Claudia

Coca Cola has been very successful  at transmitting the same message over and over again to create a brand of its own. A brand that tells a story: There is always happiness, there are dreams, there is love, there is hope, peace, kindness, laughter, generosity, and magic scenes. A positive message is inside all the stories. 

5 Tips for Writing Best Friends

Friendships can make books more engaging for readers than romantic or family relationships. The trick is writing best friends in ways that feel real.

It’s why we love Gideon and Nico in The Atlas Six or Bree and Alice in the Legendborn series.

Here are a few tips to get you on the path to writing an incredible friendship that’s the backbone of your character’s arcs.

1. Make the Friendship Serve Both Characters

We’ve all read books where the protagonist has a best friend who seems to only exist when the protagonist needs something. They’re the main character’s source of stress relief and support, but real-world relationships serve both people.

Make sure you write scenes where the best friend also benefits from the relationship. They might come to the main character for support or call the protagonist when they need cheering up. The most minor moments can mean the most to readers.

2. Give the Friendship a Why

Why is the friendship so important to each of your characters? Maybe they met while experiencing a unique life event or a tragedy. Maybe one helped the other through a difficult time and later vice versa.

The why behind the relationship is key to making readers fall in love with the bond between your characters. Why they met might be the only thing holding them together when times get tough. Establish a clear motive to their solid connection and everything that happens afterward will be more impactful for the reader.

3. Create a Life for the Best Friend Too

Best friends need personality traits like protagonists. As you draft their persona during your planning or writing phases, remember to give them traits like:

Likes

Dislikes

Goals

Dreams

A history

These details shape who people are. They can also be the things that pull your protagonist and best friend together. 

4. Set Up the Occasional Clash

Friendships are stronger when they survive the ups and downs. Turbulent times also make friendships realistic because friends never stay in just happy periods of their lives.

Make your two characters clash to learn through their arguments or mistakes, especially if they’re disagreeing about how to solve/accomplish your plot’s main goal. How they work through their differences and move past them demonstrates each character’s core values and how much they value their friendship.

5. Establish Honesty Early On

Best friends are honest with each other. Setting that up early on establishes a foundation of trust. It also sets up stakes when one character decides to lie to the other for a specific goal or purpose, even if they don’t like it. Without honesty, there’s no reason for the two characters to trust each other or remain best friends.

-----

Develop your best friends as separate individuals before merging them in your plotlines. You’ll create stronger relationships that pull readers in and keep them thinking about your story well after they turn the final page.

For women of color, being marginalized, dismissed, and othered comes with the territory. Being involved in Mormon Feminism is often the same thing on a different day. We sigh deeply at the criticism and soldier on, doing what we must. We claim ourselves, we drive ourselves to succeed, and we derive our value from something greater than an institution.

Trine Thomas Nelson. Quote taken from Mormon Feminism, edited by Joanna Brooks, Rachel Hunt Steenblik, and Hannah Wheelwright. (via oupacademic)

Ten facts about gender inequality in business

Gender is a central concept in modern societies. However, gender gaps are still a wide-spread phenomenon. While gender gaps in education and health have been decreasing remarkably over time and their differences across countries have been narrowing, gender gaps in the labour market and in politics are more persistent and still vary largely across countries.

The following ten facts, written by Paola Profeta (Associate Professor in Public Economics at Università Bocconi), help shed light on the gender-gap problem:

Gender gaps have historical roots: These roots can be traced back to the organization of the family and to traditional agricultural practices.

Culture matters in determining gender gaps: Gender stereotypes are well-established, both among men and among women.

Men and women have different attitudes and behaviours: On average women are significantly less likely than men to make risky choices and to engage competition.

Maternity does not explain it all: There is no trade-off between fertility and female employment – but maternity is a penalty in the labour market.

Education is the first engine of gender equality: Women and men are currently equally educated, and women often surpass male educational attainments in developed countries.

Gender gaps in employment and the glass ceiling are different phenomena - although they often go hand-in-hand. 

Labour demand is as important as individuals’ choices: Firms’ decisions, employers’ attitudes and beliefs, are as important as individuals’ incentives and choices.

Institutions play a crucial role in supporting female employment: Family policies, parental leave, and formal child care provisions may help supporting female labour supply.

Institutions play a crucial role in determining the glass ceiling: How to promote female leadership and the presence of women in top positions is a highly debated issue.

Women’s empowerment and economic development are interrelated: Economic development improves women’s conditions and reduces inequality – and the involvement of women in the economy is a key engine for growth.

For more information about gender inequality, check out Paola Profeta’s article on the OUPblog.

Image Credit: ‘Office, Tax, Business’, Image by FirmBee, CC0 Public Domain, via Pixabay.

Blog 1: Business Story Telling

How inspiring is to watch “Bring the Learning Revolution” delivered by Sir Ken Robinson on Ted.com. One of the key elements in this article is to “revolutionize” our learning experiences by recognizing that every single human being is different. Nowadays in a web world, with all these new technologies blasting our experiences the word “different” has a real meaning, because it means that there is something out there with enough power, with abundant potential of his or her own, something unique that might enlighten our vision, our perspectives about our own conceptions.

As the author stated “Many people go to their whole life having no sense of what talents may be or if they have any to speak of”. In that respect, the problem is how life is conceived “they endure it rather than enjoying it”, says Sir Robinson.

  The speaker really caught my attention when he stated that “education dislocate many people from the natural talents, and human resources are like natural resources’.  In that sense, the author makes an interesting point at comparing human beings with natural resources that are hard to find. From his point of view, we need to return to the agricultural model instead of the industrial model that produces linearity, comfortability and batching people. In contrast, agricultural model is about harvesting what we sow, and human nature follows the same rule. Even though he recognizes that “human flourishing is not a mechanical process, it is an organic process, and you can not predict the outcome of human development”.

Moreover “all you can do like a farmer is to create the conditions on the soil, they will flourish”.

  In that sense, the author suggest that leaders in education, media and corporate must change metaphors in which an educational system, in an industrial model, produces a line of people in certain area of expertise. It is about revolution in education, it is about creating a movement where people develop their own solutions. “Once we reform education and transform it, it is about customizing to your own circumstances and personalize education to people that is actually teaching”.

  This particular speech, from Sir Ken Robinson, reminded me about Full Sail University. In every class, every single instructor has highlighted the importance of doing what we really like. Doing what we really like is about exciting our spirits, feeding our energy, feeding our passion to create a meaningful company, program, movie, song or adventure that really makes a difference in this world, because we are passionate about it.  It is about passion for a dream, it is about putting your heart, your mind, your talent to work in something that is meaningful to us. As Sir Robertson concluded “doing that is the answer to the future,” and indeed, we will create a relevant career behind us for the passion that is behind our spirit.

  For those of you who want to watch this topic, you can find it at: http://www.ted.com/talks/sir_ken_robinson_bring_on_the_revolution.html

Inspirational

Wowww

It is a beautiful sensation To wake up in the morning With the sound of a beautiful lady That turns your life into joy. It is that sound, That melody in her voice, That brings you peace and love And color the world by being her alive. With an outstanding performance of that beautiful moment, Eddie Brickell sings "Good Times" You don't even have to try It comes easy for you The way you move is so appealing It could make me cry Go out driving with my friends In Bobby's big old beat up car I'm with a lot of people then I wonder where you are Good times, bad times, give me some of that Good times, bad times, give me some of that Good times, bad times, give me some of that I don't want to say goodbye Don't want to walk you to the door I spend a little time with you I want a little more Good times, bad times, give me some of that Good times, bad times, give me some of that Good times, bad times, give me some of that