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How does "quality" apply in all areas of an organization? In this final episode of the Misunderstanding Quality series, Bill Bellows and host Andrew Stotz discuss lessons from the first twelve episodes, and the big ah-ha moments that happen when we stop limiting our thinking. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.6 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. Today is episode 13 and the title is Quality Management: Don't be limited. Bill, take it away. 0:00:30.5 Bill Bellows: Hey, Andrew. So this is episode. What number did you say it was? 0:00:36.2 Andrew Stotz: 13. Lucky 13. 0:00:38.1 Bill Bellows: Lucky 13. So then for those who are concerned about the use of the number 13, this is episode 14. 0:00:51.0 Andrew Stotz: I thought you're gonna say episode 12A. 0:00:54.7 Bill Bellows: And for those who don't mind the number 13, this is episode 13. And as we talked earlier, if Dr. Deming was to title the episode it would be... It would not be "don't." It would be "do not", do not be limited. So at the start I wanted to go back to review the path we're on. We've been on episode one back in end of May, Quality, Back to the Start. All part of the Misunderstanding Quality series for The Deming Institute. Episode two, we got into the Eight Dimensions of Quality with David Garvin. One of those dimensions was acceptability. 0:01:49.8 Bill Bellows: Another was reliability. Another was I say dependability performance. Okay. And I think it's important in a series about misunderstanding quality to look at the work of David Garvin. Just realize I think it's fascinating to... You move out of the world of the American Society Quality and control charts and whatnot. And that's why I think Garvin's work paints a nice... Gives a nice perspective to not be limited.  And then we got into in the third episode Acceptability and Desirability. Episode four, Pay Attention to Choices and the choice of differentiating acceptability which is I'll take anything which meets requirements, and desirability. 0:02:42.3 Bill Bellows: I want that little doggy in the window. Not any doggy in the window. And then we followed that with episode five, the Red Bead Experiment which for many is their first exposure to Dr. Deming's work. I know when I worked for the Deming Institute for a few years the Red Bead Experiment website was one of one of the most popular pages. I believe another one was the 14 Points for Management. And, personally, I've presented the Red Bead Experiment think just once, just once. And I'm going to be doing it at the 2025 at, let me back up, the Bryce Canyon Deming... The Bryce Canyon...Bryce Canyon Forum. I can't remember the name. It's a partnership between Southern Utah University and The Deming Institute, and we're doing it at Southern Utah University. And on one of those days, I'll be doing the Red Bead Experiment, which takes a lot of time and then studying to present it a few years ago I was getting all the videos that I could find of it, many of them on The Deming Institute web page and none of them have the entire data collection. 0:04:18.5 Bill Bellows: They kind of fast forward through six people putting the... drawing the beads each four times and when you're up on stage trying to do that, I had four people that's, you gotta do a lot of work to make it that exciting. But the reason I present it, I say I present it for a number of reasons. One is to do the classic "The red beads are not caused by the workers are taken separately. They're caused by the system which includes the workers. It's an understanding of variation and introduction to control charts" and all of that is as exposed by Dr. Deming is classic. 0:05:00.7 Bill Bellows: But, I'd like to take it one step further, which is to go back into that desirability thinking and look at the concept that we've talked about of going through the doorway and going past the achievement of zero defects, zero red beads, and realize that there's further opportunities for improvement when you start to look at variation in the white beads. And, that then takes into account how the beads are used. And that gets us into the realm of looking at quality as a system.   Looking at quality with a systems view as opposed... That's good, that's good, that's good. With or without an appreciation on how the bead is used. So anyway, that was episode five. We explored that. Next we got into the differentiation of Category Thinking and Continuum Thinking. 0:05:55.5 Bill Bellows: And for those who haven't listened to it, maybe not in a while, the differentiation is category thinking. Putting things in categories such as red beads and white beads are the... It could be any categories, categories of fruit, categories of religion, categories of political systems. We have categories and then within a category we have variation. We have different. We have apples and oranges and then we have a given type of orange. And then there's variation in the juiciness, ripeness. That's called continuum thinking, which goes back to, if we go back to the red beads and the white beads is notion that the white beads are not uniformly white, not uniform in diameter or weight. 0:06:44.5 Bill Bellows: And, what are the implications there? Well, if we think in terms of categories, red beads and white beads, if all the beads are white have we stopped improving? And Dr. Deming and I believe it was Point 5 of the 14 Points stressed the need for continual improvement. And yes, you can continuously improve and reduce cost, you can continuously reduce cycle time, but can you continuously improve quality? Well, not if you're stuck in a category of good, then the role of that is to just to remind people that there's opportunities to go further when you begin to look at variation in white, which is the essence of looking at how what you're looking at is part of a system, which Dr. Deming was well, well aware of. 0:07:33.7 Bill Bellows: Next we got into the Paradigms of Variation and a big part there was differentiating acceptability. Well, going beyond acceptability was differentiating accuracy from precision. Precision is getting the same result shrinking the variation, otherwise known as getting achieving great piece-to-piece consistency. Metrics that begin with the letter C and sub P could be Cp, Cpk, are the two most popular. Those are measures of precision that we're getting small standard deviations that they are very, very close to each other. But in the paradigms of variation that was what I referred to as Paradigm B thinking we're looking for uniformity. Paradigm A thinking being acceptance, we'll take anything that meets requirements... Or academically called paradigm A. Paradigm C is what Dr. Taguchi was talking about with the desirability, where we're saying I want this value, I want uniformity around this specific value. 0:08:43.9 Bill Bellows: Here what we're looking at is uniformity around the target, around an ideal, otherwise known as piece-to-target variability. And, the idea there is that the closer we are to that ideal, the easier it is for others downstream to integrate what we're passing forward. Whether that's putting something into a hole or does this person we want to hire best integrate into our system. So, integration is not just a mechanical thing. In episode eight we then got into Beyond Looking Good which then shatters the Paradigm A acceptability thinking, going more deeply into the opportunities for continual improvement of quality. 0:09:29.1 Bill Bellows: If you shift to continuum thinking. Next, Worse than a thief coming from Dr. Taguchi. And that's the issue of achieving uniform. Part of what we looked at is the downside of looking at things in isolation and not looking at the greater system. Then episode 10 we look at Are you in favor of improvement of quality? 0:09:53.6 Andrew Stotz: I'm in favor. 0:09:55.7 Bill Bellows: To which he would always say, but of course. That was a reference back to chapter one of The New Economics. And he said everyone's got an answer. Improving quality computers and gadgets. And what we spoke about is Quality 4.0, which is gadgets of the 21st century, tools and techniques. And again, what we said is, there's nothing wrong with tools and techniques. Tools and techniques are about efficiency, doing things well, but they lack what Russ Ackoff would say in asking, are we doing the right things well. And then episode 11 delved into what I've...amongst the things I've learned from Dr. Taguchi, To improve quality, don't measure quality. 0:10:42.5 Bill Bellows: If we have a problem with, we want to reduce scrap, we want to reduce rework, we want to eliminate the problems that the customer has experienced or that someone downstream is experiencing. And what Dr. Taguchi emphasized was start asking, what is the function of the thing we're trying to do? And the idea is that if you improve the function, then you're likely to improve the quality as measured by what the customer is looking for. If you focus on what the... If you focus your efforts on reducing what the customer is complaining about, you're likely to get something else the customer is complaining about. And for more on that, go to episode 11. 0:11:19.0 Bill Bellows: And then episode 12, Do specification limits limit improvement? Which again goes back to what I experienced on a regular basis is in my university courses with people I interact with and consulting is a very heavy emphasis on meeting requirements and moving on. And not a lot of thought of going beyond that or even that there's anything more to do, that's alive and well. And that's reinforced by Six Sigma Quality is filled with that mindset. If you pay attention closely to Lean Manufacturing, you'll see that mindset again, alive and well. So, what I wanted to get to tonight in episode 13, Quality. 0:12:04.3 Andrew Stotz: That was quite a review, by the way. 0:12:06.7 Bill Bellows: Yeah, Quality Management: don't be limited, as and I'm teaching for the sixth time a class in quality management at Cal State Northridge. The title used to be Seminar in Quality Management. The title this year is Engineering Quality Management and Analytics. One of the assignments I give them, essays, the quizzes, attending the lectures. 0:12:34.9 Bill Bellows: Learning Capacity Matrix that I learned about from David Langford. But what I was sharing with you earlier, Andrew, is one of the first things I thought about and designed in this course, back in 2019 was I could just imagine students going through the course. And, what I'm going to hear is, what I've heard before is professor, these are very, very interesting ideas, but I'm not sure how I would apply them where I work. Because where I work is different. It's different. And to avoid that question, I came up with an assignment I called the Application Proposal. And there's four parts to it. But part one is: imagine upon completion of this course. And I let them know about this in the first lecture and I say, imagine upon completion of the course, your boss, someone you work with, challenges you to find three things you can do within three to six months of the of the completion of the course. 0:13:34.6 Bill Bellows: And it must include something you learned in this course. I don't say what thing, I don't say two things, I don't say three things. I leave it to them. But all it comes down to is I'd like you to contemplate and within three to six months of the completion of the course, what could you do? And I call that the near-term application. Well, subtask one is come up with three. They have to meet your job, your role, not your boss's role, not another department's role. They have to fit your role because only you know then the method by which you would go about that. And, so for that near-term, I ask them to let me know what is the present state of that near term, the before, the current condition and what is the after. What is the future state of that near-term? So I assign that before the course begins, I give them until week five to submit and give me those three things. The reason I asked for three is if one, if the first one they give me, if they only asked for one and one didn't quite fit, then I say, well, okay, Andrew, go back and give me another one that same time. 0:14:49.7 Bill Bellows: So I said, give me three. And most often all three are fantastic. In which case I say they're all great. Which one would you like to do? But again, it has to fit their role because in Sub-Task 2, the next thing I want them to do is not so much tell me about the present state, tell me more about the future state. And again, the future state is how much can you accomplish within that three-to-six month period? And that's subtask two. Then they come back to me and tell me the plan. What is the plan by which you go from the near-term present state to the near-term future state, tell me about the plan. Tell me what some of the obstacles might be and how you plan to deal with the obstacles. And then I say now what I want you to do is imagine that is wildly successful, jump ahead a year and a half to two years and tell me what you would do next. How would you build upon this? And in that mid-term time frame, what is the present? What is the future of the mid-term? And then go a few years out and tell me how you're going to further expand on what you've learned. 0:16:03.4 Bill Bellows: I call that the far-term. And for the far-term, what's the present, what's the future? So when they submit that to me, then I come back with - it could be questions about some of the terminology.  It could be a suggestion that they look at something with the use of Production Viewed as a System. Or, I ask them to think about operational definitions or perhaps suggest a control chart and, or a book. So, part of the reason I wanted to bring that up is few of the title, few of the topics we are looking at are specifically quality related. They're all about improving how the organization operates. Which goes back to what Dr. Deming stressed is the importance of continual improvement. 0:16:50.9 Andrew Stotz: Can you explain that just for a second? Because that was interesting about quality versus improving the organization. What did you mean by that? 0:17:00.4 Bill Bellows: Well, I, they didn't come to me with this process I have, has lots, has a very high defect rate and I thought that's where I need to focus. Or this process has a lot of scrap and rework. That's where I want to focus. What I was excited by is that they were looking at how to take a bunch of things they already do and better integrate them. Just fundamentally what I found them thinking about is how can I spend time to organize these activities as a system and as a result spend a whole lot less time on this and move on to the next thing. And, what I found fascinating about that is if we keep our thinking to quality and quality's about good parts and bad parts, good things and bad things, and having less bad things and more good things, that could be a really narrow view of what Dr. Deming was proposing. Now another aspect of the assignment was not only do I want them to give me three ideas, we down-select to one. It could be they're writing a new piece of software. One of the applications has to do with a really fascinating use of artificial intelligence. 0:18:27.0 Bill Bellows: And what's that got to do with quality? Well, what's interesting is it has a lot to do with improving the functionality of a product or a service, having it be more reliable, more consistent, easier to integrate. But, the other thing I want to point out is not only do I ask them to come up with three things and then assuming all three things fit well with their job, their responsibilities, their experience.  What I'm also interested in is what from the course are you going to use in this application? And, two things came up that fit again and again.  One is the value proposition of a feedback loop. 0:19:12.9 Bill Bellows: And they would ask me, what do you mean by feedback? I said, well, you're going to come along and you're going to tie these things together based on a theory that's going to work better. Yes. Well, how will you know it's doing that? How will you know how well this is performing? And, I said when I see this is what people refer to as Plan-Do, but there's no Study. It's just... And, I saw that Rocketdyne, then people would come along and say, oh, I know what to do, I'm just gonna go off and change the requirements and do this. 0:19:44.6 Bill Bellows: But, there was no feedback loop. In fact, it was even hard to say that I saw it implemented. It just saw the planning and the doing. But, no study, no acting. 0:19:57.3 Andrew Stotz: Is that the Do-Do style? 0:20:01.3 Bill Bellows: Yes. But what was really exciting to share with them is I said in a non-Deming company, which we have referred to as a Red Pen Company or, or a Me Organization or a Last Straw. And I don't think we covered those terms all that much in this episode, in this series, we definitely covered it in our first series. But what I found is in a Deming or in a non -Deming company, there's not a lot of feedback. And even if I deliver to you something which barely meets requirements and we spoke about this, that in the world of acceptability, a D- letter grade is acceptable. Why is it acceptable? Because it's not enough. It's good parts and bad parts. And so even if I deliver to you, Andrew, something which barely met requirements, and you said to me, Bill, this barely meets requirements. And I say, Andrew, did you say barely meets requirements? And you say, yes. So, Andrew, it did meet requirements and you say, yes. So I say, "Why are you calling me Andrew?" 0:21:12.1 Andrew Stotz: By the way that just made me think about the difference between a pass fail course structure and a gradient course structure. 0:21:20.7 Bill Bellows: Exactly. 0:21:21.5 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. Okay. 0:21:22.5 Bill Bellows: Yeah. So even if you give me that feedback. I reject it. I'm just going to say, Andrew, move on. But I said, in a Deming organization, feedback is everything. The students were giving me feedback on the quizzes and some things that caused me to go off and modify some things I'm doing. And I told them, if I don't have that feedback, I cannot improve the course. So, I met with each of them last week for an hour, and the feedback I was getting is instrumental in improving the course for the remainder of the semester as well as for next year. And, so that's what I found is what really differentiates a Deming approach to improving a process or a service or a product is feedback, which goes then to watching how it's used. It is, I think I mentioned to you Gipsie Ranney, who was the first president of The Deming Institute, a Professor of Statistics at University of Tennessee, when she met Dr. Deming and later became a senior consultant, maybe advisor to General Motors Powertrain. And once she told me, she said to Dr. Deming "You know, Dr. Deming, what do people get out of your seminars?" And. he said, "I know what I told them. 0:22:42.0 Bill Bellows: I don't know what they heard." And, the challenge is without knowing what they heard, because we would also say, and I'm pretty sure we brought this up in one of our this series or the prior series, Deming would say the questions are more important than the answers because the questions provide them with feedback as to what is going on. So anyway, part of what I wanted to bring out today in this quality management, don't be limited, is whether or not you're focusing on quality per se, minimizing scrap, minimizing work. If you're trying to improve a process, again, you're not improving it necessarily because there's more I want to have less scrap. But if your improvement is, I want it to take less time, I want it to be easier to do. I want it to be cheaper to do. Well, while you're at it, think about a feedback loop.  And the role of the feedback is to give you a sense of is it achieving what you're hoping it would achieve? It would allow you over time to maybe find out it's getting better.  Maybe there's a special cause you want to take advantage of or a special cause you want to avoid.  But, without that feedback, how do you know how it's working and then beyond that? 0:23:55.7 Andrew Stotz: And where is the origin of the information coming from for the feedback loop? Is it a feedback loop within your area or is it feedback loop from the next process or what do you. 0:24:08.3 Bill Bellows: All of that. That's what I told her. I said one is, I said, when you're developing the process. I told them, I said, when you're. If in Sub-Ttask 1, your idea is to flowchart a process, come up with a template, a prototype. Part of the feedback is showing that to people. And part of the feedback is, does it make sense to them?  Do they have suggestions for improvement? Do they... Is there an issue with operational definitions?  There would be better clarity based on the words you're using.  You may say in there clean this thing, or early in the semester, one of the assignments I gave the students was to explain some aspect of the course within their organization. And then I thought, well, then now it will explain to who. And I thought, well, unless I say if I felt that without giving clarity to who they're explaining it to, they're going to get lost in the assignment. Am I explaining it to a co-worker? Am I explaining it to someone in management? Am I explaining it to the CEO? And, finally I just thought, well, that's kind of crazy. 0:25:18.3 Bill Bellows: I just said, well, as if you're explaining it to a classmate. But, my concern was if I didn't provide clarity on who they're explaining it to, then they're going to be all over the place in terms of what I'm looking for versus what they're trying to do. And that being feedback and that also being what I told them is part of collecting, part of feedback is looking for how can I improve the operation, how can I improve? Or, what are the opportunities for paying closer attention to operational definitions, which means the words or the processes that we're asking people to follow. 0:25:58.3 Bill Bellows: But, I found in in joining Rocketdyne, I was in the TQM Office and then I began to see what engineering does. Oh, I had a sense of that when I worked in Connecticut, paid more attention to what manufacturing does. Well, then when I moved into a project management office. Well, project management is just like quality management. It's breaking things into parts, managing the parts in isolation. And, so when I talk about quality management, don't be limited. There's a lot Dr. Deming's offering that could be applied to project management, which is again, looking at how the efforts integrate, not looking at the actions taken separately. 0:26:45.4 Andrew Stotz: And, so how would you wrap up what you want to take away. What you want people to take away from this discussion? You went over a very great review of what we talked about, which was kind of the first half of this discussion. And what did you want people to get from that review? 0:27:05.2 Bill Bellows: The big thing, the big aha has been: this is so much more than quality. And, I've always felt that way, that when people look at Dr. Deming's work and talk about Dr. Deming is improving quality, and then when I work for The Deming Institute, the inquiries I would get it was part of my job to respond to people. And they want to know I work for a non-profit, do Dr. Deming's ideas apply. And, so for our target audience of people wanting to bring Dr. Deming's ideas to their respective organizations, even though the focus here is quality, we call this series Misunderstanding Quality. At this point, I'd like you to think more broadly that this is far more than how to improve quality.  This is improving management of resources, management of our time, management of our energy.  So this is a universal phenomenon. Not again, you can look at it as good parts and bad parts, and that's looking at things in isolation. That's what project managers do. That's what program managers do. That's what organizations do relentlessly. And this is what Ackoff would call the characteristic way of management. Break it into parts and manage the parts as well as possible. 0:28:21.5 Bill Bellows: So, I just wanted to bring that back as a reminder of this quality, quality, quality focuses. There's a lot more to this than improving quality when it comes to applying these ideas. 0:28:34.7 Andrew Stotz: And, I would just reiterate that from my first interactions with Dr. Deming when I was 24, and then I moved to Thailand and I did finance business and all that. So I wasn't, applying statistical tools in my business at the time. That just wasn't where I was at. But the message that I got from him about understanding variation and understanding to not be misled by variation, to see things as part of a system. Also to understand that if we really wanted to improve something, we had to go back to the beginning and think about how have we designed this? 0:29:20.3 Andrew Stotz: How do we reduce the final variability of it? And, so, it was those core principles that really turned me on. Where I could imagine, if I was an engineer or a statistician, that I would have latched on maybe more to the tools, but from where I was at, I was really excited about the message. And, I also really resonated with that message that stop blaming the worker. And, I saw that at Pepsi, that the worker just had very little control. I mean, we're told to take control, but the fact is that if we're not given the resources, we can only get to a certain level. 0:29:58.3 Andrew Stotz: Plus, also the thinking of senior management, you are shaped by their thinking. And, I always tell the story of the accumulation tables in between processes at a Pepsi production facility. And that basically allows two operators of these two different machines to, when one goes down, let's say the latest, the farthest along in the production process, let's say the bottling goes down, the bottle cleaning process behind it can keep cranking and build up that accumulation table until it's absolutely full. And, that gives time for the maintenance guys to go fix the bottling problem that you have and not stop the guy behind. And, that was a very natural thing from management perspective and from my perspective. But, when I came to Thailand, I did learn a lot more about the Japanese and the way they were doing thing at Toyota. 0:30:51.4 Andrew Stotz: I went out and looked at some factories here and I started realizing they don't do that. They have their string on the production line, that they stop the whole thing. But the point is the thing, if a worker can't go beyond that, you know what the senior management believe about it. So, that was another thing that I would say it goes way beyond just some tools and other things. So, I'll wrap it up there. And Bill, on behalf of everyone at The Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for this discussion and for listeners. Remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. And if you want to keep in touch with Bill, just find him on LinkedIn. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming and that is people are entitled to joy in work. 

(Airdate 3/3/25) On this podcast we look at the lessons of Rodney King on the anniversary of his beating. We also take on a legal analysis of the rapid and alarming changes to our democratic republic. Attorney James Simmons leads the Community Law Office of James M. Simmons. He is a professor of Africana Studies at Cal State Northridge and People's College of Law.

Are your specification limits holding you back from improving your products and services? Should you throw out specifications? What does Stephen Hawking have to do with it? In this episode, Bill Bellows and host Andrew Stotz discuss specifications and variation. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.5 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. Today is episode 12, and the title is Do Specification Limits Limit Improvement. Bill, take it away.   0:00:31.4 Bill Bellows: Hey, Andrew. How's it going? All right.   0:00:33.8 Andrew Stotz: Great. Great to have you back and great to see you. For those that are just listening, you can watch the video on DemingNEXT. But for those listening, Bill looks handsome, full of energy, ready to go, and it's my 8:30 in the morning in Bangkok, Thailand. So let's rock Bill.   0:00:56.3 Bill Bellows: So. I spoke recently to one of the folks I'd met on LinkedIn that have listened to our podcast and took the offer to reach out and we now talk regularly. And I just wanna say I've gotta, before we get to some, the story behind the title, I wanted to share, a heads up. And if anyone would like a copy of this article that I wanna, take some excerpts from, then just reach out to me on LinkedIn and ask for a copy of the article. The article's entitled 'A Brief History of Quality,' and there's three parts. So it's about 10 pages overall, and it was published in 2015 in the Lean Management Journal, which I don't believe still exists. I was writing articles at the end once a month for this journal, I think based out of the UK.   0:02:04.3 Bill Bellows: I think there was a manufacturing magazine that still exists and had this as a special topic and my interest was bringing Dr. Deming's ideas, to the Lean community, which is why it was a Lean Management Journal, so the article was entitled 'Brief History Equality.' And so I wanna get to those topics, but when I was reading the article, reminding myself of it, I thought, oh, I'll just share this story online with Andrew and our audience. And so here I'm just gonna read the opening paragraph. It says, "several years ago, I had the opportunity to attend an hour-long lecture by Stephen Hawking," right? So the article was written in 2015. So the presentation by Hawking would've been maybe 2012, 2013. And back to the article, it says, "he, Hawking, returns to Pasadena every summer for a one-month retreat, a ritual he started in the 1970s, several thousand attendees sitting in both a lecture hall and outdoors on a lawn area complete with a giant screen were treated to an evening of reflection of the legendary Cambridge physicist."   0:03:14.3 Bill Bellows: And I'll just pause. I have friends who work at JPL and they got me seats, and they got me an inside seat in the balcony, front row of the balcony, but they had big screens outside. I mean, it was like a rock concert for Stephen Hawking, right?   0:03:34.3 Andrew Stotz: That's amazing.   0:03:34.9 Bill Bellows: Oh, it was so cool. Oh, it was so cool. So anyway, "his focus was my brief history offering us a glimpse of his life through a twist on his treatise, A Brief History of Time. His introspective presentation revealed his genius, his humility, his search for black holes, his passion for life, not to mention his dry sense of humor. It ended with questions from three Caltech students, the last of which came from a postdoc student, an inquiry Hawking had likely tackled many times before."   0:04:06.6 Bill Bellows: So realize he's answering the questions through a voice activated thing. And it appeared that the questions were, his answers were prerecorded, but they're still coming through a device that is a synthesized voice. But I get the impression that he knew the questions were coming, so we in the audience were hearing the questions for the first time. But he had already answered the questions. So anyway, it ended with questions. There was an undergraduate student, a graduate student, then a postdoc, and I said, "the last of which came from a postdoc student, an inquiry Hawking had likely tackled many times before. And the student relayed the story of an unnamed physicist who once compared himself to both Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein." So this unnamed physicist compared himself to Einstein and Newton each placed on a scale of 1 lowest to 10 highest. "With this context, Hawking was asked where he would rank himself."   0:05:22.0 Bill Bellows: So this physicist said, oh, you know, Andrew, I see myself as this. And so the guy relays the story, and he says to Hawking, so given this other physicist said this, where would you rank yourself? "Well, I do not recall the relative rankings posed in the query. I'll never forget Hawking's abrupt reply. He says, “anyone who compares themselves to others is a loser." And I found online that he was, that commentary, this was not the first time he said that.   0:06:04.9 Andrew Stotz: Right.   0:06:06.5 Bill Bellows: And I just thought, oh, anyone who compares himself to others is a loser. And then the end of the paragraph is "in reference to Dr. Deming," Andrew, "variation, there will always be. So can't we just get used to variation?" So the title, are you in favor? No, no, no, no. That was last time. Are you in favor of improving the quality was number 10. Number 11 was to improve quality, don't measure quality. For 12, the specification limits limit improvement.   0:06:46.9 Andrew Stotz: Now, if that was true, first of all, that would be a little scary, 'cause we spend a lot of time working on specification limits. There's a lot of people working on that.   0:06:55.4 Bill Bellows: But here's what's behind the title. In 1995, I was invited to speak, not for the first time, but for the first time I ever spoke to an audience of the American Society of Quality. It was a San Fernando Valley chapter. I forget the number. I've spoken there many, many times over the years, but this is the first time I ever spoke to quality professionals as opposed to project managers or Society of Manufacturing Engineers. I was there with my wife. There's dinner, then after dinner in the next room, and the chairs were set up, theater style, that'd be 70, 80 people. And I was talking about what I would, I mean, things I still talk about, I talk about new things, to have new things done. But the big thing I was trying to get across the audience is, the difference between meeting requirements, which in this series, we call it acceptability versus desirability, which is, I want this value, I want this professor, I want to date this person. And so I was relaying that concept to that audience. And the question I asked that night was do specification limits limit improvement?   0:08:31.0 Bill Bellows: And there was a guy about seven rows back, and I built up to that. That wasn't the opening thing, but what I was really pushing on was a focus on Phil Crosby's goal of striving for zero defects. And, then what? Once you achieve that, then what? And we've talked about the doorway and that's like the door is closed, we get up to the doorway and we've achieved zero defects. And, what we've talked about is going through the doorway and the attitude is, well, why open the door? I mean, don't open the door, Andrew. There's a wall on the other side of that door, Andrew. So it might be a door, but everybody knows there's a wall behind it, and I was poking at that with this audience, and prepared to show them the value proposition of going through that.   0:09:34.0 Bill Bellows: So anyway, I remember I got to the point of asking, do specification limits limit thinking about improvement or something like that. And a more senior gentleman, about seven or eight rows back, and fortunately, he was seven or eight rows back, fortunately, because he stood up and he says, "Are you saying we don't need specification limits?" There's a lot more anger in his voice. And I said, "No," I said, "I'm saying I think they limit our thinking about improvement." And, but he was really upset with me, and I was deliberately provoking because again, you and I have talked about, how can we inspire through this podcast and other podcasts that you do with the others, to get people to think about the possibilities that Dr. Deming shared with us. And it's not believing that there's a door that you can't walk through. You open the door and there's an opening and you can go through. There's a lot more going on there. So anyway, so I had prepared them. The whole reason for being there was to share what we were doing at Rocketdyne, and not just talk about the possibilities, but show them the possibilities. But he got very upset with me. But if he was in the front row, he might've hit me.   0:11:08.9 Andrew Stotz: May have thrown a book at you.   0:11:11.5 Bill Bellows: Oh, he...   0:11:12.2 Andrew Stotz: May have thrown a Specification Limit at you.   0:11:17.0 Bill Bellows: Twice I've had people get, well, I've gotten a number of people upset with me over the years, but that night was, I'll never forget, and I'll never forget, because my wife was sitting in the front row and she asked me never to be that provocative again. It might be dangerous to my health. But I was doing another class, also for the American Society of Quality, I was a member of the local chapter, and there was a big movement within Rocketdyne that all Quality Engineers within Rocketdyne be Certified Quality Engineers. And so two or three of us from Rocketdyne got involved in helping the local chapter train people to prepare to take this one day exam. Very, very, very rigorous. And it's a valuable credential for quality professionals.   0:12:20.1 Bill Bellows: And so the company was pushing that every single quality engineer was certified. So we did the classes on site. So instead of going to the nearby Cal State Northridge and doing it over there, we wanted to do it onsite, make it easy for our employees to attend. And so I would do one and a half sessions. So a given session was three hours long, and then there'd be a half session. And my topics were Design of Experiments and Dr. Taguchi's work. And so as I got this group this one night for the very first time, I was the second half of that three-hour session, and there's 30 some people in the room at Rocketdyne. And the question I wanted to raise is, why run experiments? What would provoke you to run an experiments either, planned experimentation, Design of Experiments or Dr. Taguchi's approach to it.   0:13:15.1 Bill Bellows: So I was throwing that out and I said, in my experience, we're either applying it to make something better - that's improvement, Andrew, - or we're applying it to find out why something doesn't work, which is rearward looking. And I was saying that in my experience, I spend like a whole lot of time running experiments to solve a problem, to fix something that was broken, to get it back to where it was before the fire alarm, not as much time focusing on good to make it better. And so I was just playing in that space of, you know, I guess I was asking the audience are we running experiments to go from bad to good and stop, or from good to better? And I was playing with that 30 people in the room, and all of a sudden, four or five feet in front of me, this guy stands up, says this is BS, but he didn't use the initials, he actually said the word and walked out of the room. And all of us are looking at him like, and there was no provocation. Now, I admit for the ASQ meeting, I was poking to make sure they were paying attention. Here, I was just plain just, why do we run experiments? So, he stands up, he lets out that word, pretty high volume, storms out of the room.   0:14:42.1 Bill Bellows: Well, at Rocketdyne, you can't... You need a... You have to walk around with someone who works there. You just can't go walk around the place, so I had to quickly get one of my coworkers who was in the room to go escort him to the lobby or else, we're all gonna get fired for having somebody unescorted. So the specification limits limit thinking about improvement, I think they do. I am constantly working with university courses or in my consulting work and acceptability in terms of the quality goal, that this is acceptable, it meets requirements is alive and well and thriving, thriving. And, I think what goes on in organizations, I think there's such a focus on getting things done, that to be done is to be good and is to stop that I could pass my work on to you.   0:15:45.2 Bill Bellows: And, the challenge becomes, even if you're aware that you can walk through the doorway and move from acceptability to desirability, how do you sell that to an organization, which you, what I see in organizations, there's a lot of kicking the can down the road. There's a lot of, and even worse than that, there's a lot of toast scraping going on because there's not a lot of understanding that the person toasting it is over toasting it because all they do is put the toast into the oven. Somebody else takes it out, somebody else scrapes it, somebody else sends it back to a different toaster. And I see a lack of understanding of this because the heads are down. That's part of what I see. What I also see in organizations is, with students is this is their first drop.   0:16:51.0 Bill Bellows: Wherever they are, engineering, manufacturing, quality, they're new, they're excited, they're excited to be on their own, to have an income. And they're taking what they learned in universities, and now, they get to apply it. And I remember what that was like. I worked the summer after getting my bachelor's degree, my last semester, I took a class at heat transfer, the prior semester, took a class in jet engines, and I just fell in love with heat transfer and I fell in love with jet engines. And that summer, I was coming back in the fall to go to graduate school for my master's degree. That summer, I worked for a jet engine company as a heat transfer engineer, I was in heaven.   0:17:37.6 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. That's gotta be the coolest thing.   0:17:40.1 Bill Bellows: Just incredible. So I can imagine people coming out of college, going to work, and you get to apply what you learned. You get to use computers, you get to work with some really cool people, and you're doing what you're doing, and it's a blast. And I think it takes a few years before you start to listen to what the veterans are talking about. And you might hear that they're challenging how decisions are made, they're challenging how the company is run. I think prior to that, your heads are down and you're just the subject matter expert. It could be, you know, engineering and manufacturing, finance, and you're doing what you're doing. Their head is down, you're receiving, you're delivering. I still remember when I went to work with my Ph.D. at the same jet engine company, they hired me back. And, I remember walking down the hallway with a colleague and somebody says, that's the VP of Engineering.   0:18:42.7 Bill Bellows: And I thought, we have a VP of Engineering? I mean, I know we have a Vice President of the United States, but I didn't know anything about titles like that. And I think... And I don't think I'm the only one. I've shared those with some younger folks recently, and they agree, you come in, it's heads down, we don't know management, all I get to work on this great stuff. I go and I, and so what we're, but I think what happens is, I think at some point of time you start to look up and you're hearing what the more senior people that are there are saying you've had some experience. And, I know when people join Rocketdyne, and they would come to my class and I would share these stories that had some things that were, if your experience would be questionable, some other things that are pretty cool.   0:19:34.6 Bill Bellows: And, I just had the feeling and I found out people would walk outta there thinking what you mean that, I mean the things, the use of incentives, like why do we need incentives? But, and what I found was it took a couple of years and I would bump into these same people and they'd say, now I'm beginning to understand what you were talking about and what Dr. Deming was talking about. So I throw that out. For those listeners that are trying to, that are at that phase where you're starting to wonder how are decisions being made? You're wondering what you wanna do in your profession. You're wondering what this Deming stuff is about. A whole lot of this entire series has been targeted at people that are new to Deming's ideas. Or maybe they have some experience, they're getting some exposure through these podcasts either with me and the ones you're doing with John and the others. And so, but the other thing I wanna get into today is this quality thing. I go back to this article. And then I was thinking about this article, things I didn't know when I started researching this article is, this term quality, where does that come from? And the term quality comes from, I got to pull it, I have to scroll through the article. Let me get it, let me get it.   0:21:06.4 Bill Bellows: All right. Here we go. "The word quality," Andrew "has Latin roots, beginning with qualitas coined by Roman philosopher and statesman, Marcus Tullius Cicero, who later became an adversary of Mark Antony." You know, what happened to Cicero? Wasn't pretty.   0:21:32.8 Andrew Stotz: Yeah.   0:21:33.9 Bill Bellows: "Feared by Antony," I wrote, "his power of speech led to his eventual beheading. But long after he introduces fellow Romans to the vocabulary of qualitas, that's quality; quantitas, that's quantity; humanitas, that's humanity; and essentia, which is essential. He's also credited with an extensive list of expressions that translate into English, including difference, infinity, science, and morale. When Plato invented the phrase poiotes for use by his peers." So Plato would've been Greek, "Cicero spoke of qualitas with his peers when focusing on the property of an object, not its quantity." And, what I had in mind there is counting how many things we have, so you come in and you want five apples, five suits, whatever it is, there's the quantity thing. And then what Cicero was trying to do is say, quality is not the number, but quality is a differentiation of not just any suit, not just any...   0:22:53.1 Bill Bellows: And I think that becomes the challenge is, is that still important? So when Dr. Deming came on board in 1980, at the age of 79, when the NBC white paper was written, and people got excited by quality because quality was something that people identified with Japanese products, not with American products.   0:23:19.9 Andrew Stotz: Well, not in 1980.   0:23:21.1 Bill Bellows: Not in 1980...   [laughter]   0:23:22.2 Bill Bellows: I mean, at that time, the auto companies were making a lot of money in repair businesses. And Toyota comes along and says, and the words on the street, our products don't require all that repair. And I thought, yeah. And what was neat about that is when I thought, when you think about differentiation and like how do you sell quality? Because, again, I find it, for the longest time, beginning in 1980, quality was hot. Quality improvement. I mean, the American Society of Quality membership skyrocketed. Their membership has dropped like a rock since then because they don't have this Deming guy around that got them going.   0:24:12.1 Bill Bellows: Now, they're still big in the Six Sigma, but I don't believe their membership is anything like it was, but what I was thinking and getting ready for tonight is the economics of quality is from a consumer, what, at least, when my wife and I buy Toyota, it's a value proposition. It's the idea that if we buy Toyota, in our experience, we're getting a car that doesn't break down as often, is far more reliable. That becomes the differentiation. Also in the first... In the second series, second podcast of this series, we talked about the eight dimensions of quality and David Garvin's work.   0:25:03.2 Bill Bellows: And one of them was features, that a car with cup holders is quality 'cause... And there was a time, and the more cup holders, the better. And that was... And Garvin was saying lots of features is quality. He said, reliability could perceived it as a dimension of quality. Conformance was one of the dimensions, and he attributed that to the traditional thinking of Crosby. Reliability is a thing. And so when it comes to, how do you sell quality today? How do you get people within your organizations to go beyond, 'cause what I see right now is it's almost as if quality has gone back to quantity, that it's gone, that it's lost its appeal. Now, quantity doesn't lose its appeal 'cause we're selling, five of them, 20 of them, 30 of them.   0:26:09.2 Bill Bellows: But I don't get the impression from students and others that I interact with, that quality has big appeal. But, if we convert quality to the ability to do more with less, I mean the, when I'm delivering a higher quality item to you within the organization, that it's easier for you to integrate, to do something with, that's money, that's savings of time. And the question is, well, I guess how can we help make people more aware that when you go through the door of good and go beyond looking good and start to think about opportunities for desirable? And again, what we've said in the past is there's nothing wrong with tools, nothing wrong with the techniques to use them, there's nothing wrong with acceptability, but desirability is a differentiator.   0:27:15.2 Bill Bellows: And then the challenge becomes, if everyone's focused on acceptability, where it makes sense, then within your organization going beyond that, as we've explained, and this is where Dr. Taguchi's work is very critical. Dr. Deming learned about desirability from Dr. Taguchi in 1960. And that's what I think is, for all this interest in Toyota, I guess my question is, why is everybody excited by Toyota? Is it because they do single-minute exchange of dies? I don't think so. Is it because they do mixed model production? They can have, in one production line have a red car followed by a blue car, followed by a green car as opposed to mass production? Or is it because of the incredible reliability of the product? That's my answer, and I'm sticking to it. So...   0:28:14.3 Andrew Stotz: Yeah.   0:28:14.7 Bill Bellows: So what do you think Andrew?   0:28:17.2 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. There's two things that I was thinking about. One of the things I was thinking about is the idea if we're doing good with quality, and maybe we're satisfied with good, I was thinking about the book 'Good to Great,' and like how do you make this breakthrough? And then I was maybe it's good to groundbreaking or good to amazing or whatever. But like, when you really go beyond specification limits and take it to the next level, it's like you're moving from good to great. And one of the things that I see a lot is that, and I talk a lot in my corporate strategy courses with my clients and with my students is this idea that Deming really hit home about, about focusing on your customer, not your competitor.   0:29:06.6 Andrew Stotz: And I just feel like humans have a need to classify everything, to name everything, to label everything. And once they've got that label, that's the specification. That's what we want, they will fixate on that. And whether, I think, you think about all the kids that come out of the out of some meeting with a doctor and say, oh, I'm ADHD. Okay, we got a label now that's good and bad. And so that's where I think it, when I thought about the specification limits limit improvement, I think that, specification to me, when I think about quality, I think about setting a standard, moving to a, a new standard, and then maintaining that standard. And I can see the purpose of limits and controls and trying to understand how do we maintain that. But if we only stay on maintaining that and never move beyond that, then are we really, are we really in pursuit of quality?   0:30:12.0 Andrew Stotz: Now, on the other hand, when I think about the customers of my coffee factory, CoffeeWORKS and they want the exact same experience every single morning. Now, if we can make tests and do PDSAs to improve how we're doing that, less resources, better inputs and all that, great, but they do not want a difference. And I was just thinking about it also in relation to my evaluation masterclass bootcamp, where I still have a lot of variation coming out at the end of the bootcamp. Now, in the beginning, this is bootcamp number 19. So I've done this a lot. In the beginning, man, I would have, someone really terrible and someone really great, and I wasn't satisfied. So I kept trying to improve the content, the process, the feedback to make sure that by the time they get to the end, but I was just frustrated yesterday thinking there's still a lot of variation that, and I'm not talking about, the variation of a personality or something.   0:31:15.2 Andrew Stotz: I'm just talking about the variation of understanding and implementing what they're learning. And then I was thinking as I was at the park running this morning, I was thinking like, what makes Toyota so great is that there is very little variation of the 10 million cars that they've produced last year. And how impressive that is when all I'm trying to do is do it in a small little course. So I don't know, those are some things that were coming into my head when I thought about what you're talking about.   0:31:44.6 Bill Bellows: But no, you're right, in terms of the coffee, and I think you brought up a couple of good points. One is when the customer wants that flavor, whatever that level is, now, but that, I don't know how, anything about measuring taste, but there could be, within the range, within that, when they say they want that flavor, I mean, that could still have, could be a pretty broad spectrum. So maybe there's the ability to make it more consistent within that, if that's possible.   0:32:27.8 Andrew Stotz: Yeah, I think that, I think, like we have a blend we call Hunter's Brew, and I drink that every single morning and I can say, yeah, there's a variation, but it's a small enough variation that it doesn't bother me at all. And I think it doesn't bother our customer. Could we get more conformity to that? Yes, I think we could reduce that. Is it worth it? That's another question. We're looking at some automated equipment, some automated roasting equipment that would bring automation that would allow us to reduce that variation a bit. Will the customer notice that or not? Maybe. But the customer will definitely notice if we're outside of specification limits or if it's burnt...   0:33:12.7 Bill Bellows: Yes.   0:33:13.5 Andrew Stotz: As an example, and we're still shipping it, you know, they'll definitely notice that. And we have our mechanisms to try to measure that so that we are within those limits. So I do see, I see that the function of that to me is like, okay, in fact, in any business, you're constantly chasing and putting out fires. I mean, there's always things going on in every business owner's situation.   0:33:38.6 Bill Bellows: Right.   0:33:39.9 Andrew Stotz: And so there's at points where it's like, okay, can you just keep that in specification limit for right now while I get over to here and fix how we're gonna make sure that this is at another level where that is, I would consider it kind of an improvement versus maintaining. But I don't know, I'm just, I'm riffing here, but those are some things in my head.   0:34:00.0 Bill Bellows: No, what I hear you talking about is if we shift from quality management to, I mean, what desirability is about is looking at things as a system. Acceptability is about looking at things in isolation and saying, this is good, this is good, this is good, this is good. Not necessarily with a lot of focus of how is that used. So if we move away from quality and really what we're talking about is a better way to run an organization with a sense of connectedness that we're, we can talk about working together. Well, it's hard to work together if the fundamental mindset is: here, Andrew, my part is good and I wash my hands of it. When you come back and say, well, Bill, I'm having trouble integrating it, that's more like working separately.   0:35:07.2 Bill Bellows: So if we shift the focus from quality, which could be really narrow, it could be an entry point, but I think if we step back, I mean the title of Dr. Deming's last book was 'The New Economics,' the idea which has to be, which to me, which is about a resource. The better we manage the organization as a system, the more we can do with less. And relative to the quality of the taste and yeah, the customers want this and maybe we can make that even more consistent simultaneously. Can we use control charts to see special causes before they get too far downstream that allows us to maintain that consistency? That'd be nice. Then can we figure out ways to expand our capacity as we gain more? So there's a whole lot to do. So the organization is not static. And simultaneously the challenge becomes how do we stay ahead of others who might be trying to do the same thing? Dr. Deming would say, be thankful for a good competitor. Are we just gonna sit there and say, oh, we're the only coffee... We're the only ones in house that know how to do this. What is our differentiator? And I think having a workforce that thinks in terms of how the activities are connected, that are constantly involved in improvement activities.   0:36:45.1 Bill Bellows: Short of that, what you're hoping is that no one comes along in... Remember the book, it was required reading within Boeing, sadly, 'Who Moved My Cheese?'   0:36:58.2 Andrew Stotz: It was required reading at Pepsi when I was there, and I hated that book. We had another one called 'The Game of Work,' which I just was so annoyed with, but that 'Who Moved My Cheese?' I never, never really enjoyed that at all.   0:37:07.0 Bill Bellows: We used to laugh about, within Rocketdyne 'cause, and for those who aren't aware of the book, the storyline is that there's a bunch of mice and they're living in their little cubby holes and every day they go through the mouse hole, try to avoid the cat, find the cheese, bring the cheese back into their cubby hole, and that life is good. And then one day, somebody steals the cheese, moves the cheese and one's kind of frantic and the other's like, oh, not to worry, Andrew, I'm sure it was taken by a nice person and I'm sure they'll return it. So I wouldn't lose sleep over that. That's okay. That's okay. And then kind of the moral was another company is stealing your cheese and you're sitting there thinking everything's okay, and next thing you know, you're outta business because you weren't paying attention. And so the, and it was, this is written for adults with cartoons of cheese. That's how you appeal... That's how...   0:38:15.9 Andrew Stotz: Yeah. So that's what got me annoyed about it because it felt like, just tell me what you're trying to tell me, okay. Instead of telling me this story. But yeah, it was a used to create the burning platform concept that was used... I know at Pepsi when I was there, they talked about the burning platform, the level of urgency, we're gonna get, and, and there's, I kind of understand where they were coming from with it, but yeah.   0:38:44.7 Bill Bellows: But what is interesting is nowhere in the book was a strategy to be the ones moving the cheese. What it was more like is don't be in an environment where somebody else moves the cheese. Don't be that company. And I thought, no, you wanna be the company that's moving the cheese. But that was, maybe that's an advanced book that hasn't come out yet.   [laughter]   0:39:08.6 Bill Bellows: But really...   0:39:10.5 Andrew Stotz: There's some work for you, Bill.   0:39:12.6 Bill Bellows: But, but that's what... I mean what Dr. Deming is talking about is having an environment where you have that capacity on an ongoing basis. First of all, you're not sitting back stopping at good, thinking that what you're doing is always acceptable. It's trying to do more with that. Anyway, that's what I wanted to explore today. Again, there's nothing wrong with specification limits. I told the gentleman that night, specification limits are provided to allow for variation, to allow for commerce, to allow for suppliers to provide things that meet requirements. Then the question becomes, is there value in doing something with a variation within the specification limits? Is there value in moving that variation around? And that's the desirability focus. That is what Ford realized Toyota was doing a lot, is that then improves the functionality of the resulting product, it improves its reliability. All of that is the possibility of going beyond meeting requirements. So it's not that we shouldn't have, we need specifications. Why? Because there's variation. And if we didn't allow for variation, we couldn't have commerce because we can't deliver exactly anything. So I just want, just for some...   0:40:34.9 Andrew Stotz: Okay, all right. That's a good one.   0:40:37.4 Bill Bellows: All right.   0:40:38.2 Andrew Stotz: And I'll wrap it up with a little humor.   0:40:40.4 Bill Bellows: Go ahead.   0:40:40.5 Andrew Stotz: There were some parody books that came out, in relation to 'Who Moved My Cheese.' In 2002, the book 'Who Cut the Cheese' by Stilton Jarlsberg, which was good. And in 2011 was, 'I Moved Your Cheese' by Deepak Malhotra. So there you go. A little humor for the day. Bill, on behalf of everybody at The Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for this discussion. And for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. And if you want to keep in touch with Bill, just find him on LinkedIn. He responds. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. I just love this quote. I think about it all the time. "People are entitled to joy in work."  

In this episode of the Workforce Connections Podcast, host Jaime Cruz welcomes Leslie Mujica, Executive Director and Chief Marketing Officer for the Southern Nevada International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA) Labor Management Cooperation Committee (LMCC), also known as Las Vegas Power Professionals. Leslie shares her inspiring journey, from being born in Guatemala City and immigrating to the U.S. as a child to attending Hollywood High School and earning her degrees in Journalism (PR focus) and Sociology from Cal State Northridge, followed by a master's in public administration from UNLV. Her dedication to community outreach and workforce development has made her a key advocate for skilled union jobs, safety, and workforce training in Southern Nevada.Leslie's career path took her through the construction industry, where she discovered her passion for labor relations and workforce advocacy. She speaks about her early work experiences, starting at McDonald's at 15 (after forging her mom's signature for a work permit!) and balancing jobs in retail and the movie theater industry while pursuing higher education. After working in construction management, she transitioned into her current leadership role, where she champions union careers, apprenticeship programs, and industry safety standards. Leslie also serves on multiple community boards, including the Governor's Workforce Development Board, the Clark County Planning Commission, and the Governor's Regional Transmission Coordination Task Force Advisory Board. Outside of work, Leslie enjoys watching sports, cheering for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Boston Bruins, and Las Vegas Aces, and attending NASCAR and NHRA races. She dedicates much of her free time to community engagement and mentorship, believing strongly in giving back. When asked about advice for young professionals, she encourages them to never give up, strive to be the best version of themselves, and not let others steal their peace.Leslie also highlights upcoming workforce events, such as the Junior Achievement Inspire Event at UNLV (Feb 19-20) and NCA/AGC Career Day (Feb 28), which provide hands-on opportunities for students and young professionals. She leaves listeners with two powerful quotes that reflect her dedication to growth and service: "Success must include two things: the development of an individual to his utmost potential and a contribution of some kind to the world" (Eleanor Roosevelt) and "My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive—with passion, compassion, humor, and style" (Maya Angelou). These words perfectly capture Leslie's journey and commitment to building a stronger workforce and community.Las Vegas Power Professionals:Las Vegas Power Professionals – Leading the Electrical Construction IndustryUpcoming Events & InitiativesJunior Achievement Inspire Event – February 19-20 at UNLVJA Inspire Nevada | Junior Achievement of Southern NevadaNCA/AGC Career Day – February 28Construction Career Day 2024-2025Union Apprenticeship Programs – Showcasing hands-on opportunities for young professionals

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. In this vintage APEX episode, Host editor Swati Rayasam continues to highlight the podcast Continental Shifts created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owoimaha- Church. They embark on a voyage in search of self, culture and the ancestors. Last time we featured the ConShifts podcast, Gabriel and Estella gave a quick introduction and talked about wayfinding in the context of their work. Tonight on the podcast they're talking about anti-blackness in the PI community with Courtney Savali Andrews and Jason Fennel. Just a quick note that both Courtney and Jason's audio quality isn't the best on this podcast. So it might get a little bumpy. Enjoy the show. Episode Transcripts – Anti-blackness in the PI Community with Courtney-Savali Andrews and Jason Finau Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   Swati Rayasam: [00:00:35] Good evening everyone. You're listening to APEX express Thursday nights at 7:00 PM. My name is Swati Rayasam and I'm the special editor for this episode. Tonight, we're going to continue to highlight the podcast continental shifts created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owemma Church who embark on a voyage in search of self, culture and the ancestors. Last time we featured the ConShifts podcast, Gabriel and Estella gave a quick introduction and talked about wayfinding in the context of their work. Tonight on the podcast they're talking about anti-blackness in the PI community with Courtney Savali Andrews and Jason Fennel. Just a quick note that both Courtney and Jason's audio quality isn't the best on this podcast. So it might get a little bumpy. Enjoy the show.   Courtney-Savali Andrews & intro music: [00:01:32] These issues are fluid, these questions are fluid. So I mean, I had to go and try get a PHD just to expand conversation with my family .   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:01:51] How do we uproot anti-blackness in API spaces? On today's episode, we explore this critical question with two incredible guests. Courtney and Jason share their stories, experiences, and reflections on ways our API communities can be more affirming of black identity and black humanity.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:02:13] What up, what up? Tālofa lava, o lo'u igoa o Estella. My pronouns are she/her/hers, sis, and uso.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:02:23] What's good, family? This is Gabriel, kumusta? Pronouns he/him.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:02:29] I have the great pleasure tonight of introducing our guest today, Jason Finau and Courtney-Savali Andrews. Jason is a social worker with a focus on mental health and substance abuse based in San Francisco. Courtney is an assistant professor of musicology at Oberlin College in Ohio. But I also want to be very intentional about not centering professions above who we are and who we come from. So I'm going to go to Jason first. Jason, please share with us who you are, how you identify and who are your people.   Jason Finau: [00:02:58] Hi everyone. Estella, Gabriel, again, thank you so much for hosting us in this space. My name is Jason. I identify as black and Samoan. My father is a black American from Mississippi and my mother is from American Samoa, specifically in the village of Nua and Sektonga. As a military, brat kind of grew up back and forth between Hawaii and Southern California. So I have a very strong love for the ocean and where my peoples come from. So, very excited to be on your podcast.   Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:03:27] [Speaking Samoan] Tālofa lava I am Courtney-Savali Andrews from Seattle, Washington. I identify as an African American Samoan. My father is from Seattle, born and raised in Seattle, from Opelika, Alabama. That's where his roots are, and my mother is from American Samoa from the villages of Nwoma Sitsona and Aminawe. And Jason and I are maternal cousins.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:03:59] I did not know that. [Laughs] Good to know. Actually, just for some context, Jason and Courtney, you were one of my blessings in 2020. I received an email message about a space called Black + Blue in the Pacific, and it was a flier for a Zoom gathering with other black Pacifica peoples and I jumped on the call, not knowing what to expect, but it was only one of two times I can remember in my entire life feeling truly seen as black Samoan, and not having to separate those two or shrink any part of myself or who I am. So Jason, can you please share what the space is about and how it came to be?   Jason Finau: [00:04:42] Sure. That warms my heart that that was your reaction to participating in that space. So this was kind of born out of all of the protests against racial injustices across the country, especially with George Floyd and the other countless, unfortunately, countless deaths of black men and women at the hands of police brutality. And EPIC, which is the Empowering Pacific Island Communities, a nonprofit organization out in Long Beach reached out to me to kind of talk about how we can address anti-blackness within the Pacific Island communities in speaking with Tavae Samuelu, who is the executive director of EPIC and Teresa Siagatonu who is an amazing creative poet, artist, everything. We got together, started talking about like, well what was the real purpose for this group? Why are they reaching out to me specifically in the work that I do? And I think that part of that came from the fact that I am a licensed clinical social worker and that I do have a background in mental health and working in trauma, generational trauma and looking at how we as human beings look to take care of ourselves in a community that we as black human beings look to take care of ourselves in a community that doesn't value who we are and what that looks like for those of us who belongs to two different communities, one being the black and then the other being the Pacific Island community. And then even, you know, bringing that down even further to the, within the Pacific Island community, being in the Polynesian community and then being specifically in the Samoan community.   So in talking with that, the first person I thought about when they asked me to facilitate a group where we can gather other individuals who identified as being black and Pacific Islander, the first person I thought about co-facilitating this group with was my cousin Courtney-Savali Andrews. Just given the fact that she has done so much in research and education and understanding about PI cultures, with the work that she's done here in the States, as well as out in the Pacific, out in New Zealand and Samoa, and I'll let her talk more about that, but this is another part of the reasons why I thought about her instantly, and also because she and I have had these conversations about what it means to be black and Samoan, and to identify as both, and to sometimes have to navigate being one over the other in spaces, and even in spaces where It's a white space and having to figure out like which one are we like code switching between. So in thinking about this group and in thinking about this space, you know, one of the larger conversations that came out of those who engage in this group, that we have every second Tuesday of the month is that representation of seeing other folks who are also black and Pacific Islander who aren't related to us. And so these are the conversations that Courtney and I have had. I've had the same conversations with other first cousins who also happened to be black and Samoan, but I've never actually have met like one hand I can count on how many times I've met another person who identified as black and Pacific Islander. And so being able to host this space and to focus it, to start off that focus on anti-blackness and to talk about how we're all working to deal with what it means to say Black Lives Matter when someone who visually presents as Samoan or someone who visually presents as Tongan or any other of the Pacific Islands. Like, what does it mean for them to say Black Lives Matter, when those of us who identify as both black and Pacific Islanders aren't really feeling how that message is as substantial as they may be trying to, to come across.   Being able to gather in a space where we see other folks who look like us, who shared experiences that were so similar to what we have shared and what we have gone but also very different. And looking at how, you know, some folks grew up identifying primarily with the Samoan culture, whereas other folks grew up primarily identifying with the black culture and not being able to reconcile either one. So seeing that spectrum of experiences was able to provide us with an opportunity to grow for each other, to support each other, and to learn from each other. I was very thankful and grateful for having, for EPIC being able to step in and seeing that as an organization that does focus on empowering Pacific Island communities that they understood that when we look at the micro communities within that larger macro level of a PI community, looking at that individual black and PI cohort and understanding that that experience is different than the general experience. And so they wanted to make sure that we're facilitating those conversations, that we're holding safe spaces for those conversations, and that we're encouraging those conversations. So I really do appreciate them so much for that, and not taking it upon themselves to tell us how we should be engaging in these conversations, how we should be feeling, and asking us what we should be doing to get PIs to understand the impact of anti-blackness, within the, in the PI community for us personally.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:09:29] And as you were talking, I was laughing at myself thinking, yeah, I can count on one hand too, aside from my brothers, the other black Samoans or Polys I know, and I had an experience in college as a freshman, Cal State Northridge, in my EOP cohort. I met another Leilani, Leilani is my middle name, I met another Leilani who happened to be half black, half Samoan, also from South LA. And we saw each other and ran to each other like we were long lost siblings or something [laughs] and we just knew, and it was the first time I had seen someone who looked like me that was not The Rock. [Jason laughs] Like, the only person to look to, that was yeah. I don't know, it wasn't enough to have, you know, The Rock as my only representation. I appreciate him, but definitely wasn't enough. And shout out to EPIC and Tavae, because I think I mentioned earlier, being in Black + Blue was, it was like the second time in my life. I can say that I felt seen and one of the first times I felt seen as Samoan was at 30. I happen to be in a workshop led by Tavae on organizing PI communities. That was the first time I met her, but I left her session like in tears because I felt a whole part of whatever was happening in the conversation, the festivities, I could be like my full self.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:11:00] And those spaces are so important for us, right? To have that community, to be able to connect. So Jason, I appreciate you sharing that origin story of Black + Blue. And my question for Courtney actually, to bring in some of your experience into the space. Why was it important to create or forge a space such as this one with Black + Blue?   Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:11:22] Well, I will say that I've had the privilege of a different experience having met several African American and African Pacific Islanders in Seattle through my experience in the US. And I mean, this goes all the way back to my childhood. I went to a predominantly, and this is going to sound pretty interesting, but in the 70s, I went to a predominantly Filipino-Italian parish that was budding a Samoan congregation and that particular congregation was connected to the Samoan congregational church that my mother was affiliated with. So, of course, this is family based, right? But growing up in that particular setting, I was affiliated with many cultural dance groups, particularly Polynesian dance troupes and such, and through those various communities I would run into many particularly Samoan and African American children. So that was something that was pretty normalized in my upbringing. On the other side of that, my father's family was very instrumental in various liberation movements, affiliations with the Black Panthers. And so I also grew up in a very black nationalist leaning family. So, I mean, I couldn't run away from just anything that had to do with considering identity politics and what it meant to be “both and” so the wrestle started really early with me. I also want to say that because I was indoctrinated in so many questions of what it meant to be whatever it is that I was at the time. Cause you know these issues are fluid and the questions are fluid. So that extended all the way throughout even my educational journey having pursued not just a musical degree, but also degrees in cultural studies. It was the only place that I could really wrestle and engage with literature that I was already introduced to as a child, but to, you know, have opportunities to deep dive into that literature, highlighting certain figures, engaging with the writers of these literature. So by the time I got to college, it was piano performance and Africana studies for me. In the arts, through my music through musical theater performance, my Polynesian dance background, it all just kind of jumbled up into this journey of always seeking spaces that allow for that type of inquiry.   So, after undergrad, this turns into a Fullbright study and then eventually a PHD in Music and Pacific and Samoan studies. In that journey, I did not think that the outcome would be as rich as it became. I did seek out one of my supervisors, who was Teresia Teaiwa. A very prominent poet, spoken word artist and scholar, and she was the founder of the Pacific Studies program at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. So I went to study underneath her. She actually is African American Banaban so from the Kiribati islands and amongst her like astounding output of work, she reached out to me and four other African American Pacific women historian artists, like we all share the same general identities to start an organization, or at least an affinity conversationalist group, called Black Atlantic, Blue Pacific. This was back in 2014 when she started the conversation with us again, I had an opportunity to now, across the world, connect with other African American Pacific peoples that were rooted in other spaces. So I was the one who was, you know, born and raised in the US But then we had Joy Enomoto an African American Hawaiian who's based in Hawaii. Ojeya Cruz, African American [?] and LV McKay, who is African American Maori based in Aotearoa. So we got together and started having very specific conversations around our responses to Black Lives Matter as it was gaining much momentum in 2015. And it was my supervisor Teresia, that said, “You have to open up about how you feel,” and particularly because I was so far away from what home was for me, she offered up a space for me to not only explore further what my response to the movement was, but also just my identity in tandem with the rest of them. So we actually began to create performance pieces along with scholarly writing about that particular moment and went to this festival of Pacific arts in 2016 which was in Guam and pretty much had a very ritualistic talk. It wasn'tinteractive, it was our space to share what our experience and stories were with an audience who did not have a chance to engage with us on it. It was us just claiming our space to say that we exist in the first place. And that was a very powerful moment for me and for the others. So to connect this back to four years later, when Jason reaches out about Black + Blue in the Pacific, the name of this group actually came from the publication that we put together for that 2016 FESPAC presentation. It really was a moment that I actually didn't think would extend out in the ways that it has, but it also felt like a duty to extend that conversation and Teresia Teaiwa has since passed, but it felt like, you know, this is what, this is the work that, that I've given you to do. So it just felt very natural to join with my cousin in this work and realize what this conversation could be across the water again, back home in the US.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:18:09] Listening to you I was I don't want to say envious, but I didn't have that same experience growing up. And, you know, oftentimes I wonder where I would be in my identity crisis, which seems like it has lasted for so long, if I had shared in similar experience as a child. I grew up in predominantly black communities and all black apostolic school and I just, I didn't have other, I mean I ran up to the one girl I saw as a college freshman and squeezed her. So that tells you a lot, but I shared similar experiences as an undergrad or in college in majoring in black studies, majoring in theater, musical theater and that being the space where I got to at least express some of who I am or who I want it to be, but definitely trying to create what you experienced or had for my daughter now, trying to make sure that she gets to be as pro black and black and proud as she wants to be rocking her Angela Davis fro while also wearing her Puletasi, trying really hard to make sure that she has all of that. Growing up, I never felt like I was welcomed in Samoan or Poly spaces or fully in black spaces either. I felt like folks had to make a point to other me or erase part of my identity for their convenience. And it's only now that I am learning who my Samoan relatives are, what are our namesake or the villages that my family comes from and reconnecting with aunts and uncles and my grandparents through the powers of Facebook. But over the years, it's been a long like push and pull. And it's because our last names are, our names are very distinctive. And so when you put that name in there suddenly like, “Oh, I found all these relatives.” Like I didn't have to do the ancestry thing because you put the name in on Facebook and all of a sudden you find all your cousins and you're seeing childhood pictures where like your own kid can't tell who's who so I know we're related. You know what I mean? But anyway, like over the years it's been this like back and forth of me deleting relatives and then, you know, letting them come back because I don't know how to broach the conversation about their anti-blackness. I don't know what to tell them when they post something that is very racist and absolutely not okay. And I don't know what to do other than, you know, I'm just going to delete you and then maybe 2 years from now, I'll, as you as a friend, again, we could try this one more time. And I have one aunt in particular, a great aunt who there was just a misunderstanding. I didn't respond to a message right away after not seeing her since I was maybe 5 or 6. I can't remember. But in my 20s, I'm getting married, she's sending me messages and I didn't respond right away. And the response I got included her calling me the N word. And so then I'm like, “Oh, okay.” I was like, trying to open up and let you all back into my life. And here we are again. So I'm done. And so I spent a lot of time, like picking and choosing who I was going to let in or not and so I've started this journey at 30. I want to learn my language. I want to figure out who is in my family tree. Who are my people? Where do I come from? And be selective about who I choose to actually grow relationships with. Like I can still know who they are, where they come from, where I come from, what my roots are, and also make choices about who gets to be in my life. And I'm only just now realizing that at 32, as I try to learn my language and reclaim what is mine, what belongs to me. All of that aside, can you relate to any of that? And if so, is there an experience that you feel comfortable sharing?   Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:22:00] I absolutely relate to that, to the extent, I mean, I had to go and try to get a PhD just to expand conversation with my family and I had to do it across the water. I got to a point where, just asking questions, about, you know, cultural matters, or even trying to navigate my way through a family event, while I've had many wonderful experiences, just trying to, again dig deep to understand why are we who we are, why are our family issues what they are those kinds of things, I would always hit a particular wall that was met with either like, “Why do you even care?” Or “Oh, that's not important.” But it was, this is not important for you. And I, you know, took that with a lot of like, “Well, what's that mean? I can learn anything.” And then again, that, that comes from this, like I said, black nationalist attitude of I am wholly wonderful, just in my skin as I am. Therefore, I'm smart. I'm, you know, all of those kinds of things. So it became a learning quest for me to say, not only am I going to go after learning as much as I can. I'm going to get the highest degree you could possibly get in it only to now reach a point. I mean, I'm 10 years into this program and it's been the one-two punch all the way through. And now I'm on the other side of this journey, realizing that even in that quest, this really doesn't change many of my conversations if I go back into my family, nor is it really looked upon as a notable achievement, which is to be questioned because it's like, I've done everything that I possibly can. But at the same time, it really does feel like this is the black experience as it connects to respectability politics. On another side of thing I suppose, try to aspire to be a race woman for the Pacific and specifically the Samoan identity. And that's just a really, really tall order. Right. All that to say, yes, I absolutely identify and realize that my conversation can only be had with those who are open to have it. I think that right now in this particular moment, we have more Pacific peoples and more people in our families that are willing to at least sit at the table and have conversation because they have new language around what they are wanting to know and what they would like to see for their own community. So that's really, really refreshing and inspiring.   Jason Finau: [00:24:46] I agree. I definitely [have] a lot of experience and feeling in feeling othered and feeling that my black identity was conveniently left out in a lot of conversations and a lot of learning lessons, I think, growing up. In contrast to Courtney's upbringing, I was born and raised on the Samoan side. It was everything Samoan related. My first language was Samoan. My mom stopped speaking Samoan to me at home because she recognized that I was struggling in school early on like in pre- k, kindergarten, first grade, because I couldn't keep up with the other students and they didn't have ESL for Samoan speaking kids. So, I think as a protective factor, my mother just started to distance me from the Samoan language in order to excel in school. And I think that a lot of having been able to grow up in a very large Samoan family and engaging in a lot of the traditional activities and cultural practices and doing the dances and going to a local [?] church. Having that has always been great but I think that seeing the way or listening to the way that other Samoans would refer to their own family members who were black and Pacific Islander or black and Samoan in those families, a lot of the times the language is just so derogatory, but they, that language never used to, or was never directed at me. And I think that part of that was because that people knew who my mother was and they knew who my grandparents were and I think I was insulated from a lot of that negative talk, negative behaviors against those who identified as black and then like the children that were products of those Samoan and black relationships. I reflect on that quite often because I think that when listening to a lot of the stories that I've been able to bear witness to in our black and PI group. You know, like I mentioned before that we are seeing like two different, two different upbringings, two different ways that people experience their lives as being black and Samoan. And for me, it was like, because I was wrapped in that Samoan culture, that black identity of mine was never really addressed or talked about. That then it made me feel like I just, I'm a Samoan boy. I don't identify as someone who was black. I didn't identify as someone who was black or was comfortable with identifying as someone who was black until my 20s. Late 20s, early 30s, you know when I introduced myself, it was always Samoan first black second, everything that I did, instead of joining the Black Student Union group, I joined all the Asian and Pacific Island groups at any school that I went to again, as I said, being a military brat, I went to a lot of schools growing up before college. And then in college a lot of different universities. And when I went to those programs, like in high school and junior high, I'd always be, I would always join the Asian Pacific Island groups because I didn't feel comfortable being a part of the black, any of the Black Student Unions or any black affinity groups, because again like I said my for me internally, I was Samoan and that's where I wanted to be. I didn't recognize for myself because I could see it in the mirror that I presented as someone like a black male and I think that part of the reason why I also steered more towards Asian and Pacific Island groups was because I wanted people to see me as this black guy walking into your Asian and Pacific Island group, who also is Samoan but you don't know that until I tell you. And that was for me to share and for me to just sit there for them to stare at me until I made that truth known. And that was my way of addressing that issue within the PI community. But it was also a way for me to run away from that black identity to hide from that black identity because I wasn't, I didn't want to be identified that way when I was in the API group. It's because I wanted to be identified as Samoan and not black, even though I presented. So in thinking about how a lot of those conversations went, I think one situation in particular really stuck out for me. And that's when I did a study abroad in New Zealand during undergrad and, you know, there's this whole thing about the term mea uli in Samoan to describe someone who is black and Samoan and that was the term that I remember using and being told. As a kid, growing up, my mom used it, didn't seem like there was an issue. All family members, everyone in the community is using it. So I just assumed that is exactly how it was. I never had the wherewithal to think about how to break down that word, mea uli, and think of it as like a black thing. So I was in New Zealand studying abroad and I met some students, some Samoan students in one of my classes. They invited me to their church, the local [?] church. I was like, oh great, I'll go to church while I'm here. Satisfy my mom. She's back home in Oceanside, California, telling me that I need to go to church, that I need to focus on my studies. So I do this. I go with them. And as they're introducing me to folks at their church, when I describe myself as mea uli I mean, you can hear a pin drop. It was like, these people were I don't know, embarrassed for me, embarrassed for themselves to hear me use that word to describe myself. It was just, I was, I don't think I've ever been more embarrassed about my identity than I was in that one moment, because then my friend had to pull me off to the side, just like “Oh, we don't use that word here.” Like she's like, schooling me on how derogatory that term was for those Samoans in New Zealand who identify as black and Samoan. And mind you, the friends that I was with, they were, they're both sides of the family are Samoan, and so this is a conversation that they're having with me as people who aren't, who don't identify as black and Samoan. And so then when I, I brought that back to my mom and I was just like, “Did you know this? Like, how could you let me go through life thinking this, saying this, using this word, only to come to this point in my adult life where now I'm being told that it's something derogatory.” That was a conversation that my mom and I had that we were forced to have. And I think for her, very apologetic on her end, I think she understood where I was coming from as far as like the embarrassment piece. But from her, from her perspective and her side of it, she didn't speak English when she first got to the United States either. She graduated from nursing school in American Samoa, had been in American Samoa that whole time, born and raised, came to the United States, California, didn't speak a lick of English, and was just trying to figure out her way through the whole navigating a prominently white society and trying to figure out English. And so I think language was one of the least of her worries, as far as that might have been because it's just like coupled on with a bunch of things. I mean, this is a Samoan woman who doesn't speak very much English, who is now in the military, in the Navy. So, in an occupation that is predominantly male, predominantly white and predominantly English speaking. And so, for her, there was a lot of things going on for herself that she had to protect herself from. And I think she tried to use some of those same tactics to protect me. But not understanding that there is now this added piece of blackness, this black identity that her child has to navigate along with that Samoan identity. And so, we've had some really great conversations around the choices that she had to make that she felt like in the moment were the right choices to keep me safe, to get me what I needed in order to graduate high school on time unlike a lot of our other family members, to go to college, you know, again, being the first one to have a bachelor's degree and the first one to have a master's degree, within our family tree. And so, a lot of the successes that I've had in life to be able to get to this point and have these conversations and to facilitate a group like black and PI, Black + Blue in the Pacific and to be on a podcast with all of you, were the sacrifices and choices that my mom had to make back.   I say all that because those, the choices that she had to make, she wasn't able to make them in an informed way that would have promoted my black identity along with my Samoan identity. And so having to navigate that on my own. I didn't grow up with my dad, so I don't have any connection. I didn't have any connection to the black side of my family. And so I didn't have, and then growing up in Hawaii and in Southern California, primary like San Diego, in the education piece, like the majority of my teachers were white, or in San Diego, a lot of them were Latin, Latinx, and then in Hawaii, a lot of them, they were either white or they were some type of Asian background like a lot of Chinese, a lot of Japanese teachers, but I didn't have any, I never had a Polynesian teacher, Pacific Islander teacher, and I never had a black teacher until I got to college, and then seeing that representation also had an impact on me. I think one of my most favorite sociology professors at California State University in San Marcos. Dr. Sharon Elise was just this most phenomenal, eye opening, unapologetically black woman. And it was just like the first time I was ever able to like be in the company of that type of presence and it was glorious. And I think it was part of the reason why I switched from pre med to social work. In thinking about, and going back to your original question about an experience of being othered or feeling like your black identity is erased in that company. Like I said, I walk confidently amongst and within Samoan communities, but not nearly as confidently as I do in black spaces. And even when I'm in those Samoan spaces, I'll walk into it, but then the first thing I'll do is share my last name. And then the moment I say my last name, then it's like, okay, now we can all breathe. I've been accepted. They know who I am because of who my family is based on the name that I provide. When I go into a black space, I don't have that. I don't have that convenience. I don't have that luxury. And so I think that's another reason why I was okay with allowing that black identity, my black identity to be ignored, to be silenced, to be othered because it was just easier. I think I had a lot more luxuries being on the Samoan side, than being on the black side. And now where I am today, both personally and professionally, a much, much more confident conversation can be had for myself, with myself about my identity. And then having those same conversations with my family and with my friends and in thinking about hard conversations with family members around anti-blackness, around the use of derogatory language, or around just the fact like, because we are half Samoan that we could never fully appreciate the Samoan culture and tradition. But I look at my cousins who are full Samoan, who barely speak the language, who barely graduated from high school or like are in situations where they aren't able to fully utilize an identity that can bring them the fullness or richness of their background. I'm like, all right, well, if you want to have conversations about someone who was half versus full, and then looking at those folks who are back on the island and what their perception of full Samoans are on the continental US and all of those things, like, there's so many layers between the thought processes of those who consider themselves Samoan or even just Pacific Islander, and what does that mean to them based on where they're from. And then you add that biological piece, then it's like, okay, well those who are on the continental US or outside of American Samoa or the independent nation of Samoa, what does that mean for them to be Samoan [unintelligible].   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:35:15] One of the things that you said that really resonated with me was when you were sharing the story of how your mother had, as you said, tactics to protect you as she navigated in these predominantly white spaces. That reminds me of a quote by Dr. Cornel West, who talked about having our cultural armor on. And when Courtney was sharing her story, I was thinking about how there's also educational armor and linguistic armor, and we put on layers of armor to protect ourselves in these white supremacist institutions and spaces. So both of you sharing your story and journey really was powerful for me, and also grounding it in the formative years of your educational journey and your race consciousness journey. One of the pivotal factors in my evolution and my race consciousness was being a part of the Black Student Union in my undergraduate school. And I'm Filipino, my mother's from Manila, my father's from Pampanga province. And it was actually the black community that embraced and raised my consciousness around my own liberation as an Asian person, as a Filipino person. So I'm a student in many ways, and my intellectual and spiritual evolution was really informed by the black liberation movement.   Swati Rayasam: [00:36:43] You are tuned in to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno and online at kpfa.org. Coming up is “March 4 Education” on the Anakbayan Long Beach May Day mixtape.   SONG   Swati Rayasam: [00:37:03] That was “Find my Way” by Rocky Rivera on her Nom de Guerre album. And before that was “March 4 Education” on the Anakbayan Long Beach May Day mixtape. And now back to the ConShifts podcast.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:44:12] So this is all very powerful and grounds us back in the topic that we're trying to unpack. So I have a question for both of you on how do we begin to interrogate anti-blackness in Asian and Pacific Island communities, specifically among Polynesians, Asians, Micronesians. How might we uproot anti-blackness in the spaces that we find ourselves?   Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:44:36] I think we need to start with identifying what blackness is in these conversations before we get to the anti part. Are we talking about skin? Are we talking about, you know, cultural expression? Are we talking about communities, black communities within our own respective nations? So one of the things that in thinking through this, today's conversation, you know, I was thinking that, you know, starting with identifying our indigenous black communities at home, you know, in pre-colonial times. And even as we have the development of the nation state, just seeing where people are in their understandings of those communities would be a wonderful place to start before we even get to the drama that is white supremacy in the US and how that monster manifests here and then spreads like a rash to the the rest of the colonial world. I would really start with like, what are we talking about in terms of black and blackness before we go into how people are responding in a way to be against it.   Jason Finau: [00:45:52] Yeah, that was solid Court. Definitely providing that definition of what blackness is in order to figure out exactly what anti-blackness is. Kind of adding to that is looking around at the various organizations that are out there. When we go back to the earlier examples of being in API spaces, but primarily seeing more Asian faces or Asian presenting faces, thinking about, and I'm just thinking about like our Black + Blue group, like, there are so many of us who identify as black and Pacific Islander or black and Asian. And yet the representation of those folks in spaces where nonprofit organizations, community organizations are trying to do more to advance the API agenda items to make sure that we get more access to resources for our specific communities, whether that's education, healthcare, employment resources, all of that. When we look at those organizations who are pushing that for our community, you just see such a lack of black and brown faces who are part of those conversations. And I would have to say that for those organizations and for the people who will participate in any of those activities that they promote. To look around and not see one person who presents as black and may identify as black and PI seems kind of problematic to me because, you know, I used to think that growing up in the 80s and 90s that outside of my cousins, there were no other black and PI people. I'm learning now as I get older and again with our Black + Blue group, that there are so many of us, I mean, there are folks who are older than I am. There are a number of people around the same age. And then there's so many young kids. And so for none of those folks to feel, and that is another, that was a common theme, from our group was that a lot of the folks just didn't feel comfortable in PI spaces to be if they were black in and Hawaiians might be comfortable in the Hawaiian space to speak up and say anything or in whatever Pacific Island space that they also belong to is that they just didn't feel comfortable or seen enough to be a part of those. I think you know, once we identify what blackness is within our within the broader API community, we can also look at well, you know, why aren't there more people like us, those of us who do identify as black and PI, why aren't more of us involved in these conversations, being asked to be a part of these conversations, and helping to drive a lot of the messages and a lot of the agendas around garnering resources for our community.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:48:18] One of the pieces that's really present for me, when you started asking the question on how we define blackness before we begin the conversation around anti-blackness reminded me of Steve Biko learning about the black consciousness movement in South Africa and the anti apartheid movement. I had the opportunity to travel to South Africa for global learning fellowship and started to learn more about the anti apartheid movement. But when Steve Biko discussed black consciousness as an attitude of mind and a way of life, it got me thinking in one direction while at the same time in this conversation that we're having here, when we talk about colorism with post colonial society, the Philippines being one of them, how does colorism show up? I'm wrestling that. So I just appreciate you bringing that question into the space.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:49:05] So Black + Blue, it's an affinity space for black Polys and I need to just say thank you for providing the space. It has been therapeutic and healing and again, everything I knew I needed and had no idea where to find. So I appreciate it so much. So I'm wondering, I guess, how do we create similar spaces for other folks? Or is there a need to like, does Black + Blue just exist for us? And is that enough? Or do we need to start thinking about doing more to create similar spaces for other folks? And I'll leave that to whoever wants to respond before my final question.   Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:49:45] I'll just jump in and say that I think that, you know, any opportunity for folks to gather to create and wrestle through dialogue is absolutely necessary at this particular point in time with social media and a fairly new cancel culture that exists. It's really a detriment to having people understand how to connect and even connect through disagreement. So I think that there should always be space made for people to have tough conversations, along with the celebratory ones. So I'm always all for it.   Jason Finau: [00:50:23] Yeah, I would agree. I think if I've learned anything out of being able to facilitate the Black + Blue group that there is just such a desire for it and unknown and even an unknown desire. I think people, you know, didn't realize they needed it until they had it. And I think it feels unique now it being a black and Blue space, Black + Blue Pacific space. But I can see that need kind of going outside of us. How do we take the conversations that we're having with each other, the learning and the unlearning, the unpacking of experiences, the unpacking of feelings and emotions and thoughts about what we've all been through to share that with the broader Pacific Island community in a way that can steer some people away from some of the negative, behaviors that we find that can be associated in speaking of people who identify as black or African American? But I can see that as not just for those who identify as black and Pacific Islander, but also for parents of children who are black and Pacific Islander, and for the youth. So like right now our Black + Blue group is geared towards the adult population of those who identify as black and PI. But then also thinking about like the younger generation, those who are in high school or in middle school or junior high school, who are also maybe going through the same things that we all went through at that point and needing a safe space to have those conversations and kind of process those things. Because they may have a parent who may not understand, you know, if they only have their Pacific Island parent, or they're primarily identifying with their black side because they don't feel comfortable with the Pacific Island side, whatever their journey is being able to provide that for them, but then also providing a space for parents to understand where their kids may be coming from, to hear from experiences and learn and potentially provide their kids with the resources to navigate very complex ideas. One's identity journey is not simple. It is not easy. It is not quick. And so it's hard. And that is not something, I mean, and I don't expect every parent, regardless of what their children's ethnic background is, to understand what that means like for their kids. But to be able to have a space where they can talk it out with other parents. But I also see that for our Latinx and PI community. I see that for our Asian and PI community, those who identify as both being Asian and Pacific Islander. For me, that just comes from a personal experience because my mom is one of nine. And I think out of the nine, three of the kids had children with other Samoan partners, and the rest had either a black partner, has a Mexican partner, has a partner who identifies as Chinese and Japanese, and has another partner who is white. But I have cousins who are in this space, and so we can all share in the fact that, although we may not all physically identify or people may not be able to physically recognize us as Samoans, that is what we all share in common. So having that for them as well. And then, you know, right now we're in COVID. So it's been a blessing and a curse to be in this pandemic, but I think the blessing part was that we were able to connect with so many people in our group who are from across the states and even across the waters. Once we're able to move past this pandemic and go back to congregating in person, being able to have groups within your respective cities to be able to go and talk in person, whether it's in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, you know, folks out in Hawaii and like in Aotearoa. Who wants to continue engaging with other folks that they feel comfortable identifying or who they also identify with. Do I think that there is a need? Absolutely. And I can see it just across the board whether people know it or not, I think once we put it in front of them, that is where they'll see like, “Yeah, we need that.”   Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:53:57] I just wanted to also highlight, you know, a point of significance for me with this group and hopefully one that would serve as a model for other organizations and groups that may develop after this, is modeled off of cultural studies, which is the process of actually remembering and relearning things that we've things and peoples that we've forgotten and with Black + Blue in the Pacific, it's really important to me to also include, and keep the Melanesian, the black Pacific voice in that conversation to model for other peoples of color to reach out to black peoples at home, or regionally to understand and again, remember those particular cultural networks that existed in pre colonial times and even sometimes well into colonial times, as current as you know, the 1970s black liberation movements to highlight Asian and Pacific and, and, and, and other peoples that were non black, but very instrumental in that fight for liberation as a whole, but starting with black liberation first. So, I think this is a really good time in an effort towards uprooting anti-blackness to highlight just how old our relationships with black peoples and black peoples in relationship with Asians and Pacific peoples, South Asians, Southeast Asians, it just goes on and on, to say that we've been in community positively before, so we can do it again.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:55:52] That is the most perfect way to wrap up the episode in reminding us to remember, and reminding us that all of our liberation is definitely tied to black liberation that they're inextricably linked together. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you, Jason. Fa'a fatai te le lava thank you for listening.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:13] Salamat thank you for listening.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:14] We want to thank our special guests, Jason and Courtney, one more time for rapping with us tonight. We appreciate you both for being here and really helping us continue to build the groundwork for Continental Shifts Podcast.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:24] Continental Shift Podcast can be found on Podbean, Apple, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:30] Be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube for archive footage and grab some merch on our website.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:36] Join our mailing list for updates at conshiftspodcast.com. That's C-O-N-S-H-I-F-T-S podcast dot com and follow us at con underscore shifts on all social media platforms.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:52] Dope educators wayfinding the past, present, and future.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:56] Keep rocking with us fam, we're gonna make continental shifts through dialogue, with love, all together.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:57:02] Fa'fetai, thanks again. Tōfā, deuces.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:57:04] Peace, one love.   Swati Rayasam: [00:57:07] Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program backslash apex express. To find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex Axpress is produced by Miko Lee, along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keene-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaida, Kiki Rivera, Nate Tan, Hien Ngyuen, Cheryl Truong, and me Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the team at KPFA for their support and have a great night. The post APEX Express – 1.30.25 Continental Shifts: Anti Blackness in the PI Community appeared first on KPFA.

Spicy Ku takes over in Hour 2, continuing conversations from the first hour before discussing a piece from the Star-Advertiser's Stephen Tsai on the state of UH athletics and whether the women's side of athletics are in a good spot compared to the men's programs.  Paul gives his preview of the Rainbow Wahine's road matchup with Cal State Northridge, highlighting key statistics for Hawai'i and the Matadors.

Happy Mana Wahine Wednesday, beautiful people! Spicy Ku makes an appearance after a deep dive into DBEDT & the NASED project as it pertains to Sports Tourism and more. Paul gives a preview of Hawai'i men's basketball's matchup with Cal State Northridge as the 'Bows look to extend the win streak to four.

Ever wondered how to transform a team from dysfunctional to dynamic? Or what it feels like to leap from a corporate career into entrepreneurship, akin to skydiving? Join me on this exciting episode of Carlsbad: People, Purpose and Impact, as I sit down with the inspiring Jani Jackson, founder of Develop Your Team.Jani takes us through her fascinating journey from studying English Literature at Cal State Northridge to becoming a leader in team building and leadership development. With roots in Nebraska but a heart in Southern California, Jani has called Carlsbad home since 1981. Her impressive career at Farmers Insurance, where she navigated from data entry to leadership development, ignited her passion for creating cohesive teams.We dive deep into Jani's transition from corporate life to entrepreneurship, discussing the challenges and thrills of starting her own venture. Discover her innovative, hands-on approaches to enhancing team dynamics, even in virtual settings, and her invaluable tips for fostering strong interpersonal relationships within teams.Don't miss out on Jani's offer for a free consultation at developyourteam.com. Tune in to explore how her expertise can revolutionize your team's productivity and cohesion!Jani Jackson's Bio:Started Develop Your Team almost 10 years ago (and joined the Carlsbad Chamber within 3 months!)Prior to that - Masters degree specializing in Adult Education & Training (Colorado State) and long corporate career at Farmers Insurance. Worked in a variety of areas there, typically leading a team after working in an area for a little while. Ultimately worked in Training & Development, learned about using experiential learning activities for team building, tested/practiced on my own team, and have been doing that ever since.My goal is to create high-performing organizations that talented people truly want to be a part of. Programs are always custom-designed, focusing on the specific needs of each group. My core values: inclusion, growth, authenticity, and laughter.I've lived in Carlsbad since 1981 and raised my two sons here. I love the outdoors, have one dog and two cats, and a yard that welcomes birds, butterflies, and bees.In addition to active involvement with the Carlsbad Chamber, I am also very active with the Agua Hedionda Lagoon Foundation, Carlsbad Hi-Noon Rotary, and most recently, Cal State San Marcos College of Business Executive in Residence program.I am also working on a book - all about teams. The book explores: What are the things that make teams highly effective at achieving their goals, and what are the things that get in the way?Connect with Jani:- Free 60-minute consultation click HERE!- Website: developyourteam.com- LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/janijackson- Email: jani@developyourteam.com- Phone: 760-652-5060 Did this episode have a special impact on you? Share how it impacted youCarlsbad Podcast Social Links:LinkedInInstagramFacebookXYouTubeSponsor: This show is sponsored and produced by DifMix Productions. To learn more about starting your own podcast, visit www.DifMix.com/podcasting

Mark Holtzman is a California native with over 25 years of experience as both a photographer and pilot. He began taking pictures at an early age, under the guidance of his father, who was also an amateur photographer.  By age 10, Mark and his father could be frequently seen in their make-shift darkroom at home. At age 17, Mark got his pilot's license and has been flying ever since. But the idea of aerial photography was not fully realized for several years, although recently uncovered film and slides indicates that Mark has been shooting pictures from airplanes for years.  Over the years, Mark has explored a variety of careers, studying Music at Cal State Northridge, working as an LA County Beach Lifeguard and Paramedic, and even trying his hand at acting - making a brief appearance in All the President's Men.  In early 2000, Mark combined his two passions, photography and aviation, and started West Coast Aerial Photography. He gave up another job to pursue aerial photography full-time in 2007. By 2008, Mark's son, Steven, joined the West Coast Aerial Photography team full-time.  Today, Mark and his son can be seen shooting aerial and ground images throughout the world. Many of Mark's photos have been seen globally, both online and in print. www.markholtzman.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/matt-brown57/support

Paris Nicole is a Los Angeles native who has been in the performing arts since elementary school. She has trained under Wendy Raquel Robinson at Amazing Grace Conservatory (AGC) and studied improvisation at The Second City (Hollywood). She graduated from Cal State Northridge with a degree in Business Marketing and has since pursued a full time career as an actress, dancer and model. In 2018 she booked her first lead in a national tour as the host 'Dee' in "Disney Junior Dance Party on Tour." In total, she successfully completed 4 national runs and 200 shows across the country. She is now focused on doing film and television. She recently won an two awards at the Best Shorts Social Audiovisual Film Fest Best Actor and Best Production for her Short Film "Talk To Me". She can also be seen in the remake of "White Man Can't Jump." https://www.instagram.com/p/DAln8PJyTPI/ https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe.c/11434627?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAabU7FCxcSTYBO9xL_dhL_n89OlDrE6-OAFN0lrHIMgdIoaV_68LJcYb9Ag_aem_4aG-RKMxgkKSFsZDAHgMPA https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3906336/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Jim Powers is one of the most prolific directors of our time who's always been known for being controversial and once told Forbes he wants to be the Warren Buffett of porno. Growing up in the Valley in the 1970s, Jim was influenced by comic books, horror movies, fan magazines, and skateboarding, and in the 1980s, all he wanted to do was be a punk rocker and skateboarder. After graduating from Cal State Northridge, he became a stockbroker, a DVD distributor, and a part-time pornographer.   With 50 performer credits and thousands of scenes as a director, Jim won Director of the Year (Body of Work) and Best Director - Non-Feature from the AVN Awards and was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame in 2005. He's also scored countless AVN Awards nominations for Best Director, Best Director – Feature, Director of the Year: Individual Project, Best Directing Portfolio – Specialty, Best Director – Parody, Director of the Year (Body of Work), Director - Non-Feature, and Best Videography, as well as Gonzo Director of the Year from the XBIZ Awards, Best Producer Nominee from the TEAs, Best Director – Parody from XRCOs, and Top BDSM Release from AEBN's VOD Awards.   During the Black Flag era, Jim sported a mohawk and toured in punk rock bands. He still plays bass in the punk rock band Killroy at high-end venues like Roxy, Viper Room, and Knitting Factory. Follow his adventures on set, learn more about his upcoming scenes and features, and when he plays punk rock live on stage by checking out his Twitter/X @JimPowersXXX. This episode is brought to you by Olipop, a new healthy brand of soda. Go to https://drinkolipop.com/ and use code Marcela15 at checkout to get 15% off your first order. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify can help you take your business to the next level. Click HERE to set up your Shopify shop today and watch your business soar! This episode is brought to you by BranditScan, the best defense you have against social media fraud. Click HERE to get started with BranditScan today and get your first month for free. There is no better service to protect your social media accounts and your name and likeness. This episode is brought to you by Playboy. Click HERE to get a membership today and unlock a premium Playboy experience like no other. This episode is brought to you by Skillshare. Click HERE to start exploring all the courses Skillshare has to offer, from drawing and music, to graphic design and marketing, start expanding your knowledge today. This episode is brought to you by Fiverr. Click HERE to start hiring professionals to help you in various areas and take your business to the next level. This episode is brought to you by PodMatch. Click HERE to bring your podcasting journey to the next level by getting set up with guests to book matched directly for you!  Merch & More Get our podcast merch HERE Check out Marcela's Amazon Shop HERE Subscriptions Subscribe to Marcela's Only Fans  VIP Membership HERE Free Membership HERE  

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."

Dr. Garfinkel brings Jose Botello back on the show to talk about his master's work at Cal State Northridge. They talk about ceremonial dance, cosmology, and what it means to live and walk the “red road”.Transcripts For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/rockart/131Contact Dr. Alan Garfinkelavram1952@yahoo.comDr. Alan Garfinkel's WebsiteSupport Dr. Garfinkel on PatreonArchPodNet APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet Tee Public StoreAffiliates and Sponsors California Rock Art Foundation

Dr. Garfinkel brings Jose Botello back on the show to talk about his master's work at Cal State Northridge. They talk about ceremonial dance, cosmology, and what it means to live and walk the “red road”.Transcripts For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/rockart/131Contact Dr. Alan Garfinkelavram1952@yahoo.comDr. Alan Garfinkel's WebsiteSupport Dr. Garfinkel on PatreonArchPodNet APN Website: https://www.archpodnet.com APN on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/archpodnet APN on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/archpodnet APN on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/archpodnet Tee Public StoreAffiliates and Sponsors California Rock Art Foundation

(Airdate 8/30/24) Los Angeles City Reparations Advisory Commission under the purview of the LA Civil Rights Department has unveiled an executive summary of their preliminary report. Dr. Gabriel Selassie is one of the city's academic partners at Cal State Northridge. Dr. Selassie's first book lands in 2024 and he has authored scholarship appearing in numerous academic journals including the Journal of Africana Religions and California History Journal. https://civilandhumanrights.lacity.gov/

Set in 1863, just after the Emancipation Proclamation, Chess Master tells the story of a confrontation between a defiant plantation owner and a newly freed slave. The owner, desperately clinging to the old order, attempts to coerce his former servant into staying on as an unpaid laborer---a potent allegory for the continuing struggle to create a truly free society.The cast includes Tim Powell, Tazz Yancey, and Dennis Gersten.. Gersten directs.Braddon Mendelson is the playwright. His full-length plays include Provenance,Gallows Falls, Rembrandt Perfected, Resisted Living, and Minor Character. He wrote the book and lyrics for a musical, The Waterway. He is the author and illustrator of a children's book, Have You Seen the Tickle Bug? Mendelson also produced music videos for rap and R& B artists. He is a graduate of Cal State Northridge.Support the PodcastSupport the showFounded by playwright and filmmaker Bernadette Armstrong, Open-Door Playhouse is a Theater Podcast- like the radio dramas of the 1940s and 1950s. The Playhouse launched on September 15, 2020. At the time, Open-Door Playhouse provided Playwrights, Actors and Directors a creative outlet during the shutdown. Since its inception. Open-Door Playhouse has presented Short and One-Act plays from Playwrights across the country and internationally. In 2021 Open-Door Playhouse received a Communicator Award for Content for the Play Custody and in 2023 the play What's Prison Like was nominated for a Webby Award in the Crime & Justice Category.Plays are produced by Bernadette Armstrong, Sound Engineer is David Peters, sound effects are provided by Audio Jungle, and music from Karaoke Version. All plays are recorded at The Oak House Studio in Altadena, CA. There's no paywall at the Open-Door Playhouse site, so you could listen to everything for free. Open-Door Playhouse is a 501c3 non-profit organization, and if you would like to support performances of works by new and emerging playwrights, your donation will be gratefully accepted. Your tax-deductible donations help keep our plays on the Podcast Stage. We strive to bring our listeners thoughtful and surprising one-act plays and ten-minute shorts that showcase insightful and new perspectives of the world we share with others. To listen or to donate (or both), go to https://opend...

In this episode I host Jamar Ricketts of the San Jose Earthquakes. The New Jersey native went to Cal State Northridge before playing in the MLS. After college, Jamar was drafted in the 1st Round of the 2024 Major League Soccer Draft.

William Osman is a prominent tech creator and inventive mayhem conjurer on YouTube, with over 3 million followers and nearly 200 videos that have collectively amassed over half a billion views.As the mastermind behind Open Sauce, a major creator community event that drew over 20,000 attendees, 500 exhibitors, and 150 celebrity creators, William has significantly impacted the tech and creator landscape. His engaging content, known for its bold experiments and Francis Ford Coppola-like editing, includes fan favorites such as "How Many Parts Can You Take Off a Car?" and "Can a Rented Raccoon Simulate Fatherhood?" William is also the cohost of the Safety Third podcast, with over a hundred episodes. He holds a BS in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering from Cal State Northridge. We're thrilled to have him on AI and the Future of Work to discuss his unique journey and insights.Topics in this episode --Exploring Early YouTube: In this conversation, we discuss the evolution of YouTube and content creation from its early days, reflecting on how the tools and community have changed over the years.From Engineering to Entertainment: We delve into the guest's journey from making simple, personal videos to integrating engineering with entertainment, and how this unique blend led to their success on YouTube.Challenges of Early Content Creation: The guest shares insights on the early challenges of making videos, including the limited tools available in 2008 and the lack of a robust creator community.The Role of Storytelling in Videos: We discuss the shift from focusing solely on technical aspects of video production to emphasizing storytelling, and how this transition impacted the guest's content and audience engagement.The Impact of Open Sauce: The guest reflects on the vision behind Open Sauce, an event celebrating nerd culture and the maker community, and how it represents a sociological shift in connecting like-minded individuals.Creative Process Insights: We dive into the guest's creative process, exploring how they generate ideas, choose which projects to pursue, and how they use engineering problems to drive compelling narratives in their videos.ResourcesSubscribe to the AI & The Future of Work NewsletterConnect with WilliamAI fun fact articleAn episode you might like about extending life with AI

(Airdate 8/26/24) Attorney Capri Maddox updates us on the findings of the Los Angeles Reparations Advisory Commission. The report will be unveiled 8/27/24 and it will detail the data compiled by the commission and the analysis provided by their academic partners at Cal State Northridge. https://civilandhumanrights.lacity.gov/ https://www.dominiquediprima.com/about

Welcome to another exciting episode of "Beats Vines & Life"! I'm your host, MJ Towler, and today we have an extraordinary guest, the multi-talented Billy Bollotino. Billy, known for his remarkable 25-year career with Conan O'Brien, takes us on a compelling journey through the vibrant music and nightlife of downtown New York, his days at Fordham University, and his early foray into television with "Rocker Room."We'll dive deep into the gig economy in the entertainment industry, featuring fascinating anecdotes about working with Deon Cole, the ups and downs of Conan's early years, and Billy's unforgettable stint on SNL with Lorne Michaels. From high-profile criminal cases to video tape editing at ABC, and even directing and teaching at Cal State Northridge, Billy's diverse experiences have shaped an incredible career.In this episode, Billy shares his stories of discovering bands like the Goo Goo Dolls, discussing the indie music scene, and reflecting on the success dynamics of iconic bands such as Blondie and the Ramones. We'll also hear about his unique TV project, "Chow Line," the rise and fall of TV shows, and his ongoing passion for teaching and creating new content.So, sit back, relax, and join us as we explore the life and career of Billy Bolotino, a true testament to versatility and resilience in the world of entertainment. Don't forget to check the show notes for links to Billy's Instagram and more details on today's discussion. Let's get started!---A Massive THANK YOU to BILLY BOLOTINO!!!Watch The Chow Line on YouTube!Follow Billy on IG!Follow The Chow Line on IG!____________________________________________________________Until next time, cheers to the mavericks, philosophers, deep thinkers, and wine drinkers! Subscribe and give Beats Vines and Life a five-star review on whichever platform you listen to.For insider info from MJ and exclusive content from the show, sign up at blackwineguy.comFollow MJ @blackwineguyFollow Beats Vines and Life @beatsvinesandlifeThank you to our sponsor, GrenacheFest. The Second Annual Grenache Festival in Walla Walla, Washington, will be held on November 8th, 2024. It will feature a seated comparative seminar, followed by live music, food, plenty of Grenache wines, and tons of fun.For more information, go to GrenacheFestFollow GrenacheFest on IG GrenacheFest Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Follow The Clean Comedy Podcast on Instagram: @thecleancomedypodcast Don't forget to add @jdcrevistoncomedy on IG: @jdcrevistoncomedyTurn your funny into money! Visit ComedypreneurWant to be a comedy writer? Join the Funny Money substack! Or go to https://jdcrevistoncomedy.substack.com/Grab your copy of “How To Produce Comedy Shows For Fun & Profit” here.Have a topic you want us to discuss? Reach out here.Be Our Guest: Are you a clean comedian interested in being on our podcast? Contact us! Stay Connected: Subscribe, rate, and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. Your support helps us grow!Welcome to Episode 388 of The Clean Comedy Podcast! This week James talks to the very funny and talented Trent Babb. Raised in Central California, Trent Babb grew up in a small dairy town. In grade school, he participated in plays and musicals, was voted Best Personality and Most Likely to Be Famous. Neither panned out. Trent graduated college from Cal State Northridge with an English Degree in Creative Writing, and soon after began going to open mics and became obsessed with making people laugh. Since then, Trent has performed stand-up all over California and Hawaii.Now residing in Visalia, CA with his wife, 3 kids, 2 cats, 1 dog, and an empty liquor cabinet.His material is focused on family life and lingering insecurities has led him to some of the best clubs in California including Rooster T. Feathers (Sunnyvale), Laughs Unlimited (Sacramento), The Improv (San Jose), Comedy Chateau (LA), and The Well (Bakersfield). He has shared the stage with notarized comedians like Derryl Hannah (SNL), Kabir Singh (AGT), Josh Blu (Last Comic Standing) and Darren Carter the Party Starter (Dry Bar Comedy).Check him out at https://www.trentbabbcomedy.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-clean-comedy-podcast-w-jd-creviston--4825680/support.

115 - Andy Summers (the Police) In episode 115 of “Have Guitar Will Travel”, presented by Vintage Guitar Magazine! host James Patrick Regan speaks with guitarist Andy Summers, from the Police. In their conversation they cover: His photography and documenting his experiences and the Fender guitar covered in Andy's photographs. They speak about Andy's contemporaries while coming up, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Howe, Peter Green, David Gilmore Albert Lee to name a few. They discuss the EP that accompanies his book of photography… and how that relates to scoring film. They discuss Hank Marvin's role in Andy's life which will come full circle with a recording project with Andy and Hank. They discuss the Gibson Les Paul that Eric Clapton bought from Andy and they discuss gear in general including some new guitars Andy is excited about made by Andy Powers from Taylor guitars (Andy calls them Masters guitars, but they're actually called Powers powerselectricguitars.com). Andy tells us about coming to the US with a group called the Soft Machine and how that led him to join Eric Burdon and the Animals and ultimately studying classical guitar at Cal State Northridge. Andy takes through his early jazz guitar and sax influences and how that colored his guitar playing later with the Police. You can find out all you need to know about Andy at his website: andysummers.com Please subscribe, like, comment, share and review this podcast! #VintageGuitarMagazine #AndySummers #thePolice #AndySummersGuitarist #theAnimals #guitar #Guitar #FenderCustomShop #GibsonCustomShop #GuitarHero #Telecaster #theDeadlies #guitarfinds #LesPaul #PowersElectricGuitars #haveguitarwilltravelpodcast #guitarcollector #Travelwithguitars #haveguitarwilltravel #hgwt #HGWT Please like, comment, and share this podcast! Download Link

Nick Roth comes from a filmmaking family and did a “blood oath” to not pursue that path, until he went with his father to China to make one wild crazy flick in 2013 called “Chronicles of the Ghostly Tribe”. The movie was a nightmare to shoot, but it jumpstarted Nick's interested and drove him to become a film professor at Cal State Northridge as an adjunct professor in cinema studies and eventually leading to his own film, “Hanky Panky,” a horror comedy about a  man and his napkin friend saving the world from a dark evil in a cabin.If you're not doing so already, please like and follow Classic American Movies on Instagram and Facebook. I do free movie giveaways, mini movie reviews and more!

ABOUT ISIAH MAXWELL Isiah Maxwell is a true original with his charm, sex appeal, and chemistry-building skills with his co-stars—the romantic and sensual leading man has been on TV and has starred in over 2900 scenes. He's hands-down the #1 working male porn star and the most-awarded Black male performer. With 10 years in, he's all about longevity and has a stellar reputation and acting skills.   Before working in adult, he attended Cal State Northridge. While in school, he applied to be a publicist for an adult agency, and a six-month internship became a full-time agency position, doubling as an agent and publicist while acquiring his bachelor's in journalism. All this led to a 10-year career as one of the most in-demand male talents, working for every major adult studio, branching out to the mainstream, and being crowned a non-exclusive Adult Time Ambassador in 2024.   Isiah has scored over 90 esteemed award nominations from XBIZ, XBIZ Creator, AVN, XRCO, NightMoves, AltStar, and Porhub Awards. He's won more than 16 awards, including Male Performer of the Year (three times) from the XRCOs, Male Performer of the Year and Favorite Male Star from the AVN Awards, Best Male Performer from NightMoves, Male Performer of the Year and Hall of Fame inductee from the Urban X Awards, Male Performer of the Year and Best Total Package Male from the Fleshbot Awards, and countless wins for his scene work.   0:00 Kick it off.  1:08 Pre Show Shouters. 3:08 Isiah Maxwell Intro.  4:50 Disputed questions.  6:35 Remember the titans.  12:30 God of war Hike. 15:38 Jdubs Questions.  16:00 Lucky Wreck-it is the best. (I'm gonna wreck it clip) 17:05 Meeting Rodman and 2 Short.  17:55 getting Celeb's in the DM's. 18:55 getting mistaken for a celebrity.  23:52 Isiah's Dream Job.  26:24 Let me tell you about Isiah Maxwell.  28:05 How Isiah got into the industry.  32:30 Learning it was ok to get with industry talent.  34:14 First scene was a 14 guy blowbang scene.  35:15 Do you have to be Gay to make money in porn? 35:59 Getting tested by Directors.  37:13 Does the Crew have Boners? 38:20 Being gay for pay.  40:41 Fluffers are Real.  43:15 Testing is so important.  46:20 Adult Time Brand Ambassador.  49:59 Full access to porn right away.  52:30 Frat boy sex.  58:57 Only the few can really handle the heat.  1:02:15 Isiah's favorite kink.  1:04:28 Being ready to pop on command.  1:05:40 Diet to help you stay in tune with his body. (Irish Sea Moss) 1:06:41 How to harness your goosh in order to film multiple scenes.  1:10:05 Matt Getting caught mooshin his moocher.  1:12:52 Any scene he won't shoot.  1:15:20 The old Orgy alliance.  1:16:19 Favorite companies to work for.  1:22:37 Blackedraw DP with Kazumi.  1:23:12 Mentor that helped Isiah when he first started.  1:24:15 Black performers vs White Performers.  1:25:20 Acting in Cards on the table.  1:26:15 Hitting the Bricks.    

Today my guest is Air Force SMSgt (Ret) Kevin Reed.  Kevin grew up in the Los Angeles area both in Canoga Park and Thousand Oaks.  He attended Westlake High School and graduated in 1998.  After a semester at Cal State Northridge, he met with an Air Force recruiter and signed a delayed enlistment contract, and in May 1999, he attended Basic Training at Lackland AFB, TX as a 1C6 Space Operator.  He then attended Enlisted Undergraduate Space Training (EUST) at Vandenberg AFB, CA. Kevin's first assignment was to 1st Space Operations Squadron at Schriever AFB, CO.  In May 2001, he was reassigned to Kapaun, Germany for DSP Missile Warning.  He left Germany in Aug 2002 for assignment to the 2nd Space Operations Squadron (GPS) back at Schriever AFB.  His next assignment was to the 2nd Space Warning Squadron (SBIRS) at Buckley AFB, CO.  There, he was selected to the 2006 SBIRS Guardian Challenge Team. In 2008, he was reassigned to the 533rd Training Squadron as a SBIRS System Instructor at Vandenberg AFB.  During this time, he completed his Bachelor's Degree in Education from Liberty University.  After four years he was reassigned back to 2 SWS at Buckley AFB.  In 2014, he took an Active Guard/Reserve position with the 8th Space Warning Squadron.  In 2015, he was promoted to MSgt and earned his Master's Degree in Space/Planetary Science from American Military University.  In 2018 Kevin was promoted to SMSgt and became the Squadron Superintendent for Det 1, 8 SWS which later reflagged as the 4th Space Warning Squadron. He went on to be selected as a Traveling Instructor for the SNCO Leadership Course for the Air Force Reserve Command in 2019. Kevin retired from the military on June 1st, 2021.

In this inaugural episode of ReCurrent, host and producer Jaime Roque shares a heartfelt journey through his family’s history and the role of food in preserving cultural heritage. Jaime takes listeners into his mother Gabriela’s kitchen where she recounts her early days in Guerrero, Mexico, helping her mother sell homemade bread and tamales. The kitchen, filled with memories of four generations, is where Jaime’s childhood unfolded, enriched by family traditions and stories. He reminisces about the comfort of Friday nights, filled with movies and home-cooked meals, which helped him connect with his dual heritage. Jaime also reflects on the deep impact his mother had on his life, especially during her last days, and his ongoing efforts to understand and carry forward the cultural heritage through both physical and spiritual legacies left by past generations. The episode features thoughts from artist Suzanne Joskow, who highlights how food bridges the gap between past and present generations through her work with the Community Cookbook Archive Los Angeles, and Mallory Frenier, the Special Collections and Archives librarian at Cal State Northridge. Jaime’s participation in the Archives Bazaar and his narrative about celebrating Dia de Muertos in Mexico emphasize food’s power in maintaining a connection with ancestors. Jaime’s visit to El Sazon Guerrerense, a restaurant that reminds him of his mother’s cooking, underscores the emotional significance of culinary traditions. Closing the episode, Jaime and his daughter Selah try making his mother’s tortillas, turning a simple cooking lesson into a meaningful act of remembering and preserving family heritage, ensuring these traditions continue to inspire and connect future generations. Special Thanks to Suzanne Joskow, Mallory Frenier, and the Roque Family. “La Madrecita” © 1974 Estudios América Music by Epidemic Sound and Jaime Roque.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Host editor Swati Rayasam continues to highlight the podcast Continental Shifts created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owemma Church. They embark on a voyage in search of self, culture and the ancestors. Last time we featured the ConShifts podcast, Gabriel and Estella gave a quick introduction and talked about wayfinding in the context of their work. Tonight on the podcast they're talking about anti-blackness in the PI community with Courtney Savali Andrews and Jason Fennel. Just a quick note that both Courtney and Jason's audio quality isn't the best on this podcast. So it might get a little bumpy. Enjoy the show. Episode Transcripts – Anti-blackness in the PI Community with Courtney-Savali Andrews and Jason Finau Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   Swati Rayasam: [00:00:35] Good evening everyone. You're listening to APEX express Thursday nights at 7:00 PM. My name is Swati Rayasam and I'm the special editor for this episode. Tonight, we're going to continue to highlight the podcast continental shifts created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owemma Church who embark on a voyage in search of self, culture and the ancestors. Last time we featured the ConShifts podcast, Gabriel and Estella gave a quick introduction and talked about wayfinding in the context of their work. Tonight on the podcast they're talking about anti-blackness in the PI community with Courtney Savali Andrews and Jason Fennel. Just a quick note that both Courtney and Jason's audio quality isn't the best on this podcast. So it might get a little bumpy. Enjoy the show.   Courtney-Savali Andrews & intro music: [00:01:32] These issues are fluid, these questions are fluid. So I mean, I had to go and try get a PHD just to expand conversation with my family .   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:01:51] How do we uproot anti-blackness in API spaces? On today's episode, we explore this critical question with two incredible guests. Courtney and Jason share their stories, experiences, and reflections on ways our API communities can be more affirming of black identity and black humanity.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:02:13] What up, what up? Tālofa lava, o lo'u igoa o Estella. My pronouns are she/her/hers, sis, and uso.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:02:23] What's good, family? This is Gabriel, kumusta? Pronouns he/him.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:02:29] I have the great pleasure tonight of introducing our guest today, Jason Finau and Courtney-Savali Andrews. Jason is a social worker with a focus on mental health and substance abuse based in San Francisco. Courtney is an assistant professor of musicology at Oberlin College in Ohio. But I also want to be very intentional about not centering professions above who we are and who we come from. So I'm going to go to Jason first. Jason, please share with us who you are, how you identify and who are your people.   Jason Finau: [00:02:58] Hi everyone. Estella, Gabriel, again, thank you so much for hosting us in this space. My name is Jason. I identify as black and Samoan. My father is a black American from Mississippi and my mother is from American Samoa, specifically in the village of Nua and Sektonga. As a military, brat kind of grew up back and forth between Hawaii and Southern California. So I have a very strong love for the ocean and where my peoples come from. So, very excited to be on your podcast.   Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:03:27] [Speaking Samoan] Tālofa lava I am Courtney-Savali Andrews from Seattle, Washington. I identify as an African American Samoan. My father is from Seattle, born and raised in Seattle, from Opelika, Alabama. That's where his roots are, and my mother is from American Samoa from the villages of Nwoma Sitsona and Aminawe. And Jason and I are maternal cousins.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:03:59] I did not know that. [Laughs] Good to know. Actually, just for some context, Jason and Courtney, you were one of my blessings in 2020. I received an email message about a space called Black + Blue in the Pacific, and it was a flier for a Zoom gathering with other black Pacifica peoples and I jumped on the call, not knowing what to expect, but it was only one of two times I can remember in my entire life feeling truly seen as black Samoan, and not having to separate those two or shrink any part of myself or who I am. So Jason, can you please share what the space is about and how it came to be?   Jason Finau: [00:04:42] Sure. That warms my heart that that was your reaction to participating in that space. So this was kind of born out of all of the protests against racial injustices across the country, especially with George Floyd and the other countless, unfortunately, countless deaths of black men and women at the hands of police brutality. And EPIC, which is the Empowering Pacific Island Communities, a nonprofit organization out in Long Beach reached out to me to kind of talk about how we can address anti-blackness within the Pacific Island communities in speaking with Tavae Samuelu, who is the executive director of EPIC and Teresa Siagatonu who is an amazing creative poet, artist, everything. We got together, started talking about like, well what was the real purpose for this group? Why are they reaching out to me specifically in the work that I do? And I think that part of that came from the fact that I am a licensed clinical social worker and that I do have a background in mental health and working in trauma, generational trauma and looking at how we as human beings look to take care of ourselves in a community that we as black human beings look to take care of ourselves in a community that doesn't value who we are and what that looks like for those of us who belongs to two different communities, one being the black and then the other being the Pacific Island community. And then even, you know, bringing that down even further to the, within the Pacific Island community, being in the Polynesian community and then being specifically in the Samoan community.   So in talking with that, the first person I thought about when they asked me to facilitate a group where we can gather other individuals who identified as being black and Pacific Islander, the first person I thought about co-facilitating this group with was my cousin Courtney-Savali Andrews. Just given the fact that she has done so much in research and education and understanding about PI cultures, with the work that she's done here in the States, as well as out in the Pacific, out in New Zealand and Samoa, and I'll let her talk more about that, but this is another part of the reasons why I thought about her instantly, and also because she and I have had these conversations about what it means to be black and Samoan, and to identify as both, and to sometimes have to navigate being one over the other in spaces, and even in spaces where It's a white space and having to figure out like which one are we like code switching between. So in thinking about this group and in thinking about this space, you know, one of the larger conversations that came out of those who engage in this group, that we have every second Tuesday of the month is that representation of seeing other folks who are also black and Pacific Islander who aren't related to us. And so these are the conversations that Courtney and I have had. I've had the same conversations with other first cousins who also happened to be black and Samoan, but I've never actually have met like one hand I can count on how many times I've met another person who identified as black and Pacific Islander. And so being able to host this space and to focus it, to start off that focus on anti-blackness and to talk about how we're all working to deal with what it means to say Black Lives Matter when someone who visually presents as Samoan or someone who visually presents as Tongan or any other of the Pacific Islands. Like, what does it mean for them to say Black Lives Matter, when those of us who identify as both black and Pacific Islanders aren't really feeling how that message is as substantial as they may be trying to, to come across.   Being able to gather in a space where we see other folks who look like us, who shared experiences that were so similar to what we have shared and what we have gone but also very different. And looking at how, you know, some folks grew up identifying primarily with the Samoan culture, whereas other folks grew up primarily identifying with the black culture and not being able to reconcile either one. So seeing that spectrum of experiences was able to provide us with an opportunity to grow for each other, to support each other, and to learn from each other. I was very thankful and grateful for having, for EPIC being able to step in and seeing that as an organization that does focus on empowering Pacific Island communities that they understood that when we look at the micro communities within that larger macro level of a PI community, looking at that individual black and PI cohort and understanding that that experience is different than the general experience. And so they wanted to make sure that we're facilitating those conversations, that we're holding safe spaces for those conversations, and that we're encouraging those conversations. So I really do appreciate them so much for that, and not taking it upon themselves to tell us how we should be engaging in these conversations, how we should be feeling, and asking us what we should be doing to get PIs to understand the impact of anti-blackness, within the, in the PI community for us personally.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:09:29] And as you were talking, I was laughing at myself thinking, yeah, I can count on one hand too, aside from my brothers, the other black Samoans or Polys I know, and I had an experience in college as a freshman, Cal State Northridge, in my EOP cohort. I met another Leilani, Leilani is my middle name, I met another Leilani who happened to be half black, half Samoan, also from South LA. And we saw each other and ran to each other like we were long lost siblings or something [laughs] and we just knew, and it was the first time I had seen someone who looked like me that was not The Rock. [Jason laughs] Like, the only person to look to, that was yeah. I don't know, it wasn't enough to have, you know, The Rock as my only representation. I appreciate him, but definitely wasn't enough. And shout out to EPIC and Tavae, because I think I mentioned earlier, being in Black + Blue was, it was like the second time in my life. I can say that I felt seen and one of the first times I felt seen as Samoan was at 30. I happen to be in a workshop led by Tavae on organizing PI communities. That was the first time I met her, but I left her session like in tears because I felt a whole part of whatever was happening in the conversation, the festivities, I could be like my full self.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:11:00] And those spaces are so important for us, right? To have that community, to be able to connect. So Jason, I appreciate you sharing that origin story of Black + Blue. And my question for Courtney actually, to bring in some of your experience into the space. Why was it important to create or forge a space such as this one with Black + Blue?   Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:11:22] Well, I will say that I've had the privilege of a different experience having met several African American and African Pacific Islanders in Seattle through my experience in the US. And I mean, this goes all the way back to my childhood. I went to a predominantly, and this is going to sound pretty interesting, but in the 70s, I went to a predominantly Filipino-Italian parish that was budding a Samoan congregation and that particular congregation was connected to the Samoan congregational church that my mother was affiliated with. So, of course, this is family based, right? But growing up in that particular setting, I was affiliated with many cultural dance groups, particularly Polynesian dance troupes and such, and through those various communities I would run into many particularly Samoan and African American children. So that was something that was pretty normalized in my upbringing. On the other side of that, my father's family was very instrumental in various liberation movements, affiliations with the Black Panthers. And so I also grew up in a very black nationalist leaning family. So, I mean, I couldn't run away from just anything that had to do with considering identity politics and what it meant to be “both and” so the wrestle started really early with me. I also want to say that because I was indoctrinated in so many questions of what it meant to be whatever it is that I was at the time. Cause you know these issues are fluid and the questions are fluid. So that extended all the way throughout even my educational journey having pursued not just a musical degree, but also degrees in cultural studies. It was the only place that I could really wrestle and engage with literature that I was already introduced to as a child, but to, you know, have opportunities to deep dive into that literature, highlighting certain figures, engaging with the writers of these literature. So by the time I got to college, it was piano performance and Africana studies for me. In the arts, through my music through musical theater performance, my Polynesian dance background, it all just kind of jumbled up into this journey of always seeking spaces that allow for that type of inquiry.   So, after undergrad, this turns into a Fullbright study and then eventually a PHD in Music and Pacific and Samoan studies. In that journey, I did not think that the outcome would be as rich as it became. I did seek out one of my supervisors, who was Teresia Teaiwa. A very prominent poet, spoken word artist and scholar, and she was the founder of the Pacific Studies program at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. So I went to study underneath her. She actually is African American Banaban so from the Kiribati islands and amongst her like astounding output of work, she reached out to me and four other African American Pacific women historian artists, like we all share the same general identities to start an organization, or at least an affinity conversationalist group, called Black Atlantic, Blue Pacific. This was back in 2014 when she started the conversation with us again, I had an opportunity to now, across the world, connect with other African American Pacific peoples that were rooted in other spaces. So I was the one who was, you know, born and raised in the US But then we had Joy Enomoto an African American Hawaiian who's based in Hawaii. Ojeya Cruz, African American [?] and LV McKay, who is African American Maori based in Aotearoa. So we got together and started having very specific conversations around our responses to Black Lives Matter as it was gaining much momentum in 2015. And it was my supervisor Teresia, that said, “You have to open up about how you feel,” and particularly because I was so far away from what home was for me, she offered up a space for me to not only explore further what my response to the movement was, but also just my identity in tandem with the rest of them. So we actually began to create performance pieces along with scholarly writing about that particular moment and went to this festival of Pacific arts in 2016 which was in Guam and pretty much had a very ritualistic talk. It wasn'tinteractive, it was our space to share what our experience and stories were with an audience who did not have a chance to engage with us on it. It was us just claiming our space to say that we exist in the first place. And that was a very powerful moment for me and for the others. So to connect this back to four years later, when Jason reaches out about Black + Blue in the Pacific, the name of this group actually came from the publication that we put together for that 2016 FESPAC presentation. It really was a moment that I actually didn't think would extend out in the ways that it has, but it also felt like a duty to extend that conversation and Teresia Teaiwa has since passed, but it felt like, you know, this is what, this is the work that, that I've given you to do. So it just felt very natural to join with my cousin in this work and realize what this conversation could be across the water again, back home in the US.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:18:09] Listening to you I was I don't want to say envious, but I didn't have that same experience growing up. And, you know, oftentimes I wonder where I would be in my identity crisis, which seems like it has lasted for so long, if I had shared in similar experience as a child. I grew up in predominantly black communities and all black apostolic school and I just, I didn't have other, I mean I ran up to the one girl I saw as a college freshman and squeezed her. So that tells you a lot, but I shared similar experiences as an undergrad or in college in majoring in black studies, majoring in theater, musical theater and that being the space where I got to at least express some of who I am or who I want it to be, but definitely trying to create what you experienced or had for my daughter now, trying to make sure that she gets to be as pro black and black and proud as she wants to be rocking her Angela Davis fro while also wearing her Puletasi, trying really hard to make sure that she has all of that. Growing up, I never felt like I was welcomed in Samoan or Poly spaces or fully in black spaces either. I felt like folks had to make a point to other me or erase part of my identity for their convenience. And it's only now that I am learning who my Samoan relatives are, what are our namesake or the villages that my family comes from and reconnecting with aunts and uncles and my grandparents through the powers of Facebook. But over the years, it's been a long like push and pull. And it's because our last names are, our names are very distinctive. And so when you put that name in there suddenly like, “Oh, I found all these relatives.” Like I didn't have to do the ancestry thing because you put the name in on Facebook and all of a sudden you find all your cousins and you're seeing childhood pictures where like your own kid can't tell who's who so I know we're related. You know what I mean? But anyway, like over the years it's been this like back and forth of me deleting relatives and then, you know, letting them come back because I don't know how to broach the conversation about their anti-blackness. I don't know what to tell them when they post something that is very racist and absolutely not okay. And I don't know what to do other than, you know, I'm just going to delete you and then maybe 2 years from now, I'll, as you as a friend, again, we could try this one more time. And I have one aunt in particular, a great aunt who there was just a misunderstanding. I didn't respond to a message right away after not seeing her since I was maybe 5 or 6. I can't remember. But in my 20s, I'm getting married, she's sending me messages and I didn't respond right away. And the response I got included her calling me the N word. And so then I'm like, “Oh, okay.” I was like, trying to open up and let you all back into my life. And here we are again. So I'm done. And so I spent a lot of time, like picking and choosing who I was going to let in or not and so I've started this journey at 30. I want to learn my language. I want to figure out who is in my family tree. Who are my people? Where do I come from? And be selective about who I choose to actually grow relationships with. Like I can still know who they are, where they come from, where I come from, what my roots are, and also make choices about who gets to be in my life. And I'm only just now realizing that at 32, as I try to learn my language and reclaim what is mine, what belongs to me. All of that aside, can you relate to any of that? And if so, is there an experience that you feel comfortable sharing?   Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:22:00] I absolutely relate to that, to the extent, I mean, I had to go and try to get a PhD just to expand conversation with my family and I had to do it across the water. I got to a point where, just asking questions, about, you know, cultural matters, or even trying to navigate my way through a family event, while I've had many wonderful experiences, just trying to, again dig deep to understand why are we who we are, why are our family issues what they are those kinds of things, I would always hit a particular wall that was met with either like, “Why do you even care?” Or “Oh, that's not important.” But it was, this is not important for you. And I, you know, took that with a lot of like, “Well, what's that mean? I can learn anything.” And then again, that, that comes from this, like I said, black nationalist attitude of I am wholly wonderful, just in my skin as I am. Therefore, I'm smart. I'm, you know, all of those kinds of things. So it became a learning quest for me to say, not only am I going to go after learning as much as I can. I'm going to get the highest degree you could possibly get in it only to now reach a point. I mean, I'm 10 years into this program and it's been the one-two punch all the way through. And now I'm on the other side of this journey, realizing that even in that quest, this really doesn't change many of my conversations if I go back into my family, nor is it really looked upon as a notable achievement, which is to be questioned because it's like, I've done everything that I possibly can. But at the same time, it really does feel like this is the black experience as it connects to respectability politics. On another side of thing I suppose, try to aspire to be a race woman for the Pacific and specifically the Samoan identity. And that's just a really, really tall order. Right. All that to say, yes, I absolutely identify and realize that my conversation can only be had with those who are open to have it. I think that right now in this particular moment, we have more Pacific peoples and more people in our families that are willing to at least sit at the table and have conversation because they have new language around what they are wanting to know and what they would like to see for their own community. So that's really, really refreshing and inspiring.   Jason Finau: [00:24:46] I agree. I definitely [have] a lot of experience and feeling in feeling othered and feeling that my black identity was conveniently left out in a lot of conversations and a lot of learning lessons, I think, growing up. In contrast to Courtney's upbringing, I was born and raised on the Samoan side. It was everything Samoan related. My first language was Samoan. My mom stopped speaking Samoan to me at home because she recognized that I was struggling in school early on like in pre- k, kindergarten, first grade, because I couldn't keep up with the other students and they didn't have ESL for Samoan speaking kids. So, I think as a protective factor, my mother just started to distance me from the Samoan language in order to excel in school. And I think that a lot of having been able to grow up in a very large Samoan family and engaging in a lot of the traditional activities and cultural practices and doing the dances and going to a local [?] church. Having that has always been great but I think that seeing the way or listening to the way that other Samoans would refer to their own family members who were black and Pacific Islander or black and Samoan in those families, a lot of the times the language is just so derogatory, but they, that language never used to, or was never directed at me. And I think that part of that was because that people knew who my mother was and they knew who my grandparents were and I think I was insulated from a lot of that negative talk, negative behaviors against those who identified as black and then like the children that were products of those Samoan and black relationships. I reflect on that quite often because I think that when listening to a lot of the stories that I've been able to bear witness to in our black and PI group. You know, like I mentioned before that we are seeing like two different, two different upbringings, two different ways that people experience their lives as being black and Samoan. And for me, it was like, because I was wrapped in that Samoan culture, that black identity of mine was never really addressed or talked about. That then it made me feel like I just, I'm a Samoan boy. I don't identify as someone who was black. I didn't identify as someone who was black or was comfortable with identifying as someone who was black until my 20s. Late 20s, early 30s, you know when I introduced myself, it was always Samoan first black second, everything that I did, instead of joining the Black Student Union group, I joined all the Asian and Pacific Island groups at any school that I went to again, as I said, being a military brat, I went to a lot of schools growing up before college. And then in college a lot of different universities. And when I went to those programs, like in high school and junior high, I'd always be, I would always join the Asian Pacific Island groups because I didn't feel comfortable being a part of the black, any of the Black Student Unions or any black affinity groups, because again like I said my for me internally, I was Samoan and that's where I wanted to be. I didn't recognize for myself because I could see it in the mirror that I presented as someone like a black male and I think that part of the reason why I also steered more towards Asian and Pacific Island groups was because I wanted people to see me as this black guy walking into your Asian and Pacific Island group, who also is Samoan but you don't know that until I tell you. And that was for me to share and for me to just sit there for them to stare at me until I made that truth known. And that was my way of addressing that issue within the PI community. But it was also a way for me to run away from that black identity to hide from that black identity because I wasn't, I didn't want to be identified that way when I was in the API group. It's because I wanted to be identified as Samoan and not black, even though I presented. So in thinking about how a lot of those conversations went, I think one situation in particular really stuck out for me. And that's when I did a study abroad in New Zealand during undergrad and, you know, there's this whole thing about the term mea uli in Samoan to describe someone who is black and Samoan and that was the term that I remember using and being told. As a kid, growing up, my mom used it, didn't seem like there was an issue. All family members, everyone in the community is using it. So I just assumed that is exactly how it was. I never had the wherewithal to think about how to break down that word, mea uli, and think of it as like a black thing. So I was in New Zealand studying abroad and I met some students, some Samoan students in one of my classes. They invited me to their church, the local [?] church. I was like, oh great, I'll go to church while I'm here. Satisfy my mom. She's back home in Oceanside, California, telling me that I need to go to church, that I need to focus on my studies. So I do this. I go with them. And as they're introducing me to folks at their church, when I describe myself as mea uli I mean, you can hear a pin drop. It was like, these people were I don't know, embarrassed for me, embarrassed for themselves to hear me use that word to describe myself. It was just, I was, I don't think I've ever been more embarrassed about my identity than I was in that one moment, because then my friend had to pull me off to the side, just like “Oh, we don't use that word here.” Like she's like, schooling me on how derogatory that term was for those Samoans in New Zealand who identify as black and Samoan. And mind you, the friends that I was with, they were, they're both sides of the family are Samoan, and so this is a conversation that they're having with me as people who aren't, who don't identify as black and Samoan. And so then when I, I brought that back to my mom and I was just like, “Did you know this? Like, how could you let me go through life thinking this, saying this, using this word, only to come to this point in my adult life where now I'm being told that it's something derogatory.” That was a conversation that my mom and I had that we were forced to have. And I think for her, very apologetic on her end, I think she understood where I was coming from as far as like the embarrassment piece. But from her, from her perspective and her side of it, she didn't speak English when she first got to the United States either. She graduated from nursing school in American Samoa, had been in American Samoa that whole time, born and raised, came to the United States, California, didn't speak a lick of English, and was just trying to figure out her way through the whole navigating a prominently white society and trying to figure out English. And so I think language was one of the least of her worries, as far as that might have been because it's just like coupled on with a bunch of things. I mean, this is a Samoan woman who doesn't speak very much English, who is now in the military, in the Navy. So, in an occupation that is predominantly male, predominantly white and predominantly English speaking. And so, for her, there was a lot of things going on for herself that she had to protect herself from. And I think she tried to use some of those same tactics to protect me. But not understanding that there is now this added piece of blackness, this black identity that her child has to navigate along with that Samoan identity. And so, we've had some really great conversations around the choices that she had to make that she felt like in the moment were the right choices to keep me safe, to get me what I needed in order to graduate high school on time unlike a lot of our other family members, to go to college, you know, again, being the first one to have a bachelor's degree and the first one to have a master's degree, within our family tree. And so, a lot of the successes that I've had in life to be able to get to this point and have these conversations and to facilitate a group like black and PI, Black + Blue in the Pacific and to be on a podcast with all of you, were the sacrifices and choices that my mom had to make back.   I say all that because those, the choices that she had to make, she wasn't able to make them in an informed way that would have promoted my black identity along with my Samoan identity. And so having to navigate that on my own. I didn't grow up with my dad, so I don't have any connection. I didn't have any connection to the black side of my family. And so I didn't have, and then growing up in Hawaii and in Southern California, primary like San Diego, in the education piece, like the majority of my teachers were white, or in San Diego, a lot of them were Latin, Latinx, and then in Hawaii, a lot of them, they were either white or they were some type of Asian background like a lot of Chinese, a lot of Japanese teachers, but I didn't have any, I never had a Polynesian teacher, Pacific Islander teacher, and I never had a black teacher until I got to college, and then seeing that representation also had an impact on me. I think one of my most favorite sociology professors at California State University in San Marcos. Dr. Sharon Elise was just this most phenomenal, eye opening, unapologetically black woman. And it was just like the first time I was ever able to like be in the company of that type of presence and it was glorious. And I think it was part of the reason why I switched from pre med to social work. In thinking about, and going back to your original question about an experience of being othered or feeling like your black identity is erased in that company. Like I said, I walk confidently amongst and within Samoan communities, but not nearly as confidently as I do in black spaces. And even when I'm in those Samoan spaces, I'll walk into it, but then the first thing I'll do is share my last name. And then the moment I say my last name, then it's like, okay, now we can all breathe. I've been accepted. They know who I am because of who my family is based on the name that I provide. When I go into a black space, I don't have that. I don't have that convenience. I don't have that luxury. And so I think that's another reason why I was okay with allowing that black identity, my black identity to be ignored, to be silenced, to be othered because it was just easier. I think I had a lot more luxuries being on the Samoan side, than being on the black side. And now where I am today, both personally and professionally, a much, much more confident conversation can be had for myself, with myself about my identity. And then having those same conversations with my family and with my friends and in thinking about hard conversations with family members around anti-blackness, around the use of derogatory language, or around just the fact like, because we are half Samoan that we could never fully appreciate the Samoan culture and tradition. But I look at my cousins who are full Samoan, who barely speak the language, who barely graduated from high school or like are in situations where they aren't able to fully utilize an identity that can bring them the fullness or richness of their background. I'm like, all right, well, if you want to have conversations about someone who was half versus full, and then looking at those folks who are back on the island and what their perception of full Samoans are on the continental US and all of those things, like, there's so many layers between the thought processes of those who consider themselves Samoan or even just Pacific Islander, and what does that mean to them based on where they're from. And then you add that biological piece, then it's like, okay, well those who are on the continental US or outside of American Samoa or the independent nation of Samoa, what does that mean for them to be Samoan [unintelligible].   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:35:15] One of the things that you said that really resonated with me was when you were sharing the story of how your mother had, as you said, tactics to protect you as she navigated in these predominantly white spaces. That reminds me of a quote by Dr. Cornel West, who talked about having our cultural armor on. And when Courtney was sharing her story, I was thinking about how there's also educational armor and linguistic armor, and we put on layers of armor to protect ourselves in these white supremacist institutions and spaces. So both of you sharing your story and journey really was powerful for me, and also grounding it in the formative years of your educational journey and your race consciousness journey. One of the pivotal factors in my evolution and my race consciousness was being a part of the Black Student Union in my undergraduate school. And I'm Filipino, my mother's from Manila, my father's from Pampanga province. And it was actually the black community that embraced and raised my consciousness around my own liberation as an Asian person, as a Filipino person. So I'm a student in many ways, and my intellectual and spiritual evolution was really informed by the black liberation movement.   Swati Rayasam: [00:36:43] You are tuned in to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno and online at kpfa.org. Coming up is “March 4 Education” on the Anakbayan Long Beach May Day mixtape.   SONG   Swati Rayasam: [00:37:03] That was “Find my Way” by Rocky Rivera on her Nom de Guerre album. And before that was “March 4 Education” on the Anakbayan Long Beach May Day mixtape. And now back to the ConShifts podcast.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:44:12] So this is all very powerful and grounds us back in the topic that we're trying to unpack. So I have a question for both of you on how do we begin to interrogate anti-blackness in Asian and Pacific Island communities, specifically among Polynesians, Asians, Micronesians. How might we uproot anti-blackness in the spaces that we find ourselves?   Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:44:36] I think we need to start with identifying what blackness is in these conversations before we get to the anti part. Are we talking about skin? Are we talking about, you know, cultural expression? Are we talking about communities, black communities within our own respective nations? So one of the things that in thinking through this, today's conversation, you know, I was thinking that, you know, starting with identifying our indigenous black communities at home, you know, in pre-colonial times. And even as we have the development of the nation state, just seeing where people are in their understandings of those communities would be a wonderful place to start before we even get to the drama that is white supremacy in the US and how that monster manifests here and then spreads like a rash to the the rest of the colonial world. I would really start with like, what are we talking about in terms of black and blackness before we go into how people are responding in a way to be against it.   Jason Finau: [00:45:52] Yeah, that was solid Court. Definitely providing that definition of what blackness is in order to figure out exactly what anti-blackness is. Kind of adding to that is looking around at the various organizations that are out there. When we go back to the earlier examples of being in API spaces, but primarily seeing more Asian faces or Asian presenting faces, thinking about, and I'm just thinking about like our Black + Blue group, like, there are so many of us who identify as black and Pacific Islander or black and Asian. And yet the representation of those folks in spaces where nonprofit organizations, community organizations are trying to do more to advance the API agenda items to make sure that we get more access to resources for our specific communities, whether that's education, healthcare, employment resources, all of that. When we look at those organizations who are pushing that for our community, you just see such a lack of black and brown faces who are part of those conversations. And I would have to say that for those organizations and for the people who will participate in any of those activities that they promote. To look around and not see one person who presents as black and may identify as black and PI seems kind of problematic to me because, you know, I used to think that growing up in the 80s and 90s that outside of my cousins, there were no other black and PI people. I'm learning now as I get older and again with our Black + Blue group, that there are so many of us, I mean, there are folks who are older than I am. There are a number of people around the same age. And then there's so many young kids. And so for none of those folks to feel, and that is another, that was a common theme, from our group was that a lot of the folks just didn't feel comfortable in PI spaces to be if they were black in and Hawaiians might be comfortable in the Hawaiian space to speak up and say anything or in whatever Pacific Island space that they also belong to is that they just didn't feel comfortable or seen enough to be a part of those. I think you know, once we identify what blackness is within our within the broader API community, we can also look at well, you know, why aren't there more people like us, those of us who do identify as black and PI, why aren't more of us involved in these conversations, being asked to be a part of these conversations, and helping to drive a lot of the messages and a lot of the agendas around garnering resources for our community.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:48:18] One of the pieces that's really present for me, when you started asking the question on how we define blackness before we begin the conversation around anti-blackness reminded me of Steve Biko learning about the black consciousness movement in South Africa and the anti apartheid movement. I had the opportunity to travel to South Africa for global learning fellowship and started to learn more about the anti apartheid movement. But when Steve Biko discussed black consciousness as an attitude of mind and a way of life, it got me thinking in one direction while at the same time in this conversation that we're having here, when we talk about colorism with post colonial society, the Philippines being one of them, how does colorism show up? I'm wrestling that. So I just appreciate you bringing that question into the space.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:49:05] So Black + Blue, it's an affinity space for black Polys and I need to just say thank you for providing the space. It has been therapeutic and healing and again, everything I knew I needed and had no idea where to find. So I appreciate it so much. So I'm wondering, I guess, how do we create similar spaces for other folks? Or is there a need to like, does Black + Blue just exist for us? And is that enough? Or do we need to start thinking about doing more to create similar spaces for other folks? And I'll leave that to whoever wants to respond before my final question.   Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:49:45] I'll just jump in and say that I think that, you know, any opportunity for folks to gather to create and wrestle through dialogue is absolutely necessary at this particular point in time with social media and a fairly new cancel culture that exists. It's really a detriment to having people understand how to connect and even connect through disagreement. So I think that there should always be space made for people to have tough conversations, along with the celebratory ones. So I'm always all for it.   Jason Finau: [00:50:23] Yeah, I would agree. I think if I've learned anything out of being able to facilitate the Black + Blue group that there is just such a desire for it and unknown and even an unknown desire. I think people, you know, didn't realize they needed it until they had it. And I think it feels unique now it being a black and Blue space, Black + Blue Pacific space. But I can see that need kind of going outside of us. How do we take the conversations that we're having with each other, the learning and the unlearning, the unpacking of experiences, the unpacking of feelings and emotions and thoughts about what we've all been through to share that with the broader Pacific Island community in a way that can steer some people away from some of the negative, behaviors that we find that can be associated in speaking of people who identify as black or African American? But I can see that as not just for those who identify as black and Pacific Islander, but also for parents of children who are black and Pacific Islander, and for the youth. So like right now our Black + Blue group is geared towards the adult population of those who identify as black and PI. But then also thinking about like the younger generation, those who are in high school or in middle school or junior high school, who are also maybe going through the same things that we all went through at that point and needing a safe space to have those conversations and kind of process those things. Because they may have a parent who may not understand, you know, if they only have their Pacific Island parent, or they're primarily identifying with their black side because they don't feel comfortable with the Pacific Island side, whatever their journey is being able to provide that for them, but then also providing a space for parents to understand where their kids may be coming from, to hear from experiences and learn and potentially provide their kids with the resources to navigate very complex ideas. One's identity journey is not simple. It is not easy. It is not quick. And so it's hard. And that is not something, I mean, and I don't expect every parent, regardless of what their children's ethnic background is, to understand what that means like for their kids. But to be able to have a space where they can talk it out with other parents. But I also see that for our Latinx and PI community. I see that for our Asian and PI community, those who identify as both being Asian and Pacific Islander. For me, that just comes from a personal experience because my mom is one of nine. And I think out of the nine, three of the kids had children with other Samoan partners, and the rest had either a black partner, has a Mexican partner, has a partner who identifies as Chinese and Japanese, and has another partner who is white. But I have cousins who are in this space, and so we can all share in the fact that, although we may not all physically identify or people may not be able to physically recognize us as Samoans, that is what we all share in common. So having that for them as well. And then, you know, right now we're in COVID. So it's been a blessing and a curse to be in this pandemic, but I think the blessing part was that we were able to connect with so many people in our group who are from across the states and even across the waters. Once we're able to move past this pandemic and go back to congregating in person, being able to have groups within your respective cities to be able to go and talk in person, whether it's in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, you know, folks out in Hawaii and like in Aotearoa. Who wants to continue engaging with other folks that they feel comfortable identifying or who they also identify with. Do I think that there is a need? Absolutely. And I can see it just across the board whether people know it or not, I think once we put it in front of them, that is where they'll see like, “Yeah, we need that.”   Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:53:57] I just wanted to also highlight, you know, a point of significance for me with this group and hopefully one that would serve as a model for other organizations and groups that may develop after this, is modeled off of cultural studies, which is the process of actually remembering and relearning things that we've things and peoples that we've forgotten and with Black + Blue in the Pacific, it's really important to me to also include, and keep the Melanesian, the black Pacific voice in that conversation to model for other peoples of color to reach out to black peoples at home, or regionally to understand and again, remember those particular cultural networks that existed in pre colonial times and even sometimes well into colonial times, as current as you know, the 1970s black liberation movements to highlight Asian and Pacific and, and, and, and other peoples that were non black, but very instrumental in that fight for liberation as a whole, but starting with black liberation first. So, I think this is a really good time in an effort towards uprooting anti-blackness to highlight just how old our relationships with black peoples and black peoples in relationship with Asians and Pacific peoples, South Asians, Southeast Asians, it just goes on and on, to say that we've been in community positively before, so we can do it again.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:55:52] That is the most perfect way to wrap up the episode in reminding us to remember, and reminding us that all of our liberation is definitely tied to black liberation that they're inextricably linked together. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you, Jason. Fa'a fatai te le lava thank you for listening.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:13] Salamat thank you for listening.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:14] We want to thank our special guests, Jason and Courtney, one more time for rapping with us tonight. We appreciate you both for being here and really helping us continue to build the groundwork for Continental Shifts Podcast.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:24] Continental Shift Podcast can be found on Podbean, Apple, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:30] Be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube for archive footage and grab some merch on our website.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:36] Join our mailing list for updates at conshiftspodcast.com. That's C-O-N-S-H-I-F-T-S podcast dot com and follow us at con underscore shifts on all social media platforms.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:52] Dope educators wayfinding the past, present, and future.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:56] Keep rocking with us fam, we're gonna make continental shifts through dialogue, with love, all together.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:57:02] Fa'fetai, thanks again. Tōfā, deuces.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:57:04] Peace, one love.   Swati Rayasam: [00:57:07] Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program backslash apex express. To find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex Axpress is produced by Miko Lee, along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keene-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaida, Kiki Rivera, Nate Tan, Hien Ngyuen, Cheryl Truong, and me Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the team at KPFA for their support and have a great night. The post APEX Express – 4.11.24 – ConShifts Anti-blackness in the PI Community appeared first on KPFA.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. This week we introduce our sister podcast Continental Shifts. Check out episode 1 and 2 created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owoimaha-Church who embark on a voyage in search of self, culture, and the ancestors. You'll hear the first two episodes of their podcast and hopefully walk away with a bit more information about them, and about wayfinding as an important mental, physical, and spiritual practice.   ConShifts Podcast – Episode 1 – Introduction TRANSCRIPTS Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express. Swati Rayasam: [00:00:35] Good evening, everyone. You're listening to APEX Express Thursday nights at 7:00 PM. My name is Swati Rayasam, and I'm the special editor for this episode. Tonight, we're highlighting a podcast called Continental Shifts created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owoimaha-Church who embark on a voyage in search of self, culture, and the ancestors. You'll hear the first two episodes of their podcast and hopefully walk away with a bit more information about them, and about wayfinding as an important mental, physical, and spiritual practice.   Estella Owoimaha-Church & intro music: [00:01:07] The more I continue to do a deep dive in my identity, who I am, who I aim to be, the stronger of an educator I am, but also, the more equipped I am to provide brave, co-op spaces for students where they also get to explore and craft their identity. O a'u o Estella, o [?].   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:01:37] And this is Gabriel. What's good, family? Kumusta? So fam, we're finally here. Continental Shifts Podcast. I'm excited to have this conversation with you to kick off our first episode. And just a quick run of introductions. Estella, if you wanted to introduce yourself to the people, please let the people know who you are.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:02:01] For sure for sure. Hey, y'all. I am Estella Owoimaha-Church and I'm a teacher in Los Angeles. I teach high school theater and I'm heavily involved as a labor union leader-organizer in our community. And, I also run a small non profit here in LA called Education Ensemble.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:02:28] All right, that's what's up, Estella. I'm Gabriel Tanglao, former educator, high school teacher up in Bergenfield, New Jersey. One of the second largest Filipino populations in New Jersey,  fun fact. And now I'm working full time with the New Jersey Education Association in the Professional Development Division. So doing some labor organizing work full time, fully focused, supporting educators across New Jersey, specifically with racial justice, racial equity, racial literacy work. I'm excited to be here for this conversation, Estella. So, we met I think over a year now. So I'm trying to recall what the origin story is of how we connected. Estella, do you remember the origin story of how we connected?   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:03:14] I am pretty sure we were in Denver at NEA leadership summit and yeah, mutual teacher friend connected us. And the conversation there was everything [laughs].   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:03:28] I feel like you and I have been connected for a while now, even though it's been short in terms of years. But the NEA Leadership Conference in Denver, for people who aren't familiar, NEA, the National Education Association, represents millions of educators across the country. And this was one of their largest conferences, the National Leadership Summit. So, when you and I had a chance to connect there, I think it was Stephanie Téllez who is one of the dope educator, labor activists that I connected through the NEA Minority Women in Leadership Training Conference. But, we had a chance to connect on some of our shared roots as an Asian and Pacific Island family. I remember the conversations at dinner, at lunch, when we were breaking bread. We really had a chance to connect on the strength of that. So, that actually is really the genesis that planted the seeds of the relationship that grew for us to be at this part.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:04:29] Right. I think, I feel like not soon, very shortly after we met, we mentioned that yo, we got to have some sort of project or something where those conversations we had get to live, but also get to grow, get to evolve, and we can sort of continue to dig into who we are as educators, as labor unionists, as PI folk and, sort of continue walking that identity journey that so many of us, are on or have gone on, together as siblings.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:05:07] Like, at one of the dinners we were talking about sharing some of our story, I was reflecting on being Filipino and just kind of unpacking what that meant in terms of Asian identity in the context of, you know, the Philippine islands being a Spanish colony for over 300 years and then that experience of being a first generation Filipino American out here in the States, in New Jersey, which doesn't have a large Filipino population, it's concentrated in a few areas. And then listening to your story of your background, do you mind if I just ask and give our audience a sense of what is your background and how are you coming to the space?   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:05:48] Word. So I am Samoan Nigerian, born and raised in South Central LA. My father is from Calabar, Nigeria. My mother is originally from Samoa—Savai, Samoa—and I am first generation born in the States. And while there was a large population of Samoan or Tongan folk in my area growing up, I grew up predominantly in black spaces, black American spaces. So even as a Nigerian American, never really having, I guess, authentically African experiences is what I can wrap that up in. And so I didn't begin really searching for my Samoan roots until, I was much older, undergrad had started, but really, I really really dug deep, took a deep dive, my late twenties and now my early thirties. I've been taking classes and trying to learn the language and reading every book I can get my hands on. Not a lot has been written on Samoa, but everything I can learn about Oceania and Pacifica trying to be as connected as I can possibly be to my indigenous roots, both in Samoa and in Nigeria.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:07:11] Word, word. And I remember part of that story as you shared it when we first met was inspiring some exploration for me to just dig deeper into my roots and start that journey. So for us to have stayed connected, for you and I to be comrades and fam and just begin to build that relationship, it inspired me to continue exploring. And that's, again, why we're here, Continental Shifts Podcast. Part of our journey here is to be sharing it with the people and lift up some voices of some dope API educators. And that last part is a transition because we mentioned and proudly named that we are educators, right? And, for folks that are listening, I would love for Estella to share if you could share what was the reason or what was the drive that brought you to education in the first place?   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:08:08] So much of my identity is also wrapped up in what I do. Alright like, those who I am and what I do are really closely linked and really feed off of the other. And I am just recently coming to the realization that the better I know myself, like the more I continue to do a deep dive in my identity, who I am, who I aim to be, the stronger of an educator I am, but also more equipped. The more equipped I am to provide brave co-op spaces with students where they also get to explore and craft their identities. And so I feel like it is definitely part of my service, like part of what I am called to do this work internally so that I can help young people also do that same lift. And it's a heavy lift that takes a really long time. Like, I mean, it wasn't until thirty-one, thirty, twenty-nine, thirty, I learned a sentence in Samoan you know [laughs] so, doing my best to remain vulnerable with students and folks listening to our show, about where I am in that process. I think not only is authentic of me to do, but keeps me honest and focused on trying to do better. And so I came to education to do my best to serve. That's really what that's about. I didn't always have the best experience in my K-12 education. And there were a handful of teachers who, I mean, we, we all have those stories, right? Those above and beyond the teachers you're still close with, the teachers you'll never forget their names. And so it just felt like no way in hell I can repay them back, other than to try to pick up where they left off and continue to build onto their legacies. So like through me, even after the day they retire, so long as I'm making them proud, then their legacy lives on.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:10:23] Love that. It's like you're paying it forward in spending your life committed to the next generation. And, also the way that you name that you came to explore your cultural roots a little more in depth later on in life, that resonated with me because I was thinking about my own journey of how I came into teaching in the first place. And, part of the role of, first generation, often the oldest in the family that I am, there's an expectation and a pressure to assimilate to the dominant culture. In part because with my parents being immigrants from the Philippines and coming to the United States, I was almost like a bridge in terms of how do we connect to this new society, this new community in which we live. And that's something that really carried on through most of my childhood. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood, middle class, good public schools in northern New Jersey. And it was a largely white population, a mixed Irish, Italian, German, but largely white population. And I was one of the few Filipino kids growing up. Fortunately I had camaraderie with a lot of folks, but part of that was just trying to make my cultural dopeness and shine and roots, right? Like I tried to shrink myself in that way because the role that I saw was to fit in. And that was through my formative years from K-12 for the most part, I think it was later on in high school that I started to you know, just start to see like, oh, okay I got a little more flavor because I'm Filipino and what is that about? Right. But just only scratching the surface of it. And the way that you named the educators that influenced you, I have to shout out the professor that changed the entire trajectory of my entire future. And, it wasn't until college at Pace University in lower Manhattan. I actually went to Pace University, Estella, I became a business major. I actually had aspirations in that American dream mythology of like, I'll do good in school, I'll become a businessman, CEO, make money, and live the American dream. Whatever that looked like in my adolescent mind, right?   But it wasn't until my sophomore year of college where I had a course that was the literature of African peoples and Professor Oseye was my professor and she was this sister that would come into the room, right? And in Manhattan, you can imagine how small the classrooms are. The buildings are all boxed in because, the value of property out there is you know, a premium. So tiny classroom, but Professor Oseye would come into the room dressed in this beautiful kente cloth and just stand in front of the classroom and just start to lecture us in a way that was so compelling and inspiring. I don't want to take up too much space but I had to shout out Professor Oseye because she introduced me to a Narrative [of] the Life of Frederick Douglass, [The] Autobiography of Malcolm X, W.E.B. Du Bois, all of the black intellectuals, revolutionaries that actually planted the seed in my mind on liberation, and it was actually the black liberation struggle through college that allowed me to become aware and conscious of my own journey and the society in which we live, which put me on a path to become a political science major, became very active in student organizations, specifically the Black Student Union. And again, it was the black liberation struggle and the Black Student Union that embraced me and all of the energy and cultural awareness that I brought from a different lens, and that put me on track to fall in love with education in a way that carried me into teaching. And to close the loop on the story, I ended up teaching at Bergenfield High School, which was right next to the town that I grew up in but Bergenfield was a larger Filipino population. So, full circle, coming back to the community, but specifically rooted in my own cultural community. That's kind of the story that took me into teaching and a lot of what you shared in your story .   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:15:03] The exact same thing happened to me too. Undergrad, I went to Cal State Northridge and was, I mentioned I'm a theater teacher, absolute theater nerd, was definitely a theater major, but picked up Africana Studies, Pan African studies as a second major. And it was my professors in that department, specifically my mentor, Dr. Karin Stanford, who, yeah, put me on black liberation [laughs]. And it opened up a whole, and it wasn't even just that It was also digging deep into hip hop studies, hip hop ed, which just busted open a whole new world of insight. And again, being super involved with those organizations on campus. We did have a Poly[nesian] group, but, and I think this is something or leads us into why this show now, very often growing up if ever I got the privilege or the chance to be in an API specific space, it was not always a space where I felt safe, right? It was not always a space I felt fully welcome. And I couldn't quite put my finger on it until being an Africana Studies major, like then I could process and really think that through and recognize this is your anti-blackness showing and it's not a reflection of me or who I am.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:16:35] I think when we first connected was talking about how we in the API community need to do the work of attacking anti-blackness within that space, right? How do we unpack that? What is it that puts us into the position around the model minority myth of being a racial wedge between white supremacy, anti-blackness, right? Like, how is it that we need to engage our Asian and Pacific Island brothers and sisters within our communities? To be able to attack that anti-black sentiment that is resonant in American culture, right? That's part of it, right? It's an ingratiating yourself to the dominant power structure, right? That said, when I connected with you and when I connected with some of the dope people across the country, specifically within the labor movement, specifically organizing within the community spaces, it's very clear that's a stereotype that's imposed on us. And part of our conversation today and for the continental shifts is to challenge that narrative and lean into the ways utilizing our educator voice, utilizing our organizing experience, talking about black liberation struggle and how it intellectually and spiritually infused in us our own awareness around our own liberation as API people and how do we carry that forward? How do we pay that forward in the work that we do?   I think that takes us to another part of our conversation, which is where we are right now. And in our professional space right now, in this moment. And in this moment, we have to name that we are in an environment where it's just unprecedented due to the global pandemic, white nationalism has taken over the federal government for the past, well, I mean, the history teacher in me is, kind of framing this a little differently for the people. One could argue that white nationalism has actually been the norm throughout, the very beginnings of colonization on through the present moment. So, maybe there's a continuity of white nationalism. But, for folks, there's a heightened awareness of how openly racist, that the narratives and rhetoric has been, how violent it has been. But, I digress. My point is we are in a moment, right? We're in a moment. So, I have to ask Estella, why this show and why right now? And the show is named again for the people, Continental Shifts Podcast.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:19:12] Absolutely. I think everyone has a heightened sense of awareness at this particular moment and as educators and organizers that we are, it is crucial that in our service to our loved ones, to our people, to our comrades, that we use this time, this space, this passion project to elevate all of that and to move forward conversations that we've had in API spaces, for example, our caucuses within our unions, and really move forward as opposed to continuing to have conversations around things like, what do we call ourselves? Without framing that differently, right? I feel like we get stuck in this loop. API, AAPI, Asian American, split up the p—and this is just one example of why now, why this show. But did we pause and recognize or acknowledge that all of those names, none of those names we gave ourselves. Right. So as we do this work to uplift young people, to educate, to uplift ourselves and each other, we really have to figure out how we move away from language and tools and names that our oppressors gave us to begin with. Right. And really, really, really, really make massive continental shifts. And that's what our show is about. So digging into, as you guys continue to rock with us, follow us, we'll have special guests on each episode to dig into really heavy topics. Really moving forward our work, this work, in a space that is accessible to folks, a space that is laid back, free flowing, and a space that is all ours, that we get to name and it is nothing but love and respect between and with all of the folks who will grace us with their time and their presence on every episode here on out.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:21:31] The people that we have in our networks, in our relationships, in our community, some of the dopest educators, some of the dopest activists, some of the dopest organizers out there. And if the podcast, the Continental Shifts Podcast in particular, is a way for us to lift up voices of other APIs, as you said. Lift up our own voices, start to critically analyze the society that's around us so that we can become more sophisticated in our approach to organizing to shift not just the state, not just in the community, the entire world. We're talking about continents. We're talking about changing the world here, thinking about the ancestors that survived and were resilient and went through all of the journey to get us to the places that we are. Like our existence, our lives are due to the ancestors' survival and the gifts that they passed down to us, the wealth, the knowledge, the wisdom, the tradition, the culture, the language, as Estella mentioned earlier. And that's something that I struggle with now is that I'm stuck in the box of English only in my own language development. So the fact that you are looking into developing an awareness and a consciousness and a skill set to be able to get in touch with your indigenous language roots is just beautiful. And, I'm just saying, continental shifts happens on so many levels. And one of the unique things, if this is a seed that we pass down, the ways that our ancestors passed down to us, the seeds of wisdom, we're hoping that this passes on some seeds of wisdom to the generations that are currently organizing right now and for generations to come, because this is a turning point. It has to be. It has to be. We can't continue the world as we are seeing it today. So, just hope y'all are ready for that.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:23:22] So, and I'll say this too, there's a saying in Samoan, and I don't have it in Samoan right now, but it translates to: even every good fisherman sometimes makes a mistake. As you were talking, one thing came to mind and it's a quote from Audre Lorde she says, “There is no such thing as a single-issue [struggle] because we do not live single-issue lives,” and so I thought about wayfinding. And I think one of our conversations we had when we first met was about this generational divide that adds a different layer of complication and issues around positionality, oppression, anti-blackness, when we start to think about API folk in our communities, and there really is a generational like layer to it all, right? You and I being from the same generation growing up very similar, you know, I'm going to be a business major because I'm a child of immigrants and the American way and I need to do better and make sure everything my parents sacrificed was not for nothing. That's definitely a first gen thing, like that's a thing, and so you and I have a space to work our way backwards forwards and live in the present, right? So we have an opportunity to continue our identity journeys together, keep reaching as far back as we can and dig. We also get to do that while living in the moment and dealing with these challenges with what education looks like in a global pandemic. But we also get to dismantle as much of it as possible so that there is a new future, right? There's a new, we're going to do this differently. There is no back to normal because don't nobody want to go back to normal, right? Like the shit wasn't working then [laughs], it's not going to work after a global pandemic. So you got in front of you guys today, two dope bi-coastal educators, wayfinding their way from the past to the present and to the future.   So we got a whole lot to talk about and unpack just in season one. Today was really about Gabriel and I introducing ourselves, introducing the show and what Continental Shifts and what it's about. As we move forward, we're going to continue to dig into wayfinding, we'll be digging into anti-blackness within API spaces and really dialoguing on how we work to uproot that within our community so that we can really move our work forward. Then we're going to dig into an API educator pipeline. We are educators and everything we do, education is always a part of what we do. Well teaching is always a part of what we do. So we want to figure out in what ways can we ensure that API students all across the country have educators who look like them in their classrooms? We're going to dig into organizing and figure out what are the best practices, best ways to really organize API spaces. Maybe that means looking at Asian communities, differently than we organize in PI spaces. I don't know, but join us for that conversation. And then we'll wrap up the season with really talking about giving space to preserving our language and our culture. And in Samoa, they say that the way you carry yourself is a part of your identity. And without our language and culture, we lose a part of who we are. So join this dialogue, be a part of this dialogue with us.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:26:58] Let's do it. Let's do it.   Swati Rayasam: [00:26:59] You're tuned into APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3. KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno and online at kpfa.org. We just heard the first episode of the ConShifts podcast and now let's get into the second episode on wayfinding.   Kai Burley & intro music: [00:27:18] And he's asking a lot of those questions like, “Mom, I'm white.” And I said, you know what? You have a responsibility. You have a kuleana. Mana'o of Hawaiian, mana'o, you have a kuleana. Oh, my ancestors did that, it's not my responsibility. Uh no, you're Hawaiian therefore, you are connected. Like in the, like the ocean, like we're talking about wayfinding and navigating. Wayfinding is exactly the concepts that you use in wayfinding you use in everyday life.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:27:45] What does it mean to be a wayfinder? In this episode, Gabriel and I chat with Sam and Kai to navigate how we might apply our ancestral knowledge to our daily practices. What up, what up? Tālofa lava, o lo'u igoa o Estella. My pronouns are she/her/hers, sis, and uso.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:28:12] What's good family? This is Gabriel Anthony Tanglao. Kumusta, pronouns, he/him. Welcome to the Continental Shifts Podcast. Today we have two incredible guests joining us from the beautiful Hawaiian Islands, Mr. Sam Kapoi, a Hōkūle'a sailor and world traveler, serial entrepreneur, and community organizer. And also, my teaching sister, Ms. Kai Burley, a fearless educator, brilliant facilitator, and a new mother recently bringing a beautiful baby girl into this world. Kai, please introduce yourself to our listeners.   Kai Burley: [00:28:49] Aloha, how's it? My name is Kai. It's short for Ka'ehukai which means mist of the ocean. My name was given to me by my grandparents. And it's to offset my twin sister, who is Kaiaulu. She's the wind of Wai'anae, the area from which I'm from. And so then I'm with the ocean, so wind and ocean, that balance. Yeah, I want to mahalo you guys for inviting me onto your guys podcast. A little bit of background about myself and how I got invited. So, right, like Gabe said, we're definitely Ohana. I met Gabe what, three, four, three years ago at a decolonizing, not decolonizing, it was a NEA, leadership summit and I kind of went, put myself at him and my other good friends table and I really wanna to say I wasn't invited, but [laughs] I saw that they were doing a decolonizing issue and I was like, hey, this topic is way better for me so I'm going to sit down at this table. And hopefully I proved myself to be a part of their group or hui, but from then Gabe and those other people that I met at the table have been my rock through my education career. And yeah, so I'm an educator, native Hawaiian, Chinese, Portuguese, teacher, and I started my teaching path in my hometown, Wai'anae. And Wai'anae [phone ding] has the most native Hawaiians in the universe and I'm very proud of that fact. I'm an alumni of that area and of that high school. And it was just a great joy to be able to start my teaching there. Currently I moved, I just became a brand new mom to a first beautiful Hawaiian Filipino-Portuguese girl, to my third child and my first baby. And I have two older boys. Estella too I met her wonderful Samoan, beautiful self again at the NEA conference. And she really helped me to push forward some API things, especially when it, what was it? It was like a new business item. Her and another good brother from Hawaii, Kaleo, got to talking with her and just so like minded and again, very much ohana. Yeah, my background, I'm a Hawaiian Studies major for my undergrad and then a US military is my graduate degree. Yeah, and I just fell into teaching from my other teachers.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:31:00] Kai, I love that background. You refreshed my memory on how we connected a few years ago. It was the NEA Equity Leaders Summit. And at that summit, we were all coming together, able to choose and create some of our own topics. I think we decided to create our own table around decolonizing curriculum and you jumped right into that conversation and from there we went on to hosting some decolonizing curriculum retreats with our crew. We also are joined here by Sam, who you connected me with Kai when my friend Ike and I were starting to host some Freestyle Friday podcasts in the midst of the pandemic and I remember Sam came through and shared some of his wisdom and kicked some of his knowledge with us. So Sam, if you would like to please introduce yourself to our guests and our listeners.   Sam Kapoi: [00:31:53] Aloha mai kakou. O ba'o Samuel Kili'inui Kapoi. Kupa'aina o Wai'anae. My name is Sam Kapoi. My name was given to me by my two great grandfathers on my mother's side. Samuel being on her mother's father's side. And Kili'inui was my mother's dad. And Kili'inui referencing to the great chief. That name stems deep in our family genealogy. And so it feels like I had to live up to the name growing up. But yeah, I grew up same area as Kai, in Wai'anae on the Island of O'ahu in Hawaii, on the West side, born and raised. I'm a father to three children. I have three sons and a couple of step kids. And so, a daughter and a son. I'm a serial entrepreneur, out here in Hawaii. Run multiple businesses, and I was invited by Kai to jump on that Freestyle Fridays speaking about wayfinding and navigation, and talking about my life's journey with sailing Hōkūle'a. It was our canoe, traditional navigation canoe that was born in the 70s during the time of the renaissance and so that canoe literally changed my life in many ways. So yeah, just honored to be here on this podcast. Mahalo.   Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:33:36] Thank you, Sam. And one of the things you said around living up to our names is something that I definitely resonate with. Thinking about my name is Gabriel Anthony Tanglao. It's actually a tradition in my family where the eldest son is named after his father. But my name is not a junior. I'm Gabriel Anthony so I have my own identity, my own destiny, and that's something that I do honor. So you naming that definitely refreshed my memory on how important that is for us. And that's really connected to the theme around wayfinding that we're exploring. So you did mention the Hōkūle'a sailing. I just wanted to ask a follow up question around that for folks who may be hearing that for the first time. I know that this is tied to an ancient tradition of sailing and I was wondering how you first got into that tradition and also what you're doing with that knowledge now. If you could speak to that, we would love to hear more about it.   Sam Kapoi: [00:34:37] My introduction to the life of voyaging was back in high school. 2000, 2001 is when I was introduced to a canoe called Eala. That's the canoe, our traditional canoe in Wai'anae that was built by our people out here for navigation. And so, naturally, I would flow to the mother of all canoes, which is Hōkūle'a. And so being introduced to Eala, and actually, Eala means the awakening, right? It was a canoe built by our people to really wake our people up out on this side because Hawai'i struggled like any other indigenous culture out there, Westerners coming over destroying everything, cutting out culture, language, art, and in the 70s, our kupuna or our elders were kind of fed up and wanted to start this renaissance and so Hōkūle'a was a huge part in revitalizing our traditional arts and culture and everything that fell in between those lines. It's all volunteer based, you know. Most recently, our big voyage called the Mālama Honua Worldwide Voyage. You can check it out on hokulea.com H O K U L E A dot com and see the voyage. My role on that voyage was like the younger generation leadership. It's going around the planet, spreading the good works of Mālama Honua, which means to take care of the earth. It's not like we was going around to tell people how to take care of the earth. We were going around to see how people are dealing with caring for the earth. Because we're only an island out here and with the obvious changes of climate change and sea level rising, a lot of our shorelines for all little islands is diminishing rapidly. And so, some islands is literally gone because of this climate change. By going around the world, Hōkūle'a was that beacon to bring hope that you know, people is trying to do the right thing to make change in this world. And so that was a three year long voyage, actually four years. Right now we're planning to go around the entire Pacific Rim starting from Alaska and ending up in Russia and so that's a kind of crazy one right now.   Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:36:56] Fam, what I love about the way that you broke that down is we're talking about wayfinding as a concept culturally and exploring our own identities and you're literally talking about wayfinding across the globe on the sailing you know, voyages. So really love that connection. Kai, in your experience as an educator, given your background, your life experience, your cultural roots, in what ways would you say the traditions, your ancestry, your familial background have influenced your thinking as an educator?   Kai Burley: [00:37:33] I'm very fortunate to be one of those Hawaiians that was raised Hawaiian. I didn't, even though I have a degree in Hawaiian studies, a lot of people, and that's why I hate to lead with my degree. I hate, not, I shouldn't say hate, I don't really enjoy, not enjoy, I don't really like to lead with, oh, I'm a native Hawaiian, and then my degree is in Hawaiian studies, because then a lot of people will assume, and not just the foreigners, my own people as well, will assume that, oh, this girl, she just learned how to be Hawaiian by going to school. Because unfortunately for Native Hawaiians, that's how a lot of us have to learn. A lot of Hawaiians have to learn how to be Hawaiian. But for me, I was very fortunate to grow up in a Hawaiian home. I was raised by my mom's parents. My grandfather is Native Hawaiian Chinese, and then my grandmother, who is Native Hawaiian Portuguese. I was very fortunate to, from day one, I don't remember what it is to not be Hawaiian. I've been a hula dancer since, I can't even remember my first hula lesson I want to say from the age of two, my grandparents tell me I started dancing at two. Reading books, we never sat down to read like Mother Goose stories. I remember sitting down and I don't know, Sam, if you remember that book that Herb Kāne was the illustrator about Pele, Pele is our goddess of the volcano, like that was my first childhood book I can remember. I remember listening and reading about Hawaiian mythology and Hawaiian legends, my grandparents put Hawaiian food on the table. It wasn't something like I hear from other friends and other Ohana members and things that like eating poi, which is our main staple. I was taught to be grateful for those things and I was taught that it was important to know who I am and where I come from and that I'm Hawaiian.   It's funny, a funny story. When I was fourth grade I was picked up early from school because I got into a little bit of a fight. Somebody called me a haole, which is a white person or a foreigner. And my grandfather picked me up and I remember this conversation so vividly and he was like, “What happened?” And I was like, this guy called me freaking haole, I'm Hawaiian, I'm pure Hawaiian. And it was at like age ten that my grandfather had to tell me. “You know, babe, you're not pure Hawaiian.” And I was devastated. I was so devastated. I mean, it was my world, you know what I mean? It was like, I never met my white dad. But yeah, all of those things, language, hula, kupuna, aina[?], kalo. Those things were always with me. They weren't taught to me in elementary school, they weren't taught to me in high school, in college. And as an educator I think it became a real obstacle for me because of the advantages that I had being raised in my Hawaiian culture, it made me look at my students at first—and I always get down on myself about this—one of the teachers that I student taught behind, Keala Watson, a great brother from Nanakuli, had to tell me like, “Aye Kai, you cannot expect these students to know what you know, and you don't get disappointed when they don't know what a'ole means, which means no. Don't get upset that they don't know what the word kuleana means, which means responsibility, because Native Hawaiians in today's world are worried about surviving. They don't have the same advantages that some of us had to live within our culture.” And I'm getting goosebumps because it was a real big awakening for me. So I think as an educator, for me, I try to, I bring my whole culture to my classroom. I don't dumb it down. I don't dilute it. Even if somebody tells me that I need to dilute it, if somebody tells me that there's other students that aren't Native Hawaiian in my classroom, I don't care. This is Hawaii. I'm a Hawaiian. The majority of the students and the people in the public school education are Hawaiian. I'm going to bring it so that it becomes normal. The same way that I was very fortunate to have had that normal Hawaiian setting.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:41:28] Thank you. Thank you, sis. Something that you said that really resonated with me or stood out was the story that you shared and being told, hey, guess what, you're not. And having to, like, deal with that, I can definitely relate to that being multi-ethnic, multiracial. Always feeling like there's no space for you to, I don't know, maybe fully belong or feeling like you at some points have to fight to belong or prove that no, no, no, this is, this is me this is my lineage, I have a right to this, and that definitely resonates and I can relate so much to that. I had been called growing up a few times, palagi, which in Samoan that's, yeah, you're white and I'm like, no, but wait, I'm actually not. And then finding out years later no, actually there's some German in our family line and I go, oh, okay. So that I felt that and then again, you said, I'm going to bring my whole self, my whole culture to the classroom and I'm with it. And I, it is something that I'm striving to do every single day that I teach. My question to you right now, Kai, is first of all, you recently had a baby, so congratulations. As we look backward and forward to future generations, where do you feel or might you feel that our roles as mothers, and I have a little one now and I'm working really hard to make sure that she is fully aware of who she is as a Samoan, a Nigerian, and Black American, but where do our roles as mothers intersect with our roles as wayfinders?   Kai Burley: [00:43:04] That's so cool that you asked that question because I think when I was writing my notes on what to bring to the table, I think that's the role that I was writing from. And I wrote notes, a lot of notes on, not just my kids in the classroom, but like my kids. For my kids as Native Hawaiians, and their dad is white from Florida, I explained to them about being Hawaiian after realizing the privilege that I've had. And I will recognize that a lot of the privilege I have with learning my culture, having it in my household, has a lot to do with the other ethnic, backgrounds that I come from. Definitely my Portuguese or white background has definitely set me up for some type of success or privilege if you want to say. We'll say privilege. But as far as wayfinding for indigenous people, and definitely for Native Hawaiians, I think wayfinding has a lot to do with that, with knowing where you come from. We say mo'okū'auhau, that's one piece of it. And I try to teach my kids, where you come from, where your dad come from, where do I come from? Where is grandma from? Where is tutu kane from? And then the other side of it, so you have mo'okū'auhau, and then the other side of it is kuleana or responsibility or duty. I rarely say privilege. I only say privilege when I talk about my haole side. When we think in terms of Native Hawaiian mana'o or thought or indigenous thought, there is no sense of privilege; it's all kuleana. It's duty. So knowing where you come from and having that cultural understanding of kuleana, not a foreign understanding, right? It's a cultural understanding. And for Hawaiians, the basis of your kuleana is your kupuna, where you come from. Right. And who you are now and what you're leaving to your mamo or your descendants in the future. And you, in that thought process, you don't just, it's not compartmentalized. I don't tell my kids, oh, you only think in this way as you're Hawaiian. No, because you're taught to be this way, because you're taught to be Hawaiian, this mana'o goes for every single inlet that you have in your body.   So, this mana'o of kuleana and mo'okū'auhau goes to your haole genealogy. It goes towards your Chinese ancestry. It goes towards your Portuguese ancestry. And just around the same age, my son is 10 and he's going through that same kind of identity, I want to say forthcoming, and he's asking a lot of those questions like, “Mom, I'm white.” And I said, you know what? You have a responsibility. You have a kuleana. Mana'o of Hawaiian, mana'o, you have a kuleana. Because you're white, we're going to use that and to fulfill everything else that you need to fulfill to help your people, to help your ohana, to help your kaiaulu, to help your community. Because he's getting this other side from his dad who is white, like, they have that, they have, we're having that conversation that, “Oh, my ancestors did that it's not my responsibility.” Uh no, you're Hawaiian therefore, you are connected. Like in the, like the ocean, like we're talking about wayfinding and navigating, right? It's so cool how, like the mana'o, the kind of lessons that Sam and people like Sam, they bring into this conversation of culture. Like wayfinding is exactly the concepts that you use in wayfinding you use in everyday life. Right. You use in the classroom and you have this mana'o that we are all connected. There's no stop from past, present, and future. There's no stop from ancestor, self, and descendants, right? We're all connected. You're connected to your past, present, future, to your ancestors, and your descendants, and to every area around this place. For my kids, it's easier for them to understand when you put it in a Hawaiian mana'o. It's just when you try to bring in all these different other kind of thoughts, like these foreign thoughts of, no, you're only responsible for yourself or, you know, like the nuclear family, you know, but definitely as a mom, I want my sons and now my daughter to be Hawaiian, like I said, bring their full self and their full self is Hawaiian, no matter if they are part Haole or Chinese, their Hawaiian is what overflows into all of those different compartments.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:47:02] Thank you, Kai. That was, that was beautiful. I was like taking notes, like with not calling it privilege and even being mindful about that because I feel like I do refer to it as privilege anytime I get a piece of information and then listening to you share, I feel like I'm, I don't want to say owed, but my ancestral knowledge, like that's mine to own, right? That's mine to fully to make a part of all of me and my daughters as well. You said that wayfinding has a lot to do with knowing where you come from. There's a responsibility and a duty. We're all connected, right? There's no stop between the past, present, and future, which takes me straight to this question that I have for you, Sam. Why is the concept of wayfinding so relevant for this moment, for today, for our students who are probably in our classrooms right now?   Sam Kapoi: [00:47:51] That's a great question. I grew up in a home that my grandmother, she was literally born in that generation or raised in the generation that it wasn't right to be Hawaiian. She was literally told by her mother, my great grandmother, that children is to be heard and not seen, which is like mind blowing nowadays, right? Because we couldn't speak the language, couldn't dance. There were rebels obviously that did it. because they didn't care. But because of this whole western world thing at that time, the new coming, they were trying to adapt to that culture, you know, instead of their own. And so, for me growing up, I wasn't raised by my mother or my father. I was raised by my grandparents. And, I was raised, in a hard working sense as a Hawaiian, as a kanaka here but on the culture and language side, totally wasn't. The only thing that was real relevant in culture was providing, like my grandpa he would teach me a lot about the ocean and fishing and all types of different fishing, throwing net, offshore fishing, and diving, and I guess that was my kind of link to the ocean in the beginning with that kind of wayfinding, right? You know, if you're not going to go to the ocean to provide, then what's the sense of going, and so, for him, you know, instilling those kind of values and ike, right? The knowledge in me at such a young age. I think about it all the time, you know nowadays, the challenge is real.   Like Kai was mentioning earlier about just trying to survive out here, especially in Hawai'i. Statistically, it's like the most expensive place to live on this planet, especially in the US. And so, a lot of our people stray away from that cultural connection. Because, for me, I chose to learn. It actually started around ten or nine that I realized that one of my cousins was going to a Hawaiian immersion school, right, fully immersed school for our language and culture. When I asked my grandma and my mom, like, how come I'm not going to that school? You know, like, why do I have to go to our elementary school that's local here and why not go to the other one? And they were so like, just negative about it. I think that is what kind of elevated or pushed me to learn more and become that again because spiritually that was just pulling me in that path to learn, because if I don't, then who will? Like one of my kupuna told me before, she told me, ‘o wai ‘oe, right? And basically that means, who are you? And that's a pretty heavy question. And I ask myself all the time, who am I? Cause it's just like Kai said, I thought I was just a Hawaiian, you know? 100%. And then, because I never knew my dad until later years, probably around 10 or 11 years old, and found out he was Samoan, German, at first I thought it was just pure Hawaiian Samoan. Then you start digging into the layers of genealogy, mo'okū'auhau, knowing who you are. And finding out you're German, part Korean, and all this other stuff. And kuleana, the responsibility of those lineages, like what is that to you, and so for me by returning to the core, because I'm here in Hawaii, we call it ho'i i ka piko, right? Return to the center. Immersing myself just finding out who I am as a Hawaiian and how I can make other people realize how, I don't want to use the word, but privileged we are, you know what I mean? It's just like, cause that's true, you know, we, that's a privilege to be us, our people, that's what I believe. And, at the same time, like Kai said, it is kuleana, our duty, our responsibility to uphold the highest. Because our kupuna wasn't idiots they're, to me, pretty badass, like they survived all this time to become one of the most self-sufficient peoples on this planet, in the middle of the Pacific. And so nowadays with all this distractions, we do veer off the ala, we call it, right? Off our course and trying to find that goal, like that want, that need, that whatever it is that we're gunning for and just in this course of this year, last year and this year, and so with, with that, I had to ho'i i ka piko again, realize who I am and where I come from. And so, getting back on course to hold the line, to hold that course so that I can be that example, I guess that role model, right, for the next generation to look up to.   Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:52:17] Sam, I feel like I related to much of what you were sharing in terms of my own upbringing regarding assimilating to dominant culture as a first generation Filipino American and in my adult life, I've now started that journey to return back to that self discovery of my cultural roots. And I feel like what you share just definitely resonated with me and is inspiring me to think even more deeply about who I am. That's something that's going to stick with me.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:52:49] So before we wrap or as we wrap, to wrap, are there any other thoughts, feelings, notes that maybe you wanted to make sure that you shared on this episode with us today?   Kai Burley: [00:52:59] Well I just want to mahalo you guys for having me on there. And I want to mahalo my brother, Sam, a true wayfinder in all sense of the word, like literal wayfinding, mana'o wayfinding and just, he brings so much to our culture and to our keiki. He didn't really mention this because, you know, he's all ha'aha'a and humble, but what him and his people do it gives an alternate way of learning. It really brings them back to their culture and it should really be the true way of learning. Like Sam mentioned the Eala and all of these people like Sam that are not in the classroom, but it's a very indigenous mana'o that the profession of educator doesn't mean that you're the only educators in this world, right? We learn from our ohana, right? And our ohana is extended to outside of the classroom, to into the community, to outside of our community, to across continents, and on the US our ohana extends to all of these points, right? There's no disconnect. Right? In wayfinding and navigation and traversing is fluid once you know who you are and where you come from. Right? but yeah, just mahalo to you guys and mahalo to Brother Sam, Sam Kapoi.   Sam Kapoi: [00:54:11] Mahalo Kai. In my genealogy, my eighth generation grandfather, his name was Poi Nui, Harry George Poi was his name. And so he was known for his kalo, which is basically our older brother, right? And in our genealogy, mythology, in Hawai'i his name was Haloa. And so kalo is the taro root, right? And he was known for his Wai'anae lehua kalo. He was the, one of the first, I think, or the first Hawaiian owned business man out here. People from all over Hawai'i would come down here to get his kalo and his poi. Poi is cooked mashed up kalo. That is pounded and mixed with water to make poi, which is our staple, of life. As disconnected as I was, language and art and all that stuff, I was more connected with food. All my life was food. And more recently, earlier this year, I started a business called Kalo Bombs. We make fresh pa'i'ai every single day to serve it to our people.   Kai Burley: [00:55:08] And it's the bomb. It's the bomb.   Sam Kapoi: [00:55:11] One of the first things that you learn in navigation is always to know where you come from. Literally, when you take off from that point from your home to remember where you come from, because just in case anything happens on that voyage, you know exactly where to go. However you want to take that metaphor and apply it to your life, like super critical, helped me a lot through my life with just knowing where home is, physical, spiritual, mental, all that stuff. And so there's a ōlelo no'eau or a Hawaiian proverb that our kupuna use was that, not all knowledge is learned in one school. That proverb alone is basically to be open, be open and go out there and learn as much as you can, because the mind is the most powerful weapon and by seeking other mentors, throughout the world.   Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:56:00] Yeah, just thank y'all both so much. This has been incredible. I can't wait to even run it back and re-listen and tune into some of the wisdom y'all dropped.   Estella Owoimaha-Church & outro music: [00:56:10] We want to thank our special guests Sam and Kai one more time for rapping with us tonight. We appreciate you both for being here and really helping us continue to build the groundwork for the Continental Shifts podcast and setting a really strong foundation with contextualizing this concept of wayfinding for us and for our listeners.   Sam Kapoi: [00:56:26] Oh yeah, mahalo nui, you guys.   Kai Burley: [00:56:28] Mahalo nui.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:29] Faafetai tele lava. Thank you for listening.   Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:56:32] Salamat. Thank you for listening. Continental Shifts Podcast can be found on Podbean, Apple, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:41] Be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube for archived footage and grab some merch on our site.   Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:56:45] Join our mailing list updates at conshiftspodcast.com. That's C-O-N-S-H-I-F-T-S podcast dot com and follow us at con underscore shifts on all social media platforms.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:57:02] Dope educators wayfinding the past, present, and future.   Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:57:06] Keep rocking with us fam. We're going to make continental shifts through dialogue, with love, and all together.   Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:57:12] Fa'afeti, thanks again. Tōfā, deuces.   Gabriel A. Tangalao: [00:57:06] Peace. One love.   Miko Lee: [00:57:19] Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program/apexexpress to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex express is produced by me Miko Lee along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaidya, Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hien Nguyen and Cheryl Truong. Thank you so much to the team at KPFA for their support. Have a great night. The post APEX Express – 4.4.24 Intro Continental Shifts appeared first on KPFA.

The guys (@GamblingPodcast) are talking college basketball picks 3/13/24 edition on their latest college basketball predictions podcast. We're joined by Colby Dant (@TheColbyD) from The College Basketball Experience. They recap some of the latest college basketball action and share some early thoughts on March Madness. In this College Basketball Picks episode, Sean, Ryan, and Colby give out their best college basketball bets for Wednesday 3/13/24. If you're looking for college basketball predictions or March Madness Previews this is your show!They recap some of the latest college basketball action and share some early thoughts on March Madness. We continue our March Madness previews with the WAC, SWAC, MEAC, AAC & Big West Conference Tournaments.In addition to our college basketball betting picks, we built an Underdog Fantasy Pick'Em lineup live on the show. We close out the show with our Locks, Dogs & Bonus Locks as well as final thoughts for the college basketball games on 3/13/24.Go here for the daily best bets.Go here for the all of our conference previews.Podcast Timecodes0:00 Intro6:15 Colby Dant Joins the Show19:55 Saint Joseph's vs George Mason24:40 Florida State vs Virginia Tech32:20 UCF vs BYU37:22 Oklahoma vs TCU41:50 Lehigh vs Colgate47:52 Kansas State vs Texas51:15 Boston College vs Clemson52:18 Cincinnati vs Kansas58:40 Underdog Fantasy Pick'Em1:02:18 AAC Conference Tournament Betting Preview1:11:59 Rice (13) vs Wichita State (12)1:14:30 UTSA (14) vs Temple (11)1:18:20 SWAC Tournament Betting Preview1:22:22 Alabama A&M (7) vs Alcorn State (2)1:24:43 Alabama State (8) vs Grambling (1)1:26:25 Jackson State (6) vs Texas Southern (3)1:27:26 Bethune-Cookman (5) vs Southern (4)1:29:30 MEAC Tournament Betting Preview1:37:50 Coppin State (8) vs Norfolk State (1)1:40:00 Maryland Eastern Shore (7) vs North Carolina Central (2)1:41:30 Morgan State (5) vs Howard (4)1:43:00 Delaware State (6) vs South Carolina State (3)1:44:35 WAC Tournament Betting Preview1:51:27 Cal Baptist (8) vs Utah Valley (5)1:53:00 Abilene Christian (7) vs Stephan F. Austin (6)1:55:15 Big West Tournament Preview2:06:00 Cal State Bakersfield (8) vs UC Riverside (5)2:07:35 Cal State Northridge (7) vs UC Santa Barbara (6)2:10:41 Best BetsJOIN the SGPN community #DegensOnlyExclusive Merch, Contests and Bonus Episodes ONLY on Patreon - https://sg.pn/patreonDiscuss with fellow degens on Discord - https://sg.pn/discordSGPN Merch Store - https://sg.pn/storeDownload The Free SGPN App - https://sgpn.appCheck out the Sports Gambling Podcast on YouTube - https://sg.pn/YouTubeCheck out our website - http://sportsgamblingpodcast.comSUPPORT us by supporting our partnersUnderdog Fantasy code SGPN - 100% Deposit Match up to $100 - https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-sgpnChamps - Host your bracket and get two free shots at winning $100 - https://champssportspools.com/sgpn/Gametime code SGPN - Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code SGPN for $20 off your first purchase - https://gametime.co/KUTT code SGPN - Head over to Kutt.com to get a 10% deposit bonus on the Hall Of Fame Bets code SGPN - 50% off your first month today - https://hof-bets.app.link/sgpnWATCH the Sports Gambling PodcastYouTube - https://sg.pn/YouTubeTwitch - https://sg.pn/TwitchFOLLOW The Sports Gambling Podcast On Social MediaTwitter - http://www.twitter.com/gamblingpodcastInstagram - http://www.instagram.com/sportsgamblingpodcastTikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@gamblingpodcastFacebook - http://www.facebook.com/sportsgamblingpodcastFOLLOW The Hosts On Social MediaSean Green - http://www.twitter.com/seantgreenRyan Kramer - http://www.twitter.com/kramercentricADVERTISE with SGPNInterested in advertising? Contact sales@sgpn.ioGambling problem? Call CO, DC, IL, IN, LA, MD, MS, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY) Call (MA)21+ to wager. Please Gamble Responsibly. Call 1-800-NEXT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The guys (@GamblingPodcast) are talking college basketball picks 3/13/24 edition on their latest college basketball predictions podcast. We're joined by Colby Dant (@TheColbyD) from The College Basketball Experience. They recap some of the latest college basketball action and share some early thoughts on March Madness. In this College Basketball Picks episode, Sean, Ryan, and Colby give out their best college basketball bets for Wednesday 3/13/24. If you're looking for college basketball predictions or March Madness Previews this is your show! They recap some of the latest college basketball action and share some early thoughts on March Madness. We continue our March Madness previews with the WAC, SWAC, MEAC, AAC & Big West Conference Tournaments. In addition to our college basketball betting picks, we built an Underdog Fantasy Pick'Em lineup live on the show. We close out the show with our Locks, Dogs & Bonus Locks as well as final thoughts for the college basketball games on 3/13/24. Go here for the daily best bets. Go here for the all of our conference previews. Podcast Timecodes 0:00 Intro 6:15 Colby Dant Joins the Show 19:55 Saint Joseph's vs George Mason 24:40 Florida State vs Virginia Tech 32:20 UCF vs BYU 37:22 Oklahoma vs TCU 41:50 Lehigh vs Colgate 47:52 Kansas State vs Texas 51:15 Boston College vs Clemson 52:18 Cincinnati vs Kansas 58:40 Underdog Fantasy Pick'Em 1:02:18 AAC Conference Tournament Betting Preview 1:11:59 Rice (13) vs Wichita State (12) 1:14:30 UTSA (14) vs Temple (11) 1:18:20 SWAC Tournament Betting Preview 1:22:22 Alabama A&M (7) vs Alcorn State (2) 1:24:43 Alabama State (8) vs Grambling (1) 1:26:25 Jackson State (6) vs Texas Southern (3) 1:27:26 Bethune-Cookman (5) vs Southern (4) 1:29:30 MEAC Tournament Betting Preview 1:37:50 Coppin State (8) vs Norfolk State (1) 1:40:00 Maryland Eastern Shore (7) vs North Carolina Central (2) 1:41:30 Morgan State (5) vs Howard (4) 1:43:00 Delaware State (6) vs South Carolina State (3) 1:44:35 WAC Tournament Betting Preview 1:51:27 Cal Baptist (8) vs Utah Valley (5) 1:53:00 Abilene Christian (7) vs Stephan F. Austin (6) 1:55:15 Big West Tournament Preview 2:06:00 Cal State Bakersfield (8) vs UC Riverside (5) 2:07:35 Cal State Northridge (7) vs UC Santa Barbara (6) 2:10:41 Best Bets JOIN the SGPN community #DegensOnly Exclusive Merch, Contests and Bonus Episodes ONLY on Patreon - https://sg.pn/patreon Discuss with fellow degens on Discord - https://sg.pn/discord SGPN Merch Store - https://sg.pn/store Download The Free SGPN App - https://sgpn.app Check out the Sports Gambling Podcast on YouTube - https://sg.pn/YouTube Check out our website - http://sportsgamblingpodcast.com SUPPORT us by supporting our partners Underdog Fantasy code SGPN - 100% Deposit Match up to $100 - https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-sgpn Gametime code SGPN - Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code SGPN for $20 off your first purchase - https://gametime.co/ KUTT code SGPN - Head over to Kutt.com to get a 10% deposit bonus on the  Hall Of Fame Bets code SGPN - 50% off your first month today - https://hof-bets.app.link/sgpn WATCH the Sports Gambling Podcast YouTube - https://sg.pn/YouTube Twitch - https://sg.pn/Twitch FOLLOW The Sports Gambling Podcast On Social Media Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/gamblingpodcast Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/sportsgamblingpodcast TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@gamblingpodcast Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/sportsgamblingpodcast FOLLOW The Hosts On Social Media Sean Green - http://www.twitter.com/seantgreen Ryan Kramer - http://www.twitter.com/kramercentric ADVERTISE with SGPN Interested in advertising? Contact sales@sgpn.io Gambling problem? Call CO, DC, IL, IN, LA, MD, MS, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY) Call (MA) 21+ to wager. Please Gamble Responsibly. Call 1-800-NEXT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The guys (@GamblingPodcast) are talking college basketball picks 3/13/24 edition on their latest college basketball predictions podcast. We're joined by Colby Dant (@TheColbyD) from The College Basketball Experience. They recap some of the latest college basketball action and share some early thoughts on March Madness. In this College Basketball Picks episode, Sean, Ryan, and Colby give out their best college basketball bets for Wednesday 3/13/24. If you're looking for college basketball predictions or March Madness Previews this is your show!They recap some of the latest college basketball action and share some early thoughts on March Madness. We continue our March Madness previews with the WAC, SWAC, MEAC, AAC & Big West Conference Tournaments.In addition to our college basketball betting picks, we built an Underdog Fantasy Pick'Em lineup live on the show. We close out the show with our Locks, Dogs & Bonus Locks as well as final thoughts for the college basketball games on 3/13/24.Go here for the daily best bets.Go here for the all of our conference previews.Podcast Timecodes0:00 Intro6:15 Colby Dant Joins the Show19:55 Saint Joseph's vs George Mason24:40 Florida State vs Virginia Tech32:20 UCF vs BYU37:22 Oklahoma vs TCU41:50 Lehigh vs Colgate47:52 Kansas State vs Texas51:15 Boston College vs Clemson52:18 Cincinnati vs Kansas58:40 Underdog Fantasy Pick'Em1:02:18 AAC Conference Tournament Betting Preview1:11:59 Rice (13) vs Wichita State (12)1:14:30 UTSA (14) vs Temple (11)1:18:20 SWAC Tournament Betting Preview1:22:22 Alabama A&M (7) vs Alcorn State (2)1:24:43 Alabama State (8) vs Grambling (1)1:26:25 Jackson State (6) vs Texas Southern (3)1:27:26 Bethune-Cookman (5) vs Southern (4)1:29:30 MEAC Tournament Betting Preview1:37:50 Coppin State (8) vs Norfolk State (1)1:40:00 Maryland Eastern Shore (7) vs North Carolina Central (2)1:41:30 Morgan State (5) vs Howard (4)1:43:00 Delaware State (6) vs South Carolina State (3)1:44:35 WAC Tournament Betting Preview1:51:27 Cal Baptist (8) vs Utah Valley (5)1:53:00 Abilene Christian (7) vs Stephan F. Austin (6)1:55:15 Big West Tournament Preview2:06:00 Cal State Bakersfield (8) vs UC Riverside (5)2:07:35 Cal State Northridge (7) vs UC Santa Barbara (6)2:10:41 Best BetsJOIN the SGPN community #DegensOnlyExclusive Merch, Contests and Bonus Episodes ONLY on Patreon - https://sg.pn/patreonDiscuss with fellow degens on Discord - https://sg.pn/discordSGPN Merch Store - https://sg.pn/storeDownload The Free SGPN App - https://sgpn.appCheck out the Sports Gambling Podcast on YouTube - https://sg.pn/YouTubeCheck out our website - http://sportsgamblingpodcast.comSUPPORT us by supporting our partnersUnderdog Fantasy code SGPN - 100% Deposit Match up to $100 - https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-sgpnGametime code SGPN - Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code SGPN for $20 off your first purchase - https://gametime.co/KUTT code SGPN - Head over to Kutt.com to get a 10% deposit bonus on the Hall Of Fame Bets code SGPN - 50% off your first month today - https://hof-bets.app.link/sgpnWATCH the Sports Gambling PodcastYouTube - https://sg.pn/YouTubeTwitch - https://sg.pn/TwitchFOLLOW The Sports Gambling Podcast On Social MediaTwitter - http://www.twitter.com/gamblingpodcastInstagram - http://www.instagram.com/sportsgamblingpodcastTikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@gamblingpodcastFacebook - http://www.facebook.com/sportsgamblingpodcastFOLLOW The Hosts On Social MediaSean Green - http://www.twitter.com/seantgreenRyan Kramer - http://www.twitter.com/kramercentricADVERTISE with SGPNInterested in advertising? Contact sales@sgpn.ioGambling problem? Call CO, DC, IL, IN, LA, MD, MS, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY) Call (MA)21+ to wager. Please Gamble Responsibly. Call 1-800-NEXT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The guys (@GamblingPodcast) are talking college basketball picks 3/13/24 edition on their latest college basketball predictions podcast. We're joined by Colby Dant (@TheColbyD) from The College Basketball Experience. They recap some of the latest college basketball action and share some early thoughts on March Madness. In this College Basketball Picks episode, Sean, Ryan, and Colby give out their best college basketball bets for Wednesday 3/13/24. If you're looking for college basketball predictions or March Madness Previews this is your show! They recap some of the latest college basketball action and share some early thoughts on March Madness. We continue our March Madness previews with the WAC, SWAC, MEAC, AAC & Big West Conference Tournaments. In addition to our college basketball betting picks, we built an Underdog Fantasy Pick'Em lineup live on the show. We close out the show with our Locks, Dogs & Bonus Locks as well as final thoughts for the college basketball games on 3/13/24. Go here for the daily best bets. Go here for the all of our conference previews. Podcast Timecodes 0:00 Intro 6:15 Colby Dant Joins the Show 19:55 Saint Joseph's vs George Mason 24:40 Florida State vs Virginia Tech 32:20 UCF vs BYU 37:22 Oklahoma vs TCU 41:50 Lehigh vs Colgate 47:52 Kansas State vs Texas 51:15 Boston College vs Clemson 52:18 Cincinnati vs Kansas 58:40 Underdog Fantasy Pick'Em 1:02:18 AAC Conference Tournament Betting Preview 1:11:59 Rice (13) vs Wichita State (12) 1:14:30 UTSA (14) vs Temple (11) 1:18:20 SWAC Tournament Betting Preview 1:22:22 Alabama A&M (7) vs Alcorn State (2) 1:24:43 Alabama State (8) vs Grambling (1) 1:26:25 Jackson State (6) vs Texas Southern (3) 1:27:26 Bethune-Cookman (5) vs Southern (4) 1:29:30 MEAC Tournament Betting Preview 1:37:50 Coppin State (8) vs Norfolk State (1) 1:40:00 Maryland Eastern Shore (7) vs North Carolina Central (2) 1:41:30 Morgan State (5) vs Howard (4) 1:43:00 Delaware State (6) vs South Carolina State (3) 1:44:35 WAC Tournament Betting Preview 1:51:27 Cal Baptist (8) vs Utah Valley (5) 1:53:00 Abilene Christian (7) vs Stephan F. Austin (6) 1:55:15 Big West Tournament Preview 2:06:00 Cal State Bakersfield (8) vs UC Riverside (5) 2:07:35 Cal State Northridge (7) vs UC Santa Barbara (6) 2:10:41 Best Bets JOIN the SGPN community #DegensOnly Exclusive Merch, Contests and Bonus Episodes ONLY on Patreon - https://sg.pn/patreon Discuss with fellow degens on Discord - https://sg.pn/discord SGPN Merch Store - https://sg.pn/store Download The Free SGPN App - https://sgpn.app Check out the Sports Gambling Podcast on YouTube - https://sg.pn/YouTube Check out our website - http://sportsgamblingpodcast.com SUPPORT us by supporting our partners Underdog Fantasy code SGPN - 100% Deposit Match up to $100 - https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-sgpn Gametime code SGPN - Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code SGPN for $20 off your first purchase - https://gametime.co/ KUTT code SGPN - Head over to Kutt.com to get a 10% deposit bonus on the  Hall Of Fame Bets code SGPN - 50% off your first month today - https://hof-bets.app.link/sgpn WATCH the Sports Gambling Podcast YouTube - https://sg.pn/YouTube Twitch - https://sg.pn/Twitch FOLLOW The Sports Gambling Podcast On Social Media Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/gamblingpodcast Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/sportsgamblingpodcast TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@gamblingpodcast Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/sportsgamblingpodcast FOLLOW The Hosts On Social Media Sean Green - http://www.twitter.com/seantgreen Ryan Kramer - http://www.twitter.com/kramercentric ADVERTISE with SGPN Interested in advertising? Contact sales@sgpn.io Gambling problem? Call CO, DC, IL, IN, LA, MD, MS, NJ, OH, PA, TN, VA, WV, WY Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY) Call (MA) 21+ to wager. Please Gamble Responsibly. Call 1-800-NEXT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On this episode we're joined by Adriana Chavira. Adriana is a journalism teacher at Daniel Pearl Magnet High School in Los Angeles. She's been teaching for more than 20 years She's also previously worked as a newspaper reporter after graduating Cal-State Northridge.We're having Adriana on this week because it is Scholastic Journalism Week. The Journalism Education Association is doing and promoting activities all week devoted to bringing awareness to journalism education.Adriana talked about her work as a teacher at one of the smallest schools in the city, one whose demographics are more than half Latino. She explained what she teaches, how she teaches, and the work that the students do in her classes.She also talked about her experience with student press freedom, stemming from a suspension she was given (later rescinded) after defending her students' rights against administrative censorship.Further details on that can be found herehttps://splc.org/2022/09/lausd-withdraws-unlawful-disciplinary-action/Adriana's salute: All the state and local journalism education organizations.Thank you as always for listening. Please send us feedback to journalismsalute@gmail.com,Visit our website: thejournalismsalute.org Mark's website (MarkSimonmedia.com)Tweet us at @journalismpod.Subscribe to our newsletter- journalismsalute.substack.com

"The Cloud" is a metaphor for the top level of corporate authority - the CEO, CFO, CTO and maybe some Vice President positions. And if you're trying to transform an organization, your ideas need to penetrate the Cloud - but how? In this episode, Bill Bellows and host Andrew Stotz talk about influencing others with the aim of transformation.  TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.2 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with Bill Bellows, who has spent 30 years helping people apply Dr. Deming's ideas to become aware of how their thinking is holding them back from their biggest opportunities. Today is episode 16, and the title is, Get Off of My Cloud. Bill, take it away.   0:00:29.5 Bill Bellows: Hey. Hey, hey. [laughter] Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, get Off of My Cloud. Yeah. Alright, so here we are, 2024. So before we get to the Cloud, some opening remarks. And in particular looking at session 15, which is soon to be released. And one thing I... What I tell people is, what's exciting about understanding Deming's work is how revealing, how you see the world differently, and Dr. Deming used the metaphor of a lens. But it's not only what you see, but what you hear.   0:01:19.5 AS: Right.   0:01:22.3 BB: And, and I tell people I can go into an organization and within a few minutes between what I see and what I hear, I can get a pretty good sense, is it a ME or WE organization. And we think back to the comment I shared in episode 15 where the Boeing executive said, "Let's be honest," to the room full of 300 plus internal audit people who just do great, great work.   0:01:54.4 BB: I mean, if they didn't do great work, why would they be there? Everyone in our organization does great work, otherwise, why would they be around? But when they said to them, "Let's be honest, we don't make the airplanes." And I thought, that's right up there with my wife saying to me, "Look at what your son did."   0:02:22.4 BB: My son? Or is it, look at what our son did. Another giveaway expression is, we're gonna do a root cause analysis or RRCA, which is Relentless Root Cause Analysis. Well, every, and from a Deming perspective, instead of talking about a root cause, we can say there's root causes, and there's... They're dozens, hundreds of root causes, or sorry, common causes, common causes. And then every now and then there's a special cause.   0:03:01.0 BB: But even when a special cause appears so does a bunch of common causes. So from a Deming perspective there's never a root cause. So I... One poke I have for people that like to think in terms of root cause, 'cause they have this sense of, you can explain everything by a series of connected root causes. This cause leads... It's like the five whys. That this leads to this leads to this. But it's always, this leads to that, this leads to, and it's singular strands. And I think of it like a strand of spaghetti and everything is along some pathway. And I thought, no, that's not the model Deming had in mind. Deming had in mind a multitude of strands that are all woven together that you can't... What comes out is a bunch of contributions, not just one thing. So my poke at people like to believe in root cause phenomenon is, "If life can be explained by a series of root causes, then why do you need two parents? Why isn't it a single parent?" Sorry.   0:04:18.9 BB: I just finished the fifth cohort at Cal State Northridge in a eight-week class as part of an 18-month program where the students, we start with about 30, by the time it gets to me there may be 24 or so. And one course after another, after another, it's a very rigorous program. And I do a class called Seminar in Quality Management. And I love at the beginning of the course when I ask them about, if all the beads are red, if all the red beads are eliminated, can improvement, can still go on to, all those things we've talked about in this program. And I have them write essays on it, and it's so neat to see where they are in the beginning and where they are at the end.   0:05:07.1 BB: And in the beginning they'll be talking about human error. And so every time I see human error, I just write back, is it human error or is it system error? And one student in the class commented at the end of the course of what she learned, she said, No one had ever pointed that out to her. And she distinctly remembers the very first time I said that it was like, but wait a minute. And then it made more and more sense and I thought, yeah, I mean not... Is there such a thing as a human error? Well, Deming would say that 94 plus percent comes from the system. Another cute story, I used to host a monthly conference call for 17 years, every month for 17 years.   0:06:02.0 AS: Wow.   0:06:02.8 BB: And featured on the call was a thought leader, Russ Ackoff did it four years in a row. He became the January thought leader. And generally it was random, different people. But then when it got to Russ, it was every January Russ did it. And I would go out and stay with him and be in the room with him and the distribution list was at one point in time, 5000 people around the world, that I had somehow interacted with. And the announcement would go off out every month, and it would say, this month's ongoing discussion with thought leaders, is Andrew Stotz, Andrew's gonna talk on this topic. Please find attached his thought piece. You can join us. And there were four opportunities to call in on 12 to one and one to two on the last Thursday and Friday of the month. And there was four different opportunities for the audience to engage with Andrew, and it wasn't a presentation by you. The protocol was they would read the article, then they would say to you, Andrew, on page five, you said this can you clarify? So I said to them, it's not a presentation, it's a conversation.   0:07:08.9 BB: So a friend had in mind, somebody that he worked with as a thought leader. I said, okay, let me, She'd just written a book. And the book title was along the lines of Think Like a Champion, so I read the book and it's sports stories, all these sports stories. Turns out she has an advanced degree in sports psychology and she was hired by his company as a coach. And throughout the book, her story is about people contacting her, I need help with this. I need help with this. I need help with this. A lot of these people are in sales, I need help, I need help with this. So I read the book cover to cover, and I started to notice a pattern. It was all individuals. I need help, I need help. And so when I got on the phone with her and the role of the phone call was to talk about the book, talk about the phone call, let her know what the overall strategy of what we're trying to do with these calls, promote a word as of Deming's work and working together, all that stuff.   0:08:20.6 BB: And then with that, see if that fit, what if she felt, in fact, what I had in mind was that there's things in there she could contribute, but there's things in there that might be slippery. So I shared with her that I had a friend who was a high school coach for the Valencia Vikings and I bumped to him one day in a park. And he's walking towards me and he is wearing a T-shirt, and across the top are the letters V-K-N-G-S. So I'm looking at the letters and I said, I don't get it. To which the author says, there's no I in team, and that's what it was V-K-N-G-S. And so she beat me to the punchline. So I said, so you're aware of that story?   0:09:15.0 BB: She says, oh yeah. I said, "Your book is filled with sports stories." She says, "Yes." I said, "Did you ever consider that story for the book?" She says, "it really wouldn't fit." I said, "that's right." I said, "that is it, it doesn't." I said, "'cause your book is all about the I and not about the team." So at the end of the call, I said you know, when I got your book, I said the cover was revealing. And this is what I find, going back to language. You can be in a meeting and you can hear how people think, which then leads to how they act and you can't separate, you can hear that. So I said, "I looked at title of your book," which is something like, Think Like A Champion. And I said, "as soon as I saw that title," I thought. But I said, well I told her, "I said, there's a lot of good stuff in here." I said, "but, and I'm not saying everyone hears what I hear, but I don't want you to be caught short on that." She said okay. So then I said the title was kind of a giveaway of what the book was really about. She said, "well, what would've been a more appropriate title?" I said, "Think Like a Contributor."   0:10:34.5 BB: And so we are within our respective organizations, we're one of many contributors, we don't do it all by ourself, we contribute to the results and we talked last time about... Sorry.   0:10:47.1 AS: And that's an interesting point because that's a, maybe a difference between let's say American style thinking and Japanese style thinking, where Japanese may see themselves clearly as a contributor in a system. Whereas Americans, we like to think of ourselves as a unique person that fits into a certain place in this world.   0:11:08.9 BB: And I won the game, I won the game and I made it happen. And, um, but sure, and I've heard that about Japanese management, that it's more like, I am humbled and honored to be your executive and there's a real... And it comes across that it's not just talk, there's a real sense of humility and honor to be in this position as opposed to a sense of I'm the smartest guy in the room.   0:11:39.4 AS: Servant Leader.   0:11:41.4 BB: Yes, very much so. So, next thing I wanna bring up is, we talked last time about Myron Tribus's his comment, management works on the system, people work in the system, and the theme was making a difference from where you are and I mentioned that this gentleman came in, was one of our classes, and he wanted to, how often I met with our president. And I said, not very often. He said, oh, it's really important, you gotta go meet with him. And I said, "well what if I spent time talking with senior people at NASA or senior people in the Pentagon," which I did. And a mistake I made, a minor perhaps a minor error that somebody may or may not have caught. So I said, that I had the distinct pleasure of being invited to speak at the Army's largest annual logistics conference back in the 2000s. And the invite came from a senior officer on the staff of General Anne Dunwoody, who went on to become the Army's first woman, Four Star General, and so in the podcast number 15 I said, I was invited and spoke with the Army's first Four Star General, it was the Army's first woman Four Star general.   0:12:57.2 BB: So this is a clarification. I also talk about how pragmatism is being practical, but I think is, if you're trying to introduce these ideas into your respective organizations making a difference where you are, I think it's important to realize that everyone is acting as if they're being practical. And if practical means work on things that are bad to make them good and stopping, that's their, that to them is practical. Now, from a Deming perspective to not work on things that are good, to make them better to improve integration - that is practical, but it might not be practical where you are. And I mentioned, I had a Lean Management journal article that talked about that, and I couldn't remember the title. The title is Profits, Pragmatism, and the Possibilities of Possessing Other Eyes. I told you I like alliteration.   0:13:56.6 AS: Alliteration.   0:13:57.5 BB: Alright, so what is an application? We start where you are. And I would say an application, first of all, relative to an application, it's thinking, can I do this by myself? Do I need help? Do I see opportunities to reduce losses? And it's one thing to see opportunities to do something. It's a whole 'nother thing to realize that the timing might not be right. I may not have the support that I need. I may not have the funding that I need. There could be other priorities. So when I would tell people I was mentoring to see opportunities is a really big thing, whatever those are. An opportunity to shift from managing actions to managing interactions and realizing that addition doesn't work, that things are not adding up and you're realizing, holy cow, there's some opportunities for synergy here. There's opportunities to work on things which are going well to prevent the red beads, work on things that are well to improve integration.   0:15:05.3 BB: There could be opportunities to stop doing incentives within your sphere of influence, to stop handing out awards to your people on your staff. Had a friend who just became a manager years ago and I had been mentoring him and within a few weeks of him being manager in operations, he came to me and he said that somebody on his team helped him do something and he gave him a $10 lunch coupon. I didn't say anything, I just let it pass. A couple weeks later, he comes to me and he says the same guy helped him again and then reached out his hand, he says, “Where's my coupon?” I said, “I was waiting to see how long that would take.” And Andrew, that happened 25 years ago, if I was to have breakfast with him tomorrow, it would come up. Every time we meet, which is not that often, he lives a lot too far.   0:16:05.5 BB: And it was just so cool how, as I said let's just see how this goes. So the idea is that what can you do from where you are to not pass on the pain? And so it may be flowing down to you, but maybe you, if you've got a team, can stop it from where you are. Maybe. Maybe you can't. I mentioned Jim Albaugh, who went on to become CEO of Boeing Commercial, CEO of Boeing Defense. He was my boss for a number of years at the beginning of his doing these amazing things. And one day after we had some really stellar applications of Taguchi's ideas with Deming's improving integration, the hammers went away and things came together. Performance, we had an incredible advances in engine performance and integration. It was really cool. So he was really thrilled by all that. So I go, I would meet with him once a month and I'd poke him.   0:17:10.0 BB: So one day I went in and I said, “I wanna bring something to your attention.” And he looks at me with this smile. And I said, “I wanna put something on the table. And I'm not saying you've gotta do it now, but don't ever tell me I didn't bring it to your attention.” And he is like, “okay, Bill, what?” [chuckle] I said, “we've got to get rid of incentives, rewards and recognition and performance appraisals.” And then he just rolls his eyes. I said, I says, “I know you can't do this.” And I said, “but these are ankle weights on how fast we can run as an organization.” But I knew that was... I mean, he was, at the time he was a VP, even when he was CEO, he can't get rid of those. Those are such an institution. But I just wanted to go on record with him. I just chose the moment to go on record with him knowing the limits, but I wanted to be upfront and honest with him that if I don't go to those events, this is why.   0:18:18.8 BB: And so it's just making a difference from where you are and sometimes you speak up, sometimes you just keep your mouth shut. Another thing I encourage people I mentor is, if you're out managing interactions and things are improving, you've improved integration. Is that, my advice to them is go about it quietly be the change you wanna see in your organization. Be the change you wanna see in the world, to quote Gandhi, I said, but unless your boss asks you how that happened, don't explain it to them.   0:18:53.2 BB: I said, if they ask you how did you know how to do that, that's your opportunity. But if you're not asked that, I mean, in other words, don't do it expecting to be asked for what, you know, to be complimented. You do it because it's the right thing to do. Use it as a learning experience. Be deliberate about it if you're gonna go off and do it. But if you're doing it to get praise, you've missed the whole point. If you're doing it to get your boss's attention, you've missed the whole point. What I tell people is, do it' And maybe at some point in time, they say, ''ve noticed a pattern. Tell me how you do this. 'I've got a manager I work with, with a client, was asking me about how to praise someone. And I said, one is, there's nothing wrong with one-on-one in the office saying, your contributions were enormous. I said, do''t ever imply without you, we could not have done this. You're a contributor. But I said, more important than that is, ask them, how did you know how to do that? Where else could we apply this?   0:20:07.4 BB: I said, I think that is far more, I think being asked those questions are far more thrilling than a pat on the back. Back in ‘93, it was '92, I was nominated to be an engineer of the year at the Rocketdyne, which is a really big deal. I was one of a dozen finalists. And the vice president of engineering invited everyone into his office to ask us a bunch of questions. And he used our answers for the engineer of the year dinner. And what I found out from the others is, he never asked any of us, how can your work, what is your vision, Andrew, for how your work can impact the organization? And I thought that, that never came up. And I would have been thrilled, my whole interest in going through this, 'cause I knew at that time about awards and recognition, but my hope was that, that could create visibility and help me further the cause.   0:21:13.8 AS: Make an impact.   0:21:14.8 BB: This is... But another thing I would say is, I have my knuckles rapped this way a few times. And when I would try to explain to the executives how we achieve these solutions. And once one of the VPs, my VP, his comment to me was, he was watching me, he came by to see the slides I was gonna use. And he says, Bill, don't be tutorial with us. And I thought, oh, man. So what I tell people is, a staff meeting is not the time. This is really important. If you're trying to explain in a staff meeting how you accomplish something, what makes it bad is, even if you're invited, a staff meeting is not a classroom. When I walk into a classroom as the instructor, I walk in, and I know what my role is, and everybody else knows what their role is. But when you walk into a staff meeting, and you're about to present something you did, if it comes across as being tutorial, what makes that offending is, who appointed you to be the professor? But if you have a separate meeting and, but it's just these nuances, can really get in the way, which leads to tonight's feature, the Cloud Model...   0:22:42.6 AS: Before you go to tonight's feature, I'd like to go back in time to November of 1965. It was a tumultuous year. In fact, it was February of 1965 that Malcolm X was assassinated in America. 1963, November, John F. Kennedy Jr. Was assassinated. America was going through a lot of turmoil, and the Rolling Stones were the bad boys of rock and roll. In November of 1965, I was four months old, so I don't remember this personally, but the Rolling Stones came out with a song, and it was called Get Off Of My Cloud. And I just wanted to put it in context, because for us older guys, we know that this lyrics, Get Off Of My Cloud, is referring to this song where they're oftentimes saying, "hey, hey, you, you, get Off Of my Cloud." So with that introduction, tell us why you named it, this episode, Get Off Of My Cloud.   0:23:44.3 BB: Well, you're not gonna believe how apropos that, that intro was. Oh, this is so cool. It's so cool, so cool. In 1995, I met Barry Bebb, a retired, very senior executive from Xerox, who was on a very short list to be the next CEO of Xerox after David Kearns. And Barry left Xerox and became a consultant, and I met him in the Taguchi community. And somewhere in the beginning of '95, I bumped into him. I'd met him earlier at another event with Dr. Taguchi, and, um, and then there was an event in LA, a conference, and I bumped into him, and he said, hey, I know that guy. We knew each other. And he said, hey, I'm putting together this group of people, about a dozen or so people, a couple from Ford, a couple from GM.   0:24:46.7 BB: Would you like to be part of it? I was like, well, what do you have in mind? He said, "we're gonna to meet once a quarter. I wanna mentor you and help you create change within your respective organizations." And it's like "sign me up." And I was there with a very good friend, Tim Higgins, and so we signed up. And we... Barry called the group Impact 95 'cause it was 1995. And we would get together all day Friday, all day Saturday, through Sunday at noon. We would meet either within Ford, because there was a Ford member, within GM. There was a printer company we met at their headquarters, at their site.   0:25:28.7 BB: We met at Rocketdyne. We'd meet in San Diego with Barry. But once a quarter for three and a half years, we met, all on our own time. The company didn't pay for this. I told Tim, we're just gonna go off. We're not gonna tell anybody what we're doing. But what we learned from Barry is how to create change from an organization when you're in the bottom, you're an individual contributor. And so that... And I've got the notes. I've got a big pile of notes. And some of the things that jumped out when I was pulling my notes together are things we learned in that very first session. One is you can't tell anybody anything. He said, "You can lead people on a path to discover, but you can't force them to drink." And that became really powerful that, telling people something's important is a losing strategy. So what I find powerful about the Me and the We Trip Report, Red Pen, Blue Pen, whatever it is, that's not me telling people what the organization is about. That's them telling me what the organization is about.   0:26:43.7 BB: But trying to tell people this Deming stuff will change your life, that's a losing strategy. So he says, you can't tell anybody anything. And then my paraphrase is, "telling is a losing strategy." Even if you tell a loved one. If I tell our daughter, Allison, you gotta go watch this movie. You gotta go... You need to go learn more about the Rolling Stones. She's like "Dad, I'm a Swifty." It's like her telling me, "well, I'll go do that if you go watch the Eras movie with Taylor Swift." I'm thinking, "that ain't gonna happen." But anyway, so even with a loved one telling, telling is a losing strategy. Well, another thing he told us that very first meeting, you're gonna love this. He said, he points at each one of those and he's like a drill sergeant, and he says to us, "you have to be able to do this by any means necessary." You know who used those words, right?   0:27:43.8 AS: Malcolm X.   0:27:44.9 BB: Malcolm X. I remember looking at Barry saying, said that's Malcolm X. He says, and he would say, "every morning you've gotta get up and ask yourself, am I doing everything I can to make a difference in our organization?" And it was just beaten into us again and again and again and again in a very loving way. So back to the, "hey, you Get Off Of My Cloud." Barry came up with a Cloud Model. And I don't know that he had in mind to write a book about it. I don't know that he ever did. I don't know if it was ever published. I have not, I share this in all of my classes and all my consulting. I share it with clients. I'm not sure if it's out there on the internet. Well, what Barry had in mind, his model, his mental model for organizations is there's a Cloud.   0:28:31.7 BB: The Cloud is the top of the organization where all the executives are. And Barry got to the Cloud. He was in charge of Xerox's division that made the, not office copiers, but these really big, big things. And, um, and I don't know how many thousands people worked for him, but he was in the Cloud and he's briefing us. And we're individual contributors in our respective organizations. And what brought us together was each of us was trying to introduce Dr. Taguchi's ideas into our organization. But the Cloud model is universal. It's not just, it's introducing any change in our organization. And what Barry confided with us, and it kind of burst our bubble is, he said, if you get an email that says, we want you next Monday, Bill Bellows, to go to Boeing headquarters and share with them how Dr. Taguchi's work can impact Boeing.   0:29:31.7 BB: And I'd be thinking, "what an incredible opportunity." What I learned from Barry was you have to say no. And I'd be like "well, Barry, isn't that the audience I want?" And he says "no." "Why not, Barry?" He said, "here's how it works." He said, "the people in the Cloud may not like each other, but they respect each other." He said, if you're...   0:29:56.3 AS: And the people in the Cloud, remind everybody who are the people in the Cloud?   0:30:00.2 BB: The top executives of the organization are the Cloud. So that's the...   0:30:05.4 AS: They're living in a, they're living maybe in a comfy zone. They're not necessarily dealing with the nitty gritty of the business, what's going on.   0:30:13.7 BB: They're way up there in the upper atmosphere. They are... And they're the chief executive people, the senior most people in the organization. And what Barry said is, "they create the rain. They create the KPIs. They create all those things that flow down." And what Barry says, "what we're tryna do is influence what flows down. So in order to influence what flows down, you've got to get into the Cloud." He said, but the deal is, what Barry's model was, "Bill and Tim and Larry, you can't go to the Cloud." Well, why not? He said, "because you're an outsider." And he said, "they shoot outsiders, but they don't shoot each other."   0:31:02.8 BB: So what do we do? He said, "when you go back to your respective organizations," this is the very first time we meet, this is how impactful it was. He said, "when you go back to your respective organizations, start thinking about someone in your organization above you. It doesn't have to be your boss. It could be somebody over to the right, but find someone above you that you can get smart about Taguchi's work, about Deming's work, about whatever that passion is that you wanna bring to the organization to rain down. Get them smart, 'cause you can't go to the Cloud, but you can get them smart. So make it your calling to go back to work, begin to meet with someone above you. Help them get someone above them smart. Help them get somebody..." So I, I hand, I get you smart, and then I help you get your boss smart, and then you're...your boss on up. So you have to hand off. So this is not me coaching you, and then coaching you all the way. So I have to let go. I have to be a contributor.   0:32:17.5 BB: And I thought that's not what I... I thought I could be the hero and go in there. And he is like, no, it won't work. And so I went back and immediately began to mentor my boss, Jim Albaugh, who's a VP. And that was my, my strategy was to get him smart on all the things we were doing. And then he, in turn, eventually got his boss, Alan Mulally smart. And I just, but you have to let go. And then you're trying to influence the organization - so it can be done. So in terms of making difference from where you are, it's not running into the Cloud from down there and thinking, Hey, I've got these great ideas. And what Barry said is, it's not gonna work. Don't. And he saw it not work on many occasions.   0:33:08.9 BB: Now, one time I got invited to a Boeing corporate setting, and it was not, it was halfway to the Cloud. It was pretty high up. And my first thought was, No. This, you know, Barry on my shoulder, Barry says, "Bill, don't do it. Bill, don't do it." When I found out who's gonna be in the meeting, and it was all the VPs of engineering across Boeing, space and communications, and they all reported up to the VP of engineering, corporate, senior VP of engineering, who reported to Jim Albaugh. So I thought, okay, against my better judgment, I went in. But being aware of Barry's model, I went around the room and amongst the nine VPs of engineering, I knew half of them. So I went around the room,, and hi, how're you doing?   0:34:14.8 BB: I haven't seen you. And part of what I was doing in my mind, what I was doing was preparing them to help me should the others start to shoot at me. But I knew to do that. And without the awareness from Barry, I would not have known to go around the room. So it was... I mean, it wasn't the very, very top of Boeing. It was a good ways up. But I still took what I learned from Barry and said, okay, I need some help with this. I can contribute, but I'm just gonna stop there.   0:34:56.3 AS: Well...   0:34:56.4 BB: And so when it comes to this, Get Off Of my Cloud, it's the people in the Cloud, it's their Cloud. We just work here.   0:35:04.9 AS: And in the theme of music I'm gonna wrap up my part of this and then ask you to do a final wrap up. I wanna go now to 1976. 11 years after the Rolling Stones came out with their song, Get Off Of My Cloud. By this time I was 11 years old. And in 1976, the band, the Canadian Band, Rush came out with the album 2112. And the song 2112 talks about how, Neil Peart wrote this, the drummer, about how he, that it was a society he liked to show it was like a communist type of society where it was ruled by the elders. And he found a guitar, and it was an ancient guitar, and nobody had heard of a guitar. And he figured out how to play it. And he thought it would be amazing to take this to the priests, to the elders.   0:35:57.4 AS: And he went to them after learning how to play. And he said, "I know it's most unusual to come before you, so, but I found an ancient miracle. I thought that you should know. Listen to my music and hear what it can do. There's something here as strong as life, I know that it will reach you." And the priests respond. The priests in unison respond, "yes, we know it's nothing new. It's just a waste of time. We have no way need for ancient ways. Our world is doing fine. Another toy that helped destroy dah, dah dah, dah, dah." The point is that they were in their comfort zone and they didn't want to be disturbed. And so having an awareness of that, I think is what you're trying to teach us so that when we, make a change where we are and be an influencer rather than a teller. And don't use the telling strategy.   0:36:54.2 BB: Yeah, no, it's... Exactly. It's, um, I had a VP of HR once pulled me aside and he said, "what's your vision for the organization?" I said, "don't ask me." I said, "ask them, ask them." I said, "it's not what I want" is, and this is, I told another group of people I was mentoring. I said, something like this. "I'm not gonna be here forever." 'Cause they're saying, "well, what should we do?" And I said, "my question to you is what do you want to happen?"   0:37:36.3 BB: And what was so amazing when I shared that with this one group, a couple of days later, two of them sent out an email to a bunch of their peers with announcing some opportunities. And I had tears in my eyes. I was reading it on an airplane. I was at LAX and looking at it. And what blew me away was, they didn't call me up and say, Hey, we have an idea. They just went out and did it. They became the change they wanted to see amongst their peers. And I was just overwhelmed with it all. All I said to them, is that, "what do you want? What is it that you want this place to be?" I said, "it's not what I want. It's what do you want?" But the other thing is I'll share some great wisdom from Edward de Bono. And this is the book, Handbook for the Positive Revolution. You can buy it on Amazon for probably 5 bucks. And the original copy, I'm told, this is not an original, it has a yellow cover, and there's significance there that I'll come back to, but what somebody told me is the original book not only was the cover yellow, but all the pages were yellow. Well, yellow in the Edward de Bono world is associated with one of the six colors of his so-called Thinking Hats, and yellow is the Logical Positive. Your ability to explain the benefits of something. Not your gut feel, which would be your Red Hat, but your Yellow Hat is saying, I can articulate the benefits. The Black Hat is the Logical Negative, I could tell you all the weaknesses.   0:39:29.8 BB: So this is coming from that place of yellowness. So the book came out, and I got it for a bunch of colleagues in our InThinking transformation community at Rocketdyne early on. And the introduction, Edward says, "this is a serious revolutionary handbook. The greatest strength of this serious revolution is that it will not be taken seriously." So when I'm reading that, I'm thinking, "what?" Then he goes on and he says, "there is no greater power than to be effective and not to be taken seriously." That way, Andrew, you can quietly go on with things without the fuss and friction or resistance from those who feel threatened. And that was so invaluable to our efforts is, if people don't take it seriously, fine. 'Cause what Barry talked about is, he said, "for every proponent," as you're trying to get this message to the Cloud, he said, "for every proponent, he'd say there's nine opponents." So they're out there. So as I'm trying to get my boss smart, you've got this. And I come across Edward's work, and he says, you just take it in stride. You just try not to be dissuaded. You get up every day and say, what can I do? And how do you get to the Cloud?   0:41:14.2 AS: Bam. Well, Bill, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I wanna thank you again for this discussion. And for listeners, remember, go to deming.org to continue your journey. And if you wanna keep in touch with Bill, just find him on LinkedIn. He's there. This is your host, Andrew Stotz. And I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. People are entitled to joy in work.

What would you do if years of trauma and abuse culminated into the worst tragedy of your life—the murder of your mother at the hands of your brother? It sounds like fiction but it is Amy Winnick Chesler's real-life story.Her response was remarkable: turning to the unwavering support of her Tri Delta sisters from our Cal State/Northridge Beta Beta Chapter. These incredible women stood by her side just two weeks after she graduated from college, and their support remains a pillar in her life 16 years later. Amy's journey toward healing led her to pour her emotions into writing, culminating in the completion of a book that serves as a love letter to her late mother. But her writing isn't just about personal healing; it's a platform she uses to reveal truths and advocate for justice, not only for herself but also for others who have faced similar challenges. Join us for an emotional yet beautiful podcast and discover Amy's inspiring story of resilience, how she channeled her pain into writing and the ongoing and impactful ways she's fighting for justice and healing.

Many businesses equate "manager" with "leader," excluding potential leaders from across the organization. In this episode, Bill Bellows and host Andrew Stotz talk about leadership in Deming organizations - with a great story about senior "leaders" making a huge error in judgment at a conference of auditors. TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.0 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W Edwards Deming. Today, I'm continuing my discussion with Bill Bellows, who has spent 30 years helping people apply Dr. Deming's ideas to become aware of how their thinking is holding them back from their biggest opportunities. The topic for today, episode number 14, is Beyond Management by Extremes. Bill, take it away.   0:00:29.7 Bill: Number 14 already, Andrew.   0:00:32.0 AS: Incredible.   0:00:32.6 Bill: It's a good thing we skipped number 13. That's an unlucky number. [laughter]   0:00:37.0 AS: Not in Thailand. It's a lucky number.   [laughter]   0:00:40.6 Bill: No, we didn't skip number 13. This is 14.   0:00:42.1 AS: Yes, we didn't.   0:00:43.5 Bill: Alright, so I just enjoy going back and listening to all of our podcasts, once, twice, three times. And then I talk with friends who are listening to them. And so I'd like to start off with some opening comments and then we'll get into tonight's feature, today's feature.   0:01:00.9 AS: So let's just, to refresh people's memory, episode 13, which we just previously did, was Integration Excellence, part two.   0:01:09.2 Bill: Yes. And that's what we called it. [laughter] So... [laughter] So last week I...   When we thought about getting together, but I had the wrong time, and it worked out well in my schedule. Last week, Andrew, I did three presentations. A two-hour lecture for Cal State Northridge, which is part of a master's degree program, where I do a class in quality management. That was Tuesday night. Wednesday morning I did a one-hour presentation with one hour of conversation afterwards with the Chartered Quality Institute, which is kind of like the American Society for Quality in the UK, and this... So this was several hundred people from the UK and also the Caribbean chapter from Trinidad Tobago, Jamaica. And so there's a bunch there. And then on Thursday morning I did a three hour session for a group in Rotterdam, which was really early for me and late afternoon for them.   0:02:25.4 Bill: And in all three, I covered similar material for all three groups, which included the trip report that we've done on the ME Versus WE, how did you do on the exam? How did we do? And so it was really neat to present that to the three. And in each case, when I threw out the question, "how did you do on the exam?" And then explained as I did one of our earlier podcasts that if you've got a long list of inputs, which includes - the woman I was talking to and, 'cause I said to her, the question is how did you draw on the exam? What are the inputs? And she said, the inputs are, my energy, my enthusiasm, my commitment that she got stuck. And I said, have other students helped you? And she said, yes, other students have helped you. I said, that's another input.   0:03:17.3 Bill: I said, given that input, how many can you see? And she said, oh my gosh. She said, my professor, my parents, my brother. And then all of a sudden there was this long list of inputs that she couldn't see. And so I explained that to the people and then say, "if you've got that long list of inputs and the original question is, how did you do on the exam? Does that long list of inputs change the question or are you okay with that question?" And what I look for is, and what we've talked about is, does the whole idea, how did we do on the exam jump out at you? No, it doesn't jump out. So, in each case, I said, here's the situation, might you reframe the question? And in all three situations, most of them that I asked said, there's essentially nothing wrong with the question. And if they did restate the question, they kept the "you," "do you think you could have done better?" Do you think... And that's what's so cool is that they just hold onto the you. Well, and for one of the groups it came a... It was kind of like what I was saying was semantics.   0:04:32.6 Bill: And I said this is not semantics. I said, there's a big difference between somebody, you know referring to our kids as my son and my daughter and our son and our daughter. And this, "my," is singular ownership, "our" is joint ownership. And so what I was trying to explain is that, saying “How did you do versus how did we do?” is the difference between being an observer of your learning if you were the student, Andrew and a participant. Those are not... Those are enormous differences. It's not, just, it's not just a simple change in pronouns. And so when I... And when I got to next, I was at a meeting years ago, I was at the annual, you ready Andrew? I was at Boeing's Annual Auditor's Conference.   0:05:40.5 AS: Sounds exciting.   0:05:41.4 Bill: 1999. So I got invited to be a speaker, Andrew at Boeing's Annual All Auditors Conference. Right? So I'm thinking going into this, that these are a bunch of people that don't feel valued. Because it's not like I get a phone call and I say, hold on, hold on. Hey Andrew, I got good news. And you say, you're a coworker, what's the good news? Annual... Andrew, we're gonna be audited next week!   [laughter]   0:06:10.2 Bill: You're like, "Holy cow. Hold on, lemme go tell everybody." So I thought going into this meeting is, these are a bunch of people that don't feel valued. I'm an auditor at least that was, so that was my theory going into this, so it's a Monday afternoon gathering with a dinner and then all day the next, all day for a couple days. So the opening speaker, speaker on Monday night was the senior executive of a big Boeing division, it might have been Boeing defense let's say. And my theory was first of all, you got a bunch of people that don't feel valued and I came away from the three days thinking there's a whole lot going on in audit whether it's financial audit, data integrity audit, quality audit, these are necessary roles. And so I came out of it with great respect for that whole organization otherwise would think right, but I'm thinking this executive is going to come in, going to do the Friday, Monday night presentation and I'm thinking it's like they drew straws and they say well okay I'll go, I'll go up there and talk with them.   0:07:22.8 Bill: Within minutes of him speaking I'm thinking this guy's excited to be here. So I'm thinking he's going to kind of phone it in, now I'm watching this I'm thinking he is, he is really engaged with the audience. He's talking about, the future role of the audit organization being partners and all this and he's talking, I mean he's giving them an enormous bear hug and I'm thinking this is not what I thought and again and so... I'm still thinking he's either a really good actor or he really wants to be here. Then my theory was and I thought, holy cow, now I get it. How many people in the room Andrew would it take to leave the room with their nose out of joint and shut down the F18 program by noon tomorrow? How many people would it take?   0:08:21.3 AS: Not many, one.   0:08:22.9 Bill: Right, so then I'm thinking these, he needs these people to love him, because if he disrespects them, it's a bad day. So I went from thinking why would you want to be here if you were here, then I'm thinking, oh no. Now I'm thinking this is brilliant so then I look at the program and I'm thinking which other executives have figured out how valuable this is and I see the next day at lunch is Boeing Commercials I'm thinking they figured it out but the organization I was within was Boeing Space and they weren't on the program so I contacted a friend that was connected high up in Boeing Space, I said we've got to be in this program, right? So the program ending, it ended nice and I'm thinking wow, wow. So then just prior to lunch the next day is the number two guy for Boeing Commercial. Not the number one. The Monday night guy was the number one. The number one guy for Boeing Commercial at the time was Alan Mulally, it wasn't Alan Mulally, it was his number two person.   0:09:33.7 Bill: So he's up on stage, he's up on stage, he's up on stage. And he's talking to the audience and in parallel Jim Albaugh who at the time was CEO of Boeing Commercial, no Boeing Space and none of Jim's people were there, Jim wasn't there. Jim a couple weeks prior he had asked me to get with his speech writer at a presentation he was doing and he wanted some words in there about investment thinking and all the things we've been talking about in this. He said get with him and put some of that stuff in there put there some of that stuff in there. I said okay. So as I'm listening to the number two guy speak there's a lot of "we" and "you" but who's the we? And who's the you? So I'm making notes to myself to tell Jim don't say "you." Say "we" and make the "we" inclusive, 'cause the guy on stage is, the you and the we and the you and the we, and I said no no stay away from "you" focus on we but make sure they understand that "we" is all of us, right?   0:10:35.1 Bill: So this is what's going through my head and I'm writing it all down, writing it all down and then this guy says and I'll paraphrase. I wish I had the exact words and the paraphrase is pretty close to what he said as judged by what the audience heard, right? So when I heard the comment and I'm thinking to myself, you said what? Then I look around the room and I thought he did. Here's what he said again the paraphrase is: he made reference to those within Boeing that do the real work, and he said it in a way that was present company excluded right? Right, so I hear him say 'cause I'm getting, I'm making literally I'm making notes to myself and then I hear that comment and I'm like, did you just say what I thought you said? And I look around the room with 300 people and I'm thinking, Oh my gosh, you did and I'm seeing I am seeing people irate, you see the body language, right?   0:11:44.3 Bill: And I thought wow, how could you say that? So then the lunch speaker was Harry Stonecipher, the chief operating officer. And he was up, walking around the stage. I don't think he knew anything about what happened prior so he's up there talking, okay. After Harry we're getting back to the program and the guy running the entire event is now up on stage and he's very deliberately he's got a, he's got a piece of paper rolled up, he's walking around on stage, "yeah Scott misspoke no doubt about it. He misspoke, I hear you." I hear you, you are ready Andrew? You are ready, you are ready?   0:12:36.8 AS: Give it to me.   0:12:37.4 Bill: And then he says then he says "But let's be honest we don't make the airplanes." And I thought, really? And as soon as he said that, I had this vision of 250,000 employees, which was about the employment at the time. And so as soon as he said that, I just imagined being at the Everett facility, which is huge, where all the twin-aisle plants are made. And I had this vision of 250,000 people in the building. And the CEO Phil Condit says on the microphone, "Okay, I'd like all of you who make the airplanes to move to the west end of the building."   0:13:26.4 AS: And everybody else.   0:13:27.4 Bill: And it's what you get, is all the flight line mechanics move all the way over there. And then you show up and somebody looks at you and they don't see any grease on your hand, and they say, "ahhh you don't make the airplanes." And you say, "you see that tool in your hand? Who do you think ordered it?" And so this "we" and the "you" stuff, how did "you" do? How did "we" do? It was just, it was...   0:14:00.3 AS: He wasn't deliberately setting up the auditors to be pissed and then to be really, really tough on the rest of the organization. I'm teasing with that.   0:14:12.7 Bill: It was, it is just, I shared that with you and our audience as how uniting language can be and how divisive language can be. And so how did we do, how did you do, and what, with just, this is what I find fascinating is - these words bring people together. What I love, I love watching politicians or State Department people speak and 'cause what dawned on me is they are very deliberate on, I mean they to great lengths to not be divisive.   0:14:57.1 Bill: That's their job. And so they introduce people in alphabetical order, countries in alphabetical order. But they, and I thought, what a neat way of not inferring that the first one I list is the most important one and I just thought there's a just an art of diplomacy. And that's what, to me, that's what diplomacy is, is that the art of uniting, not dividing.   0:15:25.7 Bill: Alright. So now I wanna get into, in the three different groups last week we were doing the trip report and we got down to the hallway conversations and the ME Organization versus a WE Organization. And then a question I asked him was, who are the managers in a ME Organization and what do they do? And you got, those are the ones that set the KPIs. Mark the KPIs, beat you up, sit in their office. Okay. Who are the managers in the ME Organization? What do they do? Who are the managers in a WE Organization? And what do they do?   0:16:01.8 Bill: They are mentors. They're out there on the shop floor, they're working with people. People work for managers in a ME Organization. They work with managers in a WE Organization. So I get that and I think "Okay, pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty good." And then I follow with "Who are the leaders in a ME Organization and what do they do?"   0:16:26.4 Bill: And what's really cool is you get the same answers as the managers. And that's when I started noticing in a ME Organization, we'll refer to the senior leadership team, the senior management team, and we're talking about the same group of people. And I said, what we've just said is that manager and leader are the same. And then I say to people, so what is that message in a ME Organization? The message is, if you're not a manager, Andrew, then you're not a leader. Which means what? Which means you have permission to wait for direction.   0:17:12.5 Bill: Boeing had a leadership center in St. Louis. It was called the Boeing BLC, the Boeing Leadership Center. Yeah, Boeing Leadership Center. And in order to go there, you had to be a manager. You either had to be a first level manager, you would take frontline leadership, a middle manager, which I was, which is leading from the middle or an executive. But the model... So then I think part of the confusion is in a ME Organization, on the one hand we say, our managers are our leaders. If you're not a manager, wait for the direction, wait to be told.   0:17:49.7 Bill: But then we said, we want our managers to be leaders. But that's the ME Organization. In a WE Organization, in a Deming organization, I think of leadership is the ability to bring forth a new order of things, a new order of designing hardware, a new order of designing software, a new order of marketing, we're talking earlier and the ability to create a new order of things and the ability to create a path for others to follow.   0:18:20.6 Bill: And so then in a WE Organization, it's like show and tell. When we were in elementary school, you go in and say, I have discovered this. And I thought, in a WE Organization, everyone has the ability to be a leader on something within their realm. And why would you, why would you make leadership incl...exclusive, which is the ME Organization. And when I tell companies that I consult for I said, when you make leadership exclusive in a ME Organization, to me, that's a kiss of death 'cause you're telling a few people, you're in charge and you're telling everyone else, you're inferring that everyone else, you wait for direction, again.   0:19:09.0 Bill: And I'm not proposing, everyone's all over the place doing it. No. There's got, this is not chaos. And if I have an idea on something and it's not my assigned responsibility, then I know to reach out to you because you're the marketing guy and I just throw the marketing idea to you and then you do with it what you want. But I look at leadership in a WE Organization as being inclusive. And then we get into this idea of, driving...driving change.   0:19:38.0 AS: Let me just ask you about that. Would this really be down to the core principle of Appreciation of a System? That somebody who appreciates a system knows that there's all kinds of components to that system?   0:19:55.5 Bill: Yes, yes.   0:19:55.6 AS: And that you can't say, oh, well this system really is only the people that are working on the production line, when in fact we know that there's all kinds of people working in that system. If I think about my coffee business as an example, we have a hundred employees and not all of them are working on production. And some are moving paperwork and making phone calls and others are out in the field. So an appreciation of a system brings you to the "we" rather than....   0:20:23.0 Bill: Yes.   0:20:23.5 AS: And a person who gets up and says about me, or, tries to identify that there's a certain number of people that are really driving the performance of this company are, they just have no appreciation for a system.   0:20:39.1 Bill: They have a narrow, a narrow view, a narrow view. So what you just said triggered another thought. But, um, the thing I wanted to add to this, in a ME Organization, it's about driving change. And we've talked about this in prior podcast. I go to, you put a gun to your head and I say, I want this KPI by Friday, Andrew. And you're like, yes, sir. And then I said to people in the past is, if driving change is the mantra of a ME Organization, like you're driving cattle driving, driving, and which is not an endearing concept. It is, it is, this is the where we're going. And I say to people, so what would you call it if driving is the ME construct, what is, what's the language of a WE Organization? And people will be wondering "ah," I say "lead, lead, lead." And if we like where you're going, we will follow. That's you creating the path that we will follow.   0:20:40.0 Bill: So I just wanna throw that out. But the other thing you mentioned about the metrics and the design of the organization and the thinking that, these are the critical people. At lunch with an old friend today, and I was sharing with her I taught a course at Northwestern's Business School, Kellogg Business School in the late '90s. And Kellogg then, and today is the number one or number two business school in the country. And I had a friend who was a student there in..., they liked what I was saying. So they hired me to teach a five week course for four years. And I presented, these ideas to them and it was pretty cool. I was, what was exciting is one of them told me that, what I was sharing with them about Deming, you are ready Andrew? contradicted what they were learning in their other classes.   0:22:46.2 AS: Huh. Funny that.   0:22:48.7 Bill: Yep. And so I did that for four years. There were three classes in quality. One was the use of control of charts, mine was called Quality Management, or TQM or something like that. And so there were roughly 80 students in the program, and they had to take two of the three, five week courses. So I got two out three students in the program. Then after four years, they waived the requirement. And so nobody signed up. And so I, um, after, right after 9/11 was when this happened, they invited me back because the person I was working with really liked what the course was about. But they wanted to, make it optional for people to attend. And he said, why don't you come out and talk with them and, that'll inspire them to sign up for the following year. I said, okay, fine. So I went out and he says there'll be 80 people there. I said, why are you so confident? He said, well, we've made it mandatory for everyone to show up. I thought, well that's, I said, that's one way to get people in the room. I said, do me a favor. I said, let them know I'm coming out and I'll have breakfast, I'll have lunch with whoever would like to meet with me beforehand.   0:22:50.7 Bill: So a dozen of them show up. And one of them says to me he says, you're gonna have a, he says something like, it's only fair to say we had a presenter like you last week. And to be honest, it's gonna be a really hard act for you to follow. So I'm thinking, "well, tell me more." "Well, we had a presenter last week who works for a company that makes pacemakers," I'm thinking, okay, "he had a video and showing people before and after their pacemaker one of the fellow students fainted. It was emotional." And I'm thinking, I'm talking about rocket engines. I don't even have a video. It's not gonna be emotional. I let the guy talk. And at one point he says "they keep track." He said "they keep track of who makes each pacemaker." I said "what do you mean?" He says, "they have a list of the people."   0:23:42.9 Bill: Every pacemaker is associated with a team of people who made the pacemaker. And part of what they saw on the video is people who have received a pacemaker now and then go to that company and they meet the people on their team, Andrew, who made their pacemaker. How do you like that concept? Right? Does that, when you graduate from this MBA program, Andrew, isn't that a neat idea that you can take away and use with you? Right? Right? Isn't that a takeaway? Right? So I'm hearing this [laughter] so I said, "let me see if I got this straight. So you're saying they keep track of who makes each pacemaker?" "Yeah, they do." And that's because, when people come well, people come to visit and they keep track. So let's say I said to the student, "let's say I'm the guy who orders the plastic that goes into the pacemaker. Would I be on the list?" you know what he says, Andrew?   0:26:01.9 Bill: No, you didn't make it.   0:26:04.0 Bill: He says, "no," let me try this. I'm the one who wrote the check, Andrew, that paid for the plastic. Would I be on the list? What he says Andrew? "No, you wouldn't be on the list."   0:26:20.2 Bill: So, I said, "well, why not?" And he says, "you have to draw the line someplace." So, I had with me, post 9/11, ready? I had with me a United We Stand two-foot by three-foot poster, which were all over Los Angeles and likely all over the rest of the world, at least the States. So, I held up the poster, and I said, "Have you seen this before?" He said, "Oh, yeah, United We Stand. I'm all about that." I said, "No, you're not." [laughter] I said, "You think you can draw the line and know who contributes and who doesn't, right?"   0:27:02.8 Bill: And you can suddenly see him kind of back up. I said, "Well, let's be honest." I said, "If teamwork doesn't matter, then draw the line any way you want. It doesn't really matter. But if teamwork does matter, be very careful where you draw that line." And to me, in a WE Organization, "we" is, who is the "we"? It's a big list of people. It's the employees, it's the suppliers, it's the customers. And so anyway, it's just that, so what's neat is, go ahead, Andrew.   0:27:41.6 AS: While you were speaking, I was able to go online and find the website of North, what was it? North?   0:27:49.5 Bill: Northwestern.   0:27:50.3 AS: Western, yes. And I was able to actually find the course that you're talking about that was the one that the students said that what you're teaching is contradicting.  The name of that course, I just found it, here it is, "How to apply KPIs to drive in fear and division in your company." No, no, I just made that up. [laughter] "How to apply KPIs to drive in fear and division in your company?"   0:28:16.7 Bill: All right. And so, and we're gonna get to that. So, so as, so I look at management, there's management as a position, but I look at management as an activity of how we allocate resources. And so, are the resources mine or are they ours? And are we proactive or reactive? And then we talked in the past about purposeful resource management, reflective resource, reflexive resource, resource management, which is being highly reactive. Another thing that came to mind. Well, actually, let me jump to the loss function. We looked at last time because I was going through and listening to it. And I thought, let me, let me clarify.   0:29:00.7 Bill: And so when Dr. Taguchi would draw his, his parabolic loss function, a parabola is a curve that goes higher and higher as you get farther and further away from the center. It's like a bell and it just gets steeper and steeper and steeper. And his loss function would be an upward facing bell. And, and then, and he would draw it sitting on the, on the horizontal axis. The idea of being, when you're at the ideal, the loss is zero. And that's, if you're getting exposure to this for the first time, that's okay. But in fact, let me even throw in here a quote from Dr. Deming. Do I have it right here?   0:30:00.4 Bill: Oh, gosh. Anyway, Dr. Deming made reference to, he said, the Taguchi loss function is a better description of the world. And he talks about how loss continuously gets higher and higher and higher. The point I wanted to make is, what I tell people is, once you get used to that concept that loss gets higher and higher, and what matters is how steep that curve is. And so if that curve is very flat, then no matter where you are within the requirements, nobody really notices. And in that situation, you could have a lot of variation 'cause it doesn't show up. It's not reflected in terms of how...   0:30:40.2 AS: And maybe just to help the listener to visualize this, imagine a V.   0:30:44.6 Bill: Yes.   0:30:45.1 AS: And imagine a U. And a V has a very tiny point that is at zero loss. And it very quickly rises to both sides where loss is getting higher and higher. Whereas a very, kinda, let's say, a deep U could have a tiny little loss that's happening for a distance away from the minimum loss point, and then eventually turn up.   0:31:14.4 Bill: Well, but even, even Andrew, and I like the idea of the V. We could also be talking about a V where the sides, instead of being steep, are very flat. So it's a very wide V, and it never goes high because there's situations where, where the impact on integration is very minimal no matter what. All right. So anyway, um, the point I wanted to make is, I would say to our listeners and viewers, loss, the consequences of being off target, are the difference between what happens downstream at integration. And what I love, I went back and listened to the podcast, the one, you talked about your partner in the coffee business.   0:32:12.2 Bill: The point of integration is when they drink the cup of coffee. And that's integration. I mean, the point when they're, when we're eating a food, that's integration. So the piece of coffee is out there, whatever it is. But when the customer's using it, drinking it, that's integration, Andrew. And a...   0:32:32.2 Bill: And so... What I look at is what the loss, loss is the difference between what you see happening at integration and what you think is possible. So if we're at the Ford factory banging things together with rubber mallets day after day after day and you're the new hire and I show you how to do this, as soon as you begin to believe this is how we do things, then loss is zero. Because that's what we think is the norm. But if you have the ability to rise above that and say, I don't think it needs to be that difference, when you look at it and say, I don't think it needs to be the difference between what you think is possible and what it could... Difference between what is and what you think could be that's loss. And what I also say to people is it takes a special eye that you have to see that. It's like your coffee business, somebody's tasting that coffee and you're thinking this is pretty good. Then they say, "well, try this", whoa.   0:33:40.1 Bill: So it takes a special eye to see loss. But then it takes a whole lot of other people to make that happen. So whether that's people in engineering, manufacturing. So a WE Organization is where someone has the ability to see that opportunity, but it's dependent upon all the others to make it happen. So now let's talk about Beyond Management by Extremes. And these are... Has a lot to do with KPIs and also say in one of our last, wasn't the last one, it was a couple before that you had made clear your firm belief that KPIs need to be thrown away in the morning trash. And I remember on the call listening to you and I'm hearing you, we ought to get rid of them, we ought to get rid of them, we ought to get rid of them.   0:34:38.5 Bill: And I'm thinking they aren't bad, it's how they're used. And so I wasn't sure I was in agreement with you on that call. But when I went back and listened to it and that's what what I, what I told the friend is, I said, if you listen to what Andrew says, I don't say anything at the end. And the reason I didn't say anything is I wasn't sure I agreed. But when I went back and listened to it most recently, I said, yes! yes! yes! 'Cause what you said is: if they can be used without an incentive system. And I thought, yes, yes, yes, yes. And so we are in agreement on KPIs, [laughter] they are... But what we have...   0:35:25.2 AS: Which, which my, which my point is, number one, that as long as you don't attach some kind of incentive or compensation system, then, you're not that, you've eliminated a lot of risk that they're causing damage. The second part is a lot of times what I'm looking at is individual KPIs. And what I'm trying to say is that even if you don't add in compensation, it's, it's, it's a fool's errand to try to set up, three KPIs for a thousand people, three thousand KPIs individually and think that now we've got that set. Our organization is going to really rock now.   0:36:06.0 Bill: Well, then what you get is the KPIs are always round numbers. We want to decrease by 5%, increase by... And you're thinking, so how much science getting to these numbers anyway? And you're thinking, but early on in your career, you look at this, you think, well, somebody's thought about this and you realize, no. And so what management by extremes is about is KPIs that are extreme. And so I my PhD advisor in graduate school, I was studying heat transfer and fluid mechanics and and before each of us graduated, went to work in corporations, he'd pull us aside and he'd say, he'd say, "Bill, he said you're gonna be in a situation one day where your boss is gonna come by and is gonna give you.... He's going to give you an assignment, that gives you, he's gone give, that gives you five minutes to figure it out."   0:37:05.7 Bill: And he says, "so, if he or she comes he comes to you, she comes to you and they give you five minutes to figure out, he said there's only three possible answers and I'll tell you what they are and you got to figure out which of them it is and so it'll take you a minute to figure out which one it is. And then the rest of the time you're going to explain it." I remember saying to him, I says, so, "Okay, so what are the three possible answers?" And he says "zero, one and infinity", 'cause it turns out in the world of heat transfer and fluid mechanics, those three numbers show up pretty often as ideal solutions for different cases. And so what he's saying is when your boss comes to you and says, boom, then you have to say, which case is that? 'Cause if that's this case, it's zero.   0:37:51.0 Bill: This case, it's one. This case is infinity. So I thought, okay. Well, in Dr. Taguchi's work, he talks about quality characteristics. So we're running experiments to improve something and a quality characteristic could be as large as possible, infinity being the ideal, the strength of the material. We want to make it stronger and stronger and stronger. But it's referred to as larger is best, meaning infinity is the ideal, smaller is best I'm trying to reduce leakage. I'm trying to make something smoother and smoother.   0:38:25.9 Bill: That's smaller is best. Zero is the goal. And the other one is to get your first who is nominal as best, where a finite number is the answer. And so what I had in mind with this management by extremes, inspired by my Ph.D. advisor, inspired by Deming, Dr. Taguchi, is that, if the KPI is driving to zero or driving to infinity, we want the inventory Andrew to go to zero. We want sales to go to infinity. I said, if you're thinking about things systemically, I don't think zero or infinity is what we're going to do. And so I throw that out as not all the time, but I think quite often if the KPI, if you're working on something where you're heading to zero, heading to infinity, to me, that's a clue that you're looking at something in isolation. And I would say to people.   0:39:25.2 Bill: Let's say you're, you call me in Andrew and you say, "Bill, we need your help getting the cost down of this project." And I say, "well, what'd you have in mind?" You say, "Bill, we'd we'd love to get 10% out of this cost. Boy, 10%." I said, "Andrew, I can double that." "No way. No way" And I say, "Andrew, on a good day, I could do more than that." And then what I say is that the more you get excited by how much we could lower that cost, eventually I'm going to say, "Andrew, gotcha." And you say, "what do you mean?" "Gotcha. Andrew, you're looking at cost in isolation." What's the clue? You'd love it to go to zero. Or... And that's what we end up doing is we want to drive variation to zero. That's the Six Sigma people. Well, first of all, cloning does not produce identical.   0:40:30.6 Bill: Photocopies don't create identical. Dr. Deming would say that of course there's variation. There'll always be variation. And then there are people, and and I cringe. But Dr. Deming was once asked. He was interviewed by somebody I believe with the BBC back in the '80s. And the interview ends with "So Dr. Deming, if we can condense your philosophy down to two, down to two words, what would it be? Or down to a few words, what would it be?" And he said, "reduce variation" or something like that. And I said, "no, it should be manage variation. We should have what the situation needs." And so I'm going to absolute agreement with you. On how can we have KPIs without goals which make make things even more isolated. And then we talk about by what method are we going to achieve those goals? But I think if we're talking about driving variation to zero, then you're looking at things in isolation. If you are driving waste to zero.   0:41:20.8 Bill: then you're looking at things in isolation. If you're talking about, the non value added efforts driving to zero. I'd say value shows up elsewhere. I had somebody within Boeing once say to me "Bill, you know, being on target, you know being on that ideal value, I've had people tell me that once you achieve the minimum size of a hole, going further doesn't add value." And I'd say "If all you're doing is looking at the hole, I can understand that. But if you're focusing on what goes in the hole, that's different." And the other thing I throw out is I was doing some training years ago. There was a guy in the room that I, I mentioned the term "value engineering" 'cause I remember when I got excited by Taguchi's work and Deming's work, somebody said, "The last big training, big thing was value engineering." "What do you mean?" And they pulled out their "That was the wave of the sixties was value engineering." So I asked this guy in class. I said, so, he mentioned he worked at GE back in the '60s and value engineering was really big. So I said, well, "So tell me about that. What was behind that?" He says, “We were taught to look at a contract and all the deliverables. And our job in the value engineering department was to figure out how to, how to meet each deliverable minimally because anything more than that doesn't add value." And I thought, you can't make that up!   0:42:53.0 Bill: Let's look at all the requirements and how do we go to? What's the absolute minimum we have to deliver on the term paper, on the project.   0:43:06.5 AS: How could we kill this through a thousand cuts?   0:43:10.8 Bill: So that's KPIs. Driving to zero driving to infinity. But, but we're in agreement that if you, in a Deming organization where we're not driven by incentives then KPIs are measures of how we are doing. And why isn't that enough to be able to say, how are things? How are things? We can talk about how might we improve this? But then we're going to look at: Is that a local improvement that makes it worse elsewhere? Are we driving costs to zero and screwing this up? So that's what, that's what I wanted to throw out on this management by extremes zero and infinity, and getting beyond that.   0:43:47.6 AS: Well, I think that's a great point to end it went through so many different things, but I think one of the biggest takeaways that I get from this is the idea of appreciation of a system. When you have a true appreciation of a system and understand that there's many parts and, you know, adding value in that system basically comes from more than just being on a production line, for sure and creating value in an organization comes from not only working on improving a particular area but the integration of the many different functions. And if you don't understand that, then you end up in not a Deming organization, not a WE Organization, but more of a ME Organization. That's kind of what I would take away. Is there anything you would add to that?   0:44:51.9 Bill: Well, what, what reminds me of what you're just saying is I was doing a class years ago for a second shift group in facilities people, painters, electricians, managers, and one of them says, he says "so Bill, everyone's important in an organization." I said, "absolutely. Absolutely everyone's important."   0:45:13.2 Bill: Then he says, "everyone's equally important" right? And as soon as he said that, I thought to myself, "I remember you from a year ago." So he says, "So so everyone's important." "Yeah, everyone's important!" "Everyone's equally important." So as soon as he said that, within a fraction of a second, my response was, "No, if you wanna get paid what a quarterback gets paid, you better, you better train to be a quarterback." So what Dr. Deming is not, he's not saying everyone's paid the same. We're paid based on market rates for quarterbacks, for linemen, for software people. And the, and the better we work together, ideally the better we manage resources, the better the profit, we get in the profit sharing, but we're not equal. Our contributions are not equal. The contributions cannot be compared. They are, they're all part of the sauce, but we don't get into who contributed more." Right, and I think that'... We're all contributors.   0:46:28.3 AS: The more you learn about Dr. Deming's teaching, you just realize that there's an appreciation of a system, but there's also an appreciation of people.   0:46:40.1 Bill: There we go.   0:46:43.2 AS: That's really where, as I have said before, when my friend was working with me on my book, Transforming Your Business with Dr. Deming's 14 Points, after many many weeks of working together, he's like, "I figured it out. Dr. Deming is a humanist. He cares about people." It's pretty true. So appreciate the people around you, appreciate the contribution that everybody makes. Nobody makes equal contributions. And even great people who are making amazing contributions could have down months or years where there's things going on in their family or other issues. They're not contributing what they did in the past.   0:47:17.1 AS: That's a variable that we just can't control. But ultimately, appreciation of the system is what I said in my summary. And now I'm gonna add in appreciation of the people.   0:47:30.6 AS: Bill, on behalf of everyone at The Deming Institute, I wanna thank you again for this discussion. Again, entertaining, exciting, interesting. For listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. And if you wanna keep in touch with Bill, just find him on LinkedIn. This is your host, Andrew Stotz. And I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. "People are entitled to joy in work".  

#203: In 1993, the band Orange County punk band Guttermouth asked Louis Posen, then a film student at Cal State Northridge, to help them put out an album. That marked the start of the independent music label Hopeless Records and its 30-year history of representing punk, ska, metal bands — and later, alternative musicians more broadly. Some of the most well-known bands they've represented include Avenged Sevenfold, All Time Low, Taking Back Sunday, Yellowcard, Thrice and New Found Glory. Now, in celebration of its 30 year anniversary, the label has put together an exhibit of memorabilia that's currently on display at the Valley Relics Museum in Van Nuys. From there, it'll travel on to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and then the new Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas. Guests: Louis Posen, Hopeless Records founder and president; Erin Choi, Hopeless Records employee; Carissa Leong, Loyola Marymount student and Hopeless Records fan; DE'WAYNE, musician and former Hopeless Records artist Songs featured in this episode: "Hopeless" by Guttermouth "Eternal Rest" by Avenged Sevenfold "Die Out Here" by DE'WAYNE (ft. Poorstacy) "Just A Little" by Masego, DE'WAYNE "Better By Myself" by Hey Violet "Superpowers Enable Me To Blend In With Machinery" by Dillinger Four "Coffee Shop Soundtrack" by All Time Low "5,6,7,8" by LØLØ (ft. girlfriends) "Jet Song" by Schlong "Te Llevo Conmigo" by Destroy Boys

Should we strive to better understand what happens "downstream" to our defect-free work? No matter the setting, if our work meets requirements and we pass it on, are we responsible for how well it integrates into a bigger system?  In this episode, Bill Bellows and Andrew Stotz expand on the interaction between variation and systems and why Dr. Deming regarded Genichi Taguchi's Quality Loss Function as “a better description of the world.” TRANSCRIPT 0:00:02.8 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W Edwards Deming. Today I am continuing my discussion with Bill Bellows, who has spent 30 years helping people apply Dr. Deming's ideas to become aware of how their thinking is holding them back from their biggest opportunities. The topic for today is, in episode 13, Integration Excellence, part two. Bill, take it away.   0:00:31.4 Bill Bellows: Thank you, Andrew. Always a pleasure to connect with you. Alright.   0:00:40.1 AS: Mine too.   0:00:40.1 BB: [laughter] In episode 12, I thought it was great. We shared perspectives on the human side of integration, what it means to be connected, to be synchronous, to feel included, to feel connected, to feel included or connected when something good happens where you're like, well, I was part of that, or to feel separated is when something bad happens. And, we somehow have the ability to not feel associated with that. I pass the puck to you and you hit the slapshot, it goes into the stands, off the goalkeeper. Y'know, girl gets hit in the head and you feel bad, but I go home and I can sleep. And so why is that? And so anyway, but I thought, and listening to it, and I thought it was a lot of fun to look at the human side of feeling connected or feeling separated. And what I wanted to get into tonight, and perhaps in another episode as well, is the physical side of connections.   0:01:46.5 BB: One thing I wanted, and I got a couple anecdotes. I had a woman in class at Rocketdyne years ago, and she said, "Bill, in our organization, we have compassion for one another." And I said, "Compassion is not enough." And, and so you, Andrew, could be in final assembly at this Ford plant, where you're banging things together with a rubber mallet 'cause they're not quite snap fit, and you're banging them together. I mean they all meet print perhaps, but where they are within the requirements is all over the place, and you're having to bring them together. That's called integration. And so when this woman said, in our organization we have compassion for one another, I said, well, that's like me saying, "Andrew, I feel really bad that you're, I can't believe, Andrew go home. You can bang that together tomorrow. You've been banging it together all day." And what I said to her is that "compassion is not enough."   0:02:54.7 BB: When I feel connected to what you're doing, when I begin to understand that the parts you're banging together meet requirements, but how they meet requirements is causing you the issue. Now, the compassion plus my sense of connection, now we're talking. But short of that, what I think is we have organizations where as she would say, we might feel bad for others. And it means I hear about your injuries and your ergonomic training because of all this, but I don't, until I feel associated with that, I just feel bad. But feeling bad is not enough. But I like that, that sentiment. But what I wanna look at tonight is a greater sense of Dr. Taguchi's so called Loss Function and look at more why we should feel more connected to what's happening downstream. So I wanted to throw that out. [chuckle] On the topic of variation, I just started a new cohort with Cal State Northridge University. And this is my, fifth year in the program doing an eight week class in, seminar in quality management. And the cohort model is, anywhere between two dozen and 30 some students that start, the ones I'm getting started a year ago.   0:04:23.5 BB: And they have class after class after class after class. Then a year into the program they get to meet for eight weeks so then onto other professors in the program. So I was showing them, first quarter, second quarter data points from an incident that happened at Rocketdyne years ago. And I was in a staff meeting and the vertical axis is number of accidents per employee. And the horizontal axis is quarter one, quarter two. So the quarter one data point is there, and I don't have the original data, the original data doesn't matter. But what I say to the students is, imagine we've got the first quarter data, what would you expect for the second quarter data? And what's funny is a number of them said, it should be lower. And I said, "Well, based on what?" And it's like, said "Well, we're gonna go off and study what went wrong and we're gonna improve the process."   0:05:20.6 BB: And I said, "Okay, that's all right." So then, I said, "I'll accept that, that's a possibility." Well, then I showed them the actual second data point was lower than the first, which in the meeting I was in, led to the question from one of the senior managers to one of the more, let's say the vice president of operations, "Hey, Andrew, why is safety improved?" To which the executive said, "Because we've let them know safety is important." And so I asked him, "So what do you hear in that?" And we went around and we went around and we went around. It's not the only time it has happened that what they're not hearing is the separation that "we" have let "them" this this. And so in part, I think with my Deming perspective finely tuned. I pick up on those things. And they're not picking on it picking up on it yet which is which is fine. And then but I kept asking, kept asking, kept asking. And then one person said, "Well maybe we need to look for a pattern." I said, "Oh brilliant. What if we've got this run chart of all this extra data?" So then I got them to buy into how easy it is to take two data points draw conclusion up and down. That's called variation. And so it was neat to... The first conversation with them on the topic of variation was really cool. And there's so much more to follow. Well then it, what I wanted to follow with this once upon a time our son when he was in third grade this is 20-some years ago invited me to come to his class.   0:07:07.6 BB: And I don't recall why other than he said, Can you come talk to the class? And I said, Okay fine. So my biggest concern was that the teacher wouldn't know I was coming but she knew I was coming so it was good. So I walk in talked with her briefly and I said I've got some things I'd like to do. She's like oh, I didn't wanna monopolize. But she said okay why don't you show your video? I said I got a video of rocket engines blah blah blah. And then I've got a little exercise I wanna do. Okay we'll do the video then we'll do some reading. So we're doing the reading. And so I'm helping her with the reading. And then what I noticed is now and then a word would come up and she'd write the word on the whiteboard and ask the students if they understood the word. So I clued in, I cued in on that. So when it got to me I wrote the word theory on the whiteboard. This is third graders Andrew, third graders. [chuckle] And I said do any of you know what a theory is? And a one of the girls Shelby whose name I'll never forget, she raises her hand and she says a theory is a prediction of the future. Third grade Andrew third grade! [chuckle] right? Now...   0:08:18.8 AS: And you know what they'd say now they'd say Ethereum is a type of cryptocurrency. [chuckle] Oh Ethereum. No no "theory" not "Ethereum." [laughter]   0:08:30.2 BB: You're right. You're right.   0:08:31.6 AS: Okay. That's a great answer.   0:08:33.9 BB: Well oh but what I tell my students is I didn't correct her. I didn't say well technically a theory is a prediction of the future with a chance of being wrong. But we'll just, I just, oh we'll just stop with that. So I invited her to the front of the room. So she comes to the front of the room and I brought with me this little plastic bag with half a dozen marbles in it. And the bag was also a holes from a three hole punch, little dots of paper. So I held the marble up and I said Shelby I'm going to drop the marble from this height predict where it will land. And what I tell students is she was able to predict where it would land without any data.   0:09:18.3 BB: So she predicts the first data point, the marble lands someplace else. I marked the spot with a marble. I then said okay Shelby I'm gonna drop it the second time. Where will it land? And I'll ask people in class so where do you think she predicted, exactly the same spot of the first drop [chuckle] Exactly right. That's what we do as adults. And so we went through this cycle again and again. And and finally after about 10 drops where these you know 10 different dots on the floor I said Shelby where's it gonna land? And she drew a circle, she said somewhere in here which is kind of like a control limit you know kind of thing.   0:09:55.9 BB: So the one thing I'll say is and I'm sure you've heard people say well you can't predict the future. No, as Dr. Deming would say [chuckle] you know he gave the example you might recall of how will I go home? I'm gonna take a bus. Will the bus... I'm gonna take the train. Will the train arrive? And so I'd ask adults in the class that says how many drove here today? All the hands go up. And I said so at the end of the day will you walk in the direction of where you left your car? Yes. What is your theory? It's still there. [chuckle] Is that a guarantee? No! [chuckle] So I throw that out as a predictions and her sense of variation and this sense of a third grader not acknowledging, I mean one understanding having some sense of a theory, not a lot of understanding of variation but I don't think that's unique to third graders.   0:10:51.8 BB: So that brings us to...there's variation. We can look at the variation in the Red Beads. Okay the Red Beads are caused by the system not the workers taken separately. Then we got into variation and things that are good. And when I introduced the students to last night in class is, I asked them "So how often do you go to meetings where you work to discuss things that are good and going well?" And I get the standard answer, "rarely." I said, "Well, why is that?" "Well 'cause we got, we're focusing on the bad." They said, "to make it good." "Well why do we focus on the bad to make it good? Why don't we focus on the good?" "Well the good is good." And we went around the room, went around the room online and and I said "what's the likelihood that we could prevent bad from happening by focusing on the good while it's good?" And it's like, "...interesting." And so where that leads us to is, is two aspects of looking at things that are good.   0:11:57.1 BB: One is the better we understand the variation of things that are good whether that's on a run chart or a control chart. My theory is we could prevent bad from happening by keeping track of the bad. Whether it's your pulse, your weight, [chuckle] how much gas is in your car. And so there's if we focus, if we pay attention to the good with some frequency you know every second, every hour, once a month, whatever it is, we could prevent an accumulation of damage to an appliance at home. Another aspect to focusing on things that are good is that it can improve integration which is boom, here we are. And that integration that I mentioned last time that understanding integration could be looking at candidates for a new hire and looking for who is the best fit because there's degrees of fit. Fit is not absolute. Last time we talked about reflections of an engineer who is worried that his hardware on the space shuttle main engine may have contributed to the disaster of the second... Of the Columbia space shuttle blowing up in reentry. Well let me share another story from a coworker at Rocketdyne.   0:13:19.8 BB: And this guy's father worked at Rocketdyne in the '60s. So in 1999, 30 years after the lunar landing, there's news teams, you know, from the local TV stations and television. It's 30 year anniversary of the Lunar Landing. And Rocketdyne was known for the Apollo engines that get the vehicle off the ground, as well as the engines that got the, Orbiter off the moon. So there's an article in the newspaper a couple days later, and this coworker is quoted and he says, "Boy, I would've loved... My father worked here back in the '60s, just to be a fly on the wall would be so cool. Oh my gosh, it'd be so cool." And the article ends with him saying how exciting it is to feel like you're part of something big. That's what we talked about last time.   0:14:09.8 BB: And I used to use that quote from him on a regular basis because it, the article was about something that happened at Rocketdyne. Then I would share that this is a quote from a coworker. And after quoting him for several years, it dawned on me, I've never met this guy, so I call him up one day and he answers and I say, "Hi, this Bill Bellows." And he laughs a little bit. And I said, "have we ever met?" And he says, "No, no, no," he said, "But you quote me in your class." And I said, "Well, I apologize for never calling you sooner." I said, "I do quote you." And I said, "Let me share with you the quote." I said, "you feel how exciting it is to feel like you're part of something big?" To which he says, "I wish I still felt that way." [chuckle] And I said, "can I quote you on that?" And so you can join an organization with this sense of being connected, but then depending on how the organization is running and you're blamed for the Red Beads, that you may lose that feeling.   0:15:15.6 BB: And on another anecdote, it's pretty cool. Our daughter, when she was in fourth grade, was in a class, they were studying water systems. And the class assignment was to look at a, they had an eight and a half by 11 sheet of paper with a picture of a kitchen sink on it, like a 3D view of a sink with a pipe out and a pipe in. And the assignment was, we're about to study water systems. How does the water get to the sink, where's the water go?   0:15:47.2 BB: And so my wife and I were there for the open house and there were 20 of these on the wall colored with crayons showing all these different interpretations of water coming in, water going out. And I was fascinated by that. And eventually got copies of them and the teacher wasn't sure what I was doing with them. Well, I turned them into laminated posters. And so I gave one to our daughter one day. I said, take this to Mrs. Howe so she sees what we're doing. And so the following weekend I bumped into this woman at a soccer field, but she wasn't dressed like a teacher. She's dressed in a hoodie. And she says to me, "Allison shared with me the posters." And I'm looking at her thinking, "how do I know who you are?" She pulls the hood back. She says "I'm Allison's fourth grade..." Oh! I, her comment was when Allison shared with me how you're using those posters, handing them out, and people are inspired by them. And she says, "I cried." So that you get that emotion for free Andrew. [chuckle] Right. And that's all the integration stuff.   0:16:58.5 BB: Now let's talk about Dr. Taguchi and his Loss Function. So, um, the Taguchi Loss Function says Dr. Deming in Out of the Crisis is a better view of the world. The Taguchi Loss Function is a better view of the world. Dr. Taguchi says following...   0:17:15.3 AS: Wait a minute. I was confused on that. You're saying Deming is saying that Taguchi is better, or Taguchi is saying Deming's better?   0:17:22.3 BB: Dr. Deming in The New... In Out of the Crisis, Dr. Deming wrote "the Taguchi Loss Function is a better view of the world."   0:17:30.3 AS: Okay, got it.   0:17:34.5 BB: And that's what amongst the things that I read into Deming's work and I thought, boy, that's quite an endorsement. Dr. Taguchi is known for saying quality is the minimum of loss imparted to society, to the society by a product after shipping to the customer. So what does that mean? And we'll come back to that. Deming met Dr. Taguchi in the 1950s. There's a, at least once, there's photos I've seen in Deming's archives of the two of them on stage at a big statistical conference in India, and I know they met in September, 1960 at the Deming Prize ceremony where Dr. Taguchi was honored with what's known as the Deming Prize in Literature. There's Deming prizes for corporations, and there's also Deming prizes for individuals.   0:18:35.0 BB: And Taguchi won it 1960 for his work on the, on his, this quality-loss function concept. 1960. So then in 1983, Larry Sullivan, a Ford executive, was on a study mission to Japan, and he wrote an article about this for the American Society for Quality in 1983 the title of the article is “Variability Reduction: A New Approach to Quality,” so if any of our listeners are ASQ members, well I'm sure you can find a copy of it. The Variability Reduction: A New Approach to Quality. Well, Andrew in 1983, Sullivan's article, 23 years after Taguchi's awarded this Deming Prize in literature, I'm convinced that's the first time Taguchi's Loss Function was heard about in the States. 23 years later. And in this article, Sullivan says, he says, "In March of 1982, I was part of a group from Ford that visited Japan, we studied quality systems out of variety of suppliers," this is ostensibly the first time the auto industry in the States is sending people to Japan.   0:19:52.8 BB: Right so 1980, summer of 1980 is the Deming documentary Why Japan? If Japan Can, Why Can't We? And so here Ford is in 1982, sending a team over. I know it was the late '80s, I believe, when Boeing sent executives over. So then in this article, he says, "The most important thing we learned, right, in this study mission, is that quality in these companies means something different than what it means in the US. That it's a totally different discipline." And so this is like the beginnings of people hearing about Dr. Deming in 1980. They're now hearing about Dr. Taguchi's work through Larry Sullivan. And it turns out Larry Sullivan and Dr. Taguchi became business partners and set up Dr Taguchi's consulting company in the States, which still exists. So they became fast friends and I've met the two of them many times.   0:20:53.6 BB: What Taguchi is saying is, is when it comes to things coming together, we talked about integration, whether that's combining, mixing, joining, weaving, this is the synchronicity. So in sports, we're talking about not, not where I am on the field, but where I am relative to the others, in music, and we're talking earlier about music and I've, I've played a musical instrument one time, Andrew with a group and I was with a, hockey band on a road trip when I was in college. And the cymbal player, they were missing, so they asked me to bang the cymbal, "you want me to do what?"   0:21:36.9 AS: When we signal you.   0:21:39.4 BB: So I'm boom! and what I didn't realize is I'm controlling the pace, like being in is like, okay, slow down, slow down. And I and a former student last year in the Cal State Northridge class who plays with one of the Beach Boys, and I went to watch her in the play and I was asking about these speakers, which are on stage, facing the players. And I said, so what are those about? She said, "Those help us stay synchronized." I said, "what do you mean?" She says, "the speakers next to me," she's the keyboard player. She said, "What I'm listening to in those speakers is the drumbeat. I need to make sure that I am playing synchronous with a drummer." And then what about the others? "Well, the others have their own speakers synchronized. They get to select who they wanna be synchronized to." And so I throw that out because we take for granted when we're listening to Coldplay, whoever these musicians are, we're not paying attention, at least I'm not paying attention to what if they're playing it... What if they're not as synchronous? How would that sound? 'Cause we're so used to it sounding pretty good.   0:23:00.1 BB: And, um, so there we go with synchronization and things fitting together, it's not just that the note was good, but is it played at the right rhythm and pace and, um, you know, with timing. So we talked about the Loss Function. We talked about last time about ripeness of fruit. Depending on what we're doing with the bananas, we wanna put it into a muffin mixed or eat, slice it up. Are we looking for something soft and hard? And I say that because what Dr. Taguchi is talking about is for a set of requirements, a min and a max, we're used to a sense of anything between the min and the max is okay, is "good."   0:23:45.2 BB: What Taguchi is saying is there's the possibility that there's an ideal place to be. And how do you know what that ideal place to be is? Well pay it, as you're delivering that piece of fruit to the next person, whatever it is, to the next person, deliver them something on the very low end of the requirement and see what they do with it. Then, it could be the next hour or the next time you give them something a little bit, a little bit further along that axis. How are they doing? How are they doing? How are they doing? And what you're looking to see is, how, how does, what is the effect of where you are within requirements on them? And this is how Toyota ends up with things being snap fit, because they're not just saying, "Throw everything to Andrew in final assembly." They all come together.   0:24:42.3 BB: My theory is they're doing what we do at home, at home I create the part, I cut the piece of wood. I'm, making the part, but I'm also using it. So I'm the one responsible for the part and integration, in a work setting that may not be the case. So what Taguchi is talking about is there could be a sweet spot in the requirement. And so towards that end, if we're talking about baseball in a strike zone, the World Series is teams are defined, not that I was gonna watch this year, the Dodgers, we're out of it. But in baseball, there's, for those understand baseball, there's a strike zone. If the ball somewhere in that rectangular ball zone is called a strike, outside is called a ball. And depending on who the batter is, it might not matter where the ball is in the strike zone, 'cause this player can't hit the ball anyway. But for another player, you may have to put that strike somewhere in particular to make it harder for them to hit. And that's what the loss function is about, is, is paying attention to how this is used and I wanna share a couple of stories that are, one that's kind of hard to believe. Well, I'd say one that's easy to believe. As you're driving down the highway, Andrew, in Los Angeles, right? You've lived out here.   0:26:07.2 AS: Oh, yeah.   0:26:07.4 BB: And no matter where you're driving down, right, do you stay to the left side of the lane, Andrew? Do you stay to the right side of the lane? Or do you kind of go down the middle of the lane, Andrew?   0:26:17.9 AS: I'm kind of middle of the lane guy.   0:26:20.5 BB: Yeah. And I think that people in the other lanes, you know, like that 'cause I know when I drift to the left, you're like, Hey, what are you doing? So being towards the middle is saying, I get the entire length of myself, but being down the middle is probably, what is that? It's minimum loss to myself and others. So I spoke at a, at a NASA conference ages ago and learned, this is uh '97, '98 timeframe, and I learned that the two greatest opportunities for destruction of the space shuttle are at launch, you can have a catastrophic failure, or at landing. And so at launch, it could be a problem with the engine, any of the engines or the solid rocket motors. Okay, so that I can understand. But I'm thinking, what's the issue with landing? Well, I say, well, the issue with landing at that time was the space shuttle's coming in at a couple hundred miles an hour.   0:27:24.9 BB: And when you're landing on a dry lake bed called Edwards Air Force Base, it's not a big deal. You got all that open space anywhere you want. You just get her down. But then in that timeframe, NASA converted. It was easier for them to have the shuttle land in Florida because they don't, they don't have to fly the shuttle across country. The shuttle is going to land there, launch there. So what they were talking about is, a lot of the pilots for the space shuttle are military pilots. They're used to landing in the center of the runway, Andrew, in the center of the runway. Why? 'cause they're landing on an aircraft carrier. And if I'm a little bit too far from the center, one way or the other, I either crash into the structure or I'm in the ditch and enter the water. So they've got these military pilots landing the space shuttle, wanting to be right down the center. And so they said what happened was if they land and they're a few feet to the left or to the right, going a couple hundred miles an hour, should they quickly steer the nose gear to be on the center?   0:28:32.5 BB: And he said, when you're going that fast, if you steer, you may cause the shuttle to just flip. When you're, once you touch down, don't steer to the center of the runway. Just go, go straight. No more steering. And they kept having this message and it kept being ignored and they kept having the message that kept being ignored so what was the solution, Andrew? You ready?   0:28:58.7 AS: Yes, here, tell me.   0:29:00.8 BB: They painted the center stripe to be wider. [laughter]   0:29:05.5 AS: I was thinking they were going to paint like 10 stripes so that there was no center one.   0:29:10.3 BB: So the center stripe is like three feet wide. You can't miss it. Well, and so I use that because what they're saying is when you land at the Kennedy Space Center, you could be off target left and right a lot, and it's not a big deal, we got a lot of space here.   0:29:29.4 AS: Yep.   0:29:29.6 BB: And what does that mean relative to loss of the vehicle, relative to bad things happening downstream? The loss function that Dr. Taguchi would describe as a parabola, and a parabola being a curve that has a minimum, and then the curve goes up faster and faster to the left, faster and faster to the right. That's if the parabola opens up, it could open down. But in this case, Taguchi draws the loss function as being opening upwards as like a bell and it gets steeper and steeper. But, what, but depending on your system, it could be very steep, which is you're landing on an aircraft carrier, or it could be very shallow.   0:30:13.6 BB: So when I ride on a bike trail in Santa Clarita where I live, I go down the middle of the bike trail. And to my right, depending on which direction I'm going is a split rail fence so I don't go into the Arroyo, which is this gully for all the water running off. And so there's... I go down there and the worst, I stay away from that split rail. When I ride in Long Beach where you went to college where our daughter lives, there is no split rail. So I stay not in the center when I ride in Long Beach. I ride to not the center of my lane, I steer closer to the to the center of the overall lane, which means I'm closer to the bikes going the other way. And that's and that's my understanding of: I go off that off that side is gonna be a bad day.   0:31:08.0 BB: And so that's what Taguchi is saying relative to the loss function. But I think a better way to think about loss, I think that may be kind of a weird concept. I think if we think about integration, and in making the integration easier or harder. So again, if we're talking about space shuttle landing, maybe the loss makes sense. But if we're talking about putting things together, we've talked about the snap-fit that Toyota pickup truck that Toyota was producing in the late 1960s. And what struck me when I first read that is, Holy cow, they've developed a system of hardware which goes together without mallets, and I immediately associated that with what I had heard that Dr. Taguchi was influencing, working with them, consulting with them back in the '50s. And I thought that kind of fits. And so why aren't things here in the States, why are they being banged together? Because over in the States, going back to Larry Sullivan's article, we've got an explanation of quality which is "part" focused. Everything meets requirements. And so what really amazed me is that Toyota in the late '60s, had things which were going together well.   0:32:25.9 BB: Ford in 1982/83 timeframe, they had been working with Dr. Deming for a couple years. They discovered that a transmission they had designed and were building was also being built by Mazda. And part because they owned one third of Mazda and they were outsourcing production. And these transmissions went into Ford cars. And what I've mentioned in a previous episode is that the Ford warranty people figured out that the Mazda transmission, which was designed by Ford, but built by Mazda, had one third fewer complaints than the Ford transmission designed by Ford, built by Ford. And in this study that Ford did, led by their executives, and then they sent out the documentation to their supply chain and it, and it talked about the need to... Their explanation was what Mazda was doing was what's known as "piece to piece consistency." And what they found is that the parts, instead of being all over the place in terms of dimensions and whatnot, that they were far more uniform, yet what you won't hear in that video, what they talk about is within Ford, we're all over the place we're consuming the greatest, a big portion of the tolerance. We've got scrap and rework. But these Mazda parts, boy they only consume a fraction of the tolerance compared to us. And that's the difference. And that's the difference.   0:34:02.6 BB: And so what I wanna close with is, having less variation is not the issue that gets us back to precision, but not accuracy. So my explanation is that Mazda was actually focusing on accuracy - being on target of the respective parts. And as a result, they got great functionality outta the transmission. But what Ford, at least, I'm willing to bet the path Ford was going, was saying, "oh look Andrew, their parts are more consistent than ours. Consistency is the name of the game." And that's precision, not accuracy. So what I wanted to do tonight is build upon what we did last time, bring it to this loss function as being a parabola. Depending on what happens downstream, you don't know how steep that parabola is, and not knowing how steep it is, we don't know how much effort we should spend on our end upfront providing those components to improve integration 'cause we don't know how bad the integration is.   0:35:17.6 AS: And that's a wrap. Bill, on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I want to thank you again for the discussion and for listeners, remember to go to deming.org to continue your journey. If you want to keep in touch with Bill, you can just find him right there on LinkedIn. This is your host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. "People are entitled to joy in work."

Have you ever dreamed of being famous? Imagined what it would be like to have all your dreams come true? Recognition, adoration, basking in the limelight. Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? But dig a little deeper and you'll find that “The Road To Fame” is a prickly path, filled with twists & turns, backstabbing & betrayals. Experience a captivating journey into fame as the performers of Letters Aloud bring to life personal and illuminating letters from renowned figures like Stephen King, Dorothy Parker, Vincent Van Gogh, Emily Dickinson, Bruce Lee, Oprah Winfrey, and Tom Hanks, and explore the steep cost and evolving nature of what it means to be “famous” from those who have traversed its path. A riotously funny, movingly poignant, and thought-provoking experience brought to life by a gifted ensemble of professional actors, with live musical accompaniment, and a dynamic slide show, “Before They Were Famous” is a show that leaves audiences with smiles on their faces and much to discuss on their drive home. Letters Aloud is a performing arts company that brings to life intimate, thought-provoking, and often humorous stories hidden within private letters of the past. Their performances are a unique combination of literature, theatre, and live music that celebrates the beauty of the written word and the human experience. (If you take NPR's Selected Shorts, cross it with The Moth podcast and add just a pinch of the old A Prairie Home Companion, you pretty much have their show…except, of course, with letters.) They believe that letters are more than just pieces of paper; they are windows into the past, bridges between people, and tools for empathy and connection. Reading them aloud in front of an audience makes for a truly unique and powerful collective experience. Whether you're a fan of literature, history, or simply good storytelling, we invite you to join us on a journey through the written word. Letters Aloud is a celebration of the human spirit and we look forward to sharing it with you. About the Performers: PAUL MORGAN STETLER Paul is the creator and curator of Letters Aloud and a co-founder (and former Co-Artistic Director) of Seattle's multi-award-winning New Century Theatre Company. A well-known Seattle actor, Paul has appeared on numerous local stages over the past 20 years, including ACT Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Village Theatre, Seattle Children's Theatre, Intiman Theatre, and Empty Space Theatre, as well as numerous regional theatres across the country. He holds a BA in English Literature at Cal State Northridge and an MFA in Theatre Arts from Penn State University. BASIL HARRIS Basil Harris is a Seattle actor and musician who has worked extensively on stage and in film and media. As a voice actor, he's a regular contributor to the audio dramas of Jim French's Imagination Theater. He also plays in the alt-pop band “Awesome”, which will be appearing here at Town Hall in December. More at basilharris.com CLAUDINE MBOLIGIKPELANI NAKO Claudine is an actor out of Seattle, Washington, and a core company member of the prestigious ACT Theatre where she has appeared in numerous plays and is a two-time Gregory Award Winner for her work on stage. Film/TV credits include Everything Sucks!, Raising Dion, and Outside In (Netflix); Three Busy Debras on HBO Max and Grimm on NBC. Up next: directing Stew by Nora Howard at ACT Theatre, March 15-31. RAY TAGAVILLA Ray Tagavilla is a UW Drama Program graduate and a recipient of the 2012, 2014 Gregory Award for Best Supporting Actor for Jesus Hopped the A Train and A Small Fire and 2016 for Lead Actor for The Last Days of Judas Iscariot. His most recent theater credits were Two Mile Hollow at Intiman Theater, Titanish at Seattle Public, and recent film credits were Three Busy Debras with Adult Swim/HBO Max. ALEXANDRA TAVARES Alexandra Tavares is one of Seattle's most treasured theatre actors. She most recently portrayed Caliban in Seattle Rep's The Tempest, as well as The Winter's Tale, The Odyssey, Constellations (nominated for Outstanding Actress), Three Tall Women, and The Great Moment at Seattle Rep. She is a co-founder of The Seagull Project and has performed with them as Nina in The Seagull, Masha (nominated Outstanding Actress) in The Three Sisters, and Yelena in Uncle Vanya. She holds an M.F.A. in acting from the University of Washington. JAMIE MASCHLER Jamie is a musician, music director, educator and ambassador of the accordion. She is co-founder of the Brazilian bands Foleada, En Canto, and the accordion duo Creosote. She has been heard with the Pueblo Symphony, Seattle Symphony, and Seattle Philharmonic. Jamie has also played the role of Nelly Friedman in Paula Vogel's award-winning play, Indecent, twice.

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. APEX Express celebrates Filipino American History Month. Host Miko Lee is joined by guest Aisa Villarosa. They learn about the origin story of Filipino American History Month with Dr. Emily Lawsin and talk about the critical importance of ethnic studies with Dr. Dylan Rodriguez. We also get to hear music from Power Struggle's Aspirations album. More information from and about our guests Emily Lawsin Filipino American National Historical Society Dylan Rodriguez and his writing:  https://www.beyond-prisons.com/home/dylan-rodriguez-part-i-abolition-is-our-obligation https://millennialsarekillingcapitalism.libsyn.com/white-reconstruction-dylan-rodriguez-on-domestic-war-the-logics-of-genocide-and-abolition https://www.blackagendareport.com/cops-colleges-and-counterinsurgency-interview-dylan-rodriguez Musician Power Struggle and their collection: https://beatrockmusic.com/collections/power-struggle APEX Express Episodes featuring subjects discussed in this episode: 11.8.18 – Dawn Mabalon is in the Heart – entire show dedicates to Dawn 11.18.21 – We Are the Leaders – Labor features Gayle Romasanta on Larry Itliong book co-written by Dawn Mabalon   Show Transcript Filipino American History Month 10.26.23 [00:00:00] Miko Lee: Good evening and welcome to Apex Express. This is Miko Lee and I am so thrilled to have a guest co host this night, the amazing and talented Aisa Villarosa. Aisa can you please introduce yourselves to our audience? Say who you are, where you come from, and a little bit about yourself. [00:00:44] Aisa Villarosa: Thank you so much, Miko, and it's a joy to be with you and the Apex Express family. My name is Aisa, my pronouns are she, her, and I'm a Michigan born gay Filipino artist, activist, attorney with roots in ethnic studies organizing and teaching Filipino studies, in the wonderful Pa'aralang Pilipino of Southfield, Michigan. If you ever find yourself at the intersection of Eight Mile and Greenfield near Detroit, stop on by. [00:01:19] Miko Lee: Aisa, talk to me about this episode and what we're featuring in honor of the final week of Filipino American History Month. [00:01:28] Aisa Villarosa: I'd be honored to, Miko. We'll be doing a deep dive into Filipino American History Month today, including its origins and how the month acknowledges the first Filipinos who reached the shores of Morro Bay, California in 1587. We're going to be talking about what this month means in the context of today, how Filipinos are honoring the ongoing struggles for civil rights, for human rights, and we'll be talking to some personal heroes of mine. We'll also be talking about ethnic studies, which shares with new generations, these events and stories of Filipino Americans. [00:02:12] Miko Lee: Aisa, talk to me about ethnic studies. What is the background that we need to know? It's been a big part of our Asian American movement struggle with the fight for ethnic studies. give our audience a definition about what ethnic studies is and why is it important right now. [00:02:29] Aisa Villarosa: That's a great question, Miko. And I really love the definition of ethnic studies offered by the Coalition of Liberated Ethnic Studies. And they have said that this is essentially the knowledge, narratives, experiences, and wellness of Black, indigenous and people of color and their communities so that liberation of all peoples and relations are realized. And when we really break that down, this is the study of collective liberation. Part of why ethnic studies is so important is that this is really a root key to unlocking systemic change against hate. If it's taught in an intersectional approach, it really is a preventative tactic against racism. It's also rooted in storytelling. It's rooted in multi generational learning. And the best thing, in my opinion, with ethnic studies is we see the community as a living classroom. [00:03:32] Miko Lee: And , I know Ethnic Studies is part of your background. You came up as a student of Ethnic Studies. I came up in Women's Studies and Theater Studies not Ethnic Studies, but I took so many Ethnic Studies classes at San Francisco State that really profoundly shaped how I work and live as an activist and artist. Can you talk about how being a Filipino Studies student impacted you in your present day? [00:03:57] Aisa Villarosa: Absolutely. And oh, Miko, I feel like we would just be nerding out together in a theater or activism class. So thanks for sharing. Quite simply, I wouldn't be who I am without Ethnic Studies and the incredible folks behind this movement, including some voices that we'll be hearing from soon. It is encouraging that even in California, for example, ethnic studies was mandated in high schools in 2021. We are seeing a lot of progress across the nation with more and more school districts, more and more classrooms incorporating ethnic and Asian American, Pacific Islander, Native Hawaiian studies. And yet we also know that passing a law to teach ethnic studies is but one step and this isn't very well known, but ethnic studies is actually under attack. It's under attack from attempts to censor and limit the history and teaching, especially around colonization and militarization experienced by communities. And why this is really problematic is this sort of censorship can keep communities from finding one another, from finding that common ground, from seeing each other in their full humanity. [00:05:18] Miko Lee: Aisa there's so much going on in our world right now with what's happening in Palestine and Israel. And what does this have to do with the work of ethnic studies? [00:05:29] Aisa Villarosa: It has everything to do with ethnic studies, and right now we're seeing some targeting of students and activists speaking out for nonviolence, for a ceasefire, and an end to military occupation in Palestine, in Hawaii, across the world. And these activists and young folks are being targeted really, As Palestinian identity and people endure tremendous loss and mass displacement, why this matters is ethnic studies is living history and ethnic studies challenges us to take stock of moments where we can either be silent, or we can take action, including first steps to understand the history and the narratives behind these conflicts to really unpack the global impacts of colonization. It doesn't matter whether one is Filipino or Asian American or Black or Latinx or Indigenous or from any one of the countless communities living under the impacts of systemic violence and oppression. [00:06:36] Miko Lee: Thank you for sharing. I feel like we could do a whole series on why ethnic studies is so critical and important. But look forward to hearing from two people that are professors, educators, and activists and tell me who we're going to be talking with first. [00:06:51] Aisa Villarosa: We'll be talking first to Ate Emily Lawsin, a poet and an activist. She'll be sharing more about the establishment of Filipino American History Month. And then we'll be talking with activist and scholar Dylan Rodriguez, about Filipino American history in the context of today's struggles against white supremacy, military exploitation, and government violence. [00:07:16] Miko Lee: So let's take a listen to our interviews. [00:07:18] Aisa Villarosa: We are here tonight with one of my dearest mentors, heroes, big sister, a. k. a. Ate, Ate Emily Lawson. Emily, you have, over the course of your career, taught and made a difference in thousands of people's lives, including mine. For folks who are just getting to know you, can you share a little bit about your work and perhaps, you working on right now? [00:07:49] Emily Lawsin: My name is Emily Lawsin and I'm a second generation Filipino American, or pinay, as we say. I was born and raised in “she-attle” Washington and I'm the National President Emerita of the Filipino American National Historical Society or FANHS. I was on the board of trustees for 30 years no longer on the board, but still do supportive work for the organization. It's a completely volunteer run organization founded by Dorothy Ligo Cordova, Dr. Dorothy Ligo Cordova in 1982, I used to teach Asian Pacific Islander American studies and women's studies at different universities across the country in California and other states I was really blessed to be able to teach some of the first Filipino American history courses on different campuses and really utilize our FANHS curriculum in doing that. Now I work for four Culture which is King County's Cultural Development Authority, and I'm the Historic Preservation program manager there. I'm also a spoken word performance poet and oral historian [00:08:59] Aisa Villarosa: and for folks who have not had the privilege of watching Emily perform. You are a powerhouse. And a confession, I have inspirational post it notes around my laptop and I have one post it that says no more moments of silence. It's from a performance you gave, gosh, it was maybe sometime in 2008, [00:09:22] Emily Lawsin: yeah, that's awesome. Oh, thank you. [00:09:25] Aisa Villarosa: Yes. It's come full circle because I have remained a supporter of ethnic studies and part of why I am talking with you today is because October is Filipino American History Month and even breaking down every single word. In that phrase, there was a battle and a journey to even get the national recognition that y'all were able to get especially through your advocacy. So if you could tell the listeners maybe a bit about that journey and even for folks who are newer to the month, what is the difference between, say, heritage and history? [00:10:08] Emily Lawsin: Oh, that's awesome question. Thank you. Yeah, Filipino American History Month was really started by my Uncle Fred Cordova, Dr. Fred Cordova, who was the founding president of the Filipino American National Historical Society, or FANHS. He came up with the idea in 1991 and really wanted to recognize October as Philippine American History Month because the first documented landing of the first Filipinos in what is now known as the continental United States, specifically Morro Bay, California, happened on October 18th 1587. When Lizones Indios or Filipinos who were a crew and a slave slaves really on Spanish galleon ships were sent ashore off the coast of Morro Bay as like a landing party to scout out the area. If you actually look at a Instagram reel that our current FANHS President, Dr. Kevin Nadal made he tells you the history of, why October 18th, 1587 is important and it's not necessarily to celebrate that landing because people did die. But it's to commemorate and to remember that history and that memory where a Chumash Indupinos. Indigenous Filipinos Indupinos is what they call themselves too. They actually were instrumental in creating that moral based site as a historic marker for FANHS. That date is significant for Filipinos because of that first landing. And Then in the 1760s the first communities and families were created in the Bayou of Louisiana. Where these same crew folks or Filipinos jumped ship from those Spanish galleon and were called Manila Men by Marina Espina, who wrote the book Filipinos in Louisiana. Those families that jumped ship, created seven different villages in the bayous of Louisiana and intermarried with the local Creole communities there. Those families are now in their eighth and ninth generations. We wanted to recognize that history as being really the first Asian Americans in what is now known as the continental United States. Uncle Fred wrote the resolution for the FANHS Board of Trustees and they passed it in 1991 with the first observance nationally in 1992. Our FANHS chapters around the country started commemorating Philippine American History Month activities in October. It just grew from there. Institutions, schools, a lot of universities picked them up libraries city governments, county governments, state governments started picking up the resolution to honor our Filipino American history. We say Filipino American history, not heritage because we are a historical society, number one. But Number two, to recognize the history and the contributions of Filipinos to these United States of America. Not necessarily just Lumpia and dances and food. We are more than Ube. That's right. And there's nothing wrong with that. We're more than that, because Filipino American history is American history as well. And so then in the 2000s as our membership was growing And as our conferences were being more and more attended, a lot of our members in Washington, D. C. wanted to advocate and took up the charge from Uncle Fred, right? Uncle Fred asked them, hey, let's try to get this through Congress. And it went. For a few years and didn't necessarily pass as, as a history month until 2009. So 2009 we had representatives present the bill. We mobilized a lot of our members to call their Congress. People and it went through and then subsequent bills happened in 2011 and other years to officially recognize October as Philippine market history month. Barack Obama was the first White House celebration of Filipino American History Month. That meant a really big deal for us in FANHS that it was being recognized nationwide. President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris also issued proclamations resolutions this year. It's grown as our communities have grown, as our historical society has grown and it has expanded throughout the country and even in the curriculums. So we're really proud of that. [00:15:09] Aisa Villarosa: the success would not be possible, but for intergenerational solidarity, right? Almost being hand in hand with generations past and present and food, food is totally political Ate Em. So, so yes, calling, the great Dawn Maboulon, into the space, many Americans, are taught, unfortunately, by sort of the dominant structures that food is not political, but it's absolutely political, right? And I appreciate you sharing with the listeners the history behind the history, right? That this is both an accounting of the triumphs, the heartache, the fact that Many Filipinos use the term barkata, and when we look at the genesis of the word barkata, that term, which is almost like a friend that is really family, there's a spiritual bond there that was born of Spanish enslavement and colonization. So important that we ground the conversation in this. [00:16:09] Emily Lawsin: Yeah, and I thank you for bringing up my My Kumadre, the late Dr. Dawn Bohulano Mabalon. For the listeners who don't know, we consider her the queen and really was the foremost Filipino American historian of our generation. She passed away in 2018. Dawn was a incredibly gifted scholar was a very good friend of mine. Dawn was also a food historian, a labor historian a women's historian but she was also an activist she was a film producer she was a hip hop head she was a baker. the most incredible ube cupcakes you'd ever have. She was multi talented . Every day I think about how blessed we are to have known her, have her research still with us. I think, carries a lot of us who are close to her forward in the work that we do, but it also is continuing to teach younger generations now. You mentioned the intergenerational nature. That's totally what FANHS is. Dawn and I both came into FANHS as students. I came in as a high school student volunteering in Seattle and Dawn came in to our Los Angeles chapter. She was one of the founding student members of our Los Angeles chapter and then became a trustee and national scholar and was author of several books primarily her book on Little Manila in Stockton. Little Manila is in the heart. Since her death, I think a lot more young folks have mobilized and learned about her great activism to save Little Manila is not only in Stockton, but in other cities and towns all over the country to document Filipino American history through recordings, through music, through art. She's just inspired a whole, new generation because of the great work that she did. She wrote the landmark children's book on Larry Itliong one of the founders of the United Farm Workers Union. It was really the first illustrated children's book on Filipino American history. Gail Romasanta, our friend from Stockton was her co author and really wanted to thank Gail for Carrying forward Dawn's vision and publishing that children's book and her comadre, Dr. Allison Tintanco Cobales from San Francisco State University and Pinay Pinoy Educational Partnerships, created an incredible accompanying curriculum guide. Which a lot of us use at all different levels. The book is supposed to be for like middle school age students, but I assigned it for my college and university students. Because it was such a pathbreaking book. It's so informative and the accompanying curriculum guide really helps teachers and students, even families, engage with the material more and gives you discussion prompts and ideas as well. It is really an example of a researched children's book and grassroots effort to spread that knowledge around. After Dawn died we told Gail the publisher and co author, we're still going to do the book tour. I had promised Dawn that we would do that. I think it was like 20 cities across the country. It was amazing. It's really a testament to the intergenerational nature, the grassroots nature of FANHS. We run totally volunteer up until probably next year. Wow. Next year we'll probably hire our first staff person in 43 years. Because Auntie Dorothy Ligel Cordova has done it as a volunteer executive director. Oh my gosh. [00:20:16] Aisa Villarosa: Just a labor of love and also it's so important to build out the infrastructure so that that is good news. [00:20:23] Emily Lawsin: Totally labor of love. So if y'all are looking for a really worthy donation place, then that is it. Totally tax deductible. [00:20:32] Aisa Villarosa: And our listeners. can check out. We'll have some links related to this episode where folks can support you Ate Em as well as FAHNS. And as you were sharing, I kept thinking, some folks say art is our memory of love. But teaching is also an act of love. As you do as Ate Dawn Allison, so many have done are doing it is an act of love. And yet, Because of the violence of our systems we have book bans, we have attacks on ethnic studies still in 2023. How do you keep yourself nourished? [00:21:12] Emily Lawsin: Oh, such a good question. We had a penialism. Peniaism is a term that Dr. Allison Tintiaco Cabal has created, wow, 30 years ago now, or maybe less, maybe 25, I'm dating ourselves. She says peniaism equals love and pain and growth. That is so true. I believe in writing as my kind of outlet. Write for two reasons, love and revenge. Because what other reason would you write, right? So that's like a therapy outlet. To keep myself nourished, I'm really blessed to have a very loving partner and a very loving family. They nourish me. every day, literally feed me when I'm working late. But also with their love and their kindness and their brilliance. My two daughters are incredibly gifted and brilliant and just really blessed to have them. But also I think when I look at our community. Our Filipino American community specifically and how it's grown and changed through the years. Auntie Dorothy, when I was in college, was my professor and she used to say that our Filipino American community is built on many different layers. We have so many different generations that have immigrated over the years. And so every generation builds upon the other, the next generation. It's all these different layers. And I think that really helped me conceive of What it means to be in community with such a diverse Filipino American population. That education that knowledge has nourished me more than really anything else, because then I could. Always fall back to those teachings that Uncle Fred and Auntie Dorothy gave me. I was very blessed to have grown up on the Filipino Youth Activities Drill Team in Seattle that Uncle Fred and Auntie Dorothy co founded with other families, Filipino American families, as a way to keep Pinoy kids off the streets, right? It taught us our history and our pride, and gave me confidence in being Filipino, right? Being brown, being different. So that has constantly nourished me. My parents and their memory has nourished me because basically the work that we do, whether it's paid or not whether it's art, whether it's performance, whether it's history, writing, activism, or working for the man, making the dollar, whatever. To me, that's all fueled by the ancestors, and they literally plowed these fields before us, right? My uncles were farm workers. They were migrant farm workers. My mother was one of the first Filipino American women to work in the Alaskan cannery as an alaskera. You hear a lot about the Alaskeros or maybe you don't, I don't know. But she was one of the women and that is really. important to me. It's important for my children and others to, to know that history. If I remind myself that we're really doing the work of the ancestors then it's all worth it. It's all really worth it. [00:25:07] Aisa Villarosa: They say we don't know who all our ancestors are, but they know who we are. What you shared is also similar to Kapua, right? This concept that our identities are shared. So thank you for giving us your time and also just sharing what keeps you running on love in each moment. [00:25:32] Emily Lawsin: Absolutely. I just wanted to add a big thank you to you. I'm going to play the interviewer because I am the oral historian. I want listeners to know the good work that you've done. Since you were a student, a mentor activist yourself, an attorney working with youth and now working in the anti Asian violence movement, it's really important. In Philippine American History Month, it's not just about celebration. It is about commemorating the memories of those who've been killed. The memories of those who've passed I know you know about Joseph Aleto the Filipino American postal worker who was killed by a white supremacist on his work route a mile from my house. I was teaching at California State University, Northridge then, and the students said something incredible when they were organizing around that case. They said he was not in the wrong place at the wrong time, because people say that, right? When those kind of what they call random acts of violence happen, it wasn't random at all. He chose to kill Joseph Aletto because he looked like a person of color. He worked for the federal government. So the student at Cal State Northridge said, no, he wasn't in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was at his place, at his time, doing his job, just doing his job. The killer, the white supremacist, was the wrong person, at the wrong time. Joseph Aletto did not deserve to be killed like that. After he was killed, his memory was immediately ignored. And it wasn't until his family, his mother, Lillian, his brother, Ishmael, and his sister in law, Dina, stood up and said, “We will not have this happen to another family. We will not be ignored. ” they started a movement Join Our Struggle, Educate to Prevent Hate. And still love equality and tolerance and others, which is an acronym for his, the letters in his name. I totally supported that and love the Alato family for their activism to this day. So I want to thank you. For educating others in the work that you do now, you want to tell that because that's part of Philippine American history. [00:28:17] Aisa Villarosa: Thank you. And especially given our hard and painful moments right now thinking of. The pain felt by both Students and teachers of ethnic studies to many miles away the pain felt by Palestinians, right? There is a challenge and a duty that we have to both see the humanity in ourselves, but also bridge the shared struggles to humanize when we can because the stakes are too high. So thank you for reminding us of that. It was so beautiful to talk with you today. I hope listeners check out the links on our page and can learn more about Atta Emily Lawson's work and the work of FAHNS. [00:29:12] Emily Lawsin: Thank you, Aisa. I appreciate you. Mahal to everybody and Salama. Thank you. [00:29:20] Miko Lee: Aisa, I'm so glad that you're also sharing some music with us tonight. Can you tell us about the musician we're going to be hearing from? [00:29:28] Aisa Villarosa: Absolutely. I'm honored to introduce my friend and colleague, Mario, a. k. a. Power Struggle, who has been a behemoth in the Bay Area and global music and activism scene for many years. Power Struggle tells the story of The Filipino community, both in the Philippines, as well as connecting the dots to social justice and economic justice in the Bay Area and beyond. [00:30:00] Miko Lee: Coming up next is Cultural Worker featuring Equipto by Power Struggle. Welcome back. You are tuned into apex express, a 94.1 KPFA and 89.3 KPF. Be in Berkeley and online@kpfa.org [00:34:45] Aisa Villarosa: You were listening to Cultural Worker featuring Equipto by the Bay Area's own Power Struggle. I am here tonight talking to the incredible Dylan Rodriguez. Dylan, it is a pleasure to have you on the show with us. [00:35:01] Dylan Rodriguez: I've never been introduced that way. Thank you. Thank you for doing that. I decline. I decline all of the superlatives, humbled. I'm very humbled to the conversation. I'm grateful for the invitation. [00:35:12] Aisa Villarosa: Let me, I'll try that again. Here is Rabble Rouser Scholar extraordinaire Dylan Rodriguez. [00:35:18] Dylan Rodriguez: Yeah, troublemaking, troublemaking's good. Yeah, I'm down for that. [00:35:22] Aisa Villarosa: Dylan, I have to say most folks tuning in are based on the west coast, but you are gracing us with your presence from the east coast. So thank you. Thank you for being on late with us tonight. Can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself? Maybe starting with what do you do? [00:35:41] Dylan Rodriguez: I'm a professor at the University of California, the Riverside campus. This is now my 23rd year there. Despite multiple efforts, they have not been able to get rid of me yet. And I'm very proud to say that my primary vocation extends significantly beyond my day job. I think perhaps the most important part of What I would say I do biographically is that my life work is adjoined to various forms of collaborative attempts at radical political activity, speculative and experimental forms of organizing and community. I've been engaged in abolitionist Forms of practice and teaching and scholarship and organizing since the mid to late 90s. I'm interested in collaborating with people who are down with Black liberation anti colonialism opposition to anti Black racist colonial state. I've been involved so many different organizations and movements that I lose track, but I think that's, in a nutshell, what I'm about. [00:36:39] Aisa Villarosa: So you're in Your 23rd year the Michael Jordan year, and thank you for sharing with us. It sounds like you are a world builder Grace Lee Boggs often says that how can we build the future if we're not visioning it and working toward it. So thank you for everything you've been doing and In terms of in the classroom, can you talk a little bit about what you teach? [00:37:04] Dylan Rodriguez: I teach a variety of different classes that center the archives, the thoughts, the writing, the poetry, the art of radical revolutionary liberationists and anti colonial organizers, thinkers, and scholars. For example, this right now, for example, right now I'm teaching a graduate class in anti Blackness and racial colonial state violence. And we're reading a variety of people. I'm interested in, in the whole spectrum. of thought and praxis that is attacking the racist and anti Black and colonial state. I teach another class on the prison industrial complex and that's a class I've been teaching for more than 20 years and I teach it from in a in an unapologetically experimental abolitionist position. So I'm interested in stoking and supporting whatever forms of collective and collaborative activity are possible to at bare minimum to undermine The premises of this carceral regime that we all live under and I teach a bunch of other things too, but I think the overall trajectory that I'm interested in is some combination of radical autonomy revolutionary trajectory and also just. As I get older, I become less patient. So I'll say that I feel like a lot of the way I teach all the content what I teach now, whether it's in a classroom or somewhere else is increasingly militantly accelerationist I think that there is a place and a necessity for accelerating, militant opposition and confrontation with this unsustainable, genocidal, civilizational project that we all differently inhabit. I feel like it's an obligation to teach and work within an identification of that context. [00:38:47] Aisa Villarosa: What I heard you say is. You're less patient and it sounds like it's because we are running out of time. [00:38:53] Dylan Rodriguez: Yeah, we are living. I think we're outta time. I think we're outta time. I'm unprecedented times. Yes, we're out of time and mean as we have this conversation and as I've been saying to anybody that listen to me, these these last several days. We're in a moment of an actual unfolding genocide, and I'm not sure, I'm not sure that those who identify themselves as the left, particularly the North American and U. S. left, have an adequate sense of urgency and honesty about what it means to be in this historical moment. [00:39:26] Aisa Villarosa: I'd love for you to break this down. I wonder if at this moment, there are folks listening who are completely in agreement. There might be some other folks who perhaps are not sure what to think. And some of that, a lot of that is the impacts of colonization itself, right? We are trained to think small culturally, put your head down. You mentioned you teach anti Blackness and as someone who grew up in racially segregated Michigan with a Black and white and Filipino family, people used to joke that we were the United Nations of families. And yet we did not have the words to talk about anti Blackness. We did not. Unpack it in any sort of meaningful way. And we didn't consider what it meant for our Black family members. So for folks listening who are perhaps new to unpacking anti Blackness, unpacking the genocide in Palestine. Can you connect the dots a little bit? [00:40:33] Dylan Rodriguez: I can do so in a provisional way. I have no definitive answers for anybody who hears this broadcast or reads this transcript. So let me just start with that. I don't present myself as having answers really at all. What I have are urgent, ambitious and militant attempts. But let me just say that's where I'm coming from. I believe in experimentation. I believe in collective, collaborative. militant work that, first of all, identifies the very things you just did. So I want to just, first of all, reflect back to you how important, how courageous it is to just use the terms, right? To use the terms, to center the terms of anti Blackness, to focus on anti Blackness is so principled and it is also principled it is a principle and it is principled to focus on anti Blackness as a specific way in which to experience and confront and deal with the civilizational project that is so completely foundationally violent. To name what is happening right now in Palestine by way of the United States and its militarization support of the state of Israel as genocide. That takes some courage on the part of whoever says it, and I think it's a courage that is emboldened when it's a collective courage. So what I'll say about it as a provisional response as a partial response to what you said is that. I think everything that we do in relation to these dynamics to these forms of violence that are so foundational to the way in which the present historical tense is formed around us, meaning genocide of Palestinians displacement genocide apartheid against Palestinians, and this foundational modern structure of anti Blackness that naming those things, and then identifying how it is that it is not an option to develop it. It's principled, political, ideological, spiritual collective relationship, you have to figure out what your relationship is to those dynamics. You have no choice. What I have no patience for are those who would treat these things genocide in Palestine, the global logic of anti Blackness, as if it's somehow optional. As if it's somehow as if it's somehow elective that it's a volunteeristic kind of alternative to deal. You have no choice. You have to figure out, articulate, and hopefully you're doing this in collaboration with other people. You've got to figure out what your position is. And once you do that, things tend to map themselves out because you get pulled in and invited into projects and collective work that actually tends to be really emboldening and beautiful. So I'll say that like wherever you are, whether it's northern Southern California, whether it's I happen to be right now on the East Coast in the state of New Hampshire I live in Southern California. I think identifying those things is the first and most important courageous collective step. [00:43:18] Aisa Villarosa: And turning a little bit to ethnic studies, which we heard previously from Atta Emily Lawson about the power of ethnic studies and if done right, if taught in a liberatory way, it gives us the answers. It helps us bridge gaps that oppression wrought on us, and some would say that's dangerous. Can you share what you have experienced as An instructor as a scholar of ethnic studies in your long career, [00:43:54] Dylan Rodriguez: So first of all, shout out to Dr. Emily Lawson, one of my Thank you. youngest old friends. All respect and all empowerment to everything that she says. So I just I do my best to amplify whatever it is that she's done and said. So I come out of ethnic studies. I got my Ph. D. In ethnic studies. I'm one of the people who was humbled to be part of, I think, the new kind of the most recent revision and reification the newest chapter of ethnic studies, which people call critical ethnic studies. So I've been in, in the ethnic studies project for essentially my whole adult life. I'm now 49 plus years old, so it's been for, it's been a while that I've been involved. So ethnic studies, As far as what it does in the world, I'm going to go the opposite direction that some of my colleagues do, and I don't mean this to contradict them, this to compliment them. I think ethnic studies is productively endangering. I think it is constructively violent. I think ethnic studies is beautifully displacing. That's been my experience with it, and what I mean by those things is this. I'm convinced that if one approaches ethnic studies as something more than just an academic curriculum, if one approaches it as a way to reshape how you interpret the world around you, how you understand history, how you understand your relationship, both to history and to other people, that it should shake you to your foundations. It really should. And the reason I say that is because, for the most part, the ways in which people, especially in North America, are ideologically trained in whatever school systems they experience from the time they enter a language is to assimilate, to accept and to concede to the United States nation building project, which is empire, right? It's a continuation of anti Black chattel. It's all of these things, which we started this conversation with. It's all those things. So what ethnic studies does is it should shake you to your foundations by way of exposing exactly what it is that you have been. In some ways, literally bred into loyalty to so so when it shakes with your foundations, that's an endangering feeling. I've had it so many times in the classroom where I can sense it. I can. And sometimes students, the students who are the most, I think audacious will articulate it that way, right? And they will, they'll sometimes hold it against the teacher, right? Whether it's me or somebody else. And I'll say I feel like I'm being attacked, right? And you know what? I used to be defensive about that, but you know what? In probably the last 15 to 20 years, I tell them, you know what that's how you should feel. Because what's happening right now is that you're experiencing an archive and a history and a way of seeing the world that is it's forcing you to question Essentially some of the most important assumptions that have shaped your way of identifying who you are on this planet and in the United States and in relation to the United States and the violence of the United States. You've never thought about the United States as a violent genocidal anti Black nation building project. Now that we're naming that. Yeah, you know you're feeling a kind of violence through that and ideological violence you feel displaced by that you feel endangered by that. That's all right. That's all right because I'm here with you. You know I'm here with you and we're all in this. At the same time, and the point is to figure out what's going to be the right some people will just disavow it and they'll do their best to fabricate their own return to the point from which they started. And then a lot of other people will never be able to go back to that same place that is the beauty of what I understand to be the best of ethnic studies is it displaces people from this default loyalty to the United States nation building project it disrupts the kind of default Americanism. That seems to shape the horizon of people's political, cultural, ideological ambitions, and it says that there's got to be something on the other side of this that is liberatory, that's a different way of being in the world. That's the best of ethnic studies. And so I do my best to work within that lineage, within that tradition, within that ambition. [00:48:02] Aisa Villarosa: I am thinking about. Adrienne Marie Brown and folks who say subscribe to the Nap ministry, et cetera. And as we progress generationally, we, in some cases, get a more nuanced vocabulary for times to pause, times to recharge you know, COVID 19 name your thing. Is there room in this struggle knowing that essentially we're out of time, right? The timer is going off. Can we rest? And how can we find rest in each other? [00:48:46] Dylan Rodriguez: That's such a hard one. I'll be completely vulnerable with the people that are listening, reading, and experiencing my comments right now. I would be a hypocrite to say That I fully ascribe to any regime that is committed to self care, right? I'd be lying. I'd be lying. I feel like I'm mostly committed to trying to engage with whatever forms of possibility radical possibility are available at my best to the point of getting close to exhaustion and then stopping and taking a rest and just asking people to give me a break and people are very just so let me back up the people who I tend to collaborate with nowadays are incredibly generous. They look out for each other. They give me more of a break than I probably need or deserve. All right, so but I'll say at the very same time with what is. obsessing me is this kind of humble notion that I want to maximize whatever contribution I can make to advancing some form of a liberation and abolitionist and anti colonial and Black liberation project before I walk off the mortal coil. That's it. That's my contribution. I feel honored to be part of that. I don't expect to necessarily see the liberation, the revolution, the decolonization in my lifetime, it's not about that. It's not that narcissistic. I got over that many years ago. So I'll say that with all humility with all vulnerability to people here, and I don't prescribe it. I'm not saying anybody should be like me. To the contrary. I think the lesson that I've learned from a variety of comrades who are much more mature than I am in terms of understanding the limitations of doing work this way and people have exemplified. A version of collective self care that attacks the kind of neoliberal individualized notion of self care that frankly really gets under my skin. They have taught me what my friends at the what [Big Tree & Martine] and I'll send you the link so people can check them out. They're the co founders of Ujima Medics in Chicago. I quote them all the time on this. But they have talked to me more than once about the notion. Of collective and deep responsibility. So I think I would use the term of deep responsibility, rather than self care I would use the term deep responsibility as a way to understand what it means to be in community with people who will make sure that you take the time that you take the space to recharge and pause that people who will recognize your vulnerability and your exhaustion. And make sure that you're able to rest to the point where you will remain a warrior that's effective in this ongoing struggle. And warrior when I say warrior I mean that all different kind of ways, right? There's all different kind of warriors. So I think what Martine and Amika talk about is deep responsibility is the one I would really emphasize because I think it's a notion of collectivity and it means that we're actually looking out for each other. And what it means is that we are pushing each other to care. For ourselves and others are caring for us, maybe in a way. That is wiser than we are capable, than what we are capable of doing for ourselves. And I know, and again, with all humility and vulnerability, I feel like that's what I need from people around me is to be around people who believe in that form of deeper collective responsibility. I'm probably not capable of it, right? That makes me, I know that makes me a bad abolitionist, everybody, but but others have taught me that's my limitation. So I feel like that's where I'm at. [00:52:10] Aisa Villarosa: You're winning the. Award for most honest guest star on this show, Dylan. [00:52:17] Dylan Rodriguez: I have no choice. I have no choice. [00:52:20] Aisa Villarosa: How can people support [00:52:21] Dylan Rodriguez: you? Oh man I don't need support. I don't need support from people. I don't. I don't. I don't I feel like there's so many, there's so many collective organizations and What I'd rather do is if you wanna get in touch with me, I'm happy to do that. People hit me up. I'm on social media, like I'm on Instagram and Twitter. Just look me up. Dylan Rodriguez 73 on Instagram. Dylan at Dylan Rodriguez. On Twitter. I guess it's called X Now. I don't know, I'm gonna jump off those platforms at some point, but for now I'm still on 'em. Email. You can email me at Dylan Rodriguez, collaborate@gmail.com. So that's a cool way to get in touch. So I feel like I'm Profoundly privileged position. Again I get to participate in all different forms of collective work. I have plenty of support. So I don't want people supporting me. What I want people to do is figure out what kinds of collaborative collective collaborative and collective project around them that are seeking autonomy. That's what I want people to do. That's what I want you to support. I want you to support autonomous projects. For liberation revolutionary struggle. And if it if there's decolonization there as well autonomous projects that are not dependent on the state that are not dependent on the Democratic Party that are not dependent on nonprofit organizations, non governmental organizations that don't Rely on public policy reforms. If there are communities organizations around that are seeking to create autonomous forms of power. That's what I want people to support. I think that's what needs to be modeled. That is what is on the other side of this collapsing civilization. Are these forms of autonomy, the sooner that we can begin to participate and experiment and autonomous forms of community that creates autonomous forms of things like justice, freedom, security. You know what I mean? It's secure. Health security, food security, education security, recreation security, the security of joy, collective love, all that stuff. The sooner that we can figure out different models to do that there may be an other side to the collapse of the civilization, which could very well happen in the coming days. I think depending where you are right now, it might be happening now. So that's what I would ask people to do, would be to support something like that. And if not, instigate and create it. [00:54:28] Aisa Villarosa: So appreciate that. And earlier… Off the recording, you and I were talking about something doesn't need to last forever to be successful. There is a molting that is happening now, a shedding, if you will. And so for listeners who are beginning their journey, you've made them feel just a little bit less lonely. So thank you for being on the show with us tonight, Dylan. Do you want to close with any final words for the audience? [00:55:01] Dylan Rodriguez: Yeah first of all, thank you for inviting me. I hope we can do this again sometime soon. This is a beautiful few minutes I shared. I do not take for granted that people are listening to this and taking it to heart. So I think the closing words I would offer to anybody who is interested in being engaged with the historical record to which we are speaking. I would just ask you if you're not already involved in some form of collective creative work. Whether it's something you would call a social movement, whether it's formal organization or whether it's something else. I will just ask that everybody here that's listening to this, if you're not already involved in something that's collective that is collaborative and ideally that is radically experimental and willing to look beyond. The horizons that have been presented to you as the farthest possibility. I want people to speculate and to figure out what is beyond the horizons that have been presented to them as the limit. What is beyond that? And I'm talking to artists. I'm talking to poets, scholars, activists, organizers, whoever is here, people who are incarcerated, everybody who's here, like there are so many different traditions that we can attach ourselves to all those traditions are collaborative and collective. So please just be part of a collective. Be part of a collective and for whatever it's worth reach out to somebody who can help you facilitate joining a collective. That's why I left you on my contact information, because for whatever it's worth, if I can play a small role in that, I'm down to do it. You probably don't need me. You probably got somebody else in your life that can help you do that. But do something that is collective, collaborative, experimental. That's my that's what I would leave with people. Yeah, that's the last words I would leave with people. [00:56:38] Aisa Villarosa: Borders are meant to be broken. So thank you, Dylan, for expanding folks vision tonight. Thank you for inviting me. [00:56:47] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for joining us. Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program, backslash apex express to find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. [00:57:11] Miko Lee: Apex express is produced by me. Miko Lee. Along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keane-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaida. Kiki Rivera, Swati Rayasam, Nate Tan, Hieu Nguyen and Cheryl Truong tonight's show is produced by me Miko thank you so much to the team at kpfa for their support have a great Night The post APEX Express – 10.26.23 – Filipino American History Month appeared first on KPFA.

The College Basketball Experience (@TCEonSGPN) on the Sports Gambling Podcast Network previews the upcoming Big West Conference with their 2023-24 season preview. Pick Dundee aka (@TheColbyD),Ryan McIntyre (@Moneyline_Mac), & Noah Bieniek (@NoahB77_) break down every single team in Big West Conference and key in on how they think the conference race will shake out. Can Joe Pasternack and the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos repeat and get back to the Big Dance? Will Ajay Mitchell repeat as Preseason Player of the Year in the Big West?Can Don Monson and the Long Beach State Dirtbags bounce back after a disappointing 22-23 season? Does Russell Turner have another really talented group at UC Irvine that can contend for the league title? Can the Hawaii Rainbow finish strong this season after a letdown in conference play last year? Are the Cal State Fullerton Titans flying under the radar once again under Dedrique Tayler? How will Jim Les' veteran group shake out in the Big West?Can Mike Magpayo build off of last year's big year and put together another one for the UC Riverside Highlanders? What is the key for Rod Barnes and the Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners to get back into league contention? Will the UC San Diego Tritons mesh better with this new group after last year's disappointing year? Can Andy Newman get the Cal State Northridge program headed in the right direction in year #1? Is there any hope for John Smith in year #5 at Cal Poly? We talk it all and more on this Big West 2023 Season Preview edition of The College Basketball Experience.=====================================================Support us by supporting our partnersGametime code SGPN - Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code SGPN for $20 off your first purchase - https://gametime.co/Underdog Fantasy code SGPN - 100% Deposit Match up to $100 - https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-sgpn4:42Discuss with fellow degens on Discord - https://sg.pn/discordSGPN Merch Store - https://sg.pn/storeDownload The Free SGPN App - https://sgpn.appCheck out SGPN.TVSupport us by supporting our partnersUnderdog Fantasy code SGPN - 100% Deposit Match up to $100 - https://sg.pn/underdogFollow The College Experience & SGPN On Social MediaTwitter - https://twitter.com/TCEonSGPNTwitter - http://www.twitter.com/gamblingpodcastInstagram - http://www.instagram.com/sportsgamblingpodcastTikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@gamblingpodcastFacebook - http://www.facebook.com/sportsgamblingpodcastYoutube - https://www.youtube.com/@TheCollegeExperienceFollow The Hosts On Social MediaColby Dant - http://www.twitter.com/thecolbydPatty C - https://twitter.com/PattyC831NC Nick - https://twitter.com/NC__NicKWatch the Sports Gambling PodcastYouTube - https://www.sg.pn/YouTubeTwitch - https://www.sg.pn/TwitchRead & Discuss - Join the conversationWebsite - https://www.sportsgamblingpodcast.comSlack - https://sg.pn/slackReddit - https://www.sg.pn/reddit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The College Basketball Experience (@TCEonSGPN) on the Sports Gambling Podcast Network previews the upcoming Big West Conference with their 2023-24 season preview. Pick Dundee aka (@TheColbyD),Ryan McIntyre (@Moneyline_Mac), & Noah Bieniek (@NoahB77_) break down every single team in Big West Conference and key in on how they think the conference race will shake out. Can Joe Pasternack and the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos repeat and get back to the Big Dance? Will Ajay Mitchell repeat as Preseason Player of the Year in the Big West? Can Don Monson and the Long Beach State Dirtbags bounce back after a disappointing 22-23 season? Does Russell Turner have another really talented group at UC Irvine that can contend for the league title? Can the Hawaii Rainbow finish strong this season after a letdown in conference play last year? Are the Cal State Fullerton Titans flying under the radar once again under Dedrique Tayler? How will Jim Les' veteran group shake out in the Big West? Can Mike Magpayo build off of last year's big year and put together another one for the UC Riverside Highlanders? What is the key for Rod Barnes and the Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners to get back into league contention? Will the UC San Diego Tritons mesh better with this new group after last year's disappointing year? Can Andy Newman get the Cal State Northridge program headed in the right direction in year #1? Is there any hope for John Smith in year #5 at Cal Poly? We talk it all and more on this Big West 2023 Season Preview edition of The College Basketball Experience. ===================================================== Support us by supporting our partners Gametime code SGPN - Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code SGPN for $20 off your first purchase - https://gametime.co/ Underdog Fantasy code SGPN - 100% Deposit Match up to $100 - https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-sgpn 4:42 Discuss with fellow degens on Discord - https://sg.pn/discord SGPN Merch Store - https://sg.pn/store Download The Free SGPN App - https://sgpn.app Check out SGPN.TV Support us by supporting our partners Underdog Fantasy code SGPN - 100% Deposit Match up to $100 - https://sg.pn/underdog Follow The College Experience & SGPN On Social Media Twitter - https://twitter.com/TCEonSGPN Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/gamblingpodcast Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/sportsgamblingpodcast TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@gamblingpodcast Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/sportsgamblingpodcast Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@TheCollegeExperience Follow The Hosts On Social Media Colby Dant - http://www.twitter.com/thecolbyd Patty C - https://twitter.com/PattyC831 NC Nick - https://twitter.com/NC__NicK Watch the Sports Gambling Podcast YouTube - https://www.sg.pn/YouTube Twitch - https://www.sg.pn/Twitch Read & Discuss - Join the conversation Website - https://www.sportsgamblingpodcast.com Slack - https://sg.pn/slack Reddit - https://www.sg.pn/reddit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The College Basketball Experience (@TCEonSGPN) on the Sports Gambling Podcast Network previews the upcoming Big West Conference with their 2023-24 season preview. Pick Dundee aka (@TheColbyD),Ryan McIntyre (@Moneyline_Mac), & Noah Bieniek (@NoahB77_) break down every single team in Big West Conference and key in on how they think the conference race will shake out. Can Joe Pasternack and the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos repeat and get back to the Big Dance? Will Ajay Mitchell repeat as Preseason Player of the Year in the Big West?Can Don Monson and the Long Beach State Dirtbags bounce back after a disappointing 22-23 season? Does Russell Turner have another really talented group at UC Irvine that can contend for the league title? Can the Hawaii Rainbow finish strong this season after a letdown in conference play last year? Are the Cal State Fullerton Titans flying under the radar once again under Dedrique Tayler? How will Jim Les' veteran group shake out in the Big West?Can Mike Magpayo build off of last year's big year and put together another one for the UC Riverside Highlanders? What is the key for Rod Barnes and the Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners to get back into league contention? Will the UC San Diego Tritons mesh better with this new group after last year's disappointing year? Can Andy Newman get the Cal State Northridge program headed in the right direction in year #1? Is there any hope for John Smith in year #5 at Cal Poly? We talk it all and more on this Big West 2023 Season Preview edition of The College Basketball Experience.=====================================================Support us by supporting our partnersGametime code SGPN - Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code SGPN for $20 off your first purchase - https://gametime.co/Underdog Fantasy code SGPN - 100% Deposit Match up to $100 - https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-sgpn4:42Discuss with fellow degens on Discord - https://sg.pn/discordSGPN Merch Store - https://sg.pn/storeDownload The Free SGPN App - https://sgpn.appCheck out SGPN.TVSupport us by supporting our partnersUnderdog Fantasy code SGPN - 100% Deposit Match up to $100 - https://sg.pn/underdogFollow The College Experience & SGPN On Social MediaTwitter - https://twitter.com/TCEonSGPNTwitter - http://www.twitter.com/gamblingpodcastInstagram - http://www.instagram.com/sportsgamblingpodcastTikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@gamblingpodcastFacebook - http://www.facebook.com/sportsgamblingpodcastYoutube - https://www.youtube.com/@TheCollegeExperienceFollow The Hosts On Social MediaColby Dant - http://www.twitter.com/thecolbydPatty C - https://twitter.com/PattyC831NC Nick - https://twitter.com/NC__NicKWatch the Sports Gambling PodcastYouTube - https://www.sg.pn/YouTubeTwitch - https://www.sg.pn/TwitchRead & Discuss - Join the conversationWebsite - https://www.sportsgamblingpodcast.comSlack - https://sg.pn/slackReddit - https://www.sg.pn/reddit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The College Basketball Experience (@TCEonSGPN) on the Sports Gambling Podcast Network previews the upcoming Big West Conference with their 2023-24 season preview. Pick Dundee aka (@TheColbyD),Ryan McIntyre (@Moneyline_Mac), & Noah Bieniek (@NoahB77_) break down every single team in Big West Conference and key in on how they think the conference race will shake out. Can Joe Pasternack and the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos repeat and get back to the Big Dance? Will Ajay Mitchell repeat as Preseason Player of the Year in the Big West? Can Don Monson and the Long Beach State Dirtbags bounce back after a disappointing 22-23 season? Does Russell Turner have another really talented group at UC Irvine that can contend for the league title? Can the Hawaii Rainbow finish strong this season after a letdown in conference play last year? Are the Cal State Fullerton Titans flying under the radar once again under Dedrique Tayler? How will Jim Les' veteran group shake out in the Big West? Can Mike Magpayo build off of last year's big year and put together another one for the UC Riverside Highlanders? What is the key for Rod Barnes and the Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners to get back into league contention? Will the UC San Diego Tritons mesh better with this new group after last year's disappointing year? Can Andy Newman get the Cal State Northridge program headed in the right direction in year #1? Is there any hope for John Smith in year #5 at Cal Poly? We talk it all and more on this Big West 2023 Season Preview edition of The College Basketball Experience. ===================================================== Support us by supporting our partners Gametime code SGPN - Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code SGPN for $20 off your first purchase - https://gametime.co/ Underdog Fantasy code SGPN - 100% Deposit Match up to $100 - https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-sgpn 4:42 Discuss with fellow degens on Discord - https://sg.pn/discord SGPN Merch Store - https://sg.pn/store Download The Free SGPN App - https://sgpn.app Check out SGPN.TV Support us by supporting our partners Underdog Fantasy code SGPN - 100% Deposit Match up to $100 - https://sg.pn/underdog Follow The College Experience & SGPN On Social Media Twitter - https://twitter.com/TCEonSGPN Twitter - http://www.twitter.com/gamblingpodcast Instagram - http://www.instagram.com/sportsgamblingpodcast TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@gamblingpodcast Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/sportsgamblingpodcast Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@TheCollegeExperience Follow The Hosts On Social Media Colby Dant - http://www.twitter.com/thecolbyd Patty C - https://twitter.com/PattyC831 NC Nick - https://twitter.com/NC__NicK Watch the Sports Gambling Podcast YouTube - https://www.sg.pn/YouTube Twitch - https://www.sg.pn/Twitch Read & Discuss - Join the conversation Website - https://www.sportsgamblingpodcast.com Slack - https://sg.pn/slack Reddit - https://www.sg.pn/reddit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

#160: As we've told you, L.A. is the the epicenter of fast fashion in the US, but there's a lot of people here working to make the industry more sustainable. We'll talk about what sustainable fashion is, who is doing it and what is means for the garment district downtown. Today, How To LA host Brian De Los Santos and producer Megan Botel head downtown to chat with Mary Price, founder of the sustainable fashion brand Ocean + Main, at her design studio. After working for larger fashion companies for decades, Mary started a small brand that makes its clothing hyper-locally, all within a few blocks in downtown's Fashion District. Guests: Mary Price, founder and creative director of Ocean + Main; Tracie Tung, assistant professor of fashion design and merchandising at Cal State Northridge

The Writers Guild of America and the major Hollywood studios are closing in on a deal that would end a 145-day strike that has roiled the film and TV business and caused thousands of job losses. Animals Gone Wild. A Cal State Northridge student's documentary film led to the discovery of 10 half-siblings after she found out she was conceived using a sperm donor.The film, “#2276,” directed by student Sara Sims, 22, is now a finalist in the prestigious nationwide Student Academy Awards.Sims set out to make a documentary about her roots and along the way, she learned much more than she could've ever imagined about her story. Man Stress is harder than lady stress and everybody knows it. That's right — stressed-out male workers who feel under-appreciated could be twice as likely to develop potentially deadly heart disease, according to a paper just published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.

Tina Raymond is making waves in the Jazz drumming world. Her second release as a bandleader, Divinations, will be out on October 6, 2023. She is also the Director of Jazz studies at Cal State Northridge and is president-elect of The California Alliance for Jazz. She certainly has a lot going on. Jamie caught up with Tina to discuss her brilliant upcoming release along with everything else she has going on. This interview covers a lot of ground and will be useful to all. If you aren't aware of Tina's drumming, here is your chance to get hip to a bright young star in the world of Jazz.

Tina Raymond is an accomplished drummer, composer, bandleader, and educator based in Los Angeles, CA. A unique voice in the contemporary improvised music scene, Raymond blends traditional jazz vocabulary with African polyrhythm and classical percussion technique. She is the Director of Jazz Studies at Cal State Northridge, and her new trio album Divinations will be released October 6th. In this episode, Tina talks about: Creating a jazz program where students don't feel like they're in competition with each other  Putting boundaries around her professional life, whether it's as an educator or a performer How she tries to help her students become well rounded people, not just good jazz musicians  Her new record “Divinations” and its tarot theme  Building drum solos around accompaniment Making her record “drums forward” both in performance and mix

Bill Self tacked on another transfer addition for the Kansas Jayhawks basketball team, this time adding Chris Carter, an athletic redshirt freshman guard from Cal State University Northridge. What he adds to the team and the walk-on group as a whole for KU will provide. What does this mean for the roster as a whole in Lawrence?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!BirddogsGo to birddogs.com/lockedoncollege and when you enter promo code, LOCKEDONCOLLEGE, they'll throw in a free custom birddogs Yeti-style tumbler with every order.FanDuelMake Every Moment More. Don't miss the chance to get your No Sweat First Bet up to TWO THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS in Bonus Bets when you go FanDuel.com/LOCKEDON.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In life, it can be difficult to understand and recognize our truth and desires.  We often get stuck in our everyday routines and forget to take a step back and reflect on what we truly want. However, it is essential to take the time to recognize our truth and desires in order to live a fulfilling life. My guest today, Dynasty Taylor, found that one way to recognize her truth was to embrace the darkness. The darkness isn't meant to be scary, but rather a place of clarity. Dynasty is a service-focused Social Worker and Program Director with a strong commitment to serving the needs of disadvantaged youth and adults, including homeless, emancipated youth, and special needs populations. Dynasty is a  locally known African American Social Worker (ACSW) born and raised in South Los Angeles.  Dynasty graduated from Dorsey Miller High School, Cal State Northridge, with a Bachelors in Sociology minor in Criminal Justice, and the University of Southern California with a Masters in Social Work concentrating on families and children. At the age of 23, she became the CEO and Founder of a (501c3) community-based non-profit organization called Dynasty's United Youth Association that has provided free educational, career, and mental health programming to at-risk youth ages 5-18 for the past nine years. In this episode, you will learn: Empowering yourself through education Healing trauma with self-love Celebrating yourself Working through your darkness to see the light Links and Resources:Connect with Mari: https://www.marirobertslife.com/ Follow Mari on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marirobertslife/ Send Mari a message on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariroberts/ Connect with Dynasty: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dynasty-taylor-88aa1372/ Follow Dynasty on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/msdynastytaylor/