Hyderabad: After pursuing for nearly two weeks, I received a call on March 30 stating that Nowhera Shaik, with much hesitation, agreed to a one-on-one interview. This was for the second time she faced the media after her release from Byculla Jail in Mumbai this January.

For those new to this name, Shaik is the founder and CEO of 20-year-old Hyderabad-based Heera Group of companies with a turnover of Rs 10,000 crore. Owning five malls, the company trades in gold, textile, and food products. It has a staff strength of 25,000 and meter-running clientele.

However, the business operations came to a halt after she was booked for multi-crore Ponzi scheme fraud.

Pertinent to note that she was first arrested in 2018 when she forayed into politics and launched 'All India Mahila Empowerment Party'. She was arrested 20 times and spent close to 3 years in different jails across Telangana and Maharashtra.

Hailing from the Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, she is accused of collecting money from thousands of Muslims especially women based in India and abroad in the name of "Halal Investment".

According to Enforcement Directorate sleuths, Shaik collected deposits to the tune of Rs 5600 Crore from around 1,72,000 investors (IBG Members) across the country by making alleged false promises of paying high rate of returns i.e. 3% per month (36% to 40% per year).

Coming back to the interview call, I was asked to come to the head office of the Heera group located at Banjara Hills Road No 10. It was the third day since the company resumed operations. While I sat at the reception, many clientele walked in for inquiries.

After waiting for an hour, I was asked to proceed to her residence a few kilometers away. The house, which is under round-the-clock guard, is nothing less than a palace. The opulent furniture, exquisite interiors and 24x 7 round-the-clock maids reflected the empire that Shaik had built and speaks of her journey from a palace to prison and back.

After waiting for another one hour, the maid asked me to proceed to the 2nd floor in an inbuilt lift, where I finally began the interview:

Q. Hailing from a conservative Muslim family and having the least financial support, how did you set up Heera group with a turnover of Rs 10,000 Crore and came on the radar of investigation agencies?

My father was a small-time businessman. He was well versed in trade. So the seed was sown by him. Back in 1988, I started Heera Group of companies with an aim to empower backward Muslim women by providing them employment and make them self-reliant. The first venture was in Andhra Pradesh. Later I expanded my business to Maharashtra and Karnataka. In 20 years, we expanded our operations to metro cities. Many women across India trusted and invested with us. Investment ranged from hundreds to lakhs of rupees. We launched Heera mart that sells gold, garments, food products. Thousands of clienteles benefitted from our schemes which attracted more investment. Like any other profit-making business, the Heera group came on the radar of our enemies.

In 2012, a complaint was filed stating the company has no license. This resulted in an investigation. The agency probing, many at times carried out searches without a warrant and confiscating electronic devices and files. It was because of 'political pressure'. I was repeatedly called for questioning. Hundreds of notices were issued between 2012 and 2017. Later, central crime investigating agencies were involved. One of the many bizarre complaints I found against me was that bundles of currency are lying in my house. It was in 2017, I filed Rs 100 crore defamation suit against individuals for false complaints. When my petition was heard by High Court, an FIR was filed against me.

(Fact-check: ED's investigation found that Nowhera Shaik and Heera Group of companies did not possess any valid permission either under Banking Regulation Act, or from RBI or from any other government agency such as SEBI for collecting deposits).

Q: ED's probe found Heera Group of companies cheated 1.72 lakh investors and diverted nearly Rs 5,600 Cr for personal gain. Your contention?

Heera Group was a full-fledged running company having lakhs of clientele. However, only a group of 25-30 clienteles from different states connected to a particular political party filed complaints at the Central Crime Station resulting in an FIR. Without giving notice to the company, I was arrested in Delhi in 2018. It is pertinent to note that the arrest came a few days after I announced to launch a political party. There is no truth in the claims that the company cheated 1.72 lakh clients. During the hearing, the prosecution could only produce 20 receipts and cited Rs 500 crore scam. However, the receipts were only for Rs 3 lakh. If 1.72 lakh people have been cheated, I urge them to come forward and claim their money. Even in the list of complainant, less than 30 people have been named. So where does this figure come from.

Q. Why do you say that you're a victim of political vendetta?

I was arrested on October 14, 2018, from Delhi and brought to Chanchalguda Women Prison jail. After spending 9 days in prison, I was granted bail by Nampally session court.

As soon as my bail was granted, the authorities with signing power went on unscheduled leave, delaying my release, it took 5 days to complete the jail formalities. Immediately another FIR was lodged against me in Maharashtra. The moment I stepped out, Mumbai police arrested me in a different case. Multiple FIRs were registered against me in different states.

On January 1, 2020, Mumbai police again took me into custody. I was moved from one jail to another, by flight. Heera mart malls and godowns were forced to shut down. From family to staff, people were threatened that they too will be arrested, a celebrity who attended a family function was also in the list. This was done despite the fact that the Heera group paid Rs 100 crore as income tax before the arrest. If this is not political vendetta, what is it?

My legal team anticipating more arrest and approached the Supreme Court for bail. Later the High court issued an order in favor of Heera Group. It was on January 23, 2021, that I was granted interim bail.

Q. You claim to have been ill-treated in the Jail?

I am witness to calls (received by officials) to ensure I was tortured. Strangers made multiple inquiries about me. I was transferred from one cell to another to ensure my health deteriorates. Being an under-trial prisoner, I was put in a cell accommodating mentally ill and hard-core criminals. But I took it in my stride. The jail authorities did not provide proper amenities. I cited the jail annual and fought for my rights.

Later, I made friends with other jail mates. There are so many people stuck in prison due to a lack of legal support. I will fight for them and may file a petition in the court. The friendship bond grew so strong that many have written letters.

Q. Investigation into money laundering case has revealed that Heera group created 250 accounts in India and eight accounts in UAE and Saudi Arabia to divert money for wrongful gains. Your comments?

I urge the investigating agency to provide the details of all the bank accounts and quantum of money diverted. Heera group has lakhs of transactions. If the funds have been diverted for wrongful gains, I urge the officials to put it on paper before the court. According to my calculation, only 29 members have filed FIR. Where are the rest investors who claimed to be cheated? Out of the 250 accounts, the officials have shown only 71. Where are the rest?

I do not own any property in Dubai. It is a known fact that all properties are given on lease for a period of 15-20 years. We have taken commercial space on rent for company operations.

Q. What is your strategy to pay back?

The Supreme Court while granting conditional bail has directed me to return money to the complainant and resume operations. The company already submitted cheques in the court. Investors who have to get Rs 1 lakh received Rs 2 lakh. We have returned double the money. Complainants can approach the office with the members' ID number and after checking, the money will be returned. The company has enough resources to return investors' money. Hopefully, before Ramzan, all payments will be cleared.

Q. Properties worth Rs 299.99 Crore of Heera group have been attached. Has any property been released following the SC order?

A. Few accounts have been unlocked but no properties have been released. Unless the resources are set free, I cannot resume operations completely. Talking about future plans, there are efforts to reopen all malls before Ramzan, hopefully. The company is waiting for unfreezing of properties and data. I started this company with 200 women and currently. Now, there are lakhs of clienteles.

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From Palace to Prison: Nowhera Shaik of Heera group hopeful of re-paying investors before Ramzan - NewsMeter

Despite underrepresentation of women in academic arenas like STEM and business fields, as well as in recreational spaces such as fitness centers, many women-led CIOs at the University have risen to the challenge and continue to create spaces that offer support and empowerment to female students. As the spring semester begins, CIOs like Girls Who Code, Society of Women Engineers, Smart Women Securities and Changing Health, Attitudes and Actions To Recreate Girls are open to new women and non-binary and gender nonconforming peers who are looking for a community of supportive people with shared passions.

Entering into a male-dominated field as a woman can be intimidating and even off-putting, especially because of underlying possibilities to feel undervalued as a team member. With the intention of opposing this discriminatory dynamic, which is particularly dominant in STEM, Mara Hart, third-year College student and president of Girls Who Code, founded the organization to give people a community of support and solidarity.

The main mission of Girls Who Code at the core of everything we do is to create a more gender-inclusive tech field, Hart said. Whether that involves having more women, having more nonbinary people ... anything to build up that empowerment.

At the University, female students make up 55 percent of the general student body, but only 32 percent of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. Feeling intimidated by this disproportionate ratio, Rebecca Della Croce, fourth-year Engineering student and president of Society of Women Engineers an organization focused on empowering girls pursuing careers in engineering and technology joined the CIO her first year. Rising to her position of leadership within the organization, she has since continued to help her fellow female engineers to feel represented and appreciated.

When I got to U.Va. I felt how big of a deal it was to be a woman in engineering in some regards, Della Croce said. Not only was it weird to not see a lot of other women in the room, but sometimes my male peers really wouldn't take what I was saying seriously. I really wanted to find that community of other women in engineering, and I loved seeing how the women in SWE empowered each other.

Hart shared similar experiences of being blatantly disregarded and disrespected by her male colleagues in her computer science education internship. She has turned to the Girls Who Code community as a support system to learn from and grow with as she continues to face such challenges in the male-dominated field of computer science.

Regularly my boss would disregard what I had to say, including picking up his phone while I was talking during meetings then putting it down as soon as I stopped talking [and] making provocative comments toward me when I was talking about education and trying to discuss professional matters, Hart said. Aside from that, I have come back and learned that there may be a lack of representation, but there are people to reach out to.

The competitive nature of the Universitys STEM programs presents a challenge for women to overcome the existing gender barriers in many professional fields. However, this obstacle for women pursuing professional careers is not exclusive to STEM fields, as it exists in the business sectors as well. Claire Duffy, third-year McIntire student and chief executive officer of Smart Women Securities, was initially intimidated by the competitive applications required to join most investment clubs, so she decided to get involved in SWS because it was an open space for women to learn about investment with less pressure and more support.

SWS really prides itself on our focus on education, Duffy said. I know in general at U.Va. a lot of clubs have really competitive application processes [but] women are so underrepresented in finance, we want to give any girl who is interested in learning about finance and investing the opportunity.

SWS executes this mission of supporting all women interested in commerce by holding open seminars to educate students rather than expecting prior knowledge and experience. They also emphasize networking with women currently in finance to provide insight and expertise about navigating a career in the male-dominated finance industry.

Alongside education, we are very focused on mentorship and building connections between women currently in finance, especially those who have graduated from U.Va. and are alumnae of SWS, Duffy said. This semester in particular, we are putting a large focus on corporate events, so partnering with companies to come speak to our members and give them the opportunity to hear from women in finance. We want to be that lead into breaking more women into the industry.

Girls Who Code takes a similar approach by offering open instruction on the foundations of coding. They also bring these educational pursuits to the greater community in order to empower girls from a young age.

We want to make sure we are partnering with other members of our community, whether that is us teaching girl scouts or having Capital One come teach us, Hart said. Over winter break, the curriculum co-directors [and I] held a six-week coding workshop so that local girl scouts in middle school could earn all of their coding badges. We are all about integrating ourselves into the community and working to give back as much as possible.

Beyond academic and professional empowerment, woman-led CIOs at the University have dedicated their efforts to fostering personal growth by emphasizing physical and mental wellbeing. Cassie Korcel, third-year College student and president of CHAARG, has worked to establish a strong community of womens empowerment through physical health and group fitness.

Our mission is to show our members that fitness can and should be fun, Korcel said. We strive to remind our members to always be the best version of themselves and to take charge of their mental, physical and emotional health. We are encouraging people to make that change and live a healthy lifestyle.

Going to the gym and especially entering the weight room as a woman can be a very intimidating experience that can turn women away from working out. CHAARG strives to reduce that pressure by creating a community of supportive women with a shared passion for fitness.

Maybe it is unintentional that women feel pressured and even sometimes unwelcome in the space at the gym, but a lot of women do, so we can't discount that, Korcel said. Personally, even going to the gym sometimes can feel scary, you don't know what to do and you are unsure of where to go, but the beauty of CHAARG is being able to go with friends who make you feel comfortable to enter the space and to try new things.

The Universitys woman-led CIOs have created welcoming communities that are working hard to combat the gendered stigmas and barriers that women face in academics, the workplace and in their personal lives. The leaders of these organizations are setting great examples as women who are taking control of the space and opening the doors to empower other passionate women.

If you are in a situation and there is not a chair for you at the table, pull up your own chair, Della Croce said. Show up anywhere you want to be and make a place for yourself. It is OK for you to show up somewhere that you feel unwelcome because you can change that experience for the women who come after you.

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CIOs empower female students to achieve personal and academic success - University of Virginia The Cavalier Daily

Lessons from Losses is a personal hip-hop diary detailing the darkest and brightest corners of a young man dealing with the heartache of losing his father, and the necessary positives and negatives in coping.

Peltz, 24, is a Santa Rosa Junior College graduate who studied communications and graduated in 2020.

Music has always been a part of Peltzs life. As a kid, his sister burnt him a CD of OutKast, Jay-Z and Ice Cube, which sparked his love of hip-hop. He wrote poetry growing up, and he began freestyling and honing his rap skills in high school. He proceeded to make music with friend and fellow rapper PB, making fun and classy rap tracks.

Comparatively, Peltz The Prodigys first solo record Lessons from Losses is much more stripped back, forlorn and introspective. Peltz reflects on the pains of losing his father at such a young age on nearly all eight songs.

Ive always enjoyed hip-hop thats vulnerable. Like, just dont be afraid to feel that shit, Peltz said.

Songs like Constellations show Peltz unveiling coping mechanisms and being vulnerable in his lyrics. Peltz raps, No more tough guy shit, Ill see my therapist, Ill be a fool to cut my wrist. As he rides over a crisp but haunting beat, Peltz advocates for self-help and confronting your emotions head-on.

All My Life finds Peltz turning his anguish into self-empowerment and expressing how his past problems seem small now that he has gone through a tragic life-changing loss. While very personal, All My Life succeeds at being a low-key track with a solid hook and great relatable messages.

With features from local artists Marelle, J. Lately and Yungstud, Lessons from Losses also expresses deep Bay Area love, as well as the power of working with people who inspire you. Peltz either finds instrumentals from free sites or videos online, or he collaborates with local producers to make his lyrics come to life.

Ive learned to take care of my mental and spiritual side. I believe God has a purpose for me, and I hope everyone else can find theirs too, Peltz said.

Lessons from Losses is a wonderful rollercoaster of emotions with slick flows, tight production and an endearing sense of passion from Peltz himself. A truly personal and inspiring project from an SRJC alumni whos only getting started.

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SRJC alum Peltz The Prodigy mourns and reflects on inspiring new album Lessons from Losses - The Oak Leaf

Healthcare is never one-size-fits-all, and COVID-19 has brought this fact into sharp relief. A 65-year-old diabetic woman, a healthy 40-year-old man, a pregnant woman, and an elementary school student all take on a different level of personal risk every time they step outside. Each individual handles the mental toll of this prolonged pandemic differently, too. And those who live alone struggle with their health needs in different ways than those who live with others and in multigenerational households.

But some common needs unite all types of patients, no matter the circumstances. Everyone needs access to timely, accurate information and a better understanding of the care options they have. Everyone needs a safe, easy way to see doctors and monitor chronic conditions. People need greater control over their own care. They need to be able to take responsibility for the management of their health and well-being. And everyone including care providers needs to have their voice heard so they can function as co-creators in the healthcare experience. In short, patients, families, and healthcare professionals need to be empowered.

Everyone needs timely, accurate information. Everyone needs a safe, easy way to see doctors and monitor chronic conditions. And everyone including care providers needs to have their voice heard.

Achieving empowerment will require greater communication between and among the patient, family caregivers, and providers. It will also require an acute understanding and consideration of how social determinants of health such as where people live and their access to nutritious food, transportation, quality housing, and healthcare affect specific individuals and cohort groups.

These needs didnt originate with COVID-19, nor will they disappear once weve put the virus behind us. The urgent dynamics of the pandemic, however, have forced healthcare organizations to refocus and adapt in various ways that will help increase empowerment. Here are three areas where progress is already being made and where further developments could revolutionize the healthcare experience.

The move to virtual delivery during the pandemic has advanced the adoption of some of the technological innovations that had already started transforming the healthcare experience. Telemedicine, for example, has been around for a couple of decades, but the pandemic has made it commonplace. Remote monitoring of blood pressure, oxygen saturation levels, blood sugar readings, cardiac rhythms, and much more is now common. Long before the pandemic, apps that connect patients to medical expertise had been in development, and they continue to crop up. ResAppDx, developed by physicians at Massachusetts General Hospital, diagnoses acute respiratory disease in children by analyzing how their coughs sound. Another app, called i-Prognosis, coordinated by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, tracks a variety of biological cues that, when added together, can signal the onset of Parkinsons disease. And Instant Heart Rate, developed by researchers in Canada, analyzes blood flow in the tip of a persons index finger to indicate artery health. All of these technologies make it easier for patients and caregivers to proactively monitor their health, building a sense of empowerment.

Wearable health devices are another fast-growing and empowering technology. Canadian company Myant is pioneering connected apparel that features sensors and actuators knitted directly into everyday clothing. The company is partnering with leading technology and healthcare companies, such as Mayo Clinic and Carlisle Interconnect Technologies, to test and perfect its solutions. VitalConnect, a Silicon Valleybased company, has also been on the cutting edge of digital monitoring with devices such as a monitoring patch that continuously streams 11 vital signs using telehealth-enabled software and another patch, approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for monitoring COVID-19 patients.

The data from these sorts of devices can empower not only patients but employers and caregivers. For example, new predictive models used in some parts of the world employ artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze data related to the well-being of an entire organizations workforce, forecasting when an individual might become diabetic or develop other serious complications five, 10, or even 15 years in the future, and enabling early intervention.

Healthcare, especially among households sheltering in place, can be a family affair. Many patients rely on relatives, both inside and outside of their home, to help them coordinate care. Family members might be called on to administer medication, work with apps and other technology that the patient isnt familiar with, translate information, schedule appointments, and support care in other ways. A healthcare experience that empowers not just the patient but the entire household or support system is therefore necessary.

And there are other reasons aside from the purely practical aspects of shared responsibility for care that might make patients home situations relevant to their health. Social determinants of health have a significant impact on well-being. For example, a faith-based health system in the midwestern United States is working with a Fortune 500 technology company to factor social determinants of health into determining the likelihood that certain patients discharged from the hospital will be readmitted. These societal influences can help answer basic questions such as:

Historically, healthcare systems have lacked this context, limiting the effectiveness of the patient experience.

Empowering caregivers to attend to the needs of not only patients but themselves is also important. St. Elizabeth Health Care, in Toronto, created the website elizzbot, a self-described lifestyle destination that inspires daughters and sons to live well while caring for their aging parents. The interactive, confidential site provides on-demand, unbiased emotional support, including a chat feature, and resources such as psychotherapy techniques, self-learning AI, and a journal that caregivers can use to boost their mood and build resilience and self-awareness.

The Social Care Institute for Excellence in the U.K. has created an online guide for those who are supporting adults and children with learning disabilities or autism during COVID-19. The guide provides tips and facts for all aspects of the patient and caregiver journey during the pandemic.

Experience design teams are learning that small tweaks in the patient journey can provide benefits to one party while creating problems for another. Bringing everyone to the table patients, families, caregivers, partner organizations, community resources, local and national governmental agencies, and advocates during redesign brainstorming and implementation assures a greater opportunity for success and helps to prevent costly mistakes and do-overs.

Co-creation with key stakeholders and partner organizations is at the heart of the patient experience designed for the Ministry of Health in New South Wales, Australia. Patients were invited to offer feedback on pain points, such as accessing the online patient interface system, working within the system to make or cancel appointments, scheduling procedures, and obtaining clear and easy-to-understand post-discharge care information. And then, solutions were implemented in response, such as proactive reminders and delivery of the right information to the patient at the right time.

Another example of a co-created experience is a project in the works in Italy related to a womans pregnancy journey. This effort is a collaboration between experience designers, healthcare institutions, and pregnant women, together with their physicians and midwives.

At the beginning of her pregnancy, a woman in Italy today must complete a set of paper forms and submit them to her local health office. The forms, specific to the area in which she lives, are scanned and shared with those involved in her care. If she decides to change physicians for any reason or move out of the area, she must start all over to create a new paper record.

The new digital pregnancy journey eliminates the systems reliance on paper forms, makes transfer and sharing of records easy, and creates a real-time log of the womans condition and health needs so she and her caregivers can access critical information. Development of this digital system relied heavily on input from patients and caregivers about usability.

The pregnancy journey is a promising example of how the empowering healthcare tools that are being developed today might shape the future of the patient and caregiver experience. After a baby is born, the journey continues, after all. Health systems that can evaluate a mothers online search history, for example, or call up her and her childs previously recorded health records, couldsend push notifications to the mothers mobile phone, reminding her of any tests or health interventions her child might need or alerting her to discounts available on products or services that might be helpful to her.

One day, data analytics could track environmental conditions and match them to individual health issues. So, for instance, a person with asthma who is a runner could be alerted to poor air quality along her route on a certain day.

These scenarios arent some far-fetched vision of the future; they are very clearly possible when considered together with the advances we are seeing every day in all three of the critical areas weve covered technological innovation, whole-household solutions, and co-creation. And in all cases, it will be the empowerment of patients, families, and healthcare providers that will ensure our worlds collective safety and health.

PwC Italy senior manager Tommaso Nervegna and PwC Australia partner Diane Rutter also contributed to this article.

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Empowerment will be at the heart of the new healthcare experience - strategy+business Today

Like a gale that rips off the roofs in a small town, the lingering trauma of Jan. 6 has exposed basic truths about American life. Some of these are intellectual, as they pertain to the U.S. Constitution. The 12th Amendment to our founding document was being implemented inside the U.S. Capitol at the moment violent insurrectionists were breaking down its doors and windows.

Another foundational element of American life was violated that day an aspect of American life that is more emotional than intellectual, but one with a profound influence on our national prosperity and level of contentment.

Many values constitute America. There is freedom of speech. Also freedom of religion. For many Americans, personal empowerment is defined by the right to bear arms.

Underneath these and other bedrock freedoms lies an emotional truth that is not written down. For lack of a better word, call it consistency. In the most basic terms, we have a justified expectation that when we wake up in the morning the lights will turn on. We expect that we will not find that theres been a coup overnight within City Hall. We expect that when we drive down our citys streets, well not be stopped by a mob. We assume the banks will operate.

We take all of this for granted. But that is not the case in many other countries. And thats one reason why the United States has always beckoned immigrants as well as investment.

Heres how one local immigrant sees it. The ordinary is truly precious. She adds: Immigrants know this. They have come to America from places where all manner of daily disruption is commonplace. This kind of chronic instability is like being in an inescapable bad relationship inescapable, that is, except by taking the drastic step of relocating to a different nation.

Countries that become mired in cycles of political volatility suffer brain drain, as those with gumption and resources seek security elsewhere. For the majority who either choose to endure in place or who have no practical choice, life becomes a toothache dogged by worry and underachievement. Who wants to start a new family or business in a place where officials are corrupt, where public services are undependable, where warring political factions can destroy decades of work in a single riot?

This is what the U.S. risks if we are unable to coalesce around a rational middle ground that cherishes an element of stability and predictability. Far from being boring, the traits that made America great serve as a foundation for creativity and risk taking. Just as children who grow up in supportive families with high expectations may never fully realize how lucky they had it, citizens of smoothly functioning nations can scarcely recognize how privileged they are.

The dividends of living in such a country may be invisible to most. But they enrich us in countless ways. Americas stability means we are able to inexpensively borrow whatever we need to springboard us out of what might otherwise be a pandemic-induced depression. Our reputation for strength shields us, to some extent, from attacks by our adversaries.

The horror show of Jan. 6 badly bruised our reputation for stability. Prolonged civil unrest has also stripped the luster off several U.S. cities including Portland.

Its often said that the first step toward getting better is recognizing you have a problem. In todays U.S., theres no shortage of those who decry both real and imagined shortcomings nor should we ever cease striving to ensure political, legal and economic justice for all. Our problems are comparatively easy to see.

Ben Franklin, our pragmatic founding father, wrote in 1789 that Our new Constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable; but, in this world, nothing is certain except death and taxes.

If transported to today, Franklin would worry about how many of us fail to appreciate what we have. Franklin would recognize citizens who cherish the extraordinary value of normal operations are the key to an enduring republic.

Even Franklin admitted he didnt like every bit of the Constitution, but he recognized the whole package was a recipe for enduring American success. Healing the damage to our nation starts with recommitting ourselves to preserving the preciousness of the ordinary.

Steve Forrester is president of EO Media Group and Matt Winters is publisher-editor of the Chinook Observer.

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Editor's Notebook: January 6 disturbed what immigrants call 'the preciousness of the ordinary' - Chinook Observer

Portraying the phenomenon as a widening urban-rural divide is the simplistic version of a more nuanced and bigger story, MacGillis emphasizes. In 1969, the 30 metropolitan areas with the highest per capita personal income included Detroit, Cleveland, and three other midwestern cities. In 2019, only two midwestern namesChicago and Minneapolisappeared on that list, and nearly all the rest were on the coasts. Meanwhile, within the coastal cities that have grown wealthier, the gains have been disturbingly uneven. Rising rents and a lack of affordable housing have left the Seattle area, for example, with the third-biggest population of homeless people in the U.S., after New York City and Los Angeles, according to 2019 data.

These numbers document a stark divergence, but they dont capture its human dimensions. That is MacGilliss goal, as he explores what the erosion of power and possibility means for regular people. Internally, Amazon uses the word fulfillment in reference to processing customers orders. MacGillis, of course, has another usage in mind: the very American emphasis on the chance to seek satisfactiona sense of meaning, purpose, and value; a feeling of personal empowerment and communal solidarityin our labor. No corporation provides a clearer vantage, or more angles, than Amazon does on the strategic choices that have expressly contributed to foiling that quest.

F ulfillment begins in a basement. Hector Torrez (a pseudonym) is an Amazon warehouse employee in Thornton, Colorado, who earns $15.60 an hour moving packages and boxes all night long. When the book opens, he has learnedfrom co-workers, not the companythat he has been exposed to the coronavirus on the job, and his wife has exiled him downstairs. From Torrezs basement, MacGillis travels to Seattle and Washington, D.C., where so much of Amazons wealth is concentrated, as well as to cities in Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania that have Amazon to blame, at least indirectly, for their historic decline in fortunes since the 90s.

In some of MacGilliss stories, the connection to Amazon is so tenuous as to be almost indiscernible; the characters problems seem to arise more from larger forces, such as globalization, gentrification, and the opioid crisis, than from any one corporations influence. A young man from small-town Ohioalienated by his experience in D.C., where he starts collegereturns home and enters Democratic politics. After scoring a local success, he runs for Congress, determined that the party not write off his opioid-ravaged, Trump-supporting region, but he fails to drum up more than a couple of union endorsements. A gospel singer who became a cultural force in Seattle during the 80s watches as her neighbors are pushed out of the citys historically Black Central District one by one.

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Amazon Has Transformed the Geography of Wealth and Power - The Atlantic

The pace of digitization is accelerating. The volume, velocity, and variety of data is exploding.

Customers, clients, partners, and programs are screaming for more data, faster. Central IT is under more pressure than ever, but our budgets are neutral, so we have to do more with less. At times, it can feel like were trapped in a perpetually spinning wheel with no destination.

But there is a way out:

The answer is the democratization of data through empowerment and advanced automation strategies. When secure, relevant data is readily available to all of our users, we can build a culture of data self-reliance, get more from our existing data resources, and promote innovation across an organization.

These are the ingredients of a new recipe for agile and responsive self-serve analytics.

A business user needs to have confidence in the data they are using. Implementation of solutions that automatically assess the health, relevance, and usefulness of the data and point out any problems, provide an easy way to remedy any trust issues.

Data preparation is a vital step that will ensure your data is accurate, of the required quality, and useful for specific situations including machine learning. For example, if a non-business user is combining data from two different sources and they are different formats, errors and analysis problems can arise.

Automated, intelligent self-serve analytics solutions recognize and fix issues, so the organizations data is useful for everyone involved in the environment.

Todays modern data lakes and complementary technologies for data integration and governance are also working to set users up for self-service success. They help empower business users to easily gain access and analyze data in a cloud data warehouse from either an on prem or a SaaS application.This is where a number of non-tech user focused data ingestion tools come in.Then, your next step is to get out of the way.

Lets explore possibilities

CIOs are responsible for satisfying the data demands of every department across the organization. Their customers don't want them to be a bottleneck just as much as CIOs don't want to be the bottleneck; they're just trying to solve problems.

Some of those problems require a lot of data analysis, but there are many narrower problems that only require a subset. It just doesnt make sense to treat every problem the same way.

Central IT is a necessary resource for questions that demand a lot of analysis. But its often delivering an overpowered solution for simpler problems with smaller, department-specific datasets. We need to do something different to accelerate the process a newer methodology to liberate our customers.

Most lines of business have somebody who is data literate. They're usually not technologists, but they have enough technical skill to build a complicated spreadsheet or run some basic SQL. Lets look at some modern solutions that can leverage the data-savviness of many of todays knowledge worker without all the IT over-engineering.

Nimble datasets: New data lake technology makes it possible to empower these users to get the data for themselves. They are already familiar with the business, and they understand the data. Users can provide a copy of a dataset so that they can help shape the data and improve its quality of the data by doing simple tasks.

These nimble datasets dont require a very high degree of technical skill or time. Most importantly, they don't need to bring a developer into the picture. With modern data lakes, the cost of liberating data is surprisingly low. You can give users a view of the data, instead of creating a full duplicate.

Best of all, users can still hide sensitive or personal information and expose only what is necessary, so you can comply with all the governance and policy rules. And when users create a copy in modern technologies, you don't consume a whole new infrastructure or double your data storage.

User-Friendly Data Catalogues: Another tactic is to provide a data catalog which provides an inventory of all the data that is available within a company. It essentially maintains all the metadata that describes the data and shows users that have access to the catalog what data is available, where and how to find it, and how to use it.In some cases, there are also some additional capabilities that allow users to put their own tags, ratings, etc. on a dataset to give further information on the relevance and usefulness of the dataset.

Data catalogs have traditionally been used by IT organizations.That said, as they are more and more being made available to non-IT business users, they also need to become more user friendly and easier to use by these non-tech users.

Rapid access to information changes the way we make decisions.

For example, say you wanted to add more headcount to your SMB segment. You dont have the data, but your gut tells you that this segment has potential. Suddenly you get an SMB segment report that tells you, Oh, by the way, the southeast quadrant is doing really well.

You would never have seen that if you didn't have the right breakdowns, but now you wont waste resources on a region where theres already a natural demand and can instead invest more heavily in the regions that need help. You may have spread headcount equally in all regions, rather than by demand, if you didn't have insight at this level of detail.

We make such decisions all the time, but we are not 100 percent data-driven by any means. As we receive more data, we become better and better at assessing it. Once you see the data clearly, you will find more opportunities. You always do.

The transition and transformation to user self-sufficiency is just beginning its a journey, as they say. There's plenty of opportunity for growth and innovation. Whats exciting about this evolution is that it does not preclude central IT from doing all the right things in the right way for the future.

CIOs can empower departments to take care of their business and still do everything they need to do for the long-term health of their data. The secret to success is to get away from central planner thinking. Central IT doesnt have to be the source of all innovations for your data. In fact, there are benefits to a more de-centralized approach.

For instance, when you so much data at the central level, you have to worry about every action. One wrong step can compromise the business by exposing the data to the wrong people.

But now, IT doesnt have to design and deploy everything. IT is now empowered to enforce policy throughout the process.

It works like this:

IT continues to own and configures the storage and the computing environments. Meanwhile, The team prescribes the framework for integrating new data in a way that everyone can follow. They establish policy and standardize tools every step of the way, from collection to storage, to wrangling, to analysis. With these methods and models in place for all the standard data processing, IT just has to deal with exceptions, not every request.

As humans, we have our failings, and by bringing more humans into the picture you could multiply the failings, as well. But with more people doing more things, any one mistake is more likely to be caught and less likely to be catastrophic. And when you work with data constantly, you get better at it.

By empowering our customers with self-service access to the data they need, we free up IT to think about higher-level, higher-order functions that provide so much value and facilitate data literacy. We can anticipate the next big thing and gain insight with an incredible amount of detail instead of reacting to the last one and, more importantly, help our customers anticipate.

This is the future. Our customers demand it, our performance requires it, and our success depends upon it. The time has come to wake up and solve the need.

As CTO at Talend, Krishna Tammana is responsible for scaling the companys product and engineering organizations. Previously, Krishna spent nearly a decade as VP of Engineering at Splunk where he led global engineering teams and cloud operations during the companys successful portfolio expansion and transition to the cloud.

See the article here:

Self-Service is the Future And It's Time To Embrace It - Integration Developers

1School of Health Sciences, University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia; 2Telethon Kids Institute, Centre for Child Health Research, The University of Western Australia, Nedlands, Western Australia, Australia; 3Institute for Health Research, University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia; 4Division of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Western Australia, Perth, Western Australia, Australia

Correspondence: Sharolin BobanSchool of Health Sciences, University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, Western Australia, AustraliaEmail 32009365@my.nd.edu.au

Purpose: By directly engaging with women diagnosed with ovarian cancer, this study aimed to explore and identify their view of the health symptoms and outcomes that matter most to them as they traverse their disease pathway.Background: Patient-reported outcome measures in ovarian cancer have tended to focus on physical symptoms rather than the more complex psychosocial aspects of living with the disease. Using a ground-up approach, this study sought to comprehensively understand the health concerns that matter most to women with ovarian cancer as a first step in generating items for development into an ovarian cancerspecific patient-reported outcome measure.Patients and Methods: Following an extensive literature review, we sought to capture the patient voice through a qualitative descriptive approach including a community conversation with ovarian cancer patients, their carers and clinicians, and interviews and focus groups with women with ovarian cancer. Thirteen women were interviewed individually, and two focus groups were conducted. A template thematic analysis was used to analyze the data.Results: Key themes included challenges related to clinical diagnosis, treatment phase, altered relationships with family/friends, financial issues, relationships with health professionals and coping strategies. Within each key theme, several sub-themes emerged that were identified as various challenges experienced by participants. Diagnostic delay, chemotherapy and surgery-related challenges, negative impact of sexual well-being on partner relationship, communicational challenges with health professionals were among the few issues identified. In addition, self-empowerment was identified as a coping mechanism among participants.Conclusion: By identifying priorities for women diagnosed with ovarian cancer we have highlighted the need for strategies to reduce diagnostic delays and improve quality of life for these women. Data will inform the development of an ovarian cancerspecific patient-reported outcome measure.

Keywords: focus groups, health-related quality of life, qualitative descriptive, patient-reported outcome measures, semi-structured interviews

Ovarian cancer (OC) affects women of all ages but is most commonly diagnosed after menopause. More than 75% of affected women are diagnosed at an advanced stage because early-stage disease is usually asymptomatic, and symptoms of late-stage disease are nonspecific. The strongest risk factors are advancing age and family history of ovarian and breast cancer.1 Currently there is no effective population-level screening test for OC.2,3 Treatment usually involves radical surgery and chemotherapy with subsequent lines of chemotherapy for disease recurrence.4 Treatments can impair health-related quality of life (HRQOL), a concept that pertains to general well-being or outcomes surrounding a specific disease.5,6

Over the previous two decades, patients have had increasing roles in providing information and participating in clinical decisions for managing their cancer. Structured patient provided information without clinician modification and/or interpretation is termed a patient-reported outcome measure (PROM).7 PROMs can be either generic tools such as the hospital anxiety and depression scale or disease-specific tools designed for specific groups of patients such as those with gynecologic cancers.8 Patient involvement has a profound impact on PROM development as it is only the patients who can determine item relevance and comprehensibility of the tool.9,10

Currently, four validated OC specific PROMs have been developed to measure HRQOL of the patients: The European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality of Life Questionnaire of Cancer Patients Ovarian Cancer module (EORTC QLQ-OV28), Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy Ovarian Cancer (FACT-O), FACT Ovarian Symptom Index (FOSI) and Measure of Ovarian Symptoms and Treatment Concerns (MOST).1113 However, these tools do not identify all aspects of HRQOL and differences exist in the level of patient involvement in the development of these PROMs, which is vital for PROM development.14

This study is affiliated with an overarching project, Patients First: Continuous Improvement in Care-Cancer (CIC Cancer), that aims to develop an OC PROM to measure HRQOL, through a ground-up approach that includes meaningful patient involvement. As an initial step, this phase of the study involved the collection and analysis of qualitative data to inform the subsequent generation of items necessary for the development of an ovarian cancerspecific HRQOL tool.

Based on an extensive literature review and assessment of the content of existing cancer PROMs, this study utilized a qualitative descriptive approach. A qualitative descriptive approach enables the researcher to obtain comprehensive details of personal events as experienced by individuals and is appropriate for health science researchers as it provides rich and descriptive information from the participants perspective.15 This study employed a community conversation for women with OC, their carers and a clinician (PAC) to shape the subsequent semi-structured interviews and focus groups.

Purposive sampling (non-probability) using a maximum variation sampling strategy was used to identify participants. Purposive sampling enables the researcher to intentionally select participants who have in-depth personal knowledge of the topic which will contribute to the study in alignment with the research aims.16 The participant inclusion criteria were women diagnosed with OC aged above 18 years, who were living in Western Australia and fluent in English. Carers of participants were also invited to participate in the study. Participants were recruited at various time-points from their diagnosis.17

Community conversation, interview and focus group participants were recruited through an advertisement distributed through the media and relevant agencies including Cancer Council Western Australia (CCWA) and Ovarian Cancer Australia (OCA). Interested participants were asked to contact the researcher(s) and/or CCWA & OCA directly. Thereafter, the participants were contacted by the researchers (CB, SB) who provided them with the choice to participate in either interviews or focus groups. Details of date and time along with venue for the community conversations, interviews and focus groups were sent out by e-mails to participants through both the CCWA member database and the OCA networks along with the CCWA regional support coordinator. The initial community conversation facilitated by a qualitative research expert (CB) was held with 15 women with OC (different to those who participated in the interview and focus groups), two consumer advocates, and a gynecologist with experience in gynecological oncology (PAC) to explore some of the key issues of personal importance to key stakeholder groups.

Ethics approval for this study was granted by the Human Research Ethics Committee at University of Notre Dame Australia (018158F) and conforms to Australian 2018 Update of the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research. The participant information sheet and consent form were provided to participants and the signed consent form was obtained from the participants prior to data collection. All participants provided consent for their de-identified data to be published. Guided by the literature review and the field notes during community conversation, similar question formats were formulated for both interviews and focus groups, Figure 1. In addition, our study processes complied with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Figure 1 Question format used during semi-structured telephone interviews and focus groups.

Along with the qualitative research expert, the student researcher (SB) independently conducted individual telephone interviews of approximately 30 minutes duration with 13 OC patients at their place of convenience. The research team (CB, SB) then conducted two focus groups in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia. A total of 13 participants attended one of the two focus groups, each lasting approximately 90 minutes, with participation of three carers in the second focus group. Participants varied in their age. Most participants were employed and were married/defacto. Four participants were over 5 years since diagnosis, but one participant had received a diagnosis less than 6 months at the time of the interview. Disease status of the participants at the time of the interview was obtained. Six participants were undergoing active treatment, with a completion of at least two full cycles of chemotherapy. The remaining participants confirmed that they were in remission or awaiting treatment. The number of cases of OC in Western Australia is small compared to some other cancers (eg breast, prostate) and it was important to recruit as many women with OC across the disease trajectory as possible. Thus, the focus of this study was the importance of the different experiences of the participants.

Data saturation was achieved, and collected data were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim by the student researcher (SB). Template thematic analysis was performed which included open and axial coding using the qualitative data management program, QSR NVivo (version 12), Figure 2.18 Template analysis is defined as a method for identifying, analysing19 and reporting themes in the data based on the task question format. It enables the researcher to identify emerging themes in understanding a phenomenon or event.20,21 Key themes identified were categorized as core themes and further emerging themes then became the categorical sub-themes for analysis.

Figure 2 Stages of qualitative analysis process: an illustration.

Member checking also included sending the summary of coding and themes back to four participants who had indicated that they were willing to receive this summary via the CCWA and OCA support group coordinators.

Six key themes emerged regarding various aspects of illness and treatment experiences described by the women and their carers (Figure 3). Within each key theme, several sub-themes and relative sub-themes emerged that were identified as various challenges experienced by participants as detailed below.

Figure 3 Representation of key themes emerged from interviews and focus groups.

Four factors were identified in relation to the symptomatic presentation pertaining to the disease and are shown in Table 1. Participants experienced pre-diagnostic symptoms including abdominal/bowel discomfort and pain, urinary urgency, fatigue, weight gain, abnormal menstrual bleeding and/or menopausal symptoms. Lack of awareness of disease symptoms by both patients and health professionals (HPs) was a related issue. Due to work and family commitments, several participants intentionally ignored their symptoms. In further, majority of the participants expressed diagnostic delay as another challenge faced during their clinical diagnosis phase.

Table 1 Percentage of Participants with Symptoms and Presentation

Challenges related to receiving treatments were highlighted with at least half of the participants feeling vulnerable at times since receiving their diagnosis. Most of the participants were challenged by side-effects. Fatigue, nausea, neuropathy, memory loss and loss of appetite were the most common side-effects identified, with less common side-effects such as mucositis and organ failure also described. Support of family and friends provided strength for the majority of the participants. Some women indicated having to modify their usual diet, lifestyle and physical activity during treatment. Activities such as meditation, cycling, gardening and yoga helped them cope during and after treatment. However, some participants also mentioned how empowering themselves during treatment was vital. Maintaining and having a relaxed mind, a positive attitude and a sense of humor were practiced by a few, despite the situations they were facing at that time.

Another participant spoke of how she had lost the chance of experiencing motherhood. Rurally located participants faced further travel challenges of time and distance. And furthermore, two participants highlighted the issues around having lack of treatment options while travelling, either it be a rural destination or an interstate travel.

Other key themes related to living with a diagnosis of OC across the disease trajectory.

All participants agreed that relationships with their family and friends influenced their lives. Some participants spoke of experiencing lack of support with unpredictable reactions and withdrawal of family and/or friends. Other participants spoke of being avoided and noticed that people around them react differently which then created emotional reactions such as upset and insecurity. Furthermore, sexual relations and a changed level of intimacy with a partner/spouse were identified as an important subtheme in their lives. Many participants described how a lack of intimacy had put pressure on their partner/spouse relationship and affected their emotional well-being. A few participants described their sexual relationship as non-existent and that a counsellor had been consulted.

Most of the participants agreed and acknowledged having support from family and/or friends had a profound impact on their lives. A positive relationship with close family boosted their journey particularly following the diagnosis and during treatment. Participants described drawing strength and emotional support, and an increased interpersonal relationship bond with family and friends.

Almost all participants reported having financial issues such as out-of-pocket expenses for scans, surgery and other practical issues including hospital parking and medication costs. Several participants reported lack of information about accessing health services. Some mentioned the financial toxicity associated with their illness and that they lacked knowledge of how to access support services such as paying the bills without going into debt and having to access their superannuation funds for urgent and necessary expenses.

I guess it was not even initially when I wasnt told about certain things I could access like my super. I had to find out I think two years down the track or something. So it wasnt, nobody even gave me that sort of information.

Some participants had to stop work during treatment and others had to reduce their workload to cope with the challenges and issues faced during their clinical journey.

Participants spoke of their relationships and experiences with their respective HPs. In general, most participants acknowledged having a positive relation with HPs including general practitioners (GPs), gynecological oncology and medical oncology providers in terms of the support and medical treatment provided to them. The advice received by the oncology team was described by one participant as absolutely phenomenal (they) answered any questions with patience and understanding.

Meanwhile, some participants spoke of a perceived negative relationship with their HPs. Overall, many participants felt there were communication gaps in the healthcare system, particularly during treatment, and participants experienced various forms of communication challenges either with or between oncologists and GPs and specialist departments.

Because of my complex medical problem, Ive been out for a few months affected by surgery and by several treatments. So, I found that (hospitals) communication between the different departments just wasnt there.

Furthermore, issues around clinician lack of empathy and compassion, and providing inconsistent information about prognosis negatively impacted the emotional well-being of many participants. A majority had a less than satisfactory relationship with GPs. Half of the participants described the excessive length of time for their symptoms to be investigated leading to a delay in their diagnosis. Some perceived being ignored or that GPs were pretty dismissive about their symptoms thinking they were due to a urinary tract infection or perimenopause and no further action was taken. Furthermore, participants mentioned having difficulties requesting tests such as ultrasound scans and pressed for these.

Insufficient provision of information was one of the key issues in relation to treatment and participants complained that oncologists, did not fully explain the side effects of the prescribed medications. Some participants also reported a lack of involvement in decisions about their treatment and not being provided with treatment options including at disease recurrence.

Participants were asked to share their experiences on how they coped with difficult situations through their clinical journey. They described support from family and friends, lifestyle and physical activity assisted them to cope with difficult situations and kept them moving forward. Walking, listening to music, meditation, nutrition and crafts were some examples. Two participants mentioned how making time for themselves was important for both their mind and body. Several participants sought help from support group organisations through which telephone support services, information booklets and complementary services such as yoga were provided.

Some participants emphasized that taking control of their own lives was their one main strength. Identified factors were being able to look forward, having an attitude of not giving up and learning how to stick up for oneself. Participants expressed that by being independent and knowing their innermost selves provided them motivation and strength throughout their lives. In addition, providing self-encouragement through positive attitude and feeling gratitude helped them.

I do need and want to practice gratitude every day. I am grateful for what Ive got. And Im much more in tune with the little things in life.

Further to this, having a strong spiritual belief system helped to calm them and became a source of comfort explicitly during chemotherapy. In addition, having spiritual belief helped not only the participants but also their families to gain strength in order to cope with difficult situations.

In this study women with OC were able to express their own voices based on their individual experiences. Therefore, the six themes identified describe both HRQOL and contextual themes. Post diagnosis and treatment-related issues, relationships and supports with family and friends, financial issues, relationships with healthcare providers and self-perceived coping strategies were the key themes identified. Each theme had a number of overlapping sub-themes that were identified as priorities for the women. In particular, challenges related to relationships, financial issues, relationships with health-care providers and coping strategies were experienced during and after diagnosis and treatment.

Diagnostic delay was a key concern and our data suggested that lack of early symptom awareness due to insufficient OC knowledge and symptom recognition by participants and HPs contributed to the delay. This is consistent with studies that have low levels of OC symptom awareness are associated with delayed diagnosis.2224 While, lack of cancer detection and inexpedient referral patterns influenced incorrect diagnosis by the physicians,25 and greater public education to increase knowledge of disease symptoms could be helpful.26,27

Most participants received a combination of surgery and chemotherapy. Treatments adversely affected physical well-being with prevalent symptoms such as fatigue, nausea and neuropathy. Research is now focusing on symptom management interventions guided by the implementation of PROMs into clinical settings and trials.5,28,29 Several surgery-related outcomes including change in body image, premature and sudden onset of menopause, and loss of reproductive function may affect psychological well-being.30 The possible loss of fertility during treatment with cancer can be more distressing than cancer itself, according to recent reports where efforts to maintain fertility through techniques such as fertility-sparing surgery are essential in younger women diagnosed with gynecological cancers as they could lead to an improvement in quality of life.31 Another recent study indicated high levels of psychological distress when diagnosed women reach childbearing age as menstrual function and fertility were lost. It is therefore important to monitor the progression of cancer but should also provide appropriate fertility preservation counselling. This has potential to alleviate stress, anxiety and depression and a smaller negative effect on the quality of life.32 Consistent with our findings, a past study showed that those who underwent surgery have experienced psychological distress such as lack of self-esteem, self-worth and loss of femininity.33,34

Survivorship is important in cancer care and recent improvements in treatment have resulted in an increased number of survivors.35 However, our findings highlighted the need for patient-centered care. Patient involvement is vital in clinical care, where a recent study pointed to the significance of patientclinician communication. This communication style provides patients with the platform to raise and discuss issues with clinicians thereby shaping subsequent clinical care processes and outcomes.36

One of the contextual themes of HRQOL identified was perceived lack of provision of adequate information and services. Studies show that educating and communicating patients and their families regarding treatment options and their underlying side-effects will prepare patients to realize the likely outcome of treatment and will assist them in facing upcoming challenges.30,37 Inadequate services such as counselling were identified. Studies show that psychological and other supports are essential in these womens lives, focusing on psychological well-being as well as counselling related to financial and nutritional needs.30,38

Further, our findings illustrated some communication gaps between the women and their health-care providers. Research shows that engagement of patients with their health-care team strengthens and increases the provision of patient-centered care and thus potentially aids cancer control.39 A 2013 study described that patientclinician communication may assist adherence and agreement to treatment, where, for example, two-way communication on treatment-based symptoms could aid in symptom management.40 A recent study that focused on the sexual function of women diagnosed with OC reported that not only was there a communication gap between patient and clinicians, the clinicians expected patients to have disease-related sexual problems and waited until patients spoke about their concerns.41 Improving survival, functional recovery and quality of life while minimizing long-term side-effects are key priorities in cancer care.

Social well-being is consistent with the concept of HRQOL. The importance of being supported by family and friends, especially partners/spouses, was a critical factor for well-being. Some participants experienced changes in their relationships. Time spent with family was reduced due to treatment demands and withdrawal of loved ones from them. Previous studies have reported that women have felt displeasure from their friends and were unwilling to discuss about the disease.37

Overall, participants experienced highly compromised HRQOL, around the time of diagnosis and during treatment. There is an urgent need to develop new strategies for early detection and screening,3 as diagnostic delay was associated with psychological distress such as anxiety, fear of death, parental stress and uncertainty in the current study and has also been previously reported.37 Additionally, participants experienced challenge in obtaining appropriate information to access and benefit from the healthcare system post diagnosis. Multiple studies have found that unreliable provision of knowledge and information is a driver of poor medical care in many high-income countries, including Australia.42 Involvement of patients in decision-making and public engagement could improve the evidence-based value of their health care43

Emotional domain is another aspect of HRQOL. Emotional distress was experienced particularly during treatment phase. Fear of recurrence was a source of emotional distress. Previous studies related to gynecological and OC research show that women have fear of disease recurrence during the treatment and post-treatment phases and that these fears are poorly understood.44,45 Frustration was also of concern with almost all women frustrated due to their treatment side-effects and symptoms. A 2020 qualitative study that investigated the life experiences of women diagnosed with OC found similar results on how women fall into frustration following treatment completion.46

Understanding and measuring HRQOL outcomes related to the sexual well-being of women diagnosed with OC is vital. Half of the participants had poorer sexual function impacting their overall health and well-being. Changes to body image, sudden onset of menopause, infertility and lack of intimacy were identified and negatively impact emotional well-being with a sense of losing feminine identity. It has also been found that difficulties with body image and lack of intimacy are associated with impaired quality of life.41

Not only do individuals diagnosed with cancer have detrimental impacts on their sexual functioning, it often influences their partners. Studies suggest that cancer partners may suffer equal or even higher levels of distress relative to their sick spouses. Partners of cancer survivors do not often have the resources to offer sufficient care to their female partners.47 Findings from a 2009 study indicate that the sexual perceptions of the partners were influenced by loss of interest in the individual with cancer and tension and fatigue correlated with care tasks. Carers agreed that reduced happiness with the partnership could be followed by poorer quality of life as well as higher levels of anxiety and depression.48

Financial aspects were described, and this influenced participant wellbeing. Due to the amount of time required to spend in treatments, some participants had lost their income stability either due to change to their employment status or being unable to continue in the workforce, impairing their emotional well-being and overall HRQOL.49 Some issues might appear to be more minor, such as related to the lack of car parking availability at respective clinical settings, but when needed on multiple occasions, this was a more major concern. Studies in women with OC found that disease and treatment-related burdens create several issues including social and financial effects on their lives.38,50

Participants also described current strategies they used in daily life. Participants utilized numerous coping strategies such as modified diet and lifestyle, which could be considered as a contextual factor that could influence HRQOL. Family and friend support was another major help sought by these women, which in turn helped improve and maintain their quality of life.51 Self-empowerment techniques such as ability to look to the future, having positive attitude and sense of humor were a few techniques employed by the participants. Recent studies also show similar coping strategies used by women and how changed views and adding humor to their personal experiences was a means of self-healing.52,53 Overall, the participants were able to maintain their HRQOL and continue a modified normal life with the implementation of various strategies and self-management techniques into their lives.54

There are approximately 115 new diagnoses of OC per year in Western Australia,55 potentially compromising data collection using a small sample size. However, maximum variability and data saturation were achieved using small sample size56 and thus should not be considered as a limitation but a strength. While the study sought to explore patient outcomes across the clinical trajectory, participants might not have accurately recalled their perspectives, constituting another limitation.

Moreover, rich and descriptive data were obtained using the qualitative methods,57 where intentionality of the participants and their carers were explored. In addition, utilizing a qualitative approach has enabled a holistic understanding of patients and carers lived experiences. The bottom-up approach of involving patients from commencement and throughout the study will ensure that going forward, priorities are clearly identified by the consumers (women with OC themselves) in consultation with clinicians. We envisage that the proposed OC specific PROM to be developed in a future study would be used in clinical settings to identify and measure specific problems that patients encounter that needed to be discussed.

By identifying key priorities for women with OC using a ground-up community-based approach, we have highlighted the need for strategies to reduce diagnostic delays, assist patients in navigating the healthcare system, and improve their HRQOL and potentially develop a OC specific PROM that will enable better identification and earlier treatment of symptoms during the entire course of the disease.

CCWA, Cancer Council Western Australia; CIC Cancer Project, Continuous Improvement in Care-Cancer Project; GPs, general practitioners; HPs, health professionals; HRQOL, health-related quality of life; OC, ovarian cancer; OCA, Ovarian Cancer Australia; PROMs, patient-reported outcome measures.

We are thankful for the generous involvement of participants, and their carers for sharing their experiences with us.

All authors made significant contributions to the study conception and design, execution, performance of the research, data acquisition, analysis and interpretation of data, took part in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content; agreed to submit to the current journal; gave final approval of the version to be published; and agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work.

This work was carried out with the support of a Grant provided by the Cancer Research Trust and is part of the CIC Cancer Project, a multi-institutional program of research that seeks to bring value-based health care public and private health-care settings in Western Australia.

Paul Cohen reports personal fees from Seqirus, outside the submitted work. The authors report no other potential conflicts of interest in this work.

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[Full text] Women Diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer: Patient and Carer Experiences and | PROM - Dove Medical Press

In his new book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Bill Gates argues that there are really only two data points that matter when it comes to tackling humankinds existential challenge: 51 billion and zero. The first is the number of tonnes of greenhouse gases that are typically added to the atmosphere every year. The second is the number we need to arrive at to avoid catastrophe.

While acknowledging that the challenge is daunting, and how we make things, grow things, move around, keep cool and stay warm will all need to fundamentally change, Gates argues that wholesale transformation is possible while maintaining lifestyles in high income countries and continuing to lift billions out of poverty. And he has a plan.

He employs the concept of the green premium. Carbon remains cheaper as a source of energy because its negative impacts or externalities arent priced in. Governments subsidise fossil fuels because they are reliable and proven. The green premium is the additional cost of using a green alternative. In some instances such as producing electricity using wind turbines or solar energy it can be zero, depending on the country. In other sectors, such as concrete, fertiliser or steel production, its enough to deter the use of clean alternatives. While wealthy countries might be able to pay a premium for these zero carbon options, that isnt currently possible for some fast-growing nations in Asia, Africa and South America. The green premium needs to be so low as to make sense to switch.

Sat at a large conference table wearing a blue pullover, Gates spoke with WIRED in December 2020 from his office overlooking Lake Washington in Seattle. He outlined how a number of different technological breakthroughs, large-scale investment in infrastructure, patient capital, government policy and individual action can have an impact, and provides a roadmap to getting to zero carbon emissions by 2050.

Zero is important: just reducing the carbon were putting into the atmosphere, simply extends the extremely limited amount of time humankind has until we hit planetary boundaries. Currently, the concentration of carbon dioxide in Earths atmosphere is around 414.68 parts per million (ppm) there is consensus that, once the level reaches 450ppm it will raise the global temperature above 2 degrees Celsius, triggering extreme weather events and irreversible, catastrophic change. While some advocates of change suggest that the target should be 2030, Gates believes thats unrealistic carbon is too deeply woven into the fabric of everything we do and could provide a distraction to the more significant goal of zero emissions by 2050.

WIRED: Why this book and why now?

Bill Gates: I did a TED Talk in 2010 on climate and five years later there was the Paris climate talks, and Id been saying: Hey, how come when they have these meetings, they never talk about R&D? They never talked about innovation, and if you looked at the energy R&D budgets of the rich countries they hadnt increased at all.

So everybody's getting together and talking about the short-term reductions, but the only areas you can make short-term reductions are electric cars and using solar and wind for electricity generation. That's less than 30 per cent of the game 70 per cent is steel, cement, aviation, land use... People arent doing anything about those. If you want to get to a goal, you should start working on the hard things, not just on the easy things. I'm not saying the easy things are easy, they're just relatively easy.

These nationally determined metrics the short-term reductions don't really tell the story. I'm not saying they should go away, those are good things, but what is the true metric of by 2050 can you get to zero?

The resonance of the topic [climate change] is very high now, despite the pandemic, which is impressive. But if we don't have a plan to go with that positive energy it's going to be very sad. You're going to get attenuation: people will almost be cynical that we didn't really get going on the 70 per cent that's the hardest.

So that's why I wrote the book, to suggest that the green premium is a metric that when you call up India in 2050 and say, Hey, when you're building new buildings, use this cement, use this steel will determine whether they tell you get lost, or OK, we'll pay a slight premium. If youve innovated enough and the green premium is zero, they'll say, Of course.

Some green premiums for electricity, for instance are within reach. Others will involve huge amounts of R&D and investment. How do you think about that?

The brute force way to solve climate change is to figure out how to do direct air capture, get the cost per tonne down and then just write the cheque. Unfortunately, if you call up Climeworks [the Swiss company that filters CO2 from the air], its list price is $600 (435) a tonne, and they have some government subsidies. So, even if you dream that you can get to $100 (72) a tonne, youve got 51 billion tonnes of emissions, so that's a $5 trillion (3.6 trillion) a year price tag to brute force climate change.

Only by going into the individual areas and changing the way that, say, you make cement, or the way you power cars to be electric, do you get something that's under $100 a tonne. Electric cars are the magic one as battery volumes go up, charging stations get out there and battery energy density increases to the point that range and charging speed isn't that much worse [than combustion engines]. Eventually you can say the green premium for passenger cars ten years from now will be about zero.

Vaccines typically take a decade or more to produce Covid-19 proved we can accelerate that process, but it took a pandemic to show us whats possible. How can we communicate the urgency of the climate emergency?

There is an analogy to the pandemic which is that citizens depend on their governments to understand natural disasters, meteors, climate change and respiratory viruses. These problems are way too complex individuals aren't going to study climate models. For the pandemic, the risk was there and the idea of how you orchestrate a testing capacity and make a vaccine should have been there.

After Ebola in 2015 there were a few things done such as the creation of CEPI [The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations] along with Wellcome in the UK, ourselves [the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation] and 12 governments. And we've been funding mRNA stuff (mRNA medicines instruct cells in the body to make proteins to fight diseases) for a long time. But, governments have to take complex problems and essentially think through what you have to do. Unfortunately, when it comes to the climate, it's not like there's any vaccine-like thing, where theres a solution and six months from now things are going to feel utterly different.

With climate, when you have to replace every steel plant, every cement plant, take the electric grid and make it two and a half times bigger with intermittent sources this is the entire physical economy. The physical economy is a miracle. Its taken us since the Industrial Revolution to figure out how to make this stuff so cheap and so reliable that we all just take it for granted. Most people flip that light switch and the miracle of innovation that allows their lights to turn on 99.99 per cent of the time, they have no idea. It's so cost-optimised, but now that we have this constraint on it: how quickly can you switch all that around?

So climate is like a pandemic in that governments need to work on behalf of their citizens and anticipate what will happen in the future, but it's way harder than making a vaccine. If the pandemic had come 20 years ago, we wouldn't have been able to make that vaccine. If it came 10 years from now, with mRNA we'll be able to make it faster, we'll be able to scale up more of those vaccines at a cost of $1 (72p) each. We caught mRNA halfway in its maturity cycle, we hadnt made a single vaccine. CureVac is developing mRNA-based vaccines designed to prevent malaria infection. Moderna is focused on HIV and other diseases.

In order to get to net zero by 2050, we have to innovate at an unprecedented pace. How do we best address that challenge?

We need to up the supply side of innovation and the demand side for innovation. The supply side has got many components, it's got your basic energy R&D budget where you just have a bunch of professors or national labs messing around with different ideas, and that's pre-commercial research. In the US, more than half the federal money spent on biomedical research comes from the $43 billion (31 billion) a year National Institutes of Health (NIH) budget. Weirdly these energy R&D budgets haven't had the examination they deserve when it comes to climate events.

Then venture capital has to be willing to take huge risks, and be very patient and orchestrate way more capital than you need for software, microchips or for medicine. Thats because these are big plants and you have to replace a lot, you have to scale these things up so you need to work on the supply side and innovation.

On the demand side, you could put on a big carbon tax but politically its difficult such as when they increased the price of diesel in France even though economists say that it would be good. In most countries well probably end up with a sector-by-sector approach where we say that, for instance, every building has to have five per cent clean cement, or maybe the highly profitable tech or finance companies pay a premium for buildings.

Everybody mistakenly thinks the learning curve means that you make something, and then it gets cheaper than you expected. That is true for wind, solar and lithium ion batteries, the learning curves have been phenomenal. But how do you bootstrap the clean aviation fuel learning curve, or clean steel?

There's a lot of talk that the recovery funds in Europe will get focused on things such as clean hydrogen. But we really need a mechanism to find who in the world has the best ideas about clean steel or clean cement. And the green premium is the metric.

You had an ambitious aim when you started Microsoft a computer in every home. What lessons did building and scaling a company with that impact have that can be applied to getting to net zero?

I'm amazed at what a nice business software is you get feedback from your customers and you add features. And I was optimistic: I would invest in things that would take ten years to get done. I tried multiple approaches, so we often had teams that might develop a database in two different ways to see which would succeed. I had to anticipate advances in hardware [that would impact] our software. We spent a lot of R&D money, but we had enough products that were always fairly profitable.

I had a broader view that we were going to develop many types of software most of our competitors were single-product companies, and we saw ourselves as a software factory independent of word processing or spreadsheets or operating systems. We had a more crazy view that we were going to do every type of software in one company and we had this vision of personal empowerment through software.

We were able to create this research group Google is the only other company to put money into fundamental research. Because, at first, we all just benefited from what the universities or even Xerox PARC had done that they failed to exploit. We hired specific people from Xerox PARC that helped us with graphics interface, networking and other things, and we almost felt guilty that we needed to get back to this pool of intellect.

Some policymakers and leaders are aiming at 2030, but youre fully focussed on 2050. Why that time frame?

In 2050 I'll be 95 years old and I will be super happy if I live to see the day that we're anywhere near zero. This is very, very hard, as it requires all countries to get involved. And so the 2050 date was picked as the best case because a lot of things have to work. But if you innovate for ten years, deploy for 20 years, and you create the right incentives through government policy, you can get to zero by 2050. You have to get going now on the hard stuff and you have to admit: do we have even a clue how we're going to do the hard stuff and find the craziest thinkers?

I'm not smart enough to know all the different ways you might replace cement or steel. You better be searching the entire IQ of humanity globally to find that person or find ten of them and hope that, even if nine are wrong, one will get you there.

I don't know if that will happen by 2050. If we take the idealism and energy the younger generation has created around this and we make it a priority Biden has it right up there with the pandemic, European recovery funds have it very high then, yes it's doable.

Getting to net zero by 2050 is not going to be easy. So anybody who says, Oh, let's just get it done in 10 years, I want them to go tour all the Chinese steel and cement plants and tell me what I'm going to see there ten years from now.

The digital economy has fooled us in terms of how quickly things can change, because you don't need the reliability and scale, and therefore the capital and the regulations. With software, if it has mistakes its not good, but it evolves quickly.

Institutions deploying capital banks and pension funds are going to be crucial in this process. There's a lot of rhetoric at the moment with businesses claiming to be purpose-driven. How can we best measure the actions large investment funds are making, and keep big organisations honest about their actions?

Most of thats all bullshit. The return on a bond for a wind farm is no different than the return on a bond from a natural gas plant, so it's nonsense. The people who put money into Breakthrough Energy Ventures [the venture arm of Gates organisation Breakthrough Energy thats working towards net zero], that's real. The governments that raise their energy R&D budget and manage to spend it well, the near-billion dollars put into TerraPower [Gates nuclear company] to see if this fourth-generation fission reactor can be part of the solution... Those things are real.

All this other stuff like, we're gonna make companies report their emissions. The idea that some financial metric reporting thing or some degree of divestment how many tonnes? Youve got 51 billion tonnes [of CO2 that needs to be removed]: when you divested, how many of those 51 billion tonnes went away?

Youve got to invest not divest. And the notion that you just happen to own equities or bonds related to the easy things that are already economic, such as solar farms or wind farms... Whenever somebody says there's something called green finance, I say let's be numeric here: is the risk premium for clean investing lower than the risk premium for non-green investing? The answer is: just look at the numbers.

The idea that banks are going to solve this problem or that these metrics are going to solve this problem, I don't get that. Are they going to make the electricity network reliable? Are they gonna come up with sustainable aviation fuel? It's just disconnected from the problem and allows people to go off and blather as though something's happening.

The last couple of weeks have seen the Covid-19 vaccine roll-out begin. Do you think that will increase trust in science, which will impact the urgency to act on the climate crisis?

Whenever you do innovation like social networks, at first you're not sure what phenomenon will emerge out of that. I do think the pandemic has helped social networks realise that the First Amendment is nice, but allowing lots of vaccine misinformation is not good for society.

Drawing the line between the crazy all vaccines are bad, everybody will get autism versus legitimate [commentary] on people who have allergic reactions is very hard. At first the [social networks] thought we will just let the craziness flow, but the fact that the wrong stuff is so titillating draws people in.

We hope that this process has accelerated some maturing of the social networks so that the things that get a lot of attention and are really wrong, that these are greatly reduced or put alongside the truth. I don't know if that will happen, but I have seen it including conspiracy theories that relate to me they're doing a better job of saying, OK, we don't want ten million people to see that today because it doesn't serve their interests or society's interests.

People are more educated today than ever and somehow we've gotten to this point where climate change has become political, mask wearing has become political.

For some types of innovation this has been a period where the normal rules don't apply. The idea of 100 companies all working on one disease is insane, because five or six of these vaccines at most, will end up getting used. So you've got 94 companies efforts that are completely redundant, particularly now.

We still need Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Novavax, because those [vaccines] are more scalable, cheaper and more thermally stable. But, once we get those five [including Pfizer and Moderna] then we probably don't need any more, because fortunately it turned out it was easier to make a vaccine for this disease than we might have guessed: the first that are proven are working very well.

Science has become politicised in the past few years. We're seeing a transition between administrations in the US, do you think that's going to impact policy as relates to getting to net zero?

In the Democratic primaries people were talking about trillions of dollars being spent against climate. Well there's two problems with that: a) that money will never be allocated and b) spending that scale of money doesn't really connect to the problem, its more about creating jobs [by doing things such as] insulating homes.But those homes should use electric heat pumps, and you should get electricity to zero. You must have people who are in the centre and saying, yes, this is a good goal, but how do you realistically achieve that, and at the minimal price for doing so? You want debate about that, and market-based pricing actually allows a lot of resource choices to be made in a very efficient way. That's why, if you could have a properly done carbon tax, it would be a nice thing, but that's not going to happen in most countries.

So, yes the Biden election is fantastic. He's got climate as one of his top priorities along with the pandemic, he's picked people that know this topic and he's put them not just in specific roles like the Department of Energy, but even people such as Brian Deese to head the National Economic Council. He was the [Obama] White House climate person, and I got to know him when we were doing the Paris climate stuff.

You acknowledge early in the book that youre an imperfect messenger a rich, white guy some people will accuse of having a god complex. How do you communicate the idea that forget Bill Gates in all this its a problem that all of us have to fix?

The fact that we need better metrics in this field surprises me. It's a field with a lot of positive energy but without a plan. And so you have to work backwards from zero. If there was some book that had already explained all this, I wouldn't have written it. I can write books about malaria and HIV and diarrhoea. Now, maybe not as many people would read those, but that global health work we do is truly neglected. You can save millions of lives. And it's hard stuff we don't have an HIV cure yet, but we're trying to use gene therapy and make that super cheap so there's plenty of interesting work for the Gates Foundation, such as improving agriculture with new types of seeds, and even improving photosynthesis.

This field [climate] as I learned about it, the framing wasn't quite right. I actually resisted the idea that I should choose to speak out. Instead I thought, I'll just do a little bit, like that 2010 TED Talk that I did. And then this field, because people care so much about it, would then mature in terms of its metrics and working on the hard things. When we were talking about the 2015 Paris talks, it makes no sense why am I at it, saying there should be an R&D section?

So, I'd say it's strange that the background I have of systems thinking to drive innovation brings a slightly richer perspective. OK, not everybody reads Vaclav Smil, not everybody is that numeric. People read articles saying, this is the equivalent of 20,000 houses or, you know, 50,000 cars, and they don't call up the publications involved and say, why are you spewing these completely confusing metrics?

I have this effort to create an open-source model of electricity demand generation that includes weather models, so the countries that have made really aggressive commitments about renewable use can see that their grid is going to start being reliable. Now that the utilities are being told, Oh, you have to sign up to these things, you need an open-source model that really shows, do you have enough transmission, storage or non-intermittent sources like nuclear fission or fusion?

The fact that Im running an open-source model to test whether these aggressive goals are achievable, it blows the mind why am I funding this model for these electric grids, which is the most obvious thing to do when you look at climate change?

If you had to bet on a single breakthrough happening in the next decade that really was a game changer, what do you think it would be?

Well, part of the point of the book is that [we cant rely on a] single breakthrough, we need artificial meat, we need lithium... But I would say, if you can get super-cheap green hydrogen, it sits in terms of the industrial economy at the peak. So, if you pencil in ridiculously low-cost hydrogen, then I can tell you how to make clean fertiliser and clean steel, and even clean aviation fuel.

We have to be careful: some scientific miracles like a storage one may never occur. Some people are now talking about super-clean hydrogen. They don't get how hard it is, and there's a good chance it will never be possible to make cheap, green hydrogen.

In this space we need about ten breakthroughs before you can really see a path to 2050, but clean hydrogen is higher than most people would expect. And storage miracles, and either fission or fusion. The book is supposed to make you think it's not like the pandemic vaccine, though.

Are you optimistic that we can get to net zero by 2050?

Absolutely. But thats just my personal bias I'm an optimistic person. I lived through the digital revolution, where every dream we ever had about computing came true. So, I don't have proof, but yes I am optimistic.

Greg Williams is the Editor of WIRED. This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.

How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need by Bill Gates is published by Allen Lane on February 16.

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Theres an important question that may get too little attention in the world of disability services, activism, and culture. If we really care about people with disabilities and disability issues, we should all do better than just tossing pocket change in every fundraising bucket we see, or signing up for every walkathon a coworkers kid puts in front of us. But how do we choose which disability-related causes and organizations to support?

Some criteria are the same for any kind of charity or organization seeking voluntary support. Look for sound, transparent finances and accounting practices. Make sure they use funds to further an important mission rather than simply enriching top executives. Support organizations that give regular, readable reports of services provided, advocacy accomplishments, and goals achieved. Look for strong oversight by a genuinely representative Board of Directors or similar governing entity.

These are basic tips for choosing any charity or cause, for donations or for volunteering. But what other qualities should we look for specifically in disability organizations? Here are some criteria and questions to ask, and why they are important:

Organization Type and Scope

This is the most traditional and well-known type of disability organization. Their goals are mainly to fund medical research into treatments and cures for specific disabling conditions, and in some cases to help provide some of those treatments to people with those conditions.

The closest thing to an original is the March of Dimes, started by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938 to find a cure for polio. But the model continues, with some modernizing alterations, in the March of Dimes itself and in other legacy organizations like the Multiple Sclerosis Society, Muscular Dystrophy Association, United Cerebral Palsy Association, and the Alzheimers Association. Notably, many of these organizations are better known to the general public for their fundraising events, and less for the work they do.

Most disability organizations provide at least some personal and material assistance directly to disabled people and their families. For some, direct service is the main focus. Services can include funding for adaptive equipment, paying for certain high-cost medical procedures, or enriching experiences like support groups and summer camps. In local chapters and offices, direct services may also include one-on-one information, counseling, and advocacy assistance to address disabled peoples everyday needs, concerns, and barriers.

Two examples of agencies that provide direct services are The Arc, which encompasses hundreds of local chapters that serve people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and Centers for Independent Living, a nationwide network of local not-for-profit organizations which are governed and staffed mainly by disabled people and serve people with a wide variety of disabilities.

Direct advocacy for individuals facing disability discrimination and other barriers is a type of direct service. But it is also inseparable from activism, in which disability organizations, more loosely organized groups, and individual advocates fight for permanent changes in practices, policies, and laws to make life better, more accessible, and more just for all disabled people.

Some organizations, like the American Association of People with Disabilities and ADAPT focus mainly or exclusively on advocacy, while others like Centers for Independent Living, the National Federation for the Blind, and the Paralyzed Veterans of America combine advocacy and activism with direct practical services.

Some people prefer to focus on people with a particular kind of disability. It might a very specific condition, like Down Syndrome, or a somewhat broader category of disability, like intellectual and developmental disabilities, mental illness, or mobility impairment and wheelchair users. Another approach is to support organizations and coalitions that try to serve and advocate for people with the widest variety of disabilities, on issues and barriers common to all or most people with any kind of disability.

Which approach you choose, or what exact balance you choose between the two, can have a lot to do with how you view disability itself. Some people think of disability in terms of very specific medical conditions or types of impairment. Others see disability as more of a social experience and a political challenge. Some feel that only people with their type of disability can understand them, while others believe that even people with vastly different disabilities share enough common experiences to make collaboration and unity sensible.

Mission and Messaging

Help the disabled isnt much of a distinct mission. Look for more specific goals and indications of the groups philosophy and point of view on disability matters. And if its mission sounds a lot like that of a dozen other similar organizations, think about whether a new entity doing the same thing is really necessary.

Its not always obvious on the surface. Most organizations more complex than an informal social club operate to some extent as businesses. They bring in money, spend it on salaries, supplies, equipment, and maybe rent, and keep account of their finances so they can report to the government and the public. But some sell products and services, primarily to make money for operators or investors, while others raise or make money in order to continue providing a service or pursuing a mission for the public good. You can choose to support both not-for-profit disability organizations and businesses that have a disability angle. Either can be beneficial. But how you judge and support a not-for-profit charity will probably be different from how you assess and patronize a for-profit business.

This is one of the most important and difficult things to assess, because there are few hard and fast rules. However, most disabled people, and others well-attuned to disability culture, will recognize right away the difference between empowerment and pity in a groups slogan, fundraising appeal, or advertisement. It boils down to whether the messaging makes you feel sad for disabled peoples plight, or excited for their potentially better, freer lives.

Some disability organizations promote all the right goals and ideals, which are relatively easy to put together in a mission statement, but avoid opportunities to make a real impact for fear of being seen as controversial. Real, meaningful change for disabled people isnt always popular, so this is a particular danger with local organizations. They face a lot of peer pressure from other area agencies and service providers to be a team player and promote a wholesome, non-confrontational image to the donating public. Diplomacy is good. Being a pushover in the disability field isnt.

Leadership

The point here isnt to say that non-disabled people have no legitimate role in disability organizations. But organizations with disabled people in top governing, executive, and professional positions have an authenticity that others may lack. This should mean more than just one or two disabled people with one or two of the most easily understood and accepted disabilities. Look for people throughout the organization with a variety of disabilities, including some that require more accommodations and pose a greater challenge to public understanding. Leadership of people with disabilities, or lack of it, also indicates a disability organizations commitment, or lack of commitment, to its own ideals of equality and inclusion.

This is another key measure of commitment and follow-through. And a surprising number of disability organizations arent so good at treating their disabled employees the way they ask other employers to treat disabled people. Keep an eye on the disability organizations you support. And take seriously any indications of poor labor practices, especially in regard to disabled employees.

Fair Pay and Workplace Equality

Disability representation isnt just about leadership at the top. Disabled people should be working at every level. This includes not just support positions, but service provision, professional roles, and management.

Somehow, it is still considered acceptable to underpay disabled people for their work. Some assume that disabled people dont need extra money, because they get government benefits. Others may think of disability work as a calling rather than a job, or that they should be grateful for any job at all. But disabled people have terribly high rates of poverty. And being paid for your labor is a cornerstone of civil rights that disabled people absolutely deserve. Any disability organization that wants to be an advocate for equal rights and fairness should pay disabled employees at least minimum wage, and as much as possible, competitive and/or living wages for their work. This doesnt happen by accident. Decisions must be made to not skimp on salaries through use of legal sub-minimum wage, or over-reliance on unpaid interns and volunteers.

Also note that disability organizations that spend a lot of their budgets on salaries arent necessarily wasting money. Paying good disabled staff well is good for a disability organization. Its also an important statement of values.

Hiring disabled people is one thing. Paying them fairly is key. But especially in a disability organization with a complex mission and diverse roles, is there room for career growth and promotion? Is it not only technically possible, but feasible and encouraged for a disabled receptionist to someday become a counselor, or for a disabled barista in a cafe promoted as an employer of disabled people to become a shift manager?

Key Practices

Above all others, disability organizations should be accessible. This should be obvious. But they dont always succeed. Sometimes, disability organizations focused on one or two particular types of disability fail to accommodate others. Some groups become complacent, figuring that their work on disability makes them immune from criticism for accessibility failures. And as services and methods of communication change over time such as websites and live streamed events many organizations overlook making each new avenue fully accessible.

Disability exists among every culture and demographic population. Yet historically, the image of the disability rights movement and disability culture has been overwhelmingly white, male, and straight. Like all organizations, those devoted to disability work must actively strive to achieve greater representation. Disability groups in particular must guard against complacency in this, and reject the notion that representing disability is enough diversity all by itself.

This is perhaps the most significant measure of difference between disability organizations and the philosophies that drive them. It would take too much space to fully explore all the pros and cons. Suffice it to say that the difference between providing individualized services in the community and running facilities is fundamental. Whatever you think about the question, its vitally important to ask which approach a disability organization takes before you decide to support it.

This seems like a lot of questions to ask, and a lot to look into. Really its just a start. But if you are going to support disability causes with your money or time, its important to take your time do do it right. Disabled people and our issues are more than an easy throwaway cause. They should be treated due care and diligence by everyone involved.

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What To Look For In A Disability Organization - Forbes

ATLANTA, Feb. 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ --Best-selling Author, Social Entrepreneur and Youth Influencer, 9-year-old Nicholas Buamah has recently become one of the youngest Executive Producers and Recording Artists registered with BMI. For Black History Month, Buamah will be releasing his first self-funded musical project on February 14, 2021 called "On the Clock," a multi-artist hip-hop collaboration that brings youthful positivity to the topics of social justice, kid empowerment, and personal affirmation.

Featuring 40 inspirational kids including 8 of the countries youngest business owners and entrepreneurs, "On the Clock" highlights and exalts black youth as bosses, kings and queens. Nicholas partnered with top moguls within the industry to bring this vision of youth empowerment into fruition. With the lyrical genius of South Bend artist, "Million" and an authentic call to action by Nicholas, the song encourages and equips youth with the inspiration and vision that they can achieve even beyond their dreams and that their dreams can ultimately change the world.

Nicholas is committing a portion of the proceeds to build a community library in Ghana through his nonprofit Books Without Borders, Inc. On February 14th, the song track will be available on all major streaming platforms and the music video will be released on Nicholas' YouTube channel

Contact Information for Questions and Interviews:CelebsWork Aileen Bedeau(818) 396-7535[emailprotected]

NicholasBuamah.com// Instagram.com/NicholasBuamah

SOURCE Nicholas Buamah

https://nicholasbuamah.com

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9-Year-Old BMI Executive Producer and Recording Artist Honors Victims of Social Injustices in Youth Empowerment Project - PRNewswire

WEST CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa., Feb. 3, 2021 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Opyrus, a self-betterment platform on a mission to help people tap their power to write and transform their life, announced today the launch of its Regulation CF offering on Wefunder, the largest Regulation Crowdfunding portal.

Opyrus seeks to raise $250K in order to build an online self-betterment solution utilizing learning-based content, connection, support and feedback through their writing community, easy and fun writing tools, and personalization that will strengthen mental fitness, improve relationships, enhance careers, energize businesses and enhance overall wellbeing.

"During our years of working with writers, we witnessed the impact and self-empowerment that writing has on one's life," said Arthur Gutch, CEO of Opyrus. "We've registered over 250,000 writers on our platform. Opyrus is on a mission to help the billions of people worldwide currently living a life of writing to develop their writing powers to benefit their personal and professional lives."

The Opyrus Platform will help people decode the why, what and how to create a successful system for lifelong writing success through a bold undertaking of Mapping the Human Writing Lifecycle and developing a Lifetime Writing Algorithm (LWA) that delivers personalized writing solutions - from childhood to legacy.

Opyrus, with its first-mover advantage in the estimated $11 billion self-care market, is one of the first writing platforms to invite its customers and registrants to invest to own a piece of the company and benefit from its expected growth.

Opyrus offers exclusive investor perks for different levels of investment, which range from a free one-year subscription to the OpyrusOne Professional Subscription, to one-on-one calls with the CEO.

To learn more about Opyrus and how you can invest for as little as $100, visit its Regulation CF offering page on Wefunder: https://wefunder.com/opyrus/

About Opyrus

Opyrus is a leading self-betterment application for people to tap their power to write and transform their life. We are on a mission to help millions of people around the world by delivering unique writing tools, interactive content, and personalization that strengthens mental fitness, deepens relationships, enhances careers, energizes businesses and improves overall wellbeing.

Media Contact

Opyrus Public Relations, Opyrus, +1 (978) 295-0464, media@opyrus.com

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Opyrus Seeks To Raise $250K To Build The World's First Writing-Based Self-Betterment Platform - WFMZ Allentown

Our world is currently one where fear, negativity and uncertainty are leading the way in human emotion. Due to the pandemic, we no longer have the luxury of having plentiful opportunities at our fingertips.

Those with a dream of financial freedom and success are being compelled to find their own inspiration and forced to light their own spark. With so many challenges to overcome, and limited moments of perceived perfection many individuals face depression and doubt, in regards to a fulfilling future. But despite the obstacles, women and men are in fact emerging with dreams in their hearts and they are seeking a guiding force to help them reach their goals.

Texan, Jeannetta Collier, an entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience, featured twice as One of the Most Notable People in North Texas, and who has facilitated numerous start-ups, is the founder of Imaginary Glass Ceiling. as well as CEO and founder of Jeannetta Collier Enterprises Inc. She is a transformational life coach and business strategist, certified NLP master coach, international speaker, entrepreneur, investment strategist in real-estate and market trading, philanthropist, published author, community advocate, creative and executive producer and radio personality of The Best YOU 365. She is a woman who empowers her audiences through her extraordinary story of triumph over single motherhood and having been diagnosed with a deadly disease she still managed to catapult herself to a life of success and abundance by adjusting her mindset. Collier is an active member in her community through acts of service on numerous boards, commissions and non-profit organizations and uses her knowledge of human development, creative business and leadership development to encourage personal empowerment and peak performance in life, career and relationships. Her super-power is to empower others to do the same.

Twenty-one years ago, Colliers life came to a screeching halt, and right as she was at the peak of her career and in life, having all of her hearts desires with a loving family, her dream home and even a dream job. She was diagnosed with a life-threatening disease and informed she had only 6 months to live. The life that Collier had greatly cherished could easily have vanished, but she was adamant about not changing the blueprint she had already mapped out for her life. But in doing this, she also knew that she had to dramatically change her mindset. Years later she has so much to be thankful for and has come to fully appreciate the power of mindset.

This incredible story of renewal is what led Jeannetta Collier on her mission of helping others achieve new heights, and to personally and professionally step into their best life! A combination of advanced psychology, stemming from her knowledge of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) and real-life experiences is what gives Collier a competitive advantage over other coaches who may not be as experienced in what truly helps individuals overcome mental barriers allowing them to move forward to achieve all they are meant to achieve. The creators of NLP believe there is a direct connection between neurological processes, language and behavioral patterns and that these can be changed to accomplish certain goals in life. It is also believed that neuro-linguistic programming methodology can mimic the skills of high-achievers, allowing anyone to acquire those skills. Colliers philosophy is centered on understanding how people think and formulating strategies of what is needed to help them push past their fears and into a place of clarity and confidence allowing them to thrive in the world.

Colliers proven strategies, that help individuals who are not quite yet ready to transform, include one-on-one private coaching and consulting programs, group coaching and training and online and digital e-courses that equips emerging and established women, entrepreneurs, thought leaders and game changers to find their power so they are able to thrive in business and life. Her Mindset Mastery Bootcamp, in particular, is a 2-Day comprehensive workshop that enables participants to discover and develop all of the skills needed in order to reach the next level of success. This event is geared towards entrepreneurs, coaches, speakers, authors and corporate executives who are ready to shine! Sessions are a great reminder of why these leaders have already said yes to their destiny and allows them to network with like-minded individuals who also seek a life of abundance and they provide tools and knowledge for leveraging their own personal story to make a greater impact in the world.

Jeanetta Collier is a woman who has beat all odds and wrote her own story. And now, she is living out her dreams. She is here to let others know that even the biggest dreams are within reach and she can help you get there.

Texan, Jeannetta Collier, an entrepreneur with more than 25 years of experience and who has facilitated numerous start-ups, is the founder of Imaginary Glass Ceiling. She is a transformational life coach and business strategist, certified NLP master coach, international speaker, entrepreneur, investment strategist in real-estate and market trading, philanthropist, published author, community advocate, creative and executive producer and radio host of The Best YOU 365. She empowers her audience through her extraordinary story of triumph over single motherhood, having been diagnosed with a deadly disease and managing to catapult herself to a life of success and abundance. Collier is an active member in her community through acts of service on numerous boards, commissions and non-profit organizations and uses her knowledge of human development, creative business and leadership development to encourage personal empowerment and peak performance in life, career and relationships. Her super-power is to empower others to do the same.

Media ContactCompany Name: Mark Stephen PoolerContact Person: TMSP AGENCYEmail: Send EmailPhone: +447930691683Country: United KingdomWebsite: https://contactmark.me/

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Be Stronger Than Fear, Negativity and Doubt with Jeannetta Collier Guiding the Way - Press Release - Digital Journal

External photo of the Academic Innovation Center and the TAMIU Trailblazers Tower, completed in 2020.

External photo of the Academic Innovation Center and the TAMIU Trailblazers Tower, completed in 2020.

External photo of the Academic Innovation Center and the TAMIU Trailblazers Tower, completed in 2020.

External photo of the Academic Innovation Center and the TAMIU Trailblazers Tower, completed in 2020.

TAMIUs 50th anniversary: Planning the next 50 years

As TAMIU celebrates its 50th anniversary, Laredo Morning Times took a detailed look back at the history of the university. This is Part 12 of 12.

For over half a century, Texas A&M International has molded members of the region and around the world into nurses, scientists, writers, artists and more.

In the year 2020, it is hard to imagine Laredo without its university, and the improvements it has brought to the community will not soon be forgotten. While this year has been a tough year for many amid the coronavirus pandemic, just like the university, they carry on.

For 50 years, the university has adapted to the ever-changing community and its needs. And for the next 50 years, it will continue to do the same as well.

According to president Dr. Pablo Arenaz, TAMIU is expected to grow from 10,000 to 12,000 students in the next five years who will all look forward to graduating from either undergraduate, graduate or doctoral programs. To do so, it is also planning to move into a doctoral/professional university, and Arenaz said it is on the way to being recognized as a destination university for several of its programs that will continue to expand to meet the standards of both the students and the industry.

We have plans to expand our doctoral offerings to include degrees in criminal justice, border studies, education, eventually biology, engineering and nursing, he said. We have also recently added degrees in public health as well as petroleum and computer engineering. Also included in our plans is a Center for Entrepreneurship and an Incubator, a Center for Border Security and an Institute for Renewable and Non-Renewable Energy.

In 10 years, the first phase of adding to the area includes a tennis complex which will start by moving the athletic facilities to the back 100 acres. The complex is a partnership between the university and the City of Laredo, and it will be funded by the city. This will allow TAMIU to add tennis, mens and womens track & field, and beach volleyball over the next 5-7 years while keeping the academic focus for the existing campus.

According to Arenaz, students and staff can also expect significant growth in engineering, biology, psychology, the humanities, nursing, education and business programs and degrees. The proposed Center for Border Security and the International Institute for Renewable and Non-Renewable Energy are being designed to expand research capabilities that are critical to the region.

However, the university is not a one-person show.

Hundreds of dedicated staff and faculty members strive for improvement each year, and many have their own goals to complete. Whether its athletics, humanities, science or any field of study, the directors at TAMIU also have a 50-year plan that should delight students who will be veterans in their fields and others who may be going to their first day of school at elementary.

Dr. Claudia San Miguel, the Dean of the TAMIU College of Arts and Sciences, said that the largest and most comprehensive academic unit is currently in development. When finished, it will create new academic opportunities and impactful research to benefit the people of the South Texas region and beyond.

This will include three new degrees that are meant to diversify and enhance career choices. Among them are a doctorate in criminal justice and a bachelors in computer engineering and petroleum engineering. Both current and future students will have more choices, and over the years, more choices will continue to be added. In 2022, a masters in systems engineering is planned to start in the fall.

The college is also an intellectual and research hub. We are proud of the numerous articles, books, creative works and performances produced by 100-plus faculty members, San Miguel said. We are especially honored that the college earned a highly-competitive research grant of $1.65 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation. This grant will generate new knowledge that advances learning strategies for undergraduate STEM education here and at other Hispanic-serving institutions.

As Laredo is a border town and in 2020 is the strongest land port in the U.S., a heavy emphasis on business both domestically and internationally would be a boon for any student who sees themselves owning or managing a business.

The plans to grow the undergraduate and masters program are always a benefit for students in the area alongside the doctorate program. Additional concentrations, such as a doctorate, masters and an undergraduate degree in international trade and entrepreneurship, are being developed.

These new programs will further strengthen the Sanchez Schools portfolio and underscore its ongoing value to the communities and regions it so proudly serves, Dean of the A.R. Sanchez, Jr. School of Business Dr. Steve Sears said.

To complement these programs and opportunities, there are three research centers recognized for their contributions to the Laredo Community and Beyond, Sears said.

The Small Business Center has been recognized with awards for innovative practices among its peers in meeting the needs of small businesses here.

The Texas Center for Border Economic and Enterprise Development provides valuable trade data for the border region.

The Center for the Study of Western Hemispheric Trade, with the collaboration of the International Bank of Commerce, brings noted speakers to Laredo to speak on timely issues facing our border and beyond.

With the generous gift by Mr. A.R. Sanchez, Jr. and the perseverance, dedication and vision of State Sen. Dr. Judith Zaffirini to establish a doctoral program in her hometown university, the A.R. Sanchez, Jr. School of Business has worked hard to build a reputation as a small but powerful business school, Sears said. It is known for its rigorous programs, quality faculty and high research standards, and it is one of the smallest accredited doctoral programs in the world.

According to Dr. James OMeara, the Dean of the College of Education, the goal of preparing 100% of educators in Laredo will continue. He adds that the college has enjoyed record undergraduate intakes, and their online graduate programs continue to grow and attract candidates from across Texas. These candidates are said to have a 100% pass rate in most certification areas, and graduate students have continued to be published in peer-reviewed publications.

As the pandemic has challenged educators across the globe, OMeara said students will also obtain a Google Classroom and Remote Educator Certification to train them in teaching classes in both remote and on-campus settings. This training will not only serve as a reminder of the importance of education and their roles but will also prepare them for other situations in the future.

Through partnerships with the Fun Academy, Raising Texas Teachers and the A&M Systems We Teach Texas initiatives, the goal will continue to be to produce Day 1 ready teachers that are certified and committed to making a difference in and beyond their classroom.

Preparing teachers for the next 50 years requires us to go beyond the successes of 2020, OMeara said.

As medical-oriented students continue to strive for their careers, the College of Nursing at TAMIU will continue to improve and adapt to the growing needs of the community.

A long-term plan will include a new masters degree program in nursing, public health, communication science disorders and kinesiology non-certification, said Dr. Marivic Torregosa, the Dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Over time, there will be curriculum changes to increase enrollment in kinesiology non-certification programs, as well as a track of pre-physical therapy for students who want to proceed in physical therapy after completing the non-certified degree.

There will also be an RN to MSN program that is being planned to help nurses with associate degrees transition to a masters degree in nursing. Torregosa said that a masters in public health will be offered in three years, and drafts for a masters degree in speech language pathology have been developed and are under internal review.

As the School of Nursing accepts students considered at-risk, underrepresented and first-generation, Torregosa said that the program was ranked 11th in the state, outranking other schools such as the Texas Womans University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.

This report is a reflection of the rigor of our BSN program and the commitment of the nursing faculty for student success. Likewise, it also reflects the hard work of our students, she said. The college will continuously mold and hone our programs so that we are preparing graduates who are equipped with the knowledge and skills to problem-solve the healthcare challenges of today and tomorrow.

TAMIU has plans and improvements for alumni or current students planning to continue education after their undergraduate degrees. According to Dr. Jennifer Coronado, the Dean of the TAMIU Graduate School, plans to expand the degree and certificate offerings will continue through the years, starting with the launch of a masters in curriculum and instruction with a specialization in educational leadership and another specialization in special education.

Additionally, a masters in information science and in the family nurse practitioner program will be available this fall. A doctorate in criminal justice is being reviewed by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, and if approved, students will be able to register starting in the fall of 2021.

To complement the College of Educations goal of providing remote-instruction training and certification, a masters in curriculum and instruction with a specialization in education technology will also be available for future teachers. The program will help them find better ways to master planning, delivery and assessments while also knowing how to deliver effective and engaging lessons in a virtual environment.

The TAMIU Advancing Research and Curriculum Initiative, a long-term project, is meant to expand the number of Hispanic and other underrepresented graduate and professional students that can be served by expanding courses and institutional resources, Coronado said. She said the project will rigorously examine the metrics that lead to success for graduate students within a dominantly Hispanic population.

We also continue to build on a legacy of faculty and student research collaboration that is uncommon for a university of our size and youth. Student researchers from TAMIU earned the highest number of awards at the competitive 16th-annual Pathways Student Research Symposium that TAMIU hosted last fall, Coronado said. Over 400 student and faculty representatives from throughout the Texas A&M University System gathered at TAMIU for the two-day competition. TAMIU student researchers earned 18 of the 61 awards presented.

With the mission of the University College to empower students to become competent, resilient and self-determined, TAMIU Dean of the University College Dr. Barbara Hong said the college is undergoing major restructuring.

An improved Advising & Mentoring Center is being developed with all the colleges academic success coaches. This is to provide students more consistent and coherent advisement on their majors without interruptions from freshmen enrollment until graduation, Hong said.

The improved AMC, University Learning Center and the reading and writing center will have extended hours, weekends and virtual meetings to meet the students needs now and for the next 50 years.

We aim to enhance the skills of every student through personal empowerment paths that foster a learning community, critical thinking and global citizenship, Hong said. Students will be equipped with a growth mindset, a meaningful purpose and a sense of belonging as they navigate through their education at TAMIU.

The First-Year Seminar will also be restructured to help teach students to cultivate their sense of self-awareness, self-empowerment, self-advocacy and self-regulation. Hong said those skills are essential and are reinforced by a students growth, purpose and sense of belonging (GPS). Additionally, the freshman Signature Course will also help expose students to international, interdisciplinary and intellectual problem-based/inquiry learning.

According to Hong, the course is meant to improve students critical thinking, communication and teamwork skills by tackling real-world problems in their communities and using their sense of self to help others during their academic journey.

We seek to prepare every student who enters TAMIU with a mindset that they are here to grow intellectually, socially, emotionally and professionally, Hong said.

With another 50 years on the horizon, TAMIU staff and leaders cannot change the university by themselves. The goal of improving the community can only start and end with everyone in the community giving input and coming together to advance the university. As Arenaz regularly meets with student government to cooperate in the planning, he said that their input was added to the Academic Innovation Center.

With that in mind, students, staff and alumni have also stated what they believe the university can add and where it can improve. The additions may take months of planning or years of implementing, but the university has the next 50 years to improve and become a university worthy of a major 100-year anniversary.

Alumna Rebekah Maria Rodriguez said she hopes to see an expansion of student services such as health services and student counseling, as those services helped her throughout most of her college years. She believes they are important services, but due to the limited number of counselors and a growing population of students, an expansion would benefit the students in a greater capacity.

Mindy Lee would like to see the communication coursework be added into the core curriculum as opposed to having just English coursework.

It is so important for students to learn basic communication skills and strategies, Lee said. Many students are completing their degrees without learning skills vital to being a competent communicator.

Ryan Duncan-Ayala said he would like to see a larger focus in the arts and hopes to see an improvement and expansion on the current theater program. On the flip side, Miguel Inclan hopes to see more undergraduate and graduate programs involving local government like city planning, sustainability and water/environmental policy, homeland security and emergency management, and more.

As an example of lifes unpredictability, the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020 changed the way the people of Laredo will remember the year. Despite the uncertainty and fear, people persevere for the hopes of a better future. Fifty years ago, TAMIU students and staff could probably not imagine what the university would be like today. As a cornerstone of the Laredo community, it has evolved from a simple university to a beacon of a grander future for students of all generations.

With the support of an experienced staff, cooperation between them and their students and with strong leadership, TAMIU is striving to continue molding incoming students into nurses, doctors, teachers, scientists, artists, dancers, musicians, engineers and so much more.

In 50 years, who knows what the university will evolve into, but it is already working on it.

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TAMIUs 50th anniversary: Planning the next 50 years - Laredo Morning Times

Despite a pandemic that warped this years Sundance experience into a self-isolated, laptop-driven stream-a-palooza, the overall slate of films on demand was actually a fairly solid lineup of predictably unpredictable indie storytelling. There were films with prestige and films that crowd-pleased, there were nightmarish midnight movies and metaphorical fantasies to cope with overwhelming realities. There was a mostly evergreen feel to the cine-cornucopia, except for a clutch of titles that felt very of-the-moment with weighted feelings of impending doom.

Oscar bait abounded, as per usual, with one title aiming for Academy Award glory when the latest edition of that delayed-eligibility ceremony airs April 25th. Judas and the Black Messiah, Shaka Kings ferocious thriller about the murder of Black Panther leader Fred Hampton, joined the Sundance lineup as a last-minute entry and comes out a week after its virtual premiere. The films galvanic leads, including Daniel Kaluuya as sleepy-eyed martyr Hampton and LaKeith Stanfield as the jittery FBI mole who betrayed him, are classic kudos catnip. And the indignant biopic checks all those boxes that Oscar voters usually require, presenting a dramatically familiar but still forcefully effective look at racial injustice in America.

Looking ahead to next years Oscar race are Passing, Rebecca Hills prim, delicately devastating look at light-skinned African-Americans in 1920s Harlem; and Jockey, Clint Bentleys minor-key melodrama about an aging horseman thats as quietly earthy as it is emotionally shattering. And Hill and Bentley, both making their feature directorial debuts, craft sumptuous expressionistic images that enhance and enrich the experience.

Passing, shot in velvety black and white, uses a boxy traditional aspect ratio to make its story feel even more suffocating. Jockeys golden-hour cinematography and chiaroscuro lighting give its tale an elegiac grandeur. But the acting truly elevates both films. Tessa Thompsons upper-class Black housewife is a model of brittle decorum, while Ruth Neggas best friend, hiding her racial identity from the rich racist white man she married, exudes a blithe joi de vivre that belies an ocean of anguish. Jockey has a trio of performances that elevate the film to high tragedy: Clifton Collins, Jr. breaks away from the pack with his majestically understated pathos, a middle-aged rider riddled with regrets, with vital support from Molly Parker as a sympatico but pragmatic horse owner and Moises Arias as the eager, admiring son he never had.

Why all the grim faces? Easy charms made a handful of movies irresistibly sweet and predictably heartwarming. CODA, the jaunty emotional bullseye that stands for Child of Deaf Adults, is the YOLO of hearing-impaired coming-of-age dramedies. The hoary But I want to sing! plot-point chestnut gets a twist, as honey-voiced teenage daughter Ruby (Emilia Jones) tussles with the parents-just-dont-understand tropebecause her songs literally fall on deaf ears. Add in a subplot about her family being a multi-generational fishing clan in Gloucester, with Ruby as the lifeline intermediary between their silent world and the town, and you get the makings of a classic choose your life crossroads. Its obvious, its effective, and it goes down easy with dollops of feelgood positivity.

Together Together, meanwhile, turns a surrogate pregnancy arrangement into a meet-cute between middle-aged app developer Ed Helms and diffident anti-romantic twentysomething Patti Harrison. She agrees to have his baby for the money, hes stunned that she doesnt seem to give a hoot. And over the course of nine months, the two lonelyhearts make each other a better person. Its an obvious arc, but Helms and Harrison exude some disarming sugar-and-spice chemistry. His wide-eyed enthusiasm masks a battered but durable optimism for life, while her eye-roll whateverism is the classic defense against a world that already rejected her.

The most surprisingly endearing film was Playing with Sharks, a polished but paint-by-numbers documentary about Australian deep sea diver Valerie Taylor. Star of 70s documentary Blue Water, White Death, consultant on megahit Jaws, innovator of the chainmail diving suit, and lifelong conservationist, Taylor is just as vivacious now as in the 1960s, when she was the blonde-bombshell winner of the Womens Spearing Championship. Ill probably be diving when Im in a wheelchair, the octogenarian says, before flipping into the ocean for yet another aquatic outing.

Those with a diabetic intolerance for treacly narratives, fear not. Sundances midnight slots went for the jugular. Sometimes literally: in the sumptuous gothic horrorshow Eight for Silver, a gypsy curse causes terror in a 19th century French village, as lycanthropy rips through the townsfolk. An electric opening sectioncapped by a shocking massacre at a Romany encampmentslowly gives way to a flabby midsection of silly jump scares in shock-me-awake nightmares. Plus: hairless werewolves? Odd creative choice. Still, exquisite production value and arresting visual compositions keep this highbrow flesh-render never less than engaging.

The retro-horror film Censor conjured fetishistic visions of early-80s video stores, static-rippled CRT images and the zzt-zzt grind of VHS machinery. A troubled woman on a government review board must rate the video nasties that were a staple of the burgeoning home entertainment craze. Her notes are a hoot. Eye gouging must go! reads one of her scribbles. But her sisters unresolved disappearance as a child continues to haunt her, until shes convinced that the missing kid is now an adult actress in one of these grindhouse flicks. Cue the slow spiral into madness and delusions of gore-filled axe-chopping. Plus: death by award statuette. Its inspired, until its not.

The prize for preachy provocation goes to Pleasure, an art-house harangue about the perils of being a porn star. A barely-legal Swede flies to L.A. with dreams of cum-soaked fame. Warning: it doesnt end well. An initially promising look at 21st-century adult entertainment, Pleasure takes a cheeky peek at entrepreneurial performers with DIY viral marketing and oddly femme-friendly crews that churn out shockingly misogynistic content. But, after flirting with notions of personal empowerment and body-image agency, it quickly descends into obvious backstabbing and cut-bait friendships. Think All About Eve, but with rough sex and interracial double-penetration.

Worse yet was Mother Schmuckers, a Belgian campfest that could double as a celluloid shart. Imagine a young, witless John Waters directing Clerks and youll get a sense of the puerile go-for-the-gutter ambition on display. Two brothers fry up feces for breakfast, lose the family dog, indulge in gunplay, drive their whore-mother crazy, dance in a gonzo music video, and then end up at a bestial orgy. Theres also a scene where homeless vagrants offer up sex with a dead body. Offended yet? More like bored.

Surrealism is a staple of any cineaste diet, so its no surprise that Sundance offered up a few metaphor-friendly films. Those in the market for masochistic parenting will enjoy Pascual Sistos John and the Hole, a chilly, empty-headed drama about a young teenage boy who, for no clear reason, decides to drug his well-off family and throw them into an unfinished concrete bunker. An oddly shallow what-have-we-done-to-deserve-this? condemnation of the affluent and their presumably amoral spawn, John and the Hole traffics in the type of Austrian nihilism that won Michael Haneke two Palme dOrs. Only difference is that Haneke spent more than three decades refining his singular brand of spiritual despair, while Sisto seemed to have binge-watched a master filmmaker and figured he got the gist of it. The result is a Hole thats not very deep.

More intriguing, and marginally more successful, is Mayday, Karen Cinorres through-the-looking-glass feminist fantasy. A put-upon wedding reception waitress (Grace Van Patten) escapes through a kitchen oven door and somehow lands on a WWII-era Pacific island. A misfit band of female GIs finds her and, led by Mia Goth, they send out siren-like SOS calls from a beached submarine so that nearby soldiers will crash on the rocks and drown. Their sociopathic behavior is apparently overcompensation for the chauvinist hostility in their lives. Its time to stop hurting yourself and start hurting others, growls Goth. Van Patten eventually becomes troubled by the severe retribution, but not before reveling in empowering sequences of girl-power independence. Its a just-go-with-it premise that belabors its points, although Cinorres eye for striking composition and confidence with emotional truth bodes well for future projects.

Two documentaries played with perception in more unsettling ways. Rodney Aschers eerie A Glitch in the Matrix takes a look at people who are convinced that were all living in a computer-programmed reality. These interview subjects, appearing as anthropomorphic animal avatars, invoke synchronicities, the Mandela Effect, generative adversarial networks, and exponential leaps in computer processing power to prove their theory about life being a full-scale massively multiplayer simulacrum. Punch-drunk on Philip K. Dick and the Wachowski siblings, these hyper-literate and compellingly articulate interview subjects are a heady mix of paranoia and narcissism. I am a real-life non-player character, one person moans. Another explains how his delusions led to him murdering his mother and father.

Its hard not to feel empathy for Aschers subjects when a documentary like Theo Anthonys All Light, Everywhere reinforces how mass surveillance is bending notions of objective reality. This damning meditation on the inevitable police state focuses almost entirely on Axon Industries, the company that invented Tasers and now holds 85% of the market share for body cameras. Their objective: to be the eyes and ears of law enforcement, create a vast archive of information and track everything with their proprietary lenses on people, cars, and drones. Their research could even create a eugenics-adjacent database to establish patterns of criminal behavior among certain peopleanticipating crime like the Precogs from Minority Report. What could possibly go wrong?

But the Sundance films which seemed the most up-to-date, the ones which really captured that sense of life out of balance, conveyed an almost apocalyptic sense of despair. Just look at Cryptozoo, Dash Shaws dazzling WTF animated adventure that feels like an animal-rights activist on hallucinogens stumbled into a marathon Dungeons and Dragons session. Gorgons, Griffins, and unicorns populate a world where black-market beast traffickers want to enslave them and secret-ops paramilitary want to weaponize them. The strangely earnest action movie never plays for laughs, and creates a weirdly touching portrait of sustained persecution in a hostile world where the strong exploit the weak, the feverishly exotic is always a threat, and no one is ever safe.

Not mincing words, Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones named their movie How It Ends. The quirky existential dramedy imagines the last hours on earth before an asteroid obliterates all life. Today is certainly the fuck-it-all of days, declares Lister-Jones, who endeavors to make peace with as many people as possible, from her parents to her estranged best friend to the jilted ex-lover she never stopped loving. Bursting with motley socially-distanced cameos from Nick Kroll, Fred Armisen, Olivia Wilde, Bradley Whitford, Helen Hunt, and Pauly Shore, the Covid-era production feels shaggy, very off-the-cuff, and eagerly silly. Let whatever come, come, says a sex therapist. The underlying dread, though, is palpable. Its a film brimming with sweet sadness as well as a nagging restlessness that, in 2021, is all too familiar.

Read more here:

Sundance: Predictably Unpredictable - Book and Film Globe

Thumb through any used record collection worth a damn, and you're bound to come across a dog-eared copy of Carole King's Tapestry. It's one of the quintessential records of the 1970s, the sort of cultural artifact that has become a recognizable totem for a specific time and place.

Released 50 years ago this week, Tapestry is a record whose very title has become shorthand for "all-time great." The recent Rolling Stone poll of the 500 best albums ever placed it at No. 25, and it was one of the first LPs of its era to be preserved by the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry, inducted alongside the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Band, Marvin Gaye's What's Going On and Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run.

King had been in the pop game for a little more than a decade before Tapestry was released a day after her 29th birthday. Working amongst the coterie of scrappy young songwriters in New York's Brill Building, King and her then-husband Gerry Goffin penned a slew of radio hits in the 1960s for other artists "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" for the Shirelles; "Up on the Roof" for the Drifters; the dance craze classic "The Loco-Motion," which was recorded by their babysitter Little Eva.

She was one of the most prolific songwriters that most people didn't know, and after her personal and professional partnership with Goffin ended and her band the City called it quits, she branched out on her own in the late '60s. King's solo debut, 1970's Writer, is made up of leftover songs she had written with Goffin (who co-produced the album), and it blends sock hop-era nostalgia with Woodstock-era spaciness.

The album holds up well today, but it didn't get King the recognition she'd hoped for. Tapestry would change all that.

After her separation from Goffin, King became entrenched within the now-mythic musical community of Los Angeles' Laurel Canyon neighborhood, rubbing elbows with the likes of the Doors, Buffalo Springfield and Joni Mitchell (who later contributed backing vocals on Tapestry). The freedom and fluidity of that era is all over Tapestry, which was recorded in a matter of weeks with super-producer Lou Adler and rushed into release in February 1971, a month after it was finished.

"While we were recording the album I wasn't thinking about all the people who might be affected by it, nor was I thinking about the level of success it might attain," King wrote in her memoir, A Natural Woman. "I just wanted to get the songs on tape, enjoy the process with my friends and fellow musicians, and maybe get some radio play."

Perhaps it's that lack of pretense that made the album so effective. It's difficult now to listen to Tapestry and divorce yourself from its legacy, because it almost sounds like a greatest hits compilation. Just about every song has become a standard. It lives up to its title as a patchwork of songs new and old, and the album really serves two functions at once: It's a contemporary singer-songwriter showcase, but it's also a career retrospective of a musician who had been toiling behind the scenes for years without the recognition she deserved.

Tapestry opens with a trio of classic tracks that represent one of the greatest gauntlet throws in pop history the rollicking "I Feel the Earth Move," followed by the wistful ballad "So Far Away," followed by the remorseful relationship postmortem "It's Too Late." All three were massive hits and have become radio staples, and they're arguably King's three most famous originals.

Following that stellar opening, there's the self-empowerment anthem "Beautiful," which lent its name to a Tony Award-winning jukebox musical of King's songbook, and "Where You Lead," perhaps best known as the theme song for Gilmore Girls. The stripped-down "You've Got a Friend" would be covered by King's regular collaborator James Taylor (who also plays guitar and sings on Tapestry), becoming his first No. 1 hit mere months after Tapestry was released. King reimagines "(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman," which Aretha Franklin made into a hit in 1968, and "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" The loping story song "Smackwater Jack" is tinged with gospel and country-rock, while the cozy "Home Again" and "Way Over Yonder" give you the impression you're sitting at the base of King's piano. There's not a single dud.

When it hit record stores, Tapestry was an instant smash. It topped the Billboard charts, eventually selling more than 10 million copies, and the single featuring "It's Too Late" and "I Feel the Earth Move" was a No. 1 hit. It won Album of the Year at the 1972 Grammys, beating such juggernauts as George Harrison's triple album All Things Must Pass, the Carpenters' self-titled debut, and the soundtracks of Shaft and Jesus Christ Superstar.

A follow-up album, Music, was rushed out for the 1971 Christmas season and instantly topped the charts, as well. Though it successfully piggybacked off the popularity of Tapestry, it wasn't met with the same rapturous response. In fact, none of King's follow-up albums are ever mentioned in the same breath as her breakout LP, although 1974's Wrap Around Joy brought her two more big hits with the singles "Jazzman" and "Nightingale." Her last album of original material, Love Makes the World, was released in 2001.

But it's not like King needs to justify a legacy. After all, she wrote more iconic tracks before she was 30 than most musicians record in their entire careers. What's so endearing about Tapestry is that it doesn't sound like a blockbuster album. It has a homey, lived-in quality, from the cover image of King and her cat lounging in a window ledge to the sterling collection of songs that were mostly cherry-picked from an existing catalog. It's like a comfy sweater, perhaps the most modest behemoth album ever recorded. It has endured for five decades, and I have no doubt that it'll endure for five more.

See more here:

Carole King's Tapestry turns 50, and it's still one of the greatest singer-songwriter albums of all time - Pacific Northwest Inlander

Is 2021 the year of the woman? The Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region sure seems to think so, and they are ready to celebrate by showcasing a few dynamic women right here in the Pikes Peak region. On Feb. 1, as part of the #ElevatedbyArt campaign series, COPPeR and a team of regional art leaders shared a new video titled Boss It Up featuring dancer and entrepreneur Latisha Hardy and the Boss Ladies dance team.

The #ElevatedbyArt campaign was launched in October of 2020 by a collective of creators and leaders in the arts in Colorado Springs. Its purpose is to illustrate the importance of the arts in lifting up and supporting the community as a whole through shared stories, creative efforts and experiences. Prominent local creators like Hardy are given a platform to share their work, and the community is invited to collaborate by sharing their own stories and posts at the campaign website, elevatedbyart.com.

Hardy established the Latisha Hardy Dance Studio in 2010. While salsa is the form of dance she says helped her to persevere through tough times, the studio embraces multiple types of dance including mambo, bachata, kizomba and zouk, with online options for participation.

The studios ladies team welcomes dancers of all ages and backgrounds, offering them a chance to perform together. The team meets several days each week to train and has built a sort of camaraderie a benefit in addition to the endorphins generated by the rigors of dance.

The dance floor is the only place I feel I can truly express myself, says Hardy. My goal today is to empower the world to empower themselves through the art of dance.

The new video shared by the studio certainly achieves that goal. It features clips of the dance team performing together, interspersed with clips of the dancers sharing candid stories about difficult experiences in their personal lives and how dance empowered them to heal. During the video, Hardy shares her own personal experience about planning for her future after getting out of an abusive relationship.

The only goal I had in life was to say yes to any opportunity that I could, said Hardy.

Her passion caught the attention of the #ElevatedbyArt team, who was excited to share Hardys enthusiasm and message of empowerment as part of the campaign.

The #ElevatedbyArt campaign committee was just so moved by Latishas energy and commitment to empowering her students, says campaign chair Angela Seals, We believe she literally embodies the healing power of art as she passes it along to her students.

free, elevatedbyart.com

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#ElevatedbyArt campaign highlights Latisha Hardy and the Boss Ladies dance team - Colorado Springs Independent

Kristen Noel Crawley wants Black women to not just lean in to the beauty industry, she wants them to disrupt it entirely.

Starting last year, the KNC Beauty founder, known for her cult-favorite lip, eye, and face masks, and essential Supa Balms, partnered with Revlon to provide completely free virtual educational courses for entrepreneurial Black women venturing into the highly competitiveyet lucrativebeauty industry. Aptly titled KNC School of Beauty, Crawley hosts a series of panels and discussions featuring the beauty world's most influential trailblazers in the hair, makeup, skin care, and wellness industries. The curriculum is crafted to empower budding entrepreneurs with invaluable insider advice about building a beauty business. Attendees will also have a chance to receive a $10,000 grant courtesy of Revlon for their soon-to-be brands.

For Crawley, the concept of the beauty school is centered on her firm belief that every industrynot just beautyshould believe and invest in the inherent power and cultural influence of Black women. By sharing her personal insight of creating her own brand from the ground up, as well as the experiences from her fellow industry colleagues, Crawley hopes to inspire a new generation of Black women in beauty to bet on themselves.

Today, the KNC School of Beauty returns with a dynamic lineup of girl bosses, including Brooke DeVard, Olamide Olowe, Karen Young, and Chandra Coleman Harris, with discussions hosted by Crawley herself. Below, we speak with the beauty founder about how her school came to be and how she hopes to see Black women shape the industry from this moment forward.

I was inspired to create KNC School of Beauty at a time when I felt our community needed advice and empowerment from within. It was at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement this past summer that I decided to develop this initiative further and connect with other successful Black female entrepreneurs at the top of the beauty industry. I wanted to secure a platform for us to speak on the trials and tribulations of building a business within a market that is discriminatory towards both women and people of color. I felt there was an audience here that could use the advice we have to impart to the next generation of budding entrepreneurs and really turn it into action.

I've been so thankful to my longtime partner, Revlon, who absolutely stepped up to the plate and has been a huge support from the beginning. They've provided a 10K grant as part of the prizes for each of our School of Beauty sessions, and it's been such a major cornerstone in the opportunities we're able to provide here. I want other Black women to know that they can build something larger than themselves that will leave a legacy for generations to come.

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I feel like Black women have been overlooked in the beauty market because we haven't necessarily always been the standard of beauty society strives toward. In ad campaigns and on products, white women have long been the focal point of beauty and, therefore, the consumer most prominently targeted. I think that over time, however, companies have started to see the investment Black women make in their beauty regiments and can now feel our influence in the market when it comes to trends and top products. Now that our consumer power has grown, so has our representation within the industry both behind the scenes and as the face of beauty for many leading brands.

I know that as women we need to be prepared for those people who are always going to try and change our minds or steer us in a different direction, thinking that we can't strategize or invest in ourselves 100 percent. When walking into a room, you have to be steadfast in your vision for yourself as an entrepreneur and hold onto the goals you have for your business. Others would rather try and shape us to fit their mold as opposed to the one we want to create for ourselves and for our community. It's important to persevere as women in this industry, because we truly are the ones who hold all the buying and selling power. Especially as Black women, our voices and ideas matter, and we shouldn't have to consistently prove ourselves in a space where we make the greatest impact.

Through the conversations I've had as a part of KNC School of Beauty, I've grown to admire so much all of the women who have joined me in our various sessions to impart their wisdom and share their personal stories of success and failure. I want to shout-out Nancy Twine of Briogeo, Melissa Butler of the The Lip Bar, Trinity Mouzon [Wofford] of Golde, Shontay Lundy of Black Girl Sunscreen, Jamika Martin of Rosen Skincare, and Beatrice Dixon of Honey Pot, who have all been a part of the School of Beauty and are making major strides in our industry.

For our third session on February 9, we'll be introducing Brooke DeVard of the Naked Beauty podcast, Olamide Olowe of My Topicals skincare, Karen Young of OUI the People, and Chandra Coleman Harris from our School of Beauty partner, Revlon. I'm so excited for the advice that will be shared, because I personally learn an immense amount myself and am always blown away by the depth of our conversations. Women like these are truly the ones that have inspired me all along in my journey to build KNC Beauty and grow it into what it is today.

It feels so empowering to be a Black woman finding success in this business, and I think this is just the beginning for a lot of other girls out there who have the same dreams I did.

I think the biggest misconception is that people tend to believe Black-owned brands are developing products solely for Black women or people of color, and not the full array of beauty consumers out there. While, of course, some lines cater more to the specific needs of Black women in regards to hair and skincare, I feel that many Black entrepreneurs want to create products that can be appreciated by all beauty enthusiasts. I have always said that KNC Beauty is for everyone, and I want to maintain that ethos with each of the products I release. I think it's important to be inclusive, and I know our collective outlook on beauty could be much better with this approach.

I think we're headed to the top! Matter of fact, I know that we have a place in this industry, and I can see our influence growing every day. Our look and our features are so sought after within the world of beauty now, and there's no denying that we have something everyone wants. It feels so empowering to be a Black woman finding success in this business, and I think this is just the beginning for a lot of other girls out there who have the same dreams I did. I think that the KNC School of Beauty speaks to the legacy that can be made if we support one another and make our community's impact greater.

You can register for KNC School of Beauty here.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Kristen Noel Crawley Is Helping Black Women Disrupt the Beauty Industry - HarpersBAZAAR.com

Deshaun Watson competes in an NFL game this past season. Watson has requested a trade from the Texans in the NFLs latest example of a disgruntled superstar taking their future in their own hands. Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images.

DEVIN ABELL | STAFF REPORTER | dabell@butler.edu

A new era is beginning in the NFL.

As the United States has undergone a social awakening to consciousness and individuality, players are pushing back against the grain and demanding that they be seen as individuals. No longer are they replaceable bodies for entertainment.

Nothing illuminates this point brighter than the most important position on the field: quarterback.

This all comes at a time of unprecedented change not only within the NFL, but throughout all professional sports, as the new generation of athletes began to take center stage in shaping the future of their respective sport. Much like LeBron James Decision, Deshaun Watsons trade demand has sent a message to the NFL: the players have the power.

As the older quarterbacks pass the torch, the league has been left in good hands with the emergence of young superstars like Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Deshaun Watson. Among them, it is Watson who has become the ringleader of the burgeoning player empowerment evolution in the NFL.

Watson set career-highs this past season in passing yards, touchdowns and completion percentage. He also threw a career-low seven interceptions. His 33 touchdowns and 4,823 passing yards were also Texans single-season franchise records.

Even with Watson having his best statistical season as a pro, his teams record did not reflect his success after they finished the season 4-12, after an 0-4 start.

To further add insult to injury, Watson was tormented all season as he ranked second among quarterbacks for times sacked.

This comes as a result of the accumulations of miscues form the Texans front office and coaching staff, with the most notable including the trade of star receiver DeAndre Hopkins, trading away of top drafts picks and a team revolt against Bill OBrien as a result of his ineptitude as a head coach and GM.

As the team walked off the field after their final game of the season, fellow teammate JJ Watt walked over to Watson and apologized to him as he felt the organization wasted his efforts throughout the season.

The Texans organization tried to amend Watsons frustration as chairman Cal McNair vowed to work with Watson to rebuild the team and its culture.

Even after the Texans front office and promised Watson he would be involved in the teams new direction, he was further scorned by the organization.

The process used by the team to hire new GM Nick Caserio in early January left Watson unhappy as the team went against his input on the decision. As a result of this ill will, Watson requested a trade from the organization forgoing the no-trade clause in his contract.

Watson shocked the NFL world with this announcement, as he signed a contract extension with the team just prior to 2020 the season starting.

Watson just wanted a voice a say to which franchise he devotes himself and his career. The continuation of disingenuity demonstrated by the ownership has shown the franchises true colors towards its players.

Even at the age of 25, Watson has matured enough as an individual to see how inept the Texans organization is and understands he needs to remove himself from the toxicity the franchise emanates.

However, Watson still has an uphill battle against the organization, as the Texans are reportedly refusing any trade offers for him, further driving divisions between the two parties.

Watson is one of many players throughout the years that have been at odds with their teams over the direction of the organization, however, he has been one of the few with such star power at this stage of his career.

Although Watsons situation is the most prominent currently, he is not alone in trying to find greener pastures. Other quarterbacks throughout the league have expressed their dismay with their team and situation.

Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford was rumored to want out of Detroit due to his dismay with the direction the organization was taking with their coaching changes.

Stafford, who has spent over a decade in Detroit racking up stats, leaves the franchise with over 30 passing records under his name. That is, however, all he has stats.

After 12 seasons with the Lions, he has only three playoff appearances. On top of that, his team has only ever played in the Wild Card round, never winning a Division title.

This is in no part Staffords doing, as he has consistently been the backbone of the Lions organization year in and year out. His talent has been wasted with a franchise that hasnt won a playoff game in over 30 years, while also having never won the NFC North.

After years of his organization failing to build a quality roster supported by a competent coaching staff Stafford has finally had enough.

After putting in a request for a trade, the Lions traded their long-time quarterback to the Los Angeles Rams for quarterback Jared Goff, a third-round draft pick and two first-rounders in 2022 and 2023.

While Staffords situation may have been a more mutual agreement between ownership and player with less drama his and Watsons situation arent all that different.

They are both talented athletes who have dedicated their careers to their franchise, only to have their personal success, health and legacy be hindered by that very same franchise due to its lack of desire to support and listen to their star players opinion.

This has been the status quo for franchises since the conception of professional sports. They dont care about their players opinions, because to these organizations business comes first.

They dont give a damn about their suggestions or criticism, they just want them to go out on the gridiron and make them their money.

In other words shut up and play.

Stafford and Watson are demonstrating a new precedent in professional sports that franchises have long feared. Theyre showing that players can treat professional sports as a business too.

Players are beginning to understand if they are at a high enough level of talent, they have an influence and say in what they want out of their careers. Theyre not just another cog in the machine at the mercy of their ownership.

If Stafford and Watson have proved anything to the league, it is that true power belongs with the players not the ownership.

However, some NFL veterans have taken issue with this new found way of thinking.

One of those individuals is Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre, who said, while speaking to Yahoos Minty Bets, that these players make too much money to have an opinion.

Im kind of old school, Favre said. I think you play. You get paid a ton of money to do a certain job and just do it and let the chips fall where they may. I think we make too much money to voice an opinion.

Favre backpedaled, though, as he went on to say although he feels a certain way, he believes the times and that way are changing.

Im not saying hes wrong, Favre said. Again, I think its a different day and time, and it will be interesting to see how the organization handles it.

The hypocrisy demonstrated by Favre is quite unsettling, especially since he has experience pushing for a trade during his career. Favre unretired on the cusp of the 2008 season, and with the Packers committed to Aaron Rodgers, Favre forced the team to ship him off to the New York Jets .

Favres lack of empathy towards Watson shows the standard of thinking that has been instilled into the players over the years and why ownerships and organizations have had their way when dealing with player vs. organization issues.

Watsons willingness to make a stand against organizations and to demand respect has echoed throughout the NFL, as many current and former players have rallied behind him.

As Watson will continue to fight for his respect and to be free of the Texans organization, the situation will prove in time if owners will truly understand that their disingenuous actions against players have consequences.

The way Stafford and Watsons situations have unfolded demonstrates a shift happening, not only in the NFL but in professional sports.

The era of shut up and play is over.

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Overtime: The era of shut up and play is over - The Butler Collegian

While remote working has brought about flexibility in work schedules and helped improve employee productivity, it has no doubt brought on its own set of challenges too - such as a lack of work-life balance.In this final segment of a two-part special feature, Priya Sunil speaks to nine leaders across industries on what remote working means for their workforce, and if they see it as a permanent fixture of the future.Are you for or against remote working, and if so, in what format?

Cloris Gu, HR Director, Eaton East Asia

Eaton has been an advocate for remote working for some time. We understand some employees would require flexible working arrangements due to non-work commitments. We want to ensure were able to support them where possible so theyre able to better balance their work and personal responsibilities efficiently.

Susan Otto, Chief People Officer, BlackLine

We are mainly proponents of remote working. Our employees have shown incredible resilience and productivity ever since weve had to implement office-wide work from home arrangements. Weve adapted to remote working well given the nature of our industry where digitalisation and automation are at the core of our business. However, we understand different industries/businesses might take to it differently.

Jessica Simpson, Human Resources Director, Amgen Singapore Manufacturing

The COVID-19 pandemic has allowed Amgen to transcend boundaries and experiment with new ways of working while ensuring that health, safety and the well-being of our staff remain top priority. Over the past year, we have made huge strides into an area of work flexibility that we never thought was possible in our bio-manufacturing industry and have successfully adapted to the realities of work-from- home, making remote working arrangements more effective and productive than ever.

Technology lies at the heart of the future of work. That said, we are cognizantsome industries such as bio-manufacturing could never fully go remote at least for now - because some processes would still require workers to collaborate in the same place or to conduct critical work in a specific location.

So, while remote working appears to be here to stay since it is workable for many roles and provides staff with a much-needed ability to better harmonise between workand personal demands, embedding this as part of our new normal will require flexibility on the part of all workers and for all to learn how to work in a different way to ensure business outcomes are not compromised.

Going forward, the future of work is creative, flexible and human. Companies are expected to increasingly adopt a hybrid style of working that balances remote and non-remote work to support the individualized needs of our employees. There is not a one-size-fits-all model and this will take time for our leaders to learn how to be agile and flexible in the way they approach leading teams with this hybrid approach. This model worked well for Amgen in the midst of the pandemic and has enabled us to continue delivering critical medicines for our patients without compromising productivity - all while providing the ability for greater work life harmony for our staff.

With the advent of advanced manufacturing and digital transformation, manufacturing jobs of the future will continue to get redefined. In time to come, we can envision manufacturing processes to be further automated such that workers can control the systems from remote locations, providing opportunities for even further flexibility.

Helen Snowball, Chief Human Resources Officer, JLL Asia Pacific

At JLL, weve always believed in flexible working. Even before the outbreak of COVID-19, we had schemes in place such as the Gradual Return to Work Programme to allow employees to ease back to work after a period of leave.

There is no doubt were able to work efficiently and effectively remotely. But what weve also recognised is that the extensive work-from-home period leads to a lack of boundaries between work and personal life.

This is the time for corporates to reimagine remote working. Beyond merely instituting a hybrid or flexible work model where some time is spent in the office and other days at home, we should use this opportunity to create a better employee experience so that employees feel connected to their organisations and colleagues whether theyre at work or at home.

One way could be a building a virtual toolkit where employees can log on to a single platform for all their resources and to better understand their organisation instead of searching through multiple websites since there are less face-to-face opportunities to get these answers.

Vincent Goh, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan, CyberArk

The need to pivot to remote working quickly has accelerated digital transformation in both CyberArk and our customer base, so in many ways I believe that remote working has forced businesses in the region to tap into the potential technology brings; in order to adapt and survive there has been a real impetus to make changes that would previously have taken years, and this is refreshing. As CyberArk is a cyber security business, so we see the other side as well. Businesses that rushed into onboarding new applications and services face a different set of cybersecurity challenges.

Remote working means that each one of us is now a potential entry point into the organisation for attackers, so risks have now increased, and organisations have become more vulnerable to cyberattacks than ever.

Cybercriminals are playing on peoples fears around Covid-19 to conduct social-engineering based attacks. So my caveat for remote working for organisations is that it can be very positive in many ways, but it must also be done in such a way that doesnt place the organisation at risk.

Jeannie Wong, Director of Human Resources, Thales in Singapore & South East Asia

As a HR leader, I believe that an efficient workplace is all about maintaining a good balance, and remote working fits in this picture as long as efficiency and results are not compromised.

Thales adapted quickly to remote working, and the Group has also introduced a global Smart Working initiative where each business unit has the ability to adopt a hybrid work model, based around decentralising decisions and empowering managers to decide how best to organise their teams. In South East Asia, the focus lies on creating collaborative workspaces thats based on trust and results.

June Chui, HR Director, Asia Pacific & Japan, Pure Storage

Definitely for. Even before the pandemic, our employees were able to work remotely, with the agreement of their managers, even if we have a physical office space in the employee's location. As a global company with work teams dispersed across regions and collaboration meetings spanning different time zones, remote working enables our employees to accommodate these early mornings and late-night calls while balancing commitments in our personal lives.

Juliana Ang, Chief Human Resources Officer, NTUC Income

The onset of the Circuit Breaker provided the impetus for us to review our working arrangement at Income. In Q3 last year, we have reviewed all the work requirements for our staff and confirmed that 85% of the roles are able to work from home. As such, since Q4 last year, we have implemented a flexible work arrangement where staff who are eligible to work from home could opt to do so on a permanent basis.

Currently, employees are on split team basis and have the flexibility to either return to the physical workspace during their assigned week, or continue to work from home. It has served us well so far, and we continue to enjoy high levels of staff collaboration and productivity.

Beyond just remote working, the key intent of implementing the work-from-home policy is part of the work culture that we want to build, so that Income stays agile and flexible to adopt and embrace changes rapidly as well as stay relevant in an ever-evolving operating landscape.

Niharica Sand, HR Director, REDHILL

Leading the HR practice and developing policies at a global organisation, I am completely for remote working. Since remote working arrangements kicked in since March last year, the HR team at REDHILL have been taking regular pulse surveys and one-on-one check-ins with all our employees across Asia Pacific, Europe and Middle East. These regular surveys help us to identify and assess the challenges and needs of our employees, so that we can address and adjust working arrangements in an efficient manner.

At REDHILL, the hybrid format has been the most successful for our organisation thus far. In a hybrid work arrangement, our employees can choose to work in the office (if local regulations permits) or work from home. Having this flexibility allows teams to come in the office once or twice a week to meet their teammates and have discussions to facilitate collaboration and creative thinking. It also allows working parents and interns to work around their own school commitments and shape their own schedules. We find that face-to-face meetings are still more effective for brainstorming, idea generation and group discussions.

We strongly encourage R&R; Responsibility & Reward, where each employee is responsible for their work, and thus rewarded with the flexibility to manage their time and place of work. Looking at the workforce of the future, such policies help attract and retain strong talent.

Pros

Remote working arrangement supports the agile way of working, while also keeping our customers and employees safe at all times. This enables us to drive bottom-up innovation, build collaboration across teams and cultivate an open mindset, so as to sharpen our competitive edge. A conducive work environment and culture can empower staff to be more self-directed.

Acquiring such a mindset is especially important in keeping ourselves motivated and fulfilled at work. One of the ways we promote agile ways of working across Income is by exposing employees to regular personal development through immersive trainings such as Design Thinking workshops.

Cons

However, remote working also brings about some challenges, one of which is the lack of daily face-to-face social interactions which we would normally expect in a regular office setting. It cannot be replaced but we can work around it and still have productive meetings and discussions virtually with the use of technology, open communication and coordination. Team and project meetings within safe distancing measures are also actively encouraged, when it makes it more productive for work to be done together.

Vincent Goh, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific and Japan, CyberArk

Pros

It has forced us all to make the effort to interact with the people we need to connect with in a different way. An example would be trade show attendance.

Clearly, getting thousands of people in a room is not possible currently and may not be for some time. So it has forced an accelerated shift to digital; to educate, inform and project what CyberArk can do for customers in a way that is vastly different.

Cons

We, at CyberArk are a very people-driven team; its part of our DNA to meet in person to plan, celebrate, and of course to socialise.

Face-to-face interactions have been central to what the company is about. The bonds we have with our colleagues, customers and partners are strong and have survived the pandemic, and flexible working will be part of life going forward.So while I wouldnt say it hasnt worked, we certainly welcome the promise of the upcoming year in terms of enabling more safe physical interaction.

Jeannie Wong, Director of Human Resources, Thales in Singapore & South East Asia

Pros

Remote working implies a certain shift of autonomy back into the hands of the employees so there has to be an implicit level of trust between managers and their people. The approach sees a new way of working which is more technology-immersive, flexible and results-oriented. We have seen teams organise themselves in the best way possible to serve our customers and keep to their commitments, with employees being more focused on high-quality outputs and being more outcome-driven.

Managers have also adjusted expectations to exclude perpetual presenteeism and to focus on whats really important improving collective productivity so we can better deliver to our customers and stakeholders.

Cons

While it has its benefits, remote working is not possible for all departments and all types of work. Thales is involved across a very diverse spectrum of businesses, which include essential services for key sectors like aerospace and rail transportation. Our colleagues in these business units work on industrial and operational sites that require them to be on-premise daily.

Due to the high level of confidentiality required by many of our projects, we also have teams who need to access secured and encrypted servers and other equipment which are only available at our secure sites. For a company like ours, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and the key lies again in empowering our managers to make the best arrangements for their teams to function effectively.

Helen Snowball, Chief Human Resources Officer, JLL Asia Pacific

Pros

Its helped to shift mindsets and accelerate the embracing of technology. Real estate is still largely a traditional industry, but at JLL, we have invested in the best technology tools for our employees to stay connected and collaborative.

Remote working has also intensified the sense of caring and collaboration at JLL.

For instance, our employees in various offices spontaneously set up fitness groups to encourage each other to stay healthy and active while under lockdowns. Other teams rallied together to donate to the less fortunate in their local communities.

Id say remote working boosts the significance of culture and teamwork in JLL. It gives us greater motivation to continue to nurture these aspects even though we may not spend so much time physically together.

Cons

Its clear that there is a mental toll that comes with working from home where employees juggle multiple responsibilities and there is no clear 'switch off' mode. From an HR point of view, we can do more in terms of training and empowering leaders to manage people remotely.

There will be questions around how line managers can feel comfortable and supported with flexible arrangements. How do you communicate expectations and show accountability? Can you build corporate culture and ensure successful on-boarding of new hires remotely?

These are tricky issues to navigate. It could be some time before companies and their HR teams create a sustainable and effective framework for this.

Susan Otto, Chief People Officer, BlackLine

Pros

Most of our employees were able to experience increased productivity due to the elimination of commute time. Many have also shared an improvement in their work-life balance as theyre able to better juggle their personal and work commitments. Overall, the transition to remote working has been manageable for us. However, we understand not everyones home environment is conducive to remote work. Thus, we work closely with the management and team managers to ensure everyone has the resources and support they need as we continue with mass remote work for some time.

Cons

We do miss the organic and casual interactions which can happen in the office. Its not possible to just bump into a colleague on WebEx or Zoom and strike a conversation. While there are tools for collaboration such as using an online whiteboard, its still a different experience compared to doing so in-person. Hence, we do our best to organiseonline gatherings which are more casual in nature such as games sessions when possible so colleagues have additional avenues to connect.

Cloris Gu, HR Director, Eaton East Asia

Pros

Even prior to COVID-19, we had remote working practices to provide employees with the flexibility and support they need to manage their professional and personal commitments efficiently. With no signs to the end of the pandemic just yet, remote working remains essential in helping us ensure the physical safety of our employees. Supplemented with suitable virtual tools and technologies, it also enables our teams to maintain productivity and continuity.

Cons

Humans are by nature gregarious animals - we long for social interactions. While virtual engagement will never go away, it will never replace the value of genuine face-to-face communication either.

Looking beyond corporations like Eaton, there are many who work in service industries that rely on the existence of corporations and office buildings. These individuals livelihoods have been severely impacted with the sudden and mass implementation of remote working during COVID.

As a society, we are all interconnected and are morally obligated to support each other where possible as we continue on the road to recovery.

Niharica Sand, HR Director, REDHILL

Pros

The most important benefit of remote work has been the realisation and its acceptance as a legitimate alternative to being in an office. This shift in working habits has enabled us to empower every individual to focus on what truly matters to them, and the ability to effectively balance their professional and personal lives.

As an organisation, we have witnessed two key benefits to our bottom line: an increase in employee engagement leading to higher productivity, and sprinkled attendance has led to cost reductions.

Employee engagement has significantly improved as a result of conscious efforts to stay engaged with teams during lockdown. We were also able to identify and address internal communication blind-spots. Such efforts have resulted in a reduction in attrition rates while enabling us to attract great talent.

As an organisation, we continue to leverage on multiple digital platforms and communication tools to support our staff to stay productive and happy while they work. Overall remote working has been hugely beneficial for us.

Cons

One major pain point is the inability to have synchronous communication. As every discussion is scheduled in advance, in the creative field, this can hamper workflow. It is not easy to brainstorm and be creative on schedule. The ability to tap your colleague on their shoulder, walk over to their desk, or just join in is greatly reduced. Socialising becomes forced and the conversation flow is no longer organic.

Secondly, performance evaluations are more difficult to assess. Considering most employees did not have a flexible work arrangement before the COVID-19 pandemic, people needed a few months adapting to over-communication, scheduled discussions and working in isolation. Generally, working remotely makes it more difficult to fairly assess each team members contribution and capability.

Data security risk is also a factor, especially for companies that do not have secure devices for their employees. With data the mantra of today, the security of ones IP is of utmost importance.

June Chui, HR Director, Asia Pacific & Japan, Pure Storage

Pros

It has helped in enabling our employees to better balance their work and home lives and we've seen an improvement in employee morale with little impact on productivity. We've seen that remote working also promotes trust and empowerment, as the focus is on delivering business outcomes as opposed to being "seen" in the office.

Cons

While we ourselves have not seen this directly, one possible downside is that the employee doesn't feel a strong bond with the company. Pre-pandemic, our employees were used to mix remote working with coming to the office. Even for our employees who work in locations with no physical offices, we encourage them to occasionally travel to a location with an office so they can build that bond. In this period of lockdown, we're overcoming this by encouraging our managers and their team members to over-communicate on goals, delivery commitments and feedback.

Managing a remote team is challenging and we provide many tools and resources to our people managers to be conscious of the different aspects including the unconscious bias against team members they may see more often face to face vis-a-vis remote team members.

Jessica Simpson, Human Resources Director, Amgen Singapore Manufacturing

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Is remote working really the future? Leaders from Amgen, Eaton, JLL and more weigh in - Human Resources Online