Venus Pluto Conjunction Capricorn is everywhere!

Venus Pluto Conjunction Capricorn is everywhere!




Once a year Venus and Pluto go into conjunction and tomorrow is that annual event. It is exact, January 16 at 8:29pm EST.

And we can look no further than this week's news to see the conjunction in action.

Lance Armstrong whose legendary 'win at any cost' attitude towards cycling finally came to a head this week. He was interviewed by Oprah (there's some Pluto for you) and finally admitted to doping as early 1990's. Doping before his bout of Cancer by the way. Wall Street Journal reported that Lance had it out last month with the head of the American Anti Doping Agency where he said, "You don't hold the keys to my redemption, I hold the keys to my redemption." Some sources say the root of the confession is money and desire to compete in triathalons. Hislove of athletics versus redemption. Hello, Venus meet Pluto.

Yesterday on the one month anniversary of Newtown shootings, members of the community including parents whose children were killed, came forward and announced the formation of their group, Sandy Hook Promise. If you watched them speak you certainly could feel the Venus and Pluto. Hard to not cry for sure. But they were very measured, very focused, committed to the future and rebirthing the hideous incident towards something good. None of them want anyone else go through something like that again. They have said they will not weigh in on guns...at this time. Capricorn conserves its energy and its power and Pluto holds its power until the right time to strike. As we know, right now Pluto and Saturn are mutually receptive (Saturn is in Pluto's home sign Scorpio; Pluto is in Saturn's home sign Capricorn) which double downs in that conserving nature or keeping one's powder dry. Probably the wrong metaphor to use in this circumstance. Sorry.
Here is the Sandy Hook Promise: I Promiseto honor the 26 lives lost at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
I Promiseto do everything I can to encourage and support common sense solutions that make my community and our country safer from similar acts of violence.

And of course Joe Biden is giving his recommendations to the White House for reforming gun regulations and background checks (Pluto) loopholes. There is a lot of discussion for common sense. Which is of course Capricorn's very catch phrase. And of course the debt conversation continues but a few days ago the President ruled out that giant coin thingy. Sometimes the renegade energy of Uranus in Aries makes our heads hurt.

As I was mulling all the action this week, it seemed this was a more pronounced Venus/Pluto conjunction than I could remember in a long time. It may be due to the New Moon taking place so close to the building period of the conjunction. It may be due to the Uranus Square in Aries. Whatever it is, it is not subtle.

My husband was listening to Phillip Glass this week and it struck me as the perfect soundscape to this week's Venus/Pluto. This particular piece is from the soundtrack to Fog of War. Yes, Neptune is the real planet of fog, but Venus is lower octave of Neptune and Pluto of course is one of the war planets and well, there is so much Capricorn in the notes...I think you can feel the aspect when you listen to the piece.

Remember to look at your chart and take note of 8-10 Capricorn. That is where this tension is riding out in your chart.

Talent Corp Career Attack

Talent Corp Career Attack


As a University student our aim and mission are all almost the same, to score good grades and get the perfect job after we graduate. Last Tuesday there was a Career Attack Fair by Talent Corp at Dewan Sri Budiman UiTM Shah Alam.



Even though I have still two more years to go before I graduate, but still as a UiTM student I didn't want to waste the opportunity to see what lies ahead of me when I get busy looking for a job. This Sector Focused Career Fair (SFCF) had been participated by 73 companies that adds up to a total of 3000 vacancies to offer for those graduates that are starting to look for a job.



This fair is a good thing actually, it makes students understand better of what waits for them when they start working. I had a brief walk from booth to booth and I learnt that there are a lot of things that a company can offer. Famous and big companies also. So for those final semester students, don't miss out on these kind of activities. It really does help, and I myself found already a company where I could do my practical and I had no idea before that I could do it at that company.

More info head downhere

p/s: This post is sponsored

...

Planting Our Losses as Prayer

Planting Our Losses as Prayer


A week ago, I'd have been preparing to help with the WELCA Bible study. The group was studying the story of the widow visited by Elijah, who shared her last bit of food with Elijah and found that the grain didn't run out. She makes a cake for Elijah and survives to see more bread.

Of course, she survives just to have her son die. But Elijah brings him back to life.

The woman leading the Bible story sees it as a tale of hope, making a way out of no way. I saw it as loss after loss--but the good news was that God can transform those losses. I was trying to come up with an artsy/craftsy project.

I thought about baking bread, but we didn't really have that kind of time. I thought about having us write things on paper and set them on fire, but that seemed dangerous.

In the end, I decided that we would write our losses on paper slips and bury them in a huge pot of soil that I'd bring. Maybe we wouldn't write our losses, but instead we'd write about situations that we want God to transform. Maybe we wouldn't write, but would instead draw. Maybe it would be something completely abstract, so that it could stay a secret. We'd talk about the pot as representing the grave, and how redemption can often come, even when it looks like death.

I expected some resistance, but I didn't expect resistance to the act of putting something, even a secret something, on paper. One woman proclaimed again and again, "That's between me and God." I didn't push.

The woman whom I thought would most hate the exercise loved it. She wrote slip after slip and took great delight in pushing them into the soil. No matter how long I teach, I will never be able to predict with complete accuracy how things will go.

The woman who refused to commit to paper also did not like the pot of soil. "Why can't we just pray?"

I tried to explain that what we were doing was a form of prayer. I tried to explain how prayer that engages the body more thoroughly (writing/drawing and then the burying)might work better for some people. I did not convince her.

At least we weren't trying yoga or dance or some other full body prayer kind of thing.

It's been a week, and I still can't decide if I think it went well or not. And honestly, it's probably not important. I enjoyed it, and at least one other woman did. It stretched me to think differently, and it stretched others. And even if it wasn't enjoyable for all, it only lasted for 10 minutes, so it's not a huge deal.

And who knows what seeds have been planted?

Marvel Action Hour

Marvel Action Hour


Marvel Action Hour was another attempt by Marvel UK to utilize American reprints in a British comic format. The slim 24 page fortnightly was printed on matt paper and featured Fantastic Four stories from the late 1970s and Iron Man strips from the 1980s. The first issue was cover dated 9th October 1996, and priced 75p. The free gift was a chew bar.



With so few pages to accommodate two US comics, the strips took it in turns to be serialized over two issues. For example, issue 1 featured a complete FF tale plus the first third of an Iron Man story, and No.2 featured the rest of the Iron Man story and 9 pages of the next FF adventure.



The reproduction of the strips was excellent and the comics featured some fine John Buscema/Joe Sinnot Fantastic Four pages.



The original splash pages of the lead strips were replaced by newly drawn images by Jon Rushby and inked by Bambos Georgiou so the stories could begin on the covers in traditional UK fashion.



The title was inspired by a cartoon series of the same name so clearly the comic was hoping to capitalize on that. Sadly, it wasn't to be. After just four issues the fortnightly was abruptly cancelled with no warning. So sudden was the decision that the next issue was advertised but never materialized. Sales must have been pretty low. Superheroes were a hit or miss affair with the British public back then. The Fantastic Four had never really been hugely popular in UK comics so it was never going to be an easy sell.



Marvel Action Hour was one of the shortest-lived UK comics of all time but it was a worthwhile effort. The company have since enjoyed much more success with the 76 page 'Collectors Editions' reprinting three full comics, - aided no doubt by the massively successful Marvel movies of this century.

I Need Thee

I Need Thee

Brittany is back to blogger again:)
I'm not even going to lie and put on a fake smile, it's been a rough past couple of weeks. Nothing has seemed to be going right. I came down with some sort of virus about a week and a half ago. I spent the day in bed and the next three days moping around with chest and stomach pains. I also had a bite on my arm that the nurse at work swore it was Staph infection. I made myself a doctors appointment to get myself checked out. I'm still not back to normal - but thank goodness it wasn't Staph.

Yesterday, was an absolute, not so very good day. Not at all. The day started at 5am. A resident passed out on me. Another pooped in the middle of the hallway. Two toilets overflowed. The coffee pot exploded on me. I spilled milk in the dining room. A resident reached for my hand - I grabbed it - he had a fist full of snot. Fish was for lunch (I hate fish).
After my exhausting day, I was driving to my dentist appointment, and I had a wreck. Awesome. What a day I'm having.

After everything with the wreck got cleared away, I went home and crashed. I woke up in time to get ready for church.

The Lighthouse Church has started revival with Bro. Michael Brown from Fresno, CA. Last night was the first night and oh it was so good! Bro. Brown had Bro. Morrell sing at altar call:

I need Thee, oh, I need Thee;Every hour I need Thee;Oh, bless me now, my Savior,I come to Thee.Oh, how true this is. I began to think about all my complaining. All my moaning and groaning. Oh, how I need Thee. Even in the bad days, even in the good days, I need Thee. While we sang about this song, I thought about people who don't know Jesus; people who don't have a relationship with Him. Who do they go to in time of trouble? Where do they go? Who do they lean upon? I have Him to go to on the bad days. I have Him to talk to and Him to take care of me. You know...even though I sometimes don't have days when everything goes perfect, I still have Him to go to. I still have my Jesus to live for. Those are the best kind of days. I'd rather have a bad day living for Him than a good day living for the world. My Jesus, I need Thee.Bro. Chris Bracken told our church one time that he "believes it is a sin to complain". What do true Christians have to complain about? This has come to mind so many times in the past few weeks. I have nothing to complain about. Absolutely nothing at all. In the midst of it all, I need Thee.I've decided that I'm going to be thankful for all God has blessed me with. At least I have a job right? At least I still have a car. I'm so thankful that God chose me to live for Him.Enough rambling for now.Tomorrow, I am going to be thankful:)- Brittany

Earth Is An Island

Earth Is An Island



Earth is an island. We are islanders. Whether we act for its benefit or detriment, it will be known. Somewhere on the island, the scales will be tipped and there will be change, for better or for worse. It is hard to see this change from a place of comfort, say from within our routines or inside our homes, offices, and automobiles. It is, however, easy to see this change from a bicycle while riding across the vast spaces of Canada.We would begin in Vancouver, British Columbia, with the intention of heading eastward with the prevailing winds at our backs. Four thousand miles later, we planned to arrive at Halifax, Nova Scotia. You prepare for this type of journey with one certainty in mind; that it will change your life. When we dreamt of our trip, my girlfriend and I saw peace. We saw green fields, snowy mountain peaks, close encounters with wildlife, and blue skies that spanned and never stopped. In our minds, Canada was one of the last vestiges of frontier. It presented a grand challenge. We took that ideal and held it close for eight months of excitement, until we could cash in on our hard work. Then we trimmed our possessions down to thirty pounds of gear, clothes, tools, water and food. The rest went into a 10ft x 10ft storage container while our cat Huxtable went to his Aunt Zoee's. Our touring bikes, or Donkeys as we called them, were wrapped purposefully in bubble wrap for the flight.Our first two days in Canada were spent stirring about a quaint little guesthouse, sharing tentative adventure stories with fellow foreigners. When we explained that we were about to spend our summer riding bicycles along the Canadian highway system, the looks we received were 50% admiration and 50% are-you-crazy. There was an electric charge in the air. We were about to combine our passion for the outdoors with our passion for self-sufficiency and environmental awareness. At home, we had just sold our car and vowed to make cycling our primary form of transportation. If we could ride through the Rockies, over the prairies, and around the Great Lakes, commuting in Philadelphia would seem like a cakewalk.The first three weeks of our trip were devoted solely to British Columbia, whose terrain was varied and extremely beautiful. We followed the Fraser River, the worlds greatest salmon river, from its mouth to its origin in the Rockies. The ascents were formidable, but the descents felt akin to flying. The grassy foothills transformed into a desert canyon, which in turn transformed into a mountain-lined valley where we saw giants. Mount Robson, the tallest of these, claimed the same vertical height as Mount Everest.Then we entered Alberta, whose western border was built of mountains that sloped into the prairies as we continued east. These flat grassy lands stretched across the three provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba until the border of Ontario. The green and yellow fields were immense in breadth, and the air was never still. The hills returned in Ontario, where the rocks, lakes and forests were reminiscent of the old Appalachians. We were granted the magnificence that we had hoped for.Everywhere we pitched our tent was home, whether it was a wooded hill along the coast, an island wildlife preserve, a farmers Canola field, a riverbank, or the shores of a lake. We made friends with schoolteachers, old timers, hostel occupants, bicycle mechanics, curious squirrels and even more curious cattle. Our pace allowed us to experience so much. There was no window between the fresh air and our lungs. The world was no longer so complicated; it was simply the world and we were simply creatures in it.Our journey, however, was laced with something we did not expect. Our adventure slowly became less of an adventure and more of a learning experience. It started in B.C. with local people warning us about unusual snowmelt and the threat of flooding. Then we began to notice an alarming number of dead pines dispersed over the landscape. Winters cold snap, which controls insect hatchings, had been too short this year, leaving the pine beetles numbers unchecked. The beetles had ravaged the forests, and logging companies were now faced with the daunting task of removing the dead to prevent fire. The mosquito had also survived the winter, and upon standing still we were instantly covered by their hungry hordes. Signs of a big change popped up everywhere until they became impossible to ignore. British Columbia and Alberta flooded behind us. We listened to the weather forecast religiously but in spite of our efforts to stay dry, rain became a daily occurrence. We rode in downpours and thunderstorms and savored our time in the shelter of our little tent.As we traveled deeper into the prairie lands, the weather became more and more severe until eventually the word “twister” entered our vocabulary. We had settled down for our first night in Manitoba when a plump, low-lying green-gray cloud appeared in our picnic shelter window. We watched its approach with wonder as it began to rain. Flags ran circles around their poles. Then came the hail. We laughed at the thousands of dime-sized white balls as they bounced off of the ground. As their speed intensified, we exchanged a look that we had never exchanged before. The world was at once deafening and terrifying. The laughter stopped as we pulled each other under the picnic table. Water came in from all directions. We looked to our blue tent to be our wind gauge. We thought to ourselves “This is it."Fifteen minutes later, we were elated to discover that it was not, in fact, “it”. We ran into town, happy to be alive, looking for the solidarity an event like this might inspire but found that folks were only concerned with the dents in their car. Beyond that, the gravity of the storm was lost by their indoor perspective. To our shock, the storm that passedt over us gave birth to five separate tornadoes over the course of one evening. From then on, each time we checked the forecast, there were reports of a tornado or hailstorm somewhere in Canada, spread over the path that lay before us. It became clear to us, because of the absence of concrete warning system or emergency plan, that tornadoes of this frequency and severity were somewhat new to Canada. We could not help but ask why.The answer was right next to us. We were sharing the road with a different kind of threat, one that could be reasoned with to a degree. Traffic was our constant companion over every kilometer of asphalt. The first two provinces had shoulders wide enough to be considered our own private bike lane. Unfortunately, the shoulders tapered off into nothing or were limited to small sections by the time we reached Manitoba. Cars,trucks, RVs, and tractor-trailers routinely passed within inches of our knuckles. Road kill served as a reminder of the frightening possibility of death posed by the endless stream of vehicles. Sadly, this was also our most common opportunity to see wildlife. We would see moose, deer, songbirds, coyotes, grizzly bears, and bear cubs scattered along the highway, almost exclusively in their lifeless forms. The Trans-Canada Highway bottlenecked in Ontario and alternative routes disappeared. We spent our days and nights listening to the constant hum and rumble of automobiles. We lost count of the litter. We breathed exhaust. This, we realized was the catalyst that caused so much to go awry. The human way of life and all its conveniences has become the harbinger of destruction. It felt as though humanitys constant conflict with natural order was itself an unstoppable and inescapable force, much like the tornadoes. The maddening difference is that we are conscious of the damage our actions yield; yet we continue on our path.Much of what we were beginning to think and feel was foreign to us. We had left home idealistic and romantic, subscribed to the belief that anything was possible, and felt as though the universe had an unseen order to it. We had been mindful that nature was in harm but did not fully understand to what extent. We found comfort in giving people the benefit of the doubt, and trusted that a general awareness was growing. In the end, our trip challenged everything that we believed. We were 25 and invincible, so we were shown mortality. We believed that mankind was unified by a greater good; the trip explained that it was also unified by a greater bad. And having been out there with only our bare necessities, we realized that normal everyday life had too many barriers that prevent people from fully understanding their effect on their surroundings. We were so disheartened by what we were seeing and felt so endangered that we could no longer enjoy the beauty that we so dearly loved.At the two thousand mile mark, our trip ended prematurely. The relative safety of home was calling. And home was where we could do our part to prevent the bad from getting worse. The trip had thrown everything into such sharp contrast, giving us the lightning bolt revelation that we needed. The trouble is, unless you spend a number of days living outside, this revelation may not attract your notice until it breaks down your door.Most of the islanders here consider their house to be their island and miss the big picture. But nature is an immense force that dwarfs us, and it is indifferent. People can no longer afford to be indifferent in response. If our island Earth sinks under our stewardship, it will take everyone and everything we know with it and we will be at fault. This is what we know. It is within our power to balance the scales with what we make of our life here on this island.©2007

Can Your Ad Agency Survive The Two Revolutions

Can Your Ad Agency Survive The Two Revolutions



Recently, I read THE INNOVATORS DILEMMA by Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School. Many analysts consider it THE book to read on disruptive change in the business world. One point that Christensen makes clearly and often is that well established firms generally fail when their industry is confronted with new markets and technologies. The logical extension of this is that this cannot bode well for the smaller and mid-sized players in the advertising industry if his thesis is correct.

Christensen is not brutal in his comments. He does not say that managers of struggling firms are lazy, corrupt or intellectually limited. The point he makes is “there is something about the way decisions get made in successful organizations that sows the seeds of eventual failure.” People are very wedded to the axiom that, “if the machine aint broke, dont fit it.” Well, that is fine for normal times but, in a revolution, it no longer works.

My take is that in an era as we have now in communications a leadership team at an agency has to be able to spot paradigm shifts and adapt to them quickly. What concerns me is that all but a few agencies below the major advertising holding companies are equipped to do it or have the financial resources to buy companies and people who can.

What are the two shifts? To me, it is not simply the erosion of TV as an ad medium that many people point to as THE key issue. Rather it is the twin paradigm shifts taking place--the emergence of Big Data and the emerging (sic) middle class in emerging markets.

We discussed Big Data at some length in an earlier post “The New World of Ad Agency Mergers” (Media Realism, 10/28/13). The major holding companies have set up exchanges that can purchase on line impressions at a depth and cost that cannot be replicated by smaller shops. The second shift is what is going on in emerging markets. Every marketer in recent years nods vigorously when the abbreviation BRIC is mentioned and can proudly list Brazil, Russia, India and China as the countries making up the term. Yet, the BRIC companies are not where the real action is these days. Less obvious choices such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam in Asia, much of Latin America outside of Brazil and selected countries in Eastern Europe are showing stellar growth. As their middle classes grow, the need for advertising is soaring. The giants are ready to take advantage of this trend but the mid-sized and smaller shops generally have to watch it from afar.

In the United States, package goods companies increasingly are putting more money in to promotion and many advertisers are beefing up Public Relations and Interactive and Internet Marketing. Again, this puts the non-giants in an awkward position. They may be able to do solid Public Relations for smaller clients but they will increasingly be outgunned when it comes to Internet Marketing.

So, clearly there is a revolution going on in advertising both with the advent of Big Data and the shift away from North America, Western Europe and Japan in terms of dynamic advertising billing and simply economic growth.

When I try to talk or e-mail people about this, they often claim that they have the right people and will be fine no matter what happens. While this is a bloodless revolution, who survives and prospers in revolutions? Almost always, if you look at history, it is people who are wired differently than most of us. And, they do not always take the traditional straight path that to success. Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were college dropouts--no MBAs for them. Billionaire investor George Soros claims that his fathers wise decision to leave Nazi-occupied Budapest steeled him for his later life. They abandoned an upper middle class lifestyle for a new life on a new continent. People who succeed in upheaval just see things differently than most people in existing successful companies. They are smart and focused and think outside the box as they have little or no vested interest in the status quo. Look at all the 20 somethings in Silicon Valley. They may be irreverent but they embrace the change and often make it more rapid. Virtually all started as outsiders.

One fellow wrote to me recently and said that he has a young digital designer who could be a young Steve Jobs incarnate. My answer was that if that were true the young genius would be bored at his shop and quit. He laughed but told me that my point was very well made.

So, as you hire going forward, look for the unusual. Perhaps she is a stat freak who sees things that you do not in consumer data. Or, perhaps she can link data from different sources together into a coherent strategy in a way the rest of your team has never considered. Maybe he is a better forecaster than your researchers as he has no baggage from the past to muddle his thinking.

If you have a team that has been together for a while it is probably a good idea to get some new injections in to your agency gene pool. The crazy or two that you bring on board may not be so crazy and could lengthen your corporate life.

If you would like to contact Don Cole directly, you may contact him at doncolemedia@gmail.com