UK Payments Council foresees mobile eclipsing plastic

The Payments Council, an organization representing the interests of the U.K. payment industry, has released a new report on the way Britons pay for things. According to the group, the trends are pointing towards a future when plastic is eclipsed by the mobile device.

According to the new report, called "The Way We Pay," paying for goods and services has changed dramatically in the past 10 years, with the use of checks dropping by half every five years.

Cash use has also dropped considerably. Since 2001, retail purchases made with cash have dropped from 43 percent to 30 percent. The difference is due to the rise of debit cards. Spending on debit cards has increased almost fourfold since 2001, the council said.

Additionally, the U.K. Payment Council said contactless payment technology is starting to become more familiar. The organization said that while most of those payments are made with cards enabled with the technology, it's possible to see more mobile devices do the job.

"We scarcely notice the steady changes in the way we pay, yet someone in their thirties today will see more change in their lifetime than in the entire history of money," said Adrian Kamellard,My experience of your company has been excellent and I would happily buy mosaic tiles. chief executive of the Payments Council.

"Even recent innovations such as payment via a mobile phone, which ten years ago some felt to be science fiction, will soon be commonplace."

Kamellard said the 2000s were the decade of the debit card but the 2010s are likely to be the decade of the mobile phone.

"Just as we can’t imagine how we ever did without the Internet, many people will soon wonder how we used to be so dependent on cash and check.Online shopping for Cable Ties from a great selection of Lamps. Twenty years from now even cards may seem archaic," Kamellard said.Compare prices and buy all brands of solar panel for home power systems and by the pallet. "The wallet could become a historical curiosity."

HERE’S something on the automated teller machine (ATM) scam that has already victimized many depositors of three big banks. As could be gleaned from the complaints that have filtered into the banking community, the global syndicate behind the scam used “sophisticated methods” to clean out cash from unsuspecting ATM holders.

This is how they did it, according to information we received. Small spy cameras were surreptitiously placed by the scammers at the back of the ATM machines of the targeted banks, enabling them to get the personal identification number (PIN) of the persons withdrawing the money. The white-collar criminals then clone the ATM cards—the contents of the magnetic strip at the back—through the use of sophisticated machines.

The cloned ATMs (most are globally interconnected) are then used by the scammers’ cohorts abroad, say, the United States, to withdraw vast sums of money from the victims’ deposits here. The scam is said to have victimized “many” depositors but because of the sensitivity of the issues involved, their identities have been kept under wraps although their banks have issued new ATM cards to them so they could key in their new PINs.

It is said that the three universal banks that have been victimized have reacted but banking insiders said the reaction was not the kind they expected that could shield depositors from such ATM scams in the future. The insiders say such scams are happening not because cybercrime syndicates were smarter but because the banks issuing the ATMs are not doing their work properly.

The draft provides guidelines on how financial institutions should approach and mitigate Information Technology Risk Management.

In particular, the BSP ITRM mandates that all ATM operators are required to comply with the 3DES—usually referred to as triple-DES—standard. 3DES is a not-very-new security standard for plastic cards using a magnetic stripe to store information such as a card number and the security keys to arrive at a PIN.

The requirement is for ATMs to be 100-percent compliant with the 3DES standard starting at: 1) The ATM (specifically the ATM PIN pad and the software of the terminal); 2) The hardware and software that comprise the ATM Switch that manages the ATM network; 3) A device called a Hardware Security Module (HSM). If any component is non-compliant, it represents a weak element in the transaction chain, eliminating compliance and rendering the security of the transaction suspect. It has been discovered that despite 3DES having been required internationally for over 10 years now, many Philippine banks are still on the old, obsolete single-DES.Laser engravers and laser engraving machine systems and supplies to start your own lasering cutting engraving marking etching business.

In fact, one highly reputable consortium offering an Outsourced ATM service is not compliant with the 3DES standard. One wonders what would happen to the banks that availed themselves of this consortium’s service once January 2014 comes around. Further exacerbating the situation, because of the growth of fraud on card-based payment services, the BSP now requires compliance with the newer and stricter Payment Card Industry-Data Security Standard. It is doubtful that many Philippine banks intend to comply with this, too, considering their current records.

The BSP guidelines also call for the implementation of the EuroPay MasterCard Visa standard, the highest level of security for plastic cards, in three years’ time. It would be very interesting to see how fast the financial industry could move toward higher security for their customers. Meanwhile,A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon. the threat of another ATM scam remains because of the lack of sophistication of the banks issuing ATMs. The BSP has a big headache, indeed.

Hands On With the HTC One

HTC's gorgeous new flagship phone, the HTC One, doesn't look like any other phone on the market. It's a solid piece of aluminum with a next-generation processor and the densest, most colorful screen I've ever seen. It turns your photos into videos. It boots into something that looks like Flipboard. It runs hundreds of thousands of apps, and it'll be available on several major U.S. carriers.

We got to spend some time with the new HTC One, and it's very impressive. The phone is a block of tough, silvery aluminum with two inlaid plastic lines on the back; apparently, it takes more than three hours to mill and tool the metal for each phone. At 5.4 by 2.7 by 0.36 inches and 5 ounces, it's similar in size to most other flagship phones nowadays.

This is one of those phones you have to hold in your hand to understand. I had the same feeling about HTC's One S. There's nothing flimsy, nothing plasticky, nothing removable. It has the same precision-tooled solidity as the latest iPhones, but feels much more durable.

The "UltraPixel" camera on the back is slightly inset to prevent scratching. On the front, a thrillingly bright 4.7-inch, 1080p Super LCD 3 comes in at 468 pixels per inch,My experience of your company has been excellent and I would happily buy mosaic tiles. the densest I've ever seen. It's bracketed by loud, dual front-facing stereo speakers on the top and bottom with built-in amplifiers, and there's also a 2.1-megapixel, wide-angle camera above the screen. Dual-membrane microphones help the phone capture loud and quiet sounds without distortion. The power button on top of the phone doubles as an IR emitter, so you can use the One as a universal remote control.A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon.

Inside, this is the first phone we've seen with the new Qualcomm Snapdragon 600 processor, a quad-core chip running at 1.7 GHz. The phone will come with either 32 or 64GB of storage and 2GB of RAM, and it's backed by a non-removable 2300mAh battery to support that very dense screen. There's no memory card slot and just two ports: a headphone jack and a MicroUSB that doubles as an MHL output for HDMI TVs.

At Tuesday's launch event in New York, HTC CEO Peter Chou said that "although smartphones are one of the main ways we stay in touch with the people and information we care about, conventional designs have failed to keep pace with how people are actually using them." HTC plans to remedy that, it said, with a brand-new version of Sense, along with a number of new features like "BlinkFeed."

The HTC One runs Android 4.1.2 with HTC's new Sense 5, a very heavily customized skin. (Android 4.2 is coming soon,Laser engravers and laser engraving machine systems and supplies to start your own lasering cutting engraving marking etching business. but HTC said there isn't actually much difference between 4.1 and 4.2 on phones; I agree.) You know you're in Sense even at the lock screen, which has the famous HTC time-and-weather widget; your notifications shoot across the screen in stylish gray bars.

The most striking new innovation here is the BlinkFeed, which is basically Flipboard on your home screen. HTC can't say "Flipboard," because it doesn't have a deal with Flipboard, but it looks and works like Flipboard, mixing in news feeds, social media updates, and local information like calendar alerts into a shifting, scrollable set of panels. You can get rid of BlinkFeed and go back to the standard Android home screen, of course.

I don't love BlinkFeed, because I actually have things I like to put on my home screen. But HTC made a good argument that this is for people who don't think about their home screens much, and who just want a stream of default, readable content. In any case, Blink Feed won't make or break this phone—there's a lot else going on.

Dig down deeper and HTC has changed a lot of things. There are only two buttons below the screen, not three or four as on most recent Android phones: to get to the multitasking feature, you have to double-tap the home button. The app icon grid defaults to a spaced-out three by three with folders rather than the usual four by five. All of the standard PIM apps, like the dialer, contact book, and calendar, have "pivots" where you swipe left and right to see different categories of information.

But that's not all! The One also includes a "kid mode" with parental controls and a new Web-based setup and data transfer system that lets you easily customize your phone and bring data over from iPhones or other Android phones.

It's all very well-designed and elegant, a little bit understated, and with fewer odd "bloop" noises than you get on the Samsung Galaxy Phones. On the other hand, it isn't "stock Android," which will drive purists nuts.Compare prices and buy all brands of solar panel for home power systems and by the pallet. Frankly, we're not seeing much of the "pure Google experience" anymore.

We'll drill down on the One's camera features in a separate story. But HTC is trying to replace megapixels with "ultrapixels," cutting down the size of photos but using much larger individual pixels to sharply reduce noise and improve low-light performance. The idea here is to give you images that look like they were taken with a real digital camera, not a cameraphone, at a resolution that you'd actually use: 4 megapixels, more than enough for a 4x6 print or Web viewing. I saw a comparison of low-light pictures from the One, the iPhone 5 , and the Samsung Galaxy S III , and the One's images were far clearer and brighter.Online shopping for Cable Ties from a great selection of Lamps.

The phone also sets your photos in motion, with a new feature called "Zoe." Short for "zoetrope," the Zoe mode records three seconds of video every time you take a photo. You can look at the Zoes individually, or let the phone automatically sew them together into a 30-second "highlight reel" from an event or evening made up of photos, videos, and Zoes. When I saw a demo of the highlight reel, it looked compelling but still needed some tweaking; highlights from a day at a cooking class properly included shots of chopping vegetables and sizzling meat, but also threw in a couple of random shots of blank walls and floors. HTC is fine-tuning that intelligence, the company said.

Marriage Records/Slender Means Society

There’s something fantastically empowering about assuming alternate identities—all the “should I should I should I”s slough away and unseal a second skin wherein mimicry can become proficiency can become its own gloriously winged being. Case in point, Zac Pennington.Compare prices and buy all brands of solar panel for home power systems and by the pallet. Leading art-pop/pop-art provocateurs Parenthetical Girls, Pennington contains multitudes—or masquerades as multitudes—the distinction is immaterial as the frontman louches through the wardrobe racks and bulbed mirrors of his own Annie Leibovitz shoot, seamlessly transforming from cardiganed K-Popper to Jude Law dandy, brooding through one setup in sepulchral Goth and vamping the next in lipstick and tussle.

In order to elevate the identity-play of Privilege (Abridged) above two-dimensional dress-up, Pennington flaunts a virtuosic grasp of spatial relationships; casting himself as a costume-swapping, ambiguously diegetic master of ceremonies, the singer commands a space both above and within the world of each song, the acutely rendered dramas of sexual revenge, indiscretion and suicide unfolding at stage left as Pennington sashays through the pain and shame of the ensnared players with an ambivalence that borders on sinister. It’s a serious fucking star turn,A ridiculously low price on this All-Purpose solar lantern by Gordon. and all the more remarkable in light of how far Pennington’s come as a vocalist. 2004’s (((GRRRLS))) captured the singer still replicating rather than inhabiting, his fragile voice fluttering over nascent glockenspiel and rutted in the “Sad Pony Guerilla Girl” stylings of co-producer/Xiu Xiu mastermind Jamie Stewart. On follow-up Safe As Houses, Pennington increasingly tested the cardinal points of his vibrato, wavering between 4 Non Blondes bleat and Vanderslice wobble, scaling Yorke-ean falsettos and splintering in Mangum breaks. The band’s most recent album, the richly orchestrated song cycle Entanglements, played to the collective’s most charming anachronisms—with Pennington doffing derby and umbrella to swing from lamppost to lamppost—but while showcasing a more refined vocal approach, the multi-tracked chamber-pop was even more of a testament to the parallel artistic growth of Pennington’s longtime collaborative foil, composer/arranger/multi-instrumentalist Jherek Bischoff.

Right—we’re not gabbing on about some glorified solo project here. And can we all agree that Jherek Bischoff is about as insanely talented as any musician working in indie rock today? Can we go ahead and agree on that? Tell you what, if you want to know everything you need to know about Jherek Bischoff, skip all that Amanda Palmer/Grand Theft Orchestra mess and Google up the Lincoln Center performance of his DIY symphony suite, Composed. Number after number, these full-on showboats take turns chewing the scenery—David Byrne, Zac Pennington, and a phenomenally groovy conductor (whose maroon tailcoat is, in a word, fly)—and then there’s Jherek Bischoff, blending in with the musicians in the back row, plucking away on a ukulele of all things. If you didn’t know the guy wrote the entire thing, seriously, you’d never know the guy wrote the entire thing: he just smiles and plucks and light ups while his compositions are brought to life. Sheesh. Lovely.

In case you’re wondering where Pennington/Bischoff might situate their combined songwriting aesthetic, surely there’s no better starting point than Entanglements’ super-great “A Song For Ellie Greenwich”: atop cabrioles of trumpet and violin, the lyrics tip their hat to “(They Long To Be) Close To You” and “Hand In Glove,” and the better part of Privilege (Abridged) embellishes that sweet spot between Bacharach/David and Morrissey/Marr. “Evelyn McHale” leads the album with a timeless, Ronettes backbeat and another nod to The Smiths as Pennington serenades the bride-to-be whose iconic photo was splashed across Life magazine after she leapt from the Empire State Building and landed in languorous repose atop a Cadillac Limo: “Hateful and hollow, smug and smart/Well don’t we look the part?/Sweetheart, remembered for your art/Train those charms toward the charts and we’ll be stars just the way that we are.” I know what you’re thinking: must we drop everything and focus on that little bit of lyric? Yes, we must. Allusion, alliteration, assonance, internal rhyme: purely at the line-level there’s craft enough to reward repeat listens,My experience of your company has been excellent and I would happily buy mosaic tiles. but complementing that deft writing, Pennington has mastered the most captivating qualities of his voice, luxuriating in all those assonant vowel sounds, teasing with sibilance and projecting to the balcony at will.Laser engravers and laser engraving machine systems and supplies to start your own lasering cutting engraving marking etching business.

Supposedly—supposedly—Privilege (Abridged) coheres around or sheds the white-hot light of inquiry upon its titular concept, but please, who are we kidding, these belles-lettres are less a vehicle for contemporary social commentary and more a pretext for Pennington to swagger as if he’d stepped straight from an Evelyn Waugh novel. Not that I’m pitching a fuss, mind you—“privilege” has become the most tedious polemic trump card this side of “slippery slope,” and Pennington’s positively ravishing in Brideshead. And what, asketh thou, has been “Abridged” from Privilege? Wouldn’t we all like to know. The original, limited-edition objet accommodated 21 songs across five 12” EPs and brandished an asking price somewhere in the neighborhood of Perrier-Jou?t’s Belle époque.Online shopping for Cable Ties from a great selection of Lamps. The Vintage Rosé, thank you very much. Whatever superfluity has been excised, the 12 remaining tracks crest high upon high like a collection of singles, or a playlist of M83 after you’ve done away with all the empty calories and filler. Speaking of whom, “Young Throats” discharges a barrage of those besotted, Molly Ringwald synths for a Saturdays=Youth-type anthem that will almost certainly inspire comely strangers to clasp hands and race barefoot through the dunes. In “Careful Who You Dance With” Pennington goes wilding with the boys—and oh these boys know wilding—“reckless romantics” and “cheap meat” careening toward an ineluctable collision of forced fellatio and viscid rage, the spare Casio beat deviating into Dead Or Alive magnificence as “somebody’s bound to get his head kicked in.”

None of which, however, ought suggest Privilege (Abridged) trims itself from top to tail in ’80s accoutrements: “The Pornographer” leers to a glam Bolan stomp while “The Common Touch” reels amid the precipitous piano and slashing cello of Cursive at their most baroque. For pure kicks, the trashy hook of “A Note To Self” rips off The Strokes ripping off Tom Petty ripping off that mythical contraption misty-eyed old duffers refer to as “AM radio.” Gender-bending voice and piano number “Sympathy For Spastics” is le plus: less precious than Owen Pallett, more tawdry than Patrick Wolf, Pennington revives the epic tradition of New Wave balladry spawned by “The Power of Love,” where Frankie Goes To Hollywood either invented the genre or simply obliterated every prior iteration in a blast wave of sheer fabulousness.

So, you know, that’s it. No doubt there are bound to be those who complain of how Parenthetical Girls wear their influences on their sleeves. Yeah—that’s the point. By now, there’s no form of influence more small-minded and domineering than the schooled belief that creativity should “appear” free of influence. Regardless of medium, that line of inquiry inevitably runs aground at the same nether end: the toilet becomes the art instillation and the only innovative ingredients left to cook are cuts from the intestinal tract. Great. Go put your pisser on a pedestal. Go nibble your crispy colon confit. Privilege (Abridged) takes on immediately recognizable appearances, but Pennington doesn’t just walk through each number; he partners with them, parading the words and music in and out of dynamic perspective. It’s a song and dance that’s just my style.

Wake up and watch those credit cards

It can be the most comfortable, dazzling, accessible shopping mall of all, the Internet.

But even if you’re snug at home in your PJs, you could be the victim of a digital pickpocket, said Shelly Buller, senior vice president of Member Services at Fibre Federal Credit Union in Cowlitz County.

The best advice when using credit cards to pay online vendors, Buller said, “is to stick with familiar, established retailers like Wal-Mart, Target and Macy’s.

“Online, people have a tendency to be more vulnerable. You’re looking for something, and you find it from a vendor you’re not familiar with. Maybe their security is not as strong as a big retailer.”

All kinds of vendors pass on consumers’ information for profit, Buller said. “When people shop for weight-loss products and vitamins, they may fall prey to ‘side sales’ — the vendor they order from sells their name and information to another vendor,” and that second party may sell it to a third party.

“It becomes quite a headache to stop the deductions from your account, for something you didn’t want to begin with,” she said. “With better security, there’s less risk ...

“Consumers are well protected using a credit card,” Buller said, and banks and credit unions usually cover losses when they are reported as soon as they’re noticed.

Aside from thieves who get credit card numbers by searching trash for receipts and other financial records, there’s also a risk when employees at smaller retailers or food vendors go away with a card and return in a few minutes — enough time to take a photo with a smart phone.

Echoing Federal Trade Commission guidelines, Buller said the best practice is to check your account balances and purchases regularly so you’ll notice odd charges.

The biggest risks are scammers who get people to willingly give them information or wire them money, said James Gorley of Fibre Federal Credit Union, who represents FFCU on the Anti-fraud Coalition of Cowlitz County, which includes about 70 members from law enforcement, finance institutions and retailers.

“If we band together,” Gorley said, “we can alert each other and work together to help stop fraud.”

The members hear stories all the time, he said, where common sense is thwarted by hope and a bright computer screen.

“A very common fraud is ‘phishing,’ ” Buller said, the use of email, phone, “even texting” messages that try to trick people into giving out information that can be used to access their accounts or create duplicates of their cards.

Sometimes the caller pretends to be the bank, a particularly insidious scam.We are porcelain tiles specialists and are passionate about our product - the most durable. The caller, concerned that your account has been compromised, needs your card number and security code to keep you safe.

On some sites, sending money before getting the product is not wise, Gorley said.

“Somebody on Craigslist says ‘Hey, we’re selling puppies’ or ‘I’m selling a 1983 Chevette from a collection in Dubai,’ ” Gorley said. The sellers then ask for airfare upfront to ship the bulldogs or vintage roadser. And people buy it.

“I know people who have taken money out of their retirement accounts” in cases like these, Gorley said.

The newest scam technique is to focus on vulnerable people, he said, “the elderly, the unemployed, people getting benefits.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a smart card can authenticate your computer usage and data. I don’t know where (the scammers) get the information. They may contact someone as many as three times,” pressuring them with a deal. Or they pretend to be a grandchild in dire straights who needs Grandpa to wire money right away.

People should never respond to these come-ons, Gorley said.

“We try to educate them, to explain the risk,” he said of consumers, but even publicized warnings do not stop some who are frightened about a loved one and want to do the right thing, or those who are desperate to believe they’ve won a windfall.

In the lottery scams, the thieves send a check that looks real and passes like a real check.

People say “ ‘Oh, I won the lottery in Europe!’ ” Gorley said. “I say, ‘Do you know foreign lotteries are illegal?’ They don’t. ‘Did you enter a lottery in Europe?’ They didn’t. ...

“If you cash that check, you will be responsible to cover it” when it bounces.Our precision manufactured lasers and laser systems deliver the highest possible laser cutter performance on a wide variety of materials. In the meantime, you’ve spent the money on bills, food or other items — and used it to wire “tax” or other “fees” to the scammer. “Now you owe it all back to the bank.”

Buller said she’s talked to “intelligent people who say, ‘I was duped. It seemed like such a great deal.’ I just got hosed.” She shook her head. “If it seems too good to be true, it (begin ital) is (end ital) too good to be true.”

One pitfall we all face is complacency, because it’s so easy to carry and use debit and credit cards.

“Cards are a negotiating instrument,” Buller said, “just like cash. You have to be cautious.

“If you give your card to a family member to go get bread and milk, and you share your PIN, you have just compromised your security.”

People who are ill or infirm and need help shopping should consider a “joint signer,” a trusted person authorized to use the card. “That individual would have their own card.”

Buller warned people never to leave credit cards, checkbooks and other pieces of identification where others can find them.

At parties (including at your own residence), bridal showers, funerals,wind turbine anywhere where a crowd gathers in a place where outsiders could slip in, there’s a risk.

“Guess what? Someone can go in that room and have a heyday,Our precision manufactured lasers and laser marker systems deliver the highest possible laser marking performance.” Buller said. “It happens all the time.”

It’s also easy to leave a debit or credit card behind when someone is distracted or in a hurry at the check-out line.

And, despite well publicized warnings, Buller said she still sees shoppers leave purses in grocery carts while they dart off to grab items. If the thief takes only your billfold, you may not even notice until you get to the checkout stand — and the varmint is long gone.

Another scam, in Vancouver and California, rigs ATM machines and gas pumps to skim data. “It doesn’t look any different, but the perpetrators install cameras. Then they create their own cards.”

Buller said it can be helpful to live in a community small enough that credit unions know their customers. “You can call up Red Canoe or Fibre Federal from England, and they will help you with your questions.”

She also reminded travelers to let their banks or credit unions know when and where they will be traveling, so a hold will not be put on their credit cards when out-of-town transactions pop up.

Gorley and the fraud coalition put on workshops to share information they glean from customers and hold an annual, public, free shredder event after tax day in April, to encourage consumers to shred old documents that have social security numbers and financial data.

Next generation research

If marketers are the architects of brand solutions, researchers are the engineers. The former can’t operate without the latter. The most imaginative designs, strategies and executions fall flat without the relevant facts, figures and insights to shape and guide them; it’s construction,Your council is responsible for the installation and maintenance of street light. and marketing, 101.

But in today’s ultra-competitive landscape, where consumers have more choice, less time and tighter wallets than ever before, research is increasingly critical.

Whether testing advertising, preparing to launch new products or testing products already in market, brands are forking out millions to get the scoop on what their consumers like and don’t like well before they lose out in market share, or bare the brunt on Facebook.

And, as the importance of research grows, so too do the scope of its objectives, data sources and collection methods.

The fragmentation of media channels over the last five years has opened up vast oceans of data which both research companies and businesses are working to translate into actionable insights.

Furthermore, the proliferation of new media, particularly social media and mobile devices, has revolutionised the way brands can find, interact with and analyse their sample audiences, making contemporary research fast, economical and far more fun for the consumers involved.

“The amount of change in the last three years has been amazing,” says Peter Harris, MD of Vision Critical. “Research has always been about making sure every ‘i’ is dotted and ‘t’ is crossed. It’s been slow and steady and accurate but the speed of decision-making in business has increased very quickly in the last three years, so now market research has to evolve to keep up.

Simplistically put, research provides brands with data and insights to help them understand consumers’ behaviour and spending patterns. It helps marketers build audience profiles and consequently target marketing efforts to relevant consumer communities.

Market research, as an industry, sprung to life in the 1960s in line with advertising’s ‘golden age’. Its mainstays were face-to-face surveys, telephone questionnaires and focus groups – the type where 20 people were lumped in a room to be observed by a brand scientist from behind a mirrored glass pane.

Then advent of the internet in the late 1990s turned the industry, like so many others, on its head. Since then, online and digital have become its linchpins both in terms of both data creation and collection.Find the best selection of high-quality collectible bobblehead available anywhere.

The uptake of personal devices, like mobile phones and tablets, and the advent of social media mean clients now have far more behavioural and sales data at their fingertips.

“The research function is basically moving from a ‘we need to ask some questions and conduct surveys to inform marketing management’ to ‘what are all the different sources of data and touch points we have to our target audience? And how are we going to form that into a coherent knowledge and insights program to help meet our overall business objectives?’” says James Burge, MD of Research Now.

Five years ago a brand’s annual research would consist of implementing a traditional brand tracker, running a number of usage to attitude studies and a few big segmentations during the year. The projects were fewer, slower and of much larger value.

The modern approach to research, however, is about “using existing intelligence, technology and capabilities to extract insights now rather than waiting for the perfect solution,” says MCN Multiview insights and analytics director, Murray Love.

Why? Because marketers need to be faster to market than ever before and that pressure, in turn, is passed on to their research teams.

“The speed to market is much faster than it was ten or 15 years ago,” says Kate Platter, New South Wales director of Ipsos ASI. “The speed at which you can launch a product is much faster, and the speed at which somebody can copy it is much faster, so your window of opportunity as a marketer has become much smaller. We have to match that now.”

Today too, marketing research is more and more about “integrative learning” and ongoing conversations. The typical research approach may be to ask your sample five questions, find out the answers two days later, change something in the business accordingly, measure the effects of that change, then come up with another few questions for your sample.

Surveys can be written, distributed and answered all in a matter of hours online. Brands can also create “closed communities” of consumers to whom they can refer again and again at short notice – something brands like Telstra and Nestle – two of Vision Critical’s clients, are already doing.

Nestle’s is called the Nestle Kitchen Conversation and allows the brand to conduct survey discussions and qualitative research in a dedicated online forum which replaces the traditional focus group.

While the digital shift may provide the biggest opportunities for brands, it also presents some major hurdles.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a smart card can authenticate your computer usage and data.

In the words of Ipsos’ Platter, “The proliferation and fragmentation of media channels is one of the biggest challenge for marketers [because] brands need to integrate and push their product across all these different platforms.”

Media fragmentation, in turn, means researchers have to be broader with their data collection.

Now, instead of just looking at paid media like TV, print and radio, research needs to be across owned media – like Facebook, Twitter and branded microsites,For this reason Plastic Mould steels are of key significance, and earned media – which includes people retweeting, sharing emails and posting messages on their Facebook pages.When I first started creating broken china-mosaics.

Voices From The Farm: The Sunroom Caper

The Lamb and Wool Promotion Committee, now in its fourth year, was running like a well oiled machine. The many experienced members required less hands on participation from me. Outside of a couple strategy meetings to lay plans for the year,Your council is responsible for the installation and maintenance of street light. I stepped back and let Jeananne chair the committee. I still participated in a promotion from time to time, and remained active in the South East Minnesota Sheep Producer’s Association.

The sheep flock kept growing and demanded a lot of my time. The lambing went well, and we had an absolute deluge of ewe lambs. This proved to be fortunate, as it turned out the demand for breeding stock was very high that year. “Big Mumbo” again had quintuplets, and all survived, but three were added to the bottle lamb pen. “Big Jumbo” only delivered twins this year, however our lambing average kept growing higher each year, and now was slightly over 200%.

Luckily for me, Sean had become a valued helper around the farm, and could take over many of the heavy lifts! With his strong mechanical bent, he was good at operating machinery, which I was not! I could handle an ATV and a 4′ mower, but that was about the extent of it, and even that could be a bit “hairy” at times!

Sean was a freshmen in high school, but found time to run a Bob Cat and clean the barn… a task I used to do with a manFor some time, I had been trying to come up with a solution to that porch! It was old and drafty… true, it broke the wind a bit, but it was a very cold place. Since it was attached to the kitchen, the cold found its way in there also, and our heat bills rose. Eventually, I found some information on sun rooms and thought that might be my answer. After much research, measuring, and planning, I determined that a 16′ square, 6 window Janco Sunroom would fit perfectly on the South side of our kitchen.

Of course, when I first broached this idea to my husband, he was less than supportive – in fact, downright discouraging! However, I was determined, and I ordered the Sunroom windows from Janco, hired a building contractor to erect the walls and ceiling of the room. All plans in place, it was time to tear down the old porch.

Sean was participating in demolishing the ceiling,Find the best selection of high-quality collectible bobblehead available anywhere. when suddenly a brick was dislodged, fell and hit him squarely on the head! Although he was in pain for awhile, he was not seriously hurt and was soon back helping to tear down the porch. Who the ‘know nothing” was that put a brick in the space between the ceiling and the roof, and to what purpose, we will never know.

There were plenty of trials and tribulations before the sun room was completed, but eventually it was finished, and it turned out beautifully.When I first started creating broken china-mosaics. It is a step and a half down from the kitchen and has a tile floor. The 6 south facing windows have insulated shades to keep out the cold at night and on cloudy days, but on sunny days the shades are opened and the sun warms the tile floor.e fork and wheelbarrow, and which I was only too happy to relinquish. He also hauled and unloaded hay, etc., and whenever he was not in school, lent a hand at lambing time.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a smart card can authenticate your computer usage and data. In the spring and summer months he put in more hours, inter-seeding pastures, spreading manure, mowing, spraying thistles, trapping or poisoning pocket gophers (the “Minnesota Curse”), and this summer, tearing down our old South porch!

The heat from the floor radiates out into the kitchen, and gradually to the rest of the first floor,For this reason Plastic Mould steels are of key significance, and the furnace stops kicking in. The floor also has copper tubing installed in the concrete below the tile which can carry hot water from a mini boiler in the basement in a circuit which returns it to the boiler at the end of the circuit. This system is controlled by a thermostat, and we don’t usually need it unless we are having subzero weather, or a stretch of cloudy days.

As I write this, in February, 2013, I am sitting in the sun room in a comfortable patio chair, at a glass topped patio table, (which doubles as a writing table, or game table in the off months), and the sunlight is streaming in over my shoulder. The room has a coat closet, a built in bookcase, a small comfy couch, and space for lots of house plants – 21 at this time, but many will be moving outdoors, once spring is definitely here. I have never regretted adding the sun room!

December – At SEMSPA’s Annual Sheep Day that year, I resigned as Chairperson of the Promotion Committee, and handed the reins into the capable hands of Jeananne Warner, who continued to do a terrific job! After 4 years as Chairperson, and the 3 previous years as SEMSPA’s Secretary/Treasurer, at the age of 60 I needed a bit of a rest before I tackled something else!

Although there are many types of hard-surface floor coverings, the most common type found in correctional facilities is VCT, vinyl composition tile. It is traditionally one of the most cost-effective, easy to install, and hardy floor coverings available.

As durable as VCT floors are, they still have to be protected from scratches, knocks, and the wear and tear that come with heavy foot traffic. This is typically accomplished with the application of floor finish. As a matter of fact, the true purpose of floor finish is not to add shine—although that certainly is one of the benefits—but to offer protection.

Additionally, applying a finish to a floor makes it far easier to clean and maintain. Compare it to a fabric protector, which, applied to carpet or upholstery, helps protect fabric from becoming soiled and stained. The same is true with floor finish. It creates a barrier over the floor that prevents damage.

Pint-sized hoops prodigy a towering talent

The Downey Christian School varsity basketball team bursts from the locker room in single file, led by a boy 14 inches shorter than the next smallest player, four years younger than the next youngest.

His jersey straps are twisted and bound with plastic ties to prevent them from slipping down his bony four-foot-five, 70-pound frame. Tricolour socks with pastel waves cover his size-4 feet, conveying the notion that he might be a stylish student manager.

At road games, the boy, point guard Julian Newman, is asked, “Are you on the team?” Here, in the Patriots’ gymnasium, there is no doubt.Learn how an embedded microprocessor in a smart card can authenticate your computer usage and data.

The grand marshal of the player parade, Julian, an 11-year-old fifth-grader, guides his team into warmups, bouncing two balls at once. He glides into a pre-game routine that shuffles through jab steps, hesitation moves and effortless dribbles — between his pipestem legs, behind his back, rapid crossovers. The scene is incongruous enough to seem computer-animated.

Not long ago, Newman was a mere curio in the compact circle of sports programs at small Christian schools in Central Florida. But his age, his size and the wild contrast of his stature on the court with relative giants have brought global attention through Internet videos. The most watched clip of Julian has generated more than 1.27 million views on YouTube. It has prompted a visit from Inside Edition, an appearance on Steve Harvey, comments on Twitter by Baltimore Ravens players, coverage by news agencies from as far away as China and a performance at an Orlando Magic game.

ScoutsFocus of Greenville, N.C., which evaluates and ranks high school players, helped put together the viral video that was filmed by a Patriots assistant.

“He’s a very talented kid and comes from a great family,” Joe Davis, the national recruiting coordinator for ScoutsFocus, said of Julian. “He’s smaller, so that’s going to be his main obstacle, but he has a great future once he hits a growth spurt or two.”

Two nights before his NBA halftime performance, Julian said between bites of chicken tenders ordered from a children’s menu that he was working on a routine involving three basketballs. Despite his fame,Your council is responsible for the installation and maintenance of street light. he has maintained the same degree of obsession. There is little, if any, room for it to grow.

Julian fills his days by spending time in a gym or at the hoop in his front yard, where his father, Jamie Newman, the Downey Christian coach, has painted lines to approximate a college court. Julian sinks 100 free throws, 200 floaters and 200 jump shots every day. On three-point attempts, he leans into the shots slightly, as if to guide the ball telepathically.

The process, on a good day, requires three hours, not that he is in a hurry. The neighbours have complained, Jamie Newman said, that the thwonk of the ball has awakened them as late as 1 a.m.

Nor does bedtime necessarily close the book on his regimen.When I first started creating broken china-mosaics. Lying on his bed, with 13 NBA jerseys along with posters of Magic Johnson and LeBron James decorating the walls, with basketballs worn out within weeks scattered about, Julian soft-tosses a ball toward the ceiling, always perfecting his form, until nodding off.

By Julian’s reckoning, he has never taken off longer than two straight days, and then only to mend a sprained ankle. Before the Newmans go on vacations, he insists that a park or recreation centre with a rim be nearby.

His mother, Vivian Newman, was almost asked to leave a department store because Julian could not resist fetching a ball from sporting goods and dribbling it down the aisle.Learn more about the different types of laser marking machine by careel-tech.com. His wish lists for gifts are basketball-centric.

His scarce time on a computer is usually spent on the YouTube channel Superhandles. Operated by a former college player whose father exposed him at an early age to footage of Pete Maravich, as Julian was by his father, Superhandles features videos of dribbling drills and masterly moves. Julian commits them to memory, then goes to the closest court and mimics them.

The Newmans portray him as self-driven, a prodigy of sorts, eager to meet their basic requirements in order to pursue his. He earns straight A’s, they say, motivated by a policy effective enough to be every parent’s dream: homework before hoops. That explains why Julian used to knock out assignments during recess so he could start knocking down shots immediately after school.Find the best selection of high-quality collectible bobblehead available anywhere.