maybe it's because we're talking about about it. Around B two B growth and around sweet fish. How has your thinking evolved there? What are you guys doing strategically that maybe we could learn from? Mr Scifically, when it comes to affiliate marketing, yeah, I think that. What I say about affiliate marketing is that you can definitely programatize some of your affiliate marketing. You go to our website, it tells you what a great value it is to be an affiliate for us. We highlight the fact that our average affiliate makes over a thousand dollars for bringing a customer to us. That's not insignificant. I can think of another company in a similar space and I think they say that that it's like fifty some dollars. So there's we're definitely marketing the program. But I think beyond that, you know we just brought on a new president, but this has always been the case for our CEO that the customer really has to take that center stage. I know every company says their customer centric, but being customer centric is is not just saying, and you know that you're you support the customer and doing customer calls. It's really using data, using all the information you have about your customers to continue to engage with those customers, bring them success so they'll continue to talk to you. And I think that because we have such a large customer set for a B Two B business, it allows us to look at data in interesting ways and then we do carry that, you know, desire to have great customer conversations. One thing that I'm really proud of for this company, that our CEO personally drives is that when we get together as a company, when we do what some people might call on all hands or a company update. Every part of that has customer stories, customers talking through it. I don't think we've had, I mean in years, one that didn't have three, four or five customers is a part of that session. We do calls, I think twice a month where anybody in the company can join to listen to customers give feedback uh, and sometimes that's to the positive and new features. Sometimes that's the negative because they've chosen other path. Because I think it's easy to say we'll talk to customers, but sometimes people learning jobs that you can talk to a customer. You just don't know how are you feel uncomfortable with picking up the phone. The...
...other thing I'd say for the marketing team is we have so we give every one of our employees an active campaign account and I think we have three or four, maybe five marketers on the team that are using active campaign to help support side businesses. But that brings product knowledge, that brings a customer into almost every one of our meetings and so that customer piece ties to that affiliate, because so many of our affiliates or influencers are just customers that are carrying that forward and say hey, wait a second. Not only can I use this great tool, but it's gonna pay for itself, not only because it's great software, but because they're gonna pay me to share this with our my friends. And so when you log into the platform, there's a little heart and there's a referral program with that and if you do a couple, we reach out to you and we try to bring you into a more structured affiliate program. Hell, love that. Yeah, thanks for breaking that down. I think that's an easy way. You can go really deep into that, but you want to create those passionate advocates. We all want that right for our brand, and so I wanted to hear like the unique ways you're doing that. And I love also that you're empowering your people with their side businesses, because the more that they know and the more that they use that product, they're like you. Just you want your marketing team to be in it right, not just like trying to promo and make the brand look shiny, but actually like actively using it. So that's that's great. One thing you had mentioned, and you've brought up your CEO a couple of times, but you've also talked about how there's a d n a of mobility and optionality that he brought to the table and that's something that's infused into the team as a whole. But that's also playing out in your marketing with having these five channels. I wonder how, like how has the CEO infused those things, optionality, mobility, and when you're at such scale, like how do you continue to be somewhat nimble in your approach right, because that's I think that's something that a lot of people look at big companies and they go and it's it's hard to steer the ship in a sense, and and and sort of fast movement. Yeah, I'm going to just make a couple of statements kind of to that. Maybe not all connected, but they come to mind. One is that it is imperative. One thing that is unique about me, and I didn't here a lot about myself, but I have specifically helped companies and all the calls I've been on have with you before have been around, have been for companies where we were trying to grow from a hundred million to I. P O or tow that larger company, and I think one of the things that happens that is that can be really dangerous as you try to build in scales. So the way I think about it kind of, you know, when your company is really small, you're thinking about product fit. Once you get that product fit, you're really trying to come up with what are the paths to success, kind of what we talked about at active campaign, you know those on the marketing side of those five channels right that that's been happening. So let's say up to ten million you're doing or twenty million you're doing product fit. Twenty million to that whatever eighty million you're figuring out in each of the t is what works. It's not necessarily scaled, but you're coming up with what is special about the organization. And then you get to this point where you have to figure out how to scale it up, and I end up specializing with that scale. Uh, and so I think my job is to bring that vision that the CEO and, uh now our new president are looking for, you know, to in a bigger way and scaled. But one of the most dangerous things that happen is a team. You bring a team on and they see what what great looks like at a ten thousand, uh twenty thousand and fifty thousand person company when we're a thousand people. And I think the people think scale is getting all the systems in place so you can be that twenty thousand person company. But that can sink a company because it's so costly to operate if you're a thousand person company, to operate as if you're a twenty person company. That's a wealthy you really have to continue to bring some of that scrappiness and you have to make sure that you may see what is down the road, but pick and choose. One...
...of the things, and I keep mentioning our CEO, but again a true visionary Jason, he has brought to our annual planning process is not just what is the plan, but what are we admitting? What are we not going to do? And that's been really important because even though it's a good idea, that doesn't mean it has to be the idea for today. We may have ten years and you may want to choose to do that in your eight and so I think I think that has been really critical for that scale. Continuing to we I've mentioned, we've added a president of the Organization, Samir, who Causey, who is really added to I don't think brought a different view. He's brought complementary views. I think one of the things he's really talked about is how do you flatten the organization? How do you make it that you're not so, as a leader, distant from the team that you don't really understand what's going on? And and I've really found great power in that and really heard him in that because, if you know, nobody wants to be at a company where it feels like like it's disconnected. So I think that's powerful. So there's there's these things that come together and it's again not not in what is going to be perfect, but what is right for the company today and sets up scale for down the road. Yeah, it's interesting. You mentioned scrappiness there and I know you also are very opinionated on iteration over experimentation, and I want to talk about that for a second because sometimes when people think of scrappy they might think, well, we just were constantly experimenting, trying new things. But you'd actually say, okay, maybe that's not the smartest way, maybe not just like all this random business work. Right. So I do think, and this maybe it will be the most provocative thing I say, I am not a fan of like fail fast or like where people say, Hey, it's it's okay to to try something and fail. I think it's marketers. We have so much data available to us and we have so many other marketers who are happy to share that we can really make very good, educated guesses and we can like sometimes somebody'll say, hey, we tried webinars and they don't work. Well, that's how. How? What you mean? They don't work that don't find someone who's good at it right. You can from let's. You know, we're talking on a podcast right now. Somebody will say, Oh, podcast, we tested it didn't work, and I think that you can make anything work, but you can't make everything work, and I think often when something fails it's because you're not putting everything into it. Instead, what I'd say is, like, choose something and come with a plan to do it in an amazing way and outdo everybody else in it. And that's where then that iteration comes in, because you've we we talked about the emissions. Be Okay with the things you're not going to do. So maybe if you're doing a podcast, don't do webinars. You're not gonna be to maybe do both great. So choose one that you're going to do great and then really do it well and continue to iterate on it and get it too better and get it too better and make that work. And so less of they fail fast, but really infused the things. Uh, you know, put the energy to where something you know, you think can have juice. Now. If that really isn't working, don't, don't just, you know, live by it and and let's not they continue on. That's that's not going to be a success. But I think a lot of times we give up on things too soon or we will just be trying everything and and that's a great path to inefficiency. It's interesting because in some B two B companies it seems like there's this old way of doing marketing that they're like stuck in and it kind of gives b two B like that. B Two B is boring branding, right, like B two beanies. Look, we we have all those fun conversations. So in a sense it's like they're not trying any of the things and then when they go to try it's like, well, we have a presence on all these different platforms. And I put that in quotes because their present this is...
...like a random post on all the platforms because they think they have to post something across all of them. You're advocating for hey, pick one, get really good at it and then maybe go on to the next one. Right, yeah, and and that doesn't mean so, let's say, let's say we are talking about different platforms. If you do a Webinar and you take a clip of that and put that on a tiktok account and don't have a full effort into Tiktok, like maybe that's just fine. It was five minutes and maybe your first thirty videos get very little traffic, but it may build up a base and and maybe there's something to their algorithm. We're having some time and some volume on the platform helps and just be okay with them doing that like quick five minute posts and then when you're ready, it's okay that like then really go at it right, like it's Um. So when I say all or nothing, it doesn't mean like do not log into it, do not touch it, but I think it goes less about the channels that way, but more like, you know, we we talked about affiliate programs or influence ers. Like if you say, Hey, you know what we're not doing an affiliate program. I heard Marina talk about it. We're just gonna go do it and we're gonna test it out. If nobody on your team has experience in that, if you're learning it from scratch one, that's a very inefficient way to try to do marketing. Now you're paying somebody to learn something where there's probably experts like. What I'd say is, if that's what you really decide to do, go get an expert, somebody who has experienced with it. Have them teach your organization. Maybe there's somebody you hire, maybe it's a consultancy, and then you know, task them for not letting it fail. Not Hey, let me find somebody. We don't have experience doing it, we don't know how to measure it, because that is definitely a path to inefficiency or or not being successful. Yeah, yeah, I think of our our journey, even with the channels that we really focus on, and we took a bit of like a an approach of okay, we're gonna be on these few channels and we just once we knew that most of our success was coming from linkedin. As far as organic organically, we just double down there instead of staying so spread and we've added experimentation in a channel like a tiktok. But knowing, like where you're seeing success and allowing yourself to really, like be there long enough to iterate and find more success right and I actually create that is so important. So I like, I appreciate how you broke that down. I wonder, as we're kind of coming to the end of our time together, Maria, like coming out of this conversation. We've talked about iteration, we've talked a bit about creating this sort of like DNA in your company, that is about optionality, about mobility. We talked about the five channels. But if, if there's a marketer listening and they're going, okay, coming out of this conversation with Benji and Maria, I'm gonna go back to my job tomorrow and this is something I can do differently. This is maybe a question I can ask myself for something I can be thinking about that makes me a better marketer. What would you say to that person that's listening right now? Oh, that is so good. I wonder if in our prep I gave an answer there. I'm trying to remember if I, uh, if if I had something there. I mean, I I really think that prioritization is you know, a lot of what we're hearing is we're talking about iteration as we're choosing what's going to be successful, as we talked about emissions. The theme that is running through that is prioritization, and I am relentless to my with my prioritization. I start the day knowing what I want to accomplish, and that doesn't mean it always goes perfectly and that doesn't mean that I'm not going to pivot, but I know I always start with this is what I want to get done, and that normally ties to what I state that I want to get done for the week. And I am UN yielding there to the point where that that means that I don't get to email, if I don't get to slack, if somebody you know, sometimes I will let things go unheard. My email box is definitely not my to do list, and that is so much so that you can find people in Lincoln talking about me taking that approach, because if email...
...me and it's not on the topic that I'm working on, that it is not doing the right thing for the company to spend my time on that and that doesn't mean that it's okay to be totally unresponsive or anything like that, but I do think that when people say they're good at prioritization, they you just have to be even better, because it's really easy to get distracted, and it is. You know, I always say that you have to do something exceptional to get an exceptional response. And the one thing I can say about the companies that I've worked with they have you know, people say, Ah, you really pick great companies, and and I do pick companies that have good market opportunities, which helps, but then you have to do something special. You have to do something exceptional to have that, to have that outside growth. And UH, the only way to do something exceptional is either to work twenty four hours a day, have everybody do that, which is not sustainable, or to really prioritize. So I would really encourage every market or too to really think about how they're spending their time and if it makes a difference. And you know, not everything has to be done to a percent, not every check has to you know, checkbox has to be checked, and that's where I see that going wrong. Is, you know, we want to get our data perfect, but really if it's at eight percent, maybe that's good enough too and allows us to work on something else. And I don't know as much as people can think about that. I think it's useful. I love that as the answer. I gotta tell you we've been doing original research for B two be growth and having these discussions, and so we we interviewed a hundred marketing leaders last year and actually just in the last few weeks we released an episode as like tackling this question of what's your marketing team's biggest struggle, and the answer we saw by far was focus. And so having that, wherewithal right to go. Here's the main things. This is what we're focused on from the top down. For you as a CMO and flowing all the way through your team is absolutely vital and speaks to what we're seeing as a larger trend within B two B marketers going yeah, I gotta learn to focus, and so that's our homework. Continues to be a drumword beating at B two B growth, and Maria did it without even knowing, probably because she's been on the show before. So I really appreciate that. This has been a fantastic conversation. There's gonna be listeners that are new and want to be able to stay connected to you. What's the best way for them to do that and then maybe plug active campaign as well and how people can can stay connected there. Yeah, active campaign is an amazing company. It's what we use to run our own marketing and our our success is one that to be proud of, right and so we help companies with what we call customer experience, but really what we're doing is integrating email marketing, marketing automation crm so that you have all of the automation tools you need to build great relationships. I think you know an example that I would say. It's like you're when you get in order or you have a customer reach out. You should have visibility into that and your marketing campaign should keep that in mind. And right now our systems are so siloed often that that is impossible to do and you're really not creating a great customer experience. So active campaign, as you're trying to bring your marketing to the next place and and really want to think about customer experience, we are excited to talk to you about that. I don't remember the other Oh, and to get in touch with me, either to talk about active campaign or to answer any questions or learn more. On almost every social channel you can find me as inbound marketer, I N B o n d inbound marketer on twitter, instagram, all of those. UH excited to talk to everybody, excited to connect. Absolutely well, Maria, it has been an absolute pleasure and for everyone listening. If this is the first time that you're tuning in and you haven't followed the show yet, we're having conversations like this consistently because we want to continue to improve. So follow the show. You can chat with me about this episode...
...or anything you're learning and marketing over on Linkedin. We'd love to hear from you and I keep doing work that matters. Maria, thanks for being here. Thank you. Thank you so much. We're always excited to have conversations with leaders on the front lines of marketing. If there's a marketing director or a chief marketing officer that you think we need to have on the show, reach out email me, Benji dot block at Sweet Fish Media Dot Com. I look forward to hearing from you.
Episode 1763 · 4 months ago
The 10 Mistakes Orgs Make with Thought Leadership Marketing, with Bill Sherman
In this replay episode, Dan Sanchez talks with Bill Sherman who is the COO of Thought Leadership Leverage.
Here are the mistakes discussed:
Lack of a clear exec champion
The new Head of Thought Leadership is unclear on their role / goals.
The new Head of TL feels the new role is not a promotion ("being sent to Siberia")
The Head of Thought Leadership doesn't understand the business strategy and goals.
Other departments get into turf wars over activities ("we do Thought Leadership too!")
The Head of Thought Leadership tries to do it all -- instead, the Head of TL should *curate* Thought Leadership
The Head of Thought Leadership doesn't build allies in other departments
Thought Leadership is seen as something by/for the elite (only the CEO).
The org gets impatient for results.
The org tries to measure success by the wrong standards (e.g. content marketing)
Becoming the Best Marketer You Can Be, with Nick Bennett
In this episode Benji talks to Nick Bennett, Director of Evangelism & Customer Marketing at Alyce.
Why ABM is misunderstood and wrongly used
How to use content to scale your career
The importance of having a strong POV
Your Content Delivery Isn't as Good as You Think It Is, with Caitlin Ridge
In this replay episode, Timmy Bauer talks with Caitlin Ridge, Director of Strategic Communications at Formation, about why your content distribution and delivery isn't quite as great as you think it is.
The Most Over-Rated Trend in B2B Marketing | Original Research
We spoke with 100 marketing leaders and asked "What's the most overrated trend in B2B marketing?" In this roundtable discussion Benji, James, and Dan, break down the findings.
The pendulum in marketing channels and mediums
ABM as more than a buzzword
Why creating content with your ideal client is a game-changer


text:
Jewish Agency aliya director leaves the agency
By Haviv Rettig Gur
The director-general of the Jewish Agency's Aliya Department will be leaving agency in the coming weeks, it was announced on Sunday, and will be temporarily replaced by the agency's deputy director general, Eli Cohen. "The Jewish Agency thanks [Salomon] for his contribution to the organization and wishes him great success in the future," read a statement. According to sources familiar with the change, the move may be the result of frustration on the part of Salomon and other agency officials over the lack of a breakthrough in aliya from the West, which has held relatively steady over the last few years as aliya from other parts of the world declines. The move may also be due to reported frustration at various plans circulating to merge the Jewish Agency's four departments into two. Salomon could not be reached for comment by press time.


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