With twenty-plus years of experience editing everything from marking proposals and website prose for numerous businesses, NGOs and non-profits, I can be trusted to eliminate overused phrases and fix awkward sentences — so whatever you are writing catches the reader’s eye.

SAMPLE business article Before EDITING

For decades all laws in Middle East and North Africa region have been designed to protect the interests of state-owned enterprises and merchant families, who, in turn, have benefited from such privileges to build large conglomerates by serving as the partners or sole distributors for foreign firms.

Typical limitations ranged from stringent foreign ownership restrictions (and even greater restrictions in equity and real estate markets) to prohibitively high minimum capital requirements and local production rules and licensing processes that were built to serve as further barriers for foreign direct investment.

However the sudden decrease in oil prices in 2014 resulted in a sea change in attitude, and the MENA region (and especially the Gulf countries) started to rethink the role of foreign direct investments as a means to ease fiscal burdens and restructure local economies.

What has happened since then across the key economies of the region is nothing short of an economic revolution; which is not getting the right level of attention globally. A series of new investment and companies laws have been put in place updating decades-old legislation. Reforms range from strengthening rights of minority investors to facilitating insolvency resolution, tax reform, facilitating access to credit, and simplifying business creation as well as changes to capital market rules to name a few.

SAMPLE Business Article After EDITING

Until quite recently the barriers to investing in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region were effectively insurmountable. Most attempts to break into the marketplace were thwarted by decades-old laws specifically designed to protect and entrench the interests of state-owned enterprises and merchant families.

Foreign investors who managed to identify potential footholds faced the further impediments of prohibitively high minimum capital requirements combined with stringent ownership restrictions that limited their stake in companies. Local production rules and licensing processes were designed to serve as an additional set of obstacles to frustrate direct foreign investment.

All these factors allowed the state-owned enterprises and merchant families to build large uncontested conglomerates and serve as the partners or sole distributors for foreign firms.

But in 2014 the sudden and unexpected decrease in oil prices resulted in a sea change in attitudes towards foreign investment in the MENA region. The Gulf countries in particular began to rethink the role foreign direct investments could play as a means to ease fiscal burdens and restructure local economies.

In the five years since what has happened across the region has been nothing short of an economic revolution. Legislation that favored local interests has been repealed and, in its place, progressive investment and corporate ownership laws have taken root. A broad suite of reforms have been instituted regarding capital market rules that also strengthen the rights of minority investors.

In addition a host of stumbling blocks that were once deterrents to foreign investment have been addressed. Access to credit has been eased along with changes to insolvency resolution, making the marketplace more hospitable to overseas money. Business creation has been simplified as well as an overhaul of the tax code to encourage investment at a variety of scales.

Indeed, the only thing that has not changed is the attitude of foreign investors towards MENA. While the transformation in the region has been neglected in the press, resulting in a lack of attention globally, that indifference has also resulted in a rich array of opportunities for serious investors to consider.

Sample WHITE Paper copy

Solving The Non-Dairy Milk Puzzle

The dramatic growth in non-dairy plant-based drinks has taken America by storm. Whether milk substitutes like almond, rice or oat or drinks based on soy or even pea protein, non-dairy beverages are now on the menu and sought after by consumers. But these alternatives pose challenges to manufacturers, as they don’t offer the same nutritional value as cow’s milk. Non-dairy alternatives fall short when it comes to their protein content when compared to the nutritional profile of traditional dairy products, while relying on excessive amounts of sugar to mask their natural taste.

But the challenges don’t end there. Non-dairy milk alternatives too often don’t mimic other important properties of traditional dairy products like foamability and mouthfeel. They also quickly separate in mixtures or curdle when added, creating unsightly and unappetizing drinks. All these factors pose crucial challenges to the growth and expansion of the non-dairy sector.

So how can you solve all these challenges and close the gap with cow’s milk?

Enzymes as the Solution for Non-Dairy Alternatives

In response to the challenges facing non-dairy milk alternatives, Amano has developed an array of enzyme solutions that enhance the nutritional content of non-dairy milks while addressing formulation issues:

· Enzymes improve protein solubility at low pH to increase protein content in non-dairy alternatives

· They unlock complex sugars while optimizing the natural sweetness in wholesome plant-based ingredients

· Enzymes also boost foamability and emulsification, increasing the solubility and stability while creating a smooth, delectable mouthfeel

The result is non-dairy milks with enhanced nutritional and functional profiles that complement a wide range of applications.

Sample WEBsite copy

The goal of the BigTest Project is to miniaturize the testing feedback loop while at the same time expanding the size of the system it can test.

Fast and Smart

The length of the testing feedback loop is not determined by just how fast the test can report whether it succeeds or fails. Of course a test that can validate 100 changes in a 24-hour period has 10 times the throughput as a project that can only validate 10. But the critically important aspect of the speed of the testing feedback loop is how quickly and accurately you are able to understand why a test failed. A test that takes only 5 milliseconds to run but fails with an error message so inscrutable that it takes a further 90 minutes to figure out why is in fact excruciatingly slow. In order to make testing feedback loops as short as possible, BigTest components run quickly and provide failures that are precise and helpful.

Size = Value

A test that is both fast and precise is not enough; it has to measure something of value as well. That’s not to say a React component rendering its props correctly isn’t critical; it’s just that a truly useful test would also test the component used in a workflow that correctly transfers money from one user account to another. At Google they’ve come to the realization that "unit test," "functional test" and "end-to-end test" are arbitrary designations and what really matters is the relative size of a test. The larger a test, the more systems it integrates and thus the more business value it protects. The only hitch of course is that test size is in direct conflict with feedback loop speed.

The BigTest project approaches every piece of its platform from the perspective of empowering development teams to master this tension and optimize testing feedback loops within the context of truly valuable tests.