Hello everybody hooded Cobra Commander 788 here and I'm back with another comic book Wednesday and this time we are looking at G.I. Joe number 11 and this one is kind of special it introduces a lot of new characters so I'm very excited to look at this issue so let's get started. On the cover we see two G.I. Joe characters that we haven't seen before that's Snowjob and Doc and they are on the G.I. Joe's Schemobile the polar battle bear and a Cobra soldier is on a hang glider shooting at them and this is a pretty good cover it promises some excitement in this issue. On the splash page we see a G.I. Joe helicopter piloted by Wild Bill another new character and they are flying over a battle zone apparently the other G.I. Joe's are pinned down by a Cobra Squad and we have a title the Pipeline Ploy with the scripter Larry Hammer and penciler Mike Vosberg I have to admit I'm not a big fan of Mike Vosberg's pencils in these G.I. Joe comics. The helicopter is bringing in reinforcements and taking out four wounded Joe's and sadly one of them is Breaker. I'm going to add this to the tally this comic book just hates Breaker. Gung Ho and Snowjob go to the front line to continue firing on the Cobra soldiers while rock and roll and snake eyes fall back for a bit of lunch. At this point we get a little bit of the backstory the G.I. Joe team had ambushed a squad of Cobra tanks that had been following along an oil pipeline. All of the Joe's heavy equipment had been taken out but the Joe's had taken out all but two of the Cobra tanks those two tanks had retreated as soon as they saw the helicopter coming in. When the remaining Cobra soldiers retreat to join up with their tanks the Joe's jump on their new vehicle the polar battle bear and they commandeer one of the his tanks that had been left on the battlefield and they give chase. On the way Snowjob mentions something to rock and roll about Gung Ho's sister being a fashion model and Doc tries to check under Snake Eyes' mask for frostbite but he gets a gun in his face. Back at Cobra headquarters in Springfield Cobra commander has hired a specialist to deal with this situation. We don't get to see the specialist's face but we all know who it is. The Baroness mentions that she has met this specialist before so this is the first hint that there is a connection between Destro and the Baroness. The Joe's catch up with the Cobra tanks at a pumping station along the pipeline and they see Cobra soldiers removing some canisters from the tanks they don't know exactly what they are but they look important. Rock and Roll suggests that the team split up so some of them can go after the tank and the infantry. Gung Ho does not think this is a very good idea and Hawk agrees with Gung Ho so this is another point where Gung Ho kind of gets on Rock and Roll's bad side. The Joe's burst into the pumping station and take out all the Cobra soldiers except for one who informs them that their gunfire has broken the canisters which contain a plague toxin. The Cobra soldiers had put the plague toxin in the pipeline to contaminate the oil supply. Here once again a Cobra soldier informs the Joe's of the Cobra's secret plan when Cobra could have succeeded if he had just kept his mouth shut. This is a real plague toxin and if he had just not said anything the whole G.I. Joe team would have been dead. The Joe's are surprised by an explosion a Cobra RPG team is taking out the two remaining Cobra tanks. The Joe's pull the polar battle bear into the pumping station while the RPG team is reloading. At the Joe's field headquarters the wounded are being unloaded from the helicopter and reinforcements are on the way. The plague toxin to which the Joe's have been exposed will kill them within six hours so they figure they had better get down the line and find this specialist before they're all dead. So they decide to wait until the RPG team fires and while they're reloading they're going to escape on the polar battle bear. As Snowjob, Doc and Snake Eyes are escaping on the snowmobile Snake Eyes confiscates the RPG from the Cobra team. Back at the field headquarters Breaker who I guess was not injured too badly is on the radio with General Hawk requesting reinforcements and a quarantine. General Hawk says yes to the reinforcements but no on the quarantine because they just don't have the personnel. The Joe's on the snowmobile follow the tracks of the Cobra tanks and it leads to a nuclear power plant that is right alongside the oil pipeline. A worker at the plant informs the Joe's that Cobra has stolen a bunch of plutonium from the plant. Cobra hang gliders attack the snowmobile from the air. The Joe helicopter releases its own hang glider piloted by Airborne. These hang gliders were meant to represent actual toys. Cobra had a hang glider called the Viper Glider and G.I. Joe had a hang glider called the Falcon Glider. But the toy Falcon was piloted by Grunt, not Airborne. Airborne lines up the two Cobra gliders and Snake Eyes takes them out with the RPG. Airborne lands the hang glider and joins the other Joe's on the ski mobile. He introduces himself and mentions that his real name is Franklin Talltree. Snowjob asks him if Talltree is an Indian name and he says no it's Native American. I actually like this. Calling Native Americans Indians is a misnomer and it always has been, so I really have no problem with correcting that error in the language. Back at the pumping station, the Joe helicopter is coming in and Cobra is about to take it out with an anti-aircraft missile, when Gung-ho displays extraordinary bravery by single-handedly taking out the entire Cobra missile squad. A second Joe helicopter flies to pumping station number two, 50 miles away, and Zap and Wild Bill meet up with workers at the pumping station who are going to stop the oil flow to prevent the spread of the plague toxin. Joe reinforcements arrive at pumping station number one and they take the rest of the Cobra soldiers prisoner. Hawke mentions that the reinforcements are wearing CVR gear that's chemical biological and radiological even though the artwork shows them wearing no such thing.  The workers at pumping station number two put a probe in the pipeline that they say is designed to check for leaks and Wild Bill looks on. Meanwhile the Joe's on the snowmobile arrive at pumping station number two and they see that the Cobra tracks lead to a building. They figure Cobra has taken over the pumping station so they radio Zap who's in the helicopter. Zap rushes in to save Wild Bill. The Cobra agents who are disguised as the pumping station workers pull their guns but Wild Bill does his cowboy quick draw and takes them out. The probe that the disguised Cobra soldiers were putting in the pipeline was actually the plutonium that they were transporting to pumping station number three. Here the Joe's encounter the Cobra specialist who still remains in shadow. He holds the Joe's at gunpoint and he has the plague toxin antidote in his hand. Again why does he tell the Joe's that he has the antidote? If he had just not said anything about it then Cobra might have succeeded here. The Geneva Convention does not allow Doc to fire a weapon but he can take other measures so he throws a snowball at Destro's gun and then he tackles Destro to get the antidote. Doc wrestles Destro in the shadows until Destro throws him free. Once Doc is out of the way the other Joe's open fire. The Cobra his tank in the shed is rigged to blow up with dynamite. Destro escapes on his own snowmobile. He takes out the polar battle bear with one of his wrist rockets. He tries to take out the helicopter as well but his other wrist rocket is a dud. When Doc was wrestling with Destro he got beat up pretty badly but he managed to retrieve the antidote to the plague toxin so the Joe's are all saved. The Joe's in the helicopter fly to pumping station number three where Cobra soldiers are unloading the plutonium that they stole from the nuclear power plant. Doc makes them a deal. They've all been exposed to the plague toxin and he will share the antidote with them if they will give up the plutonium which of course they do.  Back at GI Joe Base Camp Doc gives the antidote to the Joe's that have been exposed to the plague toxin and Rock and Roll is pissed off at Snowjob who did not tell him that Gung Ho's sister was nine years old. You didn't ask says Snowjob and Doc goes on to inform Rock and Roll that Snowjob was going to scam him out of money as well.  Everybody smiles because it's funny for some reason and that's the end of the issue. Let's evaluate this issue starting with the ending. It's a sitcom ending and I could really do without that. Like the previous issue this issue throws a lot of information at us in just a few pages. It introduces a whole slew of new characters and it gives each of those characters enough attention that we can see each one's individual personality. It's also a pretty complex story. I mean there's a lot going on here. There's plague toxin and plutonium and a pipeline and tanks and pumping station number one and two and three and all this stuff going on. It's a pretty complex story and again maybe Cobra's plan was a little bit too complicated. They might have actually succeeded here if they had maybe made their plan a little bit simpler. This comic also introduces Destro. Even though his name is not mentioned he's just referred to as a specialist and we don't get to see his face we do know that this is Destro. It also gives a hint at a connection between Destro and the Baroness. We see two new GI Joe vehicles the polar battle bear and the falcon glider and we see some new Cobra vehicles. We see the Cobra Hiss tank for the first time and the Cobra Viper glider. So it's great that Cobra is now getting some vehicles. Also this issue is wall-to-wall action. There are some downsides to this issue. Once again GI Joe learned of Cobra's plans from Cobra. Cobra agents provide information to the Joes that they weren't even asked for and this allows the Joes to have the information they need to defeat Cobra's plan. The resolution comes when Cobra soldiers make a deal and exchange the plutonium for the antidote and this is a contrast with previous issues of GI Joe when we have seen Cobra soldiers voluntarily accept death rather than defeat. Another downside is the artwork of Mike Vosberg. Most of the time it's okay but there are some panels that seem a little bit rushed and oversimplified and some of the drawings just end up looking kind of weird. Really it's the story and not the artwork that makes this issue a classic. It is really exciting to see new members of the GI Joe team. We haven't had any new members since the first issue and so this is a turning point in the comic book series. I highly recommend that you check this issue out. It was a great issue and I loved it. That was my review of GI Joe number 11. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did go ahead and give this video a thumbs up. Don't forget to subscribe. I've got a lot of great new GI Joe comic book and toy reviews coming up and you do not want to miss them. Thanks for watching and I'll catch you later.


Today's Infantry Brigade Combat Team, or IBCT, is an expeditionary combined arms formation optimized for dismounted operations in complex terrain. The IBCT is the Army's most numerous, tactically versatile, strategically deployable and adaptive combat formation. Its mission is to disrupt or destroy enemy military forces, control land areas including populations and resources, and be prepared to conduct combat operations to protect U.S. national interests. Today's IBCTs are designed for deployment around the world to fight and win in a multi-domain operational environment. Future conflict will change the way the U.S. Army conducts operations. Anticipation of adversary capabilities will shape key advancements within the IBCT to remain dominant. As potential adversaries possess anti-access and area denial or A2AD capabilities that prevent direct seizure of air or sea ports, the IBCT must maneuver from greater distances into undefended locations and then move rapidly to seize entry points for follow-on forces. This requires tactical mobility on or off-road to attack from multiple directions more swiftly than enemies can respond. Looking ahead to 2028, future IBCTs will require improved mobility, sensing and lethality to execute missions in a multi-domain operational environment against any adversary. In this scenario, an IBCT conducts a movement to contact against a battalion-sized near-peer enemy force that is conducting an area defense to protect a landing strip. The IBCT's mission is to seize the landing strip, but first must seize two sub-objectives in order to isolate the landing strip with a decisive operations maneuver. The IBCT air lands on landing strips offset from the objective to avoid enemy A2AD systems. It will converge from unexpected directions using a modern suite of combat variants supported by JLTV, LRV, ISV and MPF. The IBCT uses its organic, extended range systems and air small system sensor assets during the reconnaissance phase of the operation to set the conditions for the attack. These systems provide the IBCT early warning of EW threats and increase situational awareness in the enemy's disruption zone. The cavalry squadron deploys ahead of the main body with the LRV to conduct reconnaissance in force in the enemy's disruption zone. Once conditions are set, the IBCT deploys two of its infantry battalions to seize objectives DOG and RAT. Once objectives RAT and DOG are seized, the IBCT's third infantry battalion assaults objective CAT. Upon completion of the seizure of the landing strip, the IBCT re-consolidates and reorganizes on the objective. The IBCT, displaced by its subordinate infantry battalions, establishes defensive positions on each objective. The IBCT utilizes UAS, SEMA and EW assets forward of the objective in support of their defensive positions in preparation of a counterattack by the enemy. The 2028 MDO capable IBCT with the additional sensors, mobility and lethality will continue to present multiple dilemmas to the enemy and overcome the challenges needed to win against capable and adaptive enemies.


U.S. service members and Filipino contractors unload equipment and preparation for Balakutan 23 at Subic Bay International Airport. Captain Javier Perez tells us more. I'm here managing the team that is offloading aircraft that are coming into the Philippines in support of Balakutan. We also operate in areas such as the new container terminal, which is the seaport right behind us and other ports of entry within the Republic of the Philippines. We are receiving passengers and cargo on the fly line. It's so important that we come together within the Pacific. It's a very dynamic environment and it's good to build better partnerships with our partner nations. What's special about this specific Balakutan is it's actually one of the largest ones that have been conducted. We expect to achieve many wonderful objectives with our Filipino counterparts. Reporting from the Philippines, I'm Corporal Yvonne Iwaye.


The Cube at EMC World 2014 is brought to you by EMC. Redefine VCE, innovating the world's first converged infrastructure solution for private cloud computing. Brocade, say goodbye to the status quo and hello to Brocade. Hello, welcome back, this is Jeff Rick here. We're on the Cube, we're at VMworld, or see I did it again, we were talking about this before we went on air. See that's your problem, you keep saying VMworld. I know, it's part of the Federation though and that's all good, we're at EMC World 2014. This is the fifth year the Cube has been at EMC World. It's actually where the Cube got its start so it's a very special place for us to come back. In fact, this year we're so excited that we brought not one but two Cubes. So double the fun, double the pleasure, double the insight that we can get twice as many guests to come on the show, share their insights with you, and tell you what they're working on to help you execute it on your side. So we're joining this segment by my co-host. Steve Keniston, the storage alchemist, and thanks Jeff, thanks for the introduction. We're here live in Las Vegas, as Jeff said, here at EMC World 2014. Extracting the signal from the noise and going out and finding the greatest industry practitioners, bringing them on the Cube and trying to help share that knowledge with our insiders. So let's get right down to it, our next guest, David Bratt, director of technology services for Miami Children's Hospital. Welcome to the Cube, Dave. Thank you, I'm glad to be here. Great, thanks. Hey, so for our practitioners out there, why don't you just give us a little level set, Children's Hospital, tell us about it. Sure, so we're a Children's Hospital based out of Miami, Florida. Our hospital is in a smaller city called Coral Gables specifically, and we serve patients and families all throughout Palm Beach County, all the way through Miami-Dade County, as well as some international patients due to our telemedicine initiatives. Very good, and so director of IT, give us a little bit of insight as to your overall infrastructure. Yes, so the majority of what we have is storage, storage, storage. It's growing tremendously, as all the reports are saying, as many people are reading here at EMCworld.vmwareworld. But that's the bulk of where we spend most of our time. We also manage the network and telecommunications environment, but the storage growth in our environment is clearly the one that's really growing the most. So storage is big for your group. We're here at a storage conference, EMCworld. What jumped out at you so far? Tell us, what's something exciting? Two main things really, we've been an Iceland customer for about a year now, and that environment alone has tripled within that timeframe. And we use it for all facets of unstructured data, die-com imaging, any type of video repository, as well as we're replicating that data for protection. Well, so tell us a little bit about, what led you down that, so I think we were talking a little bit before the segment, you've had Iceland for... About a year. About a year now. So what were some of the things you looked at going down the road? Why were you choosing an Iceland-type of platform? Maybe some of the other things you looked at, and then ultimately, why you decided on the platform? Sure, so cost is always a factor, so we needed a solution that can grow with us and scale rapidly. We didn't want any complexity or any headaches doing migration after migration, like we used to with older storage arrays. So that was clearly one of the ones we were looking out for. Manageability and ease of use, we no longer need highly trained storage personnel who are so specifically trained in one particular type of an array. They can manage the product very simply, allocate file shares and assign permissions in the snap of a finger. Give us a quick snippet. How much capacity on your management? We have somewhere, we're about a half a petabyte right now. Half a petabyte in our environment. So Dave Vellante on the other cube and I often have a conversation. How do you protect a half a petabyte or how do you back up a petabyte's worth of data? And our answer is always, you don't, but somewhere along the way, you got to protect that information that's valuable, informate children's hospital that's probably under a lot of regulations. Kind of tell us about the protection of that environment. Sure, so we do use a typical backup system to spin that off the tape and send it off site. Primarily though, we rely on the Isilon technologies with the snaps as well as the replication to our secondary data center to protect that data. So it's very rare when we actually have to go back to our backup system, which is another advantage of that Isilon product. Fantastic. So talk about grow, grow, grow, because you're kind of out on the edge, you've got all the regulations obviously in healthcare. You've got new regulations in healthcare, which I'm sure are creating some fun for you. But you're also kind of on the leading edge of Internet of Things. That we hear about all the time, all the time, all the time. G talks about, but a lot of that is healthcare. And unlike, as we often joke, if I don't serve up the right Yahoo ad and it's a car instead of a mattress, not a big deal. But clearly that's a little bit different in healthcare arena where it's, you don't want to serve up the wrong recommended drug or something that you're allergic to or all kinds of bad things can happen. So talk about how real the Internet of Things is what you're seeing and how that's really exploding your data set. Yes, there's no doubt about it that in the healthcare field, there's tons of regulations we have to follow at the end of the day for us. It's somebody's child that we're taking care of. So the last thing we want a patient or a family member to worry about is their data is getting in the hands of somebody else. So with some of the inherent technologies in Isilon, we're able to lock down those file shares, really make sure that it's only that patient that can get to that data or that physician at the time taking care of that patient and nobody else, which is key to us. And if our group, I'm very fortunate to work with a great team who appreciates change, they're very agile and flexible and can adjust to those regulations. And as long as we've got good technologies like the EMC products, we're pretty good. Now what about the explosives? Exploding stuff from all the different data sources. Yes, because everything's electronic nowadays as everybody has an electronic medical record and we have to retain those records for a very long time. And we're also gathering information about that data. So it's data on top of data, which is mainly driving our growth in the research realm. And so what's next? So you've got all this data, it's growing. Kind of what are some of the next challenges you know you're going to have to face coming up here on the horizon? Yeah, so now it's to make sense of the data, try to come up with personalized treatment plans for our patients to make sure that if a person comes in with a particular diagnosis, we know the path, the protocol to cure them and to hopefully remove their disease or their infection. So the data warehouse and genomics projects are huge for us on the Isilon product specifically to go to that next level. And so it seems like there would be an analytics play that's on top that you do any analytics today and if not, is that what you're looking for to the future? We do some analytics but we're starting to focus on the Hadoop technology on Isilon a little bit now but we're just starting to dabble into that arena. Very good. And then are you going to be tying some of that? We had a guest on earlier today where we're talking about how the Watson knowledge, being able to tie into this global resource of different diseases and that sort of thing to really take patient care from get well, soon to get well now type of thing. What does that look like for you guys? Yeah, I think there's a lot of companies we're no different than any other health care. We're in same with IBM's Watson product. We're just trying to get to the right answers as quick as possible to take the best care of our patients. IBM has Watson's, we have our own product that our enterprise data warehouse team has built and we're hopeful that it's the right path to go, more so for the patients and families that we serve. So we talked a lot about storage. Tell us a little bit about some other parts of your infrastructure that compel into your storage and be kind of like tough to do without right now.  So now we're even treating people internationally outside of our borders and being able to store all that information not only just the video feed but tying together the medical data with all the telemetry equipment. Interesting. So talk a little bit about, because we always do people process tech, right? It's all three of those things. And doctors are notoriously slow adopters on tech or at least that's their reputation. My dad's identity is a little bit slow. But I am curious to know kind of, I'm sure on one hand it's kind of a pain, on the other hand you've got a lot of young doctors that are probably coming in that have grown up with digital technology their entire life. Somebody said the other day that that first generation is already 28 years old. So clearly they've been around the block and they went to school that way. But talk about kind of how the technology is permeating in from the doctor's point of view and how they're leveraging these tools to do things that they either couldn't do before or they can do a whole lot better. Yeah, it's definitely the wave of the future. So we have a fairly good relationship with our physician community. Our chief medical information officer is the liaison between the two. Chief medical information officer. Now I've never heard that. Is that, are there a lot of those? Oh yes. Yeah, okay, good. So he really helps us make the relationship with the physician group and do adopt all those different technologies. He walks around with an iPad everywhere. The majority of our residents do rounding on iPads. So they're really embracing the mobility primarily because it's access to their data real time from anywhere. And if they can get it quicker than walking over to the computer over there why not? And that's where they see the biggest benefit so far. And it's his background, a technology background or a medical background? No, I call him an IT person in the closet but he's trained medically. So he's really adopted it and come about and embraced it and the power that it can do. And then how do you work together prioritizing new types of projects, new types of technology within that realm? And within your budget, obviously. And within your budget. Of course. He probably works all kinds of stuff. Yeah, we all have budgets and we've been able to align with the budget. And the strategy is kind of tough because the consumer driven market drives everything. So we have to keep up with that. So when the physicians go to the conferences we're already handing them the next device versus them asking it from us. And then slowly moving to BYOD devices. It sounds like you already got the iPads or the applications and the delivery moving into kind of standardized devices versus specialty devices. Correct. So it almost doesn't matter to us what type of device you have. As long as you have an internet connection we can securely get you to your data rapidly without any delay. And then talk about, you've mentioned it a few times, remote care. How remote care has evolved both because we can with the technology and then kind of what the impact of that has been to people. Yeah, it's incredible what's available today. So I would call it like Skype on steroids. So it's more than just a video feed. It does tie into all the medical equipment. So you can get a heart rate pulse all the things you would typically have to go to a physician office to get and have a trained clinician read for you. Nowadays the technology is available that anybody can hook something up and it just sends it to our telemedicine command center and gets translated into useful clinical information. Wow, so it sounds like you guys have a really good handle on your data center. So if that's true, kind of tell us a little bit what keeps you up at night? That next biggest thing, we Miami children strives to be innovative. We have a very innovative executive team who supports us and sponsors everything we try to dabble into. We won several awards in that arena. So it's just trying to stay that next, what the next curve is or that next bubble but we get there before it bursts. Do you have one on your roadmap that you're looking at? You know, telemedicine is the buzzword for us in the day as well as analytics. So those are the two main strategies that we're focusing on. Awesome. Well, thanks for coming on theCUBE. Appreciate it. Like I say, we love to learn from practitioners. We love to hear from people that are executing this new technology for the benefit of not only business, which is great, but also people and especially children, which we all have a soft spot in our heart for, which is the right thing to do. So thanks for coming on theCUBE. We're live at EMC World 2014, lovely Las Vegas, the Sahara Convention Center in the back of the Palazzo. We'll be right back with our next guest after this short break. Stay with us.


Today, I want to help you become more composed when you're playing. A lot of players have problems with panicking, overthinking, or even freezing and forgetting what they should do on the field, especially when they have the ball at their feet. Now, the same player usually finds himself very confident playing the way they want to play, playing the way they know they should play in a different situation. For example, maybe you are playing with your friends at school, or you're playing with your brother in the park. You're in a situation where you're comfortable. The only thing different between that situation and this one where you're panicking, you're struggling in, is the way you are approaching, the way you're thinking in your mind. You're still the same player. You have the same body, you have the same legs, you have the same amount of skill, you have the same level of experience. The only thing different is the way that you're thinking. Instead of being confident, instead of enjoying playing, instead of focusing on what you want to do with the ball, you start thinking about all these negative things. You start thinking about screwing up, letting your teammates down, making mistakes. So first of all, you need to take responsibility for your thoughts. Realize that all these thoughts in your head, you are responsible for them. So if you feel negative thoughts, you're aware of negative thoughts creeping into your mind, you need to change them. So what I mean by that is a lot of players play in the past. When the ball's coming to them, what are they thinking about? They're thinking about having a bad touch. They're thinking about the defender coming to close them down. They're thinking about their teammates and coaches yelling at them if they screw up. So what you need to do is focus on the positive. So as the ball's coming to you, I'm thinking about the positive. I'm thinking about having a good touch and exactly how I'm going to have a good touch. Focus on your technique, focus on what you can control. Do not focus on things you can't control. So focus on positive things. Think about, hey, I want to have a good touch. I want to take my touch into space. I want to take my touch away from the defender. Play me again. I want to think about protecting the ball. I want to think about all these things that I want to do well. So if you start thinking positively instead of negatively, focusing on what you can do, you're going to be more successful right away. So a lot of things are the basic things you really want to think about if you're struggling with being composed is quality of your first touch, where you're actually taking your first touch. So play me a pass. If I know a defender is here, I want to take that pass, that touch away from him so I can get turned. I want to be more aware of my surroundings and where the space is, where I should be going before I actually get the ball. Play me again. A lot of players will get the ball.  People are coming to close them down.  Now they're making decisions. First of all, they're thinking about everything that could go wrong.  They notice that people are closing down. They start to panic. They don't know where to play the ball or what to do. You need to think about where you want to play the ball or what you want to do before the ball actually even comes to you. So in order to do that, I have to be aware of my surroundings. If you are making a big mistake that a lot of players do, which is just ball watching, I'm just focusing on the ball. I'm not looking at where my teammates are. Say if I want to get the ball. I already know. Boom, I'm going to play that one touch to my teammate over there or I don't know where the defender is. I'm just focusing on the ball. So I'm not aware of my surroundings. If you become aware of your surroundings by constantly shoulder checking, being aware of the space, being aware of the danger, being aware of the opportunities, then you're going to be able to make a better decision. I don't know if that ball is coming to me. Play that ball. Yeah. I already know. I already know. Boom. I'm going to play my teammate for a breakaway. I'm going to play him into space. Play it again. I already know this defender is there, so I'm going to turn and I'm going to get into space where I want to be. So in order to make better decisions to be more confident in your ability to play, you need to be aware of what you actually want to do. So start thinking ahead of the game. Don't react as the ball is played. Do you play me? Don't react now and make a decision now. You've already made your decision. You already know where the space is. You already know where you want to play the pass. You already know where the defenders are around you. A few more very simple ideas to help you be more composed when you're playing. Number one is be aware of your breath. Be aware of your breathing. A lot of players, when we start to panic, we freak out. Our breathing gets out of control. Okay. We start panning. We start when you're nervous, when you're afraid, when fear strikes you, you start to panic. What happens? Your breathing changes. So you need to be aware of your breathing. You need to start controlling your breath.  Be aware of your breath. Start to come back to your breath. Control your breath. Start to calm your heart rate down. Slow your breath down.  And by simply controlling your breath, you'll become more in control of the situation. Another thing I want you to think about is just plain simple. If you are panicking in the game, so play the ball. A lot of players, they get the ball and they don't know what to do with it. So they over complicate or they take too much time.  So maybe for the first few minutes of the game or the first like few months or until you build this confidence, you just want to think about playing very simple. Do not give the ball away. So play me a pass again. So as the ball comes, I'm just thinking about, boom, receive it, pass it to my teammate. Move into space to support him and get it back again. Okay? If you are over complicating the play, you're losing the ball far too often, you have to start building up your confidence. And you can do that by playing very simple. So play the ball again. So focus on that good first touch, pass it to your teammate.  I want you to be creative. I want you to feel that you can take the responsibility to dribble, to create chances. But if you don't have this basic foundation of keeping the ball and being calm on the ball, then you're not going to be able to get to the next step. So first of all, just very basic play and pass. You know where your teammates are. You just want to be very simple. Get the ball, pass the ball to a teammate, move to support.


Welcome to JSA TV and JSA Podcasts, the newsroom for telecom and data center professionals. I'm Jean-Marc Lim and joining me today is Ward Hampton, who is helping digital infrastructure investors in their portfolio companies to find, hire and retain data center executives globally. Ward, thanks so much for talking to JSA.  I think you, I believe you're really far away at the moment. It's how you've been doing over the last two years. Yeah, I'm great. Thanks, Jao. As you rightly point out, I'm currently nestled about 10,000 feet above sea level in the Peruvian Andes. I've been here since May. I launched my business in just over two years ago now. And yeah, it's been really successful so far, really capitalizing on the tremendous growth in the data center industry over the last few years. It's amazing. And I mean, talking about running away from COVID, you couldn't have gone anywhere further. Yeah. And sometimes around here, it's so remote, I can sometimes forget there's a pandemic going on, which is, which is amazing because it does not happen in this side of the world. I can tell you that, especially now. But we'll talk about the business in a second. In terms of recruitment, what would you say are the biggest challenges in today's marketplace when it comes to defining talent? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I'd say if we look at the recruitment life cycle, we can very broadly split that into two categories of candidate attraction and candidate assessment. And if I look at the attraction piece, that has never been more important, particularly in such a high growth buoyant industry such as data centers, which has had, let's face it, it's had a talent shortage for a number of years already. So it's never been more important to develop for companies to develop a really strong employee value proposition to ensure that they stand out ahead of the competition when they're trying to attract suitably qualified people into a hiring process. And I'd say this is definitely a problem that transcends the data center industry. But in general, companies tend to struggle when it comes to marketing their job opportunities. I think most tend to use a job description as a job advert, which, you know, they might a little clumsily add exciting opportunity at the front end of, hoping that's going to be enough. And unfortunately, in today's market, that just isn't enough. Let's face it, job descriptions are quite often quite dry, boring, overly formal documents, which generally contain a huge long list of demands that are entirely centered around what the company's looking for. And that's not the right way to attract people who aren't looking for a role. We need to start creating job adverts and job copy, which is really geared towards what's in it for the candidate. You know, that's that's marketing 101, really. We need to put job adverts and job copy together, which is used in outreach to candidates to make it attractive enough to someone who is otherwise happily employed, but is open to considering a new opportunity if it can better their current circumstances in some way. So, you know, I have a team of copywriters who really nail this and it has a huge impact on the number and quality of people I'm able to attract into hiring processes. And then, you know, the other aspect, the assessment process, then I think generally companies don't tend to train their managers how to assess people or if they do, it's not a huge focus. And, you know, there's, there's a three year study by a leadership IQ, which found that 46% of all hires fail within 18 months, which, you know, I think that tells us we've got a quite a big problem when it comes to assessing onboarding, training and managing new hires. So, I think another challenge is that there's a real over-emphasis on assessing experience, you know. Experience can be very important, but we seem to treat it as though it's directly proportional to competence, which if we think about it, we all know isn't true. It's the competencies and character traits that are the most important drivers of success. And we need to help equip hiring managers to be able to assess beyond experience and get at these things. And I think companies who can do this can get a real competitive advantage by opening up the talent pool into adjacent industries. And again, you know, from this point of view, I bring in business psychologists at the front end of the process to put together an assessment process, which enables hiring managers to do this. That's very interesting, because it really shows the shifts in the recruitment world, going from almost tick boxing exercise to really thinking about the people they are trying to target. I love the idea about the copywriting and viewing it as almost as a marketing exercise, because beyond marketing, but treating it differently from just copy and pasting a template from Google and going out and looking for people. Absolutely, and you know, the front end of the recruitment process is definitely, absolutely, it's a sales and marketing exercise. If you want to attract people into the process who are actively looking for a new job. So yeah.  So there's a lot of considerations that employers need to take when going out and recruiting someone. But you've also mentioned the talent shortage, and you mentioned quite a lot in the answer. But my other question would be, so taking into account the talent that we've already got in the industry, how would you kind of describe the talent that we've got? Are we lacking a lot of skills? Do we need to renew some of the sectors of our industry? Yeah. So I think it's different from market to market. So if I look at what I've done over the last six years in this space, I've successfully delivered assignments in 13 countries and five continents. But there's definitely some clear trends. And I would also say one of the things I love about working with developers and operators of data centers is the variety of technical disciplines which are found within those organizations. So I've helped companies to hire into functions across the full lifecycle of a data center build, whether that's land and power acquisition, design, build, operations, right through to sales. And as well as up to CEO level, people who are managing the entire P&L of the business. So it's different in different markets, but the number one word that springs to mind when you ask me that question is definitely yours. And the biggest challenges at the moment which are pretty well known already is attracting more young people to the industry and also improving gender diversity by attracting more women into the sector. We've all read that survey from a few years back. I can't remember who it was from, maybe data center dynamic, which found that the average data center manager was a 55 year old male. And I think the fact that many of these guys are approaching retirement age really compounds this problem. So we definitely need to put together strategies to start to bring in more young people and recruit from more diverse talent pools, not only from a gender point of view, but as I touched on earlier, if we can help and equip managers to be able to assess candidates who have developed competencies in adjacent industries, then we can really open up the talent pool. And that's something that I think we need to really have a big focus on over the next few years. I mean, there's so much that we can learn from my interest. I've been around for so long, and I'm much more mature. It could be quite incredible. And I'm curious to see once events fully come back, we've had a bit of a taste of events over the last couple months. And there seems to be like a few new faces around and younger faces as well. But I can't wait to see when the events really come back and you start going out and be like, oh, all right. If you don't know half the room, that's a very good thing. Yeah, it's the old days. Whatever you went in the world, it would always be the same people. And then words from what you've been working on. So let's say over the last 24 months, how have you seen requests and interest changing from the people you work with? Because we've already touched on a lot of change, but why are people asking for that's different from before? Yeah, yeah. Well, I think for me personally, I am incredibly niche. So I maybe don't have as holistic a view on the industry as some others. But because I only work with developers and operators and the investment funds who back them. I don't work with the supply chain of the industry. And I'm even more niche within that these days, because I really prefer and enjoy to work with companies that I describe as startups or scaleups. And that's been a strategy of mine over the last few years when I saw the amount of new private equity firms and infrastructure funds who were looking to diversify away from some of the more traditional real estate asset classes and focus on the data center industry, which is outperforming other assets or other asset classes from an ROI point of view significantly. So, yeah. And again, I like to get involved at investor level, at C level, where I can work in a truly consultive way and really add value across the full life cycle of the recruitment process. And a lot of the time, these investors or really stage platforms, they're looking for senior leaders who've got significant data center experience and entrepreneurial mindset. And I often find these executives in more mature businesses, sometimes ones that have grown really quickly, either through organic development or through M&A. And there may be, if that exec's been in that company for a number of years, the whole organization has changed considerably. And some of them might be looking for something that's a little bit less bureaucratic, a little bit less retain, less internal politics, and more autonomy, ability to work at a bit more speed and agility. And yeah, and people who want to look back on their career in a few years' time, I think I really played an integral role in building a business from near scratch or from scratch. And obviously, if these people are getting significant equity holdings in these organizations, then if they get to exit, then we can be talking life-changing sums of money as well. Yeah.  Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, just the second part of your question, that's not going to change for me. The amount of capital coming into the industry is phenomenal at the moment, and more and more investors turning into this asset class. So they're the people I really, they're the companies I really want to help most. Yeah, we've definitely got a very long way, a very long, longer, a long row of the heads when it comes to investing in this space. And the new types of investors coming in as well, it's quite interesting. Almost on every two months, there's a new type of investor coming in. So it's very, very interesting. And I think the next five to ten years, things are going to change a lot. And I'll be an industry for everyone. There's this beauty of it still, it's still an industry for everyone, and they're still going to be for a very long time. Yeah, we're all in the right space at the moment, Joe, definitely. Yeah, the children and the grandchildren can then deal with finding an underneath. But what you only really work on a retained basis as well within your business. So why should companies take the retained option over using multiple agencies on a contingency basis? Because it seems to be the standards that people usually go for. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. I would say that is the model that most companies tend to adopt. Certainly operator level tends to be a bit different at investment fund level. But I suppose the first thing I'd say is that not everyone should, there is still a place for contingency recruitment. But in my view, not for the senior level business critical hires that I get involved in. It's pretty widely accepted that the average contingency recruiter only fills around 20% of the jobs that they work, which is not really a good advertisement for the industry. But it's also important to say that the mere fact of paying a retainer isn't going to improve things. But the search methodology of a really good retained recruiter will be radically different to that of a contingency recruiter. And in my experience and my view, so will be the results. I think one of the biggest problems with contingency recruitment, especially when there's multiple agents working on the same role, is that what should be a really organized and well thought out search, which is based on quality and good process is usually devalued to what I describe as a disorganized race based on speed. And you've got multiple agents who aren't fully committed to the process. And for the more challenging roles, when the going gets tough, they'll often give up and focus on easier assignments, where there's more chance of getting a fee. So if I compare that to what I do, I'm really low volume. So I only work on one to maximum three assignments at any one time. And because I know the company is committed to the process, committed enough to pay a retainer, it means that I can be fully committed in terms of time and starting to spend cash on the search from day one. And this approach has been really successful for me. I've successfully completed 100% of the retained search assignments I've handled since launch in the business. And some of the additional things that I'm able to invest some of that retainer back into that a contingency firm wouldn't be able to are things like bringing in business psychologists to design the assessment process, using outsourced researchers and sorting professionals to fully map markets globally. Working with the professional copywriters I've talked about earlier, that's really that really helps, you know, persuasive and compelling job copy has a huge impact. And again, you know, the business psychologists can also handle psychological assessments and even going on to the onboarding stage. So, you know, a lot of most contingency recruitment their job ends once the highest made, whereas I like to really get involved in onboarding. And so for clients who want it, I will pay for an executive career transition coach to work with the new hire and the line manager or the board. And that's with a gap that's with a aim of really improving retention rates and also, you know, fast tracking success in the role. That's very interesting because I mean, it really changes from the churning of applicants and recruitment into something a bit more bespoke, which we've seen in other industries. I mean, even just in the consumer space, we've seen companies shifting from just churning things and products into just becoming more bespoke and actually serving the needs. And the follow up is very important, especially the digital industry, the digital age. It's always about the follow up that supports that upgrade that comes after something is bought, found. It's a very interesting approach to recruitment. Yeah, yeah. And look, my whole philosophy is geared around helping people to hire long term successful employees, not just making a placement. So, yeah, that's important to me. And what you've also rebranded recently, and you made use of your name, which is quite unique. At least I don't know any other word in the world. So, tell us about the rebranding. I mean, what sparked it? What's the end product? What are people reacting like? LinkedIn seems to like it. But what's been the feedback as well? Yeah. Well, I suppose if there was an award going for the least creative business names, then I mustn't be far off because I've gone from data center recruitment to award. But joking aside, the rebrand was prompted by the fact I hired a consultant to go out and interview all of my clients and get feedback from them on exactly what their experience had been like of working with me so far and how I could improve the parts of the business as well. And a lot of the feedback coming back from the investors that I work with was that they would love it if I could help them and provide them with the same level of service but in other areas of their business. So, whether that's helping them find investment professionals with digital infrastructure experience to work fun side, or opening up in the future to be able to help their tower companies or their fiber portfolio companies. So, look, the specialism of the business is still very much data center focused. But the reason I removed data centers from the name of the business was that long term I do want to open up into these other areas. So, yeah. Future proofing of the business. And then as we start a new year, what can we expect from the ward forward? Well, my website is the way of ward. The way of ward, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, well, I suppose I'll probably answer that from the perspective of what I expect to see in the industry and then where my focus is going to lie. So, I think we all know competition for everything is going to continue to intensify. From working with investors on a day to day basis, I know there's going to be lots more M&A. I've recently arranged, for example, I've recently arranged for a very talented C level exec to help an infrastructure fund on some commercial and technical due diligence on a business in Europe they're hoping to require. The competition for land is also increasing. I was speaking with an MD in India recently, he said land prices there that were appropriate for data centres had increased by 40% in the last year alone. I think we'll continue to see the hyperscalers self-build but also to outsource, simply because they can't keep up with demand and particularly in some of those more challenging territories that they're looking to enter or expand in where they maybe don't have the local expertise or a significant existing presence. Another thing I'm seeing is a lot of the more traditional real estate developers, particularly those who work in the logistics space, who have a lot of land banks, a lot of good access to power and the added advantage that they can underwrite this land with alternative use are starting to move into this space as well. You first and foremost with the views of building powered shells, which the intendants will then fit out themselves. So yeah, everything's getting more competitive. Obviously, competition, the talent will also intensify. For me in 2022, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing in terms of remaining very niche, really focusing on helping the infra funds, the PE firms to hire at executive level. I've started to bring a lot of the outsourced support and project teams that I use in-house. Recently hired a full-time researcher based out of India who spends 40 hours a week continually mapping the market globally, segmenting everyone within the industry into their functional expertise, which again gives me a real head start when it comes to working on specific projects. I'm just about to make another offer to someone today who's going to provide a lot of support from an administrative and social media marketing point of view as well. Okay, so it's really growing. You've got a nice little future ahead of an ex-U.D. ahead. I don't have any motivations to build a huge business, but I would definitely like to while I am definitely scaling, but I want to keep it really niche, boutique, high quality focused business. Again, I think one of the areas from working in agency recruitment for 12 years prior to setting up my business, I think one of the mistakes that a lot of those companies make is just scaling really quickly. There's the focus. Yeah, there's the focus and it's always a focus on finding the next client and the service towards existing clients tends to suffer. No, absolutely, I completely agree. Every sector should be doing a bit more of the boutique side of things, even if you're a large corporation, you should probably start adopting a bit more spoke approaching ways of dealing with people. But then what if people want to reach out or learn more, where can they go to? Well, I'm pretty active on LinkedIn and that along with referrals is where most of my relationships originate. So, if you log on to LinkedIn, you'll probably see me around there somewhere. And also, my new website, which I launched, which is thewayofward.com. Okay. Well, thank you so much. I can't wait to see how the business develops as well over the next few months and years. I'm sure it's going to be successful and we'll see where you're going to be talking to us from next time. I don't know if it's going to be 10,000 feet above sea level, but we'll see where you are when we get to it. So, thank you so much. And thank you, our viewers as well for tuning into JSA TV and JSA Podcasts. And don't forget to check our social channels for more content. Until next time, happy networking.


Hello, guys, Brian Hare here, and today I had my client Tiffany come in, and we colored her hair dark, and then I had a cancellation, so we decided to have a little bit of fun with her freshly dark hair. She told me that she wanted to do something that was going to be fun and give her like a really big pop of something cool because we hadn't done anything really cool in a while, so I had this idea and I really wanted to see how it would come out, and I loved it. Thankfully we filmed it, and I can share it with you guys. So basically what we did was we decided to go around her entire hairline and do a really, really, really heavy application of lightener so that when her hair is all down, all of her dark hair will blanket over that, and then you'll have this lighter color coming from underneath. So think of it as if she's got her hair pulled back in a ponytail, it's all going to be light, but then when she brings it down, it's going to be sort of just creeping and peeking out from underneath. So to get going, I pinned up the top sections of her hair so that that's all the stuff that I'm not even going to touch, so I got her whole hairline out and exposed. That way I can work just a little bit cleaner, a little bit easier, a little bit neater. Obviously I've chosen to do this with Balayage because when she pulls it back, I still want it to look as natural as possible, so it's going to have that nice soft beginning point that Balayage gives you. It's funny when Matt watched the video, he said, you've really used a lot of lightener on this, and I said, I know, it's because I really wanted it. I wanted almost like frosted cake, I wanted so much lightener on there because she was so dark and I really wanted to get as much lift as possible. And for this, as per usual, I was using Sunlight's Balayage Lightener and it's one of those things you can't use too much. In fact, it's better when you're really looking for the maximum amount of lift to apply this much. You see, I get it on the section and then I go back and I put more, and I put more. And it's because that clay base is going to almost create like a little bit of a shell around the outside and just continuously process the hair that's on the inside to give me as much lift as possible. So you want to make sure that when you do all that application, you can't really see any of the individual hairs on the outside because then they become a part of that shell and they don't process as much. So I'm just pulling all these sections away from her face because that's how I want the lightener to be seen. And then just using that wrap to cover my section so that after I color one, I can lay it over and know that it's not touching anything that I don't want it. I am not coloring what technically would be considered the underside of these sections. I'm only coloring what you can see in through the ends. It's going to help to give me that nice balayage blend that we've grown to love so much. I'm using Sunlights N40 for anyone that's going to ask because I wanted maximum amount of lift. I was not looking to make her super, super, duper blonde. So when I toned her, I used a nice level 7 green ash with a level 8 blue ash and a level 8 sort of smoky gray pearl neutral for those that are going to ask about the toner. That way it helped to get rid of the warmth and she got a really cool effect that I was really happy with. And I really hope that you guys like it. If you have any questions, post them below or find me on Hairstyle on Instagram. Thanks guys.