Podcasts about Javits

1933 Goudey Sport Kings cards and other vintage gems were able to be purchased at the National by your Trading Card Therapy host, Leighton. With his company, Just Collect, Leighton is always offering free appraisals, and is always buying vintage collections. Check out his latest pickups from the National on today's episode. Just Collect will be at Fanatics Fest buying and selling! If you're attending the show at the Javits, stop by the booth; Leighton would love to see you.

Ep. 48 – In Play: Toy Association EVP Global Market Events Kimberly Carcone   The Toy Association EVP Global Market Events Kimberly Carcone joined Trade Show Talk to share her experience overseeing the association's flagship event, Toy Fair. In 2023, the 118th Toy Fair returned last fall to New York City for the first time since 2020. Held at Javits Center, Toy Fair 2023 attracted about 20,000 attendees to see tens of thousands of products on display by 1,021 exhibiting companies, including nearly 400 first-time exhibitors. The trade show brought buyers from nearly 100 countries together to shop, explore, and see the latest trends and innovations in toys and play across the equivalent of nearly eight football fields filled with toys and games.  Carcone shared insight into why the association's leaders looked to move to New Orleans but then ultimately decided to remain in New York after the announcement of the move was met with strong feelings of tradition and enduring memories of toy business conducted in New York.  Find out how she and her team worked closely with Javits to confirm the first available opening in 2025. The next Toy Fair will be held March 1-4, 2025 at Javits Center. The show has confirmed dates in February in both 2026 and 2027.   Our guest Kimberly Carcone, Executive Vice President, Global Market Events joined the Toy Association in September of 2007.   She has more than 30 years of experience in non-profit and corporate management, event development and execution, sales, marketing, and publishing, in both New York City and Washington, DC.  Carcone is a seasoned professional who has succeeded in numerous industries including performing arts & cultural affairs, interior design & architecture, hospitality, travel, pharmaceutical, the legal arena and for the past 17 years, the toy industry.  Prior to joining the Toy Association, Carcone served in various leadership positions at ALM Events, a division of American Lawyer Media, E.W. Williams Publications, Miller Freeman, Inc., VNU Business Media, The American Society of Interior Designers and the NYS Council on the Arts for the City of Long Beach.   She is a founding member of the Women in Exhibitions North America Chapter, has served on the NYIAEE Board of Directors and was recently named Vice Chair of the newly created UFI North America Chapter. Kimberly currently serves on the Jacob K Javits Customer Advisory Board, the NYC&Co. Tradeshow & Events Committee, UFI Global Congress Advisory Board, Women in Toys, Licensing & Entertainment Advisory Board, and United Inventors Association Advisory Board.  She studied Association Management at the George Washington University in Washington DC and holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Buffalo State University. In addition to her professional pursuits, Carcone has been a producer of anindependent film, a breeder of thoroughbred racehorses, is a strong supporter of the Arts and remains an avid beach lover. Her LinkedIn bio can be found here.  

Dalton Castle is here and he's come armed with his own drops. Robin Shorr is here fresh from the most amazing misunderstanding with Kathy Griffin. Jeff Fox ruins private jets for us and we discuss skydiving, Andy Gibb, a hater, Peabody ducks, seeing your parents in a compromising position, Javits fees, RJ City and so much more. Plus product recommendations, snack chat with canned boiled peanuts and so much more. Get yourself some new ARIYNBF merch here: https://alison-rosen-shop.fourthwall.com/ Products I Use/Recommend/Love: http://amazon.com/shop/alisonrosen Check us out on Patreon: http://patreon.com/alisonrosen   BETTER HELP:  http://BetterHelp.com/BESTFRIEND (use code BESTFRIEND for 10% off),  Alison Rosen Is Your New Best Friend is sponsored by Better Help Buy Alison's Fifth Anniversary Edition Book (with new material): Tropical Attire Encouraged (and Other Phrases That Scare Me)  https://amzn.to/2JuOqcd You probably need to buy the HGFY ringtone! https://www.alisonrosen.com/store/ Try Amazon Prime Free 30 Day Trial

B&H recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary, hosting a spectacular two-day celebration for the creator community, Bild Expo 2023, at New York's Jacob Javits Center. The podcast's past three episodes have featured in-depth interviews with a few of the esteemed speakers gracing Bild's four presenter stages. If you haven't already done so, please give them a listen, and then—hold on to your hats—in this episode we're trying something different! To prepare for some fun during the show, we assembled a mobile studio and cooked up a three-question Bild Creator Quiz to spring on imagemakers who crossed our path. Once at Javits, we went on the prowl for subjects willing to be ambushed. Our resulting interviews feature a select group of attendees, expo vendors, Bild speakers, and B&H staff members. Ever since the show wrapped, we've been hard at work, combining the short clips we captured live with a narrated story line to take listeners on a virtual stroll through most aspects of the show. We hope you enjoy this taste of the intense, intoxicating, creative camaraderie that permeated the Bild experience. Happy Anniversary B&H—here's to another 50 years of creativity and growth! Above photograph courtesy of B&H Photo Guests: Menashe Horowitz, Cliff Hausner, Mason Resnick, Michael Yamashita, Matt Hill, Nicolas Roman, Elizabeth Krist, Scott Kelby, Christian Domecq, John Harris, Ron Magill, Michael Mansfield, Patricia Beary, Linda Hacker, Erica Price, Brandon Remler, Dana Glidden, Ami Vitale, David Brommer For more information on our guests and they gear they use, see: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/podcasts/photography/connecting-the-creator-community-bh-bild-ambush-interviews Stay Connected: B&H Photo Instagram Feed: https://www.instagram.com/bhphoto/ Cliff Hausner: https://www.instagram.com/cliffhausner/ Mason Resnick: https://www.instagram.com/mason_resnick/ Michael Yamashita: https://www.instagram.com/yamashitaphoto/

The Javits Act  and it's "Project Focus" gives  educators resources on identifying and serving students who are traditionally underrepresented in gifted and talented programs, particularly historically marginalized, economically disadvantaged, English learners, and students with disabilities, to help reduce gaps in achievement. UConn Professor Catherine Little is our NAGC guest to explain it all.Its all at www.gifted.uconn.ed

In this episode we met with Dr. Traci Potterf, a renowned functional health practitioner and expert in anxiety management. Growing up in the medical world, with her father being a psychiatrist, Dr. Potterf brings a wealth of early exposure and insights into the stigmatized perception of mental health. She discusses her personal experience with panic attacks and how this pushed her to explore alternative avenues for healing, beyond conventional medication and therapy.During our conversation, Traci shared a number of key insights and learnings from her journey that apply to everyone who cares about their mental health and well-being.Here's a summary of our conversation:Strategies for Self-Care and Well-beingEnvironmental Toxins and HealthProductivity and Self-Care in BusinessCultural Anthropology and Scientific ResearchAnxiety as a Symptom and Holistic HealingPleasure and Prioritizing Self-CareSelf-Care During Difficult Timesand much more…Enjoy!Here's Some Information About Our Guest, Dr Traci:Dr Traci Potterf, PhD, Founder of Inner Genius Health with Dr. TraciDr. Traci Potterf, PhD, is a Functional Health anxiety detective and founder of InnerGeniusHealth.com. As a practitioner, speaker and writer, she helps growth minded professionals overwhelmed by anxiety to find and fix the hidden causes with natural solutions so they can live a limitless life at peace in their own skin.  She loves helping entrepreneurs and executives understand the crucial roll of aligning their mental and physical health with their professional goals, as opposed to the tendency to sacrifice the former for the latter. She received her PhD from UC Berkeley where she participated in a joint program with UCSF Medical School as a Javits fellow. From being a psychiatrist's daughter, former medical anthropologist and recovered debilitating anxiety sufferer, she sees a unique way out of the mental health epidemic that she's on a mission to share with the world. Something Interesting About You:I started out as a medical anthropologist where I realized that the impacts of industrialized culture on indigenous peoples was causing the same mental and physical illnesses that we struggle with. I speak Spanish. I started visiting Mexico when I was 14, lived in Spain for 2 years and did my doctoral research in Cuba under Castro's rule, where I witnessed first hand the impacts of dictatorship, poverty and the US embargo on everyday people there. I also teach one yoga class a week for fun, do aerial and am passionate about dance, including its healing potential. What Are You Famous For?Being a tenacious health detective and patient advocate as well as helping lay people understand complex science while providing "warm fuzzy nurture."YouTube Episode:Click hereHere's How You Can Contact Traci:W: https://innergeniushealth.com/I: InstagramFB: FacebookLI: LinkedInYT: YouTubeThe purpose of the 6 Star Business is to help businesses find more meaning, purpose and profits in their endeavours. We seek to 'do it differently' and encourage everyone to rise above the status quo to do what it takes to be different: with meaning, purpose and intention. With those key ingredients, you'll be on your way to 6 Stars faster than you realise! If you'd like to get in touch please contact us at contact@6star.business

The title is only the start of Isis Fabian. As with a lot of people who go through self-discovery, Isis, along the way learned that she was neurodivergent and could be classed as somewhere on the Autism Spectrum. She also learned that she had gifts, some of which made her different than some of her peers, but gifts that helped her function well in society. I am always fascinated to meet so many different people on Unstoppable Mindset especially those who recognize how to learn about themselves and who put their knowledge into practice to better themselves and the world. Isis fits that by any standard. After leaving College Isis worked at a London think tank for several years. While there, she began seeing patterns concerning how people interacted with and treated each other. She finally decided to leave her job at the think tank and joined a tech company where she still works today. Now, she gets to work much more closely with people as a subject matter expert concentrating a great deal on DEI, (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion). I will leave it to Isis to tell her story. It is an intriguing story and worth your hearing and pondering. As I often have said in these notes, and I truly mean it, Isis as an introspective and thoughtful person offers many life lessons that can be valuable for all of us. About the Guest: Isis Fabian is a coach, writer, and speaker focused on expanding awareness, decolonizing thought patterns, and helping people understand and express themselves in order to be forces for positive societal change. Fabian is an expert on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) with nearly a decade of DEI experience, having spent most of that time conducting primary research on the US professional workforce and several global markets (Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the UK, Germany, Poland, India, Hong Kong, and Japan). Fabian's work in research has included nationally representative mixed methodology projects on a broad range of talent cohorts and concepts to develop a deep intersectional understanding of inequity and marginalization in the workplace and beyond. Fabian's areas of expertise include belonging, microaggressions, unconscious bias, intersectionality, equity, White dominant culture, engaging advantaged groups in social justice, women's advancement, mentorship and sponsorship, sexual misconduct, and generational diversity. Fabian has also spent over a year each with professionals in the following talent cohorts, interpreting quantitative data and understanding the common themes in their workplace experiences: professionals with disabilities, Black professionals, Latine professionals, LGBTQIA+ professionals, Millennials, women in STEM, and veterans. This foundation of nuanced intersectional awareness across identity groups and industries, along with Fabian's own experience being agender and neurodivergent, guides how they build accessible content on complex topics, coach leaders from advantaged groups, facilitate conversations about identity and allyship, and envision systems and cultural norms that create equity and abundance for all. Links for Isis: www.isisfabian.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isis-fabian/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:21 Unstoppable mindset is on the air once again, my gosh, that's how it used to sound in radio right on the air. I guess we're in the ether or whatever, which is pretty close to being on the air. I am your host, Mike Hingson. We are glad you're here. And today we get to chat with Isis Fabian, who is an author, a coach, a speaker and has a lot of knowledge not only about diversity, equity and inclusion, but interacting with people and a lot of topics that will be fun to go into over the next hour or so. So Isis Welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Isis Fabian  01:57 Thank you so much. Right? Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.   Michael Hingson  02:00 We're, we're glad you're here really appreciate you being here and giving us a chance to chat and help teach us one thing or another. And I think that'll be a lot of fun. Absolutely. Well tell me let's start with you. As as a little Isis growing up or whatever, tell me kind of how things started or more by you going to school and some of the early parts of your life.   Isis Fabian  02:25 Yeah, well, I was, um, you know, I was born two weeks late. So it was my brother I was I was a very big baby. I was always mistaken as being a boy. When I was young. My parents actually started dressing me like a boy because people would come up to them in the street and be like, hey, get get that dress off of it. That's not right.   Michael Hingson  02:45 Where were you born? Where are you from?   Isis Fabian  02:46 Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Philadelphia.   Michael Hingson  02:47 Okay, yeah, that's a dress off that boy. Okay, yeah.   Isis Fabian  02:52 Yeah. And then my parents had a brother who was two years younger than me. And then they're like, oh, we'll just keep buying her boy clothes, because you know, he'll wear them next. And that works out. And yeah, I definitely as a child had a very different relationship to gender, it was so much more fluid, I really thought I could grow up to be a father, I just, I didn't realize kind of all the ways that I would be perceived, growing up into being a woman, a female, and what that would entail. But I didn't realize there was something weird about me until I was maybe in fourth grade is the moment I really want to point to because we had to vote on school uniforms. And it was a huge elementary school. And I was the only kid in the whole school who voted yes, on school boards. And that's when I started to realize that that was when I started collecting facts about myself things I said, or did, they got a negative kind of reaction and started to realize there's something different about me, I don't know what it is, but it's not normal. And there's something about my brain that is different from most of my peers. And that was when I started to collect that information and start really manually observing other kids and people and putting together how one is supposed to act and behave in this particular society. Despite all its absurd norms. I have   Michael Hingson  04:11 to ask, what did you discover and what did you conclude about yourself?   Isis Fabian  04:15 Well, for a while, I just thought I woke when I thought I might be like a psychopath. That was before I finished my psychology degree and realize that it's not accurate at all. But I did eventually discover that I was on some form of neuro divergence, but definitely on the autism spectrum, although by the time I discovered that I was so good at masking that it would be so expensive and impossible to get a diagnosis. And I am so I really just identify as neurodivergent but what it's meant is I see patterns and very complex things right. There's a lot of positives that come with it. I was always extremely good in school. I got the best SATs score in my grade, even though I didn't really prepare my parents never helped me with my homework. They know anything. I remember giving them an algebra question for the first time. And the question he would ask, I was like, Oh God, you know, once tonight I do on my own here with school, but it's still all came very naturally to me. But the social side of things did not so facial expressions, and what they mean and where they come from, I had to learn all of that manually and adapt all of that manually.   Michael Hingson  05:20 But you, you seem to have survived all that discovery? Are you still discovering about yourself?   Isis Fabian  05:26 Yeah, I survived it, I think I would say the trajectory was realizing something is weird, realizing kind of the shape of what was weird. I collecting a ton of data, so that I can act not weird in most situations, appear to be a kind of successful social person. And then finally get to the point where I'm now discovering the superpowers that come with this very active, fast processing pad pattern recognizing brain that are now you know, additive and beyond what I feel like I I noticed my peers and other people can do, especially in the workplace, and things like that. So that's the phase that I'm now definitely still discovering.   Michael Hingson  06:08 So what kind of superpowers?   Isis Fabian  06:11 Oh, wow, well, for one, I never have difficulty understanding kind of complex systems. I'll give an example like systemic racism, for instance, right. From the moment I learned that, that that people who looked like me enslaved people who looked like my best friend, when I was a kid living in West Philly, I knew that I lived in a society where being white was the easiest thing to be. And I didn't have to have that explained to me. And a lot of neurodivergent people, including people with ADHD will describe this very easy ability to kind of recognize and understand systemic issues because of that ability for pattern recognition. The other piece is being able to encode a lot of information very quickly. So in a conversation or in a debate or something like that, I could hear a lot, connect a bunch of dots, formulate a response and give a kind of coherent, put together synthesized reaction, very quickly to the point that I was told it was a problem at my last job, and I sort of figured out how to shut up in meetings, and just just just bite my tongue for a few minutes. So everyone felt like they kind of kind of equal opportunity to participate.   Michael Hingson  07:26 Just because you, you got it, and you're able to move forward. But yeah, I can understand people don't people would think you're a show off, and you're not trying to be a show off. It's just the way you are. But nevertheless, that's how they react, isn't it?   Isis Fabian  07:39 Yeah, I just get excited. You know, and I got that feedback. You're too intimidating. And you really need to work on that. And that was really hard to hear, because I felt like that said more about the other person than it did about me. Yeah, years later, I finally you know, I've tried to think more in terms of impact rather than intent. Part of my problem growing up was I was seen as as very rude because I would just say things that I considered objectively true. Like if someone said, this is such a good picture of me, and I said, that picture looks nothing like you, you know, that kind of thing. Very bad. You don't get good reactions for that. But I was confused. I was like, Why does someone say it's a good picture doesn't a good picture mean it, it looks like you. So I finally learned that it didn't matter what my intention was, it didn't matter if I was right. What mattered was the impact I was having on other people. And if that impact is making them feel bad about themselves or feel inadequate, I finally decided that that was not something I wanted to be doing, and really shifted my perspective from there,   Michael Hingson  08:38 you and Hermione from the Harry Potter series.   Isis Fabian  08:42 That's, that's such a compliment. Thank you.   Michael Hingson  08:46 Did you face a lot or any real discrimination growing up? Or can you can you point to anything that gave you that impression?   Isis Fabian  08:56 I mean, certainly not as much as a lot of other people, but I was certainly you know, other than and marginalized for my my weirdness at times, I think being a white girl is one of the most difficult things you can be as an autistic child, because the automatic kind of communication style is passive aggression. You know, and it's so complicated for someone who has a literal mind and hears, interprets everything literally. Honestly, I was probably spared quite a bit of bullying, just because it was happening. And I probably didn't even realize it was happening. Like I didn't get invited to the birthday party that everyone else got invited to, even though I was closest to the birthday girl compared to a bunch of other people. And I would be like, Oh, it was just an oversight. You know, and I would really believe that and like when someone tells me Yeah, like, she must have just forgot like, even though everyone's trying to like, insult me or push me out. Like I truly would just take everything very literally and take everyone's words at face value. And so I probably was bullied more than I realized I had a lot of moments of girls trying to be mean to me or trying to say something to put me down and I just didn't under Stand what they were saying. I just couldn't process it. And I've just filed away for later than look back years later and be like, Oh, okay, that's now that I've learned the language of passive aggression. That's what that was.   Michael Hingson  10:11 And that probably frustrated them more than anything else because you didn't react.   Isis Fabian  10:16 Yeah. Oh, yeah, definitely.   Michael Hingson  10:19 And of course, the other societal attitude that girls aren't supposed to really be that bright. Right?   Isis Fabian  10:25 Well, it's interesting, because I went to a pretty liberal public school, and I had a lot of teachers, including men who would say, you know, girls go to college, get more knowledge, boys go to Jupiter to get more stupid, or like, it was very in vogue at that time for teachers to call boys stupid and be like, Oh, he doesn't know. He's a boy. And like, especially male teachers, it was weird. I feel like it was a weird kind of brief moment in time. And that's when I was going through school. So I really, until I got to college in New York, and I started to, you know, really come up against sexual assault and that kind of thing. I had no idea I was at such a societal disadvantage for being a woman to be honest.   Michael Hingson  11:05 So you went through school, though, and you certainly seem to survive and sound like an intelligent, normal person to me, somebody who's very enthusiastic, like Hermione, so there we go. But but you know, so you went on, and where did you go to college, or how did all that work out?   Isis Fabian  11:24 I went to New York University. And it was amazing, because I had felt like an adult and a little child's body for so long. And I was just so excited. I was also six foot one, by the time I was going to college and eventually got to six, two, so I was treated like an adult. And I had to exist in the world as an adult, when I felt like an adult for the first time, I still had a lot of those social shortcomings in college. But I had learned enough from my high school experience about how to be a popular girl, you know, and so all the popular girls from the other high schools that came to NYU, all gravitated to me and we all became like this group of popular girls that it was such a weird time, because I had never been in that in that population before. And it was so looking back, I mean, it's very kind of cutthroat, place to be in. And it's, it's a little bit scary. But again, a lot of it what over went over my head. And that was really just the point of time where I kind of became an adult and then eventually really found the people that I wanted to be close to and have as lifelong friends.   Michael Hingson  12:29 Did you find from an intellectual standpoint, though, the college challenged you a lot more than although you are good at detecting patterns and figuring those kinds of things out. Did college challenge you more with that?   Isis Fabian  12:43 A little bit. Some of my classes, yes. Others I was like shocked at how much harder they were for some of my classmates than they were for me. But classes, like in economics college is where I discovered economics. And that was just a huge thing for me to learn, you know, micro economics, the way like tax incidence is calculated and how price elasticity works like these were all these new concepts that helped explain the world around me. And, you know, I took money in banking, I took econometrics, I finally had language and math with which to look at the economy in which we all live and participate. And that that was hugely exciting. It was challenging, because I took pretty challenging classes, but really, really exciting.   Michael Hingson  13:26 What did you want to major in and be when you got out of college when you when you first started, at least?   Isis Fabian  13:33 When I started, I was thinking psychology because I took AP Psychology in high school. That was pretty much the only reason and it was also one of those things where I had this inkling like I might figure out what it is about my brain. If I stick with this, and keep learning more about this. And I if anyone who's majored in psychology probably has had the same discovery that a lot of people with a wide range of neuroses and mental health conditions are psychology majors. So yeah, I was certainly among quite a hodgepodge of people. I did end up doing a double major in psychology and economics. And I came one class short of a minor in Spanish as well.   Michael Hingson  14:13 Wow. So you're you're a pretty busy person.   Isis Fabian  14:17 I guess so I'd love to learn still do.   Michael Hingson  14:20 Yeah, there's nothing better than learning which is one of the reasons I love unstoppable mindset. I get to learn from so many people even though they're short hour long courses. Every little bit helps. Yeah, well, what did you do after you graduated?   Isis Fabian  14:34 So after I graduated, I kind of fell into working at this think tank. I'd worked a little bit at a at a nonprofit in London before that just as like an internship. And so because I had that nonprofit experience, I guess I had and I've done a lot of research for that role as qualified for this role at a research think tank that was focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. I never heard of that before. It was just called Diversity and Inclusion at the time. And it was such a bizarre world because it was this company that had its own, you know, political hierarchy. And it was dominated by white women. So it was that same population that I had struggled with so much earlier. And I barely had the means to deal with at the adult, elite level of adult white women passive aggression, but I, I liked that it had a, you know, social equity component. I liked what we were helping companies do, we putting out research about these topics and consulting with companies to make leaders more inclusive and things like that, but a lot of what was happening inside the company, like a lot of nonprofits, we were not practicing what we preach. I think that's the case for a lot of people who have nonprofit experience, but that's where I was at being there for seven years. And that's where I really got the basis for my research foundation. Now, you said you worked in London for a little while. Not long at all. I was there. When I studied abroad, I had an internship that was one of those brutal parts of my life. I was doing my double major living in London, which I did not like, I did not like London one bit. And doing that internship. So it was very brief.   Michael Hingson  16:09 Big Ben kept you awake at night? Hmm.   Isis Fabian  16:13 It was just not I felt like someone I lived in New York for a while that point, right. So it was like it felt like someone saw London. And then they're like, I could do better. They made New York, they felt like taking a step backward.   Michael Hingson  16:24 Well, still, I'll pop it you gain some things from the experience over there. I mean, you couldn't help it, I'm sure.   Isis Fabian  16:31 Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's my first real professional experience, it was exciting to actually be like working on something that had nothing to do with school and nothing to do with an assignment, right? Like I was researching for larger projects and contributing something, it was a totally different mindset.   Michael Hingson  16:48 So you went off, and you worked for this company for seven years. And then you left or what happened?   Isis Fabian  16:57 Well, while I was there, I by the time I left, I was doing three different jobs. And you could not put everything I was doing in the job description. And that was one of the reasons I left I felt like, you know, I was really being taken for granted. And I was really being worked to the bone, I was having a hard time. But the bigger reason was after seven years, and you know, most of those years spent doing qualitative research, in addition to interpreting a lot of quantitative data on the, you know, white collar knowledge worker workforce, I was seeing because of this pattern based mind, I was seeing these tremendous commonalities across groups, you know, I was interviewing, between the interviews I did, the focus groups I did, and the big online virtual focus groups I did, I must have talked to 1000s of people around the globe, about their experiences. And I started to see these commonalities. But it just wasn't clicking for the people above me at this research organization, I felt like they were always trying to take the qualitative quotes or something and shove it into a pre existing storyline or pre existing story, whether the project was about black professionals or about women in STEM. And I felt like I was having this like mind blowing discovery experience with every conversation I had, because I was able to take all the information from that conversation and kind of aggregated, synthesize it but also file every story away in my mind to come back to for later. And it was a really incredible experience. And after enough time, I just felt like I'm not serving, I'm not doing justice to the people who are taking the time out of their lives to tell me these stories, by staying at this organization and continuing to try to put people into these big data, buckets and warp those stories to fit a narrative. So that was why I left I wanted to go work with real people and support people directly and be a resource for them.   Michael Hingson  18:46 So what did you do?   Isis Fabian  18:48 So I came to a tech company, where I am at currently working kind of as a just an internal subject matter expert, I do a lot of presentations, like I told you, before we started I was just in San Francisco doing an external presentation for our community of lawyers in our ecosystem on implicit bias. I just tried to make that content as accessible as possible for people, I really make it clear that I do not subscribe to 95% of what the diversity and inclusion industry does, because it hasn't worked or it has backfired. And I'm like when I see you know, the scared white men on my Zoom screen. I'm like, we're not here to shame and blame people. We're all here to learn and grow together. Because making someone feel bad has never helped them learn. Right? Like that's that's never been the case. Shame has never served to do that guilt has ever served to do that. And so I really tried to help people look inside themselves, their own intersection of identity, their own set of lived experiences, their own preconceptions, and to interrogate that in ourselves, I think it's really important to reframe, you know, the Diversity and Inclusion and Social Justice conversation is often said To shut up and learn, right? Like you have so much to learn, you have so much to learn. I really think it's a lot more to unlearn, there's so much to unlearn. And we're capable of doing a lot of that by just really interrogating our own kind of beliefs.   Michael Hingson  20:12 It's interesting to hear you say what you did, the way you do that the dis, the diversity and inclusion in history hasn't worked. I mean, that's a very relevant way to put it, because it hasn't diversity, for example. And it's my pet peeve, which I talk about here occasionally. So hopefully, people don't get too bored. But disabilities are not included in diversity at all, it's been completely thrown out. We hear about gender, race, sexual orientation, and so on. But people don't even deal with disabilities. And my position is, that is so unrealistic, because every single person on the planet has a disability. And for most of you, it's that your light dependent, you don't do well when there's not light around, and your disability gets covered up by the fact that a light bulb was invented. And it's a very low tech solution, although we're doing better at making more efficient light bulbs, but still, power goes out, you're in a world of hurt, you know, for me, it doesn't matter at all. But nobody pays attention to the technology that that deals with your disability. At the same time, nobody wants to spend money when looking when I look for a job to give me alternatives that will allow me to do the same thing that you can do. Or people think it's so amazing how a blind person can use a computer. Why? You know, we we really just don't deal with true inclusion at all. And I will let people get away with saying, Well, we're inclusive, because we deal with women and race and so on, but you don't deal with disabilities, you're not inclusive, all right, diversities been changed. But disability does not mean a lack of ability. And it is a characteristic that in one way or another we all have,   Isis Fabian  21:59 right. And people who wear glasses too, right? It's like great solutions there for you. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to see either. And I think you know, when it comes to race and gender and sexual orientation, all these other categories that hasn't been solved for either these organizations aren't inclusive, to anyone if they were then anyone from any background would have that experience of belonging and an equal opportunity to reach their full potential and an equal opportunity to demonstrate that potential. And that is just not the situation that we're in, we actually did do a project while I was at that organization on professionals with disabilities, that was a global project. So I got to talk to people in Brazil and the UK across the US. And these are people like companies, you know, who have I don't know, if you I'm sure you're familiar with the federal government mandates, you must have 2% of people in your workforce have to have a disability if you're going to contract the federal government, and those are the companies right, once they get that requirement. They're like begging all their employees to disclose their disability, but they're not an environment often where it's safe to end for people with visible disabilities. You know, they're not even coming to work to that at that company in the first place. Because it doesn't have those, those inclusive practices.   Michael Hingson  23:08 What's ironic about that is that 25% of all persons, according to the Center for Disease Control, have a disability. Why isn't a 25% ought to have have a disability, or they don't, but they don't deal with that. It's also like, when you're going off and dealing with government contracts, they've got this thing called set asides for women owned businesses, veterans and so on. Nothing for persons with disabilities. And it's it's it's ironic, and we've had mandates, we've had requirements, regulations, and so on regarding internet and website access from the federal government about the federal government since 2010. Yet, overall, the number of or the percentage of websites within the government that are truly accessible, it's not all that high. Right? Right. It's,   Isis Fabian  24:02 yeah, and I always point to that, like, I, when I have these diversity conversations, there's so many people who feel like hyper competent on diversity or whatever now. And I always bring in like, where's your ableism? At work that when was the last time you looked at that, right? We're all at different places on these different journeys. And if you really commit to it, you get to that place where you see the intersection of all of these groups and those shared experiences and disability is one of the most important ones to talk about. Because even with the Americans with Disabilities Act, I mean, we go back not that long ago, we had the ugly laws. And now today, we have, well, we have a lot of people getting long COVID Right and realizing how difficult it is to be someone with a disability in this country. We also have restrictions on how much money someone who is on disability can have in their bank account and you can still pay people disabilities below minimum wage, like we're clearly a country and a government that wants to devalue and marginalize the lives of people with disabilities despite the fact that to your point, so many people have Have them in a study we did actually found that 30% of knowledge workers have disabilities.   Michael Hingson  25:05 Fortunately, like some of the minimum wage things are are getting better like sheltered workshops that were required under Section 14 C of the Javits, Wagner eau de Act are. One, we're allowed to pay less than minimum wage, and a lot of that is fortunately, getting to not be so acceptable anymore. But it's just such a long process. And it shouldn't have to be that way.   Isis Fabian  25:31 Yeah, I love the example you gave about light bulbs, the way I, the one that I give it, I'm sure you've heard this one before, is imagine if you woke up tomorrow, when everyone could fly, except for you. You'd be like, Oh, well, you know, I can still use the stairs or use the escalator or use the elevator, I'll get ready to go. But what about when they start taking those things away, and I build new buildings that don't have escalators that don't have stairs don't have elevators, because you're the only person who can't fly. Now you don't feel like there's nothing wrong with you, right? You just have been made to have a disability by your environment, it's this, our culture, all of us contribute to it. That's why I find it so fascinating people like oh, I've never even thought about ableism and disability before when every person participates in it to such a great extent, just by existing in this society and going about our lives the way we do.   Michael Hingson  26:18 Well, it's really fascinating the way we look at a lot of things, you go into many places of business. And you can go into the break room. And there's this nice fancy coffee machine where you can get hot chocolate tea, 500 million different kinds of coffee, and all you got to do is touch the screen and you're in good shape. But they don't even much make machines anymore, with buttons that would allow me to have the same level of access. And there are some alternatives I can use, if I can afford them, or if the company would pay for them. Like there's a service called IRA, a IRA, which is an app that uses a we uses the phone's camera, and a Kinect with an agent and the agents are specially trained to describe. And they're very well trusted. So you can even use them to go over tax information and banking information and all that because the agents know how to read it and give you what you want. They're trained to do that. And they signed confidentiality and non disclosure agreements. So it's a really sophisticated operation. But at the same time, it costs money. And a lot of companies won't even pay for it. I know a lawyer in Canada, who wanted to use IRA, and she was a lawyer dealing with colleges and so on and at a campus. And fortunately, she and we helped was able to demonstrate why it was valuable for her to have access to IRA to be able to read documents, Ford disclosure and and for dealing with discovery for for court trials and so on. So she more than paid for itself. But it still took more work than it should have to make that happen.   Isis Fabian  28:10 Yeah, absolutely. And there's so many people who just, they can't advocate for themselves to that level, they shouldn't be expected to, they don't want to put themselves in that position. Or they're told, you know, not to rock the boat. And it's just so many so many people who do not get what they deserve and what they are entitled to just to do their job.   Michael Hingson  28:28 So for you, how does your neuro divergence intersect and deal with your advocacy and your your goal of dealing with social justice?   Isis Fabian  28:40 Well, I think like I said, a lot of neurodivergent people or maybe I didn't mention this, you don't really have a passion for fairness. You know, we're very obsessed with fairness, a lot of us and I think part of that comes with having to learn all the rules of this society, right? You learn through trial and error. It's very manual kind of process. We don't kind of, or at least speaking for myself, I didn't learn these things automatically. And so then when I see injustice, unfairness, I just can't I can't just accept it and not want to participate in doing something about it. That's kind of where it started. For me. I was like, I can't What am I going to do go get a job in wealth management or something and what just exist in this completely unfair world where it's all going to be on my mind, I did think about trying to get maybe you get into senior positions somewhere else and you can advocate from there but it's just all I ever wanted to put my passion into and I see how our collective liberation is tied up into this right like ableism is another great example we are all suffering for living in an ableist society every person whether they consider themselves to have a disability or not the ways that we are expected and acculturated to hide. You know, the ways that we need help for instance, the ways that we marginalize and dismiss people in our lives when they fall ill and they need needs support. We've just normalized this, this marginalizing of anyone with any kind of infirmity, or disability of any kind. And now we have all these people with long COVID. And this huge population who are joining the ranks of people who are not served by this environment. I mean, it's just all of this affects all of us. And I use that also talking about like, white supremacy culture, and the way that shows up for white women. One of those ways is perfectionism. You know, perfectionism is killing us. It's such a big part of our culture among white women. And it's, it causes a lot of suffering. These are all interrelated concepts, if we could liberate ourselves from all the things that prevent us from just living as our full, authentic selves, able to participate, fully able to actualize our unique potential fully, we would all every single one of us be better off right men would be better off without patriarchy. And the foreman exists all the pressure that puts on men to be a breadwinner to, to not show you know, vulnerability and certain emotions, to not enjoy certain things or hobbies. Like there's so many ways that that that patriarchy obviously hurts women, but it's also hurting men. And so rich men as well. Yeah, a lot in herds, especially boys today, you know, I I'm worried about how easily radicalized they can be by someone like Andrew Tate, I don't know if you've heard of him, but there's a lot of these podcasters and the Insell world? And no, it's because they have none of these role models, because visible role models of positive masculinity, and there's just proliferate writing, you know, role models of negative masculinity. But yeah, I think once I've really discovered, I have a talent for explaining some of these things to people, I have a talent for creating space for people to explore these things and move along in their understanding and their own passion and activism. And all I care about is, you know, being able to bring that freedom and joy to other people that comes with being able to actualize your own potential. So that's, that's why I guess, you know, if I wasn't neurodivergent, I'm not sure I ever would have gotten to that place.   Michael Hingson  32:05 Well, but you are who you are, and you do work to be yourself. And it's, it's unfortunate that sometimes we we are so discouraged from being ourselves where we're, well, people try to fit us into a particular mold and particular way of, of thinking or they want to think about us in a certain way. And when we aren't that way, they get pretty upset.   Isis Fabian  32:31 Yeah, yeah. And my brothers. Oh, sorry. Good. No, go ahead. Yeah, I just the other, I guess, big pieces, my brother and his journey with bipolar and some really difficult, you know, life experiences has also been the other big catalyst for me. It forced me to let go of everything that was superficial and not important in life, and recognize how much of all these social rules and social success and whatever that I had learned how to perform, was meaningless and not useful, and not who I was not who I actually was. And so it took the kind of safety of that successful, you know, social existence for me to discover that it started shedding those things. But my brother's own difficulty, you know, with psychosis, he disappeared at one point, right, the beginning of the pandemic, we came this close to dying. And between that and the pandemic, it was really the trigger to journey inward to recognize what's really most important to me and to find who I really am. And the joy that has come with that is just something I want to bring to as many people as possible.   Michael Hingson  33:42 I was going to ask you about your brother and what's what's going on with him and just learn a little bit more about him because you guys have in, if you consider what what's going on with him to be a disability, you both have different kinds of disabilities. So how does that interact? And how does, how does your journeys together been?   Isis Fabian  34:01 Yeah, yeah, we definitely both have disabilities. And, you know, at some point he's diagnosed with bipolar is that in different diagnoses, maybe they'll change at a certain point, when it comes to mental health conditions like that. You're you just get to know the person and the conditions so thoroughly that no diagnosis is gonna give you more information than what you have, from your experience with that person. He's doing extremely well. Now. I mean, after this last episode, and April 2020, he went through this like a dark night of the soul in the middle of this, they had like an ego death experience. It sounds like what people have experienced on you know, extreme psychedelics, you know, and he came out of it and almost Jesus like version of who he was before. I mean, he used to be someone who was very antagonizing, very grandiose, very difficult just in a lot of ways. He made my childhood very difficult. At home, just he could just push me to this day, no one can get me to raise my voice except for my brother. And he still doesn't know he doesn't do it. And so now I just now I have a new superpower that no one can get me angry no one on earth. He's just undergone this complete transformation. And I'm so grateful. I mean, it's a miracle that he is the man he is today, given what a tyrant and a demon he was as a child. But he also has suffered so much. And all of that behavior, as it often does, you know, came out of suffering. And so, you know, going on that journey with him having to recognize that someone experiencing psychosis, right, which is literally you're experiencing a reality that is different from the consensus reality that everybody else is experiencing, or that everybody else would agree to. Going through that with someone and really digging deep to figure out where they're coming from and what's happening to them and not coming from this paternalistic, patronizing, you know, silencing approach that is so normalized in our society, unfortunately, as a way of reacting to mental illness and people with mental health conditions. I'm so grateful that our family has never stigmatized taking medication for anything. And he's been able to do so well, I think because he's had just the unconditional love and support of every person in his family. But at the beginning of this, when things really started getting bad, I was not helpful. I was very ableist, you know, I was very much looking down my nose at him and be like, Oh, I can't believe this is happening to me, you know, now I have a crazy brother, you know, like that was, I'm just being honest. Like, I have to be honest, in this work like that is where I was at. And through him, I transformed from that person, to the person that I am now and have a lot more humility, and I'm just very grateful for everything he is taught me whether intentionally or not, I've learned so much from him. Well, I   Michael Hingson  36:45 don't want to give him ideas if he ever listened to the podcast, but now that he is the way he is, does he have a sense of humor? Oh, he's always sensitive. So So has he. So now when is he going to get you to raise your voice just to spite you?   Isis Fabian  36:58 Oh, man.   Michael Hingson  37:02 I told you so don't let him listen to the podcast.   Isis Fabian  37:04 No, no. Honestly, he I can't even tell him about some of the things he said and didn't when he was younger, because it devastates him so much. He doesn't even remember you know, when he's when you're a kid, you're just and you're looking for someone's buttons, you know, you'll say whatever you'll do, whatever. Now He's so sensitive and so sweet. He's devastated to hear about these things is like, oh my god, I can't believe I said that to my own sister. I'm so sorry. I'll never make it up to you, you know? And I'm like, listen, listen. I don't need any apology. Right? Like who you are today is better than I ever hoped that tyrannical little boy could become. So please, I was very we're all good. There's nothing that you said or today does as a child that could possibly taint my experience. So if you heard the podcast, he probably wouldn't. I hope he probably.   Michael Hingson  37:46 At least I'll make him. At least we can make him smile. Yeah. So you're six to how tall is he? He is six, five. Okay, so the two of you got to do great at volleyball. I won't go to basketball but you guys got to do great if   Isis Fabian  38:01 you would think I did get recruited by our high school volleyball coach at a school dance when I was a sophomore. He was angry. I remember anger from the six foot seven man saying why don't I know who you are. But he made me come to a volleyball practice. It did not go well. It didn't go well. Well, it's just not. I'm not that coordinated, unfortunately.   Michael Hingson  38:20 Well, nevertheless. It's another goal.   Isis Fabian  38:25 Oh, yeah. I mean, now I'm married to a six foot eight man who played basketball, you know really well. And he's come back from a basketball game last night. He still plays it intramural and I'm like you better pray. We have kids, they get your your athleticism and not mine. They'll just become another six foot two theater kid.   Michael Hingson  38:43 No kids yet? No, not yet. We actually just got married in September. We'll see there you go. Well, things to shoot for? Start your own team. But you know, I'm, I'm really glad to hear about your brother. And that's great that he's he's really become a person who's a lot more aware of himself and that you guys have a much better relationship. I would think now than you have in the past, which is so cool.   Isis Fabian  39:09 It's awesome. And when you have a sibling you know, they all you went there all you have at the end of the day when you lose your parents like it's so incredible to have that relationship with a sibling and it's so devastating. It would be so devastating to me if I didn't have it. So I am grateful for him and you know, innumerable ways   Michael Hingson  39:27 so you don't have your parents anymore. Now we do we do.   Isis Fabian  39:31 They're getting old though. My dad's about to turn 70 Just you know, they were older significantly older than us and you know, they won't they just won't be around forever. So I just lucky to have a sibling at all, but especially one that I have such a close relationship with   Michael Hingson  39:44 unless they spied you and decide if they're gonna stay around no matter what you think.   Isis Fabian  39:48 Oh, listen, I actually love my parents and hanging out with them a lot. I hope they stick around to 120 that's that's good with me.   Michael Hingson  39:57 Yeah, well I won't be 73 next month, I figure I'm gonna stay around for quite a while yet.   Isis Fabian  40:04 Great, you're probably in better health of identity.   Michael Hingson  40:08 I've been working with that, though, I will admit. So that's true. Well, so in terms of all that you're doing, with with all the learning and so on that you've had, and I know that you obviously love to learn and continue to learn. How is all that impacting or helping you in what you actually do today? And so, you, you, I know, you just got back from talking to lawyers, and so on. So what, what do you do? And in terms of your job, and how has everything made that possible?   Isis Fabian  40:44 Yeah, well, I think spending seven years getting to do this research and talking to people from so many different identity groups has definitely given me more of a bird's eye view of these systems of oppression and things like that, and having to observe my own thought patterns from such a young age. And really, notice the way my brain works and reacts to things has given me I've now learned in the work I've been doing more recently, the ability to kind of bring thought processes into conscious awareness. So for example, one of the things I teach about a lot is implicit bias, right. And most unconscious bias trainings are not impactful. In fact, many of them backfire. And they often consist of listing stereotypes about different groups and how you shouldn't believe these things. But what I do is not just explain the different types of implicit bias, but really explain how they work and how they feel when they show up in our minds, and how we can deconstruct our use of biases and our use of mental shortcuts in our own thinking in our own minds. And I always give examples, right? Like I I'll give like 10 examples in a given presentation. One off the top of my head is like, I noticed one day as I was on a crowded subway platform going up the stairs that I didn't get out of the way for a black man. But I did get out of the way for a white guy. And I just noticed that it happened, kind of back to Mac. And then I realized like, oh, wait, what was that? Like, I had noticed that. And that's part of my neuro divergence is I noticed a lot, I noticed so many things in my environment, I noticed. And I just collect information. And so now I have the skill set to actually look at that information. And identify Is there a bias there? So for most people, you know, they don't even notice moments like that, but I use those examples, because then people might look for those moments in their own lives. And then I'll use others of you know, say, I'm interacting with a new colleague, and I leave the interaction with a negative feeling about them, or a negative feeling about myself, you know, we have the capacity to go back and, and reflect on that interaction, reflect on where that feeling came from, what was the triggering moment, what was the impression that I had of that person. And then to realize, maybe the person that I thought was arrogant, right is actually someone that I feel intimidated by, or I feel threatened by. And if they had been a different gender, or if they had been older than me instead of younger, or if they had been the from the same group as me or anything like that, I might not have had that reaction. But we have to take the time to actually reflect on those things to recognize where we might be relying on a bias or a mental shortcut. Instead of just assuming this, this false notion of objectivity. Nobody can be objective, even our visual world, and it's so hard for sighted people to understand, but the visual world is not an objective reality, right? I'm also an avid lucid dreamer. And so I wake up in dreams all the time. I'm like, this looks exactly the same, you know, it's the same. And I'm being you know, my brain thinks it's the same everything's it's real, right? I just in the middle of this book, The Case Against reality by a Donald D. Hoffman that deconstructs how, essentially, the visual world is just like a computer screen, it's just a way of interacting with a more complex system than we could possibly comprehend. And so we have this belief and objectivity you see with optical illusions and things that can trick you and show you like, actually, this is not objective at all. And so if our visual field isn't objective, certainly our thoughts and beliefs about other people are not objective.   Michael Hingson  44:21 Something that comes to mind is when you notice something, like are you reacted to someone or are you You moved out of the way for the white guy and you didn't find the black guy? Do you learn from those things and you you have enough of an introspection in your in your body and your soul that you can then learn from those things and not do it more in the future? Do you have to analyze it a lot and then make a decision or how does all that work for you?   Isis Fabian  44:55 Yeah, so it does, again, as someone who has been in constant self reference my whole On life to to recalibrate my behavior to be normal, I've just taken that system and applied it to recalibrating my behavior to be not racist and not ableist. And these other things, right. But what I've noticed is, in anyone who does this work on themselves, we'll get to this place as well, you just lose interest in more homogenous media and things like that. And you start developing more of an interest in different stories, and you start developing an interest in film and TV shows and books that are being written and produced by people from groups that you're not familiar with, because that's what changes in your mind this kind of implicit hierarchy that we already have there, right? For instance, there are so many people who don't know someone with a disability. And so where are they getting their information about people disabilities from? Right, they know they exist, so you must be getting them from somewhere. And it's not, it's usually from a very biased source. If you think about it, right, the more they make it up, or they or they make it up, but it's still, I would argue, coming from a seed of ableism, that is planted in our society, right? They see the handicap parking spots, and they see, you know, the way people are depicted in the media, they see the way their parents tell them, like don't look at that person in a wheelchair, don't do that, you know, like they that's, that's all data that we're taking in. And it leads us to have these these views. So once you realize that you have those views, and you're behaving that way, then you automatically start seeking out a much different world of media and entertainment and influencers that you're following, and voices and pod tests and, you know, spaces you go to and people you hang out with. And all of that starts to evolve and that on its own will also do a lot to deconstruct those automatic behaviors that we aren't as aware of,   Michael Hingson  46:50 can we all learn to be more introspective and more self analytical than we tend to be?   Isis Fabian  46:56 I think so I'm hopeful that we can take more notice of our choices, and ask ourselves why I made the choice why I felt that way. Another example I gave was, um, you know, and a lot of it has to do with coming into the present to so people who meditate or who work on that if you're already living in the present, you're gonna be much better at noticing these things. Another example I gave was, I was just in Mexico for my honeymoon. And when I was choosing a place to sit on the beach, or by the pool, if there was a Mexican family right next to that area, I didn't really think about the way that I might be taking up space or if I was intruding on their space, because you know, I have my own space of this cabana. Right. But if there's a white family or another white couple, especially, God forbid, attractive, like, from God knows what country right there, right, I would have that more conscious like that trepidation, but just making sure they don't feel like I'm encroaching on their space, I might approach from the other side like, and we just do these things automatically. If we don't bring ourselves into the moment and start reflecting on our own behaviors sitting down at the end of the day, and reflecting on the conversations we've had the ways we reacted to different people, the times that we felt, you know, defensive, the times that we felt irritated, and really look at what triggered those feelings and where they came from, then we're not going to change these behaviors. And unfortunately, I think a lot of people today when it comes to social justice, diversity and inclusion, they think, Oh, I have no power, I can't do anything, I can't change anything. The reality is that we are all part of the fabric of oppression that other people are experiencing.   Michael Hingson  48:32 Do you think that if you were to go back down to Mexico and go to a beach and discover that you were coming up to an attractive white couple now that you would react differently now that you've noticed that?   Isis Fabian  48:43 I think I just wouldn't Yeah, I think I wouldn't have I wouldn't rather be right. It's not that it would it bothered me, it's more just as being more thoughtful about being more quiet as we approach giving them more space. Right. I think it's more that I would apply that same thinking to the Mexican family, but in the moment, and that is exactly what I did. Because I noticed myself having those thoughts and feelings as I approached the situation. And so I didn't modify my behavior in either situation. And I was the same in both, right? But if I hadn't brought those things into conscious awareness, I might have acted differently. Between and that's   Michael Hingson  49:16 that's the point. You have this wonderful gift of built in introspection that happens a lot more than I think it probably happens for most of us, although we can learn introspection, you talked about meditation and so on, and I do that and I love quiet time to think and look at what happened today. What went well, why did it go well, and could I have even made it better? What What can I learn from this other thing that happened today? And why does that still bother me? And I think that we all need to do more of that than we do. I I used to say I'm my own worst critic. You know, I love to listen to my talks when I give speeches and travel and do a lot of that. And I've learned, that's the wrong thing to say, actually, I'm my own best teacher. Because if I really look at what I'm saying, or what I'm doing, or what worked or not, no one else can truly teach me they can point things out. But if I don't choose to learn it, if I don't accept it, and allow myself to be the best teacher that I can be to myself, I'm not really going to fix anything.   Isis Fabian  50:26 Absolutely, exactly. And I think that comment about being my own worst critic speaks to one of the mental traps that we often fall into. And this is one of the other pieces to this puzzle, right. As a perfectionism, I talk a lot about about individualism, the illusion of objectivity, which I mentioned before, the good, bad binary, and perfectionism. And I think the good bad binary and perfectionism really work hand in hand, in our inability to change our behavior a lot of the time, this is why for a lot of us when we're told we've made a mistake, right? Or we someone calls out a mistake, and our heart starts racing, or they say, that's a microaggression, or something like that. Because we have this binary, our culture puts everything in a binary, you're good, or you're bad. And it's, you know, it's black, or it's white, you know, it's right, or it's wrong. And the reality is that things exist on a much wider grayer spectrum than that with a ton of nuance. And so, if you're dealing with perfectionism, and someone's essentially telling you even a small thing, tells you well, if I'm not perfect, I'm failure. If it's not perfect, it's nothing like that's kind of our reaction. But we're perfectionists and we're deep into that thinking. And it's hard for us to be corrected or to learn, especially when someone's opening up something as big as ableism, or racism, or misogyny in our thinking, it's so big, our reaction instead is to deny, deflect, get angry, get defensive, because we'd rather maintain the reality we're currently living in and the story that we're telling ourselves. But if we can notice the good, bad binary, in our own thoughts, in our own assessments of situations, we can start to decolonize our minds remove these thought patterns from our minds. You know, in my old job, I had a boss, who I thought was just out to torture me, there was a while where I was like, I'm trying to figure this person out, because I don't understand why I have to suffer so much under this person. Is she evil? Malicious? Like, why is this happening? And eventually, when I learned about the good, bad binary, that was the first situation that came to mind. I was like, I'm constantly trying to figure out is she good? Or Is she bad? The reality is that she's a person. And it's, there's a lot more nuanced than that. And it's somewhere in between, and she might not be as competent as she should be for her job. And that might be leading to all these negative downstream effects for me, and maybe she should be held accountable for my suffering, but it's not this good, bad thing. And we often because of the good bad binary attribute much more negativity to certain people, and much more positivity to other people than they really deserve in their actions when there's actually much more nuanced than that. And the perfectionism plays into that, as well. I think even people who had don't identify as perfectionist, you know, it's such a scourge on our society when we noticed that negative self talk. That's the perfectionism, right? And when we noticed that we're not giving ourselves credit for everything we got done today, right? You spent all day being nervous for the big meeting. And then once it's over and it went, Well, you forget about it on to the next thing to worry about, instead of be like, Oh, my God, I really did an awesome job in that meeting that one as well or better than I ever could have hoped for. Most of us don't do that we do not give ourselves that. And that's the perfectionism piece too. So if we can notice those things, in our own minds, we will stop thinking that way as much. And then when we have a learning opportunity, it's not going to feel nearly as threatening, you know, getting feedback doesn't feel like an attack anymore. It's all, you know, these are all the things we can work out on our own without having to have any big influence in the world or taking any other kind of action. It just prepares us to be able to learn when the opportunity arises.   Michael Hingson  54:01 And you know, I go back to my own worst critic. It's such a negative thing. And there's so much more to be gained by looking at it from the positive standpoint. I'm my own best teacher. All right. So somebody said something about me today. Great. I have that. Now, let's look at what they said. I'm trying to understand why they said it. And what does it really mean for me, right? That whole idea of going within yourself and analyzing it is what's so important, because you can you can find out, Oh, maybe, oh, they really thought that because of and it wasn't really true. But then you can go back and deal with it or you can go back and address it and how you deal with them in the future. But you can do so much more. If you look at things in a in a more positive way rather than running yourself down. We're all as capable as we want to be.   Isis Fabian  54:59 Mm hmm. and building that, that then builds self awareness that allows you when you get that negative moment or comment or whatever it is, you are then able to understand the difference between this is valid feedback that I need to understand versus that person saying a lot more about themselves than they are about me.   Michael Hingson  55:17 That's right. Because you can look at everything that happens in your life. You look at what what people say about you. And it doesn't need to be a criticism. It's what they say, Now, what are you going to do with it? And you have to make a decision. And it has to be a volitional, conscious decision. Was that the right thing? What were they right? Or are they just trying to be obnoxious or whatever the case happens to be, but we're the ones that can learn from our own best teaching efforts. Right,   Isis Fabian  55:51 exactly. And or are they responding to something, maybe in the wrong way or through many, many layers have their own bias, but if I can peel all that back, I might find a kernel of truth that is useful for me, like, that's what I finally realized with that, that quote, unquote, feedback, you're too intimidating. And you might work on that. And I went and asked everyone on my team, I was like, what does this mean? And they said, you know, oh, you're just really quick on your feet, you know, you really someone asked a question, or there's a thorny issue that we have to solve, and you just immediately have an answer, you immediately connect all the dots, and it just, it makes it um, you know, it's not a bad thing, you know, it's very impressive. It's just, you're, it's, it's, it can be hard to be in the presence of someone like that, right. As they were explaining that to me, then years later, I can reflect on and be like, there is something here, there was something useful here. For me, even though for such a long time, I rejected that feedback. And it was bad feedback it is. And it was not on to the point. And it was not actionable, either. But at the end of the day, there was impact I was having on people. And I was finally able to recognize the importance of what that impact was,   Michael Hingson  56:51 right. And if people are giving improper feedback, and so on

Happy New Year from the Retail Razor Show! A new year means it's time for the annual National Retail Federation Big show held in New York City. But what if it's your first time? It can be quite overwhelming for retailers and retailtech beginners. Fortunately, we're here to help by bringing you a seasoned NRF veteran with his best tips and tricks to get the most out of your NRF experience!Fan favorite friend of the show, Andrew Laudato, COO of The Vitamin Shoppe joins our hosts to talk all things NRF Big Show and share what he has learned over 20+ years of attending the event. We hope to see you at NRF!Plus, our new segment, Retail Razor Data Blades returns, with another special insight from Georgina Nelson, CEO of TruRating ,learned from their 100,000's of point-of-sale customer survey polls. In this episode learn how inflation is impacting shopper buying habits!News alert #1: The Retail Razor Show is nominated for The Retail Voice Award at the Vendors in Partnership Award ceremony during the NRF Big Show 2023!News alert #2! We've moved up to #18 on the Feedspot Top 60 Best Retail podcasts list - please consider giving us a 5-star review in Apple Podcasts! With your help, we'll move our way up the Top 20! Leave us a review & be mentioned in future episodes! https://blog.feedspot.com/retail_podcasts/Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech:Ricardo Belmar, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Influencer for 2022 & 2021, RIS News Top Movers and Shakers in Retail for 2021, a Top 12 ecommerce influencer, advisory council member at George Mason University's Center for Retail Transformation, and director partner marketing advisor for retail & consumer goods at Microsoft.Casey Golden, CEO of Luxlock. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech!Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring E-Motive, Overclocked, and Tech Lore, from the album Beat Hype, written by Hestron Mimms, published by Imuno. The Retail Razor ShowFollow us on Twitter: https://bit.ly/TwRRazorConnect with us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/LI-RRazorSubscribe on YouTube: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTubeSubscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://bit.ly/RetailRazorShowRetail Razor Show Episode Page: https://bit.ly/RRShowPodHost → Ricardo Belmar,Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twRBelmarConnect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LIRBelmarRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWRBelmarCo-host → Casey Golden,Follow on Twitter - https://bit.ly/twCaseyConnect on LinkedIn - https://bit.ly/LICaseyRead my comments on RetailWire - https://bit.ly/RWCaseyTRANSCRIPTS2E8 NRF for Beginners[00:00:20] Show Intro[00:00:20] Ricardo Belmar: Hello, and welcome to season two, episode eight of the Retail Razor Show. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar.[00:00:26] Casey Golden: And I'm your co-host, Casey Golden. Welcome, retail Razor Show listeners to retail's favorite podcast for product junkies, commerce technologists, and everyone else in retail and retail tech alike.[00:00:38] Ricardo Belmar: Well, Casey, this is a conversation I've really been looking forward to each year in January, pandemic year's, not withstanding, retail industry comes together for the largest event in our industry. The National Retail Federation's, big show in New York. At its peak, I think this event was right before the pandemic, 40,000 attendees from across North America and, and a lot of international visitors from all over the world.[00:00:59] Now [00:01:00] we're coming up on the 2023 big show next month from, from when we're recording this. So we're thinking listeners are probably hearing a lot of noise by now about what's gonna happen at this show,[00:01:10] Casey Golden: That's right. And they don't call it the big show for no reason. And since our specialty is cutting through the clutter and the noise, In retail to get to the useful bits that everyone wants to know. We thought we'd put together a special ed addition to our show to serve as a guide for beginners who are either attending their first show or feel like they could benefit from an experienced N R F veteran on how to navigate Javits.[00:01:36] Ricardo Belmar: And to do that, we invited a really incredible retailer with years of experience attending and leveraging the N R F event to the fullest to bring you this special edition N R F for beginner's episode. So today we are going to hear from no stranger to the show, Andrew Laudato, CEO of The Vitamin Shoppe.[00:01:53] Casey Golden: So many great tips and tricks on how to make the best of the show, how to meet your goals as a [00:02:00] retailer attendee, and even more importantly, how to navigate my city, New York City. So if you're new to the N R F Show or to New York City, you're going to find a few nuggets here that are useful, in this conversation.[00:02:13] Be sure to have your notepads ready to go get that Slack channel open.[00:02:19] Retail Razor Data Blades[00:02:19] Ricardo Belmar: But first it's time for the newest segment of our show, the Retail Razor Data Blades, where we talk real world numbers and slice through measurable consumer insights. It's a bit like, show me the math so I understand where this data is coming from and bringing us that slicing and dicing of data is Georgina Nelson, CEO of TruRating.[00:02:37] TruRating is changing the way retailers track how customers feel against how they spend with an innovative multi-channel feedback solution that has an average of 80% response rate from consumers. Georgina will share with us some key data points and offer a bit of insight into what's behind those numbers based on that extensive customer survey data at the point of sale.[00:02:56] Casey Golden: Welcome, Georgina.[00:02:58] Georgina Nelson: Thank you so much for having me.[00:02:59] Casey Golden: [00:03:00] So today's Retail Razor Data Blade segment is "how rising prices are impacting shopper habits". Georgina, give us the data.[00:03:09] Georgina Nelson: Well, last time we chatted, we discussed how over 81% of consumers who we polled across our markets, and that was, yeah, over 170,000 shoppers had been noticing the, the pinch on the cost of living. So 81% were noticing, but then we thought, how, how is that actually impacting behavior? You know, what changes are people making in light of that and how is that affecting retailers?[00:03:36] So we asked whether people were driving less or more as a result, and we found that 63% of consumers in the US said they were driving less because of the rising gas prices. We also found out that 60% were cooking more at home, so eating out less and 74% were using a list [00:04:00] when they went shopping which is a big increase on our, on the previous times, which we've asked that.[00:04:05] And academic research shows that generally consumers spend 15% less when they have a list. It's that, that discipline and keeping to it.[00:04:14] Casey Golden: Interesting.[00:04:15] Georgina Nelson: Yes. So so it, it's really become clear to us that there's, when it comes down to discretionary spend, big ticket items, you know, consumers are definitely being more careful.[00:04:27] They're shopping around more, they're making less frequent trips when they're going by public transport. And that means that the retailers who are in urban areas where, where there's a great public transport network aren't at such a disadvantage.[00:04:42] Casey Golden: So Georgina, I know retailers and consumers alike have been feeling the burden of inflation for quite a few months now. I'm certainly shopping around more and being a lot more considerate about where I choose to spend my hard-earned dollars. , is it pretty much all doom and [00:05:00] gloom until inflation winds down, or is there some upside here for retailers?[00:05:06] Georgina Nelson: I think that's a definite upside when you think of that consumer shopping around. That opens a whole world of opportunity. You've got new consumers coming through your door and you've got a chance to to woo and turn them. And so you know, this is a great. Yeah, a great opportunity to win new loyalty with incredible customer experience, targeted marketing and comms, and yeah, and build that loyalty fan base.[00:05:34] Casey Golden: And I think there's something to say when, in any type of recession or inflation or any type of point when the economy's taking that pinch. Those consumers that continue to shop with you, they're really kind of top of mind as a brand is really top of mind for them. And it's, it's pretty important as you go into like a different economy to see where those customers end up flushing [00:06:00] out.[00:06:00] Overall, I would assume.[00:06:02] Georgina Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. And I think it's around understanding, you know, what makes that that customer loyal? What are they, what are they affiliating with your brand? What products are they purchasing? And really getting into that deeper level of, of customer insight and analytics. . I think, you know, as we, as we look to how a, a lot of our retailers are fighting the, the inflation and the, and the pinch on wallets spend.[00:06:32] It's really focusing down on, as I said, the element of customer experience, but train, train, training, you know, the, the store cashier to actually be a brand ambassador. How can they promote recommendations? How can they promote upsell, and even, you know, simple things. We found that like such as asking a customer their name.[00:06:53] In some of these, you know, fashion environments, et cetera when that consultative sale really helps, we've [00:07:00] seen that drive average basket spend by over 30%. [00:07:04] Ricardo Belmar: Mm. [00:07:05] Georgina Nelson: Likewise, if a customer makes a, you know, if, if a cashier makes a recommendation. So, you know, all these, all these simple things which a retailer can, can take and train the teams and then see the, see the impact down at a store level are key.[00:07:22] Ricardo Belmar: Well, it all comes back to that experience, doesn't it? . Well, there we have another edition of the Retail Razor Data Blades.[00:07:28] Casey Golden: I'm listening for the cool segment music right now.[00:07:31] Ricardo Belmar: Okay. And with that cool update, let's jump right into the discussion with our special guest for our NRF for Beginner's discussion.[00:07:44][00:07:49] #NRFforBeginners with Andy Laudato[00:07:49] Ricardo Belmar: Today we're here with a retailer who's no stranger to the show and has extensive experience making the most of the N R F Show and all the activities during N R F Week in New York City each year.[00:08:00][00:08:00] Casey Golden: That's right. So let's introduce our guest, Andrew Lodato, COO of the Vitamin Shoppe and former CIO of Pier one imports. Let's pave the way for the newbies coming to N R F this year. [00:08:12] Ricardo Belmar: Welcome back to the show, Andy.[00:08:13] Andrew Laudato: Yeah. Thank you. Hello. Great to see you, Ricardo and Casey.[00:08:16] Casey Golden: So how many NRFs have each of you been to in your retail career?[00:08:20] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, so I've been to 20, 21. This will be 22. [00:08:25] Ricardo Belmar: Wow. [00:08:26] Andrew Laudato: I actually took a little stint outside of retail. Well, it sounds like a lot, but when you meet people there, you'll meet people with 30 plus NRFs under their belt. I consider myself a veteran, but certainly not a senior. Some, some of the people [00:08:38] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. I think this is gonna be my, I, I've lost track, even though it doesn't sound like I should with like 11th or 12th nrf. So sometimes you're, you're totally right about that, Andy. I'll run into someone in those say, oh, this is my 20th N R f, and I'm thinking, oh, that, that's kind of making me sound like the newbie[00:08:55] Andrew Laudato: exactly.[00:08:56] Casey Golden: think I'm only at like six, so you guys have got, definitely got me beat[00:09:00][00:09:01] Ricardo Belmar: Well, let's take a brief step back and for those who are the true beginners to nrf, let's define exactly what NRF is. And so Andy, how would you describe the, the jam-packed NRF week as its start, become called in the last few years? You know, of activity surrounding the actual NRF show and everything else that's going on in New York City during that nice bitter cold week in January that we're always also used to[00:09:27] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, so we all call it NRF or NRF Week, but actually NRF is stands for the National Retail Federation, and it's a retail advocacy and lobby organization. So most retailers are members of the National Retail Federation, and every year the NRF puts on several shows, conferences, events around different disciplines, technology, supply chain, digital store ops.[00:09:50] But in New York, once a year, they have what they call the "big show". So we just call it the NRF and but it's the big show. I don't know if this is true, but the [00:10:00] story is a hundred plus years ago. Retailers, you know, all got together in New York City and said, how'd we do over the holidays? I just imagined like 12 people in a room with a box of donuts and, and it really evolved from there. [00:10:11] Ricardo Belmar: I wonder if that's true.[00:10:13] Andrew Laudato: I made it up, but It sounds [00:10:14] Ricardo Belmar: good though. You can picture it.[00:10:17] Casey Golden: I'm like, it's a building filled with men in pleaded pants. So as a retailer, what should our goals be attending? What kind of ROI do you expect to get from this trip?[00:10:30] All about ROI[00:10:30] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, I case, I'm glad you used the term roi. I mean, people spend a lot of time and money to attend. You know, hotels in New York are 300 to $500 a night and then travel, you[00:10:41] Casey Golden: Put a P and L behind every event,[00:10:44] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, exactly right. And so, you know, so I think it's really important and if, you know, you get the opportunity to go, especially one of your first times, you know, make sure your company feels like they got their money's worth of their investment.[00:10:57] And so I always have goals. I think everyone [00:11:00] should set some goals, and mine are pretty simple, but, but I think they're powerful. My goal will be to come back from the big show with one to three brand new ideas, something I haven't heard, read, whether it's been on a podcast. So you get inspired whether you're at a formal session or a chat or a social and you hear something someone's doing or contemplating.[00:11:19] And to get one new idea that you can bring back to your business makes you know the investment palatable or, or worth it. Then I also have a goal of having, making three or more retail connections. Just to meet someone new finding someone in a different company that does what you did, or maybe they're ahead of you on some journey on either omni or digital or some path that's important to you.[00:11:41] So making that connection that you can follow up with later is really, really key. And then the last thing on my return on investment is to get a scorecard on how you're doing to honestly judge yourself when you, you talk to others and sometimes you find. Everyone's not as far as long. So sometimes you may be like, [00:12:00] wow, I feel like we're behind when you read all the hype and then you start talking to people about their reality. Or you may find that someone's way ahead of you on something and, and then that sets the standard that, Hey, we need, we need to redouble our efforts.[00:12:13] Casey Golden: That makes sense. I find that N R F. Different than a lot of other trade shows, has more customers join rather than some other trade shows and industry events where I find that it's a sea of vendors. I definitely feel like I get to meet more customers and more retailers that attend N R F. From like the daytime into the evenings, [00:12:34] Andrew Laudato: Yeah. You know, and, and if you're new, you'll notice quickly that the NRF is kind enough to color code your badges. And so you'll be able to tell if someone is a, from a retailer, from a supplier, from the analyst, are they a speaker? So you'll learn the code pretty quick and if you are a, call it, you're a buyer, not a seller, you're gonna get a lot more attention walking down the aisles.[00:12:55] But yeah, you're certainly fine. Not, and not just, I would say not just a lot more [00:13:00]retailers, but a lot more principals. You're talking about CEOs and a lot of C-Suite also attend the show.[00:13:05] Validating the hype[00:13:05] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. That, that's true. That's true. I'm, I'm curious about one thing you, you just said there a minute ago, Andy, about Seeing how, how far along you are. I'm curious is when you're thinking about that, are you in, in a way trying to gauge and compare where you're at versus what all the industry hype might be before you get to the show?[00:13:23] And kind of, are you trying to see if while you're there at the show, can I level set around that hype? Is it really hype or is there something real there that maybe you are doing, and you don't feel like you're far off along, or maybe there are things that you haven't been able to figure out if you should be doing, but you keep hearing all this hype and you get to the show and you're trying to validate that.[00:13:41] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, you hear the hype and you try to validate it, right? So I'll make something up because this has been going on since my first N RF to talk about R F I D. [00:13:50] It's gonna change the world and talk about that. And you know, you open up the press and people are like, oh, we solved all our inventory woes with the R F I D. So you sit down with [00:14:00] people and talk about what did it take, how was it, was it really worth it?[00:14:03] And you kind of get that honest. And if you meet with 25 people and ask 'em all about the same question, you really get a better feel for than just reading the article.[00:14:12] Ricardo Belmar: What, what about the sessions at N R F do, do you go to the sessions that are there and, and if you do, how do you decide which ones are worth your time to go to? And, and, and I guess the sort of second part to that is for this coming N R F, are there any sessions you're particularly interested in?[00:14:27] Andrew Laudato: So I think the sessions are extremely important. I think it's easy to not go because you end up getting all these invitations before. and the expo booth is, you know, for a retailer you can pretty much get in for free. That's not that difficult. But I think they're extremely important. So for me it's the keynotes because ultimately every NRF ends up with a feel to it or a theme. And, you know, I have some theories on what I think the theme will end up being this year. And I think it'll be around you know, your business in a tough economy. But I don't know. We'll see. And, [00:15:00] and I think getting to some sessions are important. The sessions that I like to attend are really about the, call it the bleeding edge stuff.[00:15:07] I'm actually I'll do a little plug. I'm the moderator of a session on digital twins on Sunday afternoon,[00:15:13] so I'm super excited about that topic and I know very little about it. So, you know, I'm gonna learn a lot being the moderator of that. So those are the kind of sessions I like. And then anyone who's done, done something you're trying to. So, for example, you know, we're at the Vitamin Shoppe, we just last year rolled out buy online store ships, BOSS. So any session on those we were eager to get to because we heard, you know, some learnings we can have from others.[00:15:40] Casey Golden: What would you, as a retailer, what kind of advice would you give to a, a technology vendor that's going for the first time? Because obviously we're there for you, right? So[00:15:50] Andrew Laudato: right.[00:15:52] I, I think the NF big show is the most amazing place to meet people for the first time and get [00:16:00] started. So my advice would be to try to have your meetings just about, have some coffee and get to know someone. I don't think you should try to demo in detail. It's loud, it's noisy, there's interruptions.[00:16:11] It's a horrible place to sit down and spend 45 minutes going through a new AI-driven planning system, right? People aren't gonna be able to focus, so, For technology vendors, you know, make plans up front of who you wanna meet with, reach out and make the meetings really as casual as you're comfortable doing.[00:16:29] And it may not feel worthwhile, but I think that's more worthwhile than trying to, no one, no one shop, no one shows up at the NRF big show with their checkbook, right? We're not shopping. We're there to learn and to make relationships. So that's my advice is just focus on the relattionship.[00:16:44] Casey Golden: It's great to know that you're really not there to shop Thanks for saying that out loud. Andy [00:16:51] Ricardo Belmar: So, so, let me ask you then[00:16:52] on [00:16:52] Andrew Laudato: I've never bought a single thing in 20 some years [00:16:54] Yeah. [00:16:54] Ricardo Belmar: I, I was just gonna say, yeah, I, I bet that was gonna be the answer. Yeah. It, which, which I think I kind of find with most retailers, I know that [00:17:00] that's always true. It's you know, it's, , you're not there to decide to buy. You're there to learn, right? You're there to find out and investigate and, and kind of help you help set up maybe some G rails around where you want to go and what you wanna look for.[00:17:12] Casey Golden: That's great. I mean that, that really helps everybody understand like what value they need to be thinking about providing when they show up.[00:17:18] Building relationships[00:17:18] Ricardo Belmar: So I guess maybe also along those lines, Andy, you know, just thinking in terms of from. , the retail tech vendors that are there, right. In so many cases. Right. And I'll, I'll speak from the vendor side here. You know, there's always a desire to try to show off what every, for every vendor, what we have to, every retailer that comes by.[00:17:35] And to your point, right, where you're, you're kind of saying focus on building the relationship, you know, it's not the best environment to go through a detailed demo and kind of thing. So so I'm curious, what, what, what advice would you have vendors who are. totally focused on making sure they have the right demo and the right experience to show off to any retailer that comes by.[00:17:53] What's your advice for, for that vendor? In terms of how they should present themselves?[00:17:56] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, let me start with something that people may forget about. It's [00:18:00] a good opportunity for. retail vendors to shore up their existing relationships. I mean, a lot of us haven't seen each other for three years. Right? So, you know, start with that. And again, I always talk about the principles are there. We're gonna, my ceo, Sharon Leite, gonna be at the nrf.[00:18:16] She's on the board of the nrf. So, you know, establishing and firming up those relationships. Because remember, we're wandering around CIOs, COOs, we're wandering around to these parties, events, and people are asking us, who do you use for this? Who do you use for that? that's kind of like, almost like a defensive, but focus on your incumbents first, like your existing customers. And then my second thing would be just to be, you know, I don't know what the right analogy is, but to be targeted. What's the point? A lot of people in my mind seem like they're, they consider winning the maximum number of meetings, but go for quality over quantity is what I would say. I mean, the people beg me to come meet in their booth where I have no interest and I'm not shopping. [00:19:00] And I tell 'em that, but it seems like they don't care. I mean, someone offered me a hundred dollars to meet with them, which I find really quite humorous. I like to go back and tell my younger self that, but why, why are they so desperate for me to come to their booth if they know I'm not interested?[00:19:12] I guess it's just a ticket count, right? So don't do that.[00:19:16] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, [00:19:17] Andrew Laudato: 10 good meetings. Way better than 30 substandard meetings.[00:19:20] Ricardo Belmar: I is there, you know, is there any, like, any one thing that you've seen vendors do in the past that you just say to yourself, why do you, why would you do that? Please stop doing that. Don't do that again.[00:19:30] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, that tackle you when you're coming down the aisle, right? I mean,[00:19:34] Ricardo Belmar: Okay.[00:19:34] Yeah. [00:19:36] Andrew Laudato: of us try to flip around our badge, but say you just interrupt me. Step in front of me. Start chatting. Give me your pitch. I don't know you. I don't know who you are. I know what you're doing. , I'm late for something and it's just that's gonna be, you talk about relationship building, you're starting with [00:19:50] the [00:19:50] Ricardo Belmar: That's right. Yeah. You're doing the opposite right there.[00:19:52] A few top tips[00:19:52] Casey Golden: So this is fascinating. So related question, what are your top tips overall? I'm a big fan of the [00:20:00] coat check, but what about lunch, et cetera. Have you ever done any lunch meetings like, away from N R F?[00:20:07] Andrew Laudato: Yeah. You know, it's important to have a plan and your first time at nrf. I mean, I, I'm glad you mentioned co check. Like you walk in and there's a long line to check your coat and you come, if you come the first day, you know you're, and you have to have a coat. I mean, it's New York City and January's cold.[00:20:21] It could be snowing, freezing rain, but just be like, have a plan. If you see a long line, I bet if you go down the place is really huge, you go down to another section. There'll be a no line, or someone might invite you to have, I know some, and I'm not gonna say who, but I know a vendor who built a coat check into their booth.[00:20:37] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah.[00:20:38] Andrew Laudato: You know, they get traffic and that's where my coat goes. And[00:20:40] Casey Golden: actually quite smart. I always find anytime that there's a line at an event that's really an opportunity to meet your neighbor[00:20:47] Andrew Laudato: sure. But say, you[00:20:48] Casey Golden: more organic conversation when you're both sitting there like complaining or waiting.[00:20:53] Andrew Laudato: Absolutely the line is Starbucks. You know, and I agree. And that's when they talk about having a goal of making, you know, at least three new [00:21:00] relationships.[00:21:00] Casey Golden: Yeah. [00:21:01] Andrew Laudato: But you could get frustrated very quickly, like getting to Javits in the morning on a bus, and then waiting in a line. And then, you know, now all of a sudden you're missing the keynote.[00:21:09] And you go in there and there's no more seats and you're, you're nervous and stressed. And so have a plan. Get there early. Put your coat somewhere smart. Remember where you put it. The lunch at Javits is really almost inedible. It's horrible and expensive, and so I don't recommend at all leaving the Javits Center, you know, and you're gonna, it's gonna, Well, we sell plenty of healthy protein bars at the vitamin shop. Or on the floor, you know, these booths are gonna have popcorn and candy, but I would definitely plan on eating on the fly. The reason I say don't leave is that now you gotta get your coat again, and then you're gonna go somewhere. And if it's a sit down restaurant, that takes time.[00:21:45] So you're talking about an hour and a half minimum to leave, to leave the grounds for lunch. So I wouldn't recommend that. But yeah, just I would say have a plan for all these things and don't be frustrated and. if you wanna get your badge early, like you can sometimes get your badge at the hotel. They [00:22:00] have satellite places, so that's a nice little trick. If not, if you come in a day before, you can get it day before. They may even have ways you can print it. Read, read the instructions. They're not a lot, but sometimes, like, you need your ID or you need this or that, or, I don't know if they're gonna do with covid, but just read the instructions, be ready, and take the stress out by, by having a plan for these things.[00:22:17] Ricardo Belmar: So on on that topic of scheduling meetings, for example. You know, so, good, good tip. You mentioned, you know, don't, don't try to leave in the middle of, of the day from Javits and then expect to come back. What do you do around meetings? You know, for example, do you, do you try to avoid having too many meetings in a row?[00:22:32] Because I, I know I've always found like the biggest challenge, is Javits is bigger than you think it is. So just trying to get from one meeting to another can be tricky sometimes, especially if you're trying to go between floors and you gotta leave yourself enough time. But do you have a strategy for, for how you look at scheduling meetings on your calendar while you're there?[00:22:49] Andrew Laudato: Yeah. So not only is it really, really big, you got the people stopping you, like I mentioned earlier, right? So you got the gauntlet to try to get to your meeting, and so Plan your meetings with a map. And so they'll [00:23:00] lay out where the booths are and if you have, you know, you wanna meet with say, six people on a, on one of the days.[00:23:06] So what I would do is I would start, sit down and start with what sessions do you absolutely want to attend? And block those out in your calendar. And then you say, okay, who do I absolutely wanna meet with then reach out to them and, and I've already done a lot of this. I mean, you need to be doing this now, right?[00:23:20] These things, I laugh when someone will invite me to dinner, like the day before. I laugh cause it's been booked forever, right? So and then lay out the, the meetings kind of like from, you know, Javits is numbered from zero to whatever, 10,000. So either go left or right or right to left and, and be smart about it and just plan it.[00:23:40] And if you can, that's a big puzzle cuz they also have to be available. But plan your meetings and then you will encounter something that you want to see at the Javits that you don't know about before you go. So there's some balance. You wanna leave some free time, maybe at the end of the day to say, oh, wow, I, I met this person in the line at the coat check, and I want to go by and, and meet them.[00:23:59] [00:24:00] So leave some time for that as well.[00:24:02] Ricardo Belmar: what about some of the other big attractions during that week are all of these other ancillary events that are happening? Casey mentioned it, right? All the things in the, the celebrations, the dinners, everything happening all around the city outside of the Javits and outside of the show.[00:24:15] I would even say some of my favorite things that happen at N R F are those extra events. I think Casey would probably say the same thing. That's why you go to those too. And some are vendor led, some are vendor sponsored. Some are not really led in any way by a vendor. . They have a different purpose.[00:24:28] What are your goals and expectations around how you approach those events?[00:24:33] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, so for a lot of people, for me, you know, I usually never even came to New York City other than the nrf. So if you wanna see New York City, I mean, New York City's an amazing place so you could maybe plan some of your own time. One thing that may fascinate people like you may pick a night and only go have dinner with your coworkers. you know, I know you'd have to pay, your company will have to pay or you have to pay yourself, but you know, it's something you don't probably normally do back home is spend some time. So everything doesn't have to be, and you don't have to be [00:25:00] on, and you don't have to be here on a pitch. So that's something that we did all the time at Pier one.[00:25:04] We'd pick a night and just have dinner with, with all of our coworkers that came to the show. I think the long, the more people that attend a dinner, the longer it takes. And I actually have some math formula. I add like seven minutes for every attendee to my dinner. So when you start to get into these, number one thing I ask is how many people are gonna be there?[00:25:19] So, you know, if it's a 30 person dinner and a big room, you're looking at three plus hours. [00:25:23] Ricardo Belmar: Mm-hmm. [00:25:24] Andrew Laudato: I try to avoid those. I'd rather kind of bop from, call it a happy hour to happy hour kind of event where I can meet people and have one-on-one conversations. I know I keep talking about not eating, but there's plenty You're gonna eat, right?[00:25:34] There's gonna be [00:25:35] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah. [00:25:36] Andrew Laudato: your bars and the popcorn and the treats, and then there's gonna be at these happy hours, we'll call 'em happy hours or cocktail. There's gonna be plenty of hors d'oeuvres and you know, kind stay on the fly is what I like to do. Maybe pick out that one night for a team meeting and then bop from event to event.[00:25:51] Casey Golden: There's one vendor, and I'm not gonna say who it is, but it's usually probably around like 11 o'clock. at every trade show. [00:26:00] They're like my before lunch stop because they have like this whole entire booth made out of Jelly Bellies,[00:26:08] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, like.[00:26:08] Casey Golden: I'm like, it's just great.[00:26:11] Andrew Laudato: I have a fun NRF story. So years ago I was talk talking to someone at a booth and they ordered out sub sandwiches they were delicious cuz New York you can find amazing delis. And then it became a thing. So the next year I'm like, Hey, are you guys gonna do that again? And they actually got to where they were bringing in hundreds of sandwiches and they reorganized their booth.[00:26:31] Well, the NRF got angry cuz they wanna make money or, or the Javits Center got angry cause there's rules and unions and so they shut it down. But I had a good thing going for a few years there. And, and so did they, cause they had, they had the, the lunch booth going so[00:26:44] Casey Golden: Yeah, I mean I find when you offer food at any trade show, even, you know, when I was on the fashion side, going to market feed people with good food and they'll stick around and come back,[00:26:55] Andrew Laudato: great.[00:26:56] New York City Tips[00:26:56] Casey Golden: All right, so we also have to recognize that if you're new to [00:27:00]NRF you also might be new to the city. and New York City is one of the most, is like the pure definition of a city And[00:27:08] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, I'd argue the best city in the world. I haven't been to[00:27:11] Casey Golden: city in the world.[00:27:12] Andrew Laudato: it[00:27:13] Casey Golden: I mean, granted, I just went to a couple really beautiful cities last week, but there's nothing like New York.[00:27:19] But it can be definitely overwhelming for a lot of new people, especially new people coming into you know, there's a lot of people that have new jobs, right? And this is their first time to nrf, first time in New York City. Where would you suggest a beginner to stay or how to get around? Something that they, they, they must see just because they're in New York City for the first time.[00:27:40] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, so lemme go back. First of all, it's about getting here, right? So there are three airports. There's the LaGuardia Airport, which most people think is where they need to fly, but there's also JFK, which is a little more of a hassle, but you may save hundreds of dollars or get a more convenient time.[00:27:54] Casey Golden: Mm-hmm.[00:27:55] Andrew Laudato: and then there's the Newark Airport.[00:27:56] And don't sleep on Newark. It's just as close to Manhattan[00:27:59] Casey Golden: I always [00:28:00] find.[00:28:01] Andrew Laudato: So there you go. And you know, so there's three choices for airports. Once you get to the airport, you gotta get to the city. The biggest hack now, now I take the subway, but I'm not gonna recommend the subway from the airport for beginner.[00:28:13] But the biggest hack is the oldest hack. It's cabs. So it used to be, yet I had to take a cab and then Uber came. But now everyone's taking Uber. So the cabs have no line. And there's an app that lets turns your cab into Uber called Curbed, C U R B E D. You download that app and there's a number in the back of the cab, you sync it so you don't have to deal with paying the driver.[00:28:35] So my hack at LaGuardia is just to go down and get a cab at the cab stand, no wait, and then all the people fighting over the Ubers in that parking garage deal with that. So that's that. So now we're, they're there. You get into Manhattan, where to stay. I gu I guess if you're new, stay at one of the sanctioned hotels on the N R F website. Now, you know, back years ago there was nothing out by Javits. It's out by the water in a rail yard, but now [00:29:00] there's Hudson Yards, so you're starting to see more restaurants, hotels out there. But another thing I will say is don't get on the bus to the NRF show. So there's buses from the hotels. It's so easy to take the subway and I know subways are scary, but there's a seven Subway, it's one stop from Times Square.[00:29:17] It goes right by Javitz. You don't need a card anymore, you just pay with your cell phone or even your Apple watch. It's the seven train. And you just take the seven train, west, you get off there. There's no other place to get off than the last stop. And you're right there. It's $2 and 75 cents. And that's my my big advice as.[00:29:37] Casey Golden: Well, as a transplant New Yorker, it's only three avenues. You can always walk it. I always like to remind people that like, we don't have cars. We just, you know, get your steps in[00:29:51] Andrew Laudato: Well, speaking of walking, whether you're walking to Javits or not, you're gonna walk a lot at[00:29:56] Casey Golden: walk.[00:29:57] Andrew Laudato: So I know we could, and you know, you're a woman, so you [00:30:00]could talk about shoes, but shoes become an issue cause you wanna look good. so. You know, wear, wear you're watching, you'll see how many steps you get in.[00:30:07] But even whether you take the bus, the subway, you walk to Javitz, once you get there, it's, you're gonna walk a lot. Around, you'll be walking basically for eight to 10 hours.[00:30:16] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, yeah, so much walking. So, you know, another interesting thing you brought up when we were ahead of this session and you were talking about, what, what kind of tips would there be? You mentioned a few things about, thinking about who's listening in your conversations. What did you mean by that?[00:30:29] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, so, you know, New York is what millions and millions of people live here, but it's, it becomes a real small world in the retail. So you get on a flight and it seems more often than not, the person's next to me, some kind of software vendor. And when you're at the bag claim, I've had people come up to me and recognize me from LinkedIn and so just be careful what you're saying about your company business personal.[00:30:50] Just assume that, you know, I mean, probably rare that it will happen, but it seems to happen a lot to me, so just be careful what you're saying on an airplane, in the cab, you know, when, as you're going around the [00:31:00] city, you know, so especially people start drinking, they get loud and, and people can overhear you. So, you know, I, I'd be careful about that.[00:31:07] It's just about, you know, being professional when you travel, I guess is a simple way to say it.[00:31:11] Casey Golden: I've met some of my favorite people and long-term friends from traveling and hitting airports during this time of year. People who worked at, at different consulting companies or technology vendors or retailers, literally from a flight delay to and, and having a chat, you know, over like an unexpected dinner at the airport or literally just sitting next to them on the flight.[00:31:37] So, I mean, it's a great opportunity. But yeah, somebody, the likelihood of somebody sitting next to you that's going to the same show. It's very high.[00:31:46] Andrew Laudato: Yeah. Now you could arrange for a ride. I've certainly used the opportunity to arrange for a ride. Like, Hey, let's grab a cab to the city together. Cause you know, there's two of you or three of you and the cab's gonna be 65 bucks and that's pretty nice to share. And then you got another [00:32:00] forty five minutes to chat with your new friend.[00:32:02] Groups of coworkers[00:32:02] Casey Golden: Yeah. Have you ever visited N R F as a part of a group? Where the whole company's kind of going. I know you mentioned doing company dinners but what is that? I've always gone solo. What is that kind of like when you've got a whole bunch of group of coworkers going together?[00:32:20] Andrew Laudato: I think there's a lot of positives. Like I said, you could have the dinner together. You can also divide and conquer. So, hey, I'm gonna focus, you know, so sit down with the group and say, oh, who's gonna go to what sessions? And then take notes for each other and come back and share what you learned. If you're all there on the same mission, maybe you can all hear something together. If you're all there looking at, you know, x, y, z category of software I would say, you know, to my tech friends, the introverts, it is, you have to be careful cuz with your, with people, you know. So you go to a party, it's a lot easier just to stay with them and talk to them, but don't do that.[00:32:51] Force yourself to break out and, and go make the new connections. And if one of your goals is to make at least three new connections, it sounds like Casey, you have no problem doing that. [00:33:00] But there are certainly people that come from more of the you know, technical side of the house or other places where they're not naturally extrovert.[00:33:08] So you gotta kinda force yourself to not just hang back with your coworker that you talk to, at least on Zoom every day.[00:33:14] Casey Golden: butterfly,[00:33:17] Andrew Laudato: So, you know, one trick I I tell people is to use the extroverts to your advantage. So say someone meets you at a social event, they could ask you, Hey, will you introduce me to another retailer? And so they may not just wanna walk up, especially if people are in a group. And that's the other thing, if people come in a group and they stay in the group, they're not really approachable, but someone like you would be easily able to bust[00:33:38] Casey Golden: Hi.[00:33:39] Andrew Laudato: yeah, so I might say, Casey, I really wanna meet people at, I don't know, coach or Louis Vuitton, and you're like, I know them.[00:33:46] Let me introduce you. Right? So the introverts can use the extroverts to build their relationships.[00:33:51] Casey Golden: Yeah, I always I was very shy growing up. Who would've thought? And I always go and try and find like [00:34:00] people who are kind of like being like a wallflower almost. And I'm like, oh, come on in. Get into the conversation or come join. Cuz you never really do know who that, who those people are, but I find that some of the introverts, they're, they're very good operators.[00:34:15] wanna know who you are I've, cuz otherwise it's like a whole bunch of a lot of social people. They're usually sales people[00:34:21] Andrew Laudato: Exactly. That's, yeah. That's[00:34:23] Casey Golden: I don't wanna talk to another salesperson. I'm like, where are some operators around here?[00:34:27] Andrew Laudato: exactly.[00:34:28] Ricardo Belmar: it interesting.[00:34:29] Andrew Laudato: Exactly. Mm-hmm.[00:34:31] Andy's favorite activities[00:34:31] Ricardo Belmar: So, so maybe re related to, to that note, I, I should have asked you earlier, Andy, I mean are, are in this NF coming up, are there other side events or other ancillary events around town that you're excited about this year that you're looking forward to?[00:34:44] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, you know, I'm very active and I know you are too, with the Retail ROI, which is the Retail Orphan Initiative. And you get to go and that's on Saturdays and there may even be opportunities still to attend, whether you're a retailer or a supplier. But that event is really, Amazing content [00:35:00] for learning amazing content about, you know, what the organization does for orphans around the world.[00:35:05] And it's a worthwhile cause, right? Just your attendance alone helps. So that's, I put that as number one is my favorite event. And I, I've been going since the original one. There's, even if you back up, you know, years ago the NRF started on Monday and went through Wednesday, the show. Then the CIO councils and the other councils would meet on Sunday.[00:35:23] So then the show started to move things backwards and then Greg Buzek put his thing on Saturday. Now there's Vicki Cantrell has something called vendors in partnerships, which is really exciting. It's about bringing together the providers and the retailers and giving an award show, and that's moved us back to Friday.[00:35:40] So it really has become, A weekend event, you know, now you're talking about traveling on Friday, spending the weekend and the show ends on Tuesday now. So again, it's not just about the Javits, it's about from Friday, Saturday. No, those are my favorite events. There's a Kathy Hotka Secret Event. You gotta know.[00:35:58] You gotta know to know. [00:36:00] So if you wanna get on that, you gotta figure it out. That makes it more fun. I hear about things even though after 20 years that go on that I had no idea. Or sometimes I find out there's something. So I, I also don't wanna pigeonhole people into what I do. Cause it's, it's amazing.[00:36:15] There are sometimes events at the big flagship stores in town[00:36:18] Casey Golden: Mm-hmm.[00:36:18] Andrew Laudato: or store tours. It's another thing we didn't talk about, but you know, especially if you come in a day earlier, stay an extra day, you can really do some retailing [00:36:25] Ricardo Belmar: yeah. Visit some of the [00:36:26] Andrew Laudato: lot of lot of store.[00:36:29] Casey Golden: highly recommend visiting stores during holiday season. No matter what type of of retailer you are hitting, the flagships in New York City is an experience in itself.[00:36:41] Andrew Laudato: and you know, if your company has stores in the city, absolutely. Make sure you get into those stores and say hi to those,[00:36:48] you know, store associates and you know,[00:36:51] Casey Golden: there's so many learnings. So many learnings. Even, even as a e, even as a shopper, right? You don't have to be in the own brand. It doesn't have to be a competitive [00:37:00]brand. Just being able to experience a fifth Avenue and hit up 10 different stores it's very rare that we get to, to see that level of quality and or just have that much.[00:37:10] To what a lot of the flagship experiences are. So I'm a big advocate. A lot of people come in from like, mid door tiers and so I think it's always pretty special when you have a chance to visit the flagships.[00:37:23] Ricardo Belmar: Yeah, I agree. I agree with that. I've, I've often done that when I'll, I'll stay over on Wednesday in, in fact, after the day after the show's over, just to do that, just to visit different stores around the city, just to get a, get a chance to see and experience what's new and what's special about those locations with, with so many flagship stores there and, and other interesting experiences to, to compare with.[00:37:44] Casey Golden: Yeah.[00:37:45] Your post-NRF recap[00:37:45] Ricardo Belmar: I guess that kind of begs the question, Andy, so you, we've gone through all these things to do while you're at nrf, all these things to do around nrf. What do you do after the show? You get back home, back to the office. Then what do you do?[00:37:59] Andrew Laudato: So, I [00:38:00] may, may sound nerdy, but I always write a report. So I always use my flight home to read all my notes and summarize what I learned, what I saw, and then I[00:38:08] Casey Golden: tired, Amy[00:38:10] Andrew Laudato: Well, you like, I mean, I used to be on a four hour flight. You got, you know, if you're not gonna nap, then you can at least do that. But if you don't do it, then you're gonna, you're already behind it work cuz you've been gone for four days.[00:38:20] Right. So then I just, you. Publish that to the exec team and peers and say, here, here's what I saw, what I learned. And that's the first thing. And then that's, it's justifying the ROI we talked about up front. So you know, you have so much fun, you wanna make sure you can get to go again. And so you make sure you justify the investment. Maybe then follow ups. I some thank yous for anything. If people gave me gifts or meetings, I'll, I'll do that when I'm back. And then things that you really. Wow, you have your one big idea you want to chase, so start scheduling meetings to talk about that back home.[00:38:54] Casey Golden: So I do have a conference hack for note taking that I found [00:39:00]extremely beneficial is I open up a Slack channel and I invite a few people into my Slack channel and I take notes in Slack and take pictures of the business cards as I get them. And so I'll have an entire Slack channel that the team is actually digesting.[00:39:15] Throughout the day and doing like end of day recaps and then already on it before I even get back. But I do[00:39:22] Andrew Laudato: I love it. That's[00:39:22] Casey Golden: Slack channel because it's mid-thought. I'll just go in there right after I meet somebody and leave notes. So I can remember contact no more pens and papers for me, but it shares it right with the team immediately.[00:39:34] So I've, I even had people get back to me and say, oh, This person is also friends with this person and they had just left this company and I literally was still in conversation. I was able to like have the extra contact. So it is nice to have that, that Slack channel open with somebody [00:39:52] Ricardo Belmar: Oh, that's a great [00:39:53] Casey Golden: all the recon. I'm so impressed by all of these like valuable tips and tricks and recommendations. I don't know where you were [00:40:00] when I went to my first nrf. It was very overwhelming for me. And just cause I didn't know who anybody was and how to navigate successfully because there's just so many vendors. But this is just amazing.[00:40:11] Is there anything that we've missed? Anything you wanna add before we, we close out, Andy?[00:40:16] Andrew Laudato: Yeah, look, it's, you can have some fun too, right? I dunno, what's that word? Boondoggle. But you're getting to go on a trip and meet some amazing people and see some amazing things maybe at a restaurant you couldn't normally get into or couldn't normally afford. So enjoy yourself. Have some fun, right? It's, it's not all work.[00:40:31] It's should be mostly work, but not all work.[00:40:33] Casey Golden: corporate accounts? Man, I missed those.[00:40:36] Ricardo Belmar: Well, well, Andy, I thanks so much for, for coming back to the show and, and joining us for this. Like, just like Casey said and some amazing tips and a really excellent guide to NRF for beginners. I don't know why I can keep track of all of 'em. I took some notes myself. Like I said at the beginning, this might be my 11th or 12th NRF, but sometimes I still feel like I'm the beginner learning all the the best tips and tricks on how to get through the week.[00:40:59] Andrew Laudato: [00:41:00] All right. Well, I look forward to seeing both of you there.[00:41:02] Ricardo Belmar: absolutely.[00:41:02] Casey Golden: Well, Ricardo, I think that this episode is a wrap. Thank you so much, Andy![00:41:06] Andrew Laudato: Welcome.[00:41:07] Show Close[00:41:07] Casey Golden: We hope you enjoyed our show and we can't ask you enough to please give us a five star rating and review on apple podcast to help us grow and bring you more great episodes. If you don't wanna miss a minute of what's next, be sure to smash that subscribe button in your favorite podcast player. And don't forget to check out our show notes for handy links and more deets. I'm your host, Casey Golden. [00:41:39] Ricardo Belmar: And if you'd like to learn more about the two of us, follow us on Twitter at Casey c golden and Ricardo underscore Belmar, or find us on LinkedIn. Be sure to follow the show on LinkedIn and Twitter at retail razor. Plus our YouTube channel for videos of each episode and bonus content. I'm your host, Ricardo Belmar.[00:41:55] Casey Golden: Thanks for joining us.[00:41:57] Ricardo Belmar: And [00:42:00] remember, there's never been a better time to be in retail. If you cut through the clutter until next time, this is the retail razor show. 

Randy discusses SESCO Lighting's acquisition of WHOCO Lighting & Controls, Signify is offering CIBSE accredited CPDs, BDNY returns to Javits on 13-14 NOV, ArchLIGHT Summit has a video about their event, and AgiLight has an opening for an Outside Sales Rep.

Bryan Bashin was born fully sighted, but over time he lost his eyesight. Like many such people, he tried to hide his blindness. Bryan was, in some senses, different than many. Because as he began to discover that other blind people were leading full and successful lives, he decided that he could do the same. He received training and then began to seek employment and attained a most successful career.   Bryan would tell you that he loves learning and advocating. He is an extremely inclusive individual although he clearly does do a powerful job of advocating for blind and low-vision persons. Oh yes, not vision impaired, but low vision. You will hear about this during our conversation.   For the past 13 years, Bryan Bashin has been the CEO of the San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind. He has proven to be quite an innovator due to his philosophical orientation concerning blindness. You will hear of his accomplishments.   Bryan announced his retirement from the Lighthouse earlier this year. His future plans are typical of Bryan. Come along with us and hear Bryan's story and then please give us a 5-star rating wherever you listen to this podcast episode.     About the Guest: Bryan Bashin, CEO, reports to the Board of Directors and supervises the directors of Communications, Development, Operations, Programs and Enchanted Hills Camp and Retreat. Mr. Bashin has served in this position since 2010. Mr. Bashin's extensive professional experience includes Executive Editor for the Center for Science and Reporting, Assistant Regional Commissioner for the United States Department of Education: Rehabilitation Services, and Executive Director of Society for the Blind in Sacramento. Mr. Bashin has been blind since college and from that time has dedicated a substantial part of his career to advocating for equality, access, training and mentorship for individuals who are blind or low vision. He serves or has served on numerous committees and organizations, including California Blind Advisory Committee, VisionServe Alliance, San Francisco State University's Paul K. Longmore Institute on Disability, World Blind Union, National Industries for the Blind, and California Agencies for the Blind and Visually Impaired.         About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app.   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.     Transcription Notes UM Intro/Outro  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:21 Welcome to unstoppable mindset. And I am really excited today to have an opportunity to talk with Bryan Bashin, the CEO of the San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind. And you will see why as we go forward. Bryan is a very interesting and engaging guy. I've known him for quite a while. And I think we've both known each other we like each other, don't we, Bryan?   Bryan Bashin  01:44 Yeah, we have traveled in the same paths. And we have been on the same side of the barricades.   Michael Hingson  01:51 And that's always a good thing. So you're doing well.   Bryan Bashin  01:57 I'm doing great. This is a this is a good time for me and Lighthouse after 13 years, thinking about sort of a joyous conclusion to a number of projects before I move on.   Michael Hingson  02:10 Wow. Well, that's always a good thing. Well, tell me a little bit about you before the lighthouse growing up and stuff like that, so people get to know about you a bit.   Bryan Bashin  02:20 Sure. The short version I grew up as a sighted boy started becoming blind when I was 12 became legally blind when I was a sophomore at UC Berkeley. And like all newly blind, low vision people tried to hide it for as long as possible, and really failed. I didn't have role models, then, like my Kingson. I didn't really know what was possible in blindness. That pivot came later in my life. And so I just did what a lot of low vision people do. Hide, try to pass all of that. So I did that in my early 20s. I started my career in journalism. I my first job out of Berkeley was at the CBS television affiliate in San Francisco KPI X, API X. Yes, Gen five and the news department there. And I worked there for a couple of years that I wanted to move up in the world. And I joined the channel 10, the CBS Benli a CBS affiliate in Sacramento, and I was higher up on that journalism,   Michael Hingson  03:32 and wrong and you move and you moved from five to 10.   Bryan Bashin  03:35 I did. I doubled. See. After after a few years in local broadcast news, television news, I thought I'm a little more serious person that and I wanted to go deeper. And so I quit my job and I started writing for newspapers, and then magazines, and specialized in science and public policy. So I did lots of work and environment, Space Science, energy usage, epidemiology. You know, for kind of curious guy like me, journalism was a really good fit because it fed all the things I want to learn about him. And I was in my 20s. Somewhere along the way, as I had less than less vision, I knew that I needed to get solutions. And I didn't know where those would come from, but I knew it involves people. But short version is almost 30 years ago. In a quiet time in my life. I just picked up some copies of the Braille monitor and started reading them. And in it, I found all kinds of stories about blind people doing amazing things. Things that I didn't think I could do as a person like travel where I wanted when I want it or efficiently use Computers, all that. So I went into a boot camp. It was then the fourth NFB Training Center. Actually it was in Sacramento. Just that the year that I needed it. It only lasted one year. The Marcelino center run by the California affiliate of the NFB, anyway, long story short, I threw myself into training, got training, and then had the most successful period in journalism I've ever had. And that's the first half of my working career.   Michael Hingson  05:33 Did you ever know mozzie? Marcelino?   Bryan Bashin  05:35 No, I didn't. He passed before the Senator that was named after him. That's right. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  05:41 He was one of the very active early members of the National Federation of the Blind of California and managed a lot of the legislative activities of the Federation. In Sacramento, if you went with him into the Capitol, everyone knew Mazie. Which, which is important.   Bryan Bashin  06:02 Yeah. Yeah, I certainly was living in Sacramento in the 90s. And his memory was an active presence, then. Well, I finished up my immersion training at the Marcelino center. Four years later, I was running the Society for the blind there in Sacramento. Having gotten the confidence, and aspiration, that I could do stuff there, Executive Director, retired after 33 years, and I interviewed and got the job. That's when I got my first taste of real service in the blindness community. Chance to like, think of a project, think of a problem, get funds for it, hire cool staff for it and do it. And for me, you know, I might have written an article in a magazine and a million people would read it, but I wouldn't meet any of them. And I wouldn't have that thing that we all love that community. So when I started working at society for the blind, that community was right there. And it was deeply gratifying. And so I started working on many, many projects. And I did that in Sacramento for six years, had a wild time with it. And then I was asked to apply in the US Department of Education, to be one of the regional commissioners in region nine for the Rehab Services Administration. So that was, that was really bittersweet to leave the Society for the blind, but I wanted to learn more. And suddenly, I found myself responsible for half a billion dollars in federal spending across all disabilities, and learning like a fire hose about the public rehabilitation system. And I did that until all the regional offices were closed by the administration. And I found myself for the first time in my working life, not knowing what I was going to do for a living. So I, I did some expert witnessing in court, I worked with a startup, I did some other things regarding direction, mentoring of blind people looking for employment. And then after 20 years, the director of the Lighthouse for the Blind, took a new job. And it was the first job I was hired for that I actually knew what I was doing when I came in, because I'd run another org like that. And that was 13 years ago.   Michael Hingson  08:36 There you are. What who was the commissioner when the offices closed?   Bryan Bashin  08:42 Yeah, well, it was Joanne Wilson until it was Joanne Yeah, yeah, it was Joanne Wilson, then   Michael Hingson  08:48 no, no, she necessarily had a lot of choices. But   Bryan Bashin  08:51 well, that's a long story. She used everything in her power to oppose this. But it was it was at a higher level that was made. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  09:04 So you've been at the lighthouse 13 years. And tell me a little bit about what it was like when you started and why did you decide to go to the lighthouse?   Bryan Bashin  09:19 You know, one thing that I can say is that my predecessor, had been prudent with funds. And so this was an agency that had good amount of money in the bank, like $40 million. I came from society for the blind. When I got there. We had six weeks of revenue. And we grew that and made it more stable. But I was attracted to the lighthouse because it was a storied organization. It had been around for, you know, 100 years. It owned this amazing camp in Napa that I'll talk about. It had the bones of a really great Oregon As a nation, and I thought I could do something with it. And I came there and I first saw the headquarters building then across from the symphony. And I thought, there's not enough places here to teach. There's not enough public spaces down. I have things happen. It was just the lighthouse had outgrown its its place. And I thought, oh, here we go. Again, I done a capital campaign in Sacramento to get its new building. Now, I'm going to have to do this again in San Francisco. But we looked at that and we thought, it's got to be close to transit. It's got to be in San Francisco, got to have cool places for people to work to ennoble the workforce not to be a dark hole windowless, undistinguished former garage, which was the old, old building, we found a place in the end, after many different things, we found a place right on top on top of the civic center BART station. And through a partnership and some other things we were able, I was able to convince the board to take this leap. And they did. And five years ago, six years ago, now, we occupied our new headquarters, which really has made us a place where people want to come and work and convene and hold events. It really now has the feel of a center.   Michael Hingson  11:32 Chris, the other thing that happened for the for the lighthouse was you got a pretty significant capital infusion along the way.   Bryan Bashin  11:40 Yeah, a little bit. I would do want people to know that this idea for a new building, the search for the Board's agreeing to do it and agreeing to buy it happened all before the big request, right? So we did, we made all that happen. In December and January, January 2014. Five months later, out of the blue, we got the first letter, understanding that we were going to be receiving receiving a request, that turned out to be the largest request in the history of American blindness to an individual $130 million. It turned out. And that allowed so much of what happened after to be possible.   Michael Hingson  12:31 Right. And that was what I was thinking it wasn't so much the building, but then you could really put into practice the vision that you were creating. That's right. That's right. So how, how has the lighthouse changed in over, let's say the last eight years since 2014?   Bryan Bashin  12:52 Yeah, I think I think I could say, ambition and reach and kind of audaciousness some things are pretty well known. We launched the Holman prize for blind ambition, it's a world prize, we've had, it's getting close to 1000 applicants over the seven years we've had the homerun prize. Those applicants come from every continent, maybe I haven't aggregated all of them. But it wouldn't surprise me to say 40 countries or so have applied. And if you go on YouTube and go to home and price.org. And look, you're going to see what blind people are saying they their dreams are from all over the world. And you cannot think about blindness the same way when you see people in rural Nepal or Africa or an urban Europe, talk about what's important to them. There is no real public way to aggregate all these things other than what we've done thus far. And so that's the kind of audaciousness that has come up in the last eight years. But it's been across everything.   Michael Hingson  14:07 What is the homerun prize? Exactly.   Bryan Bashin  14:10 Prom homerun prize is an annual prize awarded to three people each year by independent jury of blind people that the lighthouse convenes none of those juries are Lighthouse employees. The purpose of the prize is to show great growth and ambition in anything. It's not necessarily a project to do good in the world for blind people or though it can be it could be personal growth, like rowing a boat across the Bosphorus or climbing a mountain or organizing something that was never organized before that kind of thing. We award 320 $5,000 awards, and the price has been amazingly popular with hundreds of 1000s of views about blind people on our website and on YouTube. I'm happy to say that our partner Waymo, is now sponsoring one of the prizes at $25,000.   Michael Hingson  15:11 That is pretty exciting. Yeah. And I've I've watched it through the years and it's it is absolutely amazing and wonderful to see the the different attitudes and philosophies and as you said, dreams that blind people have, because most of the time, we're not encouraged.   Bryan Bashin  15:31 Yeah, most of the time people settle. This is, this is really, beyond mere skills that any blind organization teaches. And I don't mean to derogate them, the skills are essential. We can't do anything without skills. But they're not enough. Somehow my you got the confidence to be a captain of your own ship, metaphorically speaking. That's what got you out of the World Trade Center. That's what got you into business in science and everything else. We want to we this is the this is the mission that any Blind Agency really needs to focus on. Beyond skills. How do you teach confidence? How do you teach what Jacobus tenBroek said that we have a right to live in the world to be at that table, that we are not an embarr and a barren sea in the human condition. We're part of the human condition. And so getting that deep knowledge, something that the late James avec said, not just knowing it in your head, but in your heart, that It's respectable to be blind. And all of that that's, that's the best agencies get at that as well.   Michael Hingson  16:49 We as as a class, need to be more in the conversation and it isn't going to happen unless we demand it. You know, it's it's interesting. We celebrated Global Accessibility Awareness Day last, what Thursday, and later in the year, we'll be celebrating some other events regarding disabilities. What amazes me is even with the visibility that's happened so far, it never seems to hit any of the mainstream television news. Casts or talk shows, the I don't see anyone celebrating Disability Employment Awareness Month, or anything relating to disability awareness, like we see African American history or LGBTQ pride, awareness and so on. Why is it that we're just not still included? Even though even though according to the CDC, up to 25%, of all Americans have some sort of a disability. And we'll of course leave out like dependents, which takes in everyone else, but nevertheless.   Bryan Bashin  18:06 Well, you know, we live in a different as a longtime journalist, we live in a different journalistic culture now. And so what triumphs is narrative, not policy. What triumphs is something that gets is clickbait. Something that gets you emotionally. And I won't say that there, there haven't been good stories. The lighthouses then, Board Chair Chris Downey, who you know, is, as one of only a handful of practicing blind architects got 15 minutes on 60 minutes, one of their most popular episodes been rebroadcast four or five times now. That is a powerful narrative. So we need more of them. I really do think that in any state, any blind organization has stories, just like Chris is just as powerful. You know, our job is to actually be out there relationally with journalists so that they can understand what the stories are. But it's not going to be from a press release, or some some kind of awareness month. It's going to have to be the personal connections that we have with journalists so that we can wind up pitching stories.   Michael Hingson  19:27 Well, it's the usual thing. What it really means is we need to tell the story.   Bryan Bashin  19:35 That's right. As soon as it becomes a story about them. We lose, huh? Yeah.   Michael Hingson  19:41 Yeah, we need we need to be out there and tell the story. And you're right. We need to tell it in a way that will click with people and interest people. But I think that that certainly is something that can be done and we We also collectively need to understand that we need to tell the story and not be shy about it.   Bryan Bashin  20:08 That's right. Yeah, that's right.   Michael Hingson  20:11 And I think all too often, we tend to be shy and we don't want to, to be out there talking about I remember early on after September 11, we got pretty visible in the news. And it was because really of me contacting Guide Dogs for the Blind, just to say, we got out because people from Guide Dogs had seen us in the world transip Trade Center, they've visited us. And I joined guide dogs in about a year afterward. And there was a lot of visibility interviews in the media. By that time, we had been on Larry King Live three times. And on one of the guide dog lists, somebody said, Well, he's just a meteor media whore. And a number of people fortunately reacted, I did not, but a number of people said, What are you talking about? He's out there telling the story. And that is, in reality, the case is that somebody needs to and we all should be out there telling the story saying we're better than people think.   Bryan Bashin  21:12 That's right. That is really true. You know, there's an inherent tension between this knee that you just said about, we need to tell the story because otherwise Hollywood is going to tell the story about us. And the need, you know what the most radical thing is, it's the average blind person doing their average job, unremarkably, and without fanfare and attention, that is the revolution. And so, you know, why should Why should every blind person feel obligated to write a book or do a story. And yet, we have a responsibility as a you have taken to say, This is my life experience, people will learn from it. And so I'll do the hard work to get it out there.   Michael Hingson  21:59 But the very fact that other people are just going to work, and trying to go to work, doing the job, and trying to even get better at doing the job is as much if not more of the story as anything else.   Bryan Bashin  22:14 That's the real revolution. And that's the world we want to help bring about.   Michael Hingson  22:20 So I am curious about something. I believe it's been attributed to you. Scary already. But but I've I've adopted it. People say that we're blind or visually impaired, and I object to the concept of visually impaired because I've always thought I looked the same. I don't like vision impaired because I think I got lots of vision, although as I love to say, but I don't see so good. But I can accept vision impaired. What do you think about that, that concept of the, the terminology like that? And where do words matter in what we do?   Bryan Bashin  23:00 words do matter. And every every generation needs to own and invent words that are relevant to them. And so although I work in a building that says Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, I've come to see that word visually impaired is actually ablest. It means that we are being defined by what we cannot do, we have impairment of vision, we are not a normal part of society. You know, I think the more neutral and non ablest way to construct it is just to talk about people who are blind, or have low vision. Yeah, so that's, that's a positive way. It's neutral way. All these other things over the years, skirting around the word blind, as if that was something we shouldn't be proud of, are talking about the proud people with low vision, instead of looking at them as just simply a characteristic they have, they have low vision. We look at them as impairment or other other ways in which they're, quote, not normal. So that's why words matter. And we in our publications at Lighthouse tried to use a modern language to talk about blindness.   Michael Hingson  24:19 And I do like the concept of low vision. If you talk to a person who is deaf, and you say hearing impaired, you're apt to be shot because that is absolutely unacceptable, deaf or hard of hearing, which is the same concept.   Bryan Bashin  24:34 Yeah. And of course, you always want to talk to the people ourselves, about how we want to be caught. Yeah.   Michael Hingson  24:43 Unfortunately, I think there's still all too many of us that have not really thought it through. But I think as people learn and recognize that we do have the same right to live in the world and are demanding it more, more and more people will wreck denies the value of something like blind or a person who happens to be low vision.   Bryan Bashin  25:05 There are agencies around the country who have steadily taken the word blind out of their name. I think it's a profound mistake, as if who we are needs to be euphemized or just lately swept under the rug. I am a proud blind person because I've been around other blind people who haven't want to euphemized who we are. But yet we have agencies around the country with hundreds of millions of dollars who think that they don't want the word blind in their name. I think the first step in proper rehabilitation is to say who you are.   Michael Hingson  25:46 And do it with pride. Yep. So well, and just to carry that on a little bit more, Dr. Ken Jernigan passed down the late Dr. Ken Jernigan, past president of the National Federation of the Blind, I think came up with the best definition of blindness of all, which is basically if you are eyesight is decreased to the point where you have to use alternatives to full eyesight to accomplish things, then you should consider yourself blind and there's nothing wrong with that.   Bryan Bashin  26:17 Yeah, we're all in this together. Just like, I can't speak for that community. But it's been 150 years since African Americans blacks would talk about various grades and gradations of, of their, their heritage. Just part of the movement now as it should be,   Michael Hingson  26:40 as it should be. And it's unfortunate that it takes some of the kinds of things that it has done to raise awareness for black lives, if you will. But hopefully we're making some progress, although the politicians tend to be the biggest obstructionist to a lot of that big surprise   Bryan Bashin  27:01 there, Mike.   Michael Hingson  27:05 Yeah, it is amazing. As I love to tell people I I try not to be political on this podcast. So I'm an equal opportunity abuser, you know, I'm, I'm with Mark Twain. Congress is that grand old benevolent asylum for the helpless and that's all there is to it. So we can we can abuse them all. It's it's a whole lot more fun. Well, so you have really made some evolutionary changes in the lighthouse. You mentioned enchanted Hills, which I first learned about when I was here in Southern California as a teenager, did not go to Enchanted hills. But I went to what that time, what was the foundation for the junior blinds camp camp Bloomfield, and but I've heard and kept up with enchanted Hills throughout the years and the camp had some challenges a few years ago with the fires and so on. That that took place up in Northern California, and you've been really working to address a lot of that. Tell us a little if you would about enchanted hills. Yeah. Where it was, where it came from, and and where it's going? Well,   Bryan Bashin  28:17 a blind woman rose Resnick founded it in 1950, because she wanted blind people, blind youth and adults to be active participants in nature. At the time, most blind folks went to schools for the blind, urban and restrictive. And Rose had a great experience growing up back east, with camps for the blind, it was a liberation for her. There were no camps when in outwest, for the blind, he founded the first one that we've had at Lighthouse for 72 years now. Why is it important? That mentorship to see cool blind people who are just a few years ahead of you who are owning their lives, you can't learn this in a classroom. You've got to hang out with people, it takes time. It's like that, that same mentorship, you'll see in a convention, a blank convention. The power of that is you got to week, well, you've got a summer at camp, and you've got a summer with people where you can actually have time to finish your conversations and to get lost and try to grow in different ways and fail and try again. And this is a huge and powerful part. What any camp for the blind is there are only a handful left in the United States. So in 2017, those Napa fires we watched as the fires got closer and closer to camp we evacuated and then watch for week as the fires crept closer, we didn't know if camp would survive. And when we finally were able to get back in camp, we found that half of the buildings had burned the old camp deep in the Redwood Forest. We have 311 acres there. It's an enormous P and valuable and beautiful piece of property. And soon after, first we were relieved that nobody was hurt. But after our team realized like this was the opportunity that had waited for three generations, how could we reimagine camp? What are the things now in 2022 that bind people wish they had that we didn't have before. So yes, of course, we have the same all all American camp.   Bryan Bashin  30:44 But we're rebuilding camp to be environmentally friendly, universally accessible, every building at camp every every building at El is will be wheelchair accessible. Every watt of power and use will not be through trucked in propane or hydro or fossil fuels, but be solar generated with our solar canopy over our park parking lot. Every building will be heated and insulated. So is changing from summer camp to a year round place where up to 220 people can stay and learn and form community, both informal things like classes, retreats, and all of that. But informally now, when we reopen, you'll be able to grow, go up to camp with a group of your friends and 20 people, family reunion, whatever you can cook for yourself, or you can take advantage of our full time kitchen staff and all of that. Imagine a blind Asilomar a conference center that is accessible, networked with everything from braille embossers, to the latest tech stuff. That's what camp is and every last part of it, please touch, please use our woodworking stuff, learn how to do ceramics, get to learn how to own and care for a horse. Get in that boat and Sue ads and, and row, go swim, go do arts, go do music and our wonderful new Redwood Grove theater, all of that stuff. So this was the inspiration when when the camp burned five years ago, we were able to get all these buildings on the master plan with a county, we found a contractor we're halfway through the rebuilding all of lower camp now you can see those buildings, the foundations are poured, the roofs are up we're putting in Windows this week. And when we were done, we'll have this amazing, beautiful village in the Redwoods where people can stroll and accessible paths, no guide ropes anymore, by the way, accessible paths. And as you go around camp, you'll be able to be just within hailing distance of other people, people you may not know but should know. So half of the program at camp and why it produces 40 50,000 hours each summer of people contacting people half that program is just that, not what we're talking at you about but people that you meet and form lifelong bonds.   Michael Hingson  33:31 And that's a whole different idea for a camp in general, but it is really creating community and people will leave with I would think lots of memories they never thought they would get.   Bryan Bashin  33:46 You know one of the key features that has been the hallmark of the last 13 years is that we usually have 20 counselors and another half dozen counselors in training. Three quarters or up to 90% of those counselors are now blind, or have low vision. No camp hardly in the country does that there are a lot of camps in which everybody in power. Every director and every assistant director and every counselor, they're all sighted. They're all very well meaning and giving. But where's the mentorship there? Where's the role modeling? So in Jannah Hills is different. The overwhelming majority of our counselors and counselors and training are blind. Our staff and area leaders are overwhelmingly blind as well. Because this is part of the purpose of camp to be able to meet people who are in charge of their own lives and a part of a community   Michael Hingson  34:45 and that's as good as it can possibly get. How does the the camp then it's it's a separate entity but it's part of the lighthouse. How did the the two connect what kind of value does Is the lighthouse itself bringing to the camp and vice versa?   Bryan Bashin  35:03 Yeah, we're all one organization. But increasingly, because of the new construction, we use camp as a retreat for people who want to go deep into their blindness. So for people who are newly blind, or for people who have been blind a while, and now have decided it's time to do something about it, we have an initial immersion called Changing vision changing lives, people go to camp. And there, they take their first steps, sometimes, first time they ever put a white cane in their hands, or their first introduction to what a computer could do. All these kinds of things. It's a deep dive and initial dive, immersion to whet people's appetites for the real hard work that comes after camp where they're going to put in time to learn skills of blindness. But before you start doing skills, you have to have the why, why are we doing that, and you have to have met a dozen or two dozen blind people who are just using those skills. So you're not learning that as an abstraction. Camp is wonderful that way. So the teachers who teach edtech and oh nm, and braille, and, you know, independent living and home repair, and all, these are the same people, whether they're at our headquarters in San Francisco, or they're in a special retreat in Napa. That's what we're going to be doing more and more of around the around the year. Same thing is true with our new program for little for blind infants and toddlers, lighthouse, little learners is an early intervention program. From across northern California, we have built camp in part to be a wonderful place for families of blind infants and toddlers to come together. Almost every family that has a newborn who's blind is utterly unprepared, and is so hungry for information. And of course, as you know, if you get it right, your child grows up and does anything that she or he wants. But those are key years. And so our family cabins now are built so that infants and toddlers, and then later on young kids will have time with their families before it's time for them to go off to camp individually, when they get into the middle years at a teens.   Michael Hingson  37:33 You mentioned the blindness conventions like the National Federation of the Blind convention, and it brought to mind something that I think about every time I go to a convention or know that a convention is coming up, especially with the NFB because of the the way that the organization has handled conventions, there is nothing like watching a five year old who suddenly has a cane put in their hand. And they're given a little bit of cane travel lessons over a very short period of time at the convention. And then they're dragging their parents all around the convention hotel, that the parents usually can't keep up and the kids are just going a mile a second.   Bryan Bashin  38:13 Yeah, that is, that's what we all want. We want that aha moment, like that. And parents are. So when they're new in the game, it's not just talking about the best ophthalmologist, although that's important and the best stimulation and the best this and that. They're also looking at those counselors and counselors in training and seeing their kids in 15 years. And they're just seeing competent blind people. Give them the sense about what's possible and why. And that that is another unspoken role of conventions, or in retreats like camp where you have the time to put into what is like the big change in life. Your blindness is not just something you do superficially, you got to dive in camp helps with that.   Michael Hingson  39:07 It's a characteristic blindness is simply a characteristic. It is something that we all have as part of our beings. And I think it's an enhancement because it allows us should we take advantage of it to have a significantly different perspective on part of life than most people have? And it gives us a broader and more open perspective, which is as good as it gets.   Bryan Bashin  39:38 Absolutely. You know, we're in an age which is supposedly celebrating diversity and all of that, well the diversity that we bring to the to the human experience is profound. And you know, we we will celebrate our intersectionalities with all the other human diversities. Are we are, we are good to live in an age, which doesn't sort of characterize and other, but works or at least seeks efficiently to include.   Michael Hingson  40:13 Sometimes it's a little more superficial than we probably would like. And there are things happening in our modern technological era that are a challenge. For example, one of the examples that I often give is nowadays, there are so many television commercials that are totally graphic pictorial, they may have music, but absolutely no verbiage to the commercial. So a number of us are left out of understanding them. And of course, graphics are so easy to produce. But what the people who produce those commercials, it seems to me don't realize is that by not having verbiage, and having meaningful and full content, verbally presented in the commercials, they're not just leaving out us, but they're leaving out anyone who gets up from their couch or chair, when the commercial comes on to go get a drink. They'll never know what the commercials were about, they're missing a true dimension of access to all it seems to me.   Bryan Bashin  41:19 Well, you put your finger on a key aspect of our culture, which is we live in an age of screens, great. Screens are ubiquitous and cheap. And so we're, we're in a in an age now where it's sort of post linguistic almost, that the ability to manipulate and to show successions of images, capture, you owe 90 some percent of people most of the time, but it does a great disservice to the abilities of human beings of all sorts to appreciate. And it kind of cheapens the subtlety and discourse, I think, you know, we this this ability, words are able to convey a universe of experiences in just a few syllables. Pictures, not so much, and not so standard.   Michael Hingson  42:19 Someone said, I don't recall who but I read it somewhere. Maybe a picture is worth 1000 words. But it takes up a whole lot more memory. I love that. It's an it's so true. Yeah. And we, we really need to recognize collectively the value of challenging and using all of our senses, it's so important to do that, and no scent should be left out. Now, we haven't figured out a way yet to transmit, smell and taste through the television system. And that may be a long ways away. But we certainly have other senses that we should be using. And that isn't, and shouldn't just be screens. But hopefully we can get that discourse to occur and get, get people to change, maybe a little bit about what they're thinking and see the value in that change again.   Bryan Bashin  43:21 Well, you've been a pioneer in this. And as things emerge, I know Mike Kingston is going to be part of it.   Michael Hingson  43:29 Well, it's been fun to to be involved with some of the technologies. You know, for me, it started with Ray Kurzweil. And then last decade was IRA, which has certainly been a product that has made a significant difference for a lot of people but other butter products along the way being involved in some of the refreshable braille displays and, and a lot of people don't realize how easy it is in some senses to produce Braille today because refreshable braille displays means I can take any file, any like ASCII file or a Word file, and put it in a medium that I can import into a Braille display and suddenly read that document. That's, that's pretty new.   Bryan Bashin  44:15 I think we are just now on the cusp of, of having critical mass in a refreshable Braille display that's got enough pixels to be useful as an image producer, and then ways to quickly and sort of economically produce those images. Yeah, Lighthouse has a unit MATLAB they have a group called touching the news. And here every week or two, there's a news graphic, the map of Ukraine during the war, the what is that helicopter on perseverance look like? Those kinds of things, the ephemera and the news of our society, the ability to get those quickly out. If you have a Braille display or a Braille embosser is going to really we're almost at the time when culture will pivot, and 61,000 Blind K through 12 errs in American schools will be able to get new and fresh material all the time, and compare it or look at the output of an oscilloscope in real time, and change and vary and act in a lab accordingly. So the efforts now to make real time expressible refreshable. screen displays are amazing and so important.   Michael Hingson  45:39 The other thing that I would hope as we get into more of a virtual real world virtual reality world, is that we would do more with sound binaural sound which is easy to produce, which truly with a set of headphones allows you to hear sound coming from any direction. And actually can help immerse all gamers in games rather than it just being from the screen. But if they do it right, it certainly would make a lot of games more accessible to us than are available today.   Bryan Bashin  46:12 If you've heard a good binaural recording of something, it can be terrifying. The lighthouse work with this group called The World According to sound to produce several dozen binaural shows about the rich experience that blind people have every day. And you can find those online. We worked with Chris and Sam, who just did splendid work for us about how we live how we how we go around what we notice the subtleties and richness in our lives. So there's there's importance for that. And then later, if you look ahead a few years, the metaverse and the idea of group connections, because what we're doing now Mike, on Zoom is not going to be just like a pandemic, Blip. This is the way people are going to interact. And we want this to be richer. I want to be in a room where I can hear who's on the left of the conference table and who's on the right. Right, I want to be able to face them in the three dimensional view on that screen. It's coming. It's coming quickly. And we need to be part of what MATA is doing as they may be the standard or other people may develop other standards. But this is around the corner.   Michael Hingson  47:33 And the technology is really here to do it. It's it is a matter of making it a priority and deciding to do it in such a way that will keep the costs down. And that isn't all that hard to do. Yeah. So for you, you are I think you have been appointed to the Ability One commission.   Bryan Bashin  47:58 That's right, President Biden appointed me last July. And it's been a wild ride ever since   Michael Hingson  48:04 tell us about the commission and what you're doing with it and so on.   Bryan Bashin  48:09 Well, this commission was set up during the FDR time in 1938. And it was designed originally to provide some way that blind people, and then later on, people with other significant disabilities could find work and an age where there was almost no work. The employment rate of blind people in 1938 was I don't know two or 3%, or something like that. So it was a groundbreaking bit of legislation in the 30s. But over the years, it became a place where blind people worked in non integrated settings. And some people call them sheltered workshops. There were many blind people who are earning less than minimum wage because of a loophole in the law there and all of that. This has been a fight for the last decades to eliminate the sub minimum wage, and also now to seek blind people not working in silos without the benefit of the wider world only working in a place with people with disabilities. But to integrate and find opportunities for that same federal contracting federal contracts federal government buys, what six or $700 billion worth of stuff every year. This ability one program uses about 4 billion of the 600 billion to provide employment, people will make things the lighthouse itself. We have a social enterprise we make environmentally sound cleaning compounds and disinfecting compounds using sort of state of the art Technology, we got an EPA Safer Choice Award for how benign our stuff is, instead of the other harsh ammonia and caustic chemicals. Anyway. So on this commission, the job is how much wiggle room do we have to provide integrated employment now, you know, if you're working in making airplane parts, only with blind people in a separate building, and meanwhile, Boeing has people doing the exact same job. along with everything else, and the glitz and glamour of working for international big company. Why shouldn't blind people be part of that, instead of the sort of set aside, it was a great idea in the 1930s and 40s, and 50s. Now it's time to change. So the first step of the change is our strategic plan. And we've rolled out the draft strategic plan, we have had eight or maybe more now community meetings about it. The public engagement with this change is 500%, more than we had in the past with the AbilityOne. Commission. We we have launched this strategic plan, I sure it'll be codified in upcoming weeks, when it is over five years, we're going to both look at ways that we can get competitive integrated employment experiences as much as we can. And that may require that we open up the Javits, Wagner eau de Act, the legislation in order to maybe change some possibilities to increase competitive integrated employment. Because in the 30s, it just said employment, that's our charge. The idea of competitive integrated employment for blind people, or people with significant that was science fiction, and FDR, Stein. Now it's something you and I have both lived. And why shouldn't the 45,000 people in the program right now have that opportunity? So that's my work in the AbilityOne. Commission, to bring the fruits of federal contracting to the hundreds of federal contractors, and let them benefit from a workforce that includes diversity of all kinds, including people who are blind,   Michael Hingson  52:28 is the tide turning so that we can see the day that the Javits Wagner, eau de Act, Section 14, see will actually go by the wayside, and we'll be able to truly address the issue of competitive employment.   Bryan Bashin  52:44 Yes, we have taken many steps along that line, the main step is that organizations that hold such certificates may not be allowed, in the very short term it very shortly to compete for new contracts. So the cost of paying subminimum h is going to be very expensive for people who wish to get more contracts. This is in process now. We are not going to, you know, pull the emergency cord and throw people out of work, who are now working under these programs, but new contracts, and new opportunities are going to be you know, bias towards competitive integrated employment. And, you know, on the blind side, there are no organizations in the blindness side of Ability One paying sub minimum wages Now, none. That's that's already ended on the significant disability sides. I think the number is around 3000. People still are working on legacy contracts like that. We expect that if I talk to you in a couple of years, Mike, that will be gone.   Michael Hingson  54:02 Well, and historically, I think when the act was originally established, it was done with good intentions. And maybe it wasn't as five sided as it could be. But as I understood the original Act, the non competitive employment centers were supposed to be training centers to get people prepared to and then out into the more competitive world of employment. But it morphed and evolved over the years to something different than that.   Bryan Bashin  54:33 It is and if legally, if you look, there's nothing in the ACT about training. It's just about employment. That's that was the mindset in 1938. Yeah. Now, of course, that's what we want. That's what we want to celebrate. We want to give the nonprofit agencies credit for training people and bringing them out into competitive employment. We think if we open up the act, we want to strike threat. So those agencies who are successful at getting people trained up and out, should be rewarded for that.   Michael Hingson  55:08 That makes perfect sense. What is the pandemic done to the whole rehabilitation system? And what do you see happening as we come out of it?   Bryan Bashin  55:19 This is not a happy topic.   Michael Hingson  55:22 Yeah, it is a challenge.   Bryan Bashin  55:25 The the number of people who are just enrolled in VR across the country has been slashed a third to a half those those people part of that is because VR with its three and a half billion dollars worth of funding, doesn't find, you know, the homemaker outcome, which is basically blind, independent living training, that's now no longer legal. So those people who went to VR thinking they could learn how to do certain things. But without a vocational goal, that is not not any, any more part of the public rehab system. So some people went away for that. But I think the larger question and it's kind of profound is that we've been through two years of a pandemic, after, after a century of saying to blind people get out there, learn to travel, be at everybody's table, take risks. And now we've had two years and more of stay in your place. It's a dangerous world. And our you know, my observation is all of our skills are rusty, are on him skills are rusty, our social skills are rusty. And everybody in the world will say, Oh, you're blind is easy to stay at home, look from look for work at home and all of this, but we lose if we're not in the room. And so the bottom line is that the pandemic has caused, I think a lot of us to take a giant step back in our social integration and just our horizons. Through the pandemic, I watched as my sighted friends could just get in the car and go where they wanted safely. Every time you and I want to go somewhere, Mike, we have to get into a conveyance with a person of unknown infectivity status. This is the nature code, we can't just Uber ourselves to a park without the sense like, okay, we're taking a controlled risk. This is why a future of autonomous vehicles is so great, no guide dog denials, no coughing driver, who may or may not be wearing a mask these days, technology can be our friend, if the technologists start considering our needs.   Michael Hingson  57:53 Well, and autonomous vehicles are, are definitely in our future and the whole concept of opposing them. Anyone who does we're, we're seeing someone who just doesn't have a lot of vision, because the reality is that they're, as you would say, right around the corner. I think some of the things that have happened with Tesla vehicles is unfortunate, especially when, in reality, they were probably not using the technology correctly. And that causes many accidents is anything. I have a friend who owns a Tesla, I actually drove it down the I 15 toward San Bernardino a few years ago. But I called him one day and he told me he had an accident with his Tesla. Now he had driven some race cars in the past and he said that there was a situation where a car was coming at him. He had the Tesla in copilot mode and was monitoring. But when this vehicle was coming at him as a racecar driver, he said my inclination is to speed up and get away from it. The car wanted to slow down and he said I overrode the copilot and we had an accident. I should have let the car do   Bryan Bashin  59:14 it. Your way there. I can't let that pass. Mike. You were in the driver's seat of a Tesla on Interstate 15.   Michael Hingson  59:24 Absolutely, why not? No, he was he was there of course. And but I had my hands on the wheel and we had it in copilot mode and I could feel it moving. It was a pretty straight run. But we did it for about 15 minutes. And then I said no, I don't think that the Highway Patrol would be happy with us if we kept that going.   Bryan Bashin  59:44 I don't think the statute of limitations quite expired on that one bike so   Michael Hingson  59:50 well, they gotta prove it now. I don't know it's been more than two years and nothing and nothing happened. I will wasn't in the car with the accident, we had a completely uneventful time, I just want to point out   Bryan Bashin  1:00:06 now, but these, these technologies, we must be pressing the companies for Level Five accessibility. That means from the time you walk down your friend steps to the car waiting there for the time you get to your destinations, front steps, you're in control the whole time. Yeah, it would be heartbreaking to have legislation that allows less than that. So that yeah, you have to like drive until you're on the freeway, and then you can do autonomous driving, that would lock us all out. That would mean this whole technology is useless for us.   Michael Hingson  1:00:44 And that would be useless legislation, it wouldn't solve the big problem that the autonomous vehicle can bring us. I'm a firm believer, and we got to get the concept of driving out of the hands of drivers. Because, as far as I'm concerned, using a Tesla or not the way most people drive on the road, I would certainly be able to do as well as they do.   Bryan Bashin  1:01:07 Absolutely. I wrote in, I wrote an autonomous vehicle in San Francisco last summer. And I felt it in control, confident, cautious, but it had a different sort of feel in that car and felt like I noticed like in San Francisco, if you want to make a left turn, a sighted driver would sort of drive into the intersection, start making the turn. And then once you're made the 90 degree turn, then accelerate the autonomous driver drives into the intersection and starts accelerating in the intersection intersection, knowing full well that it knows and has decided where it wants to go. So if it was more confidently powering into the term than a human one would do. I found that interesting.   Michael Hingson  1:02:05 It is, and I just am firmly convinced that we will make the road so much more safer if we take not the decision making but the whole concept of driving away from so many people who haven't learned to do it. Well, it does mean that we need to program the technology appropriately. And well. We're still on the cusp, but it's coming and it's going to be here sooner than we probably think.   Bryan Bashin  1:02:36 Yeah, well, the main thing is that all there may be 50 Different groups five, zero, looking at autonomous driving, it's turning out to be a much harder technical problem than people were saying just a few years back. But we need to be in those early design phases. You know, my car right now has a radio that I can't use. Yeah, because it needs a touchscreen. I mean, if they can't get that, right, what about the ability to change directions, at a stop on a whim, respond to a safety emergency, we need to let the folks know, all the ways that we need to be involved and not like was one set of the Mercury astronauts, we're not just spamming again.   Michael Hingson  1:03:25 Right? Well, and the the Tesla, for example, is so disappointing, because everything is really touchscreen driven. So I could deal with the wheel and deal with the car once someone else completely shut it up. And there is some ability to do voice activation, if you do the right things with the touchscreen first. And the bottom line is I couldn't work the radio, I couldn't do anything that a passenger should normally be able to do. Because it's all touchscreen driven. And it really takes away, it seems to me from the driving experience, even because I have to focus on the touchscreen. I can't be watching the road as well as a sighted driver.   Bryan Bashin  1:04:10 Yeah, this is not inherent to blindness. It's just smart design that's inclusive. And those are fun projects. And that's when you get blind people, engineers, by engineers, sighted engineers together on a problem that is a beautiful Association and it produces really great results.   Michael Hingson  1:04:31 I'm remember I remember some of the early discussions that we had when we were working on the pedestrian enhancement Safety Act and we worked with the National Association of Automobile Manufacturers and eventually got a law passed that said that quiet cars and so on needed to make a noise although we're still really waiting for a standard so that there is a sound that hybrid cars and totally quiet cars produce and it's taking way To long, unfortunately, but still working together, we were able to educate and get some people to really imagine a lot more than they thought that they would. And we're making progress, but it sometimes it just seems like it's very slow. Well, let me ask you one last thing, what are you going to do when you leave the lighthouse, you announced that you're, you're wanting to move on. And I know that there is now a search to find a, a person who will step into your shoes, which I think is going to be an impossibility. But what are you going to do?   Bryan Bashin  1:05:37 Well, I love I love the search, I love that lighthouse is going to have a long, open, transparent process to find that right person. So that will be wonderful to cheer them on when they show up. But for me, I am a guy who likes learning. And I've had 13 years of heavy responsibility running a large agency, I want to be in places where I have more of a beginner mind. That could be journalism, that could be advocacy, it will be advocacy. That will be in design, like we were just talking about autonomous vehicles or other interesting projects. I would like to be in those places, whether it be corporate boards, or design Charettes, or architecture, any of these things were blind people haven't been before, to sort of bring people together to make really exquisite designs, and beautiful human centered outcomes. So whether it's working with the Ability One Commission, or working on contract with companies that have a problem to design, whether it's it's talking truth to power, and making sure that our extended community has is protected and safe and supported in Congress in the state house. You'll find me in all those places.   Michael Hingson  1:07:04 Well, I hope that as you move on and do things that you will come back and talk with us and keep us posted and give us a chance to learn from you and and maybe give you things that you can use as well. So I hope that this won't be the only time we hear from you on this podcast.   Bryan Bashin  1:07:22 It's always a pleasure, Mike, it's in conversation with you. I learned so much. And I feel we are part of that same community.   Michael Hingson  1:07:30 How can people learn about you, the lighthouse, and so on?   Bryan Bashin  1:07:35 Well, our websites always a good place to start WWW dot Lighthouse dash s f.org.   Michael Hingson  1:07:44 And everything is there, there are so many different programs that the lighthouse offers. And there's so much that all of us can learn from the various adventures and programs that the Lighthouse has. So I hope that you'll all go visit WWW dot Lighthouse dash s s.org and peruse the pages. And if you're able to do so maybe consider volunteering or being involved in some way. And I hope that you'll make that happen. If people want to reach out to me, we are always available. As I tell people every week you can reach me via email at Michael H I at accessabe.com or through the podcast page which is www dot Michael hingson M I C H A E L H I N G S O N.com/podcast. And once you finish listening to this, please give us a five star rating. We love those five star ratings and, and Brian, hopefully you'll listen and give us a five star rating when this comes up.   Bryan Bashin  1:08:46 Oh, I'm already pre sold on this one. You're also welcome to leave my email address. I'll go folks on on the website or here. It's simply b Bastion b ba Shi n at Lighthouse stash fsf.org.   Michael Hingson  1:09:03 So reach out to Brian and I'm sure that discussions will be interesting. And as I said we want to hear of your adventures as you go forward. Thank you, Michael. Thanks very much for being here. And to all of you. We'll see you next week on unstoppable mindset.   UM Intro/Outro  1:09:23 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

All too often questions and disputes regarding access for persons with disabilities are not settled until they wind up in a courtroom. Some of the best lawyers who address these issues have disabilities themselves and thus bring a strong personal commitment to the debate.   Meet David Shaffer, a blind civil rights lawyer who will tell us about his own commitment to the law and to the rights of persons with disabilities. As you will hear, David did not start out litigating civil rights cases and he didn't even begin his life as a blind person. He has a fascinating journey we all get to experience. From his beginning as a Stanford law student through his work today on internet accessibility and inclusion David Shaffer's story will help us all see more clearly how we all can work harder to include nearly %25 of persons with disabilities in the mainstream of society. Some directories do not show full show notes. For the complete transcription please visit https://michaelhingson.com/podcast About the Guest: David Shaffer is a blind attorney with  over 35 years of legal practice experience in the Metro area of Washington DC. He currently specializes in ADA Consulting for tech companies using his  previous work as a Section 508 coordinator and lead counsel in defending the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority in a class action under the ADA and Rehabilitation Act. David says “my goal is to ensure the world wide web is accessible to anyone and everyone as I am legally blind, hard of hearing and have learned to understand the extreme necessity of this issue for all persons with disabilities”.   In 2006 David began losing his eyesight due to Glaucoma. As is so often the case, his ophthalmologist did not confront his increasing loss of sight. As David described it, “it was after I totaled two cars in 2009 that I finally recognized that I was blind”. He received blindness orientation and training through the Virginia Department of Rehabilitation and the Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind in Washington DC.   In addition to his work on internet access cases, David specializes in civil rights cases for women, minorities, and individuals with disabilities, and have represented hundreds of women and minorities in nation-wide class actions against federal law enforcement agencies, such as the FBI, DEA, ICE, and the Secret Service. He also represents individuals with disabilities in seeking accessible accommodations in the workplace and represents them in employment litigation. About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can also subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes Michael Hingson  00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i  capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson  01:22 Hi, welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. And today we have I think, a person who's pretty unstoppable, at least I tend to think so he he can make his own comments and judgment about that. But I'd like you all to meet David Shaffer. David is a blind civil rights attorney has lots of stories to tell I'm sure about all of that. And I think has a lot of interesting things that will inspire all of us, but also a lot of things to make us think David, welcome to Unstoppable Mindset.   David Shaffer  01:57 Welcome, thanks for the great introduction. I'm happy to be on here I look forward to discussing issues involving accessibility and adjustment to blindness.   Michael Hingson  02:11 Well, let's see what we can what we can do. So you, um, you are not blind when you first were growing up, as I understand.   David Shaffer  02:22 That's right. I always had horrible vision and was tremendously nearsighted. But until I got to about in my late 40s, it was I could still get by with glasses or hard contact lenses. And that was about the time that I acquired a guy comma. And the comma went undiagnosed for about a year due to some idiosyncrasies in my eye, which misread eye pressure on a standard test. And so by the time I went to a specialist figured out that I had glaucoma, even though the pressure test didn't show it, I was I was gone, I was legally blind my visions about 2800 But it's the closest they can measure it. But I still see some I can see shapes and things and it depends a lot on light and in various issues. But I'm pretty much reliant upon my cane and, and my technology these days to practice law.   Michael Hingson  03:42 So you sort of had to go through an adjustment process, obviously about becoming blind and being blind and acknowledging that how did all that go? What kind of training did you have? Or when did you decide that you really didn't see like you used to see?   David Shaffer  03:58 A, I realized that after I totaled two cars, that kind of was the wake up solution for me. It started off with night, severe night blindness. And so they tried to accommodate me by letting me go home at three in the winter, going home before dark, while I can still drive but quickly ended up at a point where I couldn't see the drive I couldn't see across the street. That was a tough adjustment because I was in the middle of practicing law at the time. I was a general counsel at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Just finished up huge ADA class action, kind of reforming the agency's paratransit system. And then I started realizing that I couldn't see my notes anymore that I couldn't see Oh, The face of witnesses on the witness stand. And suddenly, litigation, which was my primary focus became extremely difficult, if not impossible. It was it was very difficult because my employer had no idea how to adjust to somebody who was blind, until there's only one other blind person or organization. And she had a totally different role. So it was a mismatched series of attempts to accommodate me, that pretty much all failed, just try it. It started out with magnifiers and ZoomText and all that. But it finally became evident that I needed to learn to use the screen readers properly, and not try to just magnify things 20 times and get by. That was that was very challenging, because I was trying to keep up the practice a lot at the same time, while no longer be able to see what I was doing. Fortunately, I finally, through Columbia Lighthouse for the Blind, got hooked up with the Virginia's rehab agency. And they gave me initial, you know, training jaws and things like that on them. basic survival. But the problem is that these state agencies are so low on funding that I was expected to practice law with a total of six hours of God's training. And that's all that they would allocate to me. Obviously, that was not adequate. To become proficient enough to practice law, I can barely read a website or a document. So I just had to go out and get my own training and pay for it myself. And I still do to this day, due to lack of resources that Virginia had. I understand it's much better in Maryland, where I live now. But now that I've taught myself and paid for my own lessons, and I'm pretty advanced jobs user and, and, and Diane Tasker. So what happened next was I began a campaign at at Metro to make technology accessible was once I learned to use JAWS, I realized I couldn't use their website, because the public website wasn't accessible. I couldn't look up things for people on the phone. I couldn't use our internet at all. I couldn't even do my own timesheets anymore, because none of that was accessible. And that was a big problem. Because we'd struggled over that organization organization's initial reaction was, we're not covered by 508. Because we're not part of the federal government, despite the fact that we're a federal contractor, and therefore required to comply with 508. Anyway. So after four years of fighting, and complaining, I finally got them to adopt an accessibility policy. They made me the section 508 officer. And then again, I taught myself accessibility, I taught myself web accessibility through DQ University online, enough so that I could start guiding the, the team that that made up the website on how to make it accessible. So that was kind of how this all developed, that I went from zero competence to now being a fairly recognized   David Shaffer  08:57 web caster and user of this technology.   Michael Hingson  09:02 Let's go back a little bit. So you, you have been in law all your life. What What got you into that? Why did you decide to choose law in the first place? Because obviously, you didn't have some of the same causes that you do now like blindness and accessibility and so on.   David Shaffer  09:21 Well, I grew up in a town of 1000 people, or Ohio. My stepfather was a lawyer. He'd been a former state senator and Majority Leader of the Ohio Senate. So he was of course the only lawyer in town and the only way or pro for a while around nearby, but I saw how he helped people from anything from a divorce to a car accident DWI to a criminal offense to any sort of state funding. I mean, he did everything And, you know, clients are constantly coming to our house in the evening and not just to his office, and it was just like part of our life was what we do we help people with legal problems. I remember I was so curious about the law that we get a decent Law Library in my house. And so if I would ask him a legal question, at 12 years old, he'd make me go into his office and look it up in American jurisprudence, or how jurisprudence, bring him back the answer, and then we discuss it. So I was doing legal research from 12 years old, onward. And I, I guess, I just got hooked up with a plus the political angle I would, because we were all very active in politics. And my stepfather ran campaigns for the Democratic Congress, in our district and things like that. So politics law was kind of in my blood from from very early on.   Michael Hingson  11:06 Well, clearly, you had a good teacher, because he made you go do the research and the work. And of course, there's nothing like discovering things for yourself. But you've had other you've had other good teachers, haven't you?   David Shaffer  11:18 I have, I would, you know, at law school at Stanford, I had a interesting teacher, former Justice Scalia, for common law. That was a fascinating experience and frustrating, but boy did I learn his side of the law, and his points of view and, and his philosophy. And the rest of that I have read the camera itself, I learned on my own, but we had to listen to his philosophies quite a bit. But he was a very good teacher. And then after I graduated from Stanford, I was lucky enough to work for an incredible woman on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals at Carter appointee, who was also tremendously liberal and, and taught me more in that year than I'd learned in three years of law school. And so throughout, I guess, my career, I've been lucky to have mentors. After the clerkship, I went to Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher in California, a large law firm and had a litigation partner they are kind of take me under his wing and, and, you know, let me go out and my first week, I was in court, of course week on the job. And, you know, there was that gets it throughout your life, you've got to take advantage of mentors and people that really are looking out for you and then to them learn from. It's really the most valuable way to learn than trying to do everything on your own. As I learned when I lost my budget, it would have been really nice to have a lot of training fast rather than having to take a year to get up to speed on the technology.   Michael Hingson  13:18 Yeah, I mean, we we all have to take things as they come. I remember in my involvement with the law, from a legal standpoint, comes from the other side being a consumer. And I had a situation that happened, I think, in 1981, it was 80 or 81. I think it was 81. But I was denied access to an aircraft with my guide dog. And they actually, they they insisted that I had to sit in the front seat, even though the airlines policy did require that. But we went to court with it. And eventually it was appealed and it went to the ninth circuit. We had a judge in LA Francis Whalen. I don't know whether you ever encountered him here. He was pretty old. cielo or her but that's that was my closest experience to dealing with the with the appellate court directly. I've been involved in seeing other appellate cases. But it's it's it was it was interesting.   David Shaffer  14:24 How'd it come out?   Michael Hingson  14:27 The case was settled. It actually had to go back for a second trial because Francis Whalen was on the ninth, actually not the appellate court. He was in the Ninth Circuit. But when it went to appellate court the he didn't like it but the the appellate court found that he had erred and went back for a second trial and we ended up settling it which is unfortunate because it it was certainly a case that could have been a little bit more of a landmark than it was but you It was interesting. One of the things that happened at the beginning of the the case was that when the ruling went when when motions were being heard at the beginning, one of the motions that the airlines lawyer put out was, well, yeah, it's our policy that people don't have to sit in the front row with their guide dog. But that's just our policy. And so it shouldn't be allowed in as evidence and the judge allowed them, which was horrible. But you know, we all face, face those kinds of things. But Judge Whalen did what he did, and then it went to appellate court, and it and it did get settled. And, of course, overtime, the law change, there's a growth time for all of us. The Air Carrier Access Act was passed in 1986. And it needs to be strengthened. And then of course, in 1991, the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, which you have, obviously, as a lawyer now, a lot of involvement with when when you were going through training, well, let me put it this way, when you were becoming blind and discovering you were blind, how did all of that affect you in terms of your practice of law, and your view about what you were going to do with the law and how you would do it?   David Shaffer  16:20 Well, it seriously affected my ability to practice law for about a year, it was a good time was was a government agency, because they couldn't get rid of me too easily with the disability. But after that, it really made me I mean, I'd done it, I've been doing ADEA law since before the ADEA, since I started practicing in California under the unrack. But it really hit home to me this whole feel of digital accessibility. I mean, of course, I knew about it. And, and, and, but I'd never had any cases on it in my entire practice. Until these days, so I, what I ended up doing was, first off, they switched me to internal advice from litigation. And the department, one of the departments that gave me was Ada, in addition to human resources, because I'd spent my previous 20 years as a Labor Employment lawyer, advising large corporations. So doing that, let me start trying to make some impact from within those organizations. So I get a DEA office and the human relations office to understand accessibility. And that was the first step was was an education, it really, it's something that had to go on person by person one at a time. Because just talking about it, never made an impression till I brought somebody in my office and showed them how I use JAWS, how a screen reader works, now, it doesn't work, when something's not accessible. In the minute you give them a visual and hearing example of how important it says to a blind person, you've converted them, okay? Obviously, we need to make this work for you. Because that's their obligation. But it's a person by person thing, then they take it back, and the other people don't understand it. So then they got to come down to my office and get shown, and, like, did a lot of internal training and advocacy, and force them to, you know, form the position of section 508 Officer, which by then was given all of my other jobs and make a commitment to accessibility. You know, company wide and to the public and within, and that was a long battle. But I did it from within, instead of without, probably would have been quicker if I just turned around and sued them. But lawyers generally don't like to sue on behalf of themselves. It's just not pleasant. So I worked from within and made changes, and left when I left that organization, their website was 95%, double A 2.1 compliant. And that was due to four years of work by me manually with the web department. I had three people there working for four years to fix a 15,000 page website manually. Of course, we use software level access at the time But it's all there is out there that are equally as good. But that just goes to show how difficult accessibility can be when you start from ground zero. And part of the thing that I'm into, as well as presenting people with disabilities, and advocating on behalf of people with disabilities and trying to make the ADEA stronger, and Congress, working with Congress and various issues,   David Shaffer  20:33 to educate them. And now I'm finding that as I talked to people in Congress and the staff members, again, it's just, it's an education thing, once you've shown them an example and explained how important accessibility is to 20% of their constituents who have disabilities, then it clicks, and then they're interesting. But it's really got to be a strong education effort by the blind community. And we just got to, we have to reach out and explain ourselves to others, and not feel embarrassed about being blind, but show them what we can do when we're bind, if we have the right technology. And I think, demonstrating on a daily basis that you can do the same job as anybody else can do with with as long as you got the right technology and an accessible source to read it from. You're just the same as anybody else. And and I think that's the education effort that the blind community really needs to work harder on. Because you got to change people's minds about this, and they can't view accessibility as simply an expense. That's mandated by law.   Michael Hingson  21:56 Do you think it's all about technology? Do you think that the technology Oh,   David Shaffer  22:00 it's not? I mean, it, obviously, I deal with more than just digital accessibility, you know, I was also responsible for the physical accessibility of the buses, trains and stations, and so forth. But it's an overall understanding of the concept of accessibility to the 20% of the population who has some sort of disability. And that's the hard part. To shine them, okay, well, they think, oh, there's only you know, three to 5% of the people that are blind, that need a screen reader. They're not that important to me, but about the other 15% with other disabilities, you know, almost 40% of which are cognitive. Those people are currently being left out of the world. They're being left out of jobs or being left out of information technology. And, you know, the studies show that people with IDD issues often make up the most best and loyal and valuable employees. Study after study has shown that if we simply know how to accommodate them, and that's not so easy as it is to fix a website to make it five a weight or with gag compliant. That is much more even more of an education effort. I would say the other project that I'm working on is also football people with disabilities and that we are working with a company called way map, UK company and a partnership with Verizon. And we're mapping the whole DC Metro and DC metropolitan area for the for the blind with step by step navigation. That process also has separate options for people using wheelchairs. And I was the major drafter of the US standards for this technology, as well as to 1.1 which is the standards for cognitive wayfinding which will be the next phase. So technology there is technology out there to help people with disabilities other than just blindness in its in its infancy. But some very good pilots have been done with FTA with whom I worked quite a bit Federal Transit Administration that we can make much more of the world accessible to people, not only who are blind but with other types of disabilities that make it difficult for them to navigate or to use technology.   Michael Hingson  24:47 So the the way we met was actually through as you know, accessiBe where does that fit into what is happening to make the whole internet And website access available.   David Shaffer  25:04 Well, what it's going to help do is guide people to accessible locations. If your website's accessible, then we can put you on to this app, and people can find you and not only find you, but read the menu in your restaurant. And so can tourist find you. So, by encouraging people, you know, by expanding this project, into convention centers into other places, museums galleries, where there's a ton of information, we can integrate the accessibility of the web, the original website, to, for example, the descriptions on a picture in the National Gallery to be, you know, read to you, and explained, and all that it's going to be 100% WCAG compliant. So these, I think, these all work together, it might vary his projects, to show people that there's overall issue of accessibility websites, of course, are one of the major ones. But we've got to integrate this awareness concept with not just websites, but with how do we make this world safe and accommodating for all people with disabilities, so that everybody can achieve their full potential.   Michael Hingson  26:46 So I know that you also in addition to doing the web map project, though, do or have become involved with accessor be specifically so website access in general, but accessiBe in specific, why did you choose accessiBe to work with?   David Shaffer  27:03 That's anotherInteresting story. I was do when I was the byway officer at macro, I was deep into manual coding, fixing, you know, analysis of police reports, and how to deal with them. And that's what took four years to get that website compliant. That was four years of daily work by a team of people. I was against layered approaches that first. Some of the ones that had been proposed to us at macro simply didn't work. So I just figured, okay, I'm not interested in layered approaches, when somebody gives me something that doesn't even work on their own website, then, you know, forget it. But, you know, I was introduced to accessiBe with some skepticism. And then I started trying and testing it. And I found that it made websites accessible and usable, to really the greatest extent feasible by AI technology. So, I was convinced that accessiBe is better than the other ones. Plus, what really impressed me most about accessiBe was in fact, it's not just for the blind. And it has significant settings for cognitive disorders, ADHD, seizure disorders, various types of color, vision issues, and cognitive. And I think that this is the comprehensive approach that I've been preaching that we need to accommodate all disabilities. We can't just focus on the blind community, we can just focus on the deaf community, or the IDD community. This has got to be an overall attitude about how we approach all of our technology, how we approach shopping, how we approach going into a store, getting down the street, getting on a train or bus, that we've got to bring together these concepts of Universal Design for everybody, so that the entire population has the same opportunity, as everybody else   Michael Hingson  29:23 do you think accessiBe is having success in this arena?   David Shaffer  29:28 Yeah, I do. Continue to outreach to the blind community to talk to us and give input. I give both legal and technical input to accessiBe and and that's because I can see both sides of this. I can see how the courts developing the law as well as how the technology is developing and how it's been used. And it's a fascinating place to be and I'm you know enjoying working with them. quite a bit as we try to bring more education accessibility to the 20% of the population that's left out these days.   Michael Hingson  30:09 It's interesting the society in the times that we live in. We are in such a technological era. Yet, more and more we see everything being oriented or most things being oriented toward a visual process. So websites, for example, that that put more visual stuff in. And what prompts me to mention that is, we were watching my wife and I were watching a commercial this morning on a television. And it was just some people singing a song. And there was nothing to say that it was Google talking about all the ways that it protects us. And I, and there are a lot of those kinds of commercials that do nothing but play music or Yeah, or sounds, but that have nothing to do with anything, how do we get people to recognize that they are leaving out a significant amount of the population? And oh, by the way, what about the person who gets up, I guess the marketing people don't think that that will be a big problem, and I'll come back to it. But don't think that'll be a big problem, because they'll saturate the air with the commercial. So eventually, people will see it, but they don't even deal with the people who get up during a commercial and go do something else get a slide or whatever, never see it.   David Shaffer  31:36 Right. I don't understand that either. Myself, many times I turn to my significant other and I say, what was that commercial about? I'd like the music. Cuz I don't know what they're trying to sell. I don't know why they think this is useful. Especially like you said, half the people get up and go the bathroom and commercials 12 The toilet flush at once. But yeah, I don't get it. It's just like they think all this has impact. You don't have Flash, big name, at the end, after the beautiful pictures didn't have an impact on me. So they're losing 5% of their potential customer base, do they may   Michael Hingson  32:22 be losing more, because again, anyone who doesn't see the commercial, blind or not, has the same challenge.   David Shaffer  32:32 And this is the fault of the people that look only at the visual side of things. And that's all they can think or think about these people that are creating the commercials, people that are creating websites, whatever creative people are doing this. They're looking at it. And they're deriving their impact from what they see and not what they hear. And this frustrates me, but I figure, okay, well, I'll never buy that product, and I can't tell what they're advertising. So that's one down the drain. They won't get my business. You know, what else can you do? Except deprive them of their business? If they're not going to make this commercial accessible?   Michael Hingson  33:21 How do we break into their psyche? And get them to recognize what they're doing? Which is, of course, a general question that deals with the whole visual or non disability aspect of society in general. How do we how do we get the the public at large, the politicians, the visible people of large, to bring us into the conversation? Maybe it's a good way to start that, why aren't we part of the conversation?   David Shaffer  34:00 I think we're not because we're not thrusting ourselves into it. We can just sit back and wait for these people to call us up and say, Hey, we were just thinking about whether blind people can see our commercials got any advice? No, we have to, we have to get out to you know, write, like we're doing with Congress, get out to them, and explain to them what we're seeing or not seeing. We need to get to the advertising community with some sort of education. If they really are interested in selling us products, so the the blanket, I mean, we're going to 24 million people in the United States. That's a tremendous market. We just need to get people to understand that they're losing 24 million potential customers every time they put an ad up like that.   Michael Hingson  34:54 But in general, whether we deal with the advertisement part of it or whatever you deal with the whole population of persons with disabilities. How do we get into the psyche of people into the conversation? I mean, I hear what you're saying about getting Congress and showing Congress what we do. But here's a perfect example of the problem. Several years ago, I went to a congressman who I knew to talk about the fact that at that time, and still, as part of the Javits, Wagner eau de act, it is possible for organizations and agencies to apply for an exemption. So they do not have to pay a person with a disability a minimum wage, who they bring in. And that typically is in the case of some sheltered workshops that that number has diminished a great deal, because there's been visibility, but it's still there. And the law is still there. And what this congressman said is, well, we're opposed to minimum wage in general. And so I can't possibly support this bill had nothing to do with the fact that it's still the law of the land. But we're not considered an important and I mean, all persons with disabilities, we still are not really considered part of, of society in the same way. Now, we're not hated like, some, some people probably hate different races. And and we certainly don't face some of the challenges that that women do, although bind women probably do, but but the bottom line is we as a collective group, and not just blind women, but people, women with disabilities, but we are as as a, as a total group, not included. Really, in the conversation. We see it all the time. Last year's presidential elections are a perfect example. But you could you can go anywhere and cite anything. That that looks at all of the different things that go on COVID websites were not accessible last year. So you know, how do we get into that conversation? Collectively,   David Shaffer  37:10 like, well, that is how we do it is collectively, I think, but I think we're doing too much of is that, you know, you've got the blind community doing advocating for this, you've got the people with physical disabilities advocating for their thing, that people cognitive advocating for those things. And they're all just focusing on what they need. What we all need to be focusing on together is what we need as a group of people with disability grant, granted, each of each type of disability has different needs. But if we can get everybody to understand the concept of universal design, and start applying that didn't everything we build to, from buildings to websites to whatever, then we'll be taking, we'll be including this population. But even the phrase universal design is not even fully under widely understood. But that is where we have to be gone. And we have to be doing it as the entire disability community. That is numbers, but lots of numbers of people.   Michael Hingson  38:29 Sure, since 20%, to 25% of all persons in the United States have a disability. That's a pretty large group, and it's 100   David Shaffer  38:40 million people.   Michael Hingson  38:41 Yeah, you're talking about a minority second only to depending on who you want to listen to men or women, probably they're more women than men. So men may be the minority, although they don't think so. But But the bottom line is it's a very large group of people,   David Shaffer  38:56 or it's not significant. You know, it's the most significant thing size, protected group there is under the law.   Michael Hingson  39:06 But the protections aren't always there. So for example, the other problem, yes, the other problem,   David Shaffer  39:12 which is the courts, the courts are slow to catch up to the courts don't understand this. You file a web accessibility lawsuit and find your typical federal district judge. I mean, they don't have a clue what this case is about. And then we're down to the Battle of competing experts, you know, and where does that put a judge? Where does that put a jury where they mean, the legal system is not the right place to be solving this problem. Unfortunately, it's the only place we have left to go to.   Michael Hingson  39:46 Well, I guess that's of course part of the I'm sorry, go ahead.   David Shaffer  39:49 No, go ahead.   Michael Hingson  39:50 Well, that's, that's of course part of the problem. But, you know, is it the only place to go to so for example, you wrote an article earlier this year. which I found to be very interesting and very informative the talk about web accessibility. And that article described a lot, a lot of the issues, a lot of what's being done. And maybe you want to talk a little bit about that and where people can see it, but also should should we work to be finding more people who will publicize in the world. Part of the the issues that we have when I talked about being part of the the conversation frame, frankly, I think we need to be putting out more more writings, more articles, more missives, more whatever. And as you said, we need to be putting ourselves in the conversation.   David Shaffer  40:53 We go and, you know, I, I'm, I listened mostly to NPR. And what I do notice there is they do a lot of stories on disability issues. Really impressed by the way they cover disabilities. I don't see that on mainstream media. Occasionally, you'll you'll have a feel good story on the evening news, then which one you're watching, you know, they they're tagged at the end of the last two minutes. But really, dealing with this as a societal issue. It's so low on the priority of things these days after COVID and, and overseas wards and foreign policy and everything else that's going on. We're, we're just faded where we fade into the background, or unnoticed. It's just like when, when when you when you walk into a store with somebody who's with you, they will talk to the other person and ask them what does he want to order? Instead of asking you were invisible?   Michael Hingson  42:01 Yeah. And of course, also part of the problem today, is that with everything that's going on, we face it, too. And it kind of beats you down.   David Shaffer  42:12 It does. It's, it's depressing. I mean, I my usually, my usual answer is I can order for myself in that sort of tone. But, you know, it's like we walk, walk into a dark, so up till the day with my white king, trying to find my way because they don't allow visitors now so that I can't bring him by with me to guide me. So I'm, you know, stumbling around the place trying to find the front desk and all that. And then they shove a piece of paper in front of me saying, Can you please sign in. And they've seen me walking around that reception area trying to find the reception desk with a white cane. And they turned around and asked me to sign something. They'll get   Michael Hingson  42:59 it. It's, it's all education. And I think you said much earlier is very important. We have to as hard as it is as frustrating as it is, as trying as it is on our patients. Sometimes. We have to be teachers, we have to help. But we do need to speak out, we do need to be pushing ourselves in the conversation. There are there's a lot of mainstream media that as you said, doesn't cover us much. And somehow we need to get more people to reach out to mainstream media saying Why aren't you talking about the fact that blind people and other persons with disabilities are exempt? In some situations from receiving minimum wage? Why aren't you talking more about the lack of appropriate information provided to us? Why aren't you talking about the fact that when one flies on an airplane, the flight attendants don't necessarily give us the same information that that people who can see or people who can can read don't have they already have. And I got like, the fact that people like with dyslexia also have issues.   David Shaffer  44:25 Yeah, well, pointing to the emergency exits doesn't help a lot.   Michael Hingson  44:28 Right, exactly. But they but you know, it would be so simple for flight attendants to say when they're doing their pre flight briefing. Emergency exits are located at overwing. Exits are located at rows, x and y.   David Shaffer  44:47 Row number you can, that's assuming that's a row number that you can read with your fingers.   Michael Hingson  44:53 Except when you are when you go on, you know what seat you're at. So you know what right So your count? Yeah, you can count. Yeah, they could, they could do something to make the row numbers also more accessible. But again, you do know what seat you go to. And if they know that, then you can easily count and get at least a much better sense, then what you do. I heard once somebody explained that when the preflight briefings are being given, what flight attendants are trained to do, and I don't know if it's true, but it could be, what flight attendants are trained to do is to look to see who's really paying attention to the briefings. Because those are the people that they may be able to call on to help if there really is an emergency, because they're the ones that tend to be collecting the information. I don't know if that's really true, but it certainly makes sense. And, and it is also something that more of us should do, and more of us should be demanding that they do the appropriate things to provide the access that we need to be able to pay attention.   David Shaffer  46:05 Yeah, you know, Michael, it's just, it's such an overwhelmingly huge job. I mean, we're talking about everything from websites to we haven't even talked about apps on phones, to physical accessibility to how you're, how you're treated in a doctor's office, or on an airplane or at a restaurant, or, I mean, it's, it's, it's all throughout society, that the people with disabilities face these obstacles. And courts, you know, I think websites are a fantastic place to start. But that's not the end of the accessibility discussion. We need to have much broader discussions about that. And we need to be doing it more publicly.   Michael Hingson  47:03 Right. And, and I think we can, I don't think that we need to always use civil disobedience, as our solution, although there certainly have been times in the past when that has been what people feel they need to do, and it can be successful, but it still, ultimately is about education. And if people refuse to listen, then obviously there are other actions that need to be taken. You mentioned, what happened with you with Metro and Metro, at least, was interested in working with you and allowing you to help them fix their website issue, by the way, how is it now?   David Shaffer  47:46 Oh, it's pretty good. They actually, they brought in consultants to do the remainder of the remediation and I wasn't able to finish. So they're trying to get as close to 100% compliant as possible.   Michael Hingson  48:02 And, obviously, that's, that's pretty important to do. I don't know whether accessiBe is a part of that or whether you know, have they used accessiBe in any way I'm just curious.   David Shaffer  48:12 I they I don't know who the outside consultants using right now but they haven't seen it says to be put on the site yet. I know they use accessiBe's testing tool.   Michael Hingson  48:24 Right? And can you tell us about that the test   David Shaffer  48:29 accessiBe has a very quick and free testing tool, which is one of the better ones out there on the market, including some of the ones you paid $10,000 for. And if you go to ace.accessible.com there's it's really simple, you just plug in the website name, you hit get a report, you get an immediate report within like 10 seconds of all the errors it reads it from compliant to semi compliant or non compliant. And then you can email yourself the report in a PDF form and and read all the details about what the issues are on the website. You know, and some of my own personal battles I've had recently with our county government kind of forced them to provide me with accessible materials as required by federal law. You know, I finally just sent them a report of their website or encountered entire county website is non compliant. And they said they know it. Let baffled me and what they're getting me my documents on your threat of a federal lawsuit.   Michael Hingson  49:49 You It's amazing. I recently upgraded we were talking about it before we started this. I also upgraded to Windows 11 and And there are some real challenges from an access standpoint. Or example, for example, and I, and I'm saying this after having called and spoken to Microsoft's disabilities answer desk, I needed to map a network drive. And the instructions say, click on the three dots on the toolbar, the three dots. So that's inaccessible to me, I am going to try some other experiments to see if I can access them. But in Windows 10, there were ways to do it. Why would they? And could they? And should they have updated to a new version of Windows without dealing with the access issues, and I know what they're gonna say, they did it with Microsoft Edge years ago, when Microsoft Edge came out, they knew it wasn't accessible. And they said, well, we'll get to it. Well, you know, that's, that's immediately sending the message that some of us are not as important as everyone else. We are, and I'm   David Shaffer  51:09 so sorry, I upgraded to Windows 11, I would never recommend that any visually impaired person right now until they get it fixed. It makes your life so much more difficult.   Michael Hingson  51:21 Well, but it's going to take a while to to happen. And the problem is that more and more things will become unsupported. So upgrading needs to be done. But there should be a real outcry to Microsoft, from a large number of people about the accessibility issues that they face in Windows 11. And that is something that gets back to what we discussed earlier. Microsoft should have made it accessible right from the outset right out of the gate, right. And they have the team, they have the people, they have the knowledge, it's a priority.   David Shaffer  52:02 While the priority for them is to get the product out the door, and then worry about, you know, the details later.   Michael Hingson  52:11 But still, the priority is to get the product out the door. So as many people can sort of use it as possible and the people who are marginalized well, we'll get to them eventually. Yeah, right, which is a problem. If people want to read your article, how can they do that?   David Shaffer  52:32 It's on my website, David Schaefer. lawn.com. Under the add a tab, Shaffer is spelled s AJ FF er.   Michael Hingson  52:43 So David Schaefer Law comm under the ADEA tab. Right. So what's next for you? Where do you go from here?   David Shaffer  52:53 Well, I'm, I'm also been retained by another organization, to do some congressional lobbying on behalf of ADA, making ADA explicitly include websites, and also to work to make work with them to make Congress itself accessible, working with how, with the congressional Select Committee on modernization, and, you know, we got to start somewhere, your congress has got to set the example for the country. And it's really pathetic, that the studies I've shown are that approximately 80 to 90% of congressional websites are inaccessible. And where there were their constituents to, and we have an equal right to communicate with our representatives, under the First Amendment as anybody else, and we're being deprived. And I think it's a serious issue for Congress that they've got a face, that they're not making themselves available to the entire population that's supposed to serve.   Michael Hingson  54:14 Good point. And hopefully, you'll be able to make some progress on that. We certainly want to hear from you as to how that's going. And you are welcome to come back here anytime and tell us what's happening and keep us all up to date. We really appreciate your time today. In sitting down with us and talking about a lot of these issues. Are there any kind of last minute things that you'd like to say?   David Shaffer  54:43 Oh, I just I just want to be treated the same as everybody else. And I think that's what all of us want. You know, you treat treat me like you would anybody else. with courtesy, and if it's an older person, you, you're courteous to them in a different way than you are a blind person or a deaf person. Just I'd like to see people treat people as people, and not according to what they look like, or are able to do is hear, see or or think.   Michael Hingson  55:23 Well, clearly, that's that's a goal. I think that all of us share. And I hope that we'll be able to, to see more of that happen. Excuse me, I know, being involved with accessiBe. It's an accessiBe goal. And I'm, I'm glad that accessiBe is really growing in its understanding of the issues, and that it intends to do more to try to do what it can to educate people in society about all of this. Okay, so that's part of what this podcast is about.   David Shaffer  56:00 Right. And I think we're well on our way there. We have more work to do. But we've made a lot of progress. Since I came on board and I think February I think you came on board just a little bit before that. Right. So we've, we've done a lot this year, and next year, it's gonna be even better.   Michael Hingson  56:22 Well, I hope people have enjoyed listening to this and that they've learned something. We're always interested in hearing from listeners, you are welcome to reach out to me directly at MichaelHI@accessibe.com. accessiBe, You spelled A C C E S S I B E. So michaelhi@accessibe.com. David, if you want people to be able to contact you. How do they do that?   David Shaffer  56:50 I'm david.shaffer@davidshafferlaw.com   Michael Hingson  56:57 is easy as it gets. Yeah,   David Shaffer  56:59 I try to make things easy.   Michael Hingson  57:01 Yeah, absolutely. So well, I want to thank you for being with us. We've been working to get this set up for a while you've had a pretty, pretty busy schedule. And so we're finally able to do we're able to do it. But seriously, we'd like to keep hearing from you as to what progress you're making and your thoughts. So don't hesitate to reach out and let us know if you'd like to come back on and we will chat some more. And in the meanwhile, again, if people want to reach out you can reach me at Michael Hingson. That is michaelhi@accessibe.com. And if you would like to consider being a guest on our podcast because you have some things to say, email me and we'll see what we can do. I want to thank you all for joining us on another edition of unstoppable mindset. And David, thank you as well for doing that   Michael Hingson  58:01 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com. accessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

Randy discusses the busy Comic Con at Javits and how that is a good sign for LightFair, he also attended the successful Homecoming at the Hangar show by O'Blaney Rinker Associates, new research is developing for horticulture, and EnVision LED Lighting has a career opening.

Brian, Christine & Clay talk about the Olympics that weren't. And the team is floored by what happened when Senator Javits went to Washington (14:45) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Javits . Plus - our Medals of The Week (40:00). twitter.com/limbaughpodcast Logo design by Olga Shcheglova www.olgashcheglova.com Theme song by Clay Russell

New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Health Services Commissioner Patrick Murphy, former Adjutant General for New York State Military Forces, and former Director of the National Guard Bureau Joint Staff, talks to personnel assigned to Joint Task Force Javits at the Jacob K Javits mass vaccine site in Manhattan, during a site visit on July 2nd, 2021. (U.S. Army National Guard video by Specialist Li Ji)

Andrew Lazo joins the podcast to talk about community, creativity and what he's learned from C.S. Lewis and the historic, literary group the Inklings. We also discuss why the Narnia books are some of Lewis's most mature works and how the deep friendship between Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien influenced them both greatly in their faith, writing and creativity. Andrew Lazo is an internationally-known speaker and writer specializing on C.S. Lewis and the Inklings. Andrew earned his Masters in Modern British Literature from Rice University where he was a Jacob K. Javits fellow in the Humanities. He is a frequent speaker around the U.S. and U.K. and has written several articles on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. In 2009, Andrew published Mere Christians: Inspiring Encounters with C.S. Lewis. In 2014 he also was honored to transcribe, edit, and publish a previously unknown book of C.S. Lewis,’ “Early Prose Joy,” which was Lewis’s very first spiritual autobiography. Andrew currently attends Virginia Theological Seminary preparing for priestly ministry in the Episcopal Church. He also serves as a Distinguished Lecturer while concurrently pursuing his doctorate in the Romantic Theology program at Northwind Seminary. You can find out more about his work on his website and also hear him regularly on the Pints with Jack podcast. http://www.mythoflove.net Connect with Art & Faith Conversations: https://www.instagram.com/artandfaithpodcast/ https://vividartistry.org

Tuesday Show 10.18, 2021 05-11 == TIME STAMPS == 0:00:00 - Intro 0:01:56 - Guilty Gear Strive Beta May 13 0:19:49 - Game News (Ryo & Robert in KOFXV, Chun in Power Rangers, Umbrella in Skullgirls) 0:31:39 - CPT Online NA West 1 0:47:50 - Interview with Javits (@jav1ts) 1:23:32 - 5/5 Matchup: Ultrachen 1:38:19 - 5/5 Matchup: Viewer #1 1:48:16 - 5/5 Matchup: Viewer #2 1:57:02 - Community News (Intel World Open, Red Bull Oil King, Peets BrianF) 2:05:44 - Upcoming (Mortal Kombat Ladder, Twitch Rivals) 2:11:05 - UCTV Mailbag Join the UltraChenTV Discord server: discord.gg/VAmkUdp Please consider supporting our Patreon! patreon.com/ultrachentv YouTube - youtube.com/c/UltraChenTV Spotify - tinyurl.com/UCTVSpotify Twitch stream - twitch.tv/ultrachentv Website / Blog - ultrachentv.com Twitter - twitter.com/ultrachentv UltraDavid - twitter.com/ultradavid James Chen - twitter.com/jchensor TuboWare - twitter.com/TuboWare

In this bonus episode, Frank Cummings (Guest from Ep.1) shares some key moments from his time on Capitol Hill working closely with the late Senator Jacob Javits. Here, Frank describes how he convinced Senator Javits to push for equal access for women in some crucial areas. He also shared a humorous story about former President Lyndon Johnson following the signing of ERISA. 

Javits Arias, gamertag Jav1ts, is a competitive fighting games player, content creator and coach from Brooklyn, NY.KPBCast is a podcast dedicated to bringing you into the culture and community that is known as The Fighting Game Community. Join your hosts KPB Rodimus Prime and KPB Rafael as they sit down with the many players, promoters and personalities that make up the scene.Kick-Punch-Block! is an e-sports team from the New York City area that is dedicated to bringing you content from all aspects of the e-sports world. Follow us on our social media outlets to get all updates on upcoming events that we will be involved with.Follow us on:Twitter: @KickPunchBlockTwitter: @KPBCastTwitch: twitch.tv/KPBLiveFacebook: Kick-Punch-Block!Podcast Theme: ArcadeArtist: Lakey Inspired» Spotify: https://goo.gl/aLkwM5» SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/lakeyinspired» Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lakeyinspired/» Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lakeyinspired

The All Local Afternoon Update, 3/8/2021 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The U.S. House today will move toward making Donald Trump the first President to be impeached twice, this time with support from across the aisle. The Capitol security clampdown is evident, a week before the inauguration, and a week after the attempted coup at the Capitol. Two New Yorkers are among the rioters arrested. Vaccination sites open today at the Javits and Westchester County Centers.

Let’s get into the story behind Santa Baby! Santa Baby was first recorded by Eartha Kitt and released in 1953. It was written for a musical comedy film called New Faces. In August of that year, lyricist Joan Javits and composer Phil Springer went for a meeting at New York’s famous Brill Building and were asked if they could write a Christmas song for Kitt to be included in the movie. Javits suggested “Santa Baby” for a title and then Springer went to work on the melody. The song’s arrival was announced in an ad in Billboard magazine proclaiming it “1953’s Big Christmas Record.” But it faced a lot of controversy. On November 14, 1953, Eartha Kitt performed the song for King Paul & Princess Frederica of Greece while they were attending a banquet in NYC. Politicians in attendance thought the lyrics of the song were inappropriate for the Royals and made their feelings known to reporters covering the event. The Royals weren’t bothered a bit, but the word was out that this sexy Christmas song was out of line…and Santa Baby was banned in some southern US states. In a classic case of controversy creating even more attention, Santa Baby became the best-selling Christmas song of 1953. A year later, the publishers wanted a sequel. Have you ever heard This Year’s Santa Baby? It featured updated lyrics about the things on the wish list for Santa. And that wasn’t the only new version of the song. In the early 80’s, Springer & Javits had the chance to buy back the publishing rights. Javits reportedly wasn’t interested in being a rights holder, so she sold her share to Springer who then became the sole rights holder for Santa Baby. The first thing he did was to pull back on all the updates and focus on the 1953 original as the definitive version of the song and would only allow new recordings to use those original lyrics. Still…Santa Baby’s come back wasn’t immediate. Not until…1987. In the years following Madonna’s recording of the song for the charity album A Very Special Christmas, there was all kinds of interest that led to it being featured in everything from The Simpsons to The Sopranos…and new versions recorded by Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Michael Bublé. Bublé has been the one singer Springer has allowed to bend the rules and slightly alter the lyrics. For more stories Behind the Christmas Hits, Hit Subscribe! LISTEN to iHeart The Holidays on iHeartRadio: https://www.iheart.com/live/iheart-the-holidays-8451/

 It's everything NYCC except the Javits! We reflect on four days of virtual panels, and think back to prior years and the intangibles we're looking forward to with NYCC 2021. Best of us, we're joined by special guest star Jamie Paton from WatchingTheWasteland.com!MP3

Architectural historian Gail Cornell talks about the adjoined Court of International Trade and Jacob K. Javits Federal Building. Home to federal agencies such as the NYC branch of the FBI and GSA, this granite and glass checkerboard was once the backdrop to the highly controversial Richard Serra sculpture Tilted Arc and now boasts a new plaza redesign by landscape architecture firm Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates. The original landscape architect was Martha Schwartz.

Show Notes Episode 4 with Sean Maher of Cut+Sew This episode is sponsored by Iconic Protein! You're go to when you are on the go. Iconic Protein is grass fed protein. Iconic fuels the day with convenient nutritious snacks that never compromise taste. I love this brand. They've been a huge champion for us at The Resort from our Fit Expo, to pop ups and again they are here for us during this time of “Stay at Home”. They are giving all of our listeners 15% off any order with code ELEVATION15. Again, ELEVATION15. My guest Sean Maher of Cut+Sew is a resident of Playa Vista, a regular at The Resort Fitness Center and I'm proud to call myself his trainer. Cut+Sew is a collaborative team pushing the boundaries of the modern marketing agency and challenging clients to move at the speed of culture. They operate at the intersection of new media, innovation, technology and culture. This unique positioning allows them to identify, forecast and dictate trends before they're happening driving real growth opportunities for their clients. They also just announced a new entity of the company called ZONED to help clients and brands capitalize on the growing gaming industry. You can learn more about Cut+Sew https://www.cutandsew.la/who-we-are Sean and I discuss: -How playing multiple sports growing up allowed him confidence in different roles from marketing to project management. -Why he took a leap and joined YikYak and how his parents didn't believe his first job offer was real -Why he believes he can “attack any situation” -What he learned from working at Javits center as a forklift operator. -How he has the confidence to say, “Why couldn't that be me?” -Why Cut+Sew believe they are “Too naive to fail” and how they turn this into a positive -How trial and error has allowed him a self concept clarity on “knowing when to hold em' and knowing when to fold em'” -Why Cut+Sew “adjust” for clients -Why they aren't afraid to hop on a flight on 2 days notice for a project -Why we both believe you should spend money on “speed” in business -Why he believes Discord is better than slack for communication -How Cut+Sew anticipated COVID-19 and were able to pivot the company as competitors were floundering -Why Cut+Sew believe every brand should “think like a start up” -How when you are “the first to do something you have a level of forgiveness” -Why he is “bullish on physical interaction” and how The Resort plays a role in the community feel of Playa Vista -His best purchase for under $30 -His go to workout song -Why he likes to “Train like an athlete” -And much much more...

The RDC had opportunity to speak with Chaplain Lt Col Jake Marvel at the Ops Center at Javits-New York City. Chaplain Marvel is a N

The RDC had opportunity to speak with Chaplain Lt Col Jake Marvel at the Ops Center at Javits-New York City. Chaplain Marvel is a New York Air National Guard Chaplain. Listen in to hear about the ministry in the midst of the Coronavirus pandemic.

New York Comic Con is done and boy did we get a lot of coverage! Jimmy was there all weekend and did 15 interviews and covered 3 press rooms. You'll be hearing all of that coverage over the next few weeks as we'll be releasing about 3 episodes a week. In this episode, Jimmy gives his recap and thoughts on the show. You'll also hear interviews he did with writer Greg Pak (Agents of Atlas, Ronin Island, Star Wars) and Lance Fensterman (ReedPop President). Leave your iTunes comments! 5 stars and nothing but love! Also, get a hold of us! Thanks for listening!

Betting on Sports America 2019 is officially in the books and it turned out to be a first class event for sports betting fans in the United States. Today, Ryan Knuppel talks with the founder and CEO of SBC Gaming, Rasmus Sojmark, about the event from his perspective. This recording was just a few days after the event and the first podcast interview Rasmus did following #bosamerica -- this is one you won't want to miss. Show Notes Ryan Knuppel: 00:00 On this episode I get to sit down with CEO and founder of SBC Gaming, Rasmus Sojmark and we talk all about the betting on sports America 2019 conference. Don't miss it. Intro: 00:12 This is crazy.. Ryan Knuppel: 00:13 Everywhere you turn it's the same old sports, talk the same headlines, the same news and the same boring information. This podcast is here to change all of that. We bring you hot sports takes, winning sports betting strategy and picks, reliable gaming industry news and breaking interviews with some of the biggest names in sports business. My name is Ryan Knuppel welcome to the Knup Sports Show. Ryan Knuppel: 00:34 Hey what's up everybody, welcome to episode number 49 of the Knup Sports Show. My name is Ryan Knuppel, I'm your host here of this show thank you for joining me, I really appreciate it tuning in to this show. We have a very special show in store today. I just got back from probably my favorite conference of all time. The best conference I've ever been to, and it was the betting on sports America 2019 conference, that took place the Meadowlands, New Jersey. Ryan Knuppel: 00:59 I spent a week out there, brought my wife and we went to the event. Spent three or four days at the event and another three, four days in New York, Manhattan on a little vacation. Today the CEO and founder of SBC Gaming, the guy responsible for putting on this entire event, Rasmus Sojmark. He's with me, he joined me, he was kind enough to sit down with me and talk all about the event. I was going to talk about it myself. I was going to go through and just talk about my experience with the event. But I figured who better than to have on than the man himself, the man responsible for putting this on. Ryan Knuppel: 01:35 So many people enjoyed it. I talked to hundreds and hundreds of people at this event. I think there was almost a couple thousand at the event. But I talked to many people and they all had the same feedback, the same responses from these events. Just talking about how first class it was, and how well put on it was and they did everything at a very high level. I'm excited for you to listen to this, I'm excited for you to hear what Rasmus has to say. He's a great guy. SBC is a great team of people I got to meet and hang out with a lot of them there at this event this weekend. Ryan Knuppel: 02:07 Over the next month or two you are going to hear from me a lot about this event. A lot of things that I learned, a lot of people that I talked to. I'm going to connect with them on this show and we are going to talk about different things that they're into in this industry. Because the sports betting industry is really popping, really growing in the United States and I want to use this show as a platform to bring people on and really just tell their story, tell their side of what's going on in the sports betting industry, and who better to start with than Rasmus. Ryan Knuppel: 02:35 I'm excited, without further a due lets jump right into today's interview. All right. Today we have a special guest on this show. Today I'm joined by Rasmus Sojmark. Rasmus is the CEO and founder of SBC Gaming. Rasmus, you're with me today? Rasmus Sojmark: 02:49 I am Ryan. Thanks for having me man. Ryan Knuppel: 02:51 Absolutely. I'm so honored and privileged that you're joining me on the show here. We just all got back from your awesome new events, betting on sports America 2019, it was held at the Meadowlands expo and conference center in New Jersey. Man what an even that was. I did attend and had a good time, it was a pleasure meeting you. Man, how're you feeling after that big event? Rasmus Sojmark: 03:15 I think you just said it there man. No more for me to say well said, just recovered now. There was a lot of organizing the sport events, then you execute during the three, four days and just hope that everyone is enjoying the events. And I think we had some incredible feedback. The response was great. I think this is one of the best event we've done in a long time and that's very important when you have it as the first one in a new big market, that's the US. Rasmus Sojmark: 03:51 I think it went really well, and I mean there're several factors when you look into an event. First of all, you want to have a conference working well. People are there to learn something and be educated and hear what our latest news in the industry are. In the conference and the panels were pretty much outstanding. I think a lot of key information was discussed and also shared with the audience, and I think that's key. And I think we did that very well at least that's what I keep hearing from everyone that's been attending. Rasmus Sojmark: 04:25 They all were very positive about this part, so I think that was a hit and I think as well, I think everything on speaker did an incredible job and that can be a bit tough when you have almost 200 speakers on the program. It's hard to manage, you need to coordinate between all of them and that takes a lot of efforts. I think their participation, their engagement in the lead up to the event and also [inaudible 00:04:53] event was great. Rasmus Sojmark: 04:55 Just a quick personal thank you to all the speakers. I think you guys helped make this event a superb one. Thank you. Ryan just ask me a question if you want to talk. Ryan Knuppel: 05:09 Sure. Sure. I mean, I want to chime in on the speakers. Every speaker that I went to, every session, every track that I went into was absolutely amazing. The only complaint I would have is I didn't get to go to enough of them. I mean they were so many of them, which is a good complaint by the way. It's a good problem to have. Rasmus Sojmark: 05:26 Don't worry man. Listen, the good thing is we video all of it. Right? So what we need to do is of course, is we need to have load for all of the material, and then what we all do is release every single panel with video for [inaudible 00:05:38] for everyone that attended the event. Ryan Knuppel: 05:40 Perfect. Rasmus Sojmark: 05:40 So you can go back and you can have a look at the ones you missed on that day. But I agree, three conference rooms running at the same time can be difficult. Ryan Knuppel: 05:48 Too many choices I was so conflicted at times. I'm like, I want to go here and here and here. But it was awesome, it was a great time guys did a good job. Rasmus Sojmark: 05:59 At least it was fairly connective when in the venue as well. I mean, it wasn't too complicated to move to so many conference rooms. Because that is an issue when you say it like that. You want to go from one room to another, between sessions and you only have no more than five minutes, you need to be quick. Ryan Knuppel: 06:18 Sure. Sure. Let's talk about the venue for a second. I thought the venue was outstanding. I had actually never been to the Meadowlands area there in New Jersey. What drew you to that spot? And was that always your plan to be at the Meadowlands or what drew you to that venue? Rasmus Sojmark: 06:33 We did a lot of research initially. We were thinking about doing in New York in Manhattan, and they have the Javits one which we were looking at that. But it's quite big, and we thought okay maybe wait and just find one that is big but not as big and we had to look around. There's not a lot of venues in New York to be honest. We also took a look at New Jersey thinking that it could be smart to find a way to combine the two of them. I mean, New Jersey is where it's all happening at them moment, but of course people coming all for this also love to see a bit of Manhattan. Rasmus Sojmark: 07:05 So how can you say combine those two. We went to the area we're talking about here and they have quite a few good options. There was the Meadowlands race track, the was MetLife stadium the home of Giants and Jets. And we weren't having a look at the stadium as well. But could be a bit complicated which calls spending some times with what venues you can use. So we ended up saying Meadowlands seems to be a good choice. But a lot of hotels nearby make it very, very convenient for people staying. [inaudible 00:07:34] exit the hotel when you're there. Rasmus Sojmark: 07:37 It also gives us quite a bit of space like 51,000 square feet. Which means that we can create conference rooms and we create enough space for people to sit down and network talk and of course for the exhibitors and the sponsors to display their products in a nice setting as well. So it ended up being that choice but at the same within that choice is set, it's very important to mention that we could combine those two, Manhattan and New Jersey. Rasmus Sojmark: 08:00 When you are in Meadowlands area, you literally only have around 50 minutes drive to Manhattan you are straight up at Times Square. There can be a lot of traffic so you need to factor that in. And I think that was on of the things we were worried about that there could be enough traffic so when we were moving people from after the conference and exhibition, to the evening event in Manhattan there would be a bit of a drive. But I think all of that actually worked really well. I'm personally surprised and I think Meadowlands proved to be an excellent venue for us. Ryan Knuppel: 08:34 Yeah. I think it did. It seemed like the perfect balance between the Manhattan experience and then a little disconnect from that over in New Jersey and yeah. Let's shift over and talk about these ... you mentioned the after parties, the evening events. Man, myself I've never personally been to an SBC event so this was my first one. And let me say right out the front, you guys do it right. I mean your events, your party, your venues, the food, the drinks, just the whole vibe of the parties was absolutely amazing. Ryan Knuppel: 09:10 Is it always like that or was this one different because it was a little more buzz around the United States and some of those places you picked were just amazing. I mean, talk to me a little bit about the parties, and what you thought the vibe of those was. Rasmus Sojmark: 09:23 I think to be honest, it's a recurrence event. We tend to look at what creates a holistic, like a complete delegate experience. I mean, ultimate big events and we want it to be a big event, I mean, not too big just an amount of people so attending and of course we look to grow that next year. I think it's important to just see what can you do to shine people together. Not everyone wants to go to the evening events, and they create their own dinners and their own small gatherings for the clients and customers and soon to be customers et cetera. Rasmus Sojmark: 10:00 So I think when we look at the evening we sort of try to think okay, what can we put together here that people want to attend. We keep people together, not just during the day time but also the evening. Because you're right when you were saying for this one, I mean it wasn't different from one of our events, but I think this one was just so important to keep people together. Rasmus Sojmark: 10:20 You have a whole new market opening up, so much opportunity so why not go that extra mile to make sure that we busy, very busy during the day. And we know that from experience, because we put on three conference rooms, 200 speakers, we have a Ryan running around want to attend all the sections. And if you're doing that, you can't network, you can't talk to people, you can't do business, you can't go and meet the services and see the products and stuff. Really that can be much of an issue because of course I need to create some action for everyone there. Because also response from exhibitors is a big part of supporting the event. Rasmus Sojmark: 10:58 What we then try and do is to make sure that the ones you didn't meet during the daytime, you'll certainly have a chance to meet during the evening when we have free evening events going on during this event. And I think that is just the key here. That by going in and creating that environment for you to know that, oh yeah, I'll sit in the conference, I'll suck up all this information in all these sessions and take that back, but also know that I will have time because SBC organized this thing in the evening where there will be full house. Rasmus Sojmark: 11:31 And we had 750 people, that's a 40, 40 cap. And that was a pre registration. Hey, that was before the main conference and exhibitions part. That was unheard of. I was like Ryan to be honest, I was thinking, okay man there's maybe have 300, 400 people there. Ryan Knuppel: 11:47 Yeah. Rasmus Sojmark: 11:48 The company will do well. Because truth to be told, the venues we picked weren't the cheapest ones. We want to create some nice really surroundings when you're there like people want to come to a great event. So the 40, 40 cap on a Tuesday, that's NBA players, you had NHL and this is a sports event people of sports, they want to watch the sports. How do you combine it so Ryan doesn't run off to go to another sports bar to watch this. But everyone else is at another bar, networking the event so we combine the two taking the best Jay-Z sports bar. I think everyone just wanted to come and see the and then realized shit sorry my language ... there's all the networking here this is a great setting. Rasmus Sojmark: 12:29 And from there on we took the other direction on Wednesday. We actually brought everyone to the Meadowlands race track and they have a very nice roof top bar, a bit well independent but we also booked the downstairs one in case it was bad weather we could have taken everyone one down to the lounge. And also people got to see the first and real retail sports in New Jersey. Ryan Knuppel: 12:52 Right. Rasmus Sojmark: 12:52 The history ride you saw the [inaudible 00:12:54], amazing looking sports book in the Meadowlands the racing entertainment setting there at the race track. I think that was another element added into the whole experience here. And the weather was great so people just loved that like being on the roof top back drop was Manhattan, you had the MetLife stadium there you could see, you see the race track, there was drinks, there was barbecue and people continued doing their business that they didn't finish doing that very day in the daytime. Rasmus Sojmark: 13:25 On the first day of course, to add another element into making it really a key evening for people, we had the hall of fame next to [inaudible 00:13:32] network the Sky room In Manhattan. Now I'll say to you Ryan I mean, I went to New York a couple of times, seven hours, pouring down with rain, walking around and that was the day we chose to view the roof top bars in all of New York, just to find the best venue [inaudible 00:13:50]. And that was difficult when it's raining. The good thing there was Sky room had this thing that you close off the roof of it, so in case it was raining you still have that feel of the roof top fun and it was raining that day. Ryan Knuppel: 14:00 Right. Rasmus Sojmark: 14:01 Really had it open so that was a good choice. And at the same time you had like Dennis Drazin, Art Manteris, and Chris Christie coming for the hall of fame. Personally this is why I love these men, I had the good opportunity here to be the one that presented the hall of fame award for former Governor Chris Christie. Rasmus Sojmark: 14:22 That was a proud moment, I mean he's an interesting man for the sports industry. Being up there getting that choice. That's a lot that comes with sometimes organizing an event. Normally, I would have someone else doing it like one of our sponsors or something like that, but on this case it was also a new event it was nice first to see or to show ourselves. People maybe understood it a little bit, who's behind this event. When you come back and realize it was a successful event so yeah. All things I think it was great for the combination there with daytime and strong evening events. Ryan Knuppel: 15:01 I agree and there's nothing much else I can say there. You said it all, I was going to repeat much of what you said about the venues. Absolutely gorgeous venues with some great views. Great people, great food, I mean all around just a great experience. Just once again thank you for putting that on and thank you for I mean, SBC definitely didn't skimp out on those events. They treated people well. And that was the other thing your stuff and everybody around the event was very accommodating to everyone and just super engaging with people which is always good to hear. Ryan Knuppel: 15:34 Overall great event. Anything else about this event you wanted to talk about here or are you won out already? Rasmus Sojmark: 15:42 No I can continue. What I think you just mentioned. One thing of course is very important is you have a good team. I think we actually had 25 staff and colleagues over there so we wanted to make sure we had a very strong understanding of the events we do and we could execute on them. Obviously we had good support from local staff as well that we brought in. And I think they did a very good job so of course a big thank you to my team as well. It's almost impossible organizing all these elements takes a lot of effort. Rasmus Sojmark: 16:16 And I think maybe lucky if you had [inaudible 00:16:18], it wasn't that easy but we did a lot of pre planning, we did a lot of execution of tasks between team members and they were in charge of this and that. And I think all in all it went well. Because me Ryan as well coming to New Jersey and Manhattan to present an event, it's just not me working and making sure the event works. I also need to talk to you, build my network and make sure people get to know us better, because we need to put a face to the name for a lot of people. Rasmus Sojmark: 16:47 There was a lot of people that couldn't execute on their work so it was very good work for the staff here where others they were running around trying to network and talk and make sure people knew who the actual SBC people were for future events. I would say as well next to that there were some really good highlights on the conference side. I mean we had the New Jersey Governor, Phil Murphy [inaudible 00:17:08] that was packed. You had the national media there, you probably had 400 people in there. I think there were sitting about 300 if you were standing in the back. He was very direct and saying New Jersey was to overtake Nevada and you have to come. That was quite interesting and all that means there will be more interesting events in New Jersey. Rasmus Sojmark: 17:31 Added to this, I think we had hall of fame Morten Andersen NFL hall of fame and the most kept player in the NFL. Giving a very cool and funny key note on the second there. But first I think there was some good [inaudible 00:17:44] there on stage. Walking around that floor I actually set him on [inaudible 00:17:49] key note. You have guy like [inaudible 00:17:52]. I mean patriot. So me being a patriot's fun I meet a three time super bowl winner there shaking my hand and taking pictures. Rasmus Sojmark: 18:02 That's cool and he was great so Brian Westbrook, the former Eagles running back. Ryan Howard there from the Phillies. They were doing a talk on the states as well which had received very good feedback. Then you also heard from the sportsmen inside [inaudible 00:18:17] with Christian Steward and John Katovich that could pen well on the CEO panel which I went into and it was packed. Rasmus Sojmark: 18:25 Loved the discussions between those guys and see what they had to say. There were some interesting questions from the audience as well. I think New Jersey is the land of opportunity of course because that was the follow up from what Phil Marcus said. You have David Rebuck the former senator Lesniak, and even pressing up the hardrock discussing New Jersey as an all. I think that was a really good panel. You had sponsorship panel with MGM Nelson's board and then Shell and Texas Rangers, very good panel as well. Rasmus Sojmark: 18:51 And then I think to finish it off, the very last panel to the event. Normally you and I would be out drinking a beer, but then you went into the room and it was packed. Probably because you had good people there addressing the media landscape and how that would deal with the sports betting in the US. And you had John from thescore, Patrick from the action network [inaudible 00:19:11], David Preslek from NBC. And I think those are all good names so I think that helps when you attract people in because they want to settle in. Rasmus Sojmark: 19:18 But also it's very interesting of course because the media in the US seems to be very embracing towards the sports betting. And know that there's massive opportunity here but how does this work? I think all of this just came together somehow actually with events. I think those are actually the key highlights next to of course all of the experiences you and I had at the evening events and the rest. Yeah. Ryan Knuppel: 19:39 Yeah. It really did. Man, I could talk about this all day long. I mean, there's so much that happened at this event that we can touch base on. But I know for the sake of time I want to let you go and I want to keep moving on here. What's next for SBC both in the United State and outside of the United States? What are the other events do you guys have planned and what can we look forward to because I know a lot of people listen to this, a lot of people in the industry listen to this podcast and I've been advocating some of your events. What can I be looking forward to over the next few months or year or years? Rasmus Sojmark: 20:12 Yeah I mean. I think we're looking at betting sports America at 2020 would be, all this would be on the 28th to 30 of April. For now, I think we set on the Meadowlands exposition center again. Mark your dates your calendars for the [inaudible 00:20:32] next year. And I think we we're trying to do with this is of course take back all the feedback we receive and try and work out how can we improve on this. How do we do like a year after follow-up to discuss the key thing that was addressed and how it's been compressed and hopefully [inaudible 00:20:48]. Rasmus Sojmark: 20:48 What we also want to do is try and work harder. I think we had a good representation from the sports industry [inaudible 00:20:54]. But we want to bring more of them in. There was also the NFL draft fell on the same dates I think that might be the case next year. We definitely take this back and then we'll deliver really stronger next year. And we want to grow it a bit not too big but of course you want to do more and get some more people into the commercial side. Rasmus Sojmark: 21:16 I think the commercial side will be more and more important as the industry grows. Because you need to look at the right product, the right opportunities, the right third party products. You need to create the ultimate and user experience. Also the side of integrity compliance and all these things, you need to make sure that the US industry is becoming a very solid and well executed part of the interest into the sports betting side. Rasmus Sojmark: 21:47 Because there's a lot of mistakes and issues that we learn from setting open markets so try and address these, get the right products, right people, speak to the right stake holders and make sure that is all there next year. Which I think it was this year, but certainly work hard to make it even better next year. That's the US events and of course for everyone that feels they are still hungry for sports betting information, I would like to say that our biggest event the one we've been running for several years, is taking place in London on the 17th to 20th of September actually at [inaudible 00:22:20] London which is one of the big conference centers. Rasmus Sojmark: 22:24 Normally there, we have around three and a half thousand senior expected attendance and we presenting no less Ryan this time the 300 speakers. It's also good exhibition part with relevant sports betting products we're talking about 140ish exhibitors. Absolutely there's so much information there and added to the evening events. For the ones that love a great networking event in the evening and also at the same time as we get in [inaudible 00:22:53] sports American here. Rasmus Sojmark: 22:55 You can get a bit of the local feel and experience the view of UK because we've booked the natural history museum which is an outstanding venue. We've booked that for one of the evenings. There'll be another European hall of fame. Those evening events will give you the same feel of the same opportunities to network and do business in the evening. Yeah. Anyone that feels from say the US side that can make the trips, you absolutely make the trip and we already have someone to speak from the US side of course represented. Rasmus Sojmark: 23:26 We talking about drafting, [inaudible 00:23:28] to promote to attend some of the panels which we usually do. I think certainly I will recommend this for the US audience because there is a lot of learning to do as well. There's a lot of different things discussed that might be a bit still ahead of what the US market is. But those are important learnings to take back. This event is very relevant and I will highly recommend anyone interested can always touch base with me. Ryan Knuppel: 23:51 Sounds like a good excuse to hit the London. Rasmus Sojmark: 23:53 Yeah. Absolutely man. Definitely you're welcome my friend. Absolutely. Ryan Knuppel: 23:57 Sounds great. Well, I appreciate you joining me Rasmus. I absolutely do I know you're a busy man and you're won out, we both are. My voice is actually a little scratchy still. Man I was just all that talking and loud events. I mean it was a great event. I appreciate you joining me. Any last words for the audience before we go here? Rasmus Sojmark: 24:16 Well, I think it's been a great week. Last week of course in New Jersey and New York and I think I'm very pleased to see that we got so great feedback. Even one of my good friends the president of online gaming called Churchill Downs, who's also a good US company, said it was the best event he ever attended. I think we keep getting this kind of feedback, so I'll leave you to just talk in a bit more. And then from this event and we will talk next year and I think yourself and people I met last week have been incredibly supportive. So Ryan thanks to you and all my friends and happy to invite you all here as my guest if you can make it in September and thank you for giving me the opportunity [crosstalk 00:25:03]. Ryan Knuppel: 25:07 Absolutely. All right. Nothing much else I can say besides great event. I invite everyone whose listening to this, make sure you put in on your calendar. You said April 28th to 30th of next year 2020. I'll be there again. That's the US one and then September 17th through 20th in London. Rasmus Sojmark: 25:24 Definitely man. Ryan Knuppel: 25:25 Awesome. All right Rasmus well you get some rest, you get back on your feet now that you're back home and I certainly appreciate you joining me on this show. And if there's anything I can ever do for you, you don't hesitate to reach out to me. Rasmus Sojmark: 25:38 Like wise my friend. And appreciate the time and the opportunity here yeah. Ryan Knuppel: 25:42 All right. You take care and have a great day. Rasmus Sojmark: 25:43 Take care. Speaker 2: 25:44 Thanks for listening to this episode of the Knup Sports Show. If you enjoyed this podcast, please consider subscribing to our iTunes channel today. Plus visit us at Knupsports.com for more picks, previews, strategy and news. That's KNUPSports.com.  

9a

We went to New York City for the 2018 New York Comic Con. FJComedy.com Like us on Facebook.com/FJComedy We are @FJComedy on Twitter, Periscope, Instagram and Snapchat. E-mail funnyjuicecomedy@gmail.com if you would like to sponsor an episode or if you have a suggestion or topic you would like to see us do an episode of in the future or fill out the form on our website. New logo and website designed by AutomatonApps.com and if you like it please go to them for your business needs.

Anthony Wedgeworth graduated high school without learning how to read because his dyslexic brain jumbled everything on the page. Today, he writes popular fantasy books for thousands of loyal readers. “Altered Creatures” is such a popular series that fans wearing costumes to look like his characters swarm him at comic conventions bearing hand-made gifts for him and wearing tattoos of the fantasy world he created. We met up with him at BookCon 2018 at Javits. For show notes and more visit our website www.BrooklynWritersProject.com

Carla Javits is the president and CEO of REDF, a philanthropy that invests in employment-focused social enterprises. Casey’s Lisa Hamilton recently spoke with Javits about common employment barriers, the role of social enterprises in workforce development and how her organization plans to expand its range and impact. To learn more about this CaseyCast episode, visit https://www.aecf.org/blog/carla-javits-is-focused-on-jobs-millions-of-them/.

Carla Javits is President and CEO of REDF (The Roberts Enterprise Development Fund), a pioneering venture philanthropy galvanizing a national movement of social enterprises—purpose-driven, revenue-generating businesses that help people striving to overcome employment barriers get good jobs, keep those jobs, and build better lives. Through her stewardship, REDF has invested in more than 100 social enterprises in 21 states. These businesses have generated $327 million in revenue and employed 21,000 people—and counting. REDF’s goal is to see 50,000 people employed by 2020, contributing their skills and talents to our communities and helping to build a stronger, more inclusive society. Inspired by the leadership of REDF’s founder, George R. Roberts, Carla focuses on achieving measurable results by leveraging the business community’s knowledge, networks, and resources, and the mission of the nonprofit sector to address some of our country’s most pressing challenges. In fighting to create a more inclusive society, Carla is carrying on the legacy of her father, New York Senator Jacob Javits. In overseeing strategy, relationship building, and fundraising, Carla Javits works directly with the leadership team as well as the Board of Directors and Advisory Council which are instrumental to REDF’s success. In leading REDF’s national expansion, Carla has laid the foundation for REDF to dramatically increase the number of people whose lives are transformed by social enterprise. Under Carla’s leadership, REDF was awarded two federal Social Innovation Fund grants by the Corporation for National and Community Service. Additionally the Los Angeles Business Times awarded REDF the Nonprofit Social Enterprise of the Year award in 2013. San Francisco Magazine recognized Carla in their list of innovative Bay Area Philanthropists. Carla is called on frequently to share her expertise at a variety of domestic and international conferences and speaking engagements, including the Social Enterprise World Forum in Milan, Italy, the Social Traders Master Conference in Melbourne, Australia, and most recently, as part of the American Enterprise Institute “Disruptor” Series in Washington, DC. Before joining REDF, Carla was the national President and CEO of the Corporation for Supportive Housing, where she was responsible for providing grants, loans, and technical assistance to service-enriched housing initiatives that ended homelessness for tens of thousands. She was Program Analyst with the California Office of the Legislative Analyst and Director of Policy and Planning for the San Francisco Department of Social Services. Carla holds a BA and Master’s in Public Policy from UC Berkeley. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Melville Charitable Trust and as an Advisor to the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University. Carla is President of the Marian B. and Jacob K. Javits Foundation; and a member of the Advisory Committee of The Philanthropic Initiative as well as the Insight Center for Community Economic Development’s National Advisory Board. Away from work, Carla likes spending time with her partner, her grown children, and her dog. She enjoys music, movies, theater, cooking, and being outdoors. Learn more about REDF here: http://redf.org/

The first Anime NYC was held in New York City (obviously) and Doug was there to kick it off with their first panel and check out all the Gundam Thunderbolt goodness.

The first Anime NYC was held in New York City (obviously) and Doug was there to kick it off with their first panel and check out all the Gundam Thunderbolt goodness.

The first Anime NYC was held in New York City (obviously) and Doug was there to kick it off with their first panel and check out all the Gundam Thunderbolt goodness.

The first Anime NYC was held in New York City (obviously) and Doug was there to kick it off with their first panel and check out all the Gundam Thunderbolt goodness.

For full show notes and access to additional resources for this episode, visit: prooftoproduct.com/nss2017part1 I recently was in New York for the National Stationery Show where myself and approximately 70 of our Tradeshow Bootcamp alumni were exhibiting.  And, I thought it would be fun to chat with a handful of exhibitors, everyone from first time exhibitors to seasoned pros.  This episode is part one of a two part special edition series and it features interviews with Stephanie from Dahila Press, Katie from The Good Twin, Shino and Ken from Fugu Fugu Press, Michelle from Meeschmosh, Denise from Friendly Fire Paper and Chelsea from Sugar Paper.  Enjoy!   ON TODAY’S EPISODE:   Stephanie Clarke from Dahlia Press (3rd year at NSS) [01:00] How the show has changed year over year for Stephanie. [02:00] Increased confidence that comes with exhibiting multiple years.[02:30] Being able to say no to things that aren’t the right fit for her business.[03:00] Licensing, custom projects and other opportunities that evolved being at NSS in 2017.[03:30] Making time to connect with industry colleagues and peers[04:00] Unexpected issues with shipping to the show and how she handled it Katie Wilson from The Good Twin (2nd year at NSS)[04:30] Recap of relationships and opportunities she experienced being at the show.[05:00] Thoughts on NSS moving to a lower level at Javits (we like it!)[06:00] Building on relationships with retailers and meeting buyers from big box stores [06:00] Potential licensing projects with Penguin and Random House [06:30] Connecting with industry colleagues at the show[07:00] Industry specific shows vs shows with wider range of vendors[07:30] Standing out amongst others in the industry Shino & Ken Charlson from Fugu Fugu Press  (10th year at NSS)[08:00] How the show has evolved over the last 10 years.[08:30] Reaffirming relationships with current accounts & growing the size of orders. [09:30] Benefits of using face time at the shows to get feedback on your products.[10:30] New accounts vs fostering relationships with current accounts.   [11:00] Jitters before you write that first order at a show.  [12:00] Trying new things with their line and feeling validated when people buy[12:30] Putting yourself and your work out into the world[13:00] Established companies still feel the jitters MIchelle LaRocca from Meeschmosh (3rd year at NSS)[13:30] Smooth sailing during set-up at the show[14:00] Other opportunities at the show: Licensing possibilities with Hallmark, Harpers[14:30] Benefits of being at a show Denise from Friendly Fire Paper (1st year at NSS)[15:00] First year at the show reached & exceeded her goals[15:30] Benefits of being at the show aside from sales [16:00] The unknowns of set-up went smoother than she expected[16:30] Rules change year to year; stay flexible and keep an open mind.[17:00] Meeting independent boutiques like Cursive and big box stores like Paper Source[18:00] Research, ask questions, don’t be afraid to reach out. Chelsea Shukov from SugarPaper Los Angeles (6th year at NSS)[18:30] Learning as they went when they first started selling wholesale and exhibiting.[20:00] Get your pricing right, do your research and know what the market will bear[20:30] Converting their Target customers into luxury planner customers[21:00] Differentiating yourself & maintaining a clear identity in your business[21:00] As a buyer she wants to see authentic work[22:00] How the show has evolved:  It’s tiny but mighty. KEY TAKE-AWAYS:   My confidence has grown in many ways - Stephanie Clarke, Dahlia Press   “I like to think that even if I’m in a sea of stationers, my stuff will stand out and fill a need for my retailers.” -Katie Wilson, The Good Twin   We reaffirm relationships by being at the show. Our buyers are growing with us. And we value that. -Ken Charlson, Fugu Fugu Press “Stay flexible and keep an open mind.” -Denise, Friendly Fire Paper “Shipping product that is not making you any money, is not doing you any favors.  You’re working for free.” - Chelsea Shukov, Sugar Paper   “Maintain a clear identity in your business” -Chelsea Shukov, Sugar Paper   INSTAGRAM HANDLES -- Tell them you heard them on Proof to Product! Dahla Press The Good Twin Fugu Fugu Press Meeschmosh Friendly Fire Paper Sugar Paper   JOIN THE TSBC FAMILY: Interested in learning more about launching or refining a wholesale line or exhibiting at trade shows?  Join us for our next Paper Camp conference in Los Angeles. Get more details and register at www.tradeshowcamp.com/papercamp   ABOUT PROOF TO PRODUCT: Proof to Product is brought to you by Tradeshow Bootcamp and hosted by Katie Hunt. Since 2011, TSBC has worked with hundreds of product based businesses to help them up level, scale, and build profitable sustainable companies. You can find our show notes and additional resources at ProofToProduct.com. If you like what you heard today, please head over to Apple Podcast to leave a five star review and subscribe. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next week with a new episode.

It's Toy Fair! that magical time of the year when the Toy Industry descends upon NYC to offer up new objects of desire for children and adult collectors alike. Dave, Barry and Tod review some this year's notables, including items from QMX, Hot Toys and Hasbro, and they reminisce a bit about time spent walking the carpet at the Javits center in years past. Add to this a few Random Topics, and a round of Show and Tell, and we have episode 131. Thanks for Listening!

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/20vvGiD. Subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwitunes or on Stitcher by clicking here: http://bit.ly/ymotwstitcher. Katelyn Dalton was a homeless addict. She considered herself to be “unemployable.” [Jump to page 2 to watch the live interview.] She says she was hurt and frustrated when she was rejected by prospective employers who rejected her application even when they said they were hiring. She boasts, “ I overcame it with self-perseverance and the support of social enterprises giving me the support and tools necessary to be successful.” The social enterprises she mentions were supported by REDF, a nonprofit that supports social enterprises that employ the “unemployable.” Founded in 1997 by KKR’s George Roberts, the organization is led today by Carla Javits. Dalton explains what it felt like to re-enter the workforce. “When I finally learned that I had the ability to be successful, I was worth it and I had value, I was able to put my 100 percent into my life and therefore become a star in the workplace.” Javits exults, “Katelyn’s experience reflects exactly what REDF aspires to do for tens of thousands of people – demonstrating the power that a job can have in transforming the life of an individual and making it possible for them to contribute in a positive way to their family, while also improving their community.” REDF works to replicate Dalton’s experience. Economic mobility, the process of moving up the socioeconomic ladder, is much more difficult in the U.S. than most of us appreciate. A surprising 43 percent of children born into poverty will remain poor over their entire lifetimes, according to REDF. Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/20vvGiD. Please consider whether a friend or colleague might benefit from this piece and, if so, share it.

Interludes 1.2 - NYC Marathon (Audio: link) [audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/NYC.mp3] Link NYC.mp3   Act one – The Bridge Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros – All in a Day  Freezing and about half way across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and the wind was blowing sideways at 20-30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph.  Physical shivers racked me in the Orange Staging Area on the island.  My giant trash bag cut the wind but did little to warm me.   I was thankful to have the giant trash bag but would have rather had a full size wool blanket or poncho like Clint Eastwood wore in the spaghetti westerns.  Or a down jacket.   The temperature was not that bad.  It was in the high 30's Fahrenheit, but the cutting wind dropped the perceived temperature to single digits.  I was feeling it.  We were ½ mile or so in, still on the upward slope of the bridge with a steady stream of runners.  I didn't want to get in the way of anyone trying to race, but I recognized this as THAT iconic photo that everyone takes from this race and had to find a way to get it.   I was not racing this race.  I had my iPhone with me to facilitate these sorts of moments. I felt compelled to fill the social media void with my fuzzy pictures of randomness to show my sponsors, the good people from ASICS America that, yeah, I do occasionally attempt some content of the typical race-blogger type.   I saw my chance and jumped up onto the 2-3 foot wide barrier that separates inbound and outbound traffic on the top deck of the bridge.  Safely out of the flow I pulled off one glove with my teeth and took a few shots of the horizon, the cityscape beyond the river and the bridge.  … There's a guy a few feet away on the median with me who has one of those giant cameras.  I don't give him much thought.  There are camera-people all over the place on this course.  One guy is lying on his belly shooting the runners' feet as they swarm across the bridge.  Who am I to get in the way of their art?   Then I notice this guy is moving closer to me and it's a bit creepy because when I glance his way he's focusing on me, so I just try to ignore him and get my shots.  Turns out he's the photographer for Rueters and he's giving me the iconic ‘Seinfeld moment' of the weekend.  In the picture he takes I'm holding up my cell phone, yellow glove dangling from my teeth.  Desperately clutching last year's orange parka, with the wind trying to blow it out of my hands.  I've got my gray ASICS beanie, a long sleeve ASICS plain red shirt (not anywhere thick enough for this wind assault on the bridge), ASICS Shorts, and my E33 race shoes with the green calf sleeves.  The caption will read; “A runner takes a selfie on the Verrezano Bridge at the start of the NYC Marathon”.  It wasn't a selfie, but who am I to argue with the media moguls of New York.   Ironically those were the last pictures I took during the race because I realized my phone was going dead and I might need the GPS to get back to the hotel later at the finish.  I powered it down.   I'm also wearing a scarf that I bought on the street corner in mid-town.  I would wear that scarf for the whole race.  Rakishly tied like the adornment of a WWI fighter pilot in an open canopy.  I fantasize about founding a whole line of racing scarves.  I will call this version “The Sopwith Camel”.  I can buy them on the corner for $5 and sell them to triathletes for $50 – (I'll just tell them it takes 6 seconds off their run times – triathletes will buy anything).  The last piece of clothing is an impromptu gator I've constructed by tearing the pompom off and gutting the Dunkin Donuts hat they gave us in the athletes' village.  Ingenuity bred by desperation.  I would have gladly gutted a Tauntaun from the ice planet Hoth with a light saber and crawled into its bowels for the body heat if that was an option.   I'm also holding a plastic shopping bag.  In that bag is 3 Hammer gels and an empty Gatorade bottle.  I held on to the Gatorade bottle thinking that I might need to refill it on the bridge given that I'd just finished drinking the contents.  If I have to relieve myself I want to be tidy about it.   Every time anyone has ever talked about the NYC marathon to me, somehow the conversation always ends up at “If you're on the lower deck of the bridge you get peed on by the guys on the upper deck.”  In fact there are signs along the start that threaten disqualification for anyone caught doing so.  But on this day I don't see a single guy attempting the feat.  It would take a brave and talented man to relieve himself in this cross wind and temperature.  The orange parka is from last year's race.  I have upgraded from my plastic trash bag.  The trash bag was good, but this is warmer, and I need to get my core temp back up to normal. Ironically when I got my trash bag out I realized that it was slightly used.  At one point I think it had actual garbage in it.  I just grabbed it from my car.  When I laid out the trash bag the night before I realized it wasn't ‘fresh out of the box' but, it is what it is, and I wiped it down with hotel face towels.  I used the bib safety pins to carefully scribe perforations for the head hole and the arm holes, like in old computer paper or junk mail, so I could easily push the patches out in the morning without having to chew out a gash with my teeth.   When you exit the holding area from the staging area into the starting line on the bridge they have big boxes to donate your throw away clothes to the homeless.  I knew my core temperature was low from the bone rattling shaking and shivering and I looked for an opportunity to better my sartorial situation.   I thought a nice hooded sweatshirt, or knit pullover would be the perfect upgrade to run the first couple miles in until my core temp came back up.  At the homeless boxes I tore off my plastic bag and grabbed that thick, quilted, finisher's poncho from the 2013 race.  They don't have arm holes but they are giant and you can wrap them around you like your grandmother's cardigan.  I made a joke that I hoped the guy who tossed it didn't have Ebola or bed bugs.   I had a politically incorrect but amusing mental picture that they should bus the homeless out to the start and have them set up on the bridge so people could pick the homeless person they wanted to give their old sweatshirt to.  It would be a nice way to mainstream the disadvantaged of the city.  They could hand out cups of fortified wine, like Thunderbird or Mogan David to warm the aspirants at the start.  In the starting coral I had a couple guys from Indiana take my photo.  America the beautiful played and I reluctantly took off my hat.  They played New York, New York, which was awesome, and then, without further fanfare, we bent our thousands of feet into the wind of the narrows.  Plastic bags and clothing of all sort blew sideways through the crowd and wrapped around people like suicidal jelly fish.   We were off. Frank Sinatra – New York, New York Act two – The elites and the bloggerati  I walked into the lobby groggy from my flight and a bit lost in time and space.  I had been battling the cold that tore through North America the previous week and trying to get enough sleep to beat it back.  I was coming off a short week and had run the Marine Corps Marathon 5 days earlier.   ASICS had asked me to fly Thursday night to be there in time for the Friday morning warm up run.  I was taking a rare day off on Friday to accommodate.  They flew me down on the short hop shuttle into Kennedy from Boston and had a limo waiting to take me to the hotel.  I definitely felt like a poser, but did my best to roll with it.  When confronted by these situations where you feel the imposter syndrome creeping into the back of your lizard brain I've found it best to have a sense of humor.  Smile and enjoy yourself.  Try not to talk too much and try to inquire and understand the new people you meet.  ASICS was putting me up at The New York Palace Hotel, a five-star joint on Madison Ave in midtown across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral.  It was a beautiful hotel with spacious rooms – definitely not the Spartan accommodation of a journeyman marathoner.  The travel part didn't bother me.  I spend most of my time in hotels and airplanes.  I'm a hearty and hale adventurer.  But, I'd be lying if I didn't feel a bit different, a bit fish out of water to be part of an industry sponsored junket of sorts.  Not icky per se, but more like the guy without a cool costume at a costume party.  … In the Lobby Noelle, our ASICS Liaison, was chatting with a couple guys. She noticed me lurking about in my head to toe ASCIS gear and introduced herself.  I could have sworn one of the guys was Ryan Hall but I'm such a meathead with the social graces I didn't want to make a faux pas.  Eventually Noelle introduced me them and the young blond guy leans in, shakes my hand and says, ‘Hi, I'm Ryan.'  The other guy introduced himself as Andy. I would soon learn this was Andy Potts the Ironman Champ.  It cracked me up that Ryan had the humility to assume I didn't know who he was.  Moving to the bar with Noelle we ordered drinks and waited for the other out-of-towners.  … “Mini-Marathoners” – that's what they called them.  They were 5 inch tall statuettes of us.  They had taken photos of us and rendered them, with the latest computer aided design, into mini 3D renditions of us in full stride.  Noelle passed them out while we – the ASCICS Blogger team - were having drinks.  They were a big hit.  I met two of the other bloggers, Megan ‘Irun4Wine' from Florida and Brian ‘PavementRunner' from the Bay Area.  Brian's mini marathoner had a hilarious beer belly, which Brian does not possess in real life.  Megan's mini marathoner had brilliant red hair, which she does not possess in real life.   Megan Wood (Copello) - @Irun4Wine www.irunforwine.net Megan Lee - @RunLikeAGrl - www.runlikeagrl.com Brian Kelly - @PavementRunner – www.pavementrunner.com Gregg Bard – NYCGregg – www.NYCSweat.com My mini marathoner was excellent.  They gave me back a full head of hair, made me skinny, took at least 10 years off me and made me look vaguely like Will Wheaton.  I'll take it.  Of course the jokes flowed in.  Does it have kung fu grip?  Is it a bobble head? Yeah, you know you've made it when they are making action figures of you… … New York City is a funny, kinetic and desperate place.  I walked the streets of midtown doing some people watching.  Beat down, bowlegged men in suits trucking down the sidewalk.  The street vendors.  The tourists, always looking up in awe.  The many languages and all the smokers!  It was like being in Paris in 1970 with all the cigarette smoke being exhaled into my personal space.   I circled the hotel, over to Park Ave and 1st and 48th and 54th, getting the lay of the land, taking mental notes of restaurants and stores and milestones.  The Helmsley, Grand Central, the ebb and flow and surge of pedestrians.   I passed a fruit vendor and decided to take the plunge.  I was quite proud of myself having procured some bananas and plums and pears.  It was later that I discovered the vendor had put the fruit stickers over the moldy spots.  Ahh…New York, a kinetic and desperate place.  … Friday morning dawned gray but I was up before the sun.  I went to the Starbucks next door and treated myself to a coffee and oatmeal, not knowing what the day might have in store nutritionally.  We had a rendezvous with the cars to shuttle us over to the park for our ‘warm up run' event.  Noelle was the leader like a tour guide with her charges in tow we all boarded limos for the ride over and gathered in a restaurant for coffee and sundries.   Among the assembled crowd was a throng of actual journalists from places like Rodale and USAToday.  Nice, literate and sporty journalists, guests of ASICS all assembling for coffee and bagels and selfies with the elites.  Coach Kastor was there holding court and he was in charge of the morning exercise.  Andy Potts was there as was Ryan and some other elite athletes from the ASICS stable.  My new friend Grace ‘LeanGirlsClub' was there and I gave her a big hug.  As was the other Megan, ‘RunLikeAGirl' and Greg, ‘NYCSweat'.  The blogger team was complete.    And then we went for a run. Up until this point it was just super surreal for me.  All this attention for a journeyman marathoner of little account.  I won't lie.  It felt a little icky.  I love running.  I love talking about, writing about and rolling around in the smell of running.  But, it's my hobby, not my job.  All these industry folks and media people subconsciously gave me the heebee-jeebees and I consciously determined to smile and be humble and ask people about themselves.   Coach Kastor led us around the park and out to the finish line.   This is where it all got normal for me again.  As soon as I felt the kinetic relief of feet hitting pavement my whole world resolved back to that happy place.  The veil dropped and I was out for a run with some new friends.   We were all taking pictures and chatting as we jogged around the park.  I told Coach Kastor how perfect his form was.  I chatted with Ryan and Andy and Coach about races and shoes and injuries and all those things that we default to like old men in a café over coffee.   This is the human and democratic sinew of our sport.  It is the most human of endeavors.  To run .  We paused for team pictures.  I look lean and happy in my short shorts.  Noelle told me that the only other person she knew who wore short shorts was Ryan.  That's good enough for me!  Back in the restaurant for coffee and schmoozing.  I had a chance to chat with Andy Potts about his Kona race.  I asked what I thought was an interesting and erudite question about how he resolves the challenge of dropping into a flow state during the grueling endurance intensity of an ironman with having to stay aware of the immediate tactics of the race?  Up until this point it had been all small talk and banter but when we started talking about racing his inner competitor came out.  He got serious and intense.  I saw the character of the Ironman champion emerge from the shadows.  He told me about how when someone makes a move, “You don't let them go, they take it, and it's up to you to decide whether you're going to let them take it.”  I chatted with Ryan Hall too.  It was just small talk.  With the intent of small talk I asked him what he had coming up next.  He got a bit dark, dropping the California persona.  I realized that I unintentionally had asked a question that he got asked often with different intent by reporters.  A question they asked that really was “When are you going to live up to the expectations that the world has burdened you with.”  Here's a man that can crank out 26.2 sub-5 minute miles.  He's got nothing to prove to me.  I just wanted to talk about running and racing and geek out about the sport we love.  There were some speeches as the elites all gave us their tips on running our marathons.  At some point Deena Kastor came in and she gave us a talk as well.  She filled a plate at the buffet and sat at a table to pick at it.  I saw that the other bloggers were sort of hovering behind her chair so I took the initiative and asked Noelle to ask her to chat with us a bit.  Deena was a sweetheart and immediately acquiesced.  She told a story about the Philadelphia ½ marathon that I had read somewhere before.  She told Megan that she loved the “Irun4Wine” blog name because she ran for wine too!  … The Clash – City of the Dead Act three – the first half There is a strange dynamic between New York City and Boston.  It's a bit of a love-hate relationship.  Like sisters that were born too close together and forced to share the same room.  The typical exchange I had while in the city follows:  New Yorker: “So…Where are you from?”  Me: “Boston” Them: “I'm sorry” Me: “That's quite alright.”  Them: “You know what I like about Boston?”  Me: “No, What?”  Them: “The ride to the airport when I know I'm getting the hell out of there!”  You think I'm joking.  I had this exact conversation with more than one person.  They weren't being mean. In the zeitgeist of the New Yorker anyone living anywhere else is only doing so until they can figure out how to move to the Big Apple.  I won't bother telling them it isn't so.  They wouldn't hear me anyhow.  Another conversation I had was this one: “How many times have you run the New York City Marathon?”  “This is my first.”  Why haven't you run it before?”  “Because it's a giant pain in the ass.  It's expensive, hard to get into and hard to get to.” “Well, you must be excited about running the best marathon in the world!?”  “Yes, I've run it 16 times, but I hear this one is pretty good too…”  … After we got off the windy chaos of the bridge and into the protecting streets of Brooklyn it warmed right up.  We were moving.  Everyone was happy, happy, happy with the early race excitement of finally being out there after much anticipation and wait.  I tossed my sundry items of extra clothing away as we exited the bridge, taking care to place them downwind and out of the way.  The first few miles as athletes discarded clothing you had to watch your step.  The wind was swirling items around.  Bags and shirts and blankets were doing mad dances in the street.   The sun was peeking through and the building blocked the wind intermittently, changing it from a sideways bluster to an occasional vortex as you crossed side street gaps.  They had removed much of the tenting and the mile markers due to the wind.  I heard they also had to change the wheelchair start at the last minute as well to get them off the bridge.  As is always the case in the first few miles of a marathon I was running easy and in my element.  The pack was thick, but not as thick as you'd expect with a record 56,000 plus participants.  You could find a line and run free without side-stepping or pulling into the gutters.   The crowds were consistent and vigorous, lining the course.  I was my usual chatty self and talked to a couple people with Boston Marathon shirts on.  I had forgotten to bring my Garmin so I had no idea on pace or hear rate.  I just ran.  You should try that sometime.  It's quite liberating.  At my age the heart rate data just scares me anyhow.   Without the mile marks I had to ask runners where we were and back into the pace.  My plan was a bit muddy and half-hearted.  I figured I could run 5 minutes and walk one minute and that would be a nice easy 4-hour-ish marathon.  Having run Marine Corps seven days previously I knew I wasn't in a position to jump on this race with any enthusiasm.  With the combination of no mile marks and feeling fine I forgot my plan to take walk breaks and just ran.   I stuffed three gels down the back of my glove and carried the sleeping phone in the other hand.  I had a baggie of Endurolytes in the shorts pocket.  I had my room key in an interesting key-card size back pocket I had discovered in these ASCIS shorts, (that I was wearing for the first time).   I had to add the extra security of a bib-pin to hold this mystery pocket closed because it had no zipper.  Thank heavens I had ignored my impish impulse to wear the short shorts.  The extra 4 inches of tech fabric might have kept me out of a hospital trip for hypothermia.  I kept the scarf.  … Whereas I had no need to pee off the bridge I did start assessing the porta-john distribution patterns with some interest.  They seemed to show up every few K.  The first few had long lines.  I saw an opportunity around 10K and took care of my Gatorade recycling problem without a wait.   This first stretch through Brooklyn was wonderful.  Everyone on the course was happy to be running.  The folks in the crowd were abundant and enthusiastic.   There were several road-side bands, mostly playing classic-rock genre music, which I thought was great, but it reminded me of how old I'm getting that 80% of the people in the race had no idea what I meant by statements like “This was from their Fillmore East Live album!”  I would rather have a less-than-fully talented live rock band than someone blaring the Rocky theme song out a window.  I pulled up beside a young woman with a giant smile on her face.   Me, smiling and pulling up alongside; “Hi, how you doing?” Her, gushing; “This is Great!, Isn't this Great!?” “Yeah, it's something.  Where are you from?”  “Oh, I live here.  Isn't this Great?”  “Sure, why is this so great?”  “The People! They're just great!”  “What do you mean? They're acting nice for a change?” Her, scowling, and turning to look at me. “Where are you from?”  “Boston!”  “Oh, I'm sorry.” “Have you run this before?” “No it's my first time.”  “Do you have some sort of time goal?”  “No, I'm just enjoying myself.”  “Well, I would recommend saving some of this enthusiasm for the last 10k, you may need it.”  I had three goals for this race My A goal was don't die, my B goal was don't die and my C goal was don't die.  I'm proud to say I met all my goals.  Additional bonuses were that I squeaked under 4 hours and had a blast.   Act four – the Village “My doctor told me I'd never run again.” Was one of the interesting snippets from conversations I had while waiting in the cold.   The New York City Marathon, like many big city races has a substantially large block of waiting.  For those who are not sponsored athletes it start at 3 or 4 in the morning getting to and waiting on the ferry to Staten Island.  For me it meant a leisurely walk, once more led by our ASICS tour director Noelle down to the Sheraton to board the chartered busses that would drive us to the start.  Early marathon start time tip:  Go to Starbucks the night before and order a nice high-quality coffee.  This way when you wake up in your hotel room you have coffee ready for your breakfast no muss, no fuss. OK, it's cold, but it's better than messing with the hotel coffee maker for some weak-ass crap that won't get your pipes moving.  We had to get up early, but the ‘Fall back' time change mitigated that and it wasn't a hassle at all.  It was still a long, stop and go ride out to Staten Island.  As we sat on the bridge in traffic the bus rocked from side to side in the wind.   I had been being a proper dick for the last couple days making fun of the other runners who were super-concerned about the cold weather forecast.   “40 degrees? Are you kidding? Up where I'm from that's shorts weather!” Turns out the joke was on me.  When we offloaded and made our way to the staging areas the wind gusts tore through me.  My thin tech-shirt, shorts and snarky Boston attitude were no match for the wind-chill.   By the time we had taken some more group photos before breaking up for our respective staging areas my teeth were chattering.  It wasn't that cold, but it was overcast and the wind was ripping through us.  I got into my slightly used giant trash bag, to find my staging area, but by that point it was too late and I chilled to my core, and a couple millimeters of black plastic wasn't going to help.  The starting area of the New York City Marathon is the most giant, complex operation I've ever seen at a race.  First the buses disgorge you into a triage area where a gaggle of friendly NYC police officers filters you through metal detectors and pat downs.  Then you disperse off into the color coded ‘villages'. Once in the village you watch the giant screen for your start wave to be called.  When your wave is called you make your way to one of several coded exits.  When the wave in front of you moves to the start line, you progress through your exit to the holding pen.  Then you get released to the starting area on the bridge for your start wave.   All of this is coded onto your bib.  For example I was Orange, B3.  This meant I went to the Orange village and moved to exit B when my wave, wave 3, was called.  In reality what it meant was me wandering around showing my bib and asking people where I should be.   I didn't check a bag, so I didn't have to deal with the bag check at the start or the bag retrieval at the end.  Which meant a couple lines I didn't have to stand in, but also the risk of hypothermia at the start and at the finish if I got the clothing thing wrong.  I didn't die, but I sure would have loved to have had a throw-away sweat shirt! As I made my way through this hyper-organized, on a grand scale machine I thought about What 56,000 people all in one place looks and sounds and feels like.  This is the size of one of Caesar's armies, with which was conquered Gaul and Britania.  Imagine all these people carrying swords and running at another similar, bristling force?  The scale of it is moving and thought provoking.   In the Orange village I found my free Dunkin Donuts hat and got some coffee.  I heard my name called and got to spend some time with a couple of RunRunLive friends, Krista Carl, shivering on a piece of grass with them, taking selfies and waiting for our waves to be called.  One thing I have to give the race organization credit for is access to porta-johns.  I think these folks had procured every porta-john in the free world.  They were in the village and more importantly in the various queuing areas at the exits and start.  There's no way you could have that many people waiting around for that long without access.  No one was denied their personal respite.   Dust Rhinos – New York Girls Act five – the Expo After the warm up run with the rest of the team and the elites I was riding the elevator back up to the room.  I was chatting with Jason Saltmarsh from Saltmarshrunning.com and another young woman got in the elevator.  We small talked up a couple floors Jason got off leaving just the young woman and me.  I asked her “So what do you do for ASICS?”  She looked a bit befuddled and responded, “I'm Sarah Hall…”   It was a bit awkward for both of us but I smiled my way through it, saying, “Oh, I just ran with your husband…”  After geeking out with the elites I was all fired up and feeling very grateful for having been given the opportunity and invitation.  When I got back to the room I sat down recorded a YouTube video to publicly thank ASICS and muse on the unifying force that running and our community is. Had to get that off my chest.  Apparently the fact that I was taking the day off didn't register with anyone at work because the emails and phones calls were dogging me all day too.  Isn't that one of the truisms of life?  Nothing going on all week and then when you take a day off all hell breaks loose?  I beat back some emails and started putting together some material for a podcast.  I had nothing else to do and it was still early in the day on Friday so I figured I'd go down to the expo and pick up my number, and beat the rush.  I was still smarting from the previous week when I had wasted 3 hours standing in line on Saturday trying to pick up my Marine Corps bib.  Cell phone to ear I set off to find the Javits Center and the Expo.  Outside the hotel the well-dressed bellmen ushered me into a waiting cab for the quick ride.  The cabby, as is usual, was from some non-English speaking part of the African subcontinent but was able to make it clear to me that the Javits Center wasn't a good enough fare for him and tossed me out of the cab at the end of the block.   Ahhh New York, funny, kinetic and desperate place.  And they wonder why Uber is so popular… Being a marathoner, with time heavy on his hands, and nothing better to do I decided to hoof it the 2 miles or so over to the Expo.  Along the way I could get some work done, take some pictures and really just relax and enjoy the day.  As I drew nearer I picked up a few other strays from various parts of the world all questing in the same direction.   The triage at the expo wasn't bad and I got through to pick up my bib and shirt fairly quickly, but I may have accidentally cut the line.  The ASICS store in the Expo with the race specific gear was GIANT.  I would have bought a hat but I already had so much gear form ASICS and I didn't feel like fighting the line that snaked all around the store.   Wandering around with glazed over look I felt a tap on my shoulder.  “Are you Chris from RunRunLive?”  It was Brandon Wood, not the Brandon Wood the opera singer ironman, but another Brandon Wood @IrunAlaska who was in from said northern territory for the race.  We had a nice chat.   Later in the day I had another one of those Seinfeld moments when I cracked open the race magazine that they were handing out and saw Brandon's mug staring out at me as one of the featured runners.  I sent him a tweet and it turns out nobody told him about it and he was thrilled to get his 15 minutes.   I wandered around and noted Ryan and Sarah signing autographs, but didn't stand in that line either.  I'm not much for lines.  The Kenyans were there on display as well including Wilson Kipsang the eventual winner and Geoffrey Mutai, last year's winner.  I went by the Garmin booth and tried to make them talk me into buying a new watch but they couldn't close. I got bored and wandered off to find the buses back to midtown.  Apparently these buses were running from Grand Central and back to the Javits but it was a bit of a madhouse.  It was easier to take the bus back than to locate the right bus in traffic on the streets outside Grand Central.  Back at the hotel I beat back the tide of emails and I met Megan @Irun4Wine and her newly minted hubby for a few drinks, grabbed some Chipolte for Dinner and went back to the room to write and work on the podcast.  Reel Big Fish - Beer Act Six – the race Even though there were 56,000 runners in this race I never felt crowded or restricted.  As we rolled through Harlem with its gospel choirs and on into Queens the roads were wide and free flowing.  There were a couple times where the roads pinched in for some reason but I never felt like I was having to side step or trip.  The pack was dense, but you could get through it.  As we got into the middle miles I started to work in some one minute walk breaks every ten minutes or so whenever convenient water stops appeared.  With this cadence I would pass and repass the same people several times.  There were a bunch of people with orange shirts that said “Imagine a world without Cancer” and I had that thought running through my head, thinking about my Dad and Coach and all the other people I know that end up on the losing end of this disease.  Another stand out attribute of this race versus any other is the number of international participants.  I must have missed the memo but apparently you were supposed to run in the standard uniform of your country.  In my wave there were Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, France, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia, South Africa, and tens of other uniforms with flags that I couldn't decipher.  It was almost like the Olympics in a way because all the French wore the same uniform and all the Swiss wore the same red uniform and all the Aussies wore the same green uniform.  It made it easy for me to know whether an ‘Allee Allee' or Aussie Aussie Aussie! Was appropriate.   It also made it hard for me because no one was responding to the constant stream of humorous comments that stream from me during a marathon.  I's say something funny or ask a question only to be rejoined with a blank stare and a shrug.  Compounding this was the high percentage of ‘double-budders' who had an ear-bud on both ears and were unaware and unresponsive to the other 56,000 runners.  Seems a bit of a waste to me.  To be out on this course in this city with all these people and these big crowds and then seal yourself off into your own little world.   Not being able to communicate with people I amused myself with riling up the crowds and high fiving the little kids along the course.  I would run along the curb yelling “Who's gonna give me some sugar?!”   After the first hour, at one of my walk breaks I swallowed an Endurolyte and ate the Espresso Love Gu I was carrying.  I had already carried that gel through 2-3 entire marathons without eating it and I figured its time had come.  My body felt fine.  I wasn't paying attention to splits or pace.  It was just another Sunday long run with a few tens of thousands of friends.  Through these middle miles the course reminded me somewhat of the Chicago marathon as we passed through neighborhoods, each with its own character.  Except, unlike Chicago, on the NYC course there are some hills.  Nothing steep or horrible but some long gradual pulls nonetheless.  I wouldn't call it a ‘hard course', but it's not pancake flat either.  The other interesting topographical elements were the bridges.  There are five bridges, including the one you start on.  When I'm not racing I don't bother looking at the course map.  Part of it is I'm just not compulsive that way and part if it is the extra element of adventure this provides me as the course rolls itself out in front of me real-time.   The Queensboro Bridge was one of these adventurous surprises.  This comes right after the 15 mile mark and, including the approach and decent is over a ½ mile long.  This means you've got this 500-600 meter hill that just seems to keep going up and up.   The strangest thing was this was the first quiet place on the course.  We were on the lower deck, the inside of the bridge and the wind was blocked by the superstructure for the most part.  After all the screaming and noise and wind we were suddenly confronted with silence and the sounds of our own striving.  It was a bit eerie.  Not the silence per se, but the absence of noise in the heart of this race in the heart of this city.   This is where people were starting to show signs of tiring.  I had to side step some walkers and pay attention to the holes, lumps and buckles in the road that were common more or less across the course.  A not small group of runners congregated at the ‘overlook' gaps in the bridge to take pictures.  I trudged on up the hill in the eerie quiet to the soft sounds of treads and breathing and the rustling of clothing broken occasionally by the wheel noise of traffic on the upper deck above our heads.   Coming down the long down-slope of the Queensboro Bridge I find myself runner just behind an Amazon.  This young woman is tall, muscular and blonde like something out of a cheerleading movie.  My old heart and mind swoons.  I lose my train of thought and stumble into a collision with one of my international friends.  I smile at him apologetically, shrug my shoulders in the direction of the Amazon and sheepishly say “Sorry, I was distracted.”  His broad grin tells me that some things are the same in any language.  A couple characters I keep passing due to my walk break rhythm is a pair of Irish guys in their Green national uniforms.  One of them has, I'm guessing his name, Cleary, on the back.  Knowing that they speak a related version of my native tongue I make a comment on one of my passes, “Tough day, huh fellahs?”  Mr. Cleary looks at me and rejoins without missing a beat in his best and lovely brogue, “Fucking Brilliant!”  You know what they say?  ‘If it wasn't for whiskey and beer the Irish would rule the world.' I believe that to be true, and a fine lot of mad, philosopher, poet kings they would make.  As we crossed Manhattan for the first time I was starting to get a little tired.  I ate another gel at two hours and another Endurolyte.  I wasn't crashing or bonking or hitting the wall or any of that other poetic nonsense, I was just getting tire.  It had been a long week.  Someone said we'd be coming back this way and I quipped, “If we've got to come back, why don't we just stay here?” As we cruised down the broad reaches of First Avenue I was trying to apply my drafting skills to stay out of the wind.  I'm very good at drafting.  You need to find someone about your height who is running a nice even pace and you snuggle up into their wind shadow.   Drafting works even better in a big race because you can sometimes find two or three runners in a group creating a nice big pocket.  In big races you can draft a ‘double-budder' for miles and they won't even know you're there. You just have to not bump them or step on them.   But, running down First Avenue I couldn't figure the wind out.  As you went by the cross streets it would start as a head wind then shift around and end up as a tail wind.  It was a constant swirl that made it hard to find a good pocket to run in.  The sun was out now.  It was after noon and warm.  I was wishing I had worn sunglasses.  Act seven – Saturday Saturday morning before the race Brian the PavementRunner has organized a tweet up on the steps of the Library in Midtown.  The idea was we'd all promote it, get a big group of people, take some pictures and head for some coffee, then drop by the ASICS Times Square Store. It was a good plan but we woke up to a dreary cold drizzle.  We went anyhow and had some fun with the people that did show up.  We took some pictures, had some coffee and made our way over to the Big ASICS store.   The ASICS store near Times Square is a showplace store.  It has an old New York Subway car in it that is really cool.  This is where we took a couple more pictures that ended up making the rounds.  @RunMikeRun from Twitter took one of all of us in the subway car with his GoPro on a pole rig and that shot ended up being picked up by Runner's World.    Greg, Megan, Megan, Brian, Noelle and I all climbed up into the window display and took some great goofy shots with the manikins that made the rounds too.  We ended up having a nice lunch over near Rockefeller Center and then drifting off in different directions.  Some of these folks were understandably worried about having to run a marathon the next day.  I wasn't.  My goals were simple. Don't die.  Back at the hotel I used the afternoon to finish up the podcast and get some other stuff done.  Having no plans for the evening I wandered about Midtown, got some sundries and ended up getting a plate of pasta and a beer at TGI Fridays.  I picked up my Starbucks for the next morning and settled in.  I wasn't sure I knew how to set my iPhone alarm for the time change so I called the hotel operator and asked for a 4:45 wake up call, which was really a 5:45 wakeup call…I guessed. I laid all my race kit out in ‘Empty' runner format on the floor.  Tried to wipe the garbage off of my garbage bag and commenced to watch a little TV.  There was some really stupid zombie movie on that I started watching but reconsidered whether that was such a good idea the night before a race.  I fell asleep.  I slept fine, like a man with no secrets and many friends, and my eyes popped open at 4:30 (really 5:30) fifteen minutes before my wakeup call, like they usually do.   Act eight – the finish All the walking around the city, fighting the cold and wind all morning, and having run a marathon 7 days earlier started to wear on me as we crossed over into the Bronx by Mile 20.  I wasn't bonking.  I was really tired.  I skipped the three hour gel and Endurolyte and started taking a minute walk every 5 minutes.   Looking at my watch and backing into the pace I was on a 3:40 to 3:50 finish schedule if I kept the fire stoked.  I was tired though and I only had the one goal, which could be accomplished with any finishing time.   Coming down the bridge into the Bronx there was a larger woman running a bit loosely in front of me.  There was also one of those giant orange traffic cones in the middle of the road.  I don't know how she managed to do it, but she caught her toe on the cone and started to flail.   It was one of those slow motion moments for me.  She was in that state where she was off balance and wind-milling her arms for purchase on that razors edge between falling and not falling.  She was right in front of me.  I reached out and grabbed her as best I could until she regained her heading and rejoined the flow.  Coming back into Manhattan was a bit rough as I was super tired and not having much fun anymore.  I just wanted to get it done.  The race finished in Central Park but to get there you have to climb a long, long hill that just seems to go on forever.  I was passing the walking wounded and the walking dead but I was still on plan to attain my primary goal of cheating the grim reaper once more.  Once you get into the park it's another mile-plus of rolling hills to the finish.  When you make that turn into the park it's still a long way to the finish if you're hurting but at that point you know you've got it.  Along that long climb up Fifth Avenue and through the Park the crowds become loud and roaring.  It's a constant assault of praise and exhortation as the runners struggle through to the finish.   I crossed the line and had enough brain power left to stop my watch.  It said 4:00:03.  I turned on my IPhone to get a finish line photo and felt a tap on my shoulder.  It was Brian the @PavementRunner who had finished a couple steps behind me.  He had carried a GoPro and taken video of the race for ASICS.  Later I would learn that my actual time was 3:59:52.  That's nice.  And, I didn't die.  I was glad to see PavementRunner.  First because he's a nice guy and a familiar face, and second because I was clueless as to what we were supposed to do next and where we were supposed to go after the finish.  I didn't check a bag so getting one of those quilted race parkas was high on my priority list as the sun was starting to get low in the New York skyline.   Brian and I found the special, VIP exit that we were supposed to use and the volunteers were fantastic.  They were like hotel concierges telling us in great detail where we needed to go and how to get there. We found the parkas and the food and even the warming tent where we sat for a while to get some energy back for the walk to the hotel.   In another helping of irony, the woman sitting next to us in the warming tent was from the next town over from where I live.  Brian and I set out to find the hotel and joined the long stream of thousands of trudging warriors in blue parkas like Napoleon's Grand Army retreating from Russia.  Brian seemed to think he knew where we were going so I followed his lead until I saw water in front of us and intoned that even with my limited geographical knowledge of the city I didn't think there was a river between Central Park and Midtown.   We turned around and did some more walking.  My legs felt great.  I felt great.  This was an easy one that hadn't left a mark on me other than the tiredness of doing it. We stopped to take some tourist pictures in front of Radio City and the Tonight Show banner.   The people passing us in the streets of the City were very nice to us.  They were friendly and congratulatory.  It was a nice, warm and welcoming vibe that I've got to give the natives credit for.  They like their race.  Brian asked me what I wanted to eat and I didn't have to think about it.  God help me, and apologies to the planet, I wanted a big, juicy cheeseburger with bacon, fries and a beer.  Brian concurred.  After we washed up at the hotel that's just what we did.   After Brian walked us three blocks in the wrong direction which was beginning to become one of our running gags of the weekend we settled into Bill's Burgers and consummated our burgers and fries.  The waitress, seeing our medals, refused to let us pay for our beers.  I was starting to like these people.  On the walk back to the hotel I led Brian into St. Patrick's Cathedral where a late mass was being held.  I crossed myself with holy water and genuflected to the altar and it somehow felt as if we had God's blessing on this day.  I was grateful.  Act nine – the selfie that wasn't a selfie Monday morning as I flew back to Boston for a full day of work the tweets and emails started to come in.  “Were you standing in the middle of the Verrazano Bridge wearing an orange parka taking pictures?”   “Yeah, I was.”  “You're on the cover of the Wall Street Journal!” “No Kidding? Can you scan that and send it to me?”  And there I was in full freezing to death glory perched on the median taking pictures.  A final Seinfeld moment and another great Irony that this Boston boy was gracing the cover of their Newspaper.  The caption said “A runner takes a selfie on the Verrazano Bridge at the start of the NYC Marathon.”   It wasn't a selfie, but I guess I don't have a say in that.  Then it got picked up by CNN as one of their “Selfies of the Week” and somehow I'm in the same gallery as Madonna and Barack Obama.   Act ten – the end At the end of the day when I met all my new blogger friends for celebratory drinks at pub. (my kind of place).  Grace's boyfriend said “So, I guess you won the editor's challenge, then?”  Honestly, it was the first time the thought had entered my mind that there was any contest involving finish time, especially between me and these social media friends.  A bit jolly from the beer, my windburn subsiding into the cheery glow of my cheeks I turned to my new friends and said; “If there's one thing that I've learned from all the marathons and all the years is that you have to celebrate every one.  You don't know what's' coming next.  Celebrate today and now and every race because this could very well be as good as it gets.”  Skankin Pickle – Thick Ass Stout  

Interludes 1.2 - NYC Marathon (Audio: link) [audio:http://www.RunRunLive.com/PodcastEpisodes/NYC.mp3] Link NYC.mp3   Act one – The Bridge Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros – All in a Day  Freezing and about half way across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and the wind was blowing sideways at 20-30 mph with gusts up to 50 mph.  Physical shivers racked me in the Orange Staging Area on the island.  My giant trash bag cut the wind but did little to warm me.   I was thankful to have the giant trash bag but would have rather had a full size wool blanket or poncho like Clint Eastwood wore in the spaghetti westerns.  Or a down jacket.   The temperature was not that bad.  It was in the high 30’s Fahrenheit, but the cutting wind dropped the perceived temperature to single digits.  I was feeling it.  We were ½ mile or so in, still on the upward slope of the bridge with a steady stream of runners.  I didn’t want to get in the way of anyone trying to race, but I recognized this as THAT iconic photo that everyone takes from this race and had to find a way to get it.   I was not racing this race.  I had my iPhone with me to facilitate these sorts of moments. I felt compelled to fill the social media void with my fuzzy pictures of randomness to show my sponsors, the good people from ASICS America that, yeah, I do occasionally attempt some content of the typical race-blogger type.   I saw my chance and jumped up onto the 2-3 foot wide barrier that separates inbound and outbound traffic on the top deck of the bridge.  Safely out of the flow I pulled off one glove with my teeth and took a few shots of the horizon, the cityscape beyond the river and the bridge.  … There’s a guy a few feet away on the median with me who has one of those giant cameras.  I don’t give him much thought.  There are camera-people all over the place on this course.  One guy is lying on his belly shooting the runners’ feet as they swarm across the bridge.  Who am I to get in the way of their art?   Then I notice this guy is moving closer to me and it’s a bit creepy because when I glance his way he’s focusing on me, so I just try to ignore him and get my shots.  Turns out he’s the photographer for Rueters and he’s giving me the iconic ‘Seinfeld moment’ of the weekend.  In the picture he takes I’m holding up my cell phone, yellow glove dangling from my teeth.  Desperately clutching last year’s orange parka, with the wind trying to blow it out of my hands.  I’ve got my gray ASICS beanie, a long sleeve ASICS plain red shirt (not anywhere thick enough for this wind assault on the bridge), ASICS Shorts, and my E33 race shoes with the green calf sleeves.  The caption will read; “A runner takes a selfie on the Verrezano Bridge at the start of the NYC Marathon”.  It wasn’t a selfie, but who am I to argue with the media moguls of New York.   Ironically those were the last pictures I took during the race because I realized my phone was going dead and I might need the GPS to get back to the hotel later at the finish.  I powered it down.   I’m also wearing a scarf that I bought on the street corner in mid-town.  I would wear that scarf for the whole race.  Rakishly tied like the adornment of a WWI fighter pilot in an open canopy.  I fantasize about founding a whole line of racing scarves.  I will call this version “The Sopwith Camel”.  I can buy them on the corner for $5 and sell them to triathletes for $50 – (I’ll just tell them it takes 6 seconds off their run times – triathletes will buy anything).  The last piece of clothing is an impromptu gator I’ve constructed by tearing the pompom off and gutting the Dunkin Donuts hat they gave us in the athletes’ village.  Ingenuity bred by desperation.  I would have gladly gutted a Tauntaun from the ice planet Hoth with a light saber and crawled into its bowels for the body heat if that was an option.   I’m also holding a plastic shopping bag.  In that bag is 3 Hammer gels and an empty Gatorade bottle.  I held on to the Gatorade bottle thinking that I might need to refill it on the bridge given that I’d just finished drinking the contents.  If I have to relieve myself I want to be tidy about it.   Every time anyone has ever talked about the NYC marathon to me, somehow the conversation always ends up at “If you’re on the lower deck of the bridge you get peed on by the guys on the upper deck.”  In fact there are signs along the start that threaten disqualification for anyone caught doing so.  But on this day I don’t see a single guy attempting the feat.  It would take a brave and talented man to relieve himself in this cross wind and temperature.  The orange parka is from last year’s race.  I have upgraded from my plastic trash bag.  The trash bag was good, but this is warmer, and I need to get my core temp back up to normal. Ironically when I got my trash bag out I realized that it was slightly used.  At one point I think it had actual garbage in it.  I just grabbed it from my car.  When I laid out the trash bag the night before I realized it wasn’t ‘fresh out of the box’ but, it is what it is, and I wiped it down with hotel face towels.  I used the bib safety pins to carefully scribe perforations for the head hole and the arm holes, like in old computer paper or junk mail, so I could easily push the patches out in the morning without having to chew out a gash with my teeth.   When you exit the holding area from the staging area into the starting line on the bridge they have big boxes to donate your throw away clothes to the homeless.  I knew my core temperature was low from the bone rattling shaking and shivering and I looked for an opportunity to better my sartorial situation.   I thought a nice hooded sweatshirt, or knit pullover would be the perfect upgrade to run the first couple miles in until my core temp came back up.  At the homeless boxes I tore off my plastic bag and grabbed that thick, quilted, finisher’s poncho from the 2013 race.  They don’t have arm holes but they are giant and you can wrap them around you like your grandmother’s cardigan.  I made a joke that I hoped the guy who tossed it didn’t have Ebola or bed bugs.   I had a politically incorrect but amusing mental picture that they should bus the homeless out to the start and have them set up on the bridge so people could pick the homeless person they wanted to give their old sweatshirt to.  It would be a nice way to mainstream the disadvantaged of the city.  They could hand out cups of fortified wine, like Thunderbird or Mogan David to warm the aspirants at the start.  In the starting coral I had a couple guys from Indiana take my photo.  America the beautiful played and I reluctantly took off my hat.  They played New York, New York, which was awesome, and then, without further fanfare, we bent our thousands of feet into the wind of the narrows.  Plastic bags and clothing of all sort blew sideways through the crowd and wrapped around people like suicidal jelly fish.   We were off. Frank Sinatra – New York, New York Act two – The elites and the bloggerati  I walked into the lobby groggy from my flight and a bit lost in time and space.  I had been battling the cold that tore through North America the previous week and trying to get enough sleep to beat it back.  I was coming off a short week and had run the Marine Corps Marathon 5 days earlier.   ASICS had asked me to fly Thursday night to be there in time for the Friday morning warm up run.  I was taking a rare day off on Friday to accommodate.  They flew me down on the short hop shuttle into Kennedy from Boston and had a limo waiting to take me to the hotel.  I definitely felt like a poser, but did my best to roll with it.  When confronted by these situations where you feel the imposter syndrome creeping into the back of your lizard brain I’ve found it best to have a sense of humor.  Smile and enjoy yourself.  Try not to talk too much and try to inquire and understand the new people you meet.  ASICS was putting me up at The New York Palace Hotel, a five-star joint on Madison Ave in midtown across the street from St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  It was a beautiful hotel with spacious rooms – definitely not the Spartan accommodation of a journeyman marathoner.  The travel part didn’t bother me.  I spend most of my time in hotels and airplanes.  I’m a hearty and hale adventurer.  But, I’d be lying if I didn’t feel a bit different, a bit fish out of water to be part of an industry sponsored junket of sorts.  Not icky per se, but more like the guy without a cool costume at a costume party.  … In the Lobby Noelle, our ASICS Liaison, was chatting with a couple guys. She noticed me lurking about in my head to toe ASCIS gear and introduced herself.  I could have sworn one of the guys was Ryan Hall but I’m such a meathead with the social graces I didn’t want to make a faux pas.  Eventually Noelle introduced me them and the young blond guy leans in, shakes my hand and says, ‘Hi, I’m Ryan.’  The other guy introduced himself as Andy. I would soon learn this was Andy Potts the Ironman Champ.  It cracked me up that Ryan had the humility to assume I didn’t know who he was.  Moving to the bar with Noelle we ordered drinks and waited for the other out-of-towners.  … “Mini-Marathoners” – that’s what they called them.  They were 5 inch tall statuettes of us.  They had taken photos of us and rendered them, with the latest computer aided design, into mini 3D renditions of us in full stride.  Noelle passed them out while we – the ASCICS Blogger team - were having drinks.  They were a big hit.  I met two of the other bloggers, Megan ‘Irun4Wine’ from Florida and Brian ‘PavementRunner’ from the Bay Area.  Brian’s mini marathoner had a hilarious beer belly, which Brian does not possess in real life.  Megan’s mini marathoner had brilliant red hair, which she does not possess in real life.   Megan Wood (Copello) - @Irun4Wine www.irunforwine.net Megan Lee - @RunLikeAGrl - www.runlikeagrl.com Brian Kelly - @PavementRunner – www.pavementrunner.com Gregg Bard – NYCGregg – www.NYCSweat.com My mini marathoner was excellent.  They gave me back a full head of hair, made me skinny, took at least 10 years off me and made me look vaguely like Will Wheaton.  I’ll take it.  Of course the jokes flowed in.  Does it have kung fu grip?  Is it a bobble head? Yeah, you know you’ve made it when they are making action figures of you… … New York City is a funny, kinetic and desperate place.  I walked the streets of midtown doing some people watching.  Beat down, bowlegged men in suits trucking down the sidewalk.  The street vendors.  The tourists, always looking up in awe.  The many languages and all the smokers!  It was like being in Paris in 1970 with all the cigarette smoke being exhaled into my personal space.   I circled the hotel, over to Park Ave and 1st and 48th and 54th, getting the lay of the land, taking mental notes of restaurants and stores and milestones.  The Helmsley, Grand Central, the ebb and flow and surge of pedestrians.   I passed a fruit vendor and decided to take the plunge.  I was quite proud of myself having procured some bananas and plums and pears.  It was later that I discovered the vendor had put the fruit stickers over the moldy spots.  Ahh…New York, a kinetic and desperate place.  … Friday morning dawned gray but I was up before the sun.  I went to the Starbucks next door and treated myself to a coffee and oatmeal, not knowing what the day might have in store nutritionally.  We had a rendezvous with the cars to shuttle us over to the park for our ‘warm up run’ event.  Noelle was the leader like a tour guide with her charges in tow we all boarded limos for the ride over and gathered in a restaurant for coffee and sundries.   Among the assembled crowd was a throng of actual journalists from places like Rodale and USAToday.  Nice, literate and sporty journalists, guests of ASICS all assembling for coffee and bagels and selfies with the elites.  Coach Kastor was there holding court and he was in charge of the morning exercise.  Andy Potts was there as was Ryan and some other elite athletes from the ASICS stable.  My new friend Grace ‘LeanGirlsClub’ was there and I gave her a big hug.  As was the other Megan, ‘RunLikeAGirl’ and Greg, ‘NYCSweat’.  The blogger team was complete.    And then we went for a run. Up until this point it was just super surreal for me.  All this attention for a journeyman marathoner of little account.  I won’t lie.  It felt a little icky.  I love running.  I love talking about, writing about and rolling around in the smell of running.  But, it’s my hobby, not my job.  All these industry folks and media people subconsciously gave me the heebee-jeebees and I consciously determined to smile and be humble and ask people about themselves.   Coach Kastor led us around the park and out to the finish line.   This is where it all got normal for me again.  As soon as I felt the kinetic relief of feet hitting pavement my whole world resolved back to that happy place.  The veil dropped and I was out for a run with some new friends.   We were all taking pictures and chatting as we jogged around the park.  I told Coach Kastor how perfect his form was.  I chatted with Ryan and Andy and Coach about races and shoes and injuries and all those things that we default to like old men in a café over coffee.   This is the human and democratic sinew of our sport.  It is the most human of endeavors.  To run .  We paused for team pictures.  I look lean and happy in my short shorts.  Noelle told me that the only other person she knew who wore short shorts was Ryan.  That’s good enough for me!  Back in the restaurant for coffee and schmoozing.  I had a chance to chat with Andy Potts about his Kona race.  I asked what I thought was an interesting and erudite question about how he resolves the challenge of dropping into a flow state during the grueling endurance intensity of an ironman with having to stay aware of the immediate tactics of the race?  Up until this point it had been all small talk and banter but when we started talking about racing his inner competitor came out.  He got serious and intense.  I saw the character of the Ironman champion emerge from the shadows.  He told me about how when someone makes a move, “You don’t let them go, they take it, and it’s up to you to decide whether you’re going to let them take it.”  I chatted with Ryan Hall too.  It was just small talk.  With the intent of small talk I asked him what he had coming up next.  He got a bit dark, dropping the California persona.  I realized that I unintentionally had asked a question that he got asked often with different intent by reporters.  A question they asked that really was “When are you going to live up to the expectations that the world has burdened you with.”  Here’s a man that can crank out 26.2 sub-5 minute miles.  He’s got nothing to prove to me.  I just wanted to talk about running and racing and geek out about the sport we love.  There were some speeches as the elites all gave us their tips on running our marathons.  At some point Deena Kastor came in and she gave us a talk as well.  She filled a plate at the buffet and sat at a table to pick at it.  I saw that the other bloggers were sort of hovering behind her chair so I took the initiative and asked Noelle to ask her to chat with us a bit.  Deena was a sweetheart and immediately acquiesced.  She told a story about the Philadelphia ½ marathon that I had read somewhere before.  She told Megan that she loved the “Irun4Wine” blog name because she ran for wine too!  … The Clash – City of the Dead Act three – the first half There is a strange dynamic between New York City and Boston.  It’s a bit of a love-hate relationship.  Like sisters that were born too close together and forced to share the same room.  The typical exchange I had while in the city follows:  New Yorker: “So…Where are you from?”  Me: “Boston” Them: “I’m sorry” Me: “That’s quite alright.”  Them: “You know what I like about Boston?”  Me: “No, What?”  Them: “The ride to the airport when I know I’m getting the hell out of there!”  You think I’m joking.  I had this exact conversation with more than one person.  They weren’t being mean. In the zeitgeist of the New Yorker anyone living anywhere else is only doing so until they can figure out how to move to the Big Apple.  I won’t bother telling them it isn’t so.  They wouldn’t hear me anyhow.  Another conversation I had was this one: “How many times have you run the New York City Marathon?”  “This is my first.”  Why haven’t you run it before?”  “Because it’s a giant pain in the ass.  It’s expensive, hard to get into and hard to get to.” “Well, you must be excited about running the best marathon in the world!?”  “Yes, I’ve run it 16 times, but I hear this one is pretty good too…”  … After we got off the windy chaos of the bridge and into the protecting streets of Brooklyn it warmed right up.  We were moving.  Everyone was happy, happy, happy with the early race excitement of finally being out there after much anticipation and wait.  I tossed my sundry items of extra clothing away as we exited the bridge, taking care to place them downwind and out of the way.  The first few miles as athletes discarded clothing you had to watch your step.  The wind was swirling items around.  Bags and shirts and blankets were doing mad dances in the street.   The sun was peeking through and the building blocked the wind intermittently, changing it from a sideways bluster to an occasional vortex as you crossed side street gaps.  They had removed much of the tenting and the mile markers due to the wind.  I heard they also had to change the wheelchair start at the last minute as well to get them off the bridge.  As is always the case in the first few miles of a marathon I was running easy and in my element.  The pack was thick, but not as thick as you’d expect with a record 56,000 plus participants.  You could find a line and run free without side-stepping or pulling into the gutters.   The crowds were consistent and vigorous, lining the course.  I was my usual chatty self and talked to a couple people with Boston Marathon shirts on.  I had forgotten to bring my Garmin so I had no idea on pace or hear rate.  I just ran.  You should try that sometime.  It’s quite liberating.  At my age the heart rate data just scares me anyhow.   Without the mile marks I had to ask runners where we were and back into the pace.  My plan was a bit muddy and half-hearted.  I figured I could run 5 minutes and walk one minute and that would be a nice easy 4-hour-ish marathon.  Having run Marine Corps seven days previously I knew I wasn’t in a position to jump on this race with any enthusiasm.  With the combination of no mile marks and feeling fine I forgot my plan to take walk breaks and just ran.   I stuffed three gels down the back of my glove and carried the sleeping phone in the other hand.  I had a baggie of Endurolytes in the shorts pocket.  I had my room key in an interesting key-card size back pocket I had discovered in these ASCIS shorts, (that I was wearing for the first time).   I had to add the extra security of a bib-pin to hold this mystery pocket closed because it had no zipper.  Thank heavens I had ignored my impish impulse to wear the short shorts.  The extra 4 inches of tech fabric might have kept me out of a hospital trip for hypothermia.  I kept the scarf.  … Whereas I had no need to pee off the bridge I did start assessing the porta-john distribution patterns with some interest.  They seemed to show up every few K.  The first few had long lines.  I saw an opportunity around 10K and took care of my Gatorade recycling problem without a wait.   This first stretch through Brooklyn was wonderful.  Everyone on the course was happy to be running.  The folks in the crowd were abundant and enthusiastic.   There were several road-side bands, mostly playing classic-rock genre music, which I thought was great, but it reminded me of how old I’m getting that 80% of the people in the race had no idea what I meant by statements like “This was from their Fillmore East Live album!”  I would rather have a less-than-fully talented live rock band than someone blaring the Rocky theme song out a window.  I pulled up beside a young woman with a giant smile on her face.   Me, smiling and pulling up alongside; “Hi, how you doing?” Her, gushing; “This is Great!, Isn’t this Great!?” “Yeah, it’s something.  Where are you from?”  “Oh, I live here.  Isn’t this Great?”  “Sure, why is this so great?”  “The People! They’re just great!”  “What do you mean? They’re acting nice for a change?” Her, scowling, and turning to look at me. “Where are you from?”  “Boston!”  “Oh, I’m sorry.” “Have you run this before?” “No it’s my first time.”  “Do you have some sort of time goal?”  “No, I’m just enjoying myself.”  “Well, I would recommend saving some of this enthusiasm for the last 10k, you may need it.”  I had three goals for this race My A goal was don’t die, my B goal was don’t die and my C goal was don’t die.  I’m proud to say I met all my goals.  Additional bonuses were that I squeaked under 4 hours and had a blast.   Act four – the Village “My doctor told me I’d never run again.” Was one of the interesting snippets from conversations I had while waiting in the cold.   The New York City Marathon, like many big city races has a substantially large block of waiting.  For those who are not sponsored athletes it start at 3 or 4 in the morning getting to and waiting on the ferry to Staten Island.  For me it meant a leisurely walk, once more led by our ASICS tour director Noelle down to the Sheraton to board the chartered busses that would drive us to the start.  Early marathon start time tip:  Go to Starbucks the night before and order a nice high-quality coffee.  This way when you wake up in your hotel room you have coffee ready for your breakfast no muss, no fuss. OK, it’s cold, but it’s better than messing with the hotel coffee maker for some weak-ass crap that won’t get your pipes moving.  We had to get up early, but the ‘Fall back’ time change mitigated that and it wasn’t a hassle at all.  It was still a long, stop and go ride out to Staten Island.  As we sat on the bridge in traffic the bus rocked from side to side in the wind.   I had been being a proper dick for the last couple days making fun of the other runners who were super-concerned about the cold weather forecast.   “40 degrees? Are you kidding? Up where I’m from that’s shorts weather!” Turns out the joke was on me.  When we offloaded and made our way to the staging areas the wind gusts tore through me.  My thin tech-shirt, shorts and snarky Boston attitude were no match for the wind-chill.   By the time we had taken some more group photos before breaking up for our respective staging areas my teeth were chattering.  It wasn’t that cold, but it was overcast and the wind was ripping through us.  I got into my slightly used giant trash bag, to find my staging area, but by that point it was too late and I chilled to my core, and a couple millimeters of black plastic wasn’t going to help.  The starting area of the New York City Marathon is the most giant, complex operation I’ve ever seen at a race.  First the buses disgorge you into a triage area where a gaggle of friendly NYC police officers filters you through metal detectors and pat downs.  Then you disperse off into the color coded ‘villages’. Once in the village you watch the giant screen for your start wave to be called.  When your wave is called you make your way to one of several coded exits.  When the wave in front of you moves to the start line, you progress through your exit to the holding pen.  Then you get released to the starting area on the bridge for your start wave.   All of this is coded onto your bib.  For example I was Orange, B3.  This meant I went to the Orange village and moved to exit B when my wave, wave 3, was called.  In reality what it meant was me wandering around showing my bib and asking people where I should be.   I didn’t check a bag, so I didn’t have to deal with the bag check at the start or the bag retrieval at the end.  Which meant a couple lines I didn’t have to stand in, but also the risk of hypothermia at the start and at the finish if I got the clothing thing wrong.  I didn’t die, but I sure would have loved to have had a throw-away sweat shirt! As I made my way through this hyper-organized, on a grand scale machine I thought about What 56,000 people all in one place looks and sounds and feels like.  This is the size of one of Caesar’s armies, with which was conquered Gaul and Britania.  Imagine all these people carrying swords and running at another similar, bristling force?  The scale of it is moving and thought provoking.   In the Orange village I found my free Dunkin Donuts hat and got some coffee.  I heard my name called and got to spend some time with a couple of RunRunLive friends, Krista Carl, shivering on a piece of grass with them, taking selfies and waiting for our waves to be called.  One thing I have to give the race organization credit for is access to porta-johns.  I think these folks had procured every porta-john in the free world.  They were in the village and more importantly in the various queuing areas at the exits and start.  There’s no way you could have that many people waiting around for that long without access.  No one was denied their personal respite.   Dust Rhinos – New York Girls Act five – the Expo After the warm up run with the rest of the team and the elites I was riding the elevator back up to the room.  I was chatting with Jason Saltmarsh from Saltmarshrunning.com and another young woman got in the elevator.  We small talked up a couple floors Jason got off leaving just the young woman and me.  I asked her “So what do you do for ASICS?”  She looked a bit befuddled and responded, “I’m Sarah Hall…”   It was a bit awkward for both of us but I smiled my way through it, saying, “Oh, I just ran with your husband…”  After geeking out with the elites I was all fired up and feeling very grateful for having been given the opportunity and invitation.  When I got back to the room I sat down recorded a YouTube video to publicly thank ASICS and muse on the unifying force that running and our community is. Had to get that off my chest.  Apparently the fact that I was taking the day off didn’t register with anyone at work because the emails and phones calls were dogging me all day too.  Isn’t that one of the truisms of life?  Nothing going on all week and then when you take a day off all hell breaks loose?  I beat back some emails and started putting together some material for a podcast.  I had nothing else to do and it was still early in the day on Friday so I figured I’d go down to the expo and pick up my number, and beat the rush.  I was still smarting from the previous week when I had wasted 3 hours standing in line on Saturday trying to pick up my Marine Corps bib.  Cell phone to ear I set off to find the Javits Center and the Expo.  Outside the hotel the well-dressed bellmen ushered me into a waiting cab for the quick ride.  The cabby, as is usual, was from some non-English speaking part of the African subcontinent but was able to make it clear to me that the Javits Center wasn’t a good enough fare for him and tossed me out of the cab at the end of the block.   Ahhh New York, funny, kinetic and desperate place.  And they wonder why Uber is so popular… Being a marathoner, with time heavy on his hands, and nothing better to do I decided to hoof it the 2 miles or so over to the Expo.  Along the way I could get some work done, take some pictures and really just relax and enjoy the day.  As I drew nearer I picked up a few other strays from various parts of the world all questing in the same direction.   The triage at the expo wasn’t bad and I got through to pick up my bib and shirt fairly quickly, but I may have accidentally cut the line.  The ASICS store in the Expo with the race specific gear was GIANT.  I would have bought a hat but I already had so much gear form ASICS and I didn’t feel like fighting the line that snaked all around the store.   Wandering around with glazed over look I felt a tap on my shoulder.  “Are you Chris from RunRunLive?”  It was Brandon Wood, not the Brandon Wood the opera singer ironman, but another Brandon Wood @IrunAlaska who was in from said northern territory for the race.  We had a nice chat.   Later in the day I had another one of those Seinfeld moments when I cracked open the race magazine that they were handing out and saw Brandon’s mug staring out at me as one of the featured runners.  I sent him a tweet and it turns out nobody told him about it and he was thrilled to get his 15 minutes.   I wandered around and noted Ryan and Sarah signing autographs, but didn’t stand in that line either.  I’m not much for lines.  The Kenyans were there on display as well including Wilson Kipsang the eventual winner and Geoffrey Mutai, last year’s winner.  I went by the Garmin booth and tried to make them talk me into buying a new watch but they couldn’t close. I got bored and wandered off to find the buses back to midtown.  Apparently these buses were running from Grand Central and back to the Javits but it was a bit of a madhouse.  It was easier to take the bus back than to locate the right bus in traffic on the streets outside Grand Central.  Back at the hotel I beat back the tide of emails and I met Megan @Irun4Wine and her newly minted hubby for a few drinks, grabbed some Chipolte for Dinner and went back to the room to write and work on the podcast.  Reel Big Fish - Beer Act Six – the race Even though there were 56,000 runners in this race I never felt crowded or restricted.  As we rolled through Harlem with its gospel choirs and on into Queens the roads were wide and free flowing.  There were a couple times where the roads pinched in for some reason but I never felt like I was having to side step or trip.  The pack was dense, but you could get through it.  As we got into the middle miles I started to work in some one minute walk breaks every ten minutes or so whenever convenient water stops appeared.  With this cadence I would pass and repass the same people several times.  There were a bunch of people with orange shirts that said “Imagine a world without Cancer” and I had that thought running through my head, thinking about my Dad and Coach and all the other people I know that end up on the losing end of this disease.  Another stand out attribute of this race versus any other is the number of international participants.  I must have missed the memo but apparently you were supposed to run in the standard uniform of your country.  In my wave there were Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, France, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Australia, South Africa, and tens of other uniforms with flags that I couldn’t decipher.  It was almost like the Olympics in a way because all the French wore the same uniform and all the Swiss wore the same red uniform and all the Aussies wore the same green uniform.  It made it easy for me to know whether an ‘Allee Allee’ or Aussie Aussie Aussie! Was appropriate.   It also made it hard for me because no one was responding to the constant stream of humorous comments that stream from me during a marathon.  I’s say something funny or ask a question only to be rejoined with a blank stare and a shrug.  Compounding this was the high percentage of ‘double-budders’ who had an ear-bud on both ears and were unaware and unresponsive to the other 56,000 runners.  Seems a bit of a waste to me.  To be out on this course in this city with all these people and these big crowds and then seal yourself off into your own little world.   Not being able to communicate with people I amused myself with riling up the crowds and high fiving the little kids along the course.  I would run along the curb yelling “Who’s gonna give me some sugar?!”   After the first hour, at one of my walk breaks I swallowed an Endurolyte and ate the Espresso Love Gu I was carrying.  I had already carried that gel through 2-3 entire marathons without eating it and I figured its time had come.  My body felt fine.  I wasn’t paying attention to splits or pace.  It was just another Sunday long run with a few tens of thousands of friends.  Through these middle miles the course reminded me somewhat of the Chicago marathon as we passed through neighborhoods, each with its own character.  Except, unlike Chicago, on the NYC course there are some hills.  Nothing steep or horrible but some long gradual pulls nonetheless.  I wouldn’t call it a ‘hard course’, but it’s not pancake flat either.  The other interesting topographical elements were the bridges.  There are five bridges, including the one you start on.  When I’m not racing I don’t bother looking at the course map.  Part of it is I’m just not compulsive that way and part if it is the extra element of adventure this provides me as the course rolls itself out in front of me real-time.   The Queensboro Bridge was one of these adventurous surprises.  This comes right after the 15 mile mark and, including the approach and decent is over a ½ mile long.  This means you’ve got this 500-600 meter hill that just seems to keep going up and up.   The strangest thing was this was the first quiet place on the course.  We were on the lower deck, the inside of the bridge and the wind was blocked by the superstructure for the most part.  After all the screaming and noise and wind we were suddenly confronted with silence and the sounds of our own striving.  It was a bit eerie.  Not the silence per se, but the absence of noise in the heart of this race in the heart of this city.   This is where people were starting to show signs of tiring.  I had to side step some walkers and pay attention to the holes, lumps and buckles in the road that were common more or less across the course.  A not small group of runners congregated at the ‘overlook’ gaps in the bridge to take pictures.  I trudged on up the hill in the eerie quiet to the soft sounds of treads and breathing and the rustling of clothing broken occasionally by the wheel noise of traffic on the upper deck above our heads.   Coming down the long down-slope of the Queensboro Bridge I find myself runner just behind an Amazon.  This young woman is tall, muscular and blonde like something out of a cheerleading movie.  My old heart and mind swoons.  I lose my train of thought and stumble into a collision with one of my international friends.  I smile at him apologetically, shrug my shoulders in the direction of the Amazon and sheepishly say “Sorry, I was distracted.”  His broad grin tells me that some things are the same in any language.  A couple characters I keep passing due to my walk break rhythm is a pair of Irish guys in their Green national uniforms.  One of them has, I’m guessing his name, Cleary, on the back.  Knowing that they speak a related version of my native tongue I make a comment on one of my passes, “Tough day, huh fellahs?”  Mr. Cleary looks at me and rejoins without missing a beat in his best and lovely brogue, “Fucking Brilliant!”  You know what they say?  ‘If it wasn’t for whiskey and beer the Irish would rule the world.’ I believe that to be true, and a fine lot of mad, philosopher, poet kings they would make.  As we crossed Manhattan for the first time I was starting to get a little tired.  I ate another gel at two hours and another Endurolyte.  I wasn’t crashing or bonking or hitting the wall or any of that other poetic nonsense, I was just getting tire.  It had been a long week.  Someone said we’d be coming back this way and I quipped, “If we’ve got to come back, why don’t we just stay here?” As we cruised down the broad reaches of First Avenue I was trying to apply my drafting skills to stay out of the wind.  I’m very good at drafting.  You need to find someone about your height who is running a nice even pace and you snuggle up into their wind shadow.   Drafting works even better in a big race because you can sometimes find two or three runners in a group creating a nice big pocket.  In big races you can draft a ‘double-budder’ for miles and they won’t even know you’re there. You just have to not bump them or step on them.   But, running down First Avenue I couldn’t figure the wind out.  As you went by the cross streets it would start as a head wind then shift around and end up as a tail wind.  It was a constant swirl that made it hard to find a good pocket to run in.  The sun was out now.  It was after noon and warm.  I was wishing I had worn sunglasses.  Act seven – Saturday Saturday morning before the race Brian the PavementRunner has organized a tweet up on the steps of the Library in Midtown.  The idea was we’d all promote it, get a big group of people, take some pictures and head for some coffee, then drop by the ASICS Times Square Store. It was a good plan but we woke up to a dreary cold drizzle.  We went anyhow and had some fun with the people that did show up.  We took some pictures, had some coffee and made our way over to the Big ASICS store.   The ASICS store near Times Square is a showplace store.  It has an old New York Subway car in it that is really cool.  This is where we took a couple more pictures that ended up making the rounds.  @RunMikeRun from Twitter took one of all of us in the subway car with his GoPro on a pole rig and that shot ended up being picked up by Runner’s World.    Greg, Megan, Megan, Brian, Noelle and I all climbed up into the window display and took some great goofy shots with the manikins that made the rounds too.  We ended up having a nice lunch over near Rockefeller Center and then drifting off in different directions.  Some of these folks were understandably worried about having to run a marathon the next day.  I wasn’t.  My goals were simple. Don’t die.  Back at the hotel I used the afternoon to finish up the podcast and get some other stuff done.  Having no plans for the evening I wandered about Midtown, got some sundries and ended up getting a plate of pasta and a beer at TGI Fridays.  I picked up my Starbucks for the next morning and settled in.  I wasn’t sure I knew how to set my iPhone alarm for the time change so I called the hotel operator and asked for a 4:45 wake up call, which was really a 5:45 wakeup call…I guessed. I laid all my race kit out in ‘Empty’ runner format on the floor.  Tried to wipe the garbage off of my garbage bag and commenced to watch a little TV.  There was some really stupid zombie movie on that I started watching but reconsidered whether that was such a good idea the night before a race.  I fell asleep.  I slept fine, like a man with no secrets and many friends, and my eyes popped open at 4:30 (really 5:30) fifteen minutes before my wakeup call, like they usually do.   Act eight – the finish All the walking around the city, fighting the cold and wind all morning, and having run a marathon 7 days earlier started to wear on me as we crossed over into the Bronx by Mile 20.  I wasn’t bonking.  I was really tired.  I skipped the three hour gel and Endurolyte and started taking a minute walk every 5 minutes.   Looking at my watch and backing into the pace I was on a 3:40 to 3:50 finish schedule if I kept the fire stoked.  I was tired though and I only had the one goal, which could be accomplished with any finishing time.   Coming down the bridge into the Bronx there was a larger woman running a bit loosely in front of me.  There was also one of those giant orange traffic cones in the middle of the road.  I don’t know how she managed to do it, but she caught her toe on the cone and started to flail.   It was one of those slow motion moments for me.  She was in that state where she was off balance and wind-milling her arms for purchase on that razors edge between falling and not falling.  She was right in front of me.  I reached out and grabbed her as best I could until she regained her heading and rejoined the flow.  Coming back into Manhattan was a bit rough as I was super tired and not having much fun anymore.  I just wanted to get it done.  The race finished in Central Park but to get there you have to climb a long, long hill that just seems to go on forever.  I was passing the walking wounded and the walking dead but I was still on plan to attain my primary goal of cheating the grim reaper once more.  Once you get into the park it’s another mile-plus of rolling hills to the finish.  When you make that turn into the park it’s still a long way to the finish if you’re hurting but at that point you know you’ve got it.  Along that long climb up Fifth Avenue and through the Park the crowds become loud and roaring.  It’s a constant assault of praise and exhortation as the runners struggle through to the finish.   I crossed the line and had enough brain power left to stop my watch.  It said 4:00:03.  I turned on my IPhone to get a finish line photo and felt a tap on my shoulder.  It was Brian the @PavementRunner who had finished a couple steps behind me.  He had carried a GoPro and taken video of the race for ASICS.  Later I would learn that my actual time was 3:59:52.  That’s nice.  And, I didn’t die.  I was glad to see PavementRunner.  First because he’s a nice guy and a familiar face, and second because I was clueless as to what we were supposed to do next and where we were supposed to go after the finish.  I didn’t check a bag so getting one of those quilted race parkas was high on my priority list as the sun was starting to get low in the New York skyline.   Brian and I found the special, VIP exit that we were supposed to use and the volunteers were fantastic.  They were like hotel concierges telling us in great detail where we needed to go and how to get there. We found the parkas and the food and even the warming tent where we sat for a while to get some energy back for the walk to the hotel.   In another helping of irony, the woman sitting next to us in the warming tent was from the next town over from where I live.  Brian and I set out to find the hotel and joined the long stream of thousands of trudging warriors in blue parkas like Napoleon’s Grand Army retreating from Russia.  Brian seemed to think he knew where we were going so I followed his lead until I saw water in front of us and intoned that even with my limited geographical knowledge of the city I didn’t think there was a river between Central Park and Midtown.   We turned around and did some more walking.  My legs felt great.  I felt great.  This was an easy one that hadn’t left a mark on me other than the tiredness of doing it. We stopped to take some tourist pictures in front of Radio City and the Tonight Show banner.   The people passing us in the streets of the City were very nice to us.  They were friendly and congratulatory.  It was a nice, warm and welcoming vibe that I’ve got to give the natives credit for.  They like their race.  Brian asked me what I wanted to eat and I didn’t have to think about it.  God help me, and apologies to the planet, I wanted a big, juicy cheeseburger with bacon, fries and a beer.  Brian concurred.  After we washed up at the hotel that’s just what we did.   After Brian walked us three blocks in the wrong direction which was beginning to become one of our running gags of the weekend we settled into Bill’s Burgers and consummated our burgers and fries.  The waitress, seeing our medals, refused to let us pay for our beers.  I was starting to like these people.  On the walk back to the hotel I led Brian into St. Patrick’s Cathedral where a late mass was being held.  I crossed myself with holy water and genuflected to the altar and it somehow felt as if we had God’s blessing on this day.  I was grateful.  Act nine – the selfie that wasn’t a selfie Monday morning as I flew back to Boston for a full day of work the tweets and emails started to come in.  “Were you standing in the middle of the Verrazano Bridge wearing an orange parka taking pictures?”   “Yeah, I was.”  “You’re on the cover of the Wall Street Journal!” “No Kidding? Can you scan that and send it to me?”  And there I was in full freezing to death glory perched on the median taking pictures.  A final Seinfeld moment and another great Irony that this Boston boy was gracing the cover of their Newspaper.  The caption said “A runner takes a selfie on the Verrazano Bridge at the start of the NYC Marathon.”   It wasn’t a selfie, but I guess I don’t have a say in that.  Then it got picked up by CNN as one of their “Selfies of the Week” and somehow I’m in the same gallery as Madonna and Barack Obama.   Act ten – the end At the end of the day when I met all my new blogger friends for celebratory drinks at pub. (my kind of place).  Grace’s boyfriend said “So, I guess you won the editor’s challenge, then?”  Honestly, it was the first time the thought had entered my mind that there was any contest involving finish time, especially between me and these social media friends.  A bit jolly from the beer, my windburn subsiding into the cheery glow of my cheeks I turned to my new friends and said; “If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from all the marathons and all the years is that you have to celebrate every one.  You don’t know what’s’ coming next.  Celebrate today and now and every race because this could very well be as good as it gets.”  Skankin Pickle – Thick Ass Stout  

Well, the New York Comic Con has come and gone once again. Time to talk about it in depth! Kris and Ian do just that, and a virtual bag of chips. Topics include swag obtained, cosplay seen, how the floor plan has changed over the years, some gripes that occurred over the weekend, how Javits … Continue reading Comic Timing – Episode 161: NYCC 2014 Con Wrap-Up →

LEGO MODOK. Need we say more? Okay, LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy! Three A Dr. Doom figures! Kotobukiya's Avengers Assembled. Ghost Rider Labbits. So much Marvel goodness was on display last week at New York City's Javits Center for Toy Fair International, and on this issue of the Marvelicious Toys podcast Justin, Marjorie, and Arnie run down the hot new items you'll want to collect!Note: Marvelicious Toys' enhanced podcasts are now full HD video podcasts! The audio version of our show is also still available. Read all about it in Arnie's blog post.

LEGO MODOK. Need we say more? Okay, LEGO Guardians of the Galaxy! Three A Dr. Doom figures! Kotobukiya's Avengers Assembled. Ghost Rider Labbits. So much Marvel goodness was on display last week at New York City's Javits Center for Toy Fair International, and on this issue of the Marvelicious Toys podcast Justin, Marjorie, and Arnie run down the hot new items you'll want to collect!Note: Marvelicious Toys' enhanced podcasts are now full HD video podcasts! The audio version of our show is also still available. Read all about it in Arnie's blog post.

Star Wars fans have a reason to be excited after last week's New York Toy Fair International. Watch this week's podcast to see all the new toys and collectibles! From LEGO to Uncle Milton, Kotobukiya, Underground Toys, and so many more, they're all in this week's continuing Toy Fair coverage! Note: Star Wars Action News' enhanced podcasts are now full HD video podcasts! Read all about it in Arnie's blog post.

Star Wars fans have a reason to be excited after last week's New York Toy Fair International. Watch this week's podcast to see all the new toys and collectibles! From LEGO to Uncle Milton, Kotobukiya, Underground Toys, and so many more, they're all in this week's continuing Toy Fair coverage! Note: Star Wars Action News' enhanced podcasts are now full HD video podcasts! Read all about it in Arnie's blog post.

Emily Rosko was born in Pennsylvania, grew up in the Midwest, and later taught English in Siberia. A recipient of the Stegner, Ruth Lilly, and Javits fellowships, she holds degrees from Cornell and Purdue universities. Her poems have appeared in journals such as Another Chicago Magazine,The Beloit Poetry Journal, and Denver Quarterly, and her new book is Raw Goods Inventory.Rosko read in Cornell’s Goldwin Smith Hall on April 5, 2007. This interview took place earlier the same day.

Doctor Who: Podshock - AFTERSHOCK 22nd of March 2007 Will you be attending I-CON 26, the annual science fiction convention at SUNY, Stony Brook, NY? If so, be sure to attend a special live recording of Doctor Who: Podshock on Sunday, 25th of March 2007 at 1:30pm (EDT) located in Javits 103 (in the Javits Lecture Center building). Special guest will be book author John Peel (Doctor Who and the Daleks (with Terry Nation), The Chase, Mission to the Unknown, The Mutation of Time, The Gallifrey Chronicles, The Evil of the Daleks, The Power of The Daleks, Timewyrm: Genesys, Evolution, War of the Daleks, Legacy of the Daleks, etc.). Join Ken Deep and Louis Trapani in person, along with James Naughton live via the net at this year's I-CON Stony Brook, NY Convention for Doctor Who: Podshock - LIVE !

Doctor Who: Podshock - AFTERSHOCK 22nd of March 2007 Will you be attending I-CON 26, the annual science fiction convention at SUNY, Stony Brook, NY? If so, be sure to attend a special live recording of Doctor Who: Podshock on Sunday, 25th of March 2007 at 1:30pm (EDT) located in Javits 103 (in the Javits Lecture Center building). Special guest will be book author John Peel (Doctor Who and the Daleks (with Terry Nation), The Chase, Mission to the Unknown, The Mutation of Time, The Gallifrey Chronicles, The Evil of the Daleks, The Power of The Daleks, Timewyrm: Genesys, Evolution, War of the Daleks, Legacy of the Daleks, etc.). Join Ken Deep and Louis Trapani in person, along with James Naughton live via the net at this year's I-CON Stony Brook, NY Convention for Doctor Who: Podshock - LIVE !