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William Zahner, Understanding the Role of Language in Math Classrooms ROUNDING UP: SEASON 3 | EPISODE 17 How can educators understand the relationship between language and the mathematical concepts and skills students engage with in their classrooms? And how might educators think about the mathematical demands and the language demands of tasks when planning their instruction?  In this episode, we discuss these questions with Bill Zahner, director of the Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education at San Diego State University. BIOGRAPHY Bill Zahner is a professor in the mathematics department at San Diego State University and the director of the Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education. Zahner's research is focused on improving mathematics learning for all students, especially multilingual students who are classified as English Learners and students from historically marginalized communities that are underrepresented in STEM fields. RESOURCES Teaching Math to Multilingual Learners, Grades K–8 by Kathryn B. Chval, Erin Smith, Lina Trigos-Carrillo, and Rachel J. Pinnow National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK– 12 English Learners Success Forum SDSU-ELSF Video Cases for Professional Development The Math Learning Center materials Bridges in Mathematics curriculum Bridges in Mathematics Teachers Guides [BES login required] TRANSCRIPT Mike Wallus: How can educators understand the way that language interacts with the mathematical concepts and skills their students are learning? And how can educators focus on the mathematics of a task without losing sight of its language demands as their planning for instruction? We'll examine these topics with our guest, Bill Zahner, director of the Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education at San Diego State University.  Welcome to the podcast, Bill. Thank you for joining us today. Bill Zahner: Oh, thanks. I'm glad to be here. Mike: So, I'd like to start by asking you to address a few ideas that often surface in conversations around multilingual learners and mathematics. The first is the notion that math is universal, and it's detached from language. What, if anything, is wrong with this idea and what impact might an idea like that have on the ways that we try to support multilingual learners? Bill: Yeah, thanks for that. That's a great question because I think we have a common-sense and strongly held idea that math is math no matter where you are and who you are. And of course, the example that's always given is something like 2 plus 2 equals 4, no matter who you are or where you are. And that is true, I guess [in] the sense that 2 plus 2 is 4, unless you're in base 3 or something. But that is not necessarily what mathematics in its fullness is. And when we think about what mathematics broadly is, mathematics is a way of thinking and a way of reasoning and a way of using various tools to make sense of the world or to engage with those tools [in] their own right. And oftentimes, that is deeply embedded with language.  Probably the most straightforward example is anytime I ask someone to justify or explain what they're thinking in mathematics. I'm immediately bringing in language into that case. And we all know the old funny examples where a kid is asked to show their thinking and they draw a diagram of themselves with a thought bubble on a math problem. And that's a really good case where I think a teacher can say, “OK, clearly that was not what I had in mind when I said, ‘Show your thinking.'”  And instead, the demand or the request was for a student to show their reasoning or their thought process, typically in words or in a combination of words and pictures and equations. And so, there's where I see this idea that math is detached from language is something of a myth; that there's actually a lot of [language in] mathematics. And the interesting part of mathematics is often deeply entwined with language. So, that's my first response and thought about that.  And if you look at our Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, especially those standards for mathematical practice, you see all sorts of connections to communication and to language interspersed throughout those standards. So, “create viable arguments,” that's a language practice. And even “attend to precision,” which most of us tend to think of as, “round appropriately.” But when you actually read the standard itself, it's really about mathematical communication and definitions and using those definitions with precision. So again, that's an example, bringing it right back into the school mathematics domain where language and mathematics are somewhat inseparable from my perspective here. Mike: That's really helpful. So, the second idea that I often hear is, “The best way to support multilingual learners is by focusing on facts or procedures,” and that language comes later, for lack of a better way of saying it. And it seems like this is connected to that first notion, but I wanted to ask the question again: What, if anything, is wrong with this idea that a focus on facts or procedures with language coming after the fact? What impact do you suspect that that would have on the way that we support multilingual learners? Bill: So, that's a great question, too, because there's a grain of truth, right? Both of these questions have simultaneously a grain of truth and simultaneously a fundamental problem in them. So, the grain of truth—and an experience that I've heard from many folks who learned mathematics in a second language—was that they felt more competent in mathematics than they did in say, a literature class, where the only activity was engaging with texts or engaging with words because there was a connection to the numbers and to symbols that were familiar. So, on one level, I think that this idea of focusing on facts or procedures comes out of this observation that sometimes an emergent multilingual student feels most comfortable in that context, in that setting.  But then the second part of the answer goes back to this first idea that really what we're trying to teach students in school mathematics now is not simply, or only, how to apply procedures to really big numbers or to know your times tables fast. I think we have a much more ambitious goal when it comes to teaching and learning mathematics. That includes explaining, justifying, modeling, using mathematics to analyze the world and so on. And so, those practices are deeply tied with language and deeply tied with using communication. And so, if we want to develop those, well, the best way to do that is to develop them, to think about, “What are the scaffolds? What are the supports that we need to integrate into our lessons or into our designs to make that possible?”  And so, that might be the takeaway there, is that if you simply look at mathematics as calculations, then this could be true. But I think our vision of mathematics is much broader than that, and that's where I see this potential. Mike: That's really clarifying. I think the way that you unpack that is if you view mathematics as simply a set of procedures or calculations, maybe? But I would agree with you. What we want for students is actually so much more than that.  One of the things that I heard you say when we were preparing for this interview is that at the elementary level, learning mathematics is a deeply social endeavor. Tell us a little bit about what you mean by that, Bill. Bill: Sure. So, mathematics itself, maybe as a premise, is a social activity. It's created by humans as a way of engaging with the world and a way of reasoning. So, the learning of mathematics is also social in the sense that we're giving students an introduction to this way of engaging in the world. Using numbers and quantities and shapes in order to make sense of our environment.  And when I think about learning mathematics, I think that we are not simply downloading knowledge and sticking it into our heads. And in the modern day where artificial intelligence and computers can do almost every calculation that we can imagine—although your AI may do it incorrectly, just as a fair warning [laughs]—but in the modern day, the actual answer is not what we're so focused on. It's actually the process and the reasoning and the modeling and justification of those choices. And so, when I think about learning mathematics as learning to use these language tools, learning to use these ways of communication, how do we learn to communicate? We learn to communicate by engaging with other people, by engaging with the ideas and the minds and the feelings and so on of the folks around us, whether it's the teacher and the student, the student and the student, the whole class and the teacher. That's where I really see the power. And most of us who have learned, I think can attest to the fact that even when we're engaging with a text, really fundamentally we're engaging with something that was created by somebody else. So, fundamentally, even when you're sitting by yourself doing a math word problem or doing calculations, someone has given that to you and you think that that's important enough to do, right?  So, from that stance, I see all of teaching and learning mathematics is social. And maybe one of our goals in mathematics classrooms, beyond memorizing the times tables, is learning to communicate with other people, learning to be participants in this activity with other folks. Mike: One of the things that strikes me about what you were saying, Bill, is there's this kind of virtuous cycle, right? That by engaging with language and having the social aspect of it, you're actually also deepening the opportunity for students to make sense of the math. You're building the scaffolds that help kids communicate their ideas as opposed to removing or stripping out the language. That's the context in some ways that helps them filter and make sense. You could either be in a vicious cycle, which comes from removing the language, or a virtuous cycle. And it seems a little counterintuitive because I think people perceive language as the thing that is holding kids back as opposed to the thing that might actually help them move forward and make sense. Bill: Yeah. And actually that's one of the really interesting pieces that we've looked at in my research and the broader research is this question of, “What makes mathematics linguistically complex?” is a complicated question. And so sometimes we think of things like looking at the word count as a way to say, “If there are fewer words, it's less complex, and if there are more words, it's more complex.” But that's not totally true. And similarly, “If there's no context, it's easier or more accessible, and if there is a context, then it's less accessible.”  And I don't see these as binary choices. I see these as happening on a somewhat complicated terrain where we want to think about, “How do these words or these contexts add to student understanding or potentially impede [it]?” And that's where I think this social aspect of learning mathematics—as you described, it could be a virtuous cycle so that we can use language in order to engage in the process of learning language. Or, the vicious cycle is, you withhold all language and then get frustrated when students can't apply their mathematics. That's maybe the most stereotypical answer: “My kids can do this, but as soon as they get a word problem, they can't do it.” And it's like, “Well, did you give them opportunities to learn how to do this? [laughs] Or is this the first time?” Because that would explain a lot. Mike: Well, it's an interesting question, too, because I think what sits behind that in some ways is the idea that you're kind of going to reach a point, or students might reach a point, where they're “ready” for word problems.  Bill: Right. Mike: And I think what we're really saying is it's actually through engaging with word problems that you build your proficiency, your skillset that actually allows you to become a stronger mathematician. Bill: Mm-hmm. Right. Exactly. And it's a daily practice, right? It's not something that you just hold off to the end of the unit, and then you have the word problems, but it's part of the process of learning. And thinking about how you integrate and support that. That's the key question that I really wrestle with. Not trivial, but I think that's the key and the most important part of this. Mike: Well, I think that's actually a really good segue because I wanted to shift and talk about some of the concrete or productive ways that educators can support multilingual learners. And in preparing for this conversation, one of the things that I've heard you stress is this notion of a consistent context. So, can you just talk a little bit more about what you mean by that and how educators can use that when they're looking at their lessons or when they're writing lessons or looking at the curriculum that they're using? Bill: Absolutely. So, in our past work, we engaged in some cycles of design research with teachers looking at their mathematics curriculum and opportunities to engage multilingual learners in communication and reasoning in the classroom. And one of the surprising things that we found—just by looking at a couple of standard textbooks—was a surprising number of contexts were introduced that are all related to the same concept. So, the concept would be something like rate of change or ratio, and then the contexts, there would be a half dozen of them in the same section of the book. Now, this was, I should say, at a secondary level, so not quite where most of the Bridges work is happening. But I think it's an interesting lesson for us that we took away from this. Actually, at the elementary level, Kathryn Chval has made the same observation.  What we realized was that contexts are not good or bad by themselves. In fact, they can be highly supportive of student reasoning or they can get in the way. And it's how they are used and introduced. And so, the other way we thought about this was: When you introduce a context, you want to make sure that that context is one that you give sufficient time for the students to understand and to engage with; that is relatable, that everyone has access to it; not something that's just completely unrelated to students' experiences. And then you can really leverage that relatable, understandable context for multiple problems and iterations and opportunities to go deeper and deeper.  To give a concrete example of that, when we were looking at this ratio and rate of change, we went all the way back to one of the fundamental contexts that's been studied for a long time, which is motion and speed and distance and time. And that seemed like a really important topic because we know that that starts all the way back in elementary school and continues through college-level physics and beyond. So, it was a rich context. It was also something that was accessible in the sense that we could do things like act out story problems or reenact a race that's described in a story problem. And so, the students themselves had access to the context in a deep way.  And then, last, that context was one that we could come back to again and again, so we could do variations [of] that context on that story. And I think there's lots of examples of materials out there that start off with a core context and build it out. I'm thinking of some of the Bridges materials, even on the counting and the multiplication. I think there's stories of the insects and their legs and wings and counting and multiplying. And that's a really nice example of—it's accessible, you can go find insects almost anywhere you are. Kids like it. [Laughs] They enjoy thinking about insects and other icky, creepy-crawly things. And then you can take that and run with it in lots of different ways, right? Counting, multiplication, division ratio, and so on. Mike: This last bit of our conversation has me thinking about what it might look like to plan a lesson for a class or a group of multilingual learners. And I know that it's important that I think about mathematical demands as well as the language demands of a given task. Can you unpack why it's important to set math and language development learning goals for a task, or a set of tasks, and what are the opportunities that come along with that, if I'm thinking about both of those things during my planning? Bill: Yeah, that's a great question. And I want to mark the shift, right? We've gone from thinking about the demands to thinking about the goals, and where we're going to go next.  And so, when I think about integrating mathematical goals—mathematical learning goals and language learning goals—I often go back to these ideas that we call the practices, or these standards that are about how you engage in mathematics. And then I think about linking those back to the content itself. And so, there's kind of a two-piece element to that. And so, when we're setting our goals and lesson planning, at least here in the great state of California, sometimes we'll have these templates that have, “What standard are you addressing?,” [Laughs] “What language standard are you addressing?,” “What ELD standard are you addressing?,” “What SEL standard are you addressing?” And I've seen sometimes teachers approach that as a checkbox, right? Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. But I see that as a missed opportunity—if you just look at this like you're plugging things in—because as we started with talking about how learning mathematics is deeply social and integrated with language, that we can integrate the mathematical goals and the language goals in a lesson. And I think really good materials should be suggesting that to the teacher. You shouldn't be doing this yourself every day from scratch. But I think really high-quality materials will say, “Here's the mathematical goal, and here's an associated language goal,” whether it's productive or receptive functions of language. “And here's how the language goal connects the mathematical goal.”  Now, just to get really concrete, if we're talking about an example of reasoning with ratios—so I was going back to that—then it might be generalized, the relationship between distance and time. And that the ratio of distance and time gives you this quantity called speed, and that different combinations of distance and time can lead to the same speed. And so, explain and justify and show using words, pictures, diagrams. So, that would be a language goal, but it's also very much a mathematical goal.  And I guess I see the mathematical content, the practices, and the language really braided together in these goals. And that I think is the ideal, and at least from our work, has been most powerful and productive for students. Mike: This is off script, but I'm going to ask it, and you can pass if you want to.  Bill: Mm-hmm. Mike: I wonder if you could just share a little bit about what the impact of those [kinds] of practices that you described [have been]—have you seen what that impact looks like? Either for an educator who has made the step and is doing that integration or for students who are in a classroom where an educator is purposely thinking about that level of integration? Bill: Yeah, I can talk a little bit about that. In our research, we have tried to measure the effects of some of these efforts. It is a difficult thing to measure because it's not just a simple true-false test question type of thing that you can give a multiple-choice test for.  But one of the ways that we've looked for the impact [of] these types of intentional designs is by looking at patterns of student participation in classroom discussions and seeing who is accessing the floor of the discussion and how. And then looking at other results, like giving an assessment, but deeper than looking at the outcome, the binary correct versus incorrect. Also looking at the quality of the explanation that's provided. So, how [do] you justify an answer? Does the student provide a deeper or a more mathematically complete explanation?  That is an area where I think more investigation is needed, and it's also very hard to vary systematically. So, from a research perspective—you may not want to put this into the final version [laughs]—but from a research perspective, it's very hard to fix and isolate these things because they are integrated. Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Bill: Because language and mathematics are so deeply integrated that trying to fix everything and do this—“What caused this water to taste like water? Was it the hydrogen or the oxygen?”—well, [laughs] you can't really pull those apart, right? The water molecule is hydrogen and oxygen together. Mike: I think that's a lovely analogy for what we were talking about with mathematical goals and language goals. That, I think, is really a helpful way to think about the extent to which they're intertwined with one another. Bill: Yeah, I need to give full credit to Vygotsky, I think, who said that. Mike: You're— Bill: Something. Might be Vygotsky. I'll need to check my notes. Mike: I think you're in good company if you're quoting Vygotsky.  Before we close, I'd love to just ask you a bit about resources. I say this often on the podcast. We have 20 to 25 minutes to dig deeply into an idea, and I know people who are listening often think about, “Where do I go from here?” Are there any particular resources that you would suggest for someone who wanted to continue learning about what it is to support multilingual learners in a math classroom? Bill: Sure. Happy to share that.  So, I think on the individual and collective level—so, say, a group of teachers—there's a beautiful book by Kathryn Chval and her colleagues [Teaching Math to Multilingual Learners, Grades K–8] about supporting multilingual learners and mathematics. And I really see that as a valuable resource. I've used that in reading groups with teachers and used that in book studies, and it's been very productive and powerful for us. Beyond that, of course, I think the NCTM [National Council of Teachers of Mathematics] provides a number of really useful resources. And there are articles, for example, in the [NCTM journal] Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PK– 12 that could make for a really wonderful study or opportunity to engage more deeply.  And then I would say on a broader perspective, I've worked with organizations like the English Learners Success Forum and others. We've done some case studies and little classroom studies that are accessible on my website [SDSU-ELSF Video Cases for Professional Development], so you can go to that. But there's also from that organization some really valuable insights, if you're looking at adopting new materials or evaluating things, that gives you a principled set of guidelines to follow. And I think that's really helpful for educators because we don't have to do this all on our own. This is not a “reinvent the wheel at every single site” kind of situation. And so, I always encourage people to look for those resources.  And of course, I will say that the MLC materials, the Bridges in Mathematics [curriculum], I think have been really beautifully designed with a lot of these principles right behind them. So, for example, if you look through the Teachers Guides on the Bridges in Mathematics [BES login required], those integrated math and language and practice goals are a part of the design. Mike: Well, I think that's a great place to stop. Thank you so much for joining us, Bill. This has been insightful, and it's really been a pleasure talking with you. Bill: Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate it. Mike: And that's a wrap for Season 3 of Rounding Up. I want to thank all of our guests and the MLC staff who make these podcasts possible, as well as all of our listeners for tuning in. Have a great summer, and we'll be back in September for Season 4.  This podcast is brought to you by The Math Learning Center and the Maier Math Foundation, dedicated to inspiring and enabling all individuals to discover and develop their mathematical confidence and ability. © 2025 The Math Learning Center | www.mathlearningcenter.org  

In this special episode of the Oracle University Podcast, hosts Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham dive into Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications and the new courses and certifications on offer. They are joined by Oracle Fusion Apps experts Patrick McBride and Bill Lawson who introduce the concept of Oracle Modern Best Practice (OMBP), explaining how it helps organizations maximize results by mapping Fusion Application features to daily business processes. They also discuss how the new courses educate learners on OMBP and its role in improving Fusion Cloud Apps implementations.   OMBP: https://www.oracle.com/applications/modern-best-practice/ Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ X: https://x.com/Oracle_Edu   Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.   ---------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:   00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started! 00:25 Nikita: Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast! I'm Nikita Abraham, Team Lead of Editorial Services with Oracle University, and with me is Lois Houston, Director of Innovation Programs.  Lois: Hi everyone! For the last two months, we've been focusing on all things MySQL. But today, we wanted to share some really exciting news about new courses and certifications on Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications that feature Oracle Modern Best Practice, or OMBP, and Oracle Cloud Success Navigator.  00:57 Nikita: And to tell us more about this, we have two very special guests joining us today. Patrick McBride is a Senior Director from the Fusion Application Development organization. He leads the Oracle Modern Best Practice Program office for Oracle. And Bill Lawson is a Senior Director for Cloud Applications Product Management here at Oracle University. We'll first ask Patrick about Oracle Modern Best Practice and then move on to Bill for details about the new training and certification we're offering. Patrick, Bill, thanks for being here today.   Patrick: Hey, Niki and Lois, thanks for the invitation. Happy to be here.  Bill: Hi Niki, Lois. 01:32 Lois: Patrick, let's start with some basic information about what OMBP are. Can you tell us a little about why they were created? Patrick: Sure, love to. So, modern best practices are more than just a business process. They're really about translating features and technology into actionable capabilities in our product. So, we've created these by curating industry leading best practices we've collected from our customers over the years. And ensure that the most modern technologies that we've built into the Fusion Application stack are represented inside of those business processes. Our goal is really to help you as customers improve your business operations by easily finding and applying those technologies to what you do every day.  02:18 Nikita: So, by understanding these modern best practice and the technology that enables it, you're really unlocking the full potential of Fusion Apps.  Patrick: Absolutely. So, the goal is that modern best practice make it really easy for customers, implementers, partners, to see the opportunity and take action. 02:38 Lois: That's great. OK, so, let's talk about implementations, Patrick. How do Oracle Modern Best Practice support customers throughout the lifecycle of an Oracle Fusion Cloud implementation? Patrick: What we found during many implementers' journey with taking our solution and trying to apply it with customers is that customers come in with a long list of capabilities that they're asking us to replicate. What they've always done in the past. And what modern best practice is trying to do is help customers to reimage the art of the possible…what's possible with Fusion by taking advantage of innovative features like AI, like IoT, like, you know, all of the other solutions that we built in to help you automate your processes to help you get the most out of the solution using the latest and greatest technology. So, if you're an implementer, there's a number of ways a modern best practice can help during an implementation. First is that reimagine exercise where you can help the customer see what's possible. And how we can do it in a better way. I think more importantly though, as you go through your implementation, many customers aren't able to get everything done by the time they have to go live. They have a list of things they've deferred and modern best practices really establishes itself as a road map for success, so you can go back to it at the completion and see what's left for the opportunity to take advantage of and you can use it to track kind of the continuous innovation that Oracle delivers with every release and see what's changed with that business process and how can I get the most out of it. 04:08 Nikita: Thanks, Patrick. That's a great primer on OMBP that I'm sure everyone will find very helpful. Patrick: Thanks, Niki. We want our customers to understand the value of modern best practices so they can really maximize their investment in Oracle technology today and in the future as we continue to innovate. 04:24 Lois: Right. And the way we're doing that is through new training and certifications that are closely aligned with OMBP. Bill, what can you tell us about this? Bill: Yes, sure. So, the new Oracle Fusion Applications Foundations training program is designed to help partners and customers understand Oracle Modern Best Practice and how they improve the entire implementation journey with Fusion Cloud Applications. As a learner, you will understand how to adhere to these practices and how they promise a greater level of success and customer satisfaction. So, whether you're designing, or implementing, or going live, you'll be able to get it right on day one. So, like Patrick was saying, these OMBPs are reimagined, industry-standard business processes built into Fusion Applications. So, you'll also discover how technologies like AI, Mobile, and Analytics help you automate tasks and make smarter decisions. You'll see how data flows between processes and get tips for successful go-lives. So, the training we're offering includes product demonstrations, key metrics, and design considerations to give you a solid understanding of modern best practice. It also introduces you to Oracle Cloud Success Navigator and how it can be leveraged and relied upon as a trusted source to guide you through every step of your cloud journey, so from planning, designing, and implementation, to user acceptance testing and post-go-live innovations with each quarterly new release of Fusion Applications and those new features. And then, the training also prepares you for Oracle Cloud Applications Foundations certifications.                   05:55 Nikita: Which applications does the training focus on, Bill? Bill: Sure, so the training focuses on four key pillars of Fusion Apps and the associated OMBP with them. For Human Capital Management, we cover Human Resources and Talent Management. For Enterprise Resource Planning, it's all about Financials, Project Management, and Risk Management. In Supply Chain Management, you'll look at Supply Chain, Manufacturing, Inventory, Procurement, and more. And for Customer Experience, we'll focus on Marketing, Sales, and Service. 06:24 Lois: That's great, Bill. Now, who is the training and certification for?  Bill: That's a great question. So, it's really for anyone who wants to get the most out of Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications. It doesn't matter if you're an experienced professional or someone new to Fusion Apps, this is a great place to start. It's even recommended for professionals with experience in implementing other applications, like on-premise products. The goal is to give you a solid foundation in Oracle Modern Best Practice and show you how to use them to improve your implementation approach. We want to make it easy for anyone, whether you're an implementer, a global process owner, or an IT team employee, to identify every way Fusion Applications can improve your organization. So, if you're new to Fusion Apps, you'll get a comprehensive overview of Oracle Fusion Applications and how to use OMBP to improve business operations. If you're already certified in Oracle Cloud Applications and have years of experience, you'll still benefit from learning how OMBP fits into your work.  If you're an experienced Fusion consultant who is new to Oracle Modern Best Practice processes, this is a good place to begin and learn how to apply them and the latest technology enablers during implementations.  And, lastly, if you're an on-premise or you have non-Fusion consultant skills looking to upskill to Fusion, this is a great way to begin acquiring the knowledge and skills needed to transition to Fusion and migrate your existing expertise. 07:53 Raise your game with the Oracle Cloud Applications skills challenge. Get free training on Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications, Oracle Modern Best Practice, and Oracle Cloud Success Navigator. Pass the free Oracle Fusion Cloud Foundations Associate exam to earn a Foundations Associate certification. Plus, there's a chance to win awards and prizes throughout the challenge! What are you waiting for? Join the challenge today by visiting oracle.com/education. 08:27 Nikita: Welcome back! Bill, how long is it going to take me to complete this training program? Bill: So, we wanted to make this program detailed enough so our learners find it valuable, obviously. But at the same time, we didn't want to make it too long. So, each course is approximately 5 hours or more, and provides folks with all the requisite knowledge they need to get started with Oracle Modern Best Practice and Fusion Applications.  08:51 Lois: Bill, is there anything that I need to know before I take this course? Are there any prerequisites? Bill: No, Lois, there are no prerequisites. Like I was saying, whether you're fresh out of college or a seasoned professional, this is a great place to start your journey into Fusion Apps and Oracle Modern Best Practice. 09:06 Nikita: That's great, you know, that there are no barriers to starting. Now, Bill, what can you tell us about the certification that goes along with this new program?  Bill: The best part, Niki, is that it's free. In fact, the training is also free. We have four courses and corresponding Foundation Associate–level certifications for Human Capital Management, Enterprise Resource Planning, Supply Chain Management, and Customer Experience. So, completing the training prepares you for an hour-long exam with 25 questions. It's a pretty straightforward way to validate your expertise in Oracle Modern Best Practice and Fusion Apps implementation considerations. 09:40 Nikita: Ok. Say I take this course and certification. What can I do next? Where should my learning journey take me? Bill: So, you're building knowledge and expertise with Fusion Applications, correct? So, once you take this training and certification, I recommend that you identify a product area you want to specialize in. So, if you take the Foundations training for HCM, you can dive deeper into specialized paths focused on implementing Human Resources, Workforce Management, Talent Management, or Payroll applications, for example.  The same goes for other product areas. If you finish the certification for Foundations in ERP, you may choose to specialize in Finance or Project Management and get your professional certifications there as your next step. So, once you have this foundational knowledge, moving on to advanced learning in these areas becomes much easier. We offer various learning paths with associated professional-level certifications to deepen your knowledge and expertise in Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications. So, you can learn more about these courses by visiting oracle.com/education/training/ to find out more of what Oracle University has to offer. 10:43 Lois: Right. I love that we have a clear path from foundational-level training to more advanced levels. So, as your skills grow, we've got the resources to help you move forward.  Nikita: That's right, Lois. Thanks for walking us through all this, Patrick and Bill. We really appreciate you taking the time to join us on the podcast. Bill: Yeah, it's always a pleasure to join you on the podcast. Thank you very much. Patrick: Oh, thanks for having me, Lois. Happy to be here. Lois: Well, that's all the time we have for today. If you have questions or suggestions about anything we discussed today, you can write to us at ou-podcast_ww@oracle.com. That's ou-podcast_ww@oracle.com. Until next time, this is Lois Houston… Nikita: And Nikita Abraham, signing off! 11:29 That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. 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What can Dr. Deming's famous Red Bead Experiment teach us about quality? What happens when you only focus on the bad, and ignore the good? In this episode Bill Bellows and Andrew Stotz discuss acceptability vs desirability in the context of the Red Beads and a few of the 14 Points for Management. 0:00:02.1 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussions with Bill Bellows who has spent 31 years helping people apply Dr. Deming's ideas to become aware of how their thinking is holding them back from their biggest opportunities. This is episode 5 of the Misunderstanding Quality series and the title is "The Red Bead Experiment." Bill take it away.   0:00:30.4 Bill: Thank you, Andrew, and welcome back. Welcome back to our listeners. One thing I want to say is, one is I listen to every podcast two or three times, listening for, is there a need for clarification, reminding myself, thinking, oh, I should have said this. Or sometimes I say, oh, make sure you make this point, and I do or I don't. And. so one is, nothing comes up from the last one that I thought I missed or mispronounced, but what I do want to clarify is, I'm viewing the target audience as quality professionals in your respective organization or people that want to become a quality professional that are learning, that are trying to apply these ideas in their organization, are fascinated with it. Could be quality professionals who are consultants looking for new awareness of the Deming perspective. So, that's...   0:01:35.8 Bill: And so, some of what I have in mind is, and the examples is, things you can try at home. In fact one thing I encourage... What I encourage my students to do, undergraduate and graduate students, even the clients I consult with, companies I consult with, is develop the ability to explain these ideas, any of them, to people outside of work. So, that could be a spouse, a brother, a sister, a mother, father, son, daughter. And, why outside of work? 'Cause I view that as a safe audience. You say, hey, I just listened to this podcast. Somebody at work may not be as safe. And why are we having this conversation? So, I would say, it could be a college classmate, but one is, try explaining these things to people outside of work and then when whoever that is looks at you and says, I have no idea what you're talking about, or this makes sense, then as you develop that confidence then you're refining your explanations. And that puts you in a better position to apply, to explain it at work.   0:02:54.9 Bill: And why is that important? I'd say there's a lot you can do on your own. I mentioned that a month or so ago, my wife and I were in New England, and I met my doctoral dissertation advisor, who's 86 years old and lives in the middle of nowhere. And one of the things is the wisdom he gave us way back when it was so profound. One of the things he said, we were poor starving college students making seven bucks an hour, working 20 hours during the semester as Research Assistants or 40 hours during the summer. And what a life. Living in... This is poor starving college students. And he would say to us... We'd get together now and then, there'd be a keg on campus and we'd be... Which it wasn't all that often, but anyway, he'd say to us, "These are the best years of your life." [laughter] And we'd look at him like... Now again, I mean, we were... I wouldn't say we were poor starving college students, but I mean, we made ends meet. Now our classmates had gone, undergraduate, gone off to work and they were making real money, and we just stayed in the slum housing and doing... Just living cheap.   0:04:20.3 Bill: Then he says, "These are the best years of your life." We're looking at him like what are you saying? And what he said was, you're working on your research projects either undergrad, masters or PhDs. He said, "You will never have the time you have now to focus on one thing and not be distracted." Now a few of the classmates were married. Most were not married, but he just said this is... I mean, what a dream situation. You're in the laboratory every day. That's all of your focus. Your tuition is covered, blah, blah, blah. But it was just like, yeah, okay. So, when our daughter was in graduate school I shared that with her and she laughed at me. I said, "Allison, these are the best years of your life."   0:05:14.4 AS: If only we listened.   0:05:15.5 Bill: Right. So, that's... And well, I wanted to bring up... But the other thing I want to bring up aside from that story is, he'd say to us, when you go to work, he said trust me. He said "there will be more than enough time to get your job done. You'll have a lot of... You will have time to..." And he said, 'cause he used to brag about he'd be given a task and he can get it done in a fraction of the time that was allocated. And why I mention that is that every job has latitude. And so, to our listeners I would say, think about how to use the latitude you have to practice, to do a small scale Plan-Do-Study-Act thing. Now I really think that's what it's going to come down to is, either experiment at home or whatever, but just practice. And then as Andrew always reminds us at the end of each podcast, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn. And that's led to a number of people I'm meeting with once or twice a month.   0:06:31.8 Bill: And they are exactly who I hope to meet, is young quality professionals wanting to know more, to know more, to know more, and they're either in the States or they're living in Europe. All right. So, before we get into the Red Bead Experiment I wanna go back and talk more about acceptability, desirability which will be a focus of the Red Bead Experiment as well. But in the first series we did, there were 23 episodes before we got into the Misunderstanding Quality, and somewhere in there we discussed, you may recall the paradigms of variation. And the paradigms are labeled letters A, B, C, D and E. And we will look at them in this series. So, for those who don't know what I just said, don't worry we'll cover you. And for those who heard it before, okay, we're going to review it. And I mentioned that because paradigm A, the only one I want to talk about tonight, is paradigm A, is does it meet requirements? That's what acceptability is. Is it good? 'Cause we have this binary world in quality. Part of paradigm A is a binary world. It is good or it's bad. We talked about last time is, if it's bad can we salvage it? Which means we can rework it.   0:07:52.3 Bill: Now some of the rework means it could be we can rework it and use it. And in the aerospace industry what happens is, maybe we can't put it in a flight engine. When I was at Rocketdyne maybe it doesn't end up in a Space Shuttle Main Engine, but maybe it ends up in a test engine and a test stand, so it doesn't fly, but we're still going to use it, or it's scrapped. We have to throw it away. But paradigm A is acceptability. Another thing I want to mention is, I was commenting on LinkedIn the last couple of days over process capability metrics. And there's Cp which stands for capability of the process. And, then there's Cpk which is a little bit different. And I don't want to get into those equations tonight, maybe in a future episode. But what I want to say is, if you're looking at a metric such as yield, people say the yield is 100%. What does that mean? It means everything is good. What if the yield is 50%? That means we have to... 50% is good, 50% is bad.   0:09:06.2 Bill: So, yield is an acceptability metric. Why do I say that? Because the measure is percent good. What is a good versus bad? Also say that indices that involve the requirements. And we've talked in the past about a lower requirement and an upper requirement, the idea because we expect variation we give a min and a max. And so, if the equation for the metric you're using includes the tolerance limits, then that's a clue that that's an acceptability-based metric. Now, I don't care whatever else is in the equation, but if those two numbers are in the equation, then the inference is, what you're talking about is a measure, some type of measure of acceptability.   0:10:00.5 AS: Right.   0:10:02.6 Bill: But even if people talk about... If the metric includes the middle of the requirements, well, as soon as you say middle of the requirements, as soon as you say requirements we're back to acceptability. So, these are things to pay attention to is what we're talking about acceptability and desirability, 'cause what we talked about last time was I was trying to give everyday examples of both. And so, acceptability is when people talk about... In fact I listened to about an hour long podcast today on quality management. And one of the comments was, if you follow the steps correctly you get the right result. Well, that's acceptability. Right? If things are right as opposed to wrong. So, again, when you're in this world of good, bad, right versus wrong, that's acceptability.   0:10:58.7 Bill: Again, the reminder is this is not to say acceptability is bad, but it's not desirability. Which one is it? And then what we talked about in the last podcast number four was choose. Do we wanna to focus on acceptability or do we wanna focus on desirability? Where desirability is saying, of all the things that are acceptable, I want this one. I want that orange. I want that parking spot. I wanna date that person of all the ones that meet requirements in my search... You know, in the dating app. And so, that's acceptability. What got me excited by Deming's work in the early '90s was, I was spending a whole lot of time at Rocketdyne focusing on things that were broken. I'm trying to apply Dr. Taguchi's ideas to go, to take something that used to be good but then slipped into bad, and now we're focusing on the bad stuff to make it good. And now the good news is it kept me busy.   0:12:06.5 Bill: I was having a lot of fun. These are high visibility things and the solutions. We got the solutions working with some really wonderful people. But that led me to start asking questions. And I was once at an all-day meeting in Seattle at Boeing. Rocketdyne had been sold to Boeing Commercial Airplane Company. I got invited to a meeting up there. And it was a monthly all-day production meeting. I don't know 50, 60 people in the room. And they asked me to come up. So, I went up. And what time does the meeting start? You know 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, whatever. And I said you know put me on a few hours into the meeting. Well, why then? Well, I want to listen to the first couple of hours of the meeting. Because in listening, now we're going back to what we talked about with Edgar Schein. And I've developed the ability... You know, I can hear are we focusing on acceptability, desirability, I can hear things you know with a Deming lens. People think of a lens as seeing, well, there's a Deming ear set as well.   0:13:10.7 Bill: And so, I listened for the first two hours and exactly what I expected. So, when I get up to speak at last I said before I got to the slides, I said, "How much time do you spend every day discussing parts that are good, that arrive on time?" And a couple of people in the front row made a circle with their fingers, zero. And I said, so why is that the case? And one of them says, if it's not broken don't fix it. And wherever I go that's what people say. I went to a big Boeing customer doing... Because they were a customer we sold them rocket engines of some size. And I was briefing that slide, had 110 people in the room for a lunchtime presentation. Before I could read the slide, the room erupted in laughter. And so, I share that because if we're spending all this time focusing on the bad but not the good, what is that? That's acceptability. That's what happens, is the economics of acceptability says, only focus on the bad to make it good. But we don't focus on the good because... And that's what we're gonna look at towards the end of tonight is, why don't we focus on the good? And so, next, I had a co-worker at Rocketdyne got a job in Chicago at a toy factory. They bottled soap bubbles. And as a kid's toy with a little wand inside and blowing bubbles and all that.   0:14:56.0 Bill: And she dramatically turned the place around, did some amazing, amazing work. She went from being the senior manufacturing engineer to the, I think plant manager. So, she called me up as she'd been promoted to plant manager. And the question was now that I'm plant manager what should I focus on? So, I said... I had known her for four or five years at that time. I had been mentoring her and the mentoring continued in that capacity. So, I said well, what do you think you should focus on? And the comment was, I think I should focus on all the things that are broken. Well, that's acceptability once again. And I said, so you're focusing on being 100% reactive. And she said, well, yeah. And I said, what you're doing then by focusing on acceptability, you're saying the things that are good I ship, the things that are bad I got to work on. But without understanding that there's actually variation in good... I mean, go back to the Boeing folks when the guy says to me if it's not broken don't fix it. My response to that was, if you use that thinking to drive your car when would you put gas in it? When it runs out. If you use that thinking relative to your plumbing system, your water system at home when would you call the plumber? When it breaks.   0:16:25.5 Bill: When would you go see the doctor? When... So, the downside of not working on things that are good and not paying attention to things that are good is that they may bite you. So, part of the value proposition of acknowledging from a desirability perspective that there's variation in good. If you pay attention to the variation in good there's two upsides. One is, you can prevent bad from happening if that's all you want to do. And two, the focus of a future episode is by focusing on things that are good and paying attention to desirability in the way that Yoshida, Professor Yoshida was talking about. That offers opportunities to do things that you can't do with an acceptability focus, which is improve how things work together as a system. And the idea being when you move from acceptability which is a part focus to desirability, which is a system focus, you can improve the system. Okay, more to follow on that. All right. So, I got some questions for you Andrew, are you ready?   0:17:37.4 AS: Uh-oh. Uh-oh.   0:17:39.8 Bill: So, Dr. Deming had how many points for management?   0:17:42.9 AS: Fourteen.   0:17:46.3 Bill: All right. Okay.   0:17:48.3 AS: I'm being set up here. I just feel it. You start with the easy ones.   0:17:52.8 Bill: All right. And...   0:17:54.3 AS: Listeners, viewers help me out.   0:17:56.9 Bill: All right. And which point, Andrew, was cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality? What number was that?   0:18:09.6 AS: I'm gonna say four or five, or six. I can't remember.   0:18:14.2 Bill: Three. Three.   0:18:14.6 AS: Really? Three. Okay. That was close.   0:18:16.1 Bill: I would not have known. That was number three.   0:18:19.1 AS: Yeah.   0:18:20.1 Bill: And it's followed by Dr. Deming saying, "Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality to the product." So, the first question is what point was it? And again, I had to look it up. I know it's one of the 14. Second question, Andrew, is, if Dr. Deming is saying cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality, would you think of that as an acceptability focus or a desirability focus?   0:18:55.1 AS: I don't know if I can answer that. I mean, I can only think about what he was saying, which was design quality in from the beginning and get everybody involved in quality, not just having an inspector at the end, but I'm not sure.   0:19:11.4 Bill: Yeah. No. And even as I asked the other question, I'm thinking... Well, this is great because if in the audience you think of quality from an acceptability perspective, right?   0:19:24.2 AS: Mm-hmm.   0:19:24.9 Bill: So, if you're working for Boeing, which is all about acceptability or most companies, and you hear step three, then you're thinking, cease dependence on the inspection to achieve..., you're thinking acceptability. If that's what you're used to, if you're used to quality being doesn't meet requirements...   0:19:42.9 AS: Okay.   0:19:43.2 Bill: Then what you're hearing is Deming talking about acceptability. But if you've been exposed to Yoshida's work and Dr. Taguchi's work and you're understanding that within requirements there's variation of things that are good, so it's kind of a trick question. The idea is it depends. Alright.   0:20:02.4 AS: Yep.   0:20:05.5 Bill: I got two other of 14 points to ask you about. Alright. Which of the 14 points is in the practice of awarding business on the basis of price tag alone? Instead, minimize total cost. So,  first which point is that?   0:20:26.9 AS: I think it was also... I would say then four.   0:20:32.1 Bill: Yes.   [laughter]   0:20:33.6 AS: Yeah.   0:20:34.1 Bill: Yeah.   [laughter]   0:20:34.5 AS: You'd think I know. I wrote a book about it.   [laughter]   0:20:39.3 Bill: Alright. So, that's point four and...   0:20:42.1 AS: Okay. So, I got... I don't wanna be rated and ranked, but I got one right at least. Okay. Let's keep going.   0:20:49.1 Bill: Okay. And, so, is that acceptability or desirability? Let's say this. Is awarding business on price tag acceptability or desirability?   0:21:02.1 AS: Probably acceptability.   0:21:04.6 Bill: Yeah. 'Cause then you're saying...   0:21:06.5 AS: Can you hit this number? It's okay.   0:21:11.2 Bill: Yeah. Or you contact your insurance company and you say, I'm looking for a heart surgeon, and you say, and I found one, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they call you up and say, yes, that person is a heart surgeon, but we prefer you use this one. [chuckle] What's the chance they're thinking about a cheaper option? Right? Alright? So, you're looking at from desirability perspective...   0:21:38.5 AS: This guy's really cheap on kidneys.   0:21:40.7 Bill: Right? And so you're thinking you've done a bunch of references. You've asked your friends. And why are you asking? Because all the doctors out there that meet requirements, you're blindly saying, I'll take any one. That's acceptability. And you're saying, I want this one. That's desirability. But the insurance company says, no. We consider them all to be the same in our policy. That's acceptability. Alright. Okay. And here's the last point we're gonna look at tonight. Which of the 14 points is "improve constantly and forever the system of production and service to improve quality and productivity and thus constantly decrease cost"?   0:22:23.5 AS: Isn't that number one? Constancy of... That's...   0:22:28.0 Bill: That's constancy of purpose. That's number one.   0:22:28.8 AS: Okay. Constancy of purpose. So, improve... Don't know. No. No.   0:22:39.4 Bill: That's number 5.   0:22:40.5 AS: Okay. Five.   0:22:44.5 Bill: And I was looking at, so I know those are three and one, and I thought, oh, that's three, four, and five. Alright. So, what I wanna do there is, we're gonna look at that a little bit later. So, I don't wanna ask you about acceptability, desirability, but I just wanna lay that on on the table. Alright. So, now we're gonna look at what Dr. Deming referred to as his chain reaction. The Deming Chain Reaction. Alright. So, what do you remember about the Deming chain reaction? It wasn't a motorcycle chain or a bicycle chain, right? What did Dr. Deming call his chain reaction?   0:23:31.3 AS: I can't... I mean, I'm thinking of the flowchart.   0:23:34.9 Bill: Yeah. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. The chain reaction...   0:23:36.5 AS: But that I can't remember.   0:23:39.6 Bill: And this is likely Out of the Crisis. The Deming chain reaction is, "if you improve quality, you will reduce scrap and rework, thereby reduce costs." And then he goes on to, by reducing costs, you can increase sales and expand the market. That's the chain reaction.   0:24:01.9 AS: Yeah.   0:24:02.2 Bill: So, when I ask students, again, in my either graduate, undergraduate classes is, talk about the Deming Chain Reaction, then I say, is the Deming Chain Reaction... Within the Deming Chain Reaction, Deming says, if you improve quality, reduce scrap and rework, lower cost, is that explanation of quality, acceptability, or desirability?   0:24:31.9 AS: I don't know. I'm fearful to answer nowadays because I'm not getting these right.   0:24:37.4 Bill: No. You are. You're on a roll. [chuckle] Again, the Deming Chain Reaction, if we improve quality, we reduce scrap and rework, thereby lower the cost thereby sell more and expand the market.   0:24:52.2 AS: I would say that's desirability.   0:24:56.1 Bill: Okay. One more time. If we improve quality, we reduce scrap and rework.   0:25:03.2 AS: Yep.   0:25:04.3 Bill: So, the clue is scrap. Is scrap something we talk about with acceptability or desirability?   0:25:12.1 AS: That's acceptability.   0:25:14.1 Bill: And rework.   0:25:18.2 AS: Well, we're trying to make it acceptable.   0:25:20.1 Bill: Exactly. And the reason I point that out is, I'm not sure... And I think we talked last time about things we agree with Deming or disagree with Deming. I'm not a big fan of the Deming Chain Reaction because I think... Again, if I'm in the audience and I'm working for a company that defines quality and in terms of acceptability, and he says to me, if you improve quality, reduce scrap and rework, that's what I'm used to. And my concern is, in other ways he's explaining quality in terms of constantly improving. Well, how can you constantly improve quality once you get to 100% yield? So. if all the product is good, which is acceptability, if there's no scrap and no rework, can you improve quality? Not if you're focusing on acceptability. And so, what I'm saying there is, that if Dr. Deming is in one hand defining the chain reaction and using the term quality in reference to scrap and rework, then he's projecting quality as acceptability. But if he's talking about improving constantly and forever, and then we get into, can you improve the quality forever? That's what he's saying.   0:26:49.1 Bill: What if you get to 100% yield, which is the maximum value of acceptability? Well, only if you shift to desirability can you improve forever quality, if you think it's worthwhile to do. So, that's why I wanted to go back and look at those things. One is revisit acceptability, desirability, and point out what I think are some opportunities for confusion in trying to explain Deming's work. Alright. Now we'll talk about the Red Bead experiment, which is, the very first time... I remember reading about it in the earliest books I read. I think, who is it that wrote the first books on Deming management, Deming management? She's a...   0:27:42.8 AS: Killian?   0:27:44.3 Bill: No, no, no. Cecilia Killian was Deming's admin.   0:27:48.9 AS: Mary?   0:27:50.5 Bill: Yeah. Mary Walton.   0:27:51.6 AS: Mary Walton.   0:27:52.5 Bill: Mary Walton. I remember reading a Mary Walton's book, that's when I first got exposed to this Red Bead experiment. So, The Deming Institute has a dedicated webpage, so, if you go to deming.org, or just do a Google search for deming.org Red Bead experiment, it's one of the most popular pages. I think that might be the second most popular, most visited page past the 14 Points. In there you can find short videos. There are longer videos, but there's enough on there to follow along with what I want to explain. So, Dr. Deming and the Red Bead experiment would take from the audience, and it could be four willing workers, six willing workers. He'd be the manager of the White Bead Company, and he would explain to them, he would share with them. He had a bowl, and in the bowl were 5,000 beads, maybe an eighth of an inch in diameter, small plastic beads, and there'd be 5,000 in the bowl, 4,000 white, 1,000 red.   0:29:00.6 Bill: And then there was a paddle, and the paddle could be roughly two inches by four inches, and the paddle had a little handle, and it had holes in it. So, the instructions he would provide to the willing workers, the production workers, is to take this paddle at a given angle, slide it in flat into the bowl, even the back of the beads. The beads are in one container, they get poured into another container.   0:29:27.7 AS: In a pan.   0:29:28.1 Bill: It's a mixing process, and then he pours them back in. So, just pour them from one to the other, and he would be very persnickety on pour at 45 degrees, tip from the corner. You pour back and forth, put the paddle in, and you'd end up with 50 of the beads would fill the paddle, and then you'd go to the inspector number one. And the inspector number one would count how many red beads, which is not what the customer wants. What the customer wants is white beads, but the raw material includes both. So, you go to inspector one, and they may count five beads. You go to inspector number two, and they quietly see five. The numbers get written down. Ideally, they're the same. And then you go to the, I think, the master inspector, and they say, five beads, and then "dismissed." And then write the five on a flip chart, and then the next person comes and does it, and the next person comes and does it. So, all six come up and draw beads, and then we count the number of red ones. The number of red ones go into this big table. Next thing you know we've done this over four different days. I've done this. This could take an hour. And even when you watch the videos, there's a fast forwarding.   0:31:00.1 Bill: I've done the Red Bead experiment, I think, just once, and I did it with a former student, which worked out really well, 'cause there was a lot of dead time, and the audience was watching, and so I was able to get conversation going with her. So, for those wanting to do this, boy, you've got to be pretty good on your feet to keep the audience entertained. To get to the point where you've got a table on the whiteboard, or on the flip chart, and on the table are the six willing workers on the left-hand side, and then day by day the red beads... Looking at the number of red beads. So, what are the red beads? Well, the red beads are not what the customer wants. What the customer wants are white beads, but in the production process, because the raw material includes red, well, then the red ends up in the output. So, I ask people, so, if the white beads are what the customer wants, what are the red beads? And typically, people say those are the defective, defects, scrap.   0:32:03.2 Bill: And, so now you get into this model is based on acceptability. The beads are either good, white, or bad, red. And so I would ask the students in class, in a work setting, what might the red beads be? I, in fact, asked our daughter. She said, is just moving from being a junior high school English teacher to a senior high school English teacher. Her undergraduate degree is from Cal State Long Beach.   0:32:34.3 AS: There you go.   0:32:34.3 Bill: So, her first day of school was today. She's also the varsity swim coach, which is way, way cool. Mom and dad are proud of her. So, I remember asking her a few years ago. So, I said, Allison, what are the red beads in the classroom? She said, well, the stapler doesn't work. The door doesn't close. The projector screen doesn't come down. The computer doesn't work. These are red beads in the classroom. So, I said, okay, Allison. What are the white beads?   0:33:01.1 Bill: Geez. So, we get so used to talking about the red beads are the defects or things that... Well, the white beads, by comparison, are the things that are good. So, I said, Allison, if the computer works, that's a white bead. If the door closes, that's a white bead. If you can close the window, that's a white bead. If you can pull down the screen, that's a white bead. So, the red beads are the things around us that are defects, broken, and the white beads are the others. And so, I wanna throw that out to do some stage setting. And ideally, this is a review for our listeners, and if not, you've gotta go watch as many videos as you can in The Deming Institute website. There's a lot of great content there. Watching Dr. Deming do this is pretty cool.   0:33:49.0 AS: He's a funny guy.   0:33:51.6 Bill: And I was very fortunate to be in Dr. Deming's very last four-day seminar. I did not participate in The Red Bead Experiment. I let somebody else do that, but it was classic. Well, the next thing I wanna get into is, and I would say to audiences many times, so we know... Well, a couple things. It's so easy to look at that data on a spreadsheet and say, Jill's the best performer. She has the minimum number of red beads. So, on the one hand, we can look day by day, and it could be Jill's number started off low. And we gave her an award, and then it went high, and then we started blaming her. So, there's variation in the number of beads, worker to worker and day to day. So, a given worker, their scores go up and down. So, that's called variation.   0:34:43.4 Bill: And so one of the aspects of the System of Profound Knowledge, which we haven't talked about too much, but ideally our listeners know Dr. Deming was really big about the value proposition of understanding variation. So, what Dr. Deming would talk about in his four-day seminars, and ideally anybody presenting this, is you take the data, you draw the usual conclusions. We're looking at data from an acceptability perspective. We look at the spreadsheet, and then voila, we turn it into a run chart and look at that data over time, calculate control limits, and then find that all the data is within the control limits and draw the conclusion that the process is in control. And then you move from in a non-Deming environment, looking at this data point versus this data point and drawing these conclusions that the white... The number of red beads is due to the workers.   0:35:33.7 Bill: So, the punch lines you'll find at Deming Institute webpage is that the workers are trying as best they can, that the red beads are caused not by the workers taken separately, but by the system, which includes the workers. A lot of great learning there. And a very significant piece is, in a Deming environment, where Deming's coming from is, again, this is before we go further in this in future sessions is, he's proposing that the majority of what goes on in the system relative to the performance of anything you measure is coming from the system. And if that is really, really understood, then you're hard pressed to blame people in sales for lousy sales or dips in sales or you look at grades of students in a classroom. So, for people looking at Dr. Deming's ideas, perhaps for the first time, realize that what he's talking about is coming from The Red Bead Experiment is a great eye opener for this is that, let's stop blaming the workers for the production issues and step back and look at our procurement system.   0:36:39.6 Bill: Do we have a procurement system where we're buying on price tag? If you buy on price tag, you end up with buying a lot of red beads. So, one aspect I wanna leave our listeners with today is, as you're studying this, realize there's a psychology aspect to The Red Bead Experiment. Not only the idea that there's variation up and down, but what are the implications of realizing that we can't be blaming the workers for the behavior of the system. The system includes the workers, but it also includes things that are well beyond their control. Well, where I wanna go next with this and then we'll next time get in and go further is, in appreciation of point five, "improve constantly forever the system," what I would ask audience is, so we know the red beads are caused by the system. We know the number of white beads goes up and down. But if we were to improve the system by not buying red beads or pre-sorting them out and get fewer and fewer red beads in there, then we get to the point that all the beads are white, perhaps. We have continuous improvement.   0:37:47.2 Bill: We end up with a 100% yield. Well, then we get into, again, and I've kind of set the stage in prior comments, what I would ask people is, what Dr. Deming's talking about trying to achieve zero red beads everywhere in the organization? Is that what we're striving for with the Deming philosophy, is to go around the organization, I want every single process to produce no red beads to make it to a 100% white beads? And if that's what Dr. Deming is talking about, then what does point five mean about continuously improving? Now we get into what I mentioned earlier is, you can improve the speed of operation to produce more white beads, so, we can do them faster, we can do them cheaper, but can we improve the quality of the white beads under that model? And the answer is no, because acceptability stops at a 100%. So, what we'll look at next time is, if you look at the beads and look closely, you'll see they have different diameters, different weights. They're not exactly the same color white. So, what is that Andrew? That's called variation.   0:39:00.9 Bill: And now it brings us back to desirability. So, what I encourage people to do, most of the times I see people presenting The Red Bead Experiment, they present it from an acceptability perspective. That's the starting point. But what I encourage our listeners to do is go through all that, and this becomes a great opportunity to move your audiences from acceptability focus to desirability by talking about the inherent variation in those beads. Again, we'll talk about the value proposition economically in future sessions, as well as the other paradigms of variation before we get there. So, that's what I wanna cover.   0:39:43.2 AS: Wow. Bill, on behalf of everyone at The Deming Institute, I wanna thank you again for this discussion. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. If you wanna keep in touch with Bill, just find him on LinkedIn, and this is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. It never gets old. "People are entitled to joy in work."

Pharmacogenomics plays a critical role in personalised medicine, as some adverse drug reactions are genetically determined. Adverse drugs reactions (ADRs) account for 6.5% of hospital admissions in the UK, and the application of pharmacogenomics to look at an individuals response to drugs can significantly enhance patient outcomes and safety. In this episode, our guests discuss how genomic testing can identify patients who will respond to medications and those who may have adverse reactions. We hear more about Genomics England's collaboration with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the Yellow Card Biobank and our guests discuss the challenges of implementing pharmacogenomics into the healthcare system. Our host Vivienne Parry, Head of Public Engagement at Genomics England, is joined by Anita Hanson, Research Matron and the Lead Research Nurse for clinical pharmacology at Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Professor Bill Newman, Professor of translational genomic medicine at the Manchester Center for Genomic Medicine, and Professor Matt Brown, Chief Scientific Officer at Genomics England.   "I think we're moving to a place where, rather than just doing that one test that might be relevant to one drug, we'd be able to do a test which at the same price would generate information that could be relevant at further points in your life if you were requiring different types of medicine. So, that information would then be available in your hospital record, in your GP record, that you could have access to it yourself. And then I think ultimately what we would really love to get to a point is where everybody across the whole population just has that information to hand when it's required, so that they're not waiting for the results of a genetic test, it's immediately within their healthcare record."   To learn more about Jane's lived experience with Stevens-Johnson syndrome, visit The Academy of Medical Sciences' (AMS) YouTube channel. The story, co-produced by Areeba Hanif from AMS, provides an in-depth look at Jane's journey. You can watch the video via this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4KJtDZJyaA  Want to learn more about personalised medicine? Listen to our Genomics 101 episode where Professor Matt Brown explains what it is in less than 5 minutes: https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/podcasts/genomics-101-what-is-personalised-medicine  You can read the transcript below or download it here: https://www.genomicsengland.co.uk/assets/documents/Podcast-transcripts/Can-genomic-testing-prevent-adverse-drug-reactions.docx   Vivienne: Hello and welcome to Behind the Genes.  Bill: What we've seen is that the limited adoption so far in the UK and other countries has focused particularly on severe adverse drug reactions. They've been easier to identify and there's a clear relationship between some drugs and some genetic changes where that information is useful. So, a good example has been the recent adoption of pharmacogenetic testing for a gene called DPYD for patients undergoing cancer treatment, particularly breast and bowel cancer. And if you have an absence of the enzyme that that gene makes, if you're given that treatment, then you can end up on intensive care and die, so it's a really significant side effect. But as you say, the most common side effects aren't necessarily fatal, but they can have a huge impact upon people and on their wellbeing.  Vivienne: My name's Vivienne Parry and I'm head of public engagement at Genomics England, and today we'll be discussing the critical role of pharmacogenomics in personalised medicine, highlighting its impact on how well medicines work, their safety, and on patient care. I'm joined today by Professor Bill Newman, professor of translational genomic medicine at the Manchester Centre for Genomic Medicine, Anita Hanson, research matron, a fabulous title, and lead research nurse for clinical pharmacology at the Liverpool University Hospital's NHS Foundation Trust, and Professor Matt Brown, chief scientific officer for Genomics England. And just remember, if you enjoy today's episode, we'd love your support, so please like, share and rate us on wherever you listen to your podcasts.  So, first question to you, Bill, what is pharmacogenomics?  Bill: Thanks Viv. I think there are lots of different definitions, but how I think of pharmacogenetics is by using genetic information to inform how we prescribe drugs, so that they can be safer and more effective. And we're talking about genetic changes that are passed down through families, so these are changes that are found in lots of individuals. We all carry changes in our genes that are important in how we transform and metabolise medicines, and how our bodies respond to them.  Vivienne: Now, you said pharmacogenetics. Is it one of those medicine things like tomato, tomato, or is there a real difference between pharmacogenetics and pharmacogenomics?  Bill: So, people, as you can imagine, do get quite irate about this sort of thing, and there are lots of people that would contest that there is a really big important difference. I suppose that pharmacogenetics is more when you're looking at single changes in a relatively small number of genes, whereas pharmacogenomics is a broader definition, which can involve looking at the whole genome, lots of genes, and also whether those genes are switched on or switched off, so the expression levels of those genes as well would encompass pharmacogenomics. But ultimately it's using genetic information to make drug prescription safer and more effective.  Vivienne: So, we're going to call it pharmacogenomics and we're talking about everything, that's it, we'll go for it. So Matt, just explain if you would the link between pharmacogenomics and personalised medicine. And I know that you've done a big Genomics 101 episode about personalised medicine, but just very briefly, what's the link between the two?  Matt: So, personalised medicine's about using the right dose of the right drug for the right individual. And so pharmacogenomics helps you with not only ensuring that you give a medication which doesn't cause problems for the person who receives it, so an adverse drug reaction, but also that they're actually getting the right dose. Of course, people's ability to metabolise, activate and respond to drugs genetically is often genetically determined, and so sometimes you need to adjust the dose up or down according to a person's genetic background.  Vivienne: Now, one of the things that we've become very aware of is adverse drug reactions, and I think they account for something like six and a half percent of all hospital admissions in the UK, so it's absolutely huge. Is that genetically determined adverse drug reactions?  Matt: So, the answer to that is we believe so. There's quite a bit of data to show that you can reduce the risk of people needing a hospital admission by screening genetic markers, and a lot of the very severe reactions that lead to people being admitted to hospital are very strongly genetically determined. So for example, there are HLA types that affect the risk of adverse drug reactions to commonly used medications for gout, for epilepsy, some HIV medications and so on, where in many health services around the world, including in England, there are already tests available to help prevent those leading to severe reactions. It's likely though that actually the tests we have available only represent a small fraction of the total preventable adverse drug reactions were we to have a formal pre-emptive pharmacogenomics screening programme.  Vivienne: Now, I should say that not all adverse drug reactions are genetic in origin. I mean, I remember a rather nasty incident on the night when I got my exam results for my finals, and I'd actually had a big bee sting and I'd been prescribed antihistamines, and I went out and I drank rather a lot to celebrate, and oh my goodness me, I was rather ill [laughter]. So, you know, not all adverse drug reactions are genetic in origin. There are other things that interact as well, just to make that clear to people.  Matt: Yes, I think that's more an interaction than an adverse drug reaction. In fact frankly, the most common adverse drug reaction in hospitals is probably through excess amounts of water, and that's not medically determined, that's the prescription.  Vivienne: Let me now come to Anita. So, you talk to patients all the time about pharmacogenomics in your role. You've been very much involved in patient and public involvement groups at the Wolfson Centre for Personalised Medicine in Liverpool. What do patients think about pharmacogenomics? Is it something they welcome?  Anita: I think they do welcome pharmacogenomics, especially so with some of the patients who've experienced some of the more serious, life threatening reactions. And so one of our patients has been doing some work with the Academy of Medical Sciences, and she presented to the Sir Colin Dollery lecture in 2022, and she shared her story of having an adverse drug reaction and the importance of pharmacogenomics, and the impact that pharmacogenomics can have on patient care.  Vivienne: Now, I think that was Stevens-Johnson syndrome. We're going to hear in a moment from somebody who did experience Stevens-Johnson's, but just tell us briefly what that is.  Anita: Stevens-Johnson syndrome is a potentially life threatening reaction that can be caused by a viral infection, but is more commonly caused by a medicine. There are certain groups of medicines that can cause this reaction, such as antibiotics or anticonvulsants, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatories, and also a drug called allopurinol, which is used to treat gout. Patients have really serious side effects to this condition, and they're often left with long-term health complications. The morbidity and mortality is considerable as well, and patients often spend a lot of time in hospital and take a long time to recover.   Vivienne: And let's now hear from Jane Burns for someone with lived experience of that Stevens-Johnson syndrome. When Jane Burns was 19, the medicine she took for her epilepsy was changed.  Jane: I remember waking up and feeling really hot, and I was hallucinating, so I was taken to the Royal Liverpool Hospital emergency department by my parents. When I reached A&E, I had a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius. I was given Piriton and paracetamol, and the dermatologist was contacted. My mum had taken my medication to hospital and explained the changeover process with my epilepsy medication. A decision was made to discontinue the Tegretol and I was kept in for observation. Quite rapidly, the rash was changing. Blisters were forming all over my body, my mouth was sore and my jaw ached. My temperature remained very high. It was at this point that Stevens-Johnson syndrome, or SJS, was diagnosed.  Over the next few days, my condition deteriorated rapidly. The rash became deeper in colour. Some of the blisters had burst, but some got larger. I developed ulcers on my mouth and it was extremely painful. I started to lose my hair and my fingernails. As I had now lost 65 percent of my skin, a diagnosis of toxic epidermal necrolysis, or TEN, was made. Survivors of SJS TEN often suffer with long-term visible physical complications, but it is important to also be aware of the psychological effects, with some patients experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. It's only as I get older that I realise how extremely lucky I am to have survived. Due to medical and nursing expertise, and the research being conducted at the time, my SJS was diagnosed quickly and the medication stopped. This undoubtedly saved my life.  Vivienne: Now, you've been looking at the development of a passport in collaborating with the AMS and the MHRA. Tell me a bit more about that.  Anita: Yes, we set up a patient group at the Wolfson Centre for Personalised Medicine approximately 12 years ago, and Professor Sir Munir Pirmohamed and I, we wanted to explore a little bit more about what was important to patients, really to complement all the scientific and clinical research activity within pharmacogenomics. And patients recognised that, alongside the pharmacogenomic testing, they recognised healthcare professionals didn't really have an awareness of such serious reactions like Stevens-Johnson syndrome, and so they said they would benefit from having a My SJS Passport, which is a booklet that can summarise all of the important information about their care post-discharge, and this can then be used to coordinate and manage their long-term healthcare problems post-discharge and beyond. And so this was designed by survivors for survivors, and it was then evaluated as part of my PhD, and the findings from the work suggest that the passport is like the patient's voice, and it really does kind of validate their diagnosis and raises awareness of SJS amongst healthcare professionals. So, really excellent findings from the research, and the patients think it's a wonderful benefit to them.  Vivienne: So, it's a bit like a kind of paper version of the bracelet that you sometimes see people wearing that are on steroids, for instance.  Anita: It is like that, and it's wonderful because it's a handheld source of valuable information that they can share with healthcare professionals. And this is particularly important if they're admitted in an emergency and they can't speak for themselves. And so the passport has all that valuable information, so that patients aren't prescribed that drug again, so it prevents them experiencing a serious adverse drug reaction again.   Vivienne: So, Stevens-Johnson, Bill, is a really scary side effect, but what about the day to day benefits of pharmacogenomics for patients?  Bill: So, what we've seen is that the limited adoption so far in the UK and other countries has focused particularly on severe adverse drug reactions. They've been easier to identify and there's a clear relationship between some drugs and some genetic changes where that information is useful. So a good example has been the recent adoption of pharmacogenetic testing for a gene called DPYD for patients undergoing cancer treatment, particularly breast and bowel cancer. And if you have an absence of the enzyme that that gene makes, if you're given that treatment, then you can end up on intensive care and die, so it's a really significant side effect. But as you say, the most common side effects aren't necessarily fatal, but they can have a huge impact upon people and on their wellbeing.   And it's not just in terms of side effects. It's in terms of the effectiveness of the medicine. Because if a person is prescribed a medicine that doesn't or isn't going to work for them then it can take them longer to recover, to get onto the right medicine. That can have all sorts of detrimental effects. And so when we're thinking about introducing pharmacogenetics more broadly rather than just on a single drug or a single gene basis, we're thinking about that for common drugs like antidepressants, painkillers, statins, the drugs that GPs are often prescribing on a regular basis to a whole range of patients.  Vivienne: So, to go back to you, Anita, we're really talking about dose here, aren't we, whether you need twice the dose or half the dose depending on how quickly your body metabolises that particular medicine. How do patients view that?  Anita: Well, the patient in question who presented for the Academy of Medical Sciences, I mean, her take on this was, she thinks pharmacogenetics is wonderful because it will allow doctors and nurses to then prescribe the right drug, but also to adapt the dose accordingly to make sure that they get the best outcome, which provides the maximum benefit while also minimising any potential harm. And so from her perspective, that was one of the real benefits of pharmacogenomics. But she also highlighted about the benefits for future generations, the fear of her son taking the same medicine and experiencing the same reaction. And so I think her concerns were, if we have pharmacogenetic testing for a panel of medicines, as Bill mentioned then, then perhaps this would be fantastic for our children as they grow up, and we can identify and predict and prevent these type of reactions happening to future generations.  Vivienne: And some of these drugs, Bill, are really very common indeed, something like codeine. Just tell us about codeine, ‘cos it's something – whenever I tell this to friends [laughter], they're always completely entranced by the idea that some people don't need nearly as much codeine as others.  Bill: Yeah, so codeine is a drug that's very commonly used as a painkiller. To have its real effect, it needs to be converted in the body to a different drug called morphine, and that is done by an enzyme which is made by a gene called CYP2D6. And we all carry changes in CYP2D6, and the frequency of those variants, whether they make the gene work too much or whether they make it work too little, they vary enormously across the world, so that if you go to parts of Africa, about 30 percent of the population will make more of the CYP2D6, and so they will convert the codeine much more quickly, whereas if you go to the UK, maybe up to ten percent of the white population in the UK just won't be converting codeine to morphine at all, so they won't get any benefit from the drug. So at both ends, you have some people that don't respond and some people that respond a little bit too much so that they need either an alternative drug or they need a different dose.  Vivienne: So, all those people who say, you know, “My headache hasn't been touched by this painkiller,” and we say, “What a wimp you're being,” actually, it's to do with genetics.  Bill: Yeah, absolutely. There's a biological reason why people don't – not for everybody, but for a significant number of people, that's absolutely right, and we can be far more tailored in how we prescribe medication, and get people onto painkillers that work for them much more quickly.  Vivienne: And that's so interesting that it varies by where you come from in the world, because that means we need to give particular attention – and I'm thinking, Anita, to working with patients from different community groups, to make sure that they understand the need for pharmacogenomics.  Anita: I think that's really important, Vivienne, and I think we are now having discussions with the likes of Canada SJS awareness group, and also people have been in touch with me from South Africa because people have requested the passport now to be used in different countries, because they think it's a wonderful tool, and it's about raising awareness of pharmacogenomics and the potential benefits of that, and being able to share the tools that we've got to help patients once they've experienced a serious reaction.  Vivienne: So, pharmacogenomics clearly is important in the prevention of adverse drug reactions, better and more accurate prescribing, reduced medicines wastage. Does this mean that it's also going to save money, Bill, for the NHS?  Bill: Potentially. It should do if it's applied properly, but there's lots of work to make sure that not only are we using the right evidence and using the right types of tests in the laboratory, but we're getting the information to prescribers, so to GPs, to pharmacists, to hospital doctors, in a way that is understandable and meaningful, such that they can then act upon that information. So, the money will only be saved and then can be reused for healthcare if the whole process and the whole pathway works, and that information is used effectively.  Vivienne: So, a lot of research to make sure that all of that is in place, and to demonstrate the potential cost savings.  Bill: Yes. I mean, there are very nice studies that have been done already in parts of the world that have shown that the savings that could be accrued for applying pharmacogenetics across common conditions like depression, like in patients to prevent secondary types of strokes, are enormous. They run into hundreds of millions of pounds or dollars. But there is an initial investment that is required to make sure that we have the testing in place, that we have the digital pathways to move the information in place, and that there's the education and training, so that health professionals know how to use the information. But the potential is absolutely enormous.  Vivienne: Matt, can I turn now to the yellow card. So, people will be very familiar with the yellow card system. So, if you have an adverse reaction, you can send a yellow card in – I mean, literally, it is a yellow card [laughter]. It does exactly what it says on the tin. You send a yellow card to the MHRA, and they note if there's been an adverse effect of a particular medicine. But Genomics England is teaming up with the MHRA to do something more with yellow cards, and we're also doing this with the Yellow Card Biobank. Tell us a bit more.  Matt: So, yellow card's a great scheme that was set up decades ago, initially starting off, as you said, with literally yellow cards, but now actually most submissions actually come online. And it's important to note that submissions can come not just from healthcare providers, but majority of submissions actually come from patients themselves, and that people should feel free, if they feel they've had an adverse drug reaction, to report that themselves rather than necessarily depending on a medical practitioner or the healthcare provider to create that report. So, Genomics England is partnering with the MHRA in building what's called the Yellow Card Biobank, the goal of which is to identify genetic markers for adverse drug reactions earlier than has occurred in the past, so that we can then introduce genetic tests to prevent these adverse drug reactions much sooner than has occurred previously.   So, what we're doing is basically at the moment we're doing a pilot, but the ultimate plan is that in future, patients who report a serious adverse drug reaction through the Yellow Card Biobank will be asked to provide a sample, a blood sample, that we then screen. We do a whole genome sequence on it, and then combine these with patients who've had like adverse drug reactions and identify genetic markers for that adverse drug reaction medication earlier, that can then be introduced into clinical practice earlier. And this should reduce by decades the amount of time between when adverse drug reactions first start occurring with medications and us then being able to translate that into a preventative mechanism.  Vivienne: And will that scheme discover, do you think, new interactions that you didn't know about before? Or do you expect it to turn up what you already know about?  Matt: No, I really think there's a lot of discovery that is yet to happen here. In particular, even for drugs that we know cause adverse drug reactions, mostly they've only been studied in people of European ancestry and often in East Asian ancestry, but in many other ancestries that are really important in the global population and in the UK population, like African ancestry and South Asian ancestries, we have very little data. And even within Africa, which is an area which is genetically diverse as the rest of the world put together, we really don't know what different ethnicities within Africa, actually what their genetic background is with regard to adverse drug reactions.  The other thing I'd say is that there are a lot of new medications which have simply not been studied well enough. And lastly, that at the moment people are focused on adverse drug reactions being due to single genetic variants, when we know from the model of most human diseases that most human diseases are actually caused by combinations of genetic variants interacting with one another, so-called common disease type genetics, and that probably is similarly important with regard to pharmacogenomics as it is to overall human diseases. That is, it's far more common that these are actually due to common variants interacting with one another rather than the rare variants that we've been studying to date.  Vivienne: So, it's a kind of cocktail effect, if you like. You know, you need lots of genes working together and that will produce a reaction that you may not have expected if you'd looked at a single gene alone.  Matt: That's absolutely correct, and there's an increasing amount of evidence to show that that is the case with medications, but it's really very early days for research in that field. And the Yellow Card Biobank will be one of many approaches that will discover these genetic variants in years to come.  Vivienne: Now, Matt's a research scientist. Bill, you're on the frontline in the NHS. How quickly can this sort of finding be translated into care for people in the NHS?  Bill: So, really quickly is the simple answer to that, Viv. If we look at examples from a number of years ago, there's a drug called azathioprine that Matt has used lots in some of his patients. In rheumatology, it's used for patients with inflammatory bowel disease. And the first studies that showed that there was a gene that was relevant to having bad reactions to that drug came out in the 1980s, but it wasn't until well into this century, so probably 30-plus years later that we were routinely using that test in clinical medicine. So, there was an enormous lot of hesitancy about adopting that type of testing, and a bit of uncertainty. If you move forward to work that our colleague Munir Pirmohamed in Liverpool has done with colleagues in Australia like Simon Mallal around HIV medicine, there was this discovery that a drug called abacavir, that if you carried a particular genetic change, that you had a much higher risk of having a really severe reaction to that. The adoption from the initial discovery to routine, worldwide testing happened within four years.   So, already we've seen a significant change in the appetite to move quickly to adopt this type of testing, and I see certainly within the NHS and within other health systems around the world, a real desire to adopt pharmacogenetics into routine clinical practice quickly and at scale, but also as part of a broader package of care, which doesn't just solely focus on genetics, but thinks about all the other parts that are important in how we respond to medication. So, making sure we're not on unusual combinations of drugs, or that we're taking our medicine at the right time and with food or not with food, and all of those other things that are really important. And if you link that to the pharmacogenetics, we're going to have a much safer, more effective medicines world.  Vivienne: I think one of the joys of working at Genomics England is that you see some of this work really going into clinical practice very fast indeed. And I should say actually that the Wolfson Centre for Personalised Medicine, the PPI group that Anita looks after so well, they've been very important in recruiting people to Yellow Card Biobank. And if anyone's listening to this, Matt, and wants to be part of this, how do they get involved? Or is it simply through the yellow card?  Matt: So at the moment, the Yellow Card Biobank is focusing on alopurinol.   Vivienne: So, that's a medicine you take for gout.  Matt: Which I use a lot in my rheumatology clinical practice. And direct acting oral anticoagulants, DOACs, which are used for vascular disease therapies and haemorrhage as a result of that. So, the contact details are available through the MHRA website, but I think more importantly, it's just that people be aware of the yellow card system itself, and that if they do experience adverse drug reactions, that they do actually complete a report form, ‘cos I think still actually a lot of adverse drug reactions go unreported.  Vivienne: I'm forgetting of course that we see Matt all the time in the Genomics England office and we don't think that he has any other home [laughter] than Genomics England, but of course he still sees some patients in rheumatology clinic. So, I want to now look to the future. I mean, I'm, as you both know, a huge enthusiast for pharmacogenomics, ‘cos it's the thing that actually, when you talk to patients or just the general public, they just get it straight away. They can't think why, if you knew about pharmacogenomics, why you wouldn't want to do it. But it's not necessarily an easy thing to do. How can we move in the future, Bill, to a more proactive approach for pharmacogenomics testing? Where would we start?  Bill: Yes, so I think we've built up really good confidence that pharmacogenetics is a good thing to be doing. Currently, we're doing that predominantly at the point when a patient needs a particular medicine. That's the time that you would think about doing a genetic test. And previously, that genetic test would only be relevant for that specific drug. I think we're moving to a place where, rather than just doing that one test that might be relevant to one drug, we'd be able to do a test which at the same price would generate information that could be relevant at further points in your life if you were requiring different types of medicine. So, that information would then be available in your hospital record, in your GP record, that you could have access to it yourself. And then I think ultimately what we would really love to get to a point is where everybody across the whole population just has that information to hand when it's required, so that they're not waiting for the results of a genetic test, it's immediately within their healthcare record. That's what we'd call pre-emptive pharmacogenetic testing, and I think that's the golden land that we want to reach.  Vivienne: So for instance, I might have it on my NHS app, and when I go to a doctor and they prescribe something, I show my app to the GP, or something pops up on the GP's screen, or maybe it's something that pops up on the pharmacist's screen.  Bill: I think that's right. I think that's what we're looking to get to that point. We know that colleagues in the Netherlands have made some great progress at developing pathways around that. There's a lot of public support for that. And pharmacists are very engaged in that. In the UK, the pharmacists, over the last few years, have really taken a very active role to really push forward this area of medicine, and this should be seen as something that is relevant to all people, and all health professionals should be engaged with it.  Vivienne: And on a scale of one to ten, how difficult is it going to be to implement in the NHS?  Bill: So, that's a difficult question. I think the first thing is identifying what the challenges are. So I have not given you a number, I've turned into a politician, not answered the question. So, I think what has happened over the last few years, and some of our work within the NHS Network of Excellence in pharmacogenetics and some of the other programmes of work that have been going on, is a really good, honest look at what it is we need to do to try to achieve pharmacogenetics implementation and routine use. I don't think the challenge is going to be predominantly in the laboratory. I think we've got phenomenal laboratories. I think we've got great people doing great genetic testing. I think the biggest challenges are going to be about how you present the data, and that data is accessible. And then ensuring that health professionals really feel that this is information that isn't getting in the way of their clinical practice, but really making a difference and enhancing it, and of benefit both to the healthcare system but more importantly to the patients.  Vivienne: Now, when I hear you both talk, my mind turns to drug discovery and research, and Matt, I'm quite sure that that's right at the top of your mind. Tell us how pharmacogenomics can help in drug discovery and research.  Matt: So, pharmacogenomics, I think actually just genetic profiling of diseases in itself just to start off with is actually a really good way of identifying new potential therapeutic targets, and also from derisking drug development programmes by highlighting likely adverse drug reactions of medications that are being considered for therapeutic trials, or targets that are being considered for therapeutic development. Pharmacogenomics beyond that is actually largely about – well, it enables drug development programmes by enabling you to target people who are more likely to respond, and avoid people who are more likely to have adverse drug reactions. And so that therapeutic index of the balance between likely efficacy versus likely toxicity, genetics can really play into that and enable medications to be used where otherwise they might have failed.  This is most apparent I think in the cancer world. A classic example there, for example, is the development of a class of medications called EGFR inhibitors, which were developed for lung cancer, and in the initial cancer trials, actually were demonstrated to be ineffective, until people trialled them in East Asia and found that they were effective, and that that turns out to be because the type of cancers that respond to them are those that have mutations in the EGFR gene, and that that's common in East Asians. We now know that, wherever you are in the world, whether you're East Asian or European or whatever, if you have a lung adenocarcinoma with an EGFR mutation, you're very likely to respond to these medications. And so that pharmacogenomic discovery basically rescued a class of medication which is now probably the most widely used medication for lung adenocarcinomas, so a huge beneficial effect. And that example is repeated across multiple different cancer types, cancer medication types, and I'm sure in other fields we'll see that with expansive new medications coming in for molecularly targeted therapies in particular.  Vivienne: So, smaller and more effective trials rather than larger trials that perhaps seem not to work but actually haven't been tailored enough to the patients that are most likely to benefit.  Matt: Yeah, well, particularly now that drug development programmes tend to be very targeted at specific genetic targets, pharmacogenetics is much more likely to play a role in identifying patients who are going to respond to those medications. So, I think many people in the drug development world would like to see that, for any significant drug development programme, there's a proper associated pharmacogenomic programme to come up with molecular markers predicting a response.  Vivienne: We're going to wrap up there. Thank you so much to our guests, Bill Newman, Anita Hanson, Matt Brown, and our patient Jane Burns. Thank you so much for joining us today to discuss pharmacogenomics in personalised medicine, and the benefits, the challenges and the future prospects for integrating pharmacogenomics into healthcare systems. And if you'd like to hear more podcasts like this, please subscribe to Behind the Genes. It's on your favourite podcast app. Thank you so much for listening. I've been your host, Vivienne Parry. This podcast was edited by Bill Griffin at Ventoux Digital and produced by the wonderful Naimah. Bye for now. 

I have been lucky enough to speak to some of the most amazing people who have built the core of security on the Internet, and a person near the top of my list is … Torben P. Pedersen.  The Pedersen Commitment So how do we create a world where we can store our secrets in a trusted and then reveal them when required? Let's say I predict the outcome of an election, but I don't want to reveal my prediction until after the election. Well, I could store a commitment to my prediction, and then at some time in the future I could reveal it to you, and you can check against the commitment I have made. Anyone who views my commitment should not be able to see what my prediction is. This is known as Pedersen Commitment, and where we produce our commitment and then show the message that matches the commitment. In its core form, we can implement a Pedersen Commitment in discrete logs [here]. But blockchain, IoT, Tor, and many other application areas, now use elliptic curve methods, so let's see if we can make a commitment with them. The classic paper is here: So before the interview with Torben, here's an outline of the Pedersen Commitment: Interview Bill: Okay, so tell me a bit about yourself, and what got you into cryptography? Torben: Well, I was studying computer science at university in Aarhus, and I just thought it was an interesting subject that was somewhere between computer science and mathematics. Bill: And so you invented a method that we now know as the Pedersen Commitment. What motivated you to do that? And how does it work? And how do you think it will be used in the future? Torben: Well, the reason I worked with this, was that I was working with verifiable secret sharing. There was, at the time, a method for doing non-interactive verifiable secret sharing based on a commitment which was unconditionally binding and computationally hiding. At the time, there was also inefficient commitments, that had the property of being unconditionally hiding, and I thought it would be nice to have a verifiable secret share where you don't have to rely on any computational assumptions, in order to be sure that your secret is not revealed when you do a secret share. Torben: Then there was a paper which created an authentication scheme very similar to Schnorr. But it's used a similar idea for a useful commitment. And that was kind of the combination of those two (the existing non-interactive verifiable secret sharing and the ideas form this authentication scheme), which motivated me to do verifiable secret sharing. And the commitment scheme was, of course, an important part of that because it had unconditioned hiding property, and it had the mathematical structure that was needed for the secret sharing. Bill: And it has scaled into an elliptic curve world. But with elliptic curves and discrete logs now under threat, how would you see it moving forward into a possible post-quantum crypto world? Torben: The good thing about the commitment scheme is that it is unconditional hiding. Of course, you can be sure that your private information is not leaked, even in case a quantum computer is constructed. But of course, the protocols that are using this one have to see what effect does it have if one, for example using a quantum computer, can change ones mind about a commitment. So you need to see how that would affect those protocols. Bill: So an example use of the commitment could be of a secret say someone voting in an election. So you would see when the commitment was made, and then when the vote was cast. Then the person could reveal what their votes actually was. Now it's been extended into zero-knowledge methods to prove that you have enough cryptocurrency to pay someone without revealing the transactions. How does that world evolve where you only see an anonymized ledger, and which can scare some people, but for others that is a citizen-focused world? How do you see your commitment evolving into privacy-preserving ledgers? Torben: I go back to what we're doing at Concordium where we have a blockchain which gives a high assurance about the privacy of the users acting on the blockchain. At the same time, using zero-knowledge proof, we set it up in such a way that designated authorities — if they under certain circumstances, for example, are given a court order — they will be able to see to link an account on the blockchain for that particular person. So, actually the zero-knowledge proofs and the commitment schemes — and all that — is used to guarantee the privacy of the users acting on the blockchain, and there are also regulatory requirements, that it must be possible to identify people who misbehave on the blockchain. Bill: Yeah, that's a difficult thing, and it's probably where the secret is stored. So, if the secret is stored in the citizen's wallet, then only they can reveal that. And if the secret needs to be stored, for money laundering by an agency could hold it. Torben: Actually we do not have to store the secret of the user. But there are other keys which allow us to link the account with a particular user. That is something which only designated parties can do. So we have one party which is the identity provider with issues and identity to a user and other parties called anonymity reworkers. And those parties will have to work together in order to link an account to a user. We use zero-knowledge proofs when creating the account to assure that account is created in such a way that it is possible for you to trace back the account to the user. Bill: And in terms of zero-knowledge proofs, there is a sliding scale from highly complex methods that you would use for Monero and anonymized cryptocurrencies, to the simpler ones to Fiat Shamir implementation. And they are probably unproven in terms of their impact on performance and for security. Where is the sweet spot? What methods do you think are the best for that? Torben: I think we need to see improvements in zero-knowledge proofs in order to have really efficient blockchains and non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs on a blockchain. So I definitely think we need some work on that. There are some acceptable non-interactive zero-knowledge proofs for the moment. We are using Bulletproofs for the moment together with Shamir shares on it, in order to make it non-interactive. But I think there are some technologies like zkSnarks and zkStarks, but I think there's room for improvement. Bill: And what do you think the key challenges within cryptography just now What do we need to be working on in the next three to five years? Torben: Yeah, so the biggest challenge, as you already mentioned, and that's what happens if we have a quantum computer that can break the assumptions that a lot of the constructions are based on today. Whether we have a quantum computer, I don't know, but we need to be prepared. We have some post-quantum algorithms, which I think also are quite complex, and it would be nice to have something that was more efficient and better to use. I think there's also room for work on that aspect. Bill: And obviously, to create some toolkits that move away from an Ethernet world and where the Internet was really built on the seven-layer model — and it's flawed. We perhaps need to rebuild on a toolkit of math, so that we actually have a solid foundation. I know that Hyperledger is starting to build these tools for developers. When we do see that rebuilding happening, and where are the toolkits going to come from? Torben: Toolkits could come from blockchain companies such as Concordium, for example. It could also come from the community with sponsored projects. If we can build up an infrastructure that allows people to use blockchains in the ledger, without trusting one particular party, so that they can create a trust, which is probably lacking on the Internet today. It's very difficult, as with the current Internet it is very difficult to know if you can trust someone or not. I hope blockchain technology can help create an infrastructure for that. There's a long way to go. We need good public permissionless blockchains for that, so you don't have to rely on a particular party for this. Obviously, that is sufficient, but there's quite some way to go. Bill: How do you change the approach of governments and industries that have been around for hundreds of years. So if you look at the legal industry, they still typically only accept wet signatures. They might have a GIF of a signature and add it to a PDF, but that's as far as it goes. So how are we going to really transform governments and, and existing industries to really accept that digital signatures are the way to do these things? Torben: Yeah, I think it's a bit dangerous, you know, accepting these GIFs of signatures and digital signatures which are not really cryptographically secure. I'm not a big fan of that. I'd like to see us moving to digital signatures, which are the way that we originally envisaged in the cryptographic world, and where the party who signs the signature is in control of the key which created the digital signature. I hope you'll see a movement towards that level of security. Bill: And could you tell me a little bit about the Concordium Foundation and what's objectives on what it hopes to achieve? Torben: So our vision is to create a public permissionless blockchain that can help to create trust across industries. We want to enable entities such as businesses and private persons, to interact or act privately on the blockchain. At the same time, it's very important for us not to create an infrastructure, which allows criminals to misuse it, and for some money laundering problems. Thus we want to create an environment where it's possible to identify people who misbehave or break the rules. And that is why we have this identity layer as part of our blockchain. Bill: And what got you into blockchain? Torben: I think the technology is very interesting. There's a lot of things you said based on a lot of pretty old cryptography. There's also new developments, for example, the zero-knowledge proofs. So there's new and new developments or developments. So very interesting. I mean, it's not necessarily what I was interested in, but when I did research many years ago. That's probably what I wanted to work with. I have been working with cryptography — mostly in mostly for the financial sector for 25 years. And that's also very interesting. There are challenges and it's also nice to get back to the sort of basis that I worked with many years ago. Bill: You took a route into the industry but obviously you could have gone into academia and you could become a professor and have an academic research team. Torben: I think it was because I wanted to work with practical aspects of using cryptography. I've been in research for some years and I thought I needed to try something else. And I was very keen to see how it would be used in practice and be part of that. So that's why I made that step. Bill: What does our digital world look like that's made up of tokens, cryptographic tokens, consensus systems and digital identities. And you think that that world will come anytime soon that we can trade assets, we can have digital assets that can be traded. Torben: Well, it depends on what you mean by soon. I think we will have some way to go. I think the use of blockchains for trading tokens, for handling tokens, and for registering tokens, is an obvious thing, but we also need to bring value to businesses or projects. To have something that people can feel it and control. We need to make sure that information is protected the right way, even though it is registered on a public blockchain, for example.

In today's competitive landscape, a comprehensive understanding of business processes is critical to successfully deploying and using Oracle Cloud Applications. Having solid foundational knowledge of business processes can help you understand “how things are done” and apply your learning to the right processes, in the right way, at the right time.   Join Lois Houston and Nikita Abraham, along with Bill Lawson, as they talk about how Oracle's business process training can help everyone involved in an implementation project, from project teams and technical teams to end users.   Oracle MyLearn: https://mylearn.oracle.com/ Oracle University Learning Community: https://education.oracle.com/ou-community LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/oracle-university/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/Oracle_Edu   Special thanks to Arijit Ghosh, David Wright, Kris-Ann Nansen, Radhika Banka, and the OU Studio Team for helping us create this episode.   --------------------------------------------------------   Episode Transcript:   00:00 Welcome to the Oracle University Podcast, the first stop on your cloud journey. During this series of informative podcasts, we'll bring you foundational training on the most popular Oracle technologies. Let's get started. 00:26 Lois: Hello and welcome to the Oracle University Podcast. I'm Lois Houston, Director of Product Innovation and Go to Market Programs with Oracle University, and with me is Nikita Abraham, Principal Technical Editor. Nikita: Hi everyone! We're starting the third season of the Oracle University Podcast today, and this time around, our focus is going to be on Cloud Apps Business Processes. And we're very excited about this episode, which will be an overview of the Business Process training and certification offered by Oracle University. We'll discuss this training at length, learn how it can help you prepare for projects, and find out how everyone involved in an implementation—from project teams to technical teams and end users —can benefit from taking this training. 01:12 Lois: And we're so excited to welcome Bill Lawson back to the podcast today. If you've been following our podcast, you already know Bill from last season. Bill is the Senior Director of Cloud Applications Product Management at Oracle University. His team is in charge of developing new content for Oracle Cloud Applications. So, all the amazing training that helps you successfully implement and operate our cloud apps is created by his team. Thanks so much, Bill, for being with us today. We're really excited to talk with you. 01:41 Bill: I'm happy to be here to kick off this new season, Lois and Niki. Nikita: So, to start Bill, can you tell us a little about the Cloud Apps Business Process training in general?  Bill: Think of our Business Process training as Oracle's official collection of courses designed to provide you with a foundational understanding of how end-to-end business process flows are defined. These are based off Oracle Modern Best Practices. So, we have a series of courses that enable learners to have a common foundational reference when implementing Oracle Cloud Applications. Ultimately, the goal of our Oracle Business Process training is to ensure that everybody in the organization, across all the various roles, are all on the same page when, you know, they are discovering and learning more about Oracle Cloud.  02:22 Lois: We already have extensive Cloud Apps training, right? So, why did we decide to create this particular training? What's different about these courses, Bill? Bill: While we do have a very comprehensive modern digital Oracle Cloud Applications training existing today, we felt there was an opportunity to educate our customers on foundational business processes, which are required knowledge to have even before anyone starts their application implementation journey.  To meet this important need, we developed Business Process training, which, once again, is defined by Oracle Modern Best Practices and driven by Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications. This training will help students by providing them with the skills that are required to maximize the use and impact of those applications in their business. 03:03 Bill: And also providing a common framework for teams to use and to refer to throughout their cloud implementation projects, aligning from the start to accelerate and improve project planning and improving decision-making throughout the cloud implementation cycle. The training also defines end-to-end business process flows and illustrates how organizations and business users across all job roles can best manage day-to-day business activities and tasks, in a format within MyLearn and Cloud Learning Subscriptions that's engaging, easy to digest, and easy to learn. In fact, knowledge of basic business processes will enable students to understand “how things are done” and then apply those right processes, in the right way, at the right time. 03:44 Nikita: And what areas are covered, Bill?  Bill: We have training on Oracle Human Capital Management or HCM, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Experience (CX) Sales, Supply Chain Management, which is SCM, and Procurement.  In HCM, we show examples of the full suite of HR processes that encompasses all stages of an employee's experience—from the time they apply for a job, to when they're onboarded, ultimately to the last day they're at the company.   In our ERP training, learners use how to process, record, and report on finances reports. ERP training is really focused within the financial management area within ERP.   Our Sales training teaches how to make the organization sales cycle more effective by gathering all the customer information in one place, increasing productivity, empowering sales reps to sell more, and obtaining accurate information for boosting revenue. 04:36 Bill: Under Supply Chain Management, we have a comprehensive Cloud Applications suite that includes many products such as Inventory Management, Order Management, Manufacturing, and many more. In our business process training, as an example, we cover the processes of forecasting anticipated demand of products and services and planning the supply of materials and components, production, distribution, marketing, and sales in order to meet that demand. And finally, in Procurement, students will learn the business processes encompassing every stage of the procurement life cycle–from the initial stage of onboarding suppliers, to identifying sourcing opportunities and initiating sourcing events, to authoring contracts, to ultimately receiving the product or service and closing out the financials.    05:23 Lois: Wow, that's a lot, Bill! So, let's just say I'm getting started in my career with Cloud Applications. Would you recommend that I take this training or would I need to be more experienced to take it?  Bill: Anyone can take this training, Lois. We have learning paths from the beginner to the advanced level within our Cloud Learning Subscriptions today. The business process courses in particular are for any experience level, from the recent college grad to the seasoned professional who just wants to learn more about Oracle Cloud Applications. 05:52 Lois: OK, so let's talk a little more about who this training is best for. Can you expand a little bit on who would benefit the most from the courses? Bill: The training is for anyone who wants to build a strong foundational knowledge of Oracle Cloud   Business Processes in order to successfully plan, implement, test, and use Oracle Cloud Applications. You can be a Business Process Owner, a Functional User, an Implementation Project Team Member, an Implementer, a User Acceptance Testing Team Member, or even a University Student. We feel that this knowledge is foundational for success in the cloud. 06:26 Bill: So, for example, a partner implementation team will benefit by gaining an understanding of the modern business process flows supported by Oracle Cloud Applications to gain a solid understanding in order to configure based on the flow. Or say, customer project teams who work with implementation teams and will benefit from defining common approaches and business rules for their organization at the onset of their application implementation to help avoid any delays in the project. In short, having the same fundamental knowledge throughout this training helps ensure everyone is on the same page when discovering, planning, configuring, and executing these business processes in the cloud.  07:09 Want to learn about modern best practices for cloud applications?  Oracle University is offering (for a limited time) free Business Process training and certification in the areas of Human Capital Management, Financials, Customer Experience, Supply Chain Management, and Procurement.  Oracle Cloud training and certifications empower you to explore limitless possibilities in the cloud landscape. Gain the knowledge and skills needed to design, deploy, secure, and operate modern cloud infrastructure and applications with confidence. Go to education.oracle.com for more details. What are you waiting for? Get certified today! 07:49 Nikita: Welcome back! Bill, could you give us some examples of what I'll learn if I take this Business Process training? Bill: Great question, Niki. Project teams, both business process owners and those involved in executing specific steps in the process, will gain a high-level understanding of how their teams' processes and related tasks will change, and continue to evolve, when moving to the cloud. But it doesn't end there. Project teams will also learn the basics around how organizations manage day-to-day business activities and tasks in such areas as I mentioned earlier… Finance, Human Capital Management, Sales, Supply Chain, and Procurement. They will learn about how Oracle Cloud Applications leverage emerging technologies, such as AI and machine learning, blockchain, and business intelligence, which help drive mission-critical organizational business processes.  08:39 Bill: So, for example, let's take the use case of a recruitment team lead. This training will provide an overview of the best practice steps in an applicant screening process that are enabled in Oracle HCM and how it relates to onboarding and other employee lifecycle processes.  This way, users can consider how their team's current screening process steps and related tasks will be impacted as they move to the cloud, as well as how that process can evolve over time when enabled by new technologies. In addition, this training will show how to use machine learning to help screen and prioritize candidate résumés.   And with this base understanding, the recruitment team lead can contribute to improving the screening process when using Oracle HCM Recruiting and better the overall collaboration and project planning with their system integrator and other HR project teams. 09:29 Lois: So, you said we have a full suite of Business Process training courses. What's the value in taking training outside of my area of responsibility? Bill: That's such a great question, Lois. You'll see, often in implementation projects, decision-making can be siloed. Business process owners consider the needs of their own team, especially as detailed requirements are documented and considered for each process. As leaders, they want to ensure their teams' needs are thoroughly considered to ensure they can accomplish all that is expected of them. When planning a cloud implementation project, teams need not only consider how their own processes will change but also how the decisions they make in planning, configuring, and implementing Oracle Cloud Applications to suit their own needs will impact other teams and their processes. 10:17 Bill: That's why getting the end-to-end view is so important, we believe. We created this training to ensure that business process owners across the organization, as well as the implementation teams supporting their projects, understand not only their own area of responsibility but are also considerate of the changes, the subsequent impact, on other teams as well. We really want to encourage collaboration from the beginning of the project to improve decision-making at all phases by developing this early-stage awareness and understanding. 10:47 Nikita: I've heard this training is a little different from the video-based training that we have for most of our other Cloud Apps courses. So, what's different about it, Bill? Bill: Yeah, you're right, Niki. So, this training combines a variety of elements, not just videos. We still do have some videos within our business process training. But it also includes rich text articles, descriptive imagery, concepts explained by experts, product demonstrations, and knowledge checks, to bring users the best possible learning experience. 11:16 Nikita: And along with this training, we also offer certifications, right?  Bill: Yeah, you're absolutely right, Niki. For Business Process training, we have five associate-level exams included—one for each of the areas I mentioned. One for HCM, one for ERP Financials, Sales, Procurement, and Supply Chain Management. So, earning a Business Process Foundation Associate certification provides the candidate with an industry credential which recognizes a foundational understanding of the business process flows enabled by Oracle Cloud Applications. Our content prepares the candidate to earn that certification. 11:50 Lois: Well, this has been very enlightening, Bill. Thank you so much for joining us today and telling us all about the Business Process training and certifications that are available. Bill: Yeah, you're welcome, Lois. And thanks for having me, Niki. Nikita: To get started on Oracle Business Process training, head over to mylearn.oracle.com.  Lois: Well, that's all the time we have for today. Join us next week as we set off on our journey through the HCM business processes with Senior Principal Instructor Nigel Wiltshire. Until next week, this is Lois Houston… Nikita: And Nikita Abraham, signing off. 12:22 That's all for this episode of the Oracle University Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please click Subscribe to get all the latest episodes. We'd also love it if you would take a moment to rate and review us on your podcast app. See you again on the next episode of the Oracle University Podcast.

Today we are discussing the 1989 cult classic Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. The film is directed by Stephen Derek and written by film school chums Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon. The film is about two rock n rolling teens who are at risk of failing history class. They take the opportunity to use a time machine to go back and bring back historical figures for the ultimate history presentation. Many of the locations were filmed largely in Arizona. The 10 million dollar film's dialogue includes 70 occasions of “dude” and “excellent” is dropped 30 times.  Ted: [both get served beers in a saloon bar] Whoa. He didn't even card us, dude. Bill: Yeah, we have to remember this place. Some of our favorite parts of this movie are: The friendship that was formed during casting The spacious phone booth Classic indie film The evolution of the film More Montage!! To guess the theme of this month's films you can call or text us at 971-245-4148 or email to christi@dodgemediaproductions.com You can guess as many times as you would like. Bill & Ted's Audition Tape Special thanks to Melissa Villagrana for helping out with our social media posts and website transcription. Also, we want to thank Geoff for getting us off the ground with his wonderful editing and now he is onto bigger and better things. Go get em' Geoff Next week's film will be Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) Subscribe, Rate & Share Your Favorite Episodes! Thanks for tuning into today's episode of Dodge Movie Podcast with your host, Mike and Christi Dodge. If you enjoyed this episode, please head over to Apple Podcasts to subscribe and leave a rating and review.

Episode Notes:A discussion recently concluded 20th Party Congress and what to expect ahead in US China relations. I'm pleased to welcome back Chris Johnson, CEO of Consultancy China Strategies Group, Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis and former Senior China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. This is the 7th Party Congress that Chris has analyzed professionally.Links:John Culver: How We Would Know When China Is Preparing to Invade Taiwan - Carnegie Endowment for International PeaceTranscript:Bill: Welcome back to the very occasional Sinocism podcast. Today we are going to talk about the recently concluded 20th Party Congress and what to expect ahead in US China relations. I'm pleased to welcome back Chris Johnson, CEO of Consultancy China Strategies Group, Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Center for China Analysis and former Senior China analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency. This is the 7th Party Congress that Chris has analyzed professionally. So we have a lot of experience here to help us understand what just happened. Chris, welcome back and thanks for taking the time.Chris: My pleasure. Always fun to be with you, Bill.Bill: Great. Well, why don't we jump right in. I'd like to talk about what you see as the most important outcomes from the Congress starting with personnel. What do you make of the leadership team from the central committee to the Politburo to the Standing Committee and what does that say about.Chris: Yeah, well, I, think clearly Xi Jinping had a massive win, you know, with personnel. I think we see this particularly in the Politburo Standing Committee, right, where on the key portfolios that really matter to him in terms of controlling the key levers of power inside the system. So we're talking propaganda, obviously, Uh, we're talking party bureaucracy, military less so, but security services, you know, these, these sort of areas all up and down the ballot he did very well.So that's obviously very important. And I think obviously then the dropping of the so-called Communist Youth League faction oriented people in Li Keqiang and Wang Yang and, and Hu Chunhua being  kind of unceremoniously kicked off the Politburo, that tells us that. He's not in the mood to compromise with any other  interest group.I prefer to call them rather than factions. Um, so that sort of suggests to us that, you know, models that rely on that kind of an analysis are dead. It has been kind of interesting in my mind to see how quickly though that, you know, analysts who tend to follow that framework already talking about the, uh, factional elements within Xi's faction, right?So, you know, it's gonna be the Shanghai people versus the Zhijiang Army versus the Fujian people. Bill: people say there's a Tsinghua factionChris: Right. The, the infamous, non infamous Tsinghua clique and, and and so on. But I think as we look more closely, I mean this is all kidding aside, if we look more closely at the individuals, what we see is obviously these people, you know, loyalty to Xi is, is sort of like necessary, but not necessarily sufficient in explaining who these people are. Also, I just always find it interesting, you know, somehow over. Wang Huning has become a Xi Jinping loyalist. I mean, obviously he plays an interesting role for Xj Jinping, but I don't think we should kid ourselves in noting that he's been kind of shunted aside Right by being pushed into the fourth position on the standing committee, which probably tells us that he will be going to oversee the Chinese People's Consultative Congress, which is, you know, kind of a do nothing body, you know, for the most part. And, um, you know, my sense has long been, One of Xi Jinping's, I think a couple factors there with Wang Huning.Sinocism is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.One is, you know, yes, he is very talented at sort of taking their very, uh, expansive, um, theoretical ideas and coming up with snappy, um, snappy sort of catchphrases, right? This is clearly his, um, his sort of claim to fame. But, you know, we had that article last year from the magazine, Palladium that kind of painted him as some sort of an éminence grise or a Rasputin like figure, you know, in terms of his role.Uh, you know, my sense has always been, uh, as one contact, put it to me one time. You know, the issue is that such analyses tend to confuse the musician with the conductor. In other words,  Xi Jinping.  is pretty good at ideology, right? And party history and the other things that I think the others had relied on.I think the second thing with Wang Huning is, um, in a way XI can't look at him I don't think, without sort of seeing here's a guy who's changed flags, as they would say, right? He served three very different leaders, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and now Xi , um, and, and continued on and I think at some level, uh, and we look at the rest of the appointments where it appears that, uh, loyalty was much more important than merit.Um, where that's also a question mark. So there's those issues I think on the Politburo. You know, you mentioned the, the Tsinghua clique it was very interesting. You had shared with me, uh, Desmond Shum of Red Roulette fame's Twitter stream sort of debunking, you know, this, this Tsinghua clique and saying, well, it turns out in fact that the new Shanghai Municipal Party Secretary Chen Jining can't stand Chen Xi, even though, you know, they both went to Tsinghua and were there at the same time and so on.Um, you know, who knows with Desmond Shum, but I think he knows some things, right? And, and, and it just a reminder to us all, I think, how little we understand right, about these relationships, especially now, uh, with Xi's concentration of power. And also a situation where we've had nearly three years of covid isolationBill: Right. And so it's really hard to go talk to people, even the fewer and fewer numbers, people who, who know something and can talk. Back to the standing committee. I, I think certainly just from friends and contacts the biggest surprise you know, I think, uh was Li Keqiang and Wang Yang not sticking around. And as that long explainer said without naming them they were good comrades who steps aside for the good of the party in the country,Chris: Because that happens so often,Bill: whatever that means. Um, but really the, the bigger surprise was that, oh, Cai Qi showing up. Who I think when you look at the standing committee, I think the general sense is, okay, the, these people are all, you know, not, they're loyal, but they're also competent, like Li Qiang, Chris: Right, Bill: The likely new premier number two on the standing committee is pretty competent. The Shanghai lockdown, disaster aside, Cai Qi on the other hand, was just, looks more like, it's just straight up loyalty to Xi. I think he was not really on anybody's short list of who was gonna make it on there. And so, it does feel like something happened, right?Chris: Yeah. Well, um, a couple things there. I think, um, one, let's start with the. The issue you raised about the economic team cuz I think that's actually very important. Um, you know, I, at some level, sometimes I feel like I'm sort of tiring my, of my role as official narrative buster or a windmill tilter.Uh, whether, whether it's pushback from Li Keqiang or the myth of the savior premier as I was calling it, which, uh, we didn't see, or that these norms actually aren't very enduring and it's really about power politics. I, I think I'm kind of onto a new one now, which is, you know, Xi Jin ping's new team of incompetent sycophants.Right? That's kind of the label that's, uh, come out in a lot of the takes, uh, since the Congress. But to your point, I mean, you know, Li Qiang has run the three most important economic powerhouses on China's east coast, either as governor or as party chief. Right. He seems to have had a, a good relationship with both.Private sector businesses and, and foreign, you know, people forget that, you know, he got the Tesla plant built in Shanghai in a year basically. Right. And it's, uh, responsible for a very significant amount of, of Tesla's total input of vehicles. Output of vehicles. Excuse me. Um, likewise, I hear that Ding Xuexiang, even though we don't know a lot about him, uh, was rather instrumental in things.Breaking the log jam with the US uh, over the de-listing of Chinese ADRs, uh, that he had played an important role in convincing Xi Jinping it would not be a good idea, for example, to, uh, you know, we're already seeing, uh, sort of decoupling on the technology side. It would not be a good idea to encourage the Americans to decouple financially as well. So the point is I think we need to just all kind of calm down, right? And, and see how these people perform in office. He Lifeng, I think is perhaps, you know, maybe more of a question mark, but, But here too, I think it's important for us to think about how their system worksThe political report sets the frame, right? It tells us what. Okay, this is the ideological construct we're working off of, or our interpretation, our dialectical interpretation of what's going on. And that, I think the signal there was what I like to call this fortress economy, right? So self-sufficiency and technology and so on.And so then when we look at the Politburo appointments, you can see that they align pretty closely to that agenda, right? These people who've worked in state firms or scientists and you know, so on and forth.Bill: Aerospace, defenseChris: Yeah, Aerospace. Very close alignment with that agenda. I'm not saying this is the right choice for China or that it even will be successful, I'm just saying it makes sense, you know,Bill: And it is not just sycophants it is actually loyal but some expertise or experience in these key sectors Chris: Exactly.  Yeah, and, and, and, and of interest as well. You know, even people who have overlapped with Xi Jinping. How much overlap did they have? How much exposure did they have? You know, there's a lot of discussion, for example, about the new propaganda boss, Li Shulei being very close to Xi and likewise Shi Taifeng.Right? Uh, both of whom were vice presidents at the party school when, when Xi also was there. Um, but remember, you know, he was understudy to Hu Jintao at the time, you know, I mean, the party school thing was a very small part of his portfolio and they were ranked lower, you know, amongst the vice presidents of the party school.So how much actual interaction did he have? So there too, you know, I think, uh, obviously. , yes these people will do what Xi Jinping wants them to do, but that doesn't mean they're not competent. On Cai Qi, I agree with you. I think it's, it's, it's difficult. You know, my speculation would be a couple of things.One, proximity matters, right? He's been sitting in Beijing the last five years, so he is, had the opportunity to, uh, be close to the boss and, and impact that. I've heard some suggestions from contacts, which I think makes some. He was seen as more strictly enforcing the zero Covid policy. Right. In part because he is sitting in Beijing than say a Chen Min'er, right.Who arguably was a other stroke better, you know, candidate for that position on the Politburo standing committee. And there, you know, it will be interesting to see, you know, we're not sure the musical chairs have not yet finished. Right. The post party Congress for people getting new jobs. But you know, for example, if Chen Min'er stays out in Chongqing, that seems like a bit of a loss for him.Bill: Yeah, he needs to go somewhere else if he's got any hope of, um, sort of, But so one thing, sorry. One thing on the Politburo I thought was really interesting, and I know we've talked about offline, um, is that the first time the head of the Ministry State Security was, was. Promoted into the Politburo - Chen Wenqing.  And now he is the Secretary of the Central Political Legal Affairs Commission, the party body that oversees the entire security services system and legal system. and what do you think that says about priorities and, and, and where Xi sees things going?Chris: Well, I think it definitely aligns with this concept of Xi Jiping's of comprehensive national security. Right. We've, we've seen and heard and read a lot about that and it seems that the, uh, number of types of security endlessly proliferate, I think we're up to 13 or 14Bill: Everything is National Security in Xi's China.Chris: Yeah. Everything is, is national security. Uh, that's one thing I think it's interesting perhaps in the, in the frame of, you know, in an era where they are becoming a bigger power and therefore, uh, have more resources and so on. You know, is that role that's played by the Ministry of State Security, which is, you know, they have this unique role, don't they?They're in a way, they're sort of the US' Central Intelligence Agency and, and FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation combined, and that they do have that internal security role as well, but, They are the foreign civilian anyway, uh, foreign intelligence collection arm. So perhaps, you know, over time there's been some sense that they realized, yes, cyber was great for certain things, but you still need human intelligence.Uh, you know, we don't know how well or not Chen Wenqing has performed, but you know, obviously there, this has been a relentless campaign, you know, the search for spies and so on and so forth. Um, I also think it says something about what we seem to be seeing emerging here, which is an effort to take what previously were these, you know, warring, uh, administrative or ministerial factions, right, of the Ministry of Public Security MPS, the MSS, uh, and even the party's, uh, discipline watchdog, the, uh, Central Commission on Discipline inspection, you know, in an effort to sort of knit those guys into one whole.And you know, it is interesting.Chen wending has experience in all three of those. He started off, I think as a street cop. Um, he did serve on the discipline inspection commission under, uh, Wang Qishan when things were, you know, really going  in that department in the early part of, Xi's tenure and then he's headed, uh, the Ministry of State Security.I think, you know, even more interesting probably is. The, uh, formation of the new secretariat, right? Where we have both Chen Wenqing on there and also Wang Xiaohong as a minister of Public Security, but also as a deputy on the CPLAC, right? And a seat on the secretariat. And if we look at the, um, The gentleman who's number two in the discipline inspection, uh, space, he was a longtime police officer as well.So that's very unusual. You know, uh, his name's escaping me at the moment. But, um, you know, so in effect you have basically three people on the Secretariat with security backgrounds and, you know, that's important. It means other portfolios that might be on the secretariat that have been dumped, right? So it shows something about the prioritization, uh, of security.And I think it's interesting, you know, we've, we've often struggled to understand what is the National Security Commission, how does it function, You know, these sort of things. And it's, it's still, you know, absolutely clear as mud. But what was interesting was that, you know, from whatever that early design was that had some aspect at least of looking a bit like the US style, National Security Commission, they took on a much more sort of internal looking flavor.And it had always been my sort of thought that one of the reasons Xi Jinping created this thing was to break down, you know, those institutional rivalries and barriers and force, you know, coordination on these, on these institutions. So, you know, bottom line, I think what we're seeing is a real effort by Xi Jinping to You know, knit together a comprehensive, unified, and very effective, you know, stifling, really security apparatus. And, uh, I don't expect to see that change anytime soon. And then, you know, as you and I have been discussing recently, we also have, uh, another Xi loyalist Chen Yixin showing up as Chen Wenqing's successor right at the Ministry of State SecurityBill: And he remains Secretary General of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission too.Chris: Exactly. So, you know, from, from a, a sheet home where Xi Jinping five years ago arguably had very loose control, if at all, we now have a situation where he's totally dominant. Bill: I think the, the official on the Secretariat, I think it's Liu Jinguo.Chris: That's the one. Yes. Thank you. I'm getting old…Bill: He also has, has a long history of the Ministry of Public Security system. Um, but yeah, it does, it does seem like it's a, it's a real, I mean it, I I, I don't wanna use the word securitization, but it does like this is the indication of a, of a real, sort of, it just sort of fits with the, the general trend  towards much more focus on national security. I mean, what about on the, the Central Military Commission? Right? Because one of the surprises was, um, again, and this is where the norms were broken, where you have Zhang Youxia, who should have retired based on his age, but he's 72, he's on the Politburo he stays as a vice chair of the CMCChris: Yep. Yeah, no, at, at, at the rip old age of 72. It's a little hard, uh, to think of him, you know, mounting a tank or something  to go invade Taiwan or whatever the, you know, whatever the case may be. But, you know, I, I think here again, the narratives might be off base a little bit, you know, it's this issue of, you know, well he's just picked, you know, these sycophantic loyalists, He's a guy who has combat experience, right?And that's increasingly rare. Um, I don't think it's any surprise that. That himself. And, uh, the, uh, uh, gentleman on the CMC, uh, Li, who is now heading the, um, Joint Chiefs of Staff, he also has Vietnam combat experience, not from 79, but from the, uh, the border incursions that went on into the80s. Um, so it's not that surprising really.But, but obviously, you know, Zhang Youxia is very close to Xi Jinping, their father's fought together, right? Um, and they have that sort of, uh, blood tie and Xi is signaling, I want, uh, I. Political control and also technologically or, or, um, you know, operationally competent people. I think the other fascinating piece is we see once again no vice chairman from the political commissar iatside of the PLA.I think that's very interesting. You know, a lot of people, including myself, were betting that Miao HuaWould, would, would get the promotion. He didn't, you know, we can't know. But my sense is in a way, Xi Jiping is still punishing that side of the PLA for Xu Caihou's misdoings. Right. You know, and that's very interesting in and of itself.Also, it may be a signal that I don't need a political commissar vice chairman because I handle the politicsBill: And, and, and he, yeah. And in this, this new era that the, the next phase of the Xi era, it, it is, uh, everybody knows, right? It's, it's all about loyalty to Xi.Chris: we just saw right, uh, today, you know, uh, yet, yet more instructions about the CMC responsibilities, Chairman, responsibility systems. Bill: Unfortunately they didn't release the full text but it would be fascinating to see what's in there.Chris: And they never do on these things, which is, uh, which is tough. But, um, you know, I think we have a general sense of what would be in it, . But, but even that itself, right, you know, is a very major thing that people, you know, didn't really pick up. Certain scholars, certainly like James Mulvenon and other people who are really good on this stuff noticed it. But this shift under Hu Jintao was a CMC vice chairman responsibility system. In other words, he was subletting the operational matters certainly to his uniformed officers, Xi Jinping doesn't do thatBill: Well, this, and here we are, right where he can indeed I mean, I, I had written in the newsletter, um, you know, that she had, I thought, I think he ran the table in terms of personnel.Chris: Oh, completely. Yeah.Bill: And this is why it is interesting he kept around folks like Wang Huning, but we'll move on. The next question I had really was about Xi's report to the party Congress and we had talked, I think you'd also, um, you've talked about on our previous podcasts, I mean there, there seems to be a pretty significant shift in the way Xi is talking about the geopolitical environment and their assessment and how they see the world. Can you talk about a little bit?Chris: Yeah, I mean, I think definitely we saw some shifts there and, uh, you know, you and I have talked a lot about it. You know, there are problems with word counting, right? You know, and when you look at the thing and you just do a machine search, and it's like, okay, well security was mentioned 350 times or whatever, but, but the, you know, in what context?Right. Um, and, uh, our, uh, mutual admiration society, the, uh, the China Media project, uh, I thought they did an excellent piece on that sort of saying, Remember, it's the words that go around the buzzword that matter, you know, just as much. But what we can say unequivocally is that two very important touchstones that kind of explain their thinking on their perception of not only their external environment, but really kind of their internal environment, which had been in the last several political reports, now are gone. And those are this idea of China's enjoying a period of strategic opportunity and this idea that peace and development are the underlying trend of the times. And, you know, on the period of strategic opportunity, I think it's important for a couple reasons. One, just to kind of break that down for our listeners in a way that's not, you know, sort of, uh, CCP speak, , uh, the, the basic idea was that China judged that it's external security environment was sufficiently benign, that they could focus their energies on economic development.Right? So obviously that's very important. I also think it was an important governor, and I don't think I've seen anything out there talking about its absence in this, uh, political report on this topic, It was a, it was an important governor on sort of breakneck Chinese military development, sort of like the Soviet Union, right?In other words, as long as you were, you know, sort of judging that your external environment was largely benign, you. Didn't really have a justification to have a massive defense budget or to be pushy, you know, in the neighborhood, these sort of things. And people might poo poo that and sort of say, Well, you know, this is all just rhetoric and so on. No, they actually tend to Bill: Oh, that's interesting. Well, then that fits a little bit, right, Cuz they added the, the wording around strategic deterrence in the report as well  which is seen as a, you know, modernizing, expanding their nuclear forces, right?Chris: Exactly, right. So, you know, that's, uh, an important absence and the fact that, you know, the word, again, word searching, right. Um, strategic and opportunity are both in there, but they're separated and balanced by this risks and challenges, languages and, and so on. Bill: Right the language is very starkly different. Chris: Yeah. And then likewise on, on peace and development. This one, as you know, is, is even older, right? It goes back to the early eighties, I believe, uh, that it's been in, in these political reports. And, uh, you know, there again, the idea was sort of not only was this notion that peace and economic development were the dominant, you know, sort of trend internationally, globally, they would be an enduring one. You know, this idea of the trend of the times, right? Um, now that's missing. So what has replaced it in both these cases is this spirit of struggle, right? Um, and so that's a pretty stark departure and that in my mind just sort of is a real throwback to what you could call the period of maximum danger for the regime in the sixties, right? When they had just split off with the Soviets and they were still facing unremitting hostility from the west after the Korean War experience and, and so on. So, you know, there's definitely a, a decided effort there. I think also we should view the removal of these concepts as a culmination of a campaign that Xi Jinping has been on for a while.You know, as you and I have discussed many times before, from the minute he arrived, he began, I think, to paint this darker picture of the exterior environment. And he seems to have always wanted to create a sort of sense of urgency, certainly maybe even crisis. And I think a big part of that is to justifying the power grab, right? If the world outside is hostile, you need, you know, a strongman. Bill: Well that was a lot of the propaganda going into the Party of Congress about the need for sort of a navigator helmsman because know, we we're, we're closest we have ever been to the great rejuvenation, but it's gonna be really hard and we need sort of strong leadership right. It was, it was all building to that. This is why Ci needs to stay for as long as he wants to stay.Chris: and I think we saw that reflected again just the other day in this Long People's Daily piece by Ding Xuexing, right, Where he's talking again about the need for unity, the throwback, as you mentioned in your newsletter to Mao's commentary, there is not to be lost on any of us you know, the fact that the Politburo standing committee's. Uh, first field trip is out to Yan'an, right? I mean, you know, these are messages, right? The aren't coincidental.Bill: No, it, it is. The thing that's also about the report that's interesting is that while there was, speaking of word counts, there was no mention of the United States, but it certainly feels like that was the primary backdrop for this entire discussion around. So the, the shifting geopolitical, uh, assessments and this broader, you know, and I think one of the things that I, and I want to talk to as we get into this, a little bit about US China relations, but is it she has come to the conclusion that the US is implacably effectively hostile, and there is no way that they're gonna get through this without some sort of a broader struggle?Chris: I don't know if they, you know, feel that conflict is inevitable. In fact, I kind of assume they don't think that because that's pretty grim picture for them, you know? Um, but I, I do think there's this notion that. They've now had two years to observe the Biden administration. Right? And to some degree, I think it's fair to say that by certain parties in the US, Xi Jinping, maybe not Xi Jinping, but a Wang Qishan or some of these characters were sold a bit of a bag of goods, right?Oh, don't worry, he's not Trump, he's gonna, things will be calmer. We're gonna get back to dialogue and you know, so on and so forth. And that really hasn't happened. And when we look at. Um, when we look at measures like the recent, chip restrictions, which I'm sure we'll discuss at some point, you know, that would've been, you know, the, the wildest dream, right of certain members of the Trump administration to do something that, uh, that's that firm, right? So, um, I think the conclusion of the Politburo then must be, this is baked into the cake, right? It's bipartisan. Um, the earliest we'll see any kind of a turn here is 2024. I think they probably feel. Um, and therefore suddenly things like a no limits partnership with Russia, right, start to make more sense. Um, but would really makes sense in that if that is your framing, and I think it is, and you therefore see the Europeans as like a swing, right, in this equation. This should be a great visit, right, for Chancellor Scholz, uh, and uh, I can't remember if it was you I was reading or someone else here in the last day or so, but this idea that if the Chinese are smart, they would get rid of these sanctions on Bill: That was me. Well, that was in my newsletterChris: Yeah. Parliamentary leaders and you know, Absolutely. Right. You know, that's a no brainer, but. I don't think they're gonna do it , but, but you know, this idea definitely that, and, and when they talk in the political report, you know, it, it's, it's like, sir, not appearing in this film, right, from Money Python, but we know who the people who are doing the bullying, you know, uh, is and the long armed jurisdiction and , so on and so forth and all, I mean, all kidding aside, I think, you know, they will see something like the chip restrictions effectively as a declaration of economic war. I don't think that's going too far to say that.Bill: It goes to the heart of their sort of technological project around rejuvenation. I mean, it is, it is a significant. sort of set of really kind of a, I would think, from the Chinese perspective aggressive policies against them,Chris: Yeah, and I mean, enforcement will be key and we'll see if, you know, licenses are granted and how it's done. And we saw, you know, already some, some backing off there with regard to this US person, uh, restriction and so on. But, but you know, it's still pretty tough stuff. There's no two ways aboutBill: No, and I, I wonder, and I worry that here in DC. You know, where the mood is very hawkish. If, if people here really fully appreciate sort of the shift that's taking, that seems to be taking place in Beijing and how these actions are viewed.Chris: Well, I, I think that's a really, you put your hand on it really, really interesting way, Bill, because, you know, let's face it really since the Trump trade war started, right? We've all analysts, you know, pundits, uh, even businesses and government people have been sort of saying, you know, when are the Chinese gonna punch back? You know, when are they going to retaliate? Right? And we talk about rare earths and we talk about Apple and TeslaBill: They slapped some sanctions on people but they kind of a jokeChris:  And I guess what I'm saying is I kind of worry we're missing the forest from the trees. Right. You know, the, the, the work report tells us, the political report tells us how they're reacting. Right. And it is hardening the system, moving toward this fortress economy, you know, so on and so forth. And I wanna be real clear here, you know, they're not doing this just because they're reacting to the United States. Xi Jinping presumably wanted to do this all along, but I don't think we can say that the actions they perceive as hostile from the US aren't playing a pretty major role in allowing him to accelerate.Bill: Well, they called me. Great. You justifying great Accelerationist, right? Trump was called that as well, and, and that, that's what worries me too, is we're in. Kind of toxic spiral where, where they see us doing something and then they react. We see them do something and we react and, and it doesn't feel like sort of there's any sort of a governor or a break and I don't see how we figure that out.Chris: Well, I think, you know, and I'm sure we'll come to this later in our discussion, but you know, uh, yes, that's true, but you know, I'm always deeply skeptical of these inevitability memes, whether it's, you know, Thucydides trap or, you know, these other things. Last time I checked, there is something called political agency, right?In other words, leaders can make choices and they can lead if they want to, right? They have an opportunity to do so at in Bali, and you know, we'll have to see some of the, you know, early indications are perhaps they're looking at sort of a longer meeting. So that would suggest maybe there will be some discussion of some of these longstanding issues.Maybe we will see some of the usual, you know, deliverable type stuff. So there's an opportunity. I, I think one question is, can the domestic politics on either side allow for seizing that opportunity? You know, that's an open.Bill: Interesting. There's a couple things in the party constitution, which I think going into the Congress, you know, they told us they were gonna amend the Constitution. There were expectations that it, the amendments were gonna reflect an increase in Xi's power, uh, things like this, this idea of the two establishments, uh, which for listeners are * "To establish the status of Comrade Xi Jinping as the core of the Party's Central Committee and of the whole Party"* "To establish the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era"The thinking, and I, I certainly believe that, I thought that they would write that in. There was some talk that, uh, Xi Jinping Thought the longer version would be truncated to just Xi Jinping thought. that possibly he might get, a, a sort of another title like People's Leader. None of those happened. One thing that did happen, What's officially translated by the Chinese side in English as the two upholds- “Uphold the 'core' status of General Secretary Xi Jinping within the CC and “Uphold the centralized authority of the Party” those were written in. And so the question is, was there some kind of pushback or are we misreading we what mattered? And actually the two upholds are more important than the two of establishes.Chris: Well, I, and I think it, this may be a multiple choice answer, right? There might be elements of all the above in there. Uh, you know, I think it is important that he didn't get the truncation to Xi Jinping thought. You have to think that that was something he was keen on. In retrospect, it may be that it was something akin. I've always felt, you know, another thing that was on the table that didn't happen was reestablishing the party chairmanship. My view had always been he was using that largely as a bargaining chip. That, you know, in some ways it creates more trouble than it's worth you. If you're gonna have a chairman, you probably have to have vice chairman and what does that say about the succession? I mean, of course he could have, you know, a couple of geezers on there.  as vice chairman too. , But I, my view was always is he was holding that out there to trade away. Right. You know, at, at the last minute. Um, maybe that's what happened with Xi Jinping thought. I don't know.You know, uh, there have been some media articles, one of which, You and I were discussing yesterday from, uh, the Japanese, uh, publication Nikkei, you know, that suggested that, you know, the elders had, this was their last gasp, right? So the Jiang Zemins and the Zeng Qinghongs and Hu Jinataos, so on. Um, I'm a little skeptical of that. It is possible. Uh, but, um, I, I'd be a little skeptical of that. You know, it's, it's not at all clear that they had any kind of a role, you know, even at Beidaihe this year and so on, Jiang Zemin didn't even attend the Party Congress so clearly, you know, he must be pretty frail or he thought it was not with his time. You know, a little hard to say, but, you know, I kind of struggle with the notion that, you know, the 105 year old Song Ping gets up on a chair or something and starts,  starts making trouble. Right. You know, uh, the poor man's probably lucky if he stays awake during the meeting. Bill: One question, and again, because of the, just, you know, how much more opaque Chinese politics are than the really I think they've ever been. Um, but just one question. It mean, is it possible, for example, that you know, it's more important to get the personnel done. It's more, and then once you get your, you stack the central committee, you get the politburo, you get the standing committee, that these things are sort of a next phase.Chris: yeah, it's entirely possible and, and I think it, it, it does dovetail with this idea that, you know, another reflection from both the political report and the lineup in my mind, is Xi Jinping is a man in a hurry. Right? And he's kind of projected that, as you said, the great accelerator since he arrived.But I think he sees this next five years is really fundamental, right in terms of breaking through on these chokepoint technologies as they call them. You know, these sort of things. And so maybe therefore having the right people in place to handle, you know, uh, speedier policy, execution, you know, was more important.Likewise, I mean, he's sort of telegraphing, He's gonna be around for a while, right? No successor, no visible successor anywhere. Bill: A successor would need likely need five years on the standing committee. So we're looking at ten more years.Chris: Yes, exactly. And so there will be time. The other thing is, um, Xi Jinping is a, is a sort of determined fellow, right? You know, so of interest, even before the 19th Party Congress, I'd been hearing very strong rumors that the notion of lingxiu was out there, that he was contemplating it, right? And so then we see the buildup with, uh, Renmin lingxiu and so on and so forth.And, you know, it didn't happen clearly at the 19th. It didn't happen. But it doesn't mean it won't, you know, at some point. And I think it's really important also to think about, you know, We just saw a pretty serious, um, enterprise of the, you know, quote unquote norm busting, right? So what's to say that mid-course in this five years, he doesn't, uh, hold another sort of extraordinary conference of party delegates like them, Deng Xiaoping did in 1985, right, to push through some of these. You never know, right? In other words, these things don't necessarily have to happen. Just at Party Congresses. So my guess is, you know, this isn't over yet. Uh, but you know, at some level, given how the system was ramping up with those articles about Navigator and the people's leader stuff and so on, you know, that's usually a tell, and yet it didn't happen. And, and so something interesting there. Bill: now they're in the mode of, they're out with these sort of publicity, propaganda education teams where they go out throughout the country and talk about the spirit of the party Congress and push all the key messaging. Um, you know, so far none of those People's leader truncation have happened in that, which is I think an area where some people thought, Well, maybe that could sort of come after the Congress.Chris: What is interesting is it's all two establishments all the time in those discussions, so that's been very interesting since it didn't make it into the, uh, into the document. I guess the other thing is, At some level, is it sort of a distinction without a difference? You know, I, I haven't done the work on this to see, but my guess is short of, you know, the many times they've just junked the entire constitution and rewritten it, this is probably the most amendments there have been, you know, in the to at one time. You know, to the 1982 constitution, and most of them are his various buzzwords. Right. Um, and you know, I think you've been talking about this in the newsletter, there may very well be, uh, something to this issue of, you know, which is the superior thought two establishments or to upholds/safeguards?Bill: and even if the two establishes were superior and then it didn't go in, then somehow it will be theoretically flipped to what got in the ConstitutionChris: I mean, I guess the, the, the thing though where we, it's fair to say that maybe this wasn't his ideal outcome. To me, there's been a very clear and you know, structured stepwise approach on the ideology from the word go. Right? And the first was to create right out of the shoot, this notion of, you know, three eras, right?The, Mao period, Deng  and those other guys we don't talk about it anymore, period.  and Xi Jinping's new era, right? And then that was. You know, sort of crystallized right at the 19th Party Congress when you know, Xi Jinping thought for horribly long name went into the Constitution. And so, you know, the next step kind of seemed like that should be it.And as we've discussed before, you know, if he's able to get just Thought, it certainly enhances his ability to stay around for a very long time and it makes his diktats and so on even more unquestionable. But you know, you can say again, matter of prioritization. With a team where there's really no visible or other opposition, does it really matter? You know, in other words, no one's gonna be questioning his policy ideas anyway.Bill: Just an aside, but on  his inspection, the new standing committee will go on group trip right after the Party Congress and the first trip sends key messages. And group went to Yan'an, you know, they went, they went to the caves. Um, and you know, in the long readout or long CCTV report of the meeting, the visit, there was a section where the tour guide or the person introducing some of the exhibits talked about how the, the famous song, the East Is Red was,  by a person, written by the people sort of spontaneously, and it w it definitely caused some tittering about, well, what are they trying to signal for?You know, are we gonna be seeing some  Xi songs? there's some kind of really interesting signaling going on that I don't think we quite have figured out how to parse Chris: My takeaway on all this has been, I, I need to go back and do a little more book work on, you know, what was, what was the content of the seventh party Congress? What were the outcomes? I mean, I have the general sense, right? Like you, I immediately, you know, started brushing up on it. But, you know, Xi delivered a, an abridged work report. Right, A political report, which is exactly what Mao did then. I mean, in other words, they're not kidding around with the parallelism here. The question is what's the message?Bill: Just for background, at the visit last week to Yan'an, and the first spot that was in the propaganda was the, the, site of the seventh party Congress which is where…to be very simplistic, the seventh party was really moment, you know, as at the end of the Yan'am rectification came in, it was the moment where sort of Mao fully asserted his dominance throughout the system. Mao Thought etc. Right? The signaling, you could certainly, could certainly take a view that, you know, he doesn't do these things by coincidence, and this is. This is signaling both of, you know, can through anything because they, livedin caves and ended up beating the Japanese and then won the Civil War. You know this, and we can, and by the way, we have a dominant leader. I mean, there are ways, again, I'm being simplistic, but the symbolism was not, I think one that would, for example, give a lot of confidence to investors, which I think is, you know, one, one of the many reasons we've seen until the rumors earlier this week, a, pretty big selloff in the, in the Hong Kong and manland stock markets rightChris: most definitely. And I think, you know, this is the other thing about, about what I was trying to get at earlier with, uh, forest and trees, right? You know, in other words, . Um, he's been at this for a while too. You know, there's a reason why he declared a new long march right in depths of the trade war with Trump.Bill: And a new historical resolution, only the third in historyChris: Yeah. And they have been stepwise building since then. And this is the next building block.Bill: The last thought, I mean, he is 69. He's. 10 years younger than President Joe Biden. He could go, he could be around for a long timeBill: well just quickly, cause I know, uh, we don't have that much more time, but I, you say anything about your thoughts on Hu Jintao and what happened?My first take having had a father and a stepfather had dementia was, um, you know, maybe too sympathetic to the idea that, okay, he's having some sort of a senior cognitive moment. You know, you can get. easily agitated, and you can start a scene. And so therefore, was humiliating and symbolic at the end of the Communist Youth League faction, but maybe it was, it was benign as opposed to some of the other stuff going around. But I think might be wrong so I'd love your take on that.  Chris: Well, I, I think, you know, I, I kind of shared your view initially when I watched the, uh, I guess it was an AFP had the first, you know, sort of video that was out there and, you know, he appeared to be stumbling around a bit. He definitely looked confused and, you know, like, uh, what we were discussing earlier on another subject, this could be a multiple choice, you know, A and B or whatever type scenario as well.We don't know, I mean, it seems pretty well established that he has Parkinson's, I think the lead pipe pincher for me though, was that second longer one Singapore's channel, Channel News Asia put out. I mean, he is clearly tussling with Li Zhanshu about something, right. You know that that's. Yes, very clear. And you know, if he was having a moment, you know, when they finally get him up out of the chair and he seems to be kind of pulling back and so on, you know, he moves with some alacrity there,  for an 80 year old guy. Uh, I don't know if he was being helped to move quickly or he, you know, realized it was time to exit stage.Right. But I think, you know, as you said in your newsletter, I, we probably will never know. Um, but to me it looked an awful lot like an effort by Xi Jinping to humiliate him. You know, I mean, there was a reason why they brought the cameras back in at that moment, you know? Unless we believe that that just happened spontaneously in terms of Hu Jintao has his freak out just as those cameras were coming back in the stone faces of the other members of the senior leadership there on the rostrum and you know, Wand Hunting, pulling Li Zhanshu back down kind of saying basically, look buddy, this is politics, don't you don't wanna, that's not a good look for you trying to care for Hu Jintao. You know, I mean obviously something was going on, you know? No, no question. Bill: Right. And feeds into  the idea that Hu Chunhua, we all expected that he at least be on the Politburo again, and he's, he's off, so maybe something, something was going Chris: Well, I, I think what we know from observing Xi Jinping, right? We know that this is a guy who likes to keep people off balance, right? Who likes to keep the plate spinning. He, this is definitely the Maoist element of his personality, you know, whether it's strategic disappearances or this kind of stuff. And I think it's entirely plausible that he might have made some last minute switches right, to, uh, the various lists that were under consideration that caused alarm, you know, among those who thought they were on a certain list and  and no longer were.Bill: and then, and others who were smart enough to realize that if he made those switches, they better just go with it.Chris: Yeah, go along with it. Exactly. I mean, you know, in some ways the most, aside from what happened to Hu Jintao, the, the most, um, disturbing or compelling, depending on how you wanna look at it, part of that video is when Hu Jintao, you know, sort of very, um, delicately taps Li Keqiang on the shoulder. He doesn't even look at it, just keeps looking straight ahead. Uh, and that's tough. And as you pointed out in the newsletter and elsewhere, you know, how difficult must have that have been for Hu Jintao's son Hu Haifeng, who's in the audience watching this all go on? You know, it's, uh, it's tough. Bill: And then two two days later attends a meeting where he praises Xi to high heaven.Chris: Yeah, exactly. So, so if the darker narrative is accurate, I guess one thing that concerns me a bit is, as you know, well, I have never been a fan of these, uh, memes about comparing Xi Jinping to either Stalin or Mao in part because I don't see him as a whimsical guy. They were whimsical people. I think because of his tumultuous upbringing, he understands the problems with that kind of an approach to life, but this was a very ruthless act. If that more malign, you know, sort of definition is true and that I think that says something about his mentality that perhaps should concern us if that's the case. Bill: It has real implications, not just for domestic also potentially for its foreign policy.Chris: Absolutely. I mean, what it shows, right to some degree, again, man in a hurry, this is a tenacious individual, right?  if he's willing to do that. And so if you're gonna, you know, kick them in the face on chips and, you know, things like that, um, you should be taking that into consideration.Bill: And I think preparing for a more substantive response  that is more thought out and it's also, it happened, it wasn't very Confucian for all this talk Confucian definitely not. and values. One last question, and it is related is what do you make of this recent upsurge or talk in DC from various officials that PRC has accelerated its timeline to absorb Taiwan, because nothing in the public documents indicates any shift in that timeline.Chris: No. Uh, and well, first of all, do they, do they have a timeline? Right? You know, I mean, the whole idea of a timeline is kind of stupid, right? You don't, if you're gonna invade somewhere, you say, Hey, we're gonna do it on on this date. I mean, 2049. Okay. Bill: The only timeline that I think you can point to is is it the second centenary goal and, and Taiwan getting quote unquote, you know, returning Taiwan to the motherland's key to the great rejuvenation,Chris: Yeah, you can't have rejuvenation without it. Bill: So then it has to be done by 2049. 27 years, but they've never come out and specifically said 27 years or 2049. But that's what No. that's I think, is where the timeline idea comes from.Chris: Oh yes, definitely. And, and I think some confusion of. What Xi Jinping has clearly set out and reaffirmed in the political report as these important, um, operational benchmarks for the PLA, the People's Liberation Army to achieve by its hundredth anniversary in 2027. But that does not a go plan for Taiwan make, you know, And so it's been confusing to me trying to understand this. And of course, you know, I, I'm joking, but I'm not, you know, if we, if we listen now to the chief of naval operations of the US Navy, you know, like they're invading tomorrow, basically.My former colleague from the CIA, John Culver's, done some very, you know, useful public work on this for the Carnegie, where he sort his endowment, where he sort of said, you know, look, there's certain things we would have to see, forget about, you know, a D-day style invasion, any type of military action that, that you don't need intelligence methods to find out. Right. You know, uh, canceling, uh, conscription, demobilization cycles, you know, those, those sort of things. Um, we don't see that happening. So I've been trying to come to grips with why the administration seems fairly seized with this and and their public commentary and so on. What I'm confident of is there's no smoking gun you know, unlike, say the Russia piece where it appears, we had some pretty compelling intelligence. There doesn't seem to be anything that says Xi Jinping has ordered invasion plans for 2024, you know, or, or, or even 2027. Um, so I'm pretty confident that's not the case. And so then it becomes more about an analytic framework. And I, from what I can tell, it's seems to be largely based on what, uh, in, you know, the intelligence community we would call calendar-int.. calendar intelligence. In other words, you know, over the next 18 months, a lot of stuff's going to happen. We're gonna have our midterm elections next week. It's pretty likely the Republicans get at least one chamber of Congress, maybe both.That would suggest that things like the Taiwan Policy Act and, you know, really, uh, things that have, uh, Beijing's undies in a bunch, uh, you know, could really come back on, uh, the radar pretty forcibly and pretty quickly. Obviously Taiwan, nobody talks about it, but Taiwan's having municipal elections around the same time, and normally that would be a very inside Taiwan baseball affair, nobody would care. But the way that KMT ooks like they will not perform, I should say,  in those municipal elections. They could be effectively wiped out, you know, as a, as a sort of electable party in Taiwan. That's not a good news story for Beijing.And then of course we have our own presidential in 2024 and Taiwan has a presidential election in 24 in the US case.I mean, look, we could end up with a President Pompeo, right? Or a President DeSantis or others who. Been out there sort of talking openly about Taiwan independence and recognizing Taiwan. And similarly, I think whoever succeeds, uh, President Tsai in Taiwan, if we assume it will likely be a a, a Democratic Progressive party president, will almost by definition be more independence oriented.So I think the administration is saying there's a lot of stuff that's gonna get the Chinese pretty itchy, you know, over this next 18 month period. So therefore we need to be really loud in our signaling to deter. Right. And okay. But I think there's a risk with that as well, which they don't seem to be acknowledging, which is you might create a self-fulfilling prophecy.I mean, frankly, that's what really troubles me about the rhetoric. And so, for example, when Secretary Blinken last week or the before came out and said  Yeah, you know, the, the, the Chinese have given up on the status quo. I, I, I've seen nothing, you know, that would suggest that the political report doesn't suggest. Bill: They have called it a couple of times  so-called status quo.Chris: Well, Fair enough. Yeah. Okay. That's, that's fine. Um, but I think if we look at the reason why they're calling it the so-called status quo, it's because it's so called now because the US has been moving the goalposts on the status quo.Yeah. In terms of erosion of the commitment to the one China policy. And the administration can say all at once, they're not moving the goal post, but they are, I mean, let's just be honest.Bill: Now, and they have moved it more than the Trump administration did, don't you think?Chris: Absolutely. Yeah. Um, you know, no president has said previously we will defend Taiwan  multiple times. Right. You know, um, and things like, uh, you know, Democracy, someone, I mean, this comes back also to the, the framing, right, of one of the risks I think of framing the relationship as democracy versus autocracy is that it puts a very, uh, heavy incentive then for the Biden administration or any future US administration to, you know, quote unquote play the Taiwan card, right, as part of said competition.Whereas if you don't have that framing, I don't think that's necessarily as automatic. Right? In other words, if that's the framing, well Taiwan's a democracy, so we have to lean in. Right? You know? Whereas if it's a more say, you know, straight realist or national interest driven foreign policy, you might not feel that in every instance you've gotta do that,Bill: No, and and I it, that's an interesting point. And I also think too that, um, I really do wonder how much Americans care, right? And, and whether or not we're running the risk of setting something up or setting something in motion that, you know, again, it's easy to be rhetorical about it, but that we're frankly not ready to deal withChris: Well, and another thing that's interesting, right, is that, um, to that point, Some of the administration's actions, you know, that are clearly designed to show toughness, who are they out toughing? You know, in some cases it feels like they're out toughing themselves, right? I mean, obviously the Republicans are watching them and so on and all of that.Um, but you know, interesting, uh, something that came across my thought wave the other day that I hadn't really considered. We're seeing pretty clear indications that a Republican dominated Congress after the midterms may be less enthusiastic about support to Ukraine, we're all assuming that they're gonna be all Taiwan support all the time.Is that a wrong assumption? You know, I mean, in other words, Ukraine's a democracy, right? And yet there's this weird strain in the Trumpist Wing of the Republican party that doesn't wanna spend the money. Right. And would that be the case for Taiwan as well? I don't know, but you know, the point is, I wonder if the boogieman of looking soft is, is sort of in their own heads to some degree.And, and even if it isn't, you know, sometimes you have to lead. Bill: it's not clear the allies are listening. It doesn't sound like the Europeans would be on board withChris: I think very clearly they're not. I mean, you know, we're about to see a very uncomfortable bit of Kabuki theater here, aren't we? In the next couple of days with German Chancellor Sholz going over and, um, you know, if you, uh, read the op-ed he wrote in Politico, you know, it's, it's painful, right? You can see him trying to, uh, Trying to, uh, you know, straddle the fence and, and walk that line.And, and obviously there are deep, deep divisions in his own cabinet, right? You know, over this visit, the foreign minister is publicly criticizing him, you know, and so on. So I think this is another aspect that might be worrisome, which is the approach. You know, my line is always sort of a stool, if it's gonna be stable, needs three legs, right.And on US-China relations, I think that is, you know, making sure our own house is in order. Domestic strengthening, these guys call it, coordinating with allies and partners, certainly. But then there's this sort of talking to the Chinese aspect and through a policy, what I tend to call strategic avoidance, we don't.Talk to them that much. So that leg is missing. So then those other two legs need to be really strong. Right. Um, and on domestic strengthening, Okay. Chips act and so on, that's good stuff. On allies and partners, there seems to be a bit of an approach and I think the chip restrictions highlight this of, look, you're either for us or against us.Right? Whereas I think in, you know, the good old Cold War I, we seem to be able to understand that a West Germany could do certain things for us vis-a-vis the Soviets and certain things they couldn't and we didn't like it and we complained, but we kind of lived with it, right? If we look at these chip restrictions, it appears the administration sort of said, Look, we've been doing this multilateral diplomacy on this thing for a year now, it's not really delivering the goods. The chips for framework is a mess, so let's just get it over with and drag the allies with us, you know? Um, and we'll see what ramifications that will have.Bill: Well on that uplifting note, I, I think I'm outta questions. Is there anything else you'd like to add?Chris: Well, I think, you know, something just to consider is this idea, you know, and maybe this will help us close on a more optimistic note. Xi Jinping is telling us, you know, he's hardening the system, he's, he's doing this fortress economy thing and so on. But he also is telling us, I have a really difficult set of things I'm trying to accomplish in this five years.Right? And that may mean a desire to signal to the us let's stabilize things a bit, not because he's having a change of heart or wants a fundamental rapprochement, so on and so forth. I don't think that's the case, but might he want a bit of room, right? A breathing room. Bill: Buy some time, buy some spaceChris: Yeah, Might he want that? He might. You know, and so I think then a critical question is how does that get sorted out in the context of the negotiations over the meeting in Bali, if it is a longer meeting, I think, you know, so that's encouraging for that. Right. To some degree. I, I, I would say, you know, if we look at what's just happened with the 20th party Congress and we look at what's about to happen, it seems with our midterms here in the United States, Who's the guy who's gonna be more domestically, politically challenged going into this meeting, and therefore have less room to be able to seize that opportunity if it does exist.Exactly. Because I, I think, you know, the, the issue is, The way I've been framing it lately, you know, supposedly our position is the US position is strategic competition and China says, look, that's inappropriate, and we're not gonna sign onto it and forget it.You know, my own view is we kind of have blown past strategic competition where now in what I would call strategic rivalry, I think the chip restrictions, you know, are, are a giant exclamation point, uh, under that, you know, and so on. And my concern is we're kind of rapidly headed toward what I would call strategic enmity.And you know, that all sounds a bit pedantic, but I think that represents three distinct phases of the difficulty and the relationship. You know, strategic enmity is the cold, the old Cold War, what we had with the Soviets, right? So we are competing against them in a brass tax manner across all dimensions. And if it's a policy that, you know, hurts us, but it hurts them, you know, 2% more we do it, you know, kind of thing. I don't think we're there yet. And the meeting offers an opportunity to, you know, arrest the travel from strategic rivalry to strategic enmity. Let's see if there's something there/Bill: And if, and if we don't, if it doesn't arrest it, then I think the US government at least has to do a much better job of explaining to the American people why we're headed in this direction and needs  to do a much better job with the allies cuz because again, what I worry about is we're sort of heading down this path and it doesn't feel like we've really thought it through.You know, there are lots of reasons  be on this path, but there's also needs to be a much more of a comprehensive understanding of the, of the costs and the ramifications and the solutions and have have an actual sort of theory of the case about how we get out the other side of this in a, in a better way.Chris: Yeah, I think that's important. I want to be real, um, fair to the administration. You know, they're certainly more thoughtful and deliberative than their predecessor. Of course, the bar was low, but, um, you know, they, they seem to approach these things in a pretty. Dedicated and careful manner. And I think they really, you know, take, take things like, uh, looking at outbound investment restrictions, you know, my understanding is they have been, you know, seeking a lot of input about unintended consequences and so on. But then you look at something like the chips piece and it just seems to me that those in the administration who had been pushing for, you know, more there for some time, had a quick moment where they basically said, look, this thing's not working with multilaterally, Let's just do it, you know? And then, oh, now we're seeing the second and third and other order consequences of it. And the risk is that we wind up, our goal is to telegraph unity to Beijing and shaping their environment around them as the administration calls it. We might be signaling our disunity, I don't know, with the allies, and obviously that would not be a good thingBill: That's definitely a risk. Well, thanks Chris. It's always great to talk to you and Thank you for listening to the occasional Sinocism podcast. Thank you, Chris.Chris: My pleasure. Sinocism is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sinocism.com/subscribe

Overview Bill has written stories that reference real people. This is a hot topic for many authors. We discuss the best way to use real people and whether you should or not. YouTube https://youtu.be/LIkdIfRtmII Transcript All right, so let's talk some other stuff and we have an interesting topic that we've not. Discussed with anyone before. So before we get into that, let me ask you you've been writing most of your life. What are some things you've learned that you're doing different now than when you first got started or? When, not necessarily when you're doing the journalism, but when you were writing books and stuff, cuz that's two different writings. So what have you learned? What are you doing different from when you first started? [00:22:10] Bill: Yeah I'm gonna have to say that the stuff I've learned a lot, we talked about Dave's group, but there's also another group that meets on the west side that Mudcat who you had on as well as part of where we critique each other's work. And he's a great writer by the way, he'd be another one of my favorites. But just learning how to I tend to throw out too much stuff and they're teaching me and just as I go, I'm learning. Put all this stuff in the first draft and then tighten it up and cut it out and make put in. What's most important in there. I am learning also how bad an editor, personal editor I am. I have a guy who's helped me a great deal on that. And then I've also recently purchased in software that I hope will help with that as well. [00:22:55] Stephen: What's [00:22:55] Bill: the software, it just typos. I can write five sentences and. Five typos in there and not see [00:23:01] Stephen: them myself. That, that's pretty good though. I know some authors where there's more than five, so what's the software you're using? [00:23:07] Bill: I write in Scrivener. Okay. But I picked up one called boy, what is it called? Pro quality or writer? Gimme a second. I can actually, it should be it's on my computer. Pro writer aid. I think it is [00:23:21] Stephen: pro writing aid. [00:23:22] Bill: Yeah. Yeah. It's. It's like an AI software. Yeah. And I don't take everything it's it suggests, but it helps me with the commas and the punctuation. The thing I seem to do a lot is double words. Okay. Probably when I'm writing and then rewriting and deleting and stuff. And I just don't see the double word. It's so far in the short time I've been using, it's been helping me a lot on that. So I also use that and I've been using it to learn and hopefully getting better. It doesn't seem like I still go, man, how many MIS not mistakes, but how many things do I need to look at? Whether they need change or not every time. [00:23:58] Stephen: But it's not always the same things that I used to do. So it is a good learning tool. If you use it as such, you can't just blanket it except everything. [00:24:07] Bill: So yeah, my, my old editor back in one of the papers used to put a list of all the words I commonly misspelled in front of my typewriter. Nice. I learned all those and then she'd replace 'em and I'd have new one. [00:24:18] Stephen: Yeah. And I talked to teachers and parents and kids. In school they do a little bit of writing, but they really focus on the grammar, the structure, the spelling. And I'm sorry, that's not for writing necessarily your biggest focus. You lose the story, you lose the flow of the feel of the voice. And all of those things can be corrected with a couple button presses now, so that I understand it's school and that kids need to learn that. I think the kids should learn grammar and all that, but. It doesn't mean you can't write and write a good story. They're separate things. Okay. So your book, what are you doing to market it? I know it's on Amazon. [00:24:59] Bill: So far I'm trying to learn this because this is, I work for a marketing company. I work with a bunch of marketers.

Episode Notes:This episode's guest is David Rennie, the Beijing bureau chief for The Economist and author of the weekly Chaguan column. Our topic is online discourse, nationalism, the intensifying contest for global discourse power and US-China relations.Excerpts:I spoke to some very serious NGO people who've been in China a long time, Chinese and foreigners who said that this was the worst time for NGOs since 1989, and the kind of mentions of espionage and national security was a very serious thing. So then I had to make a decision, was I going to try and speak to someone like Sai Lei. Clearly he is an extremely aggressive nationalist, some would call him a troll and there are risks involved in talking to someone like him. But I felt, I'm one of the few English language media still in China, if I'm going to add value, I need to speak to these people.I had a very interesting conversation with a CGTN commentator…He said, I can't tell you how many Western diplomats, or Western journalists they whine. And they moan. And they say, how aggressive China is now and how upset all this Wolf warrior stuff is and how China is doing itself damage. And he goes, we're not, it's working. You in the Western media, used to routinely say that the national people's Congress was a rubber stamp parliament. And because we went after you again and again, you see news organizations no longer as quick to use that. Because we went after you calling us a dictatorship, you're now slower to use that term because we went after you about human rights and how it has different meanings in different countries. We think it's having an effect…One of the things I think is a value of being here is you have these conversations where the fact that we in the West think that China is inevitably making a mistake by being much more aggressive. I don't think that's how a big part of the machine here sees it. I think they think it worked….To simplify and exaggerate a bit, I think that China, and this is not just a guess, this is based on off the record conversations with some pretty senior Chinese figures, they believe that the Western world, but in particular, the United States is too ignorant and unimaginative and Western centric, and probably too racist to understand that China is going to succeed, that China is winning and that the West is in really decadent decline…I think that what they believe they are doing is delivering an educational dose of pain and I'm quoting a Chinese official with the word pain. And it is to shock us because we are too mule headed and thick to understand that China is winning and we are losing. And so they're going to keep delivering educational doses of pain until we get it…The fundamental message and I'm quoting a smart friend of mine in Beijing here is China's rise is inevitable. Resistance is futile…And if you accommodate us, we'll make it worth your while. It's the key message. And they think that some people are proving dimmer and slower and more reluctant to pick that message up and above all Americans and Anglo-Saxons.On US-China relations:The general trend of U.S. China relations. to be of optimistic about the trend of U.S. China relations I'd have to be more optimistic than I currently am about the state of U.S. Politics. And there's a kind of general observation, which is that I think that American democracy is in very bad shape right now. And I wish that some of the China hawks in Congress, particularly on the Republican side, who are also willing to imply, for example, that the 2020 election was stolen, that there was massive fraud every time they say that stuff, they're making an in-kind contribution to the budget of the Chinese propaganda department…You cannot be a patriotic American political leader and tell lies about the state of American democracy. And then say that you are concerned about China's rise…..their message about Joe Biden is that he is weak and old and lacks control of Congress. And that he is, this is from scholars rather than officials, I should say, but their view is, why would China spend political capital on the guy who's going to lose the next election?…The one thing that I will say about the U.S. China relationship, and I'm very, very pessimistic about the fact that the two sides, they don't share a vision of how this ends well.Links:China’s online nationalists turn paranoia into clickbait | The Economist 赛雷：我接受了英国《经济学人》采访，切身体验了深深的恶意 David Rennie on Twitter @DSORennieTranscript:You may notice a couple of choppy spots. We had some Beijing-VPN issues and so had to restart the discussion three times. Bill:Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the `Sinocism podcast. It's been a bit of a break, but we are back and we will continue going forward on a fairly regular schedule today. For the fourth episode, I'm really happy to be able to chat with David Rennie, the Beijing bureau chief for The Economist and author of the weekly Chaguan column. Our topic today is online discourse, nationalism, and the intensifying contest for global discourse power.Bill:I've long been a fan of David's work and the approximate cause for inviting him to join the podcast today was an article on the January 8th issue of The Economist on online nationalism. Welcome David.David:Hello.Bill:So just to start, could you tell us how you got to where you are today?David:I've been a foreign correspondent for frighteningly long time, 24 years. And it's my second China posting. I've been out there so long. I've done two Chinas, two Washingtons, five years in Brussels. I was here in the '90s and then I went off, spent a total of nine years in Washington, DC. And then I came back here in 2018 and I was asked to launch a new column about China called Chaguan, because previously I wrote our Lexington column and our Bagehot column about Britain and our Charlemagne column about Europe. They all have strange names, but that's what we do. And so this is my fourth column for The Economist.Bill:We last met, I think in 2018 in Beijing in what seems like before times in many ways at The Opposite House, I believe.David:And the days when we had visitors, people came from the outside world, all of those things.Bill:Yes. You are quite the survivor, as they say. Although there are advantages to not worry about walking outside and getting sick all the time. Although it's better here in DC now.David:It's a very safe bubble. It's a very large bubble, but it's a bubble.Bill:So let's talk about your article, the January 8th issue. It was titled “China's online nationalist turned paranoia into click bait”. And I thought it was a very good distillation of the surge in nationalists and anti foreign content that is really flooding or was flooded the internet in China. And you interviewed one of the people who's profiting from it because it turns out that not only is it good from a sort of a sentiment perspective, but it's also good from a business perspective.Bill:And that person Sai Lei, interestingly enough, then recorded your conversation and turned it into a whole new post and video about the whole experience of talking to a foreign correspondent. Can you tell us a little about the story and why you chose to write it and just to add the links to David's article and the Sai Lei article will be in the podcast notes.David:So I heard from friends and colleagues, a couple of things in two directions. One was that in the world of private sector media, a couple of reasonably well known explainer sites, popular science video companies had been taken out of business by nationalist attacks. One was called Paperclip, the other called Elephant Union. And their crime in the eyes of online nationalists had been to talk about things which are fairly uncontroversial in Western media, that eating beef from the Amazon or eating beef that is fed soy grown in the Amazon is potentially bad for the rainforest and maybe we should eat less meat.David:But because this was in the Chinese context, that China is the biggest buyer of soybeans, this explainer video was attacked as a plot to deny the Chinese people the protein that they need to be strong, that this was a race traitor attack on the Chinese. And it was outrageous because the West eats so much more meat than China. And so that was one element of it. And I heard that these companies had been shut down. The other was that I'd been picking up that this was an extremely bad time for NGOs, particularly Chinese NGOs that get money from overseas. And we'd seen some really nasty attacks, not just on the idea that they were getting money from overseas, but that they were somehow guilty of espionage.David:And there was an NGO that did incredibly benign work. Tracking maritime and Marine trash, as it floats around the coasts of China based in Shanghai, Rendu Ocean. I'd done a column on them the year before I'd been out with their volunteers. It was a bunch of pensioners and retirees and school kids picking up styrofoam and trash off beaches, weighing it, tracking where it came from and then uploading this data to try and track the fact that China is a big generator of the plastic and other trash in the oceans. They were accused of espionage and taking foreign money to track ocean currents that would help foreign militaries, attack China, that they were guilty of grave national security crimes.David:And they were attacked in a press conference, including at the national defense ministry. And they're basically now in a world of pain. They're still just about clinging on. And so these two things, you have these NGOs under really serious attack, and you also have this attack on online explainer videos. The common theme was that the nationalist attack, they were somehow portraying the country and its national security was a weird combination of not just the security forces, but also private sector, Chinese online nationalists. And in particularly I was told there was a guy called Sai Lei. That's his non to plume who was one of the people making videos taking on these people. He went after celebrities who talked about China should be more careful about eating seafood.David:This was again, sort of race traitors. And he was using this really horrible language about these celebrities who talked about eating more sustainable seafood that they were ‘er guizi”, which is this time about the collaborationist police officers who worked with the Japanese during the World War II. He calls them Hanjian, the s-called traitors to the Chinese race. Very, very loaded language. Went after a group that’s working with Africans down in the south of China, talking about how they faced discrimination. This got them attacked. They had talked also about the role of Chinese merchants in the illegal ivory trade that got them attacked by the nationalists.David:So I thought this question of whether the government is behind this or whether this is a private sector attack on that. There's the profits to be made from this online nationalism struck me something I should write about. So I talked to some of the people whose organizations and companies had been taken down, they were very clear that they thought that was a unholy nexus of profit, clickbait and things like the communist youth league really liking the way that they can turbocharge some of these attacks-Bill:Especially on bilibili, they use that a lot.David:Especially on... Yeah. And so there's this weird sort of sense that, and I spoke to some very serious NGO people who've been in China a long time, Chinese and foreigners who said that this was the worst time for NGOs since 1989, and the kind of mentions of espionage and national security was a very serious thing. So then I had to make a decision, was I going to try and speak to someone like Sai Lei. Clearly he is an extremely aggressive nationalist, some would call him a troll and there are risks involved in talking to someone like him. But I felt, I'm one of the few English language media still in China, if I'm going to add value, I need to speak to these people.David:Yes. And so I reached out to the founder of a big, well known nationalist website who I happen to know. And I said, do you know this guy Sai Lei? And he said, I do, I'll get in touch with him. Sai Lei was very, very anxious about speaking to the Western media. Thought I was going to misquote him. And so eventually we did this deal that he was going to record the whole thing. And that if he thought I had misquoted him, that he was going to run the entire transcript on full on this other very well known nationalist website that had made the introduction. So I said, okay, fine. I have nothing to hide. That's all good. I wrote the column. I quoted Sai Lei. I didn't quote a tremendous amount of Sai Lei because what he said was not especially revealing.David:He was just an extremely paranoid guy. And there was a lot of whataboutism and he was saying, well, how would the American public react if they were told that what they eat damages the Amazon rainforest? And I said, well, they're told that all the time-Bill:All the time.David:It was an incredibly familiar argument. It's on the front page of America newspapers all the time. And so he wasn't willing to engage. And so, I ran this. He then put out this attack on me. It's fair. Look, I make a living handing out my opinions. I knew he was recording me, was it a bit disappointing that he cut and edited it to make me sound as bad as possible rather than running the full transcript. I mean, I interviewed a troll and that was the thing. He attacked me on the basis of my family, which then triggered a whole bunch of stuff that was pretty familiar to me, a lot of wet and journalists get a lot of attacks and it was an unpleasant experience, but I feel that the added value of being here is to talk to people, who The Economist does not agree with.David:And his fundamental problem was that I was using online as a disapproving time. But my line with people like him, or with some of the very prominent nationalists online academics, media entrepreneurs, also with the Chinese foreign ministry, when I'm called in is my job in China is to try to explain how China sees the world. To speak to people in China to let their voices be heard in The Economist. And I absolutely undertake to try and reflect their views faithfully, but I do not promise to agree with them, because The Economist does not hide the fact that we are a Western liberal newspaper. We're not anti-China, we are liberal. And so, if we see illiberall things happening in Abu Ghraib or in Guantanamo Bay or-Bill:DC.David:Being done by Donald Trump or being done by Boris Johnson or Brexit, or Viktor Orbán or in China, we will criticize them because we are what we say we are. We are a liberal newspaper. We have been since 1843. And what's interesting is that online, the reaction was... For a while, I was trending on Bilibili. And that was new. And I take that on the chin. I mean, I'm here, I'm attacking nationalists. They're going to attack back. I think what's interesting is that the online of nationalist attacks were, I hope that the ministry of state security arrest this guy, he should be thrown out of China. Why is he in China? They should be expelled. This guy has no right to be in China.David:I think that at some level, some parts of the central government machinery do still see a value to having newspapers like The Economist, reasonably well read Western media in China. And it's this conversation I've had a lot with the foreign ministry, with the State Council Information Office, which is as you know, it's the front name plate for the propaganda bureau. And I say to them, we are liberals.David:We are not anti-China any more than we're anti-American because we criticize Donald Trump, but you know where we're coming from, but I do believe that if China is concerned about how it's covered, if they throw all of us out, they're not going to get better coverage. I mean, some of the most aggressive coverage about China in the states comes from journalists who never go to China and economists who never go to China. And I think that, that argument resonates with some parts of the machine, to the people whose job is to deal with people like me.David:What I worry about is that there are other parts of the machine, whether it's the Communist Youth League or whether it's the ministry of state security or some other elements in the machine who do also see a tremendous value in delegitimizing Western media full stop, because if you're being criticized and you don't enjoy it. Tactic number one, whether you are Donald Trump talking about fake news, or Vladimir Putin talking about hostile foreign forces, or the Chinese is to delegitimize your critics.David:And I do think that that is going on in a way that in the four years that I've been here this time. And if, I think back to my time here 20 years ago, I do think the attempts to go after and intimidate and delegitimize the Western media they're getting more aggressive and they're trying new tactics, which are pretty concerning.Bill:So that's a great segue into the next question. But first, I just want to ask the nationalist website that you said ran Sai Lei's piece that was Guancha.cn?David:Yeah. And so it's probably not secret, but so I know a bit, Eric Li, Li Shimo, the co-founder Guancha.Bill:Eric actually famous for his TED Talk, went to Stanford business school, venture capitalist. And now, I guess he's affiliated with Fudan, And is quite an active funder of all sorts of online discourse it seems among other things.David:That's right. And I would point out that The Economist, we have this by invitation online debate platform and we invite people to contribute. And we did in fact, run a piece by Eric Li, the co-founder of Guancha, the nationalist website a couple of weeks before this attack, that Guancha ran. And I actually had debate with some colleagues about this, about whether as liberals, we're the suckers that allow people who attack us to write, he wrote a very cogent, but fairly familiar argument about the performance legitimacy, the communist party and how that was superior to Western liberal democracy.David:And I think that it's the price of being a liberal newspaper. If we take that seriously, then we occasionally have to give a platform to people who will then turn around and attack us. And if I'm going to live in China and not see of my family for a very long period of time, and it's a privilege to live in China, but there are costs. If you are an expert, then I'm not ready to give up on the idea of talking to people who we strongly disagree with. If I'm going to commit to living here to me the only reason to do that is so you talk to people, not just liberals who we agree with, but people who strongly disagree with us.Bill:No. And I think that's right. And I think that also ties in for many years, predating Xi Jinping there's been this long stated goal for China to increase its global discourse power as they call it. And to spread more the tell the truth, tell the real story, spread more positive energy about China globally instead of having foreign and especially Western, or I think, and this ties into some of the national stuff increasing what we hear is called the Anglo-Saxons media dominate the global discourse about China. And to be fair, China has a point. I mean, there should be more Chinese voices talking about China globally.Bill:That's not an unreasonable desire, or request from a country as big and powerful as China is. One thing that seems like a problem is on the one hand you've got, the policy makers are pushing to improve and better control discourse about China globally. At the same time, they're increasing their control over the domestic discourse inside the PRC about the rest of the world. And so in some ways, yes, there's an imbalance globally, but there's also a massive imbalance domestically, which seems to fit into what you just went through with Sai Lei and where the trends are. I don't know. I mean, how does China tell a more convincing story to the world in a way that isn't just a constant struggle to use the term they actually use, but more of an actual fact based honest discussion, or is that something that we're just not going to see anytime soon?David:I think there's a couple of elements to that. I mean, you are absolutely right that China like any country has the right to want to draw the attention of the world to stuff that China does. That's impressive. And I do think, one of my arguments when I talk to Chinese officials as to why they should keep giving out visas to people like me is, when I think back to the beginning of the COVID pandemic, I've not left China for more than two years. I've not left since the pandemic began, you had a lot of media writing that this incredibly ferocious crackdown was going to be very unpopular with the Chinese public. And that's because of the very beginning you had people, there lots of stuff on Chinese social media, little videos of people being beaten up by some [inaudible 00:16:26] in a village or tied to a tree, or their doors being welded shot.David:And it did look unbelievably thuggish. And people playing Majiang being arrested. But actually about three weeks into the pandemic, and I was traveling outside Beijing and going to villages and then coming back and doing the quarantine, you'd go into these villages in the middle of Henan or Hunan. And you'd have the earth bomb at the entrance to the village and all the old guys in the red arm bands. And the pitchforks and the school desk, or the entrance to the village with a piece of paper, because you got to have paperwork as well. And you've realized that this incredibly strict grassroots control system that they'd put in motion, the grid management, the fact that the village loud speakers were back up and running and broadcasting propaganda was actually a source of comfort.David:That it gave people a sense that they could do something to keep this frightening disease at bay. And I think to me, that's an absolute example that it's in China's interest to have Western journalists in China because it was only being in China that made me realize that this strictness was actually welcomed by a lot of Chinese people. It made them feel safe and it made them feel that they were contributing to a national course by locking themselves indoors and obeying these sometimes very strange and arbitrary rules. In addition, I think you are absolutely right, China has the right to want the foreign media to report that stuff.David:Instead of looking at China through a Western lens and saying, this is draconian, this is ferocious, this is abuse of human rights. It's absolutely appropriate for China to say no, if you're doing your job properly, you will try and understand this place on China's own terms. You will allow Chinese voices into your reporting and let them tell the world that they're actually comforted by this extremely strict zero COVID policy, which is tremendously popular with the majority of the Chinese public. That is a completely legitimate ambition. And I never failed to take the chance to tell officials that's why they should give visas to have journalists in the country, because if you're not in the country, you can't think that stuff up.David:What I think is much more problematic is that there is alongside that legitimate desire to have China understood on China's own terms, there is a very conscious strategy underway, which is talked about by some of the academics at Fudan who work for Eric Li at Guancha as a discourse war, a narrative war, or to redefine certain key terms.Bill:And the term and the term is really is like struggle. I mean, they see it as a public opinion war globally. I mean, that the language is very martial in Chinese.David:Absolutely. Yeah. And do not say that we are not a democracy. If you say that we are not a democracy, you are ignoring our tremendous success in handling COVID. We are a whole society democracy, which it's basically a performance legitimacy argument, or a collective utilitarian, the maximizing the benefits for the largest number of argument. It's not particularly new, but the aggression with which it's being pushed is new and the extraordinary resources they put into going after Western media for the language that we use of our China. And I had a very interesting conversation with a CGTN commentator who attacked me online, on Twitter and said that I was a... It was sort of like you scratch an English when you'll find a drug dealer or a pirate.David:Now there's a lot of Opium War rhetoric around if you're a British journalist in China. You're never too far from Opium War reference. And for the record, I don't approve of the war, but it was also before my time. So I actually, the guy attacked me fairly aggressively on Twitter. So I said, can you try and be professional? I'm being professional here why won't you be professional. He invited me with coffee. So we had coffee. And we talked about his work for CGTN and for Chaguan and his view of his interactions to Western media. And he said, this very revealing thing. He said, the reason we do this stuff is because it works.David:He said, I can't tell you how many Western diplomats, or Western journalists they whine. And they moan. And they say, how aggressive China is now and how upset all this Wolf warrior stuff is and how China is doing itself damage. And he goes, we're not, it's working. You in the Western media, used to routinely say that the national people's Congress was a rubber stamp parliament. And because we went after you again and again, you see news organizations no longer as quick to use that. Because we went after you calling us a dictatorship, you're now slower to use that term because we went after you about human rights and how it has different meanings in different countries. We think it's having an effect.David:And so I think that this attempt to grind us down is working, although in their view, it's working. And I think that, that ties in with a broader conversation that I have a lot in Beijing with foreign ambassadors or foreign diplomats who they get called into the foreign ministry, treated politically aggressively and shouted at and humiliated. And they say, how does the Chinese side not see that this causes them problems? And I think that in this moment of, as you say, an era of struggle, this phrase that we see from speeches, from leaders, including Xi, about an era of change, not seen in 100 years.David:They really do feel that as the West, particularly America is in decline and as China is rising, that it's almost like there's a turbulence in the sky where these two the two axis are crossing. And that China has to just push through that turbulence. To use a story that I had kept secret for a long time, that I put in a column when Michael Kovrig was released. So, listeners will remember Michael Kovrig was one of the two Canadians who was held cover couple of years, basically as a hostage by the Chinese state security. And fairly early on, I had heard from some diplomats in Beijing from another Western embassy, not the UK, I should say, that the fact that Michael Kovrig in detention was being questioned, not just about his work for an NGO, the international crisis group that he was doing when he was picked up.David:But he was also being questioned about work he'd been doing for the Canadian embassy when he had diplomatic immunity. The fact that that was going on was frightening to Western diplomats in Beijing. And soon after that conversation, I was sitting there talking to this guy, reasonably senior official. And I said to him, I explained this conversation to him. And I said, I've just been having a conversation with these diplomats. And they said, the word that they used was frightened about what you are doing to Michael Kovrig. And I said, how does it help China to frighten people from that country?David:And he'd been pretty cheerful up till then. He switched to English so that he could be sure that I understood everything he wanted to say to me. And he said, this absolute glacial tone. He said, Canada needs to feel pain. So that the next time America asks an ally to help attack China, that ally will think twice. And that's it.Bill:That's it. And it probably works.David:It works. And yeah. So I think that, again, one of the things I think is a value of being here is you have these conversations where the fact that we in the West think that China is inevitably making a mistake by being much more aggressive. I don't think that's how a big part of the machine here sees it. I think they think it worked.Bill:No. I agree. And I'm not actually sure that they're making a mistake because if you look at so far, what have the cost been? As you said, I mean, behavior is shift, but I think it's definitely open for question. I mean, it's like the assumptions you still see this week, multiple columns about how China's COVID policy is inevitably going to fail. And I'm sitting here in DC, we're about to cross a million people dead in this country, and I'm thinking what's failure. It's a very interesting time.Bill:I mean, to that point about this attitude and the way that there seem to be prosecuting a very top down or top level design communication strategy, Zhang Weiwei, who's at Fudan University. And also I think Eric Li is a closer associate of his, he actually was the, discussant at a Politburo study session. One of the monthly study sessions a few months ago, where I think the theme was on improving international communication. And talking about, again, how to better tell China's story, how to increase the global discourse power.Bill:Some people saw that as, oh, they're going to be nicer because they want to have a more lovable China image. I’m very skeptical because I think that this more aggressive tone, the shorthand is “Wolf warriors. wolf-warriorism”, I think really that seems to me to be more of a fundamental tenant of Xi Jinping being thought on diplomacy, about how China communicates to the world. I mean, how do you see it and how does this get better, or does it not get better for a while?David:It's a really important question. So I think, what do they think they're up to? To simplify and exaggerate a bit, I think that China, and this is not just a guess, this is based on off the record conversations with some pretty senior Chinese figures, they believe that the Western world, but in particular, the United States is too ignorant and unimaginative and Western centric, and probably too racist to understand that China is going to succeed, that China is winning and that the West is in really decadent decline.David:And so I think that these aggressive acts like detaining the two Michaels or their diplomatic an economic coercion of countries like Australia or Lithuania. They hear all the Pearl clutching dismay from high officials in Brussels, or in Washington DC-Bill:And the op-eds in big papers about how awful this is and-David:And the op-eds and yeah, self-defeating, and all those things. But I think that what they believe they are doing is delivering an educational dose of pain and I'm quoting a Chinese official with the word pain. And it is to shock us because we are too mule headed and thick to understand that China is winning and we are losing. And so they're going to keep delivering educational doses of pain until we get it. I think they think that's what they're up to-Bill:And by getting it basically stepping a side in certain areas and letting the Chinese pursue some of their key goals, the core interests, whatever you want to call it, that we, yeah.David:That we accommodate. Yeah. The fundamental message I'm quoting a smart friend of mine in Beijing here is China's rise is inevitable. Resistance is futile.Bill:Right. Resistance is futile.David:And if you accommodate us, we'll make it worth your while. It's the key message. And they think that some people are proving dimer and slower and more reluctant to pick that message up and above all Americans and Anglo Saxons. And so they're giving us the touch, the whip. Now, do I think that, that is inevitably going to be great for them? And you ask how does this end well? I mean, I guess my reason for thinking that they may yet pay some price, not a total price, is that they are engaged in a giant experiment. The Chinese government and party are engaged in a giant experiment, that it didn't matter that much, that the Western world was permissive and open to engagement with China.David:That, That wasn't really integral to their economic rise for the last 40 years that China basically did it by itself. And that if the Western world becomes more suspicious and more hostile, that China will not pay a very substantial price because its market power and its own manufacturing, industrial strength, we'll push on through. And so there'll be a period of turbulence and then we'll realized that we have to accommodate. And I think that in many cases they will be right. There will be sectors where industries don't leave China. They in fact, double down and reinvest and we're seeing that right now, but I do worry that there are going to be real costs paid.David:I mean, when I think back to... I did a special report for The Economists in May, 2019 about us generations. And one of the parts of that was the extraordinary number of Chinese students in us colleges. And I went to the University of Iowa and I spoke to Chinese students and you know that now, the levels of nationalism and hostility on both sides and the fear in American campuses, that's a real cost. I mean, I think if you imagine China's relationship with the Western world, particularly the U.S. as a fork in the road with two forks, one total engagement, one total decoupling, then absolutely China is right. There's not going to be total decoupling because we are as dependent as we were on China's, it's just-Bill:Right. Not realistic.David:China is an enormous market and also the best place to get a lot of stuff made. But I wonder, and it's an image I've used in a column, I think. I think that the relationship is not a fork in the road with two forks. It's a tree with a million branches. And each of those branches is a decision. Does this Western university sign a partnership with that Chinese university? Does this Western company get bought by a Chinese company? Does the government approve of that? Does this Western media organization sign a partnership with a Chinese media organization?David:Does this Western country buy a 5g network or an airline or a data cloud service or autonomous vehicles from China that are products and services with very high value added where China wants to be a dominant player. And that's an entirely reasonable ambition, because China's a big high tech power now. But a lot of these very high value added services or these relationships between universities, or businesses, or governments in the absence of trust, they don't make a bunch of sense because if you don't trust the company, who's cloud is holding your data or the company who's made you the autonomous car, which is filled with microphones and sensors and knows where you were last night and what you said in your car last night, if you don't trust that company or the country that made that, none of that makes sense.David:And I think that China's willingness to show its teeth and to use economic coercion and to go to European governments and say, if you don't take a fine Chinese 5g network we're going to hurt you. If you boil that down to a bumper sticker, that's China saying to the world, or certainly to the Western world stay open to China, or China will hurt you. Trust China or China will hurt you. That's the core message for a lot of these Wolf warrior ambassadors. And that's the core message to people like me, a guy who writes a column living in Beijing. And a lot of the time China's market power will make that okay. But I think that's, if you look at that tree with a million decisions, maybe more of those than China was expecting will click from a yes to a no.David:If you're a Western university, do you now open that campus in Shanghai? Do you trust your local Chinese partner when they say that your academics are going to have freedom of speech? And what's heartbreaking about that is that the victims of that are not going to be the politic bureau it's going to be people on the ground, it's going to be researchers and students and consumers and-Bill:On both sides. I mean, that's-David:On both sides. Yeah.Bill:Yeah. That's the problem.David:Yeah.Bill:So that's uplifting. No, I mean, I-David:I've got worse.Bill:Wait until the next question. I think I really appreciate your time and it'd be respective but I just have two more questions. One is really about just being a foreign correspondent in China and the Foreign correspondents' Club of China put out its annual report, I think earlier this week. And it's depressing you read as it's been in years and every year is extremely depressing, but one of the backdrops is really the first foreign ministry press conference of the last year of 2021. It really struck me that Hua Chunying, who is... She's now I think assistant foreign minister, vice foreign minister at the time, she was the head of the information office in I think the one of the spokespeople, she made a statement about how it was kicking off the 100th anniversary year.Bill:And I'm just going to read her couple sentences to get a sense of the language. So she said, and this was on the, I think it was January 4th, 2021, "In the 1930s and 1940s when the Guangdong government sealed off Yunnan and spared, no efforts to demonize the CPC foreign journalists like Americans, Edgar Snow, Anna Louise Strong and Agnes Smedley, curious about who and what the CPC is, chose to blend in with the CPC members in Yunnan and wrote many objective reports as well as works like the famous Red star over China, giving the world, the first clip of the CPC and its endeavor in uniting and leading the Chinese people in pursuing national independence and liberation."Bill:And then went on with more stuff about how basically wanting foreign correspondents to be like Snow, Strong or Smedley. How did that go over? And I mean, is that just part of the, your welcome as long as you're telling the right story message?David:So there was a certain amount of... Yeah. I mean, we also got this from our handlers at the MFA, why couldn't it be more like Edgar Snow? And I fear the first time I had that line in the meeting, I was like, well, he was a communist, if that's the bar, then I'm probably going to meet that one. Edgar Snow went to Yan’an he spent a tremendous amount of time in Mao hours interviewing Mao. If Xi Jinping wants to let me interview him for hours, I'd be up for that. But I would point out that Edgar Snow, after interviewing Mao for hours, then handed the transcripts over to Mao and had them edited and then handed back to him. And that probably would not be-Bill:But doesn't work at The Economist.David:That wouldn't fly with my editors. No. So I think we may have an inseparable problem there. Look, isn't it the phrase that Trump people used to talk about working the refs? I mean, what government doesn't want to work the refs. So, that's part of it. And I'm a big boy, I've been at Trump rallies and had people scream at me and tell me, I'm fake news. And it was still a good thing to meet. I've interviewed Afghan warlords who had happily killed me, but at that precise moment, they wanted the Americans to drop a bomb on the mountain opposite.David:And so they were willing to have me in their encampment. So, the worker of being a journalist, you need to go and talk to people who don't necessarily agree with you or like you and that's the deal. So I'm not particularly upset by that. What is worrying and I think this is shown in the FCC annual server, which is based on asking journalists in China how their job goes at the moment is there is a sense that the Chinese machine and in particular things like the communist youth league have been very effective at whipping up low public opinion.David:So when we saw the floods in Hunan Province in the summer of 2021, where in fact, we recently just found out that central government punished a whole bunch of officials who had covered up the death doll there, journalists who went down there to report this perfectly legitimate, large news story, the communist youth league among other organizations put out notices on their social media feeds telling people they're a hostile foreign journalists trying to make China look bad, to not talk to them, if you see them, tell us where they are. And you've got these very angry crowds chasing journalists around Hunan in a fairly worry way.David:And again, if you're a foreign correspondent in another country, we are guests in China. So, the Chinese people, they don't have to love me. I hope that they will answer my questions, because I think I'm trying to report this place fairly, but I'm not demanding red carpet treatment, but there is a sense that the very powerful propaganda machine here is whipping up very deliberately something that goes beyond just be careful about talking to foreign journalists. And I think in particular, one thing that I should say is that as a middle aged English guy with gray hair, I still have an easier time of it by far because some of the nastiest attacks, including from  the nastiest online nationalist trolls.David:They're not just nationalists, but they're also sexist and chauvinist and the people who I think really deserve far more sympathy than some like me is Chinese American, or Chinese Australian, or Chinese Canadian journalists, particularly young women journalists.Bill:I know Emily Feng at NPR was just the subject of a really nasty spate of attacks online about some of her reporting.David:And it's not just Emily, there's a whole-Bill:Right. There's a whole bunch.David:There's a whole bunch of them. And they get called you know er guizi all sorts of [crosstalk 00:37:15]. And this idea and all this horrible stuff about being race traitors and again, one of the conversations I've had with Chinese officials is, if you keep this up, someone is going to get physically hurt. And I don't think that's what you want. David:And again, I fall back on the fact that I'm a Western liberal. What I say to them is if you tell me that a Chinese-British journalist is not as British as me, then you are to my mind, that's racial prejudice. And if some right wing Western white politician said to me that a Chinese immigrant wasn't fully American, or wasn't fully British, that's racism, right?Bill:That's racism. Yeah.David:And I think that is the really troubling element to this level of nationalism. China is a very big country that does some very impressive things that does some less impressive things and does some very wicked things, but we have every reason to give it credit for the things it does well. And it is not that surprising when any government tries to work the refs.David:And get the best coverage they can by intimidating us and calling us out. I've interviewed Donald Trump and he asked me, when are you going to write something nice about me? I mean, we're grownups, this is how it works, but if they are making it toxic for young women journalists to work in China, or if they are driving foreign correspondent out of China, because their families they're under such intimidation that they can't even go on holiday without their children being followed around by secret police. I think there will be a cost.Bill:But that may be a what the Chinese side sees as a benefit, because then it opens the field for them controlling how the story's told. And then you can bring in a bunch of people or pull a bunch of people out of the foreigners working for state media, hey, the new Edgar Snow, the new Agnes Smedley. I mean, that is one of the things that I think potentially is what they're trying to do, which seems self-defeating, but as we've been discussing, what we think is self-defeating the policy makers, or some of them may see as a success.David:So what I think they're confident of is that being aggressive and making us much more jumpy is a win, but throwing all of us out, I think the people at the top get that, that's not a win because the New York times and the BBC and the Washington post, they're still going to cover China, even if they can't have people in China. And a bunch of that coverage is not going to be stuff that China likes, North Korea doesn't have any resident foreign correspondent, but it doesn't get a great press.Bill:And the other group, of course, but beyond the foreign journalists is all the PRC national journalists working for the foreign correspondent as researchers and, I mean, many of them journalists in all but name because they can't legally be that I've certainly, been hearing some pretty distressing stories about how much pressure they're under. And I think they're in almost an impossible situation it seems like right now.David:Now they're amazingly brave people. They're completely integral to our coverage. And many of them, as you say, they're journalists who in any other country, we would be getting to write stuff with their own bylines. I mean, in incredibly cautious about what we have our Chinese colleagues do now, because they are under tremendous pressure. I mean, not naming news organizations, but the just the level of harassment of them and their families and is really bad. And it's the most cynical attempt to make it difficult for us to do our jobs and to divide Chinese people from the Western media.David:But fundamentally at some level, this does not end well because, and this is not me just talking up the role of the Western media, because I think we're magnificently important people, but at some level there's a big problem under way with this level of nationalism in modern China. I was in China in the '90s, you were in China in the '90s, I think. We remember it was-Bill:'80s, '90s, 2000s. Yeah.David:Yeah. You were there before me, but it was not a Jeffersonian democracy. It was a dictatorship, but this level of nationalism is much more serious now. Why does that matter? Well, because I think that for a lot of particularly young Chinese, the gap between their self perception and the outside world's perception of China has become unbearably wide. They think this country has never been so impressive and admirable. And yet I keep seeing foreign media questioning us and criticizing us. And that just enrages them. They can't conceive of any sincere principle on our part that would make us criticize China that way.David:And going back to my conversation with the online nationalist Sai Lei, when he was saying, well, how would the Americans take it if they were told that eating avocados was bad for the environment? When I said to him, but they are told that. There are lots of environmental NGOs that talk about sustainable fisheries, or the cost, the carbon footprint of crops and things in the West. The two countries are pulling apart and the pandemic has just accelerated that process. And so if you are a Chinese nationalist, not only are you angry about being criticized, but you don't believe that the West is ever critical about itself. You think that the West is only bent on criticizing China. And that gap in perceptions is just really dangerously wide.Bill:And widening, it seems like. I mean, I'm not there now, but it certainly, from everything I can see outside of China, it feels like that's what's happening too.David:Yeah. We need to know more about China.Bill:I agree.David:And report more about China. And I don't just say that because that's how I earn my living. I think it's really, really dangerous for us to think that the solution is less reporting about China.Bill:Well, and certainly, I mean, and all sorts of avenues, not just media, but all sorts of avenues, we're seeing a constriction of information getting out of China. And on the one hand China's growing in importance globally and power globally. And on the other hand, our ability to understand the place seems to be getting harder. And it goes back to, I mean, we just, I think it'll be a mistake if we just get forced into accepting the official version of what China is. That's disseminated through the officially allowed and sanctioned outlets in China. Maybe that'll help China, but I'm not sure it helps the rest of the world.David:And it's not compatible with China's ambitions to be a high tech superpower. China wants to be a country that doesn't just-Bill:That's a very fundamental contradiction.David:Yeah. China wants to sell us vaccines and wants the Western world to buy Chinese vaccines and approve Chinese vaccines. Why has the FDA not yet approved Chinese vaccines? Well, one reason is because China hasn't released the data. You can't play this secretive defensive hermit state and be a global high tech superpower. And China is a very, very big country with a lot of good universities, a lot of smart people. It has every right to compete at the highest levels in global high tech. But you can't do that, if you are not willing to earn trust by sharing the data, or by letting your companies be audited, when they list overseas. They need to decide.Bill:Or being able to handle legitimate criticism. I mean, certainly there has been illegitimate criticism and the attacks on the Western media, I mean, I know the BBC was a frequent target last year. And I think they were able to pull out some errors of the reporting and then magnify it. I mean, it is a struggle. And I think one of the things I think is on the Chinese side, they're very much geared up for this ongoing global opinion struggle. And we're not and we're never going to be, because it's just not how our systems are structured. So it's going to be an interesting few years.David:It is. And it's a tremendous privilege to still be here. And as long as I'm allowed, I'm going to keep letting Chinese people, letting their voices be heard in my column. That's what I think I'm here for.Bill:Okay. Last question. Just given your experience in living in DC and writing for The Economist from here, where do you see us, China relations going? And there is a one direct connection to what we just talked about, the foreign journalists where there theoretically has been some sort of an improvement or a deal around allowing more journalists from each side to go to other country. Although what I've heard is that the Chinese side was been very clear that some of the folks who were forced to leave or were experienced are not going to be welcome back. It's going to have to be a whole new crop of people who go in for these places, which again, seems to be, we don't want people who have priors or longer time on the ground, potentially.David:We think that each of the big American news organizations just going to get at least one visa, initially. And that Is going to be this deal done and it's high time. And you're right, as far as we can tell the people who were expelled or forced to leave are not going to come back. And that's a real tragedy because I have Chinese officials say to me, we wish that the Western media sent people who speak good Chinese and who understand China. And I was like Ian Johnson and Chris Buckley, these people lived for, their depth of knowledge and their love for China was absolutely unrivaled. So, if you're going to throw those people out, you can't complain about journalists who don't like China.Bill:Exactly.David:The general trend of U.S. China relations. to be of optimistic about the trend of U.S. China relations I'd have to be more optimistic than I currently am about the state of U.S. Politics. And there's a kind of general observation, which is that I think that American democracy is in very bad shape right now. And I wish that some of the China hawks in Congress, particularly on the Republican side, who are also willing to imply, for example, that the 2020 election was stolen, that there was massive fraud every time they say that stuff, they're making an in-kind contribution to the budget of the Chinese propaganda department.Bill:I agree completely there. It's not a joke because it's too serious, but it's just ludicrous, hypocrisy and shortsightedness. It's disgusting.David:You cannot be a patriotic American political leader and tell lies about the state of American democracy. And then say that you are concerned about China's rise. So there's a general observation about, if dysfunction continues at this level, then-Bill:No wonder the Chinese are so confident.David:Yeah. I mean, the Chinese line on president Biden is interesting. One of the big things about my first couple of years here when president Trump was still in office was, I'd any number of people in the states saying confidently that Donald Trump was a tremendous China hawk. I never believed. And I've interviewed Trump a few times and spoken to him about China and spoken to his China people. I never believed that Donald Trump himself was a China hawk. If you define a China hawk, as someone who has principled objections to the way that China runs itself. I think that Donald Trump couldn't care less about the Uighurs and Xinjiang. In fact, we know he approved to what they were doing.David:Couldn't care less about Hong Kong couldn't care less frankly, about Taiwan. His objection to the China relationship was that I think he thinks the American economy is the big piece of real estate, and you should pay rent to access it. And he thought China wasn't paying enough rent. So he was having a rent review. I mean, that's what the guy. It was about, they needed to pay more and then he was going to be happy. So he was not a China hawk. What was really interesting was that here in China, officials would be pretty open by the end, took them time to get their heads around Trump. For a long time they thought he was New York business guy. Then they realized that was, he wasn't actually like the other New York business guy they knew.David:And then they thought he was like a super China hawk. And then they realized that that wasn't true. By the end, they had a nail. They thought he was a very transactional guy. And the deal that they could do with him was one that they were happy to do, because it didn't really involve structural change on the Chinese side. Then their message about Joe Biden is that he is weak and old and lacks control of Congress. And that he is, this is from scholars rather than officials, I should say, but their view is, why would China spend political capital on the guy who's going to lose the next election?Bill:And not only the next election but is probably going to lose control of the House, at least in nine, what is it? Nine months or 10 months. So why worry? And that they do and I think, I mean, one of the big milestones will be the national security strategy, the national defense strategy, which in the Trump administration they came out in the December of the first year and then January for the NDS. It's February, we still haven't seen those here. I think certainly as you said, but certainly from Chinese interlock is the sense of, is that they can't come to an agreement on what it should be, the U.S. China policy.David:Yeah. And China has some legitimate concerns. I mean, for example, if you are Xi Jinping and you're trying to work out how ambitious your climate change timetables going to be. How much pain are you going to ask co-producing provinces in the Northeast to take to get out to carbon neutrality as quickly as say, the Europeans are pushing you to do. And part of the equation is America going to take some pain too, or are we going to end up being uncompetitive? Because America's not actually going to do the right thing? Well, Joe Biden can talk a good game on climate as an area for cooperation with China. But if he loses the next election and Donald Trump or someone like Donald Trump wins the White House then if you're shooting pink, why would you kind of strike a painful deal with America if you don't think it's going to last beyond 2024?Bill:Right. You'll do what makes sense for your country and not offer anything up to America because we already have a record of backing out of these deals. That's the problem.David:So that has real world consequences. The one thing that I will say about the U.S. China relationship, and I'm very, very pessimistic about the fact that the two sides, they don't share a vision of how this ends well. There is no end game that I think makes both sides happy, because I think the Chinese vision is America sucks it up and accommodates.Bill:Right. Resistance is futile.David:Yeah, exactly. And the American vision, I think, is that China stumbles, that China is making mistakes, that the state is getting involved in the economy too much. That Xi Jinping is centralizing power too much. And that somehow China's going to make so many mistakes that it ends up to feed defeating itself. I think that's one of the arguments you here in DC.Bill:Yes. It's wishful thinking it's not necessarily based on a rigid rigorous analysis. It seems like it's much more wishful thinking.David:So, that is a reason to be pessimistic about the medium and the long-term. The one thing that I will say based here in China is that when I write really specific color about things like what does China think of the idea of Russia invading Ukraine? And I talk to really serious scholars who spent their lives studying things like Russia policy or foreign policy or international relations, or if I talk to really senior tech people, Chinese tech companies, they do take America's power very seriously. Even though there is absolutely sincere disdain for American political dysfunction.David:I think that America's innovation power, the areas of technology, whether it's semiconductors or some forms of AI algorithms where America just really is still ahead by a long way, the really serious people, when you talk to them off the record, they still take America seriously. And on that Ukraine example, what was really interesting, the prompt for that was seeing commentators in the U.S. saying that Xi Jinping would like Putin to invade Ukraine because this was going to be a test that Biden was going to fail and America was going to look weak. And maybe that would lead Xi Jinping to then invade Taiwan.David:And when I spoke to Chinese scholars, really serious Chinese scholars of Russia, their Irish, it's like, no, no, no. Russia is an economy, the size of Guangdong and they sell us oil and gas, which is nice. But our trade to them is not enough to sacrifice our relationship with America.Bill:Thank you, David Rennie. That was a really good conversation. I think very useful, very illuminating. The links, some of the articles we talked about, the links will be in the show notes. And just a note on the schedule for the sinocism podcast. It is not, I think going to be weekly or biweekly as I thought originally, I'm still working it out, but it will be every, at least once a month. I hope it's the plan, if not, a little more frequent depending on the guests.Bill:So thanks for your patience and look forward to hearing from you. I love your feedback. The transcript will be on the website when it goes live. So please let me know what you think. And as always, you can sign up for sinocism at sinocism.com, S-I-N-O-C-I-S-M.com. Thank you. Get full access to Sinocism at sinocism.com/subscribe

Episode Notes:Today's guest is Joanna Chiu, a long-time journalist covering China from both inside and outside the country, co-founder and chair of the editorial collective 'NüVoices 女性之音', and the author of the new book "China Unbound." She now covers Canada-China issues for the Toronto Star. Joanna, welcome to the podcast.4:20 on Huawei, Meng Wanzhou and the two Michaels - when the whole Huawei, Meng Wanzhou saga was unfolding, I got so many questions from not just Canadian journalists, but media around the world about what was going on. I think it's surprising to us because we've been in the China-watching bubble, but more broadly, what happened was very shocking for a lot of people all over the world23:20 people like me and my family aren't fully accepted as Canadians or as Australians or as Americans, it's always like a hyphen, like Chinese-Canadian, Chinese-American. That just plays into what Beijing wants. When people of Chinese descent are taken as political prisoners or get calls from Chinese police saying, "Stop supporting Hong Kong on social media or stop doing this," these people get less attention. They're not taken seriously when they try to report what's happening because unfortunately a lot of people in the West have accepted the CCP's myth that we're still essentially Chinese36:20 on Canada-China relations - in Canada, the mood after the Michaels returned and the Meng case was resolved is that they really want to go back to business as usual. To not have any kind of plan in place on how to prevent Canadian hostages from being taken in the future. The Prime Ministers office really steering this even though other parts of government was like, "We need some sort of plan, we need some sort of update to foreign policy in general." There's very little political will.Links: China Unbound on Amazon. Joanna Chiu’s websiteNüVoices 女性之音Transcript:Bill:Hi everyone, today's guest is Joanna Chiu, a long-time journalist covering China from both inside and outside the country, co-founder and chair of the editorial collective 'NüVoices', and the author of the new book "China Unbound." She now covers Canada-China issues for the Toronto Star. Joanna, welcome to the podcast.Joanna:Thank you Bill, thanks for having me on your new podcast, very exciting.Bill:Thanks, yeah you are the second guest, and so I'm really happy to have this opportunity to speak with you. Before we dig into your book, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you ended up where you are and doing what you do?Joanna:Okay. I guess my bio is that my family is one of the many who left Hong Kong after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests because my parents were worried about what would happen going forward. So growing up in Canada, I felt that China was actually part of my whole family story because what happened led to my family uprooting themselves. So I was always really interested in China and studied Chinese history and wanted to return to be a reporter to chronicle what was happening in the country, which I was so fascinated by.Joanna:So I started reporting on the ground in Hong Kong in 2012, covering all the things that happened there including the Occupy to pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. I moved to Beijing in 2014 and that's where I started covering basically everything in the whole country for European media outlets, including German, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, and AFP (Agence France-Presse). And I guess my career was a bit unique in that I also free-lanced for several stints. So I got to kind of get a sense of what many different jurisdictions and countries wanted to know about China in my time there writing for all sorts of outlets.Bill:Interesting and so I was there until 2015 and I think we overlapped for just about a year. When did you actually leave China to go back to Canada?Joanna:Yeah, I left China in late 2018. I wanted to stay for longer because even seven years on the ground I felt I barely got to scratch the surface of all the things that I could write about in China. Especially because I had such a broad remit where I was a front-line reporter for all of these major events but also could do basically any feature story I wanted. So it was just totally open and I could have stayed there for decades, but I had to go back to Canada. I got asthma from the smog and I think my Canadian lungs just couldn't handle air. I was just like really allergic to Beijing as soon as I landed and I stuck it out for four years. But back in Canada, I felt I would have to move on from my passion and interest in China, but a couple of months after I returned, Meng Wanzhou, a Huawei executive was detained in the Vancouver International Airport. And just over a week later, two Michaels were detained. So definitely I think that was the biggest China story at the time, and it continued to be very impactful around the world.Joanna:So I started covering that and it just led to basically being a reporter for the Toronto Star, focusing on China. And that's what I've been doing since then. I have also been working on my book since early 2019. So not my plan, but definitely the past decade has been very China focused, including my last few years.Bill:It's great, I've always been a fan of your work, and I will say, it's very interesting how many foreign correspondents used to live in China have left the country. Some willingly, some not willingly, but how it turns out how most of them have found jobs covering how China's impacting the world wherever they're now based.Joanna:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Bill:I think that's a good segue into talking about your book because it really is true that the China story is everywhere now. And that's something, I think, you try and capture in "China Unbound." So tell us who you wrote it for, why you wrote it, and what do you hope that the readers take away from it?Joanna:Mm-hmm (affirmative). So when the whole Huawei, Meng Wanzhou saga was unfolding, I got so many questions from not just Canadian journalists, but media around the world about what was going on. I think it's surprising to us because we've been in the China-watching bubble, but more broadly, what happened was very shocking for a lot of people all over the world. They didn't know the context of Beijing's political system and its increasing ... how its authoritarianism translates also into its foreign policy and its stances towards different countries and diaspora groups all over the world. But these things were not just stories I covered, but stories that were close to my life. Because growing up, my father worked for a Chinese-Canadian radio station and people were talking already then about pressure to self-censor, pressure from the Chinese embassy on Canadian media outlets. This was happening in the 90s and people of Chinese descent around the world were trying to have discussions about this, but basically not really getting much traction or broader public attention.Joanna:It did seem ... I will ask you if this is what you felt, but it took two white men from Canada being taken hostage over this high-profile executive's arrest in Canada for a lot of people in the world to be like, "Wait, what's going on? How will Beijing's political system and authoritarianism possibly impact me and my family or my country or my business?" So I wrote this book for basically everyone, targeting the general reader because I really try to be as immediate as possible in my writing. Most of the reporting is eyewitness reporting from myself in collaboration with journalists around the world and looking at how we got to this point. Western countries and China, how we got to this point where it seems like a lot of obstacles that seem insurmountable. All of these tensions, all of these worries.Joanna:I wanted for people to start with this book and then I provided this long reading list at the end so they can continue to be engaging with these issues. Because I feel that we might not have really noticed, but a lot of the narratives around China in the mainstream public have been very very simplified. And that is a disservice to all countries. And especially to the people who end up being targets and whose lives end up being affected by some of these big conflicts going on.Bill:What you said earlier about it really taking two white men, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig to get people's attention. It's interesting because these pressures have existed, as you said talking about your father and his experience, but these pressures on the diaspora have existed for decades. They've certainly intensified, and you have multiple instances of ethnic Chinese who are jailed in China, American, Australian, where it didn't seem to kind of capture the national attention the way that the detention of the two Michaels did. And that's unfortunate, but it does feel like the conversation and awareness now has shifted and so there's a lot more awareness that these kind of pressures are existing across all sorts of communities. You can tell me I'm wrong, but the Chinese government has also shifted its approach, hasn't it? Sort of widened its net in terms of how they pressure?Joanna:Yeah, so in the past, you know the united front, a lot of that work of foreign influence in both intimidation and providing carrots and sticks. Flattering global politicians and global members of the elite among the diaspora have been going on, but the most harsh efforts of influence in the past I think were mostly directed at people of Asian descent. It was only in more recent years where the really harsh tactic, the detentions, have been applied to foreign nationals who are not of Asian descent. It seems like that is a deliberate shift in tactics, would you agree?Bill:No, I would. And I think it's interesting when you look at sort of who they've targeted, especially around the Meng Wanzhou case. Two Canadians were very quickly arrested, a third Canadian who had been convicted of dealing drugs had a re-sentence to death. There's still no word about Schellenberg's fate in the wake of the Meng Wanzhou deal. But I think that one thing that's interesting is they've yet to target Caucasian Americans. And so far, certainly what I was fearing in the Meng Wanzhou incident was that ... someone had told me that they had put together lists who they might target but they held back because part of the messaging is they're at least today not quite ready to go toe-to-toe with the U.S.. But willing to penalize countries and the citizens of the countries that are seen as effectively being U.S. allies or lackeys depending on who you're speaking with. Does that make sense?Joanna:Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, that makes sense. And my book, people have said that because I'm Canadian and I spotlight countries and experiences like Australia, Italy, Greece, Turkey. So so-called middle powers, that middle-power perspective, whereas many books out of the U.S. and China have it from the U.S. perspective.Bill:Right, right.Joanna:And I think that's important context for Americans to understand because in America, it seems like a lot of it is about this almost glorious competition with China where the U.S. has to win. I have been kind of mortified that people commenting on my book have said things like, "We need to read this so that we can win and not let China win." Things like that. But if they had actually read it, they would have probably seen that that's not right. I criticize the Western nations' handling and attitudes towards China as much as I criticize Beijing's actions. So I would also point out that Australian journalists who are white were affecting. Bill Birtles and Michael Smith spent days holed up in their Australian embassies in China. Basically fleeing because they got tipped off that otherwise they might get detained. Related to Australia's more aggressive critical stance towards China as of late.Bill:And also-Joanna:It does seem-Bill:Sorry, was it also related to the detention of Australian Chinese ... Australian journalist Cheng Lei who was originally Chinese then naturalized into Australian citizenship. And she's disappeared into the system in China, right?Joanna:Yeah, so Cheng Lei ... Again, while she's not a global household name like the two Michaels, she is actually detained. Her case ... we know very little about it, but it seems very clear it's related to the political situation between the two countries. And also Bloomberg journal Haze Fan ... and I think actually Haze's case might be as close as China has gotten so far to targeting Americans because even though a Chinese national, she worked for Bloomberg. She was a prominent journalist for Bloomberg. So it's interesting because writing this book, I'm trying to provide this nuance and context for the public but under so much pressure because of global contexts. Things are so tense that it could get worse at any moment and you don't know. You're hearing from your sources about a list that they were preparing of Americans they could possibly target. The stakes are so high.Joanna:Both of us, these are people we know. I don't know if you knew Kovrig, but it's a relief that he's back.Bill:Not well, but I did know a little bit.Joanna:For the more than 1,000 days he was in detention, I was writing this book and that was always on my mind. It's so immediate and it's so urgent for more people to understand what's going on rather than I think fanning the flames or making things worse or not using the opportunities there are to engage more productively with China. But we see the dialogue on China becoming so toxic right now, where it's almost as if there's two camps. The more extreme on both sides seem to get more airtime and interest. And people want those nuggets of talking points on China that really signify this is how we fight back. Rather than the people who are trying to provide a lot more context. It's not as easy as doing this or that to resolve everything or get what you want.Bill:Well with what you said earlier about sort of "we have to win," I have yet to see a clear definition of the theory of victory and what it is. The other thing I'd say, and this will lead into my next question is, we talk about in many ways how toxic the discourse has gotten in the West. It's also incredibly toxic inside China in very worrisome ways. And in many ways, sort of state-supported and state-encouraged ways. One of the questions I want to ask you is how we ... So first question is as you talk about in the book and you've talked about in other places, this whole discussion around Chinese Communist Party influence or interference in other countries ... Whether it's through the United Front or other means or vectors ... How do we differentiate what we should actually, "we" being the countries that are targeted ... How should you differentiate what actually matters that people should be concerned with versus that's the normal thing that a foreign government would do to try and improve other countries' perceptions of that country and advance their interests in those countries.Bill:And related, as this discourse does get more toxic, how do we talk about these things without tipping into racism? In the U.S. certainly, we have a really long and nasty history of anti-Asian and specifically anti-Chinese racism. And there are a lot of reasons to be very worried about going too far where we're back in a very dark place in terms of how people of Asian and Chinese descent are treated in this country. But at the same time, there are real issues and potential threats coming from some of these PRC activities. So how do we talk about that in a way that effectively deals with the problems but also makes sure that people are safe and able to enjoy the rights that they deserve and have?Joanna:Yeah and that's why I try to provide a lot of that history concisely within each chapter of the book because we need to know what happened before to know to be a lot more careful with our language and our actions now. Because definitely it just seems like history is repeating itself during the McCarthy era. Chinese-Americans' loyalties are constantly questioned, they lost their jobs. And now former President Trump has said that he thinks basically all students are possibly Chinese spies. We've seen these prosecutions of certain Chinese national scientist professors in America that were basically pretty embarrassing.Bill:Yes.Joanna:It seemed a lot of the suspicions were unfounded and it was almost like a witch-hunt which is really difficult. When things seemed politicized and politically motivated and you put a blanket suspicion on all these people, it's exactly what happened in the past.Bill:Mm-hmm (affirmative)Joanna:And it's not just America. It was in Canada, Australia, Europe. In Canada, we had internment of Japanese Canadians during World War II. And people know that this is in the background. And even before things got more tense when a lot of the approach among Western countries towards China was that the goal was to expand trade ties and economic ties as much as possible, there was still a lot of racism. Walking down the street, I got called slurs like the c-word in downtown Vancouver multiple times.Bill:Recently?Joanna:Throughout my life living in Canada. In Vancouver, particularly, there was a long-standing stereotype of the crazy rich Asian that was ruining the city with our Maseratis and condo buying.Bill:Wasn't there a reality show that was based on rich Chinese in Vancouver, I think?Joanna:Yeah, there was that and there's a lot of scapegoating against East Asians for lots of problems with COVID-19 and all this with the two Michaels in Huawei. This just really spiked particularly in countries like Canada, U.S., Australia with the large Chinese diaspora in many places. People who weren't even Chinese, like an indigenous woman in Canada, she was punched in the face. Things like that. And its not like we can throw up our hands and be like, "People are just going to be racist, this is just going to happen." I think a lot of people in positions of influence and politicians need to take responsibility for what they've done to stoke this behavior and not condone it. So talking to certain politicians in Canada in the conservative party, they tell me that there's been a shift in strategy to talk about China as the Chinese Communist Party, the communist regime, to deliberately stir up a red scare. In the U.S. definitely, the FBI in an announcement about one of its investigations into a Chinese American scientist said the words "Chinese Communist regime" or "Chinese Communist government" five times.Bill:That was the announcement about the MIT professor, was it Chen Gang, I think?Joanna:Yeah, I think so.Bill:The prosecutor or the FBI folks up in Boston, I believe.Joanna:Right. Yeah, that was the one. And it's just not necessary. You don't need to ... My argument is that the facts about what Beijing is doing are urgent and sobering enough. You don't really need to embellish it with this language of trying to get people scared of this Communist entity. But perhaps it's more to do with domestic politics in each place. Someone explained it to me in the U.S. where pretty much everyone is critical of China. You don't get more attention by just being moderately critical, you have to be really more extreme. It's as if it's like a competition to be as hawkish as possible to get that acclaim and public support.Bill:And as you said, it's unnecessary because as you just said, the facts can speak for themselves in many areas. And it again, it goes back to how do we have rational discussion about what the problems and challenges are without tipping over into something that's really nasty and scary. It's something I struggle with, obviously in my newsletter, I have ... It's funny when you write about China, I have people who think I'm a CCP apologist and people who think I'm way too hawkish. You sort of can't win, it's such a fraught topic that it is something I struggle with. Because you certainly don't want to be in a position where you're stirring things up, but at the same time you can't just throw up your hands and say, "Well we're not going to deal with this because it's too dangerous." I mean, it's too dangerous the other way too, right? But it's really difficult, and the question I have is, do you think the powers in Beijing understand this? Is this something they try to use or leverage?Joanna:Oh yeah, I think so. I think it plays right into what Beijing wants. Because the myth it has been promoting for years is that China is the center of Chinese civilization even if your family has been away from China for generations, you're still Chinese. And since you're still Chinese, your de-facto leader is still the CCP. It's a legitimate power for all Chinese people. Because people like me and my family aren't fully accepted as Canadians or as Australians or as Americans, it's always like a hyphen, like Chinese-Canadian, Chinese-American. That just plays into what Beijing wants. When people of Chinese descent are taken as political prisoners or get calls from Chinese police saying, "Stop supporting Hong Kong on social media or stop doing this," these people get less attention. They're not taken seriously when they try to report what's happening because unfortunately a lot of people in the West have accepted the CCP's myth that we're still essentially Chinese. It's in the law, if there's dual-nationality, they don't accept the second nationality.Joanna:But even more than that, I still worry that ... it's happened to people like me. I actually gave up my Hong Kong citizenship, I'm only Canadian. But just because of my Chinese blood, I'm at greater risk of whatever repercussions. I've definitely been singled out when I was a foreign correspondent in Beijing for writing too much about human rights. And they did not say the same things about other people in my office. So by not listening to people in the diaspora and still treating them as they're still outsiders, we're with this connection to China whether we agree or not, that's really playing into it. And also when there's this racism, Chinese media, Chinese embassies, they've been really up front about condemning this and using it as a way to shore up loyalty among overseas Chinese, especially people who are more recent immigrants to get that support. There's so many of these China Friendship associations around the world. It's tough to understand their impact because it's all basically legal. They are these groups that openly support Beijing's policies all around the world. And they have, in my reporting, taken part in basically trying to make friends with politicians around the world and using those interviews, events, photographs to turn into propaganda to say, "We got support from this politician." There were groups that have offered money for people to vote for certain candidates in other countries' elections.Joanna:So it's complicated because when these groups are alienated, when they still feel that ... On a pragmatic level, it makes better sense for them to have good relations with Beijing. These groups are going to increase and proliferate and it's hard to understand what they're doing because you don't want to villainize it. In a way it's very natural for people, say, with business ties in China to try to hob-nob with Chinese embassies and try to support them. When I do report on some of these activities like the potential vote buying and interfering in elections, people use it as an excuse to say, "Oh, everyone's like that. All recent immigrants are working for the CCP." And that just puts a lot of reporters and researchers in these really tricky situations where you want to report on what's going on, but because discourse just fails to be nuanced enough, people just kind of take it as a reason to be more hostile and to not really open up their minds that there's a diversity of opinions among Chinese people and the Chinese diaspora.Bill:And it's also hard I think because so much of it happens in Mandarin or other Chinese dialects, so most people who don't speak the language have no idea what's going on.Joanna:Mm-hmm (affirmative). But it's been such a rich field of potential reporting for me, going back to Canada. It's really, really resitting. I have been able to read all of these reports. I've been able to translate these posts into English for audiences who found it really interesting. But I would argue that it's not actually that hard because there are so many Chinese speakers all over the world. It's not like it's a niche population, like a small population. In these stories where Steve Bannon and Miles Kwok's like cultish group was protesting outside a Canadian journalist's house accusing him of being a Chinese spy, when he was actually critical of Beijing. There were death threats.Bill:They did that to a bunch of people in America too. They had a whole program of targeting people.Joanna:Yeah, New Jersey.Bill:Yeah.Joanna:Yeah, so in that case. In Texas, with Pastor Bob Fu, he was one of the targets. And the FBI came in, the bomb squad, they put him and his family in a safe house. But in Canada, police monitored it, checked in once in a while. I actually sent them videos, like this looks like a death threat. And I actually ... Me and my colleagues, we translated some of this information and we posted it on YouTube to explain what was going on. But then it took three months later, this going on in Canada ... Two of these protestors just savagely beat one of the target's friends. And the police were responding to questions of why didn't you step in earlier, there were death threats? They admitted that they were slow with the investigation because they didn't have Chinese language resources. And that doesn't make sense really, in Vancouver, when there are so many people of Chinese descent. It's not hard to find someone to look at something and translate it to understand it.Joanna:In the conclusion of my book, one of the points I make is that information in Chinese language is treated like a secret code that can't be cracked. Instead, people like Newt Gingrich and other kind of just make things up. In his book, Newt Gingrich ... I don't quite remember but he just provided nonsensical translations of Chinese words and then extrapolated a whole bunch of theories about China based on that. Which is insulting to all of the people, not just of Chinese descent, but people like you who have taken the time to learn Mandarin and to understand China.Bill:There's a lot of that here in the U.S., I don't know how much it exists in other countries. But certainly the taking stuff out of context or just crappy language skills. And then, like you said, extrapolating something much bigger and darker and nefarious than in many cases it actually is, for sure.Joanna:Yeah. In the U.S. people tell me that they do have Chinese speakers, but lower down in the chain who provide reports and information. But going up the chain, the politicians and the pundits, they pick and choose information to support what they believe already. So these researchers feel like they're not even being heard because politicians are just grabbing what they want anyways. In many cases, people of Chinese descent are worried about even going to China or talking about their family in China because they're not going to get promoted to more influential positions. They're not going to get security clearance because the assumption is that if you have any sort of China ties that you might be compromised. And that's a very prejudicious trend in D.C.Bill:When I moved back to D.C. after ten years, I had no interest in working for the government, but I had a funny conversation with someone who does have security clearance. He says, "Don't even bother to apply, you'll never get a security clearance because you lived in China for too long."Joanna:That's crazy.Bill:That's fine, but there are reasons for governments to be concerned with ties to other foreign governments, but certainly for folks of Chinese descent it's much more pernicious. And it does seem like in many places the assumption is that you're potentially at risk of compromise. One of the problems is how people's families are being leveraged back in China. You see it in the way the persecutions of the Uyghurs and Tibetans. But you see it also in Han Chinese, people who are doing things that are considered controversial or anti-China outside of China. It's a very common tactic, right, to harass, hassle, otherwise make difficult for family members back in China, right?Joanna:Yeah, and that is a major ... There's no solution to that. I tried to spotlight a lot of these voices in the book. I spoke with people like Vicky Xu, the campaign against her has just been ridiculous. People made fake porn of her, thousands of accounts were basically attacking her, doxxing her.Bill:I feel like that story didn't get as much attention as maybe it should have. She was just so brutally targeted by very obviously state-backed campaigns.Joanna:Yeah. Very personal and they started with her family. She's been open about that, how her family and parents have been pressured. But she didn't stop her work, so they went further. They sent thousands of accounts and they made fake pornography about her so that when people search in Chinese, that's what comes up. And trying to completely smear her character. But that story did not get that much attention.Bill:This is because of her work at the ASPI down in Australia, right? Specifically around XinjiangJoanna:Xinjiang, yeah. I think she's one of the main researchers in Australia that focused on Xinjiang. The bigger issues looking at supply chains, looking at forced labor, and where internment camps are. Recently she found a trove of police documents about the repression. And because of her fluent Chinese and her networks, she was able to find this and provide this information. So people like her, I think, Beijing wants the most to silence and has the means and leverage to try to do so. I think she's unique in that she continues to do this work. We're not sure for how long because you have to wonder how long someone can take this.Bill:Right.Joanna:More people that I know of are either operating anonymously, they're really providing subtle advising roles to governments in a very very anonymous manner. Because they're worried about their families. Or they're writing under pseudonyms and they don't get a lot of attention because no one knows who they are. They're worried about ... not even access. I think a lot of researchers worry about being able to go back to China. At different levels, people who are worried about the safety of themselves and their family members.Bill:So just given the trajectory of China under Xi Jinping, is there any reason to think this is going to get better? Or are we sort of more close to the beginning of where this trajectory goes?Joanna:Mm-hmm (affirmative) I think we're kind of at a pivotal point. A lot of it isn't waiting for what Beijing does, but there's a responsibly on Western countries to at least be smarter about China and to have proper expertise in places of governments to try to even have some well thought out policy on these issues. In the U.S. Cabinet, very little China experience. And like we talked about, the people with experience ... They have trouble having influence. And in Canada, the mood after the Michaels returned and the Meng case was resolved is that they really want to go back to business as usual. To not have any kind of plan in place on how to prevent Canadian hostages from being taken in the future. The Prime Ministers office really steering this even though other parts of government was like, "We need some sort of plan, we need some sort of update to foreign policy in general." There's very little political will. I think the amount of criticism in different countries' media doesn't reflect the lack of political will of governments to even put the basic structures in place to understand China better. To be able to translate basic things from Chinese into English to be aware of.Bill:And in Canada, why do you thing that is? Especially given the diversity of Canada and the number of people of Chinese descent in the country. But also what just happened over the last close to three years. Why wouldn't the government have had a bit more of a shift in views of how the relationship in China should go?Joanna:Mm-hmm (affirmative) I think it's related partly to what we were talking about before where politicians are worried about stoking racism, losing support from Canadians of Chinese descent. Partly an election issue, and I think traditionally in Canada, the main government advisors on China have been people in the business world who do have a vested interest in making sure that tensions are as low as possible to facilitate smoother business interactions. But that's also not even the case where if you ... I think the idea in the West has been reformed through trade. Through interactions, economically, China will naturally liberalize, become more democratic. But in recent years, we've seen political tensions move over to economic coercion, economic retaliation. Not just from China but back and forth, with America, Australia, other countries have also did tit-for-tat trade tariffs. Different ways where the political situation can impact the economic relationships. So it's not even necessarily the case that just by focusing on business, everything will be all good. I think a lot of politicians are trying to put their head in the sands about that and not trying to understand the really complex situation unfolding. And Canadians on the whole, surveys show, pretty frustrated about the situation in action and just passiveness that they see from Ottawa.Bill:I guess the Huawei decision will be interesting, whether or not Huawei is allowed into the Canadian 5G network construction. Certainly here in D.C., there's all the factors you talked about and there's a lot of opportunity for lobbyists from various industries and companies to sort of shift Biden administration and Capitol thinking to policies that are more likely to make money dealing with China. And that certainly has an impact on the policies. So just shifting gears quickly because we're almost out of time and this has been a really great conversation. One of the things we were talking about was lifting up and getting more diversity of voices. Can you tell the listeners about NüVoices and what you helped create there? I found that to be a really wonderful and useful project that's been up for a couple years now? Or has it been three years? Time just sort of blended away with the pandemic, right?Joanna:So actually we were founded in 2017.Bill:Oh my gosh, okay.Joanna:In Beijing, so it's almost under five years. It's been like a daily kind of passion project in the community for me. We kind of wanted to create a more open and accepting China space, both in person with events and chapters around the world and also virtually. And it started in reaction with panels and book deals. The people who get platformed on China are often white male experts. No offense to yourself.Bill:People like me. No, no, I get it. I get it.Joanna:You're one of our longtime supporters and our patrons and we've spoken about how this helps to create a better world for your kids, for your daughters. Because we want to remove any excuses that people have for not even having one woman on their panel. Five years ago, people just kept saying to us and our co-founders, "We tried to find a female expert, but we couldn't find one." Or "We couldn't find a woman on this topic." Which is ridiculous because looking around, actually people we know, I see more women than men entering these fields. Definitely being a journalist in China, there's more women than men. And women who can speak Chinese and doing great work. So we created this open-source directory. Now it has more than 600 people all around the world who are women or non-binary on all sorts of topics. And speaking all sorts of languages in all sorts of time zones. I think just that project alone helped to remove those excuses. Any time someone makes an excuse that they couldn't find a woman, someone just has to send that person the link to this directory. No more excuses.Joanna:And on top of that we have a twice monthly podcast which I co-host sometimes and events all around the world. And basically social groups and networks and it's a platform so that people can benefit from this supportive atmosphere. We really try and celebrate diverse voices on China, experts on China. I find that women tend to ... because they're facing so much discrimination, women experts often have to fight harder to provide unique insights and reporting. So the kind of good quality you get just reaching out to any female expert in China, its a pretty good bet on fresh and interesting perspectives. And definitely I found that the case with my book. Because you know I tried to practice what I preach and most of my sources are coming from diverse backgrounds, women and minorities ... I shouldn't even use the word "minorities", people who aren't white basically.Bill:Mm-hmm (affirmative) right.Joanna:In each country, and I think that provides a different layer than people who enjoy positions of more power in those countries, who might not see some of the more uglier sides or the more complicated sides because that's not their experience. They're not getting the five star treatment when they go to China that a lot people in power do.Bill:It's definitely one of the things I enjoy about your book, it does have these different perspectives that are so important as we are all sort of trying to figure out what's going on and start thinking about what we can do. Specifically, NüVoices, I was looking at the directory last week. I think it's like 620 entries or something, I'm certainly planning to mine it for guests for the podcast because it's a really tremendous resource. And I will put a link to it in the show notes when we publish the podcast. Well thank you so much, is there anything else you'd like to add or say to the audience? Other than buy your book, "China Unbound", it's a great book. Please go ahead and go buy it and read it. It's a great book.Joanna:Just asking yourself, being based in the U.S., what are the best avenues for a more productive conversations on China? Instead of going to people who are more simplistic, what are some more resources you'd recommend? Including, of course your newsletter and that community. But who's doing the work to make up more well-informed approaches?Bill:That's a great question, and I'm not actually sure I have a good answer. I'm struggling with that and part of it is maybe that I'm based in D.C. where it is quite ... It's difficult to be in D.C. and to be not hawkish about China if you want to get ahead in certain parts of the government here. And so, I'm not actually sure. I know that there's China Twitter ... I mean Twitter in general is just kind of a cesspool and China Twitter is not a productive or constructive place for discourse about anything. I don't know, I wish I had a better answer for you, I need to think about it more.Joanna:Mm-hmm (affirmative)Bill:Do you have any guesses or any suggestions?Joanna:I was expecting a more simplified reaction to my book, but actually all the events I've been doing so far are conversations with academics and fellow reporters have been really nuanced. And it seems like there's a hunger for people who want to admit there are no simple solutions and to talk about that. But it doesn't' seem like here's a particular space or a think tank that has that approach. It seems-Bill:The think tanks probably are the place. I mean there are other ... The folks at SupChina are trying to do that. I don't know if you've talked to them. Kaiser's got his podcast and they do their conference. I think their conference ... We're recording on the 1st of November so they're I think next week. But in general, I don't know, it's also ... Like anything, it's hard to have a more textured or kind of deeper discussion in these 30 minute chunks or when you're sitting on a panel. It's just putting in the time and having ... Like you're doing, talking to me and you're talking to lots of people for your book. And this is a topic that has probably come up in most of your conversations and it's just something we're going to have to keep talking about. I know over the next few months there are at least two more books that are coming out about China's influence in the world. And so it'll be interesting to see where those goes in terms of how they impact or move the discourse and how those get played. And again, I think it's like I said, me struggling with how do you address these issues that are very real and influence interference without going overboard and over-exaggerating and destroying innocent people's lives. Which I think has already happened and continues to be a big risk.Joanna:I do think simple answers that people need to pay better attention and not just to get a shallow understanding, but to really understand the nitty-gritty and try to untangle complexities. And support the people who are trying to do this work. A lot of their names are in my book. If you don't want to buy it, flip to the back of the notes and you'll get their names and look up those articles. People like Yangyang Cheng, Helen Gao. People who are straddling both worlds, Chinese and Western. Because of those real lived experiences, their perspectives are just naturally very nuanced and insightful, I think. So people are doing this work, its just they're not the ones on CNN and getting book deals because of structures power. So support NüVoices.Bill:Absolutely. Like you said, I'm a supporter of NüVoices, I'm very happy to put a link to that as well. Support you through Patreon, right? We should move you over to Substack, but that's a different discussion. That's my bias. Well look, thank you so much. It's really been a pleasure to speak with you and I hope that many of you listeners will go out and buy the book. It's really a worthwhile read and Joanna really has great reporting, great perspectives. And this book is really important contribution to the conversation we all need to be having about China and the future and China's role in the world. So thank you and hope to talk to you again soon.Joanna:Thank you so much for all of your work, really platforming those more quality, well-informed sources on China. You've run the newsletter for a long time, so I think that makes a big difference as well because you use your expertise to point people to credible, good sources. So I'll also subscribe to your newsletter.Bill:Thank you. Get full access to Sinocism at sinocism.com/subscribe

Episode Notes:Today's guest is Chen Long, co-founder and partner of Plenum, a research firm covering Chinese economy and politics. Prior to that, he was a China economist at Gavekal Dragonomics. Chen Long is a Beijinger, and graduated from Peking University. Welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you.2:20 - I think the economy is a little bit like ice and fire, for now. There are certain areas certainly doing pretty poorly. Of course, everyone always talking about the property market, Evergrande, and basically every couple weeks we see a property developer default… 6:00 on the power generation problems - usually December is a peak of Chinese electricity consumption. I'm not sure the current supply of coal is not ... I mean, it's better than a month ago, but they probably have to do a little bit more. So I think it's still too early to say that we have totally overcome the end of the shortage.13:07 on whether this time is different with the real estate market - a year after Beijing and many local governments introduced restrictive policies, finally, we had three months in a row of property sales volume falling by double digits, on a year on year basis. But this is just three months, right? If you look at the previous cycles, especially 2015, 16, we could have the down cycle for 15 months. But this is just three, right? So Beijing has not blinked yet, because it's only three months.16:30 on Evergrande - I think there was a little bit of overreaction, especially when you see headlines linking Evergrande to Lehman Brothers, and this sort of thing. And I have to say that this is at least the third time I hear a Chinese Lehman moment in the last ten years.35:50 on the 6th Plenum and likely historical resolution - The previous ones were all about resolutions on certain questions of the party's history. Right? And this one is not uncertain questions. There is no question. It is resolution on the party's accomplishments over the last 100 years, and the lessons. So I guess it's a big, big summary about what he has done. And, of course, this one I think will cement him as the core, right? And we have to follow whatever he thinks we should do soLinks: The Plenum website. Transcript:Bill:Hi everyone. Today's guest is Chen Long, co-founder and partner of Plenum, a research firm covering Chinese economy and politics. Prior to that, he was a China economist at Gavekal Dragonomics. Chen Long is a Beijinger, and graduated from Peking University. Welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you.Chen:Thank you, Bill. It's my honor to be your third guest.Bill:Oh, well, third time is the charm, I hope. And I hope things are well. And I hope things are well in Beijing. I have to say, I very much miss this time of year in Beijing. There is something really special about autumn in Beijing.Bill:So, to kick off, today, I think we want to talk about the state of economy, and various themes related to that, including common prosperity, and real estate, the sixth plenum that's coming up. But, to start out, could you just give a brief intro about yourself, and more specifically what Plenum does?Bill:Just for listeners, it's a high end research service. The website is at Plenum.ai. And it's really terrific. It's one of my top most favorite research services on China now. They're really sharp on economy and politics.Chen:Yeah. Thank you, Bill. I think, Bill, you have done basically all the marketing I need to do. So we are a pretty young firm. I mean, we were founded two years ago, almost exactly two years ago. And that's when we first started to publish reports. And we write on Chinese economy, policies, politics, geopolitics, other stuff. And we serve institutional clients. Some are financial institutions, some are non-financial corporations.Chen:And I think where we are a little bit different from others, is the team is basically entirely Chinese nationals. But, of course, we'll come from different backgrounds. A lot of people work in the US for many years. And, right now, I'm based in Beijing. Yeah.Bill:And I first came across your work, I think, because you were working with Arthur Kroger, over at Gavekal DragonomicsChen:Yes. I was at Gavekal for almost six years. Yeah.Bill:Right. And I think that's where I first started reading your work. So, anyway, it's great to have you. I've always been a big fan. So-Chen:Yeah. Thank you, Bill.Bill:From a top level, could you just give us your view on what's going on in the economy in China, and where things are?Chen:Yeah. I think the economy is a little bit like ice and fire, for now. There are certain areas certainly doing pretty poorly. Of course, everyone always talking about the property market, Evergrande, and basically every couple weeks we see a property developer default.Chen:But, on the other hand, you also see this energy crunch, which actually was because energy demand was really strong, right? And industrial demand was strong. And then the grid and then the power plants could not meet up with that demand. So you basically have one big sector of economy, and actually several big sectors, apart from the real estate, you have the automobile market actually shrinking this year, general consumption were pretty mediocre, right? Because whenever there's a COVID cluster, you have local governments will restrict travel, or implement some sort of lockdown for two or four weeks. So consumption will be affected.Chen:But, on the other hand, the export is really strong, right? We're probably seeing the best export performance since 2011. That's the best we have in a decade. And there's no sign that this is putting off. A lot of people have said, "No, this is just temporary. Not going to be sustainable." I've been hearing that argument since a year ago. And, right now, it's still really hot. So that's why you have certain sectors ... So that's a little bit special, I think, compared with any time in the last decade. Yeah.Bill:And, certainly, specifically around the energy challenges, you said it was really because demand was so high. How quickly do you think that the ... There have been a whole flurry of measures from the NDRC, and other government bodies, about making sure that the coal supply increases, and cracking down on price speculation.Bill:And, I mean, how quickly do you think that these regulatory actions are going to solve the problem? And, the reforming or the changing in the price mechanism, is that enough to make the power generators actually make money now, so they're more willing to produce energy? Or are we still going to be looking at probably fits and starts over the next few months?Chen:Yeah. I think a lot of the power plants may not be losing money at this point. The government basically did several things at the same time. One, they told all the coal miners just to increase supply as much as you can. And, two, they told the coal miners also to restrict the prices. Basically, they set a cap. And there's a debate on what exactly is the cap, because there are several different versions of the cap.Chen:But whatever version you believe in, there's a cap. And the cap is a lot lower than the market price we had two weeks ago. That's why we had this Zhengzhou thermal coal future price, basically halve in two weeks. And they also allow the power plants to raise the electricity prices by up to 20%, and more if the users are high energy intensity sectors.Chen:So there are flurry of changes happen just over the last months or so. And I think the coal supply has probably improved quite a bit. And we are hearing a lot less stories on companies running ... They face blackouts, or they were just told in very short notice that they have to cut production. We hear a lot less that sort of story. But that still exists, it's just a lot less than a month ago, or at the end of September.Chen:But with this winter heating season coming again, usually December is a peak of Chinese electricity consumption. I'm not sure the current supply of coal is not ... I mean, it's better than a month ago, but they probably have to do a little bit more. So I think it's still too early to say that we have totally overcome the end of the shortage.Bill:Thanks. I mean, it is interesting how it really seemed to have caught a lot of people by surprise. I think both policy makers, but also investors. It's just interesting how that happened, and how so many people seemed to not understand what was going on, including myself.Chen:Yeah. Because, for 20 years maybe, people talk about China has over capacity in IPP, this is actually the power plants. China invested too much in some coal power plants. And I think, at one point, like 2015 or 2016, when over capacity got really serious. And then that was one of the sectors that local and others had to work very hard to cut capacity.Chen:So we never really thought for a second that China would have electricity shortage, because there's always huge supply, maybe oversupply. But I think a lot of things changed since the beginning of the pandemic. The services sector used to be growing a lot faster. But, so far, it's underperforming, while the industrial sector, which were slowing for many years, has suddenly started to outperform.Chen:So, basically, since the second quarter of last year, we have a Chinese economy moving further away from a service driven economy, to a more industrial driven economy. So that's a completely reversal of the trend since 2010, or even 2005.Bill:That's also a reversal of what a lot of economists have recommended China do, right?Chen:Yeah. I mean, people say, "No, yeah, China should become more service driven, and less industrial driven. And also, of course, more consumption driven, less investment driven." But I would say this whole rebalancing theme has somewhat reversed over the last year or so.Chen:And this just, again, has to do with this fire and ice, as I mentioned earlier. So this is just one sector doing really well, it's industrials. And the manufacturing facilities are just all pretty at fully capacity, demand from the rest of the world is really strong. And while the domestic consumption is very mediocre. And service sector, of course, the people just go out a little bit less than they were, in 2019 or earlier.Chen:So basically the economy itself is consuming much more electricity than it used to be, that means two years ago. So, suddenly, we have this issue.Bill:Interesting. And just on that stronger industrial, weaker consumption service sector, is that by design? Is that something that the policy makers want? Or is this just more of an outgrowth of the pandemic changing global dynamics, potentially consumer spending dropping because of concerns about consumer debt, for example? I mean, what's driving that?Chen:I don't think it's intended or planned, or even foreseen by Beijing, by the leadership, I think when China started to get out of the pandemic, in April or May 2020, I mean, there was a real fear, because the rest of the world is experiencing the worst of the pandemic. So the worry, at the time, was China is going to face a demand collapse from the rest of the world. So you got a double whammy economic crisis. So just get out from the domestic demand collapse, you're going to see an external demand collapse.Chen:But somehow that external demand collapse didn't really happen, or just basically happened for one month or so. And turned out to be that the export was really strong. And people in Beijing could hardly believe that. And people say, "Oh, this is just temporary. Because this supply chain was disrupted. But maybe when the things get better next year, the demand will go away. And somebody might has to do with this stimulus checks, given by US government, European governments. Once that effect expires, the demand will go away."Chen:But, so far, it still hasn't gone away. And with Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe, Latin America, lot of developing manufacture hubs in trouble, China basically became the only manufacture hub that can still maintain enough supplies. So I think that really caught a lot of people, including the Chinese government, by a big surprise.Bill:No, it is. It is really interesting. And so as you talk about the economy, I think you called it fire and ice, I mean, one area that seems a bit icy is real estate. And, obviously, Evergrande's been in the news. But there are plenty of real estate developers that have violated the three red lines, or seem to be in various states of default or near default on some of their debt.Bill:One thing that's been interesting is we've seen real estate stresses that are over the last 15 years or so. Every few years, it seems like there's a cycle, and it's usually policy driven. Because the policy makers want to crack down on real estate speculation and unproductive investment. But then when things start getting bad, and stressed, and companies start having problems, and prices maybe start looking like they're going to drop in some places, the policy makers always blink and pull back, and basically find ways to loosen things up, and let the market return.Bill:It seems like, this time, they've been much more disciplined, I think surprising a lot of people, in terms of being willing to ride out a lot more pain around the real estate sector. Is that a fair assessment? And, if it is, why is that? And if it's not, how do you see what's going on?Chen:Yeah. I tend to believe that this time is not that much different from previous episodes. I mean, I know there's the argument there, saying, "Xi really wants to reduce the share of the real estate in the economy, and wants to curb housing prices." But I don't think this is new. We have this episode, like you just mentioned, multiple times in the last 15 years. Basically every three years, we have a property cycle, from trough to peak to trough. Right? And the Chinese government, in both central and local, that will change policies very, very quickly.Chen:And this time is no different, right? Because you talk about the three red lines, the three red lines really were just introduced a year ago, last August. Right? And, well, the background of that was the PBOC, along with other policy makers, the property market recovered too quickly, and think they're doing too well. And housing prices in cities, especially big cities like Shenzhen or Shanghai, were rising too fast. And that was a little bit unanticipated. So they said, "No, we have to restrict the area, this kind of bull run."Chen:And now a year after Beijing and many local governments introduced restrictive policies, finally, we had three months in a row of property sales volume falling by double digits, on a year on year basis. But this is just three months, right? If you look at the previous cycles, especially 2015, 16, we could have the down cycle for 15 months. But this is just three, right? So Beijing has not blinked yet, because it's only three months. Right?Chen:And we are seeing a little bit some early signs, like PBOC two weeks ago said, "Oh, some banks misunderstood our intention, when we told them to restrict the lending. And some of the normal projects would not be restricted," blah, blah, blah. And then I think today, or yesterday, one of the state-owned media, Economic Daily again published article about these housing regulations. So I think we're seeing some signs that those things are easing a little bit. So it's not like they are just letting the market die.Bill:Right. Well, and I mean, there are real risks. I mean, there are real risks around ... I mean, I owned property in China for a while, and certainly had lots of friends, including some real estate developers, and people with lots of ... I mean, there was just this sense that, in these previous cycles, they would go until prices started dropping, and there was a risk of people getting really pissed off because they were losing money again.Bill:And so is that one of the things ... I mean, again, it doesn't seem like the prices have dropped that much yet in most places. Is that one of the things to look for, where if we start seeing housing prices actually go negative, is that one of the triggers that makes the government maybe start loosening faster, just because they're worried about how ... I mean, they have their constituency, and people who own property. They do care what they think, right?Chen:Yeah. That's certainly one thing they care about. And I think another thing they care about is the impact on economy, like the GDP, right? The housing and the real sector as a whole, if you found all the upstream industries all together, it'd account for probably one third of Chinese economy. Right? So if you kill the real estate sector, basically you kill the economy. And they can't do that. That's suicide.Bill:No. It's still a quarter of the economy. Right? So somewhere around there, if you add up all the various-Chen:Yeah. Depending on how you estimate, anywhere between 20% to a third, that's kind of the estimation. Yeah.Bill:So, Evergrande, there was a massive freak out over Evergrande. And I think it's maybe even a month ago, or a little longer. Did people overreact to what's going on at Evergrande. And what is going on there? And how do you think it gets resolved?Chen:Yeah. I think it has a little bit of sense that people were a little bit overreacting. I got called by Al Jazeera twice in two days, saying, "We need you to comment on Evergrande." I was like, "Come on, guys. You guys, yeah, are very respectful media TV, but you don't need to tell your audience in Qatar what's going on in Evergrande, in two days in a row. And one of that is a Sunday."Chen:So I was like, "Oh, this is really everywhere. Right? It's not just Bloomberg or Wall Street Journal. This has gone to non-financial media as well." And that was basically the main theme in the last week, or last two weeks of September. Right? So I think there was a little bit of overreaction, especially when you see headlines linking Evergrande to Lehman Brothers, and this sort of thing. And I have to say that this is at least the third time I hear a Chinese Lehman moment in the last ten years.Bill:I was just going to say, is the default analogy when ... Oh my God, China's Lehman moment. And we saw it. I remember it was, I think, 2013, when the interbank market basically went crazy, the end of Q2, early Q3. And I forget the other one. But, no, every time I see someone say, "China's Lehman market," basically, just to be honest, I just tune it out. Because it doesn't fit. And it never has. And if China has a big problem like Lehman Brothers, it won't be like Lehman brothers. It'll be something else, is my view.Chen:Yes, totally. And I don't know that even if Lehman Brothers exist today. I mean, if the same thing happens today, with the current federal reserve, with the current Fed chairman, that this will not have happened. Because they would just do QE.Bill:So what does happen with Evergrande? I mean, how does this thing get resolved?Chen:Evergrande, on the surface, just a very large company, over leveraged, and had a liquidity problem, maybe has solvency problem. We don't really know how much of its assets is real, or how much liability is real. Maybe its liability is a lot more than is stated. It says it has 2 trillion RMB liability, but if it has 2.5 trillion, then the company is insolvent, right? So we don't really know.Chen:And the thing is, we just start to see that this company started to have funding problem, since PBOC introduced the three red lines, because it failed in all the three. Banks were afraid of giving it money, and couldn't refinance in the bank market either. And the trust company, and the trust world that everyone saw, started to have problems. So, basically, with leverage at that size, you have to keep borrowing. To Evergrande, they're reducing the debt. And once that snowball stops moving, then basically you collapse, right? So I guess that's basically what it faced.Chen:And how we're going to resolve it, I think, in the best case scenario, that a lot of the estate projects will just ... First, they have to get it finished. And some of the land, or some other projects be sold to other developers. And Evergrande will downsize to a much smaller developer, and then will start to exist.Chen:And that's quite similar to what Wanda did. Wanda was a much bigger property developer five years ago. But then since has sold a lot of the projects, both in China and overseas. And, basically, right now, it's like a property management company, and doesn't have a lot of power assets. So that's what Wang Jianlin did to save himself, basically, and his company.Chen:So maybe, on Evergrande, if you're rational, you think that's a good scenario. But I think Hui Ka Yan doesn't want to give up. I think that he is betting on another big easing from Beijing. Right? Because he has been in this, I would say, in the live or die moment, at least twice in the last 15 years. Right? The first time I heard about Evergrande was 2007, right? I saw news that Hui Ka Yen was having drinks with the Hong Kong tycoons, and playing mahjong together. And, finally, he received a lot of money from the Hong Kong tycoons. And then that saved him in 2008, when the company was on the edge of collapse.Chen:And the second time was 2015. The company was again on the edge of collapse. And then it bet on a big easing from Beijing, and then property market turned around. It became much bigger. And I think, this time, Hui Ka Yen doesn't want give up. But he did say two weeks ago that he wants to move further from property developing, wants to become electricity car company. God knows whether he can succeed or not, but he's not going to just give up.Bill:Right. Right. No, he's the kind of ... I mean, that's why he's been so successful, and why he's been able to pull this off, right? I mean, he's just going to go until he can't go anymore. And it will be-Chen:Yeah, yeah. I think that the government ... Yeah. Sorry.Bill:No, go ahead. Go ahead, please.Chen:Yeah. I think from the government's perspective, the government would just want Evergrande to downsize, finish the existing projects, pay off your debt. It becomes a smaller company. And then your risk also is a lot smaller. But I'm not sure that's something that Hui Ka Yen has decided to do. Because then he will become a much less relevant person. Right?Bill:Right. And the government does also seem concerned now about the risks of defaults in the overseas debt markets. Right? I mean, it seems like this is the constant tension, right? They want introduce some discipline, and they want to avoid moral hazard, but they can't have a bunch of offshore bonds default in a short period of time. Right? Because then that potentially really screws up the market for them for a while, doesn't it?Chen:Yeah. That's actually an interesting point. Because when people ask me about Evergrande like a month and a half ago, and I was basically saying, "I think the dollar bond market matters the least for Beijing." Right? Because you have a different kind of creditors of Evergrande, right? You have the home buyers, who've paid, but they haven't received the houses. And then you have the construction firms and their workers. And you have the domestic banks, the domestic WMP holders, domestic trust companies. And they all matter a great deal for the Chinese financial system. And the last one is a hedge fund or someone who bought a bond in Hong Kong. But all of a sudden, they had a meeting a week ago, saying, "Hey, guys, we have to have a little bit discipline. Don't just run away. And you have to also take care of your offshore debt." I still haven't figured out why, what changed in their thinking. Maybe this is just a way to calm down the Wall Street. But why did they suddenly feel they have to calm down the Wall Street, six weeks after the crisis happened? I haven't figured out.Chen:My hypothesis is maybe some Wall Street bosses put some pressure on Chinese leadership. I did notice that a lot of the big bankers, and the big American company, and the senior executives had a video conference with Wang Qishan two or three weeks ago, in the name of the Xinhua advisory board.Bill:Right. Right, right, right. That's interesting. And I have to say, I find it very, very strange that the US Secretary of State, Blinken, brought up Evergrande a couple weeks ago, which he made some comment about hoping the Chinese manage ... I forget exactly, but it just-Chen:Well, he was asked by CNN, or someone. Yeah, he was asked.Bill:Oh, was it a response? He was asked? Okay. It just seemed like it was very out of his lane, in terms of what the Secretary of State would talk about. So-Chen:Yeah. He basically said, "People have to act responsibly."Bill:Interesting. I mean, I think it is interesting though. It definitely does seem to be a shift. So, speaking of shifts, I know we only have a few more minutes, but I'd love to get your thoughts on ... Again, this is something lots of people ... Outside of China, I know we're scratching their heads, but certainly folks I've talked to inside China too, are trying to really get their hands around, what does common prosperity mean? And, really, what changes, what policy direction are we really going to see around common prosperity? And there was that strange WeChat post that was from a very sort of Neo-Maoist-Chen:Li GuangmanBill:Yeah, yeah, the very Neo-Maoist blogger, that was picked up over the weekend by the online properties of Xinhua big state media properties, which caused a lot of consternation outside China, but I think inside China as well. And so it seems like the messaging is a little bit mixed, and there's obviously a lot of politics involved. But what do you see, or what's your guys' view, the point of view on what common prosperity means going forward?Chen:Well, we tend to think that common prosperity is next step after President Xi completed the poverty alleviation campaign, right? So after poverty alleviation, in theory, China should have no absolutely poorer people, right? Nobody's living in poverty anymore. And then what's the next step, right? That's not the end. Right? You get out of poverty, but you should get richer, and you have a better life.Chen:So I think that's something that he came up with after that, that we want everyone to have a more decent lifestyle. And, of course, he chose Zhejiang province, a province he spent five years as party secretary to be this pilot program, or pilot area for common prosperity. And the thing about Zhejiang was ... The thing Zhejiang published was rather, I would say, a standard, right? It basically said, "No, we want to increase the household time by one percentage point, or increase the GDP by certain percentage point. And then the equality among different cities should be restricted within a ratio, and people should be able to find the jobs very easily," blah, blah. So a lot like that.Chen:So it's still very pro growth, the Zhejiang plan. But we all know the common prosperity is not only about growth, it's also about redistribution, which is something Zhejiang did not mention very much in his own report, which is understandable. Because that requires tax policy changes that Zhejiang has no say. So Beijing has to decide what kind of tax, what you have to introduce, right? People talk about this property tax, and more pilot programs for property taxes. And then we talk about the consumption taxes. So this kind of stuff, Zhejiang has no say, right? So Beijing has to decide what exactly they're going to do with all these taxes.Chen:So there's certainly an element also about redistribution, restricting certain super rich, and especially those who got rich without behaving, how to say, legally, or you operate in gray area. For many years, there was no law or no regulation. You got rich, but maybe you broke the law. Right? So if you got rich through that channel, then maybe you have to rethink a little bit. Yeah. Or at least you have to change your model completely, because that's no longer tolerated. Right? Because the President did say, "We encourage everyone to work very hard to get rich. And that's great. But we also want to restrict people from getting rich using dodgy channels."Bill:Right. And I think that's what has certainly freaked out a fair number of people. Right? Because it's always unclear what the definition of dodgy or not legal actually is, and how far back they might go. And, that, I think also ties a bit into ... I know you guys have written a fair amount about all these various regulatory actions, and specifically around anti-monopoly policies and regulatory decisions, and also the changing approach to internet platform regulation.Bill:Are we in a new normal, when it comes to regulation? I talk to some people who think this is all passed, and it's going to get better again. But, to my perspective, it really feels like we're in a new era of this kind of stuff. And so, the big internet companies, their businesses are still good, but they're never going to be the same. And it feels like, their costs, they're going to have a lot higher cost base, because they're not going to be able to exploit workers and customers, like the way they used to be able to.Chen:Yeah. I think the compliance cost will certainly be a lot higher than before. And these regulations have passed. And they will stay here. They'll not go away. They'll not be rolled back. So I don't think there's anything like the end of the regulation, or the end of the regulatory competitor. There will be no end.Chen:But I do think maybe the peak is behind us. Think about the largest internet companies in China, Alibaba and Meituan were already punished for antitrust. And the Tencent was not directly affected by the trust, but the gaming thing was also mentioned, and a lot of other guys also name checked, like ByteDance, or Pinduoduo, they were also a little bit worried. So it is hard to say who will be bigger than Alibaba, who will be a bigger victim than Alibaba, it's very hard to ... Unless Tencent suddenly runs into a big trouble. But nobody else is bigger than Alibaba in the Chinese internet domain.Chen:So I guess, after these campaigns, maybe since we settled down a little bit, it will not be over, but we're likely to suddenly see another company find 18 billion RB immediately, or another large fintech company saying, "You have to dissolve, or you have to be separated into different arms." Nobody else is really as big as Ant Right? So I guess maybe we have passed a peak.Chen:And especially, this year, again, I think there's something different about this year, is since the very beginning, Xi made it very clear that this is a year that we don't have to worry very much about economic growth, because it's very easy. Right? They said the growth is targeted at 6% intentionally, which is a target they're going to reach anyway. Right? So, basically, they can do a lot of other things, like structural reforms, and some things they wanted to do in the past, but didn't have the time or the capacity. But, finally, this year, you can spend all your efforts in these things.Chen:But next year will be different again. But next year, actually, we'll go back to the normal China, that you have to be worried about growth target, right? Where is Beijing going to set the growth target? People are debating. I think it's still being something like five and a half percent. And I definitely don't think it'll be lower than 5%. And given the current trajectory, they have to change policy quite a bit to reach either target, especially…Bill:So you're saying, if they decide the target for next year is 5%, they'd have to ease up on some things for next year?Chen:Yeah. I think, five, there is a little bit. And if five and a half, they have to ease quite a lot. And that means you have to be a little bit nicer to companies in general. Right? So, last year in 2020, Xi had several symposiums with various people, and at least two with large companies, right? One, there was a foreign company, the other was all Chinese private firms.Chen:But, this year, at least on the record, I haven't seen any of these kind of symposiums with companies. Right? So he only does that when he's worried about the corporate sector. And, this year, he's not worried, apparently. But, next year, if he's worried again, he could come up, and then they'll have a conversation with these guys in person. And if he does that, then the crackdowns will be a lot softer, at least. Right?Bill:Interesting. So last question, I know you got to go, is what do you think we're going to see out of the sixth plenum, that investors and others should really be paying attention to, that starts ... I guess it starts on Monday and runs through, I think, Thursday next week, right?Chen:Yeah. Yeah. Well, the sixth plenum is all about one thing, right? It's this resolution about the accomplishments of the party in the last one, two years. Right? And I think the previous two resolutions, we had one in 1945, another in 1981, right? Maybe the 1981 one is more relevant, because of course that's more recent, and that was done by Deng Xiaoping. And, without the second, we wouldn't have known there would be another resolution. Right?Chen:But I think this time it's quite different. Because both in the first resolution, basically written by and approved by Chairman Mao, and the second one basically drafted and finally approved by Deng and Chen Yun and other old comrades. But they had to fight with a different ideology. Right?Chen:So in the first resolution, Chairman Mao was basically saying that the party made a lot of mistakes in the 1930s. Right? And ended up then with the Long March. And then we had the Zunyi conference. And then I had to be this poor core. And then the party was saved. Right? So there was a real fight between Mao and a lot of other guys, from Wang Ming and others. So he used that resolution to cement what happened in the party over the past 20 years or so, which was right and which was wrong. So that was basically that resolution was all about.Chen:And the 1981 resolution was similar. Right? So this old comrades had to ... They felt they had to come with something to summarize what happened since 1949, what was right, what was wrong? Where did chairman Mao did right? And where did he did wrong? And what we should do next? Right? So there was a lot of that. And also of course Hua Guofeng at the time was still relevant. Right? So he had to make sure that this 两个凡是, that whatever Mao said, we had to follow. Right? This is...Bill:Yeah, the two whateversChen:Yes. Yeah. So he had to crack that. So, in both occasions, there were clear things they had to correct. But, this time, I really don't think there's a clear thing that President Xi has to correct. Because no one is really arguing something else. And I think they usually talk about their mistakes, or some problems the party had since 1981. Maybe the biggest thing was what happened in the late '80s. Right?Chen:But since 1992, when Deng did this sudden speech, and everything was basically all about the reform, and open up, blah, blah. Of course, we had a little bit of chaos during the 18th party Congress, Bo Xilai and all these guys. But that, I think, was so minor, if you compare all the other accidents the party had over the last 100 years, right? Maybe it's only relevant in the last 40 years. So I think this all ...Chen:And also the name was a little bit different, right? The previous ones were all about resolutions on certain questions of the party's history. Right? And this one is not uncertain questions. There is no question. It is resolution on the party's accomplishments over the last 100 years, and the lessons. So I guess it's a big, big summary about what he has done. And, of course, this one I think will cement him as the core, right? And we have to follow whatever he thinks we should do so, and that's something definitely right.Bill:That's an interesting point, about if it's not actually about certain questions. And probably, certainly, if people want to ahead of this, I think reading that document ... I think it came out in August. It was basically a long piece about the party's accomplishments. I'm guessing that there'll be a lot in this resolution that is very similar to that language.Chen:Yeah, yeah.Bill:Right? I mean, it seems like it's a draft almost. And, really, like you said, it's not about settling a fight that's been going on, so much as more forward working. But so what does that mean? I mean, I assume this will tie into common prosperity. And I guess, this plenum, it really is going to be about this. There's probably nothing from a policy perspective that's going to affect the economy, or how investors should look at China in the near term, right?Chen:Yeah. I guess not that much in the near term. Well, of course, this one will set a stage for next year, where the big thing will happen. So the 20th party Congress, will get them to say, "No, we're going to follow this revolution, and then do whatever we should do in the next few years." Right.Bill:Great. Well, hey, I really appreciate your time. I think really want to thank you for being one of the first guest of Cynicism. And I will put a link to the Plenum website in the show notes. And I highly recommend anyone who is a financial market professional in China, you should go sign up for trial. Like I said, these guys, Chen Long and his team, and the Plenum research product is really quite terrific. So thanks again for your time. And I hope everything stays safe in Beijing. We see lots of headlines about COVID in Beijing right now. But I-Chen:Yeah, it is absolutely safe. If I go out, I may not be able to come back. So it's absolutely safe to stay here.Bill:Right. So you're probably not leaving Beijing until February, right? I mean, is it possible that you really can't leave before the Olympics?Chen:I think I can. I think, after next week, things may be a little bit relaxed. I think it's just partly because of next week, the sixth plenum.Bill:The plenum.Chen:And partly because the COVID clusters are still on the rise. But I think after next week, I might be able to travel a little bit.Bill:Great. Well, anyway, thanks again for your time. And I hope to talk to you soon.Chen:Yeah. Thank you, Bill. Yep. Get full access to Sinocism at sinocism.com/subscribe

Full Transcript   In episode 4 of Manager Minute, Bill Robinson, Director of the Michigan Bureau of Services for Blind Persons, and Cora McNabb, Executive Director at the Kentucky Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, join Carol Pankow, host of Manager Minute, to lend their experiences on navigating the critical DSA/DSU relationship so that VR's mission doesn't slip through the cracks.   Learn how Bill and Cora dealt with the challenges and the most significant challenges they faced. These challenges included cultural challenges and keeping the blind agency identity alive. Find out how the mergers are going today and what Bill and Cora share about the successful strategies that worked for their agencies.   You can find out more about VRTAC-QM on the web at: https://www.vrtac-qm.org/                                                                       Stay up to date by following VRTAC-QM on Facebook and follow us on Twitter @VRTAC_QM   About VRTAC-QM Partnering with State Vocational Rehabilitation Agencies (SVRAs) to enhance service delivery and maximize outcomes through quality program and resource management.  The purpose of the VRTAC-QM is to provide training and technical assistance that will enable State VR agency personnel to manage available resources, improve effective service delivery, and increase the number and quality of employment outcomes for individuals with disabilities. The VRTAC-QM provides TA and training in VR program and performance quality management, fiscal and resource quality management of the VR program, and general quality management of organizations. You can request technical assistance from the VRTAC-QM by contacting your TA Liaison directly, contacting any member of the Center you wish, or by filling out the information on our main website and clicking on submit. While on the main website, join our mailing list to receive updates on training and new activities occurring within the center.    Full Transcript: VRTAC-QM Manager Minute: Bridging the Gap Between the DSA and the DSU so that VR's Mission Doesn't Slip Through the Cracks.   Speaker1: Manager MINUTE brought to you by the VRTAC for quality management conversations powered by V.R., one manager at a time, one minute at a time. Here is your host, Carol Pankow.   Carol: Well, welcome to the Manager Minute. Today, I'm joined by Bill Robinson, director of the Michigan Bureau of Services for Blind Persons, and Cora McNabb, executive director at the Kentucky Office of Vocational Rehabilitation. I know you are both so busy. Bill, you're the president of NCSAB and Cora, you're in the midst of federal monitoring right now. So thanks so much for taking the time to come on the show. So, Bill, how are you and how are things in Michigan?   Bill: It's great to be here. And I want to thank you for this opportunity.  In Michigan, we've actually returned to the field as of July 12. And so our line rehab instructors or field teachers are out there serving the blind VR customers and pre-employment transition customers. And then our training center has been open and our counselors are also seeing people in person. We're hoping to continue that and continue to serve our customers.   Carol: Very cool. Good to hear you're back. I'm sure folks are really enjoying that in-person training and interaction. So, Cora, always a pleasure to talk with you. How's it going in the Bluegrass State of Kentucky?   Cora: Carol, it's going great. Like Bill here. As of June 11th, we went back to in-person services and brought everybody back. Everyone's on a hybrid schedule that they're all working and serving individuals. Both of our centers are open and serving individuals, day students. But we haven't brought anyone back residentially as yet. And we have been talking about it. And of course, the rise in numbers is concerning. And so we would make sure we do the right thing. And then, as you said, we're in the middle of federal monitoring. So things have been very busy here.   Carol: Things are happening for sure. Well, I thought of you both as we're unpacking the topic today of navigating the critical DSA and DSU relationship so that VR's mission doesn't slip through the cracks. I know both of you have undergone changes in the past five years and have some really good expertise to lend to this topic. Both of you oversee a designated state unit that is housed within a larger designated state agency. Bill, you came from a recent change in DSA's and Cora, you just lived through the combining of the blind and general agency as well in the last three years. I was doing a little digging and since 2014, there have been two states where the VR agencies combined the blind and the general together and 12 agencies moved DSAs with you being the 12th, 10 of those DSA moves were to the workforce Labor Department. So it does make some sense. And coinciding with the foundation that was set by WIOA that really forced the issue for VR to partner with the other core partners. The VRTAC for Quality Management is working on a webinar in conjunction with RSA to unpack the Technical Assistance Circular 12-03, which is organizational structure and non-delegable responsibility of the DSU for the VR program, and then also TAC 13-02, which is reorganization of the DSA and DSU for the VR program, and we hope to have that webinar out this fall. So, Bill, I want to start with you. Can you tell us a little bit about the change you most recently lived through with your shift in DSAs? And where were you located before? And where are you now?   Bill: We started out in a State Department that was very unique for rehabilitation. It was the Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Department. So we were asking, hey, this is great being in this department. The department was very supportive, but at the same time, it was kind of interesting because we really didn't have much to do with licensing businesses or regulatory affairs, but yet there we were. And so when the governor changed over to the new administration, so we went from Republican to Democrat, the new administration looked at some reorganizations and the move ended up going from law or licensing and regulatory affairs to the Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.   Carol: So you're one of those labor moves as well? That's interesting. Yeah, really interesting that you started out. I don't think I've heard of any other state agency being in a department quite like you were in Bill.   Bill: Yeah, it was kind of interesting. And our general agency was actually in DHS. So neither of us were really sitting at labor at the time.   Carol: Cora, I can still remember back when Kentucky was going through the idea of combining the blind in general agency, and I remember that was going on for quite some time while the fine details were worked out. And unlike Bill's situation, your situation was a little different in that your two separate agencies were now combining together under one DSA. So can you tell us a little bit about the changes you went through and what designated state agency you are under?   Cora: We are under the Department of Education and Workforce in Kentucky and it did go on for quite a while. We actually took our time in combining the two agencies and involved a lot of the stakeholder groups that were involved, especially the blind advocacy organizations. And of course, I had been with the blind agency for at that time around 12 years. So we wanted to make sure that we protected those specialized services. And so we worked together. And about the time that we merged and combine the two agencies, they decided to abolish our fiscal unit in our agency and they moved it to the Department of Workforce. They moved it under the department later, which a couple of years later down the road, they actually moved it to a cabinet level. And so we had more change. But that resulted in the loss of a lot of veteran staff and veteran knowledge. So we not only went under a combining of two agencies, we also went under an additional change that involved our fiscal unit at that time.   Carol: Wow. I know you've lived through a lot there, so I want to take you back to that moment. You were notified the change was definitely going to happen. How were you notified? Cora, I'm going to start with you. And how much lead time were you given saying, all right, we're going to combine these agencies now?   Cora: Well, we knew that there were some discussions that were occurring. And at the time, the leadership was they also at that time? Well, it was a little bit later. They also moved adult Ed under the workforce program. But they wanted to have all the workforce programs under one department, which they were successful in doing at that time. And then also they wanted to centralize the operations, those back door operations. So we had kind of heard the rumors a few months before they actually approached us and told us about it. So at that time, I had a call with the Rehab Services Administration and the commissioner of workforce at that time was on the call and I was on the call along with Becky Cabe, whom at that time I was the interim director over at the blind agency, and Becky Cabe was the interim director over the general agency. So they talked to us in person. And then we had a call with our RSA to inform them of the changes.   Carol: So, Bill, how about you? How were you notified and how much lead time were you given?   Bill: That's a pretty funny story. In June of 18, the general agency director and I were giving a presentation for the leadership forum for CSAVR. And I had just finished on stage and was stepping down and my cell phone goes off and it's my immediate department director of Laura calling me and she says, hey, you're going to see a press release in about a half an hour, then announces the fact that you're moving from LARA to this new Department of Labor and economic opportunity. And I was like, oh, how is this going to work? So it was a complete surprise to me and the general agency director.   Carol: Holy smokes, Bill. That is a crazy story. So you literally found out with a half hour notice that boom, you're moving.   Bill: Yes. And then that was June. And the actual moving day for the department was August 12 and the fiscal year for us ended September 30th. So we just had a couple of months to try to figure out what the heck are we going to do here? Plus, we were looking at two closings within our fiscal year and we didn't know how that was going to work.   Carol: Holy smokes. Cora, I know you said you had reached out to RSA right away. Bill, did you reach out to RSA right away to help you with this move?   Bill: I think I was in such shock that the general director and I got together and we just got our teams together and pulled out that TAC 13-02 and started going through it together as. Leadership on both sides. We also had contacted RSA to set up a joint call. I don't know if I remember calling, but I called as many directors as I could that had gone through something like this. I know I talked to Alan McClain at the time because Arkansas was in the middle of it. And I talked to Cheryl Fuller, who was about two years into it. So I was reaching out to everybody at that point.   Carol: Smart move. I know in I work on the webinar we're developing, we're stressing how important it is to involve RSA early to ensure that that transition can happen smoothly and that all your bases are covered. Things like you got to change the state plan and ensuring your grant award is set up so you can draw down money in a new agency and more so what were one or two of the biggest challenges that you had to overcome and I'm going to start with you.   Cora: I think that because we were not very happy about them moving our fiscal unit. And so we did have a conversation about that, but we knew that it was going to happen. So the best thing that you can do is figure out how you can make it work and for your agency to get through the changes and accomplish what you need to. And we did work with our state liaison at RSA through the whole thing. And it is a lot of work to get your state plan updated and depending on when needed, your comprehensive needs assessment, all of that things don't always come together and match the way that you would like them to. So you just have to figure out what the best way is to make it work. And then I think it was probably involving the stakeholders in the process because it was a really difficult for the staff to come through those changes and adjust.   Carol: Yeah, I can imagine that was really tough dealing with all of that. So, Bill, how about for you? What are one or two of the biggest challenges you had to overcome in this move?   Bill: Well, I would echo some of what Cora said and just build off of that, because the short time frame we had, we had to really get moving in. RSA was very helpful in that process. Our state liaison, the fiscal folks at that point, there was not a RSA commissioner. So we were working closely with Carol Dobak as well as our liaison staff. And I think Cora touched on one key point is that for staff, this is a big change. And we had to over communicate with staff. We had, like we said, we have to open up the state portal for the state plan amendment. We had to communicate to our stakeholders. We have to ensure our vendors that they would get paid despite the kind of awkward closing within a fiscal year and how that was going to work. And then we had to make sure our counselors and our staff understood how to stop services within one period of performance and take that little six week period of performance that we had to the end of the grant year and make sure that that was handled correctly. So logistically, there was just a lot of logistics and we actually had spreadsheets and checklists and all kinds of a set up. And we were running that stuff by RSA and our fiscal folks and collaborating with our general agency to make sure we're on the same page. And that we were not missing something. So it was a lot of communication and collaboration.   Carol: But I think your background was well suited then with your accounting background for dealing with all of that, because you had that added weird complexity of that little bit of time, you know, where the switch over in the period of performance and all of that. So you knew how to address that. I don't think everybody could have done that.   Bill: Yeah, I think also in my business experience, I was in charge of a lot of mergers and acquisitions with different companies and would take operational control of the acquired entity before merging. And then this was no different than a merger or acquisition. And you're putting together organizations that don't know each other very well and accounting systems that are different, procedures that are different. It's really it can be overwhelming. And I think the checklist certainly helped.   Carol: I'm glad- glad to hear that. So I know many times when we think a change, I think we think about change at a higher level. We think about those concrete things, such as change in structure or the hierarchy. We think about changes in the fiscal activities like you were talking about Bill, and all of those are relevant considerations, but it's also critical to consider those smaller, abstract, but really important details, such as the shift in culture. So to start with, you might imagine that combining of two of our agencies has completely altered the identity of blind services in Kentucky. Cora, can you speak to that is a huge shift?   Cora: And we had separate agencies, separate policies and practices. Sure, both of us were a VR agency but it was very different. We had two separate categories for order of selection, so we had to look at that and come up with the best of the best in moving forward is how we kind of presented it to the staff. There was a huge loss of at least the staff felt like from the blind agency, a loss of identity. They spoke of that quite often. And I would try to emphasize with them that you're the same. The services that you're delivering are the same. So the only way that you can lose your identity is if you lose who you are. And you're not going to do that because the consumers are still there and you're still serving them. So that was probably one of the most difficult things. And they talked a lot about how even now there are still things that come up and there are still things that we're dealing with. And they mentioned obviously we always hear there isn't enough communication. But I realize that for the staff that we're in the smaller agency, communication happened a lot differently in the smaller agency than it does in the large general agency. And so a lot of times when they would say that we're seeing that smaller organizational feeling of family that was there. So that's a big thing for individuals to adjust to. And then they want to make sure that you still emphasize how important those specialized skills are so that they don't lose that sense of who they are in their profession and what they do.   Carol: I love that you said that, Cora, and you were the right person to be in that role with that transition. You came from that blind agency. All of us here came from that kind of blind agency experience. And we get that small sense of family and rolling in. I just love that you were we're talking with staff about not losing themselves and what they do and how critical that was. So you both were in the right place at the right time with this move. So, Bill, you were able to maintain your identity, but has your culture shifted in any way due to the reorganization into a new DSA?   Bill: Yeah, I don't know if our culture shifted because we've had a really good culture. When I came on board, we kind of did a shift at that point. And we've stayed true to our mission, vision and core values. But what was interesting is we had to shift in terms of how we communicate with our department and also how we work with our department. And just to give you an example and common touch, small, specialized services, which certainly is where VR is and especially where blindness, as I remember sitting down in a team with the new department director and I was talking to him about our services and I mentioned the training center where we do adjustment to blindness and we serve two hundred and fifty one and the prior fiscal year. And he looked at me and said, two hundred and fifty one thousand. I said, oh no, no, two hundred and fifty one individuals. And it is kind of that work force kind of thought where we serve the masses. Whereas Cora pointed out VR is very specialized services, especially blindness services. And because the specialization, we look at the individual and we're laser focused on the needs of the individual and customizing those services around the individual, where I think from workforce standpoint, it's more about how many people can we serve and what kind of mass data can we accumulate to tell our story. That was kind of the cultural shift for me. When he said two hundred and fifty one thousand, I said, well, wait a minute, I think we're going to have to have more discussions.   Carol: Oh, yeah. I bet that was a big shift for the DSA folks when they're talking about that. I came from a workforce agency too, and I always remember the people in Title one your and the Wagner Peyser side, when you think they've got massive numbers of people they're dealing with and our small numbers of consumers. They just they didn't always get that we did so we led a little exercise with our DSA staff where we had them actually just do a little simulated exercise under sleep shades. And it was led by one of our instructors. And it was really interesting just to give them a little peek into what we were dealing with. And it did help. It helped that whole group have a little better understanding of what we were about, thinking about all the changes you've both undergone, both larger concrete changes, also smaller abstract changes like culture shifting. How did you navigate through the challenges you faced and what were some successful strategies you used? And, Bill, I'm going to start with you.   Bill: The biggest thing I could think or recommend to individuals is you have to communicate, communicate and communicate. And really, you're looking at all your customers from internal customers to external customers to your stakeholders and your community partners. And you're really having to make sure that there's an understanding of how this is all going to work. And also, you know, I move to labor with the other core of your WIOA partners was very impactful and could be for the future and for a positive spin on that. That was a really great thing. And to be co-located with our general agency as well. We thought there was some really good things that came out of this. But one of the things I think was helpful was RSA and the problem solving that they engaged with us as well as just our DSA and helping us in that transition process and then the whole collaborative effort that it took.   Carol: I can't think of a better person to do that, Bill, than you like. You are the master at communication and collaboration for sure. So Cora, how about you? What were some successful strategies that you used?   Cora: I think that we tried to be as transparent as possible. We tried to share and involve everybody as much as possible in the processes. We made sure the field staff were involved in the policy development and the state rehab council. So I think that keeping it as simple as possible, I think probably knowing that you're not going to make everybody happy no matter what you do. We certainly had a lot of problem solving and decision making that we had to make. And you have to sit with that and be comfortable with it because you just can't please everybody and not everyone is going to come through on the other side after you're like that and all that change. You have those people that have a difficult time dealing with change anyway, but maybe do the best that you can and just know that there are going to be people that aren't going to be happy. And you can do a lot of time trying to make them happy and they're never going to get to that happy place. So you can hope that they'll maybe go somewhere else and find that happiness. Those would be the two things that I would remember from everything like that.   Carol: I really like that. So. So I know some time has passed now since all of this happened for both of you, cause I think you've been in there like three years now and I think it's been over a year for you. So how are things going now? Cora, I'm going to have you take that one first.   Cora: Well, I did mention the year that are combining of the agency was in two thousand and eighteen, so we did it effective October 1st 2018. So we are now three years past. And I think that you have to give yourself time because you'll have list after list after list. You have to do this. You want to begin to check things up. But I think we've tried to take our time. We do have policies that we're still working on, still writing policies and procedures, still working on the vendor process. Lots of things that we have in play. And one of the things that happened with the fiscal reorganized mentioned that then a couple of years later, they moved the fiscal operations to a cabinet level. And now we've undergone another reorg in our cabinet where they split the workforce programs. And so part of them are under labor and then part of us under the department and in the Department of Workforce. So that's been a major upheaval that's just happened over the last year or so. It was more change, and especially with the fiscal operations the way that they were, there were a lot of things that. The cracks because of how complicated the VR program is, still trying to pick up the pieces of that as well, and then by them doing another reorg where they have moved part of the program under labor, they moved to line Wagner Peyser, farmworker,  veterans, but they moved the operations under the Department of Workforce. It's kind of split right down the middle. So that's change that culture from what it was 30 years ago. So we're still undergoing lots of changes and then you put the pandemic on top of that. So just a lot of changes. And we've had to be very, very flexible even when we weren't happy about it.   Carol: So how has that impacted you with the partnership? So it seems like they wanted to have the people all together and now you're sort of split up again, which is really interesting. How's that going with partnerships?   Cora: Well, I think the partnerships on the local level have continued. It's probably more on a state level where there are still lots of things to be worked out and it's kind of in flux. But then with the onset of the pandemic, it's disrupted things as well. So right now, it's kind of hard to tell exactly what will be there after the clouds clear, you might say. We're dealing with so many different big factors that are going on.   Carol: Sure. And I completely understand that. So, Bill, how about you in times past? So how are things going now?   Bill: Yeah, so it was probably been about a little over two years and really the first eight months or so. And the new department was really about the new department just adjusting, everybody adjusting, because there was a lot of movement of not only V.R. but other agencies. And then as we had that first full year, I think the main thing was that we found like at the higher level working on the MOU use that we were all interested in, those seemed to work very smoothly because everybody was under the same umbrella department. The one thing that I think was the benefit of the pandemic was we were so new to each other. The pandemic increased all this extra communication via teams and the ability to meet more often. And so all of a sudden, we're getting to know each other better, even down to the counselor level. We're starting to know each other and the other programs a lot better. And I think that's been one of the benefits, as well as the fact that being in the Department of Labor during the pandemic with a lot of states were cutting other programs in the Pentagon or wherever it was, they were not immune to that. Our area was somewhat protected because labor was so important in terms of coming out of the pandemic. So it's going well. I mean, we're still learning from each other and we still have our growing pains, but it's going pretty well.   Carol: That's good to hear. That's good to hear. At least there were some upsides from the pandemic as well. Holy cow. So looking back on all this, what we've talked about, are there any other lessons you've learned or any words of wisdom you have for folks out there that might be facing this? Because it seems like this is a continued trend if the state hasn't done it yet. There are these continued moves that keep happening over time. So, Bill, I'm going to I'm going to give you the floor on any other parting words of wisdom.   Bill: Well, great. Thank you. I was just reading an article about successful business the other day. It wasn't about the structure or where the business grew out of. It was about serving the customer. The bottom line was, if you're serving the customer, you will be successful. I think the main thing is for us wisdom. I would pass on to anybody going through this to be true to yourself. Make sure that your mission as vocational rehabilitation does not get lost in this process. And also there's mission creep and mission drift. And it's easy to get into a new department. And there's a lot of excitement, a lot of other things going on. And you can have mission creep and mission drift. But if you're serving your customer and you're staying true to that, your mission, I think you can come out of these types of reorganizations really well.   Carol: I had a write that down-mission creep and mission drift. I like that. Holy cow. That's a good thing. Yeah, I love that. Good words for folks. How about you, Cora? Any parting words of wisdom?   Cora: And I think that Bill said. Very well, and that's really what I tried to emphasize, what we merged into the two agencies, that you're still here, you're still serving people and people are still benefiting from those services. I think that it's important you can dig your heels in and resist or you can work with everyone that's around you to make the change and make it work. And I think that's very important that you work together collaboratively to figure it out and make it work for the VA program.   Carol: Well, as always, it was such a pleasure to speak with you both. I sincerely hope that today's conversation helps our community think about navigating that DSA relationship.  We hope to see gaps bridged in a meaningful way. Thank you so much for joining us, and have a great day.     Speaker1: Conversations powered by VR one manager at a time, one minute at a time, brought to you by the VRTAC for Quality Management. Catch all of our podcast episodes by subscribing on Apple podcast, Google podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening.

Bill Durrant is President at Exverus Media, a paid-media agency (TV ads, print advertising, sponsorships, and other types of media) that serves culture-creating, growth-stage brands. The agency's focus is not so much on big-budget, long-term brand building as it is on consulting with clients and recommending “how best to invest” to produce significant, trackable and measurable short- to medium-term results. Bill says, “all media is performance media” and that it can be very challenging to quickly determine the effectiveness of branding efforts and traditional marketing media. To address this, his agency tries to establish a “performance mindset” and “a structure to capture things that aren't directly trackable.” Bill finds it exciting that today's solutions for modeling are “significantly less expensive” than those that were available in the past. He says modeling has been “democratized” – that you can build and launch a model in weeks, update it continuously with sales and investment data, and track performance across a variety of marketing channels. Work that used to be done over a period of months by costly data scientists and analysts can be done now by utilizing a combination of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The agency's name, Exverus, is Latin for “from the truth.” In this interview, Bill explains how the name reflects the agency's values and the importance of transparency in how the agency conducts business, manages its clients' finances, and builds, over time, trust-based and truth-based client relationships. In a typical engagement, the agency consults with growing-brand clients and follows a step-by-step process that involves: understanding at a deep level client needs and stakeholder goals curating campaigns rooted in science and best practices  incorporating customized measurement solutions that prove campaign impact even when immediate, vendor-driven measurements aren't immediately available. The agency's “roots” are in a consumer-facing infrastructure. Over the past year, B2B clients have increased as brands “tired of being bland” seek to get more involved in being “adjacent to culture, creating culture, or participating in culture” in order to increase their visibility and cultural involvement. Bill can be reached on his agency's website at: www.exverus.com or on Linkedin at Bill Durrant (with two “R's.”) To make it easier to find him, add “Exverus.” Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by Bill Durrant, President at Exverus Media based in Los Angeles, California. Welcome to the podcast, Bill. BILL: Hey, how are you? Thanks for having me. ROB: I'm excellent, and it's good to have you here. Why don't you start off, Bill, by telling us about Exverus and what the firm's superpowers are? BILL: Yeah, we do like to think of ourselves as superheroes every now and again. The first question we always get is “What does Exverus mean?”, so I'll start there. Exverus means “from the truth” in Latin. I think that as a paid media agency, which is our area of expertise, that can extend to things as rational as transparency in how we do our business and how we manage our finances for our clients to really the crux and the core of how the agency has been able to thrive over the past several years, which is trust-based and truth-based relationships with clients, building that over time. As we think about the mission for the agency and what the agency stands for, it's right there in the name. As I mentioned, we are a paid media agency. We like to think of ourselves as the paid media agency for culture-creating, growth-stage brands. I guess that's really where our superpower comes in. Our superpower is growing culture-creating brands that don't necessarily have the eight and nine figure budgets to invest in paid media and need their dollars to work harder. That's not only what we've found we're best at, but it's also what we've found gives us the most personal fulfillment as an agency team and as a leadership team within the agency. So it's something that's really easy to stick to, and that's something that we're very proud of as well. ROB: Does that pull a little bit more then towards consumer? Or do you also see some B2B brands you would also dub as culture-creating in their own way? BILL: It's funny; we've been having more interesting conversations with B2B brands probably over the last year. So it does extend to that space, even if it certainly has its heart, and certainly our roots, in more of a consumer-facing type of communications infrastructure. But yes, it's really interesting to see how B2B brands are now saying, “The idea of being adjacent to culture, creating culture, or participating in culture is to help stand out, to help gain association and equity from existing cultural platforms; why does that necessarily exclude us? Why does everything that we do need to be so bland, so to speak?” It's been really fun having those conversations. ROB: You mentioned a judiciousness required around the resources. Is it possible maybe for you to dive down into a client or two and share what it looks like to spend those budgets in a way that really has to deliver in a near- to midterm-way, where they can't just say “We're investing in brand, we're investing in brand”? I assume you're not posting Coke ads for Coca-Cola, right? BILL: We do some work with Coke. We can't say exactly where or how, but we do some work with some of their brands in Atlanta, your hometown. But yes, you're right; it's not about having that long-term branding campaign that's on a very long leash from organizations that are used to having the discipline and the budgets, frankly, to be able to support that and not stress about what their investment's immediate return was. That's a constant conversation that we're having with our brand partners, and helping them understand how best to invest. As we think about that, there are two axioms that we like to share with our clients. Number one is “all media is performance media.” Whether it's something that feels like a longer term-ish, traditional branding campaign, there is still a performance that's being associated with that. There is still a short-term lens that is almost always associated with that. So we want to make sure we're understanding that to satisfy and appease the stakeholders in their organization who are looking for those short-term or more “prove it to me” type results. As we think about what the science tells us, what an analysis of the world's most successful and least successful and average-success brands tells us about how to invest dollars, we know there is a huge economic argument to be made from having that kind of brand-led communications. It really comes down to how you measure it. If you have appropriate measurement in place that can measure things that aren't as immediate as “tell me what the return on ad spend was for my campaign on Amazon,” for instance, then you're going to be in solid shape. So what we try to do with our clients is really understand what their needs are, what their stakeholders are looking for, and then curate a campaign that is rooted somewhat in science and in what works best at growing brands, but does that in a way that also has measurement incorporated so they can prove the impact of what they're doing if it's something where that immediate, vendor-driven measurement isn't right away available. That's how we approach that, and it is absolutely central to our conversations with our brand partners. ROB: Does that focus on measurability in any way impact the selection of marketing channels? You mentioned selecting for the measurement and thinking about the measurement of the channel correctly. Is there anything that's completely out from a measurement perspective? BILL: That's kind of the knock on a lot of traditional media, that it's very challenging to measure them in a more immediate way. Really what you're looking at there is you're trying to put a structure in place that can capture things that aren't as directly trackable. That's where you're looking at, what kind of marketing mix model is my organization using? If my organization spends $10-20 million plus on media or on other important marketing channels, I may already have a marketing mix model in place. Let's figure out how we can align with that and ensure the decisions that we're making are able to be picked up by that measurement. But if you're not, then you might say “I need something that can help me understand what the impact was of a TV spot or radio spot or an outdoor ad” – all things that we know work but are really hard to pin down exactly how they worked for me exactly last month. That's where we're looking at more customized measurement solutions, and that's stuff we can provide directly to a client, to one of our brand partners. We're very proud of being able to do that, but it does require some – we'll call it hoop-jumping. I think that the prize is absolutely worth it, because you've now got a more balanced media mix that's proven to be more effective, 100%, in driving a return for the brand. So jumping through those initial hoops around measurement and setting that up is always worth the investment of time and energy and money. ROB: That's such a neat area to pull in on. I do think a lot of marketers, when they hear “media mix modeling,” it sounds like a high-class tool. Is there a size of brand or a size of budget where it's more viable? Or is it really just a limitation on thinking and it can start from just one or two channels? BILL: I grew up in my career to some degree working with Nestlé. Nestlé has a number of billion-dollar brands and significantly more nine-figure annual sales brands. Those brands very often had access to marketing mix models, and it did feel like a high-class tool, especially at that time. What we've actually been able to figure out over the last three years is that there are now solutions in place for modeling that are significantly less expensive. They're essentially utilizing what we hear about when we hear about AI and machine learning. They're essentially utilizing machine learning in a very efficient and democratized way where you don't need to have expensive data scientists and data analysts running analyses over the course of months. You can now actually build a model over the course of weeks and then have that model in market and be continuously updating it with sales figures and investment figures across different marketing channels, not just media. The fact that that's now democratized is a huge win for brands who aren't spending $10 million plus in their advertising and marketing efforts. We've actually had success modeling out the impact of a campaign that was in the low six figures for an extremely well-known national client, a Fortune 5 client that was really looking to drill down for one of their subsidiaries and understand what the impact was of their spend so that they could then scale it out further, but didn't know where to scale it. To be able to show this channel versus this channel versus the third channel, and this was the relative impact and this is how they all work together – which is another important element – in a way where they spent five figures to have that analysis and had it done in less than eight weeks is a very powerful example of how that works best. ROB: It certainly seems democratizing not only for the brand, but also on even the agency side, because this sort of tooling sounds like the thing that you had to be in a holding company agency at some point, or a very large brand or house of brands, to even consider having access to. BILL: Yeah, that's exactly right. I grew up in that space, working with Nestlé, working in a large holding company for whom I still have a lot of heart and love, and that was the case. It was also the case back then that you really needed to be in part of one of those infrastructures in order to get strong rates for your brand. That's shifted now as so much of our media inventory has become biddable. The standards around how we negotiate, how we manage media for clients, have changed. It really is a golden age for the small- to medium-sized brand or marketer, the growing marketer or brand, to get into the marketplace and to be a meaningful player from Day 1 and not feel like you're being outgunned by these massive organizations. It's very exciting for us. ROB: Indeed. Let's pull on that origin story thread for a moment here, Bill. How did you go from that Nestlé, that holding company agency world, and decide to jump off the cliff and start Exverus? BILL: This is always an interesting question to answer because there was no real one point where it all happened, which is usually the case for most agencies. It happened very organically. I had decided to shift from going full-time, working in one space, to freelancing and to working as a consultant, maybe 10 years ago. As I was doing that, within about three or four months of doing that, I got a phone call from one of my favorite people on Earth, a client of mine from Nestlé, who said, “Hey, I'm over at Clif Bar now. We're really shaping up how we look at media and advertising across our brands. Would you be interested in taking a stab at essentially being a one-person media agency for Clif Bar?” Of course, in my mind I was thinking “there's no possible way I could do that,” and my mouth was somehow saying, “Yes, I'll give it a shot.” [laughs] That began a really wonderful relationship with Clif Bar, and that relationship grew as their investments grew and their need to grow new brands and new product formats grew. Between them and Creative Artist Agency (CAA) and their extremely wonderful, award-winning marketing team, which is now known as Observatory, I think they hit a point where the amount of work was too much for one person plus a few helpers on the side to handle. We had a lot of built-in credibility, working with an organization that's probably over a billion dollars in sales annually in Clif Bar, and CAA, which is the world's best-known talent agency from a marketing standpoint. Impeccable reputation. So there was a lot of built-in credibility. There was new demand. We just made the decision – I still remember my Head of Operations saying, “We have to go for it,” driving to a soccer match one Wednesday night. And thus Exverus was born. We said “we're really going to give this a go” about five and a half years ago now. ROB: Wow. Congrats. A lot of companies don't even make it that far. You've got a team around you now, and it feels probably pretty real. I think the timing that a firm starts always confers some advantages and disadvantages. Your firm started around I guess 2012-2014, depending on where you are in that slow-motion window that you referred to; in performance marketing, that's an interesting time within the evolution of the different channels. How do you think that timing informed how you attacked the market? BILL: It did a few things. At a macroeconomic level, I think unfortunately it created a scarcity mindset because we had just gone through a massive crash in 2008. By the time I really started, there was no very clear boom and very clear recovery happening. That was a more recent thing. So there was a bit of a scarcity mindset, which took a long time to work out of and to shift into more that abundance mindset. I think that can keep you conservative, which is a good thing sometimes, in some years. In some years that holds you back. So from a macro standpoint, that's how the timing maybe helped and maybe slowed things down over time. As I think, too, about where the industry was, really from Day 1, it reaffirmed that even though it was much more straightforward to start a media agency and to focus on digital channels – there was much more access; it was a much more equitable system with a lot less in the way in terms of gatekeepers like there are with some traditional media – even though it was a little bit more challenging to have those other mediums in place, being media-neutral and being able to offer all media, even if we were still digital-first, was a really smart strategic decision. As the rise of performance media has come in, and now for many organizations performance media has overtaken brand media by multiple times over – knowing that that trend was happening and having a strategy and a perspective of neutrality really helped us a lot. It helped us to build more trust-based relationships with our clients because we weren't trying to push them into the latest fad or the latest channel or the latest tactic for its own sake. We were always trying to do that based off of what was best for their business, what was best to grow their brand. That helps build trust rather than saying “We're focused in this particular area which is hot right now.” So I think that can be great to be a particular specialist, even within the specialty of paid media, but I think that our timing really reaffirmed our strategy and our approach to market, and it's one that's seen us continue to grow and be successful into and beyond 2021. ROB: For sure. It's an interesting time. You got to start past the social for the sake of social, social as the source of infinite free growth, but also social as the bucket of infinite budget without accountability. It's interesting you mentioned the gatekeepers. It's almost easy to forget the times when if you wanted to manage let's say your Facebook ads, there were only a handful of companies you could talk to about that. BILL: That's right. ROB: That's a whole different world. BILL: And to see how much – at one point I was doing the Facebook ads, 9 or 10 years ago, and it was exhausting keeping up with the changes. Every three months, something minor would change that you used daily, and every six months it seemed like they were completely renovating and revamping the entire process. It was so funny to see that TV couldn't change fast enough, print certainly couldn't change fast enough, and here you had social and other channels that were changing so fast that it was almost impossible to keep up with them. It was certainly an interesting time to start things up. ROB: A friend of mine used to work for one of those vendors. They had to keep up with all the changes, and they used to call every Tuesday “new bug Tuesday,” because there would be something new they had to go out and fix. You probably had to deal with the other end of that stick. BILL: That's right. ROB: Bill, as you reflect on the journey so far with Exverus, what are some lessons you've learned along the way that you might do a little bit differently if you were starting clean, from scratch? BILL: Things that I would do differently. I think that we were never slow to meet our clients' needs, but we were sometimes slow to say, “This is a macro trend and we should have a whole staff around it.” One of the examples is more performance-based media. The reason I say that is because we have plenty of team members, particularly today, who are world-class experts in performance, but a few years ago we kind of missed the boat a little bit because we thought that by satisfying our clients' immediate needs and performance, we were doing our jobs. What I missed was that this was a strategic exercise. There needed to be a strategic team of people that were focused in the performance space. One of the reasons why was that it wasn't that they needed to have a particular technical skillset; in many cases we're talking about the same media channels that can be used for very different purposes, like search, like social, like digital video and digital display. But what we were doing was missing the mindset. Those folks who really excel in performance have a completely different mindset and approach to how they manage media and how they manage client relationships to get to specific results. There's plenty of reasons for that, which all make sense. But missing that mindset was number one in terms of what we could've done better, going back probably 3-5 years ago. The other thing, too, is I think really understanding the business and the business side of being an agency leader. The ups and downs are not communicated to you when you are working at an agency in a way that's terribly transparent, or frankly often necessary. You're usually hearing the very big undulations of the waves. “Things are amazing. We won this huge account” or “Things aren't great and we need to have layoffs.” Those are the types of things you're hearing. What you don't realize is that as an agency owner, things are up and down on an hourly basis, some days on a quarter-hourly basis. There is a mindset and there is a psychological helmet that you need to put on to be able to manage that in the context of doing all of the wonderful work that your clients are contracting you to do. I think that is one thing that I certainly didn't know about, and that's something that lives alongside what all business owners learn, which is that you're responsible now for every element of the business. I was ready to do the accounting. That's easy. [laughs] I went to an accounting school for college. But it was the psychological aspect of being in our business and being comfortable with the way that our business works that, if you're someone without a very risk-tolerant mindset, might be a bit jarring. ROB: How do you process that over time? I know certainly initially, a lot of your team, you feel like you can't tell them a lot of the gusts. Sometimes they'll surprise you and they'll have a great solution, and sometimes they won't know what the heck to do and you might just freak them out a little bit. How do you think about processing, learning some of these blind spots, those shifts that we all have to make? BILL: That's a great question. From my standpoint, we try to be as transparent as possible with our team. Today we actually just had our quarterly state of the union. This time we didn't go into as much detail as normal, but we try to be transparent. “This is what's going on. This is where we're struggling. We're struggling to fill this particular role. Do you have any solutions? Do you think you might be able to help? Or if nothing else, please know that we're working on it still, because we know that's had an impact on some people's workloads.” We'll be very forthright with everything that we can. Without being obligated to or sharing specific numbers financially, we will share where we are in terms of reaching our goals and what it means to reach our goals. Is it just profit for the sake of profit? Or does profit open up new doors and new opportunities to all of us for strategic partnerships? That's a very different conversation, and it's one that I think our team appreciates hearing. One great piece of advice that I got during COVID was actually from Simon Sinek, Start with Why, very famous guy. Incredibly intelligent. Everyone knows his public persona. He's a family friend; he's been good friends with my wife for over a decade. We were chatting about there are certain things that we just don't know what to do and how to move forward in COVID, and he said, “Put it on your team. Share it with your team. Do that in a thoughtful way and say, ‘I don't know the answer to this. I'm not going to pretend that I'm the person who has all the answers all the time, and I'd love to hear what your input is and what your feedback or solutions are.' You'll be surprised as to what you get back. Your team isn't necessarily thinking about your business all day long, but they are working in it, and they are people that you hire specifically for their intelligence. So see if that helps.” And it really did. I also think it made for more open dialogue, which in today's age of transparency is really valued by employees and by myself and the rest of the leadership team. ROB: All such really good points in there. Reminds me of a very recent experience where for a long time, I had been suggesting a certain sort of client engagement model. I tried to communicate why, but I maybe wasn't really getting my point across. In a totally different conversation, I expressed a particular business goal in terms of margin – and to your point about profit margin, the key of telling people where that goes and what that gets us when you're growing – you need cash just to be in cash reserves. You need to have good financial cushion on the business. You need to invest in growth. You need all those things. Helping them know why you need profit helps instead of just thinking you should break even and everybody should take all the cash out. But I shared a particular goal in terms of profit margin, and I had somebody super brilliant on my team who said, “Oh, why don't we engage more in this model?” It was exactly pretty close to what I had suggested before, but without the full picture and the rationale and the transparency, it was just hanging empty. And everybody does things better when they think it's their idea, and that's okay. I don't have any problem with that. So really good point. BILL: From your standpoint, where do you feel the line is in terms of transparency, in terms of how you communicate with team members? ROB: That's a great question that I'm still learning. I have typically been a tremendously private person on these sorts of things, and over the past year I engaged with a business coach about a year ago who came recommended by people who have billion-dollar companies. That was good enough for me, and I could still afford them. He's just continued to push me on the value of what I'll get by sharing more with the team. Where that stands for us right now, to be real specific about it, at an exec team level, we're talking about – in a services organization, on our services side, we're talking about revenue per employee. We're talking about target profit margin. We're talking about what that actually looks like. And that's uncomfortable for me. I could regret it. I could learn something from it. But it's going in the right direction. BILL: That's great. I think we've probably had a very similar experience. I may not dig into some of the KPIs that you do quite as in-depth, but sharing that information can be liberating when it's done properly, and it can show a lot of faith in the team. For me it was a great learning experience, and it was a great moment of growth starting to share that information. ROB: I'm glad to hear and gain some comfort. The worst story we ever had on here about somebody sharing stuff was someone who had an employee suck out $300,000 in payroll taxes that they were personally liable for, and they had to drive ahead and build the business and dig their way out. But that's a different lesson to be learned. BILL: Yes, and I don't necessarily think we should be giving access to the finances to everyone. [laughs] ROB: Totally agree. Bill, when people want to track you down and track down Exverus, where should they go to find you? BILL: Probably the best place for Exverus is our website. It's www.exverus.com. For me, I can be found on LinkedIn. I'm Bill Durrant with two R's. No relation to Kevin. I'm pretty easy to track down if you add “Exverus” to the end of that in the search queue. ROB: That's good. It's good to know we can't track down KD through you. We'll have to find our own way. BILL: Just want to set expectations. ROB: [laughs] Thank you so much, Bill. Congratulations to everything you and Exverus have accomplished so far, and I wish you the best. BILL: Appreciate it. Thanks, Rob. ROB: Take care. Bye. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

I had the opportunity to sit down with celebrity cosmetic dentist, Dr. Bill Dorfman. We chatted about how he came up in the world from childhood to creating one of the most famous dentist practices in Studio City, CA. On top of the practice he created, he also started Discus Dental with a dear friend of his, which was a global leader in professional tooth whitening products with brands such as Zoom®!, BriteSmile®, and NiteWhite® and they eventually sold the company to Royal Philips Electronics for millions. Dr. Bill has appeared on Larry King Live, Oprah, The Doctors and was the only dentist to appear on ABC's Extreme Makeover. Now with his extremely successful career, he has turned some of his focus towards philanthropy and the LEAP Foundation for high school and college students. You're going to see this side of Dr. Bill and his passion towards entrepreneurship, success, giving back and his foundation. As always, thanks so much for listening to the podcast and I would so appreciate a rating of 5 starts and a review. It would really mean the world to me. Much love, Joe Dr. Bill Dorfman Celebrity Cosmetic Dentist, Partner of Discus Dental, Inventor of Zoom! and Founder of the LEAP Foundation Author of: Billion Dollar Smile: A Complete Guide to Your Extreme Smile Makeover Website: https://www.billdorfmandds.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbilldorfman/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrBillDorfman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drbilldorfman/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/DrBillDorfman Podcast Music By: Andy Galore, Album: "Out and About", Song: "Chicken & Scotch" 2014 Andy's Links: http://andygalore.com/ https://www.facebook.com/andygalorebass If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. For show notes and past guests, please visit: https://joecostelloglobal.libsyn.com Subscribe, Rate & Review: I would love if you could subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest rating & review. This will encourage other people to listen and allow us to grow as a community. The bigger we get as a community, the bigger the impact we can have on the world. Sign up for Joe's email newsletter at: https://joecostelloglobal.com/#signup For transcripts of episodes, go to: https://joecostelloglobal.lybsyn.com Follow Joe: https://linktr.ee/joecostello Transcript Joe: Ok, my guest today is Dr. Bill Dorfman. Dr. Bill, welcome.   Dr. Bill: Thank you. How are you?   Joe: Great. So it's a pleasure to have you here with a lot of the guests that I have on, I really like to give the audience an idea of who you are and not just jump in to where we are today. So if can you give us some background of your time line, how you decided to get into dentistry where you grew up, just kind of bring us up to today is is slow, slower, as fast as you want to.   Dr. Bill: Sure, I am a native of California, I grew up in Granada Hills as a little kid, I happen to have an accident where I knocked out my baby teeth. We had a great family dentist. And at some point I just thought this would be a cool thing to do and help people the way he helped me. And so at the age of about three, I said, I'm going to be a dentist. And it just never wavered. I was a weird kid. I mean, how many kids want to be a dentist? Right. But I've always been weird and I've always kind of marched to the beat of a different drum. I never felt like I fit into any, like, group or peg. I just kind of always did my own thing. I was like the Switzerland of a kid. I was friends with everybody, but not really part of anything, you know, like I swam. But I wasn't always with the swimmers and I played football, but I wasn't with the football players and student government. But, like, I just was kind of a free spirited kid that didn't really I didn't really, like, do what most normal kids do. I don't know. It was funny. I had this conversation with my parents recently and I said, you know.   Dr. Bill: How was I as a kid, like was I easy to raise, hard to raise, and they're like, you are perfect like you. And, you know, and I honestly don't ever remember I never argued with my parents. I never got into trouble. I was a weird kid. I just I always just kind of did what I was supposed to do. I guess it was in my mind, like the path of least resistance. I didn't smoke. I didn't drink. I didn't do drugs. Like I mean, I always kind of just did what I was supposed to do and I was happy go lucky guy. And, you know, I went to school and it's funny because I was always voted most likely to succeed in kindergarten, in grade school and junior high and high. And I was like, why do people always say that? I don't know. It was just a weird thing, even in dental school and. You know, we grew up really poor. I mean, I was one of five kids, I started working when I was five years old. I had a job. I worked in in the in the yard for neighbors. I would go pick weeds. And then when I was old enough to push a lawnmower, I would pull weeds and do the lawn mower.   Dr. Bill: And then when I got a little bit older, I got a job working at Ralph's, which is a grocery store. And then I worked as a janitor. My mother was a nursery school teacher. And so I would go to school and I would work as a janitor and clean the schools. And, you know, my parents, I would say we were rich, rich, rich in love, poor monetary things. And maybe that was good, you know? I mean, I literally supported myself. I mean, outside of buying food, all my clothes, everything I wanted, I just I bought you know, it's funny because I have three daughters and I almost feel like when they got into college, I got into college, too, because I was so active in helping them write their entrance stuff and did it. But my parents had no idea. You know, one day I got a letter, I'm like, Hey, Mom, Dad, I'm going to UCLA. They're like, Oh, that's great, sweetie. Then they'll clue, you know? I mean, it was just that's just how it was. I was the independent kid. I just did my own thing. I remember. Graduating UCLA, I got a call from the dean's office and I was awarded the outstanding senior award, which is kind of a big deal, right?   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: So I call my folks and my mom, dad, I get on the phone, they're both on the phone. I'm like, you won't believe this. I said, well, I just got a call from the dean's office and I'm going to be the outstanding senior at UCLA graduating class. My mother says, What's not to believe? A lot. They picked me, there's ten thousand students,   Joe: Right.   Dr. Bill: She goes, darling, do you really think there's somebody better?   Joe: That's awesome.   Dr. Bill: I'm like, Mom, you're like totally missing. My parents had no idea. And it was actually kind of funny, you know, and, you know, so, you know, I kind of went through and I graduate UCLA. I finished that, you know, going to UCLA. And then I got in a dental school. My first choice is dental, which was a great school. It was a three year program. And as I was entering my senior year, I realized, you know, I've never seen the world or anything. Actually, I had never even really been on an airplane. And it's like I need to open up this practice and be tethered to a specific area. Like I didn't want to do that. So I did some research and I found a program in Switzerland that was the only clinic literally in the world that wasn't a third world country where an American dentist could work legally. Problem is, there were four hundred applicants and only one position, and I was bound and determined to get that. So I had every professor in my dental school write me a letter of recommendation. And they were amazing letters, you know. I know. I wrote them all I   Joe: That's   Dr. Bill: Mean,   Joe: Right.   Dr. Bill: Basically, I would say, can you write me a letter and they do I know I have to   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: Write another letter and then say I'll write it if your personal lives. So I did that and I soon realized that was getting me nowhere. So then I started calling the director of the clinic back in nineteen eighty three. This was not easy. We didn't have cell phones. You know, I, you know, I couldn't make long distance phone calls from my dental school, you know, what am I getting like keep putting quarters like a lot of your millennialist. Don't you know that you actually used to have to put money in a pay   Joe: Exactly,   Dr. Bill: Phone. Right.   Joe: I was there.   Dr. Bill: Right. So there is and you can use a credit card and none of this. So I would have to time it at home. And and even then, it wasn't easy. A lot of times you couldn't get through. It didn't work at the bank. I start calling him and calling him and I tell kids and we'll talk about my leave program a little later on, there will be life defining moments in your life. Sometimes you plan on, sometimes you don't. Sometimes they just happen. And this was one that I really didn't plan, but it was so fortuitous that it happened. And I'm on the phone with the director. His name was Mr. Schreyer. And I said as I realized I was getting nowhere with these phone calls. Can I take you to lunch? Because I had heard somewhere that, like, you should take people to lunch   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: And the crazy thing is and he said it, he goes, But you're in San Francisco and I'm in Switzerland, I'm like, no problem, I'll fly there. Which is even crazier because I was broke like I had no money. I couldn't even afford, like the 30 cents to go on the bus every day of school. That's how broke I was. I would walk like two miles. And so he said yes. And I figured out a way to borrow money. And I went to Switzerland   Joe: Wait, but don't   Dr. Bill: And   Joe: Go past   Dr. Bill: I.   Joe: This point. Wait, I want to know what you told your parents when you said I'm going to Switzerland to take the head of the department at the dental school. Out to lunch. I want to know what your parents said to that.   Dr. Bill: They thought it was a great idea.   Joe: That's incredible.   Dr. Bill: Good luck. You know,   Joe: That's   Dr. Bill: I mean,   Joe: Awesome.   Dr. Bill: They had no clue. So anyhow, I did it. There was a girl that I had been friends with my whole life that, you know, I had kind of hoped that I would marry one day. That never happened. But we're still best friends. But I took her with me and I figured if I got stuck on words, she was very talkative and she could help me out. But the two of us took him to lunch and he hired me.   Joe: That's   Dr. Bill: And   Joe: Incredible.   Dr. Bill: It literally changed my life. I mean, I got an opportunity to live in Europe. For two years, I learned how to ski trip about salesmanship of the scandal to I'm completely fluent in French. I   Joe: Wow.   Dr. Bill: And I was really not gifted in languages in school. I mean, and I still I have a godson in Switzerland. I mean and I still have very close friends there. So it was a great, great, great experience for me. And it really gave me an opportunity to see the world. I came back to L.A. I really became enamored with cosmetic dentistry as opposed to just general dentistry. And so I did something that we also teach Italy. It's called Kopi Genius. I realized that the last thing Beverly Hills needed was another cosmetic dentist. So I found the five most successful cosmetic dentists and I called all of them and I said, Can I come in Chattanooga? Shadowing wasn't even a thing back then like they were what do what   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: I'm like now coming to watch you. And I did. And, you know, there weren't a lot of students at the time doing this, but they all five of them said the same thing to me. You're really different. I think what they were saying in a nice way is you're weird, but they're really different, you know, because students would come in and watch me do dentistry. And that's not what I did. What I did was I went in, I wanted to see how they brought the patients in the intake forms, what they said to the patients, how they brought them back to the treatment rooms, how they presented the treatment, and then how they performed the treatment, and then how they took the patient out of the room, how they collected money. I wanted to get paid and I didn't know how to collect money from people working in dental school. They teach you how to drill teeth. And in the clinic in Switzerland, I didn't have to deal with money. I just did the work. So I wanted to learn how a business ran and all that. And I sat there like a sponge in these offices. And my goal was to make an office better than theirs, to take the best of the best from all of these these guys and make a better dental office.   Dr. Bill: And within two years I did it. You know, I had the busiest and probably still have the busiest dental office in all of Beverly Hills because I copy Genius and that's what I did on Instagram and Instagram became popular. I didn't just do it. I hired a whole team. I'm only going to in the world with a million followers on Instagram. You know, I didn't just do it. One of the things I teach, at least when you go go big and that's what I do, if I'm going to do something, I commit and I do it. So, you know, I started this dental practice soon after that, I started a company called Discus Dental where I invented Zoom. And we grew that company from zero to one point three dollars billion in sales. And I did it by hiring a great team. My best friend, Robert Heyman, was my business partner and he was a genius. And his father was Fred Hammond, who created Beverly Hills Giorgio Cosmetics, two seven, three of all Fred.   Joe: Well.   Dr. Bill: So Robert grew up in that industry. So he knew marketing and manufacturing and advertising. I knew dentistry and advertising. And together we built the largest tooth whitening company in the world. Zoom became Q to became the number one to fly new product in the world. And then we sold that company to Phillips back in 2010. And since then, I've been the featured dentist on ABC's Extreme Makeover, CBS of Doctors New York Times, best selling author, 20 Lifetime Achievement Award. Three Children, two ex-wives. This Thrill Ride.   Joe: Incredible. So I have to ask you, and this is for the entrepreneurs in the audience, because the question that would come to my mind is you're fresh back in the states from Switzerland and you decide that you're going to plant roots and probably one of the most expensive real estate areas in the world. How do you start up a dental office in the heart of Beverly Hills?   Dr. Bill: So I basically didn't put all my eggs in one basket, I grew up in Granada Hills, the difference between Granada Hills and Beverly Hills is astronomical. The only commonality is the word Ilze. Right. But I didn't know where I would usually drive more. I had the advantage holes of all the people I grew up with living there and coming to me. But I loved the allure of Beverly Hills. So I worked as an associate in two different dental offices. So it didn't cost me anything. I was a hired gun. I would go in and work and bring in patients. And I soon realized that I loved cosmetic dentistry. I love the mentality of people in a business area like centricity and, you know, and not so much kind of like family dentistry. And so I pretty much closed down the office and Granada Hills worked in in Century City. And the plan was I was working with an older fellow to buy him out. Well, as soon as we started getting closer and closer to the buyout date, I think my enthusiasm became infectious. And he decided he didn't want to quit anymore.   Joe: Oh.   Dr. Bill: And he was very sweet. And he said, you know, Bill, he said, you can do this by yourself. He said, you don't need to buy my practice. I'm going to stay here, open up your own practice. You have enough pay. I had more patients than he did   Joe: Oh,   Dr. Bill: After   Joe: Wow.   Dr. Bill: Just two years. And so I did. It was really fortuitous that the dentist right next door to us moved out of the building. And so there was a completely furnished dental suite. I didn't have to do any build out at all. All of the plumbing, the gas, the soft, everything was there. So I was really lucky. I moved into that suite is on the 11th floor, my building, and the only thing I needed was all the dental equipment, the chairs and the   Joe: Mm   Dr. Bill: Lights   Joe: Hmm.   Dr. Bill: And this and then another stroke of luck. There was a dentist in our building who was four or five flights above me who passed away. And there was a fully furnished dental office up there of all this equipment. And the building didn't know what to do with it. And it was a mess. It was a mess. So I went up there and and I had it evaluated and assessed. I was going to try and take out a loan or something. And the appraisal came in at close to seventy five thousand dollars for all that. I had three thousand dollars in the bank at the time. I mean, that's it. And so I, I went and I spoke to the owner of our building and I said, listen, I've been up on in that suite and it's it's a mess. I mean, and it was it was really disgusting and dirty. And I said, I will empty the suite. I will take all of the equipment, I will clean everything up and get it ready for you to read. And I'll give you three thousand dollars cash. And he said, fine.   Joe: Wow, that's   Dr. Bill: And   Joe: Chris.   Dr. Bill: I still I still have a lot of those instruments, and I this is 40 years I've been practicing. I have all the surgical like four extractions and I have all that stuff still in my office with that doctor's name engraved in it. But that was how I really opened up my office. I had no budget. I had no ad budget. Like, I couldn't advertise, but I realized something. And as an entrepreneur, I would say you need to sit back, look at your situation and really think outside the box. And this is what I did. I thought, OK, I'm in Century City. There is a five block radius of buildings around my office with 20000 thousand people coming to work every day. Right.   Joe: Hmm.   Dr. Bill: We know on average that 50 percent of those people don't have a regular dentist. OK, so that's you know, what was I'm sorry. It was fifty thousand people in that area. So that's twenty five thousand people don't have a regular dentist that work for me. Of those, twenty five thousand eighty percent of them work in companies with dental insurance so they don't even have to pay anything. They just need to come in and because I'm so close, they can walk over, they wouldn't have to drive. So what I did is I hired five kids from Beverly Hills High School, which is right next door to my dental office. And I made up these flyers for I think I paid three hundred bucks and I had them put a flyer in every single office in Century City. Now, this was way before 9/11, so there was no restrictions   Joe: Right.   Dr. Bill: You could go. And so basically by doing that, the flyer gave people a great first time offering to my office. If they had dental insurance, it was free. And I got something like 80 patients the very first month. And if we continue to do that and so we were basically getting patients in two ways, internal and external. Internal was taking the patients that came in, giving them the greatest dental experience we could and asking them to refer friends and then externally going out and putting out more and more and more flyers and bringing in patients. The next month I got something like one hundred new patients. And honestly, since then I have probably had no less than 90 new patients a month my entire career. And there were I mean, and the average dentist gets like 20. But I have never not been busy even during the pandemic. We've been busy. I'm busier now than I've been in years because I always say I invented Zoom when people think I the video conference, what it was. But people are sitting on Zoom looking at their smile,   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: Going, I'm not really happy with that. I'm doing more cosmetic dentistry right now than I've ever done in my life. It's it's a   Joe: That's   Dr. Bill: Boom.   Joe: Crazy. And when you said when you started your practice you were going to concentrate on cosmetic surgery, so were all of these new patients coming in just for cosmetic stuff, not for cleanings, or were you doing   Dr. Bill: Well,   Joe: That also?   Dr. Bill: First of all, it wasn't cosmetic surgery, it was cosmetic dentistry,   Joe: Ok.   Dr. Bill: But as a cosmetic dentist, yeah, we do regular dentistry too and do   Joe: At.   Dr. Bill: Fillings and crowns and cleanings and everything else that you need to do to maintain your oral care. But the focus of my of my practice, the thing that really differentiates me from most dentists is the fact that I do, you know, cosmetic dentistry. And I have a very high profile clientele for that.   Joe: Yep, so that's my next question, you get right into it perfectly. How did you get   Dr. Bill: Ok.   Joe: Like with any entrepreneur? Obviously, if you provide a really great service, you're going to get talked about right. And automatically you're going to get known. And like for my business, I have an entertainment booking agency here in Scottsdale and Phoenix. Somebody writes to me, calls me. They have an answer. Within an hour or so, I'm known for my response time. And then the product I deliver is a very high product with you. How did you get that first step into a clientele that you now have?   Dr. Bill: So there's a few things. First of all, you said something, you said you automatically get no wrong. You don't automatically   Joe: No,   Dr. Bill: Get   Joe: You   Dr. Bill: No.   Joe: Do it yourself, you write.   Dr. Bill: You know, it takes work,   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: You know, I was really fortunate early on in my career, there's a woman that I went to high school with as very close. But if you came in and needed a lot of dental work and said, hey, do you want to barter what I got, even though the barter was   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: I was so naive when it came to business. And then I said, well, what do you do? She goes, I'm a publicist. I'm like, I don't need one of those. She goes, Yeah, you do. I'm like, I don't even know what one was. So I don't leap of faith. I thought, OK, fine, we'll barter and we'll do it. She was genius. I mean, she got me in magazines, journals. She got me listed as the best dentist in L.A. in L.A. magazine, which was huge that, you know, she she was friends with the editor. She got the whole editorial staff to come in and be my patient. They loved their experience. And so they ranted and raved about my practice. And those things started building up my practice. And, you know, I can get more into the whole PR thing, but that was really a big mindshift for me. I never thought as a dentist I would have like a publicist. I mean, and the crazy thing is today I'm probably the best known dentist in the world. Go figure.   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: Right. But a lot of things happen. And, you know, I always tell kids when they come to leak, if there's only two concepts that you walk away from from this whole program, these are the two that I think are most important. Number one, don't wait for opportunities in life. Make them, you know, I mean, if I meet another millennial who's sitting there waiting for the universe to do something, I want to scream and pull my hair out. Like the universe doesn't care about you at all. You need to care about you. And number two, when you get an opportunity in life, don't take it. M. it. There's a big difference   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: When ABC put me on Extreme Makeover dentistry, great TV, not so good. You know, if I watch the first two episodes of that show, I literally stunk like they should have fired me. But at least I was smart enough to know how bad I was. So instead of waiting to get fired, I was proactive. I took acting classes, hosting classes, teleprompter in class. I hired the woman who worked with all the kids on American Idol to sit down with me and teach me how to do what we're doing right now. To interview, to talk. I mean, this was not natural for me. It wasn't at all. But, you know, if you practice and you practice and you practice, you get better at things. And there's a big misconception. We always think practice makes what?   Joe: Perfect.   Dr. Bill: Ron.   Joe: Right.   Dr. Bill: Practice makes permanent.   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: So with your practicing in, you're not getting the results you want, don't keep doing that, get a mentor, get a coach, hire somebody and learn how to do it right, because you need to practice it the right way. Right. To make it perfect. And   Joe: So.   Dr. Bill: So there was a lot of learning for me. But, you know, at the end of the day, it paid off.   Joe: Then would your grandmother say you look thin? Is that what she said? She looks.   Dr. Bill: The first time I was on TV, I said, Grandpa, this is a woman who never said anything bad to anybody. I said, Gramps, did you see me on TV? She goes, Of course I did. I said, What do you think? She says? You look very   Joe: If   Dr. Bill: Skinny.   Joe: It's.   Dr. Bill: I'm like, But what do you think about what I did? She goes, I'm telling you, you were skinny.   Joe: I want to talk a lot about Lee, because even though you said, like, the universe doesn't care, I I also believe and I'm a big Dave Meltzer fan and he's sort of my mentor at this point that we get in our own way. And so there is abundance out there. And if we get out of the way and we just know what we want and we ask for it and we act accordingly, things come. So this connection with you means a lot to me because of Lee. Before we get to that, do you want to talk a little bit about your own podcast? Just because the lead part of it for me is huge and I really want to concentrate on that until our time runs out, so.   Dr. Bill: Well, I mean, the know the way that my podcast ties in the league is, Leape is a motivational leadership program for high school and college students that we do every summer. And it's always been at UCLA Live. Obviously, last year it was virtual. This year, I think we'll have probably one hundred students live and maybe ten thousand virtual.   Joe: Oh,   Dr. Bill: But   Joe: My gosh.   Dr. Bill: It's been amazing. And if any of your listeners have kids or no kids, fifteen to twenty five will be July 18th to the twenty fourth. They could get more information at w w w dot leap foundation dot com. We've had amazing speakers Paula Abdul, Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Hopkins, Kathy Bates, Michael Strahan, Usher, Apollo Ohno, Jason Alexander. I mean, I could go on and on and on. And these people come, they speak to these kids and they they give them their pearls. They give them their words of wisdom to help these kids become successful. And it's it's an amazing program. And, you know, I was always fearful that people would look at is like one and done like we have them for a week. But by putting out content continuously, we're able to stay in touch with the kids and we have the students stay in touch with each other. And so because I've been able to interview all these amazing people, I started this podcast. It's called Meet the Mentor. And every week I. I interview another person. A big part of Leape is mentorship. The program culminates on Friday with a mentor workshop where I bring in doctors and lawyers and firefighters and writers and actors and actresses, you name it, and the kids get an opportunity to sit and talk to these people one on one and ask them about their careers. And it's so valuable. And it's it's literally the highlight of the week for these students. So I continue that throughout the year by doing this. Meet the Mentor podcast. How is it done? Crazy. I mean, we're number one in Yemen. We're number two in Iceland, number three in Finland. And I think I'm ninety fourth in the category of forty seven thousand of these podcast in the US. And it's it's it's been phenomenal. And the purpose is twofold. One, to keep students engaged and keep, you know, exposing them to different mentors and to to expose parents and friends and family to lead. And hopefully they'll send their kids to the program.   Joe: So how did this come about? What was the light bulb that went off for you to say? This really speaks to me. I mean, I can imagine you are with all the things that you've done, your super busy, and then then all of a sudden have this light bulb go off and say, this is how this is. I want to give back and this is how I want to do it.   Dr. Bill: You know, I've always been very philanthropic and it's funny because I had this common theme in my life where every time I've committed to do something purely for philanthropy, it's ended up becoming incredibly successful for me on a monetary basis with literally no hidden agenda. And I can give you an example after example after example. The first one being discussed, you know, I was working at at the sports club L.A., which is now an equinox. And a woman came up to me named Cynthia Hearn, who I didn't know and said, would you like to help raise money for children's cancer research? Well, I wasn't wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but how can you say no to that? Right.   Joe: Absolutely.   Dr. Bill: So I said, sure. You know, she said, you are a dentist. I said, yes. And she goes, and you're single, right? I'm like, Yeah, but this is weird. She goes, Well, we're doing a bachelor auction and   Joe: Oh,   Dr. Bill: We need 10 bachelors that we can auction off to a thousand women for this charity,   Joe: Oh.   Dr. Bill: To be honest with you. That was stupid and humiliating. But out of that, I met Robert Hamit Robert Heyman with the other bats are standing in line beside me. By the way, Robert was over last night. We had dinner. We became instant. Best friends were brothers.   Joe: A   Dr. Bill: And   Joe: Simple.   Dr. Bill: Robert and I started discus dental and we literally brewed that company zero to one point three billion dollars. And along the way we've raised over forty five million dollars for children's charities. I mean, a lot of really cool things. But I was exposed to lead through another program that was very much like it was a precursor to lead. And that program was a program for students where they brought mentors in and they asked me to come as a mentor. And unfortunately, the founder of that program passed away. And when you did, I thought, you know, I can make this a nonprofit and keep it going so that that's how I actually got introduced to Lee.   Joe: Wow, that's really interesting. So when did this start? By the way?   Dr. Bill: So LEEP has been going this summer would have been our 13th, so the fourth theme fleet will come up this summer, but I've been doing the program prior to leave for probably 10 to 15 years before I started.   Joe: That's incredible. And when they go out to you said it's on the UCLA campus and where are they staying in dorms, if they.   Dr. Bill: Right, so students come from all over the world. We get kids from Australia, from New Zealand, from Europe and Asia and Africa, you name it, it's like a mini UN. It's really fun. And we get about five hundred kids. They all live in the dorms and we put on, you know, I think the best program of its type in the world. And a lot of the success of the program is the community. I mean, I get amazing speakers and they don't charge us. I mean, you couldn't afford to pay, you know, Anthony Hopkins, Mark Wahlberg. I think we'll get Katy Perry this year. I mean, I we couldn't pay, but when I when I talk to him about the program and they see how much passion we put into this, they say, I'll do it, doc, I'll do it. And now with Zoom, it makes everything so much easier because they don't even have to show up prior to the pandemic. If I had told kids. Oh yeah. Mark Wahlberg told Zoom in maybe like and   Joe: Yeah.   Dr. Bill: Now it's like it doesn't it's like live or Zoom. They're happy to see him.   Joe: That's incredible. It's just really the reason this speaks to me is because I feel like in the world that we're in and I'm I just turned fifty nine in February. So next year is a big year for me. And I think about all the time and I don't want to say it was wasted or regret or anything, but I think about that we end up trying to repair ourselves as adults on things that might not have happened. You had your life a little different. You knew exactly what you wanted to do. You followed your path that you're wired differently, your DNA, and you were able to just literally do all of these things. And I'm sure you've had your struggles. So I'm not I'm not painting this picture of, you know, none of that. But it would be so nice to get to these young minds early and explain that the world literally is your oyster. And you need to follow your. And sometimes I don't know. Right. So you say follow your heart. Sometimes they're confused about it. But I love the fact that you're getting to these young minds earlier and you're helping them to understand things sooner. And that's why this program speaks to me so much. I think it's incredible.   Dr. Bill: Well, I'll tell you what I have found empirically to be one of the most important factors in all of this. When I sit back and I say, you know, what am I most thankful for, you know, from my parents now, they never bought me a car. They never gave me money. But you know what? They did give me confidence. And confidence is currency, if you are a parent, the greatest, greatest gift that you can give your kids is confidence. And the very first thing we do, at least when a kid walks in that door and I open the program, I say to them, hey, when you woke up this morning, whether you think you did this or not, you put a number on your forehead once the lowest 10, Zayat said. How many of you did not put a 10 on your head? They raised their hand. I said, Who picked the number? You did have to take a test. No, did have to do anything. No, I said wipe it off and put a 10 on that. I said, from now on, I want you to walk like a ten top like a 10, act like a ten. But most importantly, surround yourself with other kids who are tense because you're trying to be a 10 and everybody around you use it to guess what, you become a two. So we give the kids these pop soccer   Joe: It's also.   Dr. Bill: Support on their phone ten. And you might hear something super crazy. Joe, we sold discus dental on ten, ten,   Joe: Oh,   Dr. Bill: Ten   Joe: Well.   Dr. Bill: At 10 a.m. to Philipps.   Joe: That's crazy.   Dr. Bill: I think about October 10th, 2010, at nine a.m., the merger documents came on like this is you can't write this stuff. I'm waiting till exactly ten o'clock so that when I go to sleep in 2011, I could tell the kids what a perfect ten day looks like. And we I signed that paper and, you know. It was an emotional moment for me. I always knew as against. I'd be comfortable, I had no idea. That I had the ability. To make the kind of money I made when we sold my company, that was like funny money to me, I didn't even think something like that could happen. I didn't grow up that way, you know? And, you know, and I thank my lucky stars every day for for meeting Robert Haymond, for participating in that charity auction, for, I mean, all the things that led up to that. Because I wouldn't I mean, you should see where I'm sitting right now. I'm I'm on the 30th floor of this beautiful condominium in in Century City. I wake up every morning the happiest guy I know. And so, so grateful for everything. It's it's really it's really been amazing.   Joe: Well, you know what? Good for you. Well deserved. I can just tell by I do a little bit of research up front for these. I want them to be somewhat spontaneous. But I when I went and looked at what I felt, I wanted to figure out more about who you are. I can tell I can tell from just how you look at the kids that are part of the program. I watched one of your talks to them, and I can tell it really it's super important to you and and your generous and loving and giving back. And it just it's very, very cool. And I appreciate you.   Dr. Bill: Well, I think my my my mantra is. Learn so you can earn and then return. And I feel if you can really accomplish those three things, you'll have a lot of happiness and and self satisfaction in life. So that's really what I focus on.   Joe: I agree. Well, I literally could talk with you forever. This is amazing. I'm honored that you came on my podcast. What is the best way for someone to get my guests in touch with you in regards to what do you prefer? And also, the lead program has   Dr. Bill: Yeah,   Joe: The best.   Dr. Bill: I mean, believe it or not, I'm the only person I know with probably a million followers who actually answered all of their demands. So Instagram, I don't do tick tock or even Facebook, but if you really want to reach me, it's super easy. It's Dr. Bill Dorfman, D.R Bilel Dorfmann on Instagram. I promise. I answer one hundred percent of my DBMS. If if you're interested in the program, please go to Sleep Foundation dot com. You can sign your kids up right now. And yeah, I think that's.   Joe: Well, thank you so much, I appreciate it. I look forward to to seeing more about what happens with LEEP, and I definitely want to stay in contact with you. And I wish you all the best.   Dr. Bill: Well, thank you.

Jazz Appreciation Month continues on The Music Podcast for Kids. Join Mr. Henry, Mr. Fite, and Mr. Hairylegs as they turn a rainy day into a blues song and the best day ever! Breakfast, hamsters, race cars, and music?! Find out more in today’s episode.  Be sure to leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks so much for listening! Check out our YouTube channel: Remember to Share and Subscribe! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdGhqK_DWpRIKS45ICqN3eQ   ***Classroom and Homeschool Teachers***  Find our digital resource to help enhance your classroom HERE!   Like us on Facebook!    Mr. Fite Check out original fun and educational music from Mr. Fite at  https://brucefite.com/music and subscribe to Mr. Fite’s YouTube Channel   Mr. Henry Learn music and the piano with Mr. Henry by subscribing to his YouTube channel:  Mr. Henry’s Music World   Listening Challenge Answers: Minor (sad) Blues Scale Major (happy)    Let the music begin in 3, 2, 1... Learning music, having fun. That’s what we’re gonna do. Mr. Henry, Mr. Fite, exploring along with you. Learning music, having fun. That’s what we’re gonna do. Mr. Henry, Mr. Fite love hanging out with you. The Music Podcast for Kids!   Hello and welcome to The Music Podcast for Kids we're your hosts Mr. Henry and Mr. Fite - Music educators extraordinaire! The Music Podcast for Kids is a fun and educational podcast where we learn and explore the best subject ever -  music!     And now, the music joke of the day. We love jokes. So if you have a joke, please visit our website themusicpodcastforkids.com to submit your joke. And guess what? It doesn't even have to be a music joke; it can be any joke. We will read and enjoy your joke on the podcast and also let everyone know who it came from and where you are in this great big wonderful music world.    Our joke of the day is   Hey Mr. Fite? Why is the ocean blue? Ummm… I don’t know. Because the island didn’t wave back.    Make sure to send in your jokes by visiting our website themusicpodcastforkids.com a link to the website can be found in the show notes.    And now the music word of the day.   Music Word of the Day: Bruce: Before we get to our main subject of the day, Blues, let’s take a look at the music word of the day:    Bill/Bruce: Scales!   Bill: Mr. Fite, why do you want to talk about weighing yourself on a music podcast? Or did you want to talk about rock climbing? (kind of to self) I can see it now, scaling the face of El Capitan! No ropes, just some powder, and my muscular fingers...    Bruce: No, Mr. Henry! Not that kind of scale, a music scale   Bill: Oh, right, a music scale   Bruce: That’s right. A music scale is kind of like going up or down a set of stairs. It’s a set of notes in a particular order and it has a special sound. I remember when I was younger, as I would go up a set of stairs, I would skip some steps and take some, one at a time. That’s exactly how a music scale works.  Bill: Music scales are awesome! Bruce: Listen to this scale. Does it sound happy or sad?  Bill: Definitely happy! That’s a major scale. Bruce: How about this one?  Bill: That one makes me feel sad (sniff, sniff). It’s a minor scale. Bruce: Now here’s a scale that has a special “feeling down” sound.  Bill: That IS different. It’s kind of sad, but, at the same time, it kind of makes me feel better.  Bruce: Exactly. That’s what makes a blues scale special. That’s the beauty of scales in music. If a composer wants the music to have a certain feel, they will choose the scale that best fits that feeling.  Bill: So there you have it. Music has a very important foundation:   Bill/Bruce: Scales!   Thank you so much for listening. We hope you are enjoying the show so far. Please subscribe to the podcast to receive the latest episodes and leave a review through iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Also, get updates on what we are up to through Facebook and Instagram by finding us at Music Podcast for Kids. Links will be found in the show notes. On to the show!   And now, The Main Subject of the Day:    Bill: Hey, Mr. Fite! How ya... doing. Wow, you look sad.   Bruce: Hey Mr. Henry. I am sad because it’s raining and I was hoping to go outside and play. I’m feeling blue...   Bill: Blue? Maybe you should stop holding your breath.    Bruce: No, not the color blue, I’m FEELING blue. When we say we’re feeling blue, it means we feel sad or bummed out about something.    Bill: Oh right.    Bruce: My playtime got rained-out so you could say I’ve got the rained-out blues.   Mr. Hairy Legs: Hey Mr. Henry, hey Mr. Fite! How ya doing?   Bill: Oh, I’m fine, but Mr. Fite has the blues.   Mr. Hairy Legs: Oh, the flu! Having the flu is NO fun, I had it once.   Bill: No, he is BLUE!   Mr. Hairy Legs: Oh, blue. Well, he looks more pale and pasty than he does blue, but, I’ll take your word for it. My eyes aren’t really the best these days.   Bruce: Mr. Hairy Legs, when we say we are blue or have the blues, we mean that we feel sad or bummed out. All of this rain has ruined my plans to play outside today.    Bill: Well, you got your bath and you’re all dressed so why don’t you have something to eat? I could cook us up some eggs and toast. Mr. Hairy Legs: I don’t like the legs of the roast, that’s always the toughest part to chew.   Bruce: No, he said EGGS and TOAST! Mr. Hairy Legs: Oh, that sounds delicious! Bill: Okay eggs and toast it is! (Maybe some cooking noises and then eating noises) Bruce: Phew! I feel better having eaten something. Thanks for making breakfast, Mr. Henry.  Bill: No problem, Mr. Fite. Hey, what’s the weather looking like out there? Bruce: Let’s see here...oh no! Now it’s sleeting outside Mr. Hairy Legs: Who’s sleeping outside? This is NOT good camping weather. Bruce: No, Mr. Hairy Legs, the rain has turned into sleet! Mr. Hairy Legs: Oh... Bill: Hey, Mr. Fite. I just found this cookbook on your shelf. “Teach Your Hamster How to Cook.” That sounds like fun! Bruce: Oh, yeah! That’s my favorite book. It only takes 15 minutes! Mr. Hairy Legs: Well, I don’t think hamster tastes very good. It must be an acquired taste.  Bruce: Umm… never mind Mr. Hairy Legs… Bill: How ‘bout we watch some TV? Bruce: Great idea! Hey, my favorite show is on. It’s about a race car and a cool pink flamingo.  Mr. Hairy Legs: Oh, yeah! Ringo was my favorite Beatle too, Mr. Fite. Bill/Bruce: Oh boy... Bruce: Hey, guys! Look! The sleet has turned into… SNOW!!! Mr. Hairy Legs: Let’s go!! Bruce: No, Mr. Hairy Legs. I said snow.  Mr. Hairy Legs: I know you said snow. Whadya think I’m hard of hearing or something? Bruce: Oh, sorry Mr. Hairy Legs. Let me find my favorite pair of shoes. My big red snow boots! Bill: Yeah, I’ll go get my snow boots too! Hey Mr Fite, you don’t look sad anymore. Your big red boots helped you lose your rained-out blues! Everyone: Woo Hoo! Let’s go! Bill: One hour later…(coming back inside from playing in the snow) Bruce: Hey guys, while we were out playing in the snow, I had a great idea for a blues song! I’ll grab my guitar and practice the blues scale to get ready for my solo. Mr. Henry, you can play the bass, it’s over there.  Bill: Oh cool! Bruce: And Mr. Hairy Legs, you can hop on the drums over there.  Mr. Hairy Legs: I chomp with my gums all the time. How about I play the drums? Bruce: Uhhh… yeah… uhh great idea Mr. Hairy Legs.   Okay fellas, here we go! The Music Podcast for Kids is brought to you by brucefite.com. Our very own Mr. Bruce Fite has truly fun and educational songs to listen to and sing along to. Music can be purchased through Facebook, CDBaby, and other downloadable websites. Stream Bruce’s music through Spotify, Amazon Radio, or wherever you listen to music. Bruce also performs live events. Visit brucefite.com for more information about his music and booking live events.     Time for the super-duper music challenge. It’s time to test your ears. Test your ears? I don't think you can really give your ears a test Mr. Henry. I mean how do your ears hold a pencil without bleeding? Oh no Mr. Fite, when I say test your ears I mean listening to something and trying to figure it out through hearing it. Oh right of course. Time to play the music podcast for kids super duper music listening challenge. A little bit long of a title? We’ll have to work it out. Okay onto the challenge.   In today’s episode, we learned about scales. And we got to listen to three different types of scales. The major scale, which sounds happy. The minor scale which sounds kind of sad. And the blues scale which is kind of a mix between the two. So, I’m going to play one of these scales and I want to see if you can guess which one it is. Are you ready? Here is number one. Is that scale major (happy), minor (sad), or the blues scale? Which one do you think it was? Here is number two. Is that scale major (happy), minor (sad), or the blues scale? Which one do you think it was? Here is number three. Is that scale major (happy), minor (sad), or the blues scale? Which one do you think it was?   How did you do? Hopefully, you nailed it. You can go to the show notes to check your answers. Awesome!   Time to wrap it up, folks! Thank you so much for tuning in to the Music Podcast for Kids. We hope you enjoyed the show, and most importantly, learned something cool today about music. Remember to send in your jokes or even a topic in music you would like us to discuss by visiting our website themusicpodcastforkids.com. If you are interested in awesome educational and fun songs for your kids to listen to and sing along with, please visit brucefite.com. Music is available to download with iTunes, CD Baby, and Facebook, and most streaming platforms like Spotify and Amazon Radio. Links will be found in the show notes. If you are interested in learning how to play the piano with a fun and engaging curriculum geared toward kids, please subscribe to Mr. Henry's YouTube channel called Mr. Henry's Music World. Links would be found in the show notes. Please visit iTunes to leave a review of the podcast and also share the podcast with friends, relatives, aliens, whoever! Again we thank you so much for tuning in! 

Music of Latin America Mr. Henry and Mr. Fite have an amazing adventure to another dimension in today’s episode. They explore all kids of cool instruments used in Latin American music. Conga, maracas, cajon, oh my! They also compete in a cool game show hosted by Jerry Slapdash (who thinks he’s really handsome). We hope you enjoy today’s adventure learning about the music of Latin America! Check out our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdGhqK_DWpRIKS45ICqN3eQ ***Classroom and Homeschool Teachers***  Find our digital resource to help enhance your classroom HERE! Like us on Facebook!    Mr. Fite Check out original fun and educational music from Mr. Fite at  https://brucefite.com/music and subscribe to Mr. Fite’s YouTube Channel   Mr. Henry Learn music and the piano with Mr. Henry by subscribing to his YouTube channel:  Mr. Henry’s Music World (Transcript) Let the music begin in 3, 2, 1... Learning music, having fun. That’s what we’re gonna do. Mr. Henry, Mr. Fite, exploring along with you. Learning music, having fun. That’s what we’re gonna do. Mr. Henry, Mr. Fite love hanging out with you. The Music Podcast for Kids! Hello and welcome to The Music Podcast for Kids we're your hosts Mr. Henry and Mr. Fite - Music educators extraordinaire! The Music Podcast for Kids is a fun and educational podcast where we learn and explore the best subject ever -  music!     And now, the music joke of the day. We love jokes, so if you have a joke, please visit our website themusicpodcastforkids.com to submit your joke. And guess what? It doesn't even have to be a music joke; it can be any joke. We will read and enjoy your joke on the podcast and also let everyone know who it came from and where you are in this great big wonderful music world.    Our joke of the day is: Bill: Welp, I think it’s official.  Bruce: Official?  Bill: Yup, officially lost.  Bruce: No way….. I know exactly where we are going. It’s up there, straight ahead. The fastest piano player in the west  Bill: Well, alright, I sure hope you're right it’s getting hot out here and my back is kinda hurtin’. Gonna hop off this horse and take a break for a minute. (Hops off and walks but there is a shaking sound) Bruce: Umm, what is that sound?  Bill: (scared ... ) you mean that rattle sound… Bruce: Yes, that rattle sound…. It gotta be a rattler!!  Bill: (shaking and shivering scared) Ohhhh no, where is it? Can you see it? Bruce: Just relax, I can’t quite see it yet, Bill: Relax? How can I relax? There's a rattler near me.. oh it’s getting louder!  Bruce: I don’t really see that rattler but yeah just relax and don’t move… Bill: don’t move?  I can’t stop shaking…. I’m just too scared of rattlers!  Bruce: wait a gosh darn tootin second here…. what you got in that bag? Bill: What does it matter what’s in my bag… there’s a rattler near me! I don’t wanna get bit! I wanna see the fastest piano player in the west! Bruce: (gets off horse) now get on over here and let me see that bag. Bill: No stay on your horse! Save yourself, save the horse!  Bruce: Give me that bag!.... (takes bag) Yup, just what I thought…. a bag of maracas… there’s your rattler for ya.  Bill: aw well shucks I... I knew that… forgot  about that bag of maracas... Bruce: Well that’s enough drama for one day, let’s get a move on. Bill: Sounds good, just take a swig of this here water can and get back on my horse and……(rattle sound) Together: Rattlers!!!  Make sure to send in your jokes by visiting our website themusicpodcastforkids.com a link to the website can be found in the show notes.   And now, the music word of the day. Bill: Before we get to our main subject of the day, Music from Latin America, let’s check out the music word of the day: Conga!  Bruce: Congas are drums that are tall and narrow. You can play them by sitting down, but many times you will see them paired together and mounted on a rack.    Bill: It’s important to not get the congas mixed up with the bongos.  Bruce: That's right, bongos are like a mini version of the conga drums. Congas are big and bongos are small.  Bill: Conga drums are used in all types of music but originated in Afro Cuban Music.  Bruce: The conga drum became more well known after the popular Conga Line tune and dance came about.  Bill: Oh yeah I love the conga line. That's the one where everyone gets in a big line to form a circle to follow some fun three step shuffle.  Bruce: That's right, and that's the word of the day Together: Conga!  The music podcast for kids is brought to you by Mr. Henry's Music World YouTube channel. If you are interested in learning how to play the piano with a fun and engaging curriculum geared towards kids please subscribe to Mr. Henry's YouTube channel called mr. Henry's Music World. Links will be found in the show notes. Again, we thank you so much for tuning in.  Thank you so much for listening. We hope you are enjoying the show so far. Please subscribe to the podcast to receive the latest episodes and leave a review through iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Also get updates on what we are up to Facebook and Instagram by finding us at Music Podcast for Kids. Links will be found in the show notes. On to the show! And now, the main subject of the day. Bill: (as if behind a door, while trying to open up a door)  I don’t know Mr. Fite, I don't think there are any instruments up here anymore, they may have been sold at a garage sale…(door opens up) Together: Woooooaaaaahhhhhh  Bruce:   Gee, it’s a little dusty up here in the attic.  Bill: Sure is! Wow, there is a bunch of stuff up here.  Bruce:  Ok, there has got to be some instruments from Latin America in here somewhere.  Bill: I don’t know Mr. Fite, but we can certainly look.  Bruce:  Whats this small box thing here?   Bill: Oh man, that's my pre-tendo.   Bruce:  Pre-tendo?  Bill: Yeah, it's where I get to pretend to play video games, oh man I remember my most favorite game of all…. shmelda.    Bruce:  Shmelda? Are you sure you don’t mean... Bill: Ahh yes, shmelda, where you try and guess the smell of the...  Bruce: Oh wow, look over here! I think I found something.  Bill: Oh cool. What is that?  Bruce:  Its the...it’s the…. maraca!  Bill: Nice! So maybe the instruments were not sold. Sweet! You found one, is there another?  Bruce: Lets see here….. Umm…. eeshhh…… yup here it is!  Bill: Awesome! Let's hear the sweet sound of the maracas!  Bruce: Yup, these will do just perfectly for our presentation on music from Latin America.  Bill: Sure will. What's the story about with these instruments?  Bruce: Well first off, the maracas is made from a tree fruit in Puerto Rico called the higuera.  Bill: From a fruit? Oh I’ve heard about this before ...and I’m pretty sure that doesn't work...I tried to make a maracas with apples the other day and it just turned into a bunch of mushy apple… sauce….  Bruce: Oh no no… this type of fruit has a hard shell, and once the pulp is taken out of the fruit, the hard shell sits until completely dried out, then seeds or pebbles are put inside and it is closed on up with a handle and boom, you have a maraca.  Bill: Sweet!  Bruce: Yeah, there are all different types of maracas that are used in particular parts of latin America. This one is made with cuero, which is a type of animal skin which are often found in the Carribbean.  Bill: Cool! Let's find some other instruments from latin America. I’m going to check back here.  Bruce: Sounds good, I will keep looking through this box…..dum da dum…..aghrghgh… oh what could this be? Hey Mr. Henry I think I found something...  Bill:.Ummmm Mr. Fite? Uhhhh I think I found something as well….. I don't think you are going to believe me though.  Bruce: oh well, what is it? Bill: No seriously, I think you need to come see this…  Bruce: Oh come on, just tell me!  Bill: Well ok, it looks like a portal to another dimension!  Bruce:What? A portal to another dimension! Come on Mr. Henry, stop playing around.. Bill: I’m not playing around! You gotta see this…. Bruce:  (walking towards) Mr. Henry, I’m pretty sure its not a portal to another dimension that's impossible, plus check out this instrument I just found its the gui…… (blast sound)  Together:  (epic music playing..) Wooooooooooaaaaaaahhhhhhhh  Bill:  See, I told ya Mr. Fite. I opened up this door that said “portal to another dimension”  Bruce: Why would you open a door that ever says that!?  Bill: You’re joking right?  Why wouldn't you open a door that says that! Come on we gotta check this out!  Bruce: Oh no...no way...I’ve seen this in movies before, it doesn't seem to ever work out quite right. There is usually something that will end up chasing after you, and you have to run a bunch and I already did my morning run, so I am set to….  Bill: Oh come on, nothing bad will happen. We may even be able to find more instruments from Latin America for our presentation!  Bruce: Oh boy...well...that's true I guess…  Bill:. Ok, cool..let's get going ... (portal music plays and crashes in) (music from a game show is playing) Bruce: Woah, that was crazy….  Bill: Yeah it was….  Bruce: What is going on…. Slapdash: (in background) Hahahaha! Welcome!  Oh boy I am looking handsome today…. Welcome, welcome!  Bruce: Mr. Slapdash?  Bill: Yeah Mr. Slapdash? What is he doing here?  Bruce: Oh boy...already regretting going through that portal.  Bill: Oh no...it’ll be fine...I’m sure Mr. Slapdash has become a better game show host since the last time we saw him…. Bruce: Yeah lets hope Slapdash: Step right up Mr. Fite and Mr. henry! Great to see you both! You two seem very confident and totally in tune with what's going on  Bruce: Ummm no Mr. Slapdash, we have no idea what's going on...I mean we just stepped through some wierd portal and now, bam, here we are talking with you... Bill: Wait did he say we are “totally in tune”...haha… I get it Slapdash: Right! Well, welcome to the instrument identification game, where you will listen to these instruments from Latin America and figure out which instrument it is.  Bruce: Wait, did you say instrument from Latin America? This is perfect! We were just talking about instruments from Latin America  Bill: yeah, this is perfect. See I told ya so Mr. Fite.  Slapdash: Ahh right! Let’s get on with the game today! And it appears we are out of time!  Bruce: What? Out of time? We just started  Bill: Yeah Mr. Slapdash, we didn't even get to start the game yet..  Slapdash: Ahhh right LOL, JK…(clears throat).... Ahhh ok. You will listen to two different instruments. One is from Latin America and the other is not. You must tell me which one is from Latin America, and write a 32 page essay about that instrument. You have 10 seconds...here...we ….  Bruce: Wait, did you say write a 32 page essay with only 10 seconds of time?  Bill: Yeah mr. Slapdash that's impossible.   Slapdash: Ahh right..uhhh.. Did I say that? Oh whatever...just figuring out the instrument will do just fine. Ok...here ...we ...go! Number 1 instrument: (plays) Number 2 instrument… which one is from Latin America?  Bruce: Umm, I think i’ m going with the second one. Sound just like the conga drum!   Bill: Yeah totally does. Good thinking Mr. Fite. We are going with - the conga drum!   Slapdash: No sorry, that is not my favorite instrument, actually my favorite instrument is the nose harp...it just twangs along so nicely.. Bruce: Mr. Slapdash!  Bill: Yeah Mr. Slapdash… we are not supposed to be picking your favorite instrument; the nose harp…  Bruce: Wait..did you just say picking the nose...har… Slapdash: Hahaha just JKing you both there ...You are correct! The conga drum! From Latin America! (music plays, audience claps) Bruce: Oh great! Bill: Sweet!  Slapdash: Ok, onto the next question. Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?  Bruce: What?  Bill: Oh boy….  Slapdash: Haha.. Ok, here is the next listening challenge. Which is from latin America. Is it number 1 (plays) or number  2 (plays)  Bill: I’m going with number 1. Sounds like the steel drum!  Bruce: Yeah, I think you're totally right Mr. Henry. The steel drum can also be called the steel pan.  Slapdash: Why would you want to steal a drum or a pan. That doesn’t seem like a good idea you know, you could get in big trouble... Bruce: No no, Mr Slapdash, the steel drum or steel pan is spelled S T E E L.. like the metal material “steel”.  Bill: Right! The steel drum can actually be made from a 55 gallon industrial drum. They carefully craft each part of the steel to have different pitches to create that cool sound.  Slapdash: Ah well right...let me see here...I am going to look over here to pretend like there is someone to check that answer and it looks like, yes Bob, is that correct…. Ummm (continues in background…)  Bruce: Who is he looking at? I don’t see anyone…  Bill: Yeah..there is no Bob.. In this room… oh boy Slapdash: Ahah!, Well yes, that is the answer! The Steel Drum! (music plays audience claps)  And you are today's winners!  Bruce: Wooohoo! Awesome.  Bill: Yeah for sure, what do we win?  Slapdash:  Well, what do you have for them Johnny? Ummm johnny?  Bruce: I don't think there is a johnny…  Slapdash:  Ahh right of course… well...guess what, you get a fantastic trip to the Caribbean to learn more about the instruments from latin America!  Bill: Oh sweet!  Slapdash: Yes! And right over here is the teleportation zaporoonie 3000 s model  Bruce: Oh no, remember Mr. Henry, we already tried this thing… I’m still trying to get all of my hair back…  Bill: Oh, I think they have updated the system since then. I’m sure there is nothing wrong with the teleportation zaporoonie 3000 s model now. Right Mr. Slapdash?  Slapdash: Oh yes, of course, nothing will happen..yes, they have ...umm...upgraded the system, the only thing I have seen is some folks come back in mini form... Bruce: Mini form?? Bill: Oh I’m sure he means we feel so small in this great big music world..right Mr. Slapdash?  Slapdash: uhh well, are you familiar with the size of a spoon?   Bruce: Well of course Mr. Slapdash.  Slapdash: Well yes, uhhhh you would be able to walk on the spoon Bill: Yikes, so that kinda mini form.  Bruce: Nope no way am I getting into that machine Bill: Oh come on there is no way we will shrink, the chances are probably like 1 in a shma-zillion.   Slapdash: One out of four.  Bill: And plus we won this...for free! Lets celebrate by checking out more music from Latin America!  Bruce: Wait did he just say 1 out of 4 get shrunk down to a sp… Bill: Put in the coordinates, buckle up the seats belt and fire this bad boy up... (ride music) Bruce: Oh no...look that spoon is huge...it happened we shrunk down...oh no… Bill: (Reading) Here lies the biggest spoon in the world. 200 feet long. Oh no Mr. Fite, we are still normal size,...it just so happens they have the biggest spoon ever here. Oh what's that noise?  Bruce: Oh, sounds like those conga drums we heard earlier.  Bill: Awesome, so what's the deal with the congas?  Bruce:  Well, the conga drum originally came from Cuba.  Bill: Cool!  Bruce: Yeah, and it can be played in a bunch of different ways. We call each way a different “tone”. There is the open tone, bass tone, muffled tone slap tone and rim shot tone.   Bill: Wow, so you can create five different sounds on one drum? I just figured you just hit and with your hand and that's it.   Bruce: Actually, you can play variations of just one of those tones. So, you could play the open tone in three different ways!  Bill: Wow, that seems tough.  Bruce: Sure is, so you could have 15 different types of sounds on the conga drum.  Bill: Wowzers, that would take some serious practice.  Bruce: Now, in an elementary school you may only learn two types of tones on the conga drum. The “low tone” which sounds like this…… and the “high tone” which sounds like this.  Bill: Cool. It looks like the low tone is played in the middle of the drum with a cupped hand.  Bruce: You got it, and the high tone is played on the side of the drum with a flat hand; using the fingers and high part of the hand.  Bill: Sounds fun! Boy, I’m getting kinda tired. I am going to sit down on this box chair here for a second. Bruce: Oh wow! Cool, check it out, you're sitting on the cajon!  Bill: Cajon? Ummm… it's just a box.. How is this an instrument?  Bruce: Well, that's no ordinary box, although it does look like a box made of wood. It's actually a really cool instrument. The cajon is a box drum.  Bill: Hmm , so how do you play this box drum thingy….  Bruce: It’s kinda played like the conga drum but you sit on it while performing. It does have a bunch of tones, but if we focus on the low and high tone, you would play near the middle of the cajon to get a deep, low sound...it almost sounds like a bass drum.  Bill: Wow, thats awesome!  Bruce: Then, if you play towards the top it sounds like a snare drum.  Bill: Neat! How does it have that rattle sound to it?  Bruce: Well, there are these wires called snare wires which are of course found on a snare drum. They use those same wires and put them in between the wood.   Bill: Wow, it's like a drum set in a….box!  Bruce: Yessir!  Bill: So many cool instruments from Latin America.  Bruce: For sure, well it's getting kinda late and I’m getting kinda hungry.. Bill: Yeah samezees. Ok, lets get back to the teleportation zaporoonie 3000 s model.  Bruce: oh great….  Bill: Ok, put in the coordinates.. “Mr. Henry's Dusty Attic”, cool, emergency break off, buckle up…. (ride music)  Bruce: Did we make it back? Wow... I don't remember you having such a large dusty couch in your attic… Bill: Hmmm. ….yeah that's a pretty large cup of water there… i mean I’m thirsty, but that's a ton of wa….. Bruce: Mr. Henry! You shrunk the music teachers!  Bill: Oh I’m sure we can reverse this...let me get the manual let's see….just turn this knob here and do the cha cha slide while clucking like a chicken, then three turns. Bruce: (crying) I don't want to be tiny! I don't want to be tiny I don't want to be tiny (fades away with dreamy sequence) Bruce: (as if sleeping with a bad dream- drooling mouth open saying): I don't want to be tiny I don't want to be tiny.  Bill: Hey Mr. Fite, wake up wake up… you're having a bad… Bruce: Ahhh ghhghagah Oh… boy. I was having a crazy dream about Mr. Slapdash, and learning about all the cool instruments from Latin America, but then getting shrunk into a little...  Slapdash: Hahaha..did you say my name? Don't I just look so smart today and good looking... Bill: Come on Mr. Fite, we are about to go onto the Music Listening Challenge game! The winner gets a trip to the Caribbean!  Time to wrap it up folks! Thank you so much for tuning in to the Music Podcast for Kids. We hope you enjoyed the show, and most importantly, learned something cool today about music. Remember to send in your jokes or even a topic in music you would like us to discuss by visiting our website themusicpodcastforkids.com. If you are interested in awesome educational and fun songs for your kids to listen and sing along with, please visit brucefite.com. Music is available to download with iTunes, CD Baby, and Facebook streaming platforms like Spotify and Amazon Radio. Links will be found in the show notes. If you are interested in learning how to play the piano with a fun and engaging curriculum geared toward kids, please subscribe to Mr. Henry's YouTube channel called Mr. Henry's Music World. Links would be found in the show notes. Please visit iTunes to leave a review of the podcast and also share the podcast with friends, relatives, aliens, whoever! Again we thank you so much for tuning in! 

A Visit With Bill Bright During His Last Days (Part 1) - Bill BrightA Visit With Bill Bright During His Last Days (Part 2) - Bill BrightA Visit With Bill Bright During His Last Days (Part 3) - Bill BrightFamilyLife Today® Radio TranscriptReferences to conferences, resources, or other special promotions may be obsolete. Lessons LearnedDay 1 of 3 Guest:                    Bill Bright From the series:   Reflections of Life:  A Personal Visit With Bill Bright  Bob:                Throughout his life and his ministry, Dr. Bill Bright has had a single focus – The Great Commission – that Christ would send us into all the world to preach the Gospel to all men.  Here is Dr. Bill Bright. Bill:                  The average Christian does not realize that his loved ones, neighbors, and friends, are going to hell.  Now you say – would a loving God send people to hell?  No – God has put a cross at the entrance of hell, and the only way anybody can go to hell is to reject God's love and God's forgiveness. Bob:                This is FamilyLife Today for Wednesday, February 19th.  Our host is the Executive Director of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.  Today we talk with the man who has made The Great Commission his life's objective, Dr. Bill Bright.                         And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us on the Wednesday edition.  It was not long ago that you and I had the opportunity to sit down and have a conversation with a Christian leader and, frankly, two years ago if you had said we would have had that opportunity in the fall of 2002, I would have said it won't happen, because the Christian leader, in this particular case, Dr. Bill Bright – well, everyone thought that he would not live much longer. Dennis:          Right, and there were a number of us who wrote Bill letters, tributes; we made phone calls.  I still remember a great conversation I had with him that I thought would be my last, and he asked me to speak at an event, and I thought, "You rascal, you've done it again.  You've gotten one more thing out of me.  You're not even going to be here then," but Bill Bright is a great man.  His life is not over.  He is showing us how to finish strong, all the way to the end. He only has about 40 percent of his lung capacity due to the disease that he has, but he's writing books, he's doing interviews, he's taking a limited number of speaking engagements and, Bob, I came to you a few months ago, and I said, "It's time we went to Orlando and sat in Bill Bright's living room and talked with him again.  He's now lived for a couple of years longer than either you or I thought he would.  Let's go find out what he's learned." Bob:                And that conversation that we had in his living room in Orlando was just a relaxed conversation where we peppered him on a variety of subjects, but it was so refreshing. Dennis:          Yeah, and it was really a sweet time.  For those who don't know who Bill Bright is, and there are some who perhaps don't – Bill is the founder and past president of Campus Crusade for Christ.  He is the author of the "Four Spiritual Laws", which has – I suppose there are billions of "Four Spiritual Laws" that have been reproduced around the world – people sharing their faith.  Bill has been used mightily by God to touch the world, to touch nations, but he also was used mightily in my own life and yours, too, Bob, and I think by the time our listeners listen to this interview, along with the next couple of days, Bill Bright will touch you deeply as well.  Let's listen to Dr. Bill Bright. Bob:                You've talked about being on your way to the grave.  You know, there are some who are surprised that we're even having this conversation today, because there was a time just a few years ago I remember hearing you and Brant Gustafson together talking about being ready for heaven and, of course, Brant is there, you're here.  How have you processed all of that over the last several years? Bill:                  Well, just before Easter a year ago, I came home from California to die.  I said to Vonette that I was choking and fainting and all the first signs of what they told me what happened at Mayo's and the Jewish Institute in Denver and my local doctor –"What you have is horrible."  He tried to get my attention, and when I received word I was dying, I said, "Praise the Lord," because, you know, you can't lose with a believer.  It's win-win.  If you die, you go to heaven; if you stay here, you keep on serving Him.  So I had begun to praise the Lord.  He thought I'd lost my sanity, and he said – then he really began to rebuke me – he said, "You have a horrible disease.  You're going to die the most horrible kind of death" – he's a heart specialist and been my doctor for 30 years – and he felt he could tell me that.  Most doctors wouldn't.  And he said, "It's worse than cancer, it's worse than heart trouble, you're just going to choke to death."                         And so I was choking, and I came home to die.  So when I got off the plane, a couple – Jack and Pearl Galpin [sp] had befriended this Russian doctor, and they insisted that she come and examine me.  Now, here's a Ph.D, a research scientist, seven years in charge at Chernobyl, and she had no place to live except the home of the Galpins, who befriended her.  So she came to live in our home, treated me three times a day, and by the end of the 30 days, I began to have new life, and I'm awed at how good I feel. Dennis:          You know, there's a story I want to just tell real quickly, because I want our listeners to know this – there's a real sense in which God used a Russian doctor in your life to keep you alive, and that really can be, I think, tied back to something you did years ago with your retirement savings.  You actually – you and Vonette – actually gave away your retirement to start an outreach in Moscow when the Iron Curtain dropped.  You gave away your retirement, and now here, at the end of your life, what does God use to bless you back, but a Russian whose country had benefited from your sacrificial act of giving, and I think, you know, that's the kind of thing that God in heaven, I think, must have a big grin about.                         He goes, "Bill Bright, you are a termite," you know, "Dennis Rainey, you are, too, but I'm going to show you what I want to do." Bill:                  Oh, He's awesome. Dennis:          I'm going to use somebody from that country to bless you. Bill:                  You know, it's interesting – Vonette and I were led by the Lord to give my retirement pension to build a New Life Training Center at Moscow State University, and one day I'm sitting in the tent 15 years later, recuperating and enjoying the Lord as we're chatting together, and it is as though the Lord said to me in a way that – no question about it – "I sent Dr. Ivanova to help you because you made the widow's mite investment in Moscow State University."                          Now, I began to sob.  I was overcome, because, frankly, there was no question what he was saying to me – that he was pleased by that.  I didn't do it for credit, I didn't make a big issue of it, and I wouldn't have brought it up if you hadn't, but you cannot outgive God, and though, as a movement, we had spent tens of millions of dollars sending Jesus films and Bibles and holding teacher convocations all over Russia and the other republics, but the Lord didn't seem to refer to that.  He referred to what I did first, and that was awesome. Dennis:          You undoubtedly have envisioned where you're going. Bill:                  Oh, heaven is awesome.   Dennis:          To your best extent – obviously, you've never been there – but you've read about it, you know the One Who resides there, you've been walking with the One Who resides there – share what you expect? Bill:                  Eyes not seen, ears not heard what God has prepared for those who love Him.  Heaven is going to be indescribably beautiful – it's not going to be, it is – and I remember as a lad, my precious, saintly mother would often say, "I can hardly wait to go to heaven."  Now, she loved her husband, my father.  She loved seven children.  She was the pillar of the community.  If anybody needed any help, they would always come to my mother.  She was truly a saint.  But I didn't understand what she was saying until I became a believer and now I look forward, with her, with great anticipation, to heaven.  Everything we experience here on earth – all the most elegant and opulent kinds of experiences – cannot compare with what awaits those who believe.                           Here's my logic – the God who spoke – and astronomers say at least 100 billion, 200 billion galaxies were flowing into space, and He holds it all together with the word of His command.  The same God became a man – the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth, died on the cross for our sins, was raised from the dead, and now lives within us, and He said, "I'm going to go to prepare a place for you, and then I'll come back and get you."                         Now, this God who created all this unbelievably beautiful, wonderful universe, you know is going to do a special creative job in preparing heaven.  Heaven is going to be the golden, golden gem of the universe, and whatever our minds can conceive of will fall infinitely short of what heaven is like. Bob:                Were you disappointed when you started getting better? Bill:                  Well, I must tell you, I was excited about going to heaven.  You know, when you heard the interview with Brant Gustafson and myself, we were on a race.  We both were looking forward to going, and we weren't sure – we were saying, "I'll beat you there." Dennis:          Yeah, well, he beat you, didn't he? Bill:                  Yeah, he did – and dear, dear Brant – he was a marvelous, wonderful friend … Dennis:          … yeah, I love him, too. Bill:                  A beloved brother – but here I am doing, in a sense, the most creative thing I've ever done.  In the last 18 months I've put almost 100 hours of the best of my 100 books and booklets on blue screen technology – video – where I can use it for interactive training of millions of people through the years long after I'm with the Lord, and Andrew Murray has been dead 150 years, is still influencing millions of Christians.  Oswald Chambers has been dead over 100 years, is still influencing even the President of the United States.  So here we are, I'm building up a library of books and videos, and I've been able to do that more since I learned I'm dying than any other period in my life.  And then God led a man by the name of James Davis and me to start, as a part of the Crusade ministry, Global Pastures Network, where our goal is to help start 5 million house churches in the next 10 years, and we're working with all major denominations.  We're working with scores of para-church groups, and it's not just a Campus Crusade for Christ project, though it's directed by Crusade under the leadership of Dr. Steve Douglas, but it's a partnership where the leaders of Southern Baptists, Assemblies of God, Presbyterians, and Methodists and many other groups – over 70 denominations and scores of para-church groups are involved. So when I look back over what's happened in the last 18 months, I would have to say I'm glad the Lord let me stay here, and I don't want to stay one second longer than He wants me here. Dennis:          You haven't retired? Bill:                  (laughs) No – I've re-fired. Dennis:          You have re-fired.  What are your dreams if the Lord gives you another 18 months? Bill:                  Well, I would just want to see everything I'm now doing increased, expanded, developed.  But there's one very important thing that is really on my heart in addition to the others, and that is to call America back to the Bible and back to the God of the Bible.  I mentioned that Brad, our son, has written this book, "God is the Issue."  I've written a book on the attributes of God, " God Discovers Character," and "The Year of the Bible.  So we're working on a strategy to take those three – "God is the Issue," "The Year of the Bible," and "God Discovers Character," and do an evangelistic thrust in every community of America, and I can't think of any better way to announce it than your radio program, because, you see, if we get back to the God of the Bible, revival comes.                          And, you know I've fasted and prayed 40 days each year for the last nine years for revival for America, the world, and The Great Commission to be fulfilled.  So I am believing that God is going to raise up the kind of leaders that are necessary in every community of America to make this happen.   Dennis:          Bill, you described heaven as a place you long to go for.  Your face lit up.  I want you to do something you may have never been asked to do – how would you describe hell? Bill:                  Oh, oh, oh – I've just written a book, "Heaven or Hell:  The Ultimate Choice," and hell is an awesome, horrible, indescribably cruel, terrible place, and the average Christian does not realize that his loved ones, neighbors, and friends, are going to hell, and because he doesn't realize there is a hell that is so horrible there are no human words to describe it – this agony for all eternity.  Now you say "Would a loving God send people to hell?"  No.  God has put a cross at the entrance of hell, and the only way anybody can go to hell is to reject God's love and God's forgiveness.  Christ died for all people – Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, everybody – and He's not willing that any should perish.                         Peter writes, "God has delayed His return in order that more people might have a chance to receive Christ."  So God is not being unfair, but He is a just God, He's a holy God, a righteous God, and if we insist on violating His laws and disobeying Him, we are choosing to follow the kingdom of darkness – Satan – and I'm sobered by this.  Hell is a terrible place.  Heaven is an incredibly beautiful place, and as we read in Colossians 1:13 and 14, God has liberated us out of the darkness and gloom of Satan's kingdom and brought us into the kingdom of His dear Son Who bought our freedom with His blood and forgave us all our sins.                         To everyone who is listening to me, take serious what I'm saying and what Dennis and Bob are saying – there are only two kingdoms in this world – Christ's kingdom and Satan's kingdom – and you and your loved ones are a member of either one of those, and you can't be a member of them both, and if you are playing footsies with the ways of the world and being enamored with the things of the world, you are being deceived by the enemy of your soul.  God prepared hell for Satan and his angels, not for you and me.  But if we insist on following Satan, we will go to hell where he is.  I just want to stand on the street corners and say, "Stop, stop, listen to me, you're on your way to heaven or hell, and there aren't any alternatives.  You're a member of one of two kingdoms – there aren't any other kingdoms," and we need to proclaim that. Dennis:          And to that person, Bill, right now, who is listening, who is going, "I don't want to go there.  I don't want to go to a place of spiritual torment, of emotional grief and of judgment.  I want out of that kingdom.  I want to make sure I'm in God's kingdom – a place of peace, a place of beauty, a place of knowing God, seeing Him, and experiencing His love face-to-face."  What should that person do right now? Bill:                  I'd like to ask everyone who has that desire to pray with me.  I'd like to lead them in prayer. Dennis:          That's good. Bill:                  Just, phrase-by-phrase, you quote after me.  Now, Jesus promised us – before we pray – "If you hear My voice and open the door, I'll come in."  If He is speaking to you through this program or any other program, don't you hesitate for a moment.  You may never have another opportunity like this, because God's grace does not always continue.  There's a time when He says, "I will withdraw My blessing from you."  Now, I ask you, if you really want Jesus in your heart, pray this prayer with me, phrase-by-phrase.  Pray it aloud if you're in a position where you can do so – if not, silently – "Lord Jesus, I know You're the Son of God, I know You died on the cross for my sins.  Come into my life, forgive my sins, change my life, make me the kind of person You want me to be." God bless you.  Don't miss out on His plan for you.  He loves you.  He died for you.  He reaches out to embrace you.  Now don't turn Him away.  Follow Him to your last breath, and He will never fail you.  God bless you. Bob:                That, of course, is Dr. Bill Bright, who has shared those sentiments over the last 50 years over and over and over again – calling men and women to faith in Christ and then to service to their Master throughout their lifetime. Dennis:          That's right, and I have to turn to the audience right now and say to that woman who is listening, that man – if you do not know where you will spend eternity after hearing an 81-year-old man who is nearing the end of his life, give you an eternal perspective that there are two kingdoms – the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness, of the devil, wouldn't you like to be sure you are headed toward the kingdom of God? It's a gift.  It's a gift that comes from God by His grace if we will yet receive it by faith in Him and His Word and basically Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins.  We must receive Him.  We must trust Him.  We must ask Him to be our Savior, our Master, our Lord, and I would just challenge you, right now – if you've not made that discovery, if you do not know the Creator of the Universe and are not walking with Him, there is no better time than right now. Put aside excuses, lay aside that obstacle, that burden, that person in the church that has kept you from receiving Christ and come right now.  Just come to Him and kneel and ask Him – Lord Jesus be merciful to me, a sinner.  Come into my life, forgive my sins, be my Master, my Lord, and begin to make me who You created me to be.  Pray that prayer right now in faith, and I just want to remind you, it's not the words of your mouth, but it is the attitude of your heart of coming to God that I believe establishes a relationship with the Almighty God. Bob:                If you want to know about that relationship with God and want to know what it means to be in a right relationship with God, call us and ask about a book we'd like to send you called "Right With God."  It's a book that will explain to you how a man is made right with God and what it means to be a follower of Christ.  Ask for a copy of that book.  We'll send it at no cost to anyone who prayed along with Dennis, anyone who wants to give his life to Christ today.  Call 1-800-FLTODAY and ask about the book, "Right With God."                         Let me also mention that we have our entire visit with Dr. Bill Bright available on audiocassette or CD.  If you'd like to hear the entire conversation with Dr. Bright – we've had to edit it here for broadcast purposes – but you can hear the unedited dialog on cassette or on CD, and in our conversation with Dr. Bright, we had the opportunity to ask him about the books that he has written, and he said that his favorite of all of those books was a book called, "God: Discover His Character," a book about the attributes of our great God, and we have that book available as well.  If you would like to deepen your understanding and your knowledge of who God is, and I'll tell you, all of us can benefit from that exercise, get a copy of Dr. Bright's book.  Again, it's called "God:  Discover His Character," and you can ask for a copy when you call 1-800-FLTODAY or you can request a copy online at FamilyLife.com.                         We always enjoy hearing from our listeners, Dennis.  We just recently heard from a number of our Legacy Partners, many of them writing to request prayer on a variety of subjects, and we do pray for you when you contact us and let us know what your needs are, and we appreciate those of you who are able to help with our financial needs as a ministry, either as a Legacy Partner or as a FamilyLife Champion.  If you would like to make a contribution to FamilyLife or if you'd like to contact us so that we can be praying for you, you can write to FamilyLife at Box 8220, Little Rock, Arkansas.  The zip code is 72221.  Once again, write to FamilyLife Today at Box 8220, Little Rock, Arkansas.  The zip code is 72221.  You can also donate online at FamilyLife.com or you can call to make a donation at 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY.                         Well, tomorrow we're going to continue to hear excerpts from our recent dialogue with Dr. Bill Bright, the past president and founder of Campus Crusade for Christ.  I hope you can be back with us for that.                         I want to thank our engineer today, Robbie Neal, and our entire broadcast production team.  On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.  We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of FamilyLife Today.                          FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ.   We are so happy to provide these transcripts for you.  However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website.  If you've benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would you consider donating today to help defray the costs? Copyright © FamilyLife.  All rights reserved. www.FamilyLife.com 

What's the best - and quickest - way for a B2B business to gain marketing traction and turn contacts into customers? This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, boomtime CEO Bill Bice talks about his approach to word of mouth marketing. A serial entrepreneur, board advisor and one-time venture capitalist, Bill has seen what works across a wide range of companies, and now his company boomtime is helping B2B businesses grow by leveraging content and LinkedIn to generate buzz. Check out this episode to get the details of Bill's process and learn how you can use it to improve your own inbound marketing results. Highlights from my conversation with Bill include: Bill says that the three main objectives of word of mouth marketing are to build our audience, follow up on all of the prospects that you're generating, and stay top of mind with that audience. The easiest way to generate new business is through referrals, and the key to getting referrals is to give your audience something to talk about. Bill says most companies make the mistake of talking all about themselves on social media, when in reality they should be focused on educating their audiences. The two most common mistakes that companies make when it comes to marketing are to not make it a top priority and not be consistent with it. Three keys to successful marketing are building a response mobile website, having a robust email marketing program, and making a lot of connections on LinkedIn. In a crowded content landscape, one of the best ways to stand out and attract qualified leads is to build an audience and then invest in educating them through your content. Boomtime helps companies use this same process by outsourcing content creation for them to 300+ subject matter experts. They also help manage their clients' LinkedIn strategies. Bill says that with a well optimized profile, he'll get between a 35 and 50% acceptance rate on connection requests, sending 40 to 50 connection requests a day, and 6 to 8% of those people will start a conversation either from the connection request or he will often send a followup message with whatever the best performing piece of content is. Resources from this episode: Visit the boomtime website Connect with (or follow) Bill on LinkedIn Check out Bill's B2B Marketing podcast Listen to the podcast to learn how word of mouth marketing can help you increase the ROI of your marketing strategy. Transcript Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. I'm your host Kathleen Booth and this week my guest is Bill Bice, who is the CEO of Boomtime. Welcome to the podcast, Bill. Bill Bice (Guest): Kathleen it's great to be with you. Thanks. Bill and Kathleen recording this episode. Kathleen: Yeah, thanks for joining me. I love your story because you scratched your own itch and solved a problem that you were having and I always find that those are some of the most interesting conversations. So I'm really excited to dig into it. Can we start by having you tell my audience a little bit about your story, who you are, what you're doing now with Boomtime, and what led you down that path? Meet Bill Bice Bill: So I feel like I was born an entrepreneur. I started my first company when I was 18, a software company, and of course I had no idea what I was doing, but over enough time, got a great team, and built a great company, and out of that we had enough success in selling that company that I got to be part of an early stage VC fund. And so I have founded and invested and been on the board of a whole host of companies. I actually sat down and counted them up so I could say it's 27 companies, and there is a not shocking correlation in those companies, which are the ones where we've had the most success are where we really focused on going to market and nailed that. And so you do all this really hard work to create an amazing product or service, and yet how good you are at marketing is going to determine what kind of reward you get for doing that. And I just got really frustrated in trying to get great marketing for my own companies, and so I decided to tackle that problem. Kathleen: I love it. And I think probably most of the people who listen to this podcast would agree that great marketing is important for growing your company. So that's awesome. So can you talk a little bit about specifically what Boomtime does? Bill: Yeah, so we've really focused in on B2B, we have a history in doing some work in B2C, but most of my experience has been in B2B. And the thing that I really like about B2B is that we've been able to take sort of the core framework or playbook and apply it to really any sort of highly complex, valuable transaction. So it doesn't really work for things that are volume-based. But if you're selling something high value, then the approach, I mean, I'm really a programmer at heart, so to me it was all about the data. And one of the things that I have found really challenging about marketing is unlike every other discipline in our businesses, here we have one that just refuses to accept scale and efficiency. It's just a core problem with marketing. And we do it everywhere else in our business, and it really has to happen in marketing also. And so I just tackled that from the standpoint of following the data in a very iterative process and learning what works. We don't really have to, although experimentation is key, we don't have to you, you've got bigger competitors who have spent millions of dollars figuring out how to do exactly what you need to do. You've just got to figure out what's the smaller version of that for my business that's going to work for me. And so that's what we've been doing in the B2B world. It's very much a B2B content marketing inbound approach that is what's really compatible with most of the sort of small, that two to $20 million a year business that really does a great job of taking care of their customers, but would like to grow. Or maybe has been growing in that sort of plateaued and didn't really quite understand what was making that work before, and what was making it work was word of mouth. And so we now live in this great era where we can actually really amplify the effect of word of mouth because we're all connected digitally. And so that's the thing that we have focused on. Word of mouth marketing Kathleen: So let's take it to another level of detail. I love that you said that the challenge that you're trying to solve is making companies go-to-market strategies repeatable, scalable, more efficient and really focusing that around the power of word of mouth. What does that look like in practice? If somebody is using boomtime for example, and this isn't necessarily a commercial for the product, but obviously you were trying to solve a problem that you saw through the product. So I'm curious to know, in detail, what does that really look like? Bill: Well, so the three things we want to accomplish is we want to build our audience, we want to follow up on all of, we would be much better at capturing and following up on all of the prospects that we're generating. And then we want to stay top of mind with that audience. And if you do those things really well and you do it with this focus on, let's take the thing that's already working, word of mouth, and let's just leverage digital tools to accomplish the same thing. So we think of it as social currency, like we're going to create a lot more referrals. So let's assume that referrals are really valuable to your business. And the vast majority of business owners I sit down with and I say, well, one of my favorite questions is, where'd your last couple of new clients come from? And the answer, 99% of the time is, "Oh, it was a referral from so-and-so." Because that's what really works. And if you focus on giving your audience social currency, giving them a reason to talk about you, there's a really wonderful thing happens, which is you get more referrals. And the way you do that is just flip your content, flip your marketing on its head. So most marketing for most companies, 100% of what they do should be 10%, because it's all about them. It's the number one mistake in marketing is talking about yourself. Nobody cares. I mean, honestly, your clients just don't care about the new person you hired, the new client that you won. That should be 10% of your marketing. If you put 90% of your effort into sharing your expertise, then suddenly your marketing becomes this really valuable way to communicate with your audience and you give them reasons to talk about you. Word of mouth marketing in practice Kathleen: So can you give me an example of a campaign, for example, that either you've done or that one of your customers has done using the system that you have in place, just so that we can maybe have a mental model through which to understand how it all works? Bill: Yeah, I'm going to use ourselves as the example, because we had the classic problem that a lot of, we don't really consider ourselves a traditional agency, but you see agencies do this all the time, which is you're really good at marketing and yet you don't apply it to yourself. Kathleen: Our first child. Bill: Yes. The thing that's really helped us grow is when we, we actually changed our internal processes to be able to treat ourselves as a client and give one of our marketing strategists credit for us as if we were paying ourselves as a client. Because only by doing that did we actually put the priority in our own marketing. We're literally having the same problem that every business has, which is marketing's always the fourth or fifth thing that you think about, and everybody gets stuck in this same cycle of you focus on marketing when things are kind of slow and then they pick back up. And yet the second biggest mistake in marketing is inconsistency. And it's just clear in the data that being consistent in your marketing is the number one thing you can do to make it pay off. Whatever you're going to do, do it consistently. Pick a longterm strategy you can really commit to and be serious about it. And so when we started doing the same thing for ourselves, which is literally just laying out everything we've learned and following the data, I mean, it's amazing what happens when you bring several hundred like clients together, put them on one platform, be able to aggregate that data and see what's happening. It's so difficult, even if you can have the best marketing director in the world, you only have the data in your one company to work with. Being able to multiply that across several hundred companies, it's incredible what you learn. So we've just taken that and started sharing what we've learned. I'm very passionate about small businesses. It's where innovation comes from, it's what drives our economy. I would love for every small business owner to be doing exactly these things. And our version of this is to share our expertise and what we've learned and layout exactly what you want to do in your marketing. It's the best way to promote what we do, just to share. I mean you can literally take this and go do it yourself. You will be better off if you do that. And that's my number one goal with every one of our clients is we want their prospects to be better off because sat down and got exposed to that company. Whether they ever choose to use their product or service or not, because that's what's going to create word of mouth. Kathleen: So you guys used it for yourselves and what did that look like? Talk me through your campaign that you did. Bill: So it's very content oriented. So in B2B, one of the things that I love about it, it's actually pretty simple. Because if you do three things well your marketing is going to work. If you build a responsive mobile website that really pays attention to the customer journey, if you do really good email marketing and you build an audience on LinkedIn, and if in particular, if you stitch those together and understand the customer journey across those three channels, you will really understand what's working, what's creating engagement and you will be able to get new prospects and pull them down the funnel. And so when we started doing that for ourselves and putting out regular content that was just sharing what we know how to do, it created a different perspective in our audience about who we are and what we do. And it started bringing to us prospects that are much better educated, that were ready for much deeper conversations when we got started. It's one of the core problems in marketing today, which is our prospects have access to so much information, and there's so much that they can learn. You've really got to decide do you want to be an order taker or do you want to be part of that educational process? And the only way you can really create new sales opportunities is to start at the very top of the funnel and be part of that educational process. So that was the change that happened for us when we really started talking about here's what works, here's what we've learned, and just laying that out and doing that consistency thing. When we started doing that really, just week in and week out, every single week. It takes a while. That's the problem with it. I don't believe there are any miracles or short term fixes in marketing, but if you commit to it and then the results start to come in over time and it really changes the trajectory of your company. How content fuels word of mouth Kathleen: Now, how does the content that you're creating feed into word of mouth? Bill: Well, that content is that social currency. It's giving people really concrete things that they can do. So let's take LinkedIn, for example. Like no matter how much effort you're putting into LinkedIn, you should be putting more. If you just look at the engagement data and the growth over the last two years, it's incredible what's happening on LinkedIn, and they really made the switch to getting people to really put time in depth into LinkedIn. And I look at LinkedIn as the ideal networking event, right? I get to meet exactly who I want. I don't have to eat high calorie food at the same time, and you need to approach it like a networking event, which is you're really there to build your network and be helpful, to that note. And if you take that approach and you say, "Okay, I've got an audience now that I'm going to build on LinkedIn, I'm going to run an aggressive connection campaign to get connected to every great prospect for me that's in the market." And then you say, "Okay, now I'm going to share the thing that I know, that I'm an expert at because I've got perspective across..." You might be the CEO or CIO, whoever your decision maker is in your prospective company, you're running your one company. But I work with hundreds or thousands of companies like you, which means I can bring perspective to you that's really valuable to you. And if you're willing to share that, to give away whatever you consider the most valuable thing that you have, give that away as your marketing. That will dramatically change how prospects see you and it will create sales opportunities that didn't exist before. And so executing it on that on LinkedIn is the primary way that we grow. This is very meta, because that's how we grow and the way we do it is to describe exactly how you should do it. Kathleen: Got it. So it's an education play through LinkedIn, then? Bill: If you're in B2B, it's really the best way to grow your company. You'd have to be in a really strange niche for the prospects you want to not be sitting out there on LinkedIn today. Now there are quite a few other software platforms that help B2B and other types of companies with content marketing, with inbound marketing, companies like HubSpot, you've got SharpSpring, there's a ton of them out there. How does the solution that you've built fit within that ecosystem? Well, sort of the short answer is HubSpot with help. So we're not selling a piece of software. What we're doing is selling the end result, the service. So the big surprise with HubSpot, and HubSpot's a great platform, there are a ton of really good marketing automation systems out there, and if you're going to do this internally, you absolutely should implement one of them. The problem, the surprise, after you start paying for that subscription is then the two people you have to hire to get any value out of HubSpot. And a lot of companies, what they really want is just the end result of that as opposed to having to go through all of that process. And one of the things I've seen over and over again, so if you're going to do that internally, one of my strongest recommendations is everybody tries to create the content internally and unless you really put tremendous focus and resources behind that, it almost never works. You really need to go. So the way we've done it is we've built a network of 300 subject matter experts. We don't do any writing internally. There's always somebody out there who already knows your audience really well. Go find that person who you don't have to teach them your market, they've been writing for it, they have been working with the industry pubs or the events in that area, and you can, half hour brainstorming session, you can come up with six months of editorial. What you need is a great stream of regular content that doesn't require you sit in front of a blank screen and have to come up with it yourself. So you can implement all of this yourself, you just, you need to put in the marketing automation system. You need to find the resources that know how to do that. And then you've got to follow the data to really understand what's creating engagement and keep testing every piece of it so you get better with every turn of the cycle. Kathleen: So if somebody is using Boomtime, do they also need to have these other platforms or is Boomtime really a replacement for these things? Bill: So if we're doing that as a service for somebody that you don't really need a marketing automation system. It's great if you have a CRM. One of our biggest challenges is that nobody really uses their CRM the way that they should. And so our approach is to integrate with the CRM and put the end results in the CRM system. One of the challenges with that building your audience part is that your sales team always has many more opportunities that they're working on than what ends up in the CRM. CRMs are really designed for sales managers. And if you put somebody in the CRM, you're going to get questioned about it. So what most sales people do is they only put people who are fairly deep into the funnel into the CRM, which means we're not building our audience and we're not following up with all of the prospects that we have. So one of the tricks that we do is go mine the email boxes of everybody who's customer facing in your company and feed that into your CRM so we're getting that central database. Because particularly if you're in B2B, your sales people are talking to those early prospects via email. So there is a record of it and we can go capture it and we can make their job easier by filling that information in for them. And it's amazing what happens if you just follow up on all those prospects that are already in your firm. It's great low hanging fruit, you just got to go get it. Kathleen: So do you typically work with smaller companies? Because it sounds like really this is a solution for companies that don't have a large marketing team, for example, that really need the external help and that don't have a super sophisticated tech stack already in place. It sounds like it's a good way for a company that recognizes that they need to be able to make their marketing more scalable to really get started with that. Is that accurate? Bill: Yes. So you sort of have two groups. It's the kind of $2 to $5 million year company where we're really doing it for them. And then once you get to the point where you have a marketing director, often we're just working under their direction doing this one piece that I recommend you get automated and process around it no matter how big you are, which is just this regular flow of really great content. The ideas come from in the company, come from the executive team, but we get the content creation outsourced because it's so expensive to do it internally. And if you do this well, that of course is the hard part. Doing it well is difficult. But if you do, then having this regular flow of great content come in, no matter how big your company is, just feed your whole marketing operation in a really wonderful way. So unless you're to the point where you can have a full time staff of writers doing that for you, and even then I would argue it's going to be really cost effective to supplement that with outside resources. So we'll often work with a larger company where that's the piece that we do, because we've gotten really good at it, and there's just, there's a ton of value for you getting that piece essentially automated. From the marketing director standpoint, you just have this great flow of content that shows up and gets distributed and you get data behind it. So I recommend making that happen no matter how big you are. Kathleen: So it's very interesting, because there's a lot of debate around this topic of should you insource or outsource content creation and you are definitely falling on the outsource side. It's interesting, I am building a team right now at my company and I've chosen to totally insource it. So I've hired a writer. For me- Bill: You know what you're doing. Kathleen: Well, let's just say for me it's also that we're in a very technically complex industry and I feel like I need somebody who can, it's a big learning curve and I want somebody who's full time in it, really learning it. Have you found success in addressing that through outsource content? Bill: Yeah, but you have to avoid the copywriter problem, which is the somebody who was working, really good writer, but was working on a car dealership last week and he's going to figure out your very niche enterprise SaaS solution this week. And so the way to do that, we do a lot of work in professional services, law firms. So if you're going to work in a law firm where the partner, the practice head for that area of law is very particular about that content. The only way you can do that is to go find a JD who's practiced in that area before. But the law firms never going to create it internally because they could be billing $600 an hour instead of writing the blog article you want them to create, but you can go find somebody who's been in that practice area, didn't enjoy the practice of law, understands the area really well. Get the ideas from the practice head in that 30 minute brainstorming session, give them five bullet points about the things that they need to cover. They can go do the research, and then all we have to do is get the voice right, which frankly is really difficult. We've ended up dividing that into two levels. The expertise to get the content and then an editor who's really good at capturing the voice. Kathleen: Yeah. I will say that when I've seen outsource content creation work, the only way I've seen it work is when you have a writer who's interviewing your subject matter expert. Anytime I see companies say, Oh, here's a topic, go run with it, I just see crappy, crappy results. because honestly whenever you're outsourcing and you're just giving somebody a topic, I feel like with that person is doing is they're Googling that topic. And so by definition you're not going to have anything new to add in your content, because it's coming from aggregations of other sources. Whereas if you interview a subject matter expert, you can get something original. But that does take a very strong writer and a very strong editor to really be able to do that well and in a way that is unique. Bill: Absolutely. And if you just wanted a content farm, I mean 90% of the efforts should be on creating great content. And so by definition, you're not going to get there if you're cutting the corners there. If we don't have great content, all the tactics that we talk about aren't going to matter one bit. We have to start with really capturing the unique expertise that you have and finding interesting ways to communicate that. Kathleen: So if somebody is listening and they're thinking, I want to improve my marketing results, I'm a B2B company, what are some really concrete things you think that they could do right now to get started? Getting started with word of mouth marketing Bill: Well, what everybody always wants is more leads, and the easiest solution is to go spend money on ads to generate those leads. And yet one of the reasons it's so difficult for that smaller company to ever get an ROI on that is that without the marketing foundation in place, that's never going to pay off. So don't take the easy route. You got to focus on those core pieces first and build that funnel and actually be capturing and following up on all your prospects. And then the easiest way to expand your audience is to focus on LinkedIn. If you take the same approach and you're very helpful and you're sharing expertise, then you can run a LinkedIn connection campaign where you're adding 1,120 new connections a month, every single month, growing this audience of exactly the right prospects that you're now sharing really valuable insight with and that will do a wonderful thing for you. It will create sales opportunities you didn't have before. It'll be the right sales opportunities with people who are much further down the process and are really ready to have a serious conversation with you. So what we see in the data is with a well optimized profile, we'll get between a 35 and 45%, sometimes in the low 50% acceptance rate on on the connection requests, sending 40 to 50 connection requests a day, and six to 8% of those people will start a conversation either from the connection request or we will often send a followup message with whatever our best performing inside driven piece of content is. None of this can be salesy at all, we all get those kinds of connection requests. Kathleen: I was going to say, are you doing an InMail? What are you doing there? Bill: It's not InMail. It's really building the network of people you should be connected to, because you have expertise that's directly relevant to them. And it's sharing that, it's not selling them. I mean, I see that all the time of we get something back from a client who just wants to dive right into the sales pitch. And that would be the same thing as walking into a cocktail party, meeting somebody for the first time, and then starting to give them a sales pitch. Until they ask for it, that doesn't work. You've got to build the relationship first. But if you take that approach, this is the easiest, most concrete thing you can do in B2B to get more sales opportunities. But ironically, the way you do that is stop selling. What kinds of results can you expect? Kathleen: So what kinds of results have your clients gotten from doing this? Bill: So that those are kind of aggregate numbers across the hundreds of of connection campaigns that we're running in just sort of any kind of high value B2B, a lot of professional services, a lot of high end products. And so the thing that we really look at is how many new opportunities are we creating and so, oh, a really good campaign, so my connection campaign, I'm running at about a 54% acceptance rate on connections, which is great. One of the things you often have to do is optimize your profile specifically for that audience that you're going to go after. If you're going after multiple niches, do one at a time, because you'll get a much higher connection. And then we're getting our primary source of new clients is off of the connection campaigns that we run for myself and our chief revenue officer. So this works much better for the executive team in your company, particularly for smaller companies. It's really not about your company profile at all. That's just not where we're going to get the activity. And even in a larger company, the more you can get the executive team and people higher up in the company to participate, the better the results that you're going to get. People want to connect with other people on LinkedIn and it just, it works so much better. And so that six to eight percent of new conversations, when you think about that coming from a thousand new connections a month, this is really the new form and you can run this yourself. You can take an hour a day and do a golden hour of prospecting around LinkedIn connections and you will get much more value out of that than making cold calls for that same time period. But if you're a salesperson who's responsible for doing that for your company, you will get better results if you can get the VP of sales or CEO to do that and let you run it for them. Kathleen: So you have about a 54% connection acceptance rate. And you mentioned that those turned into clients. What is your conversion rate from the people who accept your connection to your leads and then to your customers and how are you measuring that? How are you, how are you tracking? Bill: So there's a plus and minus to LinkedIn, which is the data's really easy to follow, but for personal profiles, the only way you can get it is logging in and looking at it, and it disappears after three months, which is kind of annoying, but it's really easy to see what's working to create engagement. And the LinkedIn algorithm is really simple. Likes and comments are essentially equal value and then you can just chart it and see how many likes and comments you get versus the percentage of your network that gets exposed to that feed. It's just a direct relationship. So I call it going everyday viral. Like our goal isn't to come up with the one piece of content that just explodes. It's to have regular content that does well over and over again in this really specific audience is exactly the people that you want to talk to. And that gives you two bites at the apple. When you make the initial connection request and sometimes you just happen to be reaching out to somebody right when they need your expertise and so you get lucky. But now, because they belong to your network, if you follow that up with a regular flow of insightful content, then you get to talk to them forever so you get a second forever bite at the apple, and both of those are really effective. You get sales opportunities that come right out of the gate and then it just comes with that regular followup. As long as you're good at getting exposure to this audience that you've created. And so many people do work on LinkedIn where they only focus on the first part, building the network, and they don't really focus on the regular updates to that network that really leveraged having created it. And if you do both, you'll get a much better pay off from that effort. Kathleen: How quickly should somebody expect to see results from something like this? Bill: You're going to get early positive indications. So you'll get some wins that show you you're in the right direction. We typically see it within the first 30 to 60 days. But the real payoff comes when you've been doing this for six months, 12 months, 18 months. We really put a focus internally ourselves on LinkedIn starting two years ago and we're seeing a much more significant pay off today than we did in the first six months. Because you really get a reputation for providing valuable information. then one of the great things you can do, somewhere about 5,000 connections, you should switch your LinkedIn button from being connect to follow, because you'll get enough organic traffic now that people will just start following you because of the content that you're sharing. And they won't even show up as asking for connection requests. They're just following you, you're not following them. And that's really when you sort of hit the point of getting a real payback on what you're doing. Kathleen: And you do that in your LinkedIn settings? Bill: I do. Yeah. And you need a big enough following where it makes sense that people would come and start just following you because because of what you're doing and you need to be doing those content updates very regularly. But I get about, right now, about 40% of the additions to my network come from people just following me as opposed to the connection requests that we're sending out. Kathleen: Got it. Very cool. Well that's an interesting tip I haven't heard somebody mention before, so there's a new one for you. Switch your button from connect to follow. Kathleen's two questions Kathleen: Before we get too close to out of time, quick questions for you that I always ask all my guests. The first one is, we've talked a lot about inbound marketing here and content marketing. I'm curious, who do you think, company or individual, is there somebody that you think is doing particularly well right now? Bill: What I want to do is, is turn that into a suggestion for, because there's somebody in your market that is doing that really well. And what I always find very valuable, anytime I'm starting to work with in a new area, is I want to go find whoever is the, I'm not looking for the biggest player, I'm looking for sort of the mid size company that is big enough to have weight behind what they're doing, they're really good at it and they're showing innovation. So I want to flip that around just a little bit and say there's somebody doing, I mean, I've always been able to find one in every single market we've gone into. So even in legal, this enormously conservative market, there's always, we start working with an intellectual property law firm. We found a firm that is doing an excellent job of content marketing in that area and I find it so much faster to learn from somebody who's already doing a really good job of that then to figure it all out ourselves. And somebody is doing that in your market, so spend the time to go do that. And every single market we work in, we have found somebody who's really great at it, who's already doing it, that we've learned a ton from. Kathleen: Anyone in particular who stands out, anyone who somebody wants to go online and see someone who's really best in class that they should look at? Bill: So the IP example, Fish and Richardson does a really good example of, that's one of these really niche-y examples. That's a deep technical area that's tough to do well. And so seeing somebody do it well, it's really the best answer to the question you asked before, which is how do you pull that off? Kathleen: Okay, great. And digital marketing obviously changes so quickly. How do you personally stay up to date on everything that's going on in that world? Bill: So I've become a huge fan of podcasts, now. I'm finally following in your footsteps and doing a podcast. So I've learned from your podcasts, there's about 20 different marketing related podcasts that I listened to. I really like, particularly in the sort of email marketing and LinkedIn side, I like Growth Hackers, because there's always somebody who's already run a test that's doing the thing that you're thinking about doing. So I'm just a big, so unlike when I was 18 and I thought I knew it all and it took me a really long time to figure anything out, I think it makes so much more sense to take advantage of this unique attribute we have of being able to find somebody who already is doing what we're doing, put ourselves in their place and learn from them. Like our ability to get where we want to go so much faster, because of that is amazing. So let's learn from everybody who's already done it before and Growth Hackers is just full of people who are doing exactly that. And I love, a lot of it's very data-driven, which obviously I'm big on, and just great way to learn. How to connect with Bill Kathleen: Bill, if somebody wants to reach out and learn from you or has a question and wants to get in touch, what's the best way for them to do that? Bill: So I'm a CEO of boomtime.com. I love talking about marketing. Happy to have you reach out if you want to. If you want to see the thing that I'm talking about, I'm easy to find on LinkedIn. Go look up my profile. You'll see exactly what we are talking about and of course we're at boomtime.com. You know what to do next... Kathleen: Great. All right, well if you are listening and you learn something new or liked what you heard, please stop what you're doing, take a minute, and go to Apple podcasts and leave a five star review for the podcast. It makes a huge difference. That's how people find us and I would greatly appreciate it. And if you know somebody else who's doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me @workmommywork, because I would love to make them my next interview. Thank you so much, Bill. Bill: It's been a lot of fun. Thanks. Kathleen: Thanks.

Improving Donor Relations: Getting The Right Message To The Right People With The Right RhythmInterview with Wordsprint CEO Bill Gilmer Read the Interview Hugh Ballou: Hey, folks, it's Hugh Ballou. Another chapter of The Nonprofit Exchange. Russell David Dennis, last week you and I were in Florida. It's a good thing we're not there this week. Russell Dennis: Yes, it's a bit windy down there now. I'm hoping everyone is okay. It's looking like the storm is turning off and it's not going as far inland as they initially thought. Hopefully all of our friends and the wonderful people down at Kaiser who made us feel so welcome are okay. Hugh: It's called a hurricane, but it's really a slowcane. It's going slowly through there. Welcome folks to this episode. We have a special guest today, Bill Gilmer. He has been on the ride with us ever since we started the magazine. I think over five years ago. Bill Gilmer, welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. Bill Gilmer: Thanks. Glad to be here. Unlike Russell, I am in chillier Blacksburg, Virginia. No hurricane on my horizon, I don't think. Hugh: Yeah, we just are down the road in Lynchburg. Bill, we ask our guests to say a little bit about themselves. Some background. Why is it you're doing this important work you're doing today? Bill: My background, I used to be a printer. I used to run a printing company. Over the years, we discovered that most of the work we were doing was for nonprofits. Over the years, we started tracking response rates on donor relation campaigns. We have put together a system of marketing to donors, and that's what we do every day. Help folks build relationships with their donor base. Hugh: You've been working with SynerVision five or six years ago. Let's declare up front that Wordsprint, Bill's company, is a sponsor of Nonprofit Performance Magazine and SynerVision's work in general. We talk about you often on these podcasts. It's a pleasure to have you here live and in person. This is not an infomercial for Wordsprint, but we know the value of your work. We talk about the 30/30/30. That's the secret for success. Just to be clear, people can do this on their own. They don't need you. But if they want to do it the very best way possible, you know how to do that. I want to be clear on that. Explain what this 30/30/30/10 is all about. Bill: What we discovered, and this is lots of data, we started tracking this back in the early 2000s. I think we're up to 20 million touches, 15,000 campaigns. What we discovered is that there are three things that matter. It's our three-bit marketing system. There are three things that matter when it comes to donor relations. The first is having the right message. The second is getting that right message to the right people. The third is getting the right message to the right people with the right rhythm. We help clients focus their message, stay consistent with their message, stay on message. We help them with the right people by helping with database cleansing, database acquisition, all kinds of demographics and predictive analytics. But most importantly, we have developed a system for staying consistent and rhythmic with your donor touches. We've observed through all our data that is where many nonprofits fail. It's the rhythm and consistency. The right message to the right people with the right rhythm. That's the 30/30/30. Hugh: What do you say to people who say, “I've tried mailing. It didn't work. We tried sending out a mailing at the end of the year, and we got a little bit of money, but it doesn't work, Bill.” Bill: I tell them that I tried dieting once last year, and it didn't work either. Hugh: I tried working out once, and it didn't work either. Bill: I tried to exercise once, and it didn't work. It really is like diet or exercise or physical therapy. These are things that work if you implement them rhythmically. It's not a quick fix. Rhythm doesn't become rhythm right away. It needs a few cycles. In fact, on average, for most of our clients, it's really in the third year of repeated rhythmic touches that the donations start to snowball, that it really begins to build. This is not a showhorse thing. This is drip marketing, if you will. But it works. Hugh: It works. I've seen it work. Dig a little deeper into the right person and the right message. I want to know more about how I can do this. Bill: The right message, the first pillar, is your brand. It's who you are. It's why you go to work every day. It's your mission. It's your elevator speech. What we found that nonprofits who stay on message, who stay true to themselves about who they are, are the ones more successful over time as opposed to those who try to be all things to all people or try to repackage it or try to rebrand every year. I'm not saying you can't rebrand, but you need to do so carefully. The right message is mainly a matter of consistency and articulating it clearly. Having the right taglines, having the right logo, having the right paragraphs. The right people gets more complicated. It is all about relationships. We find that the nonprofits who succeed are those who create a database culture, where they take those relationships and get them into the database that everyone in the organization is empowered to update. Your best donors are the people you know. People donate to people. People donate to you because they trust you to fulfill your mission. It's the people you know, the people you run into, the people who come to your open house. These are the best potential donors. The organizations who know how to capture that and bring them into their database so they get rhythmic touches and notifications are the ones who succeed. You can also acquire data. We do a lot of this. Using some fancy predictive analytics, we can acquire names of people who are more likely to donate to your cause than others. That is almost a whole topic in itself. Hugh: Talk a little bit about that. We constantly run across people who say, “I don't know anybody.” If we do have people who are in nonprofits that maybe they get donations, but they don't have a donor management program per se, or they work with a number of early stage. Talk a bit about how you acquire names legally. Is there a magic database program that I can use to connect them with? Bill: It's all legal. There are about six or seven big players in this game called compilers. These are companies who do nothing but purchase, massage, and resell databases. You've heard of some of them. Dunne & Bradstreet does this mostly with businesses. Experian. Equifax, the one that had the big data breach. InfoUSA. There are others. There are literally thousands of brokers and people who take the information from these larger players and resell it to folks like us and you. Demographics are available. We as a society click a lot. We are on our computers and are clicking. We go to Amazon. We read the paragraph. We look at another book. We order this. We fill out a warranty card. We subscribe to a magazine. We join a club. All of those are data transactions that are public and can be sold and resold. The hard demographics have always been there, things like the value of your home, the car you drive. That's public information. But these compilers gather so many data points on all of us as consumers that they are able with artificial intelligence help to see patterns and build logorhythms. They know if you've done this and this and this, then you are more likely to support a nonprofit that focuses on children and especially disabled children. That is how detailed it can get. Or you are more likely to support a local nonprofit that works in the music arts, like an orchestra or a symphony. We call this predictive analytics. This is data that indicates the likelihood of someone supporting your cause. This has gotten way better than it even was six months ago. What we usually do—and Hugh, you have had some recent experience with this with one of your organizations—when we do a database acquisition like this, we then compare it to the organization's existing donor database. If the predictive analytics have been accurate, there will be considerable overlap. Your organization had 3,000 names. We bought another 700-800. Three years ago, you'd expect 10-12 of those to be an overlap. We had a 250-name overlap in that case. Those analytics were extremely accurate. These are folks not just demographically speaking but in terms of propensity are more likely to support your cause. You still have to touch them and touch them rhythmically. That is where the rhythm thing comes in. That is where you need to establish a system of cadent touches over the course of several cycles. At the end of the second or the beginning of the third year, that is where you will start to see donations come in, and it will start to snowball over time. Hugh: When you are talking about clicking, we're talking about mail in the U.S. We are not talking about email with our computer. Bill: I don't think I caught the last part of your question. In terms of what we advise for donor relations, it's a combination of mailing and emailing. Russell: It's so systematic to your approach to keeping and maintaining donors. Especially small nonprofits will be overwhelmed when they start thinking about all this data, and maybe a little confused as to what a touchpoint is. Lots of folks like me get lots of mail and email from a lot of the same folks. Maybe they think, “Oh, I don't want to be this person who is bombarding something with emails a day.” When you talk in terms of touches, there are certain things you are accomplishing with each touch. Let's take a generic year or quarter and talk about what touchpoints there are and the methods behind them. Bill: Let me give you a common example of a mid-sized local nonprofit. Let's say they have 10-12 staff. On average, our clients would have several touches. They would probably have one event every year. In the spring, they will do a luncheon where they talk about their cause and ask people for money while they are there. They might have a monthly blog. The first Monday of every month, they put something out on social media. They might have a fall appeal mailing. Here is where they write a letter. “Dear Dr. Smith, Here is what we do. Please give us money.” If they are smart, they will have that appeal mailing coupled with an auto trigger email, where the day after Dr. Smith gets the letter, he gets an automatic email that says, “Hey Dr. Smith, did you get our letter yesterday? I bet you trashed it, didn't ya? You can still click here to support our cause.” Once in the winter and once in the summer, they will do an e-newsletter. They are sending out information two or three times a year. Information only. They are asking for money in a hard ask twice a year. In the example I gave, once with a mailer/email and once with an event. Something like that. We have some clients who do mailers and ask for money every month. We have others who do it once a year with a hard mailing. What we don't have is much success with straight email solicitation. People do like the convenience of donating online, but they don't trust it unless it has something based in the physical world, whether that's a letter they got and threw away, then they get the mail. They will trust it a lot more because they have the mail piece. They go to an open house, and they then trust the email because they associate it with the real-life physical experience they had. That would be typical. A hard ask twice a year, information only two or three times, and maybe something monthly on social media. What we find does not work is the single big blast. So many people want to put all their eggs into one basket. We will have this big shindig and send out 200,000 invitations. It doesn't do that well. It is better to touch 200 people rhythmically than 200,000 in a blast. Is that helpful? Russell: The key is to spread these over with ask, non-ask. Give them information about the programs they were talking about in the newsletter. How the dollars are impacting, how many people were served, what the shift is. Bill: Impact is huge. Russell: If we're talking about contacting 200 people at a time, this probably means for a medium-sized nonprofit they are sending stuff out weekly to different donors.   Bill: Most of our clients, an average database for our clients is in the range of 2,000-10,000 donors. We often do mailings of 3,000. Sometimes we do 100,000. On average, let's say 5,000. Most of our clients would do one or two mailings a year. A fall appeal and a spring appeal. In lieu of the spring appeal, sometimes they would do a spring event. The other touches, the social media and the e-newsletter when they are not asking are information only. That would be a balanced mix. Let me get to another key point. This is the magic right here. Rhythm is important. Understanding the rhythm that your clients respond to. Most of you know this. Most nonprofit organizations have a pretty good understanding of how often their donors and potential donors want to be asked. Once a year, twice a year, once a month sometimes. The organization usually knows what the rhythm should be. Rhythm is so important that you sustain it over the years that our biggest piece of advice is adjust the scale to match your budget so that you can sustain the rhythm. We actually help clients with spreadsheets so it says we want to mail to 20,000 people twice a year. The postage alone exceeds your budget. You can't do that. “Let's try it one time.” Don't do it. Adjust that scale. If you can't afford the postage of 20,000 appeal letters, can you do 10,000? No. 5,000? You play with that spreadsheet and settle on we can sustain 2,500 twice a year. That's the amount you go with. You have this pool of 10,000. How do you target down to the 2,500? That's how you do predictive analytics. Mail to the 2,500 who are most likely to donate to your cause. It's a budget thing. You adjust your scale to match your budget so you can sustain that rhythm because if you sustain the rhythm through several cycles, it works. This is based on data of what actually works, not what makes you feel or look good, but did the donations come rolling in. Russell: What is the best path to help a new organization or client when they come to you? They may have some stuff they kept on Excel, but they don't necessarily have a donor database or CRM. They looked at these things and thought they were hard to use. They know they need to get better information. Talk about that process where you help them look at the most important factors and how to organize that data and how you guide them to build that so they get effective data from what they are collecting. Bill: There are lots of databases out there as you know. We deal with lots of them. People are constantly asking us which one is the best. All I can honestly say is the best one is the one that someone in your organization is willing to dive into. The right operator, any of these databases can sing. They really can. Some of our biggest clients use Salesforce for their nonprofit data. There is a whole spectrum. It's not so much which CRM system you use. It's do you have someone and a back-up or two who know how to use it? If you have no money and can't do anything, use Excel. It's not so much what you use as how you use it. We can assist. We understand a lot of the databases. We love working with Excel in terms of immediate back-and-forth with our clients. They will export their database to a CSV or Excel file, and we will update the addresses and run through a deceased person's filter. Make sure that list is scrubbed and clean. But we do all that from Excel. Russell: It's a robust program. Microsoft itself. What trips people up more than anything else is understanding what are the most important pieces for me to collect, and then once I collect all of these, what is the best way to categorize or shift my people around or look at now I have it, how do I use it? Bill: This leads into something new we have been doing within the last couple of years. Let's say you inherit a nonprofit. You come in as the new executive director. There has been some staff turnover, and you have three or four huge Excel files with all your donors. You don't really know your donors. You have some record of who gave when, but you don't know why the other people are in there. Are they good prospects? We can actually take that database, those Excel files, do all the usual stuff, combine, de-dupe, update the addresses, make sure they aren't deceased. Then we do something called data append. We send that file—let's say you have 3,000 names but you only know who 50 are—confidentially to some of these national compilers. They can run it versus their data banks and come back with demographic data filled in where you get age, education level, the value of the home, household income, gender, political persuasion, all sorts of things you can add back to that list. That can be a target. You can say, “Listen, these 300 people don't match the profile of our donors. I don't see why we're mailing to them. They haven't given to us in five years. Let's drop them. But these 400 look really good. They match the profile. They are active in the community. Let's keep them on our list.” We call it scoring data or modeling data. There are all kinds of things like that. Russell: There are so many nuances to relating to donors. They come from different backgrounds, education levels, parts of the country. They are in different age groups. When people look at this and say, “I have a lot of different people,” what is the best way for me to organize these groups? What are their touchpoints that are more effective for some groups than others? How do we go about looking at that? Bill: One thing I haven't talked about yet is what channel you use. Is this a demographic that will respond to a Facebook post or a physical newsletter or an e-newsletter? You can ask them. That's a good question. “Would you prefer to receive this?” Make some age and generation assumptions. Millennials actually like direct mail more than you think. Some older folks don't like it as much as you think. The one thing we do advise people to do is do what we call a scattergraph. That's where you sit around the table brainstorming and make a graph of your best donors in terms of age, income level, value of home, education level, geography. As you start graphing this, you will have people all over that graph. You will have young kids who donate to your cause. You have great-grandfathers. You have uneducated and educated. But there will be, the more you plot those dots on your graph, a cluster in the middle. That is your sweet spot. If you want to go after and acquire more donors, acquire more who match those demographics. Add those predictive analytics. It's good to have a profile of who is our sweet spot donor, and how many. Russell: Very helpful. When you start working with an organization, what type of organization are you most effective at helping? What are some of the things that the organization can do that will help you get them results a little faster? Bill: That's a great question, Russell. We find that most nonprofits are pretty good at the first 30%, the message. Nonprofits know most well why they do what they do. It's their passion. It's why they go to work. They usually have that part nailed down. They have that elevator speech. You can't shut them up. They got the message. We find that we can help a lot with the rhythm. We can build these Excel sheets. We can send reminder notifications. “Make sure your blog is written. It's due tomorrow.” “Your e-newsletter should launch next week.” We send reminders that keep them on track, like how a FitBit reminds you to hop up and walk around. These notifications keep you on track. The one that is hardest is the data. It's relationships. We don't know the people in their database, but they do. They know more of them than not. Say the thing in the organization could do is the best results is to go through their database with as many constituents involved as possible: your volunteers, your staff, your key donors. Break it up into small bits, and do a little bit at a time. Try to understand who your donors are. That would probably be the best. Leverage your board. Every board member should have a gun to their head that says, “Who do you know who might donate to your cause? Give us their names.” Leverage conversations. Your whole staff should be encouraged. You have a new administrative assistant who is helping you with this. She bumps into someone at the grocery store who says, “Hey Sally, I haven't seen you in a long time. What are you doing?” “I'm working at Habitat for Humanity now. We are doing this and this.” That person says, “Wow, that sounds interesting. Tell me more.” Sally needs to know to come back and get that information in the database. That person she just bumped into in the grocery store is a better prospect than any of these purchased names we are talking about. Everyone in the organization from the board to the staff to the volunteers should realize it is their personal relationships that lead to the best database. Russell: It's a warm referral that is good. One of the things that I've seen information on and talked to people about in having people on your team, you want to have good tools for them to use to go out and talk about your organization. If you can take a few minutes, talk about some of the tools, printed tools, the toolkits that you make the board members and volunteers and people with information on the organization, how they organize that, and the tools they have to talk about the organization in the best way. Bill: Funny you should ask. We just worked up some handout cards as old-fashioned as that sounds, a little bigger than a business card. The organization calls them the “Get Involved” cards. On one size is the logo and a truncated, poignant abbreviation of the mission. The back features three ways to get involved. You can go to this website and do this. You can become a volunteer and do this. You can call this number and do this. They give these cards to everyone on staff, their volunteers, and encourage them when you are in the grocery store and your old roommate comes up to talk to you, you give them one of the cards. Something as simple as that. Russell: It's important to have those pieces. Is there a way you have people who have these tools, a simple system for them to keep track of how many people are coming? How do you help them document the effectiveness of these tools? Bill: We haven't done a lot of that. The organizations themselves usually keep a database of how many cards did you hand out, and did you talk about it? Ideally you are getting some address/city/state/zip/phone number/email into your database from that encounter. That's the ideal. When you bump into the old roommate in the grocery store, you ask for a business card or a text so I can keep in touch with you. “I'd like to send some information about XYZ charity.” The ones I know do this on a regular basis have weekly staff meetings and go over contacts. It's the most important thing. You're an ambassador for your charity. It's those contacts. People give to people. I know you think they give to your organization because you do all this good. They give because they know and trust you to carry out that mission. It's all about trust. Hugh: Underlying that is relationship building. I can't tell you how many nonprofits out there get a check and wait until next year to ask for another check. I don't know what the average is, but 70% of most nonprofits get the bulk of their money from donors. There is a large percentage. Bill: Yeah, we really do need to take care of our donors better. We recommend the pyramid where you take your database and have your top donors at the top. At some point, you draw that line where everyone above this level of giving gets the personal visit from the executive director or the personal phone call or the three phone calls a year, whatever that appropriate nurturing touch is. The ones at the bottom get a thank-you card. The top people, your key donors, need to be acknowledged, need to be thanked. They need the recognition. You can't do that with all 3,000 names, but you can do it with the top 50. We recommend that pyramid approach. Hugh: It's the old Pareto principle, the 80/20 rule. 80% of your money comes from 20% of your people. The leader is challenged to be able to spend enough time with too many people. My rule of thumb is what you said. You want to spend individual time with your 20%, but you want to stay in touch with the other 80%. Your program is a good way to do that. Bill: We slice and dice it even further. I'll give you an example. They won't mind me talking about them. It's a local arts nonprofit that does theater and plays. They have a huge donor database. The ones at the very top get the personal visit, the handwritten note, the crème de la crème. The next hunk of several thousand records gets variable data printed communication. Variable data has a salutation, “Dear Sam and Jackie.” This communication flips out pictures of the last show they went to. It's highly personalized because they have scrubbed the data that far down that they trust it and know it's accurate. Variable data personalization works as long as it's accurate. The bottom part of the pyramid gets the “Dear friend of XYZ Theater.” The bottom part of it is not personalized because they simply don't have the resources to scrub their data all the way down and make their salutations are correct and other variable data is accurate. Russell: This is important as far as it's managing your budget. You're getting the most bang for the buck and where a lot of people don't think they have money to spend, they may find that after going through and working with someone like you, they may be able to find where they can actually spend the same dollars and get more bang for the buck. When you're working with an organization, sometimes they have board members or volunteers or different people participating in the process. How important is training for all of these key people? What are some of the most important things for you to cover when you're training them? Bill: Let me do a tangent because something you said reminded me of something. This is back in the early 2000s, 2006/2007, right in there. We had not developed our full-blown three-bit marketing system. We were beginning to gather the data and understand that the rhythmic touching is what's important. I ended up being the chair of a small nonprofit. It was a private school trying to get off the ground in the middle of nowhere, southwest Virginia. We didn't have the money to hire my company. We were struggling. We had about 300 names of donors and potential donors. We had 10 board members. 300 names, 10 board members. What a coincidence. Here's what we did. We wrote the letter. We took it to the board meeting and said, “Okay, Sam, you're on the board. You're responsible for these 30 potential people. You make copies of the letter, sneak them into church, and pay the postage. That's why you're on the board.” We assigned each board member 30 records from that database. As an organization, we didn't spend any money. We leveraged our board. They each had to make a few copies and come up with 30 first-class stamps. We did that rhythmically. We did that appeal mail three times a year. By the third year, what do you know? We could afford to have someone else do all this. That was definitely training board members to get in the trenches. Hugh talks about this all the time. The importance of an energized and dedicated board is, I can't say enough about it. That is so critical to have in a thriving nonprofit. Russell: That it is. It's all about the people who you have, who support you, who are in your organization. Your team is your secret sauce. That's where you grow and prosper and create more impact in the lives of others. Knowing how to reach out to them and what really resonates with them is very important. Having that system and having the tools to get them there. The one thing we haven't really touched on is with donors, you have three phases. You're acquiring them. Then at some point, as they're sticking with you, you want them to grow, and you want them to stay. There are three pieces to that. If you would, talk a bit about some of the best ways to move them through that process. How do you acquire them? What are some key tips for that? What are some things that will help you grow them? What are some of the most important things to keep them sticking with you? Bill: The acquisition part we talked about a bit. The best way is those personal relationships, those personal contacts. The second best way would be doing some data acquisition. You can do it yourself; you don't have to go through a company like mine. Google “how to acquire donors,” and plenty of places will crop up that will sell you names. That is the acquisition part. The rhythm means a lot here. The rhythmic touch is how you keep them and how you make them poised to grow. Usually, it's in the second or third year that you get the first donation from a brand new contact. To do that, you need to do those rhythmic touches. This is not an overnight success thing. This is in it for the long haul. It's rare, not unheard of, but rare for someone to move from a $50-per-cycle level to a $5,000-level without something happening. That something could be they come to an event, they hear a speaker, they get a visit from a board member, they get a visit from an executive director. To get that kind of nurturing increase takes something. It's rare that someone would jump from $40 to $500 or $5,000 through repeated passive asks. I think one of the best, it doesn't fit every nonprofit, is to have that annual luncheon where the board members are assigned to fill tables. When they invite people, they let them know, “We will do a presentation. We will ask to give you some money. You don't have to, but there will be an ask. We'd really love to have you.” You get people in the room and have dynamic speakers. You have some of the people you serve. It depends on what kind of nonprofit you have. You do things that give people a real glimpse into how you make the world a better place. that has been known to move people from the $50 level to the $500 level or $5,000 level. Russell: Well-executed non-ask events are critical, too. Just to let people know, “Hey, we're good stewards of your money.” There's some magic about walking them around where they can see where it is people are actually out there in the trenches doing good work. Speaking to some of the things you can acquire and move these services out of the community so they get a working understanding. That growth piece, getting them and growing them, is your lifetime value of a customer for lack of a better way to put it. That takes time. To grow them, you have to keep them. What are the two most important tools? Bill: There are some simple things you can do. You need to thank them for their gifts. The pyramid, the top ones should get a personal visit or phone call. At the bottom, maybe it's a handwritten thank-you note. More and more of our clients are doing the board pizza party, where they get their board together and some phones. Around dinnertime, they serve the board pizza, and they call the top donors. They do it around dinnertime so a lot of people don't answer the phone. But that's fine. You leave a message. The board member says, “Hey, Dr. Smith. I want to thank you and your wife for your $500 gift to our organization. We really appreciate it. It helps us do this, this, and this.” That donor will remember that. That donor will say, “Hey, a board member called me.” That's a nice little thing to do, and to touch the top donors that way. The ones at the really top, the big players, probably need the thank you from the chair of the board and the executive director. You can hit a lot of those mid donors with a call from a board member. Think about the donations you make. How often do you get a phone call of thanks? Not many. Maybe I'm not donating enough. Russell: It's always good. It's just common courtesy. If you're in a supermarket, someone holds the door. Saying thank you to people is a reflex. But somehow, it seems like from some of the statistics I've seen, it's one of the more common mistakes that people make. They don't take that time to say thank you. What are a couple other really common mistakes that people make that are just quick and easy to fix? Bill: Accurate data is really big. If you say “Dear Sam,” and the name isn't Sam, that's not good. You've got to be very careful with variable data and personalization. Personalization gone awry does more damage than it does good. One thing we've been doing more and more, the post office has gotten better with the deceased persons filter. You try to cut out saying, “Dear John and Sally” when John passed away a year ago. That's an easy mistake to fix. Run the data through the filter. Don't mail to dead people if at all possible. Data cleanliness is a common thing. Not thanking is the biggest thing. You mentioned something earlier. Every touch can't be an ask. It really should be more information only touches than there are ask touches. The top donors should get a report at the end of the year, maybe a few months after. Not a fancy annual report, but a sheet of, “Here's what your donation allowed us to do.” You can do these infographic looks. You can really show people what you've done. We have a client now that has this neat system. They do three newsletters a year. They have an elderly donor base. These are physical newsletters. Because newsletters are more expensive, they've gone to a news postcard. They send out these jumbo postcards three times a year. Short bullet point articles that show their impact. Every one of those short articles, it's just bullet points and headlines. People don't read anymore. There is a link to a website you can go to if you want more information. They do this three times a year. In the fourth quarter, they ask. They push out information on a 3:1 ratio with their ask. We recommend something like that. 2:1, 3:1, something like that, so people don't think, “Good grief. XYZ charity is always asking for money.” It has to be, “Here's the good things we're doing.” Your social media should be that. Your social media personally I don't think should ask for money. I think social media should be, “Look what we're doing. Celebrate with us.” Russell: It would certainly be a place to capture your benefactors, the clients online and talk about what's going on. Some of the sites that the work is being done on, it's almost like the news medium. When someone hears their name mentioned on social media, you get a thousand followers. Whoa, they're talking about me. This thing has 1,000 views and 10,000 followers. “Hey, maybe I need to send them another check. They need to get my good side next time.” Hugh: That's part of the story. Telling a story, you have relationships. There are people who want to be in the picture with a big check. I don't think we think about the amount of stories we need to be telling because we are doing a lot of good work. We don't really tell people. In fact, social media is social. We are supposed to engage. I see all too often, “Buy this. Do that.” And there is no attempt at a relationship. That is what I'm hearing you saying. In our program, we are building relationships. We are maintaining relationships. People give to people. That is the biggest sound bite. People give to people, not to organizations. Bill: I agree. It's all about relationships. It's all about telling your story. That's what relationships are. We as humans are people who have relationships with each other, and we tell stories to each other. It's the way you come home to your spouse and say, “Hey honey.” We love to tell stories. I think social media is great for this. You have these snippets and tell this vignette story of something your nonprofit did or something that you did. It's to build relationships. The best donor is the one that knows you. I keep coming back to this. You have a personal relationship with them. But you do it by stories. We recommend the hard ask appeal letter everyone does in the fall that it start off with just a three- to four-sentence story that is in a nutshell what you do. Then you make your ask. You take it to the next level. “There are so many kids like Johnny.” In the first paragraph, you tell Johnny's story. Stories mean a lot. Russell: You have really critical points in the year. A lot happens toward the end of the year around Giving Tuesday in the back end of the year. Are there some time periods during the course of the year that you believe nonprofits are leaving money on the table? Maybe there are times to reach out that might be more effective than people pay attention to. Bill: That's another great question. It's changing. It used to be I would always tell people to do their main appeal early to mid-November because we were told the stats said the most generous week of the year is the week leading up to Thanksgiving. Everybody is starting to feel festive, but they don't have worries about the credit card bills yet. We've also heard that summer is not a great time to ask because so many people are on vacation and will miss the appeal. I tell you though, people are so connected now. With tax law changes, the end of the year may not be as significant of a time as it has been. We are finding more and more of our clients are doing oddly timed appeals. It's just starting, so they haven't built a rhythm yet. We have clients who are doing a February appeal and a July appeal. Stay tuned. I'll have a better answer in three years when we get some data back on that. I really think that if you talk with your key constituents, talk to your board and staff and key donors, you'll know. You'll know when the appropriate time is to do your ask and your information only. Remember the point about you adjust the scale to fit the budget so you can sustain the rhythm. One thing I meant to mention is it's not just the financial budget. It's the budget of your time. Here is another common mistake. We see it probably most often with social media. You get all excited. You say, “I'm going to write a blog every week.” I'm going to post it out on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn. I don't know many executive directors who have the time to write a blog every week. If you do, more power to you. Our suggestion will be, Are you really? Let's be realistic about this. Adjust the scale to match the time budget. How much time do you have? Sustain the rhythm. We would counsel you down from once a week to the first Monday every month. If that's too much, if you can't stick with that, then once every month. Hugh: It's the regular rhythm that we heard about earlier, too. Speaking of time, we are almost at the top of the hour. Bill, you get the last word. If you have a thought or tip or challenge to give the audience. This has been a helpful interview. *Sponsor message from SynerVision Leadership Foundation* If you want to talk about how Bill's services look for you, go to Wordsprint.com. The regular mailing to your tribe makes a difference. Bill, Wordsprint.com is one of our main sponsors, so thank you for that. We talk about you often. You're leaving this interview. What is your challenge or parting thought for people? Bill: My parting thought would be it really is all about relationships. The piece of the puzzle that you or a director or a board member or your staff could do to help your organization the most is to work on those relationships and get that relationship into a database so they can get rhythmic touches. If anyone would like to chat with me about this, we do free consultations, no cost, no obligation, at Wordsprint.com. You can send me a message. I can talk in detail about your organization and things that would work for you. Our system of getting the right message to the right people does not mean you have to use us. You can use current partners. You can do it in-house yourself. It's the system that works. The right message to the right people with the right rhythm. Russell: Bill, thanks again for joining us. Thanks for all the support you give us here at SynerVision Leadership. You certainly make us look good. Folks, do yourself a favor, and have a talk with Bill and his team as to how you can grow donors, keep them, and build those relationships using the right tools by getting out there, sending the right message to the right people in the right rhythm. It needs to look good, but that is only 10%. And it will. Make sure you check out our magazine because it's a good-looking magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tips on how to use data to improve your marketing with Bill Bice The hard part is how to use data to improve your marketing. Using it so that you're constantly getting better can be difficult. That's the hardest problem that businesses have, is executing on that day-to-day in the trenches working to get their marketing done. That consistency is what makes it work. There's always somebody bigger in your space. They've spent millions of dollars figuring out what works in that area. The hard part is figuring out, okay, how do we make that work for a smaller company? I love how much you talk about email marketing because that's what actually produces results. These days, LinkedIn is such a perfect place to do that. It's like going back in time and just starting at Facebook 10 years ago. All the clients and prospects you've ever talked to, that's your audience. If you're not constantly staying in front of them, then you're losing. That asset is devaluing every day. If you don't have a sales funnel behind that, that's going to take that audience and convert it into an interest in what you're doing, then there's really no point in creating all that effort. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ HOW TO USE DATA TO IMPROVE YOUR MARKETING [just click to tweet] HOW TO USE DATA TO IMPROVE YOUR MARKETING The hard part is how to use data to improve your marketing. Using it so that you're constantly getting better can be difficult. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Doug: Welcome back, listeners, to another episode of Real Marketing Real Fast. Today, we're going to talk about all things marketing and how to improve your marketing. My guest in studio today is Bill Bice. He has been an entrepreneur. He started his first company at the age of 14, putting him on the road, races with corporate sponsors. At 18, he started ProLaw Software, which was the first integrated ERP software for law firms. After that, he sold his company to Thomson Reuters. Bill became a venture capitalist, as a founding partner in the Verge Fund. He's been investing in high tech, high growth companies in the southwest. Doug: One of the core things that Bill has learned in building and investing in companies is that the go-to-market is always the hardest part of growing any business. With that, he got so frustrated in trying to find great marketing companies for the companies that he was investing in and working in that he decided to tackle the problem himself. A programmer at heart, Bill founded Boomtime, which tackles marketing as a technology problem. It turns out that when you follow the data, real good things happen. That's why Boomtime built the world's first marketing as a service platform called Fuse. Boomtime's marketing strategists follow the data. They have always known what will work and always reinventing the wheel. Doug: I think you're going to enjoy the conversation today and you're going to want to listen really close because Bill is going to drop a number of value bombs and some information as we talk about how to build and market your business and get it to the marketplace and do what works over and over again. Listen when he mentions one of the terms called mailbox mining. Without further ado, I'd like to welcome Bill to the Real Marketing Real Fast podcast today. Well, hey, Bill, I'm super excited to have you on the Real Marketing podcast today. Welcome to the show. Bill: Thanks. It's great to be here with you. Doug: I really enjoyed looking at your background and how you've transitioned what you're doing and created a new company to solve a problem that you had. If you want to share a little bit of your background with our audience of how you got started and how you worked that process to come to where you are today. Bill: Yeah, absolutely. I'm a programmer at heart. I wrote the initial platform for my first company, which was an ERP system for law firms and corporate legal depart...

At MAU 2019 in Las Vegas, we set up our Tell All Zone for members of the martech community to give us their confessions. Hear about the biggest mistakes they've made as well as what they learned along the way. Bill Magnuson (CEO and founder of Braze) and Mike Molinet (COO and founder of Branch) give their insight on the need for mistakes and making them a foundation for growth and agility.       TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:18] PJ Bruno: Hi. Welcome to brace for impact. I'm your host, PJ Bruno. This week we brought our mics out to Las Vegas for MAU 2019 at MGM Grand, and we were able to gather some confessions for this weeks episode, when shift hits the fan. When you're running a marketing campaign, it's like having a global megaphone at your fingertips. The power of hitting launch, and communicating with hundreds of thousands of people at once can't be undervalued. However, that power can also be terrifying. One fall step can have far reaching impact on customer engagement and faith in your brand. But making a mistake is a hallmark of what it means to be human. So, the sooner we can embrace the idea that mistakes are a given, this sooner we can perceive them as what they actually are. Opportunities for growth. After all, true innovation isn't possible without taking a risk. The following are a series of confessions from various employees in the Martec community. We've given them a safe space to share some of their blunders and the learnings that came along with them. These are their stories.   [0:01:23] Speaker 1: So, I'm Dante Ledbetter. I'm the senior marketing manager at Fintech company. One experience that is really sort of embarrassing for me was, so I was running a campaign, and you know there's like first name personalization where you can sort of test it and see what it looks like with your name in it. And I accidentally put my fist name in an email and sent that email with my first name to about 3000 people. So, yeah that was pretty horrible.   [0:01:53] PJ Bruno: So, you called 3000 people Dante.   [0:01:55] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, essentially. And My coworker...I actually didn't know about it but my coworker got the email and she was like "hey, Dante" I'm like "what, what?" Luckily...   [0:02:09] Speaker 2: So, my name is Beth. I work in product marketing for a tech company that makes API's. I messed up last year when I sent out a press release before it was officially approved. I had sent it out for a time and a date that we had previously agreed on before there were changes that came down from the powers that be. And so, because I didn't change the time and the date, guess what happened? It went live. Not the end of the world, but I got a little hand slap. Always double check your times and your dates.   [0:02:42] PJ Bruno: Always, right?   [0:02:43] Speaker 2: Always, always always.   [0:02:46] Speaker 3: So, my name's Will Cracker. I run our customer experience team at Braes. To protect the innocent, PJ, I hope you understand I can't use names here, you know?   [0:02:56] PJ Bruno: It's an admirable thing that you're doing, I appreciate it.   [0:02:59] Speaker 3: It's important. A customer decided to send out...have you ever gotten a test notification from internally at store   [0:03:08] PJ Bruno: Sure, with the brackets "test" in big letters?   [0:03:11] Speaker 3: Now, imagine if you were the person in the company that accidentally sent that out to, I don't know, forty or fifty million people all at once. That's one horror story I've seen, where we've had tests go out and push notification to the entire user base of this major media brand. And of course internally we're all like "oh God, this isn't good. Like they're going to be really upset" but low and behold it was really funny because this brand actually came back to us and we were like "we're so sorry, we're so sorry this happened. What can we do?" And they're like "actually it's all good." We're like "what? Why was it all good?" And it turned out it was their best performing campaign of that half of the year because so many people engaged with it because they were like "what the hell's going on? This is weird "Test" from this company? Are you kidding me?" And so many people clicked on it and engaged with the app that it actually worked. The take away from that one is that, you know so many times, so many brands out there are just like so afraid of tweaking their customer experience a little bit, or tweaking their branding or tweaking the way they talk to their customers and that just shows that, especially in a one off basis, you can get away with a lot. You can get away with just really coming out of left field and trying something new and different and really standing out from the crowd matters. Should you use just the word "test" to do it? Probably not, but uh...   [0:04:28] Speaker 4: I'm Maddie. I am an associate communications director at a mobile shopping app. Okay, so it's hard to choose just one over the years, but one that definitely sticks out is a dormancy email campaign that we were sending to people who lapsed after 45 days I believe, and we had a server side bug come up where the campaign started triggering over and over again for our dormant users and the subject line of the email was "First name, did we do something wrong?" And we literally sounded like a psycho ex that was hitting people up over and over again. We sent it to some people I think over a hundred times in a row. So, it was just like "Maddie, did we do something wrong? Maddie, did we do something wrong?"   [0:05:21] PJ Bruno: Did anyone respond "Yes".   [0:05:23] Speaker 4: Yeah   [0:05:24] PJ Bruno: You had a lot of those?   [0:05:25] Speaker 4: Oh like social media, everybody was posting it and they were like "yeah, you are doing something wrong, like leave me alone. We didn't feel like it was appropriate to send more emails to them apologizing to them, but we apologized to the app itself and gave them a little extra bonus in there and said "our bad, we didn't mean to sound so crazy there." It doesn't hurt to put some additional safety guards on your campaigns, so frequency capping for example, you might not thing that it's going to trigger a lot of times within a small period of time, but it happened so, Coding in any liquid and putting on some filters just to allow for some buffering in those situations that you don't necessarily expect is something that we learned from that. So, adding that to more campaigns moving forward.   [0:06:09] Speaker 5: yeah, my name is Donald and I'm a CR Manager for a delivery service app based in Austin Texas called Favor and we had a bit of a fun snafoo in the last 6 months with a little Q/A targeting issue with a push campaign before where there was a campaign that was supposed to be going to people who had received another campaign and the filtering got flipped and it actually went to, was targeting people who did not receive. So, we're talking you know, a 50K audience turned into about a 600K audience. So luckily though the campaign was pretty generic and would have been open to any of our customers regardless, but we definitely lost out on some of the learnings from the campaign that it was supposed to be targeted to on the incrementality side, but it was a good learning on just with all the 10-20 campaigns we're trying to launch in a day, make sure you meticulously look at each on in the filtering for sure before you're hitting launch, so.   [0:07:08] PJ Bruno: Was the engagement decent on it?   [0:07:09] Speaker 6: I'm Adee. I'm an engineer turned sales engineer. So, the first time I was at an event my boss told me that we should probably get some customers to eat dinner with us and it was my first event, first time talking to customers, wasn't an engineer before and I was like coming up to people, talking about my company and asking if they wanted to go out to dinner, and I approached this girl and I said the whole shpeal of this is what we do, if you want to come for dinner and she was like thinking that I'm hitting on her and just ran away.   [0:07:43] PJ Bruno: Jesus. And so what was the big learning moment from that. What was the take away that you   [0:07:49] Speaker 6: not to ask people for dinner.   [0:07:54] PJ Bruno: Do it in email.   [0:07:57] Speaker 7: I'm Cody. I sell software at a fast growing company. I guess the time I had a blunderous mistake, one that really really sticks out to me is y young and early in my sales career, which was I guess just 4 years ago, I was working in consulting prior. Just got in, moved up to San Francisco, got a job, thought I was really ready for this. 2nd day on the job we were tasked with leaving voicemails, you know just giving the pitch. And they've pretty much curated this list of people that were surely not to answer the phone, you can leave, you can you know just run free on this and just, you just give a great pitch. And of course I go in a phone booth, get the call list, first guy I call, I'll never forget, I won't disclose the company but it was the CMO at a pretty important company for I don't know why the were on this list but, ring ring ring, hey this is Tyler, and I just completely froze and I actually thought I saw a ghost and I'm like "uh uh..." click and just hung up and I was so scared man. You told me this guys not gonna answer. And he answered sure enough and it was pretty PRST but my take away from that I think we talked about was 1)in life I just like to grab the bull by the horns I think honestly, I probably would have done a lot better of a job if I'd have tried rather than just hanging the phone up and next always prepare. Be prepared in this life and don't just, even if it's you know, in hind sight I think I could have done a little bit more instead of them telling me what to do, I think I could have don't a little bit of work on my own, and maybe just not hung up like an idiot.   [0:09:39] PJ Bruno: So, do the ramifications of a mistake vary depending on the product? Kevin Wong, VP of product at Braes offered me some of his insights.   [0:09:50] Kevin Wang: I think one of the really interesting things about product is that you tend to release things with a lot more early pre thought going in them, I think than say like any mail newsletter. Like, everyone knows if you're sending out a newsletter, you write this content pretty frequently. Or if you're sending out like a particular promotion, you're probably running a lot of promotions, and so it's bang bang bang and these things are going out fast. Whereas for product, you know we release fast, we build quickly, but there's a lot more pre thought that goes into it. And so what that means though is that when a mistake comes out, if there's an issue, in the court of public opinion, you're just not standing on the same ground that you would have been with that newsletter with the weird typo, where you know, hello--first name because you know that email is a femoral but that product, you got a while to look at this, like everyone kind of knows that in the court of public opinion that you are thinking about it going in. And so, and the other thing is that when the wrong communication goes out, that communication goes out there but, but then its' gone and it's sort of you're already in that mode of it being a little more femoral and it's already in your past once you see it. As opposed to a product where its like that's just sitting at you, you know all buggy not rendering right in front of you, and so I think back to some of the times earlier in my career, no names to protect the innocent, but you know those times when you launch something and everything looks good for a few hours then you get that phone call in the middle of the night and when that phone call comes in, you know you see who it's from and you just know that you're not good enough friends but they want to hang out. You know what's coming before you even pick it up. Before you even look at the text and what could be really fun about a deep product bug or like a deep engineering bug, especially a rare one is that like finding a weird leak in your house or like finding out that you know the sewage system in your house is having a problem where you know what the problem is, you can see the symptoms really obviously, but like what's actually going on, I don't know. Gonna need some gloves and a wrench and we're just gonna have to kind of figure this whole thing out an night, and so it's a different sort of exciting sort of problem and of course it comes with the business, but I think that the main thing that you learn is that each mistake that gets made, I mean something that they say often about senior engineers is that like all senior engineers have seen a lot of stuff and over time I think you just get that osmosis and that wisdom and you sort of become the old grisold lion on savanna that's just seen so much crazy crap happen that you can kind of see around corners.   [0:12:31] PJ Bruno: So, the more mistakes we see, the better equipped we actually are to trouble shoot problems in the future. My high school soccer coach always used to say "you learn a hell of a lot more from losing than you do from winning." I sat down with tech founders, Bill Magnuson of Braze and Mike Molinet of Branch to hear their thoughts on mitigating risk and the merits of error.   [0:12:53] Mike Molinet: As a founder you guys know that things go wrong all the time and that's pretty much what your job is, to fix all those things and catch them. Especially when you're moving really quickly. I'd say one of the most probable ones was in late 2014, early 2015 when we were still relatively new and still ramping up, we had a small team, and we were starting to scale and started to close some big customers, but our infrastructure couldn't really handle them so we were constantly going down, constantly apologizing and then going and putting things back up. I remember one day we were about maybe 10 employees and a large customer went live and it totally took down our entire infrastructure and we were just sitting there, you know 3 people, trying to figure out what the hell to do, how to get this thing back up. We had a guy, and engineer who's still with us, who was interviewing at the time and we had him break out his laptop and help us troubleshoot in the middle of the interview, trying to get the infrastructure back up. We ended up you know, getting through it and I think there's a number of learnings that came out of that. One is things are always gonna go wrong and as long as you move quickly to fix them, that's okay. 2nd, try, you're gonna move fast but try not to hurt your customers too much or take them down with you. But I think the 3rd that really came out of it afterwards was, people are okay and accepting of issues or bugs, or challenges as long as you take ownership over them. As long as you work quickly to fix them and resolve them and are honest and transparent about it and I think that was one of the biggest things that we did, which was we took full ownership over it, we were honest and transparent about it and we apologized and we told them exactly what we were going to do to prevent it in the future and people actually value that a lot, vs. if you try to hide or you try to blame someone else your or don't tell them.   [0:14:37] PJ Bruno: Right. Try to cover it up with something.   [0:14:38] Mike Molinet: Yeah yeah, people do not appreciate that, so it helped definitely rebuild the trust and I think we came out stronger in the end because of it.   [0:14:47] PJ Bruno: Bill what do you think, does that spark any thoughts on the early days?   [0:14:49] Bill Magnuson: Yeah, definitely, you know ours was really a story of starting to the learn the responsibility that you have when you have a really big system operating on the internet. We have a future called connected content and what it allows you to do is, when you're sending out a message at send time, we can reach out to another web service or 3rd party or a partner or something in our customers eco system and pull back content in real time to template into the message. SO we had a customer early on that wanted to use a translation service and they had you know, a pretty complex email that they were building out. They wanted to be able to translate different parts of it based on the you know, hundreds of different combinations of languages and locals. And when our system gets up and running, it sends messages very fast. It's what it was built to do and we actually in the process of sending this campaign, we hit the translation service so quickly that we took it down. And not only did we take down the API, but this poor company hadn't isolate their API's from their own website. SO we actually took their website off the internet. And you know this was a scenario where they also didn't, they thought they were under attack, and so it was like you said the transparency there and taking ownership over it. We reached out to them and told them what happened and we actually went back and modified the campaign but it was an interesting experience for us because we realized that the scale that we were operating at, we needed to be a good citizen on the internet, basically. We couldn't have our customers being able to point kind of the massive machine gun of our system at you know random services and potentially taking them down. And so we actually over time also then developed automatic backups. If we see a service start to slow down while we are using it, we will slow down. If we see a service start to respond with errors, we'll completely stop, take our foot off the gas. We'll alert people and you know its' not the only service we've taken down and we learn every time on how to mitigate that potential in the future, but it was definitely an interesting learning experience for us.   [0:16:50] PJ Bruno: Nice. Had to put up a lot of safe guards after that I bet, right?   [0:16:53] Bill: Absolutely   [0:16:53] PJ Bruno: That's a lot of power you're working with.   [0:16:55] Mike: That reminds me of a time not too long ago where we made an update to one of our link services and for a brief period we found that accidentally in some cases all the traffic when people were clicking on links was re directly to the branch website, which was great for our website traffic for you know, a good 30 minutes, but for our customers who were using   [0:17:14] Bill: Marketing [inaudible] through the roof   [0:17:16] Mike: Yeah exactly. For a specific type of link that redirecting was not so good. So, I think the lesson there learned was it wasn't an engineer that pushed the change, it was somebody else that modified the change and pushed it to get up and we rolled it out into production even though we had tested it, but we had to pull back really quickly. That was pretty fascinating.   [0:17:38] PJ Bruno: So when it comes to, I mean obviously you two, you guys have high expectations of your team and their performance. How do you balance that, like having those high expectations on a performance, but still creating that culture to where it's okay to make mistakes and realizing the merit of risk and stuff.   [0:17:54] Mike: Yeah, I think working in a fast paced start of up like ours you have to be okay taking risks, you have to take risks, you have to make mistakes and I'll tell you that no one makes more mistakes than me and my co founders, we make the most mistakes out of anyone. I think there's a couple things, those 2 things aren't necessarily mutually exclusive, they you can really create an environment where you can have strong results and have good high expectations but also have a place where people are okay taking risks. I think there's a couple things that we do. The first is we try to set very clear expectations. So yo can have strong results but strong results really come from what are the expectations and are you meeting them. And by setting very clear expectations and also holding accountability, you can push people to really perform at a very high level, but when people do screw up, in a way you have to celebrate learnings, you have to celebrate the mistakes, you have to celebrate what went wrong. You have to make sure people know it's okay, you have to tell them it's okay. If you do need to correct something, you should do it private. This is something we've gotten a lot better at, not in a public slack channel saying "why the hell did you do this" but rather privately having a discussion and saying "what lead you to this" and also I think asking them how you can help them and trying to trying to actually understand why they made that decision, and telling them in the future, this is how I might think about it and I think that's gone a long way. Because I thin we've read a lot of studies and there's lot of studies about this but basically around the highest performing teams and the most common trait between them and it's psychological safety and having a place where it's okay to make mistakes and people feel psychologically safe, allows them to take risks and to move really quickly and to feel okay about making mistakes because if they don't have that psychological safety, they're never going to and you'll find that you slow down a lot and you no longer are iterating or innovating as quickly as you used to.   [0:19:40] Bill: And I think for us from high level starting point, one of our values is conviction and what that is, or the way that that comes into being is that it's a charge to, our employees that if they find that hey are not able to operate with conviction, that they, you know, raise their hand, they go to their managers, if they need a new skillset if they need new resources, if they need more training if they need better access to data, you know all of these are ways that kind of people get that confidence to be able to operate within uncertainty and a fast growing start up environment, you've got a lot of dynamic conditions, you've got a lot of uncertainty and you know that ability to follow through and execute on something and be able to take action and get it to the finish line, despite all that uncertainty and despite those dynamic conditions, I think is one of the few properties that start ups really have as a strength against established incombants that have much more scale like many more resources and I think when things then go wrong, you know it's important that everyone is able to understand that they were operating in uncertainty, that you know, we don't have perfect information, we can't always predict the future and we need to create an environment where you know we can approach those things and say did the process, you know, lets set aside the outcome, and let's set aside judgements about the outcome. Let's look at the process and the approach, you know, did the person that took the risk, did they do it in a way that was balanced, did they have access to the resources that would have given them a good chance at being successful and really kind of analyzing it from that perspective as opposed to only looking at the outcomes, because I think that you want people to be confident that if they've got the right ingredients in place, if they you know have that certain level of you know conviction or confidence, that they should be able to take an action in an uncertain environment and if the outcome ends up negative, that what we judge is the process and the contributions in the approach.   [0:21:24] PJ Bruno: Any final words to tech founders out there that might be starting off from the road that you guys have come so far?   [0:21:32] Bill: I mean, one of the things that I think about a lot, you know we're around 350 employees, we're approaching that right now. And one of the things that changes quite a bit as you go from the early days you know when you're, you've got a runway that's, you're fast reaching the end of it, you know you don't necessarily know where your next meal is going to come from and you've gotta just survive, is that in the early days, fragility in terms of not having redundancies in place is being really lean, being really efficient is the only option because you're competing against a landscape of other people that are willing to be fragile. But then over time what you need to do is understand when you need to shift from that to becoming and enduring institution and one with durability. And so an interesting, just a simple example is that having multiple people responsible for one thing in and early start up that's only 10 people could be the difference in your cash burn between you making it to the next financing round or not, whereas when you're a few hundred people, only having 1 person doing something is potential risk of the business because you've got too much key person risk there and knowing when you can actually accept those types of risks and knowing when you need to build an environment that is durable to them and making sure that you're making that transition at the right times as your company grows, I think is vital to being able to scale an enduring institution.   [0:22:52] Mike: I think that's spot on. I would definitely agree with that and we're approaching 300 and we're going through that right now. Some other things, I think 1, especially for founders, I think 1 biased for action, just always take action. Don't sit there and analyze things too long. Some momentum even if it's in the wrong direction is actually than not even starting in the first place, and then the 2nd thing to be aware of is you know, we're talking about starting a company that you start as a couple founders and then you grow to a couple hundred employees and what I've found is, as a founder if you, in the beginning you want that, you want to be big. You want to raise money, you want to have a bunch of customers, but really as you go through it, you actually realize a lot of it sucks and I think the most important part is you need to have the psychological, or the mentality oft you need to constantly be reinventing yourself as a founder because as a founder of 4 people or a 4 person company, you're job is very different that when it's at 50 people, which is very different than when you cross 100, which is very different then as you approach 200 and 300 and beyond, and so you not only have to change your responsibilities and what you do, you need to reinvent yourself and your psychology and your mindset and actually figure out what you enjoy doing, right, because in the beginning, I never had to do HR meetings, I never had to do one on ones, I never had to like sit with people. I just like was at my keyboard all day and same thing with Alex, right. He was coding everything. And as the company has grown, he's no longer coding, I'm no longer at my desk anymore. I spend all day in one on ones and with customers. Alex spends all day managing his folks, and so it's a totally different job and I think as a founder you need to be mentally prepared for that, where if you actually are successful, your job is going to be very different 6 months, 12 months, 18 months and years down the road and so just be prepared for that and always reinvent yourself as the company grows.   [0:24:34] Bill: Yeah and I think that at a meta level, as a founder and as a just a leader in general in a dynamic environment, what you need to do is be able to embrace the change for the changes sake as well. You know I think one of the reasons that I love technology and working in technology is that you're constantly solving new problems with new tools. You know you're able to kind of build on the shoulders of giants, like take new innovations, multiply them with your own creativity and drive and really drive toward and impact. And a growing company is exactly the same thing. You are getting new capabilities, new teams, new people, new specializations, new skillsets and you're able to go and solve new problems and it's exciting to be a part of that change. But you need to appreciate that it is in fact constantly changing.   [0:25:17] PJ Bruno: New teams and new tools will always breed new problems.but we can't let that fear of the unknown hinder our momentum or stifle our innovation. We must enter the void headstrong, prepared to reinvent ourselves as new frontiers expand far beyond our view. In a highly competitive landscape with constant advances intact. Playing it safe has become a more dangerous play than taking a chance. Just be sure it's a calculated risk and a documented result. We'll see you next time. [0:25:48]

Bill D'Alessandro believes that one of the most fulfilling things in life is working on hard things with smart people. The allure of the 4-hour work-week mentality can easily take over when starting out as an ecommerce entrepreneur, but might not be the smartest tactic for all businesses. There is now a trend gearing businesses towards something more lasting. Bill was living the 4-hour work week dream until he decided to change it up and “grow up” in his business. Since having made the decision to hire, Bill has seen business grow as his company, Element Brands, grows. He's now able to step away less often but more easily because he runs his business with quality people, that he pays well, and who are motivated to help him grow. Bill is based in Charlotte, North Carolina and currently owns a portfolio of nearly 10 e-commerce sites primarily focused on household goods and personal care. Though Bill started the entrepreneur life as a digital nomad, he recently made the the switch to a corporate warehouse/office location in Charlotte and has 22 full time employees. Episode Highlights: The building of the Elements portfolio and how that process came about. Using in-house vs. a broker for brand acquisition. How Bill came to the choice of creating this more traditional business style. What Bill's typical day is like. An example of when an employee saved Bill money as a result of their loyalty to the company. How the structure allows Bill to disconnect thanks to the competent team he has in place. Tips on hiring, vetting, and finding the cream of the crop. Bill's own hiring process. Preferences for outsourcing people vs in-house training them. Noncompetes Bill has in place and how they work well for him. There are plenty of people out there interested in not being entrepreneurs but are interested in helping build great brands. Transcription: Mark: Okay one of the most popular business books that I can remember coming out in the past 15 years has been the 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. And I'm going to admit I was a little annoyed when this book came out because all of a sudden everybody tried to become Tim Ferriss juniors where they were having their 2-hours per week that they were setting aside to answer e-mails and take phone calls. And so if I needed to reach out to them they would explain to me … they would say well I only answer e-mails during this time or I only take phone calls during this time and of course if it didn't work with my schedule tough luck because they had their 4-hour workweek and they only had half of that dedicated to e-mails. And I think a lot of people went to that 4-hour workweek. During that time there was this allure of I can sit on the beach, I can take vacations and have this business that's completely automated. That still has some allure today but more and more I hear people talking about being grownups in their business. Changing the way that they're going about their business, hiring staffs instead of just doing pure outsourcing, building something that's a little bit more lasting than what we've seen with some of that 4-hour workweek sort of business structure. So, Joe, I know you talked to a friend of ours Bill D'Alessandro. He was living that dream of the 4-hour workweek for a long time and then so to speak and Bill I would not say that you are a kid by any means but he grew up in business. Joe: Yeah, he did and let me say right now folks that I'm having my house power washed so you're going to hear the people in the background. Mark: That's why I was talking so long I was hoping that it would stop but it did not stop. Joe: We're all entrepreneurs, right? Life of an entrepreneur, I'm working from home. These guys already took a lunch break and they're back and so you're going to hear them every now and then. Anyway lunch … I had lunch with Bill D'Alessandro. He lives in Charlotte … I live just north of Charlotte a couple of months ago and we were talking … Bill just got married and we were talking about the honeymoon and he said yeah no it was great because I hardly checked in. I was gone for two weeks and I hardly checked in at all. And then he goes back when I was a digital nomad I went to the same country, the same beach, but I felt like I had to work all the time because it was me and me only. I had to tell my VAs what to do and I had to do certain things every day. On this vacation I turned it all off because I had good quality people working for me, running my business while I was away on my honeymoon and I was making money. And it just sort of clicked. Like you said, you just said grown up right? And that's really… I mean it is what it is but you don't mean it to be and I don't mean it to be offensive to those that choose not to run a business that way. I've sold many businesses where there's one owner operator and that's it doing his thing. Look at that you can actually see the people power washing in my window in the background. Mark: You know what it looks like? It looks like a scene from Oceans 12 where the guys on the background can really be is just setting up a big con on you Joe. You better look out. I hope you did a background check on these guys. Joe: It's hilarious they actually have giant trash bags on and just the holes cut out for the sleeves. And literally, I've got a house … the entire house right now they're choosing to do right in front of my office in the windows outside. So if you want to see it and see the trash bag folks go to the actual video instead of just listening to the audio. Mark: And we'll make sure we put this one video up; at least this clip. Joe: At least this clip. Anyway, it just sort of … it was an epiphany with … Bill has an interesting story. I first learned about him back in 2015 in Savannah at the eCommerceFuel event and Darren was there with us; Darren Harden a former broker at Quiet Light. [inaudible 00:04:19.8] Joe you got to meet this guy he's raised like 20 million dollars and he's building a portfolio of e-commerce companies. I don't know if that dollar amount was right. I didn't feel the need to ask but I got a tour of Bill's facility down there in Charlotte. He's got an actual warehouse. He ships it all himself. He's got rack space, he's got staff, he's got warehouse employees that he pays really well and they found ways to make him more money by cutting costs. And that's really what this is all about, it doesn't make sense to outsource all of this stuff two of 3PL, two VAs or does it make more sense for you in your business to bring it out in-house and run it and go to work every day, take vacations and not worry about it because you've got good people in place to do the job for you. Mark: Yeah, he talked on this topic if I remember right at eCommerceFuel last year and let's give a shout out to Andrew Youderian from eCommerceFuel Live. Anybody that is in e-commerce I always recommend, take a look at eCommerceFuel as a community to join. That's a fantastic community. But he gave this talk in eCommerceFuel Live and I remember being struck by it because it was something that we haven't been hearing. And I'm going to double down on what you said, Joe, if you choose that lifestyle sort of business which was the business where you are running just remotely and maybe not four hours but maybe eight hours a week that's a really good and viable option as well. I think a lot depends on your personal priorities but sometimes we'd look down at those businesses that require an office and going in and having employees and stuff like that. It is a really good alternative as well for a lot of people. I'm interested to listen to this one. Again hear what Bill has to say about this and kind of how he made that transition over to a fully staffed business. Joe: I'll tell you right now there's no doubt we'll have Bill back on some day and we'll be talking about his 50, 60, 70 million dollar exit because that's the path that he's going down. Now quickly before we go to that Mark we talked about eCommerceFuel, we talked about Rhodium, right now I'll just name three or four other conferences that we're going to and then we'll go right to the podcast. Mark: We can actually name them. So Prosper Show is coming up if you do anything with Amazon … that's in March and if you do anything with Amazon go to Prosper Show for sure. We're going to have a presence at T&C at Traffic & Conversion. Joe: San Diego in February. Mark: That's right and then we're going to be doing Blue Ribbon Mastermind with Ezra Firestone; an awesome marketer. Everybody knows who Ezra is. We're going to be at that event as well. Joe: Miami in January, there's one more in there right? Mark: Capitalism.com absolutely … Ryan Moran's conference. We're going to be there and I'm looking forward to that as well. That's in Texas right? Joe: Yes, it's going to be in Dallas. So we've had Ryan on, we've had Ezra on, we've had [inaudible 00:07:01.8] on, we've had James on; we've had them all on. They're great folks and we'll be at each of those conferences and we'd love to get together with you guys for dinner, for an event that we might put on, something along those lines. Please let us know if you're going to go to those conferences so we can connect. Mark: Sounds great. Joe: All right, off to the podcast. Joe: Hey, folks, it's Joe Valley from Quiet Light Brokerage and on today's podcast, I've got Bill D'Alessandro. A lot of folks from eCommerceFuel know Bill very well. Bill is from the Charlotte area right here in North Carolina and owns a portfolio of e-commerce sites and is a regular guest on the eCommerceFuel podcast. Bill, how are you today? Bill: Doing well Joe. Good to see you, man. Joe: You too man, you too. So I saw you a couple of months ago, I got a nice tour of the warehouse and you're moving to a much much bigger one. And we talked a little bit about your experience and what you've gone through over the last several years but I want you to tell the folks that are listening who you are and what you do and give them a little bit of background. So we can start with that and then we'll go from there. Bill: Yeah, sure. So for the folks that don't know me … Hi, my name is Bill D'Alessandro. I'm the CEO and founder of Elements Brands. Elements Brands is a portfolio of consumer products brands. We focus on what we call household goods and personal care. So that's everything from sunscreen, shampoo, body lotion, lip balm, laundry detergent; all sorts of things like that. We own nine brands today and are under LOI to acquire a 10th. I started life as sort of your classic 4-hour workweek digital nomad entrepreneur but since then the business has evolved and I've kind of made a conscious choice. And now we're located … Elements Brands is located in Charlotte, North Carolina. We have as of this day of recording 22 full time employees and growing. And as Joe mentioned we are moving into a new 51,000 square foot office/warehouse kind of facility. So it's a far cry from my early digital nomad days. Joe: Yeah, it's definitely a far cry but one of the things that was interesting is that you kind of have more freedom in terms of when you want to take off from work. You can take off, turn your phone off and you've got a great staff there. So let's talk a little bit about that. I want to talk a little first though Bill about how you managed to build a portfolio of nine brands and you've got one under LOI. Did you start with one small brand and kept adding them on? Did you raise some funds? Did you go to family and friends? How did that work out for you? What was your process? Bill: Yeah. So I started the 1st brand in 2010. I got it up to low hundreds of thousands of revenue; basically just enough to fund my digital nomad lifestyle. And at that point … you know I kind of did that for a while, and I realized that as I wrote on my blog Thailand will not make you happy. And I realize that it was fun but you go to Thailand, you sit on the beach and you're still you. You're sitting with you on the beach and all of your hopes, dreams, aspirations, problems, demons; all those things come with you to Thailand. And I also felt like I was kind of wasting my potential. So I thought all right how do I make this thing a lot bigger? And I come from an investment banking and M&A background so my thinking was I know how to run an e-commerce brand, I also know there are a bunch of people out there selling e-commerce brands, why don't I go buy … I mean roll them up onto a single platform. So that led to our 1st acquisition in 2013 for which I basically used my entire life savings at the time and borrowed some money. And we bought that company and then in 2015 basically based on cash flow from the 1st one and we bought the 2nd one in 2015. And then we bought two in 2016. Then we bought another one in 2017. And then as I mentioned we'll do another acquisition this year. So … and then also I was fortunate enough doing work with you to sell one of my other distracting side businesses too so I can focus on Elements Brands full time. Joe: Yeah. You know it's funny because I don't think we've mentioned that at all when we had lunch a few weeks ago. You've built these brands and we have a relationship … Quiet Light Brokerage is a business brokerage firm but we haven't sold any of these to you. You've sourced most of these deals on your own through building networks and buying smaller troubled brands and turning them around directly for the most case wouldn't you say? Bill: Yeah for the most part we … you're always number one in my heart Joe but we do talk occasionally with some other brokers who shall not be named. And we also have fulltime staff here at Elements that is going out calling brands all the time to see if they're interested in selling and to see if Elements Brands would be a good home for them. I have a guy and he's an ex private equity guy and he spends his all day every day talking to new brands. Joe: So let me say right now, anybody that's listening, you can go to ElementsBrands.com and find Bill and his staff. If you've got a household brand of … what size Bill? Does it matter what size if they've got something that might be a good fit do you think they should reach it out to you? Bill: Yes, so we look at basically between half a million to a million in revenue in the low end to probably about 10 million on revenue on the high end. Joe: Got you. Now if you want to save Bill the trouble call me and I'll put together a great package and then I'll call Bill. Bill: Exactly which we actually love Joe. Because on a lot of times when the seller does have a broker, it makes the whole thing go a lot more smoothly so call Joe first. Joe: The guys at 101 commerce, RJ Jalichandra from 101, they're buying literally 101 FBA businesses. He said the same thing on a panel of buyers a couple of months ago at the Brand Builders Summit. He said look we've done this, we've done a lot, we'd prefer to work with a broker because all the vetting is done, the package is put together. It makes our buying process much smoother and much quicker. So please go with a broker and they're going to choose a select few that they'll work with and that's it. It does make it quicker for you guys for sure. Why don't we talk about a little bit of the advantages of a guy like yourself who I have to classify as a grown up in a sense. And I say that in the nicest possible way in putting myself down because I'm sitting here in my home office and I have no employees. None of us do at Quiet Light. We're all independent contractors brokering from different parts of the country in some cases we all live here talking to Bryan. He's usually in a different location. You, on the other hand, you've got 21, 22 employees that you are responsible for. You have a warehouse, you have offices. You are building a real business that maybe someday components of it will be sold off to private equity or the entire thing will be. How was that choice other than you just saying you're limiting your potential by not doing it, how has that choice come to and what has it been like for your lifestyle as opposed to that 4-hour workweek that you started off with. Bill: Yeah so it was very intentional. I'm sitting here in my office right now and to my left here are 22 folks. I've just got my door closed in recording with you but I come in every day. I'm in typically before nine o'clock and I leave at six-ish. I take lunch. I only work about a mile off from my house. I kind of … the realization came to me while I was doing the digital nomad thing that one of the most fulfilling things in life is working on the hard things with smart people. And you know just as humans we love to solve hard challenges and it's really rewarding to succeed with other people. And I realize that as a digital nomad a lot of the times I was working with VAs or contractors who were basically just pictures on Upwork profiles to simplify but I didn't really have a relationship with these people and they … even if I had a full time VA I couldn't grab a beer with them after work. And frankly when you're hiring VAs oftentimes you're operating on a shoestring and there's a language barrier and you're generally … and I will generalize here but I will say if you are operating a whole business on VAs and you may love your VAs but there's a whole other level of caliber of employee that is out there that you've closed yourself off to because you're not willing to give them a W2 and health insurance and their office that they're meant to. A lot of really really brilliant people want that. Joe: Can you give an example of that? I know that we talked a little bit about your warehouse workers and how you pay them higher than average, there's no turnover and they find ways to save you money and increase your profit. Can you give an example of maybe what we talked about there? I don't remember the specific details … a thing to do with honestly this cardboard boxes so- Bill: Yeah. Joe: [inaudible 00:15:12.13] I might have tuned out a little but the overall picture was you took care of your people and you paid them well. They appreciated it and I think that they saved you a fair amount of money just by being loyal to you. Bill: Yeah so Joe what you're referring to is we do all of our own warehouse and logistic. So instead of using a 3PL, we've got a warehouse and we've got a crew here that packs boxes. We ship them out of here. And if I talk to other e-commerce entrepreneurs either A. they outsourced their 3PL and complain about how much their 3PL sucks. Or they operate their own warehouse and complain about turnover and how hard it is to manage a warehouse. So going into it we pay our folks here in the warehouse easily 30 to 40 or more percent more than the minimum wage that they can get somewhere else. And occasionally we bring temps in and they go oh my God for less money I was putting chickens in bags in an unconditioned warehouse last week this is amazing. And we've had … unfortunate to say because we pay well we have had zero turnovers in our warehouse. And our warehouse crew they're not packing Elements Brands orders in between packing other companies orders. So they're thinking about our problems all day. And we had our warehouse manager, she came to me and said I've been looking at the way all the laundry detergent comes in on pallets and I think it's not optimal. If we switch from eight packs to 12 packs I can fit X% more bags on a pallet and stack it higher and use more the footprint and it's going to save us 20 plus percent shipping per bag. And we did it and we saved five figures because of that. And a 3PL would never do that for you or a VA that is not physically present could never see that stuff and even notice it. What I love about having employees is having people that think about Elements Brands all day every day. Like they think about it in the shower, think about it on their commute to work, like it's the thing that they do. It's their job and their career and they want to be good at it so I just love it a lot. Joe: So by taking care of them and putting a good environment together, a good employment package for them what does it do for you and the other folks that are focused on building the brands and building a larger portfolio? Are you able to put more focus on that and less nitty gritty on some of the other things? Bill: Yeah I mean I at this point … so I just went on my honeymoon that for two weeks we went ironically to Thailand. Joe: You sat on the beach but you weren't alone, that's good. Bill: Yeah so I'm not alone I was [inaudible 00:17:39.6] yeah thanks. And while I was there you know I was halfway around the world and spotty cell service and I was basically fully disconnected and the team ran the business in a fully … to use a digital nomad term fully automated way. But it's not automated because I've got 22 people that come in here and they want to be good at their jobs. And they've got their own managers who come in to work every day and see them and if they don't come and there's … everybody says hey where are you I didn't see you today, is your stock end gone? So for me, I found that when I was working with VAs because there is no senior person who the buck stops with, that person is you. You can never really unplug. You might be able to travel or you might be able to unplug for a week but when you unplug for a week everything kind of stops; like nothing moves forward. It might be in stasis but nothing moves forward. So when I was gone for two weeks I came back and we had launched the targeting marketing campaigns and we wrote a new product and it had progressed pipe on. Stuff actually moves forward without me because we've got senior people with accountability and a bonus structure that incentivizes them. As such they come into work every day without me. So I think in a way being really committed and put down some roots and commit to not just being in one place but also commit to your people they commit back to you and it lets you have even more freedom than if you pursued this digital nomad thing hardcore. Joe: And the reality is that it's not just the digital nomad thing where you're having more freedom because you're not doing that. You can disconnect and recuperate on your honeymoon in Thailand on the beach for instance. But the beautiful thing is that while you are away you're not stressed about it and other people are working hard to make money for you. Bill: Yeah. Joe: They're getting paid for it and getting paid well for but that's really truly a beautiful thing. So you have 21, 22 people on staff. That can be one of the hardest things to do; it's to find good people. Do you have any secrets or tips on your process on how to find the right people and your interview process or techniques or just vetting them in getting to the cream of the crop? Bill: Yeah so as you alluded to hiring is the most important thing in business. And the more people I hire the more I realize how critical it is. Like the bigger, we get every time we hire somebody if I introduce one toxic person or one slacker into this group it poisons the whole well. So it gets harder and harder to get a job here as we get bigger and bigger which I don't know if I would get hired at my own company today. So we do a series of written application with there are some gotchas in there where you have to follow directions extremely precisely and if you don't you are disqualified. If you make it through the written application without stepping in it you get a phone screen. I try to keep those phone screens to 15, 20 minutes and during that time what I'm trying to figure out is A. do you really want this job or do you just apply to everything on the internet, B. are your salary expectations in line with what we intend to pay for this job, and C. are you somebody just off the top that I think has a positive personality that I want to work with. And you can do that in 15, 20 minutes if you would cut out the small talk; if you get right to it. Joe: And are you making every hiring decision or do you do the initial vetting or somebody else does it? Bill: So it used to be that I did everything. Now where at a point where my employees do the written application, phone screen, and the next bit of the process is a written assignment where it will say like in the case of if we're hiring somebody to work on Amazon we'll say here's one of our Asense what do you think could be improved? No length limit, go and we'll see when you get back. Or if we're hiring a graphic designer we'll say something like make an info graphic about go … something anybody can do, something that's pretty broad but you're going to know if somebody is a good graphic designer based on the effort that they put in and then the quality of that work output. And make sure homework assignments are good we typically bring in two to four for in person interviews and I sit in on the in person interview. And if you do well in the in person interview you're hired. And my message to the team is I'm never going to tell you we have … I'm never going to force you to hire someone you don't want to work with but I might veto somebody that I don't think is right for the company. Joe: Okay, so you get that certain veto power for sure. If they're not reporting directly to you, you let others make the decisions. Bill: Well up to the final interview, yes. Joe: Up to the final interview; got you. So if you're sitting with a group of e-commerce entrepreneurs that have physical products are you generally advocating bringing on staff and having your own warehouse as opposed to outsourcing or are you simply saying it's got to be right for you and you got to do what's right for your situation? Bill: Different models are good for different people. I think the … what I see myself as doing and the model that I've become convinced is very good in a lot of situations and people don't fully give a fair shape to is hiring full time employees and not hiring gig based contractors. And those full time employees … I think it's awesome if they're in the same physical location as you but even if they're not, if they're full time and you have video with them one on one every day and you create this personal relationship such that they don't have any other clients and such that they begin to build up a confidence about your business so you don't have to explain to them the task you want done at the beginning of every task. You want to build up this surf of confidence where they just know about your business and you can say hey do that and so much as widen it because they already work for you. So what I tend to advocate for is people really want to create this web of outsourcers or gig based people, I can say find a person … like you probably live in a town or near a town of a sizable amount of people and sizeable would be 100,000 or 200,000. Try to find somebody … consider finding somebody locally that's talented that's not a bottom of the barrel price type of person. Find a quality person locally and it will unlock you as a CEO because your time is way too valuable to be spent typing into at a box on Upwork in describing to someone how they should scrape locations from a website that you should not be doing that. So if you're willing to pay somebody $50,000 a year which if you're in the in the freelance world they're like holy crap it is like [inaudible 00:23:49.8] the money, right? But $50,000 a year buys you a college educated American in your town likely or less even who is probably pretty smart and got a good GPA. And he will come in every day and you can teach them. That's a good requirement. Joe: And be very very well. What about finding experts in certain areas that may not be available in your town? If you want to outsource your Facebook advertising and your Google advertising are you training and doing that in-house and putting them through courses and programs or are you hiring agencies to do that type of work? Bill: Yeah, so we … the answer is both with the preference for hiring and training. So when we're absolutely pinched we use agencies but we have hired and trained a bunch of people in Amazon specifically. I've put people through courses on Amazon. I put people through courses on Facebook ads. I put people through courses on YouTube because if you hire a smart person who did well in school you just say guess what this is graduate degree. I'm going to spend a couple thousand dollars, I'm going to put you through these courses, and I'm going to train you then on the fly. You're going to do … you're going to learn for 4 hours in the course and you're going to learn from the person you report to for 4 hours a day and before you know it you're up the curve in a month, maybe two. I find about two months is before is the curve until someone can be dangerous. Joe: Is there any particular online programs and courses that you always dwell that you go to? Bill: I've used Ezra's courses a fair bit; Ezra Firestone. I've used the guys at amazing.com, they operate a 40 bucks a month kind of subscription and there's a bunch of courses in there so I picked out a few. I've used the copyrighting course by [inaudible 00:25:29.4] for some people to just kind of learn and write e-commerce copy that converts. Those are ones that come to mind. Joe: Yeah for the folks that are- Bill: I basically look- Joe: I'm sorry Ezra's course is the Smart Marketer. We sat Ezra on the podcast. We actually just had a podcast go off, it will be a few weeks back once this airs with Bret Curry who created another course with Ezra on monetizing YouTube; smartmarketer.com you can find a lot of great courses there. I'm sorry, continue. Bill: There are others but if you invest a couple of thousand dollars in hiring someone you can create talent that you can't find in almost any city. I mean we live in this world where there is incredible amount of information available on the Internet in courses and it's relatively cheap. I mean a few grand you can … if you … people complain oh there's no Amazon expert, you can't hire them anywhere. Well, you can you should train them though. Joe: I love what you just said; you can create talent that you can't find by spending a couple thousand dollars on a course and finding the right person to go through it essentially getting their graduate degree. And you know what it does? It makes them employable for the rest of their life either with you or remotely if they decide to move on some day or maybe they'll become an entrepreneur themselves. That last point though, become an entrepreneur themselves, what do you do if anything in regards to non-competes? Because you're teaching a lot of people how to compete with you and they could step out of Elements Brands and perhaps go and launch their own business that might be competing with similar products. Do you have NDAs in place when you hire people? Bill: Yup, we do. We have non-competes and NDAs. I view it as once I train them and make them great it's now my responsibility to make sure they want to keep working for me. I want to give them access to nine soon to be 10 brands that they can work on. I mean I'm sure all the entrepreneurs out there listening remember you're like God I read all these articles but I can't do AB testing when I have 100 hits a week. Well I can teach them how to AB testing on a site that has 100 hits a minute. And you can do … pull in big leverage is just fun. So I got to make sure that they're having fun with me. And if somebody wants to go out and do their own thing I mean at this point nobody is running the whole business. My marketing folks are running marketing, they have no idea how the warehouse works. They have no idea how supply chain works. So it's harder than you would think for some of your employees to kind of see the whole business. And also … and this is the thing that I've really come to realize, I used to be of this mind that entrepreneurship is for everyone and everyone should be an entrepreneur and it is the best thing you could possibly do with your life. And I've started to realize that that's not true. There are a ton of people out there that don't want any part of this entrepreneurship thing and think it's stressful and uncertain and lonely and all these and they're just not cut … I don't even want to say they're not cut out for it. I'm saying their personality type is not fulfilled by it. So there's lots of really bright excellent people out there that are not entrepreneurs and they want to be employees and they want to be employed by a great company. And sometimes I interview people that I think they're to entrepreneurial and it makes them not a good fit. Joe: Right. And you know just to summarize everything I think you've done just that Bill, you've sort of … you're pulling big levers but you've checked all the boxes I think to someday have a sizable exit if you ever choose to do that. It could be 40, 50 years from now. It will be the one in buffet of the e-commerce world right there at Charlotte, North Carolina. But you're building amazing brands. You're really focused on building brands with great quality products and you're taking control of the whole process from beginning to end from the marketing to the fulfillment of it and you're taking care of your people. You're creating a local base of people that are going to focus on and think of your company first and helping building more value for the company, profits for the company that I have the feeling you go ahead and pay them back for through better facilities and more vacation time and bonuses and benefits and all that type of thing. You seem like a great guy to work for. If I ever decide to move on I might just try to fill up one of those applications but I think you'll probably stump me and I'll get thrown into the trash. Bill: We got a room in [inaudible 00:29:34.9] Joe. Joe: I won't pass. I won't pass, I know for sure. I'll just come down and have lunch with you instead. Bill, listen I know you've got to jump to another call. I appreciate your time thanks for sharing your story, your success on building a great brand, company environment, and not living that digital nomad lifestyle and creating more freedom for yourself. Hopefully, the folks will take some nuggets from this and do that as well. Bill: Yeah thanks for having me on Joe. Good to see you, man. Joe: Talk to you soon.   Links and Resources: Element Brands Bill's Blog Bill's Twitter Upcoming Quiet Light e-commerce conference attendance: Prosper Show T & C Summit Blue Ribbon Mastermind CapCom Conference

During a conversation I had with expert Bill Dreiss, we discussed many topics, all with great value. One part in particular I found really interesting, and which I would like to share with you, was when I asked Bill how he defines risk. If you would like to l know what Bill said then read on! If you would like to listen to the full conversation just go click here. How Bill Dreiss Defines Risk Niels:  Let’s shift gears to a very important topic namely risk management. How do you define risk? I know that you are not a big fan of standard deviation, so how do you define risk in your own methodology?  Bill:  I think, again, from my philosophical position I’m very suspicious of any kind of… things like VAR or any kind of standard risk metrics. I just think that risk is out there and your worst drawdowns always in the future.   I find if you look back over time, you find again some pretty standard risk profiles. You look at anybody who has been around for say 20 years or so, or maybe even 10, almost every one of those managers has had a major drawdown, which I would characterize as 50% or more, and usually just one, right?   "If you believe that your guy’s going to stay the course, then you should probably stay the course too. " The people who’ve survived in this business are people who have been able to weather drawdowns without losing their nerve. That’s exactly it. So that’s where the risk comes in. The risk comes in - is your manager going to lose it? That’s where the ultimate risk is. If you believe that your guy’s going to stay the course, then you should probably stay the course too.  Neils: I’m going to quote someone that you may be familiar with and who wrote a few years ago. It’s David Druz, and he wrote a few years ago that, “here’s an amazing thing about robust systems, the more robust a system, the more volatile it tends to be. This is because robust systems are not optimized to particular markets or market conditions. The converse is also true. You can design systems with excellent returns and low volatility on historical testing but which work only for a given period or given market. These systems tend to be curve fit and market fit and not robust.”  This is completely probably against what most people will feel that robust systems are the ones that are more volatile. I sense from our conversation today that, that is the conclusion that you’ve come to as well.  Bill:  Yeah, I know David and he’s right, and I think this is a conclusion that most people have been in the business for a while would come to. It’s what I call… This is in contrast to perhaps the dominant quant paradigm which is picking up nickels in front of a steamroller. In other words, you can design systems like Long Term Capital or whatever that can give you smooth returns for a while but what those systems are doing, in my opinion, are what I call warehousing risk.   So essentially it’s like… And I think it’s the same sort of thing that Dave is talking about, you can design a system that essentially accumulates risk in some sense, and that when it finally breaks out it happens in a big way. This is, of course, what happened in the lead up in the financial crisis. You had all these people developing these securitizations and all these sorts of things and they were just setting the system up for a major break. In the short term, while that was going on, everybody was happy because everybody was making money and the apparent risk was very low. That’s what I think a trend follower tends to do. I’m essentially taking risk - on an ongoing basis I’m realizing risk. I’m not warehousing it, I’m recognizing it and realizing it and that’s just part of the game. I think any sort of viable, long-term investment has to do that because otherwise it’s a disaster waiting to happen.  Niels:  Sure, A lot of people say, you hear entrepreneurs talk about it all the time that they learned a lot from the adverse time in their career and so...

Bill Bodine is a graduate of the soon to be University of Lynchburg with both undergraduate and graduate degrees there.  Much of his career was spent in healthcare, but he is now the President and CEO of the Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation, which was formed in 1972 and last year provided grants to local nonprofits and scholarships totaling just under $1.7 million.   The Interview Transcript   Hugh Ballou: Welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. This is Hugh Ballou. My guest today is a dear friend of mine who I have known for less than a year because I have been in Lynchburg, Virginia for less than a year. He was one of the first people I met at a rotary breakfast. Bill Bodine. He runs an organization that is now known as the Lynchburg Community Foundation. Bill Bodine, welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. Bill Bodine: Glad to be here. Appreciate it. Hugh:And there are people who are watching it on video and listening to the podcast. I like to start out these sessions by asking my guest to tell us about themselves, your journey. How did you end up doing this really important work that you do? Bill:Mostly luck, Hugh. I'm originally from New Jersey. I ended up in Lynchburg via Lynchburg College, which in two weeks will be the University of Lynchburg. I didn't necessarily intend to stay, but I got a job working in health care right out of college. The longer I was here, the more I liked it. I have been a resident of Lynchburg now for about 40 years. I know I don't look nearly that old. Hugh:You don't. Bill:It's true. It's true. As far as getting into fundraising, I spent most of my career in health care. I was really looking for something that I could be more excited about and feel like I was making a real difference and helping the community. I have served on several boards. It was important to me to find something that was more service-oriented. I luckily saw that at the time, the Greater Lynchburg Community Trust was looking for a president and CEO because my predecessor was retiring. I went after the job and three years ago, they gave it to me. I have loved that. It's been a little bit of a circuitous journey, but I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up. Hugh:Oh, I don't think men ever grow up. Bill:I don't know if I ever will, but at least I figured out what I want to be. It's been really enjoyable. Hugh:And you and I both drive convertibles. Bill:We do. We do. I have a little Miata that I try not to get in trouble with. Not driving it today because it's too darn hot with the top down. Hugh:It's 97 in Lynchburg. Bill:I know it's crazy. Next time it cools down, I'll be in it. Hugh:Probably had the remarks about, “Oh, it's a mid-life crisis.” Bill:That would be true if I was in midlife. Hugh:It's too late. Bill:A late-life crisis. More accurately. I have always enjoyed driving cars, and it's a fun car to drive. I know your Mustang is a lot of fun. Hugh:It is fun. It's fun to go slow. Bill:It's fun. I'm not in a hurry. I just enjoy the journey. Hugh:It takes getting some age on. Also, the wisdom of leadership is impacted by our journey and our age. You came into this leadership position, I don't think by dumb luck. I think people looked at you and said, “Oh, this guy can do it.” From what I've heard from people, you have stepped up to that plate. Bill:I feel like things are going well. I think the things that I bring to it are I really enjoy people. I enjoy talking with people. I have a passion for the mission of the organization. If you have that, you are more than halfway toward doing what you really need to do. I have a great story to tell, and I enjoy telling it. People are willing to listen. That's been nice. Hugh:What does leadership mean? You lead an organization that leads and supports leaders of organizations. There is no real membership. Bill:There is no membership. My leadership stems from the fact that we touched 175 nonprofit organizations last year alone in terms of providing grant money. I get to interact with a lot of other leaders. I try to help them fine-tune their grant application process. I also try to pay attention to what the needs of the community are. How can we work together, and how can we best serve others? The leadership part of it comes from being in a chair that touches a lot of other leaders in terms of the grants and trying to make this a better community in any way we can. That's just a byproduct of the job, but I enjoy that, too. Hugh:I picked up something. You just revealed our topic today: grants, and how to do a better job of applying for grants. You slipped in something there, and I'm going to pull it out. You work with people so they do a better job. People just don't know how to apply for grants mostly. Bill:It's all over the board, Hugh. Some people are really good at it and have a lot of experience doing it. Quite honestly, some of the smaller nonprofits that we work with, that's not what people are trained to do or have done or have a lot of time to do. A lot of the smaller nonprofits are making things work with as few staff as they can and as little resources as they can. What I've found is that it's helpful to work with people and speak with them about fine-tuning their grant. What I want to do is give them the best opportunity for success. Our foundation is not there to hold onto money. Our foundation is there to give that money away according to our donors' wishes. The better job I can do helping people access those funds means I do a better job for our donors. That's really what it's about. Hugh:That's amazing. I don't think everybody understands that. This is a good point to make. I posted on the web page some of the questions we're going to address that came from you because you know what you're talking about. Bill:Maybe. Depends on who you ask. Hugh:Part of my career I served megachurches. I was in the interview process in the five biggest megachurches at the same time. Nobody knew what questions to ask. That was amazing. I pretty much had to provide my own questions. Bill:It helps things go smoother if we have an idea of what we're going to talk about. Hugh:Or to get to the bottom line. What is it we need to know about this? Let's start at the top. If I'm going to make a grant request- I run a 501(c)3. It's a foundation. I give away services. I don't give away money. I help people leverage what they have and attract money. Part of my work could conceivably be preparing people to do this process. What I tell my nonprofits is that funders are gonna look at the impact of your work, what results it will create. I want to check my accuracy. If we give you this money, what results will it produce? They will also look at your team. Can they really implement it? Are those the factors that are high? Bill: Those are the big deal. That is the real meat and potatoes of it. You could actually go back to a baseline. One of the first things I would tell people is if you are going to apply for a grant, make sure you review what exactly the grantor is looking for in terms of information. It surprises me occasionally how many applications we get that are incomplete because people have not thoroughly read what it is we are asking for. We get grant applications that come in without a list of the board of directors, which is one of the things we ask for. I would encourage people at the very baseline of it to read very carefully what the requirements are for the grant application, and make sure you include all that information. That seems basic and elementary, but it surprises me how many of them we get that are not fully completed. First and foremost, make sure you understand what that grantor is looking for and what their requirements are in applying for them. Make sure it's complete because it's a little bit like when you write your resume, make sure you spell things correctly. First impressions are important. That is maybe the first step. But you're absolutely right. We like to know first of all what do you want the money for, and how is that going to help my community be a better place? How is that going to satisfy the wishes of the donors who have given us the money in the first place? First and foremost, I am bound by their wishes and their desires. My responsibility is to use the money that our donors have provided as wisely as possible and as closely to their various intents as possible. Hugh: I want to introduce you to somebody who got stuck on the viewer side of this, who is my co-host. He has been AWOL here. Russell David Dennis is joining us in this podcast from Denver, Colorado. I thought you were maybe having technical difficulty today. Russell showed up a year and a half ago and was very consistent with this. Russell is one of our WayFinders. It is our antidote to a consultant. It's a WayFinder. We guide you; we don't tell you what to do. We help you define what you're going to do. Russell has been through the whole methodology of SynerVision, and he is now one of our bonafide WayFinders. I made him co-host. He outshines me many times. I like to say I pale in comparison. I've used that line. Russell, welcome. You're muted. Russell Dennis: Greetings. I had to turn to my tablet. My computer has been loading updates all morning, and it doesn't seem to want to finish. Hugh: Welcome to the party. I already warned him that my co-host has the zingers of the questions. He is braced for ya. I'm getting chats from across the screen. Russell, we're talking about grants today and what makes a good grant request. So far, Bill has validated our premise that we need to have worthy goals in terms of what difference we are going to make, and people on board to do that. Bill, people maybe do read the requirements. You think they just forget? Or they weren't careful? I guess you go back to people and resubmit. Bill: We do. We review all the applications. Before we put them in front of our distribution committee, we review them for completeness and accuracy. We try to track down questions we know they might ask. But yeah, it's hard to know the reasons, Hugh, why people don't always include everything. Sometimes they don't have the information, and sometimes they forget, and sometimes they are just flustered by the process and don't think it through well enough. Whatever the reasons, again, what we want to do is help people be as successful as possible. I just throw that out there as step one. Make sure you read the requirements and do your best to fulfill them. If you have a question or problem, call us, or call whomever you are applying to and ask for their help. Hugh: Are there community foundations in every area in the country? Bill: Just about. When the Greater Lynchburg Community Foundation was formed in 1972, there were probably about 30 community foundations nationally. We know from the Council of Foundations in Washington that in 1975, there were only 50. So we were formed in ‘72. There are now over 850. So they are all over the place now. A community foundation is a little different from family foundations or corporate foundations. Often family foundations and corporate foundations have more specific purposes. Ours is probably more general. We have more general purposes than a lot of other foundations. We cover the waterfront. As I mentioned before, we gave grants to 175 nonprofits in Lynchburg and the four surrounding counties last year alone. We will support basic human needs, the arts, historic preservation, the environment, all kinds of things. Most foundations you'll find have a little bit narrower focus. That's true for hospital foundations, the United Way for example. All of them do fantastic work. But our reach is a little broader. For some people, that fills in. Hugh: It fills in some gaps I would imagine. Bill: Yeah, it does. We have a flexibility that appeals to people. The other thing is community foundations are intended to be forever. We are perpetual. The appeal we have for people is that you can set up a fund, name it after your grandmother or whomever you want, and it will be here long after you're gone and probably after your children are gone. It leaves a legacy. That is one of the appeals to community foundations. Hugh: I found more and more people who are interested in the legacy component. They are the instigator. They start this thing. But they are not going to be around forever. We want to have impact that goes on after our lifetime. There is a value. When they get money and enough money that they put it under management, you assist with that. Bill: Our purpose is to grow the fund and to distribute monies annually or more often than that sometimes from that fund, but continue to grow it so it continues to expand and lasts as long as the world lasts is the idea. People like that. Hugh: I'm hearing some fundamental principles. One, which we talked around, is pick up the phone and call. I don't think people do that who are applying for grants. Maybe not all foundations are equally as successful as yours. Bill:Well, I don't know about that. I haven't worked at other foundations. I've talked to some colleagues. I think we are all generally here for the same purpose, which is to help people out and help the community be as seamless as possible. I really love it when someone calls me and says, “Hey, can I talk to you about this grant? I've been thinking about this proposal. Can you help me fine-tune it a little bit?” I do a lot of that. Hugh:Part of our due diligence, and Russell worked 11 years on an Indian reservation and he did grants, he comes up with another experience. Part of our job is to do our due diligence to learn about the grantor. What is the purpose of the grant? What requirements are there? Will what we want funded match up with what you want to fund? And spell the name right. Bill:Sure. We get applications that are for things we can't do. If an organization is renting a building, and they come to us and ask for renovations to that building, that is something we really won't do because we don't pay for renovations to a building that is not owned by the organization. We only provide money to nonprofits, and we don't want to improve a building for a landlord. We want to help that organization. I try to guide people not to do those kinds of things. We typically don't like to pay operating costs such as salaries. We need to hire a new person and we need this for a salary. We'd rather not do that. We'd rather put our donors' money toward programs, resources that go directly to help people, and that sort of thing. That is part of the guidance I try to provide. I don't want people to waste their time or our time with an application that I know is just not going to perform. Hugh:One of the deficits we see often is that there is an organization trying to fly by tradition and history by the seat of their pants without a strategy. By the way, Russell, he is a fellow musician. He is an actor/musician. He has been a professional production for the past couple of weeks, so he far exceeds my capabilities. We need a map. What do you sing when? When do you go off stage? When do you go on stage? When do the trumpets play? The way we think is there is a core map for where we're going and how we're going to get there and what kind of impact we're going to have. That gives us substance for our thinking. When people are looking at funding, if there is a deficit in leadership or lack of strategy, are those pieces what we might call capacity-building? Are there capacity-building grants for them to up their game so to speak? Bill:There are. There certainly are. For example, let's say somebody needs new computer equipment. We have helped people with that before, but only if we understand what they are going to use that computer equipment for. If you apply for a grant saying, “I need new computers,” that's great, and we can assume a certain number of things. What I'd really like to see is “We need these computers because we are putting them in front of school-age children to make them more familiar with technology. It will impact 80 kids.” That kind of detail is very helpful. If it's capacity-building, that's great, but what are you building that capacity for? What's your plan? Anything like that is more helpful than not having that information. Hugh:Russell, you're here and smiling. I'm sure you have some reflections or additional questions for Bill Bodine. You sat on the other side approaching grantors. This stuff, I'm sure, rings true for you, does it not? Russell:Yes, it does. One of the biggest mistakes people make is to contort what they're doing into the requirements of a funding source they are not familiar with. To back up further than that, the number one reason grant proposals are turned down is because they don't follow instructions. If you do that with a government grant, I have sat on grant panels for three years, if they don't follow the instructions, we don't even read it. It goes on the pile. I have seen some bad proposals. It may be a really good one, but because they didn't follow the instructions… There is a strategy to this. The first piece of that is making sure you're talking to the right source. You get these applications that don't fit what you're doing because people will sit and do a shotgun/M50 machine gun approach where they apply to 150 foundations and see what sticks. Bill:Like a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. That's not good. Russell:And it doesn't work. There is a strategy and a process. I have mind-mapped that a bit. I need to build a course on that. I have a couple of courses, but that's one I need to build. I'm working on one for donors, too, at the moment. There is a strategy and there is a process. Everybody that sends you a grant proposal should be calling you on the phone and talking to you just to get clear because the guidelines are out there, the instructions are out there, the requirements are out there, but when you take a few minutes to call, ask about some things. Please do your homework, folks. You don't want to ask people information that is already on the website. What you really want to do is get a feel of what is going on between the lines. Are there some things within this broad category that are really important to the foundation right now? What sort of things have they funded recently? Talk a little bit about your project. I'm thinking about does this fit in what is important to you? If not, what would be more of a fit? Would it be all right if I send you a proposal based on what you're thinking? Hugh:Can I slate that data point for just a second? What he outlined was an exploratory conversation. What does that look like from what you sit? Sorry to interrupt you, Russell. I just wanted to capture that. To me, that was a notable sound bite. Bill:Russell and I are definitely on the same page here in terms of making sure you follow the instructions. But also what he said is really important about knowing what the grantor is and what resonates with them. The other piece is: What is a reasonable amount to ask for? All these foundations have different amounts they are comfortable providing. With our foundation, we gave away $1.7 million last year alone, but it went to 175 different nonprofits. That includes scholarship money for high school students going to college. The amount of money that we have is not as huge as many community foundations might be, and it gets spread out over a large number of agencies. If someone asks us for $100,000 today, that is not something we can really do without taking away from our other responsibilities. I like to sort of give people an idea of what is a reasonable amount to ask for and what we can do. That tends to be helpful, I think. That is another piece. Russell:That is knowing what your source is all about. Community foundations, which is a donor-advised fund because people have purposes, is it always is in the guidelines. You will see a range of funding that is awarded. That breaks things down into pieces, put them in sequence. What can you accomplish with that? It's understanding how much you have and how much you need. Here is the thing that I want to stress to any nonprofits out there who are listening. It's every bit as difficult, if not more, to get this money into the hands of people who will make good use of it than it is to apply for it and get it. Community foundations, a lot of family foundations are running lean. They don't have all the people and tools that they have to try to give technical support to these nonprofits. What a community foundation does is work with smaller organizations. Finding good projects is really difficult. You have to put yourself in their shoes and understand that it's not just difficult for you to get the money, it's difficult for them to find projects to invest in and make sure that money is making the impact it's intended. Bill:That's right, Russell. The biggest sense of responsibility I have is to remember that it's not my money. This was money provided to us by donors, individuals, corporations, and families who have a dream. They really have a desire to do something important with that money. I always have to remember that I need to find things that are worthy of those desires and that I am fulfilling that responsibility. If I don't, I am not only letting those people down, but I am also possibly ruining potential contributions to the foundation to continue that purpose. That is a real responsibility that I feel strongly about. Hugh:While Russell is formulating his difficult question… As you're looking at projects, is there any value for looking at collaboration coming to you, like two, three, or four different entities coming to you and saying they are going to do something together? Bill:Very highly. Again, getting back to that core value of trying to do the most good for the community we possibly can with our ultimately limited resources, any time we can encourage collaboration- One of the things we are in a good position to do in my spot is look for gaps in services and look for overlap. There is a lot of both quite frankly. So trying to get some of the smaller nonprofits to talk to each other, it might be the people providing food or shelter or furniture, or even arts organizations. How can we encourage collaboration with the ultimate purpose being how we can get our dollars to work as efficiently as possible and to do the most good they can do. Yeah, Hugh, that's a vital point. You hit on something really important. We have to try to encourage collaboration. We just started to scratch that surface. Hugh:Maybe there is a place SynerVision could play in facilitating some conversation. Bill:I think so. Hugh:We have to get Russell over here from Denver. Bill:If I lived in Denver, I'm not sure I'd ever leave. Maybe we can get Russell to come because Lynchburg is great, too. Russell:I'm happy to come out there and see what's happening now. I have some friends out in Virginia Beach. I have excuses to come over and poke around and have some fun. The challenge that you talked about of getting people to collaborate, this scarcity thinking that I'm not going to share my resources with anyone, is trying to get people to break out of that way of thinking. I think even something as simple as saying we encourage collaboration on projects that involve collaboration between a number of entities that are different from what is out there will be given extra special consideration so that maybe triggers something in people's minds to say let's talk to other people. There seems to be a lot of resistance to that. I don't know why. More hands makes the work lighter. Bill:I think you're right. I think we need to get at the sources of those feelings. Some people may have a control issue. I need to control this so I can make sure it goes in the direction I want it to go in. Or some of it is just not knowing who the other leaders out there are. If we can identify those reasons, then we can appeal to those people based on whatever their sensitivity is. Maybe we can provide assurances and say, “If we combine with this other group and they provide a service, you can still run that. You can still be in charge of that. Let's say if we can't strengthen your organization by getting some help from over here,” or whatever your trigger is. If we can identify those, then we may have a chance to approach it properly with a chance for success. Hugh:You could apply for one of the grants at SynerVision. You could say, “Hey, we want to fund this project. We are going to ask for SynerVision to group you together and come up with a plan to present this to us.” It would be the work that we do, facilitating people collaborating.  Bill:And the carat for them is these funds are available in terms of the grant. You have to figure out- Just like with donors. What is their hot button? What appeals to them? When you hit resistance from people who maybe are not willing to collaborate, maybe they are in that overused term of being in their own silos—that is the buzz phrase for the year—but whatever it is, and we can figure out what that is and address that, then we maybe have a chance to hook up some of these collaborations. Hugh:It's an exploratory conversation first. Get some knowledge. Part of what I see, and I think you have, too, is people don't understand how to collaborate or how to get it started. We think consensus and collaboration are the same as- What's the other side? Compromise. A lose-lose. A consensus is a win-win. A collaboration is how we do consensus. We come together with a common purpose and a common mind. Actually, we can make the dollars go further because we are making lighter work for everybody. Bill:Sometimes it's just that people are paddling as hard as they can and they don't feel they have time. Who wants to go to another meeting unless you're sure it will be extremely beneficial? Some of it is just battling that. Whatever it is, we ought to be able to figure it out and address it. Hugh:I think it's a new way of effectiveness here. Our initials, people in business invest money for ROI. In nonprofits, people invest money for ROL, return on life. How we get there is ROR, return on relationship. What you're talking about is let's develop a relationship with the funder to know that we're in sync. We were both smiling when you were talking about the intent of the donor. We ask people why they want to serve on the board and what they want done with their money. We don't really go there because we don't think about it. So really, how do we understand the intent of the donor? Russell, you had some time. Come back to Bill here with a goodly framed question. Couldn't get that out. Russell:That is why I left the IRS. People started thinking I was this horrible, scary guy, and that's just not true. Hugh is trying to turn me into this evil quizmaster that will send the guest running for the exit. That's not the truth. You talked about getting the money into programs. I think that a lot of this scarcity thinking is really centered around the fact that for some nonprofits, because they don't have diverse funding, they're worried about how to keep the lights on and pay the bills that eats up a lot of our resources. How much of that do you think is a factor in people not collaborating? Bill:It's hard to quantify it. That's a good question. It is a factor. I think we can safely say it's a big factor. What percentage? I would have a hard time putting my fingers on that. That's part of the job is trying to make sure you're helping people take care of those basic needs so that they feel more available or open to diving deeper into this stuff. I don't really know if that answers your question, but I think you have identified a big factor. How to quantify that, I'm not sure. In different organizations, it varies widely, I would guess. Russell:That falls in line with the airline safety theory of putting your own mask on first. People really feel they would actually be taking something away from themselves to collaborate when in fact they might find some extra resources for their programs. This is the motivation for trying to find other ways. We live and die by the grant. We did have some private donors and other sources. When I was working for the tribe, we spent a whole lot of time focusing on grants as opposed to any other sources of revenue. We did try to start some businesses. There is a lot of snake oil out there. You have to keep your eyes open. That diversity of funding is important, and building relationships with donors is critical. That funding usually has more flexibility on the bottom end. When we start getting into the top end of the donors, they are usually a little bit more focused with what they want to see happen with that money. It's trying to get other sources of revenue in the door. Grants are not intended to keep you operating. They are for special purposes: to build them, test them until you can make them sustainable. That's another mistake folks make with grants. Bill:The other comment I would make on that is you are exactly right. The other thing is grants, we tell people that you can't put us in your budget for next year and assume you will get a grant every year. We have two grant cycles a year. We evaluate those separately every cycle. You can't count on that grant income. If you're good at it, you may have a good track record. You really have to develop other resources for funds that are steadier than that. I guess you found that with your Native American work. Hugh:When you review people, they have to submit financials or something. Do you look for alternate sources of funding? Bill:Yes, we do. It's one way you judge the strength of the organization. Do they have other sources of funds? I don't really want people who depend solely on us for their annual budget. There are some smaller agencies that probably truth be known they are very dependent on us. It's a stronger application if they can show us other sources of funds or have programs that generate funds. That helps the application. Hugh:There is a lot of data here that I think is helpful to any grant application. Understand what the grantor wants to achieve. Know about them. Follow the directions. Be very clear on the impact of what the money is going to provide. Here is another topic. We don't think about the administrative. I imagine a $5,000 grant would have fewer administrative requirements than a $500,000 grant or a $5 million grant. So there is some reporting back of how the money was utilized. How important is that? Bill:It's really important. Quite honestly, there is not really much difference for us because our grants generally run from a couple thousand to $25,000. We don't do half-a-million dollar grants. The administrative requirements are essentially the same for all the grants we provide. We feel it's our responsibility to our donors that first of all, the money was used for the purpose that was stated, and also that the impact that was expected was achieved or nearly achieved as well as could be done. We require written documentation of all that within a year from receiving the grant so that we can have a record of that and show the money was used for what our donors and we intended it to be used for and what the agency said it was going to be used for. That's a big deal to us. I know there are foundations that struggle with that sort of validation. They will go back later and find out there have been some discrepancies, or that the money wasn't used for what it said it was going to be used for. Whether you get $1,000 from us or $25,000 from us, you have to jump through the same hoops. Russell:If you are going to have a high-performance organization, you should track everything you do. This is strategy as we lay it out. You're tracking everything you're doing. This should not really be a stretch to reach out to your funding sources and say this is what you did. You built the framework, you built the strategy, you're tracking what you're doing, and you're getting it out there. Sometimes, things don't go well. People don't want to be transparent. I went to my mastermind network that I have out here. I put some stuff on the table. I got a lot of suggestions that were helpful. Some of the stuff was very basic, but it's the transparency. Now these folks can help me more than they were ever able to if I hadn't done this. The transparency supported me. Sometimes things don't go as well as they're planned, but we need to be in constant contact and transparent so that we can right the ship and get it back on track. A lot of foundations don't have the resources to track because you guys have to review everything you get back to make sure that project is on track. If you're effective, you're doing that. In structuring these programs, getting back the strategy piece and building things out, you will want to create systems that capture all the information you need, but they're easy to understand, access, and use by the people who are running the programs. If the evaluation tools are too hard, people will not use anything that is hard to implement. It has to be simple. It has to flow in line with their work. As these programs run, they are easy to track. It doesn't become a stretch at the end of the quarter, at the end of year to scramble and finish these reports. Been there, done that. That's how I know. If you got these things as part of your process, you can just roll this stuff out because you are tracking it all the time. Hugh:Part of what he referred to is we teach people when you have a strategy, you have milestones. This is your success. You've reached this. Then a milestone, you have a budget over here. When you pay a dollar, you achieve a milestone, so there is a redundancy in the budget. We find a lot of organizations don't really have any way to track things because they don't have a system in place. It's the Covey principle, as you were talking, Russell, of begin with the end in mind. You're going to have to do a report, so let's think backwards. What do we need to create now so it's not a big deal? The question to you is: Do you have pamphlets or educational materials or trainings for people to master these skills they may not have? Bill:The answer to that is no, we really don't. That is not something we have seen in our role up to now. What we have tried to do is as Russell was saying make it as easy for people as possible. Three years ago, we required paper copies of all applications, ten copies, so you'd get a stack of paper a foot tall from this little agency. Not only that, but all the trees we were killing. We have brought the process online on our website. While you're there, you can look at all the grants we made last year, who we granted to, how much, and for what purpose. We tried to make that as simple as possible and with as few clicks as possible. To your point, Hugh, I think maybe that's one of the next steps. I really see organizations like yours being at the forefront of helping people gain the tools they need to be successful. I don't know that with the staff I have, which is me, another full-time person, and a two-day-a-week accountant, that we could provide a lot of these resources. But there are good people out here like yourself who can do that. We'd certainly be interested in helping out. Hugh:Sure. We might have something we could provide for you. Russell, that was a good point you opened up there. What else are you stirring up in that no-hair head of yours? Bill:It's a good one. I'm not going to make any comments about hair. I'm right behind ya. Hugh:Oh, he has hair! Russell:I'm going to have to take a razor to it because when it comes in, it's pretty gray. I promised myself after I recovered from chemotherapy six years ago, no formula. I'm going to remind myself that I'm on blessed time, I got a few extra days, and I'm going to wear it proudly. That is part of the piece. A lot of nonprofits don't have the budget and development. That's something community foundations- Denver Foundation will provide technical support to grantees who they have granted funds to before. You spread too thin in terms of resources to do that. Partnerships between entities like SynerVision and my company and community foundations makes sense to go in and talk to people and help them get the training they need. Doing that for a community foundation, you touch a lot of entities because I don't know how many organizations you have, but the Denver Foundation probably has somewhere between 200-300 organizations who are grantees and members. That is a common size. To be able to talk to people about these things and to help them and to provide that sort of technical assistance that you haven't been able to provide is still good stewardship. It's about good stewardship and protecting those investments. That is something that benefits grantees and the foundation. It's really about going out and making that impact and supporting one another. Maybe something like a mastermind group from time to time. Some of our community foundations have put on a training event. But a mastermind, I just left a mastermind for my business. Is that something you have thought about with some of the folks you work with? Creating a mastermind group. Bill:That's something that Hugh and I have had conversations about. That's not something I have really envisioned our foundation doing. But I think in collaboration with people like you guys and maybe others, that's something we could work toward. I think it's a great idea. Hugh:Having a conversation with people about the gaps – they will discover something. We will discover what they think they need versus what they really need. The problem with blind spots is you can't see them. It's like your hair, Russell. I am glad it's coming in gray because you have earned every one of them. Are there any pitfalls that we have not identified in this conversation for people who are applying? Bill:I think we have touched on the ones that I can really think of. Make sure you ask for the right kind of things. Make sure you ask for the right amount of money based on what you have been able to find out about the foundation or whomever you are applying to. Make sure your application is complete and according to the requirements specified by the grantor. We have touched on all those things. Those are the key things, Hugh. The other thing I would mention is follow-up. The grant process doesn't end when you get that phone call or that letter that says, “Congratulations, you have been granted such-and-such money,” or the phone call that you might get- It's a good idea to make sure that you thank the organization, that you show a level of gratitude. We all like to feel like it's appreciated. That can only help. Particularly, in a community like ours, where most of these organizations will apply regularly, what you want is to be looked upon favorably as someone who has been A) a good steward of that money and B) appreciated getting it in the first place, and that we develop a relationship where we know who you are, what you're doing, and why you're a good outfit and good people doing good work. Hugh:That's a fundamental principle. I'm so surprised people don't honor it. Bill:Some people are really good at it, but not everybody. The ones who are good at it might be in the minority. But that's an important piece. We all like to be thanked and to have it known that what was done is appreciated and that you take it seriously. I would just encourage the grantees to make sure they do that. Hugh:Attitude or gratitude. I'm thinking back over the in-kind grants I've done. In my symposium, you had a board meeting… Bill:I know. How lame can you get? Hugh:People applied for a grant for that even though it was $40, and they got it. They were very grateful. But there were some small community leaders who didn't have any money who I granted. And only one of them said thank you. One. One. Bill:It is a bit of a lost art. Hugh:It is. Like conversation. We are going to give you the last word here. We try to keep it under an hour. This has been very helpful information.  Bill, this is great. He came over to my house so we could hang out and do this. One day, he'll have a camera on his computer. Bill:I just wanted to come over and check out your house. Hugh:Do you like it so far? Bill:It's great. Hugh:So Bill, what do you want to leave people with? What's a challenge or a tip or a thought you want to leave people with as we are ending this really good interview? Bill:Always remember the work you're doing is critically important. On the days when it feels like things are piling up and you feel varied, you are making a difference. I get to jump out of bed every morning and think, Wow, what can happen that will help the community be a better place to live? That's incredibly motivating. Don't lose sight of it. That's what we're here for. Yeah, it's about fundraising, it's about giving grants, but it's really not. What we're here for is to improve our communities and give people a sense that their money is going to help their fellow man and help their community. The vast majority don't give money to foundations for tax purposes and things like that. It's about philanthropy. We're helping people feel good, and we should feel good about that. Hugh:Most people don't give money because of donations. It's because they want to make a difference. Bill:It's not for taxes. It's because it makes them feel good. They do it with their heart. Hugh:I see you smiling, Russell. Thank you again for being here, my friend. Russell:Always a pleasure. If you don't tell people what difference their dollars are making, they will put them somewhere else. You stay in touch no matter what the results is. Bill, thanks a million. Hugh, thanks for making it through a broadcast without the magic phrase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With General Conference coming up this weekend, Dr. Bill Smith and I speculate on some possible future revelations coming up!  Would Official Declaration 3 deal with Gays? https://youtu.be/clQ_cYvENw4 GT:  You mentioned a couple of things that were very interesting to me, especially in light of the Family Proclamation.  D&C 132 is kind of the foundation for forever families.  But you mentioned singles and you also mentioned gays.  How do those relate to section 132? Bill:  Well I think that section 132 is by evidence, at least by internal evidence, it's very much in the vein of thinking of sex as being in terms of heterosexual sex, of course not necessarily one-man and one-woman sex, but one-man, multiple-women.  So, I think that's the point of the revelation.  It doesn't really speak to the possibility of gay marriage.  It doesn't open that possibility at all.  Whether that can be addressed in some other way, I don't know, but the revelation, that's not on anybody's mind. GT:  Right.  So, do you see that as being a possibility of a future revelation? Bill:  Anything is possible.  I don't know.  Whether people would feel that there is dissonance with section 132 and any further revelation that expanded some kind of approval of gay relationships, gay marriage, I don't know.  That's for another generation, I am guessing.  But yes, that might be something that would be addressed.  I don't know. Of course we do this in relation to Section 132 of the Doctrine & Covenants, which is one of Mormonism's most important revelations:  The New & Everlasting Covenant of marriage.  Is there room in this revelation to accommodate gay marriage?  In our next episode, Dr. Bill Smith will answer that question, and discuss how it might impact future revelations dealing with not only gays, but women as well. Bill:  Well there's something of equal probability I think is that we have an official declaration that says that women can be ordained. GT:  Would that be more likely? Bill:  Boy I don't really know.  I think yes, it probably fits better with the current paradigm than say gay marriage would be, recognizing gay marriage. .,. GT:  Do you see 132 being compatible with say female ordination? Bill:  Yeah, the polygamy parts seem to partake of the typical sort of patriarchal kinds of views of the 19th century, the 18th century and back.  In terms of incompatibilities, that's where that would lie.  In terms of ordination practices, those kinds of things, I don't see an incompatibility there, structure.  I mean it would be easy to enfold women into priesthood structures if that was to take place.  I don't see a problem there.  I don't think it would be possible to stop that because you had the same kinds of issues with blacks and the priesthood when the ‘78 change was announced.  They were very clear that this meant that there weren't any restrictions on their participation in any way. Is this Official Declaration 4?  Check out our conversation….. [paypal-donation] Here are some others episodes you may be interested in. 093: Greg Prince on History of LDS Policy Toward Gays 092:  How to Polygamists Feel about Gay Marriage? (Wilde) 048: What are the Theological Justifications of Polygamy? (Hales) 044: Does D&C 132 Conflict with Genesis? (Hales) 012: Kirtland Era Polygamy (Staker)  

Is your partner emotionally explosive, regularly picking fights, and blaming others for all their troubles? Bill Eddy sheds light on how to manage conflict and communication with a high conflict person. Bill Eddy is a lawyer, therapist, and mediator in San Diego, California. He is the President of the High Conflict Institute. He is on the part-time faculty at the Pepperdine University School of Law and on the part-time faculty of the National Judicial College and is the senior family mediator at the National Conflict Resolution Center. He is the developer of the New Ways for Families, a skill-based method for managing high-conflict families in separation and divorce, which is being implemented in court systems in the United States and Canada. Bill provides training to professionals worldwide on the subject of managing high-conflict personalities and high-conflict disputes. He provides seminars to attorneys, mediators, judges, mental health professionals, human resource professionals, employee assistance professionals, ombuds, hospital and college administrators, government agencies, law enforcement, homeowners’ association managers and many others. He has presented in over 30 states, several provinces in Canada, and England, France, Sweden, Austria, Australia, Israel, Netherlands and New Zealand. Mr. Eddy is also the author of several books, including: 5 Types of People Who can Ruin Your Life (coming soon) Dating Radar: why your Brain Says Yes to the One Who Will Make your Life Hell (with Megan Hunter, MBA) High Conflict People in Legal Disputes It’s All Your Fault: 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything BIFF: Quick Responses to High-Conflict People So, What’s Your Proposal: Shifting High-Conflict People from Blaming to Problem-Solving in 30 Seconds Your host, Christina Vinters, is a nationally designated Chartered Mediator on a mission to inspire and facilitate healthy family transitions. She is an “ex” Divorce Lawyer (Non-Practicing Member of the Bar), Author of Pathways to Amicable Divorce, and the  DIY Divorce Manual, and Peacemaking Business Consultant. Guest Links: Websites http://www.highconflictinstitute.com/ https://www.newways4families.com/ Visit www.unhookedmedia.com for Bill Eddy books and products. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/highconflictinstitute/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/HighConflict Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-eddy-bba98a1b/ Modern Separations Links: Website: https://www.modernseparations.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/modernseparations Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/divorcewell Twitter: https://twitter.com/cvinters LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cvinters/ Episode Transcript Christina: Hi everybody. Today I'm very lucky to be talking to Bill Eddy, an international leader in the field of conflict resolution with high-conflict people. Bill is a lawyer, therapist, and mediator in San Diego, California. He's also the founder and president of the High Conflict Institute. He teaches part-time at Pepperdine University School of Law, the National Judicial College, as well as private training sessions for professionals worldwide on the subject of managing high-conflict personalities and high-conflict disputes. And there's still more! He has developed a program called New Ways for Families, a skill-based method for managing high-conflict families. And his program has been implemented in several court systems in the United States and Canada. Bill is also the author of several books, really too many in the list here but in our discussion, we talk in some detail about BIFF: Quick Responses to High-Conflict People and BIFF stands for brief, informative, friendly, and firm. We talked about his book So What's Your Proposal? Shifting High-Conflict People from Blaming to Problem Solving in Thirty Seconds!, and his newest book Dating Radar. Bill says there are four characteristics of high-conflict people. These are all-or-nothing, black and white type thinking, unmanaged emotions, extreme behaviors, and preoccupation with blaming others. So if these characteristics sound familiar, whether you're separating from a high-conflict person or you have a high-conflict person in another area of your life, this episode is for you. Here we go.  Christina: Welcome, Bill! It's such an honor to speak to you today.  Bill: Well Christina, I'm really glad to be speaking with you about this.  Christina: Your contributions to the area of resolving really difficult conflict has been prolific over your career. For anyone not yet familiar with Bill's work, I highly recommend that you check out his books and programs. To get started, why don't you tell us about your journey and what brought you to focus on high-conflict people?  Bill: Well, it's interesting. I, for many years, have been a social worker since actually over thirty years since about 1981. I really like working with children and families and I was kind of trying to find the best place for myself. And while I started out practicing as a child and family counselor, I also volunteered at our local mediation center and found that I really like helping resolve disputes between people. And that I liked mediation and decided I would go to law school to primarily do divorce mediation. But in law school, I realized I should probably practice law for a couple of years and so I started dealing with practicing family law after I got my law degree and found that much of it was like, social work. And so I noticed that I was doing divorce mediation with out-of-court couples who were basically able to get along and just needed some guidance and help. And then I go to court in the mornings and one or both people would be very difficult and we would spend months, sometimes years. And what I realized is the high-conflict problems have a lot to do with people's own nature with their own personalities. And so I started writing a lot about high-conflict personalities but also how to deal with people like that, especially if you're going through a divorce or separation. So that's kind of how I ended up here.  Christina: OK, great! And so to clarify for the listeners, how do you define a high-conflict person? And how would somebody be able to tell if they're dealing with a high-conflict person?  Bill: Well in a sense, a lot of feedback I get from working with law clients and social work clients and mediation clients, is that people suddenly go “Oh my goodness, I know I'm dealing with a high-conflict person!” But I'd say there's four characteristics. And sometimes you can get a hint of this even before you separate. That is a lot of all-or-nothing thinking, unmanaged emotions where the person's emotions just kinda lead them down a lot of different paths where they start yelling and things that doesn't help; extreme behaviors like yelling, throwing things, lyings, taking family money, spreading rumors – all of these kinds of things. But the fourth is the biggest in many ways, and that's the preoccupation with blaming others. And if you're getting divorced from someone like this, you may be and have been and will become their target of blame. And they put all these intense thinking, emotions, behavior on the other person who's their target of blame. And so when people are getting ready to divorce or separate from someone who is like this or may show those behaviors, I encourage caution and planning so that you don't go through too much extreme difficulty becoming that person's target of blame.  Christina: So is it fair to say that most people probably would have noticed some or all of these types of characteristics during the relationship, or does it ever happen that a separation could all of a sudden sort of bring this type of behavior into the fore?  Bill: We see both. I'd say that most people that have a high-conflict divorce have realized during the relationship whether they are married or just living together that the person they're dealing with has extremes from time to time. But I've had people tell me that they really were surprised at how extreme the person became when they did go through divorce. So usually you know you're dealing with some difficulties but sometimes the difficulties during the divorce even gets the person by surprise. So that's why it's good to kind of think about patterns of behavior and there's high-conflict pattern of behavior in advance and to prepare for that possibility.  Christina: What type of preparation do you recommend?  Bill: Well, a few things. First of all, get support. Build a support system. I think it helps to meet with a counselor occasionally and just kind of prepare for what you may go through, 'cause you'll maybe personally attacked, publicly criticized, harassed, etc. Also, get consultation with a family lawyer, whether you'll hire one or not, a lot of family lawyers today will let you consult for half an hour or an hour. And kind of talk about your situation and what some of the problems could be. Another is to kinda collect information. What a lot of people we encourage to do is make sure you find out what all your bank account numbers are. Some people take pictures of all their household furniture, the big items, in case things start disappearing during a divorce. And also keep a journal of extreme events. So let's say there was a pushing and shoving incident happened while you're still living together. You wanna write down exactly what happened ideally on the day it happened. So if six months or a year later, you get blamed for that event, you got some kind of record to say “Wait a minute, this is what happened. I didn't start pushing. The other person started pushing.” You know, whatever it is that happened. So in a sense, it's preparing for the worst, but hoping for the best. And not assuming that the worst will happen, but kinda having your eyes open, having support, having information and keeping some records.  Christina: OK and so part of what I'm hoping to do is to provide people with a range of dispute resolution options and some hope that you don't necessarily have to end up in court. Now a lot of court files are comprised of at least one high-conflict person. But I know that you recommend that mediation can be possible and so that might be surprising for some people. Can you share your view of why mediation is a viable option in such a circumstance?  Bill: Well the reality is that over 90 percent of divorces are resolved by agreement. Even the ones that go to court, some end up finishing by agreement. So there's a really good chance even in a high-conflict case that it's gonna get resolved by agreement. And so I think mediation is really good because it keeps things calm. While two attorneys can negotiate with each other, it may be just the attorneys on their own and slip into being more adversarial. So mediation kinda keeps things calm. And collaborative divorce, if people have two collaborative lawyers, the lawyers can't go to court so they try hard to settle the case. So, something that kind of manages the case, and that's where I see mediation really be effective and that's most of what I do now. I've been a family lawyer for 25 years, but the last ten years I just do mediation. And about a third of my cases are high-conflict cases and people mostly reach an agreement. So what I encourage people do is kind of think a two-track system. One is try hard to negotiate and settle issues and mediation or some other form of negotiation, but keep your records, keep your notes your journal just in case you have to go to court. And the more prepared you are, the less likely the other person is to try to drag you into court. So I very much believe that mediation and I see high-conflict cases work things out. Sometimes it takes longer than it would with a case that wasn't high-conflict but still high-conflict people can settle in mediation so it's definitely worth a try. And it doesn't really hurt to try mediation. So that's why I just encourage people to start with mediation or some negotiation methods first.  Christina: Yeah, for sure. I agree that one of the benefits of mediation is the focus on trying to de-escalate, but I like your point of keeping the records and making sure that you are prepared just in case. But try to keep with the mindset that resolution is going to be the best for the family. And not using those records as a threat to the other.  Bill: Exactly! And there's a saying among lawyers, is used as something as a shield, not as a sword. And I really agree with that. Just protect yourself. And I might mention I have a book called Splitting, which is protecting yourself while divorcing someone with borderline or narcissistic personality disorder. And it's really geared to potentially high-conflict situations and we really emphasize, my co-author and I, Randi Kreger, to be prepared to take notes but also to communicate well. We talk about using the BIFF method – brief, informative, friendly and firm. So that you're really trying to put a positive on things even if it feels like a potentially negative situation.  Christina: I think that BIFF strategy is really helpful. And it can feel overwhelming for people when they're dealing with somebody who wants to engage in conflict all the time, that's exhausting. Are there any other go-to tactics or strategies that people can keep in mind when they are trying to negotiate with a high-conflict spouse? And I'm thinking particularly of co-parenting is part of their arrangement and regular communication is necessary.  Bill: Yeah, there's... it really helps to focus on what you want for the future and not talking and emphasizing what you don't want to happen in the past and people make that mistake all the time is with a potentially high-conflict person. Just say what you want. So rather than say “You never took the kids to their karate class,” is to say “I'd like you to take the kids to their karate class.” And, because what happens is you trigger so much defensiveness that people are busy defending themselves rather than saying “Yes, I can agree to that.” And so think the future. Think proposals. And just so the people know there's other information out there, I also have a little book called So What's Your Proposal? And it talks about a lot, like twenty examples in there of focusing on the future by making a proposal and focusing on it like the other person has a choice that you're willing to discuss with them. Other options so it's a proposal, not a demand. And that's so important in dealing with a high-conflict partner or co-parent because it's easy to just try to tell them what to do or to point out all the mistakes that they've made. And that definitely doesn't help. You just wanna say what you're aiming for. Say, “I would like you to pick up the kids after school for karate twice a week.” rather than “You've been doing it wrong for years.”  Christina: And I find that sometimes it's necessary to repeat those types of questions. For example, “So what's your proposal?” If you take the karate example that you used, “I'd like you to pick up the kids from karate.” Because sometimes, the really high-conflict people will grab on to even a positive statement like that and be defensive. “Well, I always pick up the kids from karate.” And so bringing the conversation back again to that focusing on the positive and the future and that is great. So that's what I'd like you to do.  Bill: Right. Right, right. Just really try to emphasize the positive and that's good to point out things that are working. A lot of times when people dealing with a high-conflict person, they don't give them any positive feedback. They just look at everything that's wrong. And it really helps to say “I appreciate that thing you did last week. That was helpful.” Or “The kids said that they enjoyed doing that activity with you last week. That's great!” Because the more you can do that, you're being kind of a role model for the other parent to do that back. And to say “Well you did something I appreciate. Thank you for that.”  Christina: And then that type of appreciation and role modeling will hopefully inspire similar responses in return.  Bill: Exactly. And what's interesting is, we're talking briefly before about the BIFF response method of emails that are brief, informative, friendly, and firm. And the feedback we're getting is people really like writing their emails that way. 'Cause even if someone's hostile towards them, you're responding in a clean way. You're not being hostile or rude back. And what we're hearing is that the other person starts to respond with a BIFF response as well even though they don't know what a BIFF is. They just try to be brief or more straight in information, friendly, and firm. And so it's contagious, and that's important as people to realize everything you do is contagious, especially in a highly emotional situation like separation or divorce. So what you want the other person to catch from you is calmness, positive feedback. Not anger and resentment and focusing on what went wrong. So you can influence the other person a little bit, not a lot, but somewhat by being positive and not being negative.  Christina: I think it might be really helpful to give the listeners an example of a BIFF response. So let's say that somebody receives an email demanding that the parenting schedule change the following week. What might a BIFF response look like?  Bill: Well actually, let me read one to you from the Splitting book...  Christina: OK.  Bill: Because it really, it's a classic example. And so let's say this is Joe and Jane and they've been separated for a couple of years – maybe divorced or maybe never married but with a couple of kids. And so Jane actually wants to take the kids Friday afternoon to her boss' birthday party at the office. And so she made that request, simple request. Jane and Joe response:  “Jane, I can't believe you're so stupid as to think I'm going to let you take the children to your boss' birthday party during my parenting time. Have you no memory of the last six conflicts we've had about my parenting time? Or are you having an affair with him? I always knew you would do anything to get ahead. In fact, I remember coming to your office party and witnessing you making a total fool of yourself. Including flirting with everyone from the CEO down to the mail room clerk. Are you high on something? Haven't you got your finances together enough to support yourself yet? Without flinging yourself at every time they can have it, and on and on and on...”  Christina: Oh my gosh that's traumatic just to listen to!  Bill: I know! I know! It's funny I read this to family lawyers and they say “I get these everyday.” So that's not a BIFF response. That's not the way we want people to talk. But if you think of a BIFF response as brief, informative, just straight information, no opinions, criticisms, emotions. Friendly, just a friendly greeting. And firm in that it ends the conversation or it asks for a simple yes or no response.  So let me read Jane's response and see if this is a BIFF response.  “Thank you for responding to my request to take the children to my office party. Just to clarify, the party would be from 3 to 5 on Friday at the office and there would be approximately thirty people there, including several other parents and their school-aged children. There'll be no alcohol because that's a family-oriented firm and there'll be family-oriented activities. I think it would be a good experience for the kids to see me at my workplace. Since you've not agreed, and of course I will respect that and withdraw my request because I recognize it is your parenting time.”  Bill: So, that's brief, that's straight information, it's friendly, she says “Thank you for responding...”, and she says “I respect your parenting time...”, and it's firm that it ends the conversation. Now she could have, depending on what she knows about Joe, have ended by saying, “With these information, I hope you'll reconsider. Please let me know by Thursday at 5:00. Yes or No.” So either of those would be a BIFF response. But do you feel the difference in the tone?  Christina: Yeah, I mean it would take a huge amount of mindfulness and maturity to be able to respond that way. Probably if some deep breathing and some time in between reading the first email and sending the BIFF response.  Bill: Right. One thing we encourage is that people have someone else look at it before they send it. So that they can kinda catch if you let anything kinda weak through that is really angry back. But you're right. It's not easy and in many ways, what we teach people is self-management. It's managing their own emotions. It's keeping their thinking flexible. Managing moderate behavior and checking themselves rather than blaming other people. And I might mention we have a method we call New Ways for Families that teaches a lot of skills, like making proposals and BIFF responses. So that people can get more and more comfortable doing these things with practice. And I'll tell you, we just get a lot of good feedback about this method because people feel more in control of themselves. And then the other person has less and less influence on them with their negativity.    Christina: Sure. Because the only person we really can control is ourselves. So when you're dealing with somebody high-conflict, the odds of being able to change their behavior is probably relatively slim. Hopefully, over time, they might take on this BIFF strategy themselves. But it in the meantime, people can affect how they are looking at the situation and choosing to respond.  Bill: Right. It's a learning process, it's a process of patience. I think it's kinda giving yourself encouraging statements, that's something else we teach with our New Ways for Families method. Because you know you're dealing with a hard time. And you can give yourself encouraging statements. You really can focus on what makes you feel good and get less stressed by it all. By getting support as I've said at the very beginning is a big part of that – from friends, family, even a counselor from, if you find it helpful.  Christina: Is the New Ways program, is that online and something anybody can sign up for?  Bill: It's both. It's online, where anyone can go. And actually, I'll give you our website for New Ways. It's newways4families.com. And we use the number 4 as we say new ways, and then the number 4, families.com. And the online version is called Parenting Without Conflict. Now that's kind of an aspiration because there's always gonna be some conflict. We just want it to be low-conflict, not high-conflict.  Christina: Or respectful conflict.  Bill: Exactly. But it's a twelve, basically twelve sessions, twelve hours, and it's approved by various court systems for people required to take a parenting class. But a lot of people just find it really helpful because of the skills that it teaches. We also have some cities where this is available as a counseling program and the judges actually order both parents to get the counseling program method which is six individual sessions for each parent with a separate counselor and a workbook. And then they each have three parent-child sessions to teach the kids the same skills – flexible thinking, managed emotions, moderate behavior, and checking themselves. The online course anybody can take. It's very easy to access that. But what we find is skills really help a lot and the people want skills. They want to know “How do I deal with my own emotions?” and “How do I respond to the other person's emotions?” and how you go through a divorce will really teach your kids how they should solve relationship problems in the future. And so we were really encouraging people kinda practice self-management skills during this time.  Christina: That's a fantastic resource and we will provide the link in the show notes so people can access that.  Bill: Let me mention one other thing is our other website, highconflictinstitute.com can be used to look at a lot of articles. We have a lot of free articles as well as books to pay for and videos. So I'll make sure you know about both of those websites.  Christina: Thank you, we'll post both of those. So taking just a bit of a left turn here, I see that your newest book, Dating Radar is helping people understand why they make the relationship choices that they do. I think the subtitle says it all: 'Why your brain says Yes to the one who'll make your life hell'. Now, I haven't had the chance to read it yet but I'd love to hear a bit of an overview because that sounds like that's really gonna help people hear out why they've made the decisions they have in the past and hopefully help make better decisions in the future.  Bill: I'm so glad you're asking about that 'cause we're really... Megan Hunter and I co-authored it. And we really feel enthusiastic about what we put in there. We did an online survey which helped give us feedback from a lot of people who said they've been through high-conflict relationships and warning signs that they missed. So in this book, we focused on three key things for Dating Radar. First, is know what you're looking for. Learn what the patterns of five high-conflict personality styles are. Then look at how they jam your radar that people get misled or overwhelmed with the goodness. You know, the knight-in-shining-armor image, the super charming man or woman who just sweeps you off your feet – that this isn't real. And that people realize this person is too good to be true. That they act like their favorite most important interests are the same as what they realize yours are. And we call that a fake compatibility that people are misled by. But the third category is your own blind spots, and that's where we look at kind of cultural beliefs about relationships that don't help. And a lot of songs feed this. You know, that you can change your partner “I will be able to fix this person and make them into a more responsible, honest partner. And that's just not true. We have to learn what you see is what you're going to get. And so a lot of people, you know like the day before they get married they go, “You know I'm not so sure but you know, I think time and love will change someone's soul. I'll make him settle down.” Of course, there's the old saying that women marry somebody based on the idea that they can change him and that men marry someone based on the idea that she'll never change.  Christina: Right.  Bill: So we have a lot of beliefs that trick us up so, that's what it helps with what we really think that so many people, both Megan and I worked in the divorce field for so many years and we see so many people they go, “Why did I do this? And I missed the warning signs.” We wanna help people know the warning signs and not miss them. So that you know, you don't have to go through a high-conflict divorce or separation later on.  Christina: Well that's fantastic. I'm looking forward to reading that. Before we end, do you have any other recommendations for people who find themselves in the situation of separating from a high-conflict person?  Bill: Just basically you know, getting support, getting information... We've got a lot of books. I mentioned BIFF, but I didn't mention that we have a BIFF book that teaches people how to write BIFF response emails and Facebook posts, etc. We have So What's Your Proposal, we have Dating Radar. So another book called Don't Alienate the Kids!, which talks about how we try to help the kids this time. And that's such an important part. People wonder “What do I say? Should I say something? Shouldn't I say something?” And so we recommend a lot of specific things to explain what's going on without badmouthing the other parent. Warning family members and friends, “You may hear terrible things about me. Please check them out with me. Don't hesitate to ask me if something true that you've heard.” Those kinds of things. So overall, it's being prepared, but I would say if someone's facing a high-conflict divorce, just plan ahead before you start the divorce process. Before you even say “I wanna get divorce” or “I'm moving out” is get your dots in a row. And the book Splitting really gives you a whole kinda map for what to expect and what to do.  Christina: This has been a wealth of information for our listeners, Bill. Thank you so much for being here with me today. And thank you for all of your contributions to the field of family law.  Bill: Thank you so much, Christina! And best wishes with your work.  Christina: Thank you. 

Kristen: Hello and welcome to Cerius Business Today. This is Kristen McAlister and I’m joined today with interim CFO Bill Hegeman. How are you? Bill: I’m really good Kristen. How are you? Kristen: Great. Thank you taking time out of your busy schedule. I know it took quite a bit to get you here, but glad to have you. I understand that you jump in to a number of pretty complex and dire situations, some they range in severity. You’re in an interesting assignment right now. Obviously without bulging any confidential information, what are some of the things that you are working through with the situation and bringing about the impact that you bringing about in the company? Bill: Well the one thing I talk about is cash. When I came here cash was extremely tight and even when I was, they were talking to me about this position they didn’t bring it up that much but shortly after I got here I realized there were severe cash situation and dealing with it, and then a little more digging I found out they weren’t collecting receivables in a timely manner that they had that you know more than about two-thirds of receivables were past due and at the same time they were not paying their suppliers on a timely basis. So they were stealing money thatshould have been for the suppliers by not collecting from their customers. I immediately put somebody on charge with that to make phone calls and make direct contact with our customers, and ask for the money. And once we did that within 5 weeks, we cleaned up over 80-percent of those past due receivables and they’ve been able to pay their vendors again. And it’s just a matter of discipline that you know you sell a good product at a fair price and you need to collect that. And if you don’t collect that, it’s going to cause you problems. So I just put in a very specific thing that you didn’t stop until you talk to the customer and get a commitment. And once you’ve done we collected them. Because they did like working with us. That’s one of the main things. The other thing was just the lack of credibility. That was the primary reason I was brought in is they could not provide, they had an international parent and they could not provide good, consistent financial information. And the company was extremely frustrated that they would ask for information, then they’d ask in a different way and they’d get two completely different answers. And this went on and on again where they just couldn’t get consistent financial information out of the organization I’m with. And so that’s one of the things I’ve done is really tighten the policies and procedures to make sure that we’re doing things the same way each time and that we review the information before we send it over but we make sure it’s right and it’s on time. Kristen: I know in this specific situation there’s also a talent assessment, do you have all the right people in the accounting or finance department. And we see that often in our clients and especially in fast growing companies. What advice would you give to their CEO or someone who’s currently leading the finance department of how to recognize the talent that you need in there? What the gaps are? How do you train them? Or maybe they’re just not the right fit that’s so those soft skills that are really difficult. Is there may be some top pieces of advice you can give from talent management and finance… Bill: Yeah. So one of the things I do when I come in to an organization is I do meet with each of the people and they, most of the people in the organization know who the good performers are and who the bad ones are. And so the first thing is just to talk to everyone and get their opinions. Who do they like working with? Who gives them the best information? And you get a pretty good sense of who’s on board and who isn’t. And then secondly, you go through what should you be expecting from that position? Because from my experience I know what the output should be for specific position and then I will go in and talk to that person to find out what they’re getting. You know is it a systems issue or is it a competence, the competency issue? And you can pretty quickly assess. And what I say is usually in two weeks I can tell you who the people that must go, and who the people that probably should go, and then if there’re upgrades needed in some of the positions where you might have a good performer but they just aren’t capable of doing everything that they’re required to do. Kirsten: That is tremendous advice. Especially as much as we’re seeing it in companies right now. Is there anything other else that maybe we haven’t hit on or that you’d say CEO’s really should be looking and expecting from their finance department? If you would say 3 things they should be looking at and kinging in on in order to be effective for strategic plans and where they want to go next year, what would those 3 things be? Bill: I’d say first of all I would have the things, the finance team provide you with a 3 year financial view of the future where they take and they look at your plans and they build a set of financials around that. And what you want to make sure that you have the cash capacity to fulfill those needs and if you don’t what are you going to do about it. So the first thing is that they can develop, put those together and you can give them tough questions and they can answer them. I think the second thing is to make sure that your finance organization is engaged with the entire organization. One of the things that I found is that in some organizations the finance department hasn’t been given its due and people don’t respect them and therefore they don’t get the answers they need to provide financials. But conversely the finance department can’t help them be successful. Finance department could be very, good finance department could be very valuable to the entire organizations for answering questions, helping them with pricing, helping them understand what needs to be done in a credit situation, you know, as far as credit approval goes for our new customers. So there’s a lot of things the finance department can do, but if they’re not included in the business they’re, you’re going to be sure changed. Then the last thing that I feel that is valuable for an organization is to really understand what their needs of the finance department are. They need to really sit down just like a HR department or a business development. What do you need from them and be clear about it and make sure that you’re getting that from them. Kristen: Bill that is tremendous advice, especially if you’re a CEO or a business owner and you don’t have the decades of finance background that you have. That’s very compelling. I appreciate your time and sharing your expertise and experiences with us today. Feel free to join us on our next episode of Cerius Business Today, and again Bill thank you for joining us. Bill: Thank you.

Adam Zickerman and Mike Rogers interview author, weight lifter, and personal trainer Bill DeSimone.  Bill penned the book Congruent Exercise: How To Make Weight Training Easier On Your Joints  Bill is well known for his approach to weight lifting which, focuses on correct biomechanics to build strength without undue collateral damage to connective tissue and the rest of the body.So, whether you are an aspiring trainer, serious weight lifter, or even an Inform Fitness client who invests just 20-30 minutes a week at one of their seven locations this episode is chock full of valuable information regarding safety in your high-intensity strength training.  A paramount platform of which the Power of Ten resides at all InForm Fitness locations across the country.To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.comIf you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam Zickerman's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTenTo purchase Bill DeSimone's book Congruent Exercise: How To Make Weight Training Easier On Your Joints click this link to visit Amazon:http://bit.ly/CongruentExerciseIf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.comBelow is the transcription for Episode 20 - Author Bill DeSimone - Congruent Exercise20 Author Bill DeSimone - Congruent ExerciseAdam: So there's not a day that goes by that I don't think by the way that I don't think of something Bill has said to me when I'm training people. Bill is basically my reference guide, he's my Grey's Anatomy. When I try an exercise with somebody, I often find myself asking myself, what would Bill do and I take it from there. Without further ado, this is Bill, and we're going to talk about all good stuff. Joint friendly exercises, what Bill calls it now, you started out with congruent exercises, technical manual for joint friendly exercise, and now you're rephrasing it.Bill: Well actually the first thing I did was [Inaudible: 00:00:43] exercise, but the thing is I didn't write [Inaudible: 00:00:45] exercise with the idea that anybody other than me was going to read it. I was just getting my own ideas down, taking my own notes, and just to flesh it out and tie it up in a nice package, I actually wrote it and had it bound it up and sent it off to Greg Anderson and McGuff and a couple others, and it hit a wave of interest.Adam: A wave, they were probably blown away.Bill: Yeah well, a lot of those guys went out of their way to call me to say boy, a lot of what I suspected, you explained here. But when I read it now, it's pretty technical, it's a challenge.Mike: There's a lot of, I think, common sense with an experienced trainer when you think about levers in general, and I think what you did in that manual was make it very succinct and very clear. I think it's something that maybe we didn't have the full story on, but I think we had some — if you have some experience and you care about safety as a trainer, I think you are kind of looking at it and you saw it observationally, and then I think when we read this we were like ah, finally, this has crystalized what I think some of us were thinking.Adam: Exactly. You know what I just realized, let's explain, first and foremost. You wrote something called Moment Arm Exercise, so the name itself shows you have technical — that it probably is inside, right? So moment arm is a very technical term, a very specific term in physics, but now you're calling it joint friendly exercise, and you called it also congruent exercise at one point. All synonymous with each other, so please explain, what is joint friendly exercise or fitness?Bill: It's based more on anatomy and biomechanics than sports performance. So unlike a lot of the fitness fads that the attitude and the verbiage comes out of say football practice or a competitive sport, what I'm doing is I'm filtering all my exercise instruction through the anatomy and biomechanics books, to try to avoid the vulnerable — putting your joints in vulnerable positions, and that's so complicated which is why I struggled with so much to make it clearer. So I started with moment arm exercise, and then I wrote Congruent Exercise, which is a little broader but obviously the title still requires some explanation. And then — how it happened, as for my personal training in the studio, I would use all this stuff but I wouldn't explain it because I was only dealing with clients, I wasn't dealing with peers. Since it's a private studio and not a big gym, I don't have to explain the difference between what I'm doing and what somebody else is doing, but in effect, I've been doing this every day for fifteen years.Adam: I have to say, when you say that, that you didn't explain it to clients, I actually use this information as a selling point. I actually explain to my clients why we're doing it this way, as opposed to the conventional way, because this is joint friendly. I don't get too technical necessarily, but I let them know that there is a difference of why we're doing it this way, versus the conventional way. So they understand that we are actually a cut above everybody else in how we apply exercise, so they feel very secure in the fact that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, but I digress.Bill: Generally what I do is any signage I have, a business card, website, Facebook presence, all lays out joint friendly and defines it and kind of explains itself. I would say most of the clients I have aren't coming from being heavily engaged in another form of fitness. They're people who start and drop out programs or they join a health club in January and drop out. It's not like I'm getting somebody who is really intensely into Crossfit, or intensely into Zumba or bodybuilding, and now they're banged up and need to do something different. The joint friendly phrasing is what connects me with people that need that, I just find that they don't need the technical explanation as to why we're not over stretching the joint capsule in the shoulder. Why we're not getting that extra range of motion on the bench press, because again, they haven't seen anybody doing otherwise, so I don't have to explain why I'm doing it this way.Adam: Yeah but they might have had experience doing it themselves. Let's take an overhead press for example, having your arms externally rotating and abducted, versus having them in front of you. There's an easy explanation to a client why we won't do one versus the other.Bill: But I have to say I do not get people who do not even know what a behind the neck press is. Now in Manhattan is a little bit different, more denser.Adam: So for this conversation, let's assume some people know, or understand in a way what the conventional is, but we can kind of get into it. What is conventional and what's not conventional. So it's joint friendly, how is it joint friendly, what are you actually doing to make it joint friendly?Bill: Well the short answer is that I use a lot less range of motion than we've got accustomed to, when we used to use an extreme range of motion. If bodybuilders in the 60s were doing pumping motions, and then you wanted to expand that range of motion, for good reason, and then that gets bastardized and we take more of a range of motion and turn it into an extreme range of motion — just because going from partial motions to a normal range of motion was good, doesn't make a normal range of motion to an extreme range of motion better. And in fact —Adam: What's wrong with extreme range of motion?Bill: Well because —Adam: Don't say that you want to improve flexibility.Bill: Well the HIIT guys who would say that you're going to improve flexibility by using —Adam: HIIT guys means the high intensity training sect of our business.Bill: So the line about, you're going to use the extreme range of motion with a weight training exercise to increase flexibility. First of all, either flexibility is important or it's not, and that's one of those things where HIIT has a little bit of an inconsistency, and they'll argue that it's not important, but then they'll say that you can get it with the weights. That's number one. Number two, a lot of the joint positions that machines and free weight exercises put us in, or can put us in, are very vulnerable to the joints, and if you go to an anatomy and biomechanics textbook, that is painfully obvious what those vulnerable positions are. Just because we walk into a gym or a studio and call it exercise instead of manual labor or instead of — instead of calling it submission wrestling and putting our joints or opponents' joints in an externally rotated abduct and extended position, we call it a pec fly, it's still the same shoulder. It's still a vulnerable position whether it's a pec fly stretching you back there, or a jiujitsu guy putting you in a paintbrush, but I don't know, for most of the pop fitness books though, if anybody else is really looking at this. Maybe not in pop fitness, maybe Tom Pervis —Adam: What's pop fitness?Bill: If you walk into a bookstore and look in the fitness section for instance, any of those types. No offense, but celebrity books, glossy celebrity fitness books, but I don't know that anybody — and the feedback that I've gotten from experienced guys like [Inaudible: 00:08:26] or the guys we know personally, is — even McGuff said yeah, I never associated the joint stuff with the exercise stuff.Adam: Let's talk about these vulnerabilities that you're talking about and extreme ranges of motion. So we have to understand a little bit about muscle anatomy to understand what we mean by the dangers of these extreme ranges of motion. So muscles are weaker in certain positions and they're stronger in other positions. Maybe talk about that, because that's where you start getting into why we do what we do, like understanding that muscles don't generate the same amount of force through a range of motion. They have different torque potentials.Mike: And is there a very clear and concise way of communicating that to a lay person too, like we have practice at it, but in here, we're over the radio or over the podcast, so it's like describing pictures with words.Bill: The easiest way to show it to a client who may not understand what muscle torque is, is to have them lock out in an exercise. Take a safe exercise, the barbell curl, where clearly if you allow your elbows to come forward and be vertically under the weight, at the top of the repetition, clearly all of a sudden the effort's gone. There's no resistance, but if you let your elbows drop back to rib height, if you pin your elbows to the sides through the whole curl, now all of a sudden your effort feels even. Instead of feeling like — instead of having effort and then a lockout, or having a sticky point and then a lockout, now it just feels like effort.Adam: Or a chest press where your elbows are straight and the weights are sitting on those elbows, you're not really working too hard there either.Bill: Same thing. If you have a lockout — what's easy to demonstrate is when the resistance torque that the machine or exercise provides doesn't match your muscle torque. So if your muscle torque pattern changes in the course of a movement, if you feel a lockout or a sticking point, then it's not a line. If all you feel is effort, now it matches pretty evenly. Now here's the thing, all that really means, and part of what I got away for a moment on — all that really means is that that set is going to be very efficient. Like for instance, the whole length of the reputation you're working. It's not like you work and lockout and rest, all that means is that it's going to be a very efficient set. You can't change a muscle torque curve, so if you were just to do some kind of weird angled exercise, you wouldn't get stronger in that angle. All you would do is use a relatively lower weight. Nobody does like a scott bench curl, nobody curls more than a standing curl. You can't change the muscle torque curve, you might change the angle, which means the amount of weight that your hand has change, to accommodate the different torque at that joint angle, but you're not changing where you're strongest. If you could, you would never know you had a bad [Inaudible: 00:11:36], because if the pattern — if the muscle torque pattern could change with a good [Inaudible: 00:11:44], it would also change with a bad [Inaudible: 00:11:47], and then you would never know. Take a dumbbell side raise, everybody on the planet knows it's hardest when your arms are horizontal. Your muscle torque curve can never change to accommodate what the resistance is asking. Now if you go from a machine side raise, which has more even — like where those two curves match, that set feels harder because you don't have to break. You do a set of side raises with dumbbells to failure, if it feels — if it's a difficulty level of ten, of force out of ten, and then you go to a machine side raise and go to failure, it's like a ten, because you didn't have that break built into the actual rep. So the moment arms, knowing how to match the resistance required by the exercise and the muscle torque expressed by your limbs, that makes for a more efficient exercise. In terms of safety, it's all about knowing what the vulnerable positions of the joints are and cutting the exercise short, so that you're not loading the joint into an impingement, or into like an overstretched position.Mike: How different are these…. like thinking about limitation and range of motion on them, we mentioned that before and I think it's kind of adjacent to what you're talking about is — we also want to help people understand that if they're on their own exercising or there are other trainers who want to help their clients, and for our trainers to help our clients… troubleshooting, we know generally how the joints work, where the strength curves exist, but how to discern where those limitations are. Like you said before, that one of the things you do is you limit range of motion and get much more stimulus and muscle.Bill: I'm saying limit range of motion because that might be the verbiage that we understand and maybe listeners would understand, but it's really a lot more complicated than just saying, use this range of motion. So for instance, in a lower back exercise, say a stiff leg or dead lift, which, when I used to misinterpret that by using a full range of motion, I'd be standing on a bench with a barbell, and the barbell would be at shoe level. My knees would be locked, my lower back would be rounded, my shoulders would be up my ears as I'm trying to get the bar off the ground, and so yes, I was using a full range of motion.Adam: That's for sure.Mike: That can be painted for that description.Bill: It's also pretty much a disaster on your lower back waiting to happen, at least on your lower back.Adam: I've got to go to a chiropractor just listening to that.Bill: Exactly, but you still see it all the time. You see it all the time on people using kettle bells, you see that exact posture. The kettle bell is between their legs, their knees are locked, their lower back is rounded, and now they're doing a speed lift. At least I was doing them slow, they're doing speed dead lifts, so if I was going to do an exercise like that, it wouldn't be an extreme range of motion, I'd be looking to use a correct range of motion. So for instance, I wouldn't lock the knees, and I would only lower the person's torso so that they could keep the curve in the lower back. Which might require a rep or two to see where that is, but once you see where that is, that's what I would limit them to.Mike: Do you do it at first with no weight with the client?Bill: That'd be one way of lining it up.Mike: Just sort of seeing what they can just do, make sure they understand the position and stuff.Bill: So for instance, the chest press machine I have in the studio is a Nitro —Adam: [Inaudible: 00:15:37] Nitro.Bill: And it doesn't — the seat doesn't adjust enough for my preference, so the person's elbows come too far back. So for instance, to get the first rep off the ground, the person's elbows have to come way behind the plane of their back, which —Adam: So you've come to weigh stack themBill: Weigh stack, right.Mike: It's like our pull over, you know how we had to pull it over at one point?Bill: So what I'll do is I'll help the person out of the first repetition, help them out of the bottom, and then I'll have my hand to the clipboard where I want their elbow to stop. So as soon as they touch my hand with their elbow, they start to go the other way.Adam: So they're not stretching their pecs too far.Bill: Well more specifically, they're not rotating their shoulder capsule. So that's another thing we tend to do, we tend to think of everything in terms of the big, superficial muscles — right, those are the ones that don't get hurt, it's the joints that [do]. That was one thing of all the stuff I read, whether it was CSCS or Darton's stuff or Jones' stuff, there was always a little murkiness between what was the joint and what was the muscle. That stuff was always written from the point of view of the muscle.Adam: What's a joint capsule, for those that don't know what a joint capsule is. A shoulder capsule.Bill: It's part of the structure of what holds your shoulder together, and so if the old [Inaudible: 00:17:06] machines, 1980 vintage, that bragged about getting such an extreme range of motion, some of them… it really took your shoulder to the limit of where it could go to start the exercise, and we were encouraged to go that far.Adam: And what would happen?Bill: Eventually it just adds to the wear and tear that you were going to have in your shoulder anyway. And that's if people stayed with it, I think a lot of people ended up dropping out.Mike: Often times exacerbating what was going on.Bill: You rarely see, it's occasional that we have that sort of catastrophic event in the gym, it's occasional —Mike: Almost never happens.Bill: A lot of the grief that I take for my material is well, that never happens, people do this exercise all the time, people never explode their spine. Well a) that's not true, they do, just not in that persons' awareness, and b) but the real problem is unnecessarily adding to life's wear and tear on your joints. So it's not just what we do in the gym that counts, if somebody plays tennis or somebody has a desk job or manual labor job — let's say a plumber or some other manual labor guy has to go over his head with his arms a lot, that wear and tear on his shoulder counts, and just because they walk into your gym, and you ask them about their health history, do you have any orthopedic problems and they say no, yes. I'm on the verge of an orthopedic problem that I don't know about, and I've worn this joint out because of work, but no I have no orthopedic problems at the moment. So my thing is, the exercise I'm prescribing isn't going to make that worse.Adam: Well you don't want to make it worse, and that's why you're limiting range of motion, that's why you're matching the strength curve of the muscle with the resistance curve of the tool you're using, whether it's free weight or machine or the cam.Bill: Yeah, we're supposed to be doing this for the benefits of exercise. I do not — I truly do not understand crippling yourself over the magical benefit of exercise. I mean there's no — in 2014, there was a lot of negative publicity with Crossfit, with some of the really catastrophic injuries coming about. There's no magic benefits just because you risk your life, you either benefit from exercise or you don't, but you don't get extra magic benefit because you pushed something to the brink of cracking your spine or tearing your shoulder apart.Adam: Well they talk about them being functional or natural movements, that they do encourage these full ranges of motion because that's what you do in life.Bill: Where? Mike: Well I mean like in sports for example, you're extending your body into a range of motion — and also there are things in life, like for example, like I was saying to Adam, for example, sometimes you have to lift something that's heavy and you have to reach over a boundary in front of you to do so.Bill: Like… putting in the trunk of a car, for example.Mike: Things like that, or even —Adam: So shouldn't you exercise that way if that's what you're doing in every day life?Mike: If your daily life does involve occasional extreme ranges of motion, which that's the reason why your joints of kind of wearing and tearing anyway, is there something you can do to assist in training that without hurting it? Or exacerbating it?Bill: You know it's interesting, 25 years ago, there was a movement in physical therapy and they would have back schools, and they would — it was sort of like an occupational oriented thing, where they would teach you how to lift, and at the time, I thought that was so frivolous. I just thought, get stronger, but lifting it right in the first place is really the first step to not getting injured. Mike: Don't life that into the trunk unless —Bill: Well unless you have to, right? For instance, practicing bad movements doesn't make you invulnerable to the bad movements, you're just wearing out your free passes. Now sport is a different animal, yes you're going to be — again, I don't think anyone is doing this, but there's enough wear and tear just in your sport, whether it's football, martial arts, running, why add more wear and tear from your workout that's there to support the sport. The original [Inaudible: 00:21:52] marketing pitch was look how efficient we made weight training, you can spend more time practicing. You don't have to spend four hours a day in the gym, you can spend a half hour twice a week or three times a week in the gym, and get back to practicing.Adam: I remember Greg [Inaudible: 22:06] said to a basketball coach that if his team is in his gym more than 20 minutes or so a week, that he's turning them into weight lifters and not basketball players.Bill: Well there you go. Now —Mike: The thing is the training and the performance goals in getting people stronger, faster, all that kind of stuff, is like unbelievable now a days, but I've never seen more injuries in sports in my entire life than right now.Bill: It's unbelievably bogus though is what it is. You see a lot of pec tears in NFL training rooms. Adam: So why aren't they learning? Why is it so hard to get across then?Bill: Well for starters, you're going to churn out — first of all you're dealing with twenty year olds. Adam: So what, what are you saying about twenty year olds?Bill: I was a lot more invincible at twenty than I am at sixty.Mike: Physically and psychologically.Bill: The other thing for instance. Let's say you've got a college level, this is not my experience, I'm repeating this, but if you have a weight room that's empty, or, and you're the strength and conditioning coach, because you're intensely working people out, briefly, every day. Versus the time they're idle, they're off doing their own thing. Or, every day the administrators and the coaches see people running hoops and doing drills, running parachutes and every day there is an activity going. What looks better? What is more job security for that strength and conditioning coach? Adam: Wait a second. What is Jim the strength training coach doing? He's working one day a week and what's he doing the rest of the week?Mike: And what's the team doing the rest of the week?Bill: But again, don't forget, if you're talking about twenty something year old athletes, who knows what that's going to bring on later.Adam: You are seeing more injuries though.Bill: Right. A couple of years ago, ESPN had a story on a guy. He had gotten injured doing a barbell step up, so a barbell step up, you put a barbell on your back, you step onto a bench, bring the other foot up. Step back off the bench, four repetitions. Classic sports conditioning exercise, in this guys case either he stepped back and twisted his ankle and fell with the bar on his back, or when he went to turn to put the bar back on the rack, when he turned, it spun on him and he damaged his back that way. Either way, he put his ability to walk at risk, so the ESPN story was, oh look how great that is he's back to playing. Yes, but he put his ability to walk at risk, to do an exercise that is really not significantly — it's more dangerous than other ways of working your legs, but it's not better.Adam: The coaches here, the physical trainers, they don't have evidence that doing step ups is any more effective in the performance of their sport, or even just pure strength gains. Then lets say doing a safe version of a leg press or even squats for that matter.Bill: And even if you wanted to go for a more endurance thing, running stadium steps was a classic exercise, but stadium steps are what, three or four inches, they made them very flat. Even that's safer because there's no bar on your back. So on the barbell step up, which I think is still currently in the NSCA textbooks, the bar is on your back. If the bench is too high, you have to bend over in order to get your center of gravity over the bench, otherwise you can't get off the floor. So now you're bent over with one foot in front of you, so now you don't even have two feet under you like in a barbell squat to be more stable. You have your feet in line, with the weight extending sideways, and now you do your twenty repetitions or whatever and you're on top of the bench, and your legs are burning and you're breathing heavy, and now you've got to get off. How do you get off that bench when your legs are gassed, you're going to break and lock your knee, and the floor is going to come up — nobody steps forward, they all step backwards where you can't see. Mike: Even after doing an exercise, let's say you did it okay or whatever and whether it was congruent or not congruent, sometimes, if it's a free weight type of thing, just getting the weight back on the floor or on the rack. After you've gone to muscle failure or close to muscle failure —Adam: So are these things common now, like still in the NFL they're doing these types of training techniques? Bill: I don't really know what's happening in the NFL or the college level, because frankly I stopped my NSCA membership because I couldn't use any material with my population anyway. So I don't really know what they are — I do know that that was a classic one, and as recently as 2014 — in fact one other athlete actually did lose his ability to walk getting injured in that exercise. Adam: It's cost benefit, like how much more benefit are you getting —Bill: It's cost. My point is that the benefit is — it's either or.Mike: That's the thing, people don't know it though, they think the benefit is there. That's the problem.Bill: They think that for double the risk, you're going to get quadruple the benefit. What, what benefit? What magic benefit comes out of putting your ability to walk at risk?Mike: One of my clients has a daughter who was recruited to row at Lehigh which is a really good school for that, and she, in the training program, she was recruited to go. She was a great student but she was recruited to row, and in the training program, she hurt her back in the weight room in the fall, and never, ever was with the team. This was a very, very good program — Bill: Very good program, so it's rowing, so a) it's rough on your lower back period, and b) I'm completely guessing here, but at one time they used to have their athletes doing [Inaudible: 00:28:22] and other things —Adam: Explain what a clean is —Bill: Barbells on the floor and you either pull it straight up and squat under the bar, which would be like an olympic clean, or you're a little more upright and you just sort of drag the bar up to your collarbones, and get your elbows underneath it. Either way it's hard on the back, but at one time, rowing conditioning featured a lot of exercises like that to get their back stronger, that they're already wearing out in the boat. They didn't ask me, but if I was coaching them, I would not train their lower backs in the off season. I would let the rowing take care of that, I would train everything around their back, and give their back a break, but they didn't ask.Adam: I don't know why they didn't ask you, didn't they know that you're a congruent exerciser?Bill: You've got to go to a receptive audience.Mike: I think because there are things we do in our lives that are outside, occasionally outside our range of motion or outside — that are just incongruent or not joint friendly, whether it's in sports or not. The thing is, I'm wondering are there exercises that go like — say for example you have to go — your sport asks for range of motion from one to ten, and you need to be prepared to do that, if you want to do that, the person desires to do that. Are there exercises where you go — can you be more prepared for that movement if you are doing it with a load or just a body weight load, whatever, up to say level four. Are there situations where it's okay to do that, where you're going a slight increase into that range where it's not comprising joint safety, and it's getting you a little bit more prepared to handle something that is going on.Adam: So for example, for a golf swing, when you do a golf swing, you're targeting the back probably more than you should in a safe range of motion in an exercise. I would never [Inaudible: 00:30:32] somebody's back in the exercise room to the level that you have to [Inaudible: 00:30:34] your back to play golf. So I guess what Mike is asking is is there an exercise that would be safe to [Inaudible: 00:30:41] the back, almost as much as you would have to in golf.Bill: I would say no. I would say, and golf is a good example. Now if you notice, nobody has their feet planted and tries to swing with their upper body.Mike: A lot of people do, that's how you hurt yourself.Bill: But any sport, tennis, throwing a baseball, throwing a punch. Get your hips into it, it's like standard coaching cliche, get your hips into it. What that does is it keeps you from twisting your back too much. In golf, even Tiger who was in shape for quite a while couldn't help but over twist and then he's out for quite a while with back problems.Mike: Yeah, his story is really interesting and complicated. He did get into kind of navy seal training and also you should see the ESPN article on that which really — after I read that I thought that was the big thing with his problems. Going with what you just said about putting your hips into it, I'm a golfer, I try to play golf, and I did the TPI certification. Are you familiar with that? I thought it was really wonderful, I thought I learned a lot. I wasn't like the gospel according to the world of biomechanics, but I felt like it was a big step in the right direction with helping with sports performance and understanding strength and mobility. One of the bases of, the foundation of it, they — the computer analysis over the body and the best golfers, the ones that do it very very efficiently, powerfully and consistently, and they showed what they called a [Inaudible: 00:32:38] sequence, and it's actually very similar, as you said, in all sports. Tennis, golf, throwing a punch, there's a sequence where they see that the people who do it really, really well, and in a panfry way, it goes hip first, then torso, then arm, then club. In a very measured sequence, despite a lot of people who have different looking golf swings, like Jim [Inaudible: 00:32:52], Tiger Woods, John Daley, completely different body types, completely different golf swings, but they all have the — if you look at them on the screen in slow motion with all the sensors all over their body, their [Inaudible: 00:33:04] sequence is identical. It leads to a very powerful and consistent and efficient swing, but if you say like if you have limitations in you mobility between your hips and your lumbar spine, or your lumbar spine and your torso, and it's all kind of going together. It throws timing off, and if you don't have those types of things, very slowly, or quickly, you're going to get to an injury, quicker than another person would get to an injury. The thing is, at the same time, you don't want to stop someone who really wants to be a good golfer. We have to give the information and this is a — people have to learn the biomechanics and the basic swing mechanics of a golf swing, and then there's a fitness element to it all. Are you strong enough, do you have the range of motion, is there a proper mobility between the segments of your body in order to do this without hurting yourself over time, and if there isn't, golf professionals and fitness professionals are struggling. How do I teach you how to do this, even though it's probably going to lead you to an injury down the line anyway. It's a puzzle but the final question is, what — I'm trying to safely help people who have goals with sports performance and without hurting them.Bill: First of all, any time you go from exercise in air quotes to sports, with sports, there's almost an assumption of risk. The person playing golf assumes they're going to hurt a rotator cuff or a back, or they at least know it's a possibility. It's just part of the game. Football player knows they could have a knee injury, maybe now they know they could have a concussion, but they just accept it by accepting it on the court or the turf. They walk into our studio, I don't think that expectation — they may expect it also, but I don't think it really belongs there. I don't think you're doing something to prepare for the risky thing. The thing you're doing to prepare for the risky thing shouldn't also be risky, and besides, let them get hurt on that guy's time, not on your time. I'm being a little facetious there, I don't buy the macho bullshit attitude that in order to challenge myself physically, I have to do something so reckless I could get hurt. That's just simply not necessary. If somebody says I want to be an Olympic weightlifter, I want to be a power lifter, just like if they want to be a mixed martial artist, well then you're accepting the fact that that activity is your priority. Not your joint health, not your safety. That activity is your priority, and again, nobody in professional sports is asking me, but I would so make the exercise as safe as possible. As safe as possible at first, then as vigorous as possible, and then let them take that conditioning and apply it to their sport.Adam: If a sport requires that scapulary traction at a certain time in a swing or whatever they're asking for, I don't really think that there's a way in the exercise room of working on just that. Scapular traction, and even if you can, it doesn't mean it's going to translate to the biomechanics and the neuro conditioning and the motor skill conditioning to put it all together. Bill: You can't think that much —Adam: I'm just thinking once and for all, if strong hips are what's important for this sport, a strong neck is what's important for this. If being able to rotate the spine is important and you need your rotation muscles for the spine, work your spine rotationally but in a very safe range of motion. Tax those muscles, let them recover and get strong so when you do go play your sport, lets say a golf swing, it's watching the videos and perfecting your biomechanics, but there's nothing I think you can do in the gym that is going to help you really coordinate all those skills, because you're trying to isolate the hip abductor or a shoulder retractor. Mike: Well I was going to say, I think isolating the muscles in the gym is fine, because it allows you to control what happens, you don't have too many moving parts, and this is kind of leading up to the conversational on functional training.Adam: Which is good even if you can do that. You might notice there's a weakness —Mike: Yeah but if you're going to punch, you don't think okay flex the shoulder, extend at the — Adam: There are a lot of boxers that didn't make it because they were called arm punchers. Bill: So at some point you can't train it. You need to realize gee that guy has good hip movement, let me direct him to this sport.Adam: So I think what Mike's asking is is there some kind of exercise you can do to turn an arm puncher, let's use this as an example, turn an arm puncher into a hip puncher? If you can maybe do something —Bill: I think it's practice though. Mike: I think there's a practice part of it. Going back to the golf swing, one of the things that they were making a big deal out of is, and it goes back to what we mentioned before, sitting at a desk and what's going on with our bodies. Our backs, our hips, our hamstrings. As a result of the amount of time that most of us in our lives have, and we're trainers, we're up on our feet all day, but a lot of people are in a seated position all the time. Adam: Hunched over, going forward.Mike: Their lower back is —Bill: Hamstrings are shortened, yeah.Mike: What is going on in the body if your body is — if you're under those conditions, eight to ten hours a day, five days a week. Not to mention every time you sit down in your car, on the train, have a meal, if you're in a fetal position. My point is, they made a big thing at TPI about how we spend 18-20 hours a day in hip flexion, and what's going on. How does that affect your gluten if you're in hip flexion 20 hours a day. They were discussing the term called reciprocal inhibition, which is — you know what I mean by that?Bill: The muscle that's contracting, the opposite muscle has to relax.Mike: Exactly, so if the hip is flexed, so as the antagonist muscle of the glue which is being shut off, and therefore —Bill: Then when you go to hip henge, your glutes aren't strong enough to do the hip henge so you're going to get into a bad thing.Mike: Exactly, and the thing as I said before —Adam: What are they recommending you do though?Mike: Well the thing is they're saying do several different exercises to activate the gluten specifically and —Adam: How is that different than just doing a leg press that will activate them?Mike: Adam, that's a good question and the thing is it comes back to some of the testimonials. When you deal with clients, often times if you put them on a leg press, they'll say I'm not feeling it in my glutes, I'm only feeling it in my quads, and other people will say, I'm feeling it a lot in my glutes and my hamstrings, and a little bit in my quads.Adam: But if they don't feel it in their glutes, it doesn't mean that their glutes aren't activated, for sure.Mike: Bill, what do you think about that?Bill: I think feel is very overrated in our line of work. I can get you to feel something but it's not — you can do a concentration curl, tricep kickback, or donkey kicks with a cuff, and you'll feel something because you're not — you're making the muscle about to cramp, but that's not necessarily a positive. As far as activating the glutes go, if they don't feel it on the leg press, I would go to the abductor machine. Mike: I mean okay, whether it's feel it's overrated, that's the thing that as a trainer, I really want the client to actually really make the connection with the muscle part.Bill: Well yeah, you have to steer it though. For instance, if you put somebody on the abductor machine and they feel the sides of their glutes burn, in that case, the feel matches what you're trying to do. If you have somebody doing these glute bridging exercises where their shoulders are on a chair and their hips are on the ground, knees are bent, and they're kind of just driving their hips up. You feel that but it's irrelevant, you're feeling it because you're trying to get the glutes to contract at the end of where — away from their strongest point. You're not taxing the glutes, you're getting a feeling, but it's not really challenging the strength of the glutes. So I think what happens with a lot of the approaches like you're describing, where they have half a dozen exercises to wake up the glutes, or engage them or whatever the phrase is.Mike: Activate, yeah.Bill:  There's kind of a continuity there, so it should be more of a progression rather than all of these exercises are valid. If you've got a hip abductor machine, the progression is there already.Mike: The thing is, it's also a big emphasis, it's going back to TPI and golf and stuff, is the mobility factor. So I think that's the — the strength is there often times, but there's a mobility issue every once in a while, and I think that is — if something is, like for example if you're very, very tight and if your glutes are supposed to go first, so says TPI through their [Inaudible: 00:42:57] sequence, but because you're so tight that it's going together, and therefore it's causing a whole mess of other things which might make your club hit the ground first, and then tension in the arms, tension in the back, and all sorts of things. I'm thinking maybe there are other points, maybe the mobility thing has to be addressed in relation to a golf swing, more so than are the glutes actually working or not.Bill: Well the answer is it all could be. So getting back to a broader point, the way we train people takes half an hour, twice a week maybe. That leaves plenty of time for this person to do mobility work or flexibility work, if they have a specific activity that they think they need the work in.Mike: Or golf practice.Bill:  Well that's what I'm saying, even if it's golf and even if — if you're training for strength once or twice a week, that leaves a lot of time that you can do some of these mobility things, if the person needs them. That type of program, NASM has a very elaborate personal trainer program, but they tend to equally weight every possible — some people work at a desk and they're not — their posture is fine. Maybe they just intuitively stretch during the day, so I think a lot of those programs try to give you a recipe for every possible eventuality, and then there's a continuum within that recipe. First we're going to do one leg bridges, then we're going to do two leg bridges, now we're going to do two leg bridges on a ball, now we're going to do leg bridges with an extra weight, now we're going to do two leg bridges with an elastic band. Some of those things are just progressions, there's no magic to any one of those exercises, but I think that's on a case by case basis. If the person says I'm having trouble doing the swing the way the instructor is teaching me, then you can pick it apart, but the answer is not necessarily weight training.Mike: The limitation could be weakness but it could be a mobility thing, it could be a whole bunch of things, it could be just that their mechanics are off.Bill: And it could just be that it's a bad sport for them. The other thing with postural issues, is if you get them when a person's young, you might be able to correct them. You get a person 60, 70, it may have settled into the actual joints. The joints have may have changed shape.Adam: We've got people with kyphosis all the time. We're going to not reverse that kyphosis. You have these women, I find it a lot with tall women. They grow up taller than everyone else in their class and they're shy so they end up being kyphotic because they're shy to stand up tall. You can prevent further degeneration and further kyphosis.Bill: Maybe at 20 or 25, if you catch that, maybe they can train out of it, but if you get it when it's already locked in, all you can do is not do more damage.Adam: So a lot of people feel and argue that machines are great if you want to just do really high intensity, get really deep and go to failure, but if you want to really learn how to use your body in  space, then free weights and body weight movements need to be incorporated, and both are important. Going to failure with machines in a safe manner, that might be cammed properly, but that in and of itself is not enough. That a lot of people for full fitness or conditioning if you will, you need to use free weights or body weight movements —Mike: Some people even think that machines are bad and only body weights should be done.Adam: Do you have an opinion about if one is better than the other, or they both serve different purposes and they're both important, or if you just use either one of them correctly, you're good.Bill: Let's talk about the idea that free weights are more functional than machines. I personally think it's what you do with your body that makes it functional or not, and by functional, that's —Adam: Let's talk about that, let's talk about functional training.Bill:  I'm half mocking that phrase.Adam: So before you even go into the question I just asked, maybe we can talk about this idea, because people are throwing around the expression functional training nowadays. So Crossfit is apparently functional training, so what exactly was functional training and what has it become?Bill: I don't know what they're talking about, because frankly if I've got to move a tire from point A to point B, I'm rolling it, I'm not flipping it. Adam: That would be more functional, wouldn't it.Bill: If I have to lift something, if I have a child or a bag of groceries that I have to lift, I'm not going to lift a kettle bell or dumbbell awkwardly to prepare for that awkward lift. In other words, I would rather train my muscles safely and then if I have to do something awkward, hopefully I'm strong enough to get through it, to withstand it. My thought was, when I started in 1982 or so, 84, 83, somewhere in the early 80s I started to train, most of us at the time were very influenced by the muscle magazines. So it was either muscle magazines, or the [Inaudible: 00:48:24] one set to failure type training, but the people that we were training in the early 80s, especially in Manhattan, they weren't body builders and they weren't necessarily athletes. So to train business people and celebrities and actors etc, like you would train an athlete seemed like a bad idea. Plus how many times did I hear, oh I don't want to get big, or I'm not going out for the Olympics. Okay fine, but then getting to what Mike said before, if someone has a hunched over shoulder or whatever, now you're tailoring the training to what the person is in front of you, to what is relevant to their life. 20 inch arms didn't fascinate them, why are you training them to get 20 inch arms? Maybe a trimmer waist was more their priority, so to my eye, functional training and personal training, back in the 80s, was synonymous. Somewhere since the 80s, functional training turned into this anti machine approach and functional training for sport was [Inaudible: 00:49:32] by a guy named Mike Boyle. His main point in there is, and I'm paraphrasing so if I get it wrong, don't blame him, but his point was as an athlete, you don't necessarily need to bench heavy or squat heavy or deadlift heavy, although it might be helpful, but you do need the muscles that hold your joints together to be in better shape. So all of his exercises were designed around rotator cuff, around the muscles around the spine, the muscles around the hips, the muscles around the ankles. So in his eye it was functional for sport, he was training people, doing exercises, so they would hold their posture together so that that wouldn't cause a problem on the field. That material was pretty good, went a little overboard I think in some ways, but generally it was pretty good, but then it kind of got bastardized as it got caught into the commercial fitness industry, and it just became an excuse for sequencing like a lunge with a curl with a row with a pushup, to another lunge, to a squat. It just became sort of a random collection of movements, justified as being functional, functional for what? At least Boyle was functional for sport, his point was to cut injuries down in sport. Where is the function in stringing together, again, a curl, to a press, to a pushup, to a squat, back to the curl, like one rep of each, those are more like stunts or feats of strength than they are, to me, exercise, Adam: So when you're talking about the muscles around the spine or the rotator cuffs, they're commonly known as stabilizer muscles, and when we talk about free weights versus machines, a lot of times we'll say something like, well if you want to work your stabilizer muscles, you need to use free weights, because that's how you work the stabilizer muscles. What would you say to that?Bill: I would say that if they're stabilizing while they're using the free weights, then they're using the stabilizer muscles, right?Adam: And if they're stabilizing while using a machine?Bill:  They're using their stabilizer muscles.Adam: Could you work out those stabilizer muscles of the shoulder on a machine chest press, the same way you can use strength in stabilizer muscles of the shoulder on a free weight bench press?Bill:  Yes, it's what your body is doing that counts, not the tool. So if someone is on a free weight…Mike: Is it the same though, is it doing it the same way? So you can do it both ways, but is it the same?Bill: If you want to — skill is very specific, so if you want to barbell bench press, you have to barbell bench press.Adam: Is there an advantage to your stabilizer muscles to do it with a free weight bench press, as opposed to a machine?Bill: I don't see it, other than to help the ability to free weight bench press, but if that's not why the person is training, if the person is just training for the health benefits of exercise to use it broadly, I don't think it matters — if you're on a machine chest press and you're keeping your shoulder blades down and back, and you're not buckling your elbows, you're voluntarily controlling the range of the motion. I don't see how that stabilization is different than if you're on a barbell bench press, and you have to do it the same way. Adam: You're balancing, because both arms have to work independently in a way.Bill:  To me that just makes it risky, that doesn't add a benefit.Mike: What about in contrast to lets say, a pushup. A bodyweight pushup, obviously there's a lot more going on because you're holding into a plank position which incorporates so many more muscles of your entire body, but like Adam and I were talking the other day about the feeling — if you're not used to doing pushups regularly, which Adam is all about machines and stuff like that, I do a little bit of everything, but slow protocol. It's different, one of our clients is unbelievably strong on all of the machines, we're talking like top 10% in weight on everything. Hip abduction, leg press, chest press, pull downs, everything, and this guy could barely do 8 limited range of motion squats with his body weight, and he struggles with slow pushups, like doing 5 or 6 pushups. 5 seconds down, 5 seconds up, to 90 degrees at the elbow, he's not even going past — my point is that he's working exponentially harder despite that he's only dealing with his body weight, then he is on the machines, in all categories.Bill:  So here's the thing though. Unless that's a thing with them, that I have to be able to do 100 pushups or whatever, what's the difference?Mike: The difference is —Adam: The question is why though. Why could he lift 400, 500 pounds on Medex chest press, he could hardly do a few pushups, and should he be doing pushups now because have we discovered some kind of weakness? That he needs to work on pushups?Bill: Yes, but it's not in his pecs and his shoulders.Mike: I'm going to agree, exactly.Bill:  The weakness is probably in his trunk, I don't know what the guy is built like. The weakness is in his trunk because in a pushup, you're suspending yourself between your toes and your arms.Adam: So somebody should probably be doing ab work and lower back extensions?Bill: No he should be doing pushups. He should be practicing pushups, but practicing them in a way that's right. Not doing the pushup and hyper extending his back, doing a pushup with his butt in the air. Do a perfect pushup and then if your form breaks, stop, recover. Do another perfect pushup, because we're getting back into things that are very, very specific. So for instance, if you tell me that he was strong on every machine, and he comes back every week and he's constantly pulling things in his back, then I would say yes, you have to address it.Mike: This is my observations that are more or less about — I think it's something to do with his coordination, and he's not comfortable in his own body. For example, his hips turn out significantly, like he can't put his feet parallel on the leg press for example. So if I ever have him do a limited range of motion lunge, his feet go into very awkward positions. I can tell he struggles with balance, he's an aspiring golfer as well. His coordination is — his swing is really, I hope he never listens to this, it's horrible. Adam: We're not giving his name out.Bill: Here's the thing now. You as a trainer have to decide, am I going to reconfigure what he's doing, at the risk of making him feel very incompetent and get him very discouraged, or do I just want to, instead of doing a machine chest press, say we'll work on pushups. Do you just want to introduce some of these new things that he's not good at, dribble it out to him a little bit at a time so it gives him like a new challenge for him, or is that going to demoralize him?Mike: He's not demoralized at all, that is not even on the table. I understand what you're saying, I think there are other people who would look at it that way. I think he looks at it as a new challenge, I think he knows — like we've discussed this very, very openly. He definitely — it feels like he doesn't have control over his body in a way. Despite his strength, I feel that — my instincts as a trainer, I want to see this guy be able to feel like he's strong doing something that is a little bit more — incorporates his body more in space than just being on a machine. If I'm measuring his strength based on what he can do by pressing forward or pulling back or squatting down, he's passed the test with As and great form. He does all the other exercises with pretty good form, but he's struggling with them. He has to work a lot harder in order to do it, and to be it's an interesting thing to see someone who lifts very heavy weights on the chest press and can barely do 4 slow pushups.Bill: Let's look at the pushups from a different angle. Take someone who could do pushups, who can do pushups adequately, strictly and all. Have another adult sit on their butt, all of a sudden those perfect pushups, even though probably raw strength could bench press an extra person, say, you can't do it, because someone who is thicker in the hips, has more weight around the hips, represented by the person sitting on their back, their dimensions are such that their hips are always going to be weighing them down. So that person's core — like a person with broader hips, in order to do a pushup, their core has to be much stronger than somebody with very narrow hips, because they have less weight in the middle of their body. So some of these things are a function of proportion.Adam: You can't train for it, in other words you can't improve it.Mike: Women in general have their center of gravity in their hips, and that's why pushups are very, very hard.Adam: I have an extremely strong individual, a perfect example of what you're talking about right now. I know people that are extremely, extremely strong, but some of these very, very strong individuals can do a lot of weight on a pullover machine, they can do a lot of weight on a pulldown machine, but as soon as you put them on the chin-up bar, they can't do it. Does that mean they're not strong, does that mean that they can't do chin-ups, that they should be working on chin-ups because we discovered a weakness? No, there's people for example who might have shitty tendon insertions, like you said about body weight and center of gravity, if they have really thick lower body. I notice that people who have really big, thick lower bodies, really strong people — or if they have really long arms, the leverage is different. So it begs the question, lets start doing chin-ups, yeah but you'll never proportionally get better at chin-ups, given your proportions, given your tendon insertions, given your length of your arms. So maybe Mike, this person is just not built to do push-ups and you're essentially just giving him another chest and body exercise that is not necessarily going to improve or help anything, because it's a proportional thing, it's a leverage thing. It's not a strength thing, especially if you're telling me he's so strong and everything else.Bill: The only way you'll know is to try.Mike: Well that's the thing, and that's what I've been doing. We just started it, maybe in the last month, and frankly both of us are excited by it. He's been here for a few years, and he is also I think starving to do something a little new. I think that's a piece of the puzzle as well, because even if you're coming once a week and you get results, it gets a little stale, and that's why I've tried to make an effort of making all the exercises we're doing congruent. Joint friendly, very limited range of motion, and the thing is, he's embracing the challenge, and he's feeling it too. I know the deal with soreness and stuff like that, new stimulus.Bill: In that case, the feeling counts, right? It doesn't always mean something good, it doesn't always mean something bad.Mike: Right, it is a little bit of a marketing thing. Adam: It's a motivator. It's nothing to be ashamed of for motivation. If pushups is motivating this guy, then do pushups, they're a great exercise regardless.Bill: Getting back to your general question about whether free weights lends itself to stabilizing the core better or not, if that's what the person is doing on the exercise, then it is. If the person is doing the pushup and is very tight, yes, he's exercising his core. If the person is doing the pushup and it's sloppy, one shoulder is rising up, one elbow to the side, it doesn't matter that it's a pushup —Adam: He's still not doing it right and he's still not working his core.Bill: Right, so it's really how the person is using their body that determines whether they're training their core appropriately, not the source of the resistance.Adam: I'm sorry, I've done compound rows with free weights in all kinds of ways over the years, and now I'm doing compound row with a retrofitted Medex machine, with a CAM that really represents pretty good CAM design and I challenge anyone to think that they're not working everything they need to work on that machine, because you've still got to keep your shoulders down. You've still got to keep your chest up, you still have to not hunch over your shoulders when you're lowering a weight. I mean there's a lot of things you've got to do right on a compound machine, just like if you're using free weights. I don't personally, I've never noticed that much of a benefit, and how do you measure that benefit anyway? How would you be able to prove that free weights is helping in one way that a machine is not, how do you actually prove something like that? I hear it all the time, you need to do it because you need to be able to —Mike: There's one measuring thing actually, but Bill —Bill: I was going to say, a lot of claims of exercise, a lot of the chain of thought goes like this. You make the claim, the result, and there's this big black box in the middle that — there's no  explanation of why doing this leads to this. Mike: If you made the claim and the result turns out, then yes it's correlated and therefore —Bill: I was going to say getting to Crossfit and bootcamp type things, and even following along with a DVD program, whatever brand name you choose. The problem I have with that from a joint friendly perspective is you have too many moving parts for you to be managing your posture and taking care of your joints. Especially if you're trying to keep up with the kettle bell class. I imagine it's possible that you can do certain kettle bell exercises to protect your lower back and protect your shoulders. It's possible, but what the user has to decide is how likely is it? So I know for me personally, I can be as meticulous as I want with a kettle bell or with a barbell deadlift, and at some point, I'm going to hurt myself. Not from being over ambitious, not from sloppy form, something is going to go wrong. Somebody else might look at those two exercises and say no, I'm very confident I can get this. You pay your money, you take your chance.Mike: As a measuring tool, sometimes you never know if one is better or worse but sometimes — every once in a while, even when we have clients come into our gym and you have been doing everything very carefully with them, very, very modest weight, and sometimes people say, you know Mike, I've never had any knee problems and my knees are bothering me a little bit. I think it's the leg press that's been doing it, ever since we started doing that, I'm feeling like a little bit of a tweak in my knee, I'm feeling it when I go up stairs. Something like that, and then one of the first things I'll do is like when did it start, interview them, try to draw some lines or some hypotheses as to what's going on. Obviously there might be some wear and tear in their life, almost definitely was, and maybe something about their alignment on the leg press is not right. Maybe they're right, maybe they're completely wrong, but one of the things I'll do first is say okay, we still want to work your legs. We still want to work your quads, your hamstrings, your glutes, let's try doing some limited range of motions squats against the wall or with the TRX or something like that, and then like hey, how are your knees feeling over the past couple weeks? Actually you know, much much better, ever since we stopped doing the leg press.Bill: Sometimes some movements just don't agree with some joints.Adam: There's a [Inaudible: 01:05:32] tricep machine that I used to use, and it was like kind of like —Bill: The one up here? Yeah.Adam: You karate chop right, and your elbows are stabilized on the pad, you karate chop down. It was an old, [Inaudible: 01:05:45] machine, and I got these sharp pains on my elbows. Nobody else that I trained on that machine ever had that sharp pain in their elbows, but it bothered the hell out of my elbows. So I would do other tricep extensions and they weren't ever a problem, so does that make that a bad exercise? For me it did.Bill: For you it did, but if you notice, certain machine designs have disappeared. There's a reason why those machine designs disappeared, so there's a reason why, I think in the Nitro line, I know what machine you're talking about. They used to call it multi tricep, right, okay, and your upper arms were held basically parallel, and you had to kind of karate chop down.Adam: It wasn't accounting for the carrying angle.Bill: I'll get to that. So your elbows were slightly above your shoulders, and you had to move your elbows into a parallel. Later designs, they moved it out here. They gave them independent axises, that's not an accident. A certain amount of ligament binding happens, and then —Adam: So my ligaments just were not coping with that very well.Bill: That's right. So for instance, exactly what joint angle your ligaments bind at is individual, but if you're going in this direction, there is a point where the shoulder ligaments bind and you have to do this. Well that machine forced us in the bound position, so when movement has to happen, it can't happen at the shoulder because you're pinned in the seat. It was happening in your elbow. It might not be the same with everybody, but that is how the model works.Adam: So getting back to your client on the leg press, like for instance — you can play with different positions too.Mike: Well the thing is, I'm trying to decipher some of — trying to find where the issues may be. A lot of times I think that the client probably just — maybe there's some alignment issues, IT bands are tight or something like that, or maybe there's a weak — there can be a lot of different little things, but the machines are perfect and symmetrical, but you aren't. You're trying to put your body that's not through a pattern, a movement pattern that has to be fixed in this plane, when your body kind of wants to go a little to the right, a little to the left, or something like that. It just wants to do that even though you're still extending and flexing. In my mind and

Fisher opens the show following up on last week's appearance by Susan Snyder who "planted her family flag" with a personal website devoted to her family that has attracted numerous other descendants, including Fisher himself. Both Fisher and Susan were delighted to receive an email from a Cincinnati listener who ties into three ancestral couples shared by both Fisher and Susan. David Allen Lambert, Chief Genealogist for the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org then talks about his experience at the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference. He also shares news of the discovery of newly developed negatives of a World War I pilot killed in action in 1918. Where did the negatives come from and what do they show? David will tell you. David then jumps to the recent recognition of another aged World War II pilot who was known for more than just his military prowess. Wait until you hear what it is! Then there's word that BBC Scotland is looking for you if you had Scottish ancestors in Nova Scotia. David has all the particulars. David's Tip this week concerns a new app that allows you to snap a pic and have it go out as an old fashioned post card! He'll also have another great free guest user database from NEHGS. Next, Fisher talks to genealogical speaker, researcher, and writer Loretta Evans about "circumstantial evidence" in genealogy. How is it defined exactly and how can it help you "nail down" the line you're researching. Loretta has some great insight and advice. Fisher then visits with Bill Habermann of Tacoma, Washington. Bill has "adopted" over 1,600 people... all dead... in an overgrown local cemetery, and he's doing all he can to let you know who they are. What got Bill started on this and what has the response been? You'll love the story. Then Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com returns to talk preservation. Tom answers a listener question from South Carolina about using a national digitizing firm because no one provides the service locally. As usual, Tom has some great thoughts on protecting your most important family history assets. That's all this week on Extreme Genes, America's Family History Show!   Transcript of Episode 156 Segment 1 Episode 156 (00:30) Fisher: And welcome to Extreme Genes! This is America’s Family History Show. My name is Fisher. I am the Radio Roots Sleuth, on the program where we shake your family tree, and watch the nuts fall out. Nice to have you along today. We’ve got some great guests. First of all coming up in about eight or nine minutes we’re going to talk to Loretta Evans. And Loretta talks about the use of “circumstantial evidence” when you’re trying to put together your family tree. How do you know that it’s really good enough? What can you use it for? She’s going to have that for you coming up a little bit later on. After that, we’re going to talk to Bill Habermann he is up in the Seattle, Tacoma area, and he has adopted 1,600 people. All dead. In a cemetery! And you can do the same kind of thing. He’ll tell you what he’s doing and how he’s helping people all around the country, in fact around the world, find some of their missing relatives in the Washington State area. But right now, let me get on to Boston and my good friend David Allen Lambert. He is the Chief Genealogist for the New England Historic Genealogical Society and AmericanAncestors.org, fresh back from the Federation of Genealogical Societies conference in Springfield, Illinois. How are you David? David: I’m doing good. It’s nice to be back on the ground in Beantown. Fisher: I’ll bet. And you had a good time there? David: We had a great time. And I want to let people know who go to conferences, no matter where it is, don’t be ashamed of wearing a lot of ribbons on your badge. Fisher: Really? Yours is practically like a loin cloth when you’re out there. [Laughs] David: Well I like to say maybe a shawl. [Laughs] Fisher: [Laughs] David: I had thirty-two ribbons on it and when I went to the Federation of Genealogical Societies gala’s 40th anniversary dinner, they had trivia and they also had a scavenger hunt. Fisher: Um hmm. David: 150 points for the longest badge put us over the top! Fisher: [Laughs] David: Myself and Mary Tedesco from Genealogical Roadshow, one of our friends and guests, all won over a thousand dollars in memberships and conference registrations and meals, we’re very, very happy. Fisher: Wow! David: So, laughing my way to the bank for the longest name badge at the Federation of Genealogical Societies and I’d do it again. Fisher: [Laughs] Unbelievable. I’ve got to tell you a story. Last week we had Susan Snyder on the show and she is the lady that set up a website and we talked about it, we did the whole segment about planting your family flag basically out there for people to find you and provide you with materials, and she’s had Bible pages sent to her and things relating to her direct ancestors. Things folks sold her or gave to her. She found me because we’re related. Well we had her on the show, and then the next day she gets a nice email from a guy, a listener in Cincinnati, Ohio, who said, “Hey, we’re related to!” and so now she’s exchanging information with him and I just love the way the show brings people together. David: It’s amazing. Just last week I got a person who has an oil painting of my third great grandfather’s sister born in 1772, and he was not really sure if his family will want it. So I told him I would give her a good home. Fisher: Yeah [Laughs] great! Wow. Hopefully you get that and when you do, send us the picture. We’d all love to see it. David: Hopefully it will be in my home some day. But I don’t want to wish him to meet his maker any time soon of course. [Laughs] Fisher: Of course. Hey what do you have for us today in our Family Histoire news, David? David: Well, the exciting story that I want to start off with is actually about photographs taken a hundred years ago by Captain William Chambers of the 49th Squadron in Kent, England. He was a recognisance photographer in World War I and was shot down in 1918 at the ripe old age of twenty-one. His camera and negatives eventually were passed on to his nephew who recent had them developed. It’s amazing! There are pictures of airplanes and pilots and people that have long since passed. But it gives us another fresh view on history from World War I a century later. Fisher: That’s incredible. What a great story. David: It really is. And I want to propose a toast to the subject of this next story. Second Lieutenant Donald Stinson now aged 93, received four Bronze Stars for his service in World War II, involving bringing guns and men and flying them to the front lines in Japan during the war. But one of the things he did, which is a light hearted note, he is responsible for bringing beer. Fisher: What? [Laughs] David: Twenty thousand cases of beer to thirsty soldiers in multiple “packiruns” if you will, to Australia and New Guinea. And I think that anyone who is a veteran could probably drink to that. Fisher: Wow, that’s great! Congratulations to him. That’s like the second week in a row we’ve had a story of a World War II vet in their 90s just getting their medals now. What is going on? David: It’s about time. It really is. Well I’ll tell you, going back a little ways to the days of immigration and to the east coast, Nova Scotia, which means New Scotland was settled by many people from the Highlands. In 1773 a vessel called “The Hector” brought 189 highlanders that disembarked and were changed in Nova Scotia forever. Now, BBC in Scotland is looking for the descendants. So if your ancestor came to Nova Scotia from Scotland perhaps on the Hector in 1773, there are passenger lists that exist, contact BBC in Scotland. Just check Extreme Genes.com. Our Facebook page will have more details for you. Fisher: That’s very cool. So the people from old Scotland are looking for the descendants of the people in New Scotland, Nova Scotia, to call back home. David: To old Scotland. Fisher: Yeah. David: New Scotland, old Scotland, it gets confusing. But BBC Scotland is obviously doing a little piece on it, so put your kilt on and go and contact them. Fisher: [Laughs] David: One of the things that I really enjoy is a good tip from a listener, and one of our listeners and someone who’s been on the show is the Photo Detective Maureen Taylor. Fisher: Yes. David: While I was in Springfield, she told me about a new type of app that she uses from the app store. There’s a variety of choices to choose from but it basically allows you to send a postcard. Take a picture with your smart phone, this company, for very cheap money, will print and mail mailable postcards for you for your relatives. So the old photo postcards you might have in your family archives, you can create new ones. Fisher: How cool is that! David: It really is. So that brings me to the NEHGS guest user database of the week which harkens back to Scotland again. We now have Scotland marriages 1561 to 1910 and Scotland births and baptisms from 1564 to 1950, in conjunction with our partnership with FamilySearch.org. Well that’s all I have for this week back here in Beantown. Talk to you soon my friend! Fisher: All right, great to talk to you again as always David. We’ll talk to you again next week. This segment of our show has been brought to you from MyHeritage.com. And coming up next, we’re going to talk to a woman named Loretta Evans. And Loretta is an instructor, she’s a researcher, and she’s got some thoughts on “circumstantial evidence.” Now, we hear people talk about it in the courtroom... does circumstantial evidence really prove a case? Well, in genealogy it actually can. And she’ll give you some examples of that and give you some other thoughts coming up in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show. Segment 2 Episode 156 (11:10) Host: Scott Fisher with guest Loretta Evans Fisher: One of my favorite shows growing up was Perry Mason. And, Perry would get into heated battle in the courtroom with the prosecutor, Hamilton Burger. “Ham Burger” was what he was called. And they’d say, “Well, Mr Mason, that’s just circumstantial evidence!” And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. When it comes to developing your family history and your family tree, how does circumstantial evidence work in there and does it really matter? Is circumstantial evidence really evidence? It is Fisher. This is Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show and ExtremeGenes.com. And my guest today is Loretta Evans, and Loretta specializes in researching the midwestern United States, and she speaks all over the place, and she’s written articles for all the big family history magazines. And Loretta’s in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Nice to have you on the show, Loretta! Loretta: Thank you. I’m glad to be here. Fisher: You know, I’m excited about this idea of helping people understand that circumstantial evidence really is evidence, and in some cases is very, very strong evidence. So let’s just start with some simple examples of what circumstantial evidence is that we may typically use all the time, right? Loretta: Right. For example, if you have a census record, and you have someone’s age, it isn’t proof of the year they were born. It gives you an approximate year they were born. Fisher: That’s right. Loretta: But it’s sort of depends on who gave the information out. If it was the mother, and this is the child, they’re pretty sure about the age of their children. But if it was a neighbor or a grandparent, they may be a few years off. Or if somebody had a reason to lie, a lot of women lied about their age in censuses, so you can’t. Fisher: I am so glad you said that! Because it’s not something that I can easily say, Loretta! [Laughs] But it is true. For some reason, more with women than anybody else, I’m just sorry, it’s just the way it is. They get younger as they get older! Have you picked up on that? Loretta: I have. In fact, somebody told me, but it may or may not be true, that someone had done a study of British censuses and they found that the average British woman aged about seven years between the ten year census records! Fisher: [Laughs] Loretta: And you know, in a sense if you want someone’s more accurate age, find them when they’re very young or very old. Fisher: Yeah, that’s right. Loretta: And they’re more likely to be honest about it. Fisher: Yeah. [Laughs] Absolutely! Well that’s a great example of circumstantial evidence. Give us some examples though, of course, of direct evidence. Just for the sake of comparison. Loretta: Okay. For direct evidence, on a death certificate, usually the person’s name, their gender, the date they died, the place they died, those are all directly given by the doctor in charge or the person who is giving the information. You can be very comfortable about those pieces of information. Fisher: Right, as long as the people really knew what they were talking about. Loretta: Correct. But for example, the birth date on a death certificate is a little bit suspect. Fisher: Right. Loretta: If it’s a baby that dies and the mother gives the information, yeah, I’d be very comfortable with that. But I had a great grandfather who died in Cleveland, Ohio in about 1900, and I’m thinking he was living in a boarding house because they got his name wrong, they got his birth place wrong, they got his age wrong. It took us a long time to convince the city of Cleveland that he really was the same person. Fisher: [Laughs] Loretta: And that we could put a headstone on his grave. Fisher: And so what you’re saying is, for a death, a death certificate is direct evidence. But a death certificate is circumstantial as far as their birth is concerned? Loretta: That’s true. Or their parents names or their parents’ birth places, they’re wonderful clues. Fisher: Yes. Loretta: And so, if you are a researcher, you take those clues and then you try to find other documents that can prove or disprove that piece of information. And then you can be more comfortable whether it’s accurate or not. I think any evidence in genealogy is accurate until the next piece of information comes along that might prove or disprove it. Fisher: Right. Loretta: Somebody said it was like washing dishes. You’re all done, and then somebody walks in with another dirty glass. Fisher: [Laughs] Wow. That’s not very attractive at all. Loretta: [Laughs] I’m sorry. That image is, you know, you think you’re done, and then somebody gives you additional information that might even call into question what you think is accurate. Fisher: Sure. Loretta: I had two brothers. One born in 1944 and one born in 1950, and they both died at birth. And they were both born on July 12th. And in our family that was this kind of a “tender mercy.” “Oh, they had the same birth date.” And when the cemetery records came online, my older brother Ralph was listed as having been born on July 11th. Fisher: Oh boy. Loretta: And it was in the family Bible. There were no birth or death certificates because they were stillborn. They’re on the headstone. They carved it on the stone. Fisher: [Laughs] Right. Loretta: They forgot it being July 12th. And my mother didn’t really care, and my brother didn’t care, but it drove me crazy. And, I finally got my mother’s hospital records because some mortuary records didn’t exist anymore, and she was in her 90s and she just sighed and signed the permission slip. “Yes, you can release my hospital records from 1944.” Fisher: [Laughs] Loretta: Anyway, I got it from a place in California that had taken all of the records and they were sold there. Anyway, the hospital actually was in Utah. But he was born on July 11th. The headstone is wrong, our family Bible is wrong. Although they were born close to the same day it wasn’t exactly the same day. Fisher: Yeah. I’ve seen this before. We have a family Bible that gives the death date of my great, great grandfather, and even the obituary said December 26th 1875. But the death record said December 27th. And it appears that what happened was that he died at home, late in the evening on the 26th, but the doctor probably didn’t show up till after midnight, because the death time was put down as 12:30 in the morning. Or, they just didn’t recognize that it was a new day, at the point that he’d passed. Loretta: You know, that kind of thing happens. My uncle was born near midnight at home, and nobody looked at the clock until after he was born, but he could have been born before midnight. Nobody ever really knows. They chose one of the days and put it on the birth certificate. Fisher: Here’s another sample of a circumstantial situation that came up. I tracked down a third great grandmother, and I was very fortunate that somebody had actually been able to come up with a family Bible that put her in the family. And, it was from this very same area, so I was pretty confident. But still, how could I know for sure that she was the only person of that name from that area? And so, circumstantial evidence often involves eliminating other possibilities. I think you’d agree. Loretta: Oh, very definitely. You not only have to try to find evidence proving what you have, but you’ve got to look for are there any other possibilities that this could be, and can you prove or disprove those other possibilities. Fisher: And one of the things that’s really helpful now with circumstantial evidence, and when you have a case like this... DNA. And I was very fortunate that suddenly I found a person matching me in DNA who descended from the brother of the person I thought it to be, from a grandfather of the person I thought it to be, and a great grandfather of the person I thought it to be. Which I felt was very good confirming evidence of this otherwise circumstantial case. Loretta: That is excellent. Yeah. Fisher: So you put these things all together and then you get the confirmation, several times hopefully, from DNA. And then you can put together your case and you know, “Hey, wait a minute, I’ve got something here I can be confident in.” And that’s maybe at the point where you can publish it or put it online and share it with other people. I don’t know how you feel about it, Loretta. I like to put things together first of all on my own, keep it to myself, until I’m really, really confident in what I’ve got before I really share it. Because, as we know, once something goes public, if you’re wrong, it will take on a life of its own and live for years and years and years. And it’s really difficult ever to get rid of it. Loretta: Oh, that is definitely true. There are two major places where people put pedigrees. FamilySearch.org, another is Ancestry. The difference is that Ancestry keeps each person’s pedigree separate. Fisher: Yep. Loretta: Where FamilySearch combines everything. And your cousin could come along and change things in a while. So yes, you do want to be pretty comfortable with what you’re putting out there before you submit it. Because you could take two people who live in the same area, who have similar names and make them into one person, and make it very, very difficult in years to come for somebody to separate those two individuals. Fisher: Yeah, that’s the problem. So, that’s why it’s really important to work the negative side. Try to disprove that it’s the person as well as trying to prove it. And maybe get a little DNA help as well. And at the end, your circumstantial evidence can really prove your case. Loretta: One example we had about somebody walking in with another dirty glass... Fisher: [Laughs] Loretta: ...where we had a photograph that was of this woman who had died in Winter Quarters, Iowa. And, my husband and I visited a distant cousin one evening and she had another copy of the photograph. But it was a larger copy and somebody had copied the name of the photography studio as well as the image, and this picture was taken by Ottinger’s in Salt Lake City, Utah. Well, the woman couldn’t have died in Winter Quarters and had her picture taken in Ottinger’s in Salt Lake City because he wasn’t in business at that time. Fisher: Right. Loretta: And he was half a continent away. Fisher: Yeah! Loretta: And so, we concluded that it was the step grandmother rather than the grandmother that was in the picture. Fisher: Interesting. Well, there you go. Always making a few adjustments along the way, right? Loretta: Oh, absolutely. And, any genealogist who is afraid that somebody is going to disprove all the things they’ve worked so hard for isn’t really open enough to be a really good genealogist. Fisher: The experts are often wrong. And the best ones will go back and correct their own errors. Clean up their own mess and wash their own glasses, right? [Laughs] Loretta: [Laughs] There you go. Fisher: Hey, Loretta, delight to talk to you today. Loretta Evans, she’s in Idaho Falls, Idaho, talking about circumstantial evidence. Is it real? Is it good? Can you use it? The answer is yes! Thanks so much for coming on. Loretta: I’ve enjoyed it very much. Thank you. Fisher: And this segment has been brought to you by 23andMe.com DNA. And coming up next, we’ll talk to a Washington State man who has adopted 1,600 people. They’re all dead! They’re in a cemetery! He’s getting the word out about who they are, and you’re going to want to hear his story in five minutes. Segment 3 Episode 156 (24:50) Host: Scott Fisher with guest Bill Habermann Fisher: Welcome back to Extreme Genes, America's Family History Show and ExtremeGenes.com. It is Fisher here, the Radio Roots Sleuth, and part of my sleuthing has to do with tracking down people with interesting stories that I know might interest you. And this is a guy who I think is inspiring a lot of people around the country since his story broke recently in the Tacoma News Tribune. His name is Bill Habermann. And Bill, you work for a funeral company, yes? Bill: I do. Piper, Marley, Malinger and Oakwood are all tied together as one funeral home. Fisher: And yet, this all spills over into your hobby, as it turns out. You found a cemetery out in the middle of nowhere. I guess it's been grown over, and you've kind of adopted it. Tell us about this. Bill: Well, back in the 1880s when the Northern Pacific Railroad came out west and put a terminus here in Tacoma, they gave about 56 acres to the city for a cemetery. And back in those days, folks didn't want the cemeteries near the town, and so it ended up being out in the sticks, kind of. Well, then that cemetery became Old Tacoma Cemetery and was divided up into three parcels. One stayed as Old Tacoma Cemetery, or Tacoma Cemetery, somehow, and I haven't been able to find out how a portion of about eight acres became Oakwood Cemetery, and then off to the side of the two cemeteries. There are two acres that became the county's pauper cemetery. Fisher: And that kind of got overgrown and forgotten, apparently. Bill: Well, yes. And I gave tours of Oakwood several times, and people would ask me during the tour, "Well, what is that on the other side of the fence? I see a few headstones there, but it's pretty much just grass." And then I said, "Well, that's the county's cemetery which was closed in 1927, and there really aren't a lot of records around for it." Fisher: Now why is that? Bill: Well, I think back in the early days people just were not so record conscious as they are now. And either that or they wrote on a slip of paper and thought, "Well, I'll put it in the book sometime." And it didn't happen. Or the county said, "Well, it's up to the funeral homes to take care of the records because they're putting the bodies into the cemetery." They were each paid $4.50 per burial. So some of the cemetery records probably are just lost totally with the county, but I was fortunate enough to have the records for Piper Funeral Home which started here in 1908, and Malinger which started here in 1883. Fisher: They merged at one point. Bill: Well, they merged at one point, yeah. And then what I did, I just got curious and I looked up the folks who had some headstones and found some of them in our records and started putting that down. Somebody said, "Why don't you put this on FindAGrave because people might want to look up somebody." And I thought, "Oh, okay." And I started doing that and then going through all the ledgers here, I just came up with 1,600 folks that are... Fisher: Wow! 1600? Bill: Yeah. And that was at the time Karen did the article. Now I'm up to 1,626. Fisher: [Laughs] Of course. There's always progress. Now, would you find the names in the ledgers first? Or would you find the tombstones first and then try to track them down in the ledgers? Bill: Well, the initial 15 headstones or so, I looked for them in the ledgers, but then I just started with page one of the Piper book and looked through every page, a page at a time, and if I saw $4.50, that was a first give away that it was somebody that went into the pauper's cemetery. Fisher: Interesting. So it didn't mention the cemetery, it was the price that gave it away? Bill: Yeah, it's the price that always gets me to the page, right. Fisher: Oh, that's fascinating. So when did you start this project, and what has kept you going, and how often do you go there? Bill: Well, I started doing in on FindAGrave about six years ago. The people who own or are in control of the cemetery really don't want folks walking around in there, because several of the graves are sunk in pretty badly, because folks were put into wooden boxes and into concrete grave liners. So they tend to like to leave it looking a little rough, as it said in the newspaper article, so that everybody isn't cramming around in there looking for things. The headstones even are in such disarray sort of that I have not been able to figure out even the rows or the blocks or the plot numbers, like we have in our cemetery, to locate a specific person. And some of those folks might not even be anywhere near the headstone that's standing there. Fisher: Right. So the tombstone itself is the giveaway of who's in there, but you just don't know where the grave itself might be? Bill: Yes, right. Fisher: Wow. Bill: And some of them face east and west, and some of them face north and south, and some of them look like they could be in a row, but others have been marked just set kind of whacky. There are two Japanese headstones there that face no particular direction, you know, they're kind of out in the middle of nowhere. Those two fascinated me because periodically when I'd look over the fence I would see fresh flowers put on those two graves, and they're back from the early 1900s, and sometimes there would be small food offerings there also at those two graves. I haven't seen anything there for the last two years, but somebody was coming in there and still honoring their deceased family members. Fisher: That's amazing. Now, what have you learned about the people that are buried in there? Have you found some unusual or interesting stories about them? Bill: Yeah. There is one fellow that still kind of plagues me. His name is Taggart, and his story is sort of interesting in that he was a well known supposedly wealthy person here to Tacoma back in the early 1900s. And sad to say, his wife became insane and went to the hospital for the insane. While he, in the mean time, lost all his money, regained some money, lost it again, ended up living at the poor farm, and apparently he decided to try to commit suicide by cutting his throat with a straight razor. Well, the hospital saved him, but then ultimately shortly after, he died of pneumonia, which got a lot of people back in those days. Fisher: Sure. Bill: His headstone looks like a military headstone. I checked in the Civil War records and there are so many Patrick Taggards that I kind of lost track of did he really deserve a military headstone. But it's not carved in the way of any military headstones that I've ever found online. So he's kind of a curiosity for me. I really would like to get him a new headstone if he is military, but again, I almost run into a brick wall. Fisher: Sure. And that's the problem with common names, of course. So what about families? Have other families reached out to you from near and far to say, "Hey, you found my person I've been looking for!" Bill: Yes. I've gotten some thank you letters from folks, and on FindAGrave, they can correspond back and forth with me, and so they have thanked me and some folks have sent me information to add into my book. There's an infant that died I think age about three weeks, and the family didn't know whether the child was buried. They were so happy to find where the child was, and they sent me a copy of the baptism certificate for this infant. Although that's the only existing document there is, other than the fact that the child is somewhere in those two acres. Fisher: So, what about restoration of the cemetery? You're allowed in there and you're saying others are not, is there any interest in that on behalf of the owners or on the part of the owners to do this? Bill: I don't think so because it probably would be very costly, first of all, to mould the place and keep the grass looking nice, because here in summer everything turns yellow and dries up. The cemetery that they do own, Old Tacoma, is watered all the time with underground sprinklers, and they have their own wells, but I'm sure that they are not interested in spending probably thousands and thousands of dollars to make the cemetery look presentable. Fisher: You would think that people would have to adopt it, I guess, the descendants of those who are in there, if that was ever going to happen, right? Bill: Yeah. And because it's privately owned by Tacoma Cemetery, I don't think that they could even work that. It kind of would be a real conundrum. Fisher: Sure. He's Bill Habermann. He's a funeral director in Tacoma, Washington, and he has adopted his own cemetery up there and is getting the information he's finding up on FindAGrave. Bill, thank you so much for doing this! And I'm sure you're inspiring others who might want to take on the same kind of project wherever they are. Bill: I hope so. And thanks for the call! Fisher: Hey, this segment of our show has been brought to you by LegacyTree.com. And coming up next, we'll talk preservation with Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com. It's time to be getting ready for the holidays. He's got more great advice, coming up for you in three minutes on Extreme Genes, America's Family History Show. Segment 4 Episode 156 (37:10) Host: Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry Fisher: And welcome back to Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show and ExtremeGenes.com. It Is Fisher here, your Radio Roots Sleuth with my good friend Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com. He is our Preservation Authority. And Tom, good to have you back. Tom: Good to be here. Fisher: And we do have an email here from Richard Halter, and I believe it’s pronounced Sharon, South Carolina. And he said, “Fisher and Tom, I saw this ad on Facebook and my mind immediately jumped to all I’ve learned from your shows.” Now, he sent us a link to another digitizing firm that’s national. And he said, “My first thought was that they’re not going to do everything that Tom says to look for when getting your products digitized. And the same time though, I live in an area where there isn’t anything available other than big box stores which I don’t even like. Would you recommend something like this store as an option for someone who just wants to get the media digitized? I can do pictures and I’ve played with audio as well as slides and negatives and I’m getting better. I can also take video and convert it from DVD, CD and all this, as long as I can get it to the PC to work on. I’m not a professional to say the least, but I do the best I can and I’m getting better as I go. I’m a very big proponent of getting all of these memories digitized and I’d like to give people some options for things I cannot complete yet. Your loyal listener, Richard.” Tom: That’s a great email that you’ve sent us. You know, there’s a lot of things in here that are really great. I love how you want to get all your stuff digitized. You’re trying to do as much as you can which we really advocate, and then some of the things of course you can’t do. Now this place that you mentioned, I can’t really say whether they’re good or bad because I’ve asked listeners in the past, if you have good experiences with places whether they’re local or national let us know. If you have bad experiences locally or national, let us know also so that we can warn people or encourage people to go to these places. This is one that I’ve never received any information on. I’ve checked out the website, it seems legit and everything looks nice, beautiful website. They’re about the middle to high end which sometimes is good, sometimes it’s bad. Because most of the time when you see these real cheap things, you’re getting what you pay for, and it’s not very good. So they have a fair price, the price is a little higher than what we charge on our online store. But if it’s closer to you and you feel more comfortable doing it, what I would do is, always start with the smallest package kind of as a test drive and see if you’re happy with what they do. And then of course send in all your other stuff and if you’re happy let us know. Fisher: Sure. Right. And testing is a key thing. And I would imagine, aren’t there ratings involved with this somewhere online that he could check out? Tom: You know, there really should be, and I’ve thought about this before getting out there and doing some experiments with some of these different places and actually go in and give them multi-star ratings. So that’s something we’re looking at maybe in 2017, we might actually come out with a rating system. But we really need our listeners to let us know where they’ve had good experiences and bad experiences. And let us know places that they’ve used so that we can maybe start doing a rating system. I really encourage you use local places as much as you want. Use national places if you find out they’re good. You can go to shop.TMCPlace.com and get our prices. And usually if people are close to what our prices are they’re probably legit because they’re doing the right thing. If they’re way below, I say stay away. It’s not worth it. I’ve run into so much product places like that. Fisher: That’s the thing. This is not the kind of thing you really want to price shop on so much. I mean, if it’s too cheap to be true, it’s probably too cheap to be true, Tom. Tom: That is so true! [Laughs] Fisher: [Laughs] Tom: Yeah, you need to be careful. One thing that I really advocate that I think is really, really important which we have never gone into because I don’t like it. A lot of transfer places, they use high speed. So instead of like a VHS tape taking two hours to transfer, they can transfer it in 15 to 20 minutes because they’re doing it high speed which reduces your fidelity. Fisher: Of course. Tom: You know if it didn’t do that everybody would be doing it. We would do it. We could drop our prices way down. However, we wouldn’t be giving our clients the quality that they want. You know, if you’re in a situation where money is really, really tight and it’s that or nothing. It’s still scary, because I have people who come in to me and say, “Hey, we sent it to this place online that’s really cheap. We didn’t get our stuff back. Or it came back really bad. They told us our tape is bad.” And then we had to go and “undo” what the other people did. Fisher: All right. Well, what do we have coming up in the next segment here, Tom? Tom: We’re going to talk about some scanning parties we’re planning. Fisher: All right, we’ll get to that in about three minutes. This segment has been brought to you by Forever.com. And if you have a question for Tom Perry you can always write to him at AskTom@TMCPlace.com and you might get to hear your question answered on the air. From Extreme Genes, America’s Family History Show. Segment 5 Episode 156 (44:20) Host: Scott Fisher with guest Tom Perry Fisher: And we are back, final segment of Extreme Genes, America's Family History Show and ExtremeGenes.com, Preservation Time with Tom Perry from TMCPlace.com. Tom, you were just talking about a scanning party you've got coming up. And let's just explain to people first of all what a scanning party is. Tom: Okay. It’s a lot of fun. It’s not a MRI or CRT or anything like that. Fisher: [Laughs] Right. Tom: What we do is, we scan your photographs. So this is where anybody can bring in one of those sterilight 16 quart shoeboxes with the lid on. Fisher: Yeah. [Laughs] Tom: And you can pack it with your 3x3 up to 8x10 non-damaged, non-mounted, loose photos, and we can scan the whole box for you for twenty five bucks. Fisher: Wow! Tom: So it's an absolute killer deal. Fisher: And fast too, right? Tom: Oh yeah! Oh yeah! It's really fast! It’s amazing! But that's why they can't be mounted or anything like that. They need to be all organized. If you have multiple sizes, just organize your sizes together. And bring your own thumb drive. And there's no additional charge. If you want, we have 16GB flash drives for only ten bucks. Fisher: Now where are you going to be doing this? Tom: The first one we are doing is November 11th and 12th in Midway, Utah. That's kind of up in the mountains, a beautiful ski resort area. Fisher: Wow! That's going to be great. Okay, so you have a location there. Tom: Right. Fisher: So people who would be in the Utah area would go where in Midway? Tom: It’s going to be at the Homestead Resort. It’s all part of the FamilyHistoryExpos.com convention that they're having, those two days which we talked about, about a month ago. So if you want to sign up for the convention, you can come in and do that. You can come in for the scanning party. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Remember, it needs to be up to 8x10 and it’s got to be in sterilight box with the lid on. No great big posters. We won't be able to do anything like that at this time. Fisher: All right, but you can do stuff that's small, very small. Tom: Oh yeah! We can go all the way down to 3x3 as long as they're in good condition. And if you have some pictures that are starting to fade and things like that, don't think, "Oh, I can't do these." No, this is a good time to do your faded ones, because we're going to stop them from fading anymore. We'll give you a digitized copy of all of them. And then whether you want to do it next week or next year or ten years from now, you'll have the high definition file that you can go in and do color correction. Or if you say, "Hey, this is over my head. I don't want to be involved in it." You can email it back to us and then we can do the color correction as well. Fisher: Now what kind of dpi are we talking about? Tom: It’s usually about 1200 dpi. Fisher: Oh that's good! Tom: Oh yeah! It’s a really high dpi. Fisher: It’s solid, yeah. So I've done this recently, of course, I've gone ahead, all of my old home movies and videos digitized. So I've got like 110 of them on disk. I don't even know what's on them all, because I didn't even know what was on the videos when I gave them to you in the first place. The joy of it, though, is I can take them one at a time, maybe one a week, right, and transfer it in some way and edit it down to just each individual thing. We'll, here's a birthday on this video, that's separate from the time we got to meet Joe DiMaggio over here or something like that. I mean, you can separate them all out. And so, with photographs, it would be much the same. You can digitize them all. And then when you get around to it, you're there. And what a great opportunity this is… Midway, Utah, November 11th? Tom: 11th and 12th, correct. Just go to FamilyHistoryExpos.com and you can sign up for the convention if you want to go to that as well. And just remember, like you just mentioned, it’s good to get this stuff done. And I've even had people tell me that they're going to go on a long trip, so they get videos, photos, all these things scanned, and then they sit in the back with the kids and put the DVD in, and they're sitting there writing notes. So when they're driving down the highway they can sit there and watch the thing, instead of watching Aladdin or something with their kids. They can say, "Oh, yeah, this is grandma." and talk to their kids. And make sure you have your iPhone or a tape recorder running, so when you're explaining all this stuff to your kids, you've got it down. And then later on you can make a slideshow with your narration for your great, great grandkids who will never know you, but they'll be able to hear your voice describing who these people are in the photos, who they are in the videos. It just makes it so nice. Fisher: Boy! What a great idea! And you know, trapping the kids, I love that! [Laughs] Tom: [Laughs] It’s great! We're going to be doing a whole bunch this next year in 2017 working with our Going Postal stores. So we're going to have a lot of fun in 2017. Fisher: All right, Tom. Thanks for dropping by. See you next week. Tom: We'll be there. Fisher: And this segment of the show has been brought to you by FamilySearch.org and RootsMagic.com. Hey, thanks again to our guest, Loretta Evans, for coming on and talking about "circumstantial evidence." Does it really add up? And to Bill Habermann from Washington State, talking about the cemetery he adopted and how you might be able to do something of the same. Hey, and don't forget, if you're going to become your family's family history expert, you need to sign up for our free newsletter, The Weekly Genie. Do it at ExtremeGenes.com or our Facebook page. Talk to you next week. And remember, as far as everyone knows, we're a nice, normal family!

New post from The eCommerceFuel Blog: Amazon and the eCommerce merchant. It's a Shakespearean tale where love and hate is often a blurred line. There's no doubt that for many merchants, Amazon is a huge source of revenue for their product. But there's also plenty of pitfalls when you decide to sell on Amazon. To kick off our month-long series about all things Amazon, we've got a reality check about the potential problems with selling on Amazon. While it presents many opportunities for increasing your products' reach, it's important to be aware of the company's policies that have undermined many eCommerce businesses. Subscribe:  iTunes | Stitcher (With your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com and Bill D'Alessandro of Rebel CEO) Andrew: Hey guys, Andrew here and a quick note before we get into that official theme music. Today is going to kick off a four part month-long series on Amazon. If you're in eCommerce, which you probably are, obviously that's a huge aspect of what we're doing these days. So over the next month we'll be covering all sorts of different topics Amazon-related, and I want to kick off this series with just an episode just to make you think a little bit more carefully about some of the things you should be considering from a downfall perspective on Amazon. Obviously a lot of opportunity there, but given when we're focusing on it and given the fact that some people make Amazon sound like, you know, just a money machine, I wanted to kind of have a reality check to launch us into this series. So hope it's useful, hope you make a bunch of money on Amazon, and hope you enjoy. Thanks. Welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast, the show dedicated to helping high six and seven figure entrepreneurs build amazing online companies and incredible lives. I'm your host and fellow eCommerce entrepreneur, Andrew Youderian. Hey guys, it's Andrew here and welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in today. Today, talking about the dangers of Amazon and the FBA business model. You know, Amazon is the talked-about game in eCommerce these days. Big courses coming out, you know money seemingly just falling freely from the skies, it's incredible, right? It's like the old, old days of AdWords when they were three cents a click. There's no downside! But there definitely are some pitfalls that we want to talk about today as a reality check, hat tip to David Heacock for the inspiration and some of the finer points on this episode. Thank you, David. And joining me to really dive into it, a man who knows a ton about Amazon, Mr. Bill D'Alessandro. Bill, welcome sir. Bill: Yup! Glad to be here. This is the topic I love to talk about. Andrew: Yeah, it's interesting, and you've been on, like I said, I mean you've been on Amazon for years. I have very little experience with it. It'll be interesting to kind of take the opposite approach of what I think has been a lot of ra-ra-ra cheering over the last, you know, two years or so. Bill: Yeah, and some of it well-deserved, but not without potential other sides of the coin. Beware the Hijacked Niches Andrew: Bill, I think the biggest thing that stands out as a potential danger of going onto Amazon is that building your core business on Amazon is, ultimately, is going to lead to heartbreak. A lot of people, I'm not sure if they realize, Amazon is not your friend at all. They've got a long track record of hijacking niches, of selling directly out from under merchants, and if you don't own the platform off Amazon somewhere, you're gonna get hosed eventually. Bill: Yeah, I think talk to anybody who used to sell any of the products now covered under the Amazon Basics program. You know, all the cables, all the SD cards, you know Amazon is more than willing to private-label their own stuff and compete with you directly, you know, obviously at much lower cost and with preferential algorithmic ra...

New post from The eCommerceFuel Blog: Knowing how to read a financial statement and a few other basics of accounting is vital in an eCommerce business. Without basic knowledge of accounting, you may think you're raking in the cash when you're actually in the red. We're covering everything from the basics of reading an income statement to the ins and outs of your store revenue. Subscribe:  iTunes | Stitcher (Wth your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com and Bill D'Alessandro of RebelCEO.com) Andrew: Welcome to the eCommerceFuel Podcast, the show dedicated to helping high six and seven figure entrepreneurs build amazing online companies and incredible lives. I'm your host and fellow eCommerce entrepreneur Andrew Youderian. Hey guys, it's Andrew here and welcome to the eCommerceFuel Podcast, thanks so much for tuning in today. Today on the show, extremely gripping topic we've been wanting to cover for a long time. The absolute bare minimum you need to know about accounting. And joining me, an ex-finance guy who is the perfect man to geek out about this. Bill, I'm sorry we don't have whiskey this time to chat but hopefully you'll still stick around until the end of the episode. Bill: I really should have put that in my contract, shouldn't I have? Andrew: Top shelf, $400 a bottle whiskey otherwise I'm not coming back to the show. Bill: That's right, I need whiskey or we'll not record this stuff. I won't hang out with you if we don't have any whiskey. Andrew: To keep things interesting without the whiskey and also, let's be honest, accounting unless you're Bill may not be the world's sexiest topic, we've inserted a couple fun little secondary scenes shall we say throughout the episode. You'll have to listen real carefully to hear them but yeah, just keep your ears perked for those. And Bill, should we get into it? Bill: Yeah, we should get into it. We should call this episode "Front Lines Accounting." The Function of Your Income Statement Andrew: "Front Lines Accounting," I love it, I love it. So Bill there's really three crucial financial statements that you need to know. The income statement, the balance sheet and the cash flow statement. And we're going to tackle each of those individually and we'll go ahead and start with the income statement. So Bill, how do you describe the income statement in a nutshell? What is its function and how do you look at it? Bill: The easy way to think about an income statement really is, this is the amount of money that your business made over a certain period. Most income statements you'll see are kind of yearly or monthly. And you in theory could do a daily income statement but I don't think it would be very instructive. So most people will do monthly, will do an income statement and it will show a total for the year and then broken down by month. At the top you'll see revenue and then you will subtract from revenue your cost of goods sold, which is basically the amount of money it cost you to make that revenue. Then you'll have a gross margin, and that's basically the amount of money you have after selling your stuff, the amount of money you have available to use to pay overhead. And then you'll have a section called expenses or sometimes you'll see it called SGNA or selling general and administrative expenses and those are all the overhead expenses of your business, salaries, rent, your subscription to the eCommerce Fuel private members forum, all sorts of things like that go in the SGNA expenses section and then at the bottom you have a number called net income, also or hopefully known as profit and not loss. Andrew: Yeah and it's kind of important to clarify that revenue is equal to sales, revenue is at the very top. It's not how much you make, it's just the gross amount of money you collect from your customers before you pay any expenses. Sometimes you might hear that called top line,

New post from The eCommerceFuel Blog: After almost 150 episodes of the eCommerceFuel podcast, our topics have run the gamut. But one very obvious topic we've yet to tackle? The story behind why Andrew Youderian and frequent co-host Bill D'Alessandro got into eCommerce in the first place. The path to success in eCommerce can be a long and bumpy one. Sadly, many people give up before they bring their visions of starting an eCommerce business to reality. Hopefully, this episode will inspire any of you with thoughts of giving up, to understand that starting an eCommerce business doesn't happen overnight. Subscribe:  iTunes | Stitcher (With your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com and Bill D'Alessandro of RebelCEO.com) Andrew: Hey guys. A quick note before we get started about one of our private community members. Jason Feinberg from FCTRY is releasing a follow-up to his highly successful Bernie Sanders action figure over at TrumpVader.us. I think the domain pretty much says it all but if you enjoy creative, interesting eCommerce projects or the media spectacle about the U.S. election so far I think you'll get a kick out of it. Again, check it out at TrumpVader.us and stay tuned for more from Jason in a future episode. Alright, onto the show! Welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast, the show dedicated to helping high six and seven-figure entrepreneurs build amazing online companies and incredible lives. I'm your host and fellow eCommerce entrepreneur, Andrew Youderian. Hello and welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast. I'm your host Andrew Youderian, and a special edition of the podcast today. Normally I do this with a guest, and very frequently one of my favorites guests, Mr. Bill D'Alessandro, but normally he is across the entire country from me, not sitting right across the table from me sipping some whiskey here in Bozeman, Montana. Bill: Yup. So I made a flight out and we are doing eCommerceFuel podcast live from Bozeman, Montana from eCommerceFuel headquarters. Andrew: And we were both commenting just before we started how we both look like 70s-style talk-show hosts with the super cool microphones and the headphones. We do not look very cool in this. Bill: I don't know, we'll leave that up to the listeners to decide. So we just took some stupid pictures, so we'll post them in the show notes for everybody to laugh at us. Andrew: But hey, cheers! Bill: Cheers, man! Thanks for having me. Andrew: Yeah, good to have you here in Bozeman, and you're in town...we hit up Big Sky to do some skiing over the weekend. Bill: Yeah, it was awesome! Came out for some skiing at Big Sky. I've not only never been to Big Sky, but never been to Montana. So this is my first time in Montana. I'd heard awesome things, so flew in on Friday and then we headed up to Big Sky to talk business, ski, it was awesome. Had a hell of a day skiing on Saturday. I hung out at the house on Sunday, talked some business, and now we're back in Bozeman to do our podcast, and Andrew has provided me with some delicious 100 proof whiskey that I hear we have his brother to thank for. Andrew: Yeah, thank you, Chris. This is good stuff. Man, you're a great skier yourself, man. Bill: Six years in Colorado helps. Andrew: Yeah, helps a lot. So we were thinking it'd be fun in our first in-person podcast...we've never really talked about how we got into business. Like how did we end up here? The paths and the stories that brought us to eCommerce, to where we are today. And thought it'd be kind of fun to explore those, and want to try and be a little bit tactful and considerate of people not wanting to hear our entire life story over the course of six hours, but it'd be kind of cool to share because I don't know if we've ever done it on the show. Bill: Yeah, we've been talking about all kinds of specific things but we never really talked about how you can go from...

New post from The eCommerceFuel Blog: If you can't beat them, join them. Amazon FBA is a natural next step to help you grow your business. But sending out your first shipment can be ripe with potential problems. On today's episode, we've got a novice and a pro weighing in on the intricacies behind FBA, including the differences between a UPC, FNSKU, and an ASIN, along with expert tips for optimizing your FBA experience and nailing it right from the get go. Subscribe:  iTunes | Stitcher (With your host Andrew Youderian of eCommerceFuel.com and Bill D'Alessandro of RebelCEO.com) Andrew: Welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast, the show dedicated to helping high six and seven-figure entrepreneurs build amazing online companies and incredible lives. I'm your host and fellow eCommerce entrepreneur, Andrew Youderian. Hey, hey, guys, Andrew here and welcome to the eCommerceFuel podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in today. And today on the show, talking about how to not screw up your first inbound shipment to FBA, something I don't have any experience with. I've got a shipment of goods coming in that I'm going to be sending to FBA for the first time and figured who better else to grow with questions about this, for my own benefit and hopefully yours as well, other than Mr. Bill Dalessandro, the man behind Rebelceo.com and Elements Brands. Bill, how's it going? Bill: It's going well, man. It's great to be back on the show, as always. Andrew: Yeah. I feel like it's been...I don't know if it was just the holidays or the New Year, but I feel like it's been a while. Bill: Yeah, the ECF Live and holiday hangover. It kind of all ran together. Big Goals for 2016 Andrew: Quickly before we jump into this one, any big plans for 2016? Or did you like sit down and have a big kind of pow wow with yourself to really plan out the year? Are you big on the New Year's resolutions things? I know we're talking about this much after the New Year, but... Bill: So I'm not big on the New Year's resolution thing, but I am big on planning for the year and setting goals. So I sat down with all my employees. We're trying something new this year, and we're doing bonus programs. So we sat down with all the employees, and I set six goals for each of them for the year. I set up a bonus pool of 12% of each of their salaries, and each goal was worth 2% of their salary as a bonus. So everybody has sort of six goals for the year for 2016 hanging above their desk, and if they hit all six goals they get a 12% bonus at the end of the year. So as a way, something new I'm trying this year to...and I made some of the goals were monetary. They were hit a certain number. For my salesperson like a certain number in wholesale sales, or for my eCommerce marketing manager a certain amount of website sales or a certain number of new accounts, new products in stores, or getting a new website launched. So some were monetary, some were more kind of projects that needed to be done. Like we're implementing a new shipping and inventory system. Things like that. So like getting that launched was a goal for my warehouse manager. I basically looked at this list of all these things and said, "Man, if all like 20-something of these things are done by the end of the year, I'll feel really good, and it'll be easily worth me paying everybody a 12% bonus." Andrew: Nice, very cool. One thing we did this year, at least on the eCommerceFuel site was tried to focus more. I mean, we've got kind of this dashboard across all of our businesses with a myriad of different metrics. You could come up with 100 probably metrics you could track for a business, if not more. We tried to focus in on three metrics this year. One that was like the overall king metric, and two other kind of secondary ones, but be able to... Bill: What are they? Andrew: For eCommerceFuel, they are the biggest one that we're focusing on is new mem...

Who did you talk to? Robert: I talked to someone interesting yesterday. Bill: Who did you talk to? Robert: I can't remember his name, but I was sitting on the train... Bill: Yeah... Robert: ...and this young man started talking to me. Bill: What did he say? Robert: He said that he was from Thailand and he was studying here in Japan. Bill: You mean he was a university student. Robert: No, he was a high school student. He had a uniform on. Bill: I see, so what did you talk about? Robert: Well, he said that he enjoyed living in Japan, but he did not have much chance to speak in English. Bill: How was his English? Robert: Pretty good. So, he asked me if we could chat while sitting on the train. Bill: That's interesting. It's not everyday that you meet a Thai student in Japan. Robert: That's right. Let's practice... I saw someone interesting last week. Who did you see? I went somewhere fun last month. Where did you go? I ate something strange. I don't feel so good. When did you eat it? I read an interesting book. What did you read? I have to go to England next week. Why do you have to go there? www.eltpodcast.com