Senate Democrats Want A Clean Slate For The Next President

WASHINGTON ― Senate Democrats won’t go along with any legislation that funds the government into next year, Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Thursday.

Congress returns from a break next week and lawmakers will have roughly one month to fund the government before they leave for another recess ahead of the November election.

“We’re not doing anything into next year and every Republican should be aware of that right now,” Reid said on a call with reporters, dispelling speculation that Democrats would agree to a longer funding measure. “We are not going to do anything past the first of the year.”

Democrats are confident their party’s presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, will win in November, and hope their party will gain a majority in the Senate. A senior Democratic aide said Democrats don’t want to leave a problem for the next president, and would like to negotiate an omnibus spending bill during the lame-duck session that follows lawmakers’ return from their election break.

Another senior Democratic Senate aide said leaders are “optimistic that the lame duck will be fruitful ground for a good omnibus deal.” President Barack Obama told Reid during an earlier conversation that he would not sign a six-month continuing resolution to fund the government.

Republicans are on a different track. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told Republican members that GOP leaders will likely push for a continuing resolution to authorize government spending past the election, but have little appetite for a large, year-end omnibus bill.

In addition to a continuing resolution, lawmakers will vote on funding for the government’s response to Zika virus. The Senate is still at an impasse on a package that includes measures unrelated to Zika, which Democrats considered poison pills. Included in the $1.1 billion Zika response bill are provisions that would block funding for contraception services, protect the Confederate flag and weaken the Clean Water Act.

Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) said on the call with Reid Thursday that approving money to combat Zika, which causes microcephaly and other birth defects, is of utmost importance for Congress.

Right now, there is nothing more critical than tackling what is an epidemic,” Stabenow said.

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Hermine Hurricane Barrels Toward Florida With 'Life-Threatening' Conditions

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TAMPA, Fla.  – Winds from strengthening Hurricane Hermine lashed at Florida’s northern Gulf Coast late on Thursday, forcing residents to evacuate some coastal areas and stock up on provisions ahead of what the state’s governor warned would be a lethal storm.

Hermine, expected to be the first hurricane to make landfall in the state in more than a decade, also posed a Labor Day weekend threat to states along the northern Atlantic Coast that are home to tens of millions of people.

On Thursday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center extended a tropical storm watch to Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

Hermine became the fourth hurricane of the 2016 season around midafternoon when its sustained winds reached 75 mph (120 kph). Located about 85 miles (135 km) south of Apalachicola, Florida at 5 p.m., it was expected to make landfall early on Friday.

Hermine could dump as much as 20 inches (51 cm) of rain in some parts of the state. Ocean storm surge could swell as high as 12 feet (3.6 meters). Isolated tornadoes were forecast.

After battering coastal Florida, Hermine is expected to weaken and move across the northern part of the state into Georgia, then southern U.S. coastal regions on the Atlantic.

The governors of Georgia and North Carolina on Thursday declared emergencies in affected regions. In South Carolina, the low-lying coastal city of Charleston was handing out sandbags.

Florida Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency in 51 of Florida’s 67 counties, and at least 20 counties closed schools. Mandatory evacuations were ordered in parts of five counties in northwestern Florida and voluntary evacuations were in place in at least three more counties.

“This is life threatening,” Scott told reporters on Thursday afternoon. “You can rebuild a home. You can rebuild property. You cannot rebuild a life.”

Fish in the street and we are still hours from landfall. #Hermine

A video posted by ginger_zee (@ginger_zee) on Sep 1, 2016 at 3:15pm PDT

In coastal Franklin County, people on barrier islands and low-lying areas on the shore were being evacuated.

“Those on higher ground are stocking up and hunkering down,” said Pamela Brownlee, the county’s director of emergency management.

The last hurricane to make landfall in Florida was Wilma in 2005, the hurricane center said.

Towns, cities and counties were hastily preparing shelters for people and pets and placing electric line repair crews on standby ahead of the storm.

The storm was expected to affect many areas inland of the Gulf Coast. In Leon County, which includes the state capital of Tallahassee, more than 30,000 sandbags were distributed.

At Maximo Marina in St. Petersburg, Florida, dock master Joe Burgess watched anxiously as waters rose 6 inches (15 cm) over the dock at high tide on Thursday afternoon, before slowly receding.

“If we get hit with a real storm head on, all the provisions you can make aren’t going to matter out here,” he said, ready to use a chainsaw to cut beams on covered slips if rising water pushed boats dangerously close to the roof. “It’d be pretty catastrophic.”

HEAVY RAIN

On its current path, the storm also could dump as much as 10 inches (25 cm) of rain on coastal areas of Georgia, which was under a tropical storm watch, and the Carolinas. Forecasters warned of “life-threatening” floods and flash floods there.

Still, many people in Florida, whose population has swelled since the last hurricane struck, saw Hermine less as a threat than entertainment.

Manatees on the Bay, a restaurant and bar on the waterfront in the Tampa Bay region, was offering storm drink specials including beer and shots.

“We thought about doing a hurricane,” said owner Perry Murphree, referring to the name of a popular sweet cocktail. “But I don’t want to tempt fate.”

(Additional reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Laila Kearney in New York and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Bill Trott and Cynthia Osterman)

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LTC Premiums Rise For Government Workers

Millions of federal employees who have participated in the government’s long-term care (LTC) insurance are receiving notices of huge — and often unaffordable — premium increases on their policies.

John Hancock is the insurer for the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP). Like most long term care insurers, John Hancock vastly underestimated the potential cost of care, policy usage, the impact of increasing longevity and the possibility of today’s lower interest rates.

The federal premium increases are as high as 126 percent, with the average increase of 83 percent — or $111 in the monthly premium. Premiums were not increased for anyone over age 80. Still, federal employees and retirees are confused over the choices and angry at this unexpected hit to their budgets.

Noted long-term care insurance expert Phyllis Shelton has some advice. Her company, LTC Consultants, did the employee education for the FLTCIP when it was first offered in 2002. Now she is helping people plan for LTC at her website, GotLTCi.com.

If you’re facing a premium increase, what should you do? It’s a process of weighing the increased premiums against the potential benefits.

Shelton recommends looking at the Genworth Cost of Care chart for current assisted living costs, adding about $1,500 per month if you want a deluxe facility, and then projecting that number at 5 percent compound for 20 or 30 years, depending on the age you are today with a simple compound calculator.

Now that you have a ballpark idea of how much money care could cost when you need it, you can better assess a response to the options for dealing with the price increase. Here’s an example:

Mary is 54 years old. She is paying $96 per month in premiums for a policy that started with a $200 daily benefit and a five year benefit period with a 4 percent compound inflation protection. She has paid on this policy for 14 years — a total of $16,128 in paid premiums.

Now the federal program wants to increase her monthly premium to $216.96 per month, a 125 percent rate increase, which Mary cannot afford. They have given her some choices. It’s important to choose rationally, not out of anger at the huge monthly premium increase.

She should definitely NOT drop this policy by accepting their offer to stop paying premiums and just settle for care in the amount of the $16,128 she has already paid in. The only winner in this choice is the insurance company!

But if she can’t afford the premium increase, she has been given two other options:

Option 1: Reduce the inflation factor to 2.25 percent, which increases her premium to $156.48 — “only” a 63 percent increase.

Option 2: Reduce the inflation factor to 0.90 percent and keep her premium unchanged.

Option 1 will give her a daily benefit of $673 ($20,471 a month) in 25 years, whereas Option 2 will only give her $438 ($13,322 a month) at that time.

According to Shelton’s calculations, Option 1 means Mary’s premiums will total about $63,000 in 25 years, for what will now be $1,329,695 in benefits. It’s clearly worth it to pay the 63 percent rate increase, especially when you consider that she will need about $22,000 a month in 25 years to pay for a deluxe assisted living facility or significant home care.

Assuming Mary needed to start using care in 25 years, and she needed that care for five years, she would have paid in a total of $45,000 in premiums but would receive total benefits of $1,784,163 to pay for her care!

Another option to lower your premium is to shorten the benefit period. Choices are two, three or five years — probably enough coverage unless Alzheimer’s or stroke runs in your family.

Most important, don’t get angry and don’t act in haste if you’re in the FLTCIP and receive a premium increase. Shelton emphasizes that you aren’t limited to the choices in the rate increase letter. And that’s The Savage Truth.

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One Hurricane Misses Hawaii As Another Threatens

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HONOLULU ― After a near-miss with Hurricane Madeline, the Hawaiian Islands remain on high alert as another storm looms, potentially bringing hurricane conditions to the state over Labor Day weekend.

Hurricane Lester, a Category 2 storm, was about 680 miles east of Hilo and 875 miles east of Honolulu at 11 a.m. Thursday. A hurricane watch was in effect for the Big Island, as well as Maui County.

The storm continued to move west, and was predicted to weaken as it passes just north of the main Hawaiian islands on Saturday and Sunday, according to the Central Pacific Hurricane Center.

If Lester remains on its current track, forecasters predict potential hurricane winds, high surf and heavy rains for the islands. 

However, a minor change in Lester’s course could prove dire for the islands. “It would take only a small leftward shift in the track to directly and profoundly affect the state,” a Central Pacific Hurricane Center report reads.

Meanwhile, another storm is causing a major stir as it bears down on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Hurricane Hermine strengthened Thursday, with sustained winds reaching 75 mph. It is expected to make landfall late Thursday or early Friday, and would be the first hurricane to hit Florida in more than a decade.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency in 51 of the state’s 67 counties in advance of the storm, which he said could bring “life-threatening” conditions.

In order to stay safe during a major storm, follow National Weather Service hurricane safety guidelines: Prepare a disaster supply kit, have an evacuation plan and stay updated on current storm information.

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Dallas Police Chief Who Guided Force During Sniper Attack To Retire

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DALLAS – The Dallas Police chief who gained national prominence for his leadership after five officers were killed in a sniper attack during a protest march against police violence, unexpectedly announced his retirement on Thursday.

Chief David Brown, 55, said he would step down on Oct. 22 on his 56th birthday, after serving more than three decades as a police officer.

“Serving the citizens of Dallas in this noble profession has been both a true honor and a humbling experience,” Brown said in a statement, without explaining why he was retiring. “This is a difficult decision. I pray for your understanding and well wishes.”

Brown said he joined the Dallas Police Department in 1983 because of the effect of a crack cocaine epidemic on the Oak Cliff neighborhood in which he lived. “I wanted to be part of the solution,” he said.

In the thick of the July sniper attack, Dallas police made the unusual decision to use a bomb mounted on a robot to kill the gunman who was holed up inside a parking garage.

“Let’s always remember the fallen officers including the five officers on July 7, 2016, and the brave men and women of the Dallas Police Department for their sacrifices to keep Dallas safe,” Brown said.

“I know the people of Dallas will never forget the ultimate sacrifice they made on the streets of our city that awful night.”

The Dallas Police Department, which was struggling to recruit officers, reported a surge in applications after Brown urged citizens to get off protest lines and go to work in their neighborhoods as cops.

On Thursday, Mayor Mike Rawlings credited Brown with spearheading the largest reduction of crime in the city in decades and reducing the use of deadly force by police.

“Today is a bittersweet day for the city of Dallas,” Rawlings told reporters. “In the wake of the tragic shootings, the whole world learned what a special man leads our Dallas police.”

Brown had faced criticism from some officers who said he did not do enough for their welfare, from gun rights advocates over his opposition to legal open carrying of weapons by civilians, and from some residents of black communities who said he needed to do more to end racial bias in policing.

(Reporting by Lisa Maria Garza and Jon Herskovitz in Austin; Editing by Toni Reinhold)

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Democrats See Social Security As Edge In Tight Senate Races

If Donald Trump’s unpopularity is not enough to sweep them into office, Democrats in key Senate races are hoping Social Security expansion will do the trick.

Nine Democratic Senate candidates are campaigning on their support for increasing Social Security benefits: Sen. Michael Bennet in Colorado; Sen. Patty Murray in Washington; Kamala Harris in California; Russ Feingold in Wisconsin; Rep. Tammy Duckworth in Illinois; Ted Strickland in Ohio; Ann Kirkpatrick in Arizona; Deborah Ross in North Carolina; and Patty Judge in Iowa.

The widespread use of Social Security expansion as a campaign talking point in close Senate contests reflects the degree to which the politics of Social Security have changed in recent years.

Even if Democrats’ evolution on Social Security fails to win them control of the Senate, it is all but certain to achieve another progressive priority: ruling out a bipartisan budget deal to cut the program in the next Congress.

All of the candidates have been on the record about their views on the popular social insurance program. But the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, an online liberal group, solicited new statements from the candidates about why they back Social Security expansion and publicized them in a press release on Thursday.

“Years of progressive activism led to this moment,” PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor said in a statement touting the news. “With Hillary Clinton and Senate candidates campaigning on the expansion of Social Security benefits to keep up with the rising costs faced by our seniors, it’s clear that the center of gravity has shifted in the Democratic Party in a more populist direction.”

Some of the Democratic candidates campaigning on Social Security expansion ― like Judge and Kirkpatrick ― still face long odds in their battles to unseat Republican incumbents. Others in the cohort ― such as Harris and Bennet ― appear almost guaranteed to win.

But for candidates like Ross in North Carolina, who is trailing Burr by just 2 percentage points, according to HuffPost Pollster, an issue like Social Security could make a difference. 

And victories in just a handful of Senate contests could restore Democrats’ control of the upper chamber. As of late August, Democrats had a 55 percent chance of retaking the Senate come November, according to a HuffPost Pollster analysis. 

It is not hard to see why Democrats are at least partly pinning their hopes on Social Security. Unlike means-tested social programs often derided as handouts to undeserving people, Social Security enjoys strong support among Republicans as well as Democrats.

More than two-thirds of Republicans at least oppose cutting Social Security’s benefits, according to a Pew poll released in March.

Until recently, however, Democrats were more concerned that opposing Social Security cuts would make them seem like they were soft on debt. For many years, President Barack Obama doggedly sought a so-called Grand Bargain with Republicans that would have cut Social Security in exchange for revenue hikes. 

But an improving economy, which reduced deficits, and persistent progressive activism that framed Social Security benefits as inadequate for an impending retirement income crisis, led to a tidal change in the party’s view of the program.

Social Security will not be able to pay out all of its promised benefits by 2034 if nothing is done to address its long-term funding gap. Progressives support closing the gap through revenue increases, which they argue can also finance some benefit increases.

Conservatives favor closing the funding gap primarily through gradual benefit cuts.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton promised not to cut Social Security in February, saying instead that she supports expanding it. (Obama followed suit, embracing benefits expansion in a June speech.)

Republican standard-bearer Donald Trump has said he would not to cut the program.

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A Lot Of People Are Dying At This Understaffed Texas Jail

Harris County Jail, which serves the Houston area, is one of the largest jails in the country. Like many other jails in America, it’s full of people who are locked up on minor charges and can’t afford to pay bail, it struggles with understaffing, and it’s plagued by lawsuits

But here’s what makes Harris County Jail different: Inmates die there at a higher rate per capita than most other jails in the nation, according to a Huffington Post analysis of death data from July 13, 2015, to July 13, 2016.

The Harris County facility is about an hour from the jail where Sandra Bland was found hanging in July 2015. In the year after her death, at least 12 Harris County inmates died on the jail’s watch, a Huffington Post investigation found. (One of them suffered the fatal injury in custody, but was technically released by the time he died.) Most of the deaths were related to medical issues, as opposed to the results of assault or suicide.

The Harris County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the jail, did not address HuffPost’s requests for comment on this story by deadline.

Nationwide, more than 800 people lost their lives in jail in the year HuffPost studied. Many of those deaths occurred in the first few days of incarceration. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, which counts these fatalities, keeps most of its data to itself. Publicly released reports do not reveal the number of deaths at each facility, only the number of deaths in each state. So until HuffPost’s investigation, it was difficult to identify which jails may warrant additional scrutiny.

As of April, the inmate population of Harris County Jail was more than 9,000, and the facility has suffered from overcrowding. The jail is also understaffed. Overtime pay for staff has skyrocketed in the last two years, according to the Houston Chronicle. The jailers must sometimes work double shifts multiple days a week, which has made employee retention challenging. About 40 percent of staff have reportedly worked at the jail for two years or less.

“It’s not even just lack of staffing, it’s the high turnover rate,” Harris County Chief Public Defender Alex Bunin told HuffPost.

The starting salary for Harris County detention officers is about $34,000 a year. “They don’t make it a career. They treat it as a steppingstone to other work, but it’s basically treated as an entry-level job. It makes it a very hectic and scary place both to work in and to be housed in,” Bunin added. 

Adequate staffing is crucial to preventing jail deaths, because correctional officers are on the front lines watching inmates for signs of injury, illness or suicidal behavior and referring them for medical help.

“Whether you’re talking about jail deaths that result from violence or jail deaths that result from inmate suicide, these are things that can become a problem because of understaffing,” said Wallis Nader, a staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project.

On April 3, Patrick Brown was booked into the jail on allegations that he stole a guitar, a misdemeanor theft charge. His bail was set at $3,000, despite the fact that he had no violent criminal history, the Houston Press reported. Two days later, he was allegedly beaten to death by two other inmates, who were later charged with aggravated assault. In response to that case, the Harris County sheriff suggested that his staff is too stretched to watch the facility’s camera monitors at all times.

A lawsuit filed in April by the family of Patrick Green, another inmate who died last year, claims that guards ignored signs of the bacterial meningitis that killed him. Other inmates allegedly attempted to buzz for staff multiple times, then banged on the walls and held Green up to the glass to show how sick he was. When guards did finally show up, one “kicked Patrick four to five times in the right shoulder” before help was called, according to the lawsuit. (In a May court filing, Harris County acknowledged that Green died of meningitis, but denied the allegations.)

The county paid a $400,000 settlement last year to a mentally ill inmate who was left for weeks in a feces-clogged cell. After that lawsuit, more than two dozen employees were disciplined, including two who were charged with criminal conduct related to falsifying jail logs.

You may be in there with people that are violent or mentally ill or just sick. … You could lose your job if you miss it for a few days. You may have kids to take care of.
Alex Bunin, chief public defender for Harris County

The problems in the jail are exacerbated by the way the bail system works in Harris County. About 70 percent of the jail’s inmates are there because they cannot afford bail. Many individuals accused of low-level crimes await the resolution of their cases behind bars simply because they don’t have the money to purchase their freedom. The Houston Chronicle reported in December that 55 people had died while awaiting trial there since 2009, meaning that dozens of people who were still presumed innocent died in custody.

The county is currently facing a lawsuit filed on behalf of a 22-year-old mother who was jailed over an invalid driver’s license and kept incarcerated because she couldn’t afford the $2,500 bail. That lawsuit was filed by Equal Justice Under Law, a nonprofit that is challenging bail systems across the country.

In Harris County, magistrates setting bail for defendants rarely stray from a “bail schedule” that proposes certain amounts for various crimes. While each defendant is supposed to receive an individual assessment to determine his or her bail, that often doesn’t happen. Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman has said there is a “critical need” to address the bail practices in the county.

“You have two completely different justice systems,” Gerald Wheeler, former director of pretrial services for Harris County, told The Houston Chronicle. “One for the rich and one for the poor.”

Bunin, the chief public defender, said the system puts pressure on people to plead guilty to crimes just to get out of custody.

“You may be in there with people that are violent or mentally ill or just sick. If you’ve never been in that situation before, that would be very scary,” Bunin said. “If you’re a working person, you could lose your job if you miss it for a few days. You may have kids to take care of. You have so many worries about what is going on outside when you’re stuck in there.”

In the short term, at least, the county benefits from pressuring inmates into quick plea deals.

“The unspoken interest is that we have this very efficient system, and if you slow it down, dockets will get longer, it will be harder to process cases,” said Bunin. If more defendants declined to plead guilty, their cases would get “a longer look,” he added, and “maybe not move it so quickly.”

On a Friday evening in June, Christopher Hendricks went into the shower area of the medical detoxification unit at Harris County Jail and tried to kill himself. Hendricks had been booked four days earlier on a felony assault charge against a family member and held after he couldn’t post a $2,000 bond. Guards were able to restore his blood pressure, pulse and breathing, but Hendricks was later declared brain dead.

Jail experts largely agree that most jail suicides could be prevented if the proper procedures were in place, as HuffPost reported.

“We found out about him being in the hospital on Father’s Day,” said Tamara Moe, Hendricks’ sister. “They said they would discuss our options when we got there, so I knew it was not good.”

Told by doctors there was no chance his condition would improve, Hendricks’ family made the difficult decision to remove him from life support. They also agreed to donate his organs, as he had wished.

But first, his family said, representatives of the organ donation group told them that Harris County was blocking the procedure because Hendricks was still officially in custody. (Moe said that message never came directly from county officials.) Harris County told The Houston Press that the situation was resolved after lawyers for the family sent an emergency letter to county officials: Charges against the dying man were dropped, and his family was able to donate his organs.

Moe believes that Harris County wanted bail to be paid for her dying brother so that his death would not technically be in custody. 

Harris County inmates made 186 suicide attempts in 2015, according to county officials. As of June this year, the jail’s inmates had already tried to kill themselves at least 130 times. And this is not a new problem. The Justice Department noted in 2009 that the facility had “a number of conditions that are dangerous for suicidal detainees.”

In one case two years ago, an inmate committed suicide as two guards ate pizza and studied an online training course, skipping the 30-minute required checks. The Houston Chronicle found 35 instances over a number of years in which detention officers skipped cell checks and in some cases covered themselves by faking records.

Several lawsuits filed against Harris County suggest that the county ignored warning signs that inmates would attempt suicide. Jacqueline Smith sued on behalf of her son, Danarian Hawkins, who tried to kill himself at least six times in Harris County Jail.

“A lot of guys say they will kill themselves all the time,” commented one jail guard, according to the lawsuit. “We didn’t think that [Hawkins] was serious.”

So they allowed Hawkins to keep a bedsheet in his cell. He was found dead on Feb. 5, 2014. He had tied the sheet to a smoke detector and hung himself.

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Four Reasons Why Big Brands Hire Small Agencies.

When it comes to creative work, many people have the idea that a bigger agency is better. After all, the conventional wisdom says that with a big agency, you would have access to more resources. Big firms often have a long track record of winning some pretty impressive-sounding awards. And they have name recognition; the old saw “no one ever got fired for hiring IBM” could just as easily say BBDO or McCann when it comes to creative agencies.

Big brands often hire big agencies as their agency of record, but when it comes to making a big splash with specific projects, whether it’s a complete website redesign or smaller project, big brands don’t always go to the big dogs. They may look to a small agency to get the job done.

Could it be they know something the conventional wisdom doesn’t? The answer is yes. Here are four reasons big brands hire small agencies.

1) Small Agencies Innovate and Adapt: When it comes to agency work, creativity and innovation is the name of the game – and neither of those is limited to agencies with a big staff and a bloated budget. In fact, small agencies often get their start when creatives decide to blaze a trail, innovating new approaches to meet changing needs. Smaller agencies may not only be more willing to try new things, it is often their bread and butter.

2) Small Agencies Have Niche Specialization: Small agencies are called boutique agencies for a reason: they may not offer a wide range of services, but they are likely to have a very strong specialization in the services they do provide.

For instance, when it comes to graphic design you can seek out a big agency that handles all kinds of graphic design, or you could look for a boutique firm that specializes in the specific type of design you need, such as infographics.

Utah-based Avalaunch Media is one example of a small digital marketing agency that has developed a specialty in a very specific niche: creating infographics for big brands like GoPro, as well as Microsoft, Ski Utah, and others.

Infographics are a very effective way for big brands to convey messages on websites and social media; they’ve been shown to be 30 times as likely to be read as an article. But infographics are also a niche that not all designers do well. A small digital agency that “gets it” can be a better choice than a big firm that has name recognition but doesn’t have the skills to develop these kinds of graphics cost effectively.

3) No Bait and Switch: Big agencies charge big prices to do the same work that a smaller agency might be able to do just as well. Big agencies reel in new accounts with a list of prestigious names that will be working on the project, but once you’re on board it’s usually lower-level staff that will actually be doing the work.

Those famous creative gurus who convinced you to sign on with the agency? They’ll be providing “direction” and not much else. At a smaller agency, the organization tends to be pretty flat, so the team that you meet during the sales process is usually the team that will be doing the actual work.

4) Small Agencies Care More: It’s not about being touchy feely – if you want best results, work with an agency that is as invested in your results as you are. Your business represents a bigger percentage of overall revenue with a smaller agency, so it’s in their best interest to make sure you’re happy. At a big agency, results might be measured in terms of “did we win an award?” At a small agency, the question is more likely to be, “did it help our client’s business?”

The fact is, there are some pretty good reasons why a small agency is sometimes a better choice, even for the big brands. And the even better news? There are a huge number of small agencies to choose from: 68 percent of the approximately 50,000 advertising and public-relations services establishments in the U.S. employ no more than five workers. So next time you’re looking to get big results with your creative projects, think small!

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We’re one step closer to the Holodeck with this 20-camera 3D body capture setup

fraunhofer_holodeck Have you ever been in a VR conference call and thought, well, I know what everyone looks like from the front, but what about the other sides? The Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications has your back — and theirs. Researchers there have created a powerful multi-camera setup that captures every aspect of someone in 3D and dumps it straight into a VR experience. Read More

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