The recently published market study by MRRSE highlights the current trends that are expected to influence the dynamics of the Performance Coating market in the upcoming years. The report introspects the supply chain, cost structure, and recent developments pertaining to the Performance Coating market in the report and the impact of the COVID-19 on these facets of the market. Further, the micro and macro-economic factors that are likely to impact the growth of the Performance Coating market are thoroughly studied in the presented market study.

According to the report, the Performance Coating market is expected to grow at a CAGR of ~XX% during the forecast period, 20XX-20XX and attain a value of ~US$ XX by the end of 20XX. The report is a valuable source of information for investors, stakeholders, established and current market players who are vying to improve their footprint in the current Performance Coating market landscape amidst the global pandemic.

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Reasons to Trust Our Business Insights

Critical Data in the Performance Coating Market Report

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Regional Assessment

The regional assessment chapter in the report offers an out and out understanding of the potential growth of the Performance Coating market across various geographies such as:

Application Assessment

The presented study ponders over the numerous applications of the Performance Coating and offers a fair assessment of the supply-demand ratio of each application including:

Market: Dynamics

The vast range of highly important fields using performance coatings is the key driver for the global performance coatings market. The marine and power sectors are likely to be important to the performance coatings market in the coming years, among others. The power sector is so firmly established in the global economic structure that it has been one of the first adopters of performance coatings, which ensure better protection for wires and other electrical instruments. The progressive development of the power sector to make services more reliable is likely to entail rising demand from the global performance coatings market.

The steady growth of the material sciences has been important for the global performance coatings market, as it has provided the market an easy channel for innovations. The steady government support and private investment in the sector is likely to ensure steady growth of the performance coatings market.

Global Performance Coating Market: Segmentation

Asia Pacific except Japan (APEJ) is the dominant market for performance coatings and is set for steady dominance due to the presence of a booming manufacturing sector in the region. Countries such as China, India, Thailand, Vietnam, and Myanmar are set to emerge as major manufacturing centers for various sectors in the coming years, with China and India likely to drive the APEJ market on significantly. This will be a key driver for the performance coatings market in Asia Pacific except Japan, as performance coatings are likely to be ingrained as a key part of the manufacturing sector in the coming years. The APEJ performance coatings market is expected to exhibit a healthy CAGR of 6.2% in the 2017-2022 forecast period.

Various types of resin used to produce performance coatings include epoxy, polyurethane, polyester, and acrylic resin. Epoxy resin is the dominant resin in the global performance coatings market. The segment was valued at US$29.2 bn in 2017, accounting for 37% of the global performance coatings market.

Global Performance Coating Market: Competitive Dynamics

Leading companies in the global performance coatings market include AkzoNobel NV, Masco Corporation, Hempel A/S, Jotun A/S, The Valspar Corporation, Axalta Coating Systems Ltd., Nippon Paint Holding Co. Ltd., BASF SE, and PPG Industries Inc.

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The report resolves the following doubts related to the Performance Coating market:

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COVID-19 impact: Insight on the Growth of Performance Coating Market Growth with Challenges, Standardization, Competitive Market Share and Top Players...

Executive Summary

Significant benefits can accrue from having a demographically diverse boardroom. Among other things, a demographically diverse board is more likely to represent the composition of a companys employees, customers, and suppliers and can therefore provide a board with a better understanding of the companys key constituencies. Thus, a demographically diverse board may help a company identify and respond to market shifts and changes in consumer expectations more effectively than a homogenous board. But this is only true if the board maintains cognitive diversity as well as demographic diversity. In interviews with 18 boards of directors, the author found that cognitively diverse directors were frequently able to share valuable insights with their fellow directors, expanding the boards understanding of the company and the strategic and operating issues it faced. They also found that they were more likely to ask tough questions and challenge the proposals of management and their fellow directors than incumbent directors who were long-tenured or had personal or professional relationships with others in the boardroom.

Influenced by state legislation as well as the efforts of institutional investors and other diversity advocates, companies have been adding more diverse directors to their boards than ever before. In 2019, a record 59 percent of the directors added to the boards of S&P 500 companies were women or were men belonging to a racial or ethnic minority group. Now, as companies seek to navigate numerous issues few have faced before, including a worldwide pandemic, a lingering trade war, changing consumer demands, and widespread protests regarding racial inequality, even more may be seeking to increase their diversity. But what characteristics should boards look for when adding directors to improve gender, racial, and ethnic diversity to ensure that these new directors also enhance diversity in the boardroom from a practical perspective?

While it is commonly assumed that individuals who differ in demographic characteristics will bring new backgrounds, viewpoints, and perspectives to a boardroom, often this is not the case, at least in how many public companies have historically hired demographically diverse candidates. The problem is that too often demographically diverse candidates are chosen because they have backgrounds similar to those of incumbent directors; they fit in well with others on a board.

In our experience, public companies wishing to increase their diversity benefit the most by recruiting candidates who also help improve cognitive diversity in the boardroom. Our views are derived from a study of the effects of cognitive diversity on board performance we conducted involving eight underperforming companies that were subject to past shareholder activism by our firm. At each company, an employee of our firm, an activist hedge fund manager, or one or more other individuals we nominated or approved, was added to the board. We interviewed on a confidential basis 18 directors who served on the boards of these companies both before and after changes were made to its composition. Through these interviews we were able to ascertain whether the directors added helped improve cognitive diversity in the boardroom and, if so, gain insight into the impact that any increase in cognitive diversity had on board performance.

Our research revealed that improving cognitive diversity on a board can significantly enhance its performance, particularly when cognitively diverse directors are added with professional backgrounds, skills, and perspectives in areas pertinent to a companys business or strategic plans who lack ties to the CEO and other directors. Cognitively diverse directors were frequently able to share valuable insights with their fellow directors, expanding the boards understanding of the company and the strategic and operating issues it faced. We also found that they were more likely to ask tough questions and challenge the proposals of management and their fellow directors than incumbent directors who were long-tenured or had personal or professional relationships with others in the boardroom. As one incumbent director we interviewed said, It is hard to vote against the CEO if you are going to see him that weekend at the country club. Over time, however, the presence of engaged, cognitively diverse outsiders in the boardroom made incumbent directors more comfortable asking questions, suggesting alternatives, and expressing dissent. This, in turn, helped boards more effectively oversee management and improved decision-making.

Another director we interviewed said,The new directors [on our board] brought not just a diversity of opinions and perspectives, but a diversity of behavior a willingness to openly challenge management and other directors, which was missing from the boardroom. By having more open debate, it created an environment where others saw it was good and healthy to have frank discussions regarding important decisions. When members of the board began challenging each other and listening to each others viewpoints it led to positive outcomes. Good healthy disagreement led to good decision-making.

To improve both cognitive and demographic diversity in the boardroom, we recommend that boards recruit racially, ethnically, and gender diverse directors who enhance diversity on two additional levels: first, by adding professional backgrounds, skills, and experiences in areas that are needed to meet the companys strategic and operating needs; and second, by introducing new views, perspectives, and approaches to problem solving.

Improving the diversity of professional backgrounds on a board by adding directors with skills and experience that are needed in the boardroom is an efficient way to expand a boards knowledge base as well as improve its ability to advise and oversee management. Identifying directors who can introduce new views, perspectives and approaches to problem solving is a more time-consuming undertaking, given that these qualities typically are not discernable without speaking at length to candidates and their references. Taking the time to do so, however, can significantly improve board decision-making. Directors we interviewed informed us that they observed healthier debate, more robust discussions, and more focused and fact-based decision-making after the boards they served on became more cognitively diverse.

Significant benefits can accrue from having a demographically diverse boardroom. Among other things, a demographically diverse board is more likely to represent the composition of a companys employees, customers, and suppliers and can therefore provide a board with a better understanding of the companys key constituencies. Thus, a demographically diverse board may help a company identify and respond to market shifts and changes in consumer expectations more effectively than a homogenous board. While such insights can be invaluable, demographically diverse directors with strong business backgrounds in areas that are needed on a board may be better able to incorporate their insights into the context of a companys business. It is for this reason that we recommended in 2019 that L Brands which was subject to criticism that the marketing of its Victorias Secret business was no longer aligned with womens evolving views of beauty, diversity, and inclusion add more female directors to its board with experience in areas including merchandising, marketing, and international business development.

Based on the results of our study, we compiled recommendations for boards interested in improving gender, racial, and ethnic diversity to incorporate into their director recruiting process to help them identify demographically diverse directors who also help improve cognitive diversity and board performance. These recommendations include the following:

While labor intensive, diligent director recruiting can help boards identify candidates that maximize the diversity they bring to the boardroom. If a board approaches addressing diversity concerns solely as a check-the-box exercise, we believe it is doing a disservice not just to itself but also to the company and its shareholders.

Finally, our study revealed that the work of a board is not over once it has assembled a demographically and cognitively diverse group of directors. To make sure that a board benefits from enhanced diversity in the boardroom, it must have a culture that values diverse perspectives. Directors with strong professional credentials and unique perspectives are of little benefit if this is not the case. As an experienced female director we interviewed stated, You can have all the diversity in the world, but it wont matter if you dont have the right culture.

We therefore recommend that boards work diligently to establish a culture that embraces diverse insights and ensures that they are shared and incorporated into the decision-making process. A survey of 700 directors conducted by PwC in 2019 revealed that 43 percent of the respondents found it difficult to voice a dissenting view in their boardroom. These findings indicate that many boards may benefit from examining their culture to ensure that diverse perspectives are truly welcomed in the boardroom.

If a board is truly committed to fulfilling its role and responsibilities effectively, improving diversity in the boardroom both demographically and cognitively and fostering a culture that welcomes diverse perspectives must be made a priority. In todays dynamic and competitive global business environment, ensuring that boards are performing to the best of their abilities and are able to help companies innovate and respond to challenges and disruption is a business imperative. The competitiveness of our companies and the long-term success of our economy depend on it.

Read more:
How Diverse Is Your Board, Really? - Harvard Business Review

The employee performance software market research report provides a comprehensive study of market share, size, growth aspects and key players.In addition, the report contains brief information on the regional competitive landscape, market trends and drivers, opportunities and challenges, distributors, sales channels, risks and barriers to entry, as well as the analysis of Porters five forces.In addition, the main objective of this report isto provide a detailed analysis of how aspects of the market can potentially influence the future of the employee performance software market.The report also offers a comprehensive analysis on competitive manufacturers as well as new entrants also studying with their brief research.

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In addition, this report also contains a price, income, market share and the production of the service providers is also mentioned with precise data.In addition, the global report on employee performance software mainly focuses on current developments, new possibilities, advancements and sleeping traps.In addition, the Employee Performance Software Market Report provides a comprehensive analysis of the current situation and opportunities for advancement in the employee performance software market worldwide.This report analyzes important key elements such as production, capacity, revenue, price, gross margin, sales revenue, sales volume, growth rate, consumption, import, export , technological developments, supply and future growth strategies.

In addition, the Employee Performance Software report provides a detailed analysis of the competitive landscape in terms of regions and the main service providers are also highlighted as well as the attributes of the market overview, business strategies, finance, developments employees and the employee performance software market product portfolio.Likewise, this report includes important data on market segmentation by type, application and regional landscape.The employee performance software market report also provides a brief analysis of the market opportunities and challenges faced by key services.This report is specially designed to know the precise information on the market and the state of the market

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The key players covered in this study

Oracle Saba SAP SumTotal Systems ultimate software Cornerstone OnDemand Performly Impraise MAUS BambooHR Namely Zoho Corporation BreatheHR TrakStar ClearCompany Actus Insperity Reviewsnap PeopleGoal Beisen

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Market segment by type, the product can be divided into

On-site cloud based on theWeb

Market segment by application, divided into

Small business Medium business Large business

Market segment by region / country, this report covers

United States Europe China Japan Southeast Asia India Central and South America

The objectives of the study in this report are:

Analyze the global status of employee performance software, future forecasts, growth opportunities, the key market and the main players. Present the development of employee performance software in the United States, Europe and China.

Establish a strategic profile of the main players and analyze in depth their development plan and strategies. Define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.

In this study, the years considered to estimate the size of the employee performance software market are as follows:

History Year: 2013-2017 Base year: 2017 Estimated year: 2018 Forecast year 2018 to 2025

Main points of the table of contents:

Chapter One: Report Overview Chapter Two: Trends in Global Growth Chapter Three: Market Share of Major Players Chapter Four: Distribution by Type and Application Chapter Five: United States Chapter Six: Europe Chapter Seven: China Chapter Eight: Japan Chapter Nine: Southeast Asia Chapter Ten: India Chapter Eleven: Central and South America Chapter Twelve: Profiles of International Players Chapter Thirteen: Market Forecast 2018-2025 Chapter Fourteen: Analyst Views / Findings Chapter Fifteen: Annex

About us:

Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a one-off help for all your market research needs.We have an extensive database of reports from major publishers and authors around the world.We specialize in delivering personalized reports to our customers requirements.We have complete information about our publishers and are therefore sure of the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization.This helps our customers to map their needs and we produce the perfect market research required for our customers.

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Global Employee Performance Software Market 2020: Classification, Application And Specifications, Industry Overview, Analysis Of The Main Key Regions...

High-Performance Nonwovens Market 2018: Global Industry Insights by Global Players, Regional Segmentation, Growth, Applications, Major Drivers, Value and Foreseen till 2024

The report provides both quantitative and qualitative information of global High-Performance Nonwovens market for period of 2018 to 2025. As per the analysis provided in the report, the global market of High-Performance Nonwovens is estimated to growth at a CAGR of _% during the forecast period 2018 to 2025 and is expected to rise to USD _ million/billion by the end of year 2025. In the year 2016, the global High-Performance Nonwovens market was valued at USD _ million/billion.

This research report based on High-Performance Nonwovens market and available with Market Study Report includes latest and upcoming industry trends in addition to the global spectrum of the High-Performance Nonwovens market that includes numerous regions. Likewise, the report also expands on intricate details pertaining to contributions by key players, demand and supply analysis as well as market share growth of the High-Performance Nonwovens industry.

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High-Performance Nonwovens Market Overview:

The Research projects that the High-Performance Nonwovens market size will grow from in 2018 to by 2024, at an estimated CAGR of XX%. The base year considered for the study is 2018, and the market size is projected from 2018 to 2024.

The report on the High-Performance Nonwovens market provides a birds eye view of the current proceeding within the High-Performance Nonwovens market. Further, the report also takes into account the impact of the novel COVID-19 pandemic on the High-Performance Nonwovens market and offers a clear assessment of the projected market fluctuations during the forecast period. The different factors that are likely to impact the overall dynamics of the High-Performance Nonwovens market over the forecast period (2019-2029) including the current trends, growth opportunities, restraining factors, and more are discussed in detail in the market study.

Leading manufacturers of High-Performance Nonwovens Market:

Market Segment Analysis The research report includes specific segments by Type and by Application. This study provides information about the sales and revenue during the historic and forecasted period of 2015 to 2026. Understanding the segments helps in identifying the importance of different factors that aid the market growth. Segment by Type, the High-Performance Nonwovens market is segmented into Nylon Cupro Filament Polyester Polypropylene

Segment by Application Clothes Sheet Packs Medical Materials Other

Global High-Performance Nonwovens Market: Regional Analysis The High-Performance Nonwovens market is analysed and market size information is provided by regions (countries). The report includes country-wise and region-wise market size for the period 2015-2026. It also includes market size and forecast by Type and by Application segment in terms of sales and revenue for the period 2015-2026. The key regions covered in the High-Performance Nonwovens market report are: North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany France U.K. Italy Russia Asia-Pacific China Japan South Korea India Australia Taiwan Indonesia Thailand Malaysia Philippines Vietnam Latin America Mexico Brazil Argentina Middle East & Africa Turkey Saudi Arabia U.A.E Global High-Performance Nonwovens Market: Competitive Analysis This section of the report identifies various key manufacturers of the market. It helps the reader understand the strategies and collaborations that players are focusing on combat competition in the market. The comprehensive report provides a significant microscopic look at the market. The reader can identify the footprints of the manufacturers by knowing about the global revenue of manufacturers, the global price of manufacturers, and sales by manufacturers during the forecast period of 2015 to 2019. The major players in global High-Performance Nonwovens market include: Ahlstrom DowDuPont Freudenberg Technical Fibre Products (TFP) Kimberly-Clark Polymer Group PGI Industrial Georgia Pacific Asahi Kasei Advance Corporation Bonar

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The Questions Answered by High-Performance Nonwovens Market Report:

And Many More.

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Potential impact of coronavirus outbreak on High-Performance Nonwovens Market 2020: Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Trends, Growth and Forecast...

Sometimes, to get the proper perspective, you have to take the long view. And other times, you need the extremely long view. It is with this in mind that we ponder the nature of the IT sector, the impact that the coronavirus pandemic is having on it, and prior crises that are of a similar magnitude even if caused by a different set of circumstances.

The analysts at IDC have just put out their figures for the server market for the first quarter of 2020. Given that the coronavirus pandemic was not in full swing in the three-month period ended in March, depending on how this all goes, server spending could drop more or collapse quite a bit. Or not. No one really knows. And that is why perspective really matters at times like these. As we are fond of pointing out, an economy never goes to zero, and what is quite awful often feels a lot worse than it could be if economies really did come to a screeching halt for an extended period of time. Saying this does nothing to minimize the pain that companies and their employees are feeling right now. All we can tell you is that we have gotten through bad situations before, and bad situations are always different in their own way.

We have always believed that our appetite for compute is a kind of economic indicator. It is not the normal kind of leading or lagging indicator, but more of a measure of our hopes and aspirations mixed with our need to get the normal work done. And without question, that normal has been changing and expanding over the years as the lines between personal and business use of computing have blurred. Even as Moores Law has made systems incredibly more capacious and incredibly less costly per unit of compute, storage, and networking, we continue to need more than Moore. And so the market grows. Even if you inflation adjust the spending data, which has the effect of ballooning spending more the further you go back in the past, it grows. (More on that in a moment.)

Before we get into the massive trend analysis we have done spanning back to 1999, which is the height of the dot-com bubble 21 years ago and which was a massive undertaking digging through the Google search engine finding ancient quarterly reports from IDC, lets talk about what was happening right here in the first quarter of 2020.

On the face of it, the numbers didnt look too bad, but this was against a relatively easy compare, since the first quarter of 2019 was not as good as it might have been thanks to the choppy spending by the hyperscalers and cloud builders who represent somewhere around a third of server revenues and maybe close to half of the server shipments in any given quarter. Server revenues in Q1 2020 were off 6 percent to $18.61 billion, and shipments were down only two-tenths of a point to 2.58 million units. Considering what was going on in China and spreading into Europe and the United States at the time, this was not terrible. This is surprising, really. And a testament to just how dependent we all are, in one way or another, on the datacenters of the world.

If you look at the trend since the Great Recession, as we have traditionally done here at The Next Platform, you can see that there is perhaps more drama than these numbers show. You always need to look at the sequential as well as the year-on-year data to get a better feel for what is going on. Here is what that IDC server data looks like over time:

As we have been talking about for a few years now, something different happened in 2017, and part of that was that main memory and flash memory prices went through the roof at the same time that companies started loading up some of their servers with GPUs to accelerate various workloads. CPUs got a lot more expensive too, even if they did offer a lot of throughput. Prices for memory, flash, and CPU cores have come down in the past two years, and that is reflected in the aggregated server revenues, establishing a new baseline that is somewhere around $22 billion per quarter, about twice the baseline between 2010 and 2016. Server shipments are trending upwards, gently, and also took a bit of a hook up and to the right starting in 2017.

As you might expect, the so-called volume server segment, which is for machines that cost under $25,000, was off only 2.1 percent, to $15.1 billion, according to IDC, while high-end iron costing more than $250,000 had a 9.1 percent decline to just under $1 billion. Most of that was for IBM mainframes and high-end Power Systems, by the way.

Just so you have it handy, here is the play by play in server sales by vendor for the past nine quarters by vendor:

And here it is represented graphically since the Great Recession:

The original design manufacturers, or ODMs, who make custom gear for the hyperscalers, cloud builders, and other service providers continue their rise, but this is only a portion of the machinery these top tier companies buy. Remember, traditional original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, who make machinery for the datacenter masses such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Dell, Inspur, Lenovo, and Sugon all have businesses that sell semi-custom machinery to some of the Super 8 and a few of the smaller hyperscalers and cloud builders, too. So you look at the ODM figures in the table and chart above for a sense of the growth in spending by these big companies, but not as an absolute measure in spending. Be careful not to conflate the two.

As you can see, the first quarter was a big drop for the ODMs that IDC tracks as a group from the third and fourth quarters of 2019, and the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first and second quarters of 2019 were also disappointing compared to their prior quarters. This business is inherently spikey, it looks like, just as IBMs own business has been, as you can see in the chart above. The mainframe cycle is literally Big Blues heartbeat. Dell had a difficult Q1 2020 and HPE had a worse one, and there is no way to sugar coat that and it is, in both cases, largely a reflection of enterprises large and small and in between cutting their server spending when the coronavirus pandemic hit.

While we find these first quarter numbers interesting, we took the time to cast the IDC data all the way back to the first quarter of 1999 to set us up for a proper comparison if the Great Infection recession of 2020 to perhaps 2021 turns out to be on the same order of magnitude of the Dot-Com Bubble Burst and the 9/11 Recession of 2000-2001 or the Great Recession of 2008-2009. And just to be clear, creating this data set from the publicly available IDC data was a tremendous pain in the ass. We do it because we love you, and we love the truth. Our only regret is that we didnt do this starting back in 1990. . .

So lets get to it. Here is the server revenue and shipment data from Q1 1999 through Q1 2020, inclusive. Our apologies for the data labels being so small on the X axis. Take a look:

If you just take this data as it is over time, it looks like the current Hyperscale and Cloud Boom is the biggest and baddest revenue generating event in datacenter history, and that the investment is so much larger than it was during the dot-com boom. It also looks like the decline from Q4 2019 to Q1 2020 is almost as bad as the one over several quarters in 2000 when the dot-com bubble burst.

There are a few things to consider there. First, the buildup in spending in 1999 was not just for the buildout of the corporate Internet, but also because of the need to buy systems to adapt applications for the Y2K date bug. Enterprises bought a lot of capacity in 1998 and 1999 for this purpose, and they were not even close to burning it off until 2002 in a lot of cases. And by then, the existing recession had been in full swing for a while and was accelerated by the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States.

High-end server spending cycles and normal Q4 budgeting cycles drive that regularly spiking line from 2001 through 2006, which trends up and to the right slightly over that time. Shipments trend up a lot faster, and that is because X86 machinery is eating the datacenter at this time, with market share that rose from about 80 percent of machinery at the beginning of this chart in 1999 to something around 99 percent two decades later. At the peak of the dot-com bubble, Sun Microsystems and Oracle were the default configuration of server, operating system, and database for every new company, and every established company wanted to be like a startup. It got a little harder after 2001 for Sun and Oracle, but they kept growing in the enterprise. Here is a vendor chart that goes all the way back to 1999:

Just to make things consistent, revenues for Compaq and Hewlett Packard are combined in the chart above even though that deal was not announced until September 2001, a week before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as it turns out. The combination of HP and Compaq was supposed to create a rival to IBM, and it sort of did, but most of the parts that made the new HP like IBM have been sold off and it is basically back down to the core Compaq server business these days. Sun Microsystems peaked and frankly disappeared from the public IDC data as others rose in prominence in the server business in the wake of the Oracle acquisition of Sun in a decade ago. The rise of steady rise of Dell is worth noting, and it has moved aggressively to rival the latest incarnation of HP, called Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

It is the Others category, dominated by other OEMs, ODMs, and weird hybrids that are now shaping the market. Individually, Dell and HPE are the biggest server vendors. But collectively the ODMs and OEMs like Lenovo, Inspur, and Sugon are getting huge swaths of business. It is a different world, and one that is difficult to adapt to.

We stared at these images above for a long time, and then realized something important. Over such long periods of time, you really need to adjust the old data for inflation. Between 1999 and 2020, the US dollar has appreciated by a factor of 53.9 percent, which is a lot. A dollar in 1999 bought that much more than a dollar does today. So we went through the quarterly data and applied the inflation rate versus a constant 2020 dollar to the IDC data for total server spending. And you can see how bad the dot-com bubble bursting really was for the server business when you do that adjustment:

Now you begin to see the proper magnitude of the dot-com bubble bursting, the doldrums after that, the repeatedly W-shaped declines of the Great Recession and its aftermath, and the rise of the hyperscalers and cloud builders. And also the very large drop, by comparison, that just happened in Q1 2020. It is about half as bad as the drop at the end of the dot-com boom, but it is happening over one quarter, not three. And, more importantly, we dont know what the next data point is going to be.

We will know soon enough, because June is coming to a close in a few weeks.

Just for fun, and to get a better gauge of revenue over time, we did the same inflation adjustment for the major OEMs from two decades ago IBM, HP, Dell, and Sun against all others. Take a look at that:

This, we think, is a better measure of the relative strength of vendors over time. It still is not a good situation for the OEMs, mind you. And they are having a tough time generating profits even when they can generate revenue.

As part of this exercise, we also took our aggregate server capacity and server price/performance index and cast it all the way back to 1999. As a reminder, this takes the number of servers shipped, the average number of sockets across the market, the average number of cores per socket, and the relatively performance of a core to come up with an aggregate performance sold each quarter. (This is important: This is a sold by quarter metric, not an aggregate installed base metric.) We then dived that into the revenue generated by that capacity to come up with a relative value of server capacity metric. Here are those two curves, plotted out with inflation adjustment on the server revenues all the way back to 1999:

Those are two of the prettiest exponential curves you ever will see. This illustrates a bunch of things, but foremost, it has been harder to get the price/performance of capacity to improve than it has been to sell more capacity as time has gone by. By our math, the performance sold each has increased by a factor of 323X comparing Q1 1999 to Q1 2020 the number would have been slightly higher if Q4 2019 figures were used because unit shipments were down by quite a bit, but were compensated for somewhat by having more cores in systems, we think. (This chart is largely educated conjecture. We understand that.) And after inflation adjusting the revenues each quarter, the relative price/performance has improved by a factor of 368X. This is another way of saying that spending on servers is, relatively speaking, pretty constant at the endpoints of all of these lines. But in the middle of these curves, it waned as gauged by inflation adjusted currency.

What is interesting to us is that just as we were getting back to a server market with the strength of the dot-com boom, COVID-19 might com along and pop this bubble. We shall see. With the world being ever so much more dependent on computing, we think any server recovery, should there be a decline, will happen much faster than for other kinds of capital equipment.

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Server Spending Measures Aspiration As Much As Oomph - The Next Platform

By now, theres little chance you havent heard or seen the name BTS, the undisputed kings of K-pop. And should the worlds course not have been changed by the current pandemic, BTS rappers RM, J-hopeand Suga, and vocalists Jin, V, Jimin and Jungkook would currently be on their 37-date world tour to support their fourth Korean album, Map of the Soul: 7.

On 18 and 19 April (the dates they were due to play Seoul Olympic Stadium), their label Big Hit Entertainment aired Bang Bang Con, a free two-day live stream of archival footage from previous concerts and tours. More than two million fans (known as Army) watched simultaneously, with the total views toppling 50 million.

This weekend, on 14 June at 10am BST, BTS will perform a 90-minute pay-to-watch online concert Bang Bang Con: The Live thats bound to pull an audience of record-breaking numbers. The social engagement is consistently unsurpassed; earlier this year, Jungkook broke his own record by amassing over two million likes on five different tweets, breaking the previous record set by Barack Obama. He is also the most searched for K-pop Idol on Google and YouTube while in 2019, BTS were the most Googled boy band in the world.

Photography Monica Kim

As theyve grown to become multimillion-selling, stadium-filling superstars, there has never been a singular answer as to how and why a non-English language pop group managed to break into the upper echelons of the western record industry. Multiple factors have been woven together to form an irresistible and, more importantly, unduplicatable recipe thats seen BTS achieve four US number-one records in under two years and cumulatively sell over 20 million albums.

Whether its your first time with BTS or your thousandth, Vogue looks at how they became one of the greatest pop groups of all time.

Prolific in that they release new material every year, BTS have given their extensive catalogue a narrative by creating album trilogies or series to fully explore their subject, rather than race wildly from concept to concept. From criticising socio-political systems on tracks such as No More Dream (on which J-hopesays to Rebel against this hell-like society, give your dream a special pardon) to expressing their fear of no longer being able to perform on Black Swan, their depth of thought, constant creative exploration and lyrical candidness is a source of inspiration and comfort to their millions of fans.

Where they endeavour to stand out amongst their pop peers is through a propensity to integrate so-called high culture with popular culture. Take, for example, 2016s Blood Sweat & Tears; the song combines trap, moombahton and tropical house while the video takes lavish inspiration from Hermann Hesses 1919 coming-of-age novel Demian, whose Jungian psychology would also form the basis of their 2019/2020 Map of the Soul series.

BTS refuse to be confined by genre, shifting from epic ballads (Spring Day) and moody emo anthems (Fake Love) to crowd-shaking bangers (Fire) and turbo pop like Boy With Luv (featuring Halsey) and DNA. The latter is a major milestone for BTS its their first video to reach one billion YouTube views, their first entry on the US and UK singles charts, their second US gold single, and marks their US TV debut with a much-lauded performance at the American Music Awards.

Known as the golden maknae (the youngest member who is good at everything he does), Jeon Jung-kook is the most Googled idol of 2019 and, with his cover of Lauvs Never Not last month, set a world record for the most commented-upon tweet and fastest Twitter video to reach a million views (it took just 10 minutes!). Jungkook is one of the least active members on social media, making his appearances something of an event, but his bandmates arent far behind, regularly racking up a staggering two million likes per post. Over the years, BTS have constantly updated Army with their passing thoughts, holiday snaps, jokes and selfies using their Twitter account just as a close friend would, becoming part of their fans lives in much the same way.

In the face of a western industry unwilling to make room for a foreign-language boy band, BTSs global growth was never through traditional means, such as radio play. Instead, their social media nous and content strategies via video platforms including YouTube and V Live became their springboard, helped exponentially by hundreds of fan translators who tirelessly translated lyrics, social posts and much of the groups video content, allowing for non-Korean speakers to fully connect with the members.

V and Jimin try a shooting game, while Jungkook and Jin play DDR.

Photography Monica Kim

Since 2017, US television has become a powerful friend in pushing them deeper into the general publics consciousness. Whether morning news or late-night talk shows, BTSs camaraderie turns even the most sedate interview into beguiling, entertaining chaos. Despite having only one fluent English-speaking member, BTS are adept at hooking in viewers, smoothing out cultural and language barriers with an instinctive charm and earthy humour, comfortably taking a spot in millions of western households where previously Asian artists had rarely been seen.

The Late Late Shows James Corden was the first host to give the band the spotlight. Im constantly impressed by their work ethic, Corden tells us via email. Theyre always so full of respect, not only for the environment theyre working in at that moment in time but also, and most importantly, for each other. Watching them grow from their first appearance on our show to where they are now has been jaw-dropping. As a group, they remain so dignified, so full of joy, that it drips down to everyone around them. Particularly their fans, who are the most incredible collection of young people. Its clear that they are only about doing something good, being good people, keeping the whole thing in this bubble of positivity. And that in itself is the rarest of experiences in todays day and age.

Much has been written about South Koreas male pop stars love of flamboyant costuming and elaborate makeup. BTS, in particular, are seen as major figures in positively changing western attitudes towards Asian men as sex symbols and steering masculinity away from toxic norms.

Yet, like so many male artists, BTS had to reach this point through learning and did so by first acknowledging the sexism and objectification in some of their early lyrics and videos. Their growth over the years can be seen in their lyrics, which now focus more on self-realisation and shared experiences, the embracing of powerful female collaborators (Halsey, Sia, Nicki Minaj, and South Korean pop queens IU and Suran), their openness when dealing with emotional issues both personal and within the group, and their wearing of pink, pastels, sequins, frills, skirts, purses, chokers or corsets without reservation.

This appreciation for the power of clothes and their unrivalled influence has endeared them to the fashion world. BTS, however, have very few official fashion endorsements, preferring to buy only what appeals to them. So when they decide to wear a particular item, not only does it promptly sell out globally, it makes headlines for doing so, cannily furthering their name beyond the fandom.

One rare partnership was with Dior, who created the stage outfits for last years Love Yourself: Speak Yourself tour. Diors creative director, Kim Jones, said at the time: I love BTS because they are really great guys and also super into fashion. They all have their personal taste and style and it works so well together. Everyone I know is kind of crazy about them!

There were many who hadnt taken BTS seriously as new cultural icons, but that changed in 2018 when the group were invited to speak at the UN, where BTSs message of self-love was heard loud and clear in an eloquent, moving speech for Unicefs Generation Unlimited campaign. Like most people, I made many mistakes in my life, RM said. I have many faults and I have many fears, but I am going to embrace myself as hard as I can, and Im starting to love myself, little by little. What is your name? Speak Yourself!

This wasnt the first time theyd used their huge platform to raise awareness. For years, the members have individually donated to varying causes including animal welfare, scholarship funds, cancer charities and food drives. Their partnership with Unicef was created, says Gmin Seo, of Unicef Koreas corporate partnership and philanthropy team, from a shared ambition for a world where children and young people are free from violence and bullying. [BTS has] raised awareness of Unicefs #ENDviolence campaign [] all over the world. Both in person and through their music and social media channels, [BTS] have helped young people open up about their own experiences of violence, bullying, encouraged love and kindness.

J-Hope, RM, and Suga shoot hoops.

Photography Monica Kim

Their work is global. The group recently contributed $1 million (806,000) to Black Lives Matter, which was immediately matched by Army, frequent fundraisers themselves, who rallied around the #MatchAMillion campaign set up by One in an Army, raising $1,026,531 within 24 hours.

BTS also spoke to those graduating in isolation or lockdown as part of Dear Class of 2020, alongside Barack Obama, Beyonc and Lady Gaga. If any of you feel lost in the face of doubt or uncertainty, or the pressure of starting anew, dont rush, said Jin, his words poignant amid the worlds current social changes. Allow yourself to take it easy. Take it one step at a time.

A major factor in BTSs success is in their relatability and emotional transparency, which has remained steadfast even while occupying the superstar bubble. Its been captured from the get-go, through vlogging from their tiny studio space in the early years, lighthearted variety shows such as Run BTS!, and behind-the-scenes clips, known as Bangtan Bombs. A more polished version of the latter became the 2018 YouTube docuseries Burn the Stage, followed by a movie adaptation that eventually broke the US box office event-cinema record previously held by One Direction.

A second docuseries, Break the Silence, which began in May this year, once more let us into their lives on the road, peeling back the curtain on their dazzling live show but also the members uncertainties and the head-spinning enormity of their fame. Here, they question who they are, how theyve changed as people and what the future may hold. As fans, what we expect from artists has changed rather than mystery and eccentricity, we ask for authenticity and accountability, demanding it even when their celebrity and wealth has cut them off from the everyperson.

Even as the accolades pour in, BTS use their fanbase and the constant documentation as sounding boards and grounding mediums. In Break the Silence, RM, ushered into an upscale restaurant and agog at a towering wall of expensive wine, admits incredulously, Even when I go to the Grammys, I still think, What am I doing here?! Its hard not to warm to the biggest pop group on Earth when theyre laughing at, rather than being sucked into, the absurdity and surrealness of fame.

More from British Vogue:

The rest is here:
How BTS Became The Undisputed Kings Of K-Pop - British Vogue

In this second episode of Recovery, a series from The Anthill Podcast exploring key moments in history when the world recovered from a major crisis or shock, were looking at what happened after the earthquake, tsunami and fires that devastated Lisbon in 1755 and shocked Europe.

In 1755, the grand and prosperous city of Lisbon was devastated by a huge earthquake. The Portuguese capital we see today is a product of the reconstruction and recovery after this catastrophic event. But the impact of the earthquake went far beyond the city it destroyed. It affected politics, trade, philosophy and religion across Europe. It has been described as the first modern disaster.

We talk to three academics whose expertise covers the impact and recovery from the Lisbon earthquake in the days, months and years that followed.

Mark Sabine, associate professor in Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American studies at the University of Nottingham, tells us about the relief efforts immediately after the quake and how the city was rebuilt. The decisive actions of one of the kings ministers Sebastio Jos de Carvalho e Melo, the Marquis of Pombal fundamentally changed Portuguese politics, religion and society.

David McCallam, reader in French 18th century studies at the University of Sheffield, outlines the media sensation caused by the earthquake. News of the disaster followed the shockwaves across Europe. In its wake, Enlightenment philosophical beliefs like optimism, which claimed that the world is the best version of itself it could be, suddenly seemed untenable.

Finally, we hear from Katie Cross, research fellow in the school of divinity, history and philosophy at the University of Aberdeen. She explains the questions about divine judgement the earthquake prompted in a profoundly Catholic population, and how it shaped ideas about religion and punishment in 18th century Europe.

This episode was produced by Grace Allen, Gemma Ware and Annabel Bligh, with sound design by Eloise Stevens.

Read the original here:
earthquake that shocked Europe: how Lisbon recovered after 1755 Recovery podcast series part two - The Conversation UK

Trudging through thick mud, a 14-year-old boy entered Berlin via the Rosenthaler Gate. He had walked, most probably barefoot, from his hometown of Dessau some hundred miles away. Frail, malnourished and hunchbacked, he would in time become one of Jewish historys most famous characters. The year was 1743. Berlin was under the firm control of King Frederick II The Great, a self-declared supporter of the Enlightenment who became the first European ruler to formally declare more than two decades before the American Declaration did similar:

All religions must be tolerated. Every man may seek spiritual salvation in his own manner.

Perhaps young Moses Mendelssohn trudged through the Rosenthaler hoping to encounter that tolerance in his quest for knowledge. Or perhaps he was struck by the confusing irony that, as a Jew, that gate was his only legal point of entry into the free city. The gatekeepers log that day simply read: Today there passed six oxen, seven swineand a Jew.

The Rosenthaler Tor, 1860. (WikiCommons)

The subsequent decades saw unprecedented Jewish assimilation into the upper circles of Prussian society; an era that produced household names such as Rothschild and Oppenheim. In time, Napoleon Bonaparte himself would ride triumphantly through the city, bringing in his wake the French Revolution and its glorious promise of Liberte, Egalite et Fraternite. Jews crowded the streets to catch a glimpse of their saviour.

The glimpse was short-lived. At the Congress of Vienna following Napoleons surrender in 1815, dignitaries met to redraw the future. Jewish representatives, formally invited to attend, had just one request: Let not the gradually increasing tolerance and equality of the preceding decades be an illusion. Let not European nations enlightened, progressive and finally at peace fail to grant us the universal liberty that had still failed to clearly form on the horizon.

German delegates responded with derision. Peace, freedom, opportunity: these were commodities to be enjoyed by the Jew in theory rather than practice. After all, his place was through the Rosenthaler with the oxen and swine. This derision rapidly led to the Hep-Hep! Riots, which swept through a country yearning for revised legislation free of meddling French influence, to rewind the Jewish story back to the squalor and humiliation of the Middle Ages.

Eye-witness accounts and police reports surrounding Hep-Hep! made clear that the rioters were comprised of the entire spectrum of German society; from illiterate peasants to cultured professionals. Jew-hatred united people who otherwise would not have been seen dead in each others company.

Etching of the Hep-Hep! Riots in Frankfurt, Johann Michael Voltz (1819). Notice the well-dressed rioter at the right of the etching. Notice also how there is little overtly Jewish about the victims: They are German in theory, but not in practice. (WikiCommons)

But the uprising of 1819 carried another, far more sinister characteristic: The governments official position was that the riots were illegal. After all, Jews were card-carrying citizens too, right? Wrong. Local authorities showed little to no interest in dispersing the mobs unless their violence turned fatal. Jews could be insulted, their homes and businesses trashed and their families beaten, but no further. You see, deaths make headlines; and even Germany in 1819 was concerned about its public image in the newspapers of the civilized world. The Jew must remain equal in theory, but never in practice.

This abysmally, impossibly complex contradiction granting the Jews life but hating them for living was captured perfectly by socialite Rachel Varnhagen. She was very much the epitome of the Jewish Enlightenment story: A convert to Christianity, friends with Mendelssohns daughters and one of Berlins most sought-after women. Varnhagens Jewish soul still tugged at her heartstrings when she cried:

What should this mass of people do, driven out of their homes? They want to keep them, only to despise and torture them further!

The contradiction persisted unresolved for decades, until a kangaroo court brought it to the attention of the entire world. Alfred Dreyfus, like Mendelssohn, Oppenheim and Rothschild, was a success story; living proof of the indisputable fact that the Jew was fully welcome in society: Dreyfus was wealthy, well-educated, and the only Jewish officer in the French Armys General Staff.

But then, the facade fell. French counter-intelligence became aware of a spy in the General Staff headquarters who was passing crucial information to his German handlers. The investigation was a farcical fait accompli: Who else but the Jew? Dreyfus was arrested on false charges of treason in October 1894. Within 3 months he was convicted by court martial, stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devils Island, all to the backdrop of a frenzied throng chanting Death to the Jews!.

The wheels were turning. In January 1898, author and journalist Emile Zola published his famous letter JAccuse! on the front page of LAurore. It caused an uproar. Dreyfus was summoned back and offered an official pardon, but not the full exoneration that would have restored his rank and admitted quite openly we are sorry. He, like Varnhagen years earlier, decried the same contradiction: The Jew was free to live, but hated for living:

The government of the Republic has given me back my freedom. It is nothing for me without my honor.

The Degradation of Alfred Dreyfus, 1895 (WikiCommons)

Elsewhere in the crowd that day was another journalist who, like Zola, was profoundly affected by the events unfolding in the center of civil, enlightened Paris. That man was Theodor Herzl, and those events were the labour pains accompanying the birth of political Zionism a desperate attempt to resolve that age-old contradiction. Herzl lampooned it superbly when he wrote:

We are naturally drawn into those places where we are not persecuted, and [yet] our appearance there gives rise to persecution!

But to my mind, no-one captured its essence more elementally than Max Nordau, the brain behind the First World Zionist Congress in 1897. His address is well worth reading in its entirety. For now, here is its essence:

In order to produce its full effect, emancipation should first have been completed in sentiment before it was declared in law. But this was not the caseThe emancipation of the Jews was not the consequence of the conviction that a grave injury had been done to a raceand that it was time to atone for the injustice of a thousand years; it was solely the result of the geometrical mode of thoughtIn this manner, the emancipation of the Jews was pronounced, not through fraternal feeling for the Jews, but because logic demanded itThe men of 1792 emancipated us only for the sake of principle.

Equal in theory, but not in practice. In word, but not in deed. Almost precisely two centuries after Moses Mendelssohn first encountered that contradiction on his way into Berlin, Hannah Arendt caught one of the last trains out before the borders closed noose-like around Europes emancipated Jews. In exile, she completed her biography of Rachel Varnhagen. And thus, the Jewish story came full-circle, driven in a downward spiral relentlessly and inevitably toward a Kristallnacht whose destruction and screams echoed those of Hep-Hep! over a century prior.

That story, propelled onward by this Great Contradiction, reached its heartbreaking conclusion when the peoples of Europe stood by in silence as millions of its free and equal Jewish citizens trudged in thick mud, frail and malnourished, through the gates of the gas chambers.

The story of how little Jewish lives mattered for so much of history is one that needs to be heard. It is the story of how racism insidiously persists, hidden beneath the clouds of contradiction in an ostensibly open and free society. Jewish history matters.

It is a cautionary tale of how a society can be legally, politically and philosophically against racism. But that amounts to almost nothing unless at grassroots level, the population sings from the same hymn sheet. Unless, as Nordau so brilliantly put it, public sentiment matches private principle.

A friend once asked me: What is the difference between tolerance and acceptance?

I gave a simple analogy in response:

Imagine you have a sore throat. You try to rest up, drink lemon tea, and wait patiently until it goes away. You tolerate the sore throat because, well, it cant be helped. But at the same time, youre pretty happy when it goes away and certainly wouldnt wish it stuck around longer than necessary.

Acceptance is a totally different level of thinking. It means appreciating something. It means being reluctant to see that thing disappear. It means regret if it does.

Tolerance is what we show sore throats. Not people.

People who we tolerate we welcome into our lives through the Rosenthaler with the oxen and swine. And we are just as glad to see the back of them. People who we accept we welcome into our homes, through the front door. And we are sad to see them go.

Acceptance requires us to ask hard-hitting, brutally self-honest questions. Do I value that person? Do I celebrate the fact that we are different, and seek to learn from them at every opportunity? Do I desire for them to be fully-integrated members of my society, because I cannot imagine it being better for their absence?

Acceptance manifests itself in many forms. But it is not, as Mendelssohn, Varnhagen, Dreyfus, Nordau and Arendt understood, to be found in laws and policy. Acceptance cannot be legislated. It can be found in the heart of the Average Joe on the street; in a solidarity that exposes leaders as frauds and elevates ordinary people into heroes. It can be found in the courage to take a stand and turn theory into practice, word into deed, principle into sentiment.

It can be found in ordinary stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Like Louis I, Grand Duke of Baden, who barely months into his reign risked everything by moving in with a Jewish family in Karlsruhe, stopping the Hep-Hep! rioters in their tracks. Like Caroline Brock, a run-of-the-mill American who simply took the time to ask her black repairman about his experiences in our accepting society. His story has to date been shared online by close to 160,000 people.

I am a 45 year old white woman living in the south, and today was the first time I spoke frankly about racism with a

Caroline Crockett Brock - , 30 2020

The story of Black Lives Matter is one that should be all too familiar to us as Jews. For centuries, we were Europes sore throat. Tolerated, but never accepted. Granted life, but despised for living. A contradiction between sentiment and principle eventually cleansed from the map to the thunderous sound of civilized silence.

It took a Holocaust to teach the enlightened world the difference between reluctant tolerance and loving acceptance. And there is a painfully long road still to walk out of Auschwitz to reach the dream of the Promised Land.

It is our duty and indeed our heritage as Jews to walk that road hand in hand with those who deserve to hear unequivocally: Your Lives Matter.

(Pexels.com)

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#JewishHistoryMatters | Eli Birnbaum | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

Active Citizens, Civil Society, Democracy, Editors' Choice, Featured, Global Governance, Headlines, Human Rights, IPS UN: Inside the Glasshouse, North America, TerraViva United Nations

Opinion

Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General in an address to staffers at a Town Hall meeting

Protests against police brutality have been taking place in cities across the United States including in New York city. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen

UNITED NATIONS, Jun 10 2020 (IPS) - I want to once again express to all colleagues my enormous appreciation, my enormous gratitude, for your fantastic professionalism, your flexibility and the way you have been able to fully deliver for the people we care for during this period.

And to say that as we hopefully approach a moment in which we might return to normality, that we will do it very carefully and in a phased way, because the safety and the well-being of the staff will be the primary consideration.

But of course, today we are here gathered for another reason. I will not be able to stay until the end, and management colleagues are here to answer any questions. But I felt compelled to give you my testimony in these dramatic moments. We are all shocked by the brutality of the murder of George Floyd.

And we are all impacted and concerned, with lots of events that followed that we have been very attentively looking at. And I think its important to recognize that the center of these is a serious question of racism. Now, racism is abhorrent, nasty, and must be rejected everywhere at any moment, condemned in a clear way.

Racism is the rejection of our common humanity, which is a central aspect against the Charter of the United Nations. So, something that justifies the Charter of the United Nations is the fight against racism.

But I think we need to go a little bit further, and to look into this from an ideological perspective, from an economic and social perspective, and also from a perspective of relations between police, governments and people.

First, the ideological perspective. We are unfortunately entering a phase that some have called the post-enlightenment. Enlightenment is a European concept largely but I think the values of the enlightenment the primacy of reason, tolerance, mutual respect are common to many civilizations and many cultures around the world.

And indeed, it is as if these values are now being put dramatically into question. It is nationalism, its irrationality, its populism, its xenophobia, it is racism, white supremacism, it is different forms of Neo-Nazism, that are apparent in our societies.

And it is clear that in the center of these drives to irrationality, there is racism, and many other things have racist components. We have been fighting a lot against antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred. And in antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred, there is a racist dimension.

Protesters in Brooklyn, New York, peacefully demonstrate about racial injustice. Credit: UN News/Shirin Yaseen

So, racism is in the center of many other things that we deal with and fight against. Its important to recognize that this is an ideological battle, in which it is essential to assert our values, the values of common humanity, the values of the Charter, equality, non-discrimination, mutual respect, and the capacity to support all the movements that fight for these values that are also deeply linked to the affirmation of human rights.

Now, if racism is something that exists everywhere, racism also exists within the United Nations. This is another aspect that I would like to underline today. We have very robust policies in relation to discrimination, harassment, abuse of authority.

There was recently a review of those policies that are in the SG bulletin. But we have not paid enough attention within the Organization to the specific question of racist bias and racist discrimination. Of course, there is a general question of diversity and inclusivity.

When we try to fight sexual harassment, the most important instrument is gender parity. When you try to fight racism, the most important instrument is to have regional diversity and inclusivity in our work. But this is general and of course we are fighting for it.

But we need to go deeper. I think we need to have within the United Nations an honest conversation on racism. We have some instruments already that were decided. We have the united in respect dialogues. We have the inclusion dialogues.

But these are, again, generic. We need to have something specific. I asked the Ombudsman together with the human resources department to prepare, in articulation with the staff representatives, a plan of action for a one-year debate on racism within the Organization, aiming at conclusions that, obviously, I want to listen to and be able to act upon.

I would like to have a chapter on racism in the next staff engagement survey to see if we are able to make progress or not in this regard.

My idea is for there to be a free-flowing discussion. I want people to feel totally at ease through the Ombudsman offices, through the civility caf, through inviting experts to come and do TED talks and through debates that are organized. Ive seen the staff engagement survey, I know that some feel that there is not enough respect within the Organization, that they cant freely express themselves because they are afraid.

I want this debate to be a clearly open, free-flowing debate without any restriction, and Im very much interested in participating. There is also a social and economic dimension in all of this, the central question of inequality in society, the central question of discrimination in society.

And it is clear that diversity is a richness, not a threat. The societies that are diverse can only succeed if there is a massive investment in social cohesion, by governments, local authorities, civil society, churches, against discrimination and inequality.

This is central to our 2030 Agenda, and this is central to the Sustainable Development Goals, and central to the values of the United Nations. So, our values are not only related to the questions of racism as a human rights violation, they are central to the questions of inequality and discrimination.

And these are vital in the perspectives of the work we do in relation to the 2030 Agenda and to diversity. We also need to understand that when we have situations in which social cohesion does not exist, where social protection is not enough, and where we have different forms of discrimination, there are grievances: those grievances have a legitimate right to be expressed in societies.

And for that demonstrations are something that is perfectly normal. It is our role to ask for demonstrations to be peaceful and at the same time to ask authorities to listen to the grievances and for police forces and others to be restrained in the way they handle these situations.

And this is very much at the center of what we have been saying in relation to the recent events and other similar ones around the world. And this brings us to the question of police brutality. One of the central problems that we are witnessing, and its very general, its not only police brutality, it is the difficulty of many authorities to deal with diversity.

The most obvious aspect, which is less evident, but many colleagues have already felt it, is the so-called profiling. But more dramatic than that is, of course, the police brutality in itself. We have seen a murder, but there are many other forms of police brutality that we see around the world, expressing racism.

Police forces need to be fully trained on human rights. Many times, police brutality is the expression of the frustrations of the police officers themselves, as well as of the lack of adequate psychosocial support to them.

Now the UN positions have been clear. The Human Rights High Commissioner has spoken. I have also been very clear in all my messages. Of course, many colleagues would like to be much more vocal and active, and we have the limitations of being International Civil Servants.

But there is one thing that we all can do, which is to spread the UN messages. This can be done by everybody with the tools at their disposal. All of us can multiply and amplify our messages against racism, our message against police brutality, our messages against the inequalities and discriminations that lead to situations like the ones we live in, fully asserting our values.

And Id like to say that I count on our colleagues and on the staff representatives to help us organize an effective internal discussion on racism. Because I think we need to look deeply into it. And we all need to look into ourselves, into our prejudices and do everything possible to eradicate these aberrations from us and from the societies around us.

Read more here:
The Need, Within the UN, for an Honest Conversation on Racism - Inter Press Service

I thought I would be able to start writing about going back out, exploring and shopping. Things didnt quite go that way last week.

We saw all 50 states and over 13 countries banding together to march in protest regarding racial inequality and police brutality. The awareness that came at us across our screens was in reaction to George Floyd and watching appalling actions up close.

It opened up a protest about whats been happening since the abolition of slavery and 400 years before that. It all came to a head, and the cries of enough is enough were heard across the planet.

Think how ordained this awareness came to us fresh off of quarantine where there were no concerts, or sports or vacations the whole world had no choice but to watch what has been happening to black people in America with zero distractions. If that isnt divine intervention, I dont know what is.

As we saw, many of the protests turned into riots. Even more blatant police abuse of power and force against American citizens was endured and captured on film as militarized police were dispatched to enforce curfews and disperse the crowds with force, tear gas and rubber bullets.

However, the results of these protests toward effective change have already been astounding. Changes have occurred that we could have only imagined just a few weeks ago. We are moving toward enlightenment at warp speed.

So now what? Thats what I want to talk about in todays column. Restorative Justice Practices.

For years now, quietly and steadily, there has been a strong movement of its own in developing new ways to address harm and conflict.

Meetings have been organized between victims and the offenders and sometimes with representatives from the wider community.

There have been relationships restored and harm repaired through these quiet efforts within our criminal justice system.

When we saw protests within certain individual states and cities, where police took a knee and marched alongside the protesters this is a direct result of the restorative justice practice training. A stark difference to what we saw in D.C.

The message is this: We CAN change the way our world is and how we react to it, through education. The work is coming together in compassionate action.

I spoke to one such educator, Deborah Sadler, a longtime resident of Cardiff, who taught at San Diego High School, one of the most diverse high schools west of the Mississippi.

Her efforts have sent out hundreds of students who have become leaders in community-building circles. A small career-themed magnet school, the Academy of Law and Justice out of Crawford High School in City Heights, has taken this indigenous wisdom and has shown us that there is hope and strides being achieved between educators and law enforcement.

We are raising consciousness, and the students are leading the way, she said.

Sadler was awarded the Teacher of the Year for her work around this program, and with her guidance, the San Diego County Office of Education has trained thousands of teachers, counselors and support staff.

She is currently developing further training materials in the Art of Restorative Practices to be distributed to other educators, leaders, and police departments countrywide, which also includes crisis intervention training, de-escalating techniques and implicit bias training methods geared to create a culture that promotes respect and engages everyone to be a part of the solution.

People need to know that theres hope. There is work being done between educators and law enforcement to create a world that works for everyone, said Sadler. Thats the God part. A world that works for everyone. Imagine that.

The next steps were outlined in Marianne Williamsons bid for the presidency.

She suggested a Department of Peace that would provide a global acknowledgment of the harm done to human beings compromised and work to repair, restore and renew our current social-economic conditions through reparation.

Sounds like a pretty good idea now.

Susan Sully SullIvan is a spiritually conscious Realtor with Windermere Homes & Estates and is currently enrolled in several Science of Mind mysticism classes. She is a Practitioner in training at Seaside Center for Spiritual Living with an eye on Ministerial school. She has been on a quest for enlightenment since studying to be a Catholic nun as a child.

See more here:
Soul on Fire: The spirituality of social justice - Coast News