The year is 2018. More than 130 million registered users, 100,000 sites, 200 countries, more than 100 languages. At this time, Moodle is the world's most popular learning management system. It's empowering educators to improve our world. But how did Moodle actually get to where it is today and where is it going? Let me share with you the Moodle story. Let's start from the beginning. In the late 1970s, a clever young kid by the name of Martin Dugyamats grows up in remote Western Australia. Australia is a vast continent, and the nearest school happens to be hundreds of kilometres away. The internet doesn't yet exist, so Martin attends School of the Air, that's learning delivered via Radio Wave. It gives him an early insight into distance learning. Fast forward to 1999, Martin plants a seed. He begins creating Moodle as part of his PhD research project at Curtin University. In 2001, he makes the first forum post via Moodle.com. This was before the days of Moodle.org. Naturally, he was using the Moodle software. In 2002, he releases Moodle Version 1 as an open software system.  In that same year, he sets up Tracker. This is a bug tracking system. In his own words, so you can see what I'm working on. In 2004, the first Moodle Moots are being hosted in the United Kingdom and Germany. The first partner of Moodle partner applications are rolling in, and there are around 1,000 registered Moodle sites. In the next year, the Mojito establishes itself as the official Moodle drink. Incidentally, the Spanish Moodle Moot. 2006, Moodle Docks is launched. This is the online help documentation wiki for Moodle users or Moodlets. 2008, Martin graciously accepts the Google O'Reilly open source award in the Education Enabler category on behalf of Moodle. 2010, Moodle Version 2 is released. New features include repositories, portfolios, course completion tracking, conditional activities and cohorts. At this stage, there are around 1,000,000 registered Moodle users and 50 certified partners worldwide. 2011, the mobile app Version 1 is released. The app is called My Moodle. It's designed for tablet and mobile, freely available from the various stores. It hooks into mobile functions such as taking a picture, recording audio or video from your phone and uploading that directly to your Moodle course. In 2012, Moodle hosts its first research conference on the Greek island of Crete. I really wish I went to that particular conference. In 2013, Learn Moodle MOOC is launched. MOOC being a massive open online course. This particular MOOC is a four-week activity-based course for teachers who are new to Moodle and want to learn more. 2015 represented a watershed year for Moodle. It achieves a key milestone. It becomes the world's most popular learning management system. At this stage, we have around 18 million registered users. Moodle Cloud is launched. This is a low-cost hosting service managed by HQ. And the Moodle mobile app Version 2 is released. It's becoming a better metaphor for the desktop experience. Moodle Version 3, this is the standard core release. There's a big focus on usability improvements and the user interface. And we say hello to a new default text editor. It's called Ato, designed especially for Moodle. 2016 was another momentous year for Moodle. It reaches over 100 million registered users. And to be fair, that's probably the tip of the iceberg because most system admins won't register their site. They don't. Every country is or has a registered Moodle site. In the same year, the Moodle User Association has launched or the MUA. This is a not-for-profit incorporated association that helps drive the Moodle project. The idea is that members propose projects, define requirements. They vote on their preferred projects. And these are presented to HQ for development. And the development is funded by member fees. So you might have noticed some of these features in core Moodle. Recycle bin, the My Courses overview block that's on the dashboard, calendar improvements. And there's been an expanded question bank as well. The next theme, this is relatively new based on the Bistrak framework. So the idea here is it's modern, it's clean, it's web responsive. Easy to navigate. We can win back screen real estate as educators or as learners and it allows a unified experience with the mobile app. The Moodle mobile app version 3 is released. So it's now becoming an excellent metaphor for the desktop experience. The majority of standard features are now supported by the app. And we say hello to the branded Moodle mobile app. This is a service, a commercial service where organizations can have their branding applied to the standard app. So there's some additional benefits. Simplified login, automated updates, offline capability and push notification infrastructure. Moodle desktop is released. I did say that 2016 was a momentous year. So this is Moodle's solution for accessing the software and the courses either via your desktop or surface tablets. Just last year or 2017, Moodle announced an investment partnership with Education for the Many to accelerate its growth. So Education for the Many's mission is to invest in entrepreneurs who wish to change the world through education. And we now have a new office or Moodle has an office in Barcelona, Spain. Okay, so here we are again. The present day, as we said, 130 million registered users and around about 80 or so certified Moodle partners worldwide. Where to from here? Well, beyond 2018, Moodle is especially focused on five key growth projects. And we'll go through each of these in a moment. Improving Moodle Core, Learn Moodle, Moodle Net, Moodle Foundation, and the expansion of services and partnership programs. Okay, so we're improving core. So that's the standard software product we've known to love and adore. So look out for more of this. Useability, improve usability, simplicity and accessibility. Moodle site copy. So this will be a function that will make it easy or easier for us to copy. Transport our Moodle sites from one location to another. Look out for sector-specific improvements. So not just education, we could be talking workplace and beyond. This is sort of here already, but it's early days. Analytics-driven user assistance. So this is machine learning. If you like the machine or the platform, studies the Moodle system and it notifies. So it's like a neural network. We feed or Moodle feeds it data and we train the brain. It becomes more intelligent over time. So Moodle comes now, shipped with some idea of how the human brain works. In the form of learning analytics, you may have seen this. So the idea is, we assist educators to make more informed decisions about learning in a timely manner. Watch out as well for Moodle to support virtual reality and augmented reality standards. Okay, this is key focus area two. Learn Moodle. So this is Moodle's latest curriculum to teach or to learn to teach online. And that will be via the Moodle Education Certification Program. So educators will have the opportunity to demonstrate effectiveness in 22 key digital competencies. And these are aligned with UNESCO's digital standards for educators. MoodleNet, it's going to be revamped. It may in fact eventually replace what we know as Moodle.org. It's going to be a well-designed social media platform for us as educators. Integrated with every Moodle site. And it will support the creation and sharing of content and services. Moodle Foundation. This will be a not-for-profit to be launched somewhere in Europe, possibly Brussels. Focus on research driving open source. Deep involvement with the community and all sorts of partnerships. Fifthly, look out for an expansion of Moodle services and partnership programs. In summary, Moodle. It started as one man's vision. Martin. He planted a seed. We all nurtured it and helped it grow. The Moodle project highlights the great potential of humanity. When we cooperate and collaborate, we can achieve incredible things. Moodle. Empowering the educators to improve our world. Thank you.


what were you thinking? You're being greedy. Hey, Bolo buddies, thanks for watching. Amazing, right? All right, let's get started. Hey, Bolo buddies, thanks for watching. All right, you guys, thank you so much for being here. My name is Courtney, also known as Bolo Buddies and this is my big money Bolo video items that I sold on eBay for big bucks, high profits. I'm going to tell you where I got the item, what I sold it for, and what I paid for it. And we're going to get started here. This first one, oh my goodness, just wait. All right, so the first item here are these pantyhose and the buyer actually, I kind of listed these in groups as I received them. I got them from an estate clean out and my cost of goods was very, very low pennies. And basically at this estate, I'm buying in bulk, so I pay one price for everything and then I haven't even tried to divide it out. So I have had some really great finds from here and a lot of stuff that's been redonated and it's been a lot of work, but fun work. I love the treasure hunt. They're basically mystery bags. But anyway, these pantyhose, I listed two pair originally and I priced them, I can't remember what I priced them at, but they sold within like 10 minutes. So the next set I priced higher and it was when I was on vacation, so I didn't get, I didn't respond to the offer and then they just bought them full price when I priced them higher. So then when I got home from vacation, I listed the rest of them and I still have some left, nine of these, two of these, two of these, this pair, which it was on auction for $44.99 and they offered me $27 and I'm like, they're buying all of these. I'm just going to go ahead and take the $27 for this as well. Three pair of these, two pair of these. All right, so that was it on the pantyhose. I don't know how many pair that ended up being, I think 19 pair for a total of $516 in pantyhose. So when they made the offer the first time, this is really bad, but I declined them because I was like, I think I'm underselling them, but, and these are, oh, they are stockings. They are not full length up to the waist pantyhose. They're, I don't know if they're knee highs. I think they're knee highs. Is that what they're called? Stockings. So, yeah, and then I thought about it and I was like, you know, they're buying all of them. I should do the $27. Take it and just, so I messaged them and I'm like, I will do the $27 piece. They came back and went ahead and made me offer. So I could have messed up there, but, and I'm being vulnerable and telling you guys that story because some of you are going to be like, why didn't you just take the $27? What were you thinking? You're being greedy. And yeah, maybe I was being a little bit like, I wanted to get the most profit for my item, but yeah, I should have just taken the $27 the first time they sent the offer.  The next item is this vintage Lottie doll clothing. These are like, what do you call it? Paper dolls, but they're cloth. I could not think of it. And they go on a certain doll and I picked these up at a garage sale for a dollar each. And I lauded them up. And the funny thing is, is I run a 35% off sale typically 35 to 38%, sometimes only 30, but my sale had ended. There is usually a small gap in time when my sale, there's no sale going. And then sometimes I forget to create the other sale. This just happened to fall into that I had no sale going on. And they paid full asking price of $75 plus shipping for this. I got the cha-ching and I looked and I'm like, what? And I was like, oh my goodness, my sale is not on. They paid full price. So that was super exciting. But yeah, has that ever happened to anyone where you get like a full price buy when your sales not on? Incredible. Okay, here is another pair, which is why you're going to see I was countering at 35 on the other pantyhose. Okay, because these can go for big money. But again, when they're buying that many pairs, I should have just taken the 27 in the first place. Okay. This pair actually sold for $45. I think I pulled up the wrong one because I've sold two pair of these, one for $45 and one for a best offer of $40. So you're seeing the current listed price because I still have one pair available. So $45 for these. I believe this one went internationally. This came from, I believe that same estate sale. Either that, yeah, I think it was the same estate sale. So these are first quality, sheer to the waist pantyhose. These are actually pantyhose. The next item here, oh my goodness, this poster. I have had this forever. I picked it up at a garage sale. I'm not even sure what I paid for it. I want to say $10. And I did a video of how I packaged it. I used like pool noodles and then put it in a box. But it was taking forever to sell. And I'm like, this is a really cool piece. Like what's the deal? And I went in and I added Jane Mansfield to the title. And once I did that, I got an offer pretty quickly. I ended up taking a best offer of $72 plus shipping. The buyer was all in for $132.63 on this. So sometimes those keywords in the title, I do believe that going in and tweaking your titles on these types of items could be beneficial. I don't do it because I don't have time. But for some reason, this one popped up and I'm like, I'm going to try that. And it actually worked. So just a little tip there. Okay, this pair sold for 40. And again, I have one left. All right. So this is a vintage 1993 accents unlimited santo with animals ready to paint crafters. I picked these up in a thrift store mystery box. And I have a whole bunch of these listed different styles. I thought these were going to fly out of my store because they are incredible. And people that do art and I ready to paint type items that are vintage are harder to find. And really, they're just sitting there not moving this says I think the first one I've sold I did sell it for $45 and 50 cents. This is one of the bigger ones. So if for those of you that are crafters, if I'm missing a keyword in my title, please let me know. Maybe I just need to tweak my titles. But that was I probably had a dollar less than that. And the buyer was all in for 70 57 for that because it's pretty big. The next item is this vintage Martha's miniatures full circle dress.   So I did end up listing this dress and it sold on Nope, not auction. It sold really fast. After I put it on a buy it now our best offer, I ended up taking a best offer of $78 plus shipping. The buyer was all in for $90 and 63 cents. This came from a church sale. And I want to say I paid like $10 for the entire bag. It was just a bagful. And I don't even know if I knew what full circle was then. I just knew that they were vintage baby dresses. I think I did, but I obviously didn't have any urgency to list this because I just threw it in my basement. But you know, we do that. My money piles huge. This is an insco nativity pageant four piece set of memories of yesterday. It's from 1994. And I did pay up for this at a garage sale. I paid $10 for it. And that is because I looked up comps and they were pretty good. I did end up taking a best offer of $40 plus shipping on this. Okay, the next item is this Daisy Kingdom 44 by 181 fabric.  And I don't know how many yards this is. So I don't know how to put Oh, this is six yards or two yards. I don't know how to do it. So I just put the measurements in there and hope for the best. And I ended up selling this on auction for $99 and 99 cents. The reason I listed this is because of my video that I did on vintage fabric. And I knew that Daisy Kingdom is a Bolo. Now this one in particular is just a floral design. It's not one of the special ones, but it's a pretty big piece. But the part that gets better is I had two other huge pieces like this. Another one sold for $99.99 on auction. And I was like, okay, both those sold on a seven day auction. I'm just going to put the last one on a buy it now and price it high. You guys, I sold it for 150 on buy it now. So I may have undersold these I do have one small piece left. And these came from an estate sale in bags and bags and bags of fabric that I got. I still have some listed in bulk on, I think I put it on eBay. So there is some crafters, lots available if anybody is interested. You can make me an offer. If you make me an offer on something, my eBay stores link down below, always put Bolo buddies in the comments so that I know that you're a viewer of my channel. I'll definitely work with you on prices. Vintage ceramic or glass, I'm not sure what they are, but these are vegetables. I always pick up fruit and vegetables like stone, but these were really cool. Not big on breakables. I don't like shipping them, but I had to pick these up. I got these at a garage sale for $2 and I sold them for 39 plus shipping and they were kind of a long tail item. These colored pencils I got at an estate sale. I paid about a dollar for them. They are vintage barrel Prisma color thick lead color art pencils. And it was incomplete and this sold on auction for $149.99 plus shipping. This reef, I got this at a garage sale for a buck. I just thought it was kind of cool. It's motion activated and the eyes flash and it makes sound, I think, if I remember correctly. And I sold this for $39. The buyer was all in for $51.75 on that. The next item is this Texas Instruments TI-84 plus graphing calculator. This is in one of my garage sale videos, the Barbie garage sale video. You remember that one when I scored those amazing boxes of Barbies? There's a video. You should definitely check that one out. I sold this calculator for $57.85 plus shipping and I got that at a garage sale for five. These right here came out of a Christmas mystery box from the thrift store. They are vintage. They're like angels and I think the one holds a candle, but there's three of them. I ended up taking a best offer of $45 on these and the buyer was all in for $60.47. Okay. Here's the other one I sold for $99.99 and I think the other one is in another video because it sold afterwards later. MaxForce Shadow Hop Gun. This was very, very long tail. I think this one went internationally. I picked this up at a garage sale quite a while ago. I did price it high because there weren't a lot of comparables. If I would have priced it lower, I think it would have sold quicker, but I kept the price high and I sold it for a full asking price of $97.49 plus shipping. My cost of goods was around $3. This here is a rare, I don't use the word rare very much. I think I did sell similar and forgot to take that out because I used hard to find HTF. This is a dragon.   I got this at the Goodwill actually. I paid $5 for it and it sold for a full asking sale price of $55.25 plus shipping. The next item is this witch and I did feature this on the This Is My Bolo video where I have all of the reseller YouTubers and eBay stores that are members of my channel. They come together and they share a Bolo with you. If you guys have not seen those videos, they are incredible because you get to see 60-second clips of big money Bolo's brought to you by different people, not just me. It's awesome. Go check those out. I probably have five or six now. It's a series I do on my channel, but I got this witch at a garage sale for $2. It took the best offer of $85 plus shipping on her. Let me show you this here view. She's like that fabric mache. I did not expect that she would go for that much and vintage Halloween is definitely just incredible. I priced it high and I waited on the right buyer. Here's another kind of almost full circle dress. I got this at a garage sale for $3. I was actually out garage sailing with my husband and he was actually looking at the rack. I don't know why he was looking at the rack because I don't know. It was weird, but I was like, I think he pointed it out to me. This is a vintage dress and I'm like, whoa. I went ahead and grabbed that for three bucks and I sold that for $65 plus shipping. It is not a complete full circle. It probably would have went for more if it would have been. It is sheer. I did use that in my title. It is really cute. It did have a little stain on it as well. Merry Girl is the brand party dress. That one was a size eight, so not a toddler dress. The next item here is this vintage flocked dotted Swiss dot fabric. This smelled like moth balls. I went ahead and just priced it and hoped for the best because I figured somebody can wash it. I'm sure there's a way to get that smell out. It was a really nice big piece of fabric. I ended up selling this for a best offer of $45 plus shipping. My cost of goods was free. This was thrown in because it smelled like moth balls. The last item came from an estate sale. It was in a bag of clothes. Most of the clothes got donated, but this UB40 single stitch tee was a keeper. It was dated 1988. I sold this for $130 plus shipping. All right, you guys. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for watching. Check out some of those other videos I mentioned. I've got tons and tons of Bolo videos. That's what my channel is all about. I also have videos about items not to buy, items that you should not be listing on eBay. I think most of them are titled Don't Sell These Items on eBay, Vero. Basically, I invite my Facebook members to share things that have been removed from eBay or got them suspended. Then I create a video. These are current events happening on eBay, things that are being removed right now. There is a Vero list. You can definitely check that out, but if you want to know the things that are being pulled in current time, those are great videos. Thank you guys. Leave me an emoji of a hat or just write the word hat. Thanks for watching. See you at the next one.


What's up, Mozcon? So good to be back. Where's the shoes of Mozcon guy? I just want you to get a good look at this right here.  I'm going to do this while you take a beautiful photo of my oxfords. So my name is Heather Fizziak. I am the director of the Discoverability Group at VML.  Pretty amazing. We have some friends in town from Kansas City, where I'm from. And then my colleague from Bogota made it to Mozcon. So that's pretty awesome from Colombia. So these are a few of the clients that we have the good fortune of being on a journey with. Today, we're going to talk about what that journey is like for some of these clients. And we're going to help build your red tape toolkit to overcome obstacles and get your best work done for your clients. Now, just because a client signed a contract with you does not mean that they're bought in. And I know that it seemingly defies logic that the work that they bought doesn't go live. It can be this slow, arduous, painful process to get even the smallest projects pushed through. And with the size of the clients, the more complex and difficult these problems become.  It leads to you or your team becoming impatient, fed up, discouraged, frustrated, jaded, burned out. And all the while, your client is still like, where are those SEO results I paid for? I think I have experienced this literally everywhere I have ever worked. I think everybody in this room has experienced this at some point. So I knew that we weren't alone in this. And I set out to figure out why this is. I surveyed a bunch of colleagues in our industry to learn more about this common experience that we all share and tried to uncover what the root causes were. But more importantly, how do we overcome it? So I surveyed about 140 colleagues. Thank you so much, everybody who participated in that. Roughly 1 third of the survey participants were in-house marketers who were providing services for their own brands. And roughly 2 thirds were external marketers. People who were providing services for clients. And the respondents ranged from the in-house SEOs to those who were embedded in multi-service agencies, content marketing shops, consulting firms, and those who were self-employed. So it truly ran the gamut of the industry. And we asked about obstacles that fell into four main categories. The first was the low understanding of search. So that could be your client's understanding of search or your own colleagues inside the shops' understanding of search. The second was prioritization and buy-in for the work. The next was corporate bureaucracy. So that could mean red tape, slow approvals, lack of advocacy, high turnover. And then finally, resource limitations, like did they scope appropriately for search or do they even have developers or people to write the stuff that we need written? Now when you break it out by agency side, the biggest complaint for the agency folks was low client understanding of search. But when you ask the in-house SEOs, they said technical resource limitations for developers like a full backlog. Interesting. And some people took in the time to write even more blockers, workflow bottlenecks, over complicated process, lack of ownership, internal politics, shifting budgets and priorities. My God, there are so many people, so many smart people in this room and in this community and all of these things are stopping us from getting our work done.  It hurts, right in the feelings. And when we get frustrated, we tend to blame clients, right? It's the client that hung up the project or if only the client had listened to us or it's a problem with the client's business, but I don't buy it. And neither should you. It is a cop-out. Sometimes the problem is the system. Sometimes the problem is the people, but my friends, sometimes the problem is you. We are not perfect. When we start working in search, we are trained how to execute SEO best practices. And when we come to these conferences, we're learning these amazing, advanced, cutting-edge SEO techniques. We are good about talking about the work, but what we are not good at is talking about how we talk about the work.  But fortunately, we are all optimizers. Everybody in this room inherently believes that things could be just a little bit better. We refuse to believe that this is just the way things are and there is nothing we can do about it. So when I did the survey, I did not just ask about the problems. I asked about the solutions. And after analyzing the responses, these seven tools came the most highly recommended overcome the most common obstacles that stop us from doing our best search work. The first is to diagnose your client's maturity, not emotional maturity. That is a talk for another day. This is maturity as it pertains to search. So that could be SEO capabilities or the organizational search maturity. So you can recommend the right work and speak to them in the right way that is appropriate for where they are in their journey. So we often make the mistake of assuming that a client is super knowledgeable and they're bought in and they're motivated to execute search work because they agreed to pay us to do it. So we go trucking full speed ahead. We are dumping recommendations in their lap and then we're shocked when nothing goes live. And that is where a maturity model can help. So maturity models were originally developed for the Department of Defense, but their core purpose is to measure the ability of an organization to continuously evolve in a practice. So you can diagnose how mature the client is today and then identify where you need to go next to make change. It helps you to meet the client where they are. So I built a maturity model. So this is for SEO capabilities, the technical ability to do the work. And we set up eight criteria against six different phases. In my model, I used analytics or how data-driven the search program is, collaboration and integration with other channels, content, technical, on-page, off-page mobility and new technology. And this visual actually shows the maturity curve, the six different phases. This is a little unconventional for a maturity model because I have a six phase, which is zero. Because we know in search that you can actually do more harm than good. So that phase is for clients that are engaging in harmful, spammy, outdated practices. From there, they could be in the absent or non-existent phase. So this means there's no strategy, no SEO implementation. Search is an all-new program. Phase two is tactical. So they're doing SEO basic best practices, but nothing earth-shattering. We're talking titles and metas here. From there, they could be strategic. So they're aligned to the value of SEO. They're making an effort to dedicate resources and improve their SEO implementation. It's becoming more thorough. It's starting to get baked into key initiatives. After that, it is a practice. So inclusion of SEO is an expectation for their marketing initiatives. It's not just best practices. They're actively testing and iterating new search techniques and cutting-edge stuff that's starting to come out of these conferences. They're starting to future-proof their program a little bit. They're getting smarter, right? And then stage five, we'll call this the enlightenment of SEO capabilities. SEO is always included, and they're always aiming to maximize the utmost in SEO best practices of the day. They are truly future-proofing their SEO program, and they're evolving with industry standards. So for example, if a client is on the low end of this scale, like they're struggling to get titles and metas done, it may not be appropriate to chase after them with an AMP recommendation. It's not the right time. So how do we know where your client falls? All right, don't freak out, nobody panic. This is a scorecard used to evaluate the client against these SEO capabilities. This was peer-reviewed by a number of really smart colleagues in our industry, but it's intended to be a living document that evolves as our industry does. And this can actually be repurposed into a survey of questions. I'll tell you more about that in a minute. And at the bottom of every slide is a link where you can download this and read it and use it for yourself. But for funsies, let's break a couple of these out of here. So if we were looking at content, how mature is the client as it pertains to content in SEO? On the lowest end of the scale, maybe they're putting out thin, weak, duplicative, and spun and over-optimized content. And in the middle of the scale, they're implementing SEO for their content, at least the basics, but they tend to do it during or after publishing, you're retrofitting. But at the high end of the evolution for content in SEO, they're using search data to drive their editorial calendar and even better, they're probably integrating search insights with web analytics and social listening to make smarter marketing decisions. How about for mobility? On the low end, you may have a brand that has zero mobile experience whatsoever. In the middle, you have a brand who has a fully responsive site. It is technically mobile friendly, but no special attention to mobile optimization. They're not continuing to iterate. And then on the high end of the scale, you have a brand with an entirely mobile-first mindset. They're continuously optimizing against usability and speed and content. Maybe they're even dabbling in app store optimization. How about new technology? Kind of a fun one. So on the low end, you've got a client who has zero focus or understanding on new technology. They don't care, they don't have an appetite for it. They don't even see how it pertains to search. In the middle, you have the clients who have an appetite for new technology, but they're the ones who chase the shiny objects with very little strategy or focus on the end goals. And all the way up to enlightenment, they're actively implementing and testing new technology that impacts search, and it makes sense for their brand. They're making hard choices about which things to pursue. So that's an awesome tool, if I do say so myself, to start picking projects and where to start, but it doesn't get to the heart of why our work isn't getting implemented. The real challenges tend to be organizational. These are people, process, integration problems. And then if we do a search maturity assessment of the organization, it can open our eyes to the problems that need to be solved internally before the search work can get done. So here's a different scorecard for a second maturity model. This is about the organic search programs maturity in the organization. So this addresses things like process, resources, skills, prioritization, planning. And the goal is to find the strengths that a brand can capitalize on. The stuff that's pretty good, but could be amazing with a little bit of work and the weaknesses they have to improve upon to move forward. So from the top process, does a documented repeatable process exist and is it continuously improving? And when I say this, I am not talking about step-by-step instructions on how to write a title tag guys. We know this by now. I'm talking about the inclusion of a search expert at the right moments with the right projects. For personnel, is this brand providing the necessary talent at the organization or within their scope to get the work done? Knowledge and learning. Is this client or is the team working for this client knowledgeable about search? But even more importantly, are they committed to learning more? Because this stuff keeps changing. Means capacity and capabilities. Is the organization budgeting appropriately for the work? Are they prioritizing organic search enough to where it's actually getting done? And finally, planning and preparation. Is the search work aligned to the company, the brand, the campaign goals, and is it proactively planned? So here is what the maturity model looks like for the organization. On the low end, limited, disjointed, entirely new, repeatable, they're doing some basic search work. They're documenting their process and standards. They're more proactive, strategic, goal-oriented. They're doing some good work here, but it's still very siloed. At the managed phase, they've defined their processes. They're improving their standards for quality. They're more savvy, more strategic. They're more flexible and adaptable in the face of change. So when they detect process and implementation problems, they're able to quickly refine. They have dedicated staff, they are committed, and search is starting to become a way of life. And then optimize. Search is part of this company's DNA. It is baked into their marketing practice. It is integrated across the organization. They are proactively iterating and improving and innovating. These organizations may be the market leaders. They are aware that their work is never done. So you grade a client against these criteria, which helps to determine where you want to start tackling change together. Because if you don't solve the underlying problems, like knowledge, capacity, personnel first, you're gonna struggle to get buy-in and to get resources to get the work done. So it doesn't matter what SEO projects you recommend. So for this, a client on the low end, let's say they scored very low against all of the criteria. That means they haven't connected the dots. They don't have the talent. They don't have the knowledge. They don't have the process. And that is your job to help them solve for that first. But what if you have a client who's advanced in a few areas? Say they're really good at process, planning and capacity. But they're weaker in others like knowledge and personnel. That should tell you that you need to focus on an education campaign and you need to help them staff up with the right talent. So this is not just punching numbers in a spreadsheet, people. This is not a one-sided assessment where the agency gives the brand a grade. This is so critical that you are asking multiple relevant stakeholders at multiple levels on the client side and the agency side to participate in this exercise too. And then you need to follow this up with a dialogue, like a real human dialogue. Imagine a workshop where you have the outcomes of this maturity assessment as a starting point where you can unlock the really useful insights, their pain points, what it's like inside their organization, the problems and things that they run into that are gonna be blockers if you guys don't solve for them. To know how to get where you are going, you need to know where you are. And having multiple perspectives on this is so critical to building an accurate picture of where they stand. And if everyone works together on the assessment, we agree where we are, we agree where we're going together, that's critical early buy-in and alignment to actually get shit done together. And a maturity model is a continuum. You have to evolve from one step to the next. Skipping levels is not an option, and nor should it be the goal. So I would say most of our clients, when they first come to us, they start in that repeatable phase where they've dabbled a bit in SEO, but there's no formality to their knowledge or their execution, and that's where they've brought us in to help. The goal is not to turn them into a Moz caliber SEO machine overnight, that is completely unrealistic. The goal is to help them make iterative improvements to move from one phase to the next. And the gap between each phase of the curve may grow wider as they move up the scale. So after conducting a search maturity assessment with the client, we may all agree that we're in the repeatable phase today. And in year two, we wanna get to managed, I'm sorry, into defined, and then perhaps year, I totally messed that up, let's start over. Let's say we start in repeatable, we may agree that in year one, we wanna get to defined, and then year two, we wanna get to managed, and then maybe year four or five, we wanna get to optimized. But we still know our work is never done. Okay, the number two tool to put in your toolkit is to speak their language. We often find ourselves, we forget. We forget that we are talking to busy CEOs and CMOs, not our fellow SEOs. So we need to learn to read, write, listen, and speak their corporate language. They care about ROI and EPS and operational costs. And meanwhile, we're over here talking about SSL encryption and HTTPS and canonicalization. But we're forgetting, we need to be mindful that we are coming from different places and meet our clients in the middle. I know that we are passionate about what we do. I think everybody in this room is passionate about what you do, or you wouldn't be here. We love being in the weeds every day. But when you live in the weeds, when you are communicating about search to your clients, you are losing their attention fast. So unless your client is a technical mind or they have a lot of experience with search, it is in your best interest to lift up and stay at about 30,000 feet. Use layperson's language. Use analogies that they can relate to in the real world. Show, don't tell.  And remember, the goal is not to teach the client how to do search. They pay you to know that. Focus on what's in it for them. Focus on the benefits. Is it brand visibility? Is it conquesting your competitors? Is it making more money? They don't always need to know the granular technical steps to get there. What they care about is how much is it gonna cost me? How long is it gonna take? And what action items do you need from me to get the outcome you're promising me? The third tool in your toolkit is to seek greater perspective. Let's face it, y'all. Clients don't care about organic search as much as we do. So they may love what we can do for them, but rarely is SEO the only thing on their minds or even a sizable thing on their minds. So a lot of times our direct clients aren't dedicated to search. Sometimes they're not even dedicated to digital. They have much bigger fish to fry. They have to think about the entire marketing mix and how it's working for the entire brand. Or if they're a small business owner, they're running their business right now. And SEO is just one tiny, tiny part of that. And more and more clients are moving toward this integrated agency model because they wanna get more bang for their buck and they believe that they can maximize the impact of these channels when they work together. So instead of operating in this completely separate lane, we have to ladder SEO up to the big picture. We have to support the larger marketing initiatives and brain goals. This seems so obvious when you say it out loud, but we're not doing it. So I want you to take a moment and soak this up. Otherwise, we are operating in a separate track that no one cares about. I actually have an example of this. So we were working on a CPG client and we got the contract signed and we spent all of year one frantically running down this path to check all these SEO best practices boxes, but nothing was getting implemented and it felt like no one cared. Well, they didn't. But in year two, the contract was actually restructured to where SEO was required to ladder up to the campaigns that were planned for the year. Is this the search work we thought we would be doing? No. Is this necessarily what we would have prioritized first? No. But is great search work finally getting implemented? Yes. And I find that SEOs, we often obsess over rankings and traffic and traditional SEO KPIs because SEO. But recommendations should be connected to their real business, the real brand and campaign goals, not what we think their goals should be. Fourth tool in your toolkit is not to stay in your lane. Brands hire SEO experts alongside other services almost every time. They do this with the expectation that we are all gonna drive in the same direction toward a common destination. And that means that we need alignment across the board, across these disciplines to be bought into SEO recommendations early on. One of the best pieces of advice that came out of this survey was to treat all SEO projects as products that require a full product team. So you need your developer, you need your SEO, you need your project manager, your business side of the business folks. The number one complaint I hear from SEOs in all my interviews is I wasn't included at the right time. Newsflash, that's the same complaint as everybody else in every other discipline I've ever interviewed. We cannot be hypocrites. We have to respect the expertise of the other teams and include them early and often just like we would want. And that gets the buy-in that can make or break this project. So there's two kinds of buy-in. The first is horizontal. We're often dependent on others to get work implemented, our copywriters, our developers. So we need to take responsibility for breaking down the barriers, breaking down the silos and getting buy-in across those practices, which means we have to stop swimming in separate swim lanes. That means no more setting goals by yourselves. That means no more failing to partner with your colleagues and other channels. And it means collaborating early and aligning on a unified recommendation for your client. And then there's vertical buy-in. So buy-in usually happens beyond your immediate day-to-day client contact. So it's your job to understand their role in the organization and give them the tools and the voice they need to sell it internally. Our recommendations have to support what the C level cares about just as much as what our day-to-day client contact cares about and that buy-in we got from our colleagues horizontally is gonna help us bring a smarter, stronger, better vetted recommendation to the client together. So help the client understand the benefits and the outcomes, the cost and the opportunity cost, how this is gonna get them results, achieve their goals and make them look like a hero inside their office. The fifth tool, build a bulletproof plan. So it starts with simplifying the process.  So clearly outline the requirements of the project, the steps to get there, who owns what. Do the due diligence, do your job and do the due diligence to create the simple step-by-step plan. Show how easy it is and the low level of effort it can take to get it done. So my colleague Chris wanted to recommend AMP for location pages on his B2B automotive client. He thought it was a great fit. So we worked closely internally with the developers and designers to make a mock-up of what the pages could look like on mobile. He reviewed case studies, he projected ROI, he calculated the level of effort and the time to complete the project. By the time it went to the client, it was like, all we gotta do is squish this, move that, change some code and voila, we've got AMP. It was no brainer. It took seconds for this client to approve and the work is getting implemented right now. Second, use case studies to sell the ideas. This came up again and again and again in the survey. Case studies are one of the leading ways to get buy-in for your work. They explain the outcomes of the project in a clear way. They show that you have the chops to do the work and they did the work using someone else's money. So it reduces the perceived risk in the mind of the client. Every time you get a win for the client, you should be creating a case study. It should talk about the problem you were solving for, the solution and the results you got. That way you have an arsenal of proof when you need it most. Even if you don't have your own case study for a certain type of project, everybody else is publishing great case studies online. Go online, look at what other people are doing and use that to help estimate the impact. Next, think about the opportunity cost. Every decision a CMO makes is a risk. There is a time and there is a cost associated with it and each is an opportunity cost for something else they could be doing. You have to understand that they have competing priorities, limited budgets and help them to navigate that. That is your job. One way to do that is to forecast ROI. I think a lot of times we are hesitant to forecast potential outcomes due to the sheer volume of unknowns. We find it very hard to commit to things that are uncertain, but that is every forecast and that is search. We live in a world of theory, but you have to know why you are recommending this over other projects. There is a wealth of information out there to come up with even conservative estimates with tons of caveats, even ballpark figures and wide ranges are better than offering your client zero sense of return. They have to know how to weigh one project against the next. Just be sure to be transparent about your sources and how you arrived at your numbers. Exercise, hope you're good at math. JK, you don't need math. So, pretend that case studies for AMP projects suggest a conversion rate increased from 10% to 50%. So, if the client averages 750 leads a month today, a 50% ambitious increase in conversion rate would get them 375 more, 35% conversion rate from lead to sale, $900 per sale, we could net them $118,000 extra dollars per month. This is based on a real thing, by the way. Conservative, so let's just say we only get the 10% bump, right? So, that could net them $23,000 per month. Let's say the project cost $30,000, including SEO, QA, designers, developers. So, if we get the 10% increase, it takes six weeks to break even. If we get the 50% increase, it takes one week to break even. I even ran an ultra-conservative estimate of 1%, and it would take 14 months, a very long horizon, but it still reduces the risk. Keep that in your back pocket. If I'm a client, this is a no-brainer. And sometimes, forecasting the opportunity for growth isn't always enough to light a fire under the client. Sometimes we have to demonstrate the negative impact or incorrect act of incorrect or no action at all. And a lot of times, I find that the biggest risk is not that my client is going to make the wrong move, it's that they're gonna make no move at all. So, we used a tool like this, which you saw at MozCon last year, to show the difference between if the client invests, if they maintain, or if they stop. And we use this to illustrate that it's not just about what they're doing in SEO, it's what everyone else is doing as well. So, if they stop, they're gonna get passed up. Sixth tool in your toolkit. You have to help the client focus on what's really important, and there's two main ways to accomplish this. If you're anything like me, you love it when the SEO list of action items is like two miles long, but let's be honest, people are super shitty multitaskers. They need help prioritizing. So, empower them to focus on one big thing at a time. What is the most important thing the client should be caring about right now? You do a disservice to yourself and your client when you push every recommendation at once. They get bombarded, overwhelmed, they tune out. Nothing to grab on to means nothing gets done. I know it seems counter-intuitive that you're gonna get more done by requesting less, but it works. The second way is to make it memorable by giving them sound bites that they can repeat to their bosses and their colleagues because they have to sell it internally. Help them do this with catchy headlines, taglines, sound bites. We use this slide for a 2018 client strategy deck. We knew that the biggest opportunity for this client was content this year. So, we put it at the top of the deck. It was the biggest section. All other priorities fell after. We emphasized that if they did nothing else in our entire strategy, this is where we would put our money. And then long afterward, we kept hearing the client say the same thing, unsolicited and almost verbatim in strategy and status calls. The message was clear and it may as well have been their idea. The final tool in your toolkit. Patience, persistence, parallel path. Where possible, you should be building parallel paths. You start those high impact, time consuming projects early because you know it takes time to get approval and buy in to push them through. And simultaneously, what are the other lower obstacle tasks that you can be owning and running with? Having several irons in the fire increases the likelihood of getting stuff done. So, while the client is focused on the one big move you recommended, you can keep trucking on smaller things and get wins that get them excited and build momentum. So I'm gonna close with this. Getting your work implemented is a balance of communication, follow up, patience, persistence. So you have to approach your client with empathy and understanding that they have a lot of moving pieces at play, but come with a strong point of view and confidence that you know the right recommendations to make. Above all else that our peers recommended is to stay strong. Thank you. Close peeps. And those guys. Woohoo!


I am eager to facilitate difficult conversations because I have had that modeled for me. And I've had it modeled for me in really wonderful and great ways. And I've had it modeled for me really poorly. And I think some of my formative educational experiences were actually around conversations that weren't conversations, that were directives or something other than conversations. And the field that I teach in environmental studies is a complex field, and it's evaluated, and students come to this field. I came to this field because we feel passionately and have concern about the Earth's challenges and humanity's challenges. And it's hard to imagine engaging in that topical area without having difficult conversations. So I can think back on my time as an undergraduate student when I was majoring in engineering, which is very different from what I do now. And conversation is not something that happened in the engineering curriculum in the late 1990s. Hopefully it is now. And my classes were a lot, involved a lot of faculty standing in front of a chalkboard and writing furiously and every now and then turning around and saying something at us. And it wasn't until I started taking coursework in science and technology studies where faculty asked students to really put themselves out there and offer our suggestions and our perspectives. And it kind of opened up a whole new world for me of thinking about learning and teaching in a new way. And so I try to bring that into my classrooms virtually and in person as a faculty member. I would say it's gotten easier over time and largely that is because of my identity. So that is true for the subject matter I teach too. So I teach largely about questions and concerns around environmental justice to the intersections of race and class and gender and the environment. And I can stand up in front of a class and ask people these tough questions about how they engage with race and ask them to reflect on their own identity. And because I am who I am and I look the way I look and I have tenure and I have all of these privileges conferred to me, those conversations are not so difficult for me. And I recognize that that is not something that all of my colleagues are able to do. And so I try to keep that and hold that and hold onto the fact that that is what is sort of guiding my ability to have these conversations. Because we're in a space at least in my college and my department that is a predominantly white student population, I can ask certain questions of white students because I am white as well. And so for better or worse, I think that my identity does play into my ability to ask these sorts of questions and to engage in these conversations and to challenge students to reflect on their own experiences and identity and perceptions. Most of my teaching and research surrounds the idea of environmental justice. And so environmental justice has been a field of academic inquiry and also a social movement in the United States for a handful of decades now. And really what the environmental justice movement says and the questions that the environmental justice researchers ask are around disproportionate exposure to environmental harms. That's been the center point of environmental justice. So there's a pattern that holds true across most of the United States that says that communities of color and poor communities tend to be disproportionately affected by environmental hazards, right? By negative environmental impacts. Those impacts could be air pollution. It could be the impacts of displacement due to climate change. It could be noise pollution. And so that's really the focus. And then I like to ask lots of questions also about representation and identity within the environmental movement itself. So the US environmental movement, the organizations that most people associate with the environmental movement, many of them have a really sort of complicated history with race and class. Many of the early environmental heroes in this country were also eugenicists. There's a strong link between sort of population control and eugenics and the environmental movement. And those foundations infuse the way that environmental work is done today as well. So in my classes, we try to sort of tease that stuff apart. I was just this morning actually looking at a paper that students wrote in a group for my class. So some students are writing a paper about mountain biking and the potentially exclusionary nature of mountain biking and other outdoor recreation. And in the environmental movement, there's this interesting tie between outdoor recreation and environmental values and environmental behavior. So they were interested as students who are not into the mountain biking culture to kind of explore that and imagine what that might feel like for a person who is not able-bodied or who is a black woman or doesn't fit this archetypal mountain biker ideal or image that many folks have. And so I was reading their paper and they're talking about the history of mountain biking and the history, as they tell it and as many others tell it, starts in Marin County, California, and you can kind of conjure an image in your head of what that looks like and who those mountain bikers are. And what I told them is that there's this other part of that history that isn't told in these dominant narratives.


Well, Todd County Soil and Water is celebrating natural resources by giving students hands on learning experience. Sir Winckelman has this week's Golden Apple. Bees, hay bales, bubbles, and a whole lot of smiles could be spotted all over the Catterhagen farm today, as nearly 500 students learned about natural resources. Over the years, we've got to be flirting with between 9 and 10,000 kids that crossed the farm. Over the past 23 years, the Todd County Soil and Water Envirofest has been held at the Catterhagen farm. Oh, and if we've got the space and the resources to do it, we're glad to host any kid. Along the 24 stations at the farm, one of them included a stop where students were able to learn about the science behind bubbles.  But to actually be out here in this environment with the hands-on activities is amazing. All schools in Todd County were in attendance, including private schools and homeschool groups. The last two years, we have dramatically expanded, actually we've doubled in size. So that's been a bit of a challenge, but it's been exciting for everyone, I think, to have new stations, new presenters, and have the farm fill up with a bunch more kids. During the activities, Julie thinks the kids are absorbing more information than they realize simply by having fun.  Knowing the importance of exposing the students to new experiences, even just by being out in the farm. We're losing that whole generation of kids that know something about the environment or at least living on the land. Knowing that the Environment Fest hopes will impact the students to maintain Minnesota's natural resources. To get them to realize how they fit into the bigger picture and what they can do to help protect our natural resources. Even after 23 years, the Ketterhagen still get excited to teach the kids about the farm and host nearly 600 people for the annual event. For This Week's Golden Apple, reporting in Browardville, Sarah Winckelman, Lakeland News. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


You're on holiday and have been on the beach all day, sharing photos to social media to make your friends jealous. Your phone battery is running low. Then, back in the hotel, disaster strikes. In this video, we're going to look at how different countries have different voltages of electricity and different sockets. When electricity first became available to homes in the 1880s, it was mainly used for lighting. Over the next few decades, other appliances became available and so the plug socket arrangement was needed. At first, plugs were two pins with a live and a neutral pin. To make plugs safer, some countries introduced the third earth pin. This is a safer design that allows electricity to flow to the earth as there is a wire inside the appliance that touches the metal casing of the device. It basically reduces the chances of you having electric shock if something goes wrong. However, not all countries introduced the third earth pin to their plugs. There are now 15 different types of plug sockets all around the world. To learn how a British plug is wired, watch this video. As well as the shapes of plugs and sockets, there are also other key differences between electricity supplies around the world. Different countries use electricity at different voltages. In the American continent, and in Japan, the voltage is 120 volts. Whilst in Europe, the voltage is between 220 and 240 volts. Why isn't there a standard voltage around the world? The answer is down to history. Two men were instrumental in the introduction of electricity. Nikola Tesla in Europe and Thomas Edison in America. Tesla preferred to use electricity at 240 volts, which allowed electricity to travel great distances without a big loss in energy, whilst Edison preferred 110 volts, which was considered safer. Remember, the USA also used the imperial system of measurement, whereas in Europe, the metric system is used. This also influenced the values used. Current systems of electricity use and transport have developed from these two men's original ideas. Luckily, most modern appliances can handle dual voltage. All you need to do is look at the label on the appliance and it will tell you a range of voltages the appliance can work within. For example, this appliance can work at voltages between 100 to 240 volts, so you will need the plug adapter but don't have to worry about the voltage. To learn about the national grid and how electricity is transported, watch this video. It explains the use of transformers that change the voltage of electricity and why they are necessary. So, when you go to a different country, make sure to have the correct adapter for your plugs. Firstly, so they are the right shape, and secondly, so the voltage is compatible.


Hey there lads and ladies, it is Petrifying Pumpkins here and today I have got a Firewall 2 video. These kind of videos I'm always excited to make and I hope I get to make a lot more of these coming up in the near, not too distant future I hope. I should mention Firewall 2, something that doesn't actually exist yet. I'm kind of just basing all this on what I'm expecting. We know first contact entertainment or hiring for something new.  Head says, so this is what this whole video is kind of based on, kind of a wish but one that I think is going to happen. So with that in mind, this video is called Eight Things That Firewall 2 Needs to Do Bazzard Than Firewall 1. Basically going to be a wish list and of course it's going to be my own subjective opinion so feel free to add yours at the end in the comments. Before we begin let me just give a quick disclaimer that I am a community moderator for first contact entertainment so if you want to take everything I'm saying with a pinch of salt then feel free to do that. Now let me jump in with number one dedicated servers. This one is kind of obvious and one I think that we can all agree on. Having dedicated servers in an online multiplayer game brings with us a host of benefits and maybe just one negative. Firstly the game doesn't need to pick one of the players to be a host meaning someone on the McDonald's Wi-Fi connection creating lag in the session isn't going to be an issue that ruins things for everyone. So less lag but more importantly in the context of firewall no more disconnects because a host decides to leave, booting everybody out to the main menu. That was something that could get really frustrating if you spent a while matchmaking only for the host to decide it's time to go make a Fortnite dance video for his TikTok account meaning you have to start the matchmaking process again. The downside to dedicated servers is that they are much more expensive to run than peer-to-peer so if firewall two was to see a big drop-off in players Sony might decide it might not be very viable to continue support in us and as a result the game dies a tragic death but giving that you can still find matches in firewall zero hour right now that wouldn't be a huge concern for me at least not until before firewall three comes out fingers crossed so speaking of that matchmaking number two matchmaking screens one of the biggest complaints you'll see about firewall zero hour is how much time you spend looking at the matchmaking screen waiting for players to join being a virtual reality game firewall two will likely be somewhat niche even if it does become twice as successful as firewall one it will still have a smaller pool of players than something like color juicy or battlefield especially as the years roll on as such you might find yourself in this matchmaking screen more and more one often requested feature is to make the matchmaking screen more interactive perhaps allow players to move around test out their weapons at a shooting range or manually select their loadouts by equipping them physically instead of going through menus originally firewall zero hour was going to allow both teams to communicate with each other over voice chat but first contact entertainment remove this ability as they felt it would be better to let teams come up with this strategy during this time instead which is fair enough but maybe it would still be cool to interact with the enemy team while matchmaking to even if the voice chat remains limited to teams only and on the topic of voice chat let me just quickly throw into this category that i'd love for voice chat to continue during loading screens anyway those are just some random suggestions that i'm throwing out there as ideas of what we could do to fulfill the time when in the matchmaking screen so feel free to add yours in the comments below but the main point here is to just make it more dynamic and interesting number three more modes this is self-explanatory really don't get me wrong i love the contracts mode that we have and a lot of you do too if you're still playing it three years later it's firewalls signature mode and i want to see it return however i'm not going to say no to additional modes to shake things up and give us a change of pace now and again now a big reason firewall zero hour never got additional modes is because of fears of fracturing the player base and with so many people complaining about long lobby waiting times if the player base was fractured they would have been even worse so it is understandable from first contact entertainment's point of view but also frustrating from the player's point of view now there could be certain workarounds to this however which i hope we see in firewall too things like having a playlist that rotates between different modes or perhaps time limited modes that appear on weekends or during special times of the year something along those lines let me know your thoughts on that below in regards to placing up the player base and also let me know what kind of modes you'd like to see added number four gun balance okay so this one is a difficult one to talk about for me because i'm just an uneducated ape you know i don't really understand the technical aspects of design and how these weapons work why they work the way that they do but in my years of playing firewall i've always felt a little bit sad that the game had all these really really cool guns beautifully designed and continued to add cool guns throughout the years but i felt like i needed to stick to like two or three guns because those guns were the mess and if you weren't using them you're going to be at a disadvantage the taylor cqb the e hg shotgun the reg case classic those were my go-tos crossbow was kind of an exception because of how unique and cool that was to use but eventually i dropped that too because enemies would counter it pretty effectively would bullet sponge and make you vulnerable now i know you can get kills with just about every single gun in this game if you really wanted to it's not like they're useless but when you're up against a squad of reg k8 classics which you often will be it's like playing with a handicap so what's the solution to this well that's a tough one i mean you want all the guns to feel unique and have a purpose for existing but if you have 10 assault rifles and two of them are top tier do you need those other ace but then if you nerf those top two to bring them in line with the rest then they lose their uniqueness maybe and then maybe they all feel the same and kind of boring maybe the way to go is to continually adjust weapon balance so that no one gun remains the king for long but even that has its downsides give me your ideas on how you would address this in the comments or maybe you think i'm wrong and things are fine as they are maybe it's just a problem they can't ever really be solved i don't know either way let me know number five more weapon glasses while we are on the topic of weapons how about a wider variety of types of weapons thanks to the increased flexibility afforded by the power of the ps5 surely the most obvious choice will be sniper rifles here as guessing functioning scopes to work in psv or one games is very rare because it requires a section of the screen to be rendered twice hats off to mardan pole for getting that to work in alvo by the way so snipers would functioning scopes but what else to go along with the already established assault rifles sng shotguns and handguns perhaps some heavy weapons lmg's grenade launchers flamethrowers or pg's etc you know provided they can get the balance rice and fits with the game they want to make there's loads of room for new and interesting weapons and also not just weapons gear all kinds of crazy inventive gear equipment and what i really want to see first contact entertainment go crazy not limited by the hardware at least not as much number six improved skills one of the questions i got asked a lot from people new to firewall was which is the best contractor i've met videos and tier lists no seeing which ones are the best and why and while there is a nice selection of contractors that i would recommend some of these guys are kind of useless when it comes to their skills which is a shame because a lot of them have really good designs that you never really get to see okoro raha d has and a couple of others are so good that you'll rarely want to use others outside of certain circumstances like co-op or maybe certain apps but how many of you are using ruby or to read i'd love for firewall two to add some more tempting skills to really get us thinking when we're selecting our contractors number seven the controller okay so i think most of us agree that the aim controller is the best possible way to experience firewall zero hour it adds so much to the experience and really helps you feel like you're holding a weapon well in the headsets but the aim controller that we have right now is unlikely to be supported by the new headsets so we'll need another solution there are two possible options i'd love to see happen before firewall two launches the first is obviously a new aim controller basically the same as the first one but with all the enhancements of a dual sense controller including adaptive triggers have to feedback all that good stuff as well as the inside out tracking that the new orb controllers are going to have to finally rid us of the drift and that silly glowing ball the second option would be to use the two new orb controllers that will be presumably bundled in with every psv or two headsets based on leaks at least but allow us a simple plastic frame or something along those lines to place these orbs into so that it basically becomes a new aim controller and a fraction of the price think the sharpshooter on ps3 for the move controllers if you want an example of the kind of thing i'm thinking of number eight next gen goodness this one isn't one particular thing but rather many going from psv or one to psv or two i'm expecting a significant jump in every aspect of the firewall experience i'm talking better visuals that take advantage of the eye tracking foveas at renderant to really maximize visual fidelity i want to see a huge improvement to lysine so that it can be more dynamic allowing it to be a gameplay element by bringing in maybe flashlights night vision maybe really dark maps maybe let's go metal gear solid too and let us shoot out the lights to add another layer of tactical depth i want to see huge improvements to effects both visual and audio bullet damage dust smoke muzzle flash explosions etc etc maybe even ray tracing if that's not too demanding there's a million things i could add to this section but basically you know boil it down let me feel the next generation leap in firewall two and there it is eight things firewall two needs to improve over firewall one you may have noticed i never said i wanted them to include rounds that was very deliberate fight me let me know what you think about my list and what you yourself would change remove or add to improve firewall in the future and with that i will end this video but before i do let me thank my patreon supporters whose names are on the screen as we speak the top tier patreon supporters daniel the pumpkin patch kid crumb pete hawkins and tradition thank you very much for that support it is greatly appreciated if you like to support me on the patreon the link to that will be in the description if not i'd like comment share all that usual youtube and shice will help greatly also finally let me thank decepticon for letting me use his music in all of my videos you can check him out in the description below also decepticon.com with us i'll end this video please stay nice and moist petrifying pumpkin


Hi everyone! Before we begin, we at Psych2Go would like to give a big thank you for your support. Psych2Go's mission is to make psychology and self-care topics more accessible to everyone. In today's video, we'll be discussing the seven signs you're emotionally burnt out. Ever since the term was first coined by American psychologist Herbert Frudenberger back in the 1970s, burnout has been a popular topic of interest for many scholars in the field of psychology. Based on a study by Later and others, emotional burnout is defined as a negative psychological state that may manifest physical, behavioral, and cognitive symptoms that impair our normal functioning and cause a severe distress. No matter what you do or how you do it, stress is an inevitable part of life. Everyone has to deal with it from time to time. However, when stress gets out of hand and becomes too much for you to cope with, it will put your mental health at risk. Here are seven signs that can help you tell if you're emotionally burnt out. One, you're chronically fatigued. There's a difference between being tired and fatigued. Both are responses to stressors, but tiredness goes away with the right amount of rest and recuperation, while fatigue is more enduring. When you're emotionally burnt out, it can feel like no amount of food, sleep, or relaxation can make you feel better. You're exhausted all the time. Two, you're not taking care of yourself. Are there any concerning changes in your eating and sleeping patterns? These changes are often the first and most prominent signs of emotional burnout. When you stop eating or sleeping right, it negatively impacts both your physical and mental health. According to researchers, Pallavi and Herman, people who feel emotionally exhausted often experience loss of appetite and lack of restful sleep. In severe cases, some people even feel so drained that they stop showering, exercising, brushing their teeth, and dressing presentably all together. Before we jump to the next point, we also want to let you know that we previously released a video on types of highly sensitive people. If you haven't gotten a chance to watch it, do check it out later. Basically, HSPs are also more likely to get emotionally burnt out, so if you find yourself easily being drained emotionally, then you might be in HSP. Three, your performance is declining. Have you noticed the quality of your work go down lately? Are you less productive at what you do? Try comparing your performance from a few months or years ago to how it is today and see if there's a significant difference. Emotional burnout is a gradual process that takes place over an extended period of time, so it can be difficult to pinpoint when exactly your performance started to worsen. Looking at it from a long-term perspective can help you figure out whether or not you've just hit a temporary rough patch or if you're already suffering emotional exhaustion. Four, you're emotionally volatile. Do you often throw temper tantrums at the slightest provocation? When you neglect your mental health and fail to satisfy your emotional needs, it's harder for your mind to function as well as it used to. This may manifest as difficulty controlling and maintaining your emotions. If you're suffering from emotional exhaustion, your feelings are likely all over the place. You become more sensitive and irritable. Frustration, pessimism, guilt, and anger are common, as well as feelings of emptiness and dread. All of these are tell-tale signs that your mind is already crying for help. Five, you feel down most of the time. According to a study by Beyonce and others in 2015, lack of energy and motivation are to be expected in the early stages of burnout, but symptoms of anxiety and depression may develop over time if the problem is left untreated. If you're feeling down more than not, it's time for you to start taking better care of yourself, mentally and emotionally. Six, your social life is going downhill. Being emotionally burnt out may cause you to have no energy or desire to spend time with your loved ones. Do you tend to push away your friends and family without meaning to? Do you find yourself neglecting your social roles and duties as a sibling, partner, or friend? Do you experience more interpersonal conflicts? Emotional burnout is a very ugly and painful experience that often affects not just our mental health, but our social functioning as well. In fact, studies have shown that social withdrawal and isolation is one of the worst consequences of poor mental health, causing a lot of people to suffer alone in silence. Lastly, seven, you feel hopeless. Emotional burnout usually gives way to feelings of despair, emptiness and detachment. You spend all of your time and energy mulling over all the things you need to do, and end up leaving none of it for yourself and your well-being. You start to feel unfulfilled by the things that used to give your life meaning, and you find it hard to feel any sort of pleasure at all anymore, because you fear that nothing you do will matter in the end. You don't see the point of it all anymore, so you give up. In a culture that values achievement, success, and productivity, it's easy to lose yourself in your work or your school. A lot of us have been brought up to believe that we must always push ourselves to excel and do our very best all the time. However, it's important to know when to draw the line, and find the time to care for ourselves and put our emotional needs first. Emotional burnout is an easy trap to fall into, but difficult to climb out of. Fortunately, though, it doesn't just happen overnight. Self-awareness is key. Once you've recognized the signs of emotional burnout, try to find out what could be the root cause of it. Do all these signs sound familiar to you? How many signs do you relate to? What do you think might be the cause of it, and what do you plan to do next? Let us know in the comments below. Share this with someone you think might benefit from these as well. Don't forget to click the like button and subscribe for more psychology content. And as always, thanks for watching.


2. Travelling teachers share what it's like teaching English abroad as a couple Teaching English abroad is a thrilling and self-fulfilling job, not to mention the benefits it has upon your students However, leaving the comforts of your hometown can be quite a difficult thing to do, but luckily teaching as a couple helps iron out those small worries before leaving Here I have put together an article of my experience of teaching abroad as part of a couple Life before becoming a TEFL teacher. It was never my aspiration to become an ESL teacher Back in England, I was well on my way to becoming a police officer My better half, Katie, who has experience working with children and trouble youth, longed for an adventure far from the mundane lifestyle she was used to back in the UK Before being bitten by the travel bug, I was content with my life at the time After some convincing, I was more than willing to put my dreams on hold and support Katie's vision of teaching abroad for a year, along with some added backpacking around Southeast Asia It's been almost three years since making that decision and I can't imagine myself returning to the life I was once content with I like to joke to people we meet that Katie is dragging me around the world against my will This is merely an exaggeration of the fact that Katie is the driving force and the brains behind our escapades so far Where we decided to teach, we decided to settle and teach in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, after falling in love with the country's delicious food, friendly locals and amazing scenic locations during our first holiday abroad together the previous year Not long after returning home, Katie finished her university degree and I quit my job We finished our online TEFL certificate and just like that, we were on a one-way flight to Vietnam again to start our new job as English teachers The pros of teaching is a couple. First-time experiences. I can't imagine how daunting this adventure would be for a solo teacher Being together every step of the way has given us the confidence and reassurance that we're doing something worthwhile Due to the fact we're both going through the same first-time experiences together, having that support is vital to overcoming any doubts and worries we each may have had Lesson planning ideas. When it came to lesson planning, having each other to bounce ideas off was a massive bonus We put off each other's energy and put our heads together to create fun and creative ways to teach English to children Once we established a small network of teachers through social media, other teachers could join in on the brainstorm too Saving money, saving money during our teaching contract was much easier and manageable as a couple We met many other couples teaching English who decided to keep their own separate accounts For example, Katie and I pooled our money together after each month's paycheck and worked out our income and expenses from there Accommodation. Being a couple and sharing accommodation has allowed us to save a little extra each month A luxury not afforded to solo travelers living alone. Our advice to them would be to find shared accommodation, preferably with other teachers Ultimately, our ability to manage our money over the course of each teaching contract was the main factor that enabled us to travel for the length of time that we have Each year during the four-month summer holiday in Vietnam we have managed to jet off to other parts of Asia This year we are exploring Central Asia and Eastern Europe Once you decide to take the plunge and move to a foreign country to teach English, making and losing friends comes very easy Let me explain. Everyone's in the same boat. We're all in unfamiliar territory, away from family, friends and the comforts of our hometown Connecting with other homesick teachers has never been so easy Sticking with the boat metaphor still, not everyone stays in the same boat forever Some first-time ESL teachers don't make it past the first few months and decide to jump out and swim back to shore It's difficult to watch those around you leave due to various personal reasons, which is why being part of a couple can help overcome a lack of confidence Money issues are homesick jitters to name just a few Are you ready to teach English abroad? If you are reading this as a solo traveler thinking of teaching English abroad, don't be put off by what I have said so far There are many happy solo teachers soon to start their third school year with no sign of stopping Check out Katie and Jake's blog Untold Wanderlist and follow them on Instagram and Facebook Apply now for your TEFL TESOL certification course and start teaching in a matter of months Speak with an ITTT advisor today to put together your personal plan for teaching English abroad Send us an email or call us toll-free at 1-800-490-0531 to speak with an ITTT advisor today


In the 3rd century BC, Celtic mercenaries served in the army of Ptolemy II of Philadelphos, a pharaoh of Ptolemyic Egypt who ruled from around 285 to 246 BC. Known in the region for their fighting prowess, Celts were brought into the pharaoh's army sometime around 274 BC, but perhaps earlier. Some argue that the Celts helped to defeat an attempt by rival Ptolemy Kerenos, who sought to rule Egypt instead of his half-brother Ptolemy II. Regardless of the precise details as to why the Celtic mercenaries were hired, this arrangement didn't last long. The Celts began to see Ptolemy II's position as weak, pressure from both his half-brother to the west, Magus of Cyrene, who ruled a kingdom in modern Libya, and Antiochus I to the east, who ruled the Solicid Empire, meant that the Celtic mercenaries felt Ptolemy II's days were numbered. The Celts rebelled, fuelled in part by the potential riches of Egypt. They had miscalculated, Magus of Cyrene had to halt his attack due to an internal revolt and return back to modern Libya, and Ptolemy II's army defeated Antiochus I in Palestine. This left Ptolemy II able to respond swiftly and decisively to the Celts, pushing nearly 4,000 of these Celtic mercenaries onto an island in the Seminitic branch of the Nile. The Greek geographer and traveller, Pocenius, would later write that these Celts perished by hunger in each other's swords. Many may have committed ritual suicide. This story once again shows that there is much more to the Celts than many would think. Thanks for watching, please subscribe and hit the bell, you can support this work through PayPal, Patreon and buy me a coffee. All the links are in the description below. Thanks for watching and I'll speak to you soon.


So we're conducting the inaugural RIMPAC 2016 submarine rescue tabletop exercise where we have several RIMPAC nations that have submarine and or submarine rescue capability. So this is part of a multi-stage event where we've done a symposium going over the different aspects of submarine rescue and right now we're doing a practical exercise. This whole exercise is to show that different countries can rescue personnel out of different countries' submarines. Their rescue asset is going down right now to simulate hooking up to the submarine that's stricken and sitting on the bottom to evacuate the people out of it to bring them back up to safety. So we're taking that learned information and translated it into how do you actually do it, the command and control, the processes, the decision making and how that would look for real and the more we practice it now the better off it will be when we actually have to execute such an event.