The main goal of this guide is not a comprehended tutorial on picking or choosing the best arrows for recurve bows. Rather, this serves as a comprehensive guide for people like you who are looking forward to using archery as an outdoor or recreational activity. You could spend so many days searching for the best and most appropriate arrows for your recurve and without a thorough knowledge regarding these stuffs you would only find yourself even more confused than you were from the start. With this review, you will be able to discover what particular type or brand of recurve arrows play well in the market today.
2 What is a Recurve Arrow?
What is a Recurve Arrow?
Based from the name itself, one can easily point out the meaning of a recurve arrow. Simply put, this is an arrow which is specifically used when using a recurve bow. A recurve bow is a kind of bow that has limbs that typically curve away from the archer when unstrung. This kind of bow also stores more energy and delivers energy in a more efficient manner compared to a straight-limbed bow. As such, a greater amount of speed and energy is provided to the arrow.
There are some differences that you can find out between a hunting arrow and target arrow shaft. However, the most significant difference is the arrow's total weight. Suffice it to say, the heavier the weight of an arrow shaft, the deeper its penetration would be on the target. However, a heavier arrow shaft tends to lose its velocity faster due to higher kinetic energy involved.
If you are practicing to target, much deeper penetration is not necessary as you only look forward to piercing some cardboard or compressed foam. But if you wish to go hunting using a recurve bow, your arrows require deep penetration as your shooting should be able to go through thick layers of muscles and fat and even bones.
As you look around the market, you will be delighted to see a plethora of arrows which are specifically made for recurve bows. However, the sea of choices may seem to make you feel overwhelmed especially when each product claims to be the best. And as you continue with your search, you will realize that as far as recurve arrows are concerned, the following things prove to be very important: fletching length, materials, arrow weight, different nock points, diameter, and many others.
Without the need to spend countless hours researching and looking for this subject, here is a comprehensive review of the three most popular arrows for a recurve bow on the market today. At the end of this review, you can get to your feet real quick with some good, quality, universal and reliable arrows.
These arrows are considered to be universal and versatile because they can be used for your traditional bow, long bow or recurve bow. They are also excellent choices when you are target-practicing or going out in the outdoors to hunt.
As for the measurement of the arrows, each arrow comes with a length of 80 centimeters or 31.5 inches, a shaft diameter of 0.8 centimeter or 5/16 inch and a spine of 450. Black Archery 31″ Carbon Fiber Hunting/Targeting Arrows fletch with 2 red, 1 black and 5-inch peltate shape genuine feathers.
Each arrow comes with a 100-grain nickel-plated stainless steel bullet tip which is perfect for targeting or hunting practices. Every arrow weighs 30 grams, making it as an excellent choice for both targeting and hunting. These arrows perform with excellence, rendering low hand shock with a good sense of speed at the same time.
And as far as durability is concerned, these arrows are extraordinary you can rely on them for extended use.
Another name that rings the bell of bow shooting enthusiasts is the 30'' Inch Carbon Arrow Fletched. Arrows are more consistent with their thick walls. The shafts are made of composite carbon so you can rely on them in terms of longevity and durability. Thus, you will no longer have to keep on buying arrows for your recurve should your formers ones become easily damaged.
The arrows are matched with a 100-grain point with field points and fletching nocks as well. All of this contributes to the ability of the arrows to render maximum accuracy, deep penetration and a great sense of durability.
Not sure about field points and nocks? A field point refers to the tip of the arrow. On the other hand, a nock is commonly attached to the arrow, next to the fletching. Screw tip arrows are of top quality, featuring a black carbon shaft, plastic vanes and an extra hard steel target point. Indeed, these arrows are a perfect choice for bowhunting, targeting and archery practice.
Emerging as one of the most popular recurve bow arrows on the market today is the M.A.K Carbon Outdoor Archery Practice Hunting Arrows. These arrows are solid in composition and are well-made, infused with precision pure carbon made for extended durability and long lasting target practice that you can always count on.
The high-tech carbon material construction manages dynamic spine in a new way, making broadheads fly better and shoot in a more consistent manner. These arrows are thoroughly checked in terms of their straightness accuracy, boasting of a remarkable 1/10,000 inch per arrow.
The M.A.K Carbon Outdoor Archery Practice Hunting Arrows also come with colored plastic fletching that makes flights always pointed at the right way and to the right direction. The tips are nickel-plated stainless steel, making these arrows a perfect choice for target practice and outdoor shooting.
The fletching, nocks, and head of the arrows are replaceable and replacements also come for free. Since the nocks are not fixed with glue, rest assured that they can be adjusted depending on the kind of bow you are using.
M.A.K Carbon Outdoor Archery Practice Hunting Arrows are not advisable for shooting any hard substance or concrete walls as this can damage the arrows. It is also highly advised that the right kind of bow should be used. You should also remember that shooting from a bow with a draw weight above recommended value may damage both the arrows and your bow. Always make use of an arrow rest to protect the bow from being damaged by the arrow.
While there are many names that claim to have the best arrows for recurve bows, the three products in this review prove to be an excellent guide that will lead you to the one that is simply made best for you.


text:
Rural Hub
Managing Estates & Land
Forestry & Woodland
Client Accounting & Taxation
Managing Rural Housing
Estates & Farms Agency
Estates Development & Planning
Visit the Strutt & Parker people finder to search for contacts.
Strutt & Parker has over 60 offices across the UK.
Visit the main Strutt & Parker website to read about all our specialisms.
BNP Paribas is our parent company.
Talk to us Search
Sustainable Farming Incentive scheme – What do we know?
Basic Payment Scheme
Defra is planning to introduce a new temporary scheme to bridge the gap until the new Environmental Land Management (ELM) system is fully working in late 2024.
The Sustainable Farming Incentive (SFI) scheme is being billed as a 'stepping stone' to support farm incomes and encourage more farmers to change to soil- and wildlife-friendly practices during the crucial 2021-2024 transition period, when Basic Payments start to fall, but ELM is not yet available.
No details of the new scheme have been published, but it is understood that the SFI could start in in 2022 and would be available to all farmers who currently received BPS payments.
It could be a package of actions Defra wants farmers to take which are over and above the regulatory minimum and as a 'building block' to better management.
This would help the government to make progress on its environmental commitments, including the need to move towards net zero greenhouse emissions, ahead of ELM being available to everyone.
The idea of an interim scheme is new, but a Sustainable Farming Incentive was first mentioned by Defra secretary George Eustice in his keynote speech to the NFU Conference in February 2020.
Talking about his vision for ELM, he said he envisaged three tiers, the first being "a sustainable farming incentive which will be open to any farmer and will incentivise participation in farm level measures such as integrated pest management, sensitive hedgerow management and soil health."
This suggests that the SFI could effectively be making elements of Tier 1 of ELM available earlier than Tiers 2 and 3.
It is believed that the payment rates could be similar to Countryside Stewardship rates and the scheme would be voluntary, not mandatory, simple and short term.
Mr Eustice has promised that a document outlining Defra's plans, which will describe the transition process in more detail, including what its new productivity grants could look like, will be published in the next month or two.
Defra has previously said the Countryside Stewardship Scheme will be available until 2023, for agreements starting on 1 January 2024, but the SFI may be appealing to farmers who are unwilling to sign up to a full CSS agreement ahead of ELMS being rolled out.
Future farming funding gap explained
However, while the Sustainable Farming Incentive is a welcome stepping stone during the transition period, for individual farmers it is unlikely to fill the financial gap left by the phasing out of Basic Payments.
Strutt & Parker first identified the challenge facing the sector due to the change from the current Common Agricultural Policy-based support system to ELMS in June 2019. We called it the 'future farming funding gap'.
Farmers are likely to earn significantly lower profits from environmental schemes, which typically generate 10-20% profit, than the current system of Basic Payments, which generates 80-90% profits per pound of subsidy.
Even using optimistic assumptions about farms increasing productivity and receiving higher payment levels under ELMS, our analysis identified the potential for a significant fall in farm profits for average and low performing farms by 2028, which is when Basic Payments are fully phased out and replaced by the ELM system.
The top 25% performing farmers are much less affected, as they are less reliant on Basic Payments and the cut is largely negated by increases in farm productivity and higher agri-environment payments.
This highlights the importance of farms doing everything they can to be as efficient as possible, to get themselves into the top 25% of performers. This will involve taking steps to improve productivity, looking at ways to maximise income sources away from mainstream farming and tapping into payments from agri-environment schemes.
We will need the best farmers in terms of crop and livestock production and also conservation of the environment if the industry is going to become more productive, while also contributing to reversing declines in biodiversity and mitigating against climate change.
Alternatively, some farmers may choose instead to pass the management of their land to others, for example, options like contract farming agreements could become increasingly popular allowing the farmer to stay involved in decision making, while the land is physically farmed by efficient contractors.
Strutt & Parker has produced a calculator to assess the effect of the proposed changes on net profits, allowing for three sets of scenarios. A member of the farming team can run any business through the scenarios, free of charge.
Head of Rural
Send a message to James Farrell
BPS calculators to help farmers plan for 2020-2028 subsidy changes
UPDATED TO INCLUDE DEFRA'S AGRICULTURAL TRANSITION PLAN ANNOUNCEMENT ON 30 NOVEMBER 2020 The government has provide more details of Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) direct payments will be phased out in England starting in 2021. Many farmers wish to assess what effect it will have on their farm business profits. Our Farming Department has produced two […]
The Path to Sustainable Farming: Six things you need to know
DEFRA has published further details of how it plans to implement the Agriculture Act in England from 2021 onwards. The document, The Path to Sustainable Farming: An Agricultural Transition Plan 2021 to 2024, sets out how Basic Payments will be reduced over the next four years and outlines how the new Environmental Land Management (ELM) […]
Agriculture Act 2020 – a new era in farm and rural policy
The passing of the Agriculture Act 2020 on 11 November 2020 was a significant moment, firing the starting gun on the introduction of a whole new agricultural policy regime for farmers and landowners. There will be many people in the sector who are too young to remember life before the EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) […]
Environment Land Management System (ELMS) – is it on track?
The Environment Land Management System (ELMS) will form the basis of agricultural policy in England, replacing direct payments made through the Basic Payment Scheme (BPS) with an environmental scheme paying public money for public goods. Work on the design of ELMS is well under way, and involves a process of Pioneers, tests and trials and […]
We are using cookies to improve your experience. By continuing to use this website, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyse site usage, and tailor content to your interests, in accordance with our Cookie Policy. accept
Want to talk to us about our rural specialisms? Send us a message and we will make sure it gets to the right person.
Name* Please write your name
Email* Please write a correct email address
Please write a message
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. I accept the privacy policy By providing this information to Strutt & Parker, a trading style of BNP Paribas Real Estate, you agree that BNP Paribas Real Estate may handle the information as set out in their Terms of use and Privacy Policy.
Read more about our data protection policy
Whenever you visit our website and/or use its features such as web forms, BNP Paribas Real Estate processes information about you such as personal identifying data including contact details for the purpose of processing the requests that are sent to us via the website, and, in some cases, for marketing purposes including by using cookies. Such information constitutes "personal data".
For more information about how BNP Paribas Real Estate is processing your personal data in this context and an explanation of your rights (including a right of access, rectification and objection to direct marketing as well as, in certain circumstances, a right of erasure, restriction of processing, data portability and a right to object to other forms of processing) and BNP Paribas Real Estate's obligations in that respect, please consult our data protection page and our cookie policy
Sign up to be notified when we launch new publications so you're always ahead of the research.
Send me updates about
All articles All publications Managing Estates & Land Farming Forestry & Woodland Viticulture Client Accounting & Taxation Managing Rural Housing Rural Connectivity Estates & Farms Agency Estates Development & Planning Future Trends Research Environmental
Please tick a box
I accept the privacy policy By providing this information to Strutt & Parker, a trading style of BNP Paribas Real Estate, you agree that BNP Paribas Real Estate may handle the information as set out in their Terms of use and Privacy Policy.
www.struttandparker.com
© Strutt & Parker 2019
Privacy/Cookie Policy © Strutt & Parker 2019 www.struttandparker.com Terms and Conditions

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Dressage wins award@14th International Oriental Film Festival of Geneva
Dressage directed by pooya Badkoobeh has won *GOLDEN FIFOG* Best Film Award at the 14th International Oriental Film Festival of Geneva (FIFOG).
We are delighted for director Pooya Badkoobeh and his success with the film 'Dressage' at the 14th International Oriental Film Festival of Geneva (FIFOG)
Congratulations also to all those involved in the production.
14th International Oriental Film Festival of Geneva (FIFOG), Switzerland
http://www.fifog.com
African Violet wins award@25th Vesoul IFF of Asian Cinemas, France
African Violet, directed by Mona Zandi, has won two awards at the 25th Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas, France.
*Winner of: *Audience Award* (ex aequo)
*Winner of: *High School Student Jury Award*
Congratulations to Mona Zandi and all involved in the production.
25th Vesoul International Film Festival of Asian Cinemas, France
February 5-12, 2019.
www.cinemas-asie.com
Hendi and Hormoz wins award @15th Transsaharien Zagora IFF, Morocco
Hendi and Hormoz, directed by Abbas Amini, has won three awards at the 15th Transsaharien Zagora International Film Festival, Morocco.
*Winner of: *Best Screenplay* Award
*Winner of: *Jury's Special Mention* for *Best New Acting Talent* Hamed Alipour
*Winner of: *Critics Award* for *Best Film*
Congratulations to Abbas Amini, Hossein Farrokhzadeh, Hamed Alipour and all involved in the production.
15th Transsaharien Zagora International Film Festival, Morocco.
December 13-18, 2018.
https://www.facebook.com/FestivalFilmTranssaharienZagora/
Two Films Gain Three Nominations at the 12th APSA
DreamLab is proud to announce that two of its films have received three nominations for the 12th Asia Pacific Screen Awards:
*- Tale of The Sea: 'Bahman Farmanara', nominated for 'Best Performance By An Actor'
*- Bomb, A Love Story: 'Eléni Karaïndrou', nominated for 'Best Original Film Score'
*- Bomb, A Love Story: 'Payman Maadi' nominated for 'Best Screenplay'
We wish all three nominees the very best of success.
The APSA Ceremony will be held on Thursday, November 29, 2018 in Brisbane, Australia.
www.asiapacificscreenawards.com
MAKI wins award at the 6th Chelsea IFF, New York
MAKI directed by Naghmeh Shirkhan has won 'Best Director' Award at the 6th Chelsea International Film Festival, New York, USA.
Congratulations to Naghmeh Shirkhan and all involved in the production.
MAKI: Film Review
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/maki-review-1153627
Chelsea International Film Festival, New York, USA.
October 18-21, 2018.
www.chelseafilm.org
MAKI@Chelsea International Film Festival, New York
MAKI directed by Naghmeh Shirkhan in competition section at the 6th Chelsea International Film Festival, New York, USA.
Screening schedule:
Friday, October 19, 2018 at 9 pm ¦ AMC Loews 34th St.
6th Chelsea International Film Festival, New York, USA
Bomb, A Love Story & Eléni KARAÏNDROU's Nomination for Best Original Score
BOMB, A LOVE STORY directed by Payman Maadi has been nominated for the 12th Asia Pacific Screen Award, for Best Original Film Score.
Expanding the award categories to acknowledge the integral role of music to the filmmaking process, APSA honored the following composers with a nomination for the first APSA for Best Original Score:
Eléni Karaïndrou for Bomb, A Love Story / Bomb, Yek Asheghaneh (Iran)
Harry Gregson-Williams for Breath (Australia)
Hildur Guðnadóttir, Jóhann Jóhannsson for Mary Magdalene (Australia, United Kingdom)
Ryan Cayabyab for The Portrait (Ang Larawan) (Philippines)
Omar Fadel for Yomeddine (Egypt)
Hendi and Hormoz & Dressage@37th Vancouver IFF
'Hendi and Hormoz' directed by 'Abbas Amini' and 'Dressage' directed by 'Pooya Badkoobeh' in Panorama/World cinema series at the 37th Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada.
Tuesday, October 9, 2018 at 1:45 pm ¦ International Village 10
Thursday, October 11, 2018 at 9:45 pm ¦ International Village 10
Wednesday, October 3, 2018 at 6:30 pm ¦ International Village 9
Friday, October 5, 2018 at 2:00 pm ¦ International Village 10
37th Vancouver International Film Festival, Canada.
September 27 – October 12, 2018.
www.viff.org
Dressage wins 'GOLDEN GAZELLE' Award@7th Persian IFF
Dressage directed by Pooya Badkoobeh has won *GOLDEN GAZELLE* Award for the *Best Film* at the 7th Persian International Film Festival, Australia.
We are delighted for Pooya Badkoobeh and his success with the film 'Dressage'.
7th Persian International Film Festival, Sydney, Melbourne, Australia.
Sydney: August 30 – September 2, 2018
Melbourne: September 6 – 9, 2018
http://www.persianfilmfestival.com
Continuing Success of DRESSAGE
Since its triumph in Generation 14+ section at the Berlinale 2018, 'Dressage' has gone on to win the *Best Actress* Award in 'Asia New Talent' section at the 21st Shanghai International Film Festival, China, 2018.
We are truly delighted for Negar Moghaddam, the director Pooya Badkoobeh and the international success of 'Dressage'.
21st Shanghai International Film Festival, China.
June 16 – 25, 2018.
http://www.siff.com/
http://www.siff.com/a/2018-07-12/2917.html


Site servicing – All aspects covered starting from excavation and backfill of the building, to install of water, storm and sanitary services, to final install of concrete curbs and asphalt paving.
We also pride ourselves in guiding customers through their site and drainage plan process. We work with a trusted engineering team to design a practical and economical plan that will ensure water is diverted to the right location. The design process is just as important as the install process and we always make sure our customers are aware of this.
Available Services Pamphlet "There is more to us than just concrete" .


text:
Pilot Error Blamed for Helicopter Crash that Killed Troy Gentry
by Sarah Netemeyer ‐ December 5, 2018
photo: Montgomery Gentry Facebook
The National Transportation Safety Board has named pilot error as the main cause of the helicopter crash that killed Troy Gentry. More here.
After a thorough investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has named pilot error following engine maintenance problems as the cause of the helicopter crash that killed Montgomery Gentry star Troy Gentry and pilot James Evan Robinson on September 8, 2017.
The singer perished just hours before a scheduled Montgomery Gentry performance was to take place at the Flying W Airport & Resort in Medford, New Jersey. While Gentry was on the helicopter for what was supposed to be a short flight, Eddie Montgomery and other band members were at the airport awaiting his return.
According to the final report, the pilot cut the engine too soon as he tried to make an emergency landing. This action led to an uncontrolled descent, which caused the helicopter to crash in a wooded area near the small airport. In addition, the NTSB found the maintenance crew's failure to rig the throttle control assembly before the flight also contributed to the fatal crash.
While the findings in this official report are hard to process, we hope this report brings some closure to Troy's widow Angie and his two daughters, Taylor and Kaylee.
Montgomery Gentry's latest "Drink Along Song" music video highlights some of the last live video footage of Gentry. Watch it below.
"Drink Along Song" Lyrics
There's songs that belong when you're rolling on an old dirt road
The wheels just seem to turn up that ole radio
Songs that make you wanna want your baby back
Nah this ain't no song like that, no no
This is a drink along song
Everybody sing along
Pour you something strong
And chug it, shoot 'er, sip it
Bottle, can, or cup
Turn the bottom up
Keep 'em coming all night long
It's a drink along song
Drink along song
There's songs that kinda wanna make you wanna change the world
Lots of songs that try to help you get the girl
Songs that make you take it back to your hometown
This one calls for one more round
Turn it up, have some fun
Go on and lose it
Tap your toe, let it go
Sway to the music
Come on and drink along
Share this update with other Troy Gentry fans.


WONDERFUL WALKOUT RAMBLER ON 1.88 ACRE WOODED LOT ON RAVEN STREAM. NEW WINDOWS, PAINT, FLOORING, APPLIANCES, ETC. FRONT PORCH, CONCRETE PATIO, OVER-SIZED 2 CAR GARAGE, NICE SIZED ROOMS, TILE FLOORS, ROOMY FLOOR PLAN, PANTRY, PAVED ROAD, PRIVATE BACK YARD & GREAT LOCATION - CLOSE TO TOWN. EXCELLENT OPPORTUNITY!! COME SEE!!


STEMpathy – Why Quality Professionals are More Important Now than Ever!
"STEMpathy," a term coined by academics and made popular by writers is the call to action for today's educators to bring liberal arts into STEM curriculum. By merging STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) with empathy we will graduate people from schools who are able to build technology solutions with compassion and appreciation for the human experience. We can't wait for students to graduate, we need empathy in software development today!
Brand and customer interaction are digital before they are personal. Our experiences as employees, citizens, and participants are shaped by the digital requirements of registration, classification, and interaction. How can we make these digital experiences kind, intuitive, and welcoming? We must bring the human element to software development.
who use the system wanting to find problems before customers do.
mundane to automation so that we can pursue more complex and meaningful actions. We've punted the repetitive actions and small decisions to software enabled solutions.
This is having tremendous impact on your lives – from working remotely to cutting through neighborhoods to avoid traffic on the 110. Reconnecting with friends of moments past on Facebook to building new global friendships sight unseen.
This is having tremendous impact on businesses whose basic assumptions about preference and need no longer hold true. Assumptions is a very powerful word – when context changes dramatically, so do assumptions and the methods for validating the assumptions. Businesses that do not update their assumptions about preferences in the digital age are heading down a slippery slope.
How big a deal is this? In 2017 we saw 21 major retailers declare bankruptcy. It was the Retail Apocalypse. This happened despite the fact that GDP had grown steadily over 18 months, gas prices were low, incomes were high and unemployment low.
massive reduction in the number of bank branches – and the number of people visiting each branch has declined over 22% because people are interacting with robo bankers.
Over the weekend, I was at a workshop and the instructor mentioned getting a Trip-Tik. One of the students, well into her 30's said, "is that even a thing?" Thanks AAA but no thanks. We've got Google Maps, Waze, Yelp and iExit to plan our route and stops.
This is an exciting and transformational time – the first major social change we've seen in decades is being fueled and enabled by technology – our current state is very different from five years ago.
To support all these changes and improvements, there has been a mass effort around the world to increase the number of computer and software engineers being trained in our school systems – there has been extreme emphasis on STEM curriculum and STEM careers. People graduating with STEM degrees are commanding higher salaries and having more options available to them.
We have government and industry leaders saying there are not enough tech skills to fill the growing need and we have recruiting partners citing the "war for talent" as they pluck talent from one company and move it to another.
In the midst of this change and clamor for more technical skills, I think the answer lies in the creative, not the competitive. Fighting for talent and moving people from one place to another is the shell game. I believe we have everything we need right now to be successful. We have been scratching the surface of this problem in industry for years – with usability labs and UX design, we are acknowledging human factors matter – but we need to carry these practices all the way through software development.
Educators are tackling this problem.
In 2015, at a summit of educators Research Triangle Park, Brett Brenton, who is with Research Triangle Park in charge of strategic partners, used the term STEMpathy in his talk. It is the first time I have been able to find that term. He introduced the notion to educators that while the STEM skills are great – we need to include liberal arts in order to fuel innovation.
Thomas Friedman, the NY Times writer and author of "Thank you for being late," uses the term frequently. He is an advocate for bringing compassion and humanity to our systems by not just training engineers, but by building well-rounded people with technical skills.
STEMpathy is simply merging the notion that human beings interact with technology and that simplicity and elegance of design will lead to higher function/value.
Higher function and value support digital transformation.
Our educational institutions are answering this call to action. I have two friends who have received PhDs in Human/Computer Interface and Human Factors in the past few years. More and more universities are enriching curriculum and educating new potential leaders.
What happens when you don't approach software with the user and the life experience you want your users to have – you spend money and waste resources building things customers don't care about. You alienate customers with a poor user experience. You face a digital apocalypse.
You know, we'll pay a premium for better service – just look at how many people use Audible and not the library. The overdrive app used by most libraries was years behind audible in making listening to books easy and accessible. By the time it came close, so many people were so used to their Audible subscriptions, that they stopped using the library function.
What can organizations do today to bring STEMpathy to their software development teams? Organizations who accelerate test automation create capacity on their quality teams – capacity that is filled with empathy for the user. These team members are available and ready to expand their skills to help their organizations become more digitally savvy.
I have discussed this opportunity with friends in the quality domain and have met with mixed reaction. Some embrace the idea of growing in relevance – others say that the art of testing will be lost. The art of testing must evolve – taking advantage of automation technology.
Did you know that Plato wrote that his teacher/mentor Socrates was worried that about ability to memorize would decrease because of the written word? Over the generations all changes have affected the way we work and learn – writing, the printing press, and the Internet – it is what we do with this capacity that matters.
Automation is not a dirty word, it is happening – the mundane is getting automated. Regression scripts need Combinatorial Test Design (CTD) and automation. When quality teams do this, they create capacity for one of the greatest sources of talent, insight, and compassion within an organization, they are creating capacity with Quality professionals.
The quality profession is a special brand of people who straddle the line between technology, business, and the customer. Our organizations are filled with people who know our products, our customers, our culture, and systems – and if given the opportunity are more than capable of bringing STEMpathy to the workplace today.
Today, I propose the STEMpathy cycle – a self-referencing, reinforcing cycle that brings compassion to software design and experience.
At the same time, we're creating capacity, the need has never been higher – we don't have five years to wait for students to matriculate, graduate, learn our products, and bring STEMpathy – if we want to prevent the next apocalypse of industry, we need to unleash the power of the Quality team.
It doesn't matter where you start – since it is a cycle – just jump in and begin feeling the bottom-line benefits of compassion in your software experience today.
PRODUCTS – What do customers think about your products? How are their opinions changing and how is that feedback and insight getting to your software teams? I am watching too many clients build silos around product. Product knows what the business wants and sends it over to Dev. Dev is then optimizing the way to build the most features with the most bang for the buck.
This is a new form of waterfall – it is linear, serial, dependent, and doesn't include the customer. To fix this, we must actively measure, monitor, and manage the usability of products. That's it. Actively measure, monitor, and manage the usability and use of products.
You don't need a re-org to start measuring customer happiness and use of systems. You just need to tap into the resources and data that exist today. The opportunity and challenge is to find those resources. Look at logs, grab surveys, study the market, build relationships with other teams.
PROJECTS – This is my favorite part of the cycle because I think everything in life is a project. Sometimes I make these projects harder than they need to be, but since I think of life as a project, there is a beginning a purpose and an end.
When we build software, we need to focus on what the client wants – not what we want because we know the product and the service. We need to focus on what will serve the customer and grow the business, not check off the most features per story.
I know the game – I was a developer and a PM. If I could solve something once and apply to multiple scenarios – I was being efficient and driving value. Sounds good, right? Wrong. Was I building what the customer wanted?
I'll date myself – in 1990, I was coding a custom uniform rental management system. I realized that in ten years, all the applications were going to have to account for the year 2000. So I built a date module and integrated it into everyone's programs so the whole system was Y2K compliant. But, this gold-plating had me running a couple weeks late with delivery. My boss, a former green beret comes over to me as I was finishing this up and says, "Coyle, what the bleep are you doing?" I smile and look up, "I'm coding for year 2000, Bob." He says, "Your code will be obsolete by then, knock it off." By the way, the code generator we were using had a native Y2K function. I had lost two weeks doing what mattered to me, and not making sure it mattered to the customer.
we can from our perspective – but the best can from the customer perspective is what matters to the top and bottom line.
If you are in Quality, ask yourself, how do you prioritize your scripts? Are they based on business probability? Are you constantly checking user patterns and preferences and making sure that your validation and verification techniques mirror the customer expectations? Are you making sure the functions you're being asked to develop tests are being prioritized by user councils?
At every step of software development, check in the with the customer ask and customer preferences. Just because you can, does not mean you should. Check in with customers and their preferences.
PEOPLE – the most important component of any system are the people in the system. If we're trying to build empathy towards our customers, it starts with rekindling the flame of empathy that exists in each one of us – that flame of empathy that brought us to quality in the first place.
We've turned it off – we've turned off our compassion valve because we're trying to survive in a system where compassion is not rewarded. People who work in quality are often passionate and told to be less emotional – and over time, we become less emotional. It is fine to be less emotional, but it is not fine to stray from the customer!
You get the behaviors you measure and reward, so why not measure an reward behaviors of empathy? Spend time sitting with customer service agents, participate in a UX lab experiment, try a job rotation where you support another team. Leverage the VOC survey results and review the NPS.
Read the Foresee data and comb through call log summaries. There are mounds of data about the customer experience, you just need to harvest it.
BE A CUSTOMER of your own company. Try your products and services. Experience them as a customer. I worked for an organization where we discovered that fewer than 20% of the employees were customers – that's not good. If you're not a customer, you don't know what a customer wants.
You've got to rekindle your own passion for the customer. If you're a manager, create an environment that encourages the team to build that compassion. If you're not a manager, find the resolve within yourself — show the value of the process and help institutionalize.
If your team is not connected to the other teams that are collecting data – be the bridge. No one says no to a cup of coffee.
CAPABILITY – These are the operational tools and techniques necessary to encourage empathy. The current and growing method many organizations are using is called Design Thinking. First time I went through training, I said, "C'mon, this is what we've been doing all along." Then I realized I had been part of a system that slowly pulled all the value out of end-customer focus by prioritizing speed and efficiency.
Design thinking is deliberate and systematic approach of putting users first. There are specific techniques and methods – but the notion is Covey-esque. Begin with the end in mind. Invite your users to tell you what they want either directly or indirectly. Then – listen.
Capability includes tools and measures in addition to methods. Do you have the forum to run a customer council? Do you have access to a usability lab? Do you have prototyping tools? Can you enhance your existing system logs to get more insight? Do you have access to Gartner or Forrester for industry trends and standards?
Don't just talk about capability – set targets to elevate your capability, define what elevated capability looks like. Make it visible and real so that people know they are welcome to bring ideas and passion to the workplace without fear of scoff or retribution.
Over time, this cycle of four begins to influence and strengthen the culture.
Educators are calling for building STEMpathy into curriculum. Great. It is happening. However, we need it today because businesses are changing overnight.
STEMpathy means building our applications for the best possible experience end to end. The call to action is for us to harness the power within ourselves and our teams by following and fueling the STEMpathy cycle.
The STEMpathy cycle is a model to increase the empathy within your organization. We have seen tremendous results, working within corporate cultures (and their chosen technology stacks) by deliberately enabling empathy. We have used facts and data to support feelings and intuition – which is a powerful technique of showing the business value of change.
What is Risky About a Workforce?


text:
Esports Events
Esports Personalities
Professional Gamers
Twitch Streamers
Amouranth
Kaitlyn Siragusa, a.k.a. Amouranth, is one of Twitch's most popular streamers. But instead of playing video games, Amouranth spices up her Twitch streams by dancing with tight clothes, playing with toys, and capping it off by whispering into her plastic ear-toy while wearing a costume or even a scanty bikini. And with the work she had on her tits and ass, Amouranth has easily become one of the most recognizable faces on Twitch.
Amouranth's first claim to fame was her surreal adaptation of Link from the Legend of Zelda. She was recognized for her attention to detail and the obvious hard work that went into her succeeding works such as Lara Croft, Harley Quinn, and Tracer. She was eventually invited by Twitch itself to share her cosplay crafting techniques with the site's audience. Her success in crafting cosplays led her to establish her own business called A Charmed Affair – a children's entertainment company where parents can hire professional cosplayers for their children's parties. This is arguably one of her biggest achievements and she proudly displays it on her Patreon.
But Amouranth isn't just a pretty face on Twitch and a successful businesswoman. With her popularity, she's attracted increasing scrutiny along with continuous adoration from her fans. Amouranth's biggest criticism has always been her provocative Twitch streams. But it all came to a tilt when she was exposed as being secretly married in a video published by L of the Day.
Now, it's perfectly fine for someone to be married. But it became an issue with Amouranth as she marketed herself as single – to the delight of her generous fans. L of the Day went into enough detail about how Amouranth tried to hide her marriage and what did she hid exactly. In the video, L of the Day starts off the expose on Amouranth's husband named Nick Lee. He reveals that Nick Lee, a body-builder, and a long-time fan of the famous cosplayer, actually started dating Amouranth some time ago (2014-2015) and the couple eventually (and secretly) got married.
Amouranth conveniently never mentions on her streams that she is married. And for lonely single men with money, a gorgeous single female streamer like Amouranth seems to be a great remedy for their loneliness.
It's estimated that Amouranth has a subscriber count of 10,000 and over 800,000 followers on Twitch. She also has a Patreon backed by 1,200 Patrons. Let's take a crack at her earnings based from data available:
In a leaked donations report on Twitch, a single month netted her 30,000 USD in donations – 23,000 USD of which coming from just 2 supporters.
As for her Twitch subscriber count, we can multiply the most common subscription tier of 5 USD to her subscriber count. However, streamers only get 3.50 USD out of the 5 USD. That means Amouranth takes home about 35,000 USD per month before taxes. And that's not counting advertisers and sponsors for her streams.
Internet personalities who have weighed in on Amouranth's popularity also estimated that she earns anywhere between 40,000 USD to 60,000 USD per month from her Patreon NSFW content.
Take what you will of Amouranth, but she is undoubtedly one of the Twitch and Patreon's most successful personalities on their respective platforms.
Duncan Shields: @Thooorin
Duncan "Thorin" Shields holds the title of eSports historian because of his deep knowledge of the industry and where it
Esports Personalities Debate the Future at University of York
York, 12th of February 2018 Top esports professionals, commentators and celebrities joined experts at the University of York in a
Savjz
Janne "Savjz" Mikkonen is a 31 year old Twitch streamer born in Finland and currently living in California. He's been
Susie Kim: @lilsusie
Getting into the South Korean gaming scene can be difficult for someone who doesn't speak the language. That's where Susie
DizzyKitten
DizzyKitten may not be one of the best gamers in the Twitch streaming world, but her outgoing and pleasing personality
Tom Cassell is well-known on both Twitch and YouTube as Syndicate. As well as having the third most popular Twitch
Janne "Savjz" Mikkonen is a
Forsen is a 28-year-old live streamer originally from Stockholm, Sweden. He joined Twitch back in 2011 and currently has a little over 1 million followers and 101 million views on the platform.
Ann B. Mateo
Ann B. Mateo is a 25-year-old streamer from the Philippines. She started on Twitch, but now she's an official partner and video game streamer at Facebook Gaming.
Why is C9.Sneaky So Good at Cosplay?
Cloud 9's Sneaky is a well-known AD carry. But he's also now known as the gender-bending cosplayer we're starting to love


The FirePro V3700 is an AMD FireGL series video card categorized as Workstation. It is 9 generations old.
The FirePro V3700 will run 22% of the top 8,000 PC games. It will also run 17% of these games at the recommended or best experience levels.
What games can the FirePro V3700 run?
Can the FirePro V3700 run the Top PC games? You can see a GPU comparison by choosing another video card. How many games can your GPU run?


Meaning and origin of the Hebrew baby name Yaron. Meaning of Yaron. What does Yaron mean? Yaron origin. Information about Yaron.
Meaning of Yaron, Information about First Name Yaron, Hebrew Origin Names, Choose babynames from thousunds of names data base from various regions and coutries.


Nestled in the idyllic setting of Austria's Mittelburgenland, Waldschule Helenenschacht offers a charming self-catering house and about 25 acres (10 ha) of lush woods and camping areas. Scout and guest groups seeking the thrill of nature adventure will find everything their hearts could wish for.
Right in front of our house and up a few steps, our large graveled court is the perfect place for camp program, exercising or playing games in bad weather. As it is just a few steps away from the kitchen and water supply, larger guest groups have also used this area to set up their large hangar tents for cooking and eating. Of course our central court also has its own flagpole.
The uppermost corner of our central graveled court is also where you will find our stock of timber for camp constructions.
Northeast of the house, our beautiful Brezina Campsite follows the edge of the forest all the way up to our sanitary containers. This greenfield area of 1,500 m2 or about 16,000 ft2 with a few trees and lots of shade from the forest provides ample camping space even for larger groups.
Our gigantic Hofer Campsite is only mown in summer. Its impressive 15,000 m2 or about 161,000 ft2 accommodate countless tents and camp constructions even for large-scale and international camps.
If needed, we can also connect our mobile water dispenser with 16 faucets to the water line.
Separating our Hofer Campsite from the Brezina Campsite with house and forest, a paved road runs up to the hill to the Helenenschacht settlement. Fortunately for us, it is hardly used.


text:
When you had "the runs," and then you didn't, and now you do, what have you got this time?
The Permanent Sistersly Record
Fevered Rabbit reports: "We don't know what caused it, but Grumbling Bear and I had three days of, well, erupting. Came from below, came from above. There was something in each of us that had to get out — suddenly, violently, repeatedly.
"Then we had two days of good health and were prepared to take a flight. However, the night before we were to leave, I got hit with this unidentified illness again.
"Because my sisters knew of our plans to travel, I texted them to let them know of the delay. My younger sister wrote: 'Praying you recover quickly.'
"The Sister Who Rarely Rests in North Carolina wrote: 'Would that be reruns? Other sister kinder in her response, I'm sure.'
"These text messages shed a light on the relationship I have with each of them. The Sister Who Rarely Rests is more witty, and we share a lot of giggles; her labeling of my illness made me laugh indeed, even amidst the agony. My younger sister is more serious and solemn, and sometimes doesn't 'get' what Sister and I joke about.
"I love them both dearly."
Or: What's in a title?
Doctors' Mom in Mendota Heights: "In the office of one of my medical providers, I learned that receptionists have been promoted to the more responsible position of 'Director of First Impressions.'"
And: It happens every spring
Aggie Girl: "Every year as a new baseball season approaches, I hearken back to childhood.
"Despite growing up in South Texas, without a team within 200-plus miles of our little town, I was a huge fan. I knew all the rosters of the Astros and the Rangers. I knew the stats of most of the players — gleaned from the agate type in the sports page of the paper from the nearest city. I followed my heroes on my little transistor radio, which would pull in the games after dark. Given that WBAP had the stronger signal, and that the Rangers games typically started later, at 7:35 p.m., generally I listened to them.
"I was a crazy fan. I liked to keep score as I listened. Last summer when I cleaned out some boxes that had obviously been hauled up here by my dad some years ago, I found quite a few pieces of notebook paper, carefully lined to show the innings, the batting order and the scoring. Some of these only had five or six innings before the scoring stopped. You see, my parents, while supportive, were not COMPLETELY complicit in this pastime — they kept insisting that it was bedtime and I had to go to bed. Now, it was relatively simple to stash the transistor radio under the pillow and continue to listen to the game. However, I never did contrive to continue to keep score without getting caught; flashlights and paper were just too obvious.
"My favorite player was Buddy Bell, though I loved Bump Wills, Richie Zisk and many others. For the Astros (who I usually caught on Sunday afternoon on the nearby station), I loved J.R. Richard and Jose Cruz.
"Saturdays were my favorite day — it was the NBC Game of the Week. Typically Tony Kubek and Joe Garagiola were the broadcasters — and Garagiolia was a blast as a color commentator — so funny! It really didn't matter who was playing, because I was so excited to get to actually watch baseball!
"My love of baseball lasts to this day, though I remain annoyed at the 'power play' that made the Astros an American League team. I am a bit of a purist, and despite all those Rangers games, I really like the National League better.
"Hope springs eternal this time of year, and though neither of 'my' teams has ever won a World Series, who knows — this might be the year!
"And I still love baseball on the radio, which is hard as heck to find these days, since the Twins bailed to a low-wattage station. Times certainly change — going from having baseball on the high-power super-stations to now not being able to pull in the station even if it is local.
"Oh, well — good luck, Twins (and Go Astros!)."
Oopps!
Or: Everyone's a copy editor
Red's Offspring, north of St. Paul: "Subject: Don't chute, it's only a game!
"Chad Graff has an opening-day piece on the Twins in Monday's edition of the Pioneer Press. In the continuation of his article, on Page 2B, Graff quotes manager (is there any other sport in which the head 'coach' is referred to as the 'manager'?) Paul Molitor responding to a question about the importance of getting off to a good start: 'When it's the middle of the season and you've established yourself and what kind of team you're going to be, you can handle those (ups and downs) a little bit better. But right out of the shoot, especially with young players, it's a little more challenging.'"
Where've you gone, Mrs. Malaprop?
Reports quackdad: "A local weather expert being interviewed on public radio described our recent weather as having been 'on unchartered waters.'"
Inanimate Division
Another note from our Official Geologist, Rock Doc of River Falls, Wisconsin: "People were so intrigued by my photo of a rock that looks like a smiley face. Here's another.
"This is some water-carved lime rock in Crystal Cave, Spring Valley, Wisconsin (not Minnesota, eh?). It looks like a ghost face, which is sort of scary when you go underground on their fun cave tour. Here's a link, if I'm allowed to plug a commercial operation. The red color is an artifact of the lighting and my camera.
"There is a word for rocks that look like faces and other things. They are called mimetoliths, and here is a site with lots of fun examples. Mimetoliths are a subcategory of pareidolia, which are natural objects that look like other things: clouds that look like animals, etc. Our brains love to see patterns in the natural world."
Helena Handbasket: "Subject: Florida fauna?
"Indigenous to Florida: Plasticus Bagus Beach Crabicus."
Hugo Woman: "I, too, would like to send my condolences to The Old Woodchopper's widow, on the occasion of her husband's death; I have read his submissions to BB and enjoyed them very much. Pancreatic cancer also killed my older brother, so I know what a terrible cancer it is.
"On a lighter note, I sure hope that DebK of Rosemount is saving her many interesting submissions to BB; her recent story about growing up in Iowa and 'surviving' the seasons on a rutted, impassable road in the country was fascinating. I think I speak for many BB readers/contributors that I always look forward to what she shares. There's got to be a book in there somewhere, don't you agree?"
BULLETIN BOARD SAYS: We do.
Or: Ah, the smell of it!
DebK of Rosemount: "Al B's having alerted us over the past few weeks to various signs of spring, Taxman and I have been on the alert for evidence of its arrival in Rice County. While we agree with Al B on most things — including his fondness for Primghar, Iowa, incidentally — we can't gin up anything like Al's enthusiasm for parfum de skunk. Perhaps it's a question of dosage.
"Here at the farm, the seasonal uptick in the activity of skunks coincided with the arrival of triplet lambs, whose care involved my delivering lamb-milk formula to the sheep barn every three hours. Taxman assumed care responsibility for all other farm creatures for the duration of my NICU duties. One night, after a bone-chilling 10 o'clock feeding, I hurried into the house through the garage service door, only to be forced back by an olfactory tsunami, the unmistakable acrid stench of skunk.
"As it happened, Taxman and the dogs were standing in the mudroom, directly in my intended path. Rosie and Spike had just come in from their nightly, pre-bedtime patrol of the premises. Nothing about their behavior — Taxman's or the dogs' — suggested an awareness that anything was amiss. My alarm must've registered, however, for Taxman presently offered: 'I think the dogs may have gotten into something.'"
Immutable Laws of the Universe
Refrigerator Division (responsorial) (responsorial) (responsorial)
Pollyanna of Lakeland writes: "Twitty of Como [BB, 3/30/2017] reminded me of this:
"Especially since my brain injury in June of 2014, I have had trouble keeping track of things. During the Christmas holidays of 2015, the string of lights that hangs on a railing went half-dead. I bought LED lights to replace them. The next spring, I was looking for something in the liquor locker. (I don't drink, but my sister does!) What's that? The half-dead string of lights was behind the booze. No recollection of putting it there.
"I have lost a new bottle of medication, a pair of pants, a pair of pajamas and who knows what else! Every once in a while, I find something while I'm looking for something else.
"Yesterday, I was talking to my husband on the phone (I was at work; he was at home). He said: 'I think you should make those recipes you cut out.'
"'What recipes?' I asked.
"'The ones on the table,' he replied.
"'I don't know what you're talking about. Are you sure there aren't coupons on the back?'
"'Nope. Just recipes for orange vanilla muffins, and pumpkin muffins.'
"I am allergic to things high in vitamin C. Both oranges and pumpkins fall into that category. I cannot imagine that I cut the recipes out. My husband doesn't particularly like pumpkin. I tried to tell him HE must have cut them out, but he disagreed. One of us is losing it.
"Maybe, if I make the muffins, I will find my pajamas!"
BULLETIN BOARD OBSERVES: Well, at least you haven't lost your sense of humor!
Band Name of the Day: The Reruns
Website of the Day, from The Doryman of Prescott, Wisconsin: "I'm not saying I understand much of what this shipwright is saying, but I find an enormous amount of beauty in in his knowledge. We are all ignorant about different things."
Author Bulletin BoardPosted on April 4, 2017 April 4, 2017
Previous Previous post: Matinee Idle (Vol. 1, No. 94)
Next Next post: Matinee Idle (Vol. 1, No. 95)


Hi there! I have made a good setup that I want the Theta R to remember as a startup setting. But Every time I connect it goes back to the Factory settings. Any fix for this or work around to get it working?
Hello, D1gits. Thank you for your trying to use RICOH R.
You can set it and write as device startup settings by using RICOH R Console.
Please try to set "Write as device startup settings"
All the best from Sweden.
Ive read all the posts about transferring settings from one device to another, but there is no option to export under Menu, only other About and Exit.
How can I copy settings please?
I am running AndFtp Pro on a Nexus device.


On 10/25 Lovely Loveday wrote: Delayed Justice is the third book in the thrilling Hidden Justice book series written by Cara C. Putman. An intriguing mix of legal drama, romance, friendship, faith, and suspense. Delayed Justice is particularly stirring and tender as the characters face horrific cases - personal, past and present. ... An intriguing story full of suspense and unknowns.


Healthy honey roasted carrots is a great add on to any meal and the whole family can enjoy it. These yummy carrots are so easy to prepare and it is great to quiet that sweet tooth.
There is nothing like the great outdoors!
Yes, There is nothing like the Great Outdoors! Spending time outdoors is a great way for you to get exercise in without even thinking about it.
Garlic and its Benefits that can Improve Your Health Drastically!
Garlic has amazing health benefits that can improve your health greatly. Eating some garlic can boost your immune system and help you fight the common cold.
Not eating a healthy breakfast can cause you to be irritated and tired. The importance of breakfast is essential for higher energy levels to boost your day and contains important nutrients your body needs.


text:
Oktane18: Ushering the Enterprise into the Future of Work
Alex: All right everyone. Thank you for being here, especially because this guy is speaking very shortly after me, and the good news is I already talked to Barack, and he said, "Alex, do me a favor, open up for me, warm up the crowd and send them all over to my session, so they'll be all ready to go."
So, given that, you picked the right room to be in for the next 45 minutes. And we hope to not disappoint you with that. I'm real excited to be here. My name is Alex DiNunzio, the Director of Product at Fuze, been with the company for close to 10 years as crazy as that is these days, and I'm responsible of our core platform so that's the voice side of things as well as onboarding infusers and being an Okta customer ourselves, onboarding, helping onboard Okta inside of our own ecosystem as well as the relationship between Okta and Fuze. So, I have the honor of hosting this panel for you today.
But, we're not hear just to talk about that. We're here to talk about some cool research we've been doing and, on your chairs, or the chair next to you, a copy of what I'm about to show you today is there. It's this Workforce Futures doc. I'll show you that in just one second. But, Fuze spends a lot of time trying to understand the leaders of IT across the world. We've done research with CIO's, IT Leaders, Directors, professionals, workers and just recently, two weeks ago, we released a brand new report. It's called The Workforce Futures and this report was 66 hundred workers across nine countries. And our idea was to try to figure out what of the thing we've all been hearing about? The trends about millennials, the generationer's, and this app group that, "Oh my God they're going to kill the workforce." What if that was actually true? What were people actually seeing? What were workers actually demanding? And we put that into this report, again, sitting next to you.
My goal today is not to go through the whole entire thing. I just needed to give you a quick intro to it so that way Andy and Herminia can help talk about what it means inside of their organizations but I do want to highlight a few key trends.
The first is which, is called, work as a service. Second one is, world as your office. And then, The employ me trend and what does that mean.
So, let's get into the first one, work as a service. The last ten years has been a pretty fundamental shift in work. I think people think of work no longer as, what we do. It's more of ... and not like where we are, it's kind of ... it becomes and embodiment of who we are and ... did I just lose you? Cool, there we go ... people want to work, when they want to work, where they want to work. So, this first piece of of the work as a service trend is switching on your work mode. I'm a dad of two, soon to be a dad of three and I can tell you that being at home with the kids, it's really hard to get work done but as soon as that nap time hits, in between one and two thirty when I'm working from home, that's like the golden hour. Don't interrupt me I'm putting in my earphones, I'm going to work. Whether that's a meeting or something else. I'm sure all of you have an equivalent of that in your own lives. That's something that this data shows.
Second one, the appeal from, working from anywhere, this one is pretty self-explanatory but more and more what we're seeing is the conversations from the airport, on the road, here at the conference, "Oh man I have five minutes between sessions." That working from anywhere appeal is real.
And final, the project economy, what the highlight of this one is basically like the world is changing from a series of having permanent employees on the staff, healthcare, and it's something where you have teams of people that are coming together and breaking apart to help solve a problem and these employees that are doing this are mixed with contractors and kind of independent workers who are kind of coming in to help run these projects and these teams come together and what is that end up looking like? It looks like 95% of people of the 66 hundred that we interviewed said, "Work-life balance is important to them," of course I would expect that, 89% though, flexible working should be how we work and not a benefit.
Think about that, that's nine out of ten people that says this is just what we expect to happen. Not the other way around of, "Oh wouldn't it be nice if there was a work from home policy every once in a while? Or some flexibility in this office?" No, they're going to come into your place of employment and they're going to say, "I expect to be able to have some flexibility. And if you don't have that maybe I don't want to come work for you."
So, is that something that you're thinking about inside your organization? I'm going to leave you to think about that. And, 73% of employees work outside of their contracted work hours. That's pretty staggering, so three out of four people, whether it's working from the couch in the evening or my example of nap time with the kids, or maybe on the weekends, three out of four people are going to work outside of those hours.
The second, the world is your office. So, the role of kind of the physical office is changing. I mean if I polled the room of how many people have, inside of their own offices, adapted their spaces for things like huddle rooms and small collaboration spaces versus physical offices for executives and director level people throughout org I bet you many of you have already undergone some shift in the physical space within your office. And I think the other thing is gone are the days where your forced to show up, in an office, and that's the expectation every single day for the duration of your career. I mean there are certain things, you can't really be a teacher and work from home as easily as you can inside maybe an office environment. But, for the most part, it's up to you to figure out where you're going to get your work done.
So, what we see is that while I don't expect that the millions of square footage of office spaces are just going to "poof" disappear overnight, I do expect there to be some significant changes, further than what we've seen today, happening. And this is something that's also pretty real for you to keep an eye on. So, 53% of people work from the company office, every working day. I have some other stats here, which is that while 97% of workers currently work from a company office, at least some of the time, so that's pretty staggering, 97% work, 93% choose. They would want to continue to work in the office, just not full time in the office.
So, is the office space something that has to go away? No, the office space just has to change. 93% of people would say, "Give me the office as an option. Being social and understanding who I work with and those relationships is incredibly important but I just don't want to be there every day. I find that the distractions ..." Herminia were talking about that earlier today. "The distractions of people coming to my office means I can't write the report that I'm looking to do. I can't file that patent. I can't do that particular thing. Go ahead, I'm going to work from home that day. But, for the rest of the time let me be social with my colleagues." But, that 20% number wish to walk from the office every working day, one out of five people. That's pretty low. Is your office place that people want to go? And I'm not debating whether your Snap wall is good enough if your ice coffee that you have on tap is the thing that people want to drink but you should start to think about these things. If, peoples tendencies are to say, "I want to come to the office. I just don't know for how long," better make it a decent place for people to come to get their work done.
And the third one is the employ me. This one there's a lot or research in the pamphlet, the packet and I would suggest you read this in a little bit of detail, but machine learning and AI, these are real, these are not just trends. These are things that are changing the way we fundamentally work. I think what's important is that people aren't as scared as I would have thought before reading the research. People aren't as scared about technology eradicating their job or removing the thing that they know how to do. I think what you see is that people are actually excited about the thoughts of AI helping them do their job and getting rid of the stuff they don't want to do.
The menial tasks. The repetitive nature of what they do. Oh, man scheduling and appointment with 20 people, trying to coordinate those calendars, that's one of my worst parts of my job. Okay, if that can go away and I can just start the meeting that's pretty cool. So, employ me, this particular trend, is about taking advantage of these ... this important set of technological innovation that's coming and putting it to work inside of your office.
This is a bit different here but I wanted to show you this because I think it's really important. What we're looking at here is when we asked people why they want to work flexibly as it tries to employ me, it's just employing me and the fact that I'm decent at building... it's about employing me as a human being and 43% for better health and kind of wellbeing so think of that as your work-life balance, 37% take care of familial responsibilities. That's like me, taking care of my kids when I'm working from home. And look at the last one, 14% to look after pets. If you just combine the 37 and the 14 you're at 51%. So, one out of every two people cares for a pet or a family and they want to work from home in be able to do that. That's a lot of people. And I imagine that that number's probably even higher in some spaces than others and depending on the age of your employees and where they are in their family life, maybe that changes over time, but those are some pretty important things to keep in mind.
So, what you need is a way for your employees to be able to do this. Be able to work when they want to work, from where they want to work, and so you need technology to facilitate that. And, that's where Fuze comes into play.
So, Fuze is unified communications platform. You can think of us as a platform that replaces your traditional PBX, how you make phone calls globally. Replacing your kind of singular video products, maybe like a BlueJeans or a Zoom. Replacing your messaging platforms like Slack or HipChat and maybe your like WebEx and GoToMeeting for conferences, and putting them all in one application. And, I think what's really important about this, and I'm going to get into the advantage of having one application, just a second, is that your employees need to have a similar experience regardless of where they are. Regardless of what device they're on. Regardless of how they want to work that day. Low bandwidth, from the beach.
Oh man, how great is it if your employer wants to check in, well maybe it's not great, but your employer wants to check in for email while they're on vacation. Maybe you should punish him for that, you should probably take a vacation every once in a while. But, if they want to do that and they can jump on a quick call from video and kind of be present for that hour then disassociate after that, that's a pretty powerful thing to be able to do.
And, if you can do that in your application while silencing all the noise that's even better. So, that kind of where Fuze comes into play. But, the keys to that, it's on one platform. And that one platform means that we, not in a scary big brother way, but we know what your employees are doing. We know when they're engaging. We know when they send messages and we can tell you the number of meetings, the quality of these meetings. We can tell you how they're interacting with each other, with your customers. So, that means we're generating a ton of data. And that data looks something like this. 250 million profiles you could say, are inside of our system. These are people or interactions that have happened within the platform. These 250 million people interact with 30 million external users per month which is basically five billion transactions which generates a petabyte of communications data. That's a lot of data.
All right, so we're not a data conference here but I think the beauty is to try to figure out what do you do with this data as it pertains to the trends I was showing you earlier on. So, let's just flash back for a second. I want to make sure people can work where they want to work, how they want to work, when they want to do that and I'm sitting on this treasure trove of data. So, I need to understand, are my people engaged? Are they happy? Are they going to leave? If they're remote, are they actually doing what they're supposed to? Think about Yahoo boomeranging back and forth between you're allowed to work from home and you're not allowed to work from home. I bet you most companies represented here, if I just quick poll, whose kind of boomeranged back and forth between the thoughts of do I want to flexible policy or not? Yeah, there's some fingers raised, so that's good.
It's a challenge and whether you've thought about it now or not that will be something to think about in the future. And, so I just want to make that a little bit more concrete with one example and then a couple pain points that see, experience, but the chart on the left shows Fuze actually interacting with one of our customers. And in this case we have a pretty efficient use of interaction. So this is three or four people as represented by the bigger nodes and the darker colors, interacting with this particular customer. If, Natalie, who's the one that you can see in the lower section, kind of were to leave Fuze or go on vacation or something like that, there's a pretty fair distribution of other people that can interact with that customer. I could tell you by looking at each of these nodes and the names where they are located, how they interact. Maybe they interact more directly with Andy, for some reason. I can figure that out. But, if you look at the chart on the right side, it's kind of inefficient flow. Whoa, what happens if that node in the top left of that second chart disappears?
What happens if that was a person and they disappear? All of the sudden, I think that customer interaction might be in a little bit of trouble. Is that employ happy? Where do they work from? If this was a chart of your own internal workers, why are so many people, kind of, on the outside of this chart and why are there just a few key people internally?
So, we can answer all these questions for you, but the beauty is that over time we will be able to help you answer the questions relative to your business. So, being that most of us here are in IT, I just want to end on the slide a little bit about ...
What does this cost from a pain perspective? So, maybe there is only one thing here you latch onto, and that's great because I think this panels will be able to talk to these in detail about their own organization.
Maybe it's cost. Maybe it's these Demographics Shifts scare you. Maybe it's creating Shadow IT in your organization. Application Sprawl, and you can read the rest of these. These are real problems that CIOs and IT leaders, directors, are experiencing. This is not just what a research shows, this is what our customer interaction shows, as well.
So, we are going to talk to these in the panel, a little bit, and how real customers solve these problems using Okta and Fuze, and hopefully, that's really helpful for you. So, I want to introduce to you Herminia Gomez again, and Andy Poier or Poirier, depending on how fancy do I want to be. They represent National Geographic and WeddingWire. Thank you again for being here guys.
And, before we get started, Okta asked me to tell you, there's this survey card. And, hopefully, you are enjoying this panel, and please fill it up on your way out. It's located on most of the chairs that are next to you. The feedback is great. It can help us figure out how the session goes better next year, so please take the time to feel that up.
Alright, if you want to copy of these research, you want to share it with colleagues ... I'll just leave this slide up, this is where you can access it, a digital copy of it. For those of you who are not interested in the physical copy or you want to share it around. But, that's how you do it, and I'll leave this up here.
So, perhaps Herminia you can get us started a little bit, and tell us a little bit about yourself, and your role in the National Geographic.
Herminia Gomez: Okay. My name is Herminia Gomez, I worked in various roles and divisions for National Geographic since 1998. I am currently lead systems engineer, supporting Identity Access Management and Application Lifecycle Management.
Alex: Excellent. Andy?
Andy Poirier: My name is Andy Poier or Poirier, I guess, depending where you are in the world. The senior IT engineer at WeddingWire. So, what I do is manage the internal IT for WeddingWire with the help of a small team. What WeddingWire is, it's a marketplace that connects engaged couples with vendors. So, if you are looking for a florist, or whatever, a caterer, you want to make sure that the food tastes good before you spend all this money on your wedding. So, that's where WeddingWire is important and why it's important.
Alex: Excellent. And, to kind of tide that to what we are talking about today, can you talk to us a little bit about how your organization has embraced, kind of, flexibility and the remote work, that kind of remote workers that we are talking about. Herminia, do you want to get a start with that?
Herminia Gomez: Sure. National Geographic currently has 600+ employees. About 140 of those are identified as outside employees, with at least 15 or more that are tier one or tier two at support. We have no choice, but to support remote workers.
Another thing that we have done is we promote flexible work. Full staff and contingent worker have the option to work from home. And, the IT department is one of the departments that, at least, one day we have a flexible work day. At least one day a week, and some have more if they need it or would like to have it.
So, we have no choice but to support it because it's just the way of the business.
Alex: Little bit of an ADMA question, but do you see people embracing that, taking advantage of that, and maybe more than one day?
Herminia Gomez: Oh yes, I do it all the time. We have a co-worker that ... She's a young mother, she has two young children. So, she works from home 3 days a week and comes in the office 2 days a week. And, sometimes, she'll switch it around. And, sometimes, you get sick. You are sick enough to work, but not to commute. IF you drive in DC you don't want to do it, so.
Alex: We'll just say that you are being generous and not spreading your germs to everyone. You are just caring for your colleagues. Let's just spin it that way.
Herminia Gomez: Yeah, I like it.
Alex: Cover for you there. Andy, how about you?
Andy Poirier: Yes. So, we embrace remote and flexible work a 100 percent, out of necessity. So, we have 88 employees that are remote in 20 states, in United States. We also have a European headquarters in Spain, as well as, we are in 14 other countries.
So, at any time, for example, there could be someone at our India office that needs to work with someone in our LA office. That's a 12 hour time difference. So, the modern work schedule of nine-to-five doesn't really work when you need to work with somebody that's 12 hours ahead or behind you. So, we do it out of necessity. There's not really a choice any more.
Alex: Yeah, and given that in this slide that I showed with the CIO, Andy can you talk a little bit about the challenges that that has brought into WeddingWire? And, whether it's for you, whether that's you are worried about the cost, whether that's you worried about these, kind of, "siloing" of data, or Shadow IT or some of these challenges.
What challenges have you seen?
Andy Poirier: There's not many challenges. But, if I had to think of one, it's probably cost. So, I'd love to have every service under the sun, that can automate my job completely because I don't want to do much work. But, there's a budget component to that, where I can't purchase every software.
So, we, kind of, bridge the gap with open source programs sometimes, and custom scripts that we write. And, for example, for one of the open source programs ... So, we use monkey to deploy apps to the user's computers, instead of JAMF.
That saved us a little bit of money. And then, for custom scripts, really what we are doing is just finding if the service has any API that we can use to automate some of our workflows and then just adding it into our scripts.
Alex: Got it. Herminia how about you? Where are your challenges?
Herminia Gomez: So, for us. First, we are SAS cloud, cloud up, first. SAS first. So, most of our applications are SAS based. We have small on-prem applications, but for us, it's not necessarily the budget or the communication.
It's more finding the vendors that support full life cycle management!11 through their apps. I think that's the biggest issue on our end. And, transitioning, right? Because we did have a lot of, all of our applications were on on-prem. That's usually where the challenge is.
Alex: Got it. And you've had a lot of interesting challenges with too, with National Geographic and Fox and with, kind of, all these-
Herminia Gomez: We are still going through those pains, so.
Alex: ... well, anyway, that's probably a story for another day. If you were here last year during her session that was a 45 minute talk about that last year, which was pretty cool too.
Alright, let's transition quickly, a little bit, to talk about, kind of, Fuze and Okta together. So, you mentioned that one of the magic words seems, kind of, lifecycle management, and things like that. But, I'm curious about how Fuze and Okta, in general fit, into your ecosystems. We can start there and then, kind of, build on that. So, you want to get started?
Herminia Gomez: Yeah. Fuze has made it much easier. So, one of the challenges that we have is that we have a new hire, that person is brought in. The managers are supposed to submit the request for hardware, software, name plates etc., they forget. Having Fuze provision the phone automatically saves us lots of time and lots of confusion.
Those are requests that threw our help desk system that do not need to be submitted because the accounts are automatically fused, phone is automatically provisioned for the user. That makes it so much easier. But, one of the things that's also beneficial is ... I mentioned earlier that we have tier one and tier two support that are off-site.
One of the problems that we have is when they call the user, they are calling from the number that's out of country, they are like, "Who are you? You are trying to get into my computer, this is not right", and they will call the help desk. So, that's like 30 minutes of a waste of time, trying to figure out if the person that's calling is legitimate. Well, now they can have a phone that's being provisioned by National Geographic. So, they see the phone number, they say, "Okay, I recognize this number. It's okay, I can accept the call". So, that's just-
Alex: Right, that, kind of, feeling of internal-
Herminia Gomez: ... exactly.
Alex: Andy, how about you?
Andy Poirier: Just like Herminia said, we are cloud first. So, we use mostly cloud apps for everything, where it fits, besides the open source, aforementioned, and the custom scripts. But, it fits into our ecosystem well because, just like Drop Box, if I was creating a new marketing user, Drop Box would automatically provision this new user in creating account and then with the Push Groups, they would automatically be added to the team folders.
And it works the same way with Fuze, but instead of access-to-files it automatically sorts them into the department, accounts provision, which helps with Fuze data because we have different managers and different departments that go over these data and see what their teams are doing.
Alex: Okay. I guess it's the good time for some of the kind of, ways to use data that we were talking about earlier, and ways to, kind of, keep in touch with your, track your employees. Are these departments interacting appropriately, what is it like for disparate people? Maybe, let's say that your finance team is centralized within your HQ. Okay, well that's maybe not a big problem. You can go and find by your finance team, but what about your marketing team? Maybe they are distributed all over the place. How are they interacting? That's a good use of this.
I think one key to that is adoption. I think you've heard in Todd's talking about a Keynote this morning. All the new tools that Okta is rolling out, I think the key to all of them, of course, is our employee's going to use this particular piece of technology. And, we spend a lot of time thinking about adoption, if you go to data-fuze.com, in your main dashboard we actually proactively show you how you're doing with our applications. Are people using these? How is that usage? How is that trending over time? How many meetings are they going in?
I think the only way for you to justify as IT leaders the investment that you are making in the SAS side is to have high adoption and I imagine that there is, kind of, SAS fatigue coming. I mean, just think about the number of applications that we could ... I haven't even prepped you for this, but we can probably talk about a guess of how many SAS applications everyone has in this room. It is a ton. Our marketing team, who has a couple people here, they have a lot of applications, right?
So, the question is, how many of those are actually useful and needed, and I think ... So, adoption is really, kind of, key. And so, what I am curious about is adoption of Okta, adoption of Fuze. The two, kind of, married together. What's the story like within your organizations, given that context?
Herminia Gomez: So, for National Geographic, we are old company. So, we tried everything and we know what works. We finally learned what works, and what doesn't. So, what we did is, we brought the user in from the beginning of the process. We asked the users, "What do you need? What are the tools? What do you need to do? What's important? What are your requirements?". That lead us to Fuze. Based on their requirements, we decided that Fuze was the best solution.
They were the part of the decision process. We first rolled out Fuze to the IT department. We learned the product. We became comfortable with the product. We documented the pros and cons. And, most of the documentation of pros and cons is, "Okay, the users are going to ask this. This is the answer to that question", and we wrote knowledge articles with that information. So, the user was always part of the process, and the user is well informed. So, they adapted quickly and easily to the product.
Alex: Alright, and Andy?
Andy Poirier: Yes, so ...
Alex: Kind of, how has the adoption been with Okta and Fuze?
Andy Poirier: It was, kind of, a rocky start for our Fuze implementation, but I'll start with my Okta ...
So, the way we implemented Okta was we decided to start with one app, Gmail. Our thinking was, if we could just change the login page, that would be the only change necessary. We would just change the authentication for the back end, and the adoption would just ... We would add on apps, and adoption would rise normally as people start to use those apps, and it works. That's the way we thought it would work, and it works.
So, we tried the same thing with Fuze, where I would just change the core service of our desk phone, so no one would be any wiser. Like, they're picking up a phone, it's the same phone number that they're dialing out with. No one knows that the service changed.
But when we signed up with Fuze, you were actually called thinking phones-
Alex: Yes.
Andy Poirier: ... at the time?
Alex: That's right.
Andy Poirier: There was thinking phones apps, but when we purchased Fuze, the Fuze apps were a little bit down the road, like, a couple months.
So, we initially didn't want to deploy the thinking phones apps, and just wait for the Fuze ones, but we kind of hyped it up with, "Now you can work from home, because we have all these apps."
So, we kind of had to deploy the thinking phones apps first, and then a couple months later, deploy the Fuze apps, which still causes a little confusion to this day.
Alex: The good news is, none of you would have to experience that, because these are apps are end-of-life and gone, except for maybe, like, two users. But, no, I think that's a good story. I think one thing that I hear as a common theme between both of those is engaging your users early on.
Herminia Gomez: Yes.
Alex: It sounds a whole heck of a lot like product development to me, kind of like what I do on a daily basis, of talking to users and trying to anticipate these problems ahead of time.
I think that's really good advice. I told Herminia before this that if she could just go ahead and tell all of our customers some of these best practices, and these knowledge-based articles. Or, you know, heck, could write a few for Fuze. We could probably be better off for this. Rolling out across National Geographic couldn't have been the easiest thing to do, so, that's great.
I want to talk a little bit about ... In the research, we were talking about the app generation, and thinking about multiple generations engaging at work, kind of together.
As you think about having multiple generations in the workforce, what role, if any, do you see IT playing in their engagement retention, and how does that work within National Geographic?
Herminia Gomez: As I said, National Geographic is a very old company. I've been at the company for 20 years, and I remember laughing and making fun of some of my coworkers because they started working before I was born. So, the guy had been working for the company for 30-some years, the other one had been ... I know a lady that we celebrated her 50 year anniversary.
But then we have new hires that are coming in of various age, right? Very young, that look like my children, and other ones that are my age, and some that are older. But what we've learned is that it's not about the age, it's not about the gender, it's not about anything else. It's about the tool. It's about getting the customer what they need to do their work.
So, always, as we say, engaging the customer. Asking, "What do you need to do your work?" We'll make sure that it's flexible, and we'll make sure that you have the flexibility to access it from home. You want to work from wherever it is that you want to work in, we want to make sure that it's secured.
We always try to tell them, "Always go for SaaS." We want Cloud first, but it's all about asking the customer, "What tool do you need to get the job done?"
Alex: Alright, and Andy, I think, may be a little bit different, talking to you about your demographic in maybe a little bit younger workforce within WeddingWire. Less 50-year employees, probably. But why don't we talk through that a little bit?
Andy Poirier: Yeah, WeddingWire is a really young company. A lot of our hires are fresh out of college, and Herminia is completely right about, it's not about age, or it's not about sex or gender, or anything about if they're better computers or not. It's really about the person. It's, like, a person-to-person thing.
I know sales people that are better at using their computers than developers, which is mind-boggling to me, but that exists at our company.
Herminia Gomez: Yeah.
Alex: Yeah, and do you see any one of them present the most challenge to you, or are they kind of all very similar?
Andy Poirier: It's kind of all similar.
Alex: Yeah.
Andy Poirier: Yeah.
Herminia Gomez: I think, for us, it's educating the user. I think if you present a tool to the user that they don't understand, they pull away from it, but if you educate them in advance, they'll use the tool.
Alex: Yeah. It's interesting.
How locked down are you ... Again, kind of an ad hoc question here, but how locked down are you from, like, a Shadow IT perspective? Like, is that a problem that either of you face? If, you know, "Hey, Andy or Herminia, I really want to use this thing."
Or, I think, maybe, the more likely scenario is, all of a sudden, you're, like, listening in the kitchen, and you're like, "Oh, did you guys check," ... You know, "Have you guys logged into fill-in-the-blank recently?" Is that something that you guys encounter?
Herminia Gomez: Well, in the past, yes.
Alex: Yeah, okay.
Herminia Gomez: We had multiple Shadow IT departments, to the point that they ... It was ridiculous.
I think that after the joint venture with Fox, and all the reorganization, I think IT sort of took a look at itself, and was like, "Okay, we got to change the way we do things." Because, again, it's ... The reason for those Shadow IT was because we were telling them what tools they needed to do their work.
So, we're like, "Okay, you're not giving me what I want to do my job. I'm going to go find it myself, and I'm going to implement it, because I need to do my job."
Alex: Right.
Herminia Gomez: But because they're telling us, and we're just securing it, then we reduce - not completely get rid of, but reduce - that Shadow IT-
Alex: Yeah, yeah.
Herminia Gomez: ... department.
Alex: I don't think you can get rid of it these days-
Herminia Gomez: No.
Alex: ... but reduction is probably good. Very common booth topic, I could tell you, over the last two days as well.
Andy, anything to add there?
Andy Poirier: Yeah, so, when we started with Okta, we had lots of Shadow IT, as you can imagine. Lots of different departments got the services that they needed, and then managed it themselves.
When we got Okta, it was our chance to kind of integrate all these things into one platform. With Okta, actually, we can assign those people admin rights. So, they are still managing their applications, but we do have control over the application-
Alex: Exactly.
Andy Poirier: ... and what's happening with it.
Alex: That's kind of nice.
Alex: A topic kind of related, I guess, is what Okta would call, kind of, "the extended enterprise." It's the use of ... As you saw in one of the trends, working as a service trend, it's the use of these teams. That kind of spin up of contractors, and maybe partners, and temporary workers, to help solve a particular problem.
I'm very curious about this, because I see, within our own customer base - which is primarily customers 1000 users and above, globally - that is probably one of the most requested things into our product art these days, which is we're trying to be more flexible with who does work. Like, how can you help us with that?
I'm curious to see, within your organizations, how have you embraced or rejected, or deal with, this notion of a guest, and these notions of the extended enterprise?
Andy, do you want to start this one?
Andy Poirier: Sure.
So, we do have a lot of contractors. From BPO firms, SEO consulting firms, Instagram influencers. We have tons of contractors. We all manage it all through Okta with groups.
So, we change. We have different policies for authentication for different groups, different multi-factor authentication policies for those different types of groups.
In Slack, too, we even have, like, guest channels, or single channel guests, where they don't cost anything, but-
Andy Poirier: ... we have guests in there.
Herminia Gomez: Yeah. National Geographic is in the same boat. We have contractors, we have partners, okay? Which presents a major issue.
So, we're doing exactly the same thing. Everyone has to come through Okta. We have security groups and polices. We use multi-factor a lot. We have on-prem and off-prem policies that we implement and we enforce.
So, yeah. It's pretty much the same thing that we're doing.
Alex: Yeah, that's interesting. I think that's definitely a trend, something to keep an eye on. I think, for us, our product's evolving to have more functionality for guests. I mean, it requires a lot more control, as you were just saying.
Guests can join the organization, but then they can only join meetings. Or they can start their own meeting, or they can be participating in a group chat, or maybe you don't want them to do that, because some partners are more trusted than others.
And what happens when the partner leaves and then comes back again, right? All the same problems that you got-
Herminia Gomez: Oh, yeah.
Alex: ... you know, you experience. It's nice to have ... Okta is that kind of common layer there.
Alright, so, maybe just a bit of a softball here at the end for you. Let's talk, just in general, about things that you're doing to embrace this future of work, and any of these trends inside of your organizations. Like, what is the rest of 2018, 2019? Some exciting things that you're doing?
That, of course ... You know, non-NDA items here that we could talk about.
Herminia Gomez: Oh, we're doing a lot. It feels like we're doing too much, but we just wrapped up what we call, "The user portal," with ServiceNow, where we're trying to make it easier for the users, or our customers, to get to the things that they need. A ticket, a request, issues. We improve the design of our portal, make it more user-friendly.
In addition to that ... If you saw me last year, my whole motto is, "Okta as master." So, trying to use Okta as the directory, which includes integrating with on-prem and off-prem appliances.
We're also going through the process of onboarding 360, with Okta and Workday, ServiceNow. So, what that will do is it will automate a lot of the things that our managers, when they're hiring someone in, that they have to do.
So, again, one of the issues is they forget to order things. They forget to do certain things, and there are things that they shouldn't even have to remember, that we could automatically do it for them. They should be focusing on doing their jobs and making National Geographic a great company.
If we can automate it for them, let's do it. So, that's what we're focused on.
Alex: That's great. Andy?
Andy Poirier: Yeah, actually, if I could steal Herminia's answer....
I wish we could be implementing ServiceNow and Workday. But, really, what we're going to be focusing on for the next year or so is automating, in our own way, the custom with the scripts that we've created ourselves.
Alex: Mm-hmm (affirmative)-
Andy Poirier: It's been working enough for the size that we are right now. I'm sure we're going to have to explore new options if we get bigger. But for right now, it's kind of do-it-ourselves.
Alex: Got it. Awesome.
Alright, so, we wanted to leave a minute or two for questions. Before I dismiss you to go to your last panel, or do your preparation stretches before Brock, here in a little bit.
But are there any questions from anybody? Can talk about Fuze, this research, and just happy to entertain anything you might have.
Speaker 1: I don't have a mic here. You have questions?
Alex: No.
Speaker 1: No questions?
Alex: Awesome.
Well, look, I really appreciate everyone taking the time to join us today. Again, this is where the research is available. There's plenty of other things that are on that site as well, from the previous version of this data.
Enjoy the rest of the show. Thank you both, Herminia and Andy, for joining me today. I really, really appreciate the time.
But, again, thanks everyone. Have a good rest of your Oktane.
As we undergo another technological-driven industrial revolution, Okta is scaling its AD platform and usage of SAS cloud alongside partners like Fuze to make sure the modern worker can be effcient from anywhere. Watch as our shared customers National Geographic and WeddingWire describe how they've mobilized their workforce and eliminated Shadow IT.
Quotient technology creates a seamless customer experience with Okta
Oktane18 Integrating Office365 with HR and Security Systems
Collaboration Made Seamless with Box and Okta: Connect Your Users, Partners, and Customers
Oktane18: Secure Collaboration with Slack
What About the Customer? Leveraging Customer Identity to Better Engage Your Customers
Go to the Okta Content Library


text:
IndiGo to suspend Kolkata- Hong Kong flights
Home News Aviation IndiGo to suspend Kolkata- Hong Kong flights
IndiGo Suspend Kolkata Hong Kong Flight
Major LCC airline IndiGo on Tuesday announced that the airline is going to suspend its Kolkata Hong Kong services from November 6.
The airline said that the reason behind this decision is poor commercial results affected by the ongoing Hong Kong protest.
"We are in the process of evaluating alternate route options between India and Hong Kong and IndiGo will start operations as soon as possible," IndiGo said after suspending Kolkata Hong Kong flights.
The airline also said that "Affected passengers are being contacted and will be offered refunds or alternative travel arrangements."
The airline, which currently operates flights from Bangalore and Kolkata to Hong Kong, will, however, continue flights from the southern city.
The business capital of the world, Hong Kong, has seen public protests calling for democracy in the past few weeks.
This has lead to the disruption of businesses and losses huge loses for the corporates with business interests in the area.
The national carrier of India, Air India – which operates flights to Hong Kong from Mumbai and Delhi, will continue its operations without reducing the frequency, a spokesperson of the airline said.
To get travel updates directly on your mobile, save and send a message at 9461777617 on Whatsapp to start.
Also Read, India's First Private Train, Tejas Express: Know All Benefits, Train Timing, Schedule, Route, and Fare