Peoplefund.it!!! Start your own business..
A fantastic way to like about launching my project. This may be the way to do it.
We can help each other.
Peoplefund.it is a new crowdsourcing website from the makers of River Cottage, Hugh’s Fish Fight and Chicken Out! which brings together individuals with fresh business ideas.
Originally a way for charities to raise funds, crowdsourcing is increasingly used by entrepreneurs to raise essential financial backing for exciting new projects.
Of course you need a good idea, but without the cash to turn it into reality, that’s all it is – an idea. Hence Peoplefund.it, the UK’s biggest crowdsourcing platform.
You have two options.
You can raise the cash you need to get your project off the ground.
Or you can get behind a project that’s close to your heart, in return for a reward from the project owner.
All our projects offer rewards to investors in return for pledges of support from as little as £1.
And if it doesn’t hit its target, it won’t hit you in the pocket.
“The success of our Fish Fight, Landshare, and energyshare campaigns have shown that solutions often come from grass roots action, and have the power to effect more remarkable change than we really ever imagined,” says TV food campaigner Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
“Peoplefund.it builds on that momentum, and gives people the means to take their ideas forward. That, in a nutshell, is why, I’m excited about Peoplefund.it,” he added.
We’re also working with a number of partners including NESTA, Forum for the Future, Unbound and WeDidThis.
Guerrilla marketing
The concept of guerrilla marketing was invented as an unconventional system of promotions that relies on time, energy and imagination rather than a big marketing budget. Typically, guerrilla marketing campaigns are unexpected and unconventional, potentially interactive, andconsumers are targeted in unexpected places.Guerrilla marketing is an advertising strategy in which low-cost unconventional means (graffiti, sticker bombing, flash mobs) are utilized, often in a localized fashion or large network of individual cells, to convey or promote a product or an idea. The term guerrilla marketing is easily traced to guerrilla warfare which utilizes atypical tactics to achieve a goal in a competitive and unforgiving environment.
The objective of guerrilla marketing is to create a unique, engaging and thought-provoking concept to generate buzz, and consequently turnviral. The term was coined and defined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book Guerrilla Marketing. The term has since entered the popular vocabulary and marketing textbooks.
Guerrilla marketing involves unusual approaches such as intercept encounters in public places, street giveaways of products, PR stunts, or any unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources. More innovative approaches to Guerrilla marketing now utilize mobile digital technologies to engage the consumer and create a memorable brand experience.
Guerrilla marketing focuses on low cost creative strategies of marketing. Basic requirements are time, energy, and imagination and not money. Sales do not compose of the primary static to measure business but is replaced by profit. Emphasis is on retaining existing customers then acquiring new ones.
Levinson’s books include hundreds of “guerrilla marketing weapons,” but also encourages guerrilla marketers to be creative in devising unconventional methods of promotion. Guerrilla marketers use all of their contacts, both professional and personal, and examine their company and its products, looking for sources of publicity. Many forms of publicity can be very inexpensive, or even free.
Introduction
Levinson says that when implementing guerrilla marketing tactics, small size is actually an advantage. Small organizations and entrepreneurs are able to obtain publicity more easily than large companies, as they are closer to their customers and considerably more agile.
Yet ultimately, according to Levinson, the guerrilla marketer must “deliver the goods”. In The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook, he states: “In order to sell a product or a service, a company must establish a relationship with the customer. It must build trust and support. It must understand the customer’s needs, and it must provide a product that delivers the promised benefits.”
Levinson identifies the following principles as the foundation of guerrilla marketing:
- Guerrilla Marketing is specifically geared for the small business and entrepreneur.
- It should be based on human psychology rather than experience, judgement, and guesswork.
- Instead of money, the primary investments of marketing should be time, energy, and imagination.
- The primary statistic to measure your business is the amount of profits, not sales.
- The marketer should also concentrate on how many new relationships are made each month.
- Create a standard of excellence with an acute focus instead of trying to diversify by offering too many diverse products and services.
- Instead of concentrating on getting new customers, aim for more referrals, more transactions with existing customers, and larger transactions.
- Forget about the competition and concentrate more on cooperating with other businesses.
- Guerrilla marketers should use a combination of marketing methods for a campaign.
- Use current technology as a tool to build your business.
- Messages are aimed at individuals or small groups, the smaller the better.
- Focuses on gaining the consent of the individual to send them more information rather than trying to make the sale.
- Commit to your campaign. Use Effective frequency instead of creating a new message theme for each campaign.
Associated marketing trends
The term Guerrilla Marketing is now often used more loosely as a descriptor for non-traditional media, such as:
- Reverse Graffiti — clean pavement adverts
- Viral marketing — through social networks
- Presence marketing — marketing for being there
- Grassroots marketing — tapping into the collective efforts of brand enthusiasts
- Wild Posting Campaigns
- Alternative marketing
- Buzz marketing — word of mouth marketing
- Undercover marketing — subtle product placement
- Astroturfing — disguising company messaging as an authentic grassroots movement
- Experiential marketing — interaction with product
- Tissue-pack marketing — hand-to-hand marketing
- Live-in marketing — real life product placement – see related article or Hostival Connect
- Wait marketing — when and where consumers are waiting (such as medical offices and gas pumps) and receptive to communications
Guerrilla marketing was initially used by small and medium size (SMEs) businesses, but it is now increasingly adopted by large businesses.
Risks
On January 31, 2007, several magnetic boxes with blinking LED cartoon figures were attached to metal surfaces in and around Boston, Massachusetts to promote the animated seriesAqua Teen Hunger Force. The boxes were mistaken for possible explosive devices, and several subway stations, bridges, and a portion of Interstate 93 were closed as police examined, removed, and in some cases, destroyed the devices.
New Idea!!! Let The Creativity Flow!!!
Ok so when a new idea spring to mind it brings a new sense of excitement, and by letting that little piece of excitement take you over, helps your new spark of an idea grow to its full potential.
For this project I have been talking about getting the professional help to the young LGBTQ Adults by asking doctors and phycisatrists to talk to them on line though an emailing system. After a little research I discover this would be impractical and extremely hard to accomplish. So with further research I started to find other ways that I could get the help to the young adults. The new idea was to like up with a few existing websites like ‘The Trevor project’ and the ‘It Get’s Better’ Project that already have the professional help lines for the young adults to talk to. There was a few problems with this idea also, as my campaign is narrowed down to the U.K. at the moment these two american sites wouldn’t be appropriate, and it would also guide the traffic away from my own website, which is not something i want to be doing for a newly launched website.
So. This new idea that has gave me a new little excitement about my project again, has came from the idea of another student. This other students project is nothing like my project but the concept of her website is like a massive online directory for the local business and clubs in her local town. So my idea is something similar. If these young adults, or family and friends need someone to talk to, they will be able to find who is close to them. An Online Directory of LGBTQ community groups, University LGBTQ Groups, and LGBTQ help lines that they can contact if they need too. They will be able to search in their local community of what LGBTQ Groups and help lines is around them, that they can go and visit or contact. Rather than brining them just one or two people to help, I can bring all the help that is available to them, and they can choose who or which to contact. This will also help those local LGBTQ groups to help more people.
So this idea is still in the early stages but it it much stringer than the other idea I have worked with so far and it seems to be the way to go. So for now I’m going to run with this idea to see how it develops.
10 Principles Of Effective Web Design
Usability and the utility, not the visual design, determine the success or failure of a web-site. Since the visitor of the page is the only person who clicks the mouse and therefore decides everything, user-centric design has become a standard approach for successful and profit-oriented web design. After all, if users can’t use a feature, it might as well not exist.
We aren’t going to discuss the implementation details (e.g. where the search box should be placed) as it has already been done in a number of articles; instead we focus on the main principles, heuristics and approaches for effective web design — approaches which, used properly, can lead to more sophisticated design decisions and simplify the process of perceiving presented information.
Please notice that
- you might be interested in the usability-related articles about 10 Usability Nightmares and 30 Usability Issues we’ve published before,
- we’ll cover more principles of effective design in our following posts. Therefore you might want to subscribe to our RSS-feed.
This article has been translated to Hebrew.
Principles Of Effective Web Design
In order to use the principles properly we first need to understand how users interact with web-sites, how they think and what are the basic patterns of users’ behavior.
How do users think?
Basically, users’ habits on the Web aren’t that different from customers’ habits in a store. Visitors glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they’re looking for. In fact, there are large parts of the page they don’t even look at.
Most users search for something interesting (or useful) and clickable; as soon as some promising candidates are found, users click. If the new page doesn’t meet users’ expectations, the Back button is clicked and the search process is continued.
- Users appreciate quality and credibility. If a page provides users with high-quality content, they are willing to compromise the content with advertisements and the design of the site. This is the reason why not-that-well-designed web-sites with high-quality content gain a lot of traffic over years. Content is more important than the design which supports it.
- Users don’t read, they scan. Analyzing a web-page, users search for some fixed points or anchors which would guide them through the content of the page.
Users don’t read, they scan. Notice how “hot” areas abrupt in the middle of sentences. This is typical for the scanning process. - Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification. Very simple principle: If a web-site isn’t able to meet users’ expectations, then designer failed to get his job done properly and the company loses money. The higher is the cognitive load and the less intuitive is the navigation, the more willing are users to leave the web-site and search for alternatives. [JN / DWU]
- Users don’t make optimal choices. Users don’t search for the quickest way to find the information they’re looking for. Neither do they scan web-page in a linear fashion, going sequentially from one site section to another one. Instead users satisfice; they choose the first reasonable option. As soon as they find a link that seems like it might lead to the goal, there is a very good chance that it will be immediately clicked. Optimizing is hard, and it takes a long time. Satisficing is more efficient. [video]
Both pictures show: sequential reading flow doesn’t work in the Web. Right screenshot on the image at the bottom describes the scan path of a given page. - Users follow their intuition. In most cases users muddle through instead of reading the information a designer has provided. According to Steve Krug, the basic reason for that is that users don’t care. “If we find something that works, we stick to it. It doesn’t matter to us if we understand how things work, as long as we can use them. If your audience is going to act like you’re designing billboard, then design great billboards.”
- Users want to have control. Users want to be able to control their browser and rely on the consistent data presentation throughout the site. E.g. they don’t want new windows popping up unexpectedly and they want to be able to get back with a “Back”-button to the site they’ve been before: therefore it’s a good practice to never open links in new browser windows.
1. Don’t make users think
According to Krug’s first law of usability, the web-page should be obvious and self-explanatory. When you’re creating a site, your job is to get rid of thequestion marks — the decisions users need to make consciously, considering pros, cons and alternatives.
If the navigation and site architecture aren’t intuitive, the number of question marks grows and makes it harder for users to comprehend how the system works and how to get from point A to point B. A clear structure, moderate visual clues and easily recognizable links can help users to find their path to their aim.
Let’s take a look at an example. Beyondis.co.uk claims to be “beyond channels, beyond products, beyond distribution”. What does it mean? Since users tend to explore web-sites according to the “F”-pattern, these three statements would be the first elements users will see on the page once it is loaded.
Although the design itself is simple and intuitive, to understand what the page is about the user needs to search for the answer. This is what an unnecessary question mark is. It’s designer’s task to make sure that the number of question marks is close to 0. The visual explanation is placed on the right hand side. Just exchanging both blocks would increase usability.
ExpressionEngine uses the very same structure like Beyondis, but avoids unnecessary question marks. Furthermore, the slogan becomes functional as users are provided with options to try the service and download the free version.
By reducing cognitive load you make it easier for visitors to grasp the idea behind the system. Once you’ve achieved this, you can communicate why the system is useful and how users can benefit from it. People won’t use your web site if they can’t find their way around it.
2. Don’t squander users’ patience
In every project when you are going to offer your visitors some service or tool, try to keep your user requirements minimal. The less action is required from users to test a service, the more likely a random visitor is to actually try it out. First-time visitors are willing to play with the service, not filling long web forms for an account they might never use in the future. Let users explore the site and discover your services without forcing them into sharing private data. It’s not reasonable to force users to enter an email address to test the feature.
As Ryan Singer — the developer of the 37Signals team — states, users would probably be eager to provide an email address if they were asked for it afterthey’d seen the feature work, so they had some idea of what they were going to get in return.
Stikkit is a perfect example for a user-friendly service which requires almost nothing from the visitor which is unobtrusive and comforting. And that’s what you want your users to feel on your web site.
Apparently, Mite requires more. However the registration can be done in less than 30 seconds — as the form has horizontal orientation, the user doesn’t even need to scroll the page.
Ideally remove all barriers, don’t require subscriptions or registrations first. A user registration alone is enough of an impediment to user navigation to cut down on incoming traffic.
3. Manage to focus users’ attention
As web-sites provide both static and dynamic content, some aspects of the user interface attract attention more than others do. Obviously, images are more eye-catching than the text — just as the sentences marked as bold are more attractive than plain text.
The human eye is a highly non-linear device, and web-users can instantly recognize edges, patterns and motions. This is why video-based advertisements are extremely annoying and distracting, but from the marketing perspective they perfectly do the job of capturing users’ attention.
Humanized.com perfectly uses the principle of focus. The only element which is directly visible to the users is the word “free” which works attractive and appealing, but still calm and purely informative. Subtle hints provide users with enough information of how to find more about the “free” product.
Focusing users’ attention to specific areas of the site with a moderate use of visual elements can help your visitors to get from point A to point B without thinking of how it actually is supposed to be done. The less question marks visitors have, the better sense of orientation they have and the more trust they can develop towards the company the site represents. In other words: the less thinking needs to happen behind the scenes, the better is the user experience which is the aim of usability in the first place.
4. Strive for feature exposure
Modern web designs are usually criticized due to their approach of guiding users with visually appealing 1-2-3-done-steps, large buttons with visual effects etc. But from the design perspective these elements actually aren’t a bad thing. On the contrary, such guidelines are extremely effective as they lead the visitors through the site content in a very simple and user-friendly way.
Dibusoft.com combines visual appeal with clear site structure. The site has 9 main navigation options which are visible at the first glance. The choice of colors might be too light, though.
Letting the user see clearly what functions are available is a fundamental principle of successful user interface design. It doesn’t really matter how this is achieved. What matters is that the content is well-understood and visitors feel comfortable with the way they interact with the system.
5. Make use of effective writing
As the Web is different from print, it’s necessary to adjust the writing style to users’ preferences and browsing habits. Promotional writing won’t be read. Long text blocks without images and keywords marked in bold or italics will be skipped. Exaggerated language will be ignored.
Talk business. Avoid cute or clever names, marketing-induced names, company-specific names, and unfamiliar technical names. For instance, if you describe a service and want users to create an account, “sign up” is better than “start now!” which is again better than “explore our services”.
Eleven2.com gets directly to the point. No cute words, no exaggerated statements. Instead a price: just what visitors are looking for.
An optimal solution for effective writing is to
- use short and concise phrases (come to the point as quickly as possible),
- use scannable layout (categorize the content, use multiple heading levels, use visual elements and bulleted lists which break the flow of uniform text blocks),
- use plain and objective language (a promotion doesn’t need to sound like advertisement; give your users some reasonable and objective reason why they should use your service or stay on your web-site)
6. Strive for simplicity
The “keep it simple”-principle (KIS) should be the primary goal of site design. Users are rarely on a site to enjoy the design; furthermore, in most cases they are looking for the information despite the design. Strive for simplicity instead of complexity.
Crcbus provides visitors with a clean and simple design. You may have no idea what the site is about as it is in Italian, however you can directly recognize the navigation, header, content area and the footer. Notice how even icons manage to communicate the information clearly. Once the icons are hovered, additional information is provided.
From the visitors’ point of view, the best site design is a pure text, without any advertisements or further content blocks matching exactly the query visitors used or the content they’ve been looking for. This is one of the reasons why a user-friendly print-version of web pages is essential for good user experience.
Finch clearly presents the information about the site and gives visitors a choice of options without overcrowding them with unnecessary content.
7. Don’t be afraid of the white space
Actually it’s really hard to overestimate the importance of white space. Not only does it help to reduce the cognitive load for the visitors, but it makes it possible to perceive the information presented on the screen. When a new visitor approaches a design layout, the first thing he/she tries to do is to scan the page and divide the content area into digestible pieces of information.
Complex structures are harder to read, scan, analyze and work with. If you have the choice between separating two design segments by a visible line or by some whitespace, it’s usually better to use the whitespace solution.Hierarchical structures reduce complexity (Simon’s Law): the better you manage to provide users with a sense of visual hierarchy, the easier your content will be to perceive.
White space is good. Cameron.io uses white space as a primary design element. The result is a well-scannable layout which gives the content a dominating position it deserves.
8. Communicate effectively with a “visible language”
In his papers on effective visual communication, Aaron Marcus states three fundamental principles involved in the use of the so-called “visible language”— the content users see on a screen.
- Organize: provide the user with a clear and consistent conceptual structure. Consistency, screen layout, relationships and navigability are important concepts of organization. The same conventions and rules should be applied to all elements.
- Economize: do the most with the least amount of cues and visual elements. Four major points to be considered: simplicity, clarity, distinctiveness, and emphasis. Simplicity includes only the elements that are most important for communication. Clarity: all components should be designed so their meaning is not ambiguous. Distinctiveness: the important properties of the necessary elements should be distinguishable. Emphasis: the most important elements should be easily perceived.
- Communicate: match the presentation to the capabilities of the user. The user interface must keep in balance legibility, readability, typography, symbolism, multiple views, and color or texture in order to communicate successfully. Use max. 3 typefaces in a maximum of 3 point sizes — a maximum of 18 words or 50-80 characters per line of text.
9. Conventions are our friends
Conventional design of site elements doesn’t result in a boring web site. In fact,conventions are very useful as they reduce the learning curve, the need to figure out how things work. For instance, it would be a usability nightmare if all web-sites had different visual presentation of RSS-feeds. That’s not that different from our regular life where we tend to get used to basic principles of how we organize data (folders) or do shopping (placement of products).
With conventions you can gain users’ confidence, trust, reliability and prove your credibility. Follow users’ expectations — understand what they’re expecting from a site navigation, text structure, search placement etc. (see Nielsen’s Usability Alertbox for more information)
BabelFish in use: Amazon.com in Russian.
A typical example from usability sessions is to translate the page in Japanese (assuming your web users don’t know Japanese, e.g. with Babelfish) and provide your usability testers with a task to find something in the page of different language. If conventions are well-applied, users will be able to achieve a not-too-specific objective, even if they can’t understand a word of it.
Steve Krug suggests that it’s better to innovate only when you know you really have a better idea, but take advantages of conventions when you don’t.
10. Test early, test often
This so-called TETO-principle should be applied to every web design project as usability tests often provide crucial insights into significant problems and issues related to a given layout.
Test not too late, not too little and not for the wrong reasons. In the latter case it’s necessary to understand that most design decisions are local; that means that you can’t universally answer whether some layout is better than the other one as you need to analyze it from a very specific point of view (considering requirements, stakeholders, budget etc.).
Some important points to keep in mind:
- according to Steve Krug, testing one user is 100% better than testing none and testing one user early in the project is better than testing 50 near the end. Accoring to Boehm’s first law, errors are most frequent during requirements and design activities and are the more expensive the later they are removed.
- testing is an iterative process. That means that you design something, test it, fix it and then test it again. There might be problems which haven’t been found during the first round as users were practically blocked by other problems.
- usability tests always produce useful results. Either you’ll be pointed to the problems you have or you’ll be pointed to the absence of major design flaws which is in both cases a useful insight for your project.
- according to Weinberg’s law, a developer is unsuited to test his or her code. This holds for designers as well. After you’ve worked on a site for few weeks, you can’t observe it from a fresh perspective anymore. You know how it is built and therefore you know exactly how it works — you have the wisdom independent testers and visitors of your site wouldn’t have.
Bottom line: if you want a great site, you’ve got to test.
References
- Designing Effective User Interfaces by Suzanne Martin
- Summary on Web Design
- UID presentation (Flash)
- Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines
- “The psychology of computer programming” by Gerald Weinberg
- “Designing Web Usability” by Jakob Nielsen [JN / DWU]
- “Prioritizing Web Usability” by Jakob Nielsen
- “Don’t Make Me Think” by Steve Krug
- “Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites that Work” by Tom Brinck, Darren Gergle, Scott Wood
- A Summary of Principles for User-Interface Design
Gay by nature: Part one – Dr Qazi Rahman of Queen Mary University London
What causes homosexuality? Can sexual orientation be changed? And are the brains of gay people different from those of straight people? Adrian Tippetts meets Dr Qazi Rahman, an assistant professor in Cognitive Biology from Queen Mary University London, to find out more.
While almost all scientists accept homosexuality has purely natural causes, the debate has been mired in confusion. There have been conflicting reports about the existence of ‘gay’ genes and their significance. Religious propagandists have tried to promote the myths that sexuality is changeable. And the mainstream media, more interested in causing controversy than holding rational debate, has done little to raise public understanding about the issue. For Dr Rahman, who heads QMUL’s Biological and Experimental Psychology Group, it is quite clear: you’re born gay, and that’s that.
I begin by asking him what aspects of biology are responsible for sexual orientation.
“The whole nature-nurture debate is entirely pointless,” he says. “Sexual orientation is not a choice because humans come in two types: one with a vagina, the other with a penis, so sexual orientation is entirely biological.
“We all end up at the same point: heterosexuality or homosexuality. There is little variation in between but this is not to exclude bisexual behaviour. People do not end up sexually attracted to bananas or animals for example. This is not a flippant comment. What I am saying is that we see the same characteristic traits and behaviours, resulting from a relatively small number of factors.
“We think the causes for different sexual orientations cluster around two areas. We know that just under half the variation in sexual orientation is down to genes. Then the rest of the variation is down to ‘non-shared’ factors, and those, like hormones, are primarily biological.”
At this point a little background is needed.
Dr Rahman explained that the gene story originated in 1993, when geneticist Dean Hamer published a study that claimed homosexuality was genetically influenced, and pinpointed the stretch of the X chromosome (inherited from the mother). He studied 76 pairs of gay brothers and found they shared a stretch of DNA. However, since then no research has been able to repeat the test.
Despite the shortcomings of Hamer’s research, scientists agree the environmental factors do not cause homosexuality. It is increasingly clear that no single gene is responsible for sexual orientation. Furthermore, William Reiner at the University of Oklahoma surveyed the sexuality of a group who had been surgically reassigned from boys to girls at birth, due to genital deformities. Though they were brought up as women, and knew nothing about their surgery, they were all attracted to women later in life.
Michael Bailey of Northwestern University found that an identical twin of a gay man had a 50 per cent chance of also being gay. Among fraternal, yet non-identical twins, that probability was reduced to 20 per cent. This latter statistic does not in fact downplay the role of genetics, because not all the genes we inherit are active. We receive two alternative genes of every gene – one from each parent. Our bodies, therefore, contain two sets of building plans. A process called methylation turns off certain genes, and determines whether the gene we inherit from the mother or the father gets turned on. Although this process is inherited, it has none of DNA’s proof-reading mechanisms, and thus varies greatly from one generation to the next. The causes and effects of methylation are under investigation by Sven Bocklandt at UCLA.
But if homosexuality were inherited, wouldn’t the genes for it disappear because of natural selection?
Dr Rahman said: “That is a common misunderstanding, and that is said by people with no understanding of evolutionary biology. Sexuality is a complex human trait, just like IQ or personality. It is determined not by a single gene, but how several genes work together. A whole range of features with reproductive disadvantages can be maintained in the gene pool down the generations, if only a portion of the genes responsible are advantageous to heterosexual carriers.”
He continued: “One of the ideas is that heterosexual men that may carry some ‘gay’ alleles that result in more empathic and nurturing traits, which are thus more attractive to females, who might mate with them and then carry those genes on further. So long as passing on some versions of those genes is reproductively advantageous, the fact that at some point down the generations you end up with a completely homosexual male – with all gay genes activated – is inconsequential. Evolution will happily tolerate that as long as the general reproductive advantage for individuals is maintained.
“However,” he added, “there is much work to do. We don’t yet know how this works. A couple of papers published last year suggested females, rather than males, benefited. Genes responsible for homosexuality have to do something, but they do not literally write the word ‘gay’ in the brain.
“Maybe they are involved in producing certain types of proteins or hormones which confer attraction to males, useful for women, but maybe having some of these alleles make them more attractive to men, or maybe these genes make them look more beautiful, effeminising them in some way.
“Either way, these help females find a mate more easily and give them more offspring, while almost sterilising the male line. A male who is gay won’t compete with your own reproductive outcomes. At the genomic level, females should be more interested in producing ‘like’ i.e., more females.”
The second influence on sexuality is hormones.
Dr Rahman continued: “The level of exposure to sex hormones, such as testosterone, during life in the womb, seems to influence the direction of sexual preference. Everyone would be born female if it were not for testosterone. At stages during pregnancy, the hormone is introduced into the womb. The level of testosterone to which the foetus is exposed determines the level of masculinity. Some bodily markers provide an insight into exposure. One example is the relative length of index finger to ring finger.
“There are a whole range of measures like startle responses, a particular sound emission that comes from the inner ear and cognitive profiles, which show how people perform on different problem solving tasks.”
So, gay brains are wired differently?
“In males the big brother effect is also important. Gay men tend to be born younger in relation to their brothers. The maternal immune system recognises successive male foetuses and may form an immune response to particular types of protein that form on the surface of the brain in the developing foetus. This might affect sexual differentiation or it might produce some hormonal mechanism that produces that variation, too. The big brother effect only appears to be important when gay men are right handed. Left handed gay men owe their sexual orientation to other causes we are unaware of.
“Relatively recently, there has been lots of research into neurobiology – what goes on in the brain. Our lab has been working a lot on mental problem solving skills like spatial ability, finding your way around, finding important objects in a spatial environment, emotional skills and verbal recognition.
“And we know these are different between the sexes, but we find gay men tend to have a female type of spatial ability. Spatial ability is controlled partly by two regions of the brain. So if we know that gay men perform differently in these kinds of tests, that suggests that part of the brain either is structurally different or functions in a different way. That gives us an insight into brain development.
“Thanks to MRI scans, we also have the technology to look at the brain directly rather than just carry out problem solving tests on people. The studies in the last two years strongly suggest that in the adult gay brain, and lesbian brain, it is wired very differently to the straight brain.
“In 2008, Swedish scientists at the Karolinska Institute compared the brain hemispheres of healthy gays and lesbians with heterosexual male and female adults.
“The results showed that heterosexual men and lesbians show a rightward asymmetry in their brain – it appears to be larger in volume than the left. However, the brain hemispheres of gay men and heterosexual women were more symmetrical.
“It might explain why heterosexual men tend to be better at spatial skills; there is some evidence that lesbians are better at some visual motor skills as well. Tests show gay men and hetero women tend to be better at language, verbal fluency, skills and emotion processing.
“The Swedish group also found differences in the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible for orientating the rest of the brain in response to an emotional stimulus, such as a startle (fight or flight) response, or the presence of a potential mate.
“Heterosexual men and gay women have more nerve connections in the right side of the amygdala, while gay men and heterosexual women have more on the left.
“So, the brain network which determines what sexual orientation actually ‘orients’ towards is similar between gay men and straight women, and between gay women and straight men.”
Now some may ask ‘but how can you be sure that having gay sexual experiences or straight sexual experiences is not responsible for these differences and surely experience can change brain structure?’
Dr Rahman says this is a good question: “We don’t know the answer but studies with animals suggest these differences appear before any sexual experiences calibrate the biology. But only work in humans can truly answer this, and this remains to be done.”
So does the data justify stereotypes? Does it suggest footballers and athletes are less likely to be gay? And could research uncover why some people are homophobic?
I Woke Up Gay – Chris Birch
Documentry Below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00q8wcb/I_Woke_Up_Gay/
I wouldn’t change back: Rugby player who ‘woke up gay’ after stroke and now has fiance says he’s the happiest he’s ever been
- ‘It was weird, you walk into somewhere and you go from liking that girl to liking that boy’
- Chris is trying to rebuild his relationship with his mother who has struggled with his personality change
- Chris’ boyfriend believes Chris had always been gay but hadn’t realised
When 19-stone rugby player Chris Birch suffered a stroke during a freak accident, his life was transformed – but not in a way that anyone could have predicted.
When he regained consciousness, the 26-year-old – who was engaged to his girlfriend at the time – found his sexuality had completely altered.
‘The Chris I knew had gone and a new Chris sort of came along. I came to the realisation that the stroke had turned me gay,’ he said.
He is now the subject of a BBC3 documentary, chronicling his attempt over the past few months to make sense of his new identity.
Transformed: Mr Birch has also altered his appearance since the stroke. Shedding weight and dying his hair
Chris Birch was a 19st beer-swilling rugby fan before his accident (left). A stroke radically altered his personality and he swapped banking for hairdressing (right)
Chris had been attempting a forward roll down a hill in 2011 when the blood supply to his brain was cut off causing a stroke.
During a stroke the areas starved of oxygen, brain cells die and this can cause damage. However, the brain can make new neural connections and find different pathways to achieve the same thing.
Some scientists believe it is possible that during this recovery process a patient could discover a new skill, accent or even a new sexuality. However, personality changes following a stroke are rare and there have been no documented cases of a stroke changing a person’s sexuality.
Chris Birch points to the hill where he had his stroke
But Mr Birch, for one, is convinced. Within a year of his stroke he had quit his job at a bank and become a hairdresser, moved out of his family home in the Welsh valleys and started meeting men.
‘It was a weird experience,’ he told the film crew.
‘You walk into somewhere and you go from liking that girl to liking that boy.’
He found the changes traumatic and admitted it was a ‘lonely time’ when he was afraid to tell anybody about his new sense of self.
‘It was quite a scary process. Being with the first guy was a very odd experience. I didn’t know what I was doing,’ he said.
Chris has been putting together a memory box of anything that jogs vague recollections from his past life, such as photos from his school It includes a photo from his school prom and a badge from the Isle of Man TT Race.
‘This jogs something in me,’ he said, holding a pin badge from a trip to see the Isle of Man TT Race.
‘Old Chris likes motorbikes, I really don’t care anymore.’
He has also developed some old films from a holiday taken just before his accident and wasn’t best pleased with the results.
‘I look awful,’ he said.
‘It sums old Chris up, my God I looked chavvy! It feels like looking at somebody else but with my face.’
New life: Chris with his fiance Jak Powell
The change has put a huge strain on his family and he has lost several close friendships. He has also had to deal with negative reactions from strangers after telling his story to the media.
In a documentary airing tonight, Mr Birch is seen trying to rebuild his relationship with his mother.
The 27-year-old said when he was ill his mother took him back and forth to the doctors and was very protective. Now he goes to the hospital appointments alone and barely speaks to her.
‘It would be nice if my mother played more of a role in my life, because I always seem happy in the photos that she is in,’ he said, referring to his old albums.
However, he said he understood how difficult his radical change in personality must be for her.
‘It’s a unique bond so when it’s altered or changed I think there is a bereavement,’ he said.
Despite all the difficulties Chris said he has no regrets over how his life has turned out. Within a few months of moving out from home he met his then boyfriend and now fiance Jak Powell.
Mr Powell has his own theory that Chris has always been gay and the accident just helped him to realise it.
‘People grow up not knowing they are gay and have families and then they realise they are gay, but they don’t have a stroke to realise it,’ Mr Powell said.
‘I think eventually if you hadn’t had the stroke it would have happened anyway,’ he said.
But Mr Birch is not convinced saying he has memories and photos that prove he was definitely straight before the stroke.
‘If I read about it I wouldn’t have believed it,’ he admitted.
‘But here I am.’
As part of the documentary Mr Birch visited Dr Quazi Rahman of Queen Mary University in London who is an expert in human sexual orientation.
Dr Rahman has tested hundreds of gay and straight volunteers and discovered key neurological patterns that he believes reveal if a person might have been born gay or straight.
Mr Birch took part in the computer-based tests to see if it suggested he had actually been ‘born gay.’ They revealed on half of the test Chris performed in the ‘expected direction’ for a gay man but the other half suggested a straight man. Dr Rahman suggested his homosexual feelings may have lain dormant but been brought to the surface by the stroke.
Dr Rahman said: ‘The bulk of the evidence in the biological sciences, in genetics and psychology suggest that sexuality is something you are born with and develops later on through life.’
Either way Mr Birch said he wouldn’t want to alter back again.
‘I’m happier now that I ever have been, why would I want to change?’ he asked.
Gloria Gaynor – I Am What I Am
I Am What I Am (Broadway musical song)
Other Versions.
Welsh singer Shirley Bassey recorded the song for her 1984 album I Am What I Am. That version was released as a single from the album, with “This Is My Life” as the B-side. The song has been also covered by the likes of Marti Webb, Joannie Taylor, Carol Jiani, George Hearn, Hannah Jones, Soraya Arnelas, Ken Page, Gerard-Rene-Gordon, Doug Shneider, Teatro, Linda Eder, John Barrowman, Amateur Transplants, Karen Mulder, Anthony Warlow, and Dan Zanes. In Argentina, the singer Sandra Mihanovich made a Spanish-cover of the song called “Soy lo que soy”. Páll Oskar and Hafsteinn Þórólfsson have both recorded Icelandic versions of the song as “Ég er Eins og ég Er”. The song features on Geoff Lloyd’s Hometime Show and previously featured on The Geoff Show, a late-night show on Absolute Radio (formerly Virgin Radio) as backing music to the staple feature “The Big I Am”. French singer Amanda Lear covered “I Am What I Am” for her 2009 album Brand New Love Affair. In 2010 it was remixed, labelled as TV Final Mix, and released as a digital download-only one-track single. Swedish drag queen Babsan, who sang the song “Ge mig en Spanjor” in the Melodifestivalen 2011, regularly performs a Swedish version of the song, “Jag ar som Jag ar”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_What_I_Am_(Broadway_musical_song)
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Amelia – 15yrs – Make It Safe Project!
Welcome to The Make It Safe Project!
Donating Books to Schools and Youth Homeless Shelters Nationwide
The Make It Safe Project donates books about sexual orientation and gender expression to schools and youth homeless shelters that lack the resources to keep their teens safe.
Giving: We donate books to K-12 schools, their Gay-Straight Alliances (a group that educates the school community about equality), and LGBT-inclusive youth homeless shelters nationwide. For information on how you can help give books or receive books for your school or shelter, please clickhere (or donate using the “Donate” button to the right).
Support: If you are wondering what starting, leading, or joining a GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) would be like, you can browse through stories written by teens who have been involved with GSAs here.
Advice: If you have experience starting, leading, or being in a GSA, you can anonymously submit a story about your experience here.
One book can save a life.
About Me
My name is Amelia. I am an openly lesbian teen from California and am the founder and president of The Make It Safe Project.
I am a 2011-2012 GLSEN Student Ambassador, one of The Advocate’s Top 40, Under 40 LGBT Activists of 2012, and a NorCal Youth Council Member for GSA Network. From 2010-2011, I founded and ran a GSA at a private PreK-8 school and was one of the school’s student representatives on the Diversity Committee. My story about coming out was published in The New York Times online here. I have also been on LA Talk Radio’s show Teen Talk Live to discuss bullying and equal rights and interviewed about The Make It Safe Project in numerous newspapers which you can view here.
I am a member of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, GSA Network, the NOH8 Campaign (as seen in the picture above), Self-Evident Truths, the Give a Damn Campaign, Freedom to Marry, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Human Rights Campaign, Change.org, and ThinkB4YouSpeak.
When not working on The Make It Safe Project, I play steel drums in the Pandhandlers Steel Drum Band, write novels, make costumes for San Francisco Carnival, swim, and sing.
Musical Chairs – Movie Trailer
Musical Chairs Trailer (2012). “Everybody dances to their own beat”. Set against the exciting backdrop of competitive ballroom dancing, MUSICAL CHAIRS is about Armando a Bronx-bred Latino who aspires to be a dancer but whose only way in is as handyman at a Manhattan dance studio, and Mia, an Upper East Side princess who is the studio’s star performer.
Frock Magazine – Article – Musical Chairs
Frock magazine has been granted exclusive access to some of the people behind the new movie, Musical Chairs. Your Frocky editor girl and friend of the stars, Katie, has been talking to the director, Susan Seidelman (who directed ‘Desperately Seeking Susan’) but mostly to transgender actress, Laverne Cox, who is making her Hollywood debut in this movie.
Set in New York City, Musical Chairs is about the meeting of several disabled people who are also colorful misfits in various ways and who go on to rise above their disabilities. Cox plays Chantelle, a pre-op transsexual woman who is paralyzed from the waist down. She meets the female lead, Mia who is also wheelchair bound, and together with the others they enter a “Wheelchair Ballroom Dance Competition”.
Featuring able-bodied and disabled actors and dancers, MUSICAL CHAIRS is a romantic and energetic celebration of the transformative powers of love and compassion in the face of life’s adversities.
Here’s what happened when I interviewed actress, Laverne Cox and got to ask the director a question too…
Katie: Laverne, tell us a bit about your own transgender journey.
Laverne: From an early age I was very feminine. When I was in third grade my teacher called my mom and said, “Your son is going to end up in New Orleans wearing a dress if we don’t get him into therapy right away.” Going to a therapist at eight years old to discuss my “gender confusion” was life changing. The therapist asked me if I knew the difference between a boy and a girl. Up until that time everyone was telling me that I was a boy and I knew I was a girl. So I rationalized that there was no difference. I thought a girl could have a penis too. That’s how my child’s mind rationalized the situation. My mother subsequently yelling at me insisting on the differences between boys and girls was one of many moments during my life where I was shamed about my gender expression. Then I began to internalize a tremendous amount of transphobia which didn’t begin to lift until I moved to New York City and met actual transgender people. For many of my teenage years I couldn’t ever fully run away from my gender but I was terrified to be trans because of my internalized transphobia – androgyny was my sort of compromised strategy. When I finally accepted that I’m a woman and began my medical transition over 13 years ago, my load was so much lighter. But internalized transphobia persists inside me. It’s lessened tremendously over the years. I wouldn’t have been able to transition if it hadn’t. But in accepting my womanhood, I have to be careful not to beat myself up because I might not conform to some arbitrary ideal of what I should look or sound like. The work of self- acceptance is never done.
Katie: You are already a successful actress. Tell us about that aspect of your life and how being trans has affected it.
Laverne: Well choosing to be an actress is perhaps one of the most insane things to do, but I think acting chose me. Being an African American trans woman actress, there’s a bit of a box the entertainment industry wants to put me in. There are not a lot of roles being written for my type. But my job is to continue to get better at what I do and find ways to keep working. I am happiest when I am on a movie or TV set. Acting is truly my bliss. So I must continue to follow my bliss.
Katie: In addition to your acting career you also find time to be a transgender advocate. What does that involve?
Laverne: Well for me it’s just about using the platform I have worked so hard to obtain, to talk about the things that are important to me, to be as authentic as I know how to be in the moment, to tell my story and hopefully educate and inspire people to think differently about what it means to be a man or woman as well as a human being. My advocacy has taken the form of writing, public speaking as well as using the mediums of the internet and television to spread the word about #girlslikeus.
Katie: Having been involved in many TV shows, you are now making the leap to the big screen with your role in ‘Musical Chairs’. Tell us about that.
Laverne: I play Chantelle who is sexy, sassy and wise. She is an African American trans woman who is paralyzed from the waist down. In the face of all these things she maintains an infectious joie de vivre and a great sense of humor about it all. The film takes us into the world of wheelchair ballroom dancing and is ultimately a story about love.
Katie: Over the last couple of decades, trans people have been shown in a very poor light on TV (think Jerry Springer). What do you think can we do to change the viewing public’s attitudes towards us?
Laverne: Well one of the things I am intensely passionate about is proliferating diverse humanized representations of trans people in the media. I believe that if people can get to know us as human beings in our diversity then the misconceptions and prejudices will melt away. It’s important for us to be out and to tell our stories. There are a number of internet projects which exist for us to do that now including Imfromdriftwood.com and Transpeoplespeak.org, which are both platforms I have used to share my story.
Katie: The whole trans journey can be a very depressing one for many people, who may lose friends, their job and even their families. The fact that a trans person like yourself can be so successful is a real inspiration to us all. It doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. What would you say to any of our readers who are feeling low, perhaps having just come out?
Laverne: I feel low all the time. This journey has not been easy for me. But what has often gotten me through is the belief in something greater than myself, that I am on this planet for a reason. I have also been harder on myself than anyone else possibly could. I would say let’s stop being so hard on ourselves.
Katie: What’s next for Laverne? More movies, more TV or something different?
Laverne: I am actually prepping to shoot a TV pilot as a producer, trying to get more trans women’s stories out there. I am also in the ever continuing saga of writing a one woman show. As long as I have been at this I still have to remind myself that all the elements of my story are important.
Katie: Thanks for giving us an insight into your life Laverne, I hope your movie is a great success.
Laverne: Thanks so much for your interest in talking to me about who I am and my work. Please everyone join Janet Mock’s twitter campaign to spread the word about trans women’s stories by tweeting using the hashtag #girlslikeus. Everyone has the right to dream.
I also asked the director, Susan Seidelman, why she decided to cast a real transgender woman in the role of Chantelle rather than a non-trans actor and here’s what she said…
“I cast Laverne in Musical Chairs because she is a terrific actress and was able to bring the necessary drama, pathos, and humor to the role of Chantelle. I also cast Laverne because, being a transgender actress herself, she made the character very real and authenticity was important to me.
Some of my favorite scenes in the film are those involving the love affair between “Chantelle” and “Wilfredo” because they find the right balance between making you laugh and making you cry. Both are total romantics looking for someone to love them unconditionally and although they are culturally very different, they find they have much in common under the surface.”
What Northern Ireland is doing to help the LGBT Community.
Cara-Friend: Sharing premises and knowledge and delivering joint services
Cara-Friend is an organisation dedicated to supporting, empowering, educating, and offering friendship to everyone in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, and to advocating on their behalf as well as working with all relevant public authorities on policy decisions. It offers telephone helplines, counselling, advice, safe social space, personal development and peer support through the Gay Helpline, Lesbian Line, and Gay and Lesbian Youth Northern Ireland.
The organisation provides five services:
- Gay and Lesbian Youth Northern Ireland: GLYNI is a regional youth service for 14 to 25 year olds providing safe alcohol and drug free social space in venues across Northern Ireland. It also provides training and support in areas such as coming out, mental, sexual and physical health; legal information and advocacy on the rights of LGBT people; information on the LGBT social scene and community support groups, self development and peer support training.
- Gay Helpline: This is a listening ear and information service, which allows individuals to share their concerns and seek information on a wide range of issues from coming out; mental, sexual and physical health; legal information on the rights of LGBT people; and information on the LGBT social scene and community support groups.
- Lesbian Line: This is a listening ear and information service for lesbian and bisexual women, which allows individuals to share their concerns and seek information on a wide range of issues from coming out; mental, sexual and physical health; legal information on the rights of LGBT people; and information on the LGBT social scene and community support groups.
- Family Ties: The aim of this project is to provide practical advice, guidance and support to parents who are perhaps coming to terms with the fact that their child is LGBT and need support for their own issues around this, or for parents who perhaps suspect themselves that their child is LGBT and do not know what to do.
- Education in Schools Project: The project provides LGBT awareness training to school pupils, teachers, governors and parents and provides resource materials, curriculum guides and classroom lessons, as well as lobbying the relevant public authorities on curriculum matters and Section 75 equality duties and works closely with the Minister for Education.
Collaboration project 1: shared premises
In 2009 the Director of Cara-Friend realised that the building in which the organisation was located did not fully meet the needs of disabled service users. As a result the Director spoke to colleagues in the LGBT sector and, along with the Directors of The Rainbow Project and Lesbian Advocacy Services Initiative (LASI), identified the Memorial Building in Waring Street, Belfast, as a suitable new location.
“Three organisations moved to this building in 2009, it has been a huge success.” Steve Williamson, Director, Cara-Friend
One of the positive outcomes of the organisations sharing premises was that they reviewed their administration and services and stopped duplication. It became apparent that the previous arrangement of operating from different buildings had led to a situation where each organisation was not fully aware of the services and support the others provided.
“We stopped duplicating, we examined what areas we worked in and decided if we could co-operate in some and be open that we were competing in some. If we couldn’t co-operate we would try to see who was best placed to provide a service.” Steve Williamson, Director, Cara-Friend
This has developed further. The Directors of Cara-Friend, The Rainbow Project (TRP) and LASI now meet on a monthly basis to discuss services and opportunities. In the past month the management boards of Cara-Friend and TRP have also met as both organisations are currently planning their next three year strategies and are interested in how they can link into their strategy and business plans.
Collaboration project 2: Family Ties project
Family Ties is a joint project undertaken by Cara-Friend and The Rainbow Project. This project was established because some young people were reporting to Cara-Friend GLYNI that they did not feel supported by their parents. The two main reasons that young people felt this were that either their parents could not accept their sexual orientation or their parents accepted their sexual orientation but worried about the consequences of this for their child. Both organisations felt that there was a gap in services with regard to supporting parents on how to support their child. As a result the Family Ties parents support service was launched in April 2008 when Cara-Friend and The Rainbow Project launched a guide for parents who have lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender children. The guide was officially launched at an event opened by the Deputy Lord Mayor of Belfast, and with keynote speakers including the Human Rights Chief Commissioner and senior representatives from the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister (OFMDFM). This booklet has been financed and published in co-operation with the Eastern Health and Social Services Board and the Southern Health and Social Services Board. A peer support service for parents now meets monthly.
“Young people were saying to us that they felt supported here but when they went home they didn’t feel supported by their parents.” Steve Williamson, Director, Cara-Friend
Collaboration project 3: Education in Schools project
Through working with young people, Cara-Friend discovered that many are being bullied in school as a result of their sexual orientation.
“Some are getting bullied both mentally and physically on a daily basis.” Steve Williamson, Director, Cara-Friend
Cara-Friend had conducted research into bullying in schools of young LGBT people and realised that there was a gap in services in this area, and that teachers needed training and resources. The Director of Cara-Friend realised the potential of working with TRP to establish a service to address this issue. Both had their areas of expertise, Cara-Friend has experience in working with young people and the Rainbow Project has more experience in lobbying.
“We thought how do we get these two strengths together to make a focused campaign in schools?” Steve Williamson, Director, Cara-Friend
“Parents, pupils, teachers, tutors are all singing its praises, the LGBT sector; even the Minister for Education (John O’Dowd) is singing its praises.” Steve Williamson, Director, Cara-Friend
Collaboration project 4: Mental health support proposal for lesbian and bisexual women
One of Cara-Friend’s projects is to provide counselling for women through Lesbian Line as this is not provided anywhere else in Northern Ireland. Cara-Friend has no direct funding for this service and has to allocate unrestricted funding to support it. The Director of the organisation realised the potential of working with LASI in regard to developing this support service and contacted the Director of LASI to see if they could work in partnership with this aim.
“Our organisation is about service delivery, theirs was about advocacy and policy. We perhaps used to look at each other as competition but by working together we have the strength and joint expertise to apply for proper funding for this essential service.” Steve Williamson, Director, Cara-Friend
Cara-Friend and LASI are the only two organisations in Northern Ireland working in this area. Instead of competing for funding they have jointly put in a bid to a major government agency to fund a part-time counsellor and part-time mental health development officer for lesbian and bisexual women. The organisations are waiting on a response from the agency but are optimistic that such a partnership service will be well received. Regardless of the success or failure of this bid, the two organisations have established a successful partnership whereby they will explore areas of joint working.
What went well?
The Director of Cara-Friend stated that the main thing that went well was the decision to share premises. It prevented the duplication of services, opened up the opportunity to work in partnership and to address gaps in services, leading to the successful ongoing delivery of Family Ties project, the Education in Schools project, the new mental health support proposal for lesbian and bisexual women and to the current situation where all three organisations can work together where possible and use their respective strengths to support each other where it’s not possible.
I Am Who I Am 