Serendipity Brings Music Lovers Together

"Music does bring people together... No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves: We are the same." - John Denver

Whereever you travel, through whatever country, people can always connect through the shared experience of enjoying music.  Everyday more and more people turn to online streaming services for their jams, creating a nexus point of musical diversity used the world over.  There are already ways to make online music a more communal experience, but this newest one is something else entirely.

"Even though listening to music can be a very private experience, I wanted to see how often this experience is shared.” - Kyle McDonald

Spotify, one of the largest music streaming services, recently unveiled a map, that shows when any two people around the world are listening to the same song at the same time (within 1/10th of a second of each other).  The map, named Serendipity, jumps from song to song showing the location of each of the listeners worldwide, and what they're listening to.  It also gives you the option to pause, stop and listen for a while. This project, based on real-time data was created by Spotify's first artist-in-residence, Kyle McDonald.  About the project, McDonald says “In person, it’s easy to see the features we share, or when we share stories in online discussions. But we’re also connected in more ephemeral ways, and we can extract these relationships with new tools. Even though listening to music can be a very private experience, I wanted to see how often this experience is shared.”

If you want to get connected with others through music,

check out Serendipity for yourself. 

Connect & Collaborate - Sex Trafficking Awareness

The most horrific crimes, involving women and children are being committed under a cover of normalcy and ignorance. Human trafficking and sex trafficking victims are exploited and abused here in Denver and very few of us will ever notice. It takes place within a dirty game of manipulation, where victims pose as the girlfriends of their abusers. An incredibly organized structure pits women against women. Many "someones" are making loads of filthy, tainted money from the abuse and tears of the innocent. Denver's position at the intersection of two major interstate highways makes it a major hub for sex trafficking. Victims are found and made within a day or two of a teenager running away from home, or the moment a parent coerces their own child to perform sex acts for money, just this one time. They're hidden in plain sight, where hotels, massage businesses, even restaurants and nail salons serve as fronts for sex trafficking rings.

This week, Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey returns to Connect & Collaborate to discuss the troubling problem of sex trafficking, the challenges of prosecuting the criminals and assisting the victims. He introduces us to Becky Bullard, Project Director for the Denver Anti-Trafficking Alliance (DATA) who explains the complications of removing victims from their captors and exploiters.

It's an uncomfortable topic, for certain. We at ICOSA hope that by listening to this interview, our audience will be better able to identify these kinds of situations, and report suspicious circumstances to save a life or simply release a child from this horror. DATA does not suggest any citizen take these situations into their own hands, or confront the abusers. If you see something suspicious, contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

Training is available for businesses and organizations that may confront the effects of trafficking, such as school teachers, truck drivers, or anyone who works with children. To request training, go to www.DenverAlliance.org and click on Resources.

We thank you for taking this information seriously, and for your heart to make our community safer for everyone.

To learn more, listen Saturday at 1:00PM on KNUS 710 –  Please let us know what you think of our program, either by commenting here or on Facebook at Connect & Collaborate with ICOSA or join the discussion on Twitter @ICOSAMagazine.

Who is at Fault? A Look at Incoterms®

Bid bond, standby letter of credit, performance bond, charter party bill of lading, conference vessel, Incoterm®, FOB

An exporter submitted a bid to supply soybeans for approximately $6.5 million to a buyer in the Middle East. To fulfill a condition often required in these transactions, the exporter had to post a bid bond equal to 2 percent of the bid amount, or about $130,000. Since the buyer in the Middle East agreed to accept a standby letter of credit in lieu of a bid bond, the exporter asked a bank to issue the standby letter of credit. The bank agreed, and the exporter received the contract.

The terms of the contract required the exporter to post a performance bond equal to 10 percent of the contract. Again, the bank issued a standby letter of credit, this time for $650,000.  The standby letter of credit was payable against the buyer’s statement that the exporter had failed to complete the transaction according to the terms of the contract.

The buyer, in turn, opened a letter of credit for $6.5 million to the exporter payable against a charter party bill of lading. A charter party bill of lading represents a bill of lading issued by a shipping company that contracts to ship the goods from point A to point B. The vessel does not have a schedule of ports or dates as a conference vessel does. In most cases, the chartered vessel carries only one shipment; in this case, filled with soybeans for the buyer.

The parties agreed to the Incoterm® FOB New Orleans. After shipment, the exporter presented the required documents and received payment of $6.5 million from the letter of credit. One month later the buyer demanded payment of $650,000 from the standby letter of credit (performance bond). He claimed the goods did not meet the specifications of the contract. Later, the seller discovered the goods had deteriorated in quality. The exporter denied responsibility because he claimed the goods met specifications at the time they arrived at the port, but deteriorated while in storage at the dock. The vessel, chartered by the buyer, arrived two weeks late. If the buyer had scheduled the vessel to arrive on the date agreed, the exporter argued, the goods would not have deteriorated.

Who was at fault? This is an example of the use of an Incoterm® which required the exporter to bear the responsibility of loading the goods (FOB) but no responsibility for contracting the vessel. Only after the intervention of a dedicated bank officer, who made a trip to the Middle East on behalf of the exporter, the buyer agreed to retract their demand for payment on the standby letter of credit.