Month: February 2019

There are times in everyone’s life when it’s impossible to get away, even to attend the funeral of a person who was very important to you. Work obligations, family needs, or financial pressures might prevent you from traveling to a funeral at a distant location. Increasingly, funeral directors are offering webcasts of funeral services to make the proceedings accessible to anyone who can’t be there in person.

Using one or more cameras mounted strategically in the funeral chapel, a funeral director controls the webcast using computer software, usually on a laptop reserved especially for the purpose. The funeral service is streamed online in real time, letting anyone watch and hear the entire event.

After the service, the video is kept online for up to a year, or even longer. The funeral director, in consultation with the family, decides how long the video will be available.

Although funeral webcasts can be left open to anyone, they are usually restricted for privacy. Family members can choose to set up the funeral website with password protection, requiring anyone who wishes to see the service to enter the pre-determined password. They can keep the password protection in place during the entire time that the video is accessible online.

Families can also decide who to notify before the funeral takes place, usually via an email message system. This gives the family another layer of privacy, ensuring that their very personal event is open only to those they’ve chosen to notify. This practice isn’t …

Funeral Webcasting Allows Closure Read More

The other day, I was speaking with a thought leader from South Africa working with the schools and promoting the future of innovation with the goal of fostering business entrepreneurship to allow South Africa to meet the demands needed for the 21st Century. One thing that I find interesting here in the United States is that when we talk about energy innovation everyone assumes that we are talking about solar technologies or better wind turbines. They never seem to consider the traditional energy industry and all the technological advances being made there, such as fracking.

There was an interesting article in the ‘corporate news’ section of the Wall Street Journal on December 17, 2012 titled; “Chevron Enters Shale Hunt in South Africa – Company’s Decision Comes as Temporary Ban on Exploration Is Lifted in a Country Estimated to Hold Large Reserves,” by Devon Maylie and Alexis Flynn which noted that South Africa has the 5th largest estimated reserves using the new fracking technologies – maybe more.

Believe me when I tell you that as more fracking is going on around the world to get out gas and oil, there will be new methods, and even more efficient technologies introduced. In fact, it is happening now. If South Africa and other countries continue to develop safer environmental strategies for fracking, and more efficient ways to get at that oil and gas, then we can have the best of all worlds. You see, shale fracking technology is real energy innovation, …

Shale Fracking Technology Is Real Energy Innovation – But Some Don’t See It That Way Read More