This week, they're talking about the importance of engagement and positive attitudes among your team.

Dan and Art share some great thoughts on making sure your orientation process is as effective as possible, and they issue a challenge!

You would be surprised how many companies skip things as simple as showing their new employees around the building, and where the bathroom is!

After the initial hiring of a new team member, the onboarding process is the obvious next step, and critically important to effectively bring a new person into the company.

What does orientation look like in your restoration company?

Who should be designated to do the orientation for new hires at your restoration company?

When was the last time you took a good, close look at job descriptions for the various positions in your company? Art and Dan continue their awesome series on hiring, onboarding, and creating a well-rounded team within your restoration company.

There are a lot of companies out there becoming giants in their industries through offering impeccable customer service. Now, it's your turn!

Art and Dan dig deeper to talk about the actual heart and essence of your customer service philosophy.

People come to your business for a solution - which many other people offer - so why should they choose you over the competition?

Just as you do on-boarding for your own employees, you should also be sure your subcontractors understand your policies and philosophies.

We are into the 13th episode of Dan and Art's series on team building! This week, they're talking about structure and synergy in your company, and within your team.

Art and Dan give you a checklist to do a wellness check on your structure - including policies, culture, and services.

The more disgruntled your team, the more they focus on money (paychecks). The better the synergy, the less money is the key motivator for doing good work.

In this episode, the pair talks about helping nurture and grow an employee's potential that they may not see in themselves.

Amanda teaches us the importance of understanding the interplay between lead generation and brand recognition.

The restoration industry, despite its rapid growth, faces a leadership crisis. Burnout, the influx of younger generations with different motivations, and a backlog of urgent tasks have left many asking: Who will lead tomorrow?

Discover the leadership strategies that fuel high ROI, from building strong teams to leveraging cutting-edge technology. Learn how the industry's top pioneers are bridging the leadership gap to ensure future success.

We get a sneak peek of Howard Partridge's Full Day Workshop that he’s presenting at the fall Experience Convention and Trade Show.

A new Restoration Industry Management degree program is set to shape the future of the restoration industry by addressing the critical need for skilled professionals and preparing the next generation of leaders.

With a population of just 1,400, the new Councilors say it could take years to raise the money for some of these projects.

The post Gordonsville’s two new town councilors want to fix sidewalks, build a park and address issues with the town’s water supply appeared first on Charlottesville Tomorrow.

Expanded recycled polymer offering at former oil refinery will target the high-performance packaging market, particularly packaging for pharmaceuticals and cosmetics.

Company has temporary office space available and intends to have its Service, Engineering, Sales, IT and Administration departments set up and operating by January 5.

Smart Packaging or Smart Products, are assigned internet IDs to allow consumers to engage with their everyday products.

Practice building resources from Psychotherapy Finances.

Entering its 16th year, Converters Expo is once again bringing converters of paper, film, plastics, and nonwovens together with industry buyers, specialists and suppliers in what is sure to be one of the biggest industry events of the year. 

Participants will leave the webinar with recommendations that municipalities, businesses, and organizations can undertake to invest in reusable packaging systems in their communities.

Building a Winning Team: The Volunteer Blueprint jhammond@desti… Tue, 07/02/2024 - 17:59

Warped Games, an indie game studio consisting of web3 and veteran game developers who have a legacy in creating player-focused games like LEGO Universe, Jumpgate, and Dragons and Titans, is on a mission to onboard millions of players to expand the Warped Universe, an immersive blockchain-powered game where players’ actions and decisions shape the environment and influence each season’s direction. After extensive exploration, Warped Games selected Sui as the blockchain to support this ambitious vision, thanks to its player-friendly approach and innovations in the Move language.

The announcement of Warped Games becoming an official partner with Mysten Labs arrives at a pivotal moment for blockchain gaming. With games like "Off The Grid" making strides toward mainstream adoption, this new collaboration marks another significant step in expanding blockchain gaming’s reach to a wider audience.

James Wing, Head of AAA Gaming Partnerships for Mysten Labs, commented on the official partnership: "Warped Games embodies what is exciting about this industry - founders and products that are built with passion to boldly address the wants of modern gamers. We are tremendously excited to partner with our friends at Warped and aid them in their journey to pioneer a new age of games on Sui."

Warped Universe: Empowering Players

Player empowerment is at the core of Warped Universe’s design. Here, players will be able to engage in PvE action in single-player or co-op mode, with an innovative multi-genre design giving players the flexibility to choose between turn-based or real-time genres across both ground and space gameplay. Players will also get to choose missions that influence the broader “meta-game,” affecting the balance of light and gravity for all, leading to wild and chaotic scenarios as each season aims to build a unique solar system in the Universe. This level of control redefines what it means to participate in a player-driven virtual world.

Breaking Barriers to Blockchain Accessibility

One of the largest obstacles facing blockchain adoption today is its intimidating complexity for newcomers. Traditional blockchain experiences involve managing seed phrases, navigating wallets, high fees, slow speed, and unfriendly, often intimidating transactions—barriers that can alienate potential users. Sui’s design eliminates these hurdles by offering a seamless, user-friendly blockchain experience required by games like Warped Universe, aiming to appeal to a mainstream gaming audience.

With Sui’s zkLogin feature, players can access the blockchain and create wallets using familiar credentials, like passkeys or existing logins, removing the need for seed phrases and technical know-how. For those who prefer greater control, Warped Universe will also allow players to connect their own self-custodied wallets, giving them the option to manage their assets independently. This accessibility empowers users to focus on what matters most—the game experience itself.

Enhanced NFT Utility with Move

Sui’s Move language and object model empower Warped Universe to create NFTs that go beyond static assets, offering dynamic, context-rich tokens that evolve with each player’s journey. Sui treats each asset as an individual, on-chain object with unique IDs and customizable fields, allowing NFTs to reflect player progression and deepen in-game immersion.

Innovations extend to the use of closed-loop tokens for in-game purchases and season pass NFTs, which act as "time capsules", allowing players to revisit exclusive content from past seasons. With each season in Warped Universe serving as a self-contained story arc, these season passes aren’t just NFTs—they’re gateways to the game’s evolving history, creating lasting value and enhancing player ownership.

Kiosk: Marketplace Re-Imagined

Kiosk is a decentralized system designed for commerce applications on the Sui network, similar to traditional markets where vendors sell goods or services from small, standalone booths. Just like in those markets, where individual sellers operate their own kiosks, owning the products on display and managing their own sales, with Kiosk, shared objects are owned by individual parties who store assets and may list them for sale as well as utilizing custom trading functionality, such as royalties and the ability to rent assets.

Walrus: Re-Defining Digital Ownership in Warped Universe

As Warped Universe expands, decentralized storage will play a crucial role in ensuring the authenticity and accessibility of in-game assets. Mysten Labs’ Walrus protocol is set to support this need, providing a secure and efficient way to store raw data and media files—such as images, audio, video, and other game assets—at low cost without compromising performance. Unlike traditional NFTs, which often store metadata off-chain on platforms like IPFS or AWS, Walrus enables both the NFT and its metadata to be stored in a decentralized manner. This integration introduces new ways for players in Warped Universe to experience genuine ownership of their digital assets, giving them the ability to store in-game captures or statistics, and creating a more immersive and reliable player-driven experience.

High Performance, Scalability, and Environmental Responsibility

In Warped Universe, players aren’t just playing a game; they’re building and defending entire solar systems each season, with their achievements and digital assets minted and transacted on-chain in the background. This model requires a blockchain capable of handling high transaction volumes both efficiently and affordably. Sui’s high throughput and low transaction costs make this possible, providing fast, cost-effective, and seamless on-chain transactions that support a robust gaming economy.

Sui also prioritizes environmental sustainability by using a delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) consensus model rather than energy-intensive proof-of-work. With its efficient Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) architecture, Sui can process large transaction volumes with minimal environmental impact—aligning perfectly with Warped Games’ vision of a sustainable, responsible gaming ecosystem.

“With Sui, we can create an immersive, evolving on-chain gaming ecosystem where players can own, modify, and evolve assets without compromising the gaming experience,” said Adam Straney, Managing Director at Warped Games. “This approach lets us build an interconnected universe on a blockchain that’s fast, scalable, and environmentally responsible, supporting our vision of an accessible, seamless player-owned economy. Gamers can focus on having fun, with blockchain as a supportive tool rather than the centerpiece."

Looking Ahead with Warped Universe and Sui

Currently, the blockchain element in Warped Universe is the $WARPED token, an ERC-20 token designed to give holders a voice in game design, seasonal voting, discounts, potential rewards, and exclusives. While specific plans for the token’s future are yet to be announced, the Warped Universe team is committed to keeping current holders top of mind as they explore expanding to the Sui blockchain. Plans for the WARPED token, on-chain assets, skins, seasonal passes, and other elements will be shared in due time—stay tuned for updates.

As Warped Universe continues to develop, the teams at Warped Games and Mysten Labs are dedicated to working closely together to explore practical blockchain integration in games, enhancing player ownership, scalability, and immersive gameplay. Together, through Warped Universe and the Sui blockchain, they’re building a unique, player-driven experience that showcases the future of blockchain gaming.

About Warped Games

Warped Games (https://warped.games/) is an indie game studio dedicated to creating immersive, player-driven gaming experiences with a focus on blockchain integration. Known for pushing the boundaries of web3 technology, the team behind Warped Games combines industry veterans from both gaming and tech to bring innovative worlds like Warped Universe to life.

About Mysten Labs

Mysten Labs is a technology company focused on advancing blockchain infrastructure to support next-generation applications. Founded by experts in distributed systems, Mysten Labs developed the Sui blockchain, a high-performance, user-friendly platform designed to make blockchain technology accessible and scalable for mainstream audiences.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In response to today's violence at the U.S. Capitol Building, the following statement can be attributed to NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In response to passage by the House of Representatives of the Build Back Better reconciliation package that includes provisions in the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, the following statement can be attributed to NAB President and CEO Gordon Smith:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) announced today the completion of a new state-of-the-art media production facility at NAB's headquarters, located at 1 M Street, SE in Washington, D.C. The buildout of the facility, including a studio and media hub, was made possible by donations of critical equipment and studio design services from leading companies in the business of content creation and management.

What constitutes a real cloud solution? What does it take to build one? Recorded during Oracle OpenWorld 2016, this wide-ranging conversation features a panel of cloud experts drawn from the OTN community.

The first Oracle Developer Podcast for 2018 brings together a panel of experts whose specialties cover a broad spectrum, including cloud computing, big data, security, open source, agile, domain driven design, Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture, Internet of Things, and more. The thread that connects these five people is that they are part of the small army of experts that will be presenting at the 2018 Jfokus Developers Conference. February 5-7, 2018 in Stockholm.

In this freewheeling discussion the panelists talk about the trends and technologies that have captured their interest, the work that consumes most of their time, and the issues that concern them as IT professionals. Then, to wrap things up, you'll get a quick preview of their respective sessions at Jfokus.

• Jesse Anderson: Data Engineer, Creative Engineer and Managing Director of Big Data Institute.
• Benjamin Cabé: IoT Program Manager and an Evangelist with the  Eclipse Foundation.
• Kevlin Henney: Consultant, programmer, speaker, trainer, writer and owner of Curbralan.
• Siren Hofvander: Chief Security Officer with Min Doktor, a digital healthcare provider in Sweden.
• Dan Bergh Johnsson: Agile aficionado, Domain Driven Design enthusiast, and code quality craftsman with Omegapoint.

Click here for the complete program show notes, including additional content from the panelists.

On March 8, 2020 people around the world celebrated International Women’s Day, the theme of which was expressed in the hashtag #EachforEqual. In keeping with that cause the podcast we bring you today features a panel discussion on building a diverse team. The panel includes three IT executives who remain very hands-on in software development, and are directly involved in helping their respective organizations achieve their diversity goals. 

The wide-ranging conversation covers strategies for those working to build diverse teams, as well as advice for job-seekers. The panel also reveals the extent to which diversity has dimensions beyond gender, ethnicity, culture, and religion. 

See the complete show notes.

In this episode Jim Grisanzio talks with Dmitry Alexandrov about his session at Jfokus 2021. Dmitry is a well known speaker at Java conferences globally, and at this month's Jfokus he ran a live coding session on Project Helidon, which is a collection of Java libraries for writing microservices. Dmitry covered the performance improvements and new features in Helidon 2.1. See his session abstract here.

But Helidon is not just a Java engineering project for writing microservices. It's also an Open Source project. So developers can contribute globally via the community on GitHub. This is the real power of the technology -- the people sharing their experience and contributing to the project. And this is where Dmitry really gets emotional when he talks about Helidon. As a software developer, he loves the technology, but there's something special about his tone when he talks about the people he meets in the community.

Dmitry has been a Java Champion for several years now, and he recently jointed Oracle in Bulgaria. Get him on Twitter @bercut2000. Jim Grisanzio is a Sr. Community Manager in Oracle Developer Relations. Get him on Twitter @jimgris. Video from the interview is on YouTube.

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Hackmakers: Part 1: Jim Grisanzio talks with Franco Ucci, Sr. Director for Oracle Cloud Platform Strategy for Australia and New Zealand. Franco outlines Oracle's involvement in the Hackmakers World Innovation Day Global Hackathon in April 2021, where thousands of developers came together to build solutions to help people. This is part one of a multipart series about this major developer event.

Franco Ucci opens the series of discussions with an explanation of the event and the focus of the projects -- which was health, education, and economic growth. All of these areas have experienced serious challenges due to the ongoing pandemic that started in 2020. Franco also outlined some of the important activities that led up to the event, such as meetings with UNESCO and other United Nations officials about human rights, displaced refugees, and bioethics.

Oracle and other organizations sponsored the event in collaboration with UNESCO and UNEP as developers worldwide participated in building solutions to solve human needs. The areas of focus for the projects included health, education, and work -- all based on the larger list of United Nations world development goals.

Franco Ucci, Sr. Director for Oracle Cloud Platform Strategy, @FrancoUcci

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Inspiring Builders: Part 1: Jim Grisanzio and Chris Bensen from Oracle Developer Relations talk about how they engage developers via demos and experiences online and at conferences. This in depth conversation is part one of a two part series on inspiring developers to build real things. 

• Jim Grisanzio on Twitter @jimgris
• Chris Bensen on Twitter @chrisbensen
• YouTube: Chris Bensen: Inspiring Developers to Build Real Things
• Building of Super Pi
• Building the world’s largest Raspberry Pi cluster
• The Seven Step Process to Creating an Amazing Demo
• Starting a New Project — Pi Zero Custom Breadboard
• Episode 1 - Custom Breadboard for Pi Zero

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Inspiring Builders: Part 2: Jim Grisanzio and Chris Bensen talk with Dale Dougherty from Make Magazine about the global phenomenon of Makers -- people who build with their bare hands and who give back to the community. This story is as old as it gets. We all have an inherent desire to build and collaborate and share, right?

Engaging Communities of Makers - People who Build with their Bare Hands (Video)

Dale Dougherty, Founder of Make Magazine
https://twitter.com/dalepd
https://twitter.com/make
https://twitter.com/makerfaire
https://makezine.com/
https://makerfaire.com/

Chris Bensen, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/chrisbensen
YouTube: Chris Bensen: Inspiring Developers to Build Real Things
Building of Super Pi
Building the world’s largest Raspberry Pi cluster
The Seven Step Process to Creating an Amazing Demo
Starting a New Project — Pi Zero Custom Breadboard
Episode 1 - Custom Breadboard for Pi Zero

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations
https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Here are some photos, stories, and lessons I've collected over the years building Open Source software development communities at Sun Microsystems, Oracle, and on my own. I like taking photos and I like talking to developers — it's how I learn. So in this comprehensive commentary I talk about pretty much everything I've learned during the previous 15 years or so doing community development. Everything I've learned I still use today.

You can follow along with the photos below or view the video. I gave an earlier version of this talk at the All India Oracle User Group's (AIOUG) virtual OG Yatra in 2020, and I've talked about bits and pieces of the content in many other presentations. That's why I wanted to bring it all together into a single narrative centered around some specific images and stories. Hope it hangs together. 

Podcast Host: Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations

https://twitter.com/jimgris
https://developer.oracle.com/team/ 

Photos

https://jimgrisanzio.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/grisanzio-community-stories.pdf

Video

https://youtu.be/nzo0PYv4tUM

Article

https://jimgrisanzio.wordpress.com/building-communities/

All India Oracle User Group OGYatra 2020 Slides

https://jimgrisanzio.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/2020-grisanzio-ogyatra.pdf

All India Oracle User Group OGYatra 2020 Video

https://youtu.be/gz7nMtWaUB0

Oracle Developer Relations Social

https://twitter.com/jimgris

https://twitter.com/groundbreakers

https://twitter.com/oracleace

https://twitter.com/oracleugs

https://developer.oracle.com/

Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Gabriele Provinciali, an engineer and solutions architect at Oracle in Rome, about smart and safe city models built with Lego Bricks, Arduinos, Raspberry Pis, and a variety of IoT edge sensors all connected to the Oracle Cloud. Twitter Thread. Video on YouTube.

Oracle News Connect Article

• Little towns, big ideas: How scale models can imagine smarter and safer cities

Gabriele Provinciali, Solution Architect, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriele/
  
• https://twitter.com/GabbaPro

ProximaSafe: Joining the Dots in OCI to build a Stream Analysis Lab

• Part 1: Setting up the event-driven OCI components
• Part 2: From Edge to Serverless
• Part 3: Sensors, Pipelines and back to Edge
• YouTube Video: Oracle Proxima City

Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Developer Relations

• https://twitter.com/jimgris
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimgris/
• https://developer.oracle.com/team/
• https://oraclegroundbreakers.libsyn.com/

In this archives episode Jim Grisanzio from Oracle Developer Relations talks with Аlina Yurenko from Oracle on the GraalVM Project. The conversation took place in February 2020 at the Jfokus Java conference in Stockholm, Sweden. Alina talks about the state of the GraalVM project, the community, and Jfokus. Also see the video on YouTube.

JavaOne 2022 Speaker Preview

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with Java developer and JavaOne 2022 speaker Bruno Souza from Brazil. 

Bruno is a Java Champion, he's been a board member of the Open Source Initiative, he's on the Executive Committee of the Java Community Process, and he leads the SouJava community in Brazil.

Bruno has been building Java communities for decades, and in recent years he's been helping Java developers build their careers. That's the topic of this podcast and also Bruno's session at JavaOne in October in Las Vegas.

JavaOne 2022 from October 17-20 in Las Vegas

• JavaOne 2022: Registration and Sessions
• JavaOne Update 1
• JavaOne Update 2

Bruno Souza, Brazilian JavaMan

• @brjavaman

Java Development and Community

• OpenJDK
• Inside Java
• Dev.Java
• @java on Twitter
• Java on YouTube

Duke's Corner Podcast Host

• Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations, @jimgris

JavaOne 2022 Speaker Preview

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with Java developer and JavaOne 2022 speaker Emily Jiang from the UK.

Emily is a Java Champion and Developer Advocate. She's doing three sessions at JavaOne in October on microservices and cloud native development and she previews them in this discussion. She also talks about her experiences with the Java community and JavaOne. 

JavaOne 2022 from October 17-20 in Las Vegas

• JavaOne 2022: Registration and Sessions
• JavaOne 2022 Updates at Inside Java

Emily Jiang, Developer Advocate, IBM 

• @emilyfhjiang

Java Development and Community

• OpenJDK
• Inside Java
• Dev.Java
• @java on Twitter
• Java on YouTube

Duke's Corner Podcast Host

• Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations, @jimgris

JavaOne 2022 Speaker Preview

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with JavaOne 2022 speaker Rustam Mehmandarov from Oslo, Norway.

Rustam is a Java Champion and also Chief Engineer at Computas AS in Oslo. In this conversation he previews his three upcoming sessions at JavaOne, which explore building cloud native apps in Java. The discussion also covers Rustam's experiences in the Java community and at various conferences around the world.  

JavaOne 2022 October 17-20 in Las Vegas

• JavaOne 2022: Registration and Sessions
• JavaOne 2022: News Updates at Inside Java

Rustam Mehmandarov, Java Champion, Chief Engineer at Computas AS

• @rmehmandarov

Java Development and Community

• OpenJDK
• Inside Java
• Dev.Java
• @java on Twitter
• Java on YouTube

Duke's Corner Podcast Host

• Jim Grisanzio, Oracle Java Developer Relations, @jimgris

In this conversation Oracle's Jim Grisanzio talks with Java developer Richard Fichtner at JavaOne Las Vegas 2022 about building the Java community and what Richard loves about Java.

Richard Fichtner, CEO, XDEV Software
https://twitter.com/RichardFichtner

Jim Grisanzio, Duke's Corner Podcast Host
https://twitter.com/jimgris

Podcast Video
https://youtu.be/Icf8AbfMAVw

Dev Java
https://dev.java/

Inside Java
https://inside.java/