Showing posts with label LinkedIn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LinkedIn. Show all posts

Sunday, November 01, 2015

Portfolio

#portfolio
#newsletter
#stakeholders
#solicitations
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#directmail
#website
#blogs
#online
#salescampaigns
#branding
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#mediarelease #PR
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xTuple - World's #1 Open Source ERP


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Hampton Roads Partnership, a public-private consortium convening regional leaders among business, education, defense, technology, government and citizens, facilitating regional collaboration and action, pursuing global economic competitiveness, benefiting citizens of Hampton Roads; website designer and admin HRP.org; blogger SmartRegion.org (unpublished); author of Hampton Roads e-News; editor and communication for "Vision Hampton Roads"

Defense and Homeland Security Consortium, a Community within Hampton Roads Technology Council (HRTC), marketing lead, website designer and admin PentagonSouth.org (unpublished)

Viral campaign for Hampton Roads Partnership (HRP) in anticipation of Virginia's General Assembly Summer ’08 Special Session on Transportation BeatTheGridlock.com (unpublished)

Hampton Roads Chapter of the American Marketing Association
HRAMA.org and launched first Hampton Roads AMA blog

Personal and Professional Blog, includes my entire portfolio and/or links to all archived materials (see links on right-hand sidebar) MissySchmidt.com
and graphics PicasaWeb.Google.com/MGBlankenshipBlog

My YouTube Videos YouTube.com/MissySchmidt08

My SlideShows, PowerPoint Presentations, etc. Slideshare.net

Friendship Industries, Inc. – Media Information including Press Releases, Articles, Newsletters Friendship-Industries.com (archive by current owner)

Social Marketing On the Web: (a few of my favorite places, past and present)

*NOTE-confidential and proprietary materials are not archived or available for review

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Blogging Projects

Ever run out of things to say (i.e. write about)?

Not me! And, now I've found some great lists of cool topics for even more blog-fodder. Here's my short list, and, of course, I'll always blog about Hampton Roads.



1. Photo Tour, take pics of off-the-beaten-path things to see in each of the 17 cities, towns and counties of Hampton Roads.

2. Video "How-To", gotta think on this one, but not sure what I do that would be video-interesting, hmmm. Suggestions?

3. Share Friends, share some friends’ blogs or websites and comment on them.

4. Tools I Use, share some of my favorite web tools.

5. Interviews, talk to anyone, family, friends, coworkers, and ask them the same questions to compare their perspectives.

6. Questions, pose interesting, creative questions on various social sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook and then add to blog with best responses.

7. My Media, show podcasting or video creation in action.

8. I have a Cause, share my favorite social cause with background, challenges, ways to connect and join the cause.

9. Something Silly, share my "guilty pleasures", such as LOLcats or fashion faux pas or funny videos.

10. Business, the list is limitless here of all things to do with my business, including trade and professional membership organizations.

11. Photo Blog, post stories told in pictures or video or perhaps just sounds.

12. History Tour, discover and share photos of historical persons or historical places, perhaps even contrasting current photos of geographical changes.

13. Talk with Journalist(s), "interview" a radio, TV or newspaper personality, especially with regard to social media.

14. Tomorrow’s Classroom, make suggestions on improving education in America today, such as using social media tools, video-immersion, etc.

15. Next Big Thing, make predictions, make suggestions for improvement for an existing brand.

16. I've got a Secret, share tips on something at which I'm an "expert", such as engaging in social networking or sales.

17. Fan-ship, show appreciation and passion for what makes me a fan, be it golf or sci fi, or Hampton Roads; use social media to change opinions and make others a fan, too.

18. Oops, share stories of mistakes and mis-steps, such as fumbles in social networking, and share the experience with others as a teaching tool.

19. Share Media, show mainstream media new ways to connect and be relevant.

20. Reviews, share thoughts by reporting on speeches, concerts and other events.

ok, I could go on, but you get the idea!

Photo Credit, MrLomo

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Social media in moderation


Posted this Q&A on with some interesting variety of responses to follow:


How do you impress upon those in social media that moderation is key; if you're profile is on the web, everyone can see it??? Just realized my nephew (20 yo) looks like an idiot online!

A follow-up from my first post:


From Blake Imeson
"When it comes time for him to get a job and he starts to get Googled then he will realize you have to be careful about what goes online. I am around his age and I think most people are conscious of the danger to your reputation the internet can be. There are still people that are oblivious to the image they give online. Consolation is that most profiles are fairly private (Facebook for instance) and most can be set to decent standards of privacy, people just don't bother."

From Kathy (Ford) Broniecki
"As a potential employer, I purposely avoid facebook and myspace accounts of prospects. Especially those under 25 that haven't figured out that potential employers could be looking at every drunken escapade. I view this much like I view the multiple tatoos and piercings - somewhat of a right of passage. Some measure of leveling humiliation generally precedes maturity. However, I'm in the advertising industry and someone in a more conservative industry may see things differently."

From David Bird
"My final year students are similar. On a session I do on privacy, we have a good look at their googled photos. Then we have a long talk about all the privacy options available on the social networks. The other conversation we have is: would you want to work for someone who would actively exclude you from a job interview because you had a good and wild time as a student?"

From Bridget Waldron
"I would let him know that his online image is a part of his personal brand and he should be more careful of how he presents himself in person and online. In the age of You Tube, blogging, facebook etc., being overexposed has its drawbacks and more companies are paying close attention to these sites as they screen potential employees."

From Kimmo Linkama (a viewpoint from outside U.S.)
"Then again, it is really sad if you have to start seriously watching every word you say when you're hardly 20. I think this corporate interest about the quality of employees is bordering on paranoia -- and when you finally get a job, you're subjected to "voluntary" drug tests and what have you. The same paranoid watching over you all the way... There are clear cultural differences, though. My impression is that Europeans allow more foolishness than Americans. Another interesting point is that when young people start to realize they have to be on their best behavior on the internet, how many of them will knowingly create a false profile? I'm sure this is already happening. Employers should not pay a lot of attention to the more personal or intimate social media as an information source."

Thursday, September 11, 2008

How Do You Move From Print Advertising to Digital Advertising?

The following query was posed on LinkedIn by Mark Gordon, Webmaster at Prince William County Park Authority:
"We have a print magazine that we want to move to a digital format. Our current print magazine has advertisers that we would also like to take to the digital side. What steps would need to be taken to ensure that we charge a good price for this? We're not sure of the medium (pdf or other), but we would not be averse to having ads on our website (we currently only have google ads on our site. Is there something that speaks to the best way of doing this?"

My response to Mark:

First, and most importantly, you must ascertain if your target audience is READY for a move from the now-print version to a digital version of your magazine.

How? Ask them! You already have their attention with your print content, so develop a short survey and include it in your next edition. And, send the survey electronically, too. A great way to "test" your audience's acceptance of digital media. Sometimes the best information gleaned from a survey isn't related to a question and a response!

And, while you're at it, be sure to ask them HOW, if you should move to a digital format, they would want to receive it: via email with PDF of magazine attached, via email with link to website-archived magazine, via a reader like Zinio (with advertisers' interactive links), or a combination of media?

Be certain you have the email address of every current magazine recipient and reader. Again, ask for it and their opt-in in advance. (Think, too, about how will you reach readers that get an issue via pass-along.)

Don't push this one; you need to "pull" your audience along, providing what they want not what you want to give.

Plan to spend some money on obtaining email lists of prospective readers, too, in order to add/maintain value to your advertisers.

Making sure your audience WANTS a digital magazine is very, very important in today's social media frenzy. I can think of many magazines I currently read that I would unsubscribe in a heartbeat if they went digital-only. So proceed with caution to maintain readers AND advertisers. Depending upon your audience, perhaps you try to ADD a digital version to your current mix and test reaction/ readership. I've seen this done with great success. After you see your audience has not only accepted, but embraced, the new digital format, you can guarantee your advertisers with solid metrics and eliminate the print version (and all the related costs). And, for those few print-hangers on (and there will be a few), you have a solid reason for making the change, not just that YOU wanted to make the move.

As far as the pricing of online magazine advertising, you most definitely will be in a better position to maintain or even increase rates if you take some well-place steps FIRST to guarantee readership, stability AND growth.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Social Media and Youth, just realized my nephew looks like an idiot online


"What, if anything, are kids/young adults taught in grade school/high school and/or college re: online profiles and social media such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.? What if you found out that your college-age nephew, who is slated to take over the family business after college, looks like a total idiot online. How do we teach our upcoming "young professionals" that posting pics of themselves in nothing but a diaper at Halloween is just not appropriate? I'd be interested to hear from those in the education profession, too."

I posted this question on LinkedIn and to my peers on Help A Reporter Out, generating some great responses. Here was the winner IMO and excerpts from some of the others:

Michael Merrick Crooks

  • The mere fact that you must say something to some people is an indication that your breath will be wasted. At which point you are better off saying nothing.
  • Social media = Darwin's Theory of Natural Cyber Selection in which the dregs of the employment pool will drown themselves and float to the top making it easy to spot the one's worth hiring. They'll be the ones with their head above water.
  • Basically, Social Media is the new-age gene pool test. But unlike the past where Darwin Awards winners would actually kill themselves ... nowadays they simply shoot themselves in the foot.
Other excerpts:

  • I'm a French teacher in Belgium and I believe that the best way of teaching teenagers about dangers of the web is presenting them with stories about what people did live through after putting such material online. Just stories, not trying to convince them any other way. They have to think about it and you can't make people think.
    Pieter Jansegers http://frenchteachers.ning.com

  • In my college experience, we were constantly taught that future employers, as well as current professors, would be looking at our online profiles. We were often reminded to remove anything we wouldn't want employers to see. This subject was discussed by many professors in class and employers at job fairs/information sessions, and the school sent several emails about it as well.
    Christine Stoddard http://momcentral.com

  • “Don’t Let Facebook Kill Your Career!" “What is viewable to your sorority sisters, drinking buddies and family can often be seen by potential and current employers. This can cost you a dream job or that big promotion. With the job market so tight and information so widely available, more and more employers are either checking up on, or screening applicants using the Internet. Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace give employers a snapshot into the kind of person who might be walking into their office. You won’t find this kind of information on a resume. The question becomes, ‘Do you want this person working for you?’ We strongly suggest that our applicants ‘clean’ up their profiles or make their postings private in order to present the best possible face for potential employers.”
    Here are 3 sample tips:
    • The Early Bird. Start the process early. If you are just establishing your online identity use caution. Imagine if your grandmother logged on and viewed your profile. What you feel embarrassed? Ashamed? If so, ask yourself if you are posting the best representation of yourself.
    • Management Track. Ok. It's too late to start over - your business is already out there! What can you do? First, clean up everything you can and then make anything personal "private".
    • Picture Perfect. A picture paints a thousand words. If you are a party, watch out who is taking pictures and how they might make you look. Remember, you can watch what you post but other people can post too - and you don't get to edit. Keep the lampshade off your head and your clothes on!
    Cyndi Nieto, CEO, Elite Placement Group, Inc., she has been an expert for BusinessWeek magazine, Entrepreneur magazine and USA Today among others.

  • It hasn’t taken long for employers to realize that Facebook and MySpace are a great way to find out more about potential candidates beyond what’s included in the typical resume. Unfortunately for some job seekers, this may mean finding out how many beers they bonged in Acapulco.

    That’s what Toni McLawhorn, director of career services at Roanoke College in Virginia, saw when she signed up for Facebook to see what the fuss was about. “Some were not bad at all, but other profiles were bizarre; just things that you would not want an employer to see,” she says. “Even though they might not be illegal, they might not give the best picture of you.”

    Students don’t generally think about how their profiles might affect future career choices, say career services directors. The idea of employers and the public using Facebook as a hiring tool has blindsided many students.“Their own sense of their world and who they’re connecting with may not include those entities [employers],” says Dale Austin, director of career services at Michigan’s Hope College. “Then when they find out they had access to it they think, ‘Oh my God what’s happened!’”

    “These sites give the illusion of privacy, but that is all that it is – an illusion,” says Gary Wipperman, CIO and director of information technology systems at Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa. “Information from these sites can be used by potential employers to make hiring decisions, by law enforcement in investigations and by others with less justifiable intentions.”

    So, what should students do to make sure their Facebook profile doesn’t ruin their chances of getting hired? For starters, members should clean them up, and to keep private information private. “A good rule of thumb is to not put anything on there that you would not want to show your own grandmother,” says Austin.

    Students can change their privacy settings in Facebook so that only their friends – rather than everyone – can see their profile. They should also exclude faculty, grads and alumni from seeing their profile until their job search is over.

    Doug Hamilton, director of career counseling at Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Ala., suggests using Facebook as a way to network with other students for employment leads and ideas. “One student placed a Career Services link on their profile,” he says. “We are not preaching to not use Facebook but to always put your best face forward.”
    Laura Snyder, Dick Jones Communications

  • They want everything in real time, but what toll will this take? Because information is available immediately, young adults don’t always think ahead- including what they post on their online profiles.

    They are used to collaborating online and generating personal information for strangers. The workplace is showing the strains of the tools as well: Can you make a good decision on a Blackberry screen? What are the positives and negatives of keeping an online profile updated with personal info- is there really privacy anymore? For students especially, there’s information overload and they practically have the internet in their pocket! Now, when kids get an assignment to do a paper on the Civil War, they spend hours online doing the research—almost too much information. They need to learn how to narrow things down. Like an uncensored online profile, they also have to learn to step back before they push send. Instead of the “drunken 3 am phone call when you get home”, teens today are sending messages instantly while still at the party!

    If we ask a family today what is education? The responses are:
    • Mom-“What You Know”
    • Dad-“Who You Know”
    • Kids- “How to know where to go when you need to know” (Relying strongly on the internet)

    *From a PEW Research Report: The smart person in the information age will know which media to use when
    • 96% of all students who have access to the Internet use social networking: chat, text messaging, blogging, visiting online communities
    • 71% use social networking sites at least weekly
    • 41% post comments on message boards every week
    • 9% upload video of their own creation at least weekly
    • 25% update their personal Web site or online profiles at least weekly
    • 30% report having their own blogs
    Staci Weiner, http://www.schwartz.com/
    Liz Hamburg, COO, ApplyWise.com

  • I’m a 24 year old communications professional – I graduated college less than 2 years ago. Facebook first premiered when I was a junior (I already had a MySpace page at that point). Here are some of the warnings I received while in school: Many of my professors warned that recruiters and HR managers were looking at social networking profiles before bringing in potential interview candidates. We were warned to keep our photos professional and our profiles private (viewable only to our friends, or our networks).

    Yet, as my internship coordinator pointed out, even private profiles weren’t 100% safe. As an example, let’s say I’m about to graduate Marist College – I have a Facebook profile, but it’s set to private. I apply for a job at Company X, which happens to have several low-level, recently graduated staffers who also graduated from Marist. Since we are on the same ‘network’ on Facebook (the Marist network), these staffers at Company X would still be able to see my private profile.
    Rob Gedarovich, Account Executive, CreativePartners.com

  • I really appreciated your request today because I spend a large percentage of my FLIPPING BURGERS AND BEYOND blog posts on this subject of being very careful of a young person's image on the internet. Here's one such blog post.

    In fact, the "rising sophomore" of the above blog post is someone who cares very much about his image, very much believes in what I've taught him (there's a post about his appreciation of what I taught him), and yet when I told him to take the idiotic picture off his Facebook profile, his response to me was, "But I thought Facebook was only for social networking." I then wrote the above post to make sure he got what I meant.
    Phyllis Zimbler Miller, www.flippingburgersandbeyond.blogspot.com

  • I am a 25 year old marketing professional. I recently graduated from Penn State, with a degree in corporate communication, and many of my professors, as well as the career counselor, emphasized the importance of online profiles. Now that employers can Google an applicant, and see exactly how drunk you were last weekend via your MySpace profile, they wanted to be sure that we understood how important these online profiles have become in the workplace.

    I frequently Google myself (even more so when I'm in the midst of a job search), just so I can be sure that I am in control of what comes up. If you Google me now, I believe that only my Jobster profile shows up. It notes my interests, my location, and my previous positions. It's almost like a resume back-up, confimring that I am really what I say I am.

    I do have a Facebook profile, as well as a MySpace profile. The Facbook profile is mainly professional, with some "fun" things thrown in: a "flair" application, a garden, some old photos from high school. The MySpace profile is completely private, and is un-searchable. While it is appropriate for employers, some of my friends' profiles may not be, and I don't want that to influence someone's decision about ME.
    Megan D. Rothman

  • I wanted to pass along some information from the recently-released Cox Tween Internet Safety Survey. This will give you some good background information about what tweens are up to these days online.
    Key findings from the Cox Tween Internet Safety Survey are:
    • Ninety percent of tweens report having used the Internet by nine years-old.
    • Tweens online presence doubles or even triples between the ages of eight to ten and eleven to twelve.
    • Thirty-four percent of eleven and twelve year-olds have a profile on a social networking site. Tweens with social networking profiles post more personal information online.
    • More than one in five tweens post information about themselves online, including pictures, the city they live in and how old they are. Twenty-seven percent of tweens ages eleven to twelve admit to posting a fake age online
    • Twenty-eight percent of tweens have been contacted over the Internet by someone they don’t know.
    • The percentage of tweens that tell parents “a lot” or “everything” they do online drops rapidly with age. Only sixty-nine percent of eleven to twelve year-olds tell Mom and Dad a lot/everything versus eighty-six percent of eight year-olds to ten year-olds.
    • Of tweens who have been contacted online by someone they don't know (twenty-eight percent), eighteen percent keep the messages to themselves, and eleven percent have chatted with the unknown person.
    Todd DeFeo, Account Executive, Weber Shandwick Worldwide

  • Feel free to use information from the following links at my blog:
    http://lgbusinesssolutions.typepad.com/solutions_to_grow_your_bu/2008/07/everything-you.html
    http://lgbusinesssolutions.typepad.com/solutions_to_grow_your_bu/2008/06/can-b2b-marketi.html

    Lewis Green, Chief Communications Officer and Founder, L&G Business Solutions

  • My daughter says she is smart enough not to post embarrassing stuff about herself, but there is not much she can do if her cellphone-camera-wielding buds post their embarrassing thoughts andphotos of her. I think that the opposition-research teams of the presidential campaign of 2040 (and beyond) are going to have plenty to work with. And, Photoshop manipulations to create new realities in the Facebook photos can add to the mix, also.
    Miles Abernathy, http://399Retouch.com

  • As an educator, I use some social media in my high school biology class and also have much discussion on what it all means. I am also a group of educators who are working on digital citizenship curriculum to help with this. Rather than block the use of social media in classrooms, we believe the only way to teach students the best use of them is to use them well.
    Louise Maine, http://hurricanemaine.blogspot.com

  • I work with an independent college consultant who helps high schoolers select colleges and work through the college admission process. The subject of social media profiles is of growing interest to college admission counselors across the country, and what kids do with their profiles can affect the college selection process.
    Wendy Carver-Herbert, President, Carver-Communications, Inc.



Music stopped me from dying young, a poignant life story

Remember the Six-Word Life Story query. Telling yours in six words. No more. No less.

I posed the query on LinkedIn as well as Facebook with phenomenal results (90 responses from LinkedIn alone). I already submitted mine for SMITH Magazine's next six-word memoir book.

Here are the global results of my Six-Word query from the U.S., Ukraine, Chile, France, etc.

I selected my Top Ten and the winner IMO is:

"Music stopped me from dying young"

submitted by Malcolm Murray
creator of the popular online magazine BlackCityMag.com


Thanks, Malcolm, for sharing!

Saturday, September 06, 2008

10 communications objectives for using social media


We just love lists, don't we? Chris Brogan posed an interesting question on his blog as to what we considered the top communications objectives for using social media, eliciting a multitude of responses.

This is my list of Top Ten Social Media Objectives (SMO):









1. Communicate.
2. Collaborate.
3. Connect.
4. Create.
5. Consider.
6. Cooperate.
7. Compare.
8. Converse.
9. Compel.
10. Confide.

All leading to the big “C”: CHANGE. Ok, make mine a list of 11 communications objectives for using social media.


I'll post this query on LinkedIn; my other "list" questions have been well-received. So, we'll see what responses this one generates.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Can you tell your life story in 6 words?

Everyone has a story. Can you tell yours in six words? No more. No less.

I added mine. I've added the question to LinkedIn as well and will post some of the best here. What an overwhelming response thus far!

Submit yours to be considered for SMITH Magazine's next six-word memoir book.

www.SmithMag.net/SixWords

The first book, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure, was published earlier this year and is available now.

Friday, August 22, 2008

LinkedIn: In the questionnaire tradition of James Lipton


I asked the following on LinkedIn (and I'll post the best answers here):

In the tradition of James Lipton and "Inside the Actor’s Studio",

  • In your lifetime, what was the first marketing campaign you can recall?

  • What influence(s) made you decide to pursue marketing as a profession?

  • What qualities make for a great marketer?

  • Pick your preference: Hard and fast ROI or experiment and see what works?

  • You are your own brand: What is the tagline for your brand campaign?

  • When you arrive at the pearly gates, what do you hope is pointed out as your greatest single marketing accomplishment?

  • What is your favorite keyword?

  • What profession, other than marketing, would you most like to pursue?

Thursday, July 31, 2008

LinkedIn Questions and Answers

I don't answer many LinkedIn Questions, but this one prompted my response:

Promoting a website to a specific demographic

My Wife runs a Mother, Father and Baby Website and is different from the usual Free Hosted sites, plastered in adverts. Her site is free and for Mums and Dads only, no dating customers etc. Its free from Advertising etc at present. It receives approximately 3m page views per month.

Can anyone advise me on the best way to promote her site to new mums etc over the world apart from using the normal Google search...

Richard Foleher, Siemens Senior Account Manager within the Rocom Group

My Answer (deemed #1, Winning, Expert)

So little time and so much content, especially on the web! For free placements and fast attention, I always suggest creating and posting a video (keep it short, entertaining and relevant). You can upload the video to YouTube, embed it on your website and make it part of your viral and press release marketing. Be sure to tell people that if they like what they see, you want them as "Ambassadors" or "Evangelists" and to "pass it on".

Also, if you have some marketing budget to work with, you can rent email lists from most of the major magazines in your target market. Find them on your favorite newstand (or google them, if you prefer), contact them. Some may even work with you on a trade basis. Use a simple email program like ConstantContact and promote your site directly to your target audience.

Another thought: if you want to remain FREE and free from advertising, there are plenty of consumer goods manufacturers out there looking for product placement to elevate their brand. Find relevant products, contact the mfg'er and see if they'd like to work with you. (Example: Think of the car nameplates and soda can labels you see in TV shows now!)

Hope this helps...I write about this stuff on my blog, too.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Are you LinkedIn?


I rec'vd the funniest email from a friend and former business acquaintnance the other day after finding her on LinkedIn and sending a request to add her to my Contact List. Let me share it with you:


Yes, you have a profile on LinkedIn. You set it up at some point, but YOU are your only connection. How sad.

LinkedIn is a social networking site. Think of it as a business-to-business (B2B) cocktail party that you attend online (no drinking and driving!). When someone asks to "connect" with you, it's like exchanging business cards and letting everyone else at the party know with whom you exchanged cards.


LinkedIn is a great way to exchange leads, share referrals, make recommendations, create connections, develop or expand relationships, generate introductions...all without leaving your office or couch, whatever the case may be.

I'd like to stay in touch with you, so I can easily find you (and you can find me) if the need arises in the future to renew our business relationship. It may be as innocuous as you having an interest in a school I attended to share this info with the friend of a friend's child. I say never "burn" bridges; you never know when you'll need to cross that bridge again, or even make a hasty retreat some day!

I can send you another request, if you like; just in case you deleted my first one. Or try to find me on your own. Just use "Name Search" and type in "Missy Blankenship". And, feel free to ask anytime if you're not sure how something works. It really is easy to navigate and fairly self-explanatory. And, you can always click on "Help & FAQ", if you're stumped. Don't tell me you're not tech-savvy! You don't need to be.

Try it! Type in a search for former schools you attended or companies where you worked or the name of a long, lost love. You may be surprised but what you find, albeit pleasantly, I hope.