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Archive for March, 2023

Swing Into April (2023 Wallpapers Edition)

March 31st, 2023 No comments

New month, new wallpapers! To cater for a fresh dose of colorful inspiration every month, we embarked on our monthly wallpapers journey over 12 years ago. It’s the perfect occasion for creatives to put their design skills to the test, indulge in a little project just for fun, or tell a story that matters to them. Of course, it wasn’t any different this time around.

In this post, you’ll find beautiful, unique, and inspiring wallpapers for April 2023 created with love by artists and designers from across the globe. All of them are available in versions with and without a calendar and can be downloaded for free. At the end of the post, we also compiled a little best-of from past April editions for you. Maybe you’ll rediscover one of your almost-forgotten favorites in there, too? A big thank you to everyone who shared their designs with us! Happy April!

  • You can click on every image to see a larger preview,
  • We respect and carefully consider the ideas and motivation behind each and every artist’s work. This is why we give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience through their works. This is also why the themes of the wallpapers weren’t anyhow influenced by us but rather designed from scratch by the artists themselves.
  • Submit a wallpaper!
    Did you know that you could get featured in our next wallpapers post, too? We are always looking for creative talent.

The Loneliest House In The World

“March 26 was Solitude Day. To celebrate it, here is the picture about the loneliest house in the world. It is a real house, I found it on Youtube.” — Designed by Vlad Gerasimov from Georgia.

April Showers

“April Showers bring hedgehogs under flowers!” — Designed by Danaé Drews from the United States.

Kitten Season

“Lover of cats and it is indeed the season!” — Designed by Shannon Corr from New York.

Puddle Splash

“I designed this playful and fun wallpaper inspired by nature that is present during the early spring.” — Designed by Marla Gambucci from the United States.

Le Printemps Est Rose

“Spring has arrived in Paris. We go to the Sacré-Cœur and enjoy the sunset or the sunrise. There it seems that time has stopped.” — Designed by Veronica Valenzuela Jimenez from Spain.

Fresh Kicks

“Spring time means the nicer weather is rolling in, so that means the nice shoes roll out as well.” — Designed by Alex Shields from the United States.

I “Love” My Dog

Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

To Be Or Not To Be?

“Capture the essence of Bard’s time with this William Shakespeare calendar for April. With intricate details and period-specific clothing and accessories, this calendar is a stunning work of art that transports you to the world of Elizabethan England.” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.

Free As A Bird

“In this beautiful weather, these kids are enjoying their moment freely, just like a bird in an endless sky.” — Designed by Kasturi Palmal from India.

First Day Of Spring

“April is my birthday month! Creating this wallpaper was a reminder of the new beginnings spring brings!” — Designed by Marykate Boyle from the United States.

Spring Doodles

Designed by Kristina Zenga from the United States.

An Eerie Village

“I designed the wallpaper to bring an eerie atmosphere, strange occurrences, and mysterious happenings. The houses and buildings may be dilapidated and abandoned, with overgrown vegetation and creaking doors. There might be strange symbols etched on the walls or the ground, and street light may be seen flickering in the darkness. The villagers along with the animals might appear suspicious and reclusive, adding to the overall feeling of unease. In an eerie village, it often feels like something is not quite right, and the sense of foreboding and danger can be palpable. Hope you like this wallpaper! :)” — Designed by Hrishikesh Shome from India.

Goose Picnic

“I love fashion and nature, so I wanted to combine those two ideas into the wallpaper. I wanted something bright and colorful.” — Designed by Jennifer Flynn from the United States, NJ.

Spring Moonlight

“The days are getting warmer, and so are the nights!” — Designed by Gabrielle Ziegler from the United States.

Granthagar

“The history of libraries began with the first efforts to organize collections of documents. Topics of interest include accessibility of the collection, acquisition of materials, arrangement and finding tools, the book trade, the influence of the physical properties of the different writing materials, language distribution, role in education, rates of literacy, budgets, staffing, libraries for targeted audiences, architectural merit, patterns of usage.” — Designed by Bhabna Basak from India.

Ice Scream

Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

Bright Intricacy

Designed by Nick Morrow from Pennsylvania.

Flower Shop

Designed by Allison McDermott from the United States.

The Slimeguy

“April brings with it a fun warmth, it reignites childlike wonder with the world around us. I wanted to capture that in the energy of this happy Slimeguy, as well as with my mostly yellow-toned colors. He leaps forth onto your screen with an abstract warmth and energy one can only find in the springtime.” — Designed by Jad Tindall from United States.

Spring Moon Moth

“Lunar moths, much like spring itself, represent new beginnings and fresh starts. In April, the nights are still crisp and cold, but you can finally start to see the stars.” — Designed by Anna Warkentin from the United States.

Long-Awaited Blooming April

“Long-awaited spring inspired our designers to create a set of wallpapers dedicated to its blooming and greenery. We have more April wallpapers in our selection.” — Designed by MasterBundles from Ukraine.

Oldies But Goodies

From wallpapers celebrating cherry blossom season to love messages to coffee, chocolate, and rainy days, below we compiled some April favorites from 12 years of wallpapers posts. Please note that these designs don’t come with a calendar.

Swing Into Spring

“Our April calendar needs not mark any special occasion — April itself is a reason to celebrate. It was a breeze creating this minimal, pastel-colored calendar design with a custom lettering font and plant pattern, for the ultimate spring feel.” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.

Dreaming

“The moment when you just walk and your imagination fills up your mind with thoughts.” — Designed by Gal Shir from Israel.

Coffee Morning

Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

Clover Field

Designed by Nathalie Ouederni from France.

Ready For April

“It is very common that it rains in April. This year, I am not sure… But whatever… we are just prepared!” — Designed by Verónica Valenzuela from Spain.

Happy Easter

Designed by Tazi Design from Australia.

Sakura

“Spring is finally here with its sweet Sakura’s flowers, which remind me of my trip to Japan.” Designed by Laurence Vagner from France.

Rainy Day

Designed by Xenia Latii from Berlin, Germany.

The Perpetual Circle

“Inspired by the Black Forest, which is beginning right behind our office windows, so we can watch the perpetual circle of nature, when we take a look outside.” — Designed by Nils Kunath from Germany.

Inspiring Blossom

“‘Sweet spring is your time is my time is our time for springtime is lovetime and viva sweet love’, wrote E. E. Cummings. And we have a question for you. Is there anything more refreshing, reviving, and recharging than nature in blossom? Let it inspire us all to rise up, hold our heads high, and show the world what we are made of.” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.

An Era Of Metals With Sense Of Touch

“In the future we can expect that machines will have emotions and they will start loving nature and flowers.” — Designed by Themesvillage from London.

A Time For Reflection

“‘We’re all equal before a wave.’ (Laird Hamilton)” — Designed by Shawna Armstrong from the United States.

Spring Fever

“I created that mouse character for a series of illustrations about a poem my mom often told me when I was a child. In that poem the mouse goes on an adventure. Here it is after the adventure, ready for new ones.” — Designed by Anja Sturm from Germany.

Yellow Submarine

“The Beatles — ‘Yellow Submarine’: This song is fun and at the same time there is a lot of interesting text that changes your thinking. Like everything that makes The Beatles.” — Designed by WebToffee from India.

In The River

“Spring is here! Crocodiles search the hot and stay in the river.” — Designed by Veronica Valenzuela from Spain.

Ipoh Hor Fun

“Missing my hometown’s delicious ‘Kai See Hor Fun’ (in Cantonese), that literally translates to ‘Shredded Chicken Flat Rice Noodles’. It is served in a clear chicken and prawn soup with chicken shreds, prawns, spring onions and noodles.” — Designed by Lew Su Ann from Brunei.

Sweet April Showers Do Bring May Flowers

“Discover the seasonal fruits and vegetables in April: artichoke and beans walking in the rain!” — Designed by Vitaminas Design from Spain.

Citrus Passion

Designed by Nathalie Ouederni from France.

Wildest Dreams

“We love the art direction, story and overall cinematography of the ‘Wildest Dreams’ music video by Taylor Swift. It inspired us to create this illustration. Hope it will look good on your desktops.” — Designed by Kasra Design from Malaysia.

Relax!

“…and enjoy your Easter holidays with some good chocolate.” — Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

Springtime Sage

“Spring and fresh herbs always feel like they compliment each other. Keeping it light and fresh with this wallpaper welcomes a new season!” — Designed by Susan Chiang from the United States.

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Data Pipeline Architecture Explained

March 31st, 2023 No comments

A data pipeline is a set of steps that are used to process data. The data is ingested at the beginning of the pipeline if it is not currently loaded on the data platform. Each step delivers an output that serves as an input to the next step in a series of steps. This process continues until the pipeline has been completed. Parallel execution of independent steps is possible in some cases.

The data pipeline transports raw data from software-as-a-service platforms and databases to data warehouses for analysis and business intelligence (BI). The developer can construct pipelines by writing code and manually interacting with source databases – or they can avoid reinventing the wheel using a SaaS data pipeline.

Data pipelines-as-a-service represents a revolutionary concept, yet how much work goes into assembling an old-school data pipeline? Let’s review the principal components and stages of data pipelines, as well as the most commonly used pipeline technologies.

What Is a Data Pipeline?

Data pipelines consist of a series of steps for processing data. A pipeline begins with data ingesting if it has not yet been loaded into the data platform. Then, there are a series of steps, each producing an output that is the input for the next step. This process continues until the pipeline has been completed. It is possible to run independent steps in parallel in some cases.

A data pipeline has three key components: a source, a processing step or steps, and a destination. Data pipelines may have a sink as their destination. It’s easy to move data across an application and a data warehouse, connecting a data lake to an analytics database with a data pipeline. It is also possible for data pipelines to have the same source and sink so that the pipeline is purely concerned with changing the data. There is a data pipeline when data is processed between points A and B.

Data pipelines play a critical role in the planning and development of organizations as they develop applications with small code bases that serve a specific purpose. A source system or application may generate data that feeds multiple data pipelines, which may feed multiple other pipelines or applications.

Let’s take a look at a single comment on social media. Data from this event could feed a real-time social media mentions report, a sentiment analysis application that shows positive, negative, and neutral results, or a world map application that displays each mention. The data in all these applications come from the same source; however, each application requires its own set of data pipelines that must be completed smoothly before the end user can see the results.

The Benefits of Data Pipeline

Data is likely to be a significant part of your organization’s operations. You require a single view of all of that data in order to analyze it. For in-depth analysis, data from multiple systems and services must be combined in ways that make sense. The actual data flow itself can be unreliable: corruption or bottlenecks may occur at numerous points during the transfer from one system to another. As data’s breadth and scope expand, the magnitude and impact of these problems will only increase.

This is the reason why data pipelines are so important. This automates the process and eliminates the majority of manual steps. You can make faster, data-driven decisions with the help of real-time analytics. Your organization needs them if:

  • Analyzes data in real-time
  • Cloud-based data storage
  • Contains data from multiple sources

Data pipeline components

Next, we will discuss some of the basic components of a data pipeline that you should know about if you plan to work with one.

  • Origin. A data pipeline begins at the origin, where data is entered. A company’s reporting and analytical data ecosystem can include data sources (transaction processing applications, IoT devices, social media, or APIs) and storage platforms (data warehouse, data lake, or data lakehouse).
  • Destination. A destination is a point at which data is transferred. The destination will depend on the use case: For example, data can be used to fuel data visualization and analytics tools, or it can be stored in a data lake or warehouse.
  • Dataflow. This refers to the movement of data from point A to point B, including the modifications it experiences along the process, as well as the data stores it passes through.
  • Storage. In storage systems, data is preserved at different stages as it passes through the pipeline. There are many factors that affect data storage decisions, such as the volume and frequency of data queries to a storage system, the use of data, etc.
  • Processing. Data processing involves ingesting data from the source, storing it, transforming it, and delivering it. Data processing is related to dataflow, but it focuses on how to implement this movement. Ingesting data can be achieved by retrieving it from existing systems, copying it from one database to another (database replication), or streaming it. There are more options than the three we mention.
  • Workflow. In a data pipeline, a workflow defines the sequence of processes (tasks) and their dependency on one another. Here, it would be beneficial for you to have a good understanding of several concepts – jobs, upstream, and downstream. A job is a section of work that performs a specific task – in this case, data processing. Data enters a pipeline from an upstream source while it exits at a downstream destination. The data pipeline is like a river that flows downhill. Additionally, upstream jobs must be successfully completed before downstream jobs can begin.
  • Monitoring. Monitors check that the data pipeline and its stages are working effectively: whether they maintain efficiency as data volumes grow, whether data remains accurate and consistent during processing stages, and whether the information is not lost along the way.

Data pipeline architecture

ETL data pipeline

A data pipeline architecture based on ETL has been a standard for decades. Typically, it extracts data from various sources, formats it, and loads it into an enterprise data warehouse or data mart.

ETL pipelines are typically used for

  • Migrating data from legacy systems to a data warehouse,
  • Utilizing multiple touchpoints to gather all customer information in one place (usually the CRM system),
  • Providing a holistic view of business operations by consolidating large volumes of data from various internal and external sources
  • Integrating disparate datasets to enable deeper analysis.

The critical disadvantage of ETL architecture is that you have to recreate it whenever your business rules (and data formats) change. 

ELT data pipeline

ELT varies from ETL in the flow of steps: loading occurs before the transformation. The ELT architecture is useful when

  • It is unknown what you will do with data and how exactly you will transform it;
  • Ingestion speed plays an important role; and
  • There are large amounts of data involved.

ELT, however, is still a less mature technology than ETL, which causes problems in terms of tools and talent pools. Data pipelines can be built using either ETL or ELT architecture or a combination.

Batch pipeline 

Data pipelines using batch processing collect data over a period of time and process it on a regular basis. A traditional data analysis workflow involves asking questions of previously collected data – you are likely to think of batch analysis when you imagine a traditional data analysis workflow. Throughout the decades, batch processing has been a critical component of analytics and business intelligence.

The batch processing of data is an established method of working with large datasets in non-time-sensitive projects. However, if you require real-time insights, you should choose architectures that support streaming analytics.

Streaming data pipeline 

Real-time or streaming analytics are based on real-time data processing, also known as event streaming. Essentially, it is a way of processing data continuously as it is collected in a matter of seconds or milliseconds. A real-time system responds quickly to new information when it is based on an event-based architecture. While real-time data pipelines can be utilized for analytics, such pipelines are vital for systems that need rapid processing of data.

The use of real-time analytics enables businesses to get up-to-date information about operations and react accordingly without delay, as well as provide solutions for monitoring the performance of infrastructure in a smart and efficient manner. Companies that cannot afford to experience any delays in processing data, such as fleet management companies operating telematics systems, should opt for streaming architecture over batch processing.

Big Data pipeline

Big Data pipelines carry out the same tasks as smaller pipelines. Their ability to support Big Data analytics distinguishes them from one another.

As a Big Data pipeline, ELT seems to be the perfect solution for loading unlimited amounts of raw data and analyzing it live, extracting insights on the fly. However, batch processing and ETL are capable of handling large amounts of data as well, thanks to modern tools. Typically, organizations use a combination of ETL and ELT as well as several stores to analyze Big Data in both batch and real-time.

Conclusion 

A data pipeline is undoubtedly essential to modern data management and strategic planning. By using data pipelines, you can connect data between different organizations and stakeholders. Data engineers can gain valuable insights for better decision-making by supporting in-depth data analysis with effective data movements.

There are many design architectures and tools available for developing the pipeline, making it easier to achieve better analysis. However, before implementing data pipelines, it is essential to realize what data can do for your organization and how you can crawl data from the web.

Featured Image by Mudassar Iqbal from Pixabay 

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15 Reasons to start an Environmental Journalism and PR agency in 2023

March 30th, 2023 No comments

Did you know that the Public Relations Firms business has been growing rapidly in the past 3-4 years, especially post the COVID-19 pandemic? According to the latest statistics, the PR industry is expected to grow at least 10 percent every year. 

It is strongly believed that opening a PR, Environmental Journalism, or any other communication firm is one of the smartest business ideas in 2023. In this blog, we will talk about the key reasons to start an environmental journalism or PR agency this year. But first, let us understand what they both are. 

Just like Public Relations, Environmental Journalism is another practice that has become increasingly popular. plays a critical role in our society by providing coverage and analysis of environmental issues and their impact on the planet and human health. 

It provides crucial information to the public about the state of the environment and the steps that can be taken to protect it. This information is essential for individuals, communities, and policymakers to make informed decisions about how to address environment-related problems.  

It can foster public debate and discussion about environmental issues, encouraging individuals and communities to engage in constructive dialogue and take action to protect the environment. 

Environmental journalists play a crucial role in holding corporations, governments, and other powerful entities accountable for their actions. By investigating and reporting on environmental issues, journalists can expose environmental abuses and hold those responsible accountable.

What is a PR Agency and Environmental Journalism?

If content is king, then communication is king. These days, more and more people are trying to get into communications or related fields because of the sudden growth of these industries. You can easily find so many blogs online that will help you become a content marketing manager, communications or a community manager. 

In fact, many people have been learning about different types of genres in movies or music trends only to get a role in the media or communication industry. Reason–every company, small or big, needs a PR Firm to promote their business, build a good market reputation, and help them stay one step ahead of their competitors. 

An environmental journalism and PR agency is a type of communications firm that specializes in raising awareness about environmental issues and promoting sustainable practices through media coverage and strategic communication efforts. 

These agencies work with a variety of clients, including businesses, non-profit organizations, government agencies, and other stakeholders, to help them effectively communicate their sustainability efforts and environmental impact.

Environmental journalism involves reporting on environmental issues, such as climate change, pollution, and habitat destruction, to educate the public and raise awareness of the challenges we face. 

Environmental PR involves developing and executing communication strategies to promote sustainability initiatives, build brand reputation, and engage stakeholders. 

Together, environmental journalism and PR agencies help organizations communicate their environmental impact and sustainability efforts to the public and other stakeholders.

Services provided by environmental journalism and PR agencies may include media relations, content creation, crisis communication, event planning, stakeholder engagement, and sustainability reporting. 

These agencies work to position their clients as leaders in environmental sustainability, helping them to attract and retain customers, enhance their brand image, and achieve their sustainability goals.

Image by Freepik

Overall, environmental journalism and PR agencies play a critical role in driving positive change by raising awareness of environmental issues and promoting sustainable practices across a range of industries and sectors.

15 reasons why you should start an environmental journalism PR agency in 2023

Starting an Environmental Journalism and PR agency can have a significant impact on the environment and society as a whole. Here are a few reasons why you may want to consider starting such an agency:

  1. Increasing concern about climate change: With the effects of climate change becoming more apparent, there is an increasing need for environmental journalism and PR agencies to raise awareness and promote actions that can mitigate the impact of climate change.
  2. Growing demand for green products and services: Consumers are increasingly seeking out environmentally friendly products and services, creating a market for companies to communicate their green credentials through effective environmental journalism and PR.
  3. Corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives: Companies are under increasing pressure to demonstrate their commitment to sustainable practices, and environmental journalism and PR agencies can help them to communicate their efforts to a wider audience.
  4. Government regulations: Governments are introducing regulations to encourage companies to adopt more sustainable practices. Environmental journalism and PR agencies can help companies to understand and comply with these regulations.
  5. Need for transparency: Consumers are demanding more transparency from companies about their environmental impact. Environmental journalism and PR agencies can help companies to communicate their environmental performance and engage with stakeholders.
  6. Increased media coverage: There is a growing interest in environmental issues, resulting in increased media coverage. An environmental journalism and PR agency can help companies to leverage this media attention and get their message across effectively.
  7. Influence public opinion: Environmental journalism and PR agencies can play a critical role in influencing public opinion on environmental issues, encouraging people to take action and drive positive change.
Image by pch.vector on Freepik
  1. Educate the public: Environmental journalism and PR agencies can help educate the public about environmental issues, creating greater awareness and understanding of the challenges we face.
  2. Raise awareness: Environmental journalism and PR agencies can help raise awareness of environmental issues, creating a sense of urgency and encouraging people to take action.
  3. Foster partnerships: Environmental journalism and PR agencies can help foster partnerships between businesses, NGOs, and other stakeholders to promote sustainable practices and drive positive change.
  4. Promote best practices: Environmental journalism and PR agencies can help promote best practices in sustainable business, encouraging companies to adopt more sustainable practices and reduce their environmental impact.
  5. Provide expert advice: Environmental journalism and PR agencies can provide expert advice to companies on how to communicate their sustainability efforts effectively.
  6. Build reputation: Environmental journalism and PR agencies can help companies build their reputation as environmentally responsible and socially conscious organizations, enhancing their brand image and increasing customer loyalty.
  7. Create job opportunities: Starting an environmental journalism and PR agency can create job opportunities for professionals with expertise in environmental issues, contributing to economic growth and development.
  8. Be a catalyst for change: Starting an environmental journalism and PR agency can be a powerful way to drive positive change, inspiring others to take action and make a difference in the world.

Tips for starting an Environmental Journalism and PR agency in 2023

Starting an Environmental Journalism and PR agency can be challenging, but it can also be a rewarding and fulfilling experience. Here are some tips to help you get started:

Image by Alena Darmel

Identify your niche: Consider the specific areas of environmental journalism and PR that interest you the most, and identify your target audience.

Develop a business plan: Create a detailed business plan that outlines your goals, target audience, marketing strategies, and financial projections.

Build a network: Develop relationships with environmental organizations, experts, and journalists who can provide you with valuable insights and connections. You can also share videos to reach a global audience.

Hire experienced staff: Hire experienced journalists and PR professionals who have a deep understanding of environmental issues and strong communication skills.

Stay up-to-date: Stay informed about the latest environmental developments and trends by attending conferences, workshops, and seminars. Also, don’t forget to choose the right social media channels for your business. 

Leverage digital tools: Use social media, blogging, and other digital tools to build your brand and reach a wider audience. Right from project management tools to handle multiple accounts and tasks to social media listening tools to stay on top of your brand new.s There are also several branding strategies that can help a startup grow. You can follow them and ensure that you are working in the right direction. 

Final Takeaway

In conclusion, there are numerous reasons why starting an Environmental Journalism and PR agency in 2023 could be a wise decision. 

From the urgent need for environmental coverage to the opportunity to make a positive impact on the environment and society, the benefits of starting such an agency are clear. 

By following the tips outlined above and staying focused on your mission, you can build a successful agency that informs, inspires, and empowers individuals and communities to take action to protect the environment. 

The world needs more environmental journalism and PR, and starting an agency could be the perfect way to fill that gap and make a difference.

Image by rawpixel.com on Freepik

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What Is the Metaverse & How It’s Transforming Businesses?

March 29th, 2023 No comments

Metaverse is now. It’s one of the world’s hottest tech ideas. Facebook’s Meta rebranding shows the topic’s severity.

Several organizations hope to maximize metaverse use. FAANG (now MAANG) enterprises lead the way.

Netflix entered metal with Decentraland. Amazon, though, is offering augmented rooms to eCommerce customers. Microsoft and Nvidia are creating metaverses for Business. The world must follow them.

Organizations worldwide must embrace the concept to explore new possibilities. So, firms must comprehend metal to maximize its benefits.

This blog post answers the billion-dollar question: what is the Metaverse? We’ll also examine how it’s changing Transforming Businesses and how yours might benefit.

What is the Metaverse?

Imagine the Metaverse as our digital world. Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash introduced to metal. Metaverse elevates AR, VR, and MR.

Discuss metaV’s origins. It combines “meta” and “universe.” Meta means more, and universe means worlds. Metaverse means more universes.

The concept was introduced in the 1990s, although it only acquired popularity recently. Web 3.0, the next stage of internet evolution after the Internet of Things, has sparked interest in the metal.

Technologies Powering the Metaverse

Now that we know the Metaverse meaning, we can break it into its basic components.

Immersive technologies—AR, VR, MR—internet, blockchain, AI, networking, Cloud, and AdTech—power the metal. Briefly introduce them:

1. Immersive Technologies

Immersive technologies—AR, VR, and MR—open the Metaverse. Experience virtual worlds in virtual reality. Augmented reality overlays virtual displays and information on real-world items. Mixed reality is AR/VR. It is a mix of real worlds and virtual worlds.

2. Internet

As we use this every day, it’s the easiest to understand. The internet network is the global computer network.

MetaV needs the web. metaverse development Accessing services requires businessconnectivity.

3. Blockchain and Cryptography

Blockchain is another essential metal tech stack component. Cryptocurrencies’ popularity encourages businesses to incorporate blockchain and decentralization into their metaverse projects.

4. AI

Fast-improving AI It’s everywhere now. Machines can think independently and act on data analysis outcomes.

AI and data science are linked. Machine learning and deep learning are artificial intelligence subsets that include NLP, neural networks, robotics, and more.

5. Networking Equipment

This hardware allows data transfer. Networking equipment includes routers, bridges, cables, switches, multiplexers, etc.

6. Cloud Infrastructure

The Metaverse needs Cloud. Data centers serve large cloud networks.

7. AdTech

Advertising Technology (AdTech) includes all software that helps agencies, brands, publishers, and others target, deliver, and analyze digital advertising. AdTech platforms sell advertising to brands and agencies.

How does Metaverse change Transforming Businesses?

MetaV benefits numerous segments. Healthcare, online learning, gaming, and banking are examples. One by one, let’s discuss the essential ones:

1. BFSI

MetaV alters digital transactions. Blockchain, a key metaverse ecosystem component, dominates it.

Digital apparel, furniture, products, properties, etc., need a new financial model. Several examples show how banks, NBFCs, and other financial institutions must adapt creatively.

JPMorgan launched JPMCoin, while Nubank launched Nucripto, a Bitcoin and Ether trading platform, and plans to introduce Nucoin in the first half of 2023. Banks may follow suit.

2. eCommerce and Retail

Sustainability is important now. Metaverse’s retail business makes avatar apparel for VR and AR. This lets people express their thoughts while dramatically reducing the environmental effect.

Digital experiences require attire, accessories, and furniture. So, selling these can boost retail income.

3. Schooling

Metaverse tech benefits education the most. Online education is popular. 2023 will bring $57 billion.

Online learning was boosted through COVID-19. Coursera, Skillshare, Udacity, and Udemy are growing. Currently, students prefer homeschooling over classrooms.

Experiments in the lab and working together on projects are important, but digital learning tools can help with lectures. MetaV fills this gap.

Digital spaces and 3D simulations are used by Axon Park, NextMeet, and VRAcademi to give students immersive, game-like learning experiences. Early results are good.

4. F&B

Metaverse is also big in food and beverage. Coca-Cola and Crypto.com released a special set of NFT souvenirs for the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar.

OneRare is the first food and beverage-focused metal—claim NFTs from favorite companies, chefs, and restaurants.

Win contests.

Share meals.

NFTs for dishes.

Possibilities abound. AR, VR, and AI can help food brands create new trends, reduce waste, and more.

5. Fashion

Metaverse can showcase fashion merchandise. Direct-to-avatar (D2A) experiences and products are expanding rapidly.

The D2A race includes top fashion labels like Adidas, Balenciaga, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Nike, The North Face, and Zara. D2A products have no supply networks. Consequently, they provide faster than real goods.

6. Healthcare

Healthcare is another sector that has benefited greatly from metal and will continue to do so. It uses AI, AR, mixed reality, and VR to improve services and reach more people. Examples:

Mixed reality aids medical gadget design. It helps build surgical tools and operating rooms.

Augmented reality aids Johns Hopkins neurosurgeons.

VR helps combat veterans with PTSD.

Augmented reality trains COVID response teams at the WHO.

iMining is building the first Decentraland Metaverse hospital. Apollo Hospitals and 8chili, Inc., a healthcare AR/VR platform, will deliver unique medical services in the metal.

7. Hospitality

VR excursions give tourists a preview. Augmented reality enriches travel. It personalizes vacations.

8. Manufacturing

Complex industrial processes and systems use AR and VR. Doing so will reduce labor, expense, and error.

Azure Digital Twins is an IoT platform that lets you model and simulate real business processes, people, places, and things. Digital Twins reduce risk and boost efficiency and transparency.

9. Promotion

Marketing and advertising have become major Metaverse uses. In-game advertising is prevalent.

Webcasting.

Rare digital collectibles.

Marketing items to avatars of real people.

Companies use metal to sell themselves and their products. The trend will grow in the coming years.

10. Others

The Metaverse also benefits aerospace, defense, media, entertainment, and video gaming.

How to Invest in Metaverse?

Metaverse investment is easy. Any firm or individual can invest in the metaV by buying metaverse equities, ETFs, or metaV assets and properties.

Creating a metal like Facebook or Microsoft is a better approach to investing in the Metaverse. It’s expensive, but constant progress is making it affordable.

Conclusion

Like it or not, metal is our future. We are in its early stages. Embrace it to keep your business current.

The idea could change the world in amazing ways. The exponential metaverse expansion will improve and grow the ones we discussed earlier.

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Fine-Grained Access Handling And Data Management With Row-Level Security

March 29th, 2023 No comments

Many apps have some kind of user-specific information or data that is supposed to be accessed by a certain group of users and not by others. With these sorts of requirements comes a demand for fine-grained access handling. Whether for security or privacy reasons, dealing with sensitive data is an important topic for any app. Big or small, nobody wants to be on the wrong side of a data leakage scandal. So let’s dive in on what it means to handle sensitive or confidential information in our apps.

Take It Seriously

Regardless if you’re requesting access on Twitter, a bank, or your local library, identifying yourself is a crucial first step. Any sort of gateway needs a reliable way to verify if an access request is legitimate.

“Identity theft is not a joke.”
— Dwight Schrute

On the web, we encapsulate the process for identifying a user and granting them access as Auth, which stands for two related but distinct actions:

  • Authentication: the act of confirming a user’s identity.
  • Authorization: granting an authenticated user access to a resource.

It is possible to have authentication without authorization, but not the other way around. The strategy to implement authorization at a data management level can be loosely referred to as Row-Level Security (RLS), but RLS is actually a bit more than this. In this article, we will take a step deeper into managing sensitive user data and defining access roles to a user base.

Row-Level Security (RLS)

A ‘row’, in this case, refers to an entry in a database table. For example, in a posts table, a row would be a single article, check this json representation:

{
    "posts": [
        {
            "id": "article_23495044",
            "title": "User Data Management",
            "content": "<huge blob of text>",
            "publishedAt": "2023-03-28",
            "author": "author_2929292"
        },
        // ...
    ]
}

To understand RLS, each object inside posts is a ‘row’.

The above data is enough for creating a filter algorithm to effectively enforce row-level security. Nonetheless, it’s crucial for scalability and data handling that such relationship is defined on your data layer. This way, any service that connects to your database will have all the required information to implement its own access-control logic as required. So for the above example, the schema for the posts table would roughly look like the following:

{
    "posts": {
        "columns": [
            {
                "name": "id",
                "type": "string"
            },
            // ... other primitive types
            // establish relationship with "authors"
            {
                "name": "author",
                "type": "link",
                "link": "authors"
            }
        ]
    }
}

In the above example, we define the type of each value in our posts database and establish a relationship to the authors table. So each post will receive the id of one author. This is a one-to-many relationship: one author can have many posts.

Of course, there are patterns to define many-to-many relationships as well. Take, for example, a team’s backlog. You may want only members of a certain team to have access. In such case, you can create a list of users with access to a specific resource (and thus being very granular about it), or you can define a table for team, and thus connecting a team to multiple tasks, and a team to multiple users: this pattern is called a junction table and is great for defining scoped access within your data layer.

Now we understand what authorization is and looks like in a few cases. This should be enough to design a mental model for defining access to our data. We understand that in order to use the granular access to our data effectively, our app must be aware of which user is using that particular instance of the app (aka who’s behind the mouse).

Authentication

It is time to set up a reliable and cost-effective authentication. Cost-effective because it is counter-productive to re-authenticate the user on every request. And it increases the risk factor of attacks, so let’s keep auth requests to a minimum. The way our app stores the user credentials to re-use in a defined lifecycle is called a session.

There are multiple ways of authenticating users and handling sessions. I invite you to check Eric Burel’s article on “Authentication in Websites: A Banking Analogy”. It’s a great and thorough explanation of how authentication works.

From this moment on, let’s assume we did our due diligence: username and password are securely stored, an authentication provider is able to reliably verify our user’s identity and returns a session, which is an object carrying a userId matching our user’s row in the database.

Connecting The Dots

So now that we have established what it means and the requirements each moving piece brings in order to get it working, our goal is the following:

  1. Authentication
    The provider performs user authentication, the library creates a session, and the app receives that as a payload from the auth request.
  2. Resource request
    Authenticated User performs request with resourceId; the app takes userId from session.
  3. Granting access
    It filters all resources from the table to only the ones owned by userId and returns (if it exists) the one with resourceId.

With the above mental model defined, it is possible to any sort of implementation and properly design your queries. For example, on our first defined schema (posts and authors), we can use filters on our fetching service to only provide access to the results a user should have:

async function getPostsByAuthor(authorId: string) {
    return sdk.db.posts
        .filter({
            author: authorId
        })
        .getPaginated()
}

This contrived snippet is just to exemplify a bare-bones RLS implementation. Maybe as a food-for-thought so you can build upon it.

Conclusion

Hopefully, these concepts have offered extra clarity on defining access management to private and/or sensitive data. It’s important to note that there are security concerns before and around storing such kind of data which were beyond the scope of this article. As a general rule: store as little as you need and provide only the necessary amount of access to data. The least sensible data going over the wire or being stored by your app, the lesser the chance your app is a target or victim of attacks or leaks.

Let me know your questions or feedback in the comment section or on Twitter.

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What Is Green Marketing? Everything You Need To Know

March 29th, 2023 No comments

Green marketing is a very popular term in recent times and is increasingly present in the communication strategies of companies. However, it has long been known that the “throwaway mentality” of consumers has a negative impact on the environment, as well as on working conditions in producing countries. Many people have become aware of the magnitude of these problems in recent years, either through educational campaigns by NGOs or through the dissemination of images on social networks or the media, which has gradually led to a change of focus in consumption habits. And this trend has intensified due to an increase in awareness of this type of aspect by society during the covid-19 crisis.

Today, various studies carried out have shown that more and more people are willing to make conscious consumption and pay a little more for products or services that contribute to caring for the environment, whether through small or large actions, which allows them to keep a clear conscience. This is where ecological marketing comes into play, a tool that allows companies to communicate sustainable production strategies and activities that are respectful of the environment in order to realize how to get to know consumers, get new customers or retain customers. they already have in the long run.

But really… What is green marketing? Are all the companies that proclaim themselves “green” really ecological? What does it really mean for a company to apply this type of strategy of respect for the environment?

What is green marketing?

Green marketing, also known as green marketing, ecological marketing, sustainable marketing or eco marketing, is according to the American Marketing Association (AMA), “the development and marketing of products designed to minimize negative effects on the environment, or to improve its quality. Likewise, they refer to this concept as the “efforts that organizations make to produce, promote, package and claim products in a sensitive or responsible way with respect to ecological concerns”. This definition may sound a bit abstract, but in our opinion it is quite close to the current concept of green marketing and its characteristics, which is also intrinsically linked to the context of social marketing.

We do not understand this type of strategy only as pure marketing, which is why we would like to give our own definition of green marketing, which we could summarize as “a global strategy in which companies include among their values respect and improvement of the environment, which allows them to obtain competitive advantages, become a more valued and appreciated brand and, therefore, generate a change in consumer perception of the brand”.

We firmly believe that although green marketing is almost a must for many brands, it should not remain just a facade or empty words, but should produce a profound transformation within the brand. A transformation based on a global strategy that, taking advantage of the environment, facilitates the transmission of a message consistent with the company’s own philosophy and its values. And it is important not to forget that the market quickly recognizes inconsistencies since the user is increasingly difficult to deceive, so it is not worth everything just to show yourself as a “green” brand.

History of green marketing

The history of green marketing dates back to the mid-1970s, when the American Marketing Association held the first workshop on “Environmental Marketing” in 1975. But the truth is that it wasn’t until the late 1980s and early from the 90s when this concept began to take hold. However, it was at that time when environmental problems began to have more relevance and in this way, a great social conscience began to appear to care more for the environment, leading to an important change of attitude in society. This became an excellent opportunity that brands did not hesitate to take advantage of to become the agents of change that the world was demanding.

It is evidence that for a few years the market has been showing a clear trend towards everything sustainable, especially due to the growing concern of the new generations about climate change. And it is that we should not think that it is a fashion, on the contrary, it is the future and an obligation for many companies. This is the only way to understand why more and more companies are announcing a commitment to reduce their impact on the environment, anticipating the future with their green marketing strategies.

Characteristics of green marketing: data that shows what people are currently considering.

It does not escape anyone that in recent times, more and more customers are looking for organic products. Ecology is fashionable. From vegan products, through recycled packaging or biodegradable materials, interest in products or services of this type has been increasing. As an example of this, we can refer to a recent global study by the Nielsen agency that produced revealing data: more than 80% of those surveyed stated that companies should help improve the environment.

In addition, all of them admitted that they would be willing to support brands that show a true commitment with green or social marketing campaigns, with Corporate Social Responsibility actions, providing employee volunteers that take care of the environment, etc. The numbers speak for themselves. And, for example, 6 years ago, in 2014, sales of sustainable products generated approximately 97 billion euros and are expected to reach 150 billion by 2021.

In this context, the figure of green marketing, which is not only limited to promoting sustainable products or services, but also promotes the implication of changes in the core and the business model of the brand, is increasingly important. In essence, it is about adopting a different vision of marketing, considering the global consequences that the activity of companies has on environmental degradation, satisfying customer needs just as well but generating minimal damage to the environment.

The greening of products is the main influence that climate change is having on the advertising market. The truth is that advertising has always been flexible to the challenges of today, which is why this industry has been able to evolve with the times. There is no doubt that we are and will be the first generation in the history of modern advertising that has the obligation to integrate climate change into green marketing and advertising strategies. Faced with this situation, brands need to realize that if they want to have a future, they will have to start taking sustainable measures from within. Green marketing strategies are beginning to focus on the consumers of the future and their needs, considering sustainability as the heart of the identity and communication of companies.

Currently, there are several initiatives for the environment with which to develop eco marketing strategies: eliminate aggressive raw materials with the environment and reduce waste, promote sustainable use, support the environmental cause, participate and associate with environmental activities, offer products with natural certificates or also be an example in the development of social actions. These initiatives will be fundamental for companies of today and of the future, since it is important not to forget that according to the Natural Marketing Institute, almost 60% of consumers already consider the environmental impact when they decide to buy a good or service, affirming that the most it is probable that, other things being equal, they will end up buying from socially responsible companies.

Featured Image by Margot RICHARD on Unsplash

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The Pros and Cons of Paid Advertising vs Organic Marketing

March 28th, 2023 No comments

Marketing is a crucial component of any business, and in today’s digital age, there are more avenues than ever to connect with your intended audience. 

Two of the most common marketing techniques are paid advertising and organic marketing. While both can be part of a strong marketing plan that aims to enhance brand visibility, generate leads, and prompt sales, they possess distinct dissimilarities that companies must take into account when selecting which method to utilize. 

This article will weigh the advantages and disadvantages of paid advertising versus organic marketing and highlight the differences between the two methods to empower businesses to make an informed decision on which if not both, approach to adopt.

What is Paid Advertising?

Paid advertising refers to marketing where companies pay to showcase their advertisements on various platforms, including search engines, social media, or other websites. 

There are various types of paid advertising, such as pay-per-click (PPC), display ads, social media ads, and sponsored content. Typically, paid advertising helps businesses reach a broad audience quickly, as they can target their advertisements to particular demographics, interests, and behaviors. 

By purchasing ad space, businesses have more control over ad placement and can frequently see immediate outcomes.

Pros of Paid Advertising

  • Fast results: Paid advertising can produce fast outcomes, particularly when compared to organic marketing approaches. Once ads are set up and launched, businesses can begin seeing traffic, leads, and conversions promptly.
  • Targeting control: Paid advertising enables businesses to control who sees their ads by targeting specific demographics, interests, and behaviors. This can help ensure that the ad reaches the right people and increases engagement.
  • Measurable return on investment (ROI): Paid advertising allows businesses to track and measure the effectiveness of their ads, enabling them to see precisely how much they’re spending and the kind of ROI they’re receiving. This can assist businesses in making data-driven decisions regarding their advertising strategies.

Cons of Pair Advertising

  • High expense: One of the primary disadvantages of paid advertising is its cost, primarily for businesses with smaller budgets. The cost of advertising varies depending on the platform, targeting options, and competition, and businesses need to be ready to invest a significant amount of money to see substantial results.
  • Ad fatigue possibility: Paid advertising can be successful at first, but businesses may suffer from ad fatigue if they don’t refresh their ads or target new audiences. This implies that individuals get exhausted from seeing the same ad over and over again and may begin to ignore it.
  • Limited trust: Some people may be skeptical of paid advertising, particularly if they feel like they’re being targeted too aggressively. Furthermore, some people may automatically block ads or use ad-blockers, making it more difficult for businesses to reach their target audience.

What is Organic Marketing?

Organic marketing is a marketing strategy where businesses attract and engage their target audience through creating valuable content and optimizing their website for search engines without paying for ad space. 

Unlike paid advertising, organic marketing relies on building relationships and establishing thought leadership over time to increase brand awareness and drive conversions.

Pros of Organic Marketing

  • Cost-effective: One of the most significant benefits of organic marketing is that it is often more cost-effective than paid advertising since businesses do not have to pay for ad space or clicks.
  • Builds trust and credibility: By creating high-quality content and establishing thought leadership, businesses can build trust and credibility with their target audience, resulting in long-term benefits.
  • Long-term results: Although organic marketing may take longer to see results than paid advertising, the benefits can be longer-lasting. Evergreen content and a strong online presence can continue to attract and engage customers over time.

Cons of Organic Marketing

  • Slower results: Unlike paid advertising, which can deliver immediate results, organic marketing can take longer to see results since it relies on building relationships and creating valuable content over time.
  • Requires consistent effort: Organic marketing requires consistent effort and ongoing investment, such as creating high-quality content, optimizing websites for search engines, and engaging with the audience on social media.
  • Less control over targeting: Unlike paid advertising, businesses have less control over who sees their content, meaning they may need to invest more time and resources in attracting the right audience to their website or social media pages.

Comparison of Paid Advertising vs Organic Marketing:

As two of the most commonly known forms of digital marketing, businesses commonly use paid advertising and organic marketing to reach potential customers and grow their business. While each strategy has its own advantages and disadvantages, deciding between them ultimately depends on a business’s specific goals and budget.

Cost-effectiveness

Organic marketing has an advantage in cost-effectiveness over paid advertising. Businesses can create and distribute valuable content at no cost, aside from the time and resources invested in creating the content. 

In contrast, paid advertising requires a significant upfront monetary investment.

Measurable ROI

Both paid advertising and organic marketing can provide measurable ROI that allow businesses to make more data-driven decisions, but the metrics used to measure success may differ. 

With paid advertising, businesses can track clicks, conversions, and other key performance indicators. With organic marketing, businesses may rely on metrics like website traffic, engagement rates, and lead generation.

Speed of results

Paid advertising has a clear advantage in speed of results over organic marketing. Businesses can see results almost immediately after launching their campaigns, while organic marketing can take months or even years to see significant results.

Control over targeting

Paid advertising has a clear advantage in control over targeting compared to organic marketing. Businesses can target specific demographics, interests, and behaviors to ensure their ads are seen by the right people. 

With organic marketing, businesses have less control over who sees their content and may need to invest more time and resources to attract the right audience.

Trust and credibility

Organic marketing has a clear advantage in building trust and credibility compared to paid advertising. Over time, businesses can establish thought leadership and build relationships with potential customers, leading to greater trust and credibility. Customers may view ads as intrusive and may be less likely to trust the message being presented.

Which is better for your business goals and budget?

Ultimately, the choice between paid advertising and organic marketing depends on a business’s specific goals and budget. 

If the goal is to see immediate results and the budget allows for a significant investment upfront, paid advertising may be the best option. If the goal is to build long-term relationships with potential customers and the budget is limited, organic marketing may be the best option.

For example, for an online course business that requires substantial upfront costs, it may be a better option to build build a long-term relationship with your audience and save yourself the additional costs of paid marketing.

However, each business must assess its unique needs and goals to determine the best strategy.

Conclusion

To sum up, paid advertising and organic marketing both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Paid advertising offers immediate results and precise targeting, but can be costly and may not build trust and credibility. Organic marketing is a more cost-effective and sustainable approach to building relationships and establishing thought leadership but may take longer to see significant results.

When deciding between these two strategies, businesses should consider their goals, budget, and target audience. Both approaches can be effective when used strategically and in alignment with the business’s overall marketing objectives. Ultimately, the best choice for a business depends on its unique needs and goals.

By carefully weighing the pros and cons of each approach, businesses can make an informed decision that will help them achieve their marketing goals and drive long-term growth.

Image by talha khalil from Pixabay

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Big Data, Big Reputation: 5 Reasons Why You Need to Focus On Your Analytics Efforts

March 27th, 2023 No comments

Don’t want your competitors to get ahead? Ready to perfect your operations? Never want to post a flopped marketing campaign again? 

Then you’ll need access to solid, ongoing insights to inform your business, marketing, and sales strategies.

Enter: Big Data and analytics.

With big data and analytics leading you in the right direction, there’s no limit to the growth and innovations your business can bring forth.

Unfortunately, organizations that don’t recognize the importance of big data (and worse, don’t apply it), can end up wasting time, money, and precious resources on advancements that simply don’t work and are misaligned.  

From helping you mitigate spending to supporting the customer experience, there are endless reasons you need to focus on big data and your analytics efforts. 

If you’re ready to embrace big data and analytics, stick around to learn more about how these two components work, why businesses care about them, and the top five benefits of applying them. 

What Is Big Data? And How Do Analytics Play a Role? 

“Big Data” is a term that refers to a large volume of data and data sets that come in from a variety of publicly accessible sources, such as IoT devices, mobile apps, the cloud, websites, social media, and other channels. 

When talking about big data, you might notice people characterizing it using the following three Vs:

  1. Variety: Data that comes in from a great variety of sources 
  2. Volume: Data that comes in increasing volumes 
  3. Velocity: A high velocity of data 

Businesses rely on big data to collect important user information, such as B2B data on their sales prospects, target audience preferences, what they searched for, their purchasing history, and other behavioral details.

Image Source: Sales.Rocks

Then, the technical analysis happens. 

Businesses use analytic techniques as part of their data analytics strategy to discover key patterns, trends, and correlations.

This final analysis helps businesses make more strategic decisions going forward. 

For instance, using reverse ETL, you can copy big data from your central data warehouse to your operational tools, such as your marketing apps, sales automation tools, support software and other relevant SaaS growth tools.

Your marketing and sales departments can then use analytic techniques to examine the data pulled from these tools to better inform and personalize their future campaigns. No more shooting in the dark!

Which Industries Care About Big Data and Analytics? 

Businesses with large amounts of customer and prospect data all over the world rely on big data and analytics to make informed decisions. 

Image source: Yasir Ekinci

For instance, authentication and SCIM SaaS companies use big data and analytics to understand their B2B audiences’ pain points so they can build better, custom software solutions. 

FinTech and insurance companies leverage big data analytics for risk assessment, detection and prevention of fraud, cost reductions, personalized service and offers, customer acquisition and more.

Marketing agencies use big data and analytics to craft compelling and tailored campaigns at scale and measure their results so they can improve them later on. And retailers use big data and analytics to uncover which products and innovations their target audiences value most.

The Top 5 Benefits of Big Data and Analytics

Here are the top five big data and benefits every organization needs to know for their business intelligence reporting:

1. The Lifeblood of Innovation 

Big data and analytics are the lifeblood of innovation. By uncovering key patterns in big data, you can learn how to improve and innovate your products and services according to your audience’s preferences.

For instance, let’s say you designed an eco-friendly water bottle that comes with a lifetime warranty. Your business is growing, but not as quickly as you’d hoped. After combing through big data, your team notices a major buying trend your audience is participating in: Purchasing filtered eco-friendly water bottles. 

Your next mission? Figure out how to add a filtration system to your current product or add a new product line of filtered, eco-friendly water bottles.

2. Faster Decision-Making 

With the right analytics software, you can analyze big data in real-time. 

For example, enterprise companies receive enormous number of applications for their open job positions. That means parsing through huge chunks of data and comparing all data points between candidates and deciding on how to proceed with each one of them. 

Without data analytics software it would be impossible for the HR department or the talent recruitment team in a big company to identify and employ the right candidates for the job.

Applicant tracking systems help organize all aspects of the recruiting process and are an absolute necessity for anyone tasked with managing candidate information. They help you find the ideal candidates, compare their skills & experience side-by-side and advance them through the interviewing & hiring process.

That means you’ll have invaluable insights at your fingertips you can immediately use to make faster and better business decisions. You can also use these insights to pivot and course-correct if things ever go awry. In other words, real-time analytics also allow you to be more agile in your decision-making. 

3. Personalized, Targeted Campaigns 

With marketing messages flooding your audience’s screens, standing out from countless competitors can feel like a steep, uphill battle.

Image Source: ReallyGoodEmails

By analyzing big data, you can discover your audience’s messaging preferences and core needs so you can design irresistible offers and create personalized email campaigns and targeted marketing ads.

4. A Deeper Understanding of Your Market

There’s nothing like the thrill and impact of truly knowing who you serve. By focusing on your analytics efforts, you can learn about your market in a profound way. 

From uncovering their biggest fears to discovering the “why” behind their dreams, big data can help you understand your audience the way you’d understand a trusted friend.

For example, the dental clinic Dentfix used the Porter’s 5 forces model to identify their:

  • Competitive rivalry
  • Supplier power
  • Buyer power
  • Threat of substitution, and
  • Threat of new entry

After the proper market research Dentfix gathered huge chunks of information (big data) on their competitors, their target audience, the price range of alternative services in the market, and the ideal cost of quality (COQ) they can offer to their customers. This led them to appropriate the cost for dental veneers and focus their marketing efforts on this specific service.

The benefits of using data analytics go way beyond just making a sale. By looking at the data, you can find out what drives your customers’ decisions and then tailor your products and services to meet their needs. 

Image Source: Divya

You can also discover any pain points that they’re experiencing and use that information to improve your overall customer experience.

5. Improved Operations

Any kind of data can help a business improve its operations. But big data has limitless potential to help a business improve its routine processes.

Noticing your opt-in form isn’t click-worthy? Big data can help you learn which forms your audience flocks to most, so you can design opt-in templates that convert.

Trouble managing your inventory levels? Whether you’re a Fort Lauderdale florist selling flowers online, or an eCommerce enterprise specializing in truck accessories, big data can help you understand which items to keep in stock, how many to store and at what times. 

It can help you organize your entire inventory, plan for new orders, delivery processes and keep your eCommerce site updated for your clients. There’s virtually no limit to what you can improve by analyzing and applying the insights you’ve learned from big data.

Wrap Up 

Big data is radically changing the way businesses operate, compete, and serve their audiences. And with big data comes big responsibility. 

Organizations use a colocation data center to integrate multiple applications, data types and store data sources in a secure, predictable, lower-latency enabling digital business success.

From inspiring product and service innovation to helping leaders make faster and better decisions to delivering a deeper understanding of the customer, there are endless ways big data and analytics can help a business grow.

For good measure, here’s a quick summary of what we covered in today’s article:

  • What is big data? And how do analytics play a role?
  • Which industries care about big data and analytics?
  • The top 5 benefits of big data and analytics 

That’s it for now!

Are you ready to use big data and analytics to transform your business? Be sure to bookmark this article for inspiration. 

To your success! 

Featured Image by Pixabay

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Overcoming The Challenges Of Content Creation For Informational Websites

March 23rd, 2023 No comments

Web apps and e-commerce sites may get all the love these days, but the majority of the web is still informational, and most websites are still content-led. Whether it’s a marketing website trying to convince you to buy a product or an informational site seeking to educate and answer your questions, the web is still dominated by words. But unfortunately, these sites face two substantial challenges:

  1. According to the Nielsen Norman Group, users only read 20 to 28% of a webpage.
  2. Most people who write content for the web lack the necessary skills, which leads to poor-quality content.

In an ideal world, professionals would write our website copy, but that rarely happens, especially in larger organizations. Instead, we have an eclectic mix of people from all parts of the organization posting content online, which is why content quality is often poor.

Of course, complaining about this fact fixes nothing. So, what can we do to improve the copy on our websites when we potentially have dozens of inexperienced people posting the copy online?

Unsurprisingly, there’s no single magic answer that will fix the quality of our site content. However, there are four techniques we can use that together can get us where we want to be. When implemented correctly, these techniques can have a transformational impact.

Technique #1: Provide Content Creators Training

In my experience, most of the training that content creators receive focuses on how to use the content management system, not how to write good web copy. Even when they do receive training on how to write online, this is often in the form of live training.

Live training has its place, but it comes with its drawbacks. It is hard to arrange and needs to be repeated every time there is a new member of staff. However, the biggest problem with live training is that unless the person goes out of that training session and starts using what they learned immediately and on an ongoing basis, they quickly forget what they have learned and fall back into old patterns of writing.

What content creators really need is training material they can easily reference when they sit down to create content for the website. The material should be broken down into modules that are directly related to things they might want to do, like the following:

  • How to optimize a page for search engines.
  • How to ensure your page is accessible.
  • How to structure your content.
  • How to write clear and engaging titles.
  • How to make content more engaging.

And so on.

Each module should be small, self-contained, and take only a few minutes to digest. Ideally, it should also be supported by video walkthroughs and include specific actions people can take.

There should also be checklists that ensure they have thought of all the things that need doing when writing, all as quickly accessible as possible.

Technique #2: Make Content Creators Accountable

If content creators are not made accountable for the content they create, they will not put the effort in to ensure its quality.

To address this issue, we can assign every page on a website to a specific individual and potentially even add their contact details to the page in case users have questions. Doing this motivates content creators to ensure the page answers as many user questions as possible and is up-to-date.

You may meet resistance to this idea because people change roles, and so responsibilities change. However, that is why pages should have a specific owner. Too often, pages do not get handed over when people move on, and these orphan pages are abandoned, leading to content ROT (redundant, out of date or trivial content).

Ensuring content remains relevant and up-to-date is essential, which leads me to my third technique.

Technique #3: Establish Governance Around Website Content

The only way content will remain up-to-date is if it is reviewed regularly. And to achieve that, we need some governance that motivates content creators to do exactly that with the pages for which they are responsible.

You can create this motivation by establishing a policy stating that if certain conditions are not met, the content will be archived.

What these conditions are is entirely up to you. You could require a page to meet a certain threshold of page views or engagement (encouraging content creators to ensure page titles are relevant and clear.) You could even flag pages that perform poorly in search engine rankings.

However, as an absolute minimum, you should require pages to be reviewed regularly — how regularly will depend on your content and situation.

For instance, I work on many public sector and higher education websites where change is slow. In such cases, an annual review of pages is usually sufficient, except for certain time-sensitive pages.

If the condition is not met (such as the page not being reviewed by a required date), the page could be removed from navigation and search, effectively orphaning it. Whatever you decide, it should also have a banner added to the page saying that the content may not be up-to-date and to contact the page owner for the latest information. This will motivate the content creator to update the page to avoid a lot of emails!

Another condition I often use is poor user feedback on a page, which brings me to my final technique for ensuring quality content.

Technique #4: Provide Content Creators with Good Feedback

One way to gather user feedback for content creators is through surveys. Surveys can be added to the bottom of a page or integrated into the site experience, asking users how they found the content and if there is anything missing that they would like to see.

Another way to gather feedback is through social media listening. Monitoring social media channels can help you understand how users are engaging with your content and what they are saying about it. This can be valuable in identifying areas of your site that may need improvement or in identifying content that resonates with your audience.

In addition, it’s important to regularly review your site’s analytics to see which pages are performing well and which are not. Special attention should be given to dwell time, traffic levels, and search engine rankings.

By analyzing this data, you can better understand which pages may need improvement or which topics are of most interest to your audience.

Whatever the case, all of this feedback needs to be made available to content creators because if the page rates poorly, it will encourage content creators to act.

You can also take this technique even further by celebrating the most successful content creators or the most improved pages by giving out awards and prizes (much like employee of the month).

Bringing It All Together

To bring these techniques together, we can create a content creator’s dashboard that shows each content creator all the pages they are responsible for. This dashboard will display how well pages are performing and highlight pages that are doing well or poorly.

At the top of the dashboard, we can flag pages that need the content creator’s particular attention — pages that are in danger of being archived because they need reviewing or have been rated poorly.

Finally, we can integrate training directly into the dashboard in the form of quick tips (like the Hemingway App example) and more detailed advice on how to address questions content creators may have at that point.

Of course, the approach I have laid out in this post is not a comprehensive solution to poor quality, but it does at least put in place a framework for improvement. One that works well for large sites that have a significant number of content creators who are not web copy specialists.

By using these four techniques together, we can ensure that the copy on our websites is of high quality and that our users find the content they are looking for.

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A Practical Guide to UX Strategy and Agile Website Development

March 23rd, 2023 No comments

With multiple changes in trends and user preferences, organizations are constantly revamping their websites with a better UX strategy. However, it is not an easy task considering the majority of organizations use agile methodologies.

It is a prominent argument that UX strategy doesn’t go hand in hand with agile methodology. Also to pull it off, it is important to understand what a UX strategy and agile development are in essence, their associated problems, the importance of incorporation, and key points to make them compatible.

Therefore without any delay, let’s try to sort out this problem for app design companies.

What is a UX Strategy?

For applications today, it is important to be user-centric. A UX or user experience is the overall experience a user feels while using a service or product created by an organization. With a UX strategy, the idea is to create an overall improved user experience that creates more engagement, user retention, and is easy to use.

To further extrapolate, it is a systematic process of further enhancing the user experience for an application or a service.

There are primarily three components of a UX strategy. These are

  • Intention behind the strategy
  • Requirements, goals, and ROIs
  • Associated plan

Implications of not having a UX Strategy!

Failing to have a UX strategy for the development process can lead to the following problems:

  • It can affect the profitability of the organization
  • It means that the organization doesn’t have a better understanding of its user base.
  • The organization will lack a long-term competitive advantage.
  • The organization can suffer in terms of retention and engagement.

What is an Agile Website Development?

There are prominently seven types of SDLCs (Software Development Life Cycles). Agile development is amongst the most popular ones used today. 

Due to consistent requirements for feature changes and software requirements in the existing projects, the requirement of agile development came into existence.

It takes the help of cross-functional teams for continuous development and aggregation of new code modules. 

Agile development is based on the following factors:

  • Proper control of tools and resources.
  • Collaboration should be based on customer requirements.
  • Active response to incident change instead of a firm plan.

It comprises four factors primarily which are:

  • Discover
  • Design
  • Develop
  • Test

The overall idea behind the agile development process is the continuous integration of elements with ease.

Problem Associated with the Implementation of Agile Methodology along with a UX Strategy!

The problem associated with agile development is that it is a very developer-centric approach. The moment a particular requirement is fulfilled from the backend side, the team moves to another task. However, the realm of designing is very subjective and can often take a lot more time & resources than expected. It is because different perception leads to different perspectives.

This particular problem creates a lot of confusion for app designing companies and increases the toll on them in terms of workload. Another major problem is the higher adoption of agile methodologies for website development. It is considering the flexible nature of the implementation methodology. Therefore, a lot of organizations try to figure out ways to handle UX strategy along with the agile methodology effectively.

Importance of including a UX Strategy and Agile Website Development

While agile methodology predominantly focuses on the backend side of things, majorly the factors that distinguish the two websites are the UI/UX part. Design is a much more important aspect than a lot of people might think it would be.

It is because primarily the user requires an excellent design and navigable elements to interact with the backend services. Therefore without a great UX strategy creating a sustainable experience is not possible. Also with the inclusion of agile methodology, the task of finding a way to make the UX strategy work with agile development becomes much more important.

How to incorporate UX Strategy with Agile Website Development?

Incorporating a UX Strategy into agile website development is a complicated process. However, nothing is impossible and this can also be pulled off.

To make that happen, below are the key points:

  • Focus on Customer Satisfaction: Call it clients or customers, the major reason behind a methodology such as agile is to gratify customers. For instance, there are multiple applications today that incorporate a new element every week. However, the teams make sure that the design elements meet the overall theme of the project, otherwise, it is not released.
  • Support for UX Strategists: The feedback received by the designing teams can often be subjective and open to interpretation. For instance, sometimes the responses to a particular design can be like “It’s Good Enough”, “It’s Fine”, “Looks Decent”, etc. Also, another variable is that the process doesn’t always run parallel to the backend process. Therefore, the intention behind the support should be to help minimize the pending backlog instead of dragging it along the way. A clear explanation of what is expected and some freedom for the UX strategist can create wonders.
  • Consistency: Maintain consistency with the overall design elements. Make sure that the design elements hit a particular benchmark and below that the design itself should be unacceptable to the designer itself.
  • Focus on Use Case or Workflow: Each & every workflow and use case is unique and it can vary from organization to organization. It is because each organization follows its own unique process based on its values, goals, and vision. It often creates a contrast and makes every design element unique for each organization. The idea is to learn about the workflow and create a UX experience that is easily navigable by the user.
  • Leave room for improvement: The overall agile methodology adopted by the organization should always leave room for improvements on the way. A tightly packed process doesn’t leave any extra time for incoming issues. This creates a collision of deadlines and further confusion with the process.
  • Engage with every service: Most services that are created by the team are treated as MVPs. For instance, if the team is done with a service then they won’t consider further updation of the process for enhancement. Keeping some room for this process too would help in overall integrating the UX strategy.

Wrapping Up!

The capability to pull off a great UX strategy with agile methodology is truly a boon for multiple app design companies. It is one of the major impediment that people on the design team faces. By focusing on the key points mentioned above, any organization can create a great user-centric website. Yet implementing these points would require an organization-wide transition from their routine work to these strategies. Therefore, it is not just the factors but the effectiveness of the way they are integrated that truly matters.

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