Mediaboss Marketing

CAST YOUR MIND back to the beginning of 2010: Ireland was mired in the banking crisis, Instagram had not been founded yet and Alex Ferguson still bestrode the Premier League.

From climate concerns to the influence of social networks, the computing power in our pockets and wearable tech, a lot has changed in the past decade

We asked some of Irelands top business people to look back ten years and pick out what they think has been the most influential innovation, idea or tech shift since 2010 and how has it affected the business world.

Norman Crowley, founder and chief executive of Crowley Carbon and Electrifi:

One can look at it through the lens of the smartphone revolution or the lens of the social media revolution or the wider lens of what will impact humanity most.

When you look at it through the lens of the future of humanity then you would have to say that the most influential technologies are batteries and solar panels.

For the first time in the history of the modern world, we do not have to burn fossil fuels to sustain our modern lifestyle. In light of the threat of climate change, this is truly a game-changer.

Patricia Scanlon, founder and chief executive of SoapBox Labs:

The advancement of deep learning-based machine learning is probably the most impactful innovation of the last decade.

Such advancements have led to high accuracy, real-world applications of machine learning in every area of business from customer service and finance to communications and product development and in every area of our personal lives from how kids learn to read to how we deliver caring services to the elderly, and everything in between.

Iain McDougall, country manager for UK and Ireland at Stripe:

We shouldnt take for granted the enormous computing power that resides in the pockets ofover two billion people around the world. Ten years ago it wasnt there.

The combination ofsmartphones and cloud computing has radically altered nearly every area of society, from howdemocracy works to how families keep in touch. This change has reached deep intothe business world.

A startup today can access a global audience of potential customers fromday one and faces dramatically reduced costs in getting to that point. Large legacy businessoperations have become a hindrance rather than a help, upending the order of multipleindustries.

Sonia Deasy, founder and managing director of Pestle & Mortar:

Since its inception in 2010, Instagram has changed how we experience and share our stories with the world.

It changed how businesses think about marketing. You can get in front of the right audience very easily but when you get there, you have to be absolutely authentic, human and consistent.

Bertrand Van Overschelde, head of Qualtrics in Ireland:

At the start of 2010 things were a littlequieter- then came 4G, Snapchat, Instagram, the iPad, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Slack. A wholeswathe of new ways for consumers and employees to share their viewpoint and stay connected.

As a result, customers and employees have become more demanding of the brands they work for and buy from. The brands that have continued to thrive or emerge as disruptors are the ones that have realised that experiences drive loyalty, not price or product.

Triona Mullane, founder and chief executive of Madme Technologies

A major change since 2010 has been the use of technology to develop platforms that have massively disrupted traditional industries across many sectors. Technology has enabled new peer-to-peer based services like Airbnb, Uber, Lyft, Venmo, Deliveroo and many more.

In many cases they have supported businesses by making products more accessible to consumers, such as Deliveroo. In other cases they have massively disrupted and replaced existing service offerings such the impact of Uber on the local taxi industries and the use of Venmo to completely disrupt traditional payment and banking models.

The other side of this whole shift is the importance of consumer feedback and ratings. These models, and the parties within them, depend enormously on positive feedback and positive ratings to thrive.

Across the business world, gathering feedback from customers, understanding customer sentiment and the potential to influence others have been major changes in business focus. The focus is on customer experience because it is now well accepted that positive experience leads to loyalty and referrals and ultimately business success.

Sam Dennigan, founder and chief executive of Strong Roots:

There have been significant innovations in production and distribution. Were committed to sustainability at Strong Roots and are excited about the improvement of compostable, recyclable packaging. We have seen great strides to achieve that over the past decade.

Source: David Sexton

Cillian Kieran, chief executive and co-founder of Ethyca:

The single greatest technology shift of the decade still has to be social media. Facebook came before 2010, but if we examine the last decade at a macro-social, politicaland economic level, it took until the 2010s for the impact of social media to be felt on theRichter scale.

When that impact was felt, what we saw was a sort of backlash against a Utopianvision of the internet that existed in 2010. Weve gone from believing social media will unite usto realising that its architecture and reward systems lead to polarisation.

Its undeniableweve created a golem without understanding the consequences, and the leadership at thesebusinesses are equally at sea in how to remedy the problem. Is this a fun answer forinnovation? No? Ok, how about we just say blockchain and be done with it.

Carl Dempsey, vice president of solution engineering at Salesforce:

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has brought about an incredible wave of innovation and technology. One theme that has generated a lot of buzz in recent years is artificial intelligence, AI.

The excitement is justified; over the last decade, AI has rapidly become part of the fabric of our daily lives as it has moved out of academia and research labs (where perhaps it was a solution looking for a problem) and into the real world, and we are seeing this accelerate in the last number of years.

Today its impact can be seen everywhere from banks analysing countless data points in seconds to detect fraud to call centres where they are deploying chatbots to improve customer interactions. At the broadest level, unleashing the power of AI is allowing the human workforce to be more productive.

Michael Doody, group chief technology officer at Netwatch Group:

The shift to mobility and ubiquitous personal internet access has created huge opportunities for businesses but also challenges in terms of serving relevant up to date content to customers and also treating their personal information securely.

A decade ago it may have been normal for a business such as a restaurant to not to have more than a basic single page web site, but now consumers expect that businesses have an active up to date web or Facebook presence, accurate multilingual menus that are viewable from a phone, good reviews on social rating sites and allow the creation of a reservation online with automated reminders closer to the selected date.

The number of channels that a business has to effectively operate in to fully engage with customers has increased substantially in the last decade, but if done in a way that adds perceived value, it can offer huge potential upside.

Richard Haxby, managing director of MathWorks Ireland:

Over the last decade, wearables have changed the way we view health and fitness with trackers, revolutionised music and gaming with smart headphones and (augmented) reality glasses, and started changing assembly lines and factory floors with glasses that integrate computers to speed hands-free work.

This has created multiple paradigm shifts from blurring the lines between industry (medical), technology (fitness tracker) and consumer (smartwatch), to creating a whole new segment that merges fashion, clothing and technology.

PJ Byrne, chief executive of Flexi-Fi Europe:

Undoubtedly, the smartphone takes top prize. The fact we can do so much on our mobile devices is something that could never have been imagined twenty years ago.

Des Travers, chief executive of DPD Ireland:

The most influential shift in technology in the past decade would have to be the focus on user-friendly applications in the business world. Customers want to self-serve, so the development of technology that allows them to do this has been really important.

For DPD, sending messages with a one-hour delivery window, and then allowing the recipient to opt for an alternative delivery date or location via a link, gives control back to the parcel recipient and makes our job much more efficient.

Were all time poor we want as much convenience as is available and we want to control the use of our time. Equally, these options improve first time delivery rates which has a positive impact on the environment by reducing the amount of travel time per delivery.

Ciaran Mulligan, managing director of Blue Insurance:

Online banking and the way we now buy products or services has changed dramatically and for the better. It has now become very easy to shop online, watch movies or listen to music with a few clicks of a button through many different devices.

This has led to the consumer expecting a more quick and easy service in everything that they do so companies need to be forward-thinking and ensure they are not working with antiquated systems or complicated processes.

Get our Daily Briefing with the mornings most important headlines for innovative Irish businesses.

More here:
Then and now: How Ireland and the business world have changed from 2010 to 2020 - Fora.ie

Several months later, details of a whistle-blower complaint, reportedly from someone in the C.I.A., leaked out and set the stage for the impeachment inquiry. The complaint laid out a conversation between Mr. Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, in which Mr. Trump appeared to pressure him to investigate Mr. Biden and his son. The complaint set in motion the congressional investigation that led to impeachment.

Then: While the F.B.I. and Congress played key roles in the Watergate investigation, President Nixon also faced another investigative adversary: a special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, appointed in May 1973 by Attorney General Elliot Richardson. After the former White House aide Alexander Butterfields surprise disclosure of a secret White House taping system that captured the presidents conversations, Mr. Cox issued a subpoena for the White House tapes in October 1973, provoking Nixon to order the attorney general to fire him. Mr. Richardson and his deputy attorney general, William Ruckelshaus, both refused and resigned. It fell to Robert Bork, the solicitor general who suddenly found himself acting attorney general, to fire Mr. Cox. The episode became known as the Saturday Night Massacre.

Partly as a result of public outrage over those events, impeachment proceedings in the House began nearly seven months later. Nixon was also forced to approve the appointment of a new special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who continued Mr. Coxs efforts to obtain the tapes. His willingness to challenge the president in court brought Watergate to the Supreme Court, which ruled unanimously that Nixon would have to turn over the tapes.

Now: The Justice Department has helped Mr. Trump throughout the Ukraine affair. In March, Attorney General William P. Barr announced that he had concluded that Mr. Mueller had found insufficient evidence that the president obstructed justice. Mr. Trump immediately declared a complete and total exoneration, even though the attorney general noted that the report had not exonerated him. But Mr. Barr then waited more than three weeks before releasing the report to the public, enabling Mr. Trump and his allies to mount a counteroffensive that insulated the president from potentially worse fallout. Democrats chose not to include any of the conduct revealed in the report in the articles of impeachment.

In addition, the Justice Department declined to open a criminal investigation or appoint a special prosecutor in response to the whistle-blower complaint. And in the face of congressional investigations, department lawyers have made the argument that Congress cannot even go to court to enforce subpoenas calling administration officials to testify.

Finally, by opening what would become a criminal inquiry into the origins of the F.B.I.s investigation of the Trump campaign in 2016, Mr. Barr has given credence to Mr. Trumps unfounded theory that people in American intelligence agencies worked against him. The attorney general has become perhaps Mr. Trumps most effective defender, a sharp contrast to those who ran the Nixon Justice Department.

View post:
Why Is Trump Finding More Protection Than Nixon Did? - The New York Times

The U.S. residential solar market just experienced its best-ever quarter, with 712 megawatts (DC) installed. Growth is diversifying across U.S. state markets, and there is opportunity across the solar value chain.

So which inverter suppliers are benefiting?

According to the latest edition of Wood Mackenzies U.S. PV Leaderboard, released this week, SolarEdge inverters were used on 60.5 percent of U.S. residential installations through the first three quarters of this year. Thats more than triple SolarEdge's closest competitor, Enphase, with its 19.2 percent market share.

Source: Wood Mackenzie U.S. PV Leaderboard, Q4 2019

The current market stands in stark contrast to just a few years ago, when SolarEdge was still growing its footprint in the U.S. residential solar sector. In 2013, with just 4.5 percent market share, SolarEdge ranked fifth behind then-leader ABB, Enphase, SMA and Fronius.

It should be noted that there was about as much residential solar capacity installed in the third quarter of 2019 as there was in the whole of 2013. In other words, SolarEdge is today dominating a much bigger pie.

SolarEdge differentiates its product by pairing residential single-phase inverters with DC optimizers, while Enphase manufactures microinverters.

SolarEdges rise has been complemented by significant market-share consolidation. Price pressure in the inverter landscape has led vendors to exit in recent years, and this has mostly benefited the top companies. Vendors other than SolarEdge and Enphase held over 67 percent of the market in 2013. As of Q3 2019, market share for this "other" group has fallen to just 20.3 percent.

It wasnt too long ago that Enphase was on the brink of financial collapse. But from 2015-2017, the company made a concerted effort to reduce its costs by 50 percent. The company managed not only to stay afloat but also grew its revenue.

Enphase has recovered some lost market share this year, and captured over 20 percent of residential installations in Q3 2019 a routine accomplishment for the company in prior years for the first time since Q1 2018.

Pivoting from pure-play inverter manufacturing to providing more holistic energy services is a strategy seen throughout the global PV inverter landscape, but SolarEdge and Enphase are definitive leaders in this regard.

Both companies continue to expand their product offerings, and both have launched home energy platforms in recent years. These platforms are able to connect electric vehicles, solar-plus-storage, smart meters and home appliances. Such grid edge technologies are all poised for expansion.

Since 2018, SolarEdge has been on a bit of an acquisition spree, acquiring an e-mobility and a battery storage company that will contribute to its home energy solution platform. Additionally, SolarEdge made a third acquisition, an uninterruptible power supply company a business not directly related to the inverter space, but still a growing market.

In line with SolarEdges forward-looking tactics, the company has built out a virtual power plant software offering that is compatible with all companies' inverter technology, not just its own. It also launched StorEdge, an EV inverter product.

Enphase on the other hand has made several strategic partnerships to build out its AC module business, which includes partnerships with SunPower, LG, Panasonic and Solaria. The company continues to develop its home energy solution.

SolarEdge and Enphase have grabbed the majority of the U.S. residential market as a result of innovative and forward-looking moves that position them to meet growing demand for holistic energy services.

According to Wood Mackenzies latest forecast, the U.S. residential solar market will reach 2.4 gigawatts in 2019 and grow to 3 gigawatts in 2020.

***

Wood Mackenzie's U.S. PV Leaderboard tracks both residential and commercial market shares for inverter suppliers, solar installers and module suppliers.

See original here:
SolarEdge and Enphase Now Control 80% of the US Residential Solar Inverter Market - Greentech Media News

This the thirdin a series on teens, sex and social media. The series also looks at how social media has changed the way teens learn about, and engage in, sex, and the practice among young adults of choking during sex.

With smartphones tucked away in their pockets, young people now have easy access to the internet and all its dark corners, including pornographic images and videos showing a gamut of sexual behavior.

So, what should parents do about it?

First, they should realize that even with parental controls and filters that block pornography, tech-savvy teens may still be able to find and view sexually-explicit content on web pages and social media platforms.

Students also are unlikely to hear about online pornography, and the risks associated with it, at school, where sex education curriculum is limited if it is required at all. Thats why experts urge parents to talk to their children and make sure theyre getting the right information at home.

Young people are curious about sex and sexuality because they are not getting comprehensive sex education in school, said Dan Rice, interim executive director of Answer, a national sexual education organization based at Rutgers University. So, for young people, [the internet] is how a lot of them are seeking out their answers.

Social media: How social media is transforming teens' ideas about sex may surprise you

Series: Choking and kink has become an 'acceptable' part of teen sex, but it's not without dangers

Just 24 states, including New Jersey, make it mandatory for schools to teach sex education.

New Jersey became one of the first states to require comprehensive sex education in schools in 1981. Districts typically focus on basics like abstinence, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.

Not until this year did New Jersey adopt a law that requires school districts to teach lessons on consentin grades 6 to 12. The law requires schools to teach that consent is required before physical contact or sexual activity, to teach about the right to say no, and to discuss respecting others' rightto say no.

States do not require discussions about online sexual content except for New Jersey and California, which require lessons specifically about sexting, or the practice of sending sexually explicit photos, messages, or videos via electronic device.

Favorite high school team?: Nominate yours for Fan Vote Award at NorthJersey.com Sports Awards

New Jersey: Lawmakers let schools raise taxes above 2%, will Gov. Murphy make it official?

American Dream: We asked 3 high school ski racers to test BIG Snow at American Dream. Here's what they think

Otherwise, its unlikely that the topic will be discussed at all in the classroom.

There are not many teachers who will bring up sexually explicit content in the classroom because of fear for their job, Rice said. If they dont have a curriculum or policy [that covers it], theyre not going to talk about it.

In recent interviews, college students said their high school sex education classes fell short of answering their questions.

My sex education was a list of vocabulary words with terms like gonorrhea and definitions like a type of STD' not what it does, how you can contract it or the fact that it goes away, said Tori DAmico, a 19-year-old college student.

Her high school focused on teaching kids about abstinence, and she said she did not get lessons on safe sex or consent. She described the environment as fear-mongering, comparing it to the scenein the movie Mean Girls where the gym teacher tells students, Don't have sex, because you will get pregnant and die.

The story continues below the video.

When sex education is provided in schools, it tends to focus on topics like anatomy, the physiology of how people get pregnant, and abstinence, said EmilyRothman, a professor at Boston Universitys School of Public Health who has conducted several studieson porn use by adolescents.

Teachers dont necessarily focus on the dynamics of how people communicate or sexual orientation or what you might enjoy sexually that isnt part of sex education in school, she said.

Just over half ofsurveyed students reported their sex education classes to be useful, according toNew Jerseys Sex Ed Report Card, a report released in December by the Thrive NJ Coalition, a group of parents, community members and advocates. More than 60 percent of surveyed parents gave sex education at their kids' schools as a C.

In the report, the coalitionrecommendedthat New Jersey schools remove the requirement that teachers stress abstinence and failure rates of contraceptives, andexpand teacher training.

The report also notedthat the quality of sex education varies widely among districts and called for the state to createa database of sex education materials and to monitor and assess what's taught in classrooms.

Young people may seek out sexual content online because they are curious, or they may find it by accident, Rice said. As a marketing ploy, some companies will even buy domain names with words that young people may use as search terms.

Parents who find out that a child has seen explicit material should not panic, he said, noting that the young person may also feel anxious about what he or she has seen.

Dont yell at them, he said. Dont freak out, because you dont want to send the message that they cant come to you with questions, because there are going to be other important things they want to talk to you about. You dont want to shut the door.

Parents can start the conversation by asking questions such as:

Parents should explain to their children that what they are seeing is edited adult entertainment that often does not reflect reality, Rice added.

They dont realize the bodies they are seeing and the behaviors they are seeing are not typical," he said. "So, the impact can be poor self-esteem, poor body esteem and unrealistic expectations of what a sexual relationship might look like."

Some parents may find it difficult to talk to their children about sex and consent. Rothmans advice is for parents to open a conversation in a non-judgemental way focused on consent, respect and healthy relationships.

I think itsgood if parents can learn to do it, to coach kids that they should be able to communicate about what they want, tocommunicatethat good sex involves a lot of trust and respect in being comfortable enough to tell somebody what you like and dont like, she said.

Parents may worry that talking about sex and sexuality will encourage young people to have sex. But studies have shown that teens who report talking with their parents about sex are more likely to delay having sex and to use condoms when they do have sex, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Parents should also keep in mind that when teens seek outinformation online, it may not be reliable or a complete picture. Theyshould also find outwhere their child is getting information and whether it's factually and medically accurate, the CDC recommends.

Experts say it's key that conversations about sex and sexuality begin at an early age and that they are nota one-time occasion. Parents can start bygiving correct names for body parts and talking about consent, Rice explained.

There is no such thing as 'the talk,' Rice said. You cant have one conversation and expect that will be it. As they grow and develop, they are going to have different questions in their lives.

If we normalize talking about those things at an early age," he said, "it will be more likely that young people will feel comfortable going to parents when they do have questions.

Staff writers Lindy Washburn,CatherineCarrera, Jessie Gomez and Anthony Zurita contributed to this story.

Become a NorthJersey.com subscriber today and get unlimited digital access and support stories like this one.

JOIN TODAY

Read or Share this story: https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/education/2019/12/19/how-talk-your-kids-about-sex-parents-social-media-game-changer/4300089002/

Read more from the original source:
Parents: Here's how to talk to your kids about sex in the age of social media - NorthJersey.com

As interest in intermittent fasting keeps growing, a completely different type of fasting trend is coming out of Silicon Valley. Followers of "dopamine fasting" believe that if they deprive themselves from anything stimulating devices, movies, TV, light or even other people they can alter the levels of dopamine in their bodies and reset their brains.

On the surface, it's a life hack that sounds like a good idea: try to modify the dopamine chemical known as one of the "happy hormones" in the body simply by unplugging from devices and stepping away from activity.

"Dopamine fasting is like, 'I'm getting off my devices so I can feel more,'" Dr. Zach Freyberg, an assistant professor of psychiatry and cell biology at the University of Pittsburgh, told TODAY. "It's doing things that are that are meant to keep you sensitized to the world around you."

To fast, followers say they avoid things they enjoy, which can include mobile devices, sex, social media, entertainment, shopping, gambling, exercise, food and alcohol, for a set period of time. Some might even avoid eye contact or chats during that time.

The goal avoiding stimulation in the present, in order to be happier later. For example, love online shopping? During a fast, you'd skip it.

In a way, it's like meditation where people spend time without outside excitement. But this type of fasting is tailored to what specifically causes your dopamine to spike, whether it's red wine, Snapchat or Christmas movies.

Sounds simple, right? Not really.

Your brain is always working. Your neurotransmitters, like dopamine, are always working, Madelyn Fernstrom, a neuroscientist and NBC News health and nutrition editor, told TODAY.

While dopamine fasting focuses on the molecule's role as a neurotransmitter in the brain, dopamine does a lot of heavy lifting throughout the body.

Dopamine is something that's inside of our bodies that our bodies make, Freyberg said. In the brain, dopamine is responsible for lots of important brain functions. You need it to help control mood, you need that to feel a sense of satisfaction and reward.

Trending stories,celebrity news and all the best of TODAY.

People often think of it as the hormone of excitement and novelty seeking, said Dr. Amit Sood, executive director of the Resilient Option, and former professor of medicine at Mayo Clinic.

This means people experience a surge of it when they try something new or anticipate something. Some of what Silicon Valley sells causes dopamine spikes.

A lot of social media is driven by dopamine, he said. Youre just chasing it.

But dopamines role is much more complex. It also helps the brain control movement and exists in other parts of the body, regulating insulin, aiding digestion, managing kidney function and maintaining blood pressure.

Its kind of like an air traffic coordinator. It controls and coordinates the functions of a lot of different organs, a lot of different parts of the body, to make sure they work harmoniously, Fryberg explained.

Not having enough dopamine causes real problems. Parkinsons disease, for example, is a disorder of dopamine, Fryberg said.

The body absolutely needs to make that dopamine because it needs to control the life support systems, he said.

In some ways, eating and exercising can influence dopamine production, but not in the way that dopamine fasting fans think.

When you eat, the amount of dopamine in your blood stream temporarily goes up because that helps control insulin, Fryberg said. There's more and more evidence that exercise can help in Parkinson's patients preserve the amount of dopamine in the brain.

Beyond that that's all we know, he said.

The experts agree that even if the name is an oversimplification of how brain chemistry works, the concept behind dopamine fasting is positive. What "fasters" are truly proposing is taking a break from stimulation and being mindful both healthy practices.

There is no downside, unless you believe you are having an immediate impact on your brain chemistry, Fernstrom, a nutrition scientist, said. It is mistake to think that a short-term behavior of any kind is going to be having an impact on your brain.

Whats more, unplugging and spending time without stimulation might have an opposite effect than anticipated.

Meditation has been shown to increase dopamine in the brain reward activity center, Sood said.

While meditation and avoiding devices is beneficial, Sood encourages people to think of it as adding something to life not subtracting.

It is very difficult to empty your life of something, he said. I tried emptying my mind and it doesnt work. It is not about emptying it. Its about filling it with the right things.

That's why he suggests that people think of something positive while stepping away from devices and overactivity.

If you meditate on gratitude or compassion or kindness it will be more effective, Sood said.

See the rest here:
What is 'dopamine fasting'? How some are trying to change their brains - TODAY