Author: Michael

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A Micro Validation of sCNN

Originally posted to sCNN – the smallChangeNewsNetwork

Tom Munnecke has posted his ideas on Micro Philanthropy at Omidyar.net, to get “more and more people discovering their own power to make good things happen” for several years. Notice that sCNN is already embodying what Tom is proposing.

Here are some goals:

  • Involving many more people in the philanthropic activity by efficiently supporting smaller interaction. Any act of giving has uplift value, not necessarily proportional to the size of a gift. An inner city impoverished mother in Chicago who can help a woman lift herself out of poverty in Nepal with $25 may find this far more personally rewarding than a rich donor giving $1 million to the same cause. Creating the opportunity for 40,000 people to help has a much greater net value to society.
  • Exploit the power of our network technology to allow greater interactivity and communication.
  • Develop a web of trust mechanism, by people and activities can thrive by “trustraising” as an alternative to today’s fundraising model.
  • Develop a continuous process by which we learn from our activities – successful or unsucessful. The more we uplift patterns we try, and the more we learn from their use, the smarter the network grows.
  • Create a scalable means of growing the network. Success should breed success. The more people participate in the process, the more valuable it becomes for everyone else in the network, and the greater our diversity and knowledge of what works.
  • Give people with limited time or resources the ability to feel that they are doing something to make the world a better place.
  • Focus on activities, not organizations, as the building blocks of the model. As we trying more and more activities and get feedback from what’s working, we are able to adapt our organizations to doing more of those activities.
  • Reward cooperation. If an organization successfully teams with another, that cooperation should attract more attention. In the current fundraising model, cooperation can damage the organization’s ability to attract resources.
  • Be self-organizing. Rather than having an authority controlling the allocation scheme, the community would self-organize around a social network model based on reputation.
  • Amplify people’s contributions The micro philanthropists contribute something themselves as a way of attracting attention to their chosen opportunities. Other funders amplify this contribution, empowering the individual donor as well as leveraging the overall effectiveness of the philanthropic network.

The basic premise of micro philanthropy will seem disruptive to the existing non-profit organizations which are based on the fundraising model. On the other hand, it will be liberating to those seeking innovative models of uplift, or who wish to participate more meaningfully in the philanthropic process than just writing checks in response to fundraising solicitations.

The process might also appear to be chaotic and out of control, letting a huge number of people make many small gifts. This situation is analogous to the beginning days of the web. Tim Berners-Lee created a chaotic mess of URLs with no search engine, experts to approve web content or control duplicate entries. Over time, however, search engines emerged… out of this “chaotic mess” emerged Google, which offers greater meaningful access than any previous library or classification scheme.

sCNN is an invitation to use the blogosphere as network, technorati.com as search engine, individual commitment to action and blog-based documentation as social capital, the aggregated wallets of all potential givers as social venture fund, inbound links as reputation points, and wide open self-organized, self-selected blogroll sharing, in order to focus more attention, energy and resources in the direction of activities and actors, instead of organizations.

Given Tom’s years of work on these ideas, I’m taking his list as a real validation of sCNN’s invitation to Micro Philanthropy. Question of the moment: Is it enough to invite the ideas or does sCNN need to be able to claim that $xyz have been donated because of postings here. Would it be enough simply to return our focus to human-scale, everyday giving here?

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Money and Power

Having spent a fair amount of time in the last few years in Canada and some other places that still put the Queen on their money, I’ve come to delight in the circle that goes like this: Why is the Queen on your money? Because she’s the Queen. Well why do you let her run your country? We don’t. Well why is she on your money? Because she’s the Queen. Does she have any power at all? No. Then why not take her off the money? Because she’s the Queen. Is the money hers? No. Well… you get the picture. The only good excuse I’ve ever heard for leaving her on is that “our young people can go study and work in the UK without any special visa requirements.”

Now this week comes the news that Charles is going to wed again. His announcement was reported on the first seven full pages of the one major newspaper that I saw that day. What would they have done for news if the announcement had come one day earlier or later? And what does all this have to do with Canada? Well this…

It seems there was some question about Canadian approval of the wedding or titles to be given as a result. According to the Toronto Star, the Constitution Act of 1867 makes the monarch Canada’s head of state, head of the executive branch of government and commander-in-chief of the military. Wow. No wonder she’s still on the money.

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A Call for Small Revolutions

Originally posted to sCNN – the smallChangeNewsNetwork

Lenore Ealy commented in an email this week on “the role of individual actors and organizations in a complex system,” quoting Michael Polanyi:

Whether his calling lies in literature or art, or in moral and social reform, even the most revolutionary mind must choose as his calling a small area of responsibility.

This does much to sum up the spirit and action of sCNN. Please send links to blogs about small revolutionary projects.

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Housekeeping

just finished up my housekeeping rotation at the Centre and it seems a little housekeeping is in order here, in the way of some observations about my best days…

  • i started out hoovering and cleaning from the mind of one who expected to do this one thing, the hoovering, the wiping, the stacking, the moving as if i would do it forever. this seemed to make more space for me to work.

  • i noticed that everything i did was quickly undone and i came to expect that, without minimizing the contribution and importance of doing it.

  • i noticed that nothing i did was really important, but i enjoyed it anyway.

  • i looked for extra things to do, things others needed, contributions that were outside the job description, things that i wanted to do and could do and offer in my own way. these, too, made more space for me to work.

  • i noticed the messes i made, the things i forgot to do, the things i avoided, and the things left half-finished in distraction. i noticed, too, the things that other did before i could get to them. this made more space for everybody.

  • i appreciated the compassion and kindness of the community here, which allowed me to notice that most often the pushing and pressure to do well or fast or right arises somewhere internally, in the comfort of my own mind.

  • i noticed that there is no way to finish the work here, only contribute and enjoy along the way. i have practiced letting my shoulders slide down and rest where they belong, hanging loosely at the bottom of my neck. i’ve practice jangling a bit as i bop around with bits of three or four or five different tasks in my hands at once.

  • i notice again the value and importance of care, connection, attention, space, compassion, mutuality, pulsation, contribution, offering, receiving, humor, laughing, leftovers, peanut butter, bran flakes, brown rice, fresh kale, broccoli, olive oil, red pepper and brie cheese, and dsl are to my well-being.

starting into a more stable scheduling routine as kitchen yogi (cook’s assistant) now, expecting more time for playing with jill, online projects, walking around the big city, and taking tea with friends of friends.

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A Small Change Project

Originally posted to sCNN – the smallChangeNewsNetwork

sCNN is envisioned as a more-or-less self-organizing network of weblogs, each one focused either on one project (Local News) , or a group of projects (Network News). This initiative by Aleah at Toronto Design bucks that model because it’s not a project blog, but a blogger’s project. Other than that, it’s very much fair game and deserves mentioning. Here’s her plan:

In the next 2 weeks I will be encouraging other business bloggers to do the following:

1. Contact a favorite charity
2. Conduct a short interview with one of the staff members and get the following information: Description of program work; What they believe their biggest limitations are to achieving their program goals; How they believe businesses can help (make sure they give a good list of ideas), etc.
3. Post the interview with your thoughts on how businesses and nonprofits can successfully work together to achieve a better community (in whatever way that manifests itself)
4. Notify me so I can link back to your findings

Thanks for the linking, Aleah!

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Ask Them About What They Know

Chris Corrigan reminded me of this the other day. A gem I’ve blogged before from his past (march 11th).

…Utah Phillips, the old anarchist folk singer, began perusing the bookshelves and was immediately struck by the huge number of books from the ultra conservative John Birch Society. His initial reaction was to ask himself what he was doing there, about to have a conversation with a man who was bound to feed him political babble that Phillips would find deeply offensive.

And then he caught himself and he realized that he wasn

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Make Poverty History

It’s a campaign and coalition being held up with the likes of the sufferage, abolitionist, and anti-apartheid movements that have already succeeded in much of the world. Today, it was Nelson Mandela in Trafalgar Square rallying a crowd of thousands to support fair trade, not free trade, just trade, not charity.

He was introduced to the cheering crowd as the President of the World and he joked about coming to speak here publicly after recently announcing his retirement from public life. In his short speech he suggested the willful and conscious continuation of the current state of extreme poverty for so many at the same time that some others live in extreme wealth is equivalent to a crime against humanity. That we have the means to end poverty and do not can never be acceptable.

The day was damp, gray, and chilly. A hard day to ignite crowds and a sedate crowd by my own American standards. And what are so many little people to do in the face of this story of about global trade and G8 meetings of national finance ministers, anyway?

The answer, the small change answer, was given by the guy who opened the day, I got there after he was introduced, so I don’t even know who he is. What he did was invite everyone to take out their mobile phones and text message Tony Blair. He called out the number and thousands of people punched it in and sent a message to “Make Poverty History.” Personally, I am reminded again that I need to understand better what some of these “free” and “fair” terms mean. I want to for myself what really makes sense for all of us, and within that, what I can actually do now.

The most exciting part of the day for me was riding my borrowed bicycle back home, negotiating a number of major roundabouts around the bridges that cross the Thames. My thanks to the bus driver and the truck driver… you guys know who you are… who were looking out for me! Maybe bicycling and looking out for each other, person-to-person, in everyday traffic is the best start.

Sir Bob Geldof, of rock and roll and Live Aid fame, introduced Nelson Mandela and made reference to centuries of gatherings in Trafalgar Square, of little people showing up, shouting out, linking arms and working for human rights. It seems that there is now the opportunity for a new kind of linking — of keyboards, blogs and people, signing on, posting it up, and blogrolling others. These small changes seem bound to make a world of difference.

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Make Poverty History

Originally posted to sCNN – the smallChangeNewsNetwork

It’s a campaign and coalition being held up with the likes of the sufferage, abolitionist, and anti-apartheid movements that have already succeeded in much of the world. Today, it was Nelson Mandela in Trafalgar Square rallying a crowd of thousands to support fair trade, not free trade, just trade, not charity.

He was introduced to the cheering crowd as the President of the World and he joked about coming to speak here publicly after recently announcing his retirement from public life. In his short speech he suggested the willful and conscious continuation of the current state of extreme poverty for so many at the same time that some others live in extreme wealth is equivalent to a crime against humanity. That we have the means to end poverty and do not can never be acceptable.

The day was damp, gray, and chilly. A hard day to ignite crowds and a sedate crowd by my own American standards. And what are so many little people to do in the face of this story of about global trade and G8 meetings of national finance ministers, anyway?

The answer, the small change answer, was given by the guy who opened the day, I got there after he was introduced, so I don’t even know who he is. What he did was invite everyone to take out their mobile phones and text message Tony Blair. He called out the number and thousands of people punched it in and sent a message to “Make Poverty History.” Personally, I am reminded again that I need to understand better what some of these “free” and “fair” terms mean. I want to for myself what really makes sense for all of us, and within that, what I can actually do now.

The most exciting part of the day for me was riding my borrowed bicycle back home, negotiating a number of major roundabouts around the bridges that cross the Thames. My thanks to the bus driver and the truck driver… you guys know who you are… who were looking out for me! Maybe bicycling and looking out for each other, person-to-person, in everyday traffic is the best start.

Sir Bob Geldof, of rock and roll and Live Aid fame, introduced Nelson Mandela and made reference to centuries of gatherings in Trafalgar Square, of little people showing up, shouting out, linking arms and working for human rights. It seems that there is now the opportunity for a new kind of linking — of keyboards, blogs and people, signing on, posting it up, and blogrolling others. These small changes seem bound to make a world of difference.

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Compassion and Kindness

We posted a new biography today, documenting the compassion and kindness of Julie Henderson, at the Zapchen Somatics website. See the doc for bibliothings and the rest of the story, but here’s a delicious little taste:

…It may be initially helpful to consider what compassion is not. For example, compassion is not pity, nor sympathy, or even empathy. There is a wide range of views about compassion and kindness. Some of these views are narrow and small and others expansive. An Australian dictionary defines compassion as “feelings of distress and pity for the suffering or misfortune of another.” A somewhat broader view is that of Feldman and Kornfield, who state that compassion “is a deep, heartfelt caring for the dignity, well-being and integrity of every single life in our world – from the smallest creature to the most powerful person.”

Lama Zopa Rinpoche, a Tibetan lama, alludes to “great compassion”, which is the “wish that all sentient beings might be free of all suffering and the resolve to bring this about ourselves.” Another well-known Tibetan Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinpoche, states that “compassion is not true compassion unless it is active.” Within the Tibetan Buddhist pantheon there are numerous Buddas of Compassion. For example, Chenrezig is a four-armed Buddha of Compassion with the six-syllable mantra

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What Do You Have?

Originally posted to sCNN – the smallChangeNewsNetwork

At this point, this whole idea is only six months old, and more than half of that time I’ve been out of the country. Good news is that I’ve been able to make connections that can make sCNN an international phenomenon. Bad news is that everything’s been moving more slowly than I’d like. Here’s what we have discovered, created, invested and received to date:

  • A Simple, Powerful Concept. The idea is to create an online Center for the Common Good, where active givers and gifted activists can enter into conversations that help small change(s) make a world of difference. The discovery is that we don’t need to control or capture your giving transactions, project information, or even your contact information. All we need is the URL to your project or network weblog, in order to grow a central and totally public/shared listing of weblogs associated with community-based, common good projects and organizations.
  • A Working Template and a lot of Free Services. The format that we’ve developed here can be quickly and easily applied in any community, organization, or network that wants to support wildly organic growth even while maintaining the kind of clarity and coherence required by major funders and other supporters. sCNN is built almost entirely on free services, so even though the template could be used very effectively by cash-rich corporations, it’s simple and free enough that any youth group can afford it.
  • A Good Name and a Good Look. Well, a lot of people seem to like it, anyway, which is important because we’d like to grow it into a bit of a brand name. in the course of developing the idea of a “giving market” we looked at a lot of what was out there already. we didn’t find anything quite like this, but we did notice that small changes, small gifts, small upticks, like in the stock market or sports scores, or even daily horoscopes, seemed to hold our interest more. we think small change has great potential to hold and leverage interest and attention. Stay tuned for a couple of buttons we’d like to start spreading around on supporting weblogs everywhere.
  • Blogrolled Links and Personal Connections. sCNN is linked and connected with active givers and gifted activists around the world. The conversations we have had about this idea specifically are starting to bear fruit in the various blogrolls. These developments are made possible by 15 years of personal and online facilitation, networking, contribution and development work, by partners who’ve given generously of their time and attention to work out the simplicity of the design, and by financial sponsors who have covered initial costs and pledged more giving in the future.
  • A Plan for Wide Open Public Access. We have the infrastructure in place, and again, it’s all running on free services that any corporation could replicate, any community organization can utilize and any youth group can afford. We’ll soon make open posting of project news, project support, and project blog urls possible via email, so that anyone who’s got something to give to this Center can get the attention they deserve.
  • A Mailing List. Occasionally, when something very good or very bad happens, we want to be able to invite all our members and friends to look up and join the conversation for a moment. We’d also like to be able to make quarterly reports to all members, friends and supporters. To join the list — which will never be shared with anyone, for any other purpose — mailto:smallchangenews@gmail.com. We will not send more than a handful of message each year.
  • An Invitation… Join Us! Membership is easy and self-organizing. Here’s what Members do: Read sCNN. Link to sCNN. Follow others’ links. Refer project and network blogs for the blogrolls. Surf the sCNN blogrolls. Make contributions of time, attention, expertise, contacts, funding, equipment and other needs — to sCNN or the projects linked from here. Make requests to support your project(s). Ask to be added to the sCNN project or network blogrolls. Post those rolls on your blog. Replicate the template in your organization. Help others find sCNN, make their own gifts, start their own blogs, and add their links…

And more than anything, we have the belief that the most powerful leadership position you can take is participation, in the flow, in community action, and in the blogosphere. We have a way to get connected, get support, get partners, and get things done. Now you have it, too.

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Vast Left-Click Conversation?

Finally got to spend a couple hours with Euan Semple yesterday at the BBC. Ping. Ping Ping PIng… Lookout here we come! Another dizzy-making batch of connectings.

How can two guys who’ve never met in person, and traded only a few short messages in a year and a half, be working on so much in common? Mileage may vary, dates and places are all different of course, but Euan and I, and the other bloggers I’m crossing paths with over here, are definitely all heading somewhere in common. In commons. Same shapes, one mind, real heart.

I can’t help but wonder what this vast embracing web of us is really up to. And can it be long now ’til something big (whatever that means) really clicks in? Chris mailed this morning to suggest that our 100bloggers chapter might focus on Conversation.

More and more this is looking like some sort of Vast Left-Click Conversation.

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Hoover Really Sucks ‘Em In

This is the funniest damned thing I’ve ever seen in a blog — a brand new comment to an months old posting. The good news is that I’m well on my way to having my 100bloggers contribution written! The bad news is I have to admit that my favorite posting in more than 18 months of blogging was written by somebody else! What do you think?

Found your site on the web because you mentioned “Hoovering.” My Hoover just went out. I know it is a faulty connection, because it went out repeatedly in my hands when I wiggled the wire to the switch. So, all I need to do is open it up and resecure the wire, right?

Well, the Hoover is plastic, so it snaps together, and I’ll be danged if I can’t get it open to at least look and see if I can see a loose connection. But noooooo. . . . .

The manual on the web shows how to snap it together, but does not show how to “unsnap” it. I bet I can lug this thing to a shop, and if they are not too busy, will charge me $50 for a simple screw tightening, but will have to wait two weeks (if they don’t forget about me) to justify the 50 buck charge!

So . . . . . . I had this brilliant idea after I realized that your blog site was not a Hoover repair site!

What if, . . . .

Someone turned their blog site into a repair chat room!!!

Somebody probably had the same problem and found a way around it. They would probably be willing to share it with others, just so that lazy repair man can’t rip off other unsuspecting blokes for 50 bucks or so.

Think of all the traffic it could generate. Think of the advertising royalties. Think of all the satisfied people.

The site would not have to be up-dated. New visitors would write of other ways to solve the problems. The old solutions could be archived “for ever” in case the new way wasn’t quite as good, or models changed, etc. The site would take care of itself. It is just a self generating chat room!

What do you think?

I think I’m laughing my arse off… and on a real practical level, this is exactly the shape of thing that sCNN is just now seeking to create, for a different kind of equipment. I feel the same way about wasting energy on 501c3 status as this guy feels about wasting money on hoover repairs!

As it turns out, just hours before this came in, I’d really run out of gas and started to doubt the whole sCNN process. In some crazy twisted way, going forward now makes just a wee bit more sense again. I’ve no idea where this came from, crazy old friend or crazy new, but it sure did the trick for me last night! Thanks!

UPDATE: checked the stats, and sure enough… I’m #2 on msn.com search for hoover repairs!

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Taking Care of Joy

Dan Oestreich on self-care and leadership today…

…am I living this joy today or have I covered it up in my search for accomplishment, in my devotion to my causes?

He continues on about responsibility, how it can take us outside of ourselves, away from ourselves. Alternatively, we take it too much into ourselves. The sensations show up for me as deflation and collapse, pressure and stiffness, grabbing or resisting.

Joy, on the other hand, is something that I find naturally arising, whenever I can come back to myself and restart the pulsation. I come back to a view that sees me and my surroundings, me and my job, me and my relationships, as simultaneous but distinct. Dan quotes Pema Chodron on the sensation of softening.

If I understand correctly, the choice to soften to the world lets the two, me and the rest of everything else, pull apart a bit, mind settles releases its grip. Body settles. Rest becomes possible. Muscles slacken. Tissues stretch. Fluids and joints move more freely. I embody the resiliences Dan’s stories illustrate. In mutuality terms, I let myself be as real to me as is everything arising outside of me, work, relationships, interests, all distractions.

This is related to why I’m about to turn down my fifth and sixth chances to move to a bigger cell here. I find that there is no room in this smallest cell for anything but me. The rest of the Centre stays outside. I am held closely, inside, and solidly, distinct.

My own habit in work is to make my field of awareness quite big. Sometimes I get wispy and thin in the middle. I sense the whole of this building complex, paying attention to everything a little and to myself almost nothing at all. Then I come back to my cell, and come back to myself.

I wonder now if that is the same effect as is provided by an internet connection. Distinct because distant, while wired still into the web? Joy as a binary pulse? Everybody wave.

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Cell Life

i posted this over in jill’s blog, but i like it so much that i wanted to put it here, too. a few more cell shots here in the PeaSoup Notebook.

I’ve got just three more days of working on the hospitality team, then i move into new role as kitchen yogi, aka cook’s assistant. that’s a steadier schedule that should allow more sleep in between meetings with people around london and working on scnn. I’m about halfway through my six-month tour of service here at jamyang.

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Aboriginal Youth in Open Space

Originally posted to sCNN – the smallChangeNewsNetwork

Chris Corrigan reporting in by email this morning…

Just coming off that great Prince George OST and here in Port Hardy for a weekend in the Kwagiulth big house with 50 or so Elders and youth, doing the same thing. We’re talking about a blog to link up with sCNN, so there will be news about that soon. Thanks for keeping the lights on for us.

My guess is that we get more than one blog out of this deal! It may start as one blog in the Local News project blogroll, but I’ve heard stories of these young people before. When they move, they don’t mess around. I’m betting on a Network News node in no time! Here’s a bit from Chris’ story… above…

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week I was privileged to work with the urban Aboriginal community of Prince George, a smaller city (80,000) in the northern interior of British Columbia. The UAS has been extended to this community now with a commitment to spend $500,000 over two years and, like we did in Vancouver five years ago, people wanted to use open space to kick it off.

Five years ago we did a good job, but we also learned something
important… more

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Life Work

Thanks to Karen who smacked this James Michener quote into a comment a few posts back…

As master in the art of living you draw no distinction between your work and your play, your labor and your leisure, your mind and your body, your education and your recreation, your love and your religion. You hardly know which is which. You simply pursue your vision of excellence through whatever you are doing and leave it to others to determine if you

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Omidyar Network Workspace

Originally posted to sCNN – the smallChangeNewsNetwork

There’s something messy but interesting happening at Omidyar.net. A number of other small versions of sCNN-like thinking. That’s heartening. And now there’s a brand new workspace for sCNN there too.

Omidyar membership is up to 4000+. It’s not an easy space to navigate, but there’s lots of stuff cooking there. Also not likely to go away, given the Omidyar (eBay founders) Foundation backing. Worth keeping an eye on, and getting involved as the organization continues to evolve. Looking forward to what the crowd there might have to suggest and add to sCNN.

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Beyond Words and Back Again

As I’m getting around to meet people here in London for the first time, I’m finding the best conversations simply defy memory. Or maybe mutuality defies memory.

It has been my habit, ability, or perhaps my failure, to walk away from conversations with a fairly detailed mental rendering of where we went and how we got there. Lately, however, I’ve been taking this time of meeting a number of new people, with little real agenda, to practice listening differently.

I’m paying more attention to where attention goes. Refining the pulsation between me and you. Coming back more often to check if I’m sitting in easy alignment. Pulsing too between personal interests and income opportunities, histories and plans, brain and base. Letting all of these things inform all the rest.

Sometimes I notice that I’m doing it all quite well, and other times I notice that I’m way off. I hope I’m noticing sooner than I used to. Along the way, I’ve been amazed at what I’m not able to recall, at least in words, at the close of these conversations. I get thrown off by moments of not knowing where we’ve been or might go, and then a path appears. We go on. The shape of all things just keeps unfolding.

Today’s conversation was with Andy Borrows, at the Crypt Cafe, beneath St. Martin-in-the-Fields parish, off Trafalgar Square. The sign upstairs on the church door declares it as “…a place of worship… a business… [and] a care organization…” What better place to have a mutuality conversation?

And true to my story, I can hardly remember where more than three hours went, but I did come away with real things to do next. Most exciting, we’ll be working together, with Chris Corrigan, on Chris’ chapter of the 100bloggers book project. And Andy’s got a headful of Open Space to fish around in with colleagues back at work. Looking forward to another round, too.

UPDATE: Andy’s version

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Choose Life?

Just before going on duty here this morn, I read this about Hillary Clinton’s speech on abortion rights. Later on, as I’m setting out cushions and pads in the shrine room here at Jamyang, in preparation for tonight’s teachings, over and over again my mind keeps returning to the moment of this story.

Hugely divisive issue. Common ground. Pro-Choice and Pro-Life. Common ground. Clinton. Common ground. Hmmm… could it be? No, I don’t mean resolution. And it’s not so much the issue, the person, or the politics, but something more or other, something in the twist of it all. Something in the moment. A new shape of mind? …a light? …a space? …a way on?

I can’t quite explain it, but something about the shape and moment of this story just sparkled a bit. Maybe it’s hope. Something in this mix makes mutuality seem more likely, on abortion and beyond. It is but a speck, and still mind plays it over and over.

Choice and Life need not be, and cannot be, separate and opposing. Hopeful, I suppose, because this moment turned up at the center of American politics. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em: Choose Life and Life Choices.

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