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Email Marketing Rules: 184 Best Practices to Optimize the Subscriber Experience and Drive Business Success by Chad S. White About the Book: The most comprehensive email marketing book from the most prolific email marketing author helps you master the most misunderstood marketing channel. Updated and greatly expanded, the 4th Edition of Email Marketing Rules demystifies this vital channel, guiding you through its complexities to find the best execution for your brand—the one that serves the needs of your business and the needs of your subscribers. Volume 1 of Email Marketing Rules discusses 184 best practices that help you… Build productive, safe email lists by identifying valuable subscriber acquisition sources, using appropriate permission practices, and managing inactives wisely Set the right program goals by understanding “deep metrics” and properly interpreting campaign, channel, and subscriber metrics Create relevant messages with subject lines that draw in subscribers while avoiding “opener's remorse” and designs that focus subscribers on taking action Craft high-performance triggered emails, including welcome programs that set you up for long-term success Effectively plan and produce emails with workflows that allow you to seize opportunities and avoid errors And much more, including understanding the law, optimizing email frequency, using the best landing pages, and doing A/B testing Volume 2 of Email Marketing Rules discusses strategic frameworks that help you… Understand the channel's unique quirks, including the strengths and limitations that come from email marketing being granted media (not owned media) Grow your audience while safeguarding your email deliverability and following the law Collect and use subscriber data to create personalized, segmented, and automated campaigns that connect with subscribers and avoid being creepy Measure program success effectively by using each metric appropriately and improving channel attribution accuracy Steadily improve your email marketing program through minimum viable launches, incremental improvements, testing, and innovation nurturing And much more, including 6 extensive checklists for auditing and optimizing your targeting, acquisition sources, cross-channel synergies, and more About the Author: Chad S. White is the author of four editions of Email Marketing Rules and nearly 4,000 posts and articles about email and digital marketing. He has served as the lead email marketing researcher at four of the world's largest email service providers—Oracle, Responsys, Salesforce, and ExactTarget—as well as at Litmus and the Direct Marketing Association. A former journalist at Condé Nast and Dow Jones & Co., Chad has been featured in more than 100 publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Advertising Age. He is a past recipient of the Association of National Advertiser's Email Marketer Thought Leader of the Year. And, interesting fact - he is a graduate of Texas A&M University! Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/email-marketing-rules-4-chad-white
Daniel and Jorge talk about how to use different cosmic rulers to measure the expansion of the Universe.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
PPC Questions And Answers | Ask Us Your Google Ads (AdWords) Questions!
This is a portion of Paid Search Podcast episode 359 titled "How to Measure Click Types in Google Ads." In that episode, Chris clears up a common misunderstanding about where your money goes in Google Ads and explains how to measure click types to best optimize your ads. In this clip, he discusses how to measure image extension clicks. Send us your questions here - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/Subscribe to the Paid Search Podcast on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/ThePaidSearchPodcast
NASA tests out a snake bot that could explore difficult terrain. An independent way to measure the expansion rate of the Universe. JUICE successfully deploys its radar antenna.
Josh and Alessandra dive into the ever so popular topic of the scale. Are you using it correctly? What else can you focus on when it's not cooperating? We're here to help. Coaching applications APPLY FOR COACHING Are you a fitness coach? Use our online coaching software, Fit Coach Pro: CLICK HERE Alessandra's Instagram Josh's Instagram Our vlog channel
PPC Questions And Answers | Ask Us Your Google Ads (AdWords) Questions!
This is a portion of Paid Search Podcast episode 359 titled "How to Measure Click Types in Google Ads." In that episode, Chris clears up a common misunderstanding about where your money goes in Google Ads and explains how to measure click types to best optimize your ads. In this clip, he explains how to measure clicks from the site link under the ad.Send us your questions here - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/Subscribe to the Paid Search Podcast on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/ThePaidSearchPodcast
One of the biggest factors in terms of lifespan and health span is cardiovascular fitness… But how do you know if you are on the right track or if you need a little help? Today I want to introduce you to an easy and effective way that you can measure your VO2 Max level at home which will help you understand your cardiovascular respiratory fitness (CRF) score and how it's tied to longevity. Join me on today's #CabralConcept 2659 where we go over the 12-minute Cooper Test and how you can use it to improve your cardiovascular capacity - Enjoy the show and let us know your score! - - - For Everything Mentioned In Today's Show: StephenCabral.com/2659 - - - Get a FREE Copy of Dr. Cabral's Book: The Rain Barrel Effect - - - Join the Community & Get Your Questions Answered: CabralSupportGroup.com - - - Dr. Cabral's Most Popular At-Home Lab Tests: > Complete Minerals & Metals Test (Test for mineral imbalances & heavy metal toxicity) - - - > Complete Candida, Metabolic & Vitamins Test (Test for 75 biomarkers including yeast & bacterial gut overgrowth, as well as vitamin levels) - - - > Complete Stress, Mood & Metabolism Test (Discover your complete thyroid, adrenal, hormone, vitamin D & insulin levels) - - - > Complete Food Sensitivity Test (Find out your hidden food sensitivities) - - - > Complete Omega-3 & Inflammation Test (Discover your levels of inflammation related to your omega-6 to omega-3 levels) - - - Get Your Question Answered On An Upcoming HouseCall: StephenCabral.com/askcabral - - - Would You Take 30 Seconds To Rate & Review The Cabral Concept? The best way to help me spread our mission of true natural health is to pass on the good word, and I read and appreciate every review!
PPC Questions And Answers | Ask Us Your Google Ads (AdWords) Questions!
This is a portion of Paid Search Podcast episode 359 titled "How to Measure Click Types in Google Ads." In that episode, Chris clears up a common misunderstanding about where your money goes in Google Ads and explains how to measure click types to best optimize your ads. In this clip, he talks about how to measure clicks from call extensions.Send us your questions here - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/Subscribe to the Paid Search Podcast on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/ThePaidSearchPodcast
In today's fast-paced world, optimizing our health and performance has become paramount. Sleep, recovery, and performance are integral aspects of our well-being, and understanding and improving them is crucial. This is where the Ōura Ring comes into play. This revolutionary wearable technology aims to unlock your potential by providing insights and data to enhance your sleep, recovery, and overall performance. In this article, we will delve into the goal of the Ōura Ring, explore its functionalities, and uncover how it can help you track and improve your sleep, recovery, and performance. The Goal of the Ōura Ring The Ōura Ring is designed with a clear objective in mind: to empower individuals to take charge of their well-being and unleash their full potential. By combining cutting-edge technology and scientific principles, the ring provides personalized data and insights, enabling users to make informed decisions and optimize their sleep, recovery, and performance. Understanding the Ōura Ring At first glance, the Ōura Ring may appear to be a sleek and stylish piece of jewelry. However, beneath its elegant exterior lies a multitude of sensors and advanced technology. The ring is equipped with infrared LEDs, a 3D accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a temperature sensor, all working together to collect an array of data. The ring's sensors track various physiological signals, including heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), body temperature, and movement. By analyzing these data points, the Ōura Ring provides comprehensive insights into sleep, recovery, and activity levels. Tracking and Improving Sleep One of the standout features of the Ōura Ring is its ability to monitor and analyze your sleep patterns. By measuring key metrics such as sleep duration, sleep stages (including deep sleep, REM sleep, and light sleep), and sleep latency, the ring provides valuable insights into your sleep quality. These insights help you understand how well you are sleeping and identify areas for improvement. Armed with this information, you can take proactive steps to optimize your sleep. The Ōura Ring offers personalized suggestions and recommendations, such as adjusting your bedtime routine, creating a sleep-friendly environment, or practicing relaxation techniques. By making informed changes based on the ring's insights, you can enhance the quality and duration of your sleep, waking up refreshed and rejuvenated. Enhancing Recovery Recovery plays a vital role in our overall well-being and performance. The Ōura Ring recognizes this and provides a comprehensive view of your recovery by analyzing metrics such as HRV, resting heart rate, and body temperature. HRV, in particular, is a key indicator of your body's readiness to perform at its best. With the Ōura Ring, you can monitor your recovery trends over time and identify factors that may positively or negatively affect your recovery. Armed with this knowledge, you can make informed decisions regarding your training intensity, rest days, and stress management strategies. By prioritizing recovery and utilizing the insights from the ring, you can optimize your performance and minimize the risk of burnout or overtraining. Optimizing Performance The Ōura Ring goes beyond sleep and recovery, offering features that help you optimize your performance in various aspects of life. The ring tracks your daily activity, providing data on steps taken, calories burned, and active time. This information allows you to set and monitor your fitness goals, ensuring you stay on track and make progress. Moreover, the ring's comprehensive analysis of your sleep, recovery, and activity enables you to identify patterns and correlations between these factors and your overall performance. By leveraging this knowledge, you can fine-tune your routines, optimize your training schedules, and make lifestyle To learn more, please go to https://rapidhealthreport.com Connect with our guests: Dr. Michael T. Nelson on Instagram Anders Varner on Instagram Doug Larson on Instagram Coach Travis Mash on Instagram Dan Garner on Instagram
I have a theory. And it's not much different than my theory on how to be a good human. And it is a simple list. Before offering any advice or counsel to anyone, you must first earn their trust. And the best way to establish and build trust between two people is to offer it first. Express humility and genuine interest through showing vulnerability and asking questions to which you do not know the answer and are honestly interested in knowing the answer. Have and express passion for the problem space that your client lives in. If you do not genuinely have passion for solving their problems, you will likely not be the best coach for them. Notice, I said problem space not solving or solutioning. You will further build trust by demonstrating your ability to understand the subtleties of their problem space and really, only then, will you best be able to coach individuals and teams. “Problem space” is intended to be a broad term that fully embraces the industry, the market, the company's complexities (history, culture, politics), the technology, and their current state of change adoption and transformation. Be open and infinitely flexible when it comes to the client's business, situation, politics, and complexities… and yet firm on the matters they have asked you to help them change. As agile coaches, we sometimes forget we cannot fix everything (and we often have opinions on virtually every topic). It is critical that we acknowledge our role in the corporate environment. If they've asked us to focus on one particular problem space or part of the organization, we should do so and no matter how much we'd like to offer advice on things outside of our purview, we should be cognizant of our role in their complex ecosystem and stick to the problem domain we've been assigned to. That said, an excellent coach may subtly learn to plant very small seeds that grow into ideas in the minds of others who may actually have the role and influence to impact those other areas. How to connect with AgileDad: - [website] https://www.agiledad.com/ - [instagram] https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/ - [facebook] https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/ - [Linkedin] https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/
PPC Questions And Answers | Ask Us Your Google Ads (AdWords) Questions!
This is a portion of Paid Search Podcast episode 359 titled "How to Measure Click Types in Google Ads." In that episode, Chris clears up a common misunderstanding about where your money goes in Google Ads and explains how to measure click types to best optimize your ads. In this clip, he discusses how to measure headline clicks.Send us your questions here - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/Subscribe to the Paid Search Podcast on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/ThePaidSearchPodcast
A Q&A episode- a listeners favorite! I love creating Q&A episodes because I am able to answer questions that so many of you ask most frequently! In today's podcast I address the positive effects of fasting, lab testing for insulin resistance, administering insulin to diabetics, and living a low insulin lifestyle during menopause. You asked, I answered. Here is what's covered in the weeks episode: [3:28]- Q: When should you see results from intermittent fasting? Why you cannot make weight loss your sole reason for fasting! [11:12]- Q: How can you measure insulin resistance? Discussing all of the relevant lab testing opportunities Look for the physical signs! Low Insulin Academy is my specialty course for reversing insulin resistance. More information here! [19:11]- Q: If insulin is already high in type 2 diabetes, why do doctors still treat it with insulin? Insulin for type 1 vs. type 2 diabetes [27:43]- Q: How are menopause and fasting/ nutrition connected? Menopause makes females less insulin sensitive Special thanks to L'BRI for sponsoring this episode. To receive a free pack of samples from this clean and purposeful skin care company, use the link here! FOLLOW ME ON: Instagram: @shana.hussin.rdn Facebook: Fast To Heal With Shana Hussin Website: https://www.fasttoheal.info/ ADDITIONAL LINKS: FREE Starting Guides 10-Day Low-Insulin Jumpstart Metabolic Makeover Starter Course Low Insulin Academy On-Demand Course Low Insulin Academy Live WAITLIST BE ON THE PODCAST by emailing support@fasttoheal.info and sharing your story of how Fast to Heal Services have changed your life!
Teri and Jen explore the journey from idea inception to financial success by using the Refined Method, a methodology based on the “6 M's.” Whether you're a fledgling entrepreneur or a seasoned professional aiming for the six-figure mark, this strategy can help you navigate the often rocky road to business success. They dive into reverse engineering your goals, preparing for potential obstacles, and using faith-based scriptures to stay motivated. Plus, they offer advice on how to craft an effective internal messaging system before beginning any business venture. From market research to testing the market and creating a revenue roadmap, this episode has all the tips you need to take your idea from brainstorming to bank account within 60-90 days. If you've got an idea you want to take to launch – and need help navigating the process – we are here to help!! Book your power call with us here » https://keepingitpersonal.com/powercall [00:01 - 15:27] Mindset and Message: The Foundations of Success Mindset is crucial in business. This involves maintaining a positive and focused attitude, addressing self-doubts, and being prepared for obstacles. A good mindset requires reverse engineering one's goals to envision the future of the business and the lifestyle it should enable, taking into account one's current situation and capacity. Navigating the business journey requires resilience and proactive management of various mindset issues, such as fears, feelings of inadequacy, and beliefs about money and worthiness. It's crucial to be clear on your messaging to avoid confusion and potential missed opportunities. Messaging in a business is two-fold; Internal and External As a business grows and scales, there will be tweaks. It's important to have a clear initial foundation, but the vision, mission, core values, and even target market may get clearer and more specific over time. [15:26 - 31:53] Uncovering Your Target Market and Monetizing Your Business Identifying the top 20 problems of your business. This list becomes your forward-facing message, assists in creating content, and forms the basis of your marketing strategy. Understanding your market is critical to creating a successful business: Know where your target market hangs out, their demographics, psychographic, and if there is a true need for what you're offering Understanding how you'll monetize your business by identifying products or services, considering different revenue streams, and understanding how payments will be collected. [31:54 - 40:06] Mapping out and Measuring The 7 phases of the Revenue Roadmap – Attract, Capture, Nurture, Convert, Deliver and Satisfy, Upsell, and Referrals Monitor and keep a pulse on what matters most in your business. Measure, review, and see what worked and what didn't. Quotes: "When you're launching a business or taking even another revenue stream, and you're creating something new, there's always going to be stumbling blocks. And so we need to make sure that we've got some really solid practical things in place." – Teri Johnson “We will puke on people if we don't have our messaging clear and we might miss some great opportunities for collaboration for potential clients.” – Teri Johnson "Messaging and market are crucial. We need to do our research, we need to understand what it is, make sure that it's a viable product, and that it's priced accordingly in the market." – Teri Johnson If you're feeling disconnected and looking for a place to plug in – we would LOVE to connect with YOU and have you as a guest at our VIRTUAL Gathering! We meet each week to network, collaborate, encourage each other, and discuss strategies to grow our businesses. Just go to https://keepingitpersonal.com/vipguest to pick your date and get registered!
COMPETITION isn't just about how you stack up to others. it is also about how you stack up to your past. In CrossFit, we want to be able to MEASURE things to ensure we are making progress. I also often get a lot of questions about specific gear and supplements that can help in sport. Today's episode is all about fine tuning things and helping you understand how to measure progress in CrossFit.My recommended supplements:https://1stphorm.com/?a_aid=nassoMy recommended grips:http://victorygrips.comMy recommended jump rope:https://rxsmartgear.com/My recommended shoes:Ready to dial in your nutrition?https://formfaca.de/sm/8F3alRLhKJoin My Free Facebook Group: LIVE TRAININGS, SUPPORT, EDUCATION :https://www.facebook.com/groups/141933950164494..Follow me on IG for more tips and tricks :@cherylnasso
Larry Richenstein has been in the hardware sales, development, and investment world for over 40 years. He is an angel investor in the New York Angels network and is currently the CEO of WePower Technologies, his latest hardware venture. Today Larry is going to share some valuable knowledge for inventors, startups, and small manufacturers on what angel investing is, what stages of development you need to get your product to in order to pitch to a professional angel investor, and how to do a good pitch once you are in the door. Today you will hear us talk about: An angel investor is usually an independent investor or a group of investors that invest in startup businesses. Angel investing are considers Angel investment is the first round, then venture capital. When it comes to products, there is a lot more that goes into them from a product development standpoint. Measure twice, cut once. You have to have all the development People that have ideas, get no funding. People that come up with a rough prototype or a rough prototype, it's interesting but generally still too early. What investors really want to see, is a working prototype. De-risking the investment occurs the further you push the product down the road. First, find angels that invest in hardware. Angel investors for hardware are out there. Come in with a pitch that proves that you have a strong likelihood of success Hardware and software are starting to come together. Crowdfunding is a powerful way to prove market validity. You no longer have to build for the masses, you can build for niche industries. Avoid feature creep, especially for your first version. Crowdfunding is a way to avoid outside investors. EPISODE LINKS: Larry Richenstein Links: LinkedIn | WePower Technologies The Product Startup Podcast Links: https://www.ProductStartup.com/ Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook Page | Facebook Group | Pinterest | Twitter | YouTube Mako Design Links: https://www.makodesign.com/ YouTube | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter Kevin Mako Links: Instagram | LinkedIn | Quora | Facebook | Twitter Partner: PTC's best-in-class software solutions Onshape: The only cloud-native product development platform that delivers full-featured computer-aided design (CAD), integrated product data management (PDM) and enterprise analytics in a single system, and Creo: 3D CAD solution that provides designers with the most innovative tools to build better products faster, such as generative design, additive manufacturing, real-time simulation, IIoT, and augmented reality. Producer: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dr. Gary Anderson, President emeritus, BMM, joins us again today for another Moment in History to discuss the nature and quality of the faith of missionaries he has known and been blessed to serve with. Don't miss this reflection on the legacies left by those who lived a life of faith. Email: SEND938@bmm.org
The Measure of Success 1 - Kensington Church Podcast | With Jeremiah Roy by Kensington Podcast Network
Hey listeners! Are you a bike enthusiast always looking for better products to improve your riding experience? Then you don't want to miss this latest episode featuring Pius Kobler, founder of milKit. Pius Kobler's passion for cycling started during his childhood in Switzerland where he grew up riding bikes and joining his family on biking holidays. He studied mechanical engineering at university in Zurich, and his love for biking took him on various long-distance rides and expeditions, including one from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Pius worked for a design bureau that provided product development and design services for companies in the bike industry, such as Scott and BMC. Then, during a bike trip across the US, he got a flat tire in Colorado due to the dried-out tubular tires caused by the heat. This incident inspired him to create milKit, a company that offers a tire sealant solution that allows cyclists to check the amount and quality of the sealant inside their tires. The importance of maintaining the sealant in tubeless bikes is emphasized; still, many bike owners neglect to check their sealant levels regularly. Pius came up with a valve system with a rubber foot that allows the air pressure to remain in the tire when checking the sealant levels. The technology allows for easy maintenance of tubeless bikes and prevents sealant from spilling out. But it doesn't end there! Pius also created the GTA Booster, a portable aluminum drinking bottle that helps push the tire bead out to the side and secure it in place. The booster delivers more air in one second than a compressor and is efficient in changing and installing new tires. But that's not all; milKit's product line now includes additional consumables like rim tape and sealant that have unique features making them an essential tool for all bike enthusiasts. The company has also released a multi-tool with storage compartments for the plugs and other functions like a chain breaker. The latest trend in bike segments is having quick and easily accessible solutions, and Milk Kit has developed a solution in a compact way. The kit is super light and can be strapped to the bike or screwed to the frame. Craig Dalton had a pleasure talking to Pius Kobler, who designed milKit systems with thought behind them. Don't miss this exciting episode - tune in now to hear all about Pius Kobler and his innovative products! Visit milKit online Episode Sponsor: Hammerhead Karoo 2 (use code: thegravelride) Support the Podcast Join The Ridership Automated Transcription, please excuse the typos: [00:00:00] Craig Dalton: Hello, and welcome to the gravel ride podcast, where we go deep on the sport of gravel cycling through in-depth interviews with product designers, event organizers and athletes. Who are pioneering the sport I'm your host, Craig Dalton, a lifelong cyclist who discovered gravel cycling back in 2016 and made all the mistakes you don't need to make. I approach each episode as a beginner down, unlock all the knowledge you need to become a great gravel cyclist. This week on the show. We welcome Swiss-based founder and rider PS cobbler to the show to talk about his company. Milk it. And the system they've developed. Around tubeless tires and a brand new product that they've created. To support that system in the form of a multi-tool. I happened to meet PS on the trail, on a group ride. I went on. Last week as he was in town for seawater classic. And we got to chatting about his entrepreneurial journey and his rider first perspective of design. And I thought it'd be great to have him on the show. And I was fortunate to grab him on a Friday night over in Switzerland. To talk more about the company and the company's journey and some of the products I know you'll get value out of being aware of. I encourage you to check out some of the links on the show notes as some of the nuances of the product design, maybe best seen in a video. If you're watching the video of the podcast, you'll see PS reference and hold some of his products in his hands. As part of the conversation, but detailed videos are available on the website, which is over at milk it's dot bike. Before we jump in, I do need to thank this. Week's sponsor hammerhead, hammerhead, and the crew to computer have been longtime sponsors of the show. As you know, The crew too, is the most advanced GPS cycling computer available today with industry leading mapping navigation, routing capabilities that set it apart from other GPS options out on the market. Over the course of my conversation with PS, we talk a lot about rider oriented design hammerhead, and the team over a crew to definitely take that perspective. And they're constantly. Updating their products with bi-weekly software updates. There's nothing cooler to me on the hammerhead crew to then. Getting that notification. That a software updates available because I know they're adding things. That are going to be of interest to me. Whether it's today or down the line. One of the biggest updates I received that I love is the climber feature, which has predictive path technology. Which basically shows you what's ahead of you on a climb. While that may not necessarily be important on your daily routes for me when I'm doing an event or I've borrowed a route from someone that I've never done before. I'd love. Knowing is this a short, punchy climb ahead of me? Or do I really need to settle in for a longer climb? For a limited time offer our listeners can get a free heart rate monitor with the purchase of our hammerhead crew to simply visit hammerhead.io right now, and use the promo code, the gravel ride. At checkout to get yours today, this is an exclusive limited time offer. So don't forget to use the promo code. The gravel ride. Simply add that heart rate monitor, strap to your purchase cart. When you're checking out on the e-commerce system. At hammerhead.io, use the promo code. The gravel ride and that heart rate monitor will be yours for free. With that said let's jump right into my conversation with ps cobbler PS welcome to the show. [00:03:39] Pius Kobler: Thank you. [00:03:40] Craig Dalton: You have the honor of being our first Swiss guest, [00:03:43] Pius Kobler: Oh, I'm very honored. Yeah. [00:03:46] Craig Dalton: and how cool was it that we got to ride together [00:03:48] Pius Kobler: how cool [00:03:49] Craig Dalton: prior to recording? [00:03:50] Pius Kobler: other like three days later across an ocean? Yeah. [00:03:54] Craig Dalton: Yeah, I love it. You know, I'd, I, as I mentioned to you on that ride, I'd been familiar with the, the Milk IT brand and some of the products specific to the, the Tire Sealant solution, um, for a number of years. But I'm, I'm curious to kind of just step back and learn a little bit about. More about you and then the formation of the company. Cuz as the listener of this podcast knows, like, I'm super keen on the entrepreneurial ideas and, and journey as an entrepreneur myself. So let's start off by kind of where you grew up and how you discovered the bike. And then we'll get into how you decided to form this company. [00:04:28] Pius Kobler: Yeah. Yeah. I grew up in Switzerland and I was always a cyclist, like I cycled to school. What's that? Um, 12 miles every day. Two ways. So, so when I was 14 or so, so yeah. And then with my family, we always went on bike trips in holidays. I, I, I literally grew up on bikes more or less. But then man, biking came quite late. I, I, I started Mecca Mechanical Engineering at, um, et h Zurich here. And after studying, I. Um, took my recumbent and rode it from Alaska to Te del Fugo for one and a half years. So I've been cycling a bit. [00:05:09] Craig Dalton: You spent some time on a bike. I see. [00:05:11] Pius Kobler: Yeah, I was, I was in in the Bay Area earlier already passing through. Yeah. And, [00:05:19] Craig Dalton: That's interesting. You know it's funny when you even mentioned the word recumbent as a style of bicycle. That's in my mind, that's such an engineering type vehicle. Why did you choose to tour on that? [00:05:30] Pius Kobler: the perfect nerd in personification, uh, that you can have sometimes as in the US it was most fun. We were getting off recumbent and people go, oh, but you are not handicapped. Why would you, why are you riding one of these? [00:05:47] Craig Dalton: Yeah. And, and not, not, and not to derail the conversation too much, but is, is it from an engineering perspective, is riding a recumbent sort of mechanically or aero aerodynamically better for long distances than other style bikes [00:06:02] Pius Kobler: There is no, no doubt. No. [00:06:05] Craig Dalton: Really? [00:06:05] Pius Kobler: so much for long distances. There is no discussion actually, but nobody knows and, and everybody thinks that they can't be good because then more people will be doing it. You, you don't have any. Pain in your wrists, neck, uh, butt. Wherever you, you have a relaxed sitting position. You have a third less wind drag. You have several of these advantages. You have a lower, um, center of gravity. You have a much better curve stability. You have a longer wheel base, more stability. But then the main, the main factor for me is, You are, you have a completely different way of sitting on the bike. It's not, you're not sitting like this and staring on the road in front of you. You're sitting like this open, you like, like on a couch riding through the countryside. You know, it's for traveling by far the best. But I would never use it in a city or so, like daily life. I don't have one. You know, I, I sold it after I traveled. [00:07:03] Craig Dalton: That's so interesting yet. So off topic for this podcast. [00:07:07] Pius Kobler: Yeah, this was the perfectly wrong start for this, for this episode. [00:07:11] Craig Dalton: Right. And then, you know, I feel like now there's this, uh, potential that a listener isn't imagining you being some nerdy bike nerd on a recumbent yet. My interaction with you was on a mountain bike where you tackled every complicated shoot that we came in front of on Mount [00:07:30] Pius Kobler: rich in Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. [00:07:34] Craig Dalton: Great. Okay, so we, we've, we've established engineering degree. We've established you spent a lot of time on a bike. This is a big leap, leap before, you know, between getting an engineering degree and obviously looking at bicycles from a mechanical engineering perspective, and then starting a company. What was the journey like to that point? [00:07:55] Pius Kobler: Yeah, basically when I came back, I, I haven't, I haven't done kind of performance cycling. It was always holiday or, or work or whatever, traveling. But when I came back, I was in, in okay shape, let's say, and a body of mine was in man biking. So I joined him for some longer rides. And that's how I got into man biking only after I did that trip. And, um, Basically I, I started working, that's the coincidence that led to things. I started working in a, in a company that, it's a design bureau, you could say it's a, they, they do product development and design as a service for large companies. We, you could say we were professional inventors, uh, uh, and we were, we were developing products. For many companies in the bike industry as well. Like we were working for Scott for B m c, for, for these brands here in Switzerland among others. And we were, um, a group of bikers in that company. So one thing led to another and, and what made the. The, the deciding point for for to go into tubeless was basically a, a bit later, after that long trip, I, I had the chance to take an unpaid leave for eight weeks and. Go to the us, buy a van and drive it from one I M b A epic ride to the other for eight weeks, which was amazing. I might have ridden more trails in the US than most Americans, you could say. Here. [00:09:31] Craig Dalton: I bet you have. [00:09:32] Pius Kobler: Yeah. No, that that was really, really good. But the not so smart part about it is W we were going to Colorado and Utah in July, which is not the right moment. It's like 120 degrees or so over there. So we was a bit warmer that than we were used to. And. We ended up with a flat because our tubeless tires were completely dried out because it was so warm. And so I, I'm in the middle of nowhere, somewhere on the continental divide in Colorado with that dried out tire, putting a tube in what everybody hates when you write tubeless, you know, to take the whole thing apart and put the tube in. And that's when I, when I, when I. Started thinking, you know, I had few weeks more to go and which means a lot of time to think and, and I said, wait, if I'm me as a bike freak and, and, and tech developer, like, if I have this problem of, of not being able to maintain my steel and I should other people do it, you know, [00:10:37] Craig Dalton: And when you thought about that problem, p was it, it was, if I'm articulating this correctly, the problem was you just weren't aware of the level of sealant that was remaining in the tire. [00:10:49] Pius Kobler: I had no idea. I had no idea that it was just drying up faster because it was a bit warmer, you know? [00:10:56] Craig Dalton: Yeah. I and I, and I encourage, like everyone listening right now, think about your bike, think about the sealant, and think if you have any idea whether there's enough sealant in there or not. I can guarantee looking around my garage right now, I would say 80% of the bikes I have. They have to be bone dry. It's like without a question, but I don't know. And I'm a bit lazy to find out, right? Like, it's like if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But to your point, you get out there and you have the situation where sealant is a godsend, right? It steals that hole and it's not there. That's that. That's a problem. [00:11:35] Pius Kobler: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's basically we say if you split up bikers into people that ride tubeless and don't, then the ones who are ride tubeless, you can basically split them up into the ones who know that you have to maintain it and the ones who don't know and find it out a bit later. And then the ones who know how to maintain. They have to maintain it. Um, a good part of those things. Yeah. I'm always feeling a bit sealed in and it's fine, but the not, not so big part know that they should look at what, in what's inside. Like they should check the old sealant or get it out before they push in the new ones or you have a, a really good working sealant in there and, and yeah, [00:12:19] Craig Dalton: Yeah. So you, you sort of recognize, you recognize this problem, which when you articulated is pretty obvious, I think, to us. All right, we, no one wants to look inside their tires. What's the solution? How do you go about solving that problem? [00:12:33] Pius Kobler: Yeah, that, that was, uh, as, as often in product development. It, it was a step by step process where, where first we had the idea we need to drill a second hole into the rim to somehow look in there and then, Refill through the valve, and then eventually we, no, we are not gonna have a second hole. We have to make it through the hole that's already there. So eventually we were going through the valve, but then we still had a, because the, the first thing you think about is a dipstick. You know, you need to, to go in and check the sealant, and then you fill and then, By coincidence, like by using it, by having prototypes realized weight. And, and maybe at this point I should explain the, the whole valve. Basically what we do is we have a normal tubeless valve, uh, that you install into the rim like any tubeless valve. But at the, at the bottom, the. At the bottom of the rubber foot, the, the, the rubber is closed and it's slid into, into rubber flaps. So when you unscrew the valve core, the, the air stays in the tire because these rubber flaps at the bottom are closed. And now we have, uh, we have a syringe, kind of a syringe and needle with a, with a flexible extension. And, and the sealant regulator that you connect together. [00:13:53] Craig Dalton: Let's take a pause for one second PS and just so the listener understands. So if you can imagine that your normal valve core for tubeless, you've got a, a, a, a section that is inside the rim and obviously the section you see outside the rim and what you've described and shown to people who are on the video, you've got sort of on that inside piece, a rubber gasket that its natural state is to be closed. So if you're not pushing air or something else through it, Nothing's coming back through it. No air's coming back through it, et cetera. And then you've, [00:14:26] Pius Kobler: the ketchup bottles, you know, you have to ketchup bottles that have these, these, these flaps on the top. That's a, that's the function. More or less we have, [00:14:34] Craig Dalton: I love it. I love it. Take taking a, a commonplace design concept and putting it in something technical on the bike. So then you just, you just had picked up the syringe and you knows some people are used to using just sort of their bottle of sealant and pouring it directly into the tire. Some years ago, I started adopting the syringe for more precise measurement and the ability to insert through the valve core. It's possible in a standard valve cord to do that, but it's kind of difficult in, in a number of ways, which I think you'll get into in describing the value of having that seal on the inside of the valve and how that interacts with the sort of plunger, if you will. I don't know if that's gonna be the right term that's attached to the syringe. [00:15:22] Pius Kobler: yeah. Like the wording is we, we, the, the part inside the, the inside the tire. Inside the rim, we call it the rubber foot. And then you have the, the, the aluminum part, uh, that you screw onto the rim, that's the valve stem. And then you have the valve cord that goes into the valve stem. And we removed the valve core. And the air is still the, the, the, the. The tire remains pressurized because the rubber flaps are closed. And now the trick is that with this needle here that we have connected to the syringe, you can push through the rubber flaps into the tire with the air pressure still being in the tire. That's the, the core of our technology because now you with the needle, you go to the bottom of the tire, the sealant has accumulated at the bottom of the tire, and, and now basically all you have to do is you open the sealant to regulator. And the, the, the air pressure in the tire is pushing the sealant into your syringe. You don't even have to suck it out. It's, it's pushing out, it's, it's automatically flowing into your syringe [00:16:24] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that was a point you had made to me on the trail the other day, which was the aha moment for me. Cuz when you first described the mechanism, I was like, oh, that's great. You know, you. You push the syringe kind of legs into that, the bottom of your tire, and you can touch the sealant. But that nuance there that since you've left the air in the tire, you have air pressure, which you can then draw out the, the sealant into the tube with the air pressure pushing it effectively into the syringe, and you can see the exact measurement of what remains in the tire at that point. [00:17:01] Pius Kobler: And the main reason, back in the days when we invented this, the main reason why it was important to to, to have the pressure remain in the tire is when you release the air from the, uh, from the tire back then the tire would fall back into your rim, you know, and then you would have trouble inflating it again. Nowadays, this is becoming better because you have these rims where the, the tire stays outside when you deflated, but it's still. A cool feature to not breaking the bead, to not, um, losing any sealant and not having some, some sealant getting out on, on the side and it, and it's just, Literally more fun doing a tubeless maintenance. If you go in, it comes out automatically and you just push it back. So once you've extracted that sealant, you see how much was left, you might realize, oh, that wasn't, that wasn't much left and. This, this looks bad. I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw this off. So you disconnect the syringe, you throw it out, or you just top it up with new one. And then what you do is you push against the tire pressure. You push the ceiling back into the tire with with your syringe, and that was the original idea. To, to be able to measure and refill the sealant in a minute or two without, without a drop spilled, you know, and that's, that's literally our claim. You can install a tubeless tire and maintain it without ever seeing a drop of sealant. [00:18:27] Craig Dalton: And that, that to me is a godsend. When I sort of think about my process for updating tires and sealants and whatnot, like I think I, in my mind it's so laborious that I don't even wanna do it. And that's exactly the bad. It's exactly a bad approach, cuz that's why 80% of my tires are bone dry right now. [00:18:47] Pius Kobler: Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's the, the challenge. That's our chance. We, we, we, what we do, and it's our challenge. At the same time, you know, we, we, we really solve something that hassle that people have, but still, we have so many customers that we. Don't get to sell our product because they, they haven't started looking into it yet, even, you know. [00:19:11] Craig Dalton: Yeah. There's definitely like a journey that I went on, which was like, first I had a good friend who would help me every time I needed to. Change or put sealant in the tire and he would handle it. Then I got some of the tools myself, particularly an inflater, like a booster to help seal the tire. But still to this day, like the, the, the maintenance of it is beyond me. And I, I am super keen to get these installed on my bike just so I can be more diligent about checking the sealant, particularly when I go off to events and it's been. You know, three, four months between checking and I'm concerned, do I have any sealant in there in a day, or, you know, a big mountain adventure that really counts. I wanna know and be confident that I have the sealant I need. [00:19:56] Pius Kobler: It's actually interesting you saying that because that's my answer. When people ask us how often do I have to re have, do I have to check my sealant? And my answer is that I can't give you a number. No way. Uh, I can give you a time span because the guy riding in Mexico summer or in let's say Utah in summer, riding every day having his bike in a, in a shed, in, in, in the heat, that guy and the other guy in Montana riding a maybe. Double ply downhill tire or, or something every second week. That's com two completely different cases. The one has to, to measure four times more often than the other. And, and, and what we say is exactly what you just said. Measure your sealant before an important race, before, uh, uh, a weakened with your bodies because before you go to the holidays, Just do the check quickly and you have to peace of mind. My tubal system's gonna be perfect for that occasion and be because you do that, you'll, you'll eventually realize, oh, my, my system with that setup every three, four months is fine. And, and another will see, oh shit, I have to do this every second month. [00:21:09] Craig Dalton: Yeah, yeah. Interesting. So as you guys have designed the product and brought it to manufacturing, where, where did you end up manufacturing this product? [00:21:17] Pius Kobler: that's, that's, uh, that's, uh, one of these startup stories. You know, we, we, we literally started in the south of Switzerland to the Italian border where you get. Italian manufacturing pricing and, and, and across the border some, some legal, um, opportunities. Like it was just easier due to be in Switzerland. And, um, that worked well from the, let's say, from the quality perspective, but then, uh, logistics and organization were. Um, how to not be unpolite, um, to towards Italians. Uh, it wasn't optimal. And then we did, we did some risk diversification where we went to the, the future of, uh, cycling industry in, in Europe, which is Portugal, which. Might be true, but only if you really know what you're doing when you're sourcing a manufacturing partner, which we didn't entirely know back then. So we ran into into quality problems, which actually led to one of the. Darkest hours of our startup. We, I, I'm gonna come to the booster, to our, our inflater. We, we had a recall on that product just after releasing it because of some quality problems in production. Uh, you can imagine how, how, how that feels when you release your second product as a startup and, and, and you're gonna recall it from, from everywhere. So, so that led us to. Basically learn the lesson and, and say when you are, when you are an early stage startup, it's so much more important that you, that it works, that you have a production that works. The price, the 20% more cost for your product doesn't matter in the beginning. And we went to Germany and, and we, and we are still in Germany because having a reliable system, having, having. Production that you, you can just rely on is up, up till, till. Today's super important and, and we, we, we are now stretching out towards other regions because the, the, the numbers are getting higher, but for a long time you can, you better go for reliable than for, for cheap. That's [00:23:40] Craig Dalton: Yeah, for sure, for sure. And um, I can definitely commiserate with that hardware development and production journey that you just described. Just so everyone understands, when was the company first founded? What year? [00:23:54] Pius Kobler: Um, basically that trip to the US was in 13, summer 13. Then, The original idea was to, that job that I had at that at product developing company was really cool. So, so I was, I was perfectly happy there. And, and the idea was to develop the whole system and sell it on an on, in an online store besides working there, which sounds a bit naive now looking back, but, but that was the original plan. And step by step we realized, no, no, no, you, you have to do this. Properly or, or there is no chance. And so in summer 14, I quit my job there and started bootstrapping. We, we, we, in Switzerland, you have, um, let's say not so optimal investment, um, environment like, like in, in, especially in the Bay Area and in the US in general. But what's very good is the, the start of support ecosystem. Like you, you have many coaching programs and, and. Prizes and, and we were lucky enough to win some, some startup prizes, uh, because the story was good. And, and, and, and I had a, a co-founder who already had started a startup before and I was this e t h engineer bike guy. So that, that was a good mix. And, um, that, that's basically how we started bootstrapping. And then in 2015 we started the company and did, uh, raised a, a financing round to, to get production started and everything that there was, there was capital needed for that. [00:25:26] Craig Dalton: It's such a hard business. Any, any business that involves inventory, there's just so much additional risk beyond your own personal sacrifice and time to get the business up and running. [00:25:38] Pius Kobler: And that's where you're, you're, you're from the very beginning in Mm, how to say you're, you're not perfectly independent from the very beginning because you already have your shareholders that you, that you have to justify always what you're doing, you know? So the pressure is on from the first minute kind of, [00:25:58] Craig Dalton: yeah, for sure. So we went through sort of the valve system and then you had just mentioned the, the booster. And I think the booster actually is where I first came, encountered, encountered the brand. So can you describe the, what the functionality of a booster is? What does it, what does it do for a rider? Cuz I, I imagine many people don't have that type of product. [00:26:17] Pius Kobler: Yeah, maybe let me just quickly finish, uh, the, the valve system there, the, the original idea was to do that measuring and the refilling, which, which is still the, one of the major usps. But then that's a also a nice story. I, one day I was, I was installing a tire. I, you removed the valve core because you need a good airflow. I inflated the tire and literally I was. The air wasn't coming out because I, I was holding my, usually you hold your finger on the valve stem and then you really quickly, you screw your, your valve core back, you know? And I was, I wanted to do that and then realized, The air isn't coming out. That's how we, we, we basically invented or realized our second big U s P is the air stays inside. You have like a one-way valve with these rubber flaps, so well, it changes the whole installation of a tubeless tire where whereas normally you, nowadays you fill in the ceiling into the tire, then you push the tire on the, onto your rim, then you inflate it and while popping it, some, some seal this. Spilling over. You know, that's the messy part. When you're inflating a tire with our valves, you, you take the valve core out, you have the full airflow and the tire. They do that without sealant in the tire. So you have a dry installing of the tire and once it sits well, Then you take the syringe and add the sealant into the already installed tire. So that's, that's the, the, the no drops build part is, is, is with installation also, because you do that new sequence of installing. And then the third big advantage is the rubber flaps are closed at the bottom. That means no sealant gets to the valve core, which means you don't have the, the clock valve cores anymore. The, the, you can release the air reliably, you know, [00:28:05] Craig Dalton: Yeah. That's my other embarrassing situation on one of my wheels right now. I can literally remove the valve core. And no air will come out. I've got a, I've got a, I've got a jam, a very tiny Alan wrench, Alan Key in there to, uh, pop it open, and even then it just trickles out. [00:28:22] Pius Kobler: Yeah. So that, that's basically the three to three major USPS of the valve system. That That, yeah. Summarizes [00:28:30] Craig Dalton: There's a, there's a ton of nuance in this and I definitely encourage people to go to your website cuz you've got detailed videos on how it plays out, but is very thoughtfully designed. And those small benefits add up to what we were talking before. It just means you're going to address your sealant more frequently. You're not gonna have any trepidation. You're gonna know exactly what's going on in those key moments and days when you need to know. [00:28:59] Pius Kobler: Yeah. And then basically having that problem solved, we, we went to, each year we go to fin, famous, famous riding place, uh, by the sea there in Italy and we. Uh, one of us had a, a problem with the tire. We needed to change a tire. So in the evening we are in the shed there trying to change a tire. We have a floor pump, but nothing else. And the tire wouldn't sit, you know, and so we say we we're product developers. We are these. By tech freak. So we say, let's do a, a GTA booster. You know, the one with the big Coke bottle. You take a coke bottle, you drill a hole into the cap, you install a bike valve, and then you drill a second hole and you have a piece of tube and, and you kink it. That's how you hold the air. Then you inflate it and then you hold it on the valve. And that's the GTA booster, you know, and [00:29:49] Craig Dalton: I love talking to engineers. [00:29:52] Pius Kobler: and, and. We, we, we nearly managed to inflate, like we managed to inflate the tire, but it wouldn't hold. So we, we just didn't get there. And so we had to drive through the gas station to use the compressor, and that's how we got the, the tire installed. And that's when we said, said, this is, this is another problem that we have to address. And, and basically we, we could, we professionalized the, the, the ghetto booster. And what it turned out to be is, um, it's, it's now, um, Not a p e t plastic bottle, but it's, uh, it's an. Aluminum drinking bottle that you basically, you have that head that you screw on your bottle. It's a, it's a plastic, a plastic part that you screw on the bottle. You get the bottle with a drinking cap, so you can actually use it as a drinking bottle, which, uh, being in a gravel podcast is very interesting for backpacking. You know, some people going to really remote areas might be interested in. Generally, this isn't the, the story of it being so portable because it's a water bottle. It's a nice story and media love to write about it. But this is a, this is a product that you have in your workshop normally or in your pickup by, by the trail. By the trail head or something like, or going to holiday like we in, in Italy. It's perfectly light, uh, uh, and inexpensive. So it's a good product to have with you. But, and, and the backpacking, like the remote part is for some, an interesting part as well. So basically, It's this plastic part that you screw on the bottle. You have, um, a bicycle valve, uh, core that allows you to inflate the whole thing up to 160 psi, which is a lot, but uh, 120 PSI is just fine. And then, It has a little opening and the slider inside. So you basically push the head onto your valve stem and the slider inside opens and on all the air, um, pushes, rushes into your tire. And, and [00:31:55] Craig Dalton: Yeah. [00:31:56] Pius Kobler: the, because there is no hose, that's a bit of tech, tech, uh, details here in a hose, you lose a lot of pressure. So because there is no hose, you have all the pressure right by the valves and it that means, It is instant, like it's an explosion. We, we call it the booster effect. When when I do the live presentation and I push that booster on the wheel, I look into the faces of people because it's so funny to see, holy shit, that was really fast. So that's the booster effect. [00:32:28] Craig Dalton: And I think that's, that's the key. And, and again, just to kind of come back in case it's, it's a l it's unclear. You've got kind of this, uh, aluminum water bottle with a, a, a cap that you can screw into it. You then attach your home pump pump up, which pressurizes all the air in that canister. And then much like a, uh, you know, a cartridge. When you're inflating your, your, your tire, you're just putting it onto the valve core, where, where you've removed the tip of the valve core, you're putting it onto the valve, and it's spitting very quickly a burst of air, which for the uninitiated, that's what's required to push the bead out to the side of the tire and get it into that locked and secured position that you need. And that's what you generally cannot achieve just with a floor pump. You need that pressure and that burst. [00:33:15] Pius Kobler: don't have a tube inside and the air is just ex escaping between the tire and the rim. So if you are slowly pumping, the tire is just move is not moving. So you need, you need that fast push of air to push the tire out. Yeah. [00:33:29] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. And I, if you do not have one of these in your garage, go out and get one today. It is like indispensable, in my opinion for. [00:33:39] Pius Kobler: potential is very high to trying to in. Sometimes you're lucky and you can do it with a, with a floor pump, and if you're not lucky, it's very frustrating. [00:33:47] Craig Dalton: and then I used to go to the gas station and I could never get adequate pressure out of those gas station versions. So when I got this product first, I was like, I, I'm now fully capable to change tires, install new tires. [00:34:03] Pius Kobler: cool thing is it's a small bottle, you know, it's, it's, um, 20 ounces and 34 ounces. Uh, the, the sizes we have, this is not a lot of of volume, but because it's so fast flowing, because it makes it very efficient, it doesn't matter how long the air flows, it matters how much air flows in one second, you know, that's when the tire is pushed outside. And that's why we did with this booster, you can. If you can't inflate the uh, tire with this booster, then then you have a problem. Then even the compressor, compressor doesn't deliver as much air in a second, like the booster, you know? [00:34:39] Craig Dalton: so you just mentioned you have two different sizes for, you know, a typical gravel cyclist, maybe a 700 by 40. Is there a a product size that you'd recommend? [00:34:48] Pius Kobler: Uh, basically talking about the us we only have the big, the, the, the, the 34 version available over there. The, the, the older, smaller version is, is basically not gonna be continued. There are some, some still available in Europe, but yeah, the, the, the, the, the, the 32, uh, 34, 32, um, version is, is just fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [00:35:11] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Cool. Yeah, I think it's a, it to, in my mind, the bigger, the better, right? If you've got that pressure, it's just gonna make sure you, you, you only need to do it once, and you get the tire seated the way you want. [00:35:21] Pius Kobler: Mm-hmm. Yeah, the, there is an interesting story about that, uh, that booster effect. Um, I was at sea other, some four years ago or so, and I was doing that booster live presentation and a guy from Bike Magazine comes, comes to, to, to see, and I, I, I do the presentation. I look into his face when I present the booster and he goes literally, Holy shit. This was so cool. Can you do this again? I need to shoot the video. So he takes his mobile phone, shoots the video of me screwing the thing together, inflating it, pushing it on, pulling it off. And because our valves played together nicely with the booster, because you pushed the booster on without the valve core, you pull it off and the air stays inside because of the rubber flaps. You can use it with any press, the valve with, with ours, you have that advantage. And so he does a video of that sequence. He puts it on. On their Facebook. And now, what would you say, what would you impress you as if view count of that video a year later? [00:36:23] Craig Dalton: Uh, a million. [00:36:25] Pius Kobler: That would be pretty impressive. You are good because many people say, oh, hundred thousand would be really much. It was 3.2 million a year later, and now it's at 8.6 million views. [00:36:37] Craig Dalton: Amazing. [00:36:38] Pius Kobler: And I'm, I'm telling, I'm telling that story because. The, the whole tubeless story as we were talking, it's something that you don't really wanna touch. You don't really wanna look into it, you don't really want to be talking about, but then there is a lot of interest around it. You know, people, many, many people realize that the topic is there and it's kind of, they have to look into it. So, so reaching that number is kind of a sign how, how important that that topic is. [00:37:07] Craig Dalton: I think it's just a huge unlock. And to your point, like there's countless people who leave the bike shop with tubeless installed already and don't think about it, don't understand it, don't know about it, and you know, the minute they have to deal with their tire, they're completely ill-equipped to address it. [00:37:24] Pius Kobler: Oh, that's, that's another, another good point. I, I mean, the reason why we met is because we were at sea o you know, we, we, we basically go to to sea other, and then we go a bit of riding once we are over there, um, at sea. Other, this year my key learning was I was talking to many brand managers of, of Mike brands and. They love our system. They know what it does, and, and, and I say, okay, let's, let's, let's look into how we can equip this with your bags. And they say, yeah. The thing is, especially us customers, and that's interesting in the US things even more than in Europe, they have to be easy. It has to be easy and, and simple. And, and, and, and when, when, when, when, when they sell a bike, they want to make the, the sale quick and easy and nice. It has to be a nice experience, you know? So what they don't wanna do is talk about some tech things, tubeless, when they sell a bank. Quite understandably, but that also means they send the customer home with a hundred percent sure problem. That, that, that they're gonna have, you know, if they, if they convert it to tubeless. So it's a paradox really. They don't want to talk about it, but they should absolutely somehow talk about it. [00:38:41] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that's why I'm, I'm sort of pleased to do this episode with you and just dig in a little bit deeper because again, it's easy for most riders to just forget and not think about it. But when you get to a product that's really thoughtfully designed around a solution, like it's, it's a really nice thing to have on your bike and a really nice thing to have in your garage. [00:39:00] Pius Kobler: And I mean, that's exactly you, you can literally, if you are the right kind of person, let, let's say you can. It can be fun. Maintaining your tubeless after a while. Like I, I'm so used to it. I, I like doing it because it's so quick and so easy. It's, it's satisfying of, of doing it so quickly. But then obviously still even with our products, tubeless is not for everyone. You know that there is people who just. Won't ever do that, which is fine. And for them it's, it's, it's good for the, for the mechanic, you know, for the shop where they bring it in. The shop can install the valves and then can do a, a much quicker job. When the, when the customer brings the bike in, in, in a minute, they have the, the tubes checked. Done. [00:39:43] Craig Dalton: Yeah, that makes sense. So continuing on the kind of product journey chronologically, where are you at now? Are there additional products in the product line? [00:39:51] Pius Kobler: Yeah, so the, the plan was from the beginning to, to the, the booster and the valve cord and the valve system. That's basically what we call our, our backbone products. That's, that's also what we have patented. And, and, and the, the idea was to build the brand on these unique products and then be able to sell consumables like a rim tape and sealant. Which, which we do, I, I, I don't have to go too much into the rim tape, even though rim tape is one of the, Biggest, um, factor of frustration in, in tubeless. Everybody who has, uh, installed a rim tape and it wasn't tight, and then take the whole thing apart again. Monster frustration, you know, so, so our rim tape does a really good job because it has a, a pressure activated glue. It, it, it feels reli more reliably. It's, it's very strong. But let's not go into too much detail here. The, the, the more interesting part is, is the sealant where the idea was to, to, with the brand, be able to sell a sealant, but now the sealant has become its own sales driver because we, we have a different approach to the sealant where, oops. I'm I'm saying. It fulfills all the, all it checks, all the boxes that a modern ceiling has to fulfill, like white temperature range. Um, Environmental friendly. It's water based. Um, it, it comes in a hundred percent recycled CO2 bottles. It's a natural, uh, it's, it's synthetic. Latex doesn't contain ammonia. It doesn't contain aggressive ingredients, so it, it's CO2 proof. That's, uh, a big plus as well. It checks all these boxes. Uh, But then what, what makes it really different is, as you can see here, or the ones who don't see it, it, it, there is no particles at the bottom of the bottle. When you turn the bottle around that, uh, that accumulation, and then you have to shake it to, to get these particles, the, the, these crystals into solution that. You don't have to do that with anymore. It just is in solution. So you just take with the syringe, you push it into your tire without the hurry, like shaking the bottle, and then really quickly fill it in because you might not get the right amount of, of particle in there. That's not a thing anymore. But then more importantly, It stays homogenous also in the tire, which means you don't have this separation where you have these rubbery leftovers, rubber balls. It's, it's cold. Sometimes you don't have this separation into rubbery leftovers and watery leftovers, but it stays constant. It stays homogenous over time, so that leads to a, a, a longer, more reliable function. We, [00:42:49] Craig Dalton: I've seen those, those rubber balls in certain tires when I've taken them off. Uh, so I know that effectively they're, that's dried up material, so it's not gonna act as a sealant, presumably. And if, if I'm hearing you correctly, by the way, your product is blended and stays consistent, doesn't need shaking, like as long as there's solution in the tire. It will function as designed versus something that's separated into elements that need to be combined in order to work. [00:43:19] Pius Kobler: Oh some. Some of the well-known sealants, if you wait a bit too long and you open the tire, you have basically a puddle of water like brownish, greenish, watery. Thing leftover, which is not sealant at all anymore. It's none. It has, has not been working for quite a while. And, and, and our sealant remains homogenous. And it covers like the tire looks the same one day or, or, or a year after, after installing it. It's just covered like wet from the sealant, which is important. Uh, but then it doesn't accumulate, it doesn't leave these, add these robbery leftovers and, and. We, we have it nicely printed on our bottle here on our ceiling, but we, we won the, the seal test in, in this larger bike magazine here. I, I always say we, we won by a, by a bit, uh, just a bit better than the other from function, you know, ceiling function. But I say if, if they's done the test two months later, we would've won by, by big margin. You know, because it's still working more constantly. And that's, that's a, that's a big advantage. And the third, the third advantage of, of it's staying homogenous, and that's very important for, for users, is it doesn't go bad in the bottle because it stays stable, homogenous. You don't have to throw the bottle away after. Half a year or two a year, something like that, because it goes bad in the bottles. So there, there is no separation in the bottle as well, which in the end is, uh, quite, uh, an environmental impact. You know, a lot of seal being thrown away and it's a financial aspect as well. You, you, you can buy a bigger bottle and use next year. [00:45:06] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. No, that is nice. [00:45:08] Pius Kobler: So that being said, the the sealant is not just a sealant that we also sell with, with our, with our brand like we planned originally. It's really, it's really a game changer. And, and talking about gravel, we, we, this is. This is originally we come from the mountain bike sector. You know, the whole tubus comes from the mountain bike sector or originally, but now with gravel and road coming, the, the challenges are different for, for sealants and, and there is two major differences. One with the higher pressures, you have a lot more water loss ceilings dry up because, Tires are porous and tires are never perfectly tight. So you, you, you lose water through any tire and, and in a gravel or roads bike, because it's, the pressure is higher, you lose water faster, so it dries up faster than, than a mountain bike tire. And that's why we, we, we are gonna actually now in May, we are gonna release our road and gravel sealant, which is a bit thinner and, and, and it's longer lasting. So, so that's the. One thing we adjusted. And the other thing is it seals cuts better at high pressures. So that's the be because sealing at high pressures is obviously a big challenge for sealants. It's the higher the pressure, the the more difficult. So we, we, we've adjusted our formula to, to cover these two important factors for, for travelers and roadies. [00:46:39] Craig Dalton: Interesting. I'm excited to see that as it's tested out, but I, I love that you're thinking kind of from first principles and thinking about the tire pressure differences and how they'll play out and affect the product. [00:46:52] Pius Kobler: Yeah. [00:46:53] Craig Dalton: And, and now going to the, your latest product that I think you just released at Sea Otter and I was able to see last weekend when we rode. Tell me about the journey to creating a multi-tool. And obviously it's a category everybody's familiar with. Everybody has had one or many over the years. Like what may, what was the design perspective that you came to, to achieve this product? And then we can get into. How cleverly it was executed and the multitude of functions you have built into it. [00:47:26] Pius Kobler: Basically the, the, the approach is the same as, as with any of the products that we brought. Um, there is still some, some, some trouble left, you know, some things to solve. And, and what's, what was missing for us is there are cuts in the tire that are too big to be sealed by the sealant, and that's when you need a block solution, you need to push something through that hole or slit from the outside. To, to mechanically close that, that hole and then the ceiling can do the job to, to close off the rest. And so we, we knew, we, we've been, we, we've known for, for a long time that we have to bring some kind of a pl plug solution. We just never really knew where to put it and how to store it. You know, you can go into the handlebar, you can go into the stem, you can go somewhere. What's. What's really popular now, and this is a really hot topic in, in, in any bike segment, is. Having it quickly accessible, you know, having a solution for in the backpacker or somewhere that's not really a solution that you wanna offer today. So it has to be quickly accessible. You might still hold, have your finger on the hole because what you can do is you're losing air your hold the finger on your hole. So, so you can stop the, the, the air leak and then you have one hand left and you have to grab that tool with one hand very quickly. And so it has to be somewhere. We, we didn't wanna go into the handle bar or in the stem because you have a lot of compatibility, compatibility issues. So what we decided to do is we, we, we want to go to that formerly bottle cage interface. We call it standard interface now, because there is sometimes like three or four on a bike or at least two. So we, we basically have a small box that you can screw onto your frame using this screw interface. And the, the original idea of having these plugs is you have, you have, um, rubber cover that you can open on the side and then you can pull out that handle with the plug right there. So, Literally with one hand, you can open the thing and pull the plug out and then push it in. [00:49:42] Craig Dalton: Yeah. [00:49:43] Pius Kobler: And we, we have, that's maybe a bit too detailed, but we have a side loading fork that makes it easier to load the, the plug into your fork tool. We have a twist shape of the fork tool because when the plug is twisted, when you push it into the tire, when you pu pull the tool out, the plug sticks better in the, in the tire. Some, some details about using that plug. So this was, this was basically the tool that we had to bring, that we wanted to bring out. But then we said, now that we have this presence on the bike frame, now that we have this box anyway, we are adding something that anybody needs anyway. And that's, that, it's a, it's a little multi tool. And what I'm holding into the camera now, for the ones who don't see it, it's, it's, it's, uh, like an L and key. It's a L-shaped L key, and it has on the side, it has a bit in bit technology, so the small bits are stored in the larger bits, and you can magnetically remove them, flip them around. And put them back. So, and on both sides, on the long side and on the short side, you can exchange these bits. And this makes from one a key that is, Um, super lightweight, let's say compared to a folding tool. With all these functions, you have a proper tool that you have a lot of torque and, and good accessibility, and you have eight functions. You have from two to eight millimeter, all Alan Keys, plus you have a Torque 25 all in one tool, and that's, that's a very attractive solution that you have, right? At the front, you know, you open that rubber cover, you pull that tool out, and you are ready to go. You, you need that often. I, I, I, I just went riding for four days over Easter. I used it nine times in four days, and I didn't use it because I wanted to count higher. So literally to, to tighten the axle of the wheel, the handlebar was twisted. I had to put my seat post a bit higher. You need. Very often you need to, to adjust or tighten something. So this is very handy to have it quickly available. And then, [00:51:54] Craig Dalton: Yeah, go ahead. [00:51:54] Pius Kobler: sorry. This is basically level one usability. Use that tool often, but then this tool clips. Magnetically into, into a tire lever. This is like people have to go online to see, to see the form factor. This is the impressive part. You know how that L-shaped tool is clipping into the tire lever where you have a chain link storage, and then you have a chain breaker that clips into the chain breaker, into the tire lever, so it's all compactly stored together. And then the, the last thing that we added is there was some more space. So we added a little cutter tool, a little Swiss army knife, scissors tool that you can open. And then it has this, this, this cutting function. This is, this is pretty fun tool as well. And it, it, it, it's also the storage for your replacement plugs. So, In, in short, it's a very compact, um, way of having many, many solutions. The, the, the main solutions that you need, the tools in a, in a small box that's, um, super light to 835 grams, which is, let me check how many ounce Ansys [00:53:07] Craig Dalton: think even in the US we think about grams when we think about bike parts. [00:53:11] Pius Kobler: we say lighter than your phone. It's, it's lighter than your mobile phone, so yeah. [00:53:18] Craig Dalton: that makes sense. And, and you mentioned this, I mean, and, and calling it like a, the shape of a deck of cards is not completely accurate because it's thinner than that. Um, and a lot less weight as you said. So you, you mentioned you've got the ability to both mount it to where any water bottles would've been mounted, and if I'm correct, you also have a way of strapping it to the bike. [00:53:43] Pius Kobler: Exactly that. That's that. That's basically now. Now we have that box and. You screw that box onto your frame with two screws and basically with the two screws, we also screw this interface on top. It's a, it's like an aluminum bar. It's a sliding interface that's also on the side of the kit. So you have two of these interfaces and now you have what we call a strap clip. It's a plastic part that you can slide onto onto that interface, and then you have a Velcro wrap where you can. Attach your pump, your CO2 cartridge, your tube, your banana, whatever you wanna bring along. And the idea is to have one clip on each of these items. So before you write, you decide, oh, today I need a pump. You slide it on today, I need to bring my tube. And you slide it on. And sometimes you go without anything. So you have a modular system with these interfaces around your base box. [00:54:41] Craig Dalton: yeah, yeah. It's super slickly designed and as you articulated, like everything kind of nestles into one another, and I like the thoughtfulness around. The plug is the thing you wanna access quickly, fast, and ideally with one hand, and making that kind of first and foremost in the design. And then if you need to dig out some of the other tools, they're all right there, but they're not as quickly accessible because you've aired towards what you need on the go fast. [00:55:12] Pius Kobler: Yeah, and maybe to f to finish that, the top interface that is held in place by the two screws, you can leave the interface away and just put your bottle cage on top of, of the whole kit. And that's actually the. Primary idea you have that it's, it's so small, it's only half an inch thick, you know, so you have half an inch under your bottle cage and, uh, and it, it basically disappears under your bottle cage, but you can still acc accesses for access it from the side, and you can still slide your pump or whatever to the side with your bottle being on top. That's the, the core idea of that, of that kit. [00:55:51] Craig Dalton: Yeah. Thanks for clarifying that because when I saw it on your bike over the weekend, you did not have a bottle cage on top of [00:55:58] Pius Kobler: Because then nobody would see it. You know, [00:56:02] Craig Dalton: I love it. Good gorilla marketing. [00:56:05] Pius Kobler: it worked. I'm here. [00:56:07] Craig Dalton: Exactly. Well, this was amazing. I'm so glad that I, I met you and ran into you. Like I said, I've been familiar with the brand. You guys have been doing it for a, uh, quite some time now and great to kind of just dig into both your history as a product designer. How you always design from a writer first perspective and just hearing the totality of the systems you've built and the thought behind it. It was a real pleasure to get to know you and I, I hope for the listeners they, they hit up milk it bike. I'll include that link in the show notes so everybody can see some of the videos and cool graphics that you have on the site to understand everything you've been describing. [00:56:47] Pius Kobler: Thank you very much for having me. It was a pleasure. [00:56:50] Craig Dalton: Yeah, great to talk to you. [00:56:52] Pius Kobler: Yeah, thanks. Bye. [00:56:54] Craig Dalton: That's going to do it for this week's edition of the gravel ride podcast. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with PS. As much as I did, how fortunate was it that I was able to run into him on the trail and how interesting a journey he had to creating the milk at brand and the valve core system and the entire system that he described super happy to have made his acquaintance and get to know those products. A big, thank you. Goes out to our friends at hammerhead and the hammerhead crew to, to crew. And the hammer had crew to computer. Remember, if you visit hammerhead.io and use the code, the gravel ride. You can get a free heart rate, monitor strap with your purchase of that career, to your computer. If you're interested in giving me any feedback on the show or connecting with other gravel cyclists around the world. I encourage you to join the ridership. That's www.theridership.com. Everything's for free and it's simply a forum that allows you to connect with. Other athletes around the world. If you're able to support the show. Please visit, buy me a coffee.com/the gravel ride or ratings and reviews are hugely helpful in getting this podcast in front of new listeners. Until next time here's to finding some dirt onto your wheels.
With just a few hours to the White House meeting on the debt ceiling, we look at what it means for the markets and how to position your portfolio. Choice Hotels blowing earnings estimates out of the water, CEO Pat Pacious tells us what's next for the brand and the trends he's seeing. Plus, need 10 bucks? Amazon will pay you to pick up your own packages.
In this episode, we discuss how Measure 26-238 would introduce a 0.75% capital gains tax in Multnomah County and how it could affect the multifamily industry. HFO's podcasts are sponsored by J.R. Johnson, specialists in restoration and emergency repair work for multifamily properties, and Gantry Inc, the country's largest independent mortgage banking firm focused exclusively on commercial real estate.
Luis and Fonzi Camejo are two brothers from Venezuela. They came to the USA on soccer scholarships after cold emailing 300+ coaches. They turned entrepreneurs and started selling vinyl stickers door to door, and now they run a successful podcast platform as part of the Hubspot Podcast Network and help entrepreneurs kickstart their publishing. Top 3 Value Bombs: 1. Leverage the efforts that you have. Measure your capacity, measure your resources, and based on that you can leverage the long form pieces of content. Extract some of the best pieces and share them so you can start funneling people into your world, into your ecosystem. 2. Leverage where the eyeballs already are. 3. If we use content as a vehicle to collaborate and build relationships, then opportunities will come from day one. Follow Luis and Fonzi on Instagram! - BizBrosCo Instagram Sponsors: HubSpot: HubSpot CRM's powerful tools will help marketers WOW prospects, sales teams lock in deals, and service teams improve response times and overall service. Get started for free at HubSpot.com! Factor: America's #1 Ready-To-Eat Meal Kit! Fuel up fast with meals delivered straight to your door. Visit FactorMeals.com/eofire40 and use the code eofire40 to get 40% off your first box!
Luis and Fonzi Camejo are two brothers from Venezuela. They came to the USA on soccer scholarships after cold emailing 300+ coaches. They turned entrepreneurs and started selling vinyl stickers door to door, and now they run a successful podcast platform as part of the Hubspot Podcast Network and help entrepreneurs kickstart their publishing. Top 3 Value Bombs: 1. Leverage the efforts that you have. Measure your capacity, measure your resources, and based on that you can leverage the long form pieces of content. Extract some of the best pieces and share them so you can start funneling people into your world, into your ecosystem. 2. Leverage where the eyeballs already are. 3. If we use content as a vehicle to collaborate and build relationships, then opportunities will come from day one. Follow Luis and Fonzi on Instagram! - BizBrosCo Instagram Sponsors: HubSpot: HubSpot CRM's powerful tools will help marketers WOW prospects, sales teams lock in deals, and service teams improve response times and overall service. Get started for free at HubSpot.com! Factor: America's #1 Ready-To-Eat Meal Kit! Fuel up fast with meals delivered straight to your door. Visit FactorMeals.com/eofire40 and use the code eofire40 to get 40% off your first box!
The Paid Search Podcast | A Weekly Podcast About Google Ads and Online Marketing
Please support our sponsors because they make the show possible!Get Opteo for free for two months - https://opteo.com/pspChris Schaeffer - https://www.chrisschaeffer.com/Jason Rothman - https://rothmanppc.com/Show Notes:Have you ever wondered where your money goes in Google Ads? When you see your budget being spent, how are people interacting with your ads? In this episode, Chris clears up a common misunderstanding about where your money goes in Google Ads and explains how to measure click types to best optimize your ads.(3:12) Types of interactions(7:03) Headline clicks(9:01) Call extensions(12:13) Site link under the ad(17:30) Image extensions(20:07) Driving directions(22:33) Google Search Partners(25:38) Display network(31:15) Price asset(33:52) Lead form asset(35:37) Call adsWe need your help! Please help us grow the show:If you don't mind, please leave us a rating and review where you listen to podcasts and share the show with friends because it helps us grow the show and create more content. Send us your questions here - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/contact-us/Subscribe on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/ThePaidSearchPodcast First 100 Episodes - https://paidsearchpodcast.com/archive
In this episode Coach JC asks you two powerful questions... "What do you TREASURE?" "What do you MEASURE?" What you TREASURE IS WHAT YOU MEASURE Coach JC,Performance Coach, Passionate Entrepreneur, Motivational Speaker, 6x Author, Hype-Man With Intensity, Who Is On A Mission To Show You How To WIN ALL DAY! Welcome to my world, you were born to WIN, you can WIN, you will WIN, and together, we will build your purpose driven, passion filled WINNING life & business! The WIN ALL DAY podcast is the motivation, inspiration and empowerment along with strategy you need so that you can increase your WINNING % and live the WINNING life you desire and deserve. Have a question you'd like Coach JC to answer on a future WIN ALL DAY episode? Submit it as a message on our social media accounts: https://www.instagram.com/thecoachjc/ https://www.facebook.com/WINALLDAYWITHCOACHJC Subscribe to the WIN ALL DAY podcast and leave a review for a chance to win some FREE WIN ALL DAY merchandise or even a coaching session with Coach JC each month. Be sure to join Coach JC's email list and download our free ebook, "The 7 Habits To WIN ALL DAY" at www.CoachJC.com so that you can stay up to date and increase your WINNING %. GET STARTED WINNING NOW BY CREATING THE WINNING MINDSET. Listen, Watch or Read Strategies From Coach JC To Start Stacking WINS In Your Life: Listen: https://coachjc.com/podcast Read: https://coachjcblog.com Watch: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLV45YjtTNdgL24VxV3LPNfeeCEUUpD3C- If you are a faith based man looking to WIN in life and have a purpose driven business our WIN ALL DAY Brotherhood could be a great fit for you: https://www.winalldaybrotherhood.com Are you wanting to build the WINNER you were born to be? Join The WIN ALL DAY Winners Circle! Are you wanting to become a coach and have impact doing what you love? Join The WIN ALL DAY Personal Branding Academy! Are you wanting to transform your body? Join The WIN ALL DAY Strength & Fitness Body Transformation! Are you wanting to rock the WIN ALL DAY Merchandise so you can constantly remember who you are... A WINNER!? Check out the WIN ALL DAY Store: All of these valuable assets can be found at: Visit www.CoachJC.com
https://wendybatten.com/156/ With host retail coach Wendy Batten In this episode of The Creative Shop Talk Podcast, I'm sharing six essential merchandising tips for small independent shop owners. These tips aim to attract customers and encourage sales and loyalty, making your business strong and healthy. Good merchandising can increase your sales with both new arrivals but also slower moving items. By following these tips, you'll be better positioned to welcome, engage, and increase sales from merchandising in your shop right now! I encourage you to implement the following tips by this weekend and report back on how it helped your sales. Offering repeat exposure on select items can maximize sales using cross-merchandising or multiple merchandising. Consistent signage throughout the space can effectively communicate with customers. Point out best sellers, locally made goods, quotes, etc. Maximize the POS area with store information and inventory to increase sales. Advertise return policy in a fun way, post upcoming events, merchandise grab-and-go goods Identify your ideal customers and merchandise the store accordingly. Have unscalable conversations to figure out pain points for customers Offering how-to-tips within your displays can engage customers and encourage them to spend more money. Utilize QR codes and tip sheets Make use of prime real estate spots in the store to enhance the overall store merchandising experience. Maximize the best spots for high return items For additional support, join me and my fab retailers inside the Retailer's Inner Circle for full access to my 5 Day Merchandising Series Masterclass, the Ideal Customer Workshop, and my signature course: Retail Made Simple. This episode is sponsored by: H+H Americas Join me at the h+h americas trade show if you are in the creative or craft business. Here are the details: h+h americas trade show Donald E. Stephens Convention & Conference Center in Rosemont Chicago, IL Dates: June 21-23, 2023 (Masterclasses start on June 20) https://www.hh-americas.com/ Tickets on sale: March 15, 2023, use promo code CST23 to get free access to the exhibit floor I'll be hosting sessions on Hobby Mindset to CEO and How to Throw an Amazing Workshop/Event in your retail shop. Related podcasts we think you'll like: Episode 55: Unscalable Conversations – A Free, Simple and Powerful Marketing Tool To Use Episode 58: 3 Simple Sales Metrics Retailers Need to Measure for Better Sales Episode 144: How to Create a Customer Journey Map About your host, Wendy Batten In case we haven't met yet, I'm Wendy, a small business coach and founder of the Retailer's Inner Circle, where I help other independent shop owners learn how to gain the right business skillsets to see more profits, paychecks, and joy as they navigate running their retail business. Through online classes, business coaching programs, speaking, and a top-ranked podcast, I've helped hundreds of retailers around the globe reclaim their dream and see the success they want from their beautiful shops. My signature private coaching community, The Retailer's Inner Circle, has helped retailers around the world build their retail business skill sets and confidence. I am proud to have been featured in several major publications, including my own business column in What Women Create magazine. I have been privileged to be a guest on top-ranked podcasts and sought-after as a guest speaker and teacher for several brands, associations, and communities that are passionate about the success of independent retailers. When I'm not coaching, you will find me either DIYing and renovating my very imperfect old crooked cottage by the sea in the UNESCO World Heritage town of Lunenburg, NS, or blogging about our travel and RVing adventures and the weird fun things we get up to in our coastal village. I'd love to invite you to check out one of my free resources for real retailers at https://wendybatten.com/free-resources/ For more support from Wendy Retailer's Inner Circle - Join Wendy inside the best retailer's community Wendy's FREE Resources for shop owners Hang out and connect with Wendy on IG All of Wendy's programs and services for shop owners can be found HERE. Subscribe & Review in iTunes Are you subscribed to my podcast? If you're not, I'd love you to consider it. Subscribing means you won't miss an episode! Click here to subscribe to iTunes! If you want to be more of a rockstar, I'd love it if you could leave a review over on iTunes as well. Those reviews help other retailers find my podcast and they're also fun for me to go in and read. Just click here to review, select “Ratings and Reviews” and “Write a Review” and let me know what your favorite part of the podcast is. So grateful for you! Thank you!
“Cultivate 12 people who love you, because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.” That's just one of many gems from Kevin Kelly's new book Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier, bits of wisdom that he thinks of like handrails to grab when he needs a quick reminder about what is most important. In this conversation, we revisit our 2016 discussion about the power of human-AI partnerships, give you permission not to become a billionaire, help you lean into serendipity and embrace paradox, and encourage you to buy your time (through delegation) so that you can focus on doing the work that only you can do. As Kevin says, “Don't be the best, be the only.” More About Kevin: Kevin Kelly helped launch WIRED magazine in 1993. He is a renowned technology and science writer, futurist, and thinker who has been at the forefront of digital culture for decades. Kelly's work explores the intersection of technology, culture, and society, and he is known for his thought-provoking insights on the future of innovation and the impact of technology on our lives. He has authored multiple books including The Inevitable, Out of Control, The Silver Cord, and What Technology Wants. His newest is Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier (May 2023). He lives in Pacifica, California with his family.
غالباً ما تُقَدَّم تطبيقات الذكاء الاصطناعي على أنها قضاء وقدر، وبتصميمات ليس لديها بدائل. لماذا يتم تصميم الروبوتات على شكل بشر؟ ولماذا يتم استخدام صوت "أنثوي" في تطبيقات المساعدة الصوتية؟في هذه الحلقة نستكشف حكاية بعض تصاميم الذكاء الاصطناعي وتأثّرها بالسياسة والصور الجندريّة النمطيّة.كتب وقدَّم الحلقة حسين محسن. حررها وأنتجها فريق «صوت».أُنتجَت هذه الحلقة كمشروع تخرّج من الأكاديمية البديلة للصحافة العربية لسنة ٢٠٢٣:caforarabjournalism.com بودكاست «منبت» من إنتاج صوت.صفحات صوت على مواقع التواصل الاجتماعي:تويتر: twitter.com/sowtإنستجرام: instagram.com/sowtpodcastsفيسبوك: facebook.com/SowtPodcastsللانضمام إلى عضويّة صوت بلس https://sow.tl/PlusAppleمصادر:1- The Measure of a Woman: Fembots, Fact and Fiction 2- Persuasive Robotics: The influence of robot gender on human behavior3- Throwback Thursday: A Boston Woman Becomes the First Female Telephone Operator4- How AI bots and voice assistants reinforce gender bias Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 6, 2023 Daily Devotion from Lutheran Hour Ministries
In this episode of Psychedelics Weekly, Joe and Kyle record in-person again, discussing psychedelics and parenthood, sports, music, and more. They cover: -an Elle (!) article about how mushrooms are becoming the new ‘Cali sober,' with more and more people starting to microdose – including parents; -ESPN's documentary, "Peace of Mind," highlighting the rise of psychedelic use among athletes, including retired NHL player, Riley Cote; -An article discussing how interest in psychedelics has skyrocketed in Oregon since the passing of Measure 109, and how over-regulation and the glacial speed of the government is only driving the growth of the black market; -An essay attempting to define what it is that leads people to describe music as psychedelic (with several recommendations from Joe); -DMT aficionados using AI to create and catalog depictions of the entities they've seen; and more! And they have larger discussions about the drug war, how famous athletes are opening people's minds to psychedelics, how strict regulation in psychedelic legislation can create more harm, how we need to collaborate more in the psychedelic space, the concept of a DMT 'hyper-slap,' and the problem of psychedelic exceptionalism and thinking your drug is good while others are bad. www.psychedelicstoday.com
Kourtney attempts to solve the mystery of her stolen Bucees sweatshirt as a good samaritan comes to the rescue. Justin introduces his new teammates to his love of the daily crossword puzzle. He discusses some new team plane hobbies. The two discuss success and how it is measured in sports and through playoffs and results. Follow Holding Kourt: @holdingkourt Follow Kourt: @court_with_a_K Follow Justin: @redturn2
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One way that growers can farm sustainably for the future is through vineyard fleet management. Marc Di Pietra, Regional Service Maintenance Manager for Treasury Americas, a subsidiary of global wine company Treasury Wine Estates, is doing just that by exploring alternative fuel sources and automation. Electric and hybrid vehicles reduce carbon emissions and lower the cost of fuel. The use of remote-operated equipment improves safety for operators, upscales the workforce, improves efficiencies, and has the potential to passively gather valuable data. The challenge is the existing infrastructure needed to support these tools. Learn what equipment Marc and his team are trialing as they work towards a goal to use 100% renewable energy. References: May 12, 2023 Integrating Mechanization Tailgate Meeting - REGISTER 77: Vineyard Pruning Technology 173: Reduce Your Carbon Footprint with Lightweight Wine Bottles Agtonomy Guss Monarch Tractor Polaris Robotics Plus Marc Di Pietra email Marc Di Pietra LinkedIn Stavros Vougioukas, Ph.D, Professor and Department Vice Chair, Biological and Agricultural Engineering, UC Davis Treasury Wines Estates Treasury Wine Estates 2022 Sustainability Report Treasury Wine Estates on LinkedIn Vineyard Team Programs: Juan Nevarez Memorial Scholarship - DONATE SIP Certified – Join to protect natural and human resource with us Vineyard Team – Become a Member Get More Subscribe wherever you listen so you never miss an episode on the latest science and research with the Sustainable Winegrowing Podcast. Since 1994, Vineyard Team has been your resource for workshops and field demonstrations, research, and events dedicated to the stewardship of our natural resources. Learn more at www.vineyardteam.org. Transcript Craig Macmillan 0:00 And our guest today is Marc Di Pietra. He's Regional Service Maintenance Manager for Treasury America's part of Treasury Wine Estates. And thanks for being on the podcast. Marc Di Pietra 0:09 Thank you, Craig, I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with you today, especially about some of the things we're working on. We're really excited, quick background on me. I joined Treasury wWine Estates in mid 2018, then transitioned into vineyard operations around 2019. And then since then, I've been focused on our equipment, sleep management in the vineyard with an eye on what farming of the future looks like. Craig Macmillan 0:28 Farming of the future. That's a really interesting topic and a really big question, what that is going to look like, what kinds of things are you doing? What kinds of things do you do as part of this position as part of this project? Marc Di Pietra 0:40 It's a great question, because every day it changes, right. But two of the biggest areas of opportunities that we see, we see alternative fuel types, fully electric, hybrid hydrogen or alternative fuel sources, and then also automation or remote operated mechanization. And so for alternative fuels, two of the major points here are obviously the rising cost of fuel, and then also how to lower our carbon emissions. So Treasury as a whole and supportive lowering emissions, we've been implemented two key goals in our journey. And that starts with a target of 100% renewable energy by 2024. That's the first step. And then the second step of that is net zero for scopes, one and two by 2030. So pretty big, lofty goals there. But that's why we're starting that path now. Craig Macmillan 1:24 So Marc, can you kind of explain what scope one and scope two are in the world of carbon accounting? Marc Di Pietra 1:30 Yeah, sure. So scope. One, emissions are direct greenhouse gas emissions that occur from sources controlled or owned by an organization. So an example like fuel combustion, boiler, furnace vehicles, things like that. Scope, two emissions, or indirect greenhouse gas emissions through the purchase of electricity, Steam, heat, or cooling. And then lastly, scope three, which is much bigger than that as activities from assets not owned or controlled by the organization, but indirectly affected value, like shipping supply chain, gas bottles, things like that. Craig Macmillan 2:00 Yeah. And there's a lot of folks that are getting interested in that part of my job with Niner Wine Estates is who I work for. We're trying to figure out what's the carbon footprint of the glass we use, and many other people are looking at that same thing. Because when you stop and think about it, you go, Hey, wait a second, this came from France. And it weighs X, huh. You know, and so it's that kind of scope three stuff is really interesting to a lot of people. Marc Di Pietra 2:23 Treasury on the background has done a lot of work on that to understand that big picture. Craig Macmillan 2:26 And we have an episode that mentions that. Marc Di Pietra 2:28 And the second big piece, which I hadn't hinted on was automation, also a key initiative because it allows us to help improve like our operator safety, upscale our existing workforce while improving efficiencies in the field. There's also an added bonus, that with this type of technology, we'll have the ability to gather passive data, which right now, it's still relatively new. But as we continue to grow and develop, we can process that data to make smarter decisions, you would ask some of the things that we're working on. So here in the US, we're working with GUSS remote operated spray systems, we've got Agtonomy, which is electric and remotely operated alternative to the tractor that you're familiar with. We've got two atari and Polaris electric, RTVs, Robotics Plus systems, which is both hybrid and remote operating. And we're also currently waiting for order of Monarch tractors that should be here in the next couple of weeks. Our international teams, they're also using some different equipment as well, such as vide bots or farm, Kelby, the yields and a few others. Craig Macmillan 3:25 Talk to me about these alternate fuel things. I think this is a really interesting idea. And I haven't really followed it, tell someone who's never heard of this kind of thing, how this works? Marc Di Pietra 3:35 Well, the easiest way to think about as you're driving up and down the road, and you see a gas station, and you see those three different price points, for 87 89, and 91. And that's all pretty basic, but then you add in the cost of diesel on top of that there are other ways to fuel equipment as well. So we have a fully electric like you're familiar with your Tesla's or your Chevy bolts, but there's also hybrid, which you're familiar with to it has been doing this for a long time. And then there's also other types of fuel, like methane and hydrogen that are out there as well. The real big challenge that we're seeing, at least on our end, is the infrastructure to support all of these different growing ideas. That's why we're currently trying both electric and the hybrid options. Craig Macmillan 4:14 Do you think that there is a future for things like methane, hydrogen, those ideas have kind of come and gone? And I think a lot of it, like you said, is the infrastructure part? Marc Di Pietra 4:21 You know, it's a great question, because I don't have all the answers. But I do know that different companies are trying things to capture, especially in farming, so where you have dairy farms that can collect the methane, you've got the fermentation process, which allows you to capture different chemicals across the way. So I think there is a place for it depending on where you're at. And then again, it goes back to how you can capture and store that safely. Craig Macmillan 4:45 So let's go back to electric and hybrid. You mentioned a whole range of different vehicles that could run on electric and hybrid. Can you tell me a little bit about is it a hybrid tractors or strictly electric tractors? These are the things that need more house horsepower, and they're a little bit big You're What's that landscape looking like right now? That's very exciting for a lot of us. Marc Di Pietra 5:04 Yeah. And it's a great question because again, that's those are all the things that we're asking ourselves. The reason we're so spread out is because we're in the early adoption phase, and Treasury has allowed us to be that. So we're trying different pieces of the puzzle to see what works best for us. The reason we've tried a fully electric tractor is because there are currently two or three options out there that we feel really comfortable with demoing in our fields, it's not going to take the place of what we're currently doing. But it allows us to step into our farming practices and see if it is truly a viable option. Hybrid is a little bit more of that in between step, it's, you know, it's one step towards that end goal of zero emissions, because it is more efficient. You know, you get the benefits of that. But also, it doesn't completely Have you dependent on the grid, the electric grid or infrastructure of what's happening around you. You talked about going into larger formats, and there is a concern about battery life there. And that we know that that technology is changing rapidly. So we are starting with a couple see how it evolves, and then we can make an informed decision based on that. Craig Macmillan 6:06 Stay with tractors are these vehicles that are coming to you from manufacturers ready to go? Are you making modifications yourself? Are you taking with a base unit making modifications to something that's already existing? What kind of involvement does it take on your part to work with this technology at this point? Marc Di Pietra 6:21 Depending on the program that we're using, so let's say on our for example, that comes to us more or less ready to use. So they have tools that will connect to your standard three point. So there's not much modification or or there but another company, Agtonomy that we're working with, we're on the ground level with them while they're still developing. So it gives us an opportunity to give our feedback of what we're looking for. So we're seeing a lot of rapid change quickly that will help support our needs. Craig Macmillan 6:46 Will that tractor still be based on a three point hitch? Marc Di Pietra 6:49 It will have a front mounted tool bar on the front? And we're talking to them about getting front and rear mounted tools? Craig Macmillan 6:56 What kind of horsepower? Are we talking here? Are we are we comparable to a regular track layer? Are we talking to a regular four wheel drive depends on the size, but are we in the same range? Marc Di Pietra 7:06 That's the goal, you know, obviously Electric is more efficient than your standard diesel motor. So when you get a diesel motor that says they're pushing 100 horsepower, we believe that the electric range tractor that's stating a range between 45 to 85 horsepower is comparable to that 95 to 100 horsepower tractor. Now again, there's still a lot of work going on to validate that, but we have seen improved efficiencies and we think that will be if not, they're close to it. Craig Macmillan 7:34 And getting really technical. What is the power supply? Like for these? Are you having to bring in extra electrical service above what you already have? Because a lot of shops don't have a 480? For instance, amperage? What kind of amperage do you need? It sounds like a totally new kind of thing. Marc Di Pietra 7:50 Yeah, so for the two that I've mentioned, for us, we are using both 60 amp circuit with a 48 amp charger capability, as well as some 100 amp circuits that will support an 80 amp charger. So we're not using anything that is above and beyond like we would see with a Tesla quick charger. And in both of those cases, though, with the 40 and 80 amp chargers, we're still looking at a charge time of overnight, four to six hours. Craig Macmillan 8:15 So that's very practical. Really. That could work. Marc Di Pietra 8:17 Yeah. And because Treasury has several ranches, we are looking at it holistically, excuse me, we're implementing different charging systems on different sites as well to understand the draw on the need of those to see how efficient they are affected they are on our site. Craig Macmillan 8:32 Is there any real change for the tractor operators? Are there new things they need to learn how to do or is it kind of based on what they've been doing is, Marc Di Pietra 8:39 There is a big change for the operator because they need to understand that it's not sit in the seat, turn on the key and hit the gas pedal. It's understanding what the screen is telling you when you turn on the tractor, where you're at power wise. So there's some nuances, but ultimately, it still runs and drives like a tractor that you're familiar with. It's just like learning a new a new cellphone, for example, Android versus iPhone. Craig Macmillan 9:02 Yeah, I just got a new phone and I'm struggling. I have to admit. You also had mentioned passive data collection, which I'm very interested in. I've been tracking this concept for quite a few years now. What kinds of data are you interested in collecting? And how's it been going so far? Marc Di Pietra 9:15 We have been talking to several different companies that offer passive data. But our goal is to try to implement it on the platforms we're currently working with. I referenced the Agtonomy a lot, because again, our input is going into their development quite a bit. They're looking to add sensors to their machines to gather that data that we're looking for. I would say we're still in the very, very beginning stages of that. Some of the benefits of using this passive data is the machine will have more than two sets of eyes on like our current tractor and operator with that we can gather information around density, disease cluster counts, as well as monitoring the sensors that are out in the field such as irrigation or moisture. And just about anything else you can think of that a sensor can gather for you. Craig Macmillan 10:00 And you're in early trials with it sounds like you actually started collecting data. I was a little confused. Marc Di Pietra 10:07 Oh, excuse me. No, we haven't there are companies out there that we spoken with. But again, we're trying to rely on our partnerships and use their platform. Again, we're trying to do a lot of things on one machine to see what's valuable to us long term. Yeah. Craig Macmillan 10:21 And you had mentioned remotely operated vehicles. Is that correct? Yes, sir. Tell me about that. I just think that is so cool. Autonomous machines. Marc Di Pietra 10:29 Thinking about remote operated, there's several factors involved. First and foremost, it's important to me and our team is the safety of our operators. Currently, we've got spray teams that are working, you know, in the middle of the night, they're working back and forth, up and down each row. So what this allows the operator to do is get back outside of the tractor, manage, ideally, multiple machines from one computer. So obviously, efficiency gains, but you're getting that operator out of harm's way out of the way of the equipment as well as out of any chemicals you might be spraying along the way. Craig Macmillan 10:58 Are there elements of this that are controlled by computer or artificial intelligence, what I'm thinking of is there's been some work by John Deere, in particular, with GPS guided tractors in the Midwest, where you set a path and it will go wherever you tell it to go little trickier when you have a row on either side, especially if it's a seven foot row or something like that. How hard is it for an operator to control this thing? Marc Di Pietra 11:23 Actually, from my experience, so far, controlling it with through a laptop computer, controlling not one machine, but multiple machines seems to be quite easy, because there are so many sensors on the platform that will allow it to tell you not only where it needs to go to go from, say, your barn or your shed to where it's starting a job for the day. But while it's going through the row, it's looking for any obstructions that might be in the way whether that's a tumbleweed. Coyote, a person, you know, all of those things for safety, but it also gathers all of that data. And it also knows where all the other machines are as well. And the operator is sitting behind a laptop, making sure that each path because they can see multiple machines on one screen, you know, through data points on a map, it can say, hey, that machine is going well. It's has 25% solution left, and it's tank. So we need to stop at at this point. And all the machines are talking to each other. So there's awareness about what's happening around it as well. Craig Macmillan 12:17 That's amazing. That's amazing. How far down the path are you with this? Marc Di Pietra 12:20 Well, I mean, there's two commercial products available now that we will have in our vineyards. Currently, we have the GUSS spray system. They've started in nuts in the Central Valley. But now they've they have actively sprayed over 1 million acres. And we have the first two vineyard sprayers in California that we will have started spraying with I guess in the next, like two weeks or so. Craig Macmillan 12:41 Yeah, exactly. Yeah, here we are. It's time Yeah, exactly. Marc Di Pietra 12:45 It came fast. Yeah. Craig Macmillan 12:47 From a cultural standpoint or a management standpoint, I just am curious. What kind of terrain are we talking about? Are we talking about really steep slopes, we talked about flatter ground, we talked about narrow rows. Treasury has properties all over the place, I'm sure there's a variety of topography that you're having to work with. Marc Di Pietra 13:01 Yeah, out of the gate, we're starting at a ranch that is relatively flat, it's got long half mile rows. So it'll be nice and efficient for the machine to go up and down back and forth all day long. But the goal is ultimately to take it into the foothills where we're talking up to 10 to 15 degrees of incline that we should not see any problems. And that's with, you know, the equipment that we know we have worked Agtonomy for example, I've seen their machine, go up a degree a slope of about 25 to 30 degrees, no problem. Craig Macmillan 13:25 We're talking about the machinery. Now let's talk about what the machines are doing. So we've talked about spraying, which is absolutely amazing. Are we using this for under vine cultivation? Are we using this for mowing or using this for tilling what kinds of things you're able to do with these machines? Marc Di Pietra 13:40 One of the biggest benefits is the underlying cultivation piece, which will allow us to reduce the chemicals that we use in spraying specifically around our herbicide use. We've seen the ability with this autonomous equipment or remotely operated equipment to use undermine tillers and we could do multiple passes with that volt we'd knives, sunflower cultivators, things like that. We can also do a mount where we have a mower on the front and cultivator on the back, that's been a huge benefit and time savings for us as well. Craig Macmillan 14:08 What are you seeing at this point? Or what are you thinking about? And I know that a lot of things you haven't really kind of gotten into yet, but I know you're looking forward in thinking about this, what is this going to look like from a maintenance standpoint, and also from an employee training, regardless of the position because we're going from a period of having a diesel mechanic, someone who understands how hydraulics work basic things around having vendors who can come out and replace a tire and all that kind of stuff. It sounds like there's going to be some very, very different kinds of maintenance and repair issues here. And we already mentioned drivers, it sounds like there's going to be some very different set of skills that folks are going to have to have to make these systems work. What's that wood in your imagination? What that's looking like right now? Marc Di Pietra 14:44 Yeah, I think one of the greatest things is the opportunity to upskill our existing workforce. I mean, honestly, it's been really great to see the initial hesitation from our guys when they see this stuff rolled out on the ranch, but then ultimately, once they get their hands on it, how quickly they've adapted to it. And that's been the great Interesting to see because you know, it's getting harder and harder to get employees for the vineyard, it's they're just not available to us, which I'm sure everybody's experienced. So this has really been a great opportunity to see these guys get excited about something new, and upskill them. From a maintenance standpoint, believe it or not, it's actually been much easier than we've anticipated. There's much less regular preventative maintenance needed. So we're not doing oil changes every 500 hours, because electric components require less, they're all sealed. So there's no going into there and changing fluids and things like that. Also, the software on these systems are also capable identifying similar like your car with like a check engine light comes on the system identifies those issues and points us to to those repairs much faster. Now that said, as we evolve, I do see the need to have someone on the team who has a solid understanding of the computer systems and how to address these types of issues outside of our current model, but we also know like we've seen with the car manufacturers, they're training folks up for that. And we're, I've already reached out to a couple of the local, I wouldn't say local, but the the training like UTIs and the wild Tech's of the world to see what type of implementation they haven't talked with them about their job boards. So any young folks coming out of those programs might be looking for something interesting. Craig Macmillan 16:14 You guys are doing so much stuff. This is amazing. You got a lot going on. Marc, is there any one thing though, that you're really excited about that you're really, really optimistic about at this point? Marc Di Pietra 16:24 I would say from a process standpoint, like I said, it's really about the operator safety, you know, getting these guys out from behind the tractor in the middle of the night, the efficiency that it brings the reduction of chemicals, like that's all the process stuff that I'm excited about. You know, there are several cool companies out there that we're working with, you know, these guys have great ideas and great minds. And we're all thinking forward. I think that's been one thing that I've really enjoyed is seeing people not worrying about just today. But looking forward. Craig Macmillan 16:52 And when you look into that crystal ball, what kinds of things do you see coming down the line, not things that you're able to trial now, but things that have potential on the future? There's a lot of work being done, like the precision vineyard project with Cornell and Carnegie Mellon and folks like that, what do you see out there on the horizon? It's, you know, a year ago with science fiction, hint now is starting to look like it could actually happen. Marc Di Pietra 17:10 Yeah, I think as the autonomous piece gets smarter and better, that's going to be a huge game. And again, I go back to one operator being able to control multiple machines. So that creates efficiency. Again, it goes back to operator safety. For me, it reduces those long days, it reduces middle of the night work for those long hours, and the monotony and the safety of that individual operator, I also really liked the idea of passive data stuff that we've not been able to easily get before and then be able to make smart decisions in the field. If you've got a spot that is say disease prone or not producing as strong as other areas in the vineyard, we'll be able to capture that data and make smart decisions go forward to improve that. Craig Macmillan 17:48 Measure, to manage, right, get to get the data to make good decisions. Marc Di Pietra 17:52 And I think that's going to be the biggest opportunity is how do we manage all of that data? That's what I'm really curious about. And that's, that's one thing that I would really like to figure out how to unlock in the future, because we can talk about it. But there's nothing there that can manage multiple systems, multiple points of input. And then whether that's a comparison of like for like mechanical versus the, you know, the future, or whatever that might be, there's so much that we just don't know how to do yet. Craig Macmillan 18:18 This is a huge area. But is there one thing that you would advise growers are one thing that you would say to growers around automation, hybrid electric, passive data collection, the future basically the future of this kind of mechanization in this kind of electronic world that we're moving into? Is there one piece of advice or one thing you'd one message you'd like growers to know? Marc Di Pietra 18:37 I think everybody needs to be curious. It's all something that we need to be thinking about, talking about and to help ourselves in the industry and our planet. I mean, there's a quote that I always think of when I talk about this stuff as a rising tide lifts all boats, you know, everybody wants to keep their secret to keep their grapes or their strawberries the best, I understand that. But this technology, the way it's going, you know, labor and employee safety, it's a huge concern for everybody. And I think the more we're talking, the more we're asking questions. And you know, you brought up John Deere. I mean, they're looking into it. Now New Holland is looking into it now. And this is all things started by small people having these ideas, and it's all rolled into bigger things. I encourage everybody, just be curious and talk about it. Craig Macmillan 19:17 This is great advice. And I think that that's important for our industry. And one of the things I've found over time grape growers are curious and grape growers are willing to experiment within limits and try different things. And I hope that no matter who you are out there, that you will heed Marc's advice and be creative and be optimistic and be open minded. Where can people find out more about you and the things that you're doing? Marc Di Pietra 19:40 I mean, feel free to reach out to me, obviously, through LinkedIn, feel free to, you know, share my email, if that's an option. Again, I'd like to talk to anybody who's doing something or ask questions. Craig Macmillan 19:49 Absolutely. And we have a page for each podcast where we will post any kind of resources including contact information, links, papers, anything and so Be sure if you find this interesting to check out the venue team podcast website and take advantage of all the information that's there. Well, Marc, that's all the time we've got for today. Our guest today has been Marc Di Pietra. He is regional service maintenance manager for treasuries America of treasury wine estates. I want to thank so much for being here. This has been a really fascinating conversation. For those of you who are new to downloading the podcast please, again, go to the vineyard team podcast website. We've got hundreds of episodes now on all kinds of different topics. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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In this episode (part 4 of the series), John and Andrew continue their discussion from part 3. They talk about how to use data charting in combination with the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle to gain the knowledge managers need to lead effectively. 0:00:00.1 Andrew Stotz: My name is Andrew Stotz, and I'll be your host as we continue our journey into the teachings of Dr. W. Edwards Deming. Today I am continuing my discussion with John Dues, who is part of the new generation of educators striving to apply Dr. Deming's principles to unleash student joy in learning. The topic for today is Prediction is a Measure of Knowledge. And John, to you and the listeners, I have to apologize. I'm a bit froggy today, but John, take it away. 0:00:30.9 John Dues: Yeah, Andrew, it's great to be back. I thought what we could do is sort of build off, what we were talking about in the last episode. We sort of left off with sort of an introduction to process behavior charts and importance of charting your data over time. And sort of the idea this time is that, like you said at the outset is prediction is a measure of knowledge and prediction is a big part of improvement. So I thought we'd get into that. What role prediction plays in improvement, how it factors in and how we can use our chart in combination with another powerful tool, the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle to bring about improvement in our organizations. 0:01:15.1 AS: And when you say that prediction is a measure of knowledge, you're saying that prediction is a measure of how much you know about a system, or how would you describe that in more simple terms that for someone who may not understand that, that they could understand? 0:01:31.4 JD: Yeah, it took me a while to understand this. I think, basically the accuracy of your prediction about any system or process is an observable measure of knowledge. So when you can make a prediction about how a system or a process, and I use those words interchangeably, is gonna perform the closer that that sort of initial theory is, that initial prediction is to what actually happens in reality, the more you know about that system or process. So when I say prediction is a measure of knowledge, that's what I'm talking about is, you make a prediction about how something's gonna perform. The closer that prediction is to how it actually performs, the more you know about that system or process. 0:02:19.1 AS: I was just thinking about a parent who understands their kid very well can oftentimes predict their response to a situation. But if you brought a new kid into that house that the parent didn't know anything about their history, their background, the way they react, that the parent doesn't really have anything to go on to predict except maybe general knowledge of kids and specific knowledge of their own kid. How could that relate to what you're saying that prediction is a measure of knowledge? 0:02:52.3 JD: Well, I think that's a great analogy. One of the things that Dr. Deming said that it took me some time to understand was that knowledge has temporal spread - just a few words, but really causes some deep thinking. And I think what he meant was, your understanding, your knowledge of some topic or system or process or your kid has temporal spread. So that understanding sort of increases as you have increased interaction with that system process or in this analogy, your own kid. So when you replace a parent who knows their kid well with some other person that doesn't know that kid as well, they haven't had that sort of, that that same, that shared time together. So there's that, they don't have that same understanding. It's gonna take time for that understanding to build. I think the same thing happens when we're trying to change a system or a process or improve it or implementing a new idea in our system or process. And so the prediction at the outset is probably gonna be off. Right, and then over time, hopefully as we learn about that system or process or kid in this instance, that that prediction is gonna get better and better, as we learn over time, basically. I think. 0:04:15.8 AS: Yeah, it's interesting because saying the words temporal spread kind of gives way to the idea that Dr. Deming was educated in 1910, 1915, in speaking, reading, writing. And then he also, he said things, that his objective wasn't to just completely simplify. And I think that the messages that he was bringing were difficult to simplify, but you could say that, "improves over time" is what temporal spread may mean. Right? Okay. Let's keep going on this. This is interesting. 0:04:55.0 JD: Yeah, I think, maybe it'd be helpful if I share my screen and we can sort of connect the dots from last time to... 0:05:00.8 AS: Yep. And for the listeners out there, we'll walk you through what John's showing on his screen in just a moment. All right. Now we can see a chart on his screen. 0:05:11.7 JD: Yeah, I think, so we see a process behavior chart sort of orient, the watchers and then even the listeners. So the chart is a process behavior chart. That terminology can be a little bit confusing. Some people would call this a control chart, some people would call it a Shewhart chart, my sort of preferred terminology is process behavior chart because it's literally charting some process over time. So the example I used last time was charting my own weight. So you can use, you can chart personal items, you can also obviously chart things that are important to you in your organization. But the main thing is pull numbers out of a spreadsheet. That's what we talked about last time. Pull numbers out of the table instead plot that same data over time. So you can see how it varies naturally, perhaps, or how it varies in, special ways over time. So the, for the watchers, the blue dots are individual data points. The dates are running along the X-axis of the chart. And so you can see those moving up and down over time as I weigh myself every morning. Then we have the green line. 0:06:30.6 AS: At the beginning of the chart, we see those individual data points hovering around maybe 179 to 80, something like that. 0:06:41.8 JD: Yeah. Bouncing around in the 180, 178, 176 range. And then... 0:06:48.8 AS: And just for the international listener, John is not 180 kilograms [laughter], he's 180 pounds. Okay. Continue. 0:06:56.8 JD: That's right, that's right. On the Y-axis, we have weight in pounds. And so in addition to the blue dots and we've added a green line that is the average over time. And then we have sort of the last component of the process behavior chart, we have the red lines, which are the upper and lower natural process limits, or some people call them control limits sort of are the bounds of this particular system at a given point in time. And so, as we watch this data unfold, we can see that it does move up and down in different ways, in different patterns, but it's far more illustrative than if I was just looking at that table of numbers. So when I do this daily, I don't wanna overreact to any single data point. Instead, what I'm trying to do is get a sense of how this data is performing over time, right? So I can see this unfold over the course of days and then weeks and then months and all along, my knowledge of my weight system is increasing. 0:08:09.7 JD: Even if you don't know anything about process behavior charts, you could do this on a simple line chart or run chart without the limits, and you'd still learn much more than what you would with that table of numbers. But with the addition of the red lines, the natural process limits, what I am doing is sort of saying based on some simple mathematical calculations, that these are the bounds of my system that I would expect because of the data empirically based on the actual dots on the chart, these are the bounds of my system. And if a point would happen to fall outside of those red lines, I know something special has happened because it's so mathematically improbable that it's not to be expected. And there's a few other patterns in the data too that you can look for besides a single point outside of one of those red lines. 0:09:08.4 JD: But I'm looking for those patterns to see if something special has happened or I'm seeing if my data is sort of generally bouncing around between those red lines. And in either case, there are different approaches to trying to improve that, improve that data over time. And one other thing that I like to do, I always make my data blue, my average line green and my process, my natural process limits red. And then whenever I do this internally with data from our own organization, whether it's attendance data or test data or financial data, whatever the data is, I always use that same pattern. So people get used to seeing these colors and they associate blue with data, green with the average and red with the limits. 0:10:00.7 AS: So tell us more about, I mean, one of the things before we even talk about PDSA, what's happening here is that the upper limit and the lower limit at two points in this chart shift down. So you're, if you didn't change the upper and lower limit and you just had your, that standard one across the whole chart, then it probably starts to lose its value because the process that you're describing is going back in time to such an extent that things were different. Tell us about why you've made this adjustment. 0:10:46.0 JD: Yeah, I'd say if the natural process limits, so the red lines sort of stay in the same spot. So if I don't see those special patterns, basically what I can assume is that that system is, despite the fact that the data is bouncing around a little bit naturally, that, there's nothing sort of significant that's happened either in terms of my weight system getting worse, or in this case I want to get better. Obviously, I wanna lose a little bit of weight. If I don't see those patterns in the data, then nothing has changed. So if I'm trying something new to bring that weight down and I don't see any of those special patterns that tell me to adjust the natural process limits, that means what I'm doing is not having an effect. Right. So there's one, you wanna know what reality is for whatever the thing is that you're talking about. 0:11:37.7 JD: So on the very first day, you can see, when I weighed myself, it was like something like 182 pounds or something like that. And I could say I weigh 182 pounds, but that's not really reality, except that I weighed 182 pounds on the morning of November 28th when I recorded that data. But the very next day it goes down a little bit and then it goes down quite a bit that third day, and then it bounces back up, and then back down, and then back up and then back down a little bit. And that's the real sort of reality. And I don't really weigh 182, I'd probably weigh somewhere closer to that average of 179 across those first two weeks or so. Right? But I don't know that until I've collected, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 data points, what my reality is. 0:12:30.0 JD: And that's why this charting is so important. It helps me understand reality in a much more accurate way. So when we're trying to improve, I think, in this case, I decided to gather data on a daily basis. And I think when that's sort of another important consideration, when you're doing improvement work and charting, you wanna gather data in a rhythm that matches whatever it is, whatever that metric is that you're concerned with, you want that, you want the data to be gathered in a way that matches that metric. But in general, more frequent is better, as long as you're not overreacting, like I said earlier, to any single data point. Instead, you wanna gather data, you wanna have those 15, 20 data points, see the patterns, and then start to look for changes in those patterns. The three that I happen to look for are, a single point outside the natural process limits, or I'll look for eight consecutive points, either above or below that average line, or I'll look for three or four points that are closer to the red line than they are to that average line. 0:13:41.4 JD: Any of those three patterns emerge. I know something has changed, and I'll go ahead and shift the limits. If I know, when I'm looking for those patterns, I wanna know why that change has happened. So sometimes when I see a pattern, and if I don't have an explanation for why that data shifted, even though it shifted in a way that was mathematically unexpected, sometimes in those instances, I won't shift my limits. So I generally will only shift when I see a pattern and I can sort of pinpoint a reason for that, for that shift. 0:14:18.4 AS: And when you say shift, you're saying shift your upper and lower process limit? 0:14:20.0 JD: Yeah. I shift the limits at the point where I saw one of those special patterns begin, basically. 0:14:29.6 AS: Okay. All right. Keep going. So you got PDSA on there now. 0:14:32.9 JD: Yeah, so I think, when I think about continual improvement, there's a lot of different tools we can use and a lot of tools that are valuable, especially when you sort of facilitate an improvement team, a group of people working together, especially because those various tools can help you visualize what people are thinking. But if I had to boil continual improvement down to two tools, it'd be the process behavior chart combined with the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. So sort of the theory of variation is the process behavior chart, and then what Deming would call the theory of knowledge, the PDSA or Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle is a key component of that theory of knowledge part of the system of profound knowledge. So you can see on my chart, I have three cycles that I've gone through so far. 0:15:24.6 JD: So I've basically run three experiments to try to bring the weight down. So PDSA cycle one, then I made a slight adjustment based on what I learned adjusted after about 30 days, I ran another Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle, ran that for another 30 days to see how it'll impact my weight. And then I've started a third cycle, and I've been running that now for about 45, 50 days. So the idea is, you run a, basically a structured simple, it doesn't have to be overly complex, simple experiment. And then you see if what you're doing is working, and in this case it's resulted in two, two shifts or two patterns of data that tell me that that actual improvement has happened. Not that I just decreased my weight, but it decreased to such an extent that it showed up as a mathematically unlikely pattern in my data. 0:16:33.3 AS: Well, I think all of us who wanna reduce our weight, kind of wonder, what did you do that caused your weight to fall and be consistently lower? 0:16:47.5 JD: Yeah, [laughter] that's a good question. I mean, pretty simply, mostly I focused on what I was eating. I sort of cut out the sort of typical culprits, the extra carbs, the processed food, and the sugar and focused mainly on meat and vegetables, across all three meals. And I added a little bit of exercise, there's a little more detail to it than that, but that's the basic, the gist of it. But the thing was, I wrote it down in a template, a Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle template. So I had a simple plan written down. I had the dates during which I was gonna do this, and then I was gathering the data and charting it every morning to see how the experiment was working. And then after 30 days or so, I would study it a little more closely, revise the plan, and then sort of keep going with it. So it's not, certainly not rocket science, but it's a powerful method when you combine these two things. And again, you can do this for just about anything, any data that occurs over time in your organization, you can run these same experiments. 0:17:58.5 AS: So the power of the chart is that it gives you feedback to try to see if your prediction came true? 0:18:10.7 JD: Yeah. And you have the historical results. And then you can also look to see, again, if those special patterns emerge that tell you that actual improvement happened, verse, an insignificant, in this case, decline in weight. 0:18:29.0 AS: And what's interesting is after PDSA number three, you've gotten your weight down to an average of let's say 172, 173, something like that. 0:18:38.1 JD: Yep. That's right. 0:18:39.6 AS: And it's just kind of bouncing around tightly, somewhat within that level. 0:18:47.0 JD: Yeah, I mean, basically what you see is you'll see three or even sometimes four, or even close to five days in a row where it's below that average line. And so you're saying, "Oh, I'm getting close to being able to shift again." And then what actually happens is the weekend [laughter] So I'm way more disciplined during the week when I have to go to work and those types of things. And then, but you can learn from that. You can learn that that's what's showing up in the pattern. And I've also gotten to a point where it's gonna be harder. Those first five eight pounds are much easier. And then, from there, depending on what you wanna do goal-wise, it could be harder, it could require a sort of a slightly different plan because PDSA one, two, and three are all variations of each other. There wasn't a lot of change from each of the cycles, but there was some learning that happened. 0:19:35.1 JD: Yeah, I mean, I think that's, I mean, that's a good point to maybe go little deeper into the PDSA cycle. So I mean, I think, for me, it took some time to sort of understand the PDSA cycle, even though it's, again, it's a relatively simple tool, and I think it's just one of those where you just need to do it, and over time you're gonna learn. So I think the first thing, you make a plan, you do it, you carry out the plan, you study what happened, and then at the end you act and you decide what to do. And I think really, the most powerful part for me was this realization that during the plan phase of the PDSA, it is absolutely imperative that you make a prediction. 0:20:29.0 JD: And if I'm doing team-based work, I have everybody on the team make their own prediction independently. We actually record that prediction in the PDSA cycle. And then during the study phase, we compare the data that actually was produced from that system or process, and we go back and compare it to what we predicted. And the difference between those two things is the learning that drives the next cycle, basically. So it's this iterative process. So you're, you don't just run one PDSA cycle, you basically run it until you've brought about an amount of improvement on that system or process that's acceptable, not, and then you may turn your attention to some other metric in your organization that's important to you. 0:21:22.0 AS: So I think what's important about this is that what he's describing is the way to acquire knowledge within an organization. But many times we see organizations lose the knowledge that they had. And I think that brings us to the concept of training and making sure everybody understands how we're improving the system based upon the knowledge that we gain. And if you can hold that, then the next time that we wanna try to improve the system, hopefully we go to another level, and then we hold that other level through training and making sure that everybody understands the knowledge that has been acquired in the system. And once we feel comfortable with that, then we go to the next level. And let's say that we do that 10 times in a particular process. That means that we've acquired, at 10 different points in time, we've acquired additional knowledge about the system. 0:22:23.2 AS: Now since I'm a finance guy, I like to bring that into finance terms and say, and that's how you build a competitive advantage in your company. It's the acquisition of knowledge of your system and continuing to improve that. And by doing that, you start to get to a point where your competitor doesn't understand nearly as much as you do about that one area. And if you can solidify that through training, then you now are operating at a different level than your competitor. Now your competitor may be doing the same thing in another area, but you've built some competitive strength. And the end result from a business perspective is that you start to produce slightly better profitability relative to your peer until either they catch up or maybe they build some competency in another area. But I'm talking and thinking all about, business. Tell us more about how to apply this in education. 0:23:25.7 JD: Yeah, I mean, I think there are all kinds of applications, and I think you're exactly right. I think what most people have is streams of information coming to them in the form of various types of data every day. But they have very little knowledge, actual knowledge about that data, lots of information, little knowledge. What the PDSA does is allow us to gain that knowledge in combination with the with the process behavior chart. And I think having this structure is very important. I mean, I think you talked about building knowledge over time in your system. I think the fact that the PDSA, when you plan it, you write it down, just doing that is a huge advantage over how most people operate, and you write it down in this structured way. 0:24:23.0 JD: So there is this knowledge store, there's this written record that someone can go back to to see what you did on whatever area you were trying to improve at that time. You have this written record, you have this plan, you understand how that plan was put together, who was doing what, when were they doing it, where were they doing it, how were they doing it? Who was doing it? And then you can see how it actually worked in implementation. And then you can see the actual data that sort of came back when you tried something. And you can do these PDSA cycles on a very, very tight timeframe. So when I got some training on this, they suggested, some of the trainers suggested you, you do this, you can run a PDSA for one day, one hour, depending on the situation. 0:25:09.5 JD: I think in general, what I've seen is that PDSAs that I run are generally somewhere in the two to three to four week timeframe. And I try not to ever go beyond four weeks with the PDSAs. I wanna get back some learning... It may not mean that I know everything about whatever it is I'm trying to improve, but I wanna give back some data that tells me sort of what direction should I go next? What direction should I go next, and I'll keep going in that way until I learn sort of more and more over time. I do think it's helpful to have just a very simple template, which I'm happy to share with folks, in terms of the plan, I'm writing out a question or two that's most important for us to answer. And again, I'm making predictions around those questions. What do I expect to happen when we do this change, when we make this change. 0:26:07.6 AS: Like cutting carbs down to 30 grams per day from 60 grams per day, will, my prediction is that will bring my weight down over the next week or two by one or two pounds or something like that. 0:26:23.6 JD: That's right. That's right. If we have an attendance problem, we're gonna try some attendance intervention, and I predict that if I make this change, it's gonna improve X amount in the next three weeks. Right it's a concrete prediction and I, again, I mentioned that I have everybody on the team do that because then you can start to see too how people are thinking about these ideas, how much they believe, what degree of belief do they have in the change idea. You see that show up when you see their prediction and then you literally, it's the who, what, where, when of this idea. And you get, when I do this, I get very, very specific, John will do X, Y, and Z on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday for each of the four weeks of this cycle. Catherine will do this, Ben will do this, you're very specific. 0:27:11.4 JD: So everybody knows their role, what their job is in this PDSA, and then the two other things that are a part of the plan. First one is super important, it's the operational definition. So whatever the key concept or concepts are that are under study, we operationally define them. So it's very, very explicit how we're gonna measure those things when we start actually running the experiment. And then we have a plan for collecting data. And I like to put the data right into my PDSA template, so everything's in one place. Sometimes it'll be a link to a Google sheet and a series of charts, but a lot of times I'll just create a table and then link the charts. So you can see, you can see the data right there in the PDSA. 0:27:58.5 JD: I think from there we just, we run the test, we run the test on a small scale, and after the test, as the plan's been implemented, we're going to describe what happened. We're gonna talk about what data we collected and what observations we made. Now in this Do phase, you're not actually doing any analysis. All you're doing is describing how the plan was implemented in when the rubber met the road, when you actually put things into action, how did implementation go compared to how you said it was gonna go in the plan. And almost every time I do this, there is some sort of aberration, some change from the plan that needs to be noted because I didn't anticipate, or we didn't anticipate, something happening. In schools, maybe I was gonna do this for three weeks and, on the third day of the test cycle, the experiment, we had a snow day that was unanticipated, or a key person in the experiment was not there. A student that we were working with on a PDSA cycle missed three days of school because of the flu, you report those things back because they're gonna impact the data that you collected. 0:29:22.4 JD: So that's what you're doing in the Do cycle. You run the test and then you describe what happened, verse the implementation plan. I think probably the most sort of important part then is that study phase, so we're gonna analyze the results and again, compare 'em back to the prediction. So this is the absolutely critical part of the Plan-Do-Study-Act cycle. I almost think of it like a mathematical formula. The analysis minus the prediction equals the learning. This was a sort of aha moment for me. And this is where you... 0:29:58.6 AS: Which is where Dr. Deming said, what is it? Something like, testing without prediction, doesn't acquire, you don't acquire knowledge. The only way to acquire knowledge is to make a prediction and then look at the results relative. Otherwise you're just messing around. You're not necessarily acquiring knowledge. 0:30:26.7 JD: Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. There's like, no, there's no theory without prediction. There's no knowledge without prediction. That's what we're doing in the study phase. We're, again, we're, why, why did what we see happen? Why did that happen? Why was it so different from my prediction? Or why was I able to make that prediction? What did I understand about our system or process? So again, it's not a test, one of the first PDSA cycles I ran with a teacher, the prediction, was very different than the outcome. He said, "Oh, the test failed." And I said, no, we learned something on a very small scale before we did that same thing. Instead of with one student, we could have been doing it with a whole school of students and imagined the time and the resources that it would take to do that sort of failed effort. 0:31:22.3 JD: We learned on a very small scale not to do it that way. And in PDSA cycle two, we're gonna adjust, right? And that's what we're doing. So in the study phase, we're comparing prediction and what actually happened. And then in that act phase, basically we take what we learned and make the next test, right? This on this continual basis. And I always sort of say, think about the Act as the three A's. We're either going to Abandon that change idea because it went so poorly. Now, that's not gonna happen very often in that first cycle, or two or three, but down the road, maybe it is, we need to abandon this idea and let it go. But more generally, what happens, especially early on, is that you Adapt each cycle a little bit. Like I was doing in that weight example, I was just adapting, I was sticking with the same basic diet plan and making some tweaks as I learned. 0:32:19.4 JD: So I was adapting each of those PDSA cycles. And then the third sort of option is to Adopt. And by adopt, I mean, you're gonna make this sort of a standard approach, standard work in your system. This is how we're gonna do things from now on. And generally, we're not gonna make a decision to adopt something, an intervention, until we've tested it across, four or five, six, seven test cycles. And, as we do these iterations, in a school example, maybe we're gonna try an attendance intervention with one student, and then we're gonna try it with 15 students. If the test with the one student went pretty well, and now I want those 15 students to vary a bit from that original student, I want this next group to have, some other characteristics, whatever that may be, than that, that original kid, and then maybe I'm gonna test it with a whole classroom and then maybe I'm gonna test it with a whole grade level, and then maybe I'll test it with the whole school. But that's sort of the mindset. You sort of go up this ramp of testing, and as you go up that ramp, you sort of increase the sample size of who is included in that test. So that if you're gonna adopt this into your system, you wouldn't be pretty sure it's gonna work broadly within that particular context. 0:33:51.5 JD: So that's sort of the basic idea. And then, what I stick in all of the footers, and I stole this idea from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, but in the footer of my PDSA template and in all my sort of improvement templates, I put this phrase "probably wrong, definitely incomplete." Because that's the sort of the mindset that you have to have with continual improvement in general. And definitely with the PDSA cycle, because those first cycles, you're probably gonna get a lot wrong as you're sort of turning information into knowledge early on. You're not gonna know a lot about that thing, you're gonna learn over time. And so you sort of have to adopt this as your sort of mantra for PDSA cycles. 0:34:32.1 AS: Great. I was just looking at quotes by Dr. Deming, and the quote is, without theory, there is no learning. All right. So how would we wrap this up? 0:34:45.8 JD: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a great quote. And I think, so it doesn't, I mean, theory can be a little intimidating, just the word theory. I sort of originally thought of these grand academic or scientific theories, but that's not really what he was talking about. Generally, a theory can be a hunch. A theory can be an idea you have, a theory can be at one time I had a student that wasn't doing their homework, and I just, said, can you do this piece of homework first? [laughter], when you have study hall, you're never doing your reading homework when you go home. Can you just do this before you leave school? So that's a hunch, that's a theory, a theory to make things better. 0:35:28.1 JD: So I think, what I would do for folks that are listening to this, just grab a PDSA template, which you can find on a simple Google search. Just start plotting your data for something that's important to you. Get a bit of a baseline 10 or 12 or 15 points, and then try to run one of these PDSA cycles. I mean, I think it's this whole idea. I was in this IHI Improvement Advisor Program, and they would say, Okay, you got this whole hospital or this whole school, or this whole school system or hospital system, you need to improve. What are you gonna do on Tuesday? What are you gonna do on Tuesday when you go back into the office or the school or the hospital? That's sort of this idea of PDSA, do something, try something, get some change ideas going and see what that does to your data. It doesn't have to be this huge, huge scale thing. Try it on a small scale and see what happens. See what you'll learn. 0:36:31.1 AS: Well, there's a challenge. John on behalf of everyone at the Deming Institute, I wanna thank you again for this discussion. For listeners, remember, you can go to deming.org to continue your journey. This is your froggy host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes from Dr. Deming. People are entitled to joy in work.
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