#feedback mechanisms

[theaspirationsinstitute]

TAI Motivational Moments Blog: Engaging Stakeholders in Your Sustainability Journey

As we continue our journey through the "Building a Sustainable Business: Balancing Profit and Purpose" series, today we discuss a critical c

[pddparthi]

Unlocking Precision and Power: A Guide to Hydraulic Servo Actuators

Introduction: In the realm of automation and motion control, hydraulic servo actuators reign supreme for their unmatched blend of raw power and exceptional precision. These marvels of engineering combine the potent force of hydraulics with the meticulous control of electronic systems. This comprehensive guide delves into the world of hydraulic servo actuators, exploring their inner workings,…

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[nishantjn]

#2 - “Broken”

I’m trying to do a story per day, short or long, snippet or complete. The titles/themes are based off prompts on subreddit r/simpleprompts.

"But it's been so long, Ravi," said Jay, for what had to have been the hundredth time.

"What does that matter?" said Ravi. He looked around the room, picked up the magazine on the table, and began to browse through its pictures. It was a glossy fashion monthly, hardly the sort of thing he cared about.

"Time is supposed to heal wounds, you know," said Jay, fingering his collar and looking around at the growing number of people in the house. The music wasn't very loud at all. And people were moving about, walking past them, behind him.

"Uh-huh," said Ravi, flipping through a bunch of pages.

Jay sighed. "Look, I don't mean to preach, but-"

"Then don't."

"But this is for your own good."

Ravi lowered the magazine, and looked Jay in the eye. "Are you saying I'm incapable of knowing what's good for me?"

"Come on, man!" Jay threw his hands up. "I'm only saying this to make things easier," he completed in a softer voice.

"I don't think we should talk about this," said Ravi, shaking his head. He put the magazine back on the table, which at least was a positive sign. "Everyone's moved on, and everything is fine."

Jay frowned at his friend of 20 years, and didn't say anything. Sanjay and Ila hadn't moved on and nothing was fine. Nor had Ravi for that matter. Moving on meant thawing the frost. Moving on meant letting go. If everything was fine, they would have forgotten that silly argument. They would be sitting around the couch with them, laughing over stupid jokes and sharing each others lives.

Jay could see Sanjay and Ila by the bar, in the other corner of the room. They were not looking in their direction. Very specifically not looking.

He got up. Ravi couldn't see. Or wouldn't. Maybe a bit of both. But he should have known better that day. Everyone had their bad days, and sometimes in a large group of people, more than one person had them at the same time. If you were really unlucky, those people got entangled in each other's tempers.

Ravi had said too much, too many words that couldn't be taken back. But time was supposed to heal things, especially between good friends. Sanjay and Ila understood that. But Ravi... Ravi couldn't back down once he did something. Some gear inside his mind was broken, it wouldn't let him turn back. Looking at his friend, Jay knew Ravi knew that too. He also knew he couldn't and wouldn't do anything about it. It really was pointless.

"Did you say something?" asked Ravi, looking up at him.

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

"Good. You wanna get out of here? This party sucks balls."

"Sure. Let me get a drink first."

[jslakshmi-blog]

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: How Web Content Influences the Buying Process

Today when people want to buy something, they almost always do their initial research on the web.

This makes the right kind of information being available on your website at the first click very important.

Scott lists out the following elements that a "Buyer-Centric Website" must have:

Buyers' preferred media and learning styles - Depending on what format buyers like to use, be it audio, video, e-books or others, the website should have the buyer messages in as many formats as practical and appropriate. It is not necessary to have the messages in all possible formats.

Develop a site personality - Create a distinct, consistent and memorable site with a clear picture of your organization's personality.

Photos and images tell your story - These are powerful content when visitors to the site see that the images/photos are an integrated component of the site.

Include interactive content tools - These provide visitors with a chance to go deeper into the site content, making them more likely to progress through the sales consideration cycle to the point of being ready to spend money.

Make feedback loops available - Direct feedback mechanisms such as 'Rate this' buttons, online forums, viewer reviews, comments, posts, etc. should be  incorporated in plenty.

Provide ways for customers to interact with each other - An existing set of customers interacting with each other on your site is great marketing!

Make sure your site is current.

Include social media share buttons - To re-iterate a point made in the earlier chapters, a great way to extend the potential reach of your content is by making it easy to share within the networks of your users/readers.

Create content with pass-along value that could go viral.

RSS feeds are extremely important to deliver your web content to targeted niches.

Link content directly into the sales cycle. Effective marketers take visitors' buying cycle into account when writing content and organizing it on the site. People in the early stage need basic information about their problems and how the organization solves them. Those in the middle stage want to compare products and services, so they need detailed information about the benefits of your offerings. Buyers need easy-to-use mechanisms linked directly from the content to quickly finish the purchase.

[brownwhiteandblue]

gleanings from the web, (slightly wonkish) july 21 edition

I'm just now seeing this great essay by Eric Randolph on how a capitalist state uses "development" as more of a weapon to protect the elite, rather than an honest means to improve the lives of its poor:  

At its heart the priority of the capitalist state is to protect its most successful capitalists, and all the tools at its disposal are geared towards this goal. The state is benevolent only until an individual  refuses its help, at which point its true character is revealed. 

Randolph employs this framework to tear apart the Indian government's Integrated Action Plan, basically a fatter and fatter bundle of cash being earmarked to build roads and schools in Maoist-affect districts. The IAP, which will become a Rs. 111 billion initiative (or about $2.1 billion) by the end of 2012, is meant to show the poor that "the government is friendly to their way of life, but wants to help them change their way of life," according to Home Minister P. Chidambaram, because "abject poverty breeds extremism." 

To Randolph, the development initiatives under the Integrated Action Plan are little more than ham-fisted machinery for propaganda and extending the writ of the state:

At the same time as it draws people out of the forest and away from the influence of non-state groups, the Integrated Action Plan also aims to extend the writ of the state by encouraging reluctant officials to travel into rebel-controlled areas – the most obvious incentive being the opportunity they will gain to syphon off funds from the scheme. The construction of new buildings also has practical uses for the police and paramilitary forces, given their predilection for camping out in schools, while the success or failure of construction projects provides a useful gauge of which areas are under Maoist control. Of only marginal interest to the authorities is whether any of this really improves conditions for the locals, and that is because at some level they understand that development is ineffective at stopping recruitment.  ... The Integrated Action Plan promises new school buildings, roads and government offices, but seems completely disconnected from more fundamental problems such as the lack of teachers, the lack of political representation and the lack of jobs. No one hangs around to ask whether the plan has improved the lives of the locals. Rather, its success is measured by asking local officials how much of the money they have spent.But perhaps that is beside the point, since the more crucial rationale from the government’s perspective is how these development schemes play as a form of propaganda aimed, once again, at those areas that are far away from conflict zones. ... Fortunately for the Maoist leadership, the Integrated Action Plan runs little risk of being an effective piece of propaganda for the government. Initial figures suggest that, of the money released so far, less than a quarter has been spent and only 15.5% of projects actually completed. Not only is the scheme dubious in its ability to live up to its own promise, but it also misses the central point of the Maoist critique, which is that the system is structurally geared against the poor and therefore incapable of providing real, long-lasting improvements in their lives.

Just for fun, I tried to find a counterargument against this critique. I couldn't. Let's assume for a second that the main premise of the article is null: that is, capitalist states are not geared towards protecting their most successful capitalists. Even so, if there's one thing I learned from working for Bill Easterly, it's that development initiatives won't work without built-in feedback mechanisms. A more sinister take would be that some development initiatives lack feedback mechanisms because they were never meant to work in the first place. The phantasmagoric performance  of the Integrated Action Plan, its myriad failures in implementation, are both are both cause and result of neglecting to respond to what the program's beneficiaries actually need. So the Integrated Action Plan is, at best, failing because it is a development program that has not been designed to promote, you know, actual development.