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Afterwards, I had the opportunity to ask Espada a few questions about the budget and his reelection campaign.
"I’ve been a CEO for 30 years," he told me. "Missing deadlines is never good. The state budget should not have been late. But worse than a late budget is a irresponsible budget, a budget that would have done more harm to programs, like this [Tolentine]."
Before Espada arrived at Tolentine that morning, one of Espada's staffers had been handing out "Vote Espada 2010!" flyers, which listed a few reasons Espada thinks his constituents should reelect him. A copy is attached below. I asked him what else he would be talking about during the campaign and he bought up his majority leader position, a title he landed last summer after agreeing to return to the Democratic fold and end the Senate "coup" which he helped orchestrate.
"The poorest community in the state finally got one of the top political positions in state government," Espada said, adding, "I think all Bronxites should be proud of that, that we’ve finally got a real voice at the table."
One final note: you can get another take on Espada's visit to Tolentine at http://www.thebronxtruthnewsline.com/, a newish Bronx blog that exists solely, it seems, to portray Espada in a positive light. The blog, which is written by a "Robert Taft Lincoln," which we're assuming is a pseudonym, makes frequent references to Espada's press secretary, Frank Laboy (who also goes by Franck Strongbow), and often publishes photos he took at Espada events. Laboy insists he's not the author but declined to say who is.
According to Jeanette Reed, a spokesperson for the city’s Department of the Aging, the Title 20 funds (money allocated to city seniors in one of the state’s emergency budget extender bills) didn’t impact Tolentine or the 49 other centers Mayor Michael Bloomberg has slated for closure. “That [money] really doesn’t affect whether the senior centers would close,” she said.
But if the Title 20 funds hadn't been secured, a different group of senior centers would have ultimately faced closure. The Council of Senior Centers and Services of New York City's website has more on this.
"By the way, in their letter, Espada and Diaz cite the Tolentine-Zeiser Senior Center in the Bronx as an example of a center in danger of closing because of the mayor’s supposed diversion of Title 20 money for other uses.
That center wasn’t among the set of 60 centers affected in any way by the Title 20 funding. It was on the set of 50 centers that had been on the chopping block until last night’s city budget deal."
It appears as though this was an act of the City Council, at least according to the facts.
You are so right. Espada had nothing to do with the saving of this center or Baily center. It is truly sad how Espada took the credit which belongs to City Councilmen Fernando Cabrera and the rest of the Council. I guess Espada is really hard press for votes.
The founder of easyJet has opened a discount food store that is selling everyday groceries for 25p each.
Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou has launched easyFoodstore in an attempt to take advantage of the fast-growing discount market in the UK, which is led by Aldi and Lidl.
The venture could eventually be another threat to the “big four” supermarket chains – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons.
They are already battling dramatic changes in shopping habits as families turn away from the weekly trip to a supermarket in favour of buying food online, in convenience stores and with the discounters. The supermarket chains also face the threat of Amazon expanding into groceries in the UK.
Haji-Ioannou first announced plans to open a discount food store almost three years ago in August 2013. A mock easyFoodstore was built in Croydon a year later, but the tycoon’s plans then appeared to stall, with no shops opening for customers until now.
EasyFoodstore will sell a range of grocery items including pasta, biscuits and beans. However, the list of initial products does not include fresh meat or fruit and vegetables.
When he first announced the idea, Haji-Ioannou said he had been inspired to launch easyFoodstore by the widespread use of food banks.
Haji-Ioannou and his family still own about 35% of easyJet and are the biggest shareholders. He has already expanded the “easy” brand into a string of other industries, creating easyCar, easyHotel, easyGym and easyProperty.
Since creating the budget airline he has had mixed success. EasyBus and easyHotel have generated profits, but easyCinema was a failure and easyInternetcafe lost more than £100m.
Eric Joseph Lasalle, 26, 101 Westwood Drive, Houma, two counts failure to appear, domestic abuse battery.
Ronald James Hebert Sr., 44, 1910 Langdon St., Houma, possession schedule II drug, unlawful possession drug paraphernalia.
Brian Keith Redmond, 44, 320 Johnson Ridge Lane, Thibodaux, parole violation.
Bobby R. McCray, 54, 5000 Bayouside Drive, Chauvin, domestic abuse battery, resisting an officer.
Jean Paul Falgout, 42, homeless, theft of goods more than $500.
Cierra Franklin Bruce, 27, 201 Woodburn Drive, Houma, two counts aggravated assault with firearm.
Lee Adonijah Ruffin, 34, 2949 Express Blvd., Houma, domestic abuse battery, resisting an officer, criminal trespass, introducing contraband into correctional facility.
Lindsey Michelle Deroche, 25, 201 Eureka Drive, No. 1, Gray, DWI (child endangerment), possession schedule II drug, improper lane usage.
John Emery Landry Jr., 40, 106-D Moss Lane, Houma, DWI, careless operation.
Alfred Jaon Turner, 27, 400 Westside Blvd., Houma, speeding, driving under suspension.
Barry Mcdaniel, 24, 1911 24th Ave., Gulfport Miss., fugitive warrant.
Troy Adams, 36, 146 Cassady Lane, Lockport, violation of protective order.
South Africa completed a 3-0 whitewash over Ireland's women thanks to a six-wicket victory in Wednesday's T20 international at Moseley in England.
Ireland were reduced to 18-3 before Isobel Joyce hit 45 from 48 balls to help her team to a modest 109-8.
South Africa cruised to victory, reaching 111-4 in 18.5 overs with Andrie Steyn scoring 35 runs while Mignon du Preez added 37 from 35 balls.
Kim Garth and Laura Delany picked up a wicket apiece for the Irish.
South Africa won Tuesday's two games at the same venue, first by 56 runs followed by a 46-runs win.
The games are Johnston's last with the side, as he is taking up a coaching post with New South Wales.
The calm November weather will be changing tack this weekend, as strong winds will whip up and down the country, according to the German Weather Service (DWD). Rainfall will, however, remain minimal and localised.
On Friday night, light rain will begin to fall in southern Germany and along the coastline in the north. Strong winds will pick up along the coast and in higher regions. In more exposed mountainous areas, warnings have been issued of gale force winds during the night.
“A low pressure system over the Atlantic has developed into a serious storm. It will be battering northern Scandinavia on Saturday, but we will feel the effects, as stormy gusts hit Germany” said Dorothea Patzold of the DWD.
In the southeast, temperatures will reach lows of -2 degrees Celsius. Over most of the country, however, temperatures will hover around the zero degree mark.
By Saturday, the patches of rain in the south will ease, with only sporadic showers falling on coastal areas. Temperatures in the north may reach a practically tropical 10 degrees. The rest of the country will enjoy a chillier weekend, as temperatures in predominantly cloudy areas will barely go above freezing.
Coastal regions will remain damp over Saturday night, with a sprinkling of rainfall in many areas. The of the country will be clear with patches of fog. In the clearest areas there will be a risk of frost, as temperatures dip below zero. In areas covered in cloud, night time highs of 6 degrees have been predicted.
Sunday night may see a light frost in colder regions, giving way to a fair day on Monday, where only very light rain will fall south of the Danube.
Monday daytime will be a pleasant 11 degrees in much of the country, but temperatures will plummet below zero as the sun sets.
On the job: From the time she got here, Luna has been so calm and loves people and other dogs. I work for a design center in Mooresville and bring her to work with me. She loves being in the office because everyone loves to have her there. Luna also has a lot of “friends” in the neighborhood. We have a fenced backyard but she’s jumped out a few times to go on visits, she’s very social.
It is not skepticism that is at fault for science’s lack of movement into the future… It is fear, conservatism, and dogmatism. It is pseudoskepticism which clings to a scientifically disproved belief system, a triumvirate of ancient philosophies: materialism, rationalism and naturalism.” — Ralph Abraham, Professor of Mathematics, University of California-Santa Cruz.
This article will challenge a relatively recent group of Skeptics that identify themselves as the advocates of Science-Based Medicine (SBM), which is not to be confused with the widely accepted approach to decision-making in medical practice known as Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM). Although SBM’s most vocal leaders are physicians and medical researchers, the group’s origin is more properly found in the growing Skepticism movement, which advocates strict adherence to mainstream science and diligently criticizes alternative and traditional medical systems and therapies as pseudo-science, quackery and enemies of reason.
During the course of over forty-five years I have been an advocate for natural healing and have counselled numerous people in wellness, lifestyle and behavioral modification, nutrition and diet, physical exercise training, and mind-body therapies. I have witnessed numerous successes including remission from terminal cancers, reversal of illnesses otherwise assumed to be death sentences such AIDS and Alzheimer’s, autism, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, severe autoimmune and inflammatory conditions, etc. There is nothing miraculous about any of this. In fact, it is nothing out of the ordinary. We too are skeptics (small “s”), not only concerning divine intervention of phenomena that portends to be miraculous but also the far-out New Age health practices that have never undergone any manner of clinical or scientific scrutiny. However we are also skeptical about what parades around in conventional medicine as being sound-evidence based therapeutic protocols is in our opinion controlled and dominated by private money interests. And we are deeply skeptical and concerned about the serious limitations in the 19th century Cartesian reductionist view of the human body, anatomy and biomolecular activity. This paradigm, which should have been abandoned decades ago, is the one fully endorsed by the Skeptic medical doctors and its small radical faction of Skeptic physicians who market themselves under the banner of Science Based Medicine (SBM). And it is the same belief system endorsed and promulgated by Wikipedia’s co-founder Jimmy Wales.
What Skeptics criticize as magical thinking and placebo effects, particularly in the eradication of life-threatening diseases by alternative medical modalities or traditional healers, are in fact based upon laws of physics and biophysics that have yet to enter mainstream medical thinking. Much remains unknown or misunderstood with respect to human biology. And there are certainly innumerable physical laws, for example the field of “quantum entanglement” between mind and matter or energy that have not been thoroughly theorized. Yet the evidence is conclusive that further research in biophysics to understand the principles behind alternative medical systems that Skeptics don’t and refuse to understand and appreciate is warranted. Unlike current medical science, even Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) strategies, quantum mechanics is a far more verifiable science. And this research is especially critical because conventional medicine continues to fail to meet its promises to patients; it is too costly for a growing number of people, and it is far too compromised by corporate profits and junk research to provide any assurances for a better future in healthcare and medical intervention. Nevertheless the positive results of nonconventional and traditional medical systems and Alternative and Complementary Medicine (CAM) cannot be debunked nor dismissed easily by Skeptic’s amateur and irrational arguments and biased assessment of their personal beliefs.
Although Skeptics repeatedly chant the mantra that reason should be the sole means to determine the efficacy or failure of a medical intervention, their arguments are in fact surprisingly irrational and often comical. On the one hand, SBM followers acknowledge the health benefits of a wholesome diet; yet they oppose functional nutrition therapies, especially supplement and herbal regimens as a means to prevent and treat disease. Because they have completely bought into biotech agriculture, they see no benefit to consuming organic foods. Genetically modified crops are in their estimation superior or a least “substantially equivalent.” They argue that alternative medicine, particularly naturopathy and homeopathy, costs lives, either due to these natural therapies themselves or because these therapies divert people away from receiving conventional medical attention. At the same time Skeptics downplay and more often completely ignore the deaths of hundreds of thousands of patients annually from iatrogenic injuries due to their own profession’s overreliance upon pharmaceutical drugs, excessive radiation exposure and unnecessary surgery.
But perhaps our favorite is SBM’s incessant diatribe that the countless successful treatments from natural and alternative therapies, which has been used for several millennia, are nothing more than placebo effects. Worse, the placebo effect is framed as a terrible thing although it has been intrinsic to healing since humans first made efforts to treat disease and illnesses. In fact, the dichotomy lies in the fact that these same Skeptics oppose mind-body and energy therapies, which are anathema in organized Skepticism. Nevertheless integrative medicine follows psycho-physical principles analogous to the placebo effect. It follows the powers of the mind that have been shown repeatedly that health can be improved through beliefs, expectations, social relationships and even faith. The importance of positive thinking and beliefs are the underpinnings of placebo effects.
Researchers in the neurocognitive sciences and immunology have uncovered reproducible evidence that what we think and feel triggers biological changes. We no longer need further proof that this occurs. What we do need to explore are the underlying physical laws that contribute to these changes. However as Dr. John Ioannidis at Stanford University’s Prevention Research Center argues, it can take upwards to three decades for ground-breaking discoveries in the health sciences to eventually reach the attention of mainstream medicine. And most such discoveries are forgotten altogether.
For example, if an elderly person forgoes the influenza vaccine but lives a remarkably healthy life, eats plenty of fresh produce, takes supplements, exercises and daily meditations for stress reduction and doesn’t come down with the flu, Skeptics will argue that the person was lucky because she or he was not exposed to the virus. If the same person receives the flu shot and doesn’t become ill, then Skeptics say it is 100 percent due to the vaccine’s efficacy. Or, in recent years a gradual decline in cancer mortality rates has been observed. Simultaneously, more people than ever before take natural supplements daily, eat organic produce, visit alternative health practitioners and make positive steps to change lifestyle behaviors. According to an earlier survey conducted by the federal National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, 69 percent of patients did not inform their primary doctors about their personal use of supplements and herbs nor receiving a nonconventional medical therapy. Therefore, is the falling mortality rate due to earlier clinical diagnosis, better chemo drugs and oncological medical intervention or is it because people are naturally strengthening their immune systems to fight cancerous cells? Skeptics can only answer these questions if they deny the healing capacity of our inherent mind-body relationship, which they categorically do.
The fundamental dichotomy underlying the entire SBM ideology is that prior scientific plausibility ultimately trumps scientific evidence. In an earlier essay we noted that SBM supports Evidence-Based Medicine while also correctly recognizing EBM’s shortcomings. For example, many Cochrane Collaboration reviews of certain prescription drugs or classifications of drugs, vaccines, supplements and herbs will conclude that the clinical evidence to support efficacy claims is weak or the clinical trials were not sufficiently robust and therefore further research is recommended. Rather, in the SBM universe, further research should be discarded altogether because “prior plausibility” and reason should dictate that there is nothing worth pursuing or funding. One criticism SBM’s founders Steven Novella (Yale neuroscientist specializing in botox injections) and David Gorsky (oncologist and professor of surgery at Wayne State University) have against randomized clinical tries is that “prior plausibility” is underemphasized. The fallacies in this line of thinking are numerous, but two stand out: 1) SBM’s belief that “prior plausibility is deeply “rooted in science” and 2) the dogmatic hubris that we can rely upon our rational faculties to make precognitive judgments about what is medically effective or not. In the Skeptics’ reinterpretation of human biology, there are no more mysteries to be solved and studied. All we need are better drugs and conventional therapies and more patients placing their complete faith in their physicians and their professional expertise dictated by the corporate medical establishment’s dominant paradigm.
In a damning Guardian opinion editorial critique about Richard Dawkin’s BBC special “Enemies of Reason,” a two-hour assault on religion and non-conventional medicine, Dan Hind lectures Dawkin’s about his hypocrisy in opining humanity’s entrance into an age of “endarkenment.” Dawkins is the principle architect of the New Atheism and arguably the leading outspoken voice within the global Skeptic movement. He believes that faith based practices, including alternative medical systems, are dangerous superstitions threatening civilization’s future and should be battled against diligently and immediately. He has even called for “guerrilla skeptics” to take faith-based practices to task. Instead, Hind states, Dawkins should put his attention on governments and corporations as the greater evil and the real enemies to human health. Dawkins fails to recognize the inherent darkness and destructive characteristics in the rationale behind the scientific paradigm he holds most dear. In effect, like pharmaceutical corporations who use perfectly rational means to promote irrationality to promote the effectiveness and safety of their products, so does Dawkin’s and his Skeptic followers rely on the illusions of their reason to convince people in accepting their irrational belief system.
And it is with certainty that SBM’s leading voices are simply unable to wrap their minds around biophysical and quantum properties that support the efficacy of many alternative, natural medical systems, such as acupuncture, homeopathy and energy medicine. It is simply outside their profession’s paradigmatic way of thinking.
Quantum mechanics, pioneered by Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schrodinger, Werner Heisenberg and others, should have ushered humanity into the post-materialist world. Unfortunately modern medicine, and other sciences hijacked by private corporate interests, have lagged dismally behind. And worse, the Skeptic proponents of SBM are determined to prevent medicine from evolving beyond its current reductionist, materialist perspective. For that reason followers of SBM adamantly oppose funding research that may someday explain why and how alternative healing modalities have been successful for countless people around the world. Consequently Skeptics are the strongest opponents of the growing trend in CAM therapies entering medical school curriculums.
She also worries about the enormous financial interests and influence drug companies have with medical school faculties. The integrity of medicine is being completely lost and SBM Skeptics’ denial and failure to put more attention towards this trend and simply continue with its witch hunts against natural health displays an arrogance that shows deep disregard towards public health.
The majority of clinical evidence published in the peer-review literature, according to a 2007 survey conducted by the British Medical Journal, is of “unknown effectiveness” or “likely to be ineffective.” Only 15 percent of treatments approved by the UK’s Health Services were definitely “beneficial” and 22 percent were “likely to be beneficial,” leaving the remaining 63 percent as basically useless.
Skeptics repeatedly argue that more evidence is necessary before they will accept the validity of a natural supplement or herb. Homeopathy and most acupuncture claims are rejected outright. But how much evidence is required. The SBM doctrine was founded in 2008, yet throughout the decade of its existence, the rhetoric has remained the same; more evidence and still more evidence is needed. And this is irrespective of the thousands of published peer-reviewed papers that accumulatively merits CAM and natural health therapies. Conversely, the mounting evidence against the safety and serious health threats of products SBM Skeptics support within their materialist paradigm are aggressively refuted. For example, at this moment, the carcinogenic risks due to exposure to Monsanto’s glyphosate herbicide is being reviewed and ruled in the European Union court. The evidence against the chemical’s safety is enormous, and the EU court has ruled that testimonies from farmers dying from glyphosate exposure will be heard. Is more evidence necessary? Skeptics argue it is because religious faith in a scientific paradigm prohibits them from budging an inch from coveted pseudo-scientific beliefs in the agro-chemical GMO paradigm. Is this not utterly irrational?
SBM Skeptics become religiously monotheistic when the only measure to determine the health of person is that which can be medically supervised and validated by clinical or cohort statistics. Whether we follow a meat- or plant-based diet, eat organic or chemically laced foods, supplement our nutritional needs when we are deficient, or make concerted efforts to reduce life’s stresses, is irrelevant to Skeptics. Nevertheless, every positive choice we make has a positive result. The full measure of the scientific evidence shows that all these choices have a direct impact upon the state of our health and our longevity. Yet the only personal choice that matters to SBM Skeptics is the medical choice we make, whether to completely adhere to the full advice of our allopathic doctor or follow our magical thinking and become seduced into following an alternative health protocol or therapy. For Skeptics, such as Dawkins, Novella and Gorsky, and Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales redemption and salvation are only found in our conversion to the pharmaceutical regime that now dictates our destitute medical paradigm.
They are frequent contributors to Global Research.
2 Gorski DH, Novella SP. “Clinical trials of integrative medicine: testing whether magic works?” Trends Mol Med. 2014 Sep;20(9):473-6.
6 Culliton BJ. “Medicine as business: are doctors entrepreneurs.” Science. 1986 Sep 5;233(4768):1032-3.
7 D’Arcy, Moynihan R. “Can the relationship between doctors and drug companies ever be a healthy one?” PloSMed. 2009 Jul 21;6(7):e1000075.
8 Kirsch I. The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth. Bodley Head: London, 2009.
Featured image is from MedPage Today.
GALION — On May 17, Galion Public Library will switch to a new circulation system which looks to be a step forward for their patrons and staff.
The new system will be part of a larger system coordinated with 11 other libraries known as the Consortium of Ohio Libraries, or COOL. The Marvin Memorial Library in Shelby and the Mount Gilead Public Library are also part of COOL.
Starting on Monday, May 14, access to the library catalog or any patron accounts will not be available to staff until the switch-over is completed Thursday, May 17.
While patrons will be able to check out selections during the conversion, staff will not be able to check in books that are returned until the Evergreen system goes live next Thursday.
Eckenrod is quick to point out that while the new system may look a bit different, there are some great advantages.
Another advantage for patrons will be the convenience of using a personal computer to put holds on books that are in at Galion, rather than have to come in and hope that no one else has taken it out. If a copy is unavailable at Galion Public Library, the system will automatically order you the same title from another library.
I do a lot of reading. I read books (a list of my favorites from 2011 here). I read magazines. I read newspapers. And, I read blogs. I love having a rich set of contemporaries - some are line leaders and some are customer experience practitioners. Even a pundit or two. I learn something from them most days (recently, Valeria Maltoni has been nailing it on her blog, Conversation Agent).
So, it came as no surprise to me as I looked back on some of the more notable posts I've read and bookmarked that certain statements started to stand out. Quotes that really summarized what brands big and small need to think about from a customer experience standpoint in today's frantic business climate.
Today I thought I'd share with you a number of those quotes. It's a good list from a number of blogs and business people I read regularly and respect. Enjoy!
"(Bruce) Temkin's research has found that…customers actually want good customer service more than they want low prices…but companies often treat customer service as an unwanted stepchild." MarketingProfs, "How to Keep Your Customer Experience Efforts on Track"
Ever notice that while price and service are both part of your customer's experience, in their minds, how they feel often trumps what they pay. We see it every day. How do you deliver on both the tangible (product, price) and emotional parts of your customer experience?
"When a brand connects with their customer, that in some ways is the easy part, the hard part is keeping the customer at the center after the success/profits comes flooding in. Success can breed complacency, success can breed arrogance." Anna Farmery, The Engaging Brand, "Focus on Customer Experience Delivers Profit"
To me, this gets at the role of experience in customer retention. Too many firms abdicate their responsibility to anticipate the next need a customer may have. After all, in many ways, it's more important to retain a customer, increase share of wallet and create an army of brand advocates than it is to acquire new customers over (and over) again.
"The most valuable resource you can give customers is your time. Listen to them to uncover their real needs. Only then can you find a way to solve their problems or meet their expectations. Treat the cause, not just the symptoms." Ginger Conlon, Think Customers: 1 to 1 blog, "5 Ways to Build Customer Engagement"
I love Ginger's thinking here because she gets at the heart of a key business principal for me: Solving the customer's problem—and only that problem. Everything we do - from choosing which people to hire to product strategy to fulfillment operations decisions - should be geared toward solving a need your customers will pay you to solve. Focus on that singular problem—nothing more—and you'll often succeed, and succeed profitably.
"You can acquire some measure of knowledge from various research techniques, but nothing beats living, breathing, and feeling the same things your prospect (customers) do." John Jantsch, Duct Tape Marketing Blog, "5 Elements of a Can't Miss Business"
Think about the airlines industry. The best way for those companies to get a true feel for the complete customer experience is to hop on one of their planes themselves. Buy a ticket online. Use an iPad to check in.Try to use frequent flyer miles. Business-to-business experiences may be more difficult to walk, but just as critical. These first-hand experiences can be a powerful input for the decision you'll make after you read this post.
"It is no longer good enough to simply satisfy your customers or to have a product that works. No longer can you merely deliver a service within the timescale you have set. All these are important and we have to do them. But what will really make the difference is when the customer asks: when I went through that experience, did the provider really engage with me, did they understand my needs, did they think logically about what was best for me?" Jo Causon, My Customer, "Customer service: What should you measure to generate ROI?"
I think the stakes have been raised. The bar is set higher than just about any time in history in terms of the experiences your customers have with your brand. So, again, listening to your customers is absolutely key. But, don't stop there. Engage, and then solve.
"The way to a customer's heart is much more than a loyalty program. Making customer evangelists is about creating experiences worth talking about." Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent, "Customer Loyalty Comes from Conversation"
Valeria nails it here. It's not about creating a killer loyalty program with points and rewards. It's about delivering an experience that solves their need so well it almost forces your customers to share it with friends, families and colleagues. And, as a business, that's something you really can't put a price tag on (but you CAN see it in your financial performance).
"Organizations that implement learning relationships are better able to understand and anticipate a customer's unique needs. Learning organizations understand that great customer experiences start with listening to the customer to learn instead of talking to the customer to sell. Customers in a learning relationship experience a heightened sense of vendor awareness and are more likely to be loyal because their vendor understands their needs." Alan See, "8 Steps for Building Customer Bonds"
I typically start each first client meeting with a question or two. I don't preach or teach—I probe. I typically don't do a lot of talking at those first meetings—I want to hear about their pain points. Their struggles. Where they see opportunities. All that information helps me learn, and in turn, starts our relationship off on the right foot. From there, we can learn together how to best solve that client's customers' needs. And, in turn, I'm really after exactly what Alan is describing here: Helping our clients enter into "learning relationships" with their customers to better anticipate needs.
Note: photo by FinancialAidPodcast.com and ChristopherSPenn.com via FlickR Creative Commons.
We might have seen as the adorable Alfie Moon on Eastenders, but Shane Richie is about to undergo a transformation unfamiliar to the soap audience.
He appears in The Perfect Murder at Cambridge Arts Theatre from Monday March 21 to Saturday March 26 alongside fellow Eastender star Jessie Wallace.
And he had a clear idea about how to play the part.
Shane said: “I play Victor who is in a loveless, soulless marriage and he and his wife detest each other. We are always rowing with each other.
“But it has been good working with the director Ian Talbot. I came in with quite a clear idea on how I was going to play it and he has been very encouraging. I have been able to grow a beard and a moustache.
“I based the performance on Anthony Hopkins in the film Magic, he starts off quite normally but then the descent, you really start to see the character change quite dramatically.
It was the radical departure from the happy-go-lucky soap character that motivated him to play the part.