Ready to start your project? Give us a call or drop us an email to arrange a 'House Doctor' Strategy Session.
In this 2 hour meeting we discuss your aims, needs and ideas for your home in detail. We then talk through possible design options and come up with a plan of action for your project. We also outline the typical architectural process and answer any questions you may have. After this initial meeting we provide a tailored fee proposal to suit your individual project needs.
Nervous about using an architect? Many of our clients are new to the architectural process. We take great effort to explain the extent and value of our services. We want you to not only love the end result, but enjoy the process along the way. Feel free to contact us with any questions you may have.
STAGE 1. Concept Design - in this stage we follow on from the strategy session to take an in depth look at the opportunities and constraints presented by the particularities of your site, budget, planning regulations and other relevant considerations.
We then resolve these varied concerns in a set of Concept Plans capturing your unique set of requirements. At the end of this stage you will have a set of documents detailing the overall Concept for your project.
STAGE 2. Sketch Design - in this stage we develop your chosen Concept Plan to produce a fully rounded design, finalising the general plans and elevations of your project. At the end of this stage you will have a set of design drawings describing the overall design.
STAGE 2b. Planning Permit (if required) - in this stage we consult with your local council to produce a Planning Application for your proposal. Our services for this stage include council consultation, production and submission of planning permit application as well as follow up council requests for further information.
STAGE 3. Interior Design / Detailed Design - in this stage we focus in on the more detailed aspects of the design such as kitchen, bathroom and cabinetry design, as well as lighting, material and fixtures selection. At the end of this stage you will have a set of drawings and schedules documenting the interior design.
STAGE 4. Project Documentation - in this stage we produce the set of construction documents from which the design will be built. Our services for this stage include production of construction drawings and specification and co-ordination of consultants including engineers, energy efficiency consultants and building surveyors.
STAGE 4b. Tendering - in this stage the project is tendered out to a select number of builders for quoting. Our services for this stage include issuing of Tender documents, following up on questions and queries, assessing and reporting on Tender submissions.
STAGE 5. Construction Consultation - this is the stage where the project is built! Our services include both on-site and off-site services to ensure construction is in accord with the design intent.


You're ready to bring your knowledge from the classroom to the boardroom, and Citi wants to help you get there. Whether it's honing your skills or building your network, we know that success can't come without growth. Our internship equips you with the knowledge and training you need to play a valuable role on our team, and establish a long-term career here. At Citi, we value internal mobility, and career growth is not a question of if, but when.
Citi is looking for interns to join the Public Listed Products team in Frankfurt in 2019. For our clients, we do everything to support their investment ideas and provide them with attractive products. The daily work ranges from analysing the current market and product landscape, support marketing campaigns, retail investor communication to organizing meetings and conferences. Our Sales & Marketing Analyst Internship Program is a highly competitive and selective program that gives you the opportunity to actively participate in the research and marketing of securities to our retail and professional client base. In addition, as a Sales & Marketing Analyst, you will be given the opportunity to experience the fast-paced environment of a trading floor and to gain a deep market understanding.
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text:
namespace boost {
namespace tasks {
namespace spin {

auto_reset_event::auto_reset_event( bool isset) :
	state_( isset ? SET : RESET)
{}

void
auto_reset_event::set()
{ state_.store( SET); }

void
auto_reset_event::wait()
{
	state expected = SET;
	while ( ! state_.compare_exchange_strong( expected, RESET) )
	{
		this_thread::interruption_point();
		if ( this_task::runs_in_pool() )
			this_task::yield();
		else
			this_thread::yield();
		this_thread::interruption_point();

		expected = SET;
	}
}

bool
auto_reset_event::try_wait()
{
	state expected = SET;
	return state_.compare_exchange_strong( expected, RESET);
}

bool
auto_reset_event::timed_wait( system_time const& abs_time)
{
	if ( get_system_time() >= abs_time) return false;

	state expected = SET;
	while ( ! state_.compare_exchange_strong( expected, RESET) )
	{
		this_thread::interruption_point();
		if ( this_task::runs_in_pool() )
			this_task::yield();
		else
			this_thread::yield();
		this_thread::interruption_point();

		if ( get_system_time() >= abs_time) return false;
		expected = SET;
	}

	return true;
}

}}}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


JACKET GOLD GARDEN is rated 4.0 out of 5 by 13.
For a bright mix of colour and patterns, choose the Garden Jacket for a silky cover to a simple classic outfit. Pair this floral over a black pant and singlet and embrace its soft draped open front design with ¾ length wide sleeves.
Rated 5 out of 5 by MariaG from Flattering fit, easy wash and wear After careful study online, I decided this black background with yellow flowers (!) looked appealing. When this arrived I was surprised to find additional colours of greys, dusty pink, deep green centres in the admittedly golden flowers - not what I expected! However, it looks great and is such an easy and flattering fit. Thank you.
Rated 5 out of 5 by Loo Loo from Great style This jacket is just fab great fabric and weight and very good to wear dressed up or dressed down.


One of Scotland's premier classical music concert programmes is back with a bang with the line-up for the Ayr Concert Series confirmed for 2017/18. Now in its 31st year, the events are being staged by volunteers from the Ayr Arts Guild on behalf of South Ayrshire Council.
From Friday 6 October 2017 to Friday 20 April 2018, seven professional orchestral concerts will be performed in Ayr Town Hall. The series features three visits by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, two of which are being recorded for broadcast on BBC Radio 3, two from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, one by The Orchestra of Scottish Opera, and a Beethoven album launch from the SCO Wind Soloists.
The series features a number of leading artists including conductors Joseph Swensen, Stephen Bell, the Russian Mikhail Agrest and director/soloists François Leleux (oboe), Laura Samuel (violin), and singers Jamie MacDougall, Laura Zigmantaite and Claire Booth.
The programme includes performances of Beethoven, James MacMillan, Mozart, Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Christmas Classics, and the New Year gala concert. One performance from the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in November brings a world premiere for a new piece of work from the award winning Scottish composer, Tom Harrold.
Councillor Brian McGinley, South Ayrshire Council's Portfolio Holder for Economic Development, Tourism and Leisure said he was confident this year's line-up would strike the right chord, "Year-after-year the concert series brings first rate musicians to play some of the world's finest music at Ayr Town Hall, a venue that has proved to be a popular draw for both musicians and music lovers alike.
"By having events like these on our own doorstep people are given the opportunity to see renowned orchestras play the classics, with two of the concerts from the BBC Symphony Orchestra also being recorded for broadcast on UK national radio.
"I hope that the public continues to show their support for this worthwhile series and I'd like to wish the organisers the best of luck as we move closer to the first performance at the start of October."
Jim Coutts, Chairman of Ayr Arts Guild added, "The fine acoustics in Ayr Town Hall continue to attract leading names from the world of classical music, with a world premiere from contemporary Scottish composer, Tom Harrold, just one of this year's highlights.
"We're kicking off this year with a lively concert from director François Leleux who promises to bring an 'unforgettable presence and playing' in bringing to life arias by Mozart in a concert also featuring Beethoven and Schubert.
"We think we've pulled together a fantastic programme of music and we're hoping people from across Scotland vote with their feet and support these wonderful musicians in what we think will be a Concert Series to remember."
Season tickets are now on sale, which offer savings of up to £14. Brochures containing details of all concerts in the Ayr Concert Series 2017/18 are available from all Ayrshire libraries, Ayr Town Hall, Ayr Tourist Information Office, and from the South Ayrshire Events section.


This Star Wars BB-8 Bowl Set will be a welcome addition to your kitchen and a great way to enjoy your cereal. I bet Rey uses a set in her kitchen. And I'm sure Poe Dameron has a set.
Let BB-8 hold your snacks. This set comes with two bowls and a serving platter.


text:
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title: DevilsGangbangs Casey Calvert gets 3 Juicy Loads
titleinfo: pornvd
desc: Watch DevilsGangbangs Casey Calvert gets 3 Juicy Loads. Pornhub is the ultimate xxx porn and sex site.
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text:
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text:
Bernd Gieseking (* 7. Oktober 1958 in Minden-Kutenhausen) ist ein deutscher Kabarettist und Buch- und Kinderbuchautor.

Leben
Nach seinem Abitur 1978 absolvierte Bernd Gieseking bis 1980 eine Lehre als Zimmermann, dann folgte Zivildienst in einem Nichtseßhaftenheim. 1981 bis 1986 studierte er in Kassel Kunst und evangelische Theologie. 1984 gründete er gemeinsam mit Edgar Wilkening (Text) und Thomas Krug (Musik) das "Kabarett Zappenduster". Seit 1990 ist er als Solo-Kabarettist tätig und als Autor für Hörfunk, Theater und Fernsehen.

Durch Gastauftritte im Hörfunk und Fernsehen (u. a. RTL "Samstag Nacht", ARD "Lachmesse Leipzig", WDR "Kabarett-Fest", SWF "Studio-Brettl", HR "Kabarett live", HR "Das war's. War's das?") wurde er einem größeren Publikum bekannt. Er schreibt Kolumnen für die wahrheit, die Satireseite der taz, Kinderhörspiele für den WDR-Hörfunk sowie Bücher u. a. über Finnland. Auch als Kinderbuchautor machte sich Bernd Gieseking einen Namen.

Außerdem moderiert er u. a. jährlich das "Festival der Komik" in Frankfurt (Caricatura Museum) und die Verleihung des "Deutschen Karikaturenpreises", in Dresden und Bremen (im Wechsel) oder Sonderveranstaltungen wie "25 Jahre TAZ Wahrheit".

Mit seinen aktuellen Kabarettprogrammen Ja klar, ich bin schuld! und Finne Dich Selbst! sowie mit seinem alljährlichen satirischen Jahresrückblick Ab dafür! tourt er durch die Republik.

Bernd Gieseking war der erste, der auf Anregung eines Freundes (Achim Frenz/Caricatura Museum) für das Rahmenprogramm der Karikatur-Ausstellung "Triennale Greiz" 1994 in der documenta Halle Kassel aus seinen Rundfunktexten einen Jahresrückblick zusammenstellte und damit danach intensiv auf Tournee ging. Manche Kollegen bezeichnen ihn deshalb als "Godfather of Jahresrückblick".

Bernd Gieseking lebt in Dortmund.

Werke
Buchveröffentlichungen
 2012: Finne dich selbst!: Mit den Eltern auf dem Rücksitz ins Land der Rentiere (Taschenbuch Fischer Verlage + Hörbuch WortArt)
 2014: Das kuriose Finnlandbuch (Fischer Verlage/ Kulturführer)
 2015: Gefühlte Dreißig – Ein Hoffnungsbuch für Männer um die Fünfzig (Fischer Verlage)
 2017: Früher hab' ich nur mein Motorrad gepflegt. Wie ein Sohn tapfer versucht, sich um seine alten Eltern zu kümmern. (Fischer Verlage)
 2019: Ja klar, ich bin schuld! (Lappan Verlag)
 2021: Finne dein Glück (Fischer)
außerdem:
 2013: Das total gefälschte Geheimtagebuch vom Mann von Frau Merkel, Scherz-Verlag/Fischer Verlage (mit Ralf Husmann und Christian Martin, Hörbuch gelesen von Christoph Maria Herbst)
CD-Veröffentlichungen
 2004: Abgeschleppt: Ein Männerschicksal (Hörbuch, WortArt)
 2005: Köpper vom Dreier (Hörbuch, WortArt)
 2006: Hosen runter zusammen mit Gerlis Zillgens (Hörbuch, WortArt)
 2012: Finne dich selbst!: Mit den Eltern auf dem Rücksitz ins Land der Rentiere (Hörbuch, WortArt)
 2018: Ab dafür! Deluxe – Das Beste aus 25 Jahren Satirischer Jahresrückblick zusammen mit Jochen Malmsheimer (Hörbuch, Wortmeisterei)
Kinderbuchveröffentlichungen
 Das große Buch der Wünsche (Lappan Hausbuch)
 Pommes, der Goldfisch (Lappan Bilderbuch)
 Seemannsgarn (Lappan Hausbuch)
Kinderhörspiele
 Die Honigkuchenbande – Kinderhörspiel mit Musik von Mike Herting (WDR 5, Lilipuz)
 2004: Trolle nach Süden (Hörspiel, WDR 5, Lilipuz, 5 Folgen)
 2007: Trolle nach Irland (Hörspiel, WDR 5, Lilipuz, 4 Folgen)
 2008: Trolle nach Island (Hörspiel, WDR 5, Lilipuz, 4 Folgen)
 Yurumi-Gang – Ein Ameisenbär für Persebeck (Band 1; Buch + Hörspiel, für DSW 21)
 Yurumi-Gang – Der Schatz der Spionin (Band 2; Buch + Hörspiel, für DSW 21)
 Yurumi-Gang – Onkel Herberts Vermächtnis (Band 3; Buch + Hörspiel, für DSW 21)
 Die magische Pfeilspitze (WDR 5 KiRaka 2 Folgen)
 Finn, der Leuchtturmwärter (WDR 5 Bärenbude, 5 Folgen)
 Frau Fledder und Herr Zitrone (HR 2, Lauschinsel – ausgezeichnet mit dem 2. Platz beim MDR Kinderhörspielpreis)
Kinderkonzert
 Nummer Vier fehlt – ein Wildschwein auf Abwegen (Text und Sprecher, UA mit dem Philharmonischen Orchester Hagen, Komposition Christian van den Berg)
 Ab nach Paris  (HR und BR, 2018 Kinderhörspielpreis der Stadt Karlsruhe, 2019 Audio-CD)
Kinder-Radio-Geschichten
 Wo der Elch wohnt (WDR 5, KiRaKa)
 Der Tanz der Glasmacher (WDR 5, KiRaKa)
 Holz her – Vom Leben der Zimmerleute  (WDR 5, KiRaKa)
Theaterstücke
 Fußgängerzone (Text für ein Musik-Theater von Reinhard Karger, UA Staatstheater Kassel)
 Breitenauer Wände (UA Staatstheater Kassel, als Hausautor)
 Die Farbe des Wasser (UA Stadttheater Minden, Stückauftrag)

Programme
 1989 Hoffentlich lacht keiner
 1989 Charmante Lügen, Chansons und Texte, mit Johannes Schlecht
 1990 Zentralquartett – Zwei Herren spielen Kabarett, mit Kurt Sogel
 1990 Alles in Bar!
 1992 Kompakt und Käuflich, zwei Herren auf dem Weg zur Kunst, (Reinhard Karger, Verena Joos)
 1993 Filmriss – Querschläge im Zwischenhirn
 1996 Kennen Sie Aschen?
 1998 Der Perlentaucher
 2001 Abgeschleppt – ein Männerschicksal
 2005 Köpper vom Dreier
 2006 Hosen runter (im Duo mit Gerlis Zillgens)
 2009 DeutschlandGala – die Preisverleihung
 2013 Finne dich selbst!
 2015 Gefühlte Dreißig – Ein Hoffnungskabarett für Männer um die Fünfzig
 2017 Früher hab' ich nur mein Motorrad gepflegt
 2019 Ab dafür! Deluxe – Das Jubiläumsprogramm
 2019 Ja klar, ich bin schuld!

Seit 1994 jährlich "Ab dafür! – der satirische Jahresrückblick"

Preise und Ehrungen
 1990 Passauer Scharfrichterbeil 3. Platz
 1990 Kulturförderpreis der Stadt Kassel
 1990 Publikumspreis St. Ingberter Pfanne
 2000 Westspitzen, Sieger Sparte Kabarett
 2002 Verleihung der "Paul-Heidelbach-Medaille", Kassel
 2002 Reinheimer Satirelöwe, Sieger Sparte "Satirische Kurzgeschichte"
 2013 Obernburger Mühlstein
 2016 Kinderhörspielpreis des MDR 2. Platz
 2016 Mindener Stichling, Sonderpreis
 2018 Kinderhörspielpreis der Stadt Karlsruhe
 2019 Nieheimer Schuhu. Peter-Hille-Literaturpreis

Weblinks

 Offizielle Website von Bernd Gieseking
 Offizielle Website der Agentur
 Offizieller Webauftritt zur Yurumi-Gang mit kostenfreier Downloadmöglichkeit der Bücher und der Hörspiele

Belege

Kabarettist (Deutschland)
Autor
Literatur (Deutsch)
Literatur (21. Jahrhundert)
Kinder- und Jugendliteratur
Hörspielautor
Person (Kassel)
Deutscher
Geboren 1958
Mann

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
An Officer and a Gentleman
Cast/Creative Team Production Photos Tour Website
November 2 – 7, 2021
COVID-19 SAFETY REQUIREMENTS >>
AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN, based on the Oscar-winning film starring Richard Gere and Debra Winger, is a breathtaking production that celebrates triumph over adversity and includes one of the most iconic and romantic endings ever portrayed on screen. Featuring the Grammy Award winning, #1 hit single "Up Where We Belong," and a score based on the 1980s catalogue of music that gave voice to a generation, this spectacular new live stage production is not to be missed!
COVID-19 Advisory (Updated August 25, 2021):
If a performance is cancelled, all tickets will be refunded or credited to the ticket purchaser's account. If you are unable to attend the show due to a COVID-19 related issue, you may request a refund or exchange by contacting the Broadway Sacramento Box Office at least 3 hours prior to your performance. Please visit the Broadway On Tour Box Office Info web page for additional details. In accordance with the State of California's mandate for indoor events with 1,000+ attendees, Broadway Sacramento has implemented the following requirements for patrons attending its events, effective immediately and in place until further notice.
By purchasing tickets, you understand that everyone who enters the theatre will need to comply with the measures in place at the time of your performance.
CONTENT GUIDE
Based on the Oscar-winning film starring Richard Gere and Debra Winger, this musical contains adult themes and explicit language, sexual situations, onstage violence, suicide, alcohol use and strong bullying by a drill sergeant. Also includes strobe lighting.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
Customer Satisfaction has no correlation with Customer Retention
Greg Daines
Total Customer Strategy
Today on the show we have Greg Daines, CEO and Founder of Total Customer Strategy
In this episode, Greg shares lessons learned consulting hundreds of companies on churn and retention and why so many companies focus on asking the wrong questions when getting started.
We then discussed why customer satisfaction has no correlation with retention and why you need to focus on customer results instead and we wrapped up by discussing why it all comes back to alignment if you want to see meaningful results in reducing churn.
Why the number of touch points has no relevance to retention 00:00:00
Why customer satisfaction has no correlation with retention 00:00:00
Why you need to stop focusing on Customer Satisfaction and start focusing on customer results 00:00:00
Why reducing churn all comes down to alignment 00:00:00
[00:01:27] Andrew Michael: Hey, Greg, welcome to the show.
[00:01:30] Greg Daines: Thanks a lot. Appreciate it. Glad to be here. It's great
[00:01:33] Andrew Michael: to have you for the listeners. Greg is the CEO and founder of client velocity and the newly launched total customer strategy. Greg was previously a founder of four different companies before his last company was acquired.
And that is when he realized the importance of customer attention and decided to make it his main focus as a consultant. So my first question for you, Greg, is what drove you to make that move from founder to consultant to begin.
[00:01:58] Greg Daines: Well, yeah, it's a good [00:02:00] question, cuz it's a strange pathway. Although if you think about it, everybody's pathway to customer success in that area has found its way through some interesting set of, of circumstances.
Well, mine was. I was looking back after that last exit, I was looking back at everything I'd done and wondering, you know, if I'd learned enough to know what I was interested in and surely by then, I should have known after that much time, 15 years of, you know, doing that. And, and I realized at least one thing that, that to me makes a lot of sense, which is that the most interesting problems are the hardest problem.
And so I was thinking about, you know, what have I done? What's the hardest thing that I've done, right. You know, creating a new product, imagining, you know, a new market segment, raising money, building a product, marketing, it, selling those things are all really, really hard, but nothing I've done has been harder than consistently making my customer successful.
That the variability in that is, has always [00:03:00] just been astonishing to me and, and. Fascinates me because in some sense, it, it it's illogical, right? We give the same product and the same service to our customers, but they don't get anything like the same results. They're all over the place from nothing to incredible and everything in between.
And that variability, I think is really interesting. It means there's something in there that we really don't understand. There's a factor in there that that's, that's, that's, you know, causing this huge variability. And it's obviously not the product or the service. So, so that to me was the most fascinating set of problems.
And I also realized that it, it couldn't be disconnected from this, this massive transformational, uh, uh, uh, experience that the whole business world has gone through from kind of more transactional businesses to more subscription type businesses or recurring revenue. But those things are tightly connected, cuz obviously.
One of the, if not the, uh, Cardinal feature of that new business model is how easy it is to [00:04:00] switch, right? How easy it is for you to move from one thing to another. And that meant that whatever was at the center of, of the truth, about our relationship with our customers was going to, was going to rise to the surface and become the dominant theme.
And I think that's exactly what has happened and a lot of. Uh, I would say ideas and modes that we have, that we inherited from past eras of business have turned out to be surprisingly unhelpful. And so that was my experience. I'd have these challenges, particularly with customers and I'd go out into the world and I'd, I'd, you know, get the best ideas.
What are the smart people saying? And I'd bring it back and it wouldn't work. And this happened over and over and over again, it drove me crazy. Right. And so, uh, you know, over time, I, I slowly clued into the fact that these are actually. Representative of the dynamics that, that, that are at the core of our new business reality.
And so we needed to kind of overturn the whole thing and, and start looking at things in a [00:05:00] fresh light. That's when, you know, that's when it clicked for me that this is where the interesting kind of stuff is. And so I decided, you know, this what I want to dedicate the rest of my career to it's a hard enough problem that it sure.
Could take out the rest of someone's career, if not many more after that. So that's sort of, that's sort of how I found my way to my interest. And I have a lot of enthusiasm about it, precisely because there's so much here to talk about. And, and because in a sense, doing so solving for it, which, I mean, you have a podcast on this, you know, you know, as well as anybody.
Solving for this is kind of the, is kind of the most important thing we have to figure out. We have to figure this out and, and whatever, whatever is the solution broadly applies across so many different spaces in, in.
[00:05:44] Andrew Michael: Yeah, absolutely. I think in the beginning, like when I started this show, it was really about building an audience so I could sell a product that I was ready to sell to.
And actually like one of the, the motivations for starting for a churn retention podcast was really, was like two things. One was a [00:06:00] problem that had plague me in the past, like, and I wanted to really understand it and find a solution to it. But too is like, I asked myself the question. If I asked any CEO, how much would they pay to solve for this problem?
They'd probably say everything we have in the bank, because we know it's gonna pay back in compounding interests. Like if we manage to solve, uh, for churn and retention effectively. So, uh, I definitely echo the enthusiasm, uh, and, uh, the energy as well. It's good to see, uh, somebody, um, somebody who is passionate as myself on the topic.
So you. You decided then to make the switch and they agreed like it is a problem. Probably you'll never end in the sense. And you mentioned as well, sort of like going out there, seeing what others were saying was happening that from the old world, wasn't really being applied, I'd even say still today as well.
That's a challenge. And we chatted a little bit about this in the beginning where, uh, people will mention things like we discovered this magical number five friends in four days, and we solve for the retention problem that we have when I think in reality. This it's just not the [00:07:00] case. And I think best practices is one of those things, very, very hard to actually find.
And I've even noticed that throughout, like listening to every guest, that's joined the show where it's like, there might be certain things that will work for your business, but probably the vast majority on going to work. And it's about just really trying to understand like how to know what's gonna work or at least try to be able to experiment the test.
So you've probably seen this with a lot of different companies gone in as a consultant, worked with a broad range. Are there any sort of consistent patterns that you've seen that actually do work? Uh, and you'd say like one or two things like you must try out and get started with if you're not doing already.
[00:07:36] Greg Daines: Yeah. Oh, for sure. So, so I I'll start by backing into it cuz there's so many examples of things that don't work and that we actually have no evidence that they work at all, but we. Just assume they do, or we just believe it where it hasn't really been questions. So here's an example that relates to what you were just talking about.
One of the most common things people ask me is, Hey Greg, what's your opinion? How often should we touch [00:08:00] the customer? You know, what's the right cadence? Well, that's a common like theme in customer success, but I actually think it's completely the wrong question. I don't think the number of times or the frequency with which you touch the customer is even relevant.
In fact, you know, this idea that you should touch the customer at some, I, I actually like to refer to as inappropriate touching because it's not, it's not the. It's not that you touch the customer that does anything as if somehow that abstraction of us talking to each other, made any difference. It's like the waiter who keeps coming to your table, but never fills your glass with water and never does anything, but ask you how you're feeling.
It's actually irritating and it's cloying and obsequious and annoying and what does matter. And so on the other side, it's how often can I add value? To my customer, how often can I share something of value or help them with something or solve something. So it does matter. It's just that it's not a cadence issue.
It's a [00:09:00] value adding issue. So that's a kind of a classic example of that. The other one, and, and this is where we've done a, a number of different things with research. We have this huge data set from all of our clients. Almost certainly the biggest of its kind in the world, hundreds of thousands of data points on very specific data around customers and their, you know, churn and their other factors.
And what we've been able to do is test tons and tons of factors. What are the common themes, right? And one of the, one of the others that, that has been the most astonishing and interesting to debunk is client satisfaction. Just the idea that, that we all, I mean, all of us, including me believe. Forever as a foundation to our whole theory of business, is that happy customers stay and unhappy customers leave.
That turns out to not be true. And it cannot even be verified in any meaningful way. Statistically, the first company that did this was the CEB, they're the challenger sale people. They did this like eight years ago. And, and what they found was that there's no statistical [00:10:00] relationship between customer loyalty and customer satisfaction.
Well, we've been able to repeat that over and over again. We have. Wonderful data set because actually one of the other nice things that happened is that everybody adopted NPS as their favorite satisfaction scale or a lot of companies did. And so we've been able to compare across many companies over time across industries, et cetera.
And we find that every way we measure it, whether it's NPS or any other scale, there's no statistical correlation whatsoever. Between how satisfied customers report being and how long they stay. And that's not to say that it's a weak correlation, it's zero, it's dead zero, which is really fascinating because we've been able to test dozens of different factors, right?
Size of the company, what, you know, what kind of company they are, how much they paid, what kind of onboarding they had. We could literally, we can test almost anything you can think. And almost everything has some correlation to retention. Now, a lot of 'em are pretty weak and we, and we know in many cases it's a spurious correlation, but you know, if [00:11:00] you've done a lot of statistical testing, you know, that's actually not rare to find two completely unrelated factors that still appear to have some correlation.
So we use judgment to know that's not a real correlation. What's fascinating about satisfaction. Is it never correlate? Ever in fact, we've never tested another factor, which consistently has no relationship to customer retention the way customer satisfaction does. And that's I, to me, this is a big deal, right?
Because a lot of what we do a lot of the best practices, a lot of the, the effort, the time, the resources we put into customer, uh, retention customer success is all around. How do we, you know, improve our satisfaction, improve that score, and we're watching that score. And the thing is, it is a real thing.
It's not like customer satisfaction is a fake we're, we're measuring something that's real. We've just made the false assumption that that thing connects to or drives customer retention. Um, no, it doesn't. In fact, and, and what's fascinating about that [00:12:00] is, well, then that means potentially a lot of things that we're doing for customers.
Are a waste of time. Now that's not to say we shouldn't make our customers satisfied that that would be a absurd, false interpretation of what I'm saying. Of course we do. It's just that we shouldn't assume that doing that is what drives long term retention. We've gotta look, you know, we've gotta look at other factors.
And so, so what are they? Well, the biggest one, the most reliable predictor we've ever tested over and over again, across many, many studies of long term retention is customer results. Customers who get measurable results. Now that that doesn't mean we ask him, Hey, do you feel like you're getting results?
That is a useful, uh, uh, test, but the, the gold standard test, the really interesting one is, are they, or we measuring those results? It turns out that's like by far the most predictive customer cohort that has measured results has a six times longer lifespan on customer cohort, the doesn't that's, uh, and that, [00:13:00] and that the strength of that result.
Stronger and stronger, the more data we add to the dataset. So that's something that's really fascinating if that's true, it makes sense outta way. You know, you have a happy customer who says what a great experience was and then cancels, or you have an unhappy customer who hates experience complains and yet keeps renewing.
Um, well obviously there's some other factor we think it's, uh, for sure. It's something to do with the results. That's, what's the compelling reason to stay. Right. So, and we have good data on that. So, so then the question is, well, if that's what it is, what are all the things we do, uh, or could do that, both drive and measure results.
And that turns out to make sense out of another thing, which is that customer success, isn't just what the customer success team does. It's what everybody does from the product to the marketing and sales. All of those elements of the company are lining up, uh, around, well, they all have a, [00:14:00] they all have a role to play in whether or not customers get, get and perceive results.
And if you line them up so that each of those elements is correctly and, and in the same way, defining results, and then, you know, driving customers, helping them achieve them, measure them, materialize them back. What you find is that that's the kind of thing that drives extraordinarily high. Customer retention.
It's, it's lining all the pieces up to be aligned to one thing which is driving and measuring customer results.
[00:14:30] Andrew Michael: Yeah, you said a lot of things. Now I wanna unpack, uh, quite a few of them as well. Um, sure. Let's start with the, the idea that customer, uh, customer satisfaction is not related sharing attention for my own clarity, just to understand as well.
The are we talking about a blended customer success, uh, versus blended churn retention? Or are we talking about at the individual company or customer level? So what I mean by that is like, if a company has a high [00:15:00] customer success thing, do you see a correlation to like the lower churn retention? Or is it like, as you said, a customer says, love the product and then they end up churn or I hate the product and they end up sticking around.
So is it blended risk under individual
[00:15:13] Greg Daines: basis? It's the latter, but I want to talk about the difference between those two, because there is compelling evidence, pretty consistently that companies with higher satisfaction have higher retention that does correlate at the, at the aggregate level. And that's one of the things that's been used to justify NPS as being a valid signal or predictor of long term retention.
But here's the problem. What we are testing is something that those tests don't look at, which is if I asked a customer. How satisfied they are. And then I look to see what their retention is. Uh, there's no relat. So the best example, the cleaner example is when you look at NPS, it's a score from zero to 10, right?
And if we group, this is, this is how we run it. We group customers by what score they [00:16:00] gave 0 1, 2, 3, all the way to 10. And what we say is what's the average lifespan of customers. With a zero score or a one score or a nine score. And what we find is there's no variation, all the customers who give zero scores, ones two, there's no variation.
So then how could it be possible if that's true, if there's no relationship between the score and the customer's retention at the customer level, how could it appear at the aggregate level? Well, we think there's a very clear explanation for this and the explanation's simple. Companies that produce results are the ones, uh, in our experience, particularly measured results are the ones that have high retention.
So the question is, could there be a relationship? Is it possible that companies that are good at producing customer satisfaction are also better at producing results? So what we think, what we think we're measuring, [00:17:00] uh, which is the relationship between satisfaction and retention at the company level.
What we're really measuring is, uh, C. With a, with a general bent toward, you know, both satisfying and driving results from their customers, but it's actually the results that are producing the longer retention. It should surprise no one that companies that have actually that are competent and effectively run enough to engage with their customers, determine what value matters to them and ensure that those customers achieve that value are also.
Not coincidentally, pretty good at making customers satisfied as well, but we don't think it's the satisfaction that drives the retention.
[00:17:41] Andrew Michael: Yeah. Uh, that, that makes sense as well. And I agree to most of it, uh, that you mentioned now as well to some points, is that like, um, Ultimately like people come to your business for, to get value out of the product, to service that they're purchasing.
They have a problem, your, your product to service [00:18:00] solves that if they don't, they're gonna churn anything. I think where the lines get a little bit blurry is like, if you're getting the value from the product to service, You're a satisfied customer. Uh, so ultimately like, you're, you're going to think, like I agree though, overall, like the metric of MPS and stuff, there's just too many flaws, uh, for it to be a reliable thing.
And yeah, I, I buy into the idea as well, and I definitely think it's. Is a much, much better place for companies to focus is like, how can we make our customers more successful rather than satisfied? Because it's more specific to why they come to us. And there's a number of reasons. Like you could give a really good, uh, support help one day, and then somebody just overly happy that they've got a personal support service, but they're still don't really achieve their goal that they're trying to use your product for.
So I definitely see. This is actually something we've chatted about on the show a few different times. And I think the example I keep going back to on the show, which I found really, really interesting is Heidi Gibson was at GoDaddy at the time. [00:19:00] And what they were trying to do was trying to increase retention on their website builder.
And they started with the idea that people came to build their websites and they wanted to get things live. And then they ended up churn and they were trying to figure out like what made the most successful, uh, sites. And ultimately people don't wanna website. They wanna sell, uh, products or they wanna get bookings or they want to sell tickets.
So they started noticing. The companies were doing the most selling were the ones or the most bookings were the ones that end up sticking around. So a place, your point is obviously like the value that they're getting and they ended up then going and making that their key metric is like, okay, like we are here to increase bookings or to increase sales and they reverse engineered behavior then from there to, okay, so the companies get the most sales.
What do they do in their early life cycle? What is it that's making them successful? And they found incredible credible results really, by focusing on this and. The closer you can get to measuring the actual value that your product delivers to your customer and making [00:20:00] that the focus for the company I think is really, really important.
[00:20:04] Greg Daines: I couldn't agree more. That's been our experience. The one thing I do wanna comment on that you said, which is very interesting, which is, I think you said something like. Obviously, if they get results, they're going to be satisfied with the product. Actually, we don't, we don't see that. So here's an interesting piece of data on that.
That's very fascinating because I noticed this when I was working with my own customers, some of the most frustrating, angry customers, I thought we were doing the best work for, right. Or they were getting the best outcomes. And I even had a good example of that. You know, where, where I was, um, apple was actually a customer on apple computer.
So they, I was over there all the time and they were just the worst. They were always unhappy, always frustrated driving me crazy. And, and, you know, we try to be diplomatic and civil, but I, you know, it even got to me a little bit and some people with, with customers probably can relate to this, but it was just one of those customers where I'm like, why don't you?
So I actually. In a meeting, I [00:21:00] kinda lost my cool a little bit. And I said, look, why, if you hate us so much, why don't you just leave? Why don't you cancel? Yeah. And the guy looked at me a little bit funny, like he didn't understand my point. He said, why would we leave when you make us so much money? And you know, my reaction to that was to feel a little ashamed.
Cuz why did I think it was about anything else? Why did I imagine, where did we get this idea that we're in business together? So that guy can feel good today or any day? It was always about the money. What, who are we kidding? No. Anyway, the point is there's this interesting data. So you may have heard of a company called sun Microsystems.
They were big like computer mainframe manufacturer kind of big in the, in the nineties. And they did this interesting study where they looked at their customers and they divided them into two groups. Customers who'd had a negative experience. Or more than one and customers who'd never had a negative experience and they were trying to figure out, you know, what drives the negative experiences versus positive.
But one of the things they did almost as an afterthought was to test how long do these groups stay and what they discovered to their surprise was that the group that had negative experiences stayed a lot longer than the group that had. [00:22:00] Only had positive experiences. And that was just an interesting thing.
Well, we've been able to replicate that in our data. We have data every time we test it. When you do those two groups, the customer with negative experiences, problems, issues, limitations, et cetera, stays longer. In fact, in our data, we have a rather large study on this shows that it's about twice as long on average, they stay well.
That doesn't make sense. If they're getting results, if they're staying shouldn't, they. By definition, be the customers with more, uh, with, with fewer negative kind of, uh, impressions. Well, here's the one thing that I would say that I think is really interesting and more thinking about. Um, and I think it applies to that GoDaddy story.
You just told here, they are working with their clients to try to get them this result. They got clarity around that result. And I even got to the point where they were measuring it, by the way. I think that's brilliant. Fantastic story. That's been our experience completely. Which customer is more likely to get results.
A customer who comes in tries really hard, you know, pushes the product to its [00:23:00] limits, tries to learn. It does everything spends a lot of time or a customer who doesn't try very hard. You see the issue is that that getting results is what causes you to say, but it happens that having. Negative experiences is an almost inevitable outcome of trying hard enough to get results.
And so what we find is actually, it's not that negative results cause you to stay longer. That's not the insight. The insight is that customers who get results stay longer. And it's those customers who tend to have tried harder and run into problems, you know, limitations, et cetera. So we do think there's a correlation there, but it's not a, cause it's not like negative causes you to stay, but here's the thing.
And this is where I, I kind of ended up with my apple story. It was sort of like, oh, I see you are getting phenomenal results precisely because you've pushed our product to the limits and figured out what's wrong with it and, and broken it in 10 different ways. And. It's inevitable that the outcome of that is that you do have some negative [00:24:00] feelings, thoughts, ideas about us, and there's no way around that.
[00:24:04] Andrew Michael: Absolutely. Also sounds like it's a cultural thing at apple, but, uh, it's. That might be, and I definitely, it makes a lot of sense and I've seen like similarly as well. Actually like at my own startup. Now, one of the things that when we get bad support messages that come in, stuff like for me, I actually see it as a positive signal.
It's that somebody actually cares enough to complain about your product because it's a problem when they're not complaining. And that's when they're churn is because they don't care enough. They're not invested or motivated enough. So I definitely see that. And I've actually seen this similarly at other companies, working with them in their data as well.
And validating the point that you're saying now is totally. It means that people care. Like if people reaching out and they're complaining, like they care, if they don't care about your product, they're just churn and they're leaving anyway, like, yeah.
[00:24:50] Greg Daines: Right. And they might say that they had a good experience, but what do they know?
They never tried very hard right now. Here's the other thing about that NPS data? When you're [00:25:00] comparing, uh, customers, different satisfaction scores, you're actually ignoring 85% of the data cuz 85% of your customers didn't respond to the NPS survey, but we have that data. And guess what it turns out. If you don't respond to the survey, you consistently have a much shorter lifespan.
So there's no difference based on the customers who provided a score, they hate you, or they love you. They all stay the same amount of time. But if you didn't respond to the survey, you stay significantly less than half as long. What does that tell you? It tells you that there is a signal in the data, but it's the one you just said.
It's about, who's engaged enough, who it matters to who it's important to, if it's important, whether they love it or hate it, chances are they're gonna stay. Hmm. Um, if it's not important, chances are they're gonna leave. If
[00:25:47] Andrew Michael: so, maybe a bit of metric then customer satisfaction to measure from the results.
Actually. What is the ratio of respondents to user base, uh, to see how engaged users are, uh, it's a better
[00:25:57] Greg Daines: signal? Well, it, what you just said is, [00:26:00] is something, a lot of companies are starting to pick up on, which is they used to have. Negative support tickets as a risk factor in their health score. But now, uh, based on this, they should be seen as a positive factor in your health score.
Literally flipped backwards. Yeah. Cause they do, they have the opposite meaning of the way we used to interpret them.
[00:26:19] Andrew Michael: For sure. I think OB, like there are still obviously cases where definitely people will end up churn, but it definitely is the ladder where like, I care enough about this problem. So I'm coming to you with it and I'm hoping that you're gonna solve it for me, uh, to a degree.
So that's right. They shouldn't be ignored, but yeah, I definitely see them as like a good positive signal. That's uh, we're there to make it work. Uh, tell us a little bit about the idea then like now consultants moving to founder again, starting a new company. Um, What set abouts.
[00:26:52] Greg Daines: So, so one of the things that, that I stubbed my toe on over and over and over again was [00:27:00] okay.
Let's say we let's say we accept this idea that it's really about results. What do you do? How do you operationalize that? How's that. What does that change? Right. And over time it just became more and more clear that it kind of changes everything. So we have all these things we're doing. We talked about that might have zero leverage or low leverage against customer outcomes.
And so then what are the things that have high leverage? So it took me a lot of time to kind of unpack all of that and try it in different companies in different sizes and contexts and industries, et cetera. And now we've just done it hundreds of times. And what, and what we found is there's a consistent set of playbooks that are the high leverage playbooks.
Now, as you say, Do you solve every customer's problems? Like you called it an edge? The reality is no, of course some customers are gonna stay no matter what you do. And some customers are gonna leave no matter what you do, but it turns out that these playbooks make a difference in that bulk, middle. [00:28:00] And it's such a big difference.
In fact, that it means churn no longer is a problem. I mean, the idea of zero churn is not a serious idea. I, I don't think. Can seriously consider that. Of course there will always be churn. The question is whether the churn is significant enough that it's impacting your goals, your growth, et cetera, that that's the problem our clients struggle with.
Once you get it down below a low level, you suddenly other things are problems. Can you sell fast enough? Can you make new product? I mean, there's other problems right in business. And so the issue is, you know, what are the core things. That are worth doing that can be done that make that bulk of a difference.
Right. And, and so slowly, uh, I'm a slow learner. So it took breaking my leg on every possible place to, to kind of see what matters and where the limits of that are. And, and so we've, we've essentially distilled. The results driven, uh, strategy into a, into a set of playbooks and they're, and they're [00:29:00] simple.
They can be learned by anyone. They can be implemented in a company with very little resources, et cetera, or a lot. And, and they're not really about that. They're really about how you approach and manage a customer. So. It's about, you know, do you message to results in marketing? Do you sell results or do you sell features?
You know, how do you sell results? Like, what is the playbook look like? How do you onboard to results? How do you use results as the core dynamic in, in the customer relationship going forward? How do you expand to results? How do you think of results when you're designing product or, or improvements in your product or, or expansion?
So all of those things come together and we built a set of playbooks around that. We've been helping our customers, what they radically transform a churn. Typically, you know, when you do just a few of these playbooks in sales and say onboarding and, and, and, and just essentially, and the funny thing is it's, it's usually means doing less, rather than doing more in your business, cuz there's quite a few things we can just [00:30:00] stop doing, frankly, that are not we're doing.
And I mean, the difference is massive, right? The, I. Many of our clients come to us cuz they have very severe churn, but not all of them. Some of them are just tuning it up at a high level and either way the bulk of the opportunity to drive down churn is early. Meaning during the sale and onboarding that's where your biggest leverage is.
That doesn't mean there aren't other leverage points, but they're exponentially smaller. The big, the big leverage in every customer's relationship is to. And the way you, and what you need to do at that early stage is relatively simple. It's about, we call it the customer results strategy. It's identifying clearly what are the customer's business results that they expect?
How will they be measured? What exact set of tools and tech, and services and whatever, what solution do they need? We call it the total solution and then most important. What will the customer have to do to achieve those? Cause like I said, right at the top, this [00:31:00] variability, we give the same product, the same service.
Why, why are the results? So variable, the answer is because that there's another factor in this equation and it's the customer and what they do. And so we have to take responsibility for that. And so driving what we call critical key customer behavior change is the last piece. If you can line those things up, what are they trying to do?
How's it measured? What do they need to succeed? And what do they need to do to. Just those four simple things is transformative to the relationship, you know, does it solve every churn? No, but it solves like 80%, like huge, like really significant, because one thing we, we, I think fail to appreciate is customers come because they want to achieve these results.
They hope to achieve these results. But the vast majority of our customers. Don't know how we do have some customers in every business who totally know how they arrive with all the right ideas and the right skills. And they go to work and, you know, we usually stand back and go, wow, that's cool. We should, wow.
We should watch how they're doing it, but what's that three or 4% of the market. The [00:32:00] vast majority of the market is willing to change, but they need to be led. And so, instead of just thinking of ourselves as a tools provider, Hey, here's all the, here's a box full of bits. Everything you need to succeed. We need to appreciate that the vast majority of the market needs us to show them how to lead them through that process, to connect it to the result they want, and then say, Hey, look, here are the three simple behaviors you need to engage in to get those first results.
One other point I think is really interesting, which is. Our data shows that getting results is the best predictor, but what's fascinating is the primary driver of churn is getting no results. So we do. I mean, I wondered about this for a long time. What if, what about customers who get poor results? It turns out as long as you're measuring results, if they get any results, churn has already been reduced by an order of magnitude.
Now, does it get better? The better results they get? Yeah, it does. Absolutely. But the primary driver of the bulk of churn is customers who never get [00:33:00] to the first result. So that's why it's so important is to sell in the right way and to onboard in the right.
[00:33:06] Andrew Michael: Yeah, that seems like an absolute, no brainer in the sense that if people come to you and they're not getting results, like, are they gonna stick around?
And also I see as well, like having a good solid blueprint really, really helps. Cause I see even this one, like the early days at hot show, when we first started like trying to tackle the idea of churn retention was there was. Very little knowledge, I'd say throughout the organization of the challenge and of the problem.
And ultimately like what ended up happening was we would talk about, we have this churn retention problem, but there was no real action or nothing really happened as a result. And I think at some points, like I took it for myself and I was really trying to see, okay, like what can. The organization do everybody.
And how can we show that the influence, uh, comes back to it and ended up putting together just like a slide that we presented at a company meetup, just showing like the influence of churn and retention throughout the organization, how [00:34:00] each team plays a role in that and what are the actions and initiatives they could take in order to help reduce this?
Uh, the challenge that we had and really trying to diagnose, like what was the problem and ended up being onboarding and activation was the biggest opportunity. Like you say, but just having that. In the organization and everybody realizing, okay, like, wait, like churn is not just this mythical problem that customer success needs to deal with whatever it is actually a product problem.
It is a marketing problem. It is a sales problem. Um, having that was like transformational. I think afterwards, like the, the results that we saw from just having that common alignment and like that little bit of education I can see differently. Uh, something like you're talking about being really, really impactful for a lot of companies.
Giving them the playbooks and knowing, okay, it's all. I think it all comes back to alignments. If everybody understands the problem, you've diagnosed it and they can clearly see like what they can do to influence it. Uh, there is nothing else I thinking it to it, I guess. Yeah,
[00:34:57] Greg Daines: totally. And you know, it's one of the things that I find [00:35:00] the most gratifying about what I do is that any company I go to every group.
He's anxious to solve it. I never, I never run into leaders who are like, nah, I don't wanna, it's not my problem. They may not understand what they can do. But if, if you're testing their willingness, it's always high people, always, you know, sales product. They always wanna say. Yeah. If I knew what to do, I would do it.
I just don't know. But the willingness is really there. And once they start to see the picture form around, oh, well, if it's about results, then I see how we can improve that in product. If it's about results, I can see how we should message differently in marketing. We should sell benefits, not features.
Yeah. Okay. We get that. And what's fun is to watch everybody just grab onto that. So the, the problem in organizations, I think this has really been one of the great. I don't know what the serendipities of my life to discover this, that actually everybody wants to align. Everybody wants to do it. They just don't have a clear [00:36:00] vision as to how, like, what can, what can we do?
What what's my job in, in, in making this work. And once they see that, it's amazing. It's so fun to watch 'em lock in and just jump in and, and do whatever they can do. It's really fun. Absolutely.
[00:36:14] Andrew Michael: And that, that's what I love about this show. Just speaking to many different people, different backgrounds, because everyone you speak to like, no matter then the support sales, marketing products like exec, everybody has a story.
Everybody has a viewpoint. Everybody has something that they've done. That's influenced the metric and, uh, it really is great to see. Yeah, we're running up in time. I wanna make sure I ask you two questions. Ask every guest first question. Hypothetical scenario, you join a new company. Trainer. Attention's not doing great.
The CEO comes to you and says, okay, Greg, you're in charge. You need to reduce it. You need to do it fast. You have 90 days, the catches. You're not gonna tell me I'm gonna go speak to customers. Figure out the biggest pain points. I'm gonna look at the dates and see what it tells me. You're just going to pick a tactic that you've seen work [00:37:00] at a previous company and run with that blindly, hoping that it reduces churn, uh, within the 90 days, what would you do?
[00:37:08] Greg Daines: Well, I've sort of given this away already, but everybody knows that a customer strategy, meaning what should the customer do? What do they wanna achieve and what should they do? Is great. And I've seen lots of good examples of different formats for that out there. The one problem I've seen over and over again, though, is how much work it is to build one of those, you know, a whole strategy with a ride up about this, and they're, they've gotta do this.
And all of those details are not practical in what I've found. It's not practical to do those at scale. You know, if we have 10,000 customers next year, we're not gonna write up. So I believe that you have to build a customer strategy and I just think you need to do it in a quick reusable way. That's nevertheless robust.
So the method I would impose is for every customer defined, not written out as a, as a written document, [00:38:00] but as bullet points. What's their one first or second, maybe their top two or three primary objectives. How will they measure them? What's you know, what do they need to achieve that? And then what do they have to do to achieve it?
So the second part of that is not just to find that out from the customer, but to then be clear ourselves on. Why do our successful customers get better results than our other customers? Like, what is it, the thing they do, the simple things, the basic things, and then constantly push those out to customers because we are so often we so often fail to appreciate that they don't really know how to get results.
And that, that act, even though we do have some customers that do the vast majority don't and so it would be codify the customer's objectives and help them change their behavior.
[00:38:50] Andrew Michael: Nice. And what's one thing that you know today about your attention that you wish you knew and you had started with your career.
[00:38:59] Greg Daines: I wish [00:39:00] I had known that customer behavior is more leverageable than I thought, you know, you can feel a little discouraged cuz you think, well, Wait, Greg, you're telling me it's not about customer satisfaction that now the whole game is on customer results. That means I have to change their behavior. I mean, whether the chance is I can change every customer's behavior.
I can't even change my own behavior. Right. But the truth is actually, it's just the opposite. One of the hardest things to consistently leverage is people's emotional experience, customer behavior, as hard as it is, is not as ethereal as customer feelings. And so actually. The more clear we get, and this is the thing I didn't understand.
The most leveragable thing actually is customer behavior. Once we understand what they should be doing. We have clarity and we can help them. And for the most part, customers actually want to be led. They want us to show them how the best do it. They think we've worked with better companies than them, and they assume we're gonna share that expertise with them so they can be good too.
[00:40:00] And so I, I just wish I had seen earlier how much more power we have over customer behavior change than I realized.
[00:40:09] Andrew Michael: Very nice. Very interesting. Cause it was actually one of my thoughts when you said changing customer behaviors, like it's not a, typically a very easy thing, uh, to change people's behaviors, but I think ultimately if you delivering results, like people wanna come back for those results, uh, that's a good motivator then.
Very nice. Uh, Greg, is there any final thoughts you wanna leave the listeners with like anything they should be aware of? Or how can they keep up to speed with your.
[00:40:35] Greg Daines: Well, you can follow me on LinkedIn or, or go check out total customer strategy. If you wanna learn a little bit more about the details of this, we are in the process of trying to share these ideas as broadly as we can.
So the other thing that's really fun is to watch how many people are coming to similar conclusions. I mean, One of the things that I'm convinced of is if you find something that's true, almost certainly you're not the only person who's found it. Right. Or you invented it. And, and I [00:41:00] don't think that's what's happening.
I run into people constantly. Who've figured out so much of this. Who've seen the results are at the core who figured out, in fact, many of the things that, that we teach and that's so gratifying. So. One of the reasons I ask you to follow me is mostly cuz I want to hear from you. I love hearing from people how they're doing, what they've found in their, you know, business, what they did that worked.
So please, please don't just come follow, come share. I'm anxious to meet people in the, in the space. And I, and I love hearing these stories.
[00:41:30] Andrew Michael: Awesome. I will definitely make sure to leave that in the show notes as well. So if you're listening on the go, you can check those out later. Um, thanks so much for joining again, Greg, and I wish you best of luck now with the new venture.
[00:41:41] Greg Daines: My pleasure. Thank you, Andrew. Cheers.
James Mayes
Transitioning to a subscription-based business
Michael Winnick
Creating human relationship capital to reduce churn
Lowell Ricklefs
Growth and new business VS retention: Which metric influences a company's acquisition.
How to fuel e-commerce growth with retention


ChildCare Education Institute (CCEI) coursework is provided through CCEI's trainer, Laura Anderson Hamilton who is approved by Louisiana Pathways as a Trainer III in the following subject areas: Health and safety; Professionalism; Observing and Recording Children's Behavior; Child Development; Children with Special Needs; and Children with Hearing Impairment.
ChildCare Education Institute (CCEI) coursework is provided through CCEI's trainer, Laura Anderson Hamilton who is approved by Louisiana Pathways Child Care Development System as a Trainer III in the following subject areas: Health and safety; Professionalism; Observing and Recording Children's Behavior; Child Development; Children with Special Needs; and Children with Hearing Impairment.
Through this approval, CCEI training is accepted by the Louisiana Department of Social Services, Child Care Licensing Division to meet annual licensing training requirements.
As an approved training provider, CCEI's training may be used to advance individuals to the next level of recognition on the Career Development Tracks and Tools Ladder for the Classroom Track, Family Child Care Track, and Administrative Track.


text:
Home Sports
brenda - June 25, 2021
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Indian cricketer KL Rahul treated Anushka Sharma and Virat Kohli's fans to a new, unseen picture of the couple. The sportsman shared a picture featuring him and the couple to wish Virat on his birthday. In the picture,...
brenda - August 23, 2021 0
PTVC has sent a Rs 100 million defamation notice to Shoaib Akhtar saying he had resigned on air from PTV sports in October which is not only a violation of the clause but has...
brenda - January 6, 2022 0
The question that comes to the minds of many when they hear of virtual gaming money is, "can it be converted to actual money?" The answer is yes, but like most sources of making...
'Haters' will recognize Novak Djokovic after he retires, says Medvedev
World No 1 Novak Djokovic may not enjoy the same kind of adulation from fans as Roger Federer or Rafa Nadal but even the Serb's "real haters" will come to appreciate his records and achievements after...


A 36-page booklet featuring a map, some useful information, rumors, hazy photos, quotations or hearsay, atmospheric speculation, daydream transcriptions, and historical trivia about five noteworthy parking lots in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Featured parking lots: The Lake Street K-Mart, the Minneapolis Club, the Nicollet Hotel, Nye's Polonaise Room, and the Northeast Bank Parking Lot Park.
Booklet cover is full color featuring custom dive bar artwork by Ken Avidor. Inside pages are black-and-white.
This is the fifth in the slightly popular "Guide Booklet" series.


Welcome to our Ride+Stride pages!
Ride+Stride is an annual sponsored event in which people from all over the country raise money to support their local Christian places of worship. The event is operated in association with the National Churches Trust.
In our region, Ride+Stride runs from 10am to 4pm on the second Saturday in September so the next event is on Saturday 14 September 2019.
Seen a banner or board?
If you have come here after seeing one of our new banners or boards, please visit our banners and boards page.
If you are new to Ride+Stride and would like an introduction, please visit our introduction page.
If you are a Participant or a potential Participant, looking to take part in the event, please visit our participant's guidance page.
Want to organise Ride+Stride at a church?
Finally, if you are a Local Organiser or potential Local Organiser, please visit our local organiser's guidance page.
There are a lot of pages on the Ride+Stride part of this website. Our sitemap (link above) will help you find what you want but please get in touch if you still cannot find what you are looking for. Thank you.


text:
Deferred Compensation Plans: Options and Considerations
Businesses often consider how to reward and retain top talent and incentivize productivity without offering equity, an ownership interest in the business. An executive deferred compensation plan allows an employer to supplement an executive's base salary over a longer horizon—either after retirement or over a period of years. We have outlined three different options below, all of which are intended to reward executives based on productivity and results and to retain those executives by structuring a payout over time.
(1) Nonqualified Deferred Compensation (NQDC) Plan
Overview: A NQDC Plan, also known as a supplemental executive retirement plan (SERP), is a non-qualified plan structured to avoid the limitations placed on other qualified retirement vehicles, such as a 401(k). By being a non-qualified plan, the company can limit participation to a select group of executives, make larger contributions, and require more service for the vesting of benefits. Contributions are typically subject to the employer's discretion based on performance objectives. As part of deferring payment to an executive to a future time, the tax owed on this extra income is deferred as well. These plans may be appealing for executives who are maxing out contributions to qualified plans.
Issuance and Vesting of Benefit: Funds are typically put in a "Rabbi Trust" to ensure they remain subject to a substantial risk of forfeiture. This means the funds are not subject to tax when set aside for the executive because the funds are still subject to the company's creditors. Companies can establish substantial vesting requirements (g., 20 years). They can also forfeit the benefit on violation of certain restrictive covenants or misconduct (like termination for cause).
Payment Triggers: Permissible payment events include the following:
A fixed date
The executive's separation from service
The executive's death
The executive's disability
A change in control
An unforeseeable emergency
Typically, plans will provide for payment upon the later of two events (e.g., the later of separation from service or age 55).
Value of the Benefit: The benefit amount is typically a formula-based annual monetary contribution.
Terms of Payment: Generally, payments commence on a participant's separation from service (or the later of separation and an age, such as 55), in a lump sum or an annuity. Executives often have a choice regarding the form of payment (for example, lump sum or periodic installments) and may have a choice of the payment commencement date. Payments may be accelerated in the event of death, disability, or a change in control.
Administration. Employers can administer these plans themselves, but they often engage the services of a third-party administrator, who could assist with providing a form plan document, creating the rabbi trust, and calculating the benefit.
Tax Treatment. Employers cannot deduct amounts, as they are contributed to the plan's trust and trust assets are taxed. Benefits earned under a SERP are generally not taxed until distribution. However, the executive is subject to FICA tax on SERP benefits.
(2) Long-Term Incentive Plan (LTIP)
Overview: An LTIP rewards employees for meeting certain performance goals that are vital to the company's success, but may not necessarily be tied to share price or company value. The annual benefit under an LTIP can be calculated for each executive and is payable or vests over a period of years, typically three to five. For example, you could calculate an award in Year 1 that is payable in Years 2 through 6 at 20 percent each year. Then, layer a Year 2 bonus that is payable over Years 3 through 7. In this example, it is not until Year 5 that the executive is receiving a "full" benefit. Alternatively, half the award could be payable in Year 5 and the other half in Year 6.
Issuance and Vesting of Benefit: An LTIP is very structured. For example, if the executive reaches his or her productivity goal in Year 1, they receive a bonus of X, payable over Y years. It could be structured so that you have ultimate discretion over the amount of the benefit.
Payment Triggers: The executive would be entitled to benefit so long as they were employed as of Dec. 31 of the year at issue. In other words, if the executive leaves the company before it vests, he or she forfeits the unvested portion of the award.
Value of the Benefit: It would be a cash payment, often a percentage of base salary, so there would be no need for business valuations.
Terms of Payment: The plan can require the executive to sign a general release of claims against the company and its owner as a prerequisite for payment, and can also require the execution of restrictive covenants (non-compete, non-solicitation, confidentiality, or non-disparagement).
Administration: The employer would establish a committee to administer the plan. There would be some internal record-keeping requirements.
Tax Treatment: The employer gets a deduction when the award is paid to the executive, and the executive is taxed on receipt. Unlike an SERP described above, the executive does not receive a substantial tax deferral benefit, since vesting and payout are typically close in time.
(3) Phantom Share Plan
Overview: A Phantom Share Plan is an account-balance plan that measures return on equity measured by reference to shares of company stock. The plan will involve grants of "phantom shares" (i.e., not actual equity) to the participants to provide them certain economic assurances and incentives to better align the interests of such key executives with the interests of its owner. Plan participants will not be equity owners (e., members) for LLC law, tax law, or other purposes, but the plan will be intended to provide to the participants compensation opportunities that mimic certain aspects of equity ownership with respect to certain transactions.
Issuance and Vesting of Phantom Shares: There are various ways to structure how phantom shares are issued and vested, according to your objectives. For example, shares can be issued pro-rata to eligible executives or tied to productivity. The plan can provide for issuance only in the event of certain economic conditions and on executive performance. Vesting can be immediate or over a period of time. The plan could also tie vesting to performance (g., the executive must remain employed for 18 months and the business must have an increase in net income of X percent or X dollars from net income earned in a given year to vest in the initial grant). If the executive leaves prior to the payment trigger, then (s)he forfeits the benefit in full.
Payment Triggers: The plan could incorporate a variety of payment triggers appropriate for the business. The most commons are:
Sale of the company or other change in control
Executive reaching retirement at age 65 or older
Death or permanent disability
Termination of employment without cause or by the executive for "good reason"
Vesting on a certain date; g., five years from execution of the agreement
Value of the Benefit: Once a triggering event occurs, the amount of the payout per a Phantom Share Plan is usually based on the per-share value of the company. Except for public companies, the employer would likely need a business valuation when a triggering event occurs. Additionally, the company should plan for its cash obligations when payment is triggered.
Terms of Payment: Payment can be made in a lump sum or payable over a specified, limited period. The plan can also require the executive to sign a general release of claims against the company and its owner, as well as restrictive covenants (non-compete, non-solicitation, confidentiality, or non-disparagement) as a prerequisite for payment.
Administration: The plan would create a governing committee for administrative and interpretive control of the plan.
Tax Treatment: The employer receives no deduction until obligation vests and is paid. If an employer sets aside funds to pay a benefit, those earnings would be taxable to the employer. The executive defers taxation until payment is received or is no longer subject to forfeiture.
These are a few of the options for employers to use as a tool for executive compensation, incentives, and retention. Various other tools are also available, from employee stock options to individual retention agreements. It is important that in preparing any type of written plan or agreement that you carefully draft all relevant documents with consideration of their legal and tax implications. Among other things, Nexsen Pruet prepares plans and agreements for our clients that meet the following expectations:
Achieve company objectives for performance incentives, executive retention, and/or tax deferral;
Agree with the company culture and existing executive agreements and compensation policies; and
Avoid unintended tax consequences or liability.
Please contact the Nexsen Pruet Employment & Labor Law team to discuss your employee agreements, policies, and plans.
Sarah Sloan Batson


text:
#ifndef LIBPRAEFECTUS_HASH_TREE_H_
#define LIBPRAEFECTUS_HASH_TREE_H_

#include <stdlib.h>

#include "common.h"

__BEGIN_DECLS

/**
 * The number of entries in a hash tree directory.
 */
#define PRAEF_HTDIR_SIZE 16

/**
 * A hash tree (basically a Merkle tree, but with some extra functionality) is
 * a content-addressable byte-array store. Messages can be located based on
 * their content in logarithmic time (including range queries), and
 * discrepencies between two hash trees can be discovered in logarithmic time
 * when there are few differences.
 *
 * A hash tree is organised into a tree of directories and objects. The
 * top-level is always a directory. Each directory has a nybble-offset within
 * the hash; all objects directly or indirectly contained there in are
 * guaranteed to have identical hash codes through the first offset nybbles of
 * the hash code (running from byte 0 to byte 31, high nybble before low
 * nybble).
 *
 * Furthermore, each directory maintains a small hash derived from the hashes
 * of the objects and directories it contains. This permits the comparison of
 * two directories to determine whether they have equivalent contents.
 *
 * Objects, besides their hashes, are also associated with IDs unique (but also
 * particular) to the hash tree to permit constant-time access. These IDs are
 * not consistent across nodes, but are stable over the life of the hash tree.
 *
 * This hash tree implementation is semi-persistent. A copy of a hash tree can
 * be created at any time with constant cost. The directory structure of such a
 * copy is unaffected by modifications to the original. However, all copies
 * share the same object table, and thus will use the same id space for new
 * objects. It is also possible to locate any object by id from any of the
 * connected hash trees, even if the object is not actually present in the one
 * used for reference.
 */
typedef struct praef_hash_tree_s praef_hash_tree;

/**
 * The short-id/hash type used to identify directory entries.
 */
typedef unsigned long long praef_hash_tree_sid;

/**
 * The possible types for a hash tree directory entry. A false value is
 * guaranteed to indicate the absence of an entry, and a true value the
 * presence of one.
 */
typedef enum {
  /**
   * Indicates that the hash tree directory has no item in this field. The sid
   * is meaningless.
   */
  praef_htet_none = 0,
  /**
   * Indicates that the hash tree directory has an object in this field. The
   * sid is the object's monotonic ID, which is guaranteed to fit into the
   * lower 32 bits of the sid.
   */
  praef_htet_object,
  /**
   * Indicates t hat the hash tree directory has a subdirectory in this
   * field. The sid is the directory's short hash.
   */
  praef_htet_directory
} praef_hash_tree_entry_type;

/**
 * A directory inside a hash tree. The two arrays are indexed according to the
 * first nybble in the object hash after the directory's offset.
 */
typedef struct {
  /**
   * The types of the entries in this directory.
   */
  praef_hash_tree_entry_type types[PRAEF_HTDIR_SIZE];
  /**
   * The sids for the entries in this directory.
   */
  praef_hash_tree_sid sids[PRAEF_HTDIR_SIZE];
} praef_hash_tree_directory;

/**
 * A reference to data that may be in a hash tree.
 */
typedef struct {
  /**
   * The number of bytes in the data field.
   */
  unsigned size;
  /**
   * An instant associated with this object. The hash tree itself ascribes no
   * meaning to this field, but merely preserves it along with the object. It
   * has no effect on the calculated hash value.
   */
  praef_instant instant;
  /**
   * The id of the object within the hash tree.
   */
  praef_hash_tree_sid id;
  /**
   * The data associated with this object. If this points to the data within a
   * hash tree, it is guaranteed to be valid until the hash tree's destruction,
   * and there is guaranteed to be an initialised 0 byte at data[size].
   */
  const void* data;
} praef_hash_tree_objref;

/**
 * Describes the location of a directory within a hash tree.
 */
typedef struct {
  /**
   * The hash to use. Only the first offset nybbles are meaningful.
   */
  unsigned char hash[PRAEF_HASH_SIZE];
  /**
   * The number of nybbles of the hash to use for comparison. (Alternatively,
   * the depth of directory to obtain.)
   */
  unsigned offset;
} praef_hash_tree_cursor;

/**
 * Return type from praef_hash_tree_add().
 */
typedef enum {
  /**
   * Indicates that the operation failed (eg, out of memory). This is
   * guaranteed to be false.
   */
  praef_htar_failed = 0,
  /**
   * Indicates that a new object was added to the tree.
   */
  praef_htar_added,
  /**
   * Indicates that no new object was added to the tree because that object was
   * already present in the tree.
   */
  praef_htar_already_present
} praef_hash_tree_add_result;

/**
 * Allocates a new, empty, read-write hash tree.
 *
 * @return The hash tree, or NULL if memory could not be obtained.
 */
praef_hash_tree* praef_hash_tree_new(void);
/**
 * Creates a new copy of the given hash tree. Changes to directories in the
 * original will not be reflected in the copy. The copy remains valid even
 * after the original is destroyed.
 *
 * Complexity: O(1)
 *
 * @return The new hash tree, or NULL if memory could not be obtained.
 */
praef_hash_tree* praef_hash_tree_fork(const praef_hash_tree*);
/**
 * Releases the memory being held by the given hash tree alone.
 */
void praef_hash_tree_delete(const praef_hash_tree*);

/**
 * Adds an object to the given read-write hash tree. If no such event exists,
 * the given reference is copied into the tree; otherwise, no action is
 * taken. If successful, the given reference's data pointer is updated to point
 * to the tree's copy, permitting it to be used with, eg,
 * praef_hash_tree_hash_of(), and the id field is set to the id of the new
 * object.
 *
 * Complexity: O(log(n))
 *
 * @return praef_htar_failed (0) if the operation fails; praef_htar_added if
 * the item was inserted; praef_htar_already_present if the object was already
 * present in the hash tree.
 */
praef_hash_tree_add_result praef_hash_tree_add(
  praef_hash_tree*, praef_hash_tree_objref*);

/**
 * Structurally adds the object with the given id, which must represent an
 * object in the table shared between this hash tree and its
 * praef_hash_tree_fork()-derived relatives.
 *
 * Complexity: O(lon(n))
 *
 * @return praef_htar_failed (0) if the operation fails; praef_htar_added if
 * the item was inserted; praef_htar_already_present if the object was already
 * present in the hash tree.
 */
praef_hash_tree_add_result praef_hash_tree_add_foreign(
  praef_hash_tree*, praef_hash_tree_sid);

/**
 * Obtains an object reference by exact hash code. The contents of the given
 * objref are set to the data stored within the hash tree. On failure, the
 * output buffer is untouched.
 *
 * When possible, praef_hash_tree_get_id() is preferred.
 *
 * Complexity: O(log(n))
 *
 * @return Whether an object was read.
 */
int praef_hash_tree_get_hash(praef_hash_tree_objref*, const praef_hash_tree*,
                             const unsigned char hash[PRAEF_HASH_SIZE]);
/**
 * Obtains an object reference via its local ID. The contents of the given
 * objref are set to the data stored within the hash tree. On failure, the
 * object buffer is untouched.
 *
 * Complexity: O(1)
 *
 * @return Whether an object was read.
 */
int praef_hash_tree_get_id(praef_hash_tree_objref*, const praef_hash_tree*,
                           praef_hash_tree_sid);
/**
 * Obtains zero or more objects via base+offset query against their order
 * derived from their hash codes.
 *
 * Complexity: O(log(n) + count)
 *
 * @param dst The buffer into which to write references. This must be an array
 * of references at least count in length. The function will only modify as
 * many entries as its return value.
 * @param count The maximum number of objects to read.
 * @param tree The tree from which to read.
 * @param hash The minimum hash code of any object to read.
 * @param offset Only objects where (hash[31]&mask) equals this value will be
 * found by this call.
 * @param mask Controls the frequency at which events are found (see offset).
 * @return The number of objects this call found.
 */
unsigned praef_hash_tree_get_range(praef_hash_tree_objref* dst, unsigned count,
                                   const praef_hash_tree* tree,
                                   const unsigned char hash[PRAEF_HASH_SIZE],
                                   unsigned char offset, unsigned char mask);

/**
 * Returns a directory entry within the given hash tree corresponding to the
 * given cursor, or NULL if there is no such directory.
 *
 * Complexity: O(offset)
 *
 * The returned value is only guaranteed to be valid until the next
 * modification of the hash tree.
 */
const praef_hash_tree_directory*
praef_hash_tree_readdir(const praef_hash_tree*, const praef_hash_tree_cursor*);

/**
 * Returns the minimum number of nybbles required from the given hash to
 * uniquely identify the final directory or object a tree traversal
 * encounters.
 */
unsigned praef_hash_tree_minimum_hash_length(
  const praef_hash_tree*, const unsigned char hash[PRAEF_HASH_SIZE]);

/**
 * Obtains the hash value of an object within a hash tree. The effect of this
 * call is undefined if the objref is not present in a hash tree (eg, if the
 * caller constructed it itself and didn't pass it to a successful call to
 * praef_hash_tree_add() first).
 *
 * Complexity: O(1)
 *
 * @param dst Buffer to fill with the hash value.
 */
void praef_hash_tree_hash_of(unsigned char dst[PRAEF_HASH_SIZE],
                             const praef_hash_tree_objref*);

/**
 * Returns a pointer to the hash of the object with the given id. The effect of
 * this call is undefined if the objref is not present in hash tree. The
 * returned pointer is only valid until the next modification to the hash
 * tree.
 */
const unsigned char* praef_hash_tree_get_hash_of(
  const praef_hash_tree_objref*);

__END_DECLS

#endif /* LIBPRAEFECTUS_HASH_TREE_H_ */


text:
The SCIoI Scientific Advisory Board
The SCIoI Ethics Advisory Board
Doctoral Researchers
SCIoI Staff
SCIoI in the News
Working at SCIoI
Open Positions and Opportunities
The Admission Process
An important scientific goal of SCIoI is to unite the disciplines of intelligence research. This, of course, is a substantial challenge. To help us address it, we have assembled a scientific advisory board. As you can see below, the board consists of pioneers in the study of intelligence. The members, all external to SCIoI, are highly accomplished scientists and also possess extensive interdisciplinary research experience. Each of them comes from a different area of intelligence research, covering both the study of natural intelligence and the study of artificial intelligence. Each board member contributes extensive experience in building bridges between disciplines. Together with these inspiring persons, we know we will be able to achieve our goal of building a unified Science of Intelligence.
Meet our Scientific Advisory Board:
Courtesy Rodney Brooks
Rodney Brooks
(MIT Computer Science and AI Lab)
Rodney Brooks is the Panasonic Professor of Robotics (emeritus) at MIT. A robotics entrepreneur, he is best known for popularizing the actionist approach to robotics, studying and engineering robots with the goal of finding artificial general intelligence. He is currently cofounder and CTO of Robust.AI, a software company that is building a cognitive engine for robots and smart machines. He was recently Founder, Chairman and CTO of Rethink Robotics, a company whose mission is to apply artificial intelligence to physical labor. He is also a Founder, former Board Member and former CTO of iRobot Corp, makers of the Roomba vacuum. Further, Dr. Brooks is the former Director of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and then the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).
Rodney Brooks received degrees in pure mathematics from the Flinders University of South Australia and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University in 1981. He has held research positions at Carnegie Mellon University and MIT, and a faculty position at Stanford before joining the faculty of MIT in 1984. He has published many papers in computer vision, artificial intelligence, robotics, and artificial life.
Dr. Brooks publishes frequent entries on robotics in his blog, through which he shares essays, views, predictions, and reviews. Check out his website here.
Courtesy Patricia Churchland
(UCSD)
For decades, Patricia Churchland has contributed to the fields of philosophy of neuroscience, philosophy of the mind and neuroethics. Her research has centered on the interface between neuroscience and philosophy with a current focus on the association of morality and the social brain. A Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego and Adjunct Professor at the Salk Institute, Pat holds degrees from Oxford University, the University of Pittsburg and the University of British Columbia. She has been awarded the MacArthur Prize, The Rossi Prize for Neuroscience and the Prose Prize for Science. She has authored multiple pioneering books, her most recent being Touching a Nerve. She has served as President of the American Philosophical Association and the Society for Philosophy and Psychology. Pat lives in Solana Beach, California, with her husband Paul, a neurophilosopher, and their labradoodle Millie. They have two children, Anne and Mark, both neuroscientists. Read more about her work on her website.
Photo by Frank Wojciechowski
Naomi Leonard
(Princeton University)
Naomi Ehrich Leonard is a control theorist whose work involves analysis and design of feedback and interconnection in complex, dynamical systems. She uses mathematical models and methods to study mechanisms of collective motion and collective decision making for multi-agent systems in nature (analysis of animal and human groups) and in engineering (design of autonomous robotic teams and mobile sensor networks). She has applied her work to the collective dynamics of killifish, starlings, honeybees, zebras, and desert harvester ants, as well as to rule-based improvisational dance. She led a multidisciplinary ocean sensing project with a month-long deployment of an automated, adaptive network of underwater robotic vehicles in Monterey Bay, CA. Leonard is the Edwin S. Wilsey Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and associated faculty member of the Program in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. She is a MacArthur Fellow, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, IEEE, SIAM, ASME, and IFAC. Visit her website here.
(Indiana University)
Linda B. Smith is a Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Indiana University. Smith earned her Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. Smith is the author of more than 100 publications on cognitive and linguistic development in young children.
Her central theoretical question is the study of developmental process and mechanisms of change. Her work focuses on early changes in perception, language, and action and how those changes in these areas support each other particularly around the age (12 months to 24 months) that children break into language. Her research takes a systems approach, seeking to understand how multiple components interact over nested time scales and levels of analysis and how, in so doing, they yield an individual's developmental path. Click here to visit her lab website
Courtesy of Josh Tenenbaum
Josh Tenenbaum
(MIT)
Joshua Tenenbaum is Professor of Computational Cognitive Science at MIT in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines (CBMM). He received his PhD from MIT in 1999, and taught at Stanford from 1999 to 2002. His long-term goal is to reverse-engineer intelligence in the human mind and brain, and use these insights to engineer more human-like machine intelligence. In cognitive science, he is best known for developing theories of cognition as probabilistic inference in structured generative models, and applications to concept learning, causal reasoning, language acquisition, visual perception, intuitive physics, and theory of mind. In AI, he and his group have developed widely used models for nonlinear dimensionality reduction, probabilistic programming, and Bayesian unsupervised learning and structure discovery. His current research focuses on the development of common sense in children and machines, the neural basis of common sense, and models of learning as Bayesian program synthesis. He and his students' research papers have been recognized with many awards at conferences in Cognitive Science, Computer Vision, Neural Information Processing Systems, Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making, and Robotics. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Award for Early Career Contributions in Psychology from the American Psychological Association (2008), the Troland Research Award from the National Academy of Sciences (2011), the Howard Crosby Warren Medal from the Society of Experimental Psychologists (2016), the R&D Magazine Innovator of the Year award (2018), and a MacArthur Fellowship (2019). He is a fellow of the Cognitive Science Society, the Society for Experimental Psychologists, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Click here for his website.
SCIoI on facebook	SCIoI on twitter	SCIoI on instagram	SCIoI on YouTube
Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) im Rahmen der Exzellenzstrategie des Bundes und der Länder – EXC-2002/1 – Projektnummer 390523135 .
Funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany ́s Excellence Strategy – EXC-2002/1 – Projectnumber 390523135.


text:
Call Traders Blast Delphi Technologies After BorgWarner Buyout
BorgWarner bought out Delphi Technologies for $3.3 billion
Patrick Martin
DLPH
DLPH is on track for its best day ever
At the top of the New York Stock Exchange this morning is Delphi Technologies PLC (NYSE:DLPH), up a whopping 63.3% to trade at $16, on track for its best day ever by a wide margin. This comes after the U.K.-based auto parts manufacturer was bought out by rival U.S. auto parts maker BorgWarner (BWA) in an all-stock deal valued at $3.3 billion in enterprise value, according to Reuters.
The timing couldn't have been better for Delphi Technologies stock, after falling to record low of $9.51 on Jan. 24 and taking a 55.7% haircut in the last nine months, going into today. Now though, the shares are trading at their highest point since September and have reclaimed their 200-day moving average for the first time since July. Interestingly, this all comes with DLPH moving firmly into oversold territory earlier last week, with a 14-day Relative Strength Index (RSI) of 23 yesterday.
Short sellers were already headed for the exits, and a continued exodus could power additional gains. Short interest dropped by 15.8% in the two most recent reporting periods to 6.35 million shares. Yet this still accounts for more than 7% of DLPH's total available float, and 5.5 times the average daily trading volume.
Delphi's normally quiet options pits have exploded in response to the news. At last check, over 2,000 calls have changed hands, 24 times the average intraday amount and a volume pacing for the 100th percentile of its annual range. Most of this attention is happening at the March 14 call, but there are also new positions being sold to open at the March 16 call.
Prior to today, traders were much more focused on puts. Data from the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Cboe Options Exchange (CBOE), and NASDAQ OMX PHLX (PHLX) shows the equity's 10-day put/call volume ratio is 1.27, and ranks in the 88th annual percentile.


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text:
Recent U.S. Court Decisions And Developments Affecting Licensing
By John Paul and D. Brian Kacedon
U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Post-Expiration Royalties in Patent LicensesIn the 1964 decision Brulotte v. Thys Co., the U.S. Supreme Court held that a patent owner cannot receive royalty payments that "accrue" after a patent expires. Under this ruling, the patent owner cannot receive royalties for a licensee's sales or other activities covered by the patent that occur after the patent expires. The Court viewed such royalties as improperly extending "the patent monopoly beyond the [patent] period." Recently, in Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC, the Supreme Court declined to overturn this bright-line rule, instead emphasizing that the policy issues raised should be left to Congress. In addition, the Court noted that while the Brulotte rule prevents some parties from entering into contracts having some particular terms they may desire, it still leaves open ways for them to enter into other contracts with other terms that allocate risk and reward in commercializing inventions.