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In this special episode of Unstoppable Mindset, I had the privilege of sitting down with the remarkable Ivan Cury—a man whose career has taken him from the golden days of radio to groundbreaking television and, ultimately, the classroom. Ivan began acting at just four and a half years old, with a chance encounter at a movie theater igniting a lifelong passion for storytelling. By age eleven, he had already starred in a radio adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk and went on to perform in classic programs like Let's Pretend and FBI in Peace and War. His talent for voices and dialects made him a favorite on the air. Television brought new opportunities. Ivan started out as a makeup artist before climbing the ranks to director, working on culturally significant programs like Soul and Woman, and directing Men's Wearhouse commercials for nearly three decades. Ivan also made his mark in academia, teaching at Hunter College, Cal State LA, and UCLA. He's written textbooks and is now working on a book of short stories and reflections from his extraordinary life. Our conversation touched on the importance of detail, adaptability, and collaboration—even with those we might not agree with. Ivan also shared his view that while hard work is crucial, luck plays a bigger role than most of us admit. This episode is packed with insights, humor, and wisdom from a man who has lived a rich and varied life in media and education. Ivan's stories—whether about James Dean or old-time radio—are unforgettable. About the Guest: Ivan Cury began acting on Let's Pretend at the age of 11. Soon he was appearing on Cavalcade of America, Theatre Guild on the Air, The Jack Benny Program, and many others. Best known as Portia's son on Portia Faces Life and Bobby on Bobby Benson and The B-Bar-B Riders. BFA: Carnegie Tech, MFA:Boston University. Producer-director at NET & CBS. Camera Three's 25th Anniversary of the Julliard String Quartet, The Harkness Ballet, Actor's Choice and Soul! as well as_, _The Doctors and The Young and the Restless. Numerous television commercials, notably for The Men's Wearhouse. Taught at Hunter, Adelphi, and UCLA. Tenured at Cal State University, Los Angeles. Author of two books on Television Production, one of which is in its 5th edition. Ways to connect with Ivan: About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:16 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us. Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. And the fun thing is, most everything really deals with the unexpected. That is anything that doesn't have anything to do with diversity or inclusion. And our guest today, Ivan Cury, is certainly a person who's got lots of unexpected things, I am sure, and not a lot necessarily, dealing with the whole issue of disabilities, inclusion and diversity, necessarily, but we'll see. I want to tell you a little bit about Ivan, not a lot, because I want him to tell but as many of you know who listen to unstoppable mindset on a regular basis. I collect and have had as a hobby for many years old radio shows. And did a radio program for seven years, almost at UC Irvine when I was there on kuci, where every Sunday night we played old radio shows. And as it turns out, Ivan was in a number of those shows, such as, let's pretend, which is mostly a children's show. But I got to tell you, some of us adults listened and listened to it as well, as well as other programs. And we'll get into talking about some of those things. Ivan has a really great career. He's done a variety of different things, in acting. He's been in television commercials and and he is taught. He's done a lot of things that I think will be fun to talk about. So we'll get right to it. Ivan, I want to thank you for being here and welcome you to unstoppable mindset. Thanks. Thanks. Good to be here. Well, tell us a little bit about kind of the early Ivan growing up, if you will. Let's start with that. It's always good to start at the beginning, as it were, Ivan Cury ** 03:04 well, it's sorry, it's a great, yes, it's a good place to start. About the time I was four and a half, that's a good time to start. I walked past the RKO 81st, street theater in New York, which is where we lived, and there was a princess in a in a castle kept in the front of this wonderful building that photographs all over the place. Later on, I was to realize that that Princess was really the cashier, but at the time, it was a princess in a small castle, and I loved the building and everything was in it. And thought at that time, that's what I'm going to do when I grow up. And the only thing that's kind of sad is it's Here I am, and I'm still liking that same thing all these years later, that's that's what I liked. And I do one thing or another, I wound up entertaining whenever there was a chance, which really meant just either singing a song or shaking myself around and pretending it was a dance or thinking it was a dance. And finally, wound up meeting someone who suggested I do a general audition at CBS long ago, when you could do those kinds of things I did and they I started reading when I was very young, because I really, because I want to read comics, you know, no big thing about that. And so when I could finally read comics, I wound up being able to read and doing it well. And did a general audition of CBS. They liked me. I had a different kind of voice from the other kids that were around at the time. And and so I began working and the most in my career, this was once, once you once they found a kid who had a different voice than the others, then you could always be the kid brother or the other brother. But it was clear that I wasn't a kid with a voice. I was the kid with the Butch boy. So who? Was who, and so I began to work. And I worked a lot in radio, and did lots and lots of shows, hundreds, 1000s, Michael Hingson ** 05:07 you mentioned the comics. I remember when we moved to California, I was five, and I was tuning across the dial one Sunday morning and found KFI, which is, of course, a state a longtime station out here was a clear channel station. It was one of the few that was the only channel or only station on that frequency, and on Sunday morning, I was tuning across and I heard what sounded like somebody reading comics. But they weren't just reading the comics. They were dramatized. And it turns out it was a guy named David Starling who did other shows and when. So I got his name. But on that show, he was the funny paper man, and they read the LA Times comics, and every week they acted them out. So I was a devoted fan for many years, because I got to hear all of the comics from the times. And we actually subscribed to a different newspaper, so I got two sets of comics my brother or father read me the others. But it was fun reading and listening to the comics. And as I said, they dramatize them all, which was really cool. Ivan Cury ** 06:14 Yeah, no doubt I was one day when I was in the studio, I was doing FBI and peace and war. I used to do that all the time, several it was a sponsored show. So it meant, I think you got $36 as opposed to $24 which was okay in those days. And my line was, gee, Dad, where's the lava soap. And I said that every week, gee, Dad, where's the lava soap. And I remember walking in the studio once and hearing the guy saying, Ah, this television ain't never gonna work. You can't use your imagination. And, yeah, Michael Hingson ** 06:52 well, except you really don't use your imagination near especially now I find that everything is way too spelled out, so you don't get to use your imagination. Ivan Cury ** 07:03 Radio required you to use your radio required you to use it. Yeah, and, and if you had a crayon book at the time, well, and you were 12 or No, no, much younger than that, then it was and that was what you did, and it was fun. Michael Hingson ** 07:17 So what was the first radio program that you were Ivan Cury ** 07:20 it was very peculiar, is it New Year's Eve, 19 four? No, I don't know. I'm not sure. Now, it was 47 or 48 I think it was 48 Yeah, I was 11, and it was New Year's Eve, and it was with Hank Severn, Ted Cott, and I did a Jack and the Beanstalk. It was recording for caravan records. It became the number one kids record. You know, I didn't, there was no he didn't get residuals or anything like that. And the next day I did, let's pretend. And then I didn't work for three months. And I think I cried myself to sleep every night after that, because I absolutely loved it. And, you know, there was nothing my parents could do about this, but I wanted, I wanted in. And about three months later, I finally got to do another show. Peculiarly. The next show I did was lead opposite Helen Hayes in a play called no room for Peter Pan. And I just looked it up. It was May. I looked it up and I lost it already. I think, I think I may know what it is. Stay tuned. No, now, nope, nope, nope, ah, so that's it was not. This was May 1949, wow. What was it? Well, yeah, and it was, it was a the director was a man named Lester O'Keefe, and I loved Barry Fitzgerald, and I find even at a very early age, I could do an Irish accent. And I've been in Ireland since then. I do did this, just sometimes with the people knowing that I was doing it and I was it was fine. Sometimes they didn't, and I could get it is, it is pretty Irish, I think, at any rate, he asked me father, who was born in Russia, if we spoke Gaelic at home, we didn't. And so I did the show, and it was fine. Then I did a lot of shows after that, because here was this 11 year old kid who could do all this kind of Michael Hingson ** 09:24 stuff. So what was no room for Peter Pan about, Ivan Cury ** 09:27 oh, it was about a midget, a midget who is a young man, a young boy who never grows up, and there's a mind. He becomes a circus performer, and he becomes a great star, and he comes back to his town, to his mother, and there's a mine disaster, and the only one who can save them is this little person, and the kid doesn't want to do it, and it's and there's a moment where Helen Hayes, who played the lead, explained about how important it is the to give up your image and be and be. Man, be a real man, and do the thing, right thing to do. And so that was the Michael Hingson ** 10:04 story. What show was it on? What series? Ivan Cury ** 10:07 Electric Theater, Electric Theater, Electric Theater with Ellen Hayes, okay, Michael Hingson ** 10:10 I don't think I've heard that, but I'm going to find it. Ivan Cury ** 10:14 Well, yes, there's that one. And almost very soon afterwards, I did another important part with Walter Hughes, Walter Hamden. And that was on cavalcade of America, Ah, okay. And that was called Footlights on the frontier. And it was about, Tom about Joseph Jefferson, and the theater of the time, where the young kid me meets Abraham Lincoln, Walter Houston, and he saves the company. Well, those are the first, first shows. Was downhill from there. Oh, I don't Michael Hingson ** 10:50 know, but, but you you enjoyed it, and, of course, I loved it, yes, why? Ivan Cury ** 11:00 I was very friendly with Richard lamparsky. I don't even remember him, but he wrote whatever became of series of books. Whatever became of him was did a lot, and we were chatting, and he said that one of the things he noticed is that people in theater, people in motion pictures, they all had a lot of nightmare stories to tell about people they'd work with. And radio actors did not have so much of that. And I believe that you came in, you got your script, you work with people you like, mostly, if you didn't, you'd see you'd lose, you know, you wouldn't see them again for another Yeah, you only had to deal with them for three or four hours, and that was in the studio. And after that, goodbye. Michael Hingson ** 11:39 Yeah, what was your favorite show that you ever did? Ivan Cury ** 11:42 And it seems to me, it's kind of almost impossible. Yeah, I don't know, Michael Hingson ** 11:51 a lot of fun ones. Ivan Cury ** 11:54 I'll tell you the thing about that that I found and I wrote about it, there are only five, four reasons really, for having a job. One of them is money, one of them is prestige. One of them is learning something, and the other is having fun. And if they don't have at least two, you ought to get out of it. And I just had a lot of fun. I really like doing it. I think that's one of the things that's that keeps you going now, so many of these old time radio conventions, which are part of my life now, at least Tom sometimes has to do with with working with some of the actors. It's like tennis. It's like a good tennis game. You you send out a line, and you don't know how it's going to come back and what they're going to do with it. And that's kind of fun. Michael Hingson ** 12:43 Well, so while you were doing radio, and I understand you weren't necessarily doing it every day, but almost, well, almost. But you were also going to school. How did all that work out Ivan Cury ** 12:53 there is, I went to Professional Children's School. I went to a lot of schools. I went to law schools only because mostly I would, I would fail geometry or algebra, and I'd have to take summer session, and I go to summer session and I'd get a film, and so I'd leave that that session of summer session and do the film and come back and then go to another one. So in all, I wound up to being in about seven or eight high schools. But the last two years was at Professional Children's School. Professional Children's School has been set up. It's one of a number of schools that are set up for professional children, particularly on the East Coast. Here, they usually bring somebody on the set. Their folks brought on set for it. Their professional school started really by Milton Berle, kids that go on the road, and they were doing terribly. Now in order to work as a child Lacher in New York and probably out here, you have to get permission from the mayor's office and permission from the American Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Children. And you needed permits to do it, and those both organizations required the schools to show to give good grades you were doing in school, so you had to keep up your grades, or they wouldn't give you a permit, and then you couldn't work. PCs did that by having correspondence. So if a kid was on the road doing a show out of town in Philadelphia or wherever, they were responsible for whatever that week's work was, and we were all we knew ahead of time what the work was going to be, what projects had to be sent into the school and they would be graded when I went, I went to Carnegie, and my first year of English, I went only, I think, three days a week, instead of five, because Tuesdays and Thursdays Were remedial. We wrote We were responsible for a term paper. Actually, every week, you we learned how to write. And it was, they were really very serious about it. They were good schools Michael Hingson ** 14:52 well, and you, you clearly enjoyed it. And I know you also got very involved and interested in poetry as you went along. Too do. Yes, I did well, yeah, yeah. And who's your favorite poet? Ivan Cury ** 15:07 Ah, my favorite poets. If that is hard to say, who my favorite is, but certainly they are more than one is Langston, Hughes, Mary, Oliver, wh Jordan, my favorite, one of my favorite poems is by Langston Hughes. I'll do it for you now. It's real easy. Burton is hard, and dying is mean. So get yourself some love, and in between, there you go. Yes, I love that. And Mary Oliver, Mary Oliver's memory, if I hope I do, I go down to the shore, and depending upon the hour, the waves are coming in and going out. And I said, Oh, I am so miserable. Watch. What should I do? And the sea, in its lovely voice, says, Excuse me, I have work to do. Michael Hingson ** 15:56 Ooh. That puts it in perspective, doesn't Ivan Cury ** 16:00 it? Yes, it certainly does. Michael Hingson ** 16:03 So So you, you went to school and obviously had good enough grades that you were able to continue to to act and be in radio, yes, which was cool. And then television, because it was a television Lacher, yeah, yeah. It's beginning of television as well. So I know one of the shows that you were on was the Jack Benny show. What did you do for Jack? Oh, well, Ivan Cury ** 16:28 I'm really stuffy. Singer is the guy who really did a lot of Jack Benny things. But what happened is that when Jack would come to New York, if there was a kid they needed, that was me, and so I did the Benny show, I don't know, two or three times when he was in New York. I, I did the Jack Benny show two or three times. But I was not so you were, you were nice, man. It came in. We did the show. I went Michael Hingson ** 16:51 home. You were a part time Beaver, huh? Ivan Cury ** 16:54 I don't know. I really don't know, but I was beaver or what? I don't remember anything other than I had been listening to the Jack Benny show as a kid. I knew he was a star and that he was a nice man, and when he came into the studio, he was just a nice man who who read Jack Benny's lines, and who was Jack Benny, and he said his lines, and I said my lines, and we had a nice time together. And there wasn't any, there wasn't any real interplay between us, other than what would be normal between any two human beings and and that was that. So I did the show, but I can't talk very much about Jack Benny. Michael Hingson ** 17:32 Did you? Did you primarily read your scripts, or did you memorize them at all? Ivan Cury ** 17:37 Oh, no, no, radio. That was the thing about radio. Radio that was sort of the joy you read. It was all about reading. It's all about reading, yeah. And one of the things about that, that that was just that I feel lucky about, is that I can pretty well look at a script and read it. Usually read it pretty well with before the first time I've ever seen it, and that's cold reading, and I was pretty good at that, and still am. Michael Hingson ** 18:06 Did you find that as you were doing scripts and so on, though, and reading them, that that changed much when you went in into television and started doing television? Ivan Cury ** 18:22 I don't know what you mean by change. Michael Hingson ** 18:24 Did you you still read scripts and Ivan Cury ** 18:26 yeah, no, no, the way. I mean the way intelligent show usually goes as an actor. Well, when I directed television, I used to direct a lot of soap operas, not a lot, but I directed soap operas, but there'd be a week's rehearsal for a show, danger, I'm syndicated, or anything, and so there'd be a week's rehearsal. The first thing you do is, we have a sit down read, so you don't read the script, and then you holding the script in your hand walk through the scenes. Sometimes the director would have, would have blocking that they knew you were going to they were going to do, and they say, here's what you do. You walk in the door, etc. Sometimes they say, Well, go ahead, just show me what you'd like, what you what it feels like. And from that blocking is derived. And then you go home and you try to memorize the lines, and you feel perfectly comfortable that as you go, when you leave and you come back the next day and discover you got the first line down. But from there on, it's dreadful. But after a while, you get into the thing and you know your lines. You do it. Soap opera. Do that. Michael Hingson ** 19:38 The interesting thing about doing radio, was everything, pretty much, was live. Was that something that caused a lot of pressure for you? Ivan Cury ** 19:51 In some ways, yes, and in some ways it's lovely. The pressure is, yes, you want to get it right, but if you got to get it but if you get it wrong, give it up, because it's all over. Uh, and that's something that's that isn't so if you've recorded it, then you start figuring, well, what can I do? How can I fix this? You know, live, you do it and it's done. That's, that's what it is, moving right along. And this, this comment, gets to be kind of comfortable, you know, that you're going to, there may be some mistakes. You do the best you can with it, and go on one of the things that's really the news that that happens, the news, you know, every night, and with all the other shows that are live every day, Michael Hingson ** 20:26 one of the things that I've noticed in a number of radio shows, there are times that it's fairly obvious that somebody made a flub of some sort, but they integrated it in, and they were able to adapt and react, and it just became part of the show. And sometimes it became a funny thing, but a lot of times they just worked it in, because people knew how to do that. And I'm not sure that that is so much the case certainly today on television, because in reality, you get to do it over and over, and they'll edit films and all that. And so you don't have that, that same sort of thing, but some of those challenges and flubs that did occur on radio were really like in the Jack Benny shows and burns and Allen and Phil Harris and so on. They were, they just became integrated in and they they became classic events, even though they weren't necessarily originally part of the plan. Ivan Cury ** 21:25 Absolutely, some of some of them, I suspect some of them, were planned and planned to sound as if they would just happen. But certainly mistakes. Gosh, good mistakes are wonderful. Yeah, in all kinds of I used to do a lot of live television, and even if we weren't live television, when we would just do something and we were going to tape it and do it later, I remember once the camera kind of going wrong, video going wrong. I went, Wait a minute. That's great. Let's keep it wrong like that, you know. And it was so is just lovely that that's part of the art of improvisation, with how Michael Hingson ** 22:06 and and I think there was a lot more of that, certainly in radio, than there is on television today, because very few things are really live in the same Ivan Cury ** 22:17 sense. No, there. There are some kinds of having written, there are some type formats that are live. The news is live, the news is live. There's no, you know, there are. There used to be, and there may still be some of the afternoon shows, the kind of morning and afternoon shows where Show and Tell Dr whatever his name is, Dr Phil, yeah, it may be live, or it's shot as live, and they don't, they don't really have a budget to edit, so it's got to be real bad before they edit. Yeah. So do a show like that called Woman of CBS. So there are shows that are live, like that, sport events are live. A lot of from Kennedy Center is live. There are, there are lots of programs that are live, concerts, that are that you are a lot of them. America's Got Talent might as well be live. So there's a lot of that. And certainly things go wrong in the ad lib, and that's the way, because, in fact, there's some lovely things that happen out of that, but mostly, you're absolutely right. Mostly you do show it's recorded. You intend to edit it, you plan it to be edited, and you do it. It's also different when you shoot multiple camera, as opposed to single camera, yeah, single camera being as you say, again and again and again, multiple camera, not so much, although I used to direct the young and the restless, and now there is a line cut which is almost never used. It's it's the intention, but every shot is isolated and then cleaned up so that it's whatever is, whatever is possibly wrong with it gets clean. Michael Hingson ** 24:03 Yeah, it's, it's a sign of the changing times and how things, everything Ivan Cury ** 24:09 is bad. It's just, it's different. In fact, that's a kind of question I'm really puzzled with right now for the fun of it. And that is about AI, is it good or bad? Michael Hingson ** 24:20 Well, and it's like anything else, of course, it depends. One of the one of my, my favorite, one of my favorite things about AI is a few years, a couple of years ago, I was at a Christmas party when there was somebody there who was complaining about the fact that kids were writing their papers using AI, Ivan Cury ** 24:43 and that's bad Michael Hingson ** 24:44 and and although people have worked on trying to be able to detect AI, the reality is that this person was complaining that the kids were even doing it. And I didn't think about it until later, but I realized. Is one of the greatest blessings of AI is let the students create their papers using AI. What the teachers need to do is to get more creative. And by that I mean All right, so when children turn in and students turn in their papers, then take a day and let every student take about a minute and come up and defend the paper they wrote. You're going to find out really quickly who really knew the subject and who just let ai do it and didn't have any interaction with it. But what a great way to learn. You're going to find out very quickly. And kids are going to figure out very quickly that they need to really know the subject, because they're going to have to defend their Ivan Cury ** 25:41 papers. Yeah, no, I think that's fine. I I don't like the amount of electricity that it requires and what it's doing to our to our needs for water, because it has to be cooled down. So there's some physical things that I don't like about AI, and I think it's like when you used to have to go into a test with a slide rule, and they you couldn't use your calculator. When I use a calculator, it's out of the bag. You can't put it back anymore. It's a part of our life, and how to use it is the question. And I think you're absolutely right. I don't even need to know whether. I'm not even sure you need to check the kids if they it. How will you use? How will we get to use? Ai, it is with us. Michael Hingson ** 26:30 Well, but I think there's a the value of of checking and testing. Why I'm with you. I don't think it's wrong. I think, no, no, but I think the value is that it's going to make them really learn the subject. I've written articles, and I've used AI to write articles, and I will look at them. I'll actually have a create, like, eight or nine different versions, and I will decide what I like out of each of them, and then I will add my part to it, because I have to make it me, and I've always realized that. So I know anything that I write, I can absolutely defend, because I'm very integrally involved in what I do with it, although AI has come up with some very clever ideas. Yeah, I hadn't thought of but I still add value to it, and I think that's what's really important. Ivan Cury ** 27:19 I did a I've been writing stuff for a while, and one of the things I did, I wrote this. I wrote a little piece. And I thought, well, what? What would ai do if they took the same piece? How would they do it? So I put it in and said, rewrite it. They did. It was kind of bland. They'd taken all the life out of it. It wasn't very Yeah. So then I said, Well, wait a minute, do the same thing, write it as if it were written by Damon Runyon. And so they took it and they did that, and it was way over the top and really ugly, but it I kind of had fun with what, what the potential was, and how you might want to use it. I mean, I think the way you using it is exactly right. Yeah, it's how you use it, when, when you when, I'm just as curious, when you do that, when you said, you write something, and you ask them to do it four or five times or many times. How do you how do you require them to do it differently. Michael Hingson ** 28:23 Well, there are a couple different ways. One is, there are several different models that can use to generate the solution. But even leaving aside such as, Oh, let's see, one is, you go out and do more web research before you actually do the do the writing. And so that's one thing and another. I'm trying to remember there were, like, six models that I found on one thing that I did yesterday, and but, but the other part about it is that with AI, yeah, the other thing about AI is that you can just tell it you don't like the response that you Ivan Cury ** 29:09 got. Aha, okay, all right, yep, Michael Hingson ** 29:13 I got it. And when you do that, it will create a different response, which is one of the things that you want. So, so so that works out pretty well. And what I did on something, I wanted to write a letter yesterday, and I actually had it write it. I actually had it do it several times. And one time I told it to look at the web to help generate more information, which was pretty cool, but, but the reality is that, again, I also think that I need to be a part of the the solution. So I had to put my my comments into it as well, and, and that worked out pretty well. Okay, right? Yeah, so I mean, it's cool, and it worked. Right? And so the bottom line is we we got a solution, but I think that AI is a tool that we can use, and if we use it right, it will enhance us. And it's something that we all have to choose how we're going to do. There's no no come, yeah, no question about that. So tell me you were successful as a young actor. So what kind of what what advice or what kind of thoughts do you have about youth success, and what's your takeaway from that? Ivan Cury ** 30:36 The Good, yeah, I There are a lot of things being wanting to do it, and I really love doing it, I certainly didn't want to. I wanted to do it as the best way I could Well, I didn't want to lose it up, is what it really comes down to. And that meant figuring out what it is that required. And one of the things that required was a sense of responsibility. You had to be there on time, you had to be on stage, and you may want to fidget, but that takes to distract from what's going on, so sit still. So there's a kind of kind of responsibility that that you learn, that I learned, I think early on, that was, that's very useful. Yeah, that's, that's really, I think that's, I wrote some things that I had, I figured, some of these questions that might be around. So there, there's some I took notes about it. Well, oh, attention to details. Yeah, to be care to be watch out for details. And a lot of the things can be carried on into later life, things about detailed, things about date. Put a date on, on papers. When, when did, when was this? No, when was this note? What? When did this happen? Just keeping track of things. I still am sort of astonished at how, how little things add up, how we just just noted every day. And at the end of a year, you've made 365 notes, Michael Hingson ** 32:14 yeah, well, and then when you go back and read them, which is also part of the issue, is that you got to go back and look at them to to see what Ivan Cury ** 32:23 right or to just know that they're there so that you can refer to them. When did that happen? Michael Hingson ** 32:28 Oh, right. And what did you say? You know, that's the point. Is that when I started writing thunder dog, my first book was suggested that I should start it, and I started writing it, what I started doing was creating notes. I actually had something like 1.2 megabytes of notes by the time we actually got around to doing the book. And it was actually eight years after I started doing some, well, seven years after I started doing writing on it. But the point is that I had the information, and I constantly referred back to it, and I even today, when I deliver a speech, I like to if there's a possibility of having it recorded, I like to go back and listen, because I want to make sure that I'm not changing things I shouldn't change and or I want to make sure that I'm really communicating with the audience, because I believe that my job is to talk with an audience, not to an audience. Ivan Cury ** 33:24 Yeah, yeah. I we say that I'm reading. There are three books I'm reading right now, one of them, one of them, the two of them are very well, it doesn't matter. One is called who ate the oyster? Who ate the first oyster? And it's a it's really about paleon. Paleological. I'm saying the word wrong, and I'm paleontological. Paleontological, yeah, study of a lot of firsts, and it's a lovely but the other one is called shady characters by Keith Houston, and it's a secret life of punctuation symbols and other typographical marks, and I am astonished at the number of of notes that go along with it. Probably 100 100 pages of footnotes to all of the things that that are a part of how these words came to be. And they're all, I'm not looking at the footnotes, because there's just too many, but it's kind of terrific to check out. To be that clear about where did this idea come from, where did this statement come from? I'm pleased about that. I asked my wife recently if you could be anything you want other than what you are. What would you want to be? What other what other job or would you want to have? The first one that came to mind for me, which I was surprised that was a librarian. I just like the detail. I think that's Michael Hingson ** 34:56 doesn't go anywhere. There you go. Well, but there's so. There's a lot of detail, and you get to be involved with so many different kinds of subjects, and you never know what people are going to ask you on any given day. So there's a lot of challenge and fun to that. Ivan Cury ** 35:11 Well, to me also just putting things in order, I was so surprised to discover that in the Dewey Decimal System, the theater is 812 and right next to it, the thing that's right next to it is poetry. I was surprised. It's interesting, yeah, the library and play that out. Michael Hingson ** 35:29 Well, you were talking about punctuation. Immediately I thought of EE Cummings. I'll bet he didn't pay much attention to punctuation at all. I love him. He's great, yeah, isn't he? Yeah, it's a lot of fun. An interesting character by any standard. So, so you, you progressed into television, if, I guess it's progressing well, like, if we answer to Fred Allen, it's not, but that's okay. Ivan Cury ** 35:54 Well, what happens? You know, after, after, I became 18, and is an interesting moment in my life, where they were going to do film with Jimmy Dean, James Dean, James Dean. And it came down and he was going to have a sidekick, a kid sidekick. And it came down to me and Sal Mineo. And Sal got it, by the way. Case you didn't know, but one of the things was I was asked I remember at Columbia what I wanted to do, and I said I wanted to go to college, and my there was a kind of like, oh, yeah, right. Well, then you're not going to go to this thing, because we don't. We want you to be in Hollywood doing the things. And yes, and I did go to college, which is kind of great. So what happened was, after, when I became 18, I went to Carnegie tech and studied theater arts. Then I after that, I studied at Boston University and got a master's there, so that I had an academic, an academic part of my life as well, right? Which ran out well, because in my later years, I became a professor and wrote some Michael Hingson ** 36:56 books, and that was your USC, right? No, Cal State, Lacher State, LA and UCLA. And UCLA, not USC. Oh, shame on me. But that's my wife. Was a USC graduate, so I've always had loyalty. There you go. But I went to UC Irvine, so you know, okay, both systems, whatever. Ivan Cury ** 37:16 Well, you know, they're both UC system, and that's different, yeah, the research institutes, as opposed to the Cal State, which Michael Hingson ** 37:23 are more teaching oriented, yeah, Ivan Cury ** 37:26 wow, yeah, that's, that's what it says there in the paper. Michael Hingson ** 37:30 Yes, that's what it says. But you know, so you went into television. So what did you mainly do in the in the TV world? Ivan Cury ** 37:44 Well, when I got out of when I got through school, I got through the army, I came back to New York, and I, oh, I got a job versus the Girl Scouts, doing public relations. I I taught at Hunter College for a year. Taught speech. One of the required courses at Carnegie is voice and diction, and it's a really good course. So I taught speech at Hunter College, and a friend of mine was the second alternate maker man at Channel 13 in New York. He had opera tickets, so he said, Look standard for me, it's easy, men seven and women five, and telling women to put on their own lipstick. So I did. I did that, and I became then he couldn't do it anymore, so I became the second alternate make a man. Then it didn't matter. Within within six months, I was in charge of makeup for any t which I could do, and I was able to kind of get away with it. And I did some pretty good stuff, some prosthetic pieces, and it was okay, but I really didn't want to do that. I wanted to direct, if I could. And so then I they, they knew that, and I they knew that I was going to leave if, if, because I wasn't going to be a makeup I didn't. So I became a stage manager, and then an associate director, and then a director at Channel 13 in New York. And I directed a lot of actors, choice the biggest show I did there, or the one that Well, I did a lot of I also worked with a great guy named Kirk Browning, who did the a lot of the NBC operas, and who did all of the opera stuff in for any t and then I wound up doing a show called Soul, which was a black variety show. But when I say black variety show, it was with James Baldwin and but by the OJS and the unifics and the delphonics and Maya Angelou and, you know, so it was a black culture show, and I was the only white guy except the camera crew there. But had a really terrific time. Left there and went and directed for CBS. I did camera three. So I did things like the 25th anniversary of the Juilliard stringer check. Quartet. But I was also directing a show called woman, which was one of the earliest feminist programs, where I was the only male and an all female show. And actually I left and became the only gringo on an all Latino show called aqui I ahora. So I had a strange career in television as a director, and then did a lot of commercials for about 27 years, I directed or worked on the Men's Warehouse commercials. Those are the facts. I guarantee it. Michael Hingson ** 40:31 Did you get to meet George Zimmer? Oh, very, very, very often, 27 years worth, I would figure, yeah. Ivan Cury ** 40:39 I mean, what? I'm enemies. When I met him, he's a boy, a mere boy. Michael Hingson ** 40:45 Did you act during any of this time? Or were you no no behind the camera once? Ivan Cury ** 40:50 Well, the only, the only acting I did was occasionally. I would go now in a store near you, got it, and I had this voice that they decided, Ivan, we don't want you to do it anymore. It just sounds too much like we want, let George do this, please. Michael Hingson ** 41:04 So, so you didn't get to do much, saying of things like, But wait, there's more, right? Ivan Cury ** 41:10 No, not at all. Okay, okay. Oh, but you do that very well. Let's try. Michael Hingson ** 41:13 Wait, there's more, okay. Well, that's cool. Well, that was, Ivan Cury ** 41:18 it was kind of fun, and it was kind of fun, but they had to, it was kind of fun to figure out things. I remember we did. We had a thing where some of those commercial we did some commercials, and this is the thing, I sort of figured out customers would call in. So we recorded their, their call ins, and I they, we said, with calls being recorded. We took the call ins and I had them sent to it a typist who typed up what they wrote that was sent to New York to an advertising agency would extract, would extract questions or remarks that people had made about the stuff, the remarks, the tapes would be then sent to who did that? I think we edited the tapes to make it into a commercial, but the tags needed to be done by an announcer who said, in a store near you were opening sooner, right? Wyoming, and so those the announcer for the Men's Warehouse was a guy in in Houston. So we'd send, we'd send that thing to him, and he'd send us back a digital package with the with the tags. And the fun of it was that was, it was from, the calls are from all over the world. The the edits on paper were done in New York, the physical work was done in San Francisco. The announcer was in Houston. And, you know? And it's just kind of fun to be able to do that, that to see, particularly having come from, having come from 1949 Yeah, where that would have been unheard of to kind of have that access to all that was just fun, kind Michael Hingson ** 42:56 of fun. But think about it now, of course, where we have so much with the internet and so on, it'd be so much easier, in a lot of ways, to just have everyone meet on the same network and Ivan Cury ** 43:09 do now it's now, it's nothing. I mean, now it's just, that's the way it is. Come on. Michael Hingson ** 43:13 Yeah, exactly. So. So you know, one of the things that I've been thinking about is that, yes, we've gone from radio to television and a whole new media and so on. But at the same time, I'm seeing a fairly decent resurgence of people becoming fascinated with radio and old radio and listening to the old programs. Do you see that? Ivan Cury ** 43:41 Well, I, I wish I did. I don't my, my take on it. It comes strictly from that such, so anecdotal. It's like, in my grandkids, I have these shows that I've done, and it's, you know, it's grandpa, and here it is, and there it's the bobby Benson show, or it's calculator America, whatever, 30 seconds. That's what they give me. Yeah, then it's like, Thanks, grandpa. Whoopie. I don't know. I think maybe there may there may be something, but I would, I'd want some statistical evidence about well, but Michael Hingson ** 44:19 one of the things I'm thinking of when I talk about the resurgence, is that we're now starting to see places like radio enthusiasts to Puget Sound reps doing recreations of, oh yes, Carl Omari has done the Twilight Zone radio shows. You know, there are some things that are happening, but reps among others, and spurred back to some degree, yeah, spurred back is, is the Society for the Prevention, oh, gosh, Ivan Cury ** 44:46 not cruelty children, although enrichment Michael Hingson ** 44:49 of radio Ivan Cury ** 44:50 drama and comedy, right? Society, right? Yeah, and reps is regional enthusiasts of Puget Sound, Puget Michael Hingson ** 44:58 Sound and. Reps does several recreations a year. In fact, there's one coming up in September. Are you going to Ivan Cury ** 45:04 that? Yes, I am. I'm supposed to be. Yes, I think I Yes. I am. Michael Hingson ** 45:08 Who you're going to play? I have no idea. Oh, you don't know yet. Ivan Cury ** 45:12 Oh, no, no, that's fun. You get there, I think they're going to have me do a Sam Spade. There is another organization up there called the American radio theater, right? And I like something. I love those people. And so they did a lot of Sam Spade. And so I expect I'm going to be doing a Sam Spade, which I look forward to. Michael Hingson ** 45:32 I was originally going to it to a reps event. I'm not going to be able to this time because somebody has hired me to come and speak and what I was going to do, and we've postponed it until I can, can be the one to do it is Richard diamond private detective, which is about my most favorite radio show. So I'm actually going to play, able to play Richard diamond. Oh, how great. Oh, that'll be a lot of fun. Yeah. So it'll probably be next year at this point now, but it but it will happen. Ivan Cury ** 45:59 I think this may, yeah, go ahead. This may be my last, my last show I'm getting it's getting tough to travel. Michael Hingson ** 46:07 Yeah, yeah, I don't know. Let's see. Let's see what happens. But, but it is fun, and I've met several people through their Carolyn Grimes, of course, who played Zuzu on It's A Wonderful Life. And in fact, we're going to have her on unstoppable mindset in the not too distant future, which is great, but I've met her and and other people, which I Ivan Cury ** 46:34 think that's part of the for me. That really is part of the fun. Yeah, you become for me now it has become almost a sec, a family, in the same way that when you do show, if you do a show regularly, it is, it really becomes a family. And when the show is over, it's that was, I mean, one of the first things as a kid that was, that was really kind of tough for every day, or every other day I would meet the folks of Bobby Benson and the B Barbie writers. And then I stopped doing the show, and I didn't see them and didn't see them again. You know, I Don Knotts took me to I had the first shrimp of my life. Don Knotts took me to take tough and Eddie's in New York. Then I did another show called paciolini, which was a kind of Italian version of The Goldbergs. And that was, I was part of that family, and then that kind of went away. I was Porsche son on Porsche faces life, and then that way, so the you have these families and they and then you lose them, but, but by going to these old events, there is that sense of family, and there are also, what is just astonishing to me is all those people who know who knows stuff. One day I mentioned Frank Milano. Now, nobody who knows Frank Milano. These guys knew them. Oh, Frank, yeah, he did. Frank Milano was a sound. Was did animal sounds. There were two guys who did animal sounds particularly well. One was Donald Baines, who I worked with on the first day I ever did anything. He played the cow on Jack and the Beanstalk and and Frank, Don had, Don had a wonderful bar room bet, and that was that he could do the sound effects of a fish. Wow. And what is the sound effect of a fish? So now you gotta be required. Here's the sound effect of a fish. This was what he went $5 bets with you. Ready? Here we go. Michael Hingson ** 48:41 Good job. Yeah, good job. Yeah. It's like, what was it on? Was it Jack Benny? They had a kangaroo, and I think it was Mel Blanc was asked to do the kangaroo, which is, of course, another one where they're not really a sound, but you have to come up with a sound to do it on radio, right? Ivan Cury ** 49:06 Yes. Oh my god, there were people who want I could do dialects, I could do lots of German film, and I could do the harness. Was very easy for me to do, yeah, so I did love and I got to lots of jobs because I was a kid and I could do all these accents. There was a woman named Brianna Rayburn. And I used to do a lot of shows in National Association of churches of Christ in the United States. And the guy who was the director, John Gunn, we got to know each other. He was talking about, we talked with dialects. He said Briana Rayburn had come in. She was to play a Chinese woman. And she really asked him, seriously, what part of China Do you want her to come from? Oh, wow. I thought that was just super. And she was serious. She difference, which is studied, studied dialects in in. In college not long after, I could do them, and discovered that there were many, many English accents. I knew two or three cockney I could do, but there were lots of them that could be done. And we had the most fun. We had a German scholar from Germany, from Germany, and we asked him if he was doing speaking German, but doing playing the part of an American what would it sound like speaking German with an American accent? You know, it was really weird. Michael Hingson ** 50:31 I had a history teacher, yes, who was from the Bronx, who spoke German, yeah, and he fought in World War Two. And in fact, he was on guard duty one night, and somebody took a shot at him, and so he yelled back at them in German. The accent was, you know, I took German, so I don't understand it all that well, but, but listening to him with with a New York accent, speaking German was really quite a treat. The accent spilled through, but, but they didn't shoot at him anymore. So I think he said something, what are you shooting at me for? Knock it off. But it was so funny, yeah, but they didn't shoot at him anymore because he spoke, yeah, yeah. It was kind of cool. Well, so with all that you've learned, what kind of career events have have sort of filtered over into what you do today? Ivan Cury ** 51:28 Oh, I don't know. We, you know. But one of the things I wanted to say, it was one of the things that I learned along the way, which is not really answering your question until I get back to it, was, I think one of those best things I learned was that, however important it is that that you like someone, or you're with somebody and everything is really terrific. One of the significant things that I wish I'd learned earlier, and I think is really important, is how do you get along when you don't agree? And I think that's really very important. Michael Hingson ** 52:01 Oh, it's so important. And we, in today's society, it's especially important because no one can tolerate anyone anymore if they disagree with them, they're you're wrong, and that's all there is to it. And that just is so unfortunate. There's no There's no really looking at alternatives, and that is so scary Ivan Cury ** 52:20 that may not be an alternative. It may not be, Michael Hingson ** 52:23 but if somebody thinks there is, you should at least respect the opinion, Ivan Cury ** 52:28 whatever it is, how do you get along with the people you don't Michael Hingson ** 52:32 agree with? Right? Ivan Cury ** 52:35 And you should one that you love that you don't agree with, right? This may sound strange, but my wife and I do not agree about everything all the time, right? Michael Hingson ** 52:43 What a concept. My wife and I didn't agree about everything all the time. Really, that's amazing, and it's okay, you know? And in fact, we both one of the the neat things, I would say, is we both learned so much from each other when we disagreed, but would talk about it, and we did a lot of talking and communicating, which I always felt was one of the most important things about our marriage. So we did, we learned a lot, and we knew how to get along, and we knew that if we disagreed, it was okay, because even if we didn't change each other's opinion, we didn't need to try to change each other's opinion, but if we work together and learn to respect the other opinion, that's what really mattered, and you learn more about the individual that way, Ivan Cury ** 53:30 yeah, and also you have you learn about giving up. Okay, I think you're wrong, but if that's really what you want exactly, I'll do it. We'll do it your way? Michael Hingson ** 53:42 Yeah, well, exactly. And I think it's so important that we really put some of that into perspective, and it's so crucial to do that, but there's so much disagreement today, and nobody wants to talk to anybody. You're wrong. I'm right. That's all there is to it. Forget it, and that's just not the way the world should be. Ivan Cury ** 53:59 No, no. I wanted to go on to something that you had asked about, what I think you asked about, what's now I have been writing. I have been writing to a friend who I've been writing a lot of very short pieces, to a friend who had a stroke and who doesn't we can't meet as much as we use. We can't meet at all right now. And but I wanted to just go on, I'm and I said that I've done something really every week, and I'd like to put some of these things together into a book. And what I've been doing, looking for really is someone to work with. And so I keep writing the things, the thing that I wrote just today, this recent one, had to do with I was thinking about this podcast. Is what made me think of it. I thought about the stars that I had worked with, you know, me and the stars, because I had lots. Stories with with people who are considered stars, Charles Lawton, Don Knotts, Gene crane, Maya, Angelou, Robert Kennedy, the one I wrote about today. I wrote about two people. I thought it'd be fun to put them together, James Dean and Jimmy Dean. James Dean, just going to tell you the stories about them, because it's the kind of thing I'm writing about now. James Dean, we worked together on a show called Crime syndicated. He had just become really hot in New York, and we did this show where there were a bunch of probably every teenage actor in New York was doing this show. We were playing two gangs, and Jimmy had an extraordinary amount of lines. And we said, What the hell are you going to do, Jim? If you, you know, if you lose lines, he's, this is live. And he said, No problem. And then what he said is, all I do is I start talking, and then I just move my mouth like I'm walking talking, and everybody will think the audio went out. Oh, and that's, that's what he was planning on doing. I don't know if he really is going to do it. He was perfect. You know, he's just wonderful. He did his show. The show was great. We were all astonished to be working with some not astonished, but really glad to just watch him work, because he was just so very good. And we had a job. And then stories with Jimmy Dean. There were a couple of stories with Jimmy Dean, the singer and the guy of sausage, right? The last one to make it as fast, the last one was, we were in Nashville, at the Grand Ole Opry Opperman hotel. I was doing a show with him, and I was sitting in the bar, the producer and someone other people, and there was a regular Graceland has a regular kind of bar. It's a small bar of chatter, cash register, husband, wife, team on the stage singing. And suddenly, as we were talking, it started to get very quiet. And what had happened is Jimmy Dean had come into the room. He had got taken the guitar, and he started to sing, and suddenly it just got quiet, very quiet in the room. The Register didn't ring. He sang one song and he sang another song. His applause. He said, Thank you. Gave the guitar back to the couple. Walked off the stage. It was quiet while a couple started to sing again. They were good. He started to sing. People began to chatter again. The cash register rang, and I, I certainly have no idea how he managed to command that room to have everybody shut up while he sang and listened to him. He didn't do anything. There was nothing, you know, no announcement. It wasn't like, oh, look, there's Jimmy. It was just his, his performance. It was great, and I was really glad to be working with him the next day well. Michael Hingson ** 57:56 And I think that having that kind of command and also being unassuming about it is pretty important if you've got an ego and you think you're the greatest thing, and that's all there is to it. That shows too, yeah? Ivan Cury ** 58:08 Well, some people live on it, on that ego, yeah, and I'm successful on it, I don't think that was what. It certainly Michael Hingson ** 58:17 wasn't, no, no, no, and I'm not saying that. I'm sure it wasn't that's my point. Yeah, no, because I think that the ultimate best people are the ones who don't do it with ego or or really project that ego. I think that's so important, as I said earlier, for me, when I go to speak, my belief is I'm going to to do what I can to help whatever event I'm at, it isn't about me at all. It's more about the audience. It's more about what can I inspire this audience with? What can I tell the audience and talk with the audience about, and how can I relate to them so that I'm saying something that they want to hear, and that's what I have to do. So if you had the opportunity to go back and talk to a younger Ivan, what would you tell him? Ivan Cury ** 59:08 Cut velvet? No, there you go. No, what? I don't. I really don't. I don't know. Michael Hingson ** 59:18 Talk Like a fish. More often Ivan Cury ** 59:20 talk like a fish. More on there. Maybe. No, I really don't know. I don't know. I think about that sometimes, what it always seems to be a question, what? Really it's a question, What mistakes did you make in life that you wish you hadn't done? What door you wish Yeah, you would open that you didn't? Yeah, and I really don't, I don't know. I can't think of anything that I would do differently and maybe and that I think there's a weakness, because surely there must be things like that. I think a lot of things that happen to one in life anyway have to do with luck. That's not, sort of not original. But I was surprised to hear one day there was a. It. Obama was being interviewed by who was by one of the guys, I've forgotten his name that. And he was talking about his career, and he said he felt that part of his success had been a question of luck. And I very surprised to hear him say that. But even with, within with my career, I think a lot of it had to do with luck I happen to meet somebody that right time. I didn't meet somebody at the right time. I think, I think if I were to do so, if you would, you did ask the question, and I'd be out more, I would be pitching more. I think I've been lazy in that sense, if I wanted to do more that. And I've come to the West Coast quicker, but I was doing a lot of was in New York and having a good time Michael Hingson ** 1:00:50 Well, and that's important too, yeah. So I don't know that I changed, I Yeah, and I don't know that I would find anything major to change. I think if somebody asked me that question, I'd say, tell my younger self that life is an adventure, enjoy it to the fullest and have fun. Ivan Cury ** 1:01:12 Oh, well, that's yes. That was the I always believe that, yeah, yeah. It's not a question for me, and in fact, it's one of the things I told my kids that you Abraham Lincoln, you know, said that really in it, in a way a long time ago. He said that you choose you a lot of what you way you see your life has to do with the way the choices you make about how to see it, right? Yeah, which is so cool, right? And one of the ways you might see it says, have fun, Michael Hingson ** 1:01:39 absolutely well, Ivan, this has been absolutely fun. We've been doing it for an hour, believe it or not, and I want to thank you for being here. And I also want to thank everyone who is listening for being with us today. I hope you've enjoyed this conversation, and I'd love to hear what your thoughts are. Please feel free to email me. I'd love to hear your thoughts about this. Email me at Michael h i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, so Ivan, if people want to reach out to you, how do they do that? Ivan Cury ** 1:02:10 Oh, dear. Oh, wait a minute, here we go. Gotta stop this. I curyo@gmail.com I C, u, r, y, o@gmail.com There you go. Cury 1r and an O at the end of it, not a zero. I curyo@gmail.com Yeah. Michael Hingson ** 1:02:30 Well, great. Well, thank you again, and all of you wherever you're listening, I hope that you'll give us a great review wherever you're listening. Please give us a five star review. We appreciate it, and Ivan, for you and for everyone else listening. If you know anyone else who ought to be a guest on our podcast, love to hear from you. Love an introduction to whoever you might have as a person who ought to come on the podcast, because I think everyone has stories to tell, and I want to give people the opportunity to do it. So once again, I want to thank you, Ivan, for being here. We really appreciate it. Thanks for coming on and being with us today. Thank you. 1:03:10 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
The California State University system becomes the latest target in the Trump administration's investigation into alleged antisemitism on college campuses. Two different electric vehicle tax credits are expiring Tuesday under a new Trump administration policy. Yue Wa Market, a Chinatown anchor, closes this week due to economic strain. Plus, more. Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.com Visit www.preppi.com/LAist to receive a FREE Preppi Emergency Kit (with any purchase over $100) and be prepared for the next wildfire, earthquake or emergency!Support the show: https://laist.com
The Trump Administration appeals the ruling that said it was illegal to send the National Guard to LA. A Cal State Channel Islands instructor is accused of throwing tear gas at immigration agents. California braces for a fight with the feds over in-state tuition for undocumented students. Plus, more.Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.comVisit www.preppi.com/LAist to receive a FREE Preppi Emergency Kit (with any purchase over $100) and be prepared for the next wildfire, earthquake or emergency! Support the show: https://laist.com
After batting .557 and setting a school record with 13 home runs his senior year of high school in California, Garrett Atkins was drafted by the New York Mets. He was also courted by several colleges including Oklahoma State, USC, Cal State, Pepperdine and UCLA. Garrett chose to wait for Major League Baseball and head to UCLA. He became the Bruin's first 3-time All American in baseball and spent time in the Cape Cod Baseball League where he was the MVP in 1999. Now Garrett was ready for a big-league team. The Rockies took him in the 5th round of the 2000 draft. He started out in the farm system, and he worked his way up to The Show. His MLB debut came in 2003 and in 2005 he won the starting job at 3rd base after spring training. He'd finish 4th in Rookie of the Year voting that season despite being sidelines for a bit with a hamstring injury. Garrett stayed with the Rockies for several more years, including the 2007 World Series. In 2009, he signed a one-year deal with Colorado, and his numbers began to decline. In 2010 he was a free agent and played for a short time with Baltimore and went to the Pirates camp in 2011. Baseball wasn't the same and he retired. These days Garrett enjoys being behind the scenes as a husband, dad, coach and golfer with a 3 handicap. He also did his first podcast in 2025 (this one).
We tell you where you can stay cool in the heatwave arriving tomorrow. LA County is starting to declare lots a public nuisance over fire debris. The Cal State system is giving all its students and faculty ChatGPT. Plus, more.Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.comVisit www.preppi.com/LAist to receive a FREE Preppi Emergency Kit (with any purchase over $100) and be prepared for the next wildfire, earthquake or emergency! Support the show: https://laist.com
Lack of on-campus housing for students at many California State University campuses can be a major barrier for low-income students to attend college. To try to address this, CSU added more than 17,000 new beds over the last decade, with plans to add more. Yet students still struggle to find housing on or close to campus. What are the barriers to building more on-campus housing? Why does it matter for students? Guests: Sofia Gonzalez, Student, Sacramento State University Amy DiPierro, Reporter, EdSource Read more from EdSource: Cal State wants more housing. Can it add 18,000 beds? Education Beat is a weekly podcast, hosted by EdSource's Zaidee Stavely and produced by Coby McDonald. Subscribe: Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud, YouTube
The articles appearing in this volume were presented at a conference entitled “Microhistories in Armenian Studies” organized by the Armenian Studies Program of California State University, Fresno, on September 22-23, 2023. They have since been edited and appear here in a single volume. The present study focuses on Armenian studies from a conceptual, theoretical and methodological approach. Each article, both in its methodological approach and its unique archival material, offers new insights by blending micro and macrohistorical perspectives on the major issues they address in Armenian Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
The articles appearing in this volume were presented at a conference entitled “Microhistories in Armenian Studies” organized by the Armenian Studies Program of California State University, Fresno, on September 22-23, 2023. They have since been edited and appear here in a single volume. The present study focuses on Armenian studies from a conceptual, theoretical and methodological approach. Each article, both in its methodological approach and its unique archival material, offers new insights by blending micro and macrohistorical perspectives on the major issues they address in Armenian Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history
The articles appearing in this volume were presented at a conference entitled “Microhistories in Armenian Studies” organized by the Armenian Studies Program of California State University, Fresno, on September 22-23, 2023. They have since been edited and appear here in a single volume. The present study focuses on Armenian studies from a conceptual, theoretical and methodological approach. Each article, both in its methodological approach and its unique archival material, offers new insights by blending micro and macrohistorical perspectives on the major issues they address in Armenian Studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies
https://www.cultivatingself.org/ ... Today, we're incredibly honored to feature Raji K. Brar, a true trailblazer whose journey from humble beginnings to the highest levels of public service is nothing short of remarkable. Born and raised in Fresno County, Raji's story is rooted in the hard work and determination of her immigrant parents from Punjab, India, who started their lives as farmworkers. That foundation propelled her to earn degrees in biology and healthcare administration from Cal State Bakersfield, eventually leading her to play a key role in her family's thriving real estate and development firm, Countryside Corporation. But Raji's impact extends far beyond business. In 2006, she shattered barriers by becoming the first Sikh woman ever elected to a municipal government seat in California, joining the Arvin City Council. This historic achievement earned her the prestigious Woman of the Year by the California State Assembly. She's a four-time gubernatorial appointee and lends her expertise to influential boards like the California Chamber of Commerce and Kern Medical. Most recently, Raji was appointed as a Trustee on the California State University Board, a testament to her dedication to education and public service. Beyond her impressive professional and political career, Raji is also the co-founder of the Bakersfield Sikh Women's Association, a powerful organization dedicated to empowering her community through health, wellness, and educational initiatives. ... https://www.calstate.edu/csu-system/board-of-trustees/meet-the-board-of-trustees/Pages/raji-kaur-brar.aspx ... https://shiningsikh.com/meet-raji-kaur-brar-a-trailblazing-sikh-woman/ ...
The Trump Administration isn't going to stop the SoCal immigration crackdown without a fight, despite last week's key ruling. A professor has his day in court for his role in the ICE chaos in Camarillo. The fight to preserve birthright citizenship in California. Plus, more.Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.comVisit www.preppi.com/LAist to receive a FREE Preppi Emergency Kit (with any purchase over $100) and be prepared for the next wildfire, earthquake or emergency! Support the show: https://laist.com
Welcome to episode 198 of Sports Management Podcast. Today's guest is Jesse Burke – the Client Marketing Lead at PSI Sports Management. Jesse is a former NCAA Division II baseball Player from Cal State who transitioned into a career in sports management where he now works with marketing and scouting. We spoke about: His role at PSI Sports Scouting evaluating talent Learnings from his baseball career The NIL college landscape in America Work-Life balance And much more! Follow Sports Management Podcast on social media Instagram Twitter LinkedIn YouTube www.sportsmanagementpodcast.com
#realconversations #Shaman #spirituality #businessmentor#intuition #light #healing #success #time #Einstein #prosperityCONVERSATIONS WITH CALVIN WE THE SPECIESMeet CHRISTINA DEERING; “Several hours spent today gettingto know, absorbing, interviewing Christina. My takeaway. She is a beacon oflight, spirit, energy, caring, intuition, business acumen, success, passion,and strategic reality. This could've been easily a six-hour session. But not.But do watch/listen. Christina can change the course of a life.” Calvinhttps://www.youtube.com/c/ConversationswithCalvinWetheSpecIEs497 Interviews/Videos 8900 SUBSCRIBERSGLOBAL Reach. Earth Life. Amazing People. PLEASE SUBSCRIBE CHRISTINA DEERING: Shaman Healer; Business Intuitive;Guiding Soul-Led Entrepreneurs to Scale Without Burnout; Cal. State Univ, '09;LIVE from TEXASYouTube: https://youtu.be/u-XwAPjqXgIBIO: Christina Deering helps spiritual entrepreneurs make 6+figures doing what they love. Best known for clearing more limiting beliefs andtrauma in a single session than decades of therapy. Host of the top 10% podcast worldwide, "YouUnlimited," Christina is a leader in wealth energetics, emotional mastery,and unlocking spiritual gifts. Featured in Forbes and Goss Manifest Magazine,she inspires audiences worldwide to create impactful, soul-aligned legacies.She's known for unlocking clarity, alignment, and abundancewhile making business feel light and purposeful.LINKS:christinadeering.com (Company)You Unlimited Podcast with Christina Deering:podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/you-unlimited/id1725208486(Other)The free gift I mention on the show: The 7 Figure Shift: http://christinadeering.com/shiftInstagram: www.instagram.com/iamchristinadeering **WE ARE ALSO ON AUDIOAUDIO “Conversations with Calvin; WE the SpecIEs”ANCHOR https://lnkd.in/g4jcUPqSPOTIFY https://lnkd.in/ghuMFeCAPPLE PODCASTSBREAKER https://lnkd.in/g62StzJGOOGLE PODCASTS https://lnkd.in/gpd3XfMPOCKET CASTS https://pca.st/bmjmzaitRADIO PUBLIC https://lnkd.in/gxueFZw
Could good grades guarantee you a spot in college? California State University (Cal State) has initiated a pilot program in Riverside County, automatically admitting high school seniors with strong GPAs to one of 10 campuses, provided they maintain their grades, complete required courses, and submit an admissions form. This effort has already resulted in approximately 10,600 students being admitted, surpassing last year's 9,800, and aligns Cal State with a national trend of automatic admissions for eligible students.
Sonoma State University announced a contentious proposal this spring to cut $24 million dollars by eliminating six academic departments entirely, and another two dozen degree programs, in addition to cutting all NCAA Division II sports, among other measures. A geology student shares what's at stake for the field and for students and faculty who are mourning the possible loss of a "home away from home." Guests: Jackson Kaiser, Geology student, Sonoma State University Amy DiPierro, Reporter, EdSource Read more from EdSource: Scenes of loss – and resilience – at a Cal State campus facing drastic cuts Education Beat is a weekly podcast, hosted by EdSource's Zaidee Stavely and produced by Coby McDonald. Subscribe at Apple, Spotify, SoundCloud.
Dr. Claudia Hampton was the first Black woman to serve on the California State University Board of Trustees and was a key force in the fight for affirmative action in the CSU system. Hampton gained the trust of her predominantly male, white fellow board members by employing “sly civility.” In this podcast, AGB Executive Vice President Mary Papazian, former President of San Jose State University, speaks with Dr. Donna Nicol, who is the Associate Dean for Personnel and Curriculum in the College of Liberal Arts at California State University Long Beach and the author of Black Woman On Board, which chronicles Dr. Hampton's tenure on the CSU board and her lasting influence on the Cal State system.
Is quality simply a matter of two categories: good and bad? But then how do you get to "better"? In this episode, Bill Bellows and Andrew Stotz discuss categories and continuum thinking. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.4 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we dive deeper into the teachings of Dr. W Edwards Deming. Today I'm continuing my discussion 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. And today is episode six, Category Thinking and Continuum Thinking. Bill, take it away. 0:00:27.9 Bill Bellows: Welcome Andrew great to see you again. All right, so in podcast five, I went back and it was just posted by The Deming Institute. And I just wanna clarify again on the topic of acceptability and desirability. Where we're going tonight is looking at acceptability and desirability in a little bit more detail, a little bit differently, but those are still the prevailing themes. And again, I just wanna reinforce that none of this is to imply that desirability is better than acceptability. What's important is to be aware of when I'm using acceptability thinking. And when I'm using desirability thinking and use the one that makes the most sense in that situation. We were talking earlier about companies whose products we enjoy using and we're loyal to them. And I mentioned that my wife and I have developed a loyalty to Toyota products. 0:01:40.4 BB: Going back to 1989 was our first Toyota product. And I knew I wanted a pickup truck. 'Cause I was borrowing a pickup truck from a number of friends and I thought, I really like a pickup truck. There's a lot you can do with a pickup truck. So, I knew I wanted a pickup truck. And I knew from having worked in my father's gas station, I had reason to believe I wanted a Japanese pickup truck and not an American pickup truck. So, I then it was a question of is it a Mazda, Toyota. 0:02:11.1 AS: Nissan. 0:02:13.2 BB: Sorry Nissan. And I looked at all of them and yeah I just all I knew is I was gonna be one of those. And I think the major reason I went with... My wife and I went with a Toyota... I don't think the prices were that different. But it just had a, it was the styling was a little bit better. But I did not... That's why I bought it. 0:02:46.5 AS: The loyalty wasn't built yet. 0:02:49.0 BB: No I knew to stay away... I knew I had seen plenty of examples of... Well, I had traded in my first car that my father, my parents got me when I was in college was a 1975 Chevy Nova. Four door Chevy Nova. And the reason four doors is important is a... If it was a two door, the door would be longer. But it was a four door. By the time I gave that car to a friend, the engine was running beautifully but the body was falling apart. And, so, by the time I sold it to get the pickup truck, in order to get out of it, I'd have to throw my shoulder into the driver's door. Why? Because the door droop was so great that when you close the door, I mean the door drooped and this is not a four door, this is a two door. So, imagine if it was a two door the door would be even heavier. So, on a four door, the door drooped. And, so, when you closed it, you'd had to lift it and then close it in order to get out you had to... Oh, it's just my wife couldn't drive. It was just a nuisance. 0:04:17.6 AS: And, that in '75 was just about when the Japanese were really starting to go after the US car makers. And but I want to tell you just a quick one. I can't remember if I've told you, but I used to have a 1963 Lincoln Continental here in beautiful Bangkok. And I owned it for 10 years. And then eventually I sold it. But what a beautiful car. And people always ask me the same thing and they said, isn't it hard to take care of? And I said, you gotta remember back in those days, cars were simple. 0:04:49.1 BB: Yeah, yeah. So, the... So, with... So, the experience of 14 years or so, with the '75 Chevy Nova. And the door was like the straw that broke the camel's back. It just done with this, all right. So, we're gonna buy Japanese, bought a Toyota. That was the first one. And I think I've mentioned in the first podcast I mentioned that we had a 1998 Toyota Sienna, which is their first, it was their Toyota third attempt at a minivan. The first one I think was underpowered, the second one... And we knew we wanted a minivan. It was time, the kids were getting a little bit bigger. It was time for minivan. And just as we were ready to go buy it, they had a... I think a competitor came out with dual sliding doors. Dual sliding doors. And, so, instead of Toyota coming out with a one sliding door, they stepped back. I think Chrysler came out with two sliding doors. And they figured we can't come to market with one sliding door. They've got two sliding doors. So, then we waited another year and they finally came out and given all of our delight with the Toyota pickup truck, boom, that's what we wanted. And then the transmission failed, six months later with 10,000 miles in the car. 0:06:18.5 BB: And I have a photo of that. Not only did the transmission fail at 10,000 miles, but it failed on Christmas morning on our way to see friends about an hour away. And this guy, people were going to see, he knew I loved Toyota. And when he drove to pick us up, we transferred everything from that to his Ford F-150. He says to me... So, then we had to have the car towed on a flatbed to his house and the next day to the dealership, what a nuisance headache. But when he showed up, he looks at me knowing that I like Toyota. And he says, how's this data point change your theory about Toyota? 0:07:06.5 AS: I thought he was gonna say, if it was me, I would've said pop in the back. 0:07:12.6 BB: And I was like, yeah, that really hurts. Well when I shared that story with students at Northwestern's Business School, the Kellogg Business School, their advice and these are students that had worked in all different industries from Coke to banking, and a number of 'em have worked in the auto industry. And their advice was, I said, Professor Bellows never buy anyone's first model year, even Toyota. Now I have a friend who he and his wife bought the same model year Toyota Sienna. They did not have a problem. Oe did. When I met at a Deming conference, a guy who worked in Georgetown, Kentucky which is where the Sienna was made. And, so, I met him at a conference and when he said he worked for Toyota, I said, oh, my wife and I buy nothing but Toyotas. He says, oh. And I said, we have a first model... 0:08:08.6 BB: Year Sienna. And everything was good. And then I'm thinking, I'm gonna ask the guy a question. And I looked straight in his eyes. We were pretty close together. And I'm about to ask him a question. I'm looking straight in his eyes and I said, we got a Toyota Sienna. He says, how do you like it? And I looked right at him and I said, the transmission failed at 10,000 miles. And he rolled his eyes. And I said, so, you know about this. It wasn't a look of shock. It was, yeah, all right. So, I said, all right, all right. Your expression just told me that you know something about this. I said, what's up? He says, we tried. This is so cool. He says, we tried to save a few pennies on a bearing. 0:09:00.8 BB: I said, you did but what you did cost me more than you saved. So, yeah you guys saved a few pennies on a bearing and cost my wife weeks of aggravation to have it towed from where it happened to the place we were going because it Christmas Day, it broke. Everything's shut down on Christmas days. You can't have it right? And, so, we had it towed, had to get a rental car. Then they're complaining about, we had... Who authorized this rental car? We only pay... It was just headache after headache. But we still buy Toyota Andrew. We still buy Toyota. Why? Because I'm afraid to buy from anybody else. Well, part of the reason I wanted to share that with our audience is I buy Toyota products based on value. And I believe that the best value we get in transportation, personal transportation is the money we spend buying a Toyota most often brand new. We've also bought some used, got great use out of them, never had a problem, anything like what I just shared with you. And that's having owned five or six different Toyotas. I mean, right now in our family we have three of them. 0:10:16.7 AS: I think I need to correct you. 0:10:19.1 BB: Go ahead. 0:10:19.9 AS: You buy Toyotas on value and values. 0:10:25.7 BB: Yes! 0:10:28.2 AS: You're aligned with their values and therefore you're willing to look beyond the mistakes and problems that it comes with every product, every service, every company, because you're aligned with their values. 0:10:42.2 BB: Well, what's funny is when we bought the Sienna and we're talking with 'em, doing the driving and signed agree to buy it, that's the color we want. We want these seats, blah, blah, blah. And then you go talk to the closer and the closer's a guy, the gal at the dealership that wants to add on the undercoating and the this and the this and the this and the this. And he wanted to sell us at a premium price, this extended warranty and I dunno what it costs, but I said, I've done a whole lot of research. And he says to me it's so funny. He says, when these things break down, a circuit board breaks and that'll cost you this and this and this, and, so, I'm gonna sign you up for the insurance policy, the extra coverage. And I said, no, and he is going on and on. And I said, look it, I've done a lot of research into how they're made and I said, and the values of that organization. So, I said, the reason we buy Toyota is that I have an understanding, a pretty damn good understanding of how they manage the product, the pieces and how it all comes together. And he's pushing back at me. Finally, I said, I teach university courses on how Toyota operates and their quality system. 0:12:14.8 BB: So, we didn't get the extra coverage. Now it was still covered under warranty, so, it was kind of laughable that. But anyways, the reason I bring that up is that... 0:12:27.3 AS: Before you do that, I want to just say for the listeners and viewers out there, what is the messaging from a corporate strategy perspective? And that is have values that you stand for. Communicate those to the market, stay loyal to them and the customers who align with those values will stick with you through the hard times that you're gonna definitely have. There's a quote by Alexander Hamilton says, "those who stand for nothing, fall for everything." If you do not stand for a clear set of values that the market can perceive, then people are gonna fall away from you as soon as times get tough. 0:13:07.2 BB: Oh yeah. And I...I, I. It's about that and that's why I've read lots about Toyota. How they operate written by people outside of Toyota trying to explain it, people inside of Toyota and their explanations. But part of the reason I bring this up is my fascination, my interest in Dr. Deming's philosophy, is a great deal to do with his system is based on an incredible appreciation of the difference between acceptability and desirability. All other quality management systems, whether it's the quality management within Lean is acceptability based, good parts and bad parts, Operational Excellence, Six Sigma Quality. In fact, there's a quote at the end of chapter 10 in "The New Economics". And chapter 10 was the original last chapter until the third edition came out. In which case there's chapter 11 written in large part by Kelly Allen, a good friend. 0:14:15.1 BB: And when chapter 10 was the end I thought it was pretty cool that at the very end of chapter 10. The last few pages of chapter 10 of “The New Economics” are about Dr. Taguchi's loss function. And this is what turned me on to Dr. Taguchi, was finding “The New Economics" in a brick and mortar bookstore. I knew from ASQ Quality Progress that this was coming out. So, I remember when it came out, this was before Amazon, going to the bookstore. Going through it and saying what does this guy think about Taguchi? Because Taguchi was my, the one I really idolized. And I opened it up and I turned to chapter 10 and it's all about the loss function, the problem and I thought this is way cool. So, the closing quote... The closing... The last sentence in chapter 10 which again was the original last chapter until third edition came out, is the following "Conformance to specifications," that's acceptability, "zero defects," that's acceptability. "Six Sigma quality," which is acceptability "and all other specification-based nostrums all miss the point, ,stated by Donald J. Wheeler." 0:15:42.6 BB: So, then I looked up, but what is a nostrum? And Dr. Deming not Dr. Deming a nostrum is defined as “quack medicine.” So, "Conformance to specifications, zero defect, Six Sigma quality, and all other specification-based nostrums all miss the point." And, so, I wrote an article about this, gosh, 20 years ago. I said, what's the point? And my explanation, the point is, all of them are about managing parts in isolation. Looking at things in isolation. Again that's acceptability. And as I said earlier, I'm not saying acceptability is bad, I'm just saying acceptability is not desirability. And the other thing I wanna add is, why do I... My wife and I love Toyota products. I've got reason to believe through a lot of research and talking, sharing the ideas that we talk about in these podcasts with people within Toyota. And they have a desirability focus that nobody else... That I'm not aware of anybody else has. 0:16:54.9 BB: And, that's having presented around the world doing classes, at Kellogg Business School, at university. Yeah, the Kellogg Business School Northwestern University. I teach online classes at Cal State Northridge, Southern Utah University. I've lectured at many universities. And I never had anyone come to me working in industry saying, Bill, what you're talking about, we practice where I work. No. And, so, for those that are pursuing the Toyota Production System stuff. My response is, I don't buy Toyota products because they use the Toyota Production System. Now, that may help with getting the car to market faster. But I don't believe the Toyota Production System is why people buy Toyota products. I believe Toyota's quality management system... At least I buy Toyotas because I believe their quality management system, inspired by Dr. Taguchi, inspired by Dr. Deming, is providing something that nobody else has in many industries. All right. So, I wanted to get that out. 0:18:06.7 AS: So, are you saying Toyota Production System is more of a tool that is in their toolbox of quality management system? 0:18:18.4 BB: Um, the Toyota Production System is classic Industrial Engineering. 0:18:26.8 AS: Right. 0:18:27.0 BB: It's how to... 0:18:28.3 AS: It's a natural. 0:18:30.5 BB: How to improve flow, how to improve throughput by minimizing number of steps, by minimizing inventory. It's highly credited to Taiichi Ohno, who was mentored by the founder of the Toyota Motor Company. And it's all about, they don't have a lot of money. So, we need minimal inventory, minimum steps. So, it's like... So, the Toyota Production System is an efficiency based system based on, we don't have a lot of money, we're not gonna buy a lot of inventory. But the quality aspect of the Toyota Production System everywhere, everything I've written, everything I've read by people describing the Toyota Production System it's all explained by acceptability. So, that they may be moving things closer together so people don't walk so far. 0:19:27.8 BB: But what I'm looking at with Dr. Deming's work inspired by Dr. Taguchi is what is it about the quality system that causes those parts to come together so well and the products to perform so well? So, it's not just having the parts when I reach out, the part is there, but those parts integrate better. I've mentioned in the first podcast series that Toyota had 100% snap-fit pickup truck in 1969 at a time when Ford was banging things together using rubber mallets to get the parts together. They took apart and assembled a Toyota pickup truck twice 'cause they didn't believe the results the first time the parts went together without mallets. That's what I'm talking about, that within that system, the ability for the parts to come together to work together cannot be explained by an acceptability based system. And, so, having spoken with people and having the opportunity to share with people within Toyota the ideas we talk about inspired by Dr. Deming, I've learned that they do desirability in a way that nobody... I'm not aware of anyone else having done. 0:20:48.5 BB: All right, so, what I want to get into, add to the discussion tonight, relative to category thinking, is this idea of category thinking, continuum thinking. Category thinking quite simply is putting things in categories. So, in acceptability we have two categories, good or bad, or maybe three categories. It's good or it's scrap or it's rework. So, category thinking is generically putting things into categories. And so, we could look at category... Categories could be... There could be two categories, three categories. 0:21:27.1 BB: It's been a while since I've gone to see a movie, but I believe they still have a rating system of PG, PG-13, R, R-17, maybe X. Those are categories. Fruits and vegetables. Those are two high level categories. Within each of those categories, we have types of, we have apples and oranges, and within them we have types of apples. That's all category thinking. You go into a supermarket and every aisle... There's the cereal aisle. That's a category. There's the canned goods, those are categories. Religions - talk about categories. So, every religion you look at is its own category. And, then within those categories they have subcategories. How about music? How many categories in music are there Andrew? 0:22:18.9 AS: Well, it gets all messed up on my iTunes where I'm like, that's not heavy metal. That's rock. 0:22:28.6 BB: Yeah. And then there's types of rock. In the beginning it was rock and roll, and then there's types of rock and roll. 0:22:34.0 AS: Progressive rock. 0:22:34.0 BB: Progressive rock. And then we have people... So, what category would we put... I think somebody asked Lucinda Williams, we're going to see her in a few weeks. So, what category? Well, she doesn't fit a category. So, that's category thinking. Category thinking is putting things in categories. We could say, where did you go to college? That's a category. These are USC grads, those are Cal State grads. And, part of the point I want to make is that we use category thinking all the time. Putting people in categories is what we do. Such as you and our daughter are Cal State graduates. 0:23:17.6 BB: And, so, what degrees do they have? Those are categories. So, I don't know what we would do if we couldn't put things in the categories. So, I don't think category, putting people in category is not a bad thing. Now, when you start to associate values with the categories, now we're getting into racism or sexism and then, okay. But this idea that putting people in categories is a bad thing, I'd say category thinking is our simple way of organizing everything around us and these little file cabinets. Now added to that is when you put four or five things into a category, then what you're implying is that they're all the same. And that gets into acceptability. 0:24:12.8 BB: So, if this is a good part, that's a good part. That's a bad part. That's a good part. So, all the good parts go into the good part category. Then we say, oh, these are all good. Then we get into the sense of, and they're interchangeable. Well, maybe not. And that has to do with what I call continuum thinking. All right, so before we get to continuum thinking, Andrew, remember the question. What do you call the person who graduates last in their class of medical school? 0:24:43.3 AS: I don't remember that. 0:24:45.2 BB: Okay, so take a wild guess, Andrew, putting the pressure on, what do you call the person that graduates last in his or her class in medical school? 0:24:55.7 AS: Surgeon general. 0:24:56.9 BB: What's cool is that's a question I've been able to ask all around the world. Now, depending on where I go, I can't talk about baseball because they don't understand baseball. Or depending on where I go, I can't say soccer or I have to say football. Then if I say football, I have to say, well, I mean your football, not American football. But what's neat about this question, what do you call the person that graduates last in their class in medical school, that's "doctor." That's also acceptability thinking. From the first in class to the last in class, they all met requirements. Andrew, you know what that is? Acceptability. So, category thinking is a form... Acceptability is a form of category thinking. All right. Now I'm gonna give you three numbers and I'm going to ask you which two of the three are closest to being the same. You ready? 0:25:58.0 AS: Yep. 0:26:01.7 BB: 5.001, 5.999 and 6.001. 0:26:11.1 AS: 5.999 and 6.001. 0:26:17.6 BB: Are close to being the same? 0:26:18.8 AS: Yeah. 0:26:20.2 S3: That's what most people think. Okay. But... 0:26:25.7 AS: One's a six and one's a five. That's a problem. 0:26:29.5 BB: All right. And, so, again, the numbers were 5.001, 5.999 and 6.001. And the question is, which two of the three are close to being the same? And, what most people will say is 5.999 and 6.001, which infers that what does same mean? 0:26:48.5 AS: The integers? 0:26:49.1 BB: If you answered. 0:26:49.9 AS: I looked at the integers at the end rather than the whole number at the beginning. 0:26:56.7 BB: But is it safe to say you chose those numbers by saying they were closest together? 0:27:01.6 AS: Correct. Yes. 0:27:03.2 BB: So, in your case you're saying, if I plot those numbers from zero to infinity. Then those two are really close together. That's one definition of same is proximity. But, same could also be, they begin with five, in which case the first two are close to being the same. 'cause they both begin with five or they're both less than six. Or, I could say 5.001 and 6.001, because they both end in .001. So, it turns out there's three answers to the question. But the answer of the last two and proximity is what category is what continuum thinking is about. On a continuum these two are closest together. All right. 0:27:51.2 AS: And I have to tell you, we're gonna be running out of time, so we gotta wrap this up. 0:27:55.4 BB: All right. So, when I asked you the question, what do you call the person who graduates last in their class of medical school? And you said doctor, that's category thinking. If you used... Well actually the thing is, if I ask, what do you call the person who graduates last in their class at the United States, US Army's Military Academy, known as West Point, one answer is Second Lieutenant. 'cause they're all Second Lieutenants. But West Point uses continuum thinking to define the very last person in their class. So, it's the last person in class is not called second lieutenant. The last person in the class is called goat, as in the animal. 0:28:43.2 BB: And a very famous goat at West Point, who from my reading, was very proud to have graduated last because there's... I think Mike Pompeo, who was Secretary of State under president Trump, was first in his class at West Point, first in his class. A very famous, I wanna be the last person in my graduating class at West Point was George Custer. You've heard of him? 0:29:14.3 AS: Yep. 0:29:15.5 BB: And, he was deliberately lazy, so he wanted to be the very last person in his class. But that's, but the idea is that category thinking says they're all Second Lieutenants, they're all doctors. Continuum thinking is when you say this is the first, this is the second, this is the third. And when you come up, when you start to order them and say, the last one is goat, that's looking at things on a continuum, which is continuum thinking. Well, given that most quality systems, including Boeing's Advanced Quality System, are based on category thinking and category thinking, you have good parts and bad parts. When I ask a question as I brought up in the podcast five. I said I go to audiences and ask, how much time do you spend discussing parts which are good, that arrive on time? And the answer is none. And I say, well why is that? 'Cause in that system they're focusing on taking things from bad to good. And then what? Stopping at good. 0:30:20.0 BB: Well, part of the thing I wanna get across in this episode is the reason we're stuck in that model of stopping at good is because the quality system is based on category thinking of bad and good. And in a world of good and bad, there is no better. In a world of short and tall, there is no taller. And, so, continuum thinking allows us to go beyond that. And, so, going back to Dr. Deming's quote, conformance requirements, which is category thinking, zero defect, Six Sigma quality, those are all category based systems, which means it's good parts and bad parts. But then I come back to how does a system which is based on good parts and bad parts deliver such incredible reliability in the products? And, I believe it's because they're using continuum thinking. Not... And again not continuum thinking everywhere, but I think they have very judiciously figured out where to use continuum thinking and that is their differentiator. In my admiration for Dr. Deming's System of Profound Knowledge is, I've not come across any other type of management theory, which has that level of fidelity to explain that. And, in order to practice continuum thinking, implement it, you have to work together. 0:31:43.9 AS: And I'm gonna wrap this up by... One of the revelations that I come upon when I listen to what you're saying is. That's also what makes Deming's teachings sometimes hard to grasp, because there is no clear category and there is no clear beginning and end. There is no certification and therefore it's just hard for us who are used to being in categories to grasp. And that's my conclusion what I draw from everything you've just said. 0:32:16.6 BB: Well and let me add to that, really appreciate you saying that. Let me add to that,much of what I was doing at Rocketdyne... When I began to appreciate that the reason I was focusing on solving problems, solving problems and the problems we didn't solve were the problems where the customer, NASA said, we're gonna take this work and take it to the company down the street because you guys can't make it happen. And, that scared the hell out of me that we're gonna lose this work to competitors because... And when I looked at it, was why are we stuck? And I looked at Dr. Deming's work, the reason we're stuck is we're... 'cause our quality system is based on good parts and bad parts. We're waiting for trouble to happen. And, so, but still what I found is, and when I started to focus on... I went from being 100% Taguchi to more about Dr. Deming's work and trying to come up with everyday examples to make Dr. Deming's work more accessible. 0:33:16.9 BB: So, in Dr. Deming's work, you're not gonna find category thinking, continuum thinking. So many of the concepts we talk about in this series, in the prior series are... I refer to them as InThinking Concepts, just trying to make it easier for people to begin to absorb the brilliance of Dr. Deming's work. Because, I think absent that, when he says quality, what kind of quality is he talking about? Acceptability quality, desirability quality. So, I'm with you, I think the work is brilliant. I'm just hoping through our conversations and these podcasts that we can make his work far more accessible. 0:33:56.4 AS: Yep. Well, I think we're doing that. And Bill, on behalf of everyone at The Deming Institute and the audience, I wanna thank you again for this discussion. For listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. Of course, if you wanna keep in touch with Bill, just find him on LinkedIn. This is your host Andrew Stotz. And I'm gonna leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. "People are entitled to joy in work."
Guests: Shrey Modi, Software Engineer Intern, Teladoc HealthOn LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreymodi7/Rahul Vishwakarma, Blue Ridge Labs, Robin HoodOn LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulvishwakarma/________________________________Host: Saman FatimaOn ITSPmagazine | https://www.itspmagazine.com/itspmagazine-podcast-radio-hosts/saman-fatima________________________________This Episode's SponsorsAre you interested in sponsoring an ITSPmagazine Channel?
Welcome to the Aphasia Access, Aphasia Conversations Podcast. I'm Ellen Bernstein Ellis, Director Emeritus of the Aphasia Treatment Program at Cal State East Bay in the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, and a member of the Aphasia Access Podcast Working Group. Aphasia Access strives to provide members with information, inspiration and ideas that support their aphasia care through a variety of educational materials and resources. Brief topic intro I'm today's host for an episode that will feature Dr Felicity Bright. We'll discuss her research looking at factors impacting wellbeing, engagement and hope. Guest bio Felicity Bright is a registered speech language therapist and associate professor in rehabilitation at Auckland University of Technology in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Her research examines cultures of care, and in particular, how the cultures and practices in rehabilitation respond to the needs and priorities of patients and those who support them. She has a particular interest in stroke and in the needs and experiences of those with communication impairment through her work, Felicity seeks to support practitioners services and rehabilitation organizations and to provide better person centered care. Listener Take-aways In today's episode you will: Explore how qualitative research promotes the nuanced study of meaningful clinical practice Consider cultural differences in well-being and what this might mean for how we work with people with aphasia and their support networks Reflect on the importance of having discussions with patients about hope and well-being Discuss how culture and organizations impact healthcare practice for individuals with aphasia Show notes edited for conciseness Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Felicity, welcome to our show. Thank you for agreeing to be our guest today. Felicity Bright Thank you for having me. It's great to be here. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Welcome Felicity. We're going to start today with an icebreaker question. The one you selected for today is, “Do you have a favorite book or movie about aphasia? Felicity Bright It was hard to choose one. Actually, I was just looking at my bookshelf and I went back to myself as a fairly new speech and language therapist quite a few years ago now. One that was really transformative for my practice was Talking about Aphasia by Suzie Parr and Sally Bing. It's a classic, but it was a beautifully written book that really opened my eyes to the experiences of people with aphasia beyond all the technical work that we'd learned in university and so on, but it brought to life the humanity of the people who have aphasia, and really helped me rethink why I do what I do, and what the real impacts of aphasia can be for people. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Yes, that's a beautiful book that brings that all to the forefront. And I want you to say the title and author again, in case I spoke over you a moment ago, Felicity Bright The book is Talking about Aphasia and the authors are Susie Parr, Sally Bing and Sue Gilpin with Chris Ireland, Ellen Bernstein-Ellis We'll put that (i.e. citation) into the reference list on our speaker notes. So thank you. And as we start today's interview, I was wondering if you'd like to share your path from clinician to researcher, because we've had several guests who have started in clinical work and then came to their doctoral work and research a little bit later. So, I'd love it if you could share that with our listeners. Felicity Bright Sure. So I worked as a speech and language therapist in New Zealand. We are speech language therapists. I worked in a range of neurological settings, from acute stroke neurosurgery, did a little bit of ICU, did some rehab in inpatient services and in community, and really enjoyed that work, but I'd always had a long standing interest in research. I was a bit of a geek, you know, When I was in training, that was, that was me, I was the geek. And so I'd always kind of expected at some point I would go down the research track. It was prompted after I had my first baby, and my work required me to either go back full time or to not work. And so at that point, I chose to not go back to work full time, and a research job came up at Auckland University of Technology, and I'd followed their work for a while. We don't do speech therapy here, it was rehabilitation research, and I was offered an opportunity to be a research officer doing interventions as part of a randomized control trial with people with traumatic brain injury. And so that kind of gave me the space to bring together some clinical work, but also some research work. It gave me the opportunity to do my Masters alongside this with my fees paid. So that was fantastic. And it really solidified for me that I was quite happy and enjoyed being in that kind of clinical research space. And so I've been in the university now for 15, nearly 16 years Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Wow, that's a great story. So now you have a 15 year old, right? Felicity Bright I have a 16 year old who is now taller than I am. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Well, thank you for sharing that. I'm just really looking forward to a discussion around some, what I consider critical but hard to define and challenging to research topics. like engagement, wellbeing and hope. I want to start by asking, how did you end up researching a topic like engagement or hope? You did say during our planning meeting that you research things that you're bad at, which made me laugh. So that sounds like some courageous and reflective exploration. So maybe talk a little more about that. Felicity Bright Yeah, I am a bit of a selfish researcher. I research the things that I find tricky and a little bit hard, because for me, I want to learn how can I do better at this? How can I help my students learn how to be better in these areas? How can I help clinicians not make the mistakes that I've made. I guess trying to be a better clinician has been at the heart of a lot of the work that I do. And you know, when I was working full time in clinical practice, I had patients who would stick with me where I just felt I let them down. They had such a short window of rehabilitation access. They were living with stroke for the rest of their lives. They maybe had eight or 12 weeks of speech therapy. There were just times when I really felt I missed the mark for them, when they didn't get the best rehab they could have had. And it was when I was working in the university in this randomized control trial of goal setting interventions after traumatic brain injury that it started to help me reflect on some of the why I was maybe having some of the challenges I was having. So in this trial, which was quite prescribed because it's a randomized control trial, I was noticing that patients seem to be engaging with these interventions a lot more than the people who I worked with in clinical practice, and that kind of surprised me a little bit. I also noticed that-- we were using Mark Ylvisaker's approach to goal setting around what is meaningful identity based goal setting--and people were identifying hopes and goals and dreams that would have left me panicking as a speech and language therapist. What do I do about this? But it made me realize, actually, I didn't need to panic about that, and there were ways to engage with people about their hopes and dreams that honored those hopes and dreams, that kept them alive. But also, I could see ways that I could work with this. I could bring my speech therapy hat and help people. And so it highlighted to me that maybe the things that I had perceived to be difficult or issues, didn't need to be and there were ways to think about these things differently and ways to work differently to better support people. So working on this trial, and I did some quite structured reflection around that with some of my colleagues, writing in auto ethnography around this, gave me the opportunity to reflect on these areas, but also highlighted that there was the real opportunity to do more nuanced and more detailed research that would bring to life different ways that we could support people to hold hope, to engage in rehabilitation that is meaningful and that might be able to produce some quite tangible suggestions to support clinicians and to support the people with stroke who we work with. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis I just want to say that these intangible, some what we call intangible topics that you've tackled, you always seem to end with tangible suggestions, and that's what I have found so inspiring. And we're going to circle back to hope in a few more questions. But, I just want to say, not only has my clinical thinking been informed and inspired by your research topics, but I've also just learned so much from the variety of qualitative methodologies that you've used in your work. I was wondering if you could share how you developed your expertise in qualitative research, maybe even offer some tips to people wanting to develop their own skill set. And okay, maybe I'm being a little selfish interviewer. You just said selfish researcher, but I found this challenging, and I've been trying to dip my toe, or I've fallen in head first, trying to develop my skill set around qualitative research. What's your advice? Felicity Bright I was really fortunate. I came into research, into a team that had qualitative expertise and that used a variety, but not a wide variety, of different qualitative approaches. And it was a team, and still is a team, that has really high standards for methodological rigor. So to us, it's really important to do research that is robust and rigorous and that anchors back to the underpinning theory and philosophy that underlies each of the approaches that we use. But I was also really lucky in my research that I had supervisors and bosses who really supported innovation, who didn't tell me, no, this is how we do things, who didn't expect me to come into a study and do it just as they had told me to do. But they created the space for me to explore when I was working as a clinical researcher, but also as a master's and as a PhD student. Really had no issues when I said I'm going to go to the library, and I would just sit in the library and read qualitative textbooks and come back with a completely hair brained idea, but that actually turned into something that was really interesting and meaningful. So the Voice Centered Relational Approach that I've used a number of times came from sitting in the library one afternoon and just reading Feminist Research Methodology books. And I think one of my tips would be read outside speech and language therapy. There's amazing work that is happening, not just in the health disciplines or education spaces, but I love reading health sociology journals. I get notifications of a number of different journal types that alert me to different work. One of my recent projects I used Applied Tensions Analysis, which I'd never heard of, but I had a notification come across for a paper about domestic violence settings and kind of how services work. That's not in my area of research or clinical expertise, but there was something within that abstract that made me go, oh, there's an idea there that is similar to the ideas that I'm trying to get at in my stroke research. And so reading widely, I use Twitter a lot as a way of, kind of coming up to date with different research. I use trial and error. I've tried things and got them terribly wrong. I tried Grounded Theory for about a year for my Masters, and it was atrocious. But also I found that doing research with people with aphasia pushes you to be innovative. A lot of the methodologies as they are published don't necessarily quite fit with the types of interviews or the types of data that we have, and so for me, that's provided an opportunity to test and do things differently. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis I mean, that's an inspiring response and encouraging support. So thank you. During our planning discussion, you also referred me to the Life Thread model and the 2008 article by Ellis Hill, Payne and Ward. What a wonderful article. So thank you for that. I was particularly taken with its implications for clinical practice and how it might guide us in asking questions in a better way to help us understand the social realities of our clients, to prioritize that. To understand how important the social reality is for our clients. Could you please share with our listeners some of the core concepts of the Life Thread model and how it's informed your work? Because I do see the connection there. Felicity Bright Yeah, I came across this, Carolyn Alice Hill, who developed it, I think, as part of her PhD, was a collaborator of one of my PhD supervisors, and so Cath put me onto it. But the Life Threads model is about identity. And Carolyn's work was in stroke, and she was kind of talking to how identity changes and develops over time. And the Life Threads model talks to how our lives and our identities are made up of many threads, and those threads, they can change over time. But when there's a traumatic event like a stroke, it can cause some threads to break or be frayed, and that can be really challenging. We know there's a lot of work around aphasia and identity construction and identity loss, that's come around. But also what we know is that stroke can also prompt people to think about what are the threads that they want to continue post stroke. Maybe there are some threads, I found in my hope research, where people are saying,”I don't want to be that person anymore. That's not something that I value”, and for them, sometimes the stroke could be an opportunity to rethink what are the threads that I now want to bring into my life as I weave this new identity of somebody post stroke, but still continues threads that have come through from before the stroke. We know from the hope research that I was doing that it was often really hard for people to see these threads. It kind of felt like there was a pre-stroke life and a post-stroke life, and that there was quite a disruption. Those threads were cut. And so for me, it prompted questions about how do our conversations as clinicians help people identify the threads that are important for them to thread through their life. What are the new threads that they want to pick up on? You know, some of the work I've done, and we will talk about this a bit later on, around life after stroke, has highlighted how actually a lot of the conversations that happen between clinicians focus around things like tasks and activities and doing things, but there isn't necessarily a lot of conversation about identity or about what is meaningful and what do people want to carry through, and how can clinicians support that? And I would say that if we can kind of tune into the threads that matter to people or that people want to matter in their lives, it gives us a chance to tailor therapy to be much more personalized, more meaningful and more engaging, and I would suggest, probably leads to better outcomes for people. What we know from quite a bit of the research, not just my research, but other work, is that people are often doing this identity work on their own, without support. And we know that it's really hard, because our identities are social and they're relational, and they occur through connection and through communication, all of these things that are disrupted by aphasia, often. And so I think the Life Threads model really prompts us to think how can we as clinicians, support people to engage in conversations about identity, and how can we overtly, really attend to supporting identity within the work that we do. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Wow, that's beautiful. And yes, I think there's been, fortunately, a growing understanding of the importance of looking at the lack of support for this identity work with us with our clients, and I can really see how the Life Threads model has played an important role in your thinking and research. I recommend our readers to the article because it has some great examples of how to maybe flex the way you ask questions to help understand the narrative better. So I think it's, a marvelous article, I just want to take a moment and let our listeners know about the fabulous interview that you did with Michael Biel on the ANCDS podcast where you discussed engagement and ways you might incorporate Goal Attainment Scaling to help our clients establish meaningful goals. I'll put the link to that, along with the citations to all of the work we're discussing today in our show notes. That also gives me a chance to say I don't have to cover everything today, because he did a really good job on those topics. But at the end of that podcast with Michael, you highlighted what was coming next, and that was your work on wellbeing. You've been exploring, and this is a quote by you, “what does it look like to explicitly attend to holistic, long term wellbeing?” Can you discuss some of the takeaways from your 2024 article, Psychosocial Well being After Stroke in Aotearoa, New Zealand, a Qualitative Meta-synthesis with your co authors, Ibell-Roberts and Wilson. Maybe we can just start by talking about the term psychosocial wellbeing. That's an important one to understand, but it can vary depending on one's cultural context. Just to start with that, so yeah, good luck with all of that! Felicity Bright It's a massive question, and it's funny, I started with the term psychosocial wellbeing, and I really intentionally used the language of psychosocial to kind of move away from thinking about just psychological wellbeing, which tended to be framed more from a mood perspective. And so I really wanted to be attending to some of the emotional, and the social, and the relational elements of wellbeing. But actually, I've now dropped the psychosocial because what we found is, when we talk to our people with stroke in the community, as part of our research, that term is completely meaningless to them, but the term wellbeing is something that resonates. Wellbeing is a really, firstly, a really nebulous term, but it's also really multifaceted. And I guess the place we've come to is, we view wellbeing as kind of quite unique to an individual, but it's deeply relational, and it's influenced through connection with people, with their cultures and with their communities, and all of those areas need attention. Now, in this piece of work that you referred to, Qualitative Metasynthesis, we were looking across the literature in Aotearoa, New Zealand, when we look at all the work that's been done, looking at life after stroke, and living life after stroke, what do people say about wellbeing and that highlighted that there were a number of features. Now, one thing I want to flag is that within New Zealand, we have an indigenous population, the Māori population of New Zealand, who have been here for centuries before Pakeha came and colonized New Zealand. And one of the things that's been really important in our work is to really make sure that we are upholding the voices of Māori, who are often either not included in research, or are involved in research that is not particularly culturally safe, or where their perspectives are kind of subsumed within the wider perspectives of the dominant Pakeha, or European culture. And so one of the things we've been really lucky to do with this is to have my colleague BJ Wilson, who was leading the Māori stream, so she engaged with our Māori data and literature uniquely. So we upheld that in its own right. That's context, because I'm going to talk to two different ways of thinking about wellbeing, one that was general from all of the literature and one that was specific to Māori . So when we look across all of the New Zealand literature, including the Māori literature, we kind of saw there were probably four key areas that seemed to matter for wellbeing. Having strong connections with family, with old, pre stroke friends, but also with new friends, people who had also been through stroke and had some similar experiences. The sense of self that was connected, where people had a sense of being connected to who they were before the stroke, who they are now, and have an idea of who do I want to be in the future? And there was a sense of coherence, sense of thread that went between those identities. There was, when they experienced wellbeing, a general sense of stability in the present. So things were okay now. It didn't mean that things were perfect. Some of the literature has suggested that people have to have positive emotions if they're going to have a sense of wellbeing. But actually, this qualitative meta synthesis, and the following qualitative work we've done has suggested, no, life is never 100% positive for any of us, but it's about having a balance of, yes, maybe there are some hard times, but also there are some good times as well. That overall, there's an equilibrium of emotions, Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Right the duality, like be able to hold the duality Felicity Bright Absolutely and kind of be okay with it, recognize that each of them has a time and a place. People also, when there was a sense of wellbeing, had a vision for the future, kind of a sense of moving towards that. So, yes, they were okay in the present, but they also had a sense that the present is not my future for the rest of my life. I can see a life that is meaningful and enjoyable, and I'm taking steps towards it. But when we looked at the literature from Māori, and this was the analysis led by my colleague, Bobby-Jo, it also came through ideas like whanaungatanga and ngā hono. So whanaungatanga talks to the notion of connections, and ngā hono talks to connections and kind of belonging as well. And that was a sense of connection to whānau. So that is to people's wider kinship networks, not just blood relations like a family would be, but to kinship networks who are meaningful to the person. Having a sense of connection and belonging in their community, but also to places of meaning. So not just people, but to places. We also notice an idea around ko ahau, so being connected to their identity as Māori, to their cultural identity, in a sense that their cultural identity was recognized and was valued and supported by those around them, including healthcare professionals. Ideas of mana and wairua. So mana talks to the inherent standing and value that an individual has. And we all know that in a healthcare context, actually, that can be diminished because you become a patient in the healthcare context. But actually, for wellbeing, having that mana recognized and valued and upheld was really critical. And when one's personhood is understood and respected, that also helped with the sense of wairua, I guess, the spiritual essence of the person. And finally, was the notion of rangatiratanga, which is about autonomy and control and the ability to make decisions for oneself. We can see that while there were similarities between our Māori and our non-Māori groups, there were also cultural differences. So for wellbeing, for Māori, had wider integrations with their sense of whānau, their family and kinship networks, and for their culture and wellbeing was unique for each whānau within the research. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis I'd like to take a moment and have you elaborate a little bit more on that concept of the relationship of whānau to wellbeing, and how the whānau may be impacted by the stroke and subsequent aphasia. So often our family and support network does not receive direct attention. And here, you're elevating it quite a bit, so maybe you could speak to that a bit more. This is really top of mind for me, because I just went to a think tank meeting and hearing the stories of the care providers saying, I'm not sure I mattered in this equation of my spouse's health care rehabilitation.It just really struck me to hear that. So please, let's talk a little bit more about those values. Felicity Bright Yeah, absolutely, for all of the people in our wellbeing research and in the previous hope research and so on that I've done, kind of people's whānau, their family and their social connections were absolutely critical to their recovery. And what came through, when we were looking at Māori experiences, was particularly also the intergenerational aspect, like sometimes within stroke services, we might think about the partner a little bit, not always particularly well. And I'll talk to that in a minute. But actually, we could also hear within our Māori whānau, kind of the impacts for generations above and generations below, like the disruption to relationships between grandparents and grandchildren, and how the grandparent who may have aphasia, would usually have a really critical role in passing on family knowledge, or passing on Matauranga, kind of Māori cultural knowledge. But actually, because of the way the stroke affected them, they couldn't do that and take that role on, and so that impacted not just on the relationship, but also kind of on the identity and how Māori culture could be passed on through a whānau unit. But we've also heard exactly what you talk about. Our services are focused around the person with stroke rather than their whānau, but our services are also really short term. And so what we can see from the research is that the family and the whānau become the connectors and the supporters. They are the consistent people. They hold, usually, deep knowledge of the person that often the healthcare professional doesn't hold. And we're doing some work at the moment around communication access in stroke units. And even in the context of really significant aphasia, we're hearing about how whānau, even though they don't know about aphasia, they don't know about communication strategies. But because they know how to read the person, they know their non verbal communication, they are actually really powerful translators, and hold the expertise that, actually, we don't hold as Speech and Language Therapists. But we also know that the whānau are key in helping people access supports outside the healthcare system, and they do a lot of that navigation work that they are left to do because the healthcare system doesn't do it very well. And like you say, that's really challenging when the whānau's well-being is impacted themselves, you know, but that isn't seen consistently, and it isn't acknowledged. They very quickly become the carer, rather than, this is this person's wife and they've been married for 45 years. Or this is this person's husband, and they've got three young children at home. What is this going to mean for their relationship as a couple, for their relationship as parents? And so the families are talking to us about the exhaustion and the grief and the shock and the loss. The relief that the person is alive, but again, the duality, there is relief, but there is also distress from the way that the stroke is impacting. And so we would really be calling for much more focus on everybody's wellbeing in this context, because if the wellbeing of whānau is not there, that impacts also on the wellbeing of the person. And I think we need to be shifting how we think about who is our client, whose needs do we serve, and what is our role in supporting the social and relational context around the person Ellen Bernstein-Ellis That's beautiful. You really highlighted that role, the role of the whānau. And you also identify, Felicity, some other key contributors to wellbeing, and then how those might really impact our clinical goal setting, and I know that's always such an important aspect of how we think as clinicians. You have to document because we're in a system, which we'll talk about. Maybe you can share some other factors that you identified. Felicity Bright Yeah, so I would be encouraging people to think about what are all the things that seem to support people's long term wellbeing? And those are things, like the relationships they hold within their family, but also within their social networks and within their work networks and so on, Thinking about the different emotions that people might be experiencing. Thinking about hope and what supports people to hold hope, and what do people hope for. Think about the connections that matter to people, the connections to people. The cultural things that matter for people's wellbeing. The connections to community activities and roles and so on. And think about the things that matter and are meaningful for individuals that usually fall outside our traditional SMART goals that we use in New Zealand, you know? Is it smart, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time bound? What is it? I would be saying our goal should be focusing on what makes a good life for this person. And I would be encouraging you, if you're a clinician, looking at the goals that you're setting for the person. Where is the good life in those goals? Is that up front and center and documented on the page that everyone can see it? That's something I learned through my goal setting research. That was my first research job, the importance of taking people's words, putting their words on a page, and keeping the words where everybody could see it. So where are the things that support wellbeing and that constitute a good life in our goal setting? Where are they in the interventions that we're doing? And I would be really encouraging people to reflect on how they are making the links explicit between the therapeutic tasks and the things that really matter to people. Because we know from the engagement work that when people can see the link between what they're doing in therapy and what matters to them in life, it is much more likely to be engaging and is much more likely to support them to persist, even when it's difficult, because they can understand this is why I'm doing this thing. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Right? Oh, that's beautiful. That really leads nicely into another 2024 article that you've put out focused on wellbeing. And that's The physical wellbeing is our top priority: Healthcare professionals' challenges in supporting psychosocial wellbeing and stroke services. That article examines what seems to be a mismatch between knowing as clinicians that wellbeing is important, right, and being able to specifically address it within our clinical context. So, we say that we want to, and we know it's important, but the ability to get there, it's quite challenging. I was wondering if you could highlight some of your findings and key recommendations. And I think one of those actually addresses the graduate curriculum. I think that is really going back to the beginning, right? So, please share some of the wonderful work from that article. Felicity Bright So the context for this work is, this is part of a bigger program of research I'm doing around wellbeing after stroke. And this isn't specific to people with aphasia, but we do have people with aphasia in the research. This research came from this issue-- we've got decades of literature that says that wellbeing is important. We've got a body of literature that says clinicians know wellbeing is important, but we are persistently not addressing wellbeing, and we've got decades of patient experience data that says this is an unmet need. So I was really interested in understanding, why have we got this persistent mismatch between what is known what matters and what is done, and so using an approach called institutional ethnography to try and get into the cultures and the structures that contribute to this, the rationale behind that is I didn't want to be creating solutions that were going to be completely unattainable in the healthcare context. And so I wanted to understand what's going on in the structure of the healthcare system, and how might we be able to work with that or push against that, to create different ways of thinking about how we work to deal with this persistent issue. So this project, this part of the research, we were looking at, why are clinicians not seeming to address wellbeing? And so we interviewed over 30 clinicians, I think, within this research for a whole range of healthcare disciplines. What came through really consistently was everybody wanted to support wellbeing. Everybody thought it was important, but there were a number of factors that made it difficult, and we traced as to why that was so. Firstly, we can look back to when the person first comes into the service. They come into the emergency department. There's often a code stroke that's called. It's a time of really busy early biomedical focus around investigating the stroke, doing assessments. The first couple of days are about intervening to prevent another stroke or to prevent complications. And dysphagia assessment is a classic in New Zealand. Dysphagia assessment is usually prioritized over communication assessment because it is seen to have particular risks and contribute to particular complications. And so we've got this really early biomedical focus as people come through the first few days. Then the focus shifts a little bit to assessments and treating impairment in function. And when we were interviewing clinicians, they were talking about wanting to give people the best chance of recovery, and that linked to ideas around neuroplasticity and the importance of early intervention for maximizing neuroplasticity and brain remodeling. There was a real focus on addressing the practicalities like toileting and dressing and what was needed to get people home. And there was a view often that emotions could wait. We need to do the practicalities first. We can do the other stuff later. This was a time of focusing on helping people survive, get through and get home, and it was in the context of really busy wards. You know, sitting and watching nurses work, they are flat out. They are understaffed, and they have very limited time to be doing these aspects of work. But all of this contributes in this wider healthcare system that in New Zealand, and I suspect internationally, is short staffed, underfunded. We've got more demand than we've got beds. There is a really strong focus on getting people home. Now that's not inherently bad. A lot of our people that we speak to want to be home. Home is a more healing environment for many people than being in hospital. But when the focus is on getting people home, and that is usually about, is the person physically safe to be home, what can happen is other forms of work and other impacts of stroke can be devalued or be forgotten. And what we could see is people were doing work to support wellbeing within this, but it was kind of a particular form of wellbeing work. They would acknowledge a person's emotions, if they came up through interactions. They would be responding to the emotional cues that people gave off that they were maybe feeling a bit uncertain or a bit upset. They talked about the importance of listening to the person, but that was often couched in a ‘I can listen for so long, but then I need to get on with my session', because the assessment, the treatment, the moving people forward wasn't important, and they would look to others to help. But the problem is, I would say this, this did a really good job of dealing with the tip of the iceberg, the emotions that were on the surface. But if we think back to what I've just said about what matters for wellbeing, relationships, connection, sense of self, hope, those things are not addressed. What we saw was that wellbeing was other to the core work of any individual discipline. That didn't work for anybody. Didn't work for our patients that we spoke to. It didn't work for our clinicians as well, because we could also see the moral injury and the burnout that comes when you can't offer the services that you know people are wanting and needing. And when we think about what do we do about that? Well, yeah, it's tricky, and I don't have any great answers, but training and education is one thing. So when we think about wellbeing as seen as other to the core business of the disciplines, we need to look at, what is it that we're teaching our students? What are we saying is core work of speech therapy or of physiotherapy or of nursing. I've got the privilege of chairing the accreditation body for speech therapy in New Zealand, and we are rewriting our accreditation framework at the moment that essentially dictates what programs need to teach. We now have a requirement that programs are teaching about psychosocial wellbeing, and that programs are assessing students on how they're addressing psychosocial wellbeing. We need to look at how pathways for care develop, and where is wellbeing within policies, processes, structures, documentation, Basically, it's nowhere. But we also need to look structurally, and we can talk a little bit more about structures and organizations and cultures, because I think what this work reflects is a wider issue around the cultures and the organization of care that can make it really challenging for clinicians to work in the ways that they do. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Oh my gosh, it's a beautiful, beautiful response. I think my favorite quote, and there were many in that article, but the one that said “people with stroke live with the impacts of a stroke system that is designed around biomedical short term care for a lifelong condition and deserve services that support them to thrive, not just survive.” I think it's what we need to bring back into the curriculum for our students to understand. And all of this ties into the importance of understanding how cultures and organizations, like you just said, of care, might impact the therapy we provide to our clients. Why do cultures and organizations of care matter? You're alluding to that. I think we've just started to reflect on that. Felicity Bright Yeah, I've often felt there's a real risk with the research that I do that we could end up pointing the finger at clinicians of not doing things as well as they could or as well as they should. But actually, we need to understand why is this? Why does it make sense for clinicians to prioritize dysphagia over communication? Why does it make sense to prioritize getting people home, over spending the time on addressing their wider wellbeing? And I've been really lucky to work with Deb Hersh and Stacey Attrill, we did a piece of work that looked at this in the context of how speech therapists enacted therapeutic relationships. And we started by delving into why do people work in the way that they do? We started to see the cultural elements. So the needs, for instance, your allegiances to colleagues, to be a good team player, to maintain your legitimacy. And particularly for speech therapists, who often have a slightly tenuous role in stroke teams. Physios and OTs are important, but speech therapists often have to kind of fight to kind of have their voices heard, and so that can lead to speechies behaving in particular ways. We can also see how cultures of safety impact on what people prioritize. So Abby Foster has done some beautiful work around the cultures of aphasia care and acute care, and highlighting that actually the priority for physical safety and managing dysphagia risk is privileged over the culture of or a need to think about what is the risk associated with communication and poor communication and people not having communication access. If we understand why people work as they do, and if we understand how the cultures and the structures work, then we can start to unpack them and think about what are the ways that we might be able to do things differently. You know, these cultural factors are very real, and none of them are inherently wrong, like it's not a bad thing that we're trying to prevent people getting aspiration pneumonia. That's really, really important, but we need to understand how these things shape practice and the unintended consequences that they might have for what is not valued and for what work isn't prioritized, and what outcomes don't actually seem to really matter in these contexts. And when we start to make these visible, then that opens up space to think about, how might we be able to do things differently, where we can maybe hold all of these things. And you know, in my work that I'm doing around wellbeing, that's the next phase of our work, is working with clinicians to think about, how might we be able to do things differently, so that it's not one or the other, it's not a dichotomy. But how do we create space for all of these things to be viewed as important and to be prioritized? Ellen Bernstein-Ellis You've started to dig into that already, because you have yet another 2024 article that you co-authored with Kayes, Soundy and Drown, Limited conversations about constrained futures: exploring clinician conversations about life after stroke in inpatient settings. And that examines how clinicians talk about the future with their clients. It analyzes 300 hours of observation of clinical interactions, along with 76 interviews with people with aphasia and 37 clinicians. I just want to say that's an astounding undertaking. So, as I read it, it felt like almost an extension of your 2013 and 2020 articles looking at hope, because you connected how what we say can impact how our clients see their future possibilities. Can you share some of the themes you constructed from all of that amazing data collection? I mean, I'm sorry, I thought 15 interviews were a lot, so then I saw this, and I'm like, oh my goodness, amazing. Felicity Bright It was a pretty massive piece of work, but it was a real privilege to be able to sit and just observe interactions. And I'm so grateful to our people with stroke, many of whom were like two or three days post stroke, and they had the stranger come along and sit there and observe them for 12 hours, but also to our clinicians, who were quite vulnerable in that process of having somebody observe and analyze what they were doing. But at the same time, I think that work is really valuable for looking at what is going on. What we could see is that the conversations that were being had tended to focus on quite a short term future, and we termed this theme constrained temporal horizons. When clinicians were talking about the future, the vast majority of those conversations were about the immediate future. For doctors and nurses--for nurses, it was often what needs to happen in this shift. For allied health and for doctors, it was what needs to happen before you discharge from our service into the next service. And for some allied health, it might be the first few days at home, but there was a view that talking about the longer term future beyond that should be done by other clinicians who might have more knowledge of what life could look like at that stage. We also found that the talk about quite a constrained future was in the context of actually very limited talk, in the first place. So when we think about communication access, for instance, we think, oh, people with aphasia aren't getting very good communication. Actually, lots of people with stroke are not getting very good communication. Again, thinking about cultural factors, but actually communication is not happening well in stroke units, or, I think within the wider healthcare system. You know, we've got a very task focused, medically focused situation. And so the conversations that were happening were on topics that were led by healthcare professionals, on the topics that they felt mattered-- the tasks they needed to do, the body structures and impairments. The goals that were set were about what needs to happen before somebody gets home. There was little talk about emotions. There was little talk about how you're feeling about what's going on, or what it might be like for you or for your family when you go home. And so this talk about the emotions and so on and future possibilities was left to patients and to families to raise. And instead, the conversations tended to focus on what the healthcare professionals saw as essential topics for the episode of care. We certainly did see some conversations about the future. So I don't want to be disparaging, and I also want to acknowledge the very partial nature of research. I did not see every single interaction. I know that a lot of these quite personal conversations often happen in things like the shower, when the nurses or the OTS are helping the person shower. That's one of the few private spaces on the ward. And so I want to acknowledge that my analysis is based on a limited data set, and it isn't based on all the conversations that happened, but certainly there was a trend towards limited conversations. We did see that clinicians would open some doors about the future. So they would talk about possible prognosis in the context of things like upper limb prognostic testing that is offered in some hospitals in New Zealand. We would see clinicians talk about what was meaningful to people, particularly in a context where the patient was struggling to engage, but often when the clinicians were talking about this wider future in this context, it was done to try and plant seeds about what the healthcare professional thought was realistic, and it was done to try and help the person engage in rehabilitation in the context of maybe struggling to engage at the best of times. So I think what we could see was that conversations were limited. They were limited conversations about short term, constrained futures that didn't necessarily set people up with hope for the future, with a sense of possibility, with a sense of even starting that process about what matters, to thinking about what matters to me, what do I want life to look like? Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Wow, and that really just circles us back to that concept of hope. Your work in hope has just been so meaningful to me. I've been really honored to be the guest lecturer speaking about aphasia to our counseling course that's taught by Dr Shubha Kashinath at Cal State, East Bay. And I've included, from the beginning, your work on hope. I just feel it's critical to give our students ways to understand and think about this construct and the role they can have in offering some hope building clinical interactions. I'd like to close this interview by having you discuss some of your first work that I had the honor to read, and some of the hope affirming strategies that you suggest in your 2020 article. Because I just think that's really a gift. Felicity Bright One of the things that really fascinated me in this work was how our people with aphasia in the research talked about how they look at their clinician and they are reading them to see, are you somebody who's going to give me hope or not? And if they didn't feel their clinician was going to support their hope or was going to help give them hope, or was going to disparage their hopes, they would shut down and they wouldn't share. And so I think, one of the things is to be reflecting on yourself. What are the messages that you are giving about how you are a safe person to talk to, about whether you are somebody that they can engage in these risky conversations about? I think there's a couple of things as well. We need to recognize that just because somebody says they hope for something doesn't mean that they expect it to happen. We all have unrealistic hopes and expectations. You know, psychologist colleagues talk to me about how actually having unrealistic hope is part of being psychologically adjusted, and why should that be different for people with stroke? Who are we to say that we hold the expertise. Now, that's not to say that there aren't challenges. So sometimes you might need to do a bit of a balance of, oh, is this something I need to engage in a conversation about? You know, an example is, if somebody is going to invest quite a bit of money in something that actually, there's no evidence to support and could potentially be problematic. There's a really good guideline I found from Christy Simpson, who's an ethicist, who talked about what are the positive effects that this hope has for people? What would be the impacts of taking it away, both positive, but also, what are the negative things that it would do? And so actually engaging in a bit of a risk analysis to think critically about what is holding this hope doing for somebody. Linked to that in the latest paper we did around recalibrating hope, it really highlighted to me the importance of trusting people to often recalibrate their own hopes. So I went back to my original participants from my 2013 research a couple of years later, and I looked at their experiences of hope over that time. And what we found was most of them recalibrated their hopes. They hoped for different things over that time, and they had done that as they engaged in different activities, as they tried things, as they considered their progress, as they rethought what mattered to them. And so that really highlighted, to me, the need to trust people, but it also highlighted the need to think about, how do we support a context that supports people to do that recalibration. Those who were more likely to recalibrate and hold both hope and realism together were people who had social networks, who were engaging in meaningful activities, and who had a sense of purpose and possibility. One of my participants didn't have that. They had lost their social connections. They had no activities in which they were engaging in what was meaningful, and their hope had shrunk. And so it talks to me again, those earlier conversations we've had about well being, thinking about what's meaningful, what supports wellbeing, that's exactly the same thing that supports hope. How are we supporting people's social wellbeing? How are we supporting their relational wellbeing? How are we helping them connect to what is meaningful and what is possible, not just to their impairments, and maybe what is not working so well. I think it's really important to be explicitly thinking about, what is it that helps people bring joy, have joy? What brings them peace in the present? And how can we help them have that sense that things are okay, even if they're not perfect, but also help them have that sense of looking to a future that's possible. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Okay, we only have a minute or two left, but I'm going to throw this last question out to you. Felicity, if you had to pick only one thing that we need to achieve urgently as a community of providers, of professionals, what would that one thing be? This is almost like your elevator pitch. You got 60 seconds here. So, so Felicity Bright So my one thing, in a long, complex sentence, is that speech and language therapists need to reprioritize communication and supporting people to live well after stroke and aphasia, and they need to consider how we model to our colleagues and to our patients and families, and how we support cultures of care that value relationships and relational work, that value and support communication, and that value and support wellbeing. Ellen Bernstein-Ellis Oh my goodness, well said, Felicity. Thank you so much for the honor of having this interview today. I know it's going to be impactful to our listeners, and I want to thank our listeners as well. For references and resources mentioned in today's show, please see our show notes. They're available on our website@www.aphasiaaccess.org and there you can also become a member of our organization, browse our growing library of materials and find out about the Aphasia Access Academy, and if you have an idea for a future podcast episode, email us at info@aphasia access.org. For Aphasia Access Conversations, I'm Ellen Bernstein-Ellis, and thanks again for your ongoing support of Aphasia Access. Thank you, Felicity. Felicity Bright My pleasure. Thank you for having me. References and Resources AUT Centre for Person Centred Research: https://cpcr.aut.ac.nz/our-research Biel, M. (Host). (2016). An interview with Felicity Bright: The patient's engagement and experience with you, the speech pathologist (No. 2) [audio podcast episode). ANCDS. SoundCloud.https://soundcloud.com/ancds/ep-2-an-interview-with-felicity-bright-the-patients-engagement-and-experience?utm_source=www.ancds.org&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%253A%252F%252Fsoundcloud.com%252Fancds%252Fep-2-an-interview-with-felicity-bright-the-patients-engagement-and-experience Bright, F. A., Ibell‐Roberts, C., Featherstone, K., Signal, N., Wilson, B. J., Collier, A., & Fu, V. (2024). ‘Physical well‐being is our top priority': Healthcare professionals' challenges in supporting psychosocial well‐being in stroke services. Health Expectations, 27(2), e14016. Bright, F. A., Ibell-Roberts, C., & Wilson, B. J. (2024). Psychosocial well-being after stroke in Aotearoa New Zealand: a qualitative metasynthesis. Disability and Rehabilitation, 46(10), 2000-2013. Bright, F. A., Kayes, N. M., McCann, C. M., & McPherson, K. M. (2013). Hope in people with aphasia. Aphasiology, 27(1), 41-58. Bright, F. A., McCann, C. M., & Kayes, N. M. (2020). Recalibrating hope: A longitudinal study of the experiences of people with aphasia after stroke. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 34(2), 428-435. Bright, F. A., Kayes, N. M., Soundy, A., & Drown, J. (2024). Limited conversations about constrained futures: exploring clinicians' conversations about life after stroke in inpatient settings. Brain Impairment, 25(1). Ellis-Hill, C., Payne, S., & Ward, C. (2008). Using stroke to explore the life thread model: an alternative approach to understanding rehabilitation following an acquired disability. Disability and rehabilitation, 30(2), 150-159. Foster, A., O'Halloran, R., Rose, M., & Worrall, L. (2016). “Communication is taking a back seat”: speech pathologists' perceptions of aphasia management in acute hospital settings. Aphasiology, 30(5), 585-608. Parr, S., Byng, S., & Gilpin, S. (1997). Talking about aphasia: Living with loss of language after stroke. McGraw-Hill Education (UK). Simpson, C. (2004). When hope makes us vulnerable: A discussion of patient-healthcare provider interactions in the context of hope. Bioethics, 18(5), 428-447
Our guest is Yasemin Cenberoglu, who was the first designer to work on Microsoft's Copilot, all in secret, before the world was exposed to ChatGPT for the first time.Yasemin is a Principal Design Manager at Microsoft, leading the Copilot product for Teams Meetings, Calling, and Devices. She's the first designer to shape what Copilot is today. Previously, she served as the Director of Design at Digitalist. Yasemin is an advisory board member at IDEA School of Design at Capilano University. She studied in Germany and then at Cal State, in the Bay area.00:49 Yasmin's Background and Role 02:09 Design Differences: Europe vs North America 03:44 Service Design Methodologies 03:58 Co-Creating with OpenAI 04:38 Blueprints and Customer Journeys 05:27 Rapid Prototyping and Testing 06:20 Reconnecting with Yasmin 07:06 The Excitement of Innovation 10:04 Defining Value Drivers 11:50 Building High-Level Scenarios 12:49 Managing Feasibility and Vision 15:53 Lessons Learned from GenAI 21:05 Testing and User Feedback 22:51 Iterative Design and AI 31:52 Building Trust in AI 34:12 Service Design in AI 39:11 Deciding Between Co-Pilot, Agent, or Chatbot 43:41 Future of Assistive Software 47:27 Advice for Aspiring AI DesignersEpisode is hosted by:Arpy Dragffy Guerrero (Founder & Head of product strategy, PH1 Research) https://www.linkedin.com/in/adragffy/ Brittany Hobbs (VP Insights, Huge) https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittanyhobbs/Thank you for listening to the Design of AI podcast. We interview leaders and practitioners at the forefront of AI. If you like this episode please remember to leave a rating and to follow us on your favorite podcast app.Take part in the conversations about AI https://www.linkedin.com/company/designofai/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit designofai.substack.com
It's the first day of classes at most Cal State universities, but the threat of budget cuts looms over the new start. About $1 million was supposed to go toward a Vietnam Memorial in Fountain Valley, but it's nowhere to be found. Brown pelicans are alright after a troubling spate of die-offs. Plus more. Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.com.Support the show: https://laist.com
Today on AirTalk, the city of Long Beach began clearing out unhoused encampments this week, joining a list of cities who say they'll ticket unhoused people for camping or sleeping in public. Also on the show, the latest on the Israel-Gaza war; New York Times contributing opinion writer Frank Bruni on his new book ‘The Age of Grievance;' Cal State and UC systems announce ban on encampments; we get the latest in baseball and the 2028 Olympic sports; and more. How Long Beach is addressing homelessness (00:17) The latest on the Israel-Gaza war (16:21) New book explores how grievance's shape narratives (36:56) Cal State, UC ban encampments (51:32) Triple Play: MLB & 2028 Olympics (1:08:32) Moon Zappa talks new book ‘Earth to Moon' (1:23:18)
As college students get ready to head back to campus, the Cal State and UC's have both issued policies that promise to enforce harder restrictions on protest demonstrations and encampments. This comes after the string of pro-Palestian protests that spread across the nation's colleges and universities last spring. Cal State issued their revamped protest policy on Thursday. Included among the restrictions were bans on encampments and overnight demonstrations. UC President Michael Drake put out a statement Monday addressing the UC's intent to heighten their protest restrictions and issue a full framework by October 1. Joining us on Air Talk this morning to discuss the protest restrictions is Amy DiPierro, higher education reporter for EdSource. If you have thoughts or questions, call 866-893-5722 or email atcomments@laist.com.
This week, Sagi Eliyahu welcomes Dr. Ron Glickman, Author of “Lead for a Change” and Adjunct Professor at Cal State in Los Angeles. Dr. Glickman discusses his extensive experience in IT, the importance of understanding change dynamics, and provides insights from his book “Lead for a Change.”Key Takeaways:(01:00) The importance of being effective rather than just being right.(05:51) Starting with retail operations and transitioning to IT leadership roles.(10:42) Overview of the book “Lead for a Change,” which offers practical leadership lessons.(15:33) The concept and inspiration behind the title “Lead for a Change.”(20:24) The significance of aligning change initiatives with customer centricity and clear vision.(25:15) The necessity of setting clear expectations and understanding different roles in change management.(30:06) Techniques for managing and leading through transformational changes while balancing strategy and comfort levels.(34:57) Reflections on effective leadership and the importance of continuous learning.Resources Mentioned:Dr. Ron Glickman - https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronglickman/Cal State - https://www.linkedin.com/school/california-state-university-los-angeles/“Lead for a Change” by Dr. Ron Glickman - https://www.amazon.com/Lead-Change-Strategies-Expectations-Breakthroughs/dp/1632996391This episode is brought to you by Tonkean.Tonkean is the operating system for business operations and is the enterprise standard for process orchestration. It provides businesses with the building blocks to orchestrate any process, with no code or change management required. Contact us at tonkean.com to learn how you can build complex business processes. Fast.#Operations #BusinessOperations
Bret Lott knows how to make a woman cry. Possibly a man, too, but I'm not sure. I know he's cried (sobbed, he admitted) when reading Leif Enger's book, Peace Like a River. I already liked Bret Lott but that made me like him even more. Bret Lott, award-winning author of now 16 books (both fiction and non-fiction) didn't start out to become a writer and, in fact, met obstacles along the way. I'm glad he persevered; if you've read Jewel, one of Oprah's Book Club selections, then I'm sure you're glad as well. He wanted to ride a horse and be a Park Ranger. Grateful that didn't pan out. Fun sidenote: Since I'm also from Southern California, it was a delight to find out that Bret used to work at Knott's Berry Farm at the candy apple booth and once-a-month he made waffles for Mr. Knott. Bret is giving away a signed copy of his latest book out this month entitled: GATHER THE OLIVES, On Food and Hope and the Holy Land - comment below or on social media to be entered! Born in Los Angeles in 1958, Lott grew up in Buena Park, CA and Phoenix, AZ before returning to California to live in Huntington Beach, CA. He met and married his wife of 40 years, Melanie Swank Lott, at First Baptist Church of Huntington Beach/Fountain Valley. A graduate of Cal State, Long Beach(1981), Lott headed to Massachusetts for graduate school at UMass Amhurst. He received his MFA in 1984 and landed his first teaching position at Ohio State Univ. In 1986, Lott joined the English Department at the College of Charleston, where he is now a tenured professor and director of the new MFA program and leads writers retreats to Italy. Find out more about his writing retreats here: https://bretlottwriting.com Be sure to comment below to be entered to win: Gather the Olives. Some gems: The difference between a good writer and a bad writer: the bad writer says, "Here I am, I have something to say." The good writer writes a good story and you're not aware he or she even exists. I write to try and understand things, why people do what they do and what happened to their lives. I shared a short story with a girl I liked. She wasn't impressed. I knew right then that I loved her. Jewel was based on my grandmother's life. She had 6 kids and the 6th, my aunt, was Down Syndrome. You're given what you're given in life; the writer's job and joy is to write the pages torn from that life and try to understand it better. The best art fills us with wonder and glory and mystery and beauty which are all manifestations of God.
Pro-Palestinian protesters who entered and barricaded themselves in a building at California State University, Los Angeles, on Wednesday cleared out by early Thursday, a spokesperson for the school told CNN. Most protesters left the Student Services Building of their own accord around 1:15 a.m. local time and returned to an unauthorized encampment on campus. No arrests were made, university spokesperson Erik Frost Hollins said. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/darien-dunstan3/message
Pro Hamas protestors at Cal State, Los Angeles trashed a campus building they occupied. The college president is disappointed. Have any arrests been made? Will these thugs be kicked out of the college?...Spending per pupil has quadrupled since 1960? Are students dumber or smarter for all that money? We know the answer... Thanks for listening to the Daily Dennis Prager Podcast. To hear the entire three hours of my radio show as a podcast, commercial-free every single day, become a member of Pragertopia. You'll also get access to 15 years' worth of archives, as well as daily show prep. Subscribe today at Pragertopia dot com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Frank starts the show joined by WABC host Dominic Carter to talk about an AI candidate running for mayor in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He moves on to talk with John Mainelli, a former WABC Program Director, veteran radio consultant and former columnist for the New York Post. They discuss political correctness, the future of talk radio and the anniversary of the O.J. murders. Frank ends the hour breaking the news of protesters in Cal State breaking into an administration building. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Frank starts the show joined by WABC host Dominic Carter to talk about an AI candidate running for mayor in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He moves on to talk with John Mainelli, a former WABC Program Director, veteran radio consultant and former columnist for the New York Post. They discuss political correctness, the future of talk radio and the anniversary of the O.J. murders. Frank ends the hour breaking the news of protesters in Cal State breaking into an administration building. Frank starts the hour discussing the latest developments in competitive eating with a match coming up between Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi. He moves on to talk with Yvette Francis, a City College of New York professor and the designer of the new book Robin Hood's Barn: A Study of Ice Age Culture. They discuss how information was transmitted during the ice age and how those symbols endure. Frank starts the third hour talking about a Harvard study that discusses the existence of aliens on earth. He then talks to Noah Goldman, the founder and president of the International Sumo League as they discuss the viability of sumo wrestling as a popular sport in the United States. He moves on to speak with Keith Hartzell, former Ocean City, NJ Council President and author of the new book, Nothing but Gratitude: Reflections of my Life in Ocean City, Faith, Family and Friends. They discuss Ocean City and Keith's reflections on life. Frank wraps up the show talking about breaking up friendships. He is also joined by Noam Laden for News You Can Use and radio host Brian Kilmeade to discuss news of the day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The center joins 13 others across the Cal State system specifically for queer and trans students.
In todays' episode of the podcast (after recommendation from previous guest Grecco Burrato), I speak with Brazilian born, (now LA resident), JP Mourao. JP is a session guitarist, arranger, composer, producer and educator with credits that include Selena Gomez, Snoop Dog, Amanda Brecker, Macy Gray (among others) as well as a host of other artists and corporate institutions, including Coca Cola and Disney. He also currently serves as a professor at the famous Cal State institution , so we obviously talk a little bit about education and the like during this interview. Check out the full interview now, and as usual please remember to rate, review and/or follow, thank you. For more information on 'JP Mourao , please visit - www.jpmorao.com For more information on Travis, please visit www.travismarc.com For more information on the Musicians Mentor, please visit www.musicians-mentor.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/musiciansmentor/support
Reversing pandemic-era admission policies, more universities, including MIT, Yale, Dartmouth and Brown, are again requiring that applicants submit SAT or ACT scores. Research has shown that high scores on the tests are a good predictor of college success, and proponents say that the tests are a more equitable metric than a student's GPA. In California, public colleges – including the UCs and Cal State schools – remain “test blind” and will not consider a student's scores, even if submitted. We'll look at arguments on both sides and get tips for prospective students who are navigating testing issues. Would you like to see the SAT and ACT come back in California? Do you think the tests helped or hurt your college application? Guests: Anna Esaki-Smith, author, “Make College Your Superpower: It's Not Where You Go, It's What You Know;" co-founder, Education Rethink; contributor, Forbes Jeff Selingo, author, "Who Gets In & Why: A Year Inside College Admissions," "There is Life After College" and "College (Un)Bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students" Eddie Comeaux, professor and associate dean of graduate education, University of California Riverside
A lawsuit filed in Colorado this week to block the Kroger-Albertson's merger reveals anti-union collusion. Starbucks Workers United filed for union elections at 21 stores in one day. The UAW continued making major moves, doubling their organizing budget and launching an international support effort with Mexican autoworkers. IBEW faced mold so toxic whole building a new Ford battery plant they were hospitalized. One of the biggest new union wins we've seen in a long time came at Cal State this week, with 20,000 student assistants voting to join the SEIU. Join the discord: discord.gg/tDvmNzX Follow the pod at instagram.com/workstoppage, @WorkStoppagePod on Twitter, John @facebookvillain, and Lina @solidaritybee
A Cal State professor says Kansas City Chiefs winning the Super Bowl is white supremacy and Taylor Swift fans are slightly racist. Plus, Trump says he's getting more black supporters because of his legal battles. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Do you know that California has great universities that are not UC schools? Listen in when host ian fisher interviews College Coach colleague Gabbi Tobias about the California State University system, typically called the Cal States. Considering medical school but you've already graduated from college and didn't take any of the required classes? It's not too late! College Coach expert Lauren DiProspero, former admission officer at both Stanford and Columbia medical schools, will talk about options for taking those courses so you can still apply successfully! In addition, Chrissy Foran, College Coach finance expert, will be reviewing what to do when you don't receive enough financial aid.
Do you know that California has great universities that are not UC schools? Listen in when host ian fisher interviews College Coach colleague Gabbi Tobias about the California State University system, typically called the Cal States. Considering medical school but you've already graduated from college and didn't take any of the required classes? It's not too late! College Coach expert Lauren DiProspero, former admission officer at both Stanford and Columbia medical schools, will talk about options for taking those courses so you can still apply successfully! In addition, Chrissy Foran, College Coach finance expert, will be reviewing what to do when you don't receive enough financial aid.
Do you know that California has great universities that are not UC schools? Listen in when host ian fisher interviews College Coach colleague Gabbi Tobias about the California State University system, typically called the Cal States. Considering medical school but you've already graduated from college and didn't take any of the required classes? It's not too late! College Coach expert Lauren DiProspero, former admission officer at both Stanford and Columbia medical schools, will talk about options for taking those courses so you can still apply successfully! In addition, Chrissy Foran, College Coach finance expert, will be reviewing what to do when you don't receive enough financial aid.
The storm in Southern Calfornia isn't letting up, more rain is on the way today. Cal State University faculty have completed voting on a new contract with the administration. There's a bipartisan bill in Congress to expand the child tax credit. If it is approved, more than 2 million children in low-income families in California could benefit from more cash this tax season. Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.com. Support the show: https://laist.com
CSU Faculty will begin voting on a tentative agreement next week. CA March 5th primary voters need to make two key decisions for one ballot measure. Forecasters confirm a weather phenomenon in San Luis Obispo County. Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.com. Support the show: https://laist.com
American institutions of higher education have long been the targets of critical books from the right, arguing they have betrayed their fundamental educational role. Now from the left comes a book that takes the author's own institution, the University of California, Berkeley, to task for what he says is its culpability in some of the cruelest chapters of U.S. history. UC Berkeley, popularly known as Cal, is famous worldwide as a hotbed of left-wing activism and academics. But Tony Platt, who has taught at Berkeley as well as Cal State, Sacramento, says that UC Berkeley hasn't owned up to its roots in "plunder, warfare, and the promotion of white supremacy." He takes it to task for involvement in the eugenics movement, hoarding of Indigenous remains, and its "complicity with the military-industrial complex and its incubation of unprecedented violence through the Manhattan Project." In this era in which many institutions, educational and otherwise, are reckoning with their histories, join us as Dr. Tony Platt talks with Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Cal's law school, about his call for the institution to deal honestly with its controversial past. MLF ORGANIZER: George Hammond A Humanities Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Find out the details of the closures on the 110 freeway near downtown LA. Livestream watchers celebrated bald eagle couple Jackie and Shadow's first egg of the season. And the Cal State chancellor has drawn scrutiny from union employees for her $800,000 yearly salary. Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.com. Support the show: https://laist.com
Cal State faculty have called off a strike, after a tentative labor agreement was reached Monday night. Faculty had been scheduled to be off the job this entire week. The three Democrats vying to represent California in the U.S. Senate went after the only Republican on stage at Monday's debate -- and clashed over the war between Israel and Hamas. Reporter: Marisa Lagos, KQED Many in Half Moon Bay are gathering Tuesday to commemorate the first anniversary of the mass shooting that killed seven farmworkers in the community south of San Francisco. Reporter: Farida Jhabvala Romero A controversial school board president in the Riverside County community of Temecula will face a recall election this spring. A group opposed to his conservative agenda collected enough signatures to force a vote. Reporter: Madison Aument, KVCR
New Hampshire primary; IDF soldiers killed; SCOTUS razor wire decision; Cal State strike; MLK Jr.'s son dies; PGA champ misses out.
Cal State professors across the state are gearing up to strike tomorrow. Community events are being held today to commemorate the first anniversary of the Monterey Park shooting. And we hear from a Southern California photographer who set out to paddle a canoe around the Salton Sea. Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.com. Support the show: https://laist.com
The California State University system is the largest public university system in the nation. This week, faculty at four campuses — Cal Poly Pomona, San Francisco State, Cal State Los Angeles, and Sacramento State — launched a series of 1-day strikes. KQED's Juan Carlos Lara takes us to Tuesday's strike at SF State, where faculty and staff say they're fed up with working conditions, low pay, and looming job cuts. Episode transcript This episode was produced by Ericka Cruz Guevarra and Maria Esquinca, and hosted by Ericka Cruz Guevarra.
ICYMI: Later, with Mo'Kelly Presents – Thoughts on the most recent faculty members strike at Cal State L.A. AND Disneyland increasing security at its parking structures to help prevent suicide attempts…PLUS – A deeper look at Los Angeles City Councils weighing a rodeo ban - on KFI AM 640 – Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app
The one-day Cal State LA faculty strike is the third of four planned statewide this week. Sunset's bright purple Cafe Tropical, which shut down suddenly last week, was known for its excellent Cuban food and its role as a safe haven for those in recovery. From a zookeeper he met on Twitter to musician Phoebe Bridgers,Brandon Stosuy's latest book features 115 essays, poems, and stories on sadness and crying.
It's News Day Tuesday! Sam and Emma break down the biggest headlines of the day. First, Sam and Emma run through updates on Israel expanding their invasion to Southern Gaza, US funding for Israel and Ukraine, conditioning aid to Israel, the US' various showy legislative bills, Bob Menendez's gold bar problem, CalState labor action, and Georgia's institutionalized disenfranchisement, before parsing through the GOP's continued attempt to keep the “Biden Crime Family” story in the media, without adding any new (or relevant) information. Next, they parse through the appearance of Josh Paul, the State Department official who resigned over stifled dissent around US support for Israel, on CNN, and the unsurprising revelations about Palestinian treatment in IDF captivity. They also watch a plea from a UNICEF worker to acknowledge the humanity of Palestinian children, and Israel's horrors force even Jake Tapper to begin questioning their collective punishment. And in the Fun Half: Donald Trump appears with Moms for America, Ben Shapiro accidentally calls God an incrementalist after doing a moral relativism, and Lek from Massapequa gives his take on yesterday's interview. Jack from Colorado dives into the faux-intellectualism of the right wing, Oscar from DC discusses Univision-Trump collusion, and Ronald Raygun explores how he duped Dennis Prager. George Santos begins his reconciliation project with the American public, plus, your calls and IMs! Get COVID test kits from the U.S. Postal Service here!: https://special.usps.com/testkits Become a member at JoinTheMajorityReport.com: https://fans.fm/majority/join Subscribe to the ESVN YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/esvnshow Subscribe to the AMQuickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! http://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: http://majority.fm/app Check out today's sponsors: Liquid IV: Grab your Liquid I.V. Hydration Multiplier Sugar-Free in bulk nationwide at Costco or you can get 20% off when you go to https://liquidiv.com and use code MAJORITYREP at checkout. Rhone: The Commuter Collection can get you through any work day and straight into whatever comes next. Head to https://rhone.com/MAJORITYREPORT and use promo code MAJORITYREPORT to save 20% off your entire order. Aura Frames: Give the perfect gift this holiday! Visit https://AuraFrames.com/MAJORITY today and get 30 dollars off their best-selling frames. These frames sell out quickly though, so get yours before they're gone! That's https://AuraFrames.com/MAJORITY. Use promo code MAJORITY to get 30 dollars of their best-selling frame. Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech @BradKAlsop Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on Youtube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com/ The Majority Report with Sam Seder - https://majorityreportradio.com/
Earlier this year Sonya Christian became the first woman chancellor of the California Community Colleges, the largest higher education system in the country serving 1.9 million students across 116 colleges. We'll talk to Christian about her plans to address declining enrollment, ease transfers from community college to the UC and Cal State systems and create more community college baccalaureate degree programs. And we'll hear from you: what did you gain from your community college education? What would you change about California's system? Guests: Sonya Christian, chancellor, California Community Colleges - Website URL: https://sonyachristianblog.com/
Brandon Marshall and Ashley Nicole Moss discuss how The Buffalo Bills Are About To Get Bigger … With Von Miller, then we sit down with Denver Broncos Veteran Cornerback Kareem Jackson, lastly we discuss how Marshawn Lynch only wanted to play football, no new friends!