Podcasts about percent project

The most beautiful words in data journalism - except for free coffee - are longitudinal study. Polling often obscures more than it illuminates. Questions can be vague or misleading. If you ask, "Do you approve of the president's handling of immigration?" the respondent will base their answer on whatever they think the president's immigration policy is. And polls are just a snapshot. With the stock market and egg prices hopping up and down like a rabbit on hot coals, someone's opinion on the economy may be out of date before the next sunrise. But a longitudinal study - in which you ask the same questions or observe the same group for a long period of time, even decades - removes volatility. And if the questions have a range of possible answers, as opposed to "yes" or "no," you get a more nuanced picture of how people are feeling. My favorite example of this is a poll that the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has conducted at least once a year for nearly 20 years. Instead of asking people if they believe that climate change is real and primarily caused by humans, it asks them to put themselves into one of six categories: Alarmed, Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, Doubtful or Dismissive. Sometimes, for fun, I ask friends to guess what percentage of Americans think climate change is a hoax. The answers range from 30 percent to 80 percent. In fact, according to Yale's surveys, it's about 10 percent; the Dismissive group fluctuates between 9 percent and 12 percent. Doubtful has also remained steady at 12 percent. If you think climate change isn't real, or even if you're not sure, nothing in the past 20 years - the avalanche of studies, the hotter summers, the heavier storms, the droughts, the wildfires, the floods, the lack of snow, species on the verge of extinction - has made you change your mind. That is why I don't write too many columns trying to "convince" people that climate change is real. What has changed is that the Cautious (18 percent) and Concerned (28 percent) groups have shrunk while the Alarmed group has grown (26 percent). The problem is that nearly everyone in the Dismissive group seems to have a podcast, a gig on cable news, a paycheck from a fossil fuel company or a desk in the White House. For the sake of comparison, a 2021 poll by the University of New Hampshire found that 12 percent of Americans believe the moon landings were faked, and last I checked we weren't reorienting the economy and manufacturing sector around that (knock on wood). The contrast gets even starker when you zoom out. A 2024 poll from Oxford University found that 89 percent of people around the world want their governments to do more to mitigate climate change. Do you know how hard it is to get 89 percent of people to agree on anything? We can't even get that many people to agree that the moon landings happened. If you'll forgive me for writing about the Pope for two columns in a row, I was struck this week by how often people who work in climate said, in the wake of Pope Francis' death on April 21, that it was his 2015 encyclical letter Laudato Si': On Care for our Common Home that gave them the courage to get involved in climate in the first place. They had thought that caring about the climate was a fringe belief. But if the head of a faith-based, conservative, 2,000-year-old global institution was taking the science seriously, maybe it was mainstream. As the Trump administration continues its attempts to roll back environmental regulations, there's a temptation to throw up your hands. "He won the election, so I guess this is what the country wants." But the Oxford poll found that two-thirds of Americans think this country should do more about climate. If the country is going to make any progress on climate over the next few years - or at least stop the backsliding - the silent majority in the Highlands and around the country and world needs to make itself heard. This column is part of The 89 Percent Project, an initiative ...

More than 55 years after the first U.S. Earth Day was celebrated in small towns and cities by people of all political stripes, the term “environmentalism” conjures different connotations today. Media coverage might have something to do with it. Daily Yonder reporters Claire Carlson and Julia Tilton are joined by Meg Haywood Sullivan and Amelia Joy of Nature Is Nonpartisan, a new organization working to reframe the narrative about protecting the planet.Meg and Amelia, who come from opposite ends of the political spectrum, discuss the exclusion of rural environmentalists from the media, the climate culture wars, and the irony of being disconnected from community in the age of social media.To learn more about Nature Is Nonpartisan, visit natureisnonpartisan.orgThis story is part of The 89 Percent Project, an initiative of the global journalism collaboration Covering Climate Now. Learn more about the initiative at 89percent.orgPhoto: Claire Carlson/Daily Yonder.

The 89 Percent Project is a year-long global journalistic effort to explore a pivotal but little-known fact about climate change: The overwhelming majority of the world's people want their governments to take stronger action. The project launches on April 20, 2025, with a week of focused coverage by journalists and newsrooms worldwide coinciding with Earth Day. A second week of focused coverage will come in October, before Brazil's COP30 UN climate summit.The idea of The 89 Percent Project arose from a slew of recent scientific studies finding that the overwhelming majority of the world's people — between 80 and 89% — want stronger climate action. This overwhelming global majority of people, however, does not realize that they are a majority; most think their fellow citizens don't agree.

Meet the man whose team was the model for the entire buyer agent section of the original Millionaire Real Estate Agent book: Andy Allen.Andy joins us on the show today to reflect on what still makes his farming model one of the best in the nation. This year, for example, he spent $34,000 and reaped over 1.1 million in GCI.He also shares that he has written his own book now, ‘The 80 Percent Project: Unlock Exceptional Results. Live An Unimaginable Life. Create Generational Change.' Andy is a relentless competitor, a disciplined professional, and a very happy man. Tune in and learn his ways.Resources:Read ‘The 80 Percent Project' by Andy AllenOrder the Millionaire Real Estate Agent Playbook | Volume 2Connect with Jason:LinkedinProduced by NOVAThis podcast is for general informational purposes only. The guest's views, thoughts, and opinions represent those of the guest and not KWRI and its affiliates and should not be construed as financial, economic, legal, tax, or other advice. This podcast is provided without any warranty, or guarantee of its accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or results from using the information.WARNING! You must comply with the TCPA and any other federal, state or local laws, including for B2B calls and texts. Never call or text a number on any Do Not Call list, and do not use an autodialer or artificial voice or prerecorded messages without proper consent. Contact your attorney to ensure your compliance.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

In this episode we talk with Professor Prayga Agarwal about her writing journey from academia to commercial non-fiction, how to tackle difficult and complex subjects, and what it takes to research, write and publish 'big idea' non-fiction books. We also discuss overcoming procrastination, writing within small pockets of time, her writing and research process and how she brings together the hard research alongside the personal narrative.*ABOUT PRAGYA AGARWALPragya Agarwal is a behaviour and data scientist and Visiting Professor of Social Inequities and Injustice at Loughborough University in the UK.  She is the founder of  a research think-tank The 50 Percent Project investigating women's status and rights around the world. Pragya is the award-winning author of (M)otherhood: On the choices of being a woman, SWAY: Unravelling Unconscious Bias and Wish we knew what to say: Talking with children about race, and a book for children Standing up to Racism.RESOURCES:(M)otherhood: On the choices of being a womanSway: Unravelling Unconscious BiasWish we knew what to say: Talking with children about race*For show notes, transcripts and to attend our live podcasts visit: podcast.londonwriterssalon.comFor free writing sessions, join free Writers' Hours: writershour.com*FOLLOW LONDON WRITERS' SALONTwitter: twitter.com/​​WritersSalonInstagram: instagram.com/londonwriterssalonFacebook: facebook.com/LondonWritersSalonIf you're enjoying this show, please rate and review this show!

Welcome to the Motherkind podcast. The show that is going to help you navigate the massive challenges of motherhood and life with more acceptance, joy, ease and purpose. This week's guest is the brilliant Dr. Pragya Agarwal She is a behavioral scientist, academic, journalist and award-winning author who has written widely on racial inequality, parenting and gender. Her most recent book is (M)otherhood. I love this chat. I found Pragya's story really inspiring and I hope you will too. As always, we continue the conversation over on Instagram, so come and join us there. THIS WEEK'S SPONSOR - GYMONDO We are grateful to Gymondo for sponsoring this week's episode Gymondo is an online fitness and well-being platform with 100s of 20 to 30-minute workouts and training programmes ranging from HIIT and yoga to dance and meditation, plus over 1000 healthy recipes. Aside from the freedom and flexibility Gymondo offers, exercising at home is fun, saves you money, fits perfectly into your lifestyle and helps you stick to your fitness goals. Start a 14-day FREE trial and save 50% on your annual membership. You may access the offer just by clicking on this link or by going to gymondo.com and adding the code MOTHERKIND. ABOUT DR. PRAGYA AGARWAL Dr. Pragya Agarwal is a behavioral and data scientist and author of Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias (Bloomsbury, 2020), Wish We Knew What To Say: Talking with Children About Race (Little Brown, 2020), and (M)otherhood: On the Choices of Being a Woman (Canongate, 2021). She has also written a picture book for children, Standing up to Racism (Hachette, 2021). Pragya is the visiting professor of social inequities and injustice at Loughborough University and founder of a research think-tank, The 50 Percent Project, looking at global inequities. She is a two-time TEDx speaker and hosted a podcast, Outside the Boxes. Her writing has also appeared in the Guardian, Independent, Scientific American, New Scientist, Literary Hub, AEON, Hinterland Magazine, amongst others. Her next book, Hysterical, will be published in September 2022 with Canongate. You can connect with her at: @DrPragyaAgarwal drpragyaagarwal.com MOTHERKIND PROGRAMMES AND RESOURCES FREEDOM FROM PERFECTIONISM: Are you ready to find freedom from guilt? Let me help you find Freedom from Perfectionism if you are a mother who has ever felt not quite enough. INSTAGRAM: @motherkind_zoe - come engage with Zoe and our community over on Instagram for inspiration, tips and sometimes a bit of humour to get us through our day.

In this episode, I'll be exploring how ADHD impacts on motherhood, with Dr Pragya Agarwal. Parenting can highlight the ADHD impairments you might have spent years covering – I mean, you try covering ANYTHING when you've had one hour's sleep in a week and your tits have just exploded in the supermarket's bread aisle. Parents with ADHD can struggle with working memory impairment, planning, social communication, feelings of inadequacy, guilt, self-loathing, low self esteem, anxiety and overwhelm. Reading up on ADHD it seems it's common to fluctuate between harsh and lax parenting. There is also a higher incidence of post natal depression. A behaviour and data scientist, Dr Pragya Agarwal is also a journalist, professor, Ted speaker, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and the Director of research think-tank '50 Percent Project' addressing gender bias and running unconscious bias training and sexism workshops for organisations and schools. She is also an author, most recently of (M)otherhood: On the Choices of Being a Woman, a memoir that takes in the wider political, scientific and historical contexts for our understanding of womanhood, fertility and motherhood.  Pragya shares her experiences, both as a single parent to her first child, and more recently, raising twin girls with her husband.  We discuss how sensory overload affects our parenting, the part society plays in shaping our idea of what motherhood should look like and the resulting shame when you ‘fall short', and how to let go of that shame and focus on what your child needs from you without sacrificing your own needs.  Pragya explains how child-led parenting has helped her know both her children and herself better, and what it's like to come to a diagnosis via your child.  She also reveals why she doesn't like the term ‘neurotypical'.   Pragya's book (M)otherhood is now available in paperback  and Pragya's new book, Hysterical: Exploding the Myth of Gendered Emotion is available to pre-order now in advance of its release in September 2022.  You can learn more about Pragya's work at drpragyaagarwal.com    *I do not want to exclude non-binary or trans listeners with the binary concept of ‘motherhood', and so have used the terms ‘parent' and ‘mother' throughout. That said, part of this conversation is specific to the gender norms associated with womanhood, which is inclusive of all who identify as such.    THE EXPERT Dr Mohamed Abdelghani is a consultant psychiatrist who specialises in mood disorders and adult ADHD. www.Dyad-medical.com  Please note, your first port of call if you think you might have ADHD should be your GP. In the meantime, you can find more information here:  Understanding ADHD in Girls and Women, by Joanne Steer  The ADHD Foundation   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

BACK on "Across The County" for the first time since the 2020 election, it's William Silvaneus.  He's a "Change Agent", an author, and a political change maker.  William shares his disappointment with the current political system and climate.  But, with any criticism there must be a solution.  This is where he became the head of a small group of people to begin "The 5% Project".   The short-simple goal of this nonpartisan project is to ensure domestic tranquility, coming from individuals with backgrounds of different political views.  Noah and William go over the six policy statements that are the backbone of what they have established as a framework. http://www.WilliamSilvaneus.com http://www.The5PercentProject.com #BrokenSystem #AmericanPolitics #TheConstitution #The5PercentProject #DomesticTranquility #WilliamSilvaneus   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joining Adam Biles this week is behavioural and data scientist Dr Pragya Agarwal discussing (M)otherhood her meticulously researched, searingly honest investigation into motherhood and fertility. Buy (M)otherhood here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/d/9781838853167/motherhood Browse our online store here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/15/online-store/16/bookstore Become a Friend of S&Co here: https://friendsofshakespeareandcompany.com * Dr Pragya Agarwal is a behavioural and data scientist. After gaining her PhD from the University of Nottingham, she was a senior academic in US and UK universities for over twelve years. As well as numerous research papers, she is the author of Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias and Wish We Knew What to Say: Talking with Children about Race. Sway was picked as a ‘best science book of 2020', Guardian Book of the Week and was shortlisted for the Transmission Prize. A passionate campaigner for racial and gender equality, Pragya is a two-time TEDx speaker, a TEDx Women organiser and the founder of a research think-tank ‘The 50 Percent Project'. As a freelance journalist, she writes regularly for the Guardian, Prospect, Forbes, Huffington Post, BBC Science Focus and New Scientist among others. She has also written for AEON, Scientific American and the Wellcome Trust. @DrPragyaAgarwal | drpragyaagarwal.com * Adam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Buy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-time Listen to Alex Freiman's Play It Gentle here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1

I rant, about a buffet's food, today is Hug Day, a project to line item one percent of all profit to charity and celebrity birthdays. #rant #epilepsy #buffet #disappointed #HugDay #OnePercentProject #celebbirthdays

No matter how open-minded we consider ourselves to be, all of us hold biases towards other people.Dr Pragya Agarwal is a behavioural and data scientist, ex-academic, and a freelance writer and journalist, who runs a research gender equality think tank The 50 Percent Project.Her new book, Sway: Unravelling Unconscious Bias (£16.99, Bloomsbury Sigma), unravels the way our implicit or 'unintentional' biases affect the way we communicate and perceive the world, and how they affect our decision-making, even in life and death situations.In this week’s podcast, she explains where these biases come from and why it’s important for us to recognise and unlearn them to help make the world a better, fairer place.Let us know what you think of the episode with a review or a comment wherever you listen to your podcasts.Subscribe to the Science Focus Podcast on these services: Acast, iTunes, Stitcher, RSS, OvercastWhy you should subscribe to BBC Science FocusListen to more episodes of the Science Focus Podcast:Adam Rutherford: Can science ever be rid of racism?Angela Saini: Is racism creeping into science?Robert Elliott Smith: Are algorithms inherently biased?Caroline Criado Perez: Does data discriminate against women?Marcel Danesi: Why do we want to believe lies?Camilla Pang: How can science guide my life? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

IDEA Pharma: IDEA Collider Mike Rea talks with Joseph Owens from Google X https://vimeo.com/269261531  Joseph Owens: Good to see you.  Mike Rea: Thanks for coming over. So, this is just for the benefit of everyone who has seen the previous live streams with me talking [in the camera]. This is hopefully the start of a new series of live streams and recordings where we're going to interview people that I find most interesting among the folks that I come across. Joseph Owens: Well I hope you find some interesting folks. Mike Rea: Well you're about as interesting as it gets. So, for those of you who don't know Joseph - Do you want to do a quick introduction? Joseph Owens: Yes. I'm Joseph Owens. I am a Neuroscientist at Google X, which is now actually just called X. It's the R&D factory for Alphabet, which is the parent company for Google. I am a Neuroscientist and a Management Consultant by training, by way of McKinsey and Northwestern. And right now, I'm on a team we call The Early Pipeline and we're looking for big ideas that would eventually be companies that would rival Google, basically. So, for Alphabet, we are de risking to bet on Google by creating other bets. Before that I was a Consultant at Google actually, in the Ad side. And then way back when, I mentioned my PhD was in neuroscience of sleep. So back when I was a Consultant, I was one of the experts on why the job was not very good for you. Mike Rea: And just for everyone who knows my background, Joe and I got over the McKinsey thing quite quickly. We've settled that conversation. So, one of the things that was most interesting actually in the conversation was really -- one of the things that pharmaceuticals struggle with is scaling innovation. And I know that you've had thoughts on that before you joined Google, and clearly since you've joined Google. It'll be interesting to hear whether you think pharma's going the wrong way, in terms of its approach, or do you think that there's a different approach possible? Joseph Owens: Well, I don't know if I can speak so well towards what pharma is doing specifically, but I can speak towards some of the things that happened in Google that are good and some of the things that I think we're improving. One of the things that Google was blessed with was, and I think it was really funny because we both knew this analogy, which was, it was a windless tree. And so, it had so much revenue for quite a long time that basically it made sense to plant as many flowers as you could. And so, by spreading bets as widely and sometimes even duplicative, you have the opportunity to let things bloom and let things figure out. As you have businesses that are more related to each other -- a great example is DoubleClick, which is programmatic advertising. The pipes for that are so complex. Having three different versions of that doesn't really work. And in some cases, we've made smart acquisitions -- DoubleClick was actually an acquisition -- and in others, we've built our own from the ground up. I think for innovation to be learned from Google, I would say it's knowing when to pull -- it's giving the engineering directors -- so Google is an engineering-led company and so the equivalent in pharma would be like the scientists or the people closest to it -- some leeway to make a call on whether they're going to let their [directs] just sort of experiment. From what I do know from you and others from pharma, that experimentation is probably not -- the degree of experimentation is probably radically different. And it is software, so you have to remember that some of that experimentation is a little bit cheaper from an opportunity [inaudible 03:51] point of view. But Google engineers are pretty well paid. Mike Rea: That metaphor of the windless tree, I think I wrote something about that like two or three years ago. It was based on the observation and the biased biome or biosphere or whatever the name is -- the trees grow to a certain height without wind but they fall over quickly because they need distress of the wind to grow. And I think that was an appropriate metaphor for companies and pharma’s that are doing very well despite much pressure from anywhere else. They haven't really needed to think about that innovation thing. But I wonder whether in pharma we spend too much time -- make it a quick call, "Right, well we've done the science already, now let's go to market with this thing." We stop experimenting at that point. So, I wonder whether that's a lesson to be learned.  Joseph Owens: So, Google has made a lot of changes around how it proceeds to launch, and specifically, how it measures that. Because of its size, it's pretty hard, just statistically, to figure out whether something's successful because it's got the Google brand with it. So, it's like, what is the adjustment factor for Google [to] launch this. And I think that's been something teams have been figuring out -- how to actually [re-weight] the metrics to see whether this would have been a success on its own. And there's some interesting programs in Google right now. There's a program where they're actually encouraging entrepreneurship within Google. So, people have great ideas and they might want to leave. They're allowing them to form their own teams and startup and pitch them to internal sort of VC-like group. Not necessarily with upside for the individual, except for just being able to pursue this thing that they see is really important. And so, it's a way to catch some of those folks that might otherwise leave and start other things. Because everybody has that entrepreneurial spirit. Mike Rea: We spoke with that a little bit [inaudible 05:54]. We covered that. It was one of the things that I thought about it over time. You look at [inaudible 06:00] with a lot of people who've left Genentech because they had to, to go and pursue their other interests. Interesting that you mention that there's no actual incentive for folks internally other than the progression of their careers. Joseph Owens: Yeah. I think it's interesting. If you look at -- I think it's Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs or whatever -- once you're paid a decent rate -- the monetary incentive, and you're comfortable -- If you're engaged with your work and you feel like it's doing something worthwhile, I think the monetary upside can be a bit overvalued in that scenario for a lot of people I've seen. There's great engineers who have families and are comfortable and would be great on startups, but they're not going to do that. And so, I think it actually taps into, maybe it's a slightly different slice of who would do that, but they're willing to do it because if they can keep their Google job and go for it. There's other people who want to strike it rich -- go [inaudible 07:04]. Mike Rea: But that spirit of innovation is encouraged within people that join Google? Joseph Owens: Oh yeah, definitely. So, Google still has, and I'm a product of this, the 20 Percent Program. I was a Strategy Consultant and I came into Google. I wanted to learn the main core business, how ads work. It's a lot more complicated than you think is.  Mike Rea: It's become a big issue recently. Joseph Owens: Google touches a lot of surfaces that you might not be aware of. Like how ads get populated across all of these different elements of the Internet, how they're sold, how they're traded in real time. All of these things. And like we talked about with the windless tree, they hire a lot of consultants, specifically from McKinsey, to come in and help them make those calls. While I was doing that, using my core McKinsey skillset, I started a 20 Percent Project. And so, for those that want to and have the inclination and [inaudible 08:01] and we formed a team, were running for six months or so, we had engineers, businesspeople, marketers -- our own little thing -- pitched it to all sorts of people. And that's actually what landed me at X. We had that drive because we saw an opportunity that Google should be working on this thing, and we can't talk about the thing. But we said we want to make sure that Google or Alphabet, actually, is working on this thing. And we pushed it until they took recognition of it.  Mike Rea: So just let me walk through the basics of the culture -- they enabled you to put together a bunch of people to pitch it to someone else. What's that look like? Joseph Owens: First off, to do a 20 Percent Project you need to be doing well in your role. But then the idea is -- It's based on good psychology, which is, you can't focus on one problem all the time. It's sometimes switching over to a different problem that actually helps you. And you can pull things over from that. Maybe you're going through a lull where you're bored with the implementation of your project and you're waiting for that next interesting part of your project, but you're still the right person to do that thing. Use some of that spare mental energy, connecting energy, whatever it is, on that 20 Percent piece. And instead of it being seen as lost time away from core work, it's more of an acknowledgement that you can only do core work very, very well for four or five hours a day. The idea that we can do more than that -- my background in psychology, you can't. You check your email, check the stocks, you check the news, go have coffee. And then when you look at your time across the day, whatever. But if you have something that was really driving you on the side, and you can keep up that -- The other thing is momentum. You're keeping up the momentum with the one thing that carries over the first.  Mike Rea: So, the 20 percent time isn't like Friday, it's spread across.  Joseph Owens: It's spread across, yeah. I don't think it would be effective if it was like everybody takes one day and puts on a different hat. There might be teams that do that. The other 20 percent thing I've done in my time is, I teach a mindfulness course. And that's actually a two-and-a-half-day course called Search Inside Yourself. And there's an org that runs that, a not for profit that now runs that. And we teach it to Googlers. And so, once a quarter I go and do that. So that sort of is a different day. Now that I've turned my 20 percent job into my full-time job, I have a different 20 percent job.  Mike Rea: So, people internally, they have the permission to spend that 20 percent time. Are they looking for each other? Joseph Owens: Oh yes. There's so many ways in which people find people. I just happened to be really crazy interested in this one topic. And someone introduced me to somebody else who's interested in that, and then found one more person, and then steamrolled from there. I said, "Google has to be doing this." And we just pushed it.  Mike Rea: And then you mentioned X as a special place. What's the special sauce about X that's different from Google itself? Joseph Owens: So, X is meant to build new companies. There is [triad] of criteria. One is that it would affect enough people. So, we think of a billion people, which means it needs to not be just U.S. So, it can't be just a U.S. business. Mike Rea: Basic rule of thumb. Joseph Owens: Basic rule of thumb. And it needs to be some sort of radical advancement of technology that has some real breakthrough way of solving a problem. And so, that's the three criteria, and you put X marks the spot in the middle. And it's always in the eye of the beholder, obviously, how breakthrough something is. But it has to be for good and it has to be a self-sustaining business. So, it's not [inaudible 12:07] Mike Rea: So, the really interesting thing about the business side is that those rules of thumb are not market size. The problem [inaudible 12:17] and the benefit, those are interesting rules of thumb.  Joseph Owens: Yeah. And all of the things that happen at X will touch regulation because they're [inaudible 12:28] business model plays, they aren't regulatory plays. We have a rule, you can't break the laws of physics but you might, for a little while, break the laws of man maybe, at least as they currently exist. So, for example, we have a project that literally launched drones into the air, called Wing, in New Zealand. And because the laws of man there were a little more friendly towards flying things, that was a good place to literally launch. And so, you have to figure those things out. Same thing with [inaudible 13:05] which is the inertial project at X, which was driverless cars -- figuring out how to get those safely on the road and get enough miles driven to train the AI. Obviously had [inaudible 13:17]. Mike Rea: Someone was telling me, actually yesterday, internal [betting] that happens at Google. Is there a market internally on which projects are going to succeed and which ones aren't? Joseph Owens: I don't know of one. But I've only been there for three years. I've been at Alphabet for three years, about a year and a little at Google and a year and a little at X. Mike Rea: Again, someone from pharma had heard this and felt, "This is an interesting way to see which projects are likely to succeed and which ones aren't." Because internally there's a culture of -- you know stuff internally that maybe senior management don't know about.  Joseph Owens: Yeah. I would be interested in that. There's a company called Steam; they do video for gaming. So, it's a very engineering -ed company somewhat. It's much smaller than Google. I think what they do are sort of a platform for online games, but then they also I think, sort of video. Could get that wrong. But an engineer friend of mine told me that they vote with their feet. So literally, their desks are attached to their chairs and people just move their desks together to work together on whatever the project is. I like that model. You can see what's working and what isn't, based on where people are moving. But the betting on things, we have a different version of that at X which is, before we kick off and get really running at speed on a project or even an idea in our early pipeline, we create kill criteria. And so, these kill criteria are what would be convincing reasons to stop working on this. Because the most valuable thing is our time. And those are easier to make before you spend a lot of time on a project because you're not as invested. You haven't hired as many people and all of these things. And you try to make them as objective as possible. And the way we do it is we just [sense] test with other people. "Is this significantly better than what exists?" or "Will this out compete the current thing on the market?" And that allows you as you get further down, if you realize you're not meeting that -- and you choose when you're going to check in with your ill criteria beforehand. So, it's like good statistics, it's a priority bet. And that allows for a more objective decision later on down the road. So, it's a way to manage your bets. I guess.  Mike Rea: And then one of the things I was really keen to recover was you mentioned the "Thank god its Thursday" and I described to you this  environment where in pharma that we spent so much time moving towards this six-monthly review with senior management of very polished, carefully curated slides that they're allowed to see. Can you describe a little bit more about this? Joseph Owens: Yeah. So, speaking completely for myself, and I think it's well known that this exists out in the world, but the company is -- Steven Levitt, the guy from Freakonomics wrote about this in the early days of Google. Larry and Sergei and others of the founding team decided to have a meeting every Thursday with the company. And I think the first meetings were around a ping pong table, which is also like their boardroom. And that tradition has carried on. That was on Fridays. As the company grew to have enough [inaudible 16:47] components they moved "Thank god it’s Friday" to Thursday. And crazily enough, Larry, Sergei, now Sundar, Susan Wojcicki -- all these folks get up there and talk about the state of the company, weekly. Mike Rea: Every week. Joseph Owens: Weekly. And it's kind of funny because Sergei also does a lot of things at X, and so he is often out of breath from making the one mile, mile and a half, from X to doing the same thing at X -- going over to main campus. And I think I said this to you. That's really good, but if you're a product manager, your product's coming up this week. You're going up in front of the CEO and chairman of the board and whatever, and they'll tell you what they think. I think that level of transparency is something Google obviously has struggled with this last year, because of the leaks. And I won't talk about that. But maintaining that transparency, it's amazing. I came into the company, my first day and they give you a computer and you're on the Intranet and you're like, "I can see this?" In any other company I wouldn't be allowed to see that. And that trust in a first day Googler -- Well, maybe I'd go look at that, I'm like, "Wow!" In my last business, we were doing that a different way. "Maybe I should let that person know," And I often do. When I get launch notices from people and they haven't -- from PMs and they'd go out to all of Google -- and I see something that I have a point of view on, I'll let them know. I'll just reply to that launch notice. Not to everyone, but to the PM and say, "Hey, I noticed that you guys did something here." And I think there's a lot of people that do that. And it's not liked a trolling sort of way. It's like there's something I really care about, that maybe you should know about it. And they might ignore you. They might not. But sometimes you get really long responses. They're like, "Oh I'm so glad you pointed out that. I was really struggling with how to weight that decision. And I'd love to have coffee." whatever exactly.  Mike Rea: And that was what struck me about that idea of Larry and Sergei and their [comfort] to do it. I'm the type to do it as well. I think we spoke about the [inaudible 19:13] book about the beginnings of Pixar and pulsing and the way that -- Pulsing sounds nice and gentle but sounds like there it's also not. You do get your animations ripped apart by everyone -- the magazine, then Pixar. That's not a destructive thing but it's a constructive, enabling, empowering way to -- Joseph Owens: As an employee, you can get an answer. If there's an issue that you believe is important enough, you can stand up at the mic and ask the heads of the company, from the beginning. You might face social feedback on that. I've never heard of anything of someone's manager getting mad at them for saying something like that. I think I would have heard that if -- Someone would tell you, "Hey, don't get up to the mic." And then they take internet questions from around company. And then they take my questions and they alternate. Mike Rea: Okay. I've spoken to a few people in pharma about whether they could imagine a pharma CEO standing there every day, every month, every week.  Joseph Owens: It goes with overall cultural transparency though. So, if they get at -- Mike Rea: Is it just transparency or is it something about the connection to the product or the ideas or the -- Joseph Owens: Yeah. I think you've got to be willing to go both ways. You have to defend your project, the people getting up there and talking about whatever they're launching or whatever or the bad news cycle on their project, whatever it is. That's one side of it. But then them asking like, "Hey, we did this launch and --" The thing that was in the way might have been you. Can you tell the audience why you made that decision? I don't know if I would go up and there do that, but people in the audience will. They'll say like, "Why did you make that decision?"  Mike Rea: Right. Okay. It's interesting because part of that same conversation that we had around whether they could imagine pharma CEOs doing that, people tend to go with the ones that they've worked for, that they could imagine being that. And actually, at the same time, those people also seemed to be the most empowering and best leaders -- the people talk I'm talking about in pharma -- people like Bob Levinson at Genentech have a [proof ability] but also deep -- you'd follow them anywhere with the science. So, I wondered whether that was a -- Joseph Owens: Well you have to remember that Larry and Sergei were grad students at Stanford, in information sciences. So, the transparency piece is there. The depth of engagement is there. These are future academics made into CEOs. And I think Larry's written about this bunch, about what that transition was like for him. What they're gifted with is all these great people who can teach them these things. And so, as they were going through -- I think I've seen this written in a number of books about Google -- One of the things I did before I applied to Google was, I read all the books about Google, at least the ones that are available. When I was at McKinsey what I did was a lot of reorgs. And so, I worked on helping organizations be more effective, because I liked the novelty of that problem every time. And reading about their early history and seeing the problems they faced in changing their worldview -- I was a PhD student. That is a very different [person] to being an executive. And so, the attitude there is you have journal club. And I got to say, TGIF is not that dissimilar from journal club. Journal club, you get up, you talk about some data, you beat it up. The goal is everybody gives their opinion. And if someone is silent then you're losing out on something useful. Because all the researchers in the room are going to have different takes on that data, or maybe they have statistics or genetics or whatever it is. It's not that dissimilar. It's bringing a little bit of that academic culture into corporate; I think. Mike Rea: There is something about pharma which I think we [could] change. We've got [inaudible 23:30] with people with project teams to say, "Well, what are all the things that could go wrong here?" Remarkably, it's the first time we've ever been asked, typically. And then they have this long list of things that could go wrong. They're not just about the product succeeding or failing on its basic parameters, but everything else that needs to be thought about it to get it there. If they're not being asked, those things will still happen and we're just going to ignore it until they do. Is there something that's enabled -- Let me describe it perfectly just from the beginning -- it always was that way. Joseph Owens: Yeah. If you're not working [in] your culture at the beginning then you're going to have whatever culture you get. The changing it though, is that what you're asking? Mike Rea: Well, I was wondering because one of the approaches that you have, clearly, is that you stop other cultures that are separate -- that you've created companies within Google that are different. Joseph Owens: Yeah. That was one of the things that kept me awake the most when I was working on the 20 Percent Project. I said, "Okay, we've got five people on this. Whatever we do right now that's the beginning of the whole proto-companies culture. And those are big weighty problems to think about. So how are you making decisions as a group? How are you choosing the direction? Are you going to be monolithic based on that one engineer or are you going to be consensus driven? Those decisions are made on those teams as they form, and a lot of big projects in Google started out that way. I'd say there's an example that teams can learn from, which is what's happened at Google and maybe what's happening on their own teams. And then when they make these new teams -- like the 20 percent ones for example, or the new bets at X, or the acquisitions -- there's a lot of freedom given to them to make those calls. I think it's an experiment that keeps happening over and over. Mike Rea: And we also discussed the accidental versus on purpose nature of the organization within Google. Which you can say about the way that it's organized and your observations on how controlled that is versus uncontrolled.  Joseph Owens: I think Google, last couple of years, they made the switch to be a holding company, I think quite wisely, while I was there. And the reformation that happened because of that has objectively been good for at least the short-term stock price. And starting to compare some of these projects against each other, and to make some of these calls. I think those things happen in cycles. And so, they're on that cycle of it. I think the culture probably still has this exploratory way. And so, if you go through one cycle of comparing things and choosing which ones of the best ones, you'll go through a growth phase. I think the inertia is clearly there for it to be a [inaudible 26:54] thing, not like a, "It was doing this and now it's doing that." Mike Rea: And there was an observation that you mentioned along the way about how much people want to work for Google, as opposed to somebody else. Joseph Owens: Yeah. So, Google maintains a pretty amazing reputation, at least as a place to work, in the world. I always saw it on lists with McKinsey and other consulting companies. And I feel like those are pretty different jobs, which is interesting. Mike Rea: Those rankings are usually done by [inaudible 27:24] Joseph Owens: Yeah. [inaudible 27:26] does rankings too. If you want to be a world class software engineer and you want to have some of the best tools at your disposal, and obviously the [inaudible 27:43] places to work, and smart people -- I think I've got a little bit off the question -- but the attractiveness to do that, I think it's quite high. What was the question again? Mike Rea: Well,  it's linked to that. Because we had the conversation around the pharmaceutical innovation index, on whether that leads to retention of people over time or the ability to recruit.  Joseph Owens: Yeah, I think there's everything at Google. So, there's enterprise businesses at Google, there's consumer businesses at Google. With the cloud bet, that's a very different business than the hardware bet. And one of the things Google has is a lot of ability to move around. I think that's what I was mentioning. And so, you might work two or three years in one role and then you might change ladders as I did. I went from a strategy consulting ladder -- I'm actually on the engineering ladder now. I don't know that that happens that frequently, but I definitely see people who might go from, say, a sales ladder to PM ladder or a program management to product management, or one type of engineering to another type of engineering, as they change their skill set. One of the things I do as a 20 Percent Project is, I work on what's called G to G which is Googler to Googler training. And we have loads of that. We have an engineering school. If you want to get ML training, there's weeks of training you can go take to start teaching yourself to be an ML engineer. There's Python 101. There's everything you can imagine if you want to spend that effort to train yourself. Now there are tools that are available for online training and any person training, you can literally change your career while you're at Google. And I've seen a lot of people do that. Mike Rea: And you can start your 20 Percent Project from any one of those ladders? You don't have to be on -- Joseph Owens: Yeah. You can be a salesperson and be the PM on your 20 Percent Project. Or like me, you can be a strategist on your normal ladder and you can be a scientist on your 20 Percent Project.  Mike Rea: Because one of the things that we haven't spoken to anyone yet about is about the rankings that lead to companies being perceived as more innovative, and whether that leads to the ability to attract and retain all the time. Joseph Owens: Google made a big bet on hiring ML engineers and that looks like it's paying off. Mike Rea: That's machine learning? Joseph Owens: Machine learning, yes. Sorry. Everything where you teach a computer to label things. That's all ML is. So, it's saying, "I give you a lot of data --" and then computers are very good at saying, "That is A and that is B." Assuming that you have good enough examples of A and B. That is all machine learning is. And Google made a big bet on that because they get a lot of -- it's an information technology. We're categorizing and making available the internet. And so, all that tagging, that's kind of the grass of machine learning. You have videos on YouTube that are labeled, and voice recognition and all these things. These were the data we were taking in. And so, not being [inaudible 30:39] ML was pretty obvious, you're not going to work. And then we happen to have servers. So, the other thing that's happened to make machine learning capable these days is something called deep learning. And that's only possible with the amount of server space, basically. The amount of little, literally, processors to throw at the problem to run these iterative models. And without that you can't do the kind of machine learning that we do. And so, we had both of those things and then we are where we are. Mike Rea: Which is interesting, the ability to understand and deconstruct at the same time, is important. And then clearly within the health space, I know we spoke a lot about the essential problem of hundred-year-old disease definition still being part of the fabric against which we're developing new drugs and new ideas.  Joseph Owens: I just read the outgoing NCI directors book on cancer, which was I think, Curing Cancer. And it's a labeling problem. Initially, when you go into labels, if the label's too general, well, the machine can't learn to label below that. At least, it can't learn on its own. There are machine learning techniques called clustering and unsupervised learning, and those can begin to do some of that. And we're not -- Google is not the only person doing this. Unsupervised learning without the gold standard labels with it, and clustering these things out and then saying, "Hey, this is a cluster. Let's go study that." And yeah, these were all what we were calling cancer. But [now in terms of] mass childhood lymphoma -- and this is sarcoidosis or something, whatever it is --  Mike Rea: But we're getting there, or we're starting to get towards that in cancer. I think probably because it's had a molecular target for such a long time and people have explored the genetic mutation mode and so forth within the tumors. My concern is that you get into areas like mental health, that we're still using broad categories like schizophrenia or major depression -- Joseph Owens: Now you're getting into my wheelhouse. I'm not going to begrudge the people who hammer these things out in committee to make the DSM. That is exceptionally hard, based on what we have. Because we don't have data. We have an empirical wisdom and we have research going in lots of different directions. Because we just don't know very much. We don't know very much about the brain. We have to admit it. We don't know very much. And I won't compare neuroscience to cancer or anything like that but taking one of these labels and deconstructing it. And then, we have loads of studies. I was doing genetics too, where we say, "Wait, why does one disease and another disease and another disease, all radically different labels, run of the same family? Are these normal curves and we're just picking out the ends of the curves? Are these bimodal curves under certain environments?" Picking that stuff out, I think computers will be very good. But we need more labeling data. So, the move right now -- and there's a lot of folks doing this -- is to get passive monitoring. One interview in a doctor's office is not enough. And if you can move towards passive monitoring and long-range continuous datasets -- And then folks are very wary of doing that. Mike Rea: It starts to feel healthier as a way of -- if you take something like schizophrenia, we know there's genetic components, we know that there's typically socioeconomic components as well, and then the family environment components. But then also, the interventions that we've had are pretty broad brush and pretty crude measures, in terms of their effect. And if you look at the construct that you're describing of an appetite, to want to break it down into micro subsets -- Joseph Owens: I mean, it's been variously called personalized medicine, lots of different titles for it. But subcategorizing disease for neurological -- I mean, all of this -- is the next wave, I think. And hopefully we'll destigmatize it.  Mike Rea: And then you put together, what I see from the outside, as a kind of long bet that someone like Google is prepared to take on. If you look at mapping the roads and self-driving cars, there was no business in that for a long time. There's a long-time bet. Parmer is in that same sort of 20 or 40-year cycle of discovery to development to revenue. Do you see any parallels or any differences between them? Joseph Owens: Oh yes. I think pharma is interesting because it starts, and at the early stage if you can kill something and save you a lot of money down the road -- because the last trials were the most expensive, theoretically. We're at a point which is very different, where we say, "Let's take in as much data because we don't know what it's going to lead to." And that's a very different decision to make at the beginning. So, to take the mapping example, "Let's go out and put cameras on backpacks and on cars and take in this data." I don't think they knew exactly what product that would turn into. But when I did my interview at Google they said, "What product at Google do you admire?" And I said, "Apps. It changes my life every day." Every day I set out with confidence. I can get to where I want to go. Every day I can take a request from somebody to go meet somewhere I've never been. And I [inaudible 36:16] take that request. "Hey, come meet Mike in this building you've never been to." Didn't bat an eyelash. Before maps -- get on the internet, look up where I can find it, find a map, whatever it is. That's a radically different decision multiple times a day. I think when they first sent the cars out -- there's no way they're foreseeing that everyone would be making different decisions. At least that has, the luxury of having Google Maps.  Mike Rea: Yeah. And that's one of the things that we talk a lot about. That idea is that exploration and value early. Because no one knew where the iPod would lead, in terms iPhones and apps and a bunch of other things. And certainly, if you try to do what pharma tends to do, which is to try to put like five decimal place forecasts around a Phase 1 asset, you're already limiting -- Joseph Owens:  False precision is -- Mike Rea: Yeah. And how does that get approached at Google? Do use those rules of thumb all the way through or is it something that someone else [inaudible 37:14] Joseph Owens: I don't think I've been there long enough to see things from genesis to multiwave implementation at scale. So, mine would be snapshots across different projects. The decisioning that happens to kick something off at Google is, I think, laxer. So, it's experimentation. If you're really excited about, "Well, I believe in you because I hired you." or "we hired you" and you're coming to me and saying, "I really [inaudible 37:50] this." Your energy is the voting factor for a little while. At the point that you start needing additional resources, then you start to make decisions. So, then you're making prioritization. Some of the similar, "Let's make a business case for these things." pops up and you say, "Here's a design brief, here's a PRD -- product requirements document -- and here's the case." At the beginning of the product requirement document it would be, "Here's why we need the thing. And here's what the thing has to look like." From the ones I've seen, they're not trying to get to decimal places of precision. And that's probably a little bit because of the luxury of resources. I think things are allowed to flourish a little bit.  Mike Rea:  That's an interesting word -- flourish and thrive. Because one of the things that pharma tries to do is to project ten years into the future and then bring it back to today with a huge degree of accuracy, despite us all knowing whether it's wrong every time we do it. And then the project's not allowed to flourish, despite all the evidence that most of the great drugs have got where they are through serendipity. They've pivoted at some point in their life cycle.  Joseph Owens: My example for that is -- basic research is -- Carrie Mullins goes and works on a project which, its title, would every time get defunded. He's going to go measure proteins and enzymes in hot geysers. No one cares. No one cares about those organisms. But then you get PCR. His project, if it came up for a vote, everyone would, "De-fund." And then he's driving down the highway and he thinks -- So we have some core principles; more data, better; diverse data. So, try not to just collect data in Silicon Valley, these sorts of things. Build for scale down the road. Because everything we want to do is going to serve Google's customers. And so, things probably move more slowly than they would at a startup because we're building for scale early. That could be a headwind of saying, "We'll go get a bigger dataset than maybe a startup would want to launch their thing." Or,  "Build your pipes a little bit stronger than a startup might." Mike Rea: So, there's some value to their being Google? Joseph Owens: Right. But then you're slower. I mean, those are tradeoffs.  Mike Rea: And probably the last question, because we could carry on for another few hours, would be just really around how you personally see health -- the intersections -- health and Googling -- the kind of technology that sits behind those. Joseph Owens: So, health for me,  for Joe Owens, II vacillate between extreme jaded [inaudible 40:54]-- like I said, we don't know anything about the brain. And we're at that moment of Newton where we can't see Einstein. When you're Newton, you can't see Einstein. [inaudible 41:05] physics, you can't move into relativity. And I feel like we're -- that moment on brain -- But in the same sentence I have to say, there's so much science sitting on the table that hasn't been brought to people's lives. We have doctors that have no time to do the thousand things that have been recommended for them to do. Well that just sounds like a platform and it's fixing the issues that happened. If that's an operations problem, that's a more McKinsey [hat] problem. So, if we can take all of these recommendations that we have for our health, and figure out a way to [massage out] the way we live to meet them, well then maybe we don't need -- we don't actually have to know all those things about the brain to actually operationalize some of that. So, I think science [hat] kind of terrified, consulting [hat], I feel like we just need to do some stuff.  Mike Rea: So, some systems thinking? Joseph Owens: Systems thinking, yeah. And design thinking. Changing the way, we live to be healthier. We know what to do, we just haven't done it.  Mike Rea: Yeah. Some of those things are [inaudible 42:09]. If you've got socio economic problems -- Joseph Owens: Google, it changes every day of my life with maps. It could change every day of my life with my health. And I think there's people at Google who are seeing that. They have been thinking about it.  Mike Rea: And actually, [inaudible 42:29] is really around the ethics with that as well. I'm aware that there's a kind of internal ethics, people looking at whether you can do harm as well as good. Joseph Owens: Oh, yeah. First do no harm, is the first rule of medicine. So, if an IT company wants to get into medicine, they've got to follow that. One of the things we have going right now is a lot of people thinking about machine learning fairness. Do you collect first data sets? Things that work on one population won't work on another, unless you figure out the little bits. And so again, that'll be a tax for speed but it'll be in the effort of fairness. And ultimately, scale. So, the ethics of that -- I would say you probably don't see people out in the world talking about this, but teams talk about fairness a whole lot. [inaudible 43:23] would be a great example. And the computers are sometimes really good at this. They have an example where there's a woman out in the street shooting a duck with a broom. There's no way you're going to train your data [to solve] that because you could even conceive that the car would ever see that? And so, figuring out ways to end all of the niche cases via getting really diverse data sets and really good transfer learning, that's -- Computers actually may have a better shot at scale -- oh, sorry, in fairness.  Mike Rea: Excellent. So, I think I've promised everyone that this would be phenomenal, and it has been, Joe. It's probably obvious, we could carry on for another couple of hours and debate this. And I hope you get a chance to [inaudible 44:16].  Joseph Owens: Yeah. That would be great. Mike Rea: Thank you. Joseph Owens: Of course. Have a good day. Mike Rea: Thank you very much.  

Kelsey Miller, author of the 5-year column "The Anti-Diet Project" on Refiner29, and force behind The 67 Percent Project, joins me for a chat about all things real life, and Not dieting. Kelsey shares the moment, "somewhere between an epiphany and a panic attack," when she decided to be done with dieting. And from there, what's next? An eating coach, the Intuitive Eating book, writing her memoir (see below), and how life can be hard, either way.  We also touch on representation in pop culture, and a different way to look at some of our favorite shows (again!), a la her newest book.  More of Kelsey's work:  Big Girl, a memoir  I'll Be There For You, a book about FRIENDS KelseyMiller.com @MsKelseyMiller Other stuff:  Be part of the extended podcast conversations and meet fellow real-talkers by joining our Patreon community. Join here, for just $1. Learn more about the Weight Inclusive Nutrition & Dietetics Events: weightinclusiveconference.com. Join us virtually for the first event!  Your host, Heather Caplan: HeatherCaplan.com, @heatherDCRD, @RDRealTalk. Have you left a review on iTunes yet? If not, please do! Click here and tap the stars. Questions or requests for the show? Reach out: RDRealTalk @ Gmail.com Last but not least, get more RD Real Talk from the newsletter, landing in your inbox weekly!  

University of Oregon Journalism instructors, Todd Milbourn and Lisa Heyamoto, cofounded The 32 Percent Project as 2017-18 Agora Faculty Innovation Fellows. The project is a national community engagement project that explores what drives and disrupts trust in the news media. They discuss how citizens define trust and how journalists can earn it. And they offer a critique of the traditional economic model of news organizations.

353: Zero Percent Project - "MegaForce" See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Kelsey Miller (Big Girl, Refinery29's Anti-Diet Project) returns to discuss The 67 Percent Project, Refinery29's new initiative to increase representation of plus-size bodies to match the actual percentage of American women who are plus-size. She shares why it's so important for people to see larger bodies in the media, how other content creators can get involved with this effort, what's new in her life since the last time she was on the podcast back in May, and more! This is a special bonus episode in honor of International Podcast Day. We'll return to our regularly scheduled weekly episodes next Tuesday!  Kelsey Miller is the author of BIG GIRL: How I Gave Up Dieting & Got A Life, and the Senior Features Writer at Refinery29, the leading digital lifestyle brand for women. She began her career in the film production industry before transitioning to full-time writing, joining Refinery29 in 2012. Soon after, she created The Anti-Diet Project, one of the website's most popular franchises. Kelsey specializes in first-person essays, cultural commentary, humor writing, fitness, food, body image, advice, and feminist issues. Find her online at KelseyMiller.com, and buy her book on Amazon.  For show notes and to learn more about our guest, head to our website: christyharrison.com/foodpsych Ready to make peace with food? Join Christy's intuitive eating online course or mini course today!

[UPDATE: Kellie Mullin is now a Head of School in the Bay Area] Kellie Mullin is our guest today and she teaches 7th and 8th grade science.  She does an amazing class project called the 20% Project.  The students find a real-world problem and develop possible solutions using the Design Thinking process. We talk about the challenge of teaching Empathy as part of Design Thinking process with middle school students–in particular the 7th and 8th grade girls. Kellie shares her best tech tips and advice that helps develop the creative confidence and growth mindset of teachers. Share and like this episode and let us know what you think! Transcript [Welcome to the Teaching Bites Podcast. Here are your hosts, Fred and Sharon Jaravata.] Fred Jaravata: This is the Teaching Bites Show where we connect you with people and ideas to take your teaching to the next level. I’m your host Fred Jaravata and today, we are featuring a special guest here on the show and her name is Kellie Mullin. She is a seventh and eighth grade science teacher and I worked with her for the past few years. I think – how many years is this? Kellie Mullin: This is my sixth year. Fred Jaravata: This is her sixth year, right, and we are glad to have you here to share your story so that we can inspire other teachers as well. OK. So real quick, I’ve been working with – I’ve known Kelly for the past six years and I’ve also worked closely with her with something called the 20 Percent Project and actually we’re going to be starting that real soon. I think this week and that’s going to be exciting and she’s going to share her story about that. Also I know she’s getting – going back to school at the University of San Francisco and she will be sharing a little bit of that also and Kellie, welcome to the show. Kellie Mullin: Thank you for having me. Fred Jaravata: Great to have you. OK, Kellie. So I gave you a little quick intro and that was a really quick intro. We want to hear you fill in all the gaps that I skipped and tell us your origin story. Kellie Mullin: So my father was a teacher, but he didn’t teach for most of my life. He actually had a landscaping business and when I was 16, he went back to school, got his specialist credential to teach special education and it was really inspired by the type of lifelong learner that he was. So I think that although I had watched my dad always read and see those things, I had a perfect model of what it meant to be a learner. So I always loved school. I loved reading and helping people. So when I went to Berkeley, I was able to do some tutoring. I worked with a disabled students program and I was able to take notes. So I just had a love of education. So when it came to what do you do after college, I found that passion and I went back to Berkeleyand I got my master’s and my credential there in developmental teacher education. So my passion for education really started at home. Fred Jaravata: Nice. OK, yeah, it’s very – like you, I come from a family of teachers and definitely it’s an inspiration. All right, Kellie. So what was the “aha” moment that you had, that you realized that teaching was for you? Kellie Mullin: I think that it took me a while to get into the rhythm of teaching. But when I did, I realized that I loved teaching because it’s so relational. For me, one moment, my first year at teaching in public school, I taught sixth grade math and science. I had a student come in to me before school started and the students were not supposed to come in. But she was really concerned that she was unsafe on the schoolyard. So that moment of realizing that although I taught her math and science, she felt comfortable enough to come in to me and to use that space just to feel safe. It was this moment of recognition that I was making a connection with her. So that was this moment. Fred Jaravata: Right. So what was the unsafe part? What was happening? Kellie Mullin: So I began my public teaching career in San Francisco. I only taught for two years in public school as a full-time teacher. But there’s just a lot of opportunity for unsafe things to happen. So she was a little concerned for her safety, some issues with some other students. Fred Jaravata: Wow. What grade is this? Kellie Mullin: It was sixth grade. Fred Jaravata: Sixth grade. Oh, wow, that’s unfortunate. OK. So you mentioned that you worked in the public school system for a couple of years, right? What helped you decide to get – go jump to the private school? Kellie Mullin: When I went to grad school, my intention was to stay in public school forever. I really wanted to dedicate my time to working with students from disadvantaged backgrounds and would have probably stayed in public school for much longer if it hadn’t been for budgetary differences between the city and the school district. Fred Jaravata: Yes. Kellie Mullin: It’s really hard to work and give your all to students every single day and not know whether or not you would have a job at the end of the school year. So every year I taught in public school, by the end of the year, we were given a warning we might not be rehired and it wasn’t because of our performance. It was just for budget reasons. Fred Jaravata: Right, right. So did you ever get the pink slips or just the warning? Kellie Mullin: I did. They were all rescinded but by the time I got this job here at this school, I had already made the site [0:05:11] [Phonetic]. Fred Jaravata: So how did that make you feel getting all that – like the pink slips? Kellie Mullin: It was really hard because I knew as a beginning teacher that I was giving my 100 percent and I was not the only one. The last year I taught at public school, I remember one moment. I was with several other teachers who were also getting their pink slip warnings and it had then turned into a pink slip at that point. We were sitting with our vice-principal in that room and he was just sharing how much love he had for us and how hard it was for him as an administrator to not be able to better support us and I remember he was this really tough man and I just remember him starting to cry in that room and realizing – you know, we had – even though we worked with really challenging students with lots of needs, we loved the kids, we loved each other and so that was what was really hard about leaving public school. Fred Jaravata: Right. What was the timeline? When would you get a pink slip? When would they decide to – hey, we will get you back? Kellie Mullin: You know, it really varies. I think – I remember it being in early spring when you would find out that you may potentially get this warning and then … Fred Jaravata: Like around February, March? Kellie Mullin: I think a little – March or April. Fred Jaravata: How can you teach when you have that hanging over your head? Kellie Mullin: That was really difficult and then by the end of the school year, you knew whether or not you would receive the full pink slip. But most of the time, it would – the intention was that it would be rescinded. Potentially though, they were discussing consolidating positions so that you might have a job. It just might not be at this school. Fred Jaravata: Right. Kellie Mullin: So that was the moment when I really started thinking about let’s see what other opportunities are out there. I’m so thankful that I did because I found a new kind of home here in the Catholic school world. Fred Jaravata: OK. And we’re glad to have you. OK, Kellie. Favorite quote or mantra, something to get you through your teaching school year, your teaching day. What’s something that you say to yourself? Kellie Mullin: So one thing that really – one quote that really stands out to me and has since graduate school is Plato and he said, “Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness. Direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the particular bent of the genius of each.” It really is something that I’ve had on my wall since I taught in public school. Just reminding myself that as easy as it is to create a lesson plan and decide this is what we’re learning today, this is what I want to teach, to really give opportunities to our students to find what they are passionate about so that they’re really learning. Fred Jaravata: Right. Can you share a moment in time in the past that – a challenging situation that you experienced in your professional career? Kellie Mullin: I think in terms of the project that I’m doing with my students now, which is design-thinking-based, one of the hardest parts of this project has been the transmission of what it means to be empathetic to my students. Fred Jaravata: Yeah. Your seventh and eighth grade students, right? Kellie Mullin: Sevenths and eighth grade students. So for me, a challenging situation has been what are different meaningful ways that I can help them to understand what empathy is. I don’t think I’ve necessarily overcome that yet. Fred Jaravata: Yeah. Kellie Mullin: I think it’s something that I’m challenged with every day. Fred Jaravata: Why is it happening you think? Kellie Mullin: I think that especially in middle school, it’s really hard to think beyond yourself and they’re very concerned with their own identity formation, comparing themselves to the people around them but not necessarily always able to see outside of themselves. Fred Jaravata: OK. Kellie Mullin: So I think part of it is developmental. But I think there might be more. Fred Jaravata: OK. Do you have any plans? I know you’re saying – you haven’t overcome that yet. Any plans or any things that you plan to do, hope to do, to figure that out? Kellie Mullin: So I think part of it is that I’ve used several different examples of how empathy has been used in the design process with my students all the way from looking at how MRIs can be redesigned to better suit the needs of children, so that they’re not as frightening. Fred Jaravata: Right. Kellie Mullin: To a host of other ideas. But I think showing them ideas, but then really giving them the opportunity to reflect upon situations where they’ve experienced empathy, where they have been empathetic to others in sharing that, but creating those opportunities really for them. Fred Jaravata: Right. OK. And I will be working with you in the 20 Percent Project and that’s going to be something we will be working on hopefully with these girls. Kellie Mullin: Yes, hopefully. Fred Jaravata: Hopefully it’s going to be a success and I think it will be. OK. So favorite books, movies or songs that you like that helps you again with your teaching career. Kellie Mullin: There are two books that really stand out to me. The first was a book that we as a faculty all ready which is Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All by Tom and David Kelleyand that book really stood out to me because I knew I was interested in creativity and innovation. But this term of “creative confidence” was something that was really new to me. Fred Jaravata: Right. Kellie Mullin: That this idea of believing in your ability to change the world and that it was something that can be fostered in people, I think that was – this book was the first opportunity that I had had to really hear – well, what are some ideas to actually do this? Fred Jaravata: Right. Kellie Mullin: So that’s one and I think – and it fits really seamlessly with the other book which is Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, how can we fulfill our potential by Carol Dweck. So looking at those two ideas together, the idea of growth mindset and creative confidence, just really fit in together. Fred Jaravata: Right. They go hand in hand and they’re – David Kelley, one of the authors and I think both of the Kelley brothers and Carol Dweck, they all are professors down at that school down South. Kellie Mullin: The other school that’s not Berkeley. Fred Jaravata: Yeah, they wear that reddish thing. OK. You follow Cal Sports [0:12:29] [Phonetic] right? Kellie Mullin: I do. Fred Jaravata: Yeah, you do. Kellie Mullin: Hopefully our football team will get better. Fred Jaravata: Will get better, yes. OK. So tech tools, I like to ask teachers about favorite tech tools or web resources, so that other teachers can check those out. Kellie Mullin: Yeah. Fred Jaravata: What are you liking and what’s helping you? Kellie Mullin: Well, I love all of the Google Education apps. I love the world of Google for education specifically because of the collaboration that you’re able to do. So when students are working on a presentation, they can all work on the same presentation on different devices at the same time. Fred Jaravata: Right, different devices. That’s the key thing. Kellie Mullin: Exactly. You no longer have to have students all around one or one computer. Fred Jaravata: Right. Kellie Mullin: And you don’t have four students who are doing nothing, while one student is doing all the work. You can even have students in different places. So I’ve been able to have groups of students working together that aren’t even in the same class. But because of the collaboration and the sharing aspect of Google, we’re actually able to make new groupings possible. Fred Jaravata: Right. I love Google’s stuff too. But now let me ask you this question about the whole Google Apps for Education, the GAFE stuff. In the groups especially, how do you make sure – when you have a group of kids working together, how do you make sure the other kids are doing equal work? Kellie Mullin: I think that’s always – that’s the age-old question of group work. Part of it is only allowing group work to occur when group work needs to occur. I think sometimes as teachers, we put kids into groups and we assume they will distribute the work. But really it was not an assignment that ever needed a group. Fred Jaravata: Right. Kellie Mullin: So of course you get students who aren’t doing what they need to be doing because they didn’t really need to have that role. Fred Jaravata: Right. Kellie Mullin: So I think part of it is really making sure that each person has an individual task but also giving students the opportunity to give feedback at the end. I think when students know that they have the opportunity to reflect upon how they behaved in their group but also how – you know, allowed their teammates to evaluate in a non-grade-related way. It does kind of inspire them to get the work done, but making it more meaningful. I mean I think that’s really the most important piece. Fred Jaravata: Now we had been using Google apps for the past three, four years now. How are the girls liking it right now? Kellie Mullin: I think that they really like it because they are able to – instead of one person holding the document for a group, if someone is absent, if they’ve all shared it, then they’re able to access it. Things like that are wonderful and as they’ve added new templates for the Google presentations, the Google slides, it has become more and more interesting to them. Fred Jaravata: Nice. Yes, another plus one for Google Apps for Education. Kellie Mullin: Yeah. Fred Jaravata: OK. So how do you get through the teaching day? How do you avoid burnout? Kellie Mullin: I think another quote that stands out to me is from Mother Janet Erskine Stuart. Fred Jaravata: Yes. Kellie Mullin: And it’s about that it’s better to begin a great work than to finish a small one. I think I remember that quote a lot because we expect finished products at the end of the day sometimes or even literally at the end of a class period. But realizing that the work that we’re doing with students, sometimes we’re just planting seeds and realizing that I don’t need to get it all accomplished in one school year or in one day or in one hour with students. Fred Jaravata: You don’t have to do that? Kellie Mullin: I know. Fred Jaravata: Really? Kellie Mullin: It’s a relief to know that the work that we’re doing and that we’re investing in students is – it’s a beginning. It’s not an end. Fred Jaravata: Right, it is the beginning. Yes. I love that quote too. I love Janet Erskine Stuart. I love her philosophy with that of schools and that’s definitely a quote I really take heart to as well. OK. So Kellie, so tell me – tell the listeners what do you want to learn more about and why. Kellie Mullin: So I am fascinated with this idea of creative confidence and the idea of innovation. So I’ve gone back to school. I’m working on my doctorate in Catholic education leadership and the reason why I’m interested – I began in the master’s program and I decided to shift into the doctoral program because I – I really believe that when we talk about the needs of society today, creativity is one of those most important skills that we’re hearing company after company mention that we need. But why are we not creating those opportunities for our students to really become creative thinkers and innovative thinkers? So I’m really interested in learning how and – you know, considering writing my dissertation on something along the lines of how can we set up a culture of innovation amongst our faculty that inspires that creative confidence and – in faculty members but also in the students who they’re teaching. Fred Jaravata: Right. Kellie Mullin: So I think I’m just fascinated in learning – continuing to learn more about how can you foster a growth mindset in students and in people that are coming with a fixed mindset about themselves and their abilities. Fred Jaravata: Now, that’s a really good point. I think that goes hand in hand with not just in the school setting but also outside, right? Now I know – I peeked into your LinkedIn profile just before you came in. Kellie Mullin: Excellent. Fred Jaravata: I knew this a couple of years ago that you are also a curriculum consultant. Is that true? Kellie Mullin: It is, yeah. Fred Jaravata: Can you speak about that a little bit, please? Kellie Mullin: So I’ve done some work with different organizations and also with individual teachers. Fred Jaravata: Right. You founded this, right? Kellie Mullin: Yes. Fred Jaravata: Yes, OK. Kellie Mullin: To help them not only look at just lesson plan formatting but also to do some of that integration of innovation and creativity into their lesson planning, so that you’re not just lecturing but finding opportunity – I really try and focus on finding opportunities to integrate design thinking, hands-on, student-centered experiential opportunities into lesson plans and ideas that are kind of very old school. Fred Jaravata: OK. So Kellie … Kellie Mullin: Yes. Fred Jaravata: … what are you most proud of? Kellie Mullin: I think that I’m most proud of the relationships that I form with my students and with the people with whom I work. I think Maya Angelou’s quote of, “People will remember how you make them feel,” is something that has stuck with me for most of my life because in the classroom, every lesson feels so important. But really what matters the most aside from the – you know, the lifelong love of learning I hope I’m instilling in my students is that they come into my room and they know that they are known and cared for and that they feel safe and that they’re able to be open to learning. The same with the people who I’m working with. I hope that they know that I’m supportive and that I’m available to be there and help them continue to grow just like I know that they’re here to help me grow. Fred Jaravata: Right. Yes, I agree with you there. We appreciate that. I know we talked about the 20 Percent Project earlier. We just glossed over that a little bit. But before we get to that, my next question is, “How do you inspire your students? Would that include the 20 Percent Project?” Kellie Mullin: I think – I hope so. I mean that’s … Fred Jaravata: Can you speak about that a little bit? Yeah, of how you inspire students. Kellie Mullin: I think that the process of coming to bring a project like this into my classroom has … Fred Jaravata: Can you explain real quick – sorry to interrupt. Can you explain the 20 Percent Project for those who do not … Kellie Mullin: Yes, I will. I think it began with this desire to really give my students an opportunity to learn what they’re passionate about, but also to learn how to find a passion. If you ask anyone to think about, “Well, what are you passionate about?” Fred Jaravata: That’s hard. Kellie Mullin: It’s really hard and to ask a seventh or an eighth grader what you’re passionate about. Fred Jaravata: Even for some adults, it’s hard too. Kellie Mullin: Right? That’s not in the mainstream media. It’s difficult and so the 20 Percent Project is an opportunity that I give my students based on the ideas of certain companies like Google that gave their engineers 20 percent of their work week to work on a project of their choice. It was related to what their job was. So this is my third year doing this project and what we do is I give them one day a week and there are parameters around this. But what I’m asking them to do is I’m asking them to find something that they are passionate about, some problem that they want to be involved in solving. Then we work through the design thinking process. We begin looking at the different states of design thinking with empathy, going to the process of ideation, creating ideas and it’s a little more than just brainstorming. It’s creating ideas that are different than what we already have today. Fred Jaravata: Right. Kellie Mullin: And then continuing through this process of looking at these ideas, choosing one idea that they really want to develop and then moving forward to prototyping and testing and then going through that process again potentially. Fred Jaravata: Yes. Can you name a project that you liked so far or a couple that you liked so far that the girls have made? Kellie Mullin: You know, I’m really excited about all of the projects this year. It has taken a while to get to a place where I could inspire them to choose projects that were big enough, that they felt like moonshot ideas. Fred Jaravata: Moonshot ideas. Kellie Mullin: That I really focus on this idea of constructive failure that it’s – I want them to think big. But I’m allowing them to think big in a safe environment. So thinking of some topics of – there are a lot of students who are really interested in food in terms of the waste that goes into agricultural production, the amount of food waste that we have that potentially could be going to better uses, all the way to projects where students are worried about how can we better support body image in young women. How can we support students that are dealing with cancer and students with – children dealing with cancer and hair loss and things like that? Fred Jaravata: Right. Kellie Mullin: So there’s a wide gamut of ideas. Fred Jaravata: Now, it’s a great thing you’re doing and you’re in your third year and it’s amazing. So I think one of the shining projects in our schools. Kellie Mullin: Thank you. Fred Jaravata: How do you find the time to do this besides your curriculum, your regular curriculum that you’re doing? How do you find time to do this project? Kellie Mullin: So that’s a good question. Part of what I’ve been experimenting with – Fred Jaravata: Experimenting, keyword, right? Kellie Mullin: Exactly. I think of it as almost my own 20 Percent Project. How do I … Fred Jaravata: Your own 20 Percent Project. OK. Kellie Mullin: So it has taken a lot of time outside of what I would normally spend on grading papers and creating lesson plans. Fred Jaravata: But you don’t have to do this, right? Kellie Mullin: I don’t have to do this. Fred Jaravata: But you want to do this. Kellie Mullin: I’m just passionate about it. One of the things that I’ve tried doing with my science class is I’ve actually tried flipping the classroom. I read a lot of research about how it had worked really well and continues to work really well at the university and the high school level. But I really hadn’t found much about how it impact – you know, how does it work for middle school students? So far, it has been pretty positive. I see a lot of the students there responding well to the flipped classroom model where I am recording videos that they listen to and take notes from and do some questions. Then that makes our in-class time and lab time much more active, so that we’re able to have that time to still do the 20 Percent Project. Fred Jaravata: OK. That’s really cool. All right. So you found a time to do this. OK. Can you share with us, share with the listener, the teachers out there, a time-saving tip? Kellie Mullin: Time-saving tip. Fred Jaravata: Yeah. Kellie Mullin: I really do think that Google – all of the education apps are time-saving because when you know where your documents are, they’re in the drive. I don’t have to have my laptop with me. I don’t have to have – I can have any device. That’s a time-saving tool for me. Keeping my drive organized which is really difficult. But making sure that I’m labeling all of my documents, those little things, taking notes. I save time by taking a little extra time when I’m creating documents and when I’m saving documents. Fred Jaravata: Right now. You’re doing it right then in the moment. Kellie Mullin: Right. Fred Jaravata: So that you’re trying to save time for your future self. Kellie Mullin: Uh-huh, versus recreating a worksheet that you know you have. You just can’t find. In the long run, it takes a lot longer than the two extra seconds it takes to name it appropriately. Fred Jaravata: And saving them all in Google Drive, right? And not just on the computer where the computer can go missing or can crash and burn. Kellie Mullin: Exactly. Fred Jaravata: That’s a great tip. OK. So Kellie, these two next questions are the last couple of questions about advice. Can you share with us the best advice that you received and what is the advice – it may be the same – best advice you want to give teachers out there? Kellie Mullin: I think some of the best advice that I’ve received from anyone is about always trying to grow. So I’ve gone to some professional developments and really been struck by the ideas of failure as a first attempt in learning and … [Crosstalk] [0:27:52] Kellie Mullin: Exactly, and constructive failure being – you know, not allowing ourselves to be paralyzed with fear by failure. But to see opportunities for growth and how to learn from things that don’t work exactly the way they are. So I guess the advice is just that the word “failure” and “fail” isn’t negative. It’s only negative if you live in the failure, if you live in the things that don’t work rather than to use them as inspiration to become better. Fred Jaravata: To become better. All right. OK, Kellie. So, that is all I have for you. We like to give teachers a way to – our listeners a way to contact you. They can either contact me directly or they can contact you directly. Is there an email, a website that you would like listeners to get in contact with you? Kellie Mullin: There is. There is an email. I’m happy to communicate with anyone who’s interested in bringing the 20 Percent Project into their own classroom or is interested also in creative confidence or the culture of innovation. I’m definitely looking for classrooms and schools that feel like they are successful at bringing the culture of innovation to fruition, as I’m embarking on my dissertation process. So I definitely encourage people to contact me. Fred Jaravata: OK. Kellie Mullin: Should I spell it right now? Fred Jaravata: Yeah, you could do it right now. Go for it. Kellie Mullin: All right. Great! So my email address kmullin@straymond.org. Fred Jaravata: All right. Miss Mullin, thank you so much for joining our show and keep up the good work that you’re doing. Kellie Mullin: Thank you so much for having me. It had been a lot of fun. [Thank you for listening to the Teaching Bites Podcast at www.TeachingBites.com]