Podcast appearances and mentions of Richard Cook

For this episode we're joined in person by the delightful Siân Pattenden, author of the Agatha Bilke and Magical Peppers children's book series. We start by asking our guest about her early years as a child actor and teenage playwright before she describes the fanzines she published with her pal Nicky Fijalkowska. We hear how these helped to get her foot in the door at Smash Hits, the million-selling pop bi-weekly she joined in 1989. Quotes from classic Hits pieces she wrote are interspersed with hilarious recollections of working alongside Tom Doyle and Sylvia Patterson.  From "Ver Hits" we move on to the more indie-tastic Select and Siân's part in the Britpop wars – with special attention to Elastica, Jarvis Cocker and a pulped July 1994 issue that contained her guide to "legal highs". After reminiscences of a stint teaching music writing at the London School of Journalism, Siân explains the genesis of her 1998 book How to Make It in the Music Business. Mention of a 2007 Guardian Blogs piece bemoaning the "boy-rock" template established by the Beatles leads into reflections on the all-girl Bangles, subject of a new authorised biography by two-time RBP podcast guest Jennifer Otter Bickerdike. The desperately sad passing of David Johansen prompted us to dig out and digitise a 1994 audio interview with the sometime New York Dolls frontman. We hear three clips of David talking very amusingly to Q's Mat Snow – and in the process pay tribute to the singer and his fellow Dolls.  After Jasper marks the 70th anniversary of the death of Charlie Parker with quotes from the late Richard Cook's magnificent 1995 piece about the bebop genius, we pay additional tribute to jazz-funk vibraphonist Roy Ayers and neo-soul queen Angie Stone. Many thanks to special guest Siân Pattenden. Visit her website at sianpattenden.co.uk for more info on her books, art and music. Pieces discussed: En Vogue: Dawn! Maxine! Terry! Cindy!, At Home in L.A. with Paula Abdul!, This is the Future: Elastica — the Bash Street Kids, Meet the Sheatles, The Bangs: Not Just Another Girl Group, The Bangles: a Female Fab Four?, The Bangles: Globe Trotters, The Bangles: Eternal Flame, The New York Dolls' David Johansen (1994), Charlie Parker: The Prince of Wails, Roy Ayers, Angie Stone: Precious and Pure, Dancing in New York Emmylou Harris: Emmylou on the Verge and The Swede Smell of Success.

Dr. Matthew Bennett, Chair of the CCS Planetary Health Working Group, is joined by Dr. Richard Cook, a cardiac surgeon with a passion for patient and planetary health as they discuss how to make positive changes in your organization when it comes to consumption and carbon output. They discuss the importance of identifying someone who is accountable to making changes and has the resources to do so. Dr. Richard Cook will speak about the Green Team his institution implemented and the effects he's seen from that. To learn how you can do this too, give this episode a listen!

Bad Religion: Los Angeles is Burning******************************************************************************************Oh, and give your money to Punk Rock Saves Lives. They're a rad organization that works in mental health, addiction, and human rights. And they're awesome people who can use your help to keep on kicking ass at what they do.https://www.punkrocksaveslives.org/Let us know what you think at info@punkrocksafety.com or on our LinkedIn page.Merch at punkrocksafetymerch.com

Guest Speaker: Richard Cook - Finding the Jesus Way | Sunday November 10th 2024

Richard Cook, Co-Founder of Cook and Bynum, stops by The Business Brew to discuss his approach to global investing. Richard discusses his concentrated investment strategies, focusing on emerging markets, government dynamics, consumer behavior, and intrinsic value. Highlighting key investments in markets like Mexico, Turkey, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, Richard discusses operational execution, investor relations, and long-term strategic planning. The episode also covers strategic investments during the Greek financial crisis, the role of conservative management, and the importance of understanding market dynamics. With reflections on experiences in South Africa, Costa Rica, and Turkey, this conversation offers invaluable insights into global investment strategies and the essential qualities of successful business leaders. Tune in to gain expert knowledge on navigating global investments and building a successful investment firm.    00:00 Welcome to The Business Brew  00:07 Introducing Richard Cook  00:45 Investment Philosophy and Strategy  01:09 Shoutout to the Editing Team  02:30 Starting the Interview with Richard Cook  03:02 Emerging Markets and Government Influence  04:15 Investment Holdings and Long-Term Strategy  07:47 The Power of Buybacks and Controlling Shareholders  14:44 Avoiding Bias in Investment Decisions  19:08 Lessons from Past Investments  24:54 Navigating Market Cycles  34:18 Insights on Bottling Businesses  46:58 Premiumization in the Beverage Industry  48:15 Global Consumption Patterns  49:53 Investment Strategies and Intrinsic Value  51:29 Challenges in Forecasting Business Durability  53:32 Insights on Company Valuation  55:15 Case Study: Kraft and Mondelez  59:01 AB InBev and Craft Beer Market  01:09:59 Investment in Jumbo During Greek Crisis  01:20:39 Evaluating Emerging Markets  01:25:55 Building an Investment Firm  01:28:34 Conclusion and Final Thoughts 

TRANSLATION MENU: LOOK UPPER RIGHT BELOW THE SOCIAL MEDIA ICONS. IT OFFERS EVERY LANGUAGE AVAILABLE AROUND THE WORLD! ALSO, SOCIAL MEDIA AND PRINT ICONS ARE AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST! Pictured above: Richard Cook and his latest book, “Our Country Then and Now”. Sixteen years on the streets, living and working with the people...

⭐️ Start your passion project with Hostinger here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.hostinger.com/girlsinmarketing⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⭐️ Gain exclusive access to the social media strategies, tactics, and lessons that have propelled Monzo's social media success as a disrupter bank. In this episode of The Girls in Marketing Podcast, Olivia sits down with social media royalty, Richard Cook, Social Media Lead at Monzo Bank, as he delves into the captivating world of social media marketing. In this episode, you'll discover the journey behind Monzo's remarkable success in social media marketing as Richard shares his invaluable insights and strategies, despite having an untraditional route into marketing. This episode discusses: Building a multi-platform social media strategy Working with an FCA-regulated brand Adopting a creative approach to social media Having an untraditional route into marketing A huge thank you to Richard for coming to Liverpool to record the podcast. We hope you enjoy this episode, if you did please leave a review and follow our page

GUEST 1 OVERVIEW: Paul Gottfried is a Paleoconservative, historian of political thought, editor Chronicles Magazine. GUEST 2 OVERVIEW: Richard C. Cook is a Co-Founder and Lead Investigator for the American Geopolitical Institute. Mr. Cook is a retired U.S. federal analyst with extensive experience across various government agencies, including the U.S. Civil Service Commission, FDA, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury. As a whistleblower at the time of the Challenger disaster, he exposed the flawed O-ring joints that destroyed the Shuttle, documenting his story in his book "Challenger Revealed." After serving at Treasury, he became a vocal critic of the private-finance-controlled monetary system, detailing his concerns in "We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform." He served as an advisor to the American Monetary Institute and worked with Congressman Dennis Kucinich to advocate for replacing the Federal Reserve with a genuine national currency. His latest book is "Our Country, Then and Now" (Clarity Press, 2023). https://www.claritypress.com/product/our-country-then-and-now/ In this book, Mr. Cook postulates that our country has lost touch with its founding principles, among which is the Bill of Rights, which we must reaffirm to survive as a nation

GUEST OVERVIEW: Richard C. Cook is a Co-Founder and Lead Investigator for the American Geopolitical Institute. Mr. Cook is a retired U.S. federal analyst with extensive experience across various government agencies, including the U.S. Civil Service Commission, FDA, the Carter White House, NASA, and the U.S. Treasury. As a whistleblower at the time of the Challenger disaster, he exposed the flawed O-ring joints that destroyed the Shuttle, documenting his story in his book "Challenger Revealed." After serving at Treasury, he became a vocal critic of the private-finance-controlled monetary system, detailing his concerns in "We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform." He served as an advisor to the American Monetary Institute and worked with Congressman Dennis Kucinich to advocate for replacing the Federal Reserve with a genuine national currency. His latest book is "Our Country, Then and Now" (Clarity Press, 2023). https://www.claritypress.com/product/our-country-then-and-now/ In this book, Mr. Cook postulates that our country has lost touch with its founding principles, among which is the Bill of Rights, which we must reaffirm to survive as a nation.

On the latest episode of Real Chicks Rock! Presents Real Discussions: Real Chicks Rock!.  I enjoyed this engaging and thought-provoking conversation.  We explore the world of music with guests Richard Cook and Ron Smith. From our diverse musical backgrounds to promoting unknown artists, we discuss the soul symphony and the importance of storytelling through music. 'The Soul Symphony' will be held at Morehouse College's King Chapel. They chose Morehouse because it is a beautiful and well-equipped venue that aligns with the spirit of Black History Month. They emphasized the importance of supporting HBCUs and giving students opportunities to attend them. Additionally, my guests mention that a portion of the proceeds from the event will go towards scholarships at the university, underscoring their commitment to supporting diversity in education. I highly recommend listening to the episode to hear more about Ron & Richard's inspiring story. . . #Atlanta #BlkCreatives #EmpoweringPeople #ROCkon #RealChicksRock #RCR #RealDiscussions #RealChicksRockPresentsPodcast #TheSoulSyphony #EricRoberson #RhondaThomas #StephanieMills #AverySunchine #SoulMusic #RnB #Jazz #MorehouseCollege  #Media #LyveTv #StatusNetwork #Lifestylepodcast #Podcast #Podcaster #PodcastersofInstagram #Podcastlifestyle #ShePodcasts #SupportBrownPodcasts #ApplePodcasts #Spotify #AmazonMusic

What if some of your hometown's oldest, most haunted spaces were hidden in plain sight?  What if they were so hidden, you quite literally walk and/or drive by them every day? The hometown in question is the museum's hometown of Houston, Texas. And today's guest, Texana Tours founder Richard Cook, joins the podcast to talk about places where you'd no doubt experience things from another dimension. Genevieve and Richard discuss the Jeff Davis Hotel (now an apartment complex) and the Donnellan Family Crypt, just two of many examples of paranormal places around the Greater Houston area. They tie it back to the museum's larger mission to educate and inform the public about the final rite of passage that we will all experience. Death. To learn more about Texana Tours, contact Richard HERE. To plan your visit to The National Museum of Funeral History, go HERE.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of Our American Stories, Richard Cook tells us the story of how in 1943 the town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee was established and went from 58,000 acres of farmland to a town of 75,000 people. The town's purpose? To beat Germany to the atomic bomb. Ed Westcott was the one man in Oak Ridge with a camera, and he captured it all. See his pictures HERE. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For guests Dom Monkhouse and Richard Cook, one thing's for certain – if you're not doing PR, you're not driving the sales you could be. The pair join B2B Marketing's deputy editor, Lucy Gillman, to unpack PR's role as a sales enablement tool and how you can make the most out of it. They debunk some common c-suite misconceptions, discuss why you've been measuring PR the wrong way, why getting it right starts with speaking to sales, and creating page three-worthy coverage (no, not in that way). To find out more about B2B PR for Growth, click here: https://www.b2bmarketing.net/en-gb/resources/news/news-recent-research-sheds-light-state-pr-b2b?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=cta&utm_campaign=b2b_pr_for_growth&utm_term=episode_85:_unlocking_pr_as_a_sales_enablement_tool_with_champion_communications And make sure you tune in every other week to The B2B Marketing Podcast as we continue our journey into PR! If you liked this episode check these out: Why PR is your next business driver: https://soundcloud.com/b2bmarketingpod/episode-81-why-pr-is-your-next-business-driver-with-champion-communications?si=af5c09a8ece847cd980b4fdc1ab321a7&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=podcast&utm_term=episode_81 Using PR to generate long-term growth: https://soundcloud.com/b2bmarketingpod/episode-83-using-pr-to-generate-long-term-growth-with-champion-communications?si=6b49d311e71f4c1580b434f91a55b842&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing?&utm_source=editorial&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=podcast&utm_term=episode_83:_using_pr_to_generate_long-term_growth_with_champion_communications

Morwenna Coniam, Dublin Bureau Chief at Bloomberg News, joined John to chat through some of the business news stories from the week.On Thursday, the Local Enterprise Office in Kilkenny hosted their Showcase Event for Start-Up Businesses, an event which was specifically designed to help start-up businesses understand and find out more about the services available from organisations with a remit for enterprise development. While at the event, John Purcell spoke with a number of people to hear about how their organisations can help start-up businesses. Richard Cook, known in these parts for launching the Cat Laughs, Kilkenomics and Subtitle Festivals spoke with John about the business of film and tv production and its impact on the local economy, as he's in the thick of filming a drama series for British TV in Kilkenny.Ciara and Robert Stanley joined John in studio to talk about their Coppenagh House Farm Shop, Ciara's embroidery business and their Ballybar Ireland brand which sells high end work shirts, neck gaiters and other items such as travel mugs and tote bags.With thanks to Carlow & Kilkenny Local Enterprise Offices, Produced by Deirdre DromeyTo contact the show, email: thebottomline@kclr96fm.com

Laura Maguire is a Researcher at Jeli.io, the first dedicated instant analysis platform that combines more comprehensive data to deliver more proactive solutions and identify problems. Victoria talks to Laura about incident management, giving companies a powerful tool to learn from their incidents, and what types of customers are ideal for taking on a platform like Jeli.io. Jeli.io (https://www.jeli.io/) Follow Jeli.io on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/jeli_io/), Twitter (https://twitter.com/jeli_io) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/jeli-inc/). Follow Laura Maguire on Twitter (https://twitter.com/LauraMDMaguire) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauramaguire/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: VICTORIA: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Victoria Guido. And with me today is Laura Maguire, Researcher at Jeli, the first dedicated instant analysis platform that combines more comprehensive data to deliver more proactive solutions and identify problems. Laura, thank you for joining me. LAURA: Thanks for having me, Victoria. VICTORIA: This might be a very introductory level question but just right off the bat, what is an incident? LAURA: What we find is a lot of companies define this very differently across the space, but typically, it's where they are seeing an impact, either a customer impact or a degradation of their service. This can be either formally, it kind of impacts their SLOs or their SLAs, or informally it's something that someone on the team notices or someone, you know, one of their users notice as being degraded performance or something not working as intended. VICTORIA: Gotcha. From my background being in IT operations, I'm familiar with incidents, and it's been a practice in IT for a long time. But what brought you to be a part of building this platform and creating a product around incidents? LAURA: I am a, let's say, recovering safety professional. VICTORIA: [chuckles] LAURA: I started my career in the safety and risk management realm within natural resource industries in the physical world. And so I worked with people who were at the sharp end in high-risk, high-consequence type work. And they were really navigating risk and navigating safety in the real world. And as I was working in this domain, I noticed that there was a delta between what was being said, created safety, and helped risk management and what I was actually seeing with the people that I was working with on the front lines. And so I started to pull the thread on this, and I thought, is work as done really the same as work as written or work as prescribed? And what I found was a whole field of research, a whole field of practice around thinking about safety and risk management in the world of cognitive work. And so this is how people think about risk, how they manage risk, and how do they interpret change and events in the world around them. And so as I started to do my master's degree in human factors and system safety and then later my Ph.D. in cognitive systems engineering, I realized that whether you are on the frontlines of a wildland fire or you're on the frontlines of responding to an incident in the software realm, the ways in which people detect, diagnose, and repair the issues that they're facing are quite similar in terms of the cognitive work. And so when I was starting my Ph.D. work, I was working with Dr. David Woods at the Cognitive Systems Engineering Lab at The Ohio State University. And I came into it, and I was thinking I'm going to work with astronauts, or with fighter pilots, or emergency room doctors, these really exciting domains. And he was like, "We're going to have you work with software engineers." And at first, I really failed to see the connection there, but as I started to learn more about site reliability engineering, about DevOps, about the continuous deployment, continuous integration world, I realized software engineers are really at the forefront of managing critical digital infrastructure. They're keeping up the systems that run society, both for recreation and pleasure in the sense of Netflix, for example, as well as the critical functions within society like our 911 call routing systems, our financial markets. And so the ability to study how software engineers detect outages, manage outages, and work together collaboratively across the team was really giving us a way to study this kind of work that could actually feed back into other types of domains like emergency response, like emergency rooms, and even back to the fighter pilots and astronauts. VICTORIA: Wow, that's so interesting. And so is your research that went into your Ph.D. did that help you help define the product strategy and kind of market fit for what you've been building at Jeli? LAURA: Yeah, absolutely. So Nora Jones, who is the founder and CEO of Jeli, reached out to me at a conference and told me a little bit about what she was thinking about, about how she wanted to support software engineers using a lot of this literature and a lot of the learnings from these other domains to build this product to help support incident management in software engineering. So we base a lot of our thinking around how to help support this cognitive work and how to help resilient performance in these very dynamic, these very changing large scale, you know, distributed software systems on this research, as well as the research that we do with our own users and with our own members from learning from incidents in software engineering Slack community that Nora and several other fairly prominent names within the software community started, Lorin Hochstein, John Allspaw Dr. Richard Cook, Jessica DeVita, Ryan Kitchens, and I may be missing someone else but...and myself, oh, Will Galego as well. Yeah, we based a lot of our understandings, really deep qualitative understandings of what is work like for software engineers when they're, you know, in continuous deployment type environments. And we've translated this into building a product that we think helps but not hinders by getting in the way of engineers while they're under time pressure and there's a lot of uncertainty. And there's often quite a bit of stress involved with responding to incidents. VICTORIA: Right. And you mentioned resilience engineering. And for those who don't know, David Woods, who you worked on with your Ph.D., wrote "Resilience Engineering: Concepts and Precepts." So maybe you could talk a little bit about resilience engineering and what that really means, not just in technology but in the people who were running the tools, right? LAURA: Yeah. So resilience engineering is different from how we think about protecting and defending our software systems. And it's different in the sense that we aren't just thinking about how do we prevent incidents from happening again, like, how do we fix things that have happened to us in the past? But how do we better understand the ways in which our systems operate under a wide variety of conditions? So that includes normal operating conditions as well as abnormal or anomalous operating conditions, such as an incident response. And so resilience engineering was kind of this way of thinking differently about predicting failure, about managing failure, and navigating these kinds of worlds. And one of the fundamental differences about it is it sees people as being the most adaptive component within the system of work. So we can have really good processes and practices around deploying code; we can institute things like cross-checking and peer review of code; we can have really good robust backup and failover systems, but ultimately, it's very likely that in these kinds of complex and adaptive always-changing systems that you're going to encounter problems that you weren't able to anticipate. And so this is where the resilience part comes in because if you're faced with a novel problem, if you're faced with an issue you've never seen before, or a hidden dependency within your system, or an unanticipated failure mode, you have to adapt. You have to be able to take all of the information that's available to you in the moment. You have to interpret that in real-time. You have to think of who else might have skills, knowledge, expertise, access to information, or access to certain kinds of systems or software components. And you have to bring all of those people together in real-time to be able to manage the problem at hand. And so this is really quite a different way of thinking about supporting this work than just let's keep the runbooks updated, and let's make sure that we can write prescriptive processes for everything that we're going to encounter. Because this really is the difference that I saw when I was talking about earlier about that work is done versus work is prescribed. The rules don't cover all of the situations. And so you have to think of how do you help people adapt? How do you help people access information in real-time to be able to handle unforeseen failures? VICTORIA: Right. That makes a lot of sense. It's an interesting evolution of site reliability engineering where you're thinking about the users' experience of your site. It's also thinking about the people who are running your site and what their experience is, and what freedom they have to be able to solve the problems that you wouldn't be able to predict, right? LAURA: Yeah, it's a really good point, actually, because there is sort of this double layer in the product that we are building. So, as you mentioned earlier, we are an incident analysis platform, and so what does that mean? Well, it means that we pull in data whenever there's been an incident, and we help you to look at it a little bit more deeply than you may if you're just following a template and sort of reconstructing a timeline. And so we pull in the actual Slack data that, you know, say, an ops channel or an incident channel that's been spun up following a report of a degraded performance or of an outage. And we look very closely at how did people talk to one another? Who did they bring into the incident? What kinds of things did they think were relevant and important at different points in time? And in doing this, it helps us to understand what information was available to people at different points in time. Because after the incident and after it's been resolved, people often look back and say, "Oh, there's nothing we can learn from that. We figured out what it was." But if we go back and we start looking at how people detected it, how they diagnosed it, who they brought into the event, we can start to unpack these patterns and these ways of understanding how do people work together? What information is useful at different points in time? Which helps us get a deeper understanding of how our systems actually work and how they actually fail. VICTORIA: Right. And I see there are a few different ways the platform does that: there's a narrative builder, a people view, and also a visual timeline. So, do you find that combining all those things together really gives companies a powerful tool to learn from their incidents? LAURA: Yeah. So let me talk a little bit about each of those different components. Our MVP of the product we started out with this understanding of the incident analyst and the incident investigator who, you know, was ready to dive in and ready to understand their incident and apply some qualitative analysis techniques to thinking about their incidents. And what we found was there are a number of these people who are really interested in this deep dive within the software industry. But there's a broader subset of folks that they work with who maybe only do these kinds of incident analysis every once in a while, and they're not as interested in going quite as deep. And so the narrative builder is really this kind of bridge between those two types of users. And what it does is helps construct a timeline which is typically what most companies do to help drive the discussion that they might have in a post-mortem or to drive their kind of findings in their summary report. And it helps them take this closer look at the interactions that happened in that slack transcript and raise questions about what kinds of uncertainties there were, point out who was involved, or interesting aspects of the event at that point in time. And it helps them to summarize what was happening. What did people think was happening at this point in time to create this story about the incident? And the story element is really important because we all learn from stories. It helps bring to life some of the details about what was hard, who was involved, how did they get brought in, what the sources of technical failure were, and whether those were easy or difficult to understand and to repair once the source of the failure was actually understood. And so that narrative builder helps reconstruct this timeline in a much richer way but also do it very efficiently. And as you mentioned, the visual timeline is something that we've created to help that lightweight user or that every once in a while user to go a little bit deeper on their analysis. And how we do that is because it lays out the progression of the event in a way that helps you see, oh, this maybe wasn't straightforward. We didn't detect it in the beginning, and then diagnose it, and then repair it at the end. What happened actually was the detection was intermittent. The signals about what was going wrong was intermittent, and so that was going on in parallel with the diagnosis. The diagnosis took a really long time, and that may have been because we can also see the repair was happening concurrently. And so it starts to show these kinds of characteristics about whether the incident was difficult, whether it was challenging and hard, or whether it was simple and straightforward. This helps lend a bit more depth to metrics like MTTR and TTD by saying, oh, there was a lot more going on in this incident than we initially thought. The last thing that you mentioned was the people view, and so that really sets our product apart from other products in that we look at the sociotechnical system. So it's not just about the software that broke; it is about who was involved in managing that system, in repairing that system, and in communicating about that system outwardly. And so the people view this kind of pulls in some HR data. It helps us to understand who was involved. How long have they been in their role? Were they on-call? Were they not on-call? And other kinds of irrelevant details that show us what was their engagement or their interaction with this event. And so when we start to bring in the socio part of the sociotechnical system, we can identify things like what knowledge do we have within the organization? Is that knowledge well-distributed, or is it just isolated in one or two people? And so those people are constantly getting pulled into incidents when they may be not on-call, which can start to show us whether or not these folks are in danger of burning out or whether their knowledge might need to be transferred more broadly throughout the organization. So this is kind of where the resilience piece comes in because it helps us to distribute knowledge. It helps us to identify who is relevant and useful and how do they partner and collaborate with other people, and their knowledge and skill sets to be able to manage some of the outages that they face? VICTORIA: That's wonderful because one of my follow-up questions would be, as a CEO, as a founder, what kind of insights or choices do you get to make now that you have this insight to help make your team more resilient? [laughs] LAURA: So if this is a manager, or a founder, or a CEO that is looking at their data in Jeli, they can start to understand how to resource their teams more appropriately, as I mentioned, how to spread that knowledge around. They can start to see what parts of their system are creating the most problems or what parts of their system do they have maybe less insight into how it works, how it interacts with other parts of the system, and what this actually means for their ability to meet their SLOs or their SLAs. So it gives you a more in-depth understanding of how your business is actually operating on both the technical side of things, as well as on the people side of things. VICTORIA: That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for that overview of the platform. There's the incident analysis platform, and you also have the bot, the response chatbot. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? LAURA: Yeah, absolutely. We think that incident management should be conducted wherever your work actually takes place, and so for most of our customers and a lot of folks that we know about in the industry, that's Slack. And so, if you are communicating in real-time with your team in Slack, we think that you should stay there. And so, we built this incident management bot that is free and will be free for the lifetime of the product. Because we think that this is really the fundamental basis for helping you manage your incidents more efficiently and more effectively. So it's a pretty lightweight bot. It gives kind of some guardrails or some guidance around collaboration by spinning up a new incident channel, helping you to bring the right kinds of responders into that, helping you to communicate to interested stakeholders by broadcasting to channels they might be in. It kind of nudges you to think about how to communicate about what's happening during different stages of the event progression. And so it's prompting you in a very lightweight way; hey, do you have a status update? Do you have a summary of what the current thinking is? What are the hypotheses about what's going on? Who's conducting what kinds of activities right now? So that if I'm a responder that's coming into the event after 20-30 minutes after it started, I can very quickly come up to speed, understand what's going on, who's doing what, and figure out what's useful for me to do to help step in and not disrupt the incident management that's underway right now. Our users can choose to use the bot independently of the incident analysis platform. But of course, being able to ingest that incident into Jeli it helps you understand who's been involved in the incident, if they've been involved in similar incidents in the past, and helps them start to see some patterns and some themes that emerge over time when you start to look at incidents across the organization. VICTORIA: That makes sense. And I love that it's free and that there's something for every type of organization to take advantage of there. And I wonder if at Jeli you have data about what type of customer is it who'd be targeted or really ideal to take on this kind of platform. LAURA: So most organizations...I was actually recently at SREcon EMEA, and there was a really interesting series of talks; one was SRE for Enterprise, and the next talk was SRE for Startups. And so it was a very thought-provoking discussion around is SRE for everyone, so site reliability engineering? Even smaller teams are starting to have to be responsible for reliability and responsible for running their service. And so we kind of have built our platform thinking about how do we help not just big enterprises or organizations that may have dedicated teams for this but also small startups to learn from their incidents. So internally, we actually call incidents opportunities as in they are learning opportunities for checking out how does your system actually work? How do your people work together? What things were difficult and challenging about the incident? And how do you talk about those things as a team to help create more resilient performance in future? So in terms of an ideal customer, it's really folks that are interested in conducting these sort of lightweight but in-depth looks at how their system actually works on both the people side of things and the technical side of things. Those who we found are most successful with our product are interested in not so much figuring out who did the thing and who can they blame for the incident itself but rather how do they learn from what happened? And would another engineer, or another product owner, another customer service representative, whoever the incident may be sort of focused around, would another person in their shoes have taken the same actions that they took or made the same decisions that they made? Which helps us understand from a systems level how do we repair or how do we adjust the system of work surrounding folks so that they are better supported when they're faced with uncertainty, or with that kind of time pressure, or that ambiguity about what's actually going on? VICTORIA: And I love that you said that because part of the reason [laughs] I invited you on to the podcast is that a lot of companies I have experience with don't think about incidents until it happens to them, and then it can be a scramble. It can impact their customer base. It can stress their team out. But if you go about creating...the term obviously you all use is psychological safety on your team, and maybe you use some of the free tools from Jeli like the Post-Incident Guide and the Incident Analysis 101 blog to set your team up for success from the beginning, then you can increase your customer loyalty and your team loyalty as well to the company. Is that your experience? LAURA: Yeah, absolutely. So one thing that I have learned throughout my career, you know, starting way back in forestry and looking at safety and risk in that domain, was as soon as there is an accident or even a serious near miss, right away, everybody gets sweaty palms. Everybody is concerned about, uh-oh, am I going to get blamed for this? Am I going to get fired? Am I going to get publicly shamed for the decisions that I made when I was in this situation? And what that response, that reaction does is it drives a lot of the communication and a lot of the understanding of the conditions that that person was in. It drives that underground. And it's important to allow people to talk about here's what I was seeing, here's what I was experiencing because, in these kinds of complex systems, information is not readily available to people. The signals are not always coming through loud and clear about what's going on or about what the appropriate actions to take are. Instead, it's messy; it's loud, it's noisy. There are usually multiple different demands on that person's attention and on their time, and they're often managing trade-offs: do I keep the system down so that I can gather more information about what's actually going on, or do I just try and bring it up as quickly as I can so that there's less impact to users? Those kinds of decisions are having to be made under pressure. So when we create these conditions of psychological safety, when we say you know what? This happened. We want to learn from it. We've already made this investment. Richard Cook mentioned in the very first SNAFU Catchers Report, which was a report that came out of Ohio State, that incidents are unplanned investments into understanding how your system works. And so you've already had the incident. You've already paid the price of that downtime or of that outage. So you might as well extract some learning from it so that you can help create a safer and more resilient system in the future. So by helping people to reconstruct what was actually happening in real-time, not what they were retrospectively saying, "Oh, I should have done this," well, you didn't do that. So let's understand why you thought at that moment in time that was the right way to respond because, more than likely, other people in that same position would have made that same choice. And so it helps us to think more broadly about ways that we can support decision-making and sense-making under conditions of stress and uncertainty. And ultimately, that helps your system be more resilient and be more reliable for your customers. VICTORIA: What a great reframing: unplanned investment. [laughs] And if you don't learn from it, then you're going to lose out on what you've already invested that time in resolving it, right? LAURA: Absolutely. MID-ROLL AD: Are you an entrepreneur or start-up founder looking to gain confidence in the way forward for your idea? At thoughtbot, we know you're tight on time and investment, which is why we've created targeted 1-hour remote workshops to help you develop a concrete plan for your product's next steps. Over four interactive sessions, we work with you on research, product design sprint, critical path, and presentation prep so that you and your team are better equipped with the skills and knowledge for success. Find out how we can help you move the needle at: tbot.io/entrepreneurs. VICTORIA: Getting more into that psychological safety and how to create that culture where people feel safe telling about what really happened, but how does that relate to...Jeli says that they are a people software. [laughs] Talk to me more about that. Like, what advice do you give founders and CEOs on how to create that psychological safety which makes them be more resilient in these types of incidents? LAURA: So you mentioned the Howie Guide that we published last year, and this is our guidance around how to do incident analysis, how to help your team start to learn from their incidents, and Howie stands for how we got here. And that's really important, that language because what it says is there's a history that led up to this incident. And most teams, when they've had an outage, they'll kind of look backwards from that outage, maybe an hour, maybe a day, maybe to the last deploy. But they don't think about how the decisions got made to use that piece of software in the first place. They don't think about how did engineers actually get on-boarded to being on-call. They don't necessarily think about what kinds of skills, and knowledge, and expertise when we're hiring a DevOps engineer, and I'm using air quotes here or an SRE. What kinds of skills and knowledge do they actually have? Those are very broad terms. And what it means to be a DevOps engineer or an SRE is quite underspecified. And so the knowledge behind the folks that you might hire into the company is going to necessarily be very diverse. It's going to be partial and incomplete in many ways because not everyone can know everything about the system. And so, we need to have multiple diverse perspectives about how the system works, how our customers use that system, what kinds of pressures and constraints exist within our company that allow us some possibilities over others. We need to bring all of those perspectives together to get a more reflective picture of what was actually happening before this incident took place and how we actually got here. This reframing helps a lot of people disarm that initial defensiveness response or that initial, oh, shoot; I'm going to get in trouble for this kind of response. And it says to them, "Hey, you're a part of this bigger system of work. You are only one piece of this puzzle. And what we want to try and do is understand what was happening within the company, not just what you did, what you said, and what you decided." So once people realize that you're not just trying to find fault or place blame, but you're really trying to understand their work, and you're trying to understand their work with other teams and other vendors, and trying to understand their work relative to the competing demands that were going on, so those are some of the things that help create psychological safety. About ten years ago, John Allspaw and the team at Etsy put out The Etsy Debriefing Facilitation Guide, which also poses a number of questions and helps to frame the post-incident learnings in a way that moves it from the individual and looks more collectively at the company as a whole. And so these things are helpful for founders or for CEOs to help bring forward more information about what's really going on, more information about what are the real risks and threats and opportunities within the company, and gives you an opportunity to step back and do what we call microlearning, which is sharing knowledge about how the system works, sharing understandings of what people think is going on, and what people know about the system. We don't typically talk about those things unless there's a reason to, and incidents kind of give us that reason because they're uncomfortable and they can be painful. They can be very public. They can be very disruptive to what we think about how resilient and reliable we actually are. And so if you can kind of step away from this defensiveness and step away from this need to place blame and instead try and understand the conditions, you will get a lot more learning and a lot more resilience and reliability out of your teams and out of your systems. VICTORIA: That makes sense to me. And I'd like to draw a connection between that and some other things you mentioned with The 2022 Accelerate State of DevOps Report that highlights that the people who are often responding to those incidents or in that high-stress situation tend to be historically underrepresented or historically excluded groups. And so do you see that having this insight into both who is actually taking on a lot of the work when these incidents happen and creating that psychological safety can make a better environment for diversity, equity, inclusion at a company as well? LAURA: Well, I think anytime you work to establish trust and transparency, and you focus on recognizing the skills that people do have, the knowledge that they do have, and not over assuming that someone knows something or that they have been involved in the discussions that may have been relevant to an incident, anytime you focus on that trust and transparency you are really signaling to people within your organization that you value their contributions and that you recognize that they've come to work and trying to do a good job. But they have multiple competing demands on their attention and on their time. And so we're not making assumptions about people being complacent, or people being reckless or being sloppy in their work. So that creates an environment where people feel more willing to speak up and to talk about some of the challenges that they might face, to talk about the ways in which it's not clear to them how certain parts of the system work or how certain teams actually operate. So you're just opening the channels for communication, which helps to share more knowledge. It helps to share more information about what teams are doing at different points in time. And this helps people to preemptively anticipate how a change that they might be making in their part of the system could be influencing up or downstream teams. And so this helps create more resilience because now you're thinking laterally about your system and about your involvement across teams and across boundary lines. And an example of this is if a marketing team...this is a story that Nora tells quite a bit; if a marketing team is, say, launching a Super Bowl commercial for their company but they don't actually tell the engineers on-call that that is about to happen, you can create all sorts of breakdowns when all of a sudden you have this surge of traffic to your website because people see the Super Bowl commercial and they want to go to the site. And then you have a single person who's trying to respond to that in real-time. So, instead, when you do start thinking about that trust and transparency, you're helping teams to help each other and to think more broadly about how their work is actually impacting other parts of the system. So from a diversity and inclusion and underrepresented groups perspective, this is creating the conditions for more people to be involved, more people to feel like their voice is going to be heard, and that their perspective actually matters. VICTORIA: That sounds really powerful, and I'm glad we were able to touch on that. Shifting gears a little bit, I wanted to talk about two different questions; so one is if you could travel back in time to when Jeli first started, what advice would you give yourself, your past self? LAURA: I would encourage myself to recognize that our ability to experiment is fundamental to our ability to learn. And learning is what helps us to iterate faster. Learning is what helps us to reflect on the tool that we're building or the feature that we're building and what this actually means to our users. I actually copped that advice to myself from CEO Zoran Perkov of the Long-Term Stock Exchange. They launched a whole new stock market during the pandemic with a fully remote team. And I had interviewed him for an article that I wrote about resilient leadership. And he said to me, like, "My job as a CEO is 100% about protecting our ability to experiment as a company because if we stop learning, we're not going to be able to iterate. We're not going to be able to adapt to the changes that we see in the market and in our users." So I think I would tell myself to continually experiment. One of the things that I talk to our customers about a lot because many of them are implementing new incident management programs or they're trying to level up their engineering teams around incident analysis, and I would say, "This doesn't have to be a fully-fleshed out program where you know all of the ways in which this is going to unfold." It's really about trying experiments, conduct some training, start small. Do one incident analysis on a really particularly spicy incident that you may have had or a really challenging incident where a lot of people were surprised by what happened. Bring together that group and say, "Hey, we're going to try something a little bit different here. We'll use some questions from the Howie Guide. We'll use the format and the structure from the Etsy Debriefing Guide. And we're just going to try and learn what we can about this event. We're not going to try and place blame. We're not going to try and generate corrective actions. We just want to see what we can learn from this." Then ask people that were involved, "How did this go? What did we learn from it? What should we do differently next time?" And continually iterate on those small, little experiments so that you can grow your product and grow your team's capacity. I think it took us a little bit of time to figure that out within the organization, but once we did, we were just able to collaborate more effectively work more effectively by integrating some of the feedback that we were getting from our users. And then the last piece of advice that I would give myself is to really invest in cross-discipline coordination and collaboration. Engineers, designers, researchers, CEOs they all have a different view of the product. They all have a different understanding of what the goals and priorities are. And those mental models of the product and of what the right thing to do is are constantly changing. And they all have different language that they use to talk about the product and to talk about their processes for integrating this understanding of the changing conditions and the changing user into the product. And so I would say invest in establishing common ground across the different disciplines within your team to be able to talk about what people are seeing, to be able to stop and identify when we're making assumptions about what other people know or what other people's orientation towards the problem or towards the product are. And spend a little bit of time saying, "When I say this is important, I'm saying it's important because of XYZ, not just this is important." So spending a little bit of time elaborating on what your mental model is and where you're drawing from can help the teams work more effectively together across those disciplines. VICTORIA: That's pretty powerful advice. You're iterating and experimenting at Jeli. What's on the horizon that you are...what new experiments are you excited about? LAURA: One of the things that has been front and center for us since we started is this idea of cross-incident analysis. And so we've kind of built out a number of different features within the product, being able to help tag the incident with the relevant services and technologies that were involved, being able to identify which teams were involved, and also being able to identify different kinds of themes or patterns that emerge from individual incidents. So all of this data that we can get from mostly just from the ingested incident itself or from the incident that you bring into Jeli but also from the analysis that you do on it this helps us start to be able to see across incidents what's happening not just with the technical side of things. So is it always Travis that is causing a problem? Are there components that work together that kind of have these really hidden and strange interdependencies that are really hard for the team to actually cope with? What kinds of themes are emerging across your suite of opportunities, your suite of incidents that you've ingested? Some of the things that we're starting to see from those experiments is an ability to look at where are your knowledge islands within your organization? Do you have an engineer who, if they were to leave, would take the majority of your systems knowledge about your database, or about your users, or about some critical aspect of your system that would disappear with all of that tacit knowledge? Or are there engineers that work really effectively together during really difficult incidents? And so you can start to unpack what are these characteristics of these people, and of these teams, and of these technologies that offer both opportunities or threats to your organization? So basically, what we're doing is we're helping you to see how your system performs under different kinds of conditions, which I think as a safety and risk professional working in a variety of different domains for the last 15 years, I think this is really where the rubber hits the road in helping teams be more reliable, and be more resilient, and more proactive about where investments in maintenance, or training, or headcount are going to have the biggest bang for your buck. VICTORIA: That makes a lot of sense. In my experience, sometimes those decisions are made more on intuition or on limited data so having a more full picture to rely on probably produces better results. [laughs] LAURA: Yeah, and I think that we all want to be data-driven, thinking about not only the quantitative data is how many incidents do we have around certain parts of the system, or certain teams, or certain services? But also, the qualitative side of things is what does this actually mean? And what does this mean to our ability to grow and change over time and to scale? The partnership of that quantitative data and qualitative data means we're being data-driven on a whole other level. VICTORIA: Wonderful. And it seems like we're getting close to the end of our time here. Is there anything else you want to give as a final takeaway to our listeners? LAURA: Yeah. So I think that we are, you know, as a domain, as a field, software engineering is increasingly becoming responsible for not only critical infrastructure within society, but we have a responsibility to our users and to each other within our companies to help make work better, help make our services more reliable and more resilient over time. And there's a variety of lessons that we can learn from other domains. As I mentioned before, aviation, healthcare, nuclear power all of those kinds of domains have been thinking about supporting cognitive work and supporting frontline operators. And we can learn from this history and this literature that exists out there. There is a GitHub repo that Lorin Hochstein has curated with a number of other folks with the industry that points to some of these resources. And as well, we'll be hosting the first Learning From Incidents in Software Engineering Conference in Denver in February, February 15 and 16th. And one feature of this conference that I'm super excited about is affectionately called CasesConf. And it is going to be an opportunity for software engineers from a variety of organizations to tell real stories about incidents that they had, how they handled them, what was challenging, what went surprisingly well, and just what is actually going on within their organizations. And this is kind of a new thing for the software industry to be talking very publicly about failures and sharing the messy details of our incidents. This won't be a recorded part of the conference. It is going to be conducted under the Chatham House Rule, which is participants who are in the room while these stories are being told can share some of the stories but not any identifying details about the company or the engineers that were involved. And so this kind of real-world situations helps us to, as I talked about before, with that psychological safety, helps us to say this is the reality of operating complex systems. They're going to fail. We're going to have to learn from them. And the more that we can talk at an industry level about what's going on and about what kinds of things are creating problems or opportunities for each other, the more we're going to be able to lift the bar for the industry as a whole. So you can check out register.learningfromincidents.io for more information about the conference. And we can link Lorin's resilience engineering GitHub repo in the notes as well. VICTORIA: Wonderful. Well, I was looking for an excuse to come to Denver in February anyways. LAURA: We would love to have ya. VICTORIA: Thank you. And thank you so much for taking time to share with us today, Laura. You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with a complete transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter @victori_ousg. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening. See you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guest: Laura Maguire.

[REPLAY] How to stand out on social media in 'boring' industries - Richard Cook, Monzo

The banking sector is full of red tape - more so than for smoothie brands, anyway. Yet one bank is challenging more than just the traditional product and service in its category; Monzo's social channels are a breath of fresh air for any marketer hoping to have fun in a corporate industry, and for consumers hoping to see a human side to their bank. In this episode, we're joined by Monzo social media manager, Richard Cook, to learn what the barriers to entry are for banking with a “new” bank, and how Monzo's social media strategy helps break them down. We cover turning tracking into shareable content, the power of making your brand name a verb, and how to avoid tonal whiplash. Got a question or a suggestion for the Social Minds podcast? Get in touch at social.minds@socialchain.com.

It's the Friday news roundup! The team's getting you prepped for Light Up Night this weekend, sharing some fun funicular history as we wait for the Monongahela Incline to reopen, teasing a cool new walking tour on Downtown's Fourth Avenue, and tackling how to have a holiday with less food waste. As always, our Friday shows are powered by great local journalism.  Our own Francesca Dabecco on how to help your hungry neighbors: https://us14.campaign-archive.com/?u=47857f2c492a1dda05a4762b9&id=eae0a4d5da And Thanksgiving takeout options: https://us14.campaign-archive.com/?u=47857f2c492a1dda05a4762b9&id=bda7890da8 & https://us14.campaign-archive.com/?u=47857f2c492a1dda05a4762b9&id=dd44dff26c  Katie Blackley in WESA on the rise and fall of Pittsburgh's inclines: https://www.wesa.fm/arts-sports-culture/2018-08-07/the-rise-and-fall-of-pittsburghs-inclines Ed Blazina in the Pittsburgh Union Progress on upgrades to the Mon incline: https://www.unionprogress.com/2022/11/14/mon-incline-may-open-for-light-up-night-but-work-remains-to-be-done/  Julia Felton in the Tribune-Review on Light Up Night plans: https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-unveils-plans-for-light-up-night-saturday/  Richard Cook in Pittsburgh Magazine on weekend road closures: https://www.pittsburghmagazine.com/want-to-know-which-roads-will-be-closed-this-weekend-for-light-up-night/ Our newsletter is fresh daily at 6 a.m. Sign up here. We're also on Twitter @citycastpgh & Instagram @CityCastPgh! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's always fun when I can catch up with someone from my old police department.  Today's guest is no stranger to the show.  Rick Cook was part of my inspiration for starting the podcast and he was my first guest.  But in this episode, he joins his son, Richard Cook, on the show.  Richard is a 3rd generation cop and works the same district that I worked when I was on the force.   The pride that Rick has for his son following in his footsteps in undeniable.  We talk about some surprises for Richard early on in his career and what it means to have a dad that he can lean on when he needs.  Daddy Cook shares some of his most memorable SWAT team mishaps and how things might get real weird when he takes his pants off preparing for one SWAT call.  Little Cook tells how his experience on the battlefield has prepared him for his job as a police officer and how in many ways, being a police officer is more challenging. The fun we had shooting this episode is evident.  Rick even tricks me into sharing some of my funny moments on the job.   You can learn more about the 9-1-WHAT? Podcast and see videos at https://www.91what.com Be sure to support our sponsors: Eric Buchanan & Associates - https://www.buchanandisability.com/ Carlos Bail Bonding - https://www.bailbondsmanchattanooga.com/ If you'd like to be a sponsor, email us at 91what.podcast@gmail.com.

PreludeWelcome & News of the ChurchCall to Worship (Responsive)Processional - "Highland Cathedral" - by Richard Cook, bagpipes; Cornel Radulescu, organHymn of Praise - (#118) "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God"Message for Children & YouthPraise SongsConfession and Assurance, led by Amy Hemseri-SabalaGloria PatriChoral Anthem - "With All My Heart" by Joel RaneySermon - "Flourish" (Luke 19:1–10) - by Rev. Jason GrifficeOffertory - (#107) "Amazing Grace" (verse 1)DoxologyPastoral PrayerSending Hymn - (#363) "To God Be the Glory"BenedictionRecessional - "Highland Cathedral"If you'd like to send tithes or offerings by mail, please usePresbyterian Church of the CovenantP.O. Box 2128Costa Mesa, CA 92628A Mighty Fortress Is Our GodA mighty fortress is our God, A bulwark never failing; Our helper He amid the flood Of mortal ills prevailing. For still our ancient foe Doth seek to work us woe - His craft and power are great, And, armed with cruel hate, On earth is not His equal.Did we in our own strength confide, Our striving would be losing, Were not the right man on our side, The man of God's own choosing. Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He - Lord Sabaoth His name, From age to age the same, And He must win the battle. And though this world with devils filled, Should threaten to undo us, We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness grim, We tremble not for him - His rage we can endure, For lo, his doom is sure: One little word shall fell him. That word above all earthly powers, No thanks to them, abideth; The Spirit and the gifts are ours Through Him who with us sideth. Let goods and kindred go, This mortal life also - The body they may kill; God's truth abideth still: His kingdom is forever. Amen.Amazing GraceAmazing grace! How sweet the sound—That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost but now am found, Was blind but now I see. To God Be the GloryTo God be the glory—great things He hath done! So loved He the world that He gave us His Son, Who yielded His life an atonement for sin, And opened the life-gate that all may go in. CHORUS:Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Let the earth hear His voice! Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Let the people rejoice! O come to the Father thru Jesus the Son, And give Him the glory—great things He hath done. O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood, To every believer the promise of God; The vilest offender who truly believes, That moment from Jesus a pardon receives. [CHORUS]Great things He hath taught us, great things He hath done, And great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son; But purer, and higher, and greater will be Our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see. [CHORUS] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How's 2022 going so far?   I can't seem to make the switch...In my mind it is still 2020... Get Caught Trying to Make the World Better! Best Safety Podcast, Safety Program, Safety Storytelling, Investigations, Human Performance, Safety Differently, Operational Excellence, Resilience Engineering, Safety and Resilience Incentives... Give this a listen. Thanks for listening and tell your friends.  See you on Audible...all my books are up on there.  One of them is read by a British dude - it is like a Harry Potter book!  Have a great day as well. 

If you have a social media account then it's more than likely you've heard about Monzo. Famous not only for their growth journey and innovative product but more so their ability to build community and speak to their customers in a real and honest way.Since 2018 Richard Cook has been working at Monzo to help build their social media brand as a force for growth. Armed with over 35,000 tweets in his pocket personally, his fascination for all things social media has helped Richard to create one of the most influential, and celebrated, social media accounts out there today.Host Shameer Sachdev sat down with Richard to explore his years of insights into social media, how fintechs can use social as a catalyst for growth and why social is often the black sheep of many channel mixes.But that's not all, they also cover:

Richard Cook works in the banking sector: not an industry known for high class social media. And yet, Monzo bank stands out in the market. Whether it's embracing Tik Tok or Tweets that get people talking. So how can you embrace the true essence of social media in industries and companies that aren't known for it? How can you make a splash when there is every reason not to? And how can you have fun on social media, not just do it for the sake of it? Richard shares his Monzo journey, but also steps out of his context to offer practical tips for smashing social

On this episode of Our American Stories, Richard Cook tells us the story of how in 1943 the town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee was established and went from 58,000 acres of farmland to a town of 75,000 people to beat Germany to the atomic bomb. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate) See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

If we want to live life to its fullest, health should be one of our top priorities. In this episode, Charlie discusses how to support your health using homeopathy with her own homeopath, Richard Cook. Richard Cook has been helping Charlie for years and has a wealth of experience in helping people dealing with many different conditions.

About AmyAmy Tobey has worked in tech for more than 20 years at companies of every size, working with everything from kernel code to user interfaces. These days she spends her time building an innovative Site Reliability Engineering program at Equinix, where she is a principal engineer. When she's not working, she can be found with her nose in a book, watching anime with her son, making noise with electronics, or doing yoga poses in the sun.Links Referenced: Equinix Metal: https://metal.equinix.com Personal Twitter: https://twitter.com/MissAmyTobey Personal Blog: https://tobert.github.io/ TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by our friends at Vultr. Optimized cloud compute plans have landed at Vultr to deliver lightning-fast processing power, courtesy of third-gen AMD EPYC processors without the IO or hardware limitations of a traditional multi-tenant cloud server. Starting at just 28 bucks a month, users can deploy general-purpose, CPU, memory, or storage optimized cloud instances in more than 20 locations across five continents. Without looking, I know that once again, Antarctica has gotten the short end of the stick. Launch your Vultr optimized compute instance in 60 seconds or less on your choice of included operating systems, or bring your own. It's time to ditch convoluted and unpredictable giant tech company billing practices and say goodbye to noisy neighbors and egregious egress forever. Vultr delivers the power of the cloud with none of the bloat. “Screaming in the Cloud” listeners can try Vultr for free today with a $150 in credit when they visit getvultr.com/screaming. That's G-E-T-V-U-L-T-R dot com slash screaming. My thanks to them for sponsoring this ridiculous podcast.Corey: Finding skilled DevOps engineers is a pain in the neck! And if you need to deploy a secure and compliant application to AWS, forgettaboutit! But that's where DuploCloud can help. Their comprehensive no-code/low-code software platform guarantees a secure and compliant infrastructure in as little as two weeks, while automating the full DevSecOps lifestyle. Get started with DevOps-as-a-Service from DuploCloud so that your cloud configurations are done right the first time. Tell them I sent you and your first two months are free. To learn more visit: snark.cloud/duplo. Thats's snark.cloud/D-U-P-L-O-C-L-O-U-D.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Every once in a while I catch up with someone that it feels like I've known for ages, and I realize somehow I have never been able to line up getting them on this show as a guest. Today is just one of those days. And my guest is Amy Tobey who has been someone I've been talking to for ages, even in the before-times, if you can remember such a thing. Today, she's a Senior Principal Engineer at Equinix. Amy, thank you for finally giving in to my endless wheedling.Amy: Thanks for having me. You mentioned the before-times. Like, I remember it was, like, right before the pandemic we had beers in San Francisco wasn't it? There was Ian there—Corey: Yeah, I—Amy: —and a couple other people. It was a really great time. And then—Corey: I vaguely remember beer. Yeah. And then—Amy: And then the world ended.Corey: Oh, my God. Yes. It's still March of 2020, right?Amy: As far as I know. Like, I haven't checked in a couple years.Corey: So, you do an awful lot. And it's always a difficult question to ask someone, so can you encapsulate your entire existence in a paragraph? It's—Amy: [sigh].Corey: —awful, so I'd like to give a bit more structure to it. Let's start with the introduction: You are a Senior Principal Engineer. We know it's high level because of all the adjectives that get put in there, and none of those adjectives are ‘associate' or ‘beginner' or ‘junior,' or all the other diminutives that companies like to play games with to justify paying people less. And you're at Equinix, which is a company that is a bit unlike most of the, shall we say, traditional cloud providers. What do you do over there and both as a company, as a person?Amy: So, as a company Equinix, what most people know about is that we have a whole bunch of data centers all over the world. I think we have the most of any company. And what we do is we lease out space in that data center, and then we have a number of other products that people don't know as well, which one is Equinix Metal, which is what I specifically work on, where we rent you bare-metal servers. None of that fancy stuff that you get any other clouds on top of it, there's things you can get that are… partner things that you can add-on, like, you know, storage and other things like that, but we just deliver you bare-metal servers with really great networking. So, what I work on is the reliability of that whole system. All of the things that go into provisioning the servers, making them come up, making sure that they get delivered to the server, make sure the API works right, all of that stuff.Corey: So, you're on the Equinix cloud side of the world more so than you are on the building data centers by the sweat of your brow, as they say?Amy: Correct. Yeah, yeah. Software side.Corey: Excellent. I spent some time in data centers in the early part of my career before cloud ate that. That was sort of cotemporaneous with the discovery that I'm the hardware destruction bunny, and I should go to great pains to keep my aura from anything expensive and important, like, you know, the SAN. So—Amy: Right, yeah.Corey: Companies moving out of data centers, and me getting out was a great thing.Amy: But the thing about SANs though, is, like, it might not be you. They're just kind of cursed from the start, right? They just always were kind of fussy and easy to break.Corey: Oh, yeah. I used to think—and I kid you not—that I had a limited upside to my career in tech because I sometimes got sloppy and I was fairly slow at crimping ethernet cables.Amy: [laugh].Corey: That is very similar to growing up in third grade when it became apparent that I was going to have problems in my career because my handwriting was sloppy. Yeah, it turns out the future doesn't look like we predicted it would.Amy: Oh, gosh. Are we going to talk about, like, neurological development now or… [laugh] okay, that's a thing I struggle with, too right, is I started typing as soon as they would let—in fact, before they would let me. I remember in high school, I had teachers who would grade me down for typing a paper out. They want me to handwrite it and I would go, “Cool. Go ahead and take a grade off because if I handwrite it, you're going to take two grades off my handwriting, so I'm cool with this deal.”Corey: Yeah, it was pretty easy early on. I don't know when the actual shift was, but it became more and more apparent that more and more things are moving towards a world where you could type. And I was almost five when I started working on that stuff, and that really wound up changing a lot of aspects of how I started seeing things. One thing I think you're probably fairly well known for is incidents. I want to be clear when I say that you are not the root cause as—“So, why are things broken?” “It's Amy again. What's she gotten into this time?” Great.Amy: [laugh]. But it does happen, but not all the time.Corey: Exa—it's a learning experience.Amy: Right.Corey: You've also been deeply involved with SREcon and a number of—a lot of aspects of what I will term—and please don't yell at me for this—SRE culture—Amy: Yeah.Corey: Which is sometimes a challenging thing to wind up describing or putting a definition around. The one that I've always been somewhat partial to is, “SRE is DevOps, except you worked at Google for a while.” I don't know how necessarily accurate that is, but it does rile people up.Amy: Yeah, it does. Dave Stanke actually did a really great talk at SREcon San Francisco just a couple weeks ago, about the DORA report. And the new DORA report, they split SRE out into its own function and kind of is pushing against that old model, which actually comes from Liz Fong-Jones—I think it's from her, or older—about, like, class SRE implements DevOps, which is kind of this idea that, like, SREs make DevOps happen. Things have evolved, right, since then. Things have evolved since Google released those books, and we're all just figured out what works and what doesn't a little bit.And so, it's not that we're implementing DevOps so much. In fact, it's that ops stuff that kind of holds us back from the really high impact work that SREs, I think, should be doing, that aren't just, like, fixing the problems, the symptoms down at the bottom layer, right? Like what we did as sysadmins 20 years ago. You know, we'd go and a lot of people are SREs that came out of the sysadmin world and still think in that mode, where it's like, “Well, I set up the systems, and when things break, I go and I fix them.” And, “Why did the developers keep writing crappy code? Why do I have to always getting up in the middle of the night because this thing crashed?”And it turns out that the work we need to do to make things more reliable, there's a ceiling to how far away the platform can take us, right? Like, we can have the best platform in the world with redundancy, and, you know, nine-way replicated data storage and all this crazy stuff, and still if we put crappy software on top, it's going to be unreliable. So, how do we make less crappy software? And for most of my career, people would be, like, “Well, you should test it.” And so, we started doing that, and we still have crappy software, so what's going on here? We still have incidents.So, we write more tests, and we still have incidents. We had a QA group, we still have incidents. We send the developers to training, and we still have incidents. So like, what is the thing we need to do to make things more reliable? And it turns out, most of it is culture work.Corey: My perspective on this stems from being a grumpy old sysadmin. And at some point, I started calling myself a systems engineer or DevOps or production engineer, or SRE. It was all from my point of view, the same job, but you know, if you call yourself a sysadmin, you're just asking for a 40% pay cut off the top.Amy: [laugh].Corey: But I still tended to view the world through that lens. I tended to be very good at Linux systems internals, for example, understanding system calls and the rest, but increasingly, as the DevOps wave or SRE wave, or Google-isation of the internet wound up being more and more of a thing, I found myself increasingly in job interviews, where, “Great, now, can you go wind up implementing a sorting algorithm on the whiteboard?” “What on earth? No.” Like, my lingua franca is shitty Bash, and no one tends to write that without a bunch of tab completions and quick checking with manpages—die.net or whatnot—on the fly as you go down that path.And it was awful, and I felt… like my skill set was increasingly eroding. And it wasn't honestly until I started this place where I really got into writing a fair bit of code to do different things because it felt like an orthogonal skill set, but the fullness of time, it seems like it's not. And it's a reskilling. And it made me wonder, does this mean that the areas of technology that I focused on early in my career, was that all a waste? And the answer is not really. Sometimes, sure, in that I don't spend nearly as much time worrying about inodes—for example—as I once did. But every once in a while, I'll run into something and I looked like a wizard from the future, but instead, I'm a wizard from the past.Amy: Yeah, I find that a lot in my work, now. Sometimes things I did 20 years ago, come back, and it's like, oh, yeah, I remember I did all that threading work in 2002 in Perl, and I learned everything the very, very, very hard way. And then, you know, this January, did some threading work to fix some stability issues, and all of it came flooding back, right? Just that the experiences really, more than the code or the learning or the text and stuff; more just the, like, this feels like threads [BLEEP]-ery. Is a diagnostic thing that sometimes we have to say.And then people are like, “Can you prove it?” And I'm like, “Not really,” because it's literally thread [BLEEP]-ery. Like, the definition of it is that there's weird stuff happening that we can't figure out why it's happening. There's something acting in the system that isn't synchronized, that isn't connected to other things, that's happening out of order from what we expect, and if we had a clear signal, we would just fix it, but we don't. We just have, like, weird stuff happening over here and then over there and over there and over there.And, like, that tells me there's just something happening at that layer and then have to go and dig into that right, and like, just basically charge through. My colleagues are like, “Well, maybe you should look at this, and go look at the database,” the things that they're used to looking at and that their experiences inform, whereas then I bring that ancient toiling through the threading mines experiences back and go, “Oh, yeah. So, let's go find where this is happening, where people are doing dangerous things with threads, and see if we can spot something.” But that came from that experience.Corey: And there's so much that just repeats itself. And history rhymes. The challenge is that, do you have 20 years of experience, or do you have one year of experience repeated 20 times? And as the tide rises, doing the same task by hand, it really is just a matter of time before your full-time job winds up being something a piece of software does. An easy example is, “Oh, what's your job?” “I manually place containers onto specific hosts.” “Well, I've got news for you, and you're not going to like it at all.”Amy: Yeah, yeah. I think that we share a little bit. I'm allergic to repeated work. I don't know if allergic is the right word, but you know, if I sit and I do something once, fine. Like, I'll just crank it out, you know, it's this form, or it's a datafile I got to write and I'll—fine I'll type it in and do the manual labor.The second time, the difficulty goes up by ten, right? Like, just mentally, just to do it, be like, I've already done this once. Doing it again is anathema to everything that I am. And then sometimes I'll get through it, but after that, like, writing a program is so much easier because it's like exponential, almost, growth in difficulty. You know, the third time I have to do the same thing that's like just typing the same stuff—like, look over here, read this thing and type it over here—I'm out; I can't do it. You know, I got to find a way to automate. And I don't know, maybe normal people aren't driven to live this way, but it's kept me from getting stuck in those spots, too.Corey: It was weird because I spent a lot of time as a consultant going from place to place and it led to some weird changes. For example, “Oh, thank God, I don't have to think about that whole messaging queue thing.” Sure enough, next engagement, it's message queue time. Fantastic. I found that repeating myself drove me nuts, but you also have to be very sensitive not to wind up, you know, stealing IP from the people that you're working with.Amy: Right.Corey: But what I loved about the sysadmin side of the world is that the vast majority of stuff that I've taken with me, lives in my shell config. And what I mean by that is I'm not—there's nothing in there is proprietary, but when you have a weird problem with trying to figure out the best way to figure out which Ruby process is stealing all the CPU, great, turns out that you can chain seven or eight different shell commands together through a bunch of pipes. I don't want to remember that forever. So, that's the sort of thing I would wind up committing as I learned it. I don't remember what company I picked that up at, but it was one of those things that was super helpful.I have a sarcastic—it's a one-liner, except no sane editor setting is going to show it in any less than three—of a whole bunch of Perl, piped into du, piped into the rest, that tells you one of the largest consumers of files in a given part of the system. And it rates them with stars and it winds up doing some neat stuff. I would never sit down and reinvent something like that today, but the fact that it's there means that I can do all kinds of neat tricks when I need to. It's making sure that as you move through your career, on some level, you're picking up skills that are repeatable and applicable beyond one company.Amy: Skills and tooling—Corey: Yeah.Amy: —right? Like, you just described the tool. Another SREcon talk was John Allspaw and Dr. Richard Cook talking about above the line; below the line. And they started with these metaphors about tools, right, showing all the different kinds of hammers.And if you're a blacksmith, a lot of times you craft specialized hammers for very specific jobs. And that's one of the properties of a tool that they were trying to get people to think about, right, is that tools get crafted to the job. And what you just described as a bespoke tool that you had created on the fly, that kind of floated under the radar of intellectual property. [laugh].So, let's not tell the security or IP people right? Like, because there's probably billions and billions of dollars of technically, like, made-up IP value—I'm doing air quotes with my fingers—you know, that's just basically people's shell profiles. And my God, the Emacs automation that people have done. If you've ever really seen somebody who's amazing at Emacs and is 10, 20, 30, maybe 40 years of experience encoded in their emacs settings, it's a wonder to behold. Like, I look at it and I go, “Man, I wish I could do that.”It's like listening to a really great guitar player and be like, “Wow, I wish I could play like them.” You see them just flying through stuff. But all that IP in there is both that person's collection of wisdom and experience and working with that code, but also encodes that stuff like you described, right? It's just all these little systems tricks and little fiddly commands and things we don't want to remember and so we encode them into our toolset.Corey: Oh, yeah. Anything I wound up taking, I always would share it with people internally, too. I'd mention, “Yeah, I'm keeping this in my shell files.” Because I disclosed it, which solves a lot of the problem. And also, none of it was even close to proprietary or anything like that. I'm sorry, but the way that you wind up figuring out how much of a disk is being eaten up and where in a more pleasing way, is not a competitive advantage. It just isn't.Amy: It isn't to you or me, but, you know, back in the beginning of our careers, people thought it was worth money and should be proprietary. You know, like, oh, that disk-checking script as a competitive advantage for our company because there are only a few of us doing this work. Like, it was actually being able to, like, manage your—[laugh] actually manage your servers was a competitive advantage. Now, it's kind of commodity.Corey: Let's also be clear that the world has moved on. I wound up buying a DaisyDisk a while back for Mac, which I love. It is a fantastic, pretty effective, “Where's all the stuff on your disk going?” And it does a scan and you can drive and collect things and delete them when trying to clean things out. I was using it the other day, so it's top of mind at the moment.But it's way more polished than that crappy Perl three-liner. And I see both sides, truly I do. The trick also, for those wondering [unintelligible 00:15:45], like, “Where is the line?” It's super easy. Disclose it, what you're doing, in those scenarios in the event someone is no because they believe that finding the right man page section for something is somehow proprietary.Great. When you go home that evening in a completely separate environment, build it yourself from scratch to solve the problem, reimplement it and save that. And you're done. There are lots of ways to do this. Don't steal from your employer, but your employer employs you; they don't own you and the way that you think about these problems.Every person I've met who has had a career that's longer than 20 minutes has a giant doc somewhere on some system of all of the scripts that they wound up putting together, all of the one-liners, the notes on, “Next time you see this, this is the thing to check.”Amy: Yeah, the cheat sheet or the notebook with all the little commands, or again the Emacs config, sometimes for some people, or shell profiles. Yeah.Corey: Here's the awk one-liner that I put that automatically spits out from an Apache log file what—the httpd log file that just tells me what are the most frequent talkers, and what are the—Amy: You should probably let go of that one. You know, like, I think that one's lifetime is kind of past, Corey. Maybe you—Corey: I just have to get it working with Nginx, and we're good to go.Amy: Oh, yeah, there you go. [laugh].Corey: Or S3 access logs. Perish the thought. But yeah, like, what are the five most high-volume talkers, and what are those relative to each other? Huh, that one thing seems super crappy and it's coming from Russia. But that's—hmm, one starts to wonder; maybe it's time to dig back in.So, one of the things that I have found is that a lot of the people talking about SRE seem to have descended from an ivory tower somewhere. And they're talking about how some of the best-in-class companies out there, renowned for their technical cultures—at least externally—are doing these things. But there's a lot more folks who are not there. And honestly, I consider myself one of those people who is not there. I was a competent engineer, but never a terrific one.And looking at the way this was described, I often came away thinking, “Okay, it was the purpose of this conference talk just to reinforce how smart people are, and how I'm not,” and/or, “There are the 18 cultural changes you need to make to your company, and then you can do something kind of like we were just talking about on stage.” It feels like there's a combination of problems here. One is making this stuff more accessible to folks who are not themselves in those environments, and two, how to drive cultural change as an individual contributor if that's even possible. And I'm going to go out on a limb and guess you have thoughts on both aspects of that, and probably some more hit me, please.Amy: So, the ivory tower, right. Let's just be straight up, like, the ivory tower is Google. I mean, that's where it started. And we get it from the other large companies that, you know, want to do conference talks about what this stuff means and what it does. What I've kind of come around to in the last couple of years is that those talks don't really reach the vast majority of engineers, they don't really apply to a large swath of the enterprise especially, which is, like, where a lot of the—the bulk of our industry sits, right? We spend a lot of time talking about the darlings out here on the West Coast in high tech culture and startups and so on.But, like, we were talking about before we started the show, right, like, the interior of even just America, is filled with all these, like, insurance and banks and all of these companies that are cranking out tons of code and servers and stuff, and they're trying to figure out the same problems. But they're structured in companies where their tech arm is still, in most cases, considered a cost center, often is bundled under finance, for—that's a whole show of itself about that historical blunder. And so, the tech culture is tend to be very, very different from what we experience in—what do we call it anymore? Like, I don't even want to say West Coast anymore because we've gone remote, but, like, high tech culture we'll say. And so, like, thinking about how to make SRE and all this stuff more accessible comes down to, like, thinking about who those engineers are that are sitting at the computers, writing all the code that runs our banks, all the code that makes sure that—I'm trying to think of examples that are more enterprise-y right?Or shoot buying clothes online. You go to Macy's for example. They have a whole bunch of servers that run their online store and stuff. They have internal IT-ish people who keep all this stuff running and write that code and probably integrating open-source stuff much like we all do. But when you go to try to put in a reliability program that's based on the current SRE models, like SLOs; you put in SLOs and you start doing, like, this incident management program that's, like, you know, you have a form you fill out after every incident, and then you [unintelligible 00:20:25] retros.And it turns out that those things are very high-level skills, skills and capabilities in an organization. And so, when you have this kind of IT mindset or the enterprise mindset, bringing the culture together to make those things work often doesn't happen. Because, you know, they'll go with the prescriptive model and say, like, okay, we're going to implement SLOs, we're going to start measuring SLIs on all of the services, and we're going to hold you accountable for meeting those targets. If you just do that, right, you're just doing more gatekeeping and policing of your tech environment. My bet is, reliability almost never improves in those cases.And that's been my experience, too, and why I get charged up about this is, if you just go slam in these practices, people end up miserable, the practices then become tarnished because people experienced the worst version of them. And then—Corey: And with the remote explosion as well, it turns out that changing jobs basically means their company sends you a different Mac, and the next Monday, you wind up signing into a different Slack team.Amy: Yeah, so the culture really matters, right? You can't cover it over with foosball tables and great lunch. You actually have to deliver tools that developers want to use and you have to deliver a software engineering culture that brings out the best in developers instead of demanding the best from developers. I think that's a fundamental business shift that's kind of happening. If I'm putting on my wizard hat and looking into the future and dreaming about what might change in the world, right, is that there's kind of a change in how we do leadership and how we do business that's shifting more towards that model where we look at what people are capable of and we trust in our people, and we get more out of them, the knowledge work model.If we want more knowledge work, we need people to be happy and to feel engaged in their community. And suddenly we start to see these kind of generational, bigger-pie kind of things start to happen. But how do we get there? It's not SLOs. It maybe it's a little bit starting with incidents. That's where I've had the most success, and you asked me about that. So, getting practical, incident management is probably—Corey: Right. Well, as I see it, the problem with SLOs across the board is it feels like it's a very insular community so far, and communicating it to engineers seems to be the focus of where the community has been, but from my understanding of it, you absolutely need buy-in at significantly high executive levels, to at the very least by you air cover while you're doing these things and making these changes, but also to help drive that cultural shift. None of this is something I have the slightest clue how to do, let's be very clear. If I knew how to change a company's culture, I'd have a different job.Amy: Yeah. [laugh]. The biggest omission in the Google SRE books was [Ers 00:22:58]. There was a guy at Google named Ers who owns availability for Google, and when anything is, like, in dispute and bubbles up the management team, it goes to Ers, and he says, “Thou shalt…” right? Makes the call. And that's why it works, right?Like, it's not just that one person, but that system of management where the whole leadership team—there's a large, very well-funded team with a lot of power in the organization that can drive availability, and they can say, this is how you're going to do metrics for your service, and this is the system that you're in. And it's kind of, yeah, sure it works for them because they have all the organizational support in place. What I was saying to my team just the other day—because we're in the middle of our SLO rollout—is that really, I think an SLO program isn't [clear throat] about the engineers at all until late in the game. At the beginning of the game, it's really about getting the leadership team on board to say, “Hey, we want to put in SLIs and SLOs to start to understand the functioning of our software system.” But if they don't have that curiosity in the first place, that desire to understand how well their teams are doing, how healthy their teams are, don't do it. It's not going to work. It's just going to make everyone miserable.Corey: It feels like it's one of those difficult to sell problems as well, in that it requires some tooling changes, absolutely. It requires cultural change and buy-in and whatnot, but in order for that to happen, there has to be a painful problem that a company recognizes and is willing to pay to make go away. The problem with stuff like this is that once you pay, there's a lot of extra work that goes on top of it as well, that does not have a perception—rightly or wrongly—of contributing to feature velocity, of hitting the next milestone. It's, “Really? So, we're going to be spending how much money to make engineers happier? They should get paid an awful lot and they're still complaining and never seem happy. Why do I care if they're happy other than the pure mercenary perspective of otherwise they'll quit?” I'm not saying that it's not worth pursuing; it's not a worthy goal. I am saying that it becomes a very difficult thing to wind up selling as a product.Amy: Well, as a product for sure, right? Because—[sigh] gosh, I have friends in the space who work on these tools. And I want to be careful.Corey: Of course. Nothing but love for all of those people, let's be very clear.Amy: But a lot of them, you know, they're pulling metrics from existing monitoring systems, they are doing some interesting math on them, but what you get at the end is a nice service catalog and dashboard, which are things we've been trying to land as products in this industry for as long as I can remember, and—Corey: “We've got it this time, though. This time we'll crack the nut.” Yeah. Get off the island, Gilligan.Amy: And then the other, like, risky thing, right, is the other part that makes me uncomfortable about SLOs, and why I will often tell folks that I talk to out in the industry that are asking me about this, like, one-on-one, “Should I do it here?” And it's like, you can bring the tool in, and if you have a management team that's just looking to have metrics to drive productivity, instead of you know, trying to drive better knowledge work, what you get is just a fancier version of more Taylorism, right, which is basically scientific management, this idea that we can, like, drive workers to maximum efficiency by measuring random things about them and driving those numbers. It turns out, that doesn't really work very well, even in industrial scale, it just happened to work because, you know, we have a bloody enough society that we pushed people into it. But the reality is, if you implement SLOs badly, you get more really bad Taylorism that's bad for you developers. And my suspicion is that you will get worse availability out of it than you would if you just didn't do it at all.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Revelo. Revelo is the Spanish word of the day, and its spelled R-E-V-E-L-O. It means “I reveal.” Now, have you tried to hire an engineer lately? I assure you it is significantly harder than it sounds. One of the things that Revelo has recognized is something I've been talking about for a while, specifically that while talent is evenly distributed, opportunity is absolutely not. They're exposing a new talent pool to, basically, those of us without a presence in Latin America via their platform. It's the largest tech talent marketplace in Latin America with over a million engineers in their network, which includes—but isn't limited to—talent in Mexico, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Argentina. Now, not only do they wind up spreading all of their talent on English ability, as well as you know, their engineering skills, but they go significantly beyond that. Some of the folks on their platform are hands down the most talented engineers that I've ever spoken to. Let's also not forget that Latin America has high time zone overlap with what we have here in the United States, so you can hire full-time remote engineers who share most of the workday as your team. It's an end-to-end talent service, so you can find and hire engineers in Central and South America without having to worry about, frankly, the colossal pain of cross-border payroll and benefits and compliance because Revelo handles all of it. If you're hiring engineers, check out revelo.io/screaming to get 20% off your first three months. That's R-E-V-E-L-O dot I-O slash screaming.Corey: That is part of the problem is, in some cases, to drive some of these improvements, you have to go backwards to move forwards. And it's one of those, “Great, so we spent all this effort and money in the rest of now things are worse?” No, not necessarily, but suddenly are aware of things that were slipping through the cracks previously.Amy: Yeah. Yeah.Corey: Like, the most realistic thing about first The Phoenix Project and then The Unicorn Project, both by Gene Kim, has been the fact that companies have these problems and actively cared enough to change it. In my experience, that feels a little on the rare side.Amy: Yeah, and I think that's actually the key, right? It's for the culture change, and for, like, if you really looking to be, like, do I want to work at this company? Am I investing my myself in here? Is look at the leadership team and be, like, do these people actually give a crap? Are they looking just to punt another number down the road?That's the real question, right? Like, the technology and stuff, at the point where I'm at in my career, I just don't care that much anymore. [laugh]. Just… fine, use Kubernetes, use Postgres, [unintelligible 00:27:30], I don't care. I just don't. Like, Oracle, I might have to ask, you know, go to finance and be like, “Hey, can we spend 20 million for a database?” But like, nobody really asks for that anymore, so. [laugh].Corey: As one does. I will say that I mostly agree with you, but a technology that I found myself getting excited about, given the time of the recording on this is… fun, I spent a bit of time yesterday—from when we're recording this—teaching myself just enough Go to wind up being together a binary that I needed to do something actively ridiculous for my camera here. And I found myself coming away deeply impressed by a lot of things about it, how prescriptive it was for one, how self-contained for another. And after spending far too many years of my life writing shitty Perl, and shitty Bash, and worse Python, et cetera, et cetera, the prescriptiveness was great. The fact that it wound up giving me something I could just run, I could cross-compile for anything I need to run it on, and it just worked. It's been a while since I found a technology that got me this interested in exploring further.Amy: Go is great for that. You mentioned one of my two favorite features of Go. One is usually when a program compiles—at least the way I code in Go—it usually works. I've been working with Go since about 0.9, like, just a little bit before it was released as 1.0, and that's what I've noticed over the years of working with it is that most of the time, if you have a pretty good data structure design and you get the code to compile, usually it's going to work, unless you're doing weird stuff.The other thing I really love about Go and that maybe you'll discover over time is the malleability of it. And the reason why I think about that more than probably most folks is that I work on other people's code most of the time. And maybe this is something that you probably run into with your business, too, right, where you're working on other people's infrastructure. And the way that we encode business rules and things in the languages, in our programming language or our config syntax and stuff has a huge impact on folks like us and how quickly we can come into a situation, assess, figure out what's going on, figure out where things are laid out, and start making changes with confidence.Corey: Forget other people for a minute they're looking at what I built out three or four years ago here, myself, like, I look at past me, it's like, “What was that rat bastard thinking? This is awful.” And it's—forget other people's code; hell is your own code, on some level, too, once it's slipped out of the mental stack and you have to re-explore it and, “Oh, well thank God I defensively wound up not including any comments whatsoever explaining what the living hell this thing was.” It's terrible. But you're right, the other people's shell scripts are finicky and odd.I started poking around for help when I got stuck on something, by looking at GitHub, and a few bit of searching here and there. Even these large, complex, well-used projects started making sense to me in a way that I very rarely find. It's, “What the hell is that thing?” is my most common refrain when I'm looking at other people's code, and Go for whatever reason avoids that, I think because it is so prescriptive about formatting, about how things should be done, about the vision that it has. Maybe I'm romanticizing it and I'll hate it and a week from now, and I want to go back and remove this recording, but.Amy: The size of the language helps a lot.Corey: Yeah.Amy: But probably my favorite. It's more of a convention, which actually funny the way I'm going to talk about this because the two languages I work on the most right now are Ruby and Go. And I don't feel like two languages could really be more different.Syntax-wise, they share some things, but really, like, the mental models are so very, very different. Ruby is all the way in on object-oriented programming, and, like, the actual real kind of object-oriented with messaging and stuff, and, like, the whole language kind of springs from that. And it kind of requires you to understand all of these concepts very deeply to be effective in large programs. So, what I find is, when I approach Ruby codebase, I have to load all this crap into my head and remember, “Okay, so yeah, there's this convention, when you do this kind of thing in Ruby”—or especially Ruby on Rails is even worse because they go deep into convention over configuration. But what that's code for is, this code is accessible to people who have a lot of free cognitive capacity to load all this convention into their heads and keep it in their heads so that the code looks pretty, right?And so, that's the trade-off as you said, okay, my developers have to be these people with all these spare brain cycles to understand, like, why I would put the code here in this place versus this place? And all these, like, things that are in the code, like, very compact, dense concepts. And then you go to something like Go, which is, like, “Nah, we're not going to do Lambdas. Nah”—[laugh]—“We're not doing all this fancy stuff.” So, everything is there on the page.This drives some people crazy, right, is that there's all this boilerplate, boilerplate, boilerplate. But the reality is, I can read most Go files from top to the bottom and understand what the hell it's doing, whereas I can go sometimes look at, like, a Ruby thing, or sometimes Python and e—Perl is just [unintelligible 00:32:19] all the time, right, it's there's so much indirection. And it just be, like, “What the [BLEEP] is going on? This is so dense. I'm going to have to sit down and write it out in longhand so I can understand what the developer was even doing here.” And—Corey: Well, that's why I got the Mac Studio; for when I'm not doing A/V stuff with it, that means that I'll have one core that I can use for, you know, front-end processing and the rest, and the other 19 cores can be put to work failing to build Nokogiri in Ruby yet again.Amy: [laugh].Corey: I remember the travails of working with Ruby, and the problem—I have similar problems with Python, specifically in that—I don't know if I'm special like this—it feels like it's a SRE DevOps style of working, but I am grabbing random crap off a GitHub constantly and running it, like, small scripts other people have built. And let's be clear, I run them on my test AWS account that has nothing important because I'm not a fool that I read most of it before I run it, but I also—it wants a different version of Python every single time. It wants a whole bunch of other things, too. And okay, so I use ASDF as my version manager for these things, which for whatever reason, does not work for the way that I think about this ergonomically. Okay, great.And I wind up with detritus scattered throughout my system. It's, “Hey, can you make this reproducible on my machine?” “Almost certainly not, but thank you for asking.” It's like ‘Step 17: Master the Wolf' level of instructions.Amy: And I think Docker generally… papers over the worst of it, right, is when we built all this stuff in the aughts, you know, [CPAN 00:33:45]—Corey: Dev containers and VS Code are very nice.Amy: Yeah, yeah. You know, like, we had CPAN back in the day, I was doing chroots, I think in, like, '04 or '05, you know, to solve this problem, right, which is basically I just—screw it; I will compile an entire distro into a directory with a Perl and all of its dependencies so that I can isolate it from the other things I want to run on this machine and not screw up and not have these interactions. And I think that's kind of what you're talking about is, like, the old model, when we deployed servers, there was one of us sitting there and then we'd log into the server and be like, I'm going to install the Perl. You know, I'll compile it into, like, [/app/perl 558 00:34:21] whatever, and then I'll CPAN all this stuff in, and I'll give it over to the developer, tell them to set their shebang to that and everything just works. And now we're in a mode where it's like, okay, you got to set up a thousand of those. “Okay, well, I'll make a tarball.” [laugh]. But it's still like we had to just—Corey: DevOps, but [unintelligible 00:34:37] dev closer to ops. You're interrelating all the time. Yeah, then Docker comes along, and add dev is, like, “Well, here's the container. Good luck, asshole.” And it feels like it's been cast into your yard to worry about.Amy: Yeah, well, I mean, that's just kind of business, or just—Corey: Yeah. Yeah.Amy: I'm not sure if it's business or capitalism or something like that, but just the idea that, you know, if I can hand off the shitty work to some other poor schlub, why wouldn't I? I mean, that's most folks, right? Like, just be like, “Well”—Corey: Which is fair.Amy: —“I got it working. Like, my part is done, I did what I was supposed to do.” And now there's a lot of folks out there, that's how they work, right? “I hit done. I'm done. I shipped it. Sure. It's an old [unintelligible 00:35:16] Ubuntu. Sure, there's a bunch of shell scripts that rip through things. Sure”—you know, like, I've worked on repos where there's hundreds of things that need to be addressed.Corey: And passing to someone else is fine. I'm thrilled to do it. Where I run into problems with it is where people assume that well, my part was the hard part and anything you schlubs do is easy. I don't—Amy: Well, that's the underclass. Yeah. That's—Corey: Forget engineering for a second; I throw things to the people over in the finance group here at The Duckbill Group because those people are wizards at solving for this thing. And it's—Amy: Well, that's how we want to do things.Corey: Yeah, specialization works.Amy: But we have this—it's probably more cultural. I don't want to pick, like, capitalism to beat on because this is really, like, human cultural thing, and it's not even really particularly Western. Is the idea that, like, “If I have an underclass, why would I give a shit what their experience is?” And this is why I say, like, ops teams, like, get out of here because most ops teams, the extant ops teams are still called ops, and a lot of them have been renamed SRE—but they still do the same job—are an underclass. And I don't mean that those people are below us. People are treated as an underclass, and they shouldn't be. Absolutely not.Corey: Yes.Amy: Because the idea is that, like, well, I'm a fancy person who writes code at my ivory tower, and then it all flows down, and those people, just faceless people, do the deployment stuff that's beneath me. That attitude is the most toxic thing, I think, in tech orgs to address. Like, if you're trying to be like, “Well, our liability is bad, we have security problems, people won't fix their code.” And go look around and you will find people that are treated as an underclass that are given codes thrown over the wall at them and then they just have to toil through and make it work. I've worked on that a number of times in my career.And I think just like saying, underclass, right, or caste system, is what I found is the most effective way to get people actually thinking about what the hell is going on here. Because most people are just, like, “Well, that's just the way things are. It's just how we've always done it. The developers write to code, then give it to the sysadmins. The sysadmins deploy the code. Isn't that how it always works?”Corey: You'd really like to hope, wouldn't you?Amy: [laugh]. Not me. [laugh].Corey: Again, the way I see it is, in theory—in theory—sysadmins, ops, or that should not exist. People should theoretically be able to write code as developers that just works, the end. And write it correct the first time and never have to change it again. Yeah. There's a reason that I always like to call staging environments in places I work ‘theory' because it works in theory, but not in production, and that is fundamentally the—like, that entire job role is the difference between theory and practice.Amy: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that's the problem with it. We're already so disconnected from the physical world, right? Like, you and I right now are talking over multiple strands of glass and digital transcodings and things right now, right? Like, we are detached from the physical reality.You mentioned earlier working in data centers, right? The thing I miss about it is, like, the physicality of it. Like, actually, like, I held a server in my arms and put it in the rack and slid it into the rails. I plugged into power myself; I pushed the power button myself. There's a server there. I physically touched it.Developers who don't work in production, we talked about empathy and stuff, but really, I think the big problem is when they work out in their idea space and just writing code, they write the unit tests, if we're very lucky, they'll write a functional test, and then they hand that wad off to some poor ops group. They're detached from the reality of operations. It's not even about accountability; it's about experience. The ability to see all of the weird crap we deal with, right? You know, like, “Well, we pushed the code to that server, but there were three bit flips, so we had to do it again. And then the other server, the disk failed. And on the other server…” You know? [laugh].It's just, there's all this weird crap that happens, these systems are so complex that they're always doing something weird. And if you're a developer that just spends all day in your IDE, you don't get to see that. And I can't really be mad at those folks, as individuals, for not understanding our world. I figure out how to help them, and the best thing we've come up with so far is, like, well, we start giving this—some responsibility in a production environment so that they can learn that. People do that, again, is another one that can be done wrong, where it turns into kind of a forced empathy.I actually really hate that mode, where it's like, “We're forcing all the developers online whether they like it or not. On-call whether they like it or not because they have to learn this.” And it's like, you know, maybe slow your roll a little buddy because the stuff is actually hard to learn. Again, minimizing how hard ops work is. “Oh, we'll just put the developers on it. They'll figure it out, right? They're software engineers. They're probably smarter than you sysadmins.” Is the unstated thing when we do that, right? When we throw them in the pit and be like, “Yeah, they'll get it.” [laugh].Corey: And that was my problem [unintelligible 00:39:49] the interview stuff. It was in the write code on a whiteboard. It's, “Look, I understood how the system fundamentally worked under the hood.” Being able to power my way through to get to an outcome even in language I don't know, was sort of part and parcel of the job. But this idea of doing it in artificially constrained environment, in a language I'm not super familiar with, off the top of my head, it took me years to get to a point of being able to do it with a Bash script because who ever starts with an empty editor and starts getting to work in a lot of these scenarios? Especially in an ops role where we're not building something from scratch.Amy: That's the interesting thing, right? In the majority of tech work today—maybe 20 years ago, we did it more because we were literally building the internet we have today. But today, most of the engineers out there working—most of us working stiffs—are working on stuff that already exists. We're making small incremental changes, which is great that's what we're doing. And we're dealing with old code.Corey: We're gluing APIs together, and that's fine. Ugh. I really want to thank you for taking so much time to talk to me about how you see all these things. If people want to learn more about what you're up to, where's the best place to find you?Amy: I'm on Twitter every once in a while as @MissAmyTobey, M-I-S-S-A-M-Y-T-O-B-E-Y. I have a blog I don't write on enough. And there's a couple things on the Equinix Metal blog that I've written, so if you're looking for that. Otherwise, mainly Twitter.Corey: And those links will of course be in the [show notes 00:41:08]. Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.Amy: I had fun. Thank you.Corey: As did I. Amy Tobey, Senior Principal Engineer at Equinix. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, or on the YouTubes, smash the like and subscribe buttons, as the kids say. Whereas if you've hated this episode, same thing, five-star review all the platforms, smash the buttons, but also include an angry comment telling me that you're about to wind up subpoenaing a copy of my shell script because you're convinced that your intellectual property and secrets are buried within.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need The Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

On this episode of Our American Stories, Richard Cook tells us the story of how in 1943 the town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee was established and went from 58,000 acres of farm land to a town of 75,000 people. Support the show (https://www.ouramericanstories.com/donate) Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Richard Cook v. United States

Many thanks to Looney's Fortune for leading us in much of our music today. We had Patti Amelotte on hammered dulcimer and vocals, Geogiana Hennessy on fiddle and vocals, Matt Tonge on guitar, and Richard Cook on bagpipes and whistles. Prelude - "Celtic Christmas"Welcome & News of the ChurchCall to Worship, led by Amy Hemseri-SabalaProcessional - "Hyfrydol"Carols of Advent - (#168) "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus"Lighting the Candle of HopeCarols of Advent - (#177) "Good Christian Men, Rejoice"Special Music - "The Cherry Tree Carol"Prayers for Advent, led by Rev. Sharon YagerlenerOffertory - "Maids of Mitchelstown"Carols of Advent - (#169) "O Come, O Come Emmanuel"Choral Anthem - "My Soul Cries Out" by Cooney & HayesSermon - "Look for Hope" (Mark 1:1-8) - by Rev. Jason GrifficeCarols of Advent - (#182) "How Great Our Joy!"BenedictionPostlude Pt. 1 - "Lark in the Morning"ClosingPostlude Pt. 2Come, Thou Long Expected JesusCome, Thou long-expected Jesus, Born to set Thy people free; From our fears and sins release us; Let us find our rest in Thee. Israel's Strength and Consolation, Hope of all the earth Thou art; Dear Desire of every nation, Joy of every longing heart. Born Thy people to deliver, Born a child and yet a King, Born to reign in us forever, Now Thy gracious Kingdom bring. By Thine own eternal Spirit Rule in all our hearts alone; By Thine all-sufficient meritRaise us to Thy glorious throne. Amen Good Christian Men, RejoiceGood Christian men, rejoice With heart and soul and voice; Give ye heed to what we say: News! news! Jesus Christ is born today! Ox and ass before Him bow, And He is in the manger now. Christ is born today! Christ is born today! Good Christian men, rejoice With hear and soul and voice; Now ye need not fear the grave: Peace! peace! Jesus Christ was born to save! Calls you one and calls you all To gain His everlasting hall. Christ was born to save! Christ was born to save! O Come, O Come EmmanuelO come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel, That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear. CHORUS: Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel! O come, Thou Dayspring, come and cheer Our spirits by Thine advent here; Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death's dark shadows put to flight. [CHORUS]How Great Our Joy!While by the sheep we watched at night, Glad tidings brought an angel bright. How great our joy!(Great our joy)Joy, joy, joy! (Joy, joy, joy!)Praise we the Lord in heaven on high! (Praise we the Lord in heaven on high!)There shall be born, so he did say, In Bethlehem a Child today. How great our joy!(Great our joy)Joy, joy, joy! (Joy, joy, joy!)Praise we the Lord in heaven on high! (Praise we the Lord in heaven on high!) See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Richard Cook from Pittsburgh Magazine talks about this week's stories. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

About JohnJohn Allspaw has worked in software systems engineering and operations for over twenty years in many different environments. John's publications include the books The Art of Capacity Planning (2009) and Web Operations (2010) as well as the forward to “The DevOps Handbook.”  His 2009 Velocity talk with Paul Hammond, “10+ Deploys Per Day: Dev and Ops Cooperation” helped start the DevOps movement.John served as CTO at Etsy, and holds an MSc in Human Factors and Systems Safety from Lund UniversityLinks: The Art of Capacity Planning: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Capacity-Planning-Scaling-Resources/dp/1491939206/ Web Operations: https://www.amazon.com/Web-Operations-Keeping-Data-Time/dp/1449377440/ The DevOps Handbook: https://www.amazon.com/DevOps-Handbook-World-Class-Reliability-Organizations/dp/1942788002/ Adaptive Capacity Labs: https://www.adaptivecapacitylabs.com John Allspaw Twitter: https://twitter.com/allspaw Richard Cook Twitter: https://twitter.com/ri_cook Dave Woods Twitter: https://twitter.com/ddwoods2 TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at the Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by CircleCI. CircleCI is the leading platform for software innovation at scale. With intelligent automation and delivery tools, more than 25,000 engineering organizations worldwide—including most of the ones that you've heard of—are using CircleCI to radically reduce the time from idea to execution to—if you were Google—deprecating the entire product. Check out CircleCI and stop trying to build these things yourself from scratch, when people are solving this problem better than you are internally. I promise. To learn more, visit circleci.com.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. I'm joined this week by John Allspaw, who's—well, he's done a lot of things. He was one of the founders of the DevOps movement—although I'm sure someone's going to argue with that—he's also written a couple of books, The Art of Capacity Planning and Web Operations and the foreword of The DevOps Handbook. But he's also been the CTO at Etsy and has gotten his Master's in Human Factors and System Safety from Lund University before it was the cool thing to do. And these days, he is the founder and principal at Adaptive Capacity Labs. John, thanks for joining me.Corey: And now for something completely different!John: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk with you, Corey.Corey: So, let's start at the beginning here. So, what is Adaptive Capacity Labs? It sounds like an experiment in auto-scaling, as is every use of auto-scaling, but that's neither here nor there. I'm guessing it goes deeper.John: Yeah. So, I managed to trick, or let's say convince some of my heroes, Dr. Richard Cook and Dr. David Woods, these folks are what you would call heavies in the human factors, system safety, and resilience engineering world, Dave Woods is credited with creating the field of resilience engineering. And so what we've been doing for the past—since I left Etsy is bringing perspectives, techniques, approaches to the software world that are, I guess, some of the most progressive practices that saved other safety, critical domains, like aviation, and power plants, and all of the stuff that makes news.And the way we've been doing that is largely through the lens of incidents. And so we do a whole bunch of different things, but that's the core of what we do is activities and projects for clients that have a concern around incidents; both, are we learning well? Can you tell us that? Or can you tell us how to understand incidents and analyze them in such a way that we can learn from them effectively?Corey: Generally speaking, my naive guess, based upon the times I spent working in various operations role has been, “Great. So, how do we learn from incidents?” Well, if you're like most of the industry, you really don't. You wind up blaming someone in a meeting that's called blameless, so instead of using the person's name, you use a team or a role name, and then you wind up effectively doing a whole bunch of reactive process work that in long enough timeline and enough incidents ossifies you into a whole bunch of processes and procedure that is just horrible. And then how do you learn from this?Well, by the time it actually becomes a problem, you've rotated CIOs four times and there's no real institutional memory here. Great. That's my cynical approach, and I suspect it's not entirely yours because if it were, you wouldn't be doing a business in this because otherwise, it would be this wonderful choreographed song-and-dance number of, “Doesn't it suck to be you? Da-da.” And that's it. I suspect you do more as a consultant than that. So, what does my lived experience of terrible companies differing in what respects from the folks you talk to?John: Oh, well, I mean, just to be blunt, you're absolutely spot on. [laugh]. The industry is terrible at this.Corey: Well, crap.John: I mean, look, the good news is, there are inklings, there are signals for some organizations that have been doing the things that they've been told to do by some book or website that they read, and they're doing all the things and they realize, “All right, well, whatever we're doing doesn't seem to be—it doesn't feel—we're doing all the things, checking the boxes, but we're having incidents”—and even more disturbing to them is we're having incidents that seem as if—it'd be one thing to have incidents that were really difficult, hairy, complicated, and complex, and certainly those happen, but there is a view that they're just simply not getting as much out of these sometimes pretty traumatic events as they could be. And that's all that's needed, yeah.Corey: In most companies, it seems like, on some level, you're dealing with every incident that looks a lot like that. Sure, it was a certificate expired, but then you wind up tying into all the relevant things that are touching that. It seems like it's an easy, logical conclusion. Oh, wow. It turns out in big enterprises, nothing is straightforward or simple.Everything becomes complicated, and issues like that happen frequently enough that it seems like the entire career can be spent in pure firefighting reactive mode.John: Yeah, absolutely. And again, I would say that just like these other domains that I mentioned earlier, there's a lot of, sort of, intuitive perspectives that are, let's just say, sort of unproductive. And so in software, we write software; it makes sense if all of our discussions after an incident trying to make sense of it, is entirely focused on the software did this, and Postgres has this weird thing, and Kafka has this tricky bit here. But the fact of the matter is, people and—engineers and non-engineers—are struggling when an incident arises, both in terms of what the hell is happening, and generating hypotheses, and working through whether the hypothesis is valid or not, adjusting it if signals show up that it's not, and what can we do, what are some options? If we do feel like we're on a good [unintelligible 00:06:09] productive thread about what's happening, what are some options that we can take?That opens up a doorway for a whole variation of other questions. But the fact of the matter is, handling incidents, understanding really, effectively, time-pressured problem solving, almost always amongst multiple people with different views, different expertise, and piecing together across that group what's happening, and what to do about it, and what are the ramifications of doing this thing versus that thing? This is all what we would call above-the-line work. This is expertise. It shows up in how people weigh ambiguities, and things are uncertain.And that doesn't get this lived experience that people have, it just we're not used to talking about—we're used to talking about networks, and applications, and code, and network. We're not used to talking about and even have vocabulary for what makes something confusing? What makes something ambiguous? And that is what makes for effective incident analysis.Corey: Do you find that most of the people who are confused about these things tend to be more aligned with being individual contributor type engineers, who are effectively boots-on-the-ground, for lack of a better term? Is it high-level executives who are trying to understand why it seems like they're constantly getting paraded in the press? Or is it often folks somewhere between the two?John: Yes.Corey: [laugh].John: Right? Like there is something that you point out, which is this contrast between boots-on-the-ground, hands-on keyboard, folks who are resolving incidents, who are wrestling with these problems, and leadership. And sometimes leadership who remember their glory days of being an individual contributor sometimes are a bit miscalibrated. They still believe they have a sufficient understanding of all the messy details when they don't. And so, I mean, the fact of the matter is, there's the age-old story of Timmy stuck in a well, right?There's the people trying to get Timmy out of the well, and then there's what to do about all of the news reporters surrounding the well asking for updates and questions, and how did Timmy get in the well? These are two different activities. And I'll tell you pretty confidently, if you get Timmy out of the well, pretty fluidly, if you can set situations up where people who ostensibly would get Timmy out of the well are better prepared with anticipating Timmy is going to be in the well, and understanding all the various options and tools to get Timmy out of the well, the more you can set up those and have those conditions be in place, there's a whole host of other problems that simply don't go away. And so, these things kind of get a bit muddled. And so when you say ‘learning from incidents,' I would separate that very much from what you tell the world externally from your company about the incident because they're not at all the same.Public write-ups about an incident are not the results of an analysis. It's not the same as an internal review, were the review to be effective. Why? Well, first thing is you never see apologies on internal post-incident reviews because who are you going to apologize to?Corey: It's always fun watching the certain level of escalating transparency as you go up through the spectrum of the public explanation of an outage, to ones you put internal customers, to ones you show under NDA to special customers, to the ones who are basically partners who are going to fire you contractually if you don't, to the actual internal discussion about it. And watching that play out is really interesting. As you wind up seeing the things that are buried deeper and deeper, yeah, you wind up with this flowery language on the outside, and it gets more and more transparent, and at the end, it's, “Someone tripped and hit the emergency power switch in a data center.” And it's this great list of how this stuff works.John: Yeah. And to be honest, it would be strange and shocking if they weren't different. Because like I said, the purpose of a public write-up is entirely different than an internal write-up and the audience is entirely different. And so that's why they're cherry-picked. There's a whole bunch of things that aren't included in public write-up because the purpose is, “I want a customer or potential customer to read this and feel at least a little bit better.”Or really, I want them to at least get this notion that we've got a handle on it. “Wow, that was really bad, but nothing to see here, folks. It's all been taken care of.” But again, this is very different, the people inside the organization, even if it's just sort of tacit, they've got a knowledge. Tenured people who have been there for some time, see connections, even if they're not made explicit, between one incident to another incident.To that one that happened—“Remember that one that happened three years ago, that big one? Oh, sorry, you're new. Oh, let me tell you the story. Oh, it's about this and blah, blah, blah. And who knew that Unix pipes only passes 4k across it.” Blah, blah, blah, something—some weird, esoteric thing.And so our focus, largely, although we have done projects with companies about trying to be better about their external language about it, the vast majority of what we do and where our focuses is, is to capture the richest understanding of an incident for the broadest audience. And like I said at the very beginning, the bar is real low. There's a lot of, I don't want to say falsehoods, but certainly a lot of myths that just don't play out in the data about whether people are learning. Whenever we have a call with a potential client, we always ask the same question. Ask them about what their post-incident activities look like, and they tell us and throw in some cliches, and everyone—never want a crisis go to waste.And, “Oh, yes. And we always try to capture the learnings and we put them in a document.” And we always ask the same question, which is, “Oh. So, you put these documents, these write-ups in an area?” Oh, yes, we want that to be shared as much as possible.And then we say, “Who reads them?” And that tends to put a bit of a pause because most people have no idea whether they're being read or not. And the fact is, when we look, very few of these write-ups are being read. Why? I'll be blunt: because they're terrible. [laugh].There's not much to learn from there because they're not written to be read. They're written to be filed. And so we're looking to change that. And there's a whole bunch of other things that are unintuitive, but just like all of the perspective shifts, DevOps, and continuous deployment, they sound obvious, but only in hindsight after you get it. That's characterization of our work.Corey: It's easy to wind up, from the outside, seeing a scenario where things go super well in an environment like that, where, okay, we brought you in as a consultant, suddenly, we have better understanding about our outages. Awesome. But outages still happen. And it's easy to take a cynical view of, okay, so other than talking to you a lot, we say the right things, but how do we know that companies are actually learning from what happened as opposed to just being able to tell better stories about pretending to learn?John: Yeah, yeah. And this is, I think, where the world of software has some advantages over other domains. And the fact is, software engineers don't pay any attention to anything they don't think the attention is warranted, or they're not being judged, or scored, or rewarded for. And so there's no single signal that accompanies learning from incidents. It's more like a constellation, like, a bunch of smaller signals.So, for example, if more people are reading the write-ups. If more people are attending group review meetings. In organizations that do this really well, engineers who start attending meetings, we ask them, “Well, why are you going to this meeting?” And they'll report, “Well, because I can learn stuff here that I can't learn anywhere else. Can't read about it in a runbook, can't read about it on the wiki, can't read about it in an email, or hear about it in an all-hands.”And that they can see a connection between, even incidents handled in some distant group, they can see a connection to their own work. And so those are the sort of signals—we've written about this on our blog—those are the sort of signals that we know that progress is building momentum. But a big part of that is capturing this, again, this experience. Usually, we'll see, there's a timeline, and this is when memcached did X, and this alert happened, and then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right?But very rarely are captured the things that, when you ask an engineer, “Tell me your favorite incident story.” People who will even describe themselves, “Oh, I'm not really a storyteller, but listen to this.” And they'll include parts that make for a good story. Social construct is, if you're going to tell a story, you've got the attention of other people, you're going to include the stuff that was not usually kept or captured in write-ups. For example, like, what was confusing?A story that tells about what was confusing, well—“And then we looked, and it said, ‘zero tests failed.'”—this is an actual case that we looked at—“It says ‘zero tests failed.' And so, okay. So, then I deployed. Well, the site went down.” “Okay, well, so what's the story there?” “Well, listen to this. As it turns out, at a fixed font, zeros, like, in Courier or whatever, have a slash through it and at a small enough font, a zero with a slash through it looks a lot like an eight. There were eight tests failed, not zero.” So, that's about the display. And so those are the types of things that make a good story. We all know stories like this, right? The Norway problem with YAML. You ever heard of that Norway problem?Corey: Not exactly. I'm hoping you'll tell me.John: Well, so lay [laugh] it's excellent, and of course it works out that the spec for YAML will evaluate the value no—N-O—to false as if it was a boolean. Yes, for true. Well, but if your YAML contains a list of abbreviations for countries, then you might have Ireland, Great Britain, Spain, US, false instead of Norway. And so that's just an unintuitive surprise. And so, those are the types of things that don't typically get captured in incident writeups.There might be a sentence like, “There was a lack of understanding.” Well, that's unhelpful. At best. Don't tell me what wasn't there. Tell me what was there. “There was confusion.” Great. “What made it confusing?” “Oh, yeah. N-O is both ‘no' and the abbreviation for Norway.”Red herrings is another great example. Red herrings happen a lot; they tend to stick in people's memories; and yet, they never really get captured. But it's, like, one of the most salient aspects of the case that ought to be captured. People don't follow red herrings because they know they're a red herring. They follow red herrings because they think it's going to be productive.So therefore, you better describe for all your colleagues what brought you to believe that this was productive. Turns out later—you find out later that it wasn't productive. Those are some of the examples. And so if you can capture what's difficult, what's ambiguous, what's uncertain, and what made it difficult, ambiguous, or uncertain, that makes for good stories. If you can enrich these documents, it means people who maybe don't even work there yet, when they start working there, they'll be interested; they have a set expectation they'll learn something by reading these things.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle Cloud. Counting the pennies, but still dreaming of deploying apps instead of "Hello, World" demos? Allow me to introduce you to Oracle's Always Free tier. It provides over 20 free services and infrastructure, networking databases, observability, management, and security.And - let me be clear here - it's actually free. There's no surprise billing until you intentionally and proactively upgrade your account. This means you can provision a virtual machine instance or spin up an autonomous database that manages itself all while gaining the networking load, balancing and storage resources that somehow never quite make it into most free tiers needed to support the application that you want to build.With Always Free you can do things like run small scale applications, or do proof of concept testing without spending a dime. You know that I always like to put asterisks next to the word free. This is actually free. No asterisk. Start now. Visit https://snark.cloud/oci-free that's https://snark.cloud/oci-free.Corey: There's an inherent cynicism around… well, from at least from my side of the world, around any third-party that claims to fundamentally shift significant aspects of company culture, and if the counter-argument to that is that you and DORA and a whole bunch of other folks have had significant success with doing it, it's just very hard to see that from the outside. So, I'm curious as to how you wind up telling stories about that because the problem is inherently whenever you have an outsider coming into an enterprise-style environment, is, “Oh, cool. What are they going to be able to change?” And it's hard to articulate that value, and not—well, given what you do, to be direct—come across as an engineering apologist, where it's well, “Engineers are just misunderstood, so they need empathy, and psychological safety, and blameless post-mortems.” And it sounds to crappy executives, if I'm being direct, that, “Oh, in other words, I just can't ever do anything negative to engineers who, from my perspective, just failed me or are invisible, and there's nothing else in my relationship with them.” Or am I oversimplifying?John: No, no. I actually think you're spot on. I mean, that's the thing is that if you're talking with leaders—remember, a.k.a. People who are, even though they're tasked with providing the resources and setting conditions for practitioners—the hands-on folks who get their work done—they're quite happy to talk about these sort of abstract concepts, like psychological safety and insert other sorts of hand-wavy stuff.What is actually pretty magical about incidents is that these are grounded, concrete, messy phenomena that practitioners have, and will remember; they're sometimes visceral experiences. And so that's why we don't do theory at Adaptive Capacity Labs. We understand the theory, happy to talk to you about it, but it doesn't mean as much without the practicality. And the fact of the matter is that the engineer apologist is, “If you didn't have the engineers, would you have a business?” That's at the flip side; this is, like, the core unintuitive part of the field of resilience engineering, which is that Murphy's Law is wrong.What could go wrong almost never does, but we don't pay much attention to that. And the reason why you're not having nearly as many incidents as you could be is because, despite the fact that you make it hard to learn from incidents, people are actually learning. But they're just learning out of view from leaders. When we go to an organization and we see that most of the people who are attending post-incident review meetings are managers, that has a very particular signal. That tells me that the real post-incident review is happening outside that meeting, it probably happened before that meeting, and those people are there to make sure that whatever group that they represent in their organization isn't unnecessarily given the brunt of the bottom of a bus.And so it's a political due diligence. But the notion that you shouldn't punish or be harsh on engineers for making mistakes completely misses the point. The point is to set up the conditions so that engineers can understand the work that they do. And if you can amplify that, as Andrew Schaffer has said, “You're either building a learning organization, or you're losing to someone who is.” And a big part of that is you need people; you have to set up conditions for people to give detailed story about their work, what's hard.This part of the codebase is really scary, right? All engineers have these notions: this part is really scary, this part is really not that big of a deal, this part is somewhere in between. But there's no place for that outside of the informal discussions. But I would assert that if you can capture that, the organization will be better prepared. The thing that I would end on that is that it's a bit of a rhetorical device to get this across, but one of the questions we'll ask is, “How can you tell the difference between a difficult case—a difficult incident—handled well, or a straightforward incident handled poorly?”Corey: And from the outside, it's very hard to tell the difference.John: Oh, yeah. Well, certainly if what you're doing is averaging how long these things take. But the fact of the matter is that all the people who were involved in that, they know the difference between a difficult case handled well, and a straightforward one handled poorly. They know it, but there's nowhere, there's no place to give voice to that lived experience.Corey: So, on the whole, what is the tech industry missing when it comes to learning effectively from the incidents that we all continually experience and what feels to be far too frequently?John: They're missing what is captured in that age-old parable of the blind men and the elephant. And I would assert that these blind men that the king sends out—“Go find an elephant and come back and tell me about the elephant”—they come back and they all have—they're all valid perspectives, and they argue about, “No, an elephant is this big flexible thing,” and other one is, “Oh, no, an elephant is this big wall,” and, “No, an elephant is a big flappy thing.” If you were to make a synthesis of their different perspectives, then you'd have a richer picture and understanding of an elephant. You cannot legislate—and this is where what you brought up—you cannot set ahead, a priori, some amount of time and effort. And quite often what we see are leaders saying, “Okay, we need to have some sort of root cause analysis done within 72 hours of an event.” Well, if your goal is to find gaps, and come up with remediation items, that's what you're going to get. Remediation items might actually not be that good because you've basically contained the analysis time.Corey: Which does sort of feel, on some level, like it's very much aligned as—from a viewpoint of, yeah, remediation items may not be useful as far as driving lasting change, but without remediation items, good luck explaining to your customers that will never ever, ever happen again.John: Right, yeah. Of course. Well, you'll notice something about those public write-ups; you'll notice that they don't tend to link to previous incidents that have similarities to them because that would undermine the whole purpose, which is to provide confidence. And a reader might actually follow a hyperlink to say, “Wait a minute. You said this wouldn't happen again.”Turns out it would. Of course, that's horseshit. But you're right. And there's nothing wrong with remediation items, but if that's the goal, then that goal is—you know, what you look for is what you find, and what you find is what you fix. If I said, “Here's this really complicated problem and I'm only giving you an hour to describe it,” and it took you eight hours to figure out the solution.Well then, what you come up with in an hour is not actually going to be all that good. So, then the question is, how good are the remediation items? Quite often what we see is—and I'm sure you've had this experience—an incident's been resolved and you and your colleagues are like, “Wow, that was a huge pain in the ass. Oh, dude. I didn't see that coming. That was weird. Yeah.” And one of you might say, “You know what? I'm just going to make this change because I don't want to be woken up tonight, or I know that making this change is going to help things. I'm not waiting for the post-mortem. We're just going to do that.” “Is that good?” “Yep.” “Okay, yeah, please do it.”Quite frequently, those things, those actions, those aren't listed as action items, and yet it was a thing so important that it couldn't wait for the post-mortem—arguably the most important action item—and it doesn't get captured that way. We've seen this take place. And so again, in the end, it's about those who have the lived experience. The live experience is what fuels how reliable you are today.You don't go to your senior technical people and say, “Hey, listen. We got to do this project. We don't know how. I want you to figure out—we're going to—let's say we're going to move away from this legacy thing, so I want you to get in a room, come up with two or three options. Gather a group of folks who know what they're talking about. Get some options, and then show me what the options. Oh, and by the way, I'm prohibiting you from taking into account any experience you've ever had with incidents.” It sounds ridiculous when you would say that, and yet, that is what [unintelligible 00:27:54].So, if you can fuel people's memory, you can't say you've learned something if you can't remember it. At least that's what my kids' teachers tell me. And so yeah, you have to capture the lived experience, and including what was hard for people to understand. And those make for good stories. That makes for people reading them. That makes for people to have better questions about it. That's what learning looks like.Corey: If people want to learn more about what you have to say and how you view these things, where can they find you?John: You can find me and my colleagues at adaptivecapacitylabs.com where we talk all about the stuff on our blog. And myself, and Richard Cook, and Dave Woods are also on Twitter, as well.Corey: And we'll, of course, include links to that in the [show notes 00:28:42]. John, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me today. I really appreciate it.John: Yeah, thanks. Thanks for having me. I'm honored.Corey: John Allspaw, co-founder and principal at Adaptive Capacity Labs. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn, and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, along with a comment giving me a list of suggested remediation actions that I can take to make sure it never happens again.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need the Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

This week marks a special anniversary involving coal miners, and a name change in the city of Pittsburgh.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Allison and Astra discuss the crimes of Richard Cook, the murder of Amy Stahlecker, and the state of tort law in the United States. Sources: https://fremonttribune.com/trial-begins-in-death-of-local-teen/article_e88c41a6-1ccb-52ca-be8f-ad3931edec9a.htm https://fremonttribune.com/defendants-friend-denies-accusations-in-court/article_abd7204e-a42a-5c71-af4d-9ba8ff161e0b.html https://fremonttribune.com/cook-takes-witness-stand-in-trial/article_2cbc128d-19ae-532b-9f36-fb70da547876.html State v. Cook, 266 Neb. 465 (2001). Stahlecker v. Ford Motor Co., 266 Neb. 601 (2003). https://qconline.com/news/iowa/omaha-man-charged-in-wayne-state-freshmans-death/article_b22a8f68-7c60-5150-ad0e-991f7f18cd09.html https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ne-supreme-court/1308610.html https://www.leagle.com/decision/inneco20150320377 https://theindependent.com/news/arrest-made-in-waterloo-shooting-death/article_ab188216-1c34-56f4-9cd0-7b17f1c9f7f8.html https://yorknewstimes.com/news/omaha-man-charged-in-wayne-state-freshmans-death/article_cbaff739-c70b-5326-bcbb-0e9b324e9a06.html https://fremonttribune.com/fhs-grad-found-dead/article_42f4f48c-0f92-56c0-be01-0d05579692a0.html

SNORING! Is it a DEAL BREAKER for your relationship? Can you make it work? Chelsea's last guy snored LOUDLY. CAN THAT ACTUALLY WORK?? Who needs sleep anyways..... Our guests, Laura and Richard Cook have been together for 36 years…and Laura's been AWAKE for all of them.  Poor Laura! Tune in for relationship advice on how to stay together and happy in your relationship for 30 years. These 2 are hilarious... And we sample Straight & Narrow Gin yum......

This week we're delighted to welcome Richard Cook, Social Media Manager at Monzo for a good old chit-chat. If you didn't already know, Monzo Bank launched in 2015 as one of the first neo or digital-only banks, offering a mobile-first experience and coral-coloured debit cards. It became the darling of crowdfunding when it raised a record-breaking £1 million in just 96 seconds. We chat to Richard about the early days of Monzo, why did it become a cult brand amongst North London tech types and how does he get people engaged in conversations about finance? We really enjoyed this one so hope you do too! Follow us on Instagram @brandwarspod

Engineering disasters often highlight how bad decisions can wreak havoc, but Dr. Richard Cook's model of complex systems & how they fail paints a different picture.

This weeks episode I induct the first amateur golfer into the prestigious Choppers Club. Richard shares how much of a grind it really is for amateur golfers to chase their dream of becoming professionals whilst also sharing plenty of laughs along the way.

Today’s guest is Richard Cook, co-founder and portfolio manager at Cook & Bynum based in Birmingham, Alabama. Richard is a pure value investor. Both the depth and breadth of his thinking shined through in our conversation. We talked about Arca, a Mexican Coca-Cola bottler that Richard evaluated for the multi-decade durability of its business. We had a great conversation in which Richard detailed a high-level structural analysis of Arca’s business while at the same time deploying a unique brand of shoe leather research bumping along the roads of Mexico to visit local shops in order to understand the company’s execution and positioning. If you would like notes from today’s episode, please subscribe to our free newsletter. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Feel free to email info@investingindepth.com with feedback. You can follow Cook & Bynum on their web site. 1:35 Path to becoming an investor: receiving 5 shares of 5 stocks as a third grade Christmas gift. Reading Roger Lowenstein’s, Buffett: The Making of An American Capitalist was a turning point. 6:00 Arca Continental is a Coca-Cola bottler based in Northern Mexico. Coca-Cola sells them syrup and they have an exclusive regional franchise to bottle and sell Coke.  8:00 How Arca Continental hit Richard’s radar screen. 10:25 Framework for evaluating businesses: circle of competence, business, people, and price.  10:30 Using old-fashioned shoe leather research. Richard drove from his home base in Birmingham, Alabama, to Mexico to visit small stores along back country dirt roads to evaluate the quality of Arca’s execution at its points of sale. “You want to understand why does the consumer choose your product and not someone else’s... and what does the company say those reasons are and do those match up.” 14:55 Identifying structural barriers to competition: Fragmentation of distribution. 22:18 Evaluating people — a critical aspect of emerging markets investing. “You usually have two sets of people. There’s management… there’s also the key shareholders, which is frequently a family or two or three and you have to triangulate on whether or not you want to be in business with this family.” 26:20 Investing in a less liquid name. “Most of the volume was going through a single broker … and we figured out that we needed to have a relationship with that broker…. You have to go find where the liquidity is.” 27:50 Monitoring areas of ongoing risk and uncertainty after making an initial investment: focusing on mega trends. 33:10 How Arca maintains its strength: investing in and strengthening the mom-and-pop store channel that distributes its Coke products. 38:24 Sizing the investment: Expected return divided by risk, which Richard defines as the how wide the range of outcomes relative to expectations may be. His write-up on avoiding losers  captures Richard’s unique approach to thinking about risk. He also has a terrific write-up on the Kelly Criterion, which was originally used in information theory and has served as a guide for Richard’s focus on maximizing geometric means rather than arithmetic means in investment decisions. The original Kelly paper is here and William Poundstone’s Fortune’s Formula is a history of John Kelly and Claude Shannon’s efforts at Bell Labs in the 1950s developing his formula. 45:44 Recommended reading Robert Massie’s Peter the Great for providing perspective on emerging markets across history. CV Wedgwood’s The Thirty Years War for providing perspective on the impact that a major reduction in the cost of communication can have on society. Anything by Peter Kaufman (there are a lot of YouTube videos). One of his insights is that if a business optimizes toward win-win solutions, that goes a long way toward decreasing risk and increasing durability: “All the people that interact with this business, are they winning? If they are, then that’s a lot more durable. You can say a lot more about what the profitability and durability of that business is 10, 15, 30 years from now.“ Richard was humble in not mentioning the Cook & Bynum web site. It contains a terrific Bookshelf section with recommended books as well as scores of fantastic “C&B Notes” covering a broad range of topics in investing and beyond. Note: This podcast is for educational purposes only and nothing here constitutes a recommendation or offer.

On this week's episode of The Bottom Line on KCLR, John Purcell was speaking to Pete Lunn who is the founder and head of the ESRI's Behavioural Research Unit & is also part of the team who are advising the National Public Health Emergency Team (NPHET) on some of the measures during Covid-19. Pete discusses the trends and the psychological impact the restrictions of Covid-19 has had on the Irish population,  the importance of work for people and how it helps individual to feel connected to others and society and how we get back to work after restrictions have been lifted. Pete also addresses how many people while wanting restrictions to be lifted, have real concerns regarding returning to work in terms of their safety and highlights the practical measures businesses can take to plan for environments that are safe and comfortable for individuals to return to work or for customers to return to stores.Richard Cook a creative entrepreneur and the founder of the Cat Laughs Comedy Festival, Kilkenomics and Subtitle Film Fest. Richard joined John to talk about the cancellation of this year's Cat Laughs Comedy Festival for the first time in almost thirty years, what it means to him on a personal level and what it means to Kilkenny. He talks about how Covid-19 will impact on the live comedy world for the future and other festivals such as Kilkenomics.One of the largest organisations in Kilkenny and one which impacts every family in the county of Kilkenny is Kilkenny County Council and Colette Byrne, Chief Executive of Kilkenny County Council joined John to talk through how the County Council as an organisation is operating at the moment as well as what their major challenges are and will be into the future. Colette highlights how the community have come together and how their emergency community response and community helpline can help to assist members of the community, the helpline number is 1800 500 000.  Colette chatted to John about our reliance on the tourism industry in Kilkenny and with the closures of all the hotels, restaurants, bars etc the impact this will have on Kilkenny and the role Kilkenny County Council will have in this. Colette also highlights her concerns for the County Council in terms of the impact on them as a business and anticipates that income from rates will be significantly impacted due to Covid-19. Ken Byrne Founder and CEO of Redsky Europe joins John to talk about his company and the services they provide. RedSky are Market Access Specialists based in Kilkenny who provide three main areas of services: Fulfilment, Vat Platform and International Freight. Ken spoke to John about how they have been working through the Covid-19 restrictions and how they have now developed RedSky Ireland which is aimed at assisting Irish companies and their online efforts at present.  https://redskyeurope.com/ Joe Curran, Director of VSS, Ventilation Surveys and Services a company based in Carlow, spoke to John about the process that lead to him pivoting from his existing business to develop his latest venture which is to offer Coronavirus Covid -19 Decontamination Services across many different industries. www.brethevss.ie With thanks to O'Neill Foley https://onf.ie/ Produced by Deirdre Dromey.To contact the show, email thebottomline@kclr96fm.com

mike, travis, drunk and matt discuss the following topics........ cumberland farms used to have big david hasselhoff promotional items and mike wants to purchase one....... matt's rock n roll life......... the time we watched a gal's purse while she went to go have sex with the guys from the band tantric......... after the break, we talked to vfx man richard cook about his new film "gold dust" and his storied career.  gold dust is for the kids, you guys.  get it here. WELL, BYE.

Welcome to the Big Buck Registry's Best Deer Hunting stories of 2019.  On almost every show we ask each guest to share a memorable deer story that's meaningful to them.  At the heart of the Big Buck Registry are the stories of the men and women across the world, from all walks of life, that share a common bond in hunting.  We've always felt that the story was just as important as the rest of the show because it brings everything together.  If the rest of the show is the text book, the story is the example. The story brings the hunt to life. So we decided to go back through each show and put together a compilation of the deer stories told throughout the year and share them collectively.  We'll hear from Jeff Johnston, Scott and Seth Perkins, Richard Cook, Anthony Stallone, Harmon Carson, Allison Rauscher, and Phil Vanderpool. This is part two and our last episode of 2019. Cheers to a healthy, prosperous, and successful 2020. OUR SPONSORS:  Minus 33 Merino Wool,  Covert Scouting Cameras, Grizzly Ears, Rackology, BIG BUCK MERCH   DISCOUNT CODES: Minus 33 10% OFF: BIGBUCK33 Here's Who Is Feature in Part II: Jeff Johnston #7 Scott and Seth Perkins #6 Richard Cook #5 Anthony Stallone #4 Harmon Carson #3 Allison Rauscher #2 Phil Vanderpool #1 Help Support This Show: Click Here to Support Us Big Buck Merch: Click Here for BBR Deer Hunt Merch FEEDBACK HOTLINE: 724-613-2825 PLACES TO FIND OUR PODCAST: Click for Apple Podcasts Click Here for Stitcher Click Here for Google Play Click Here for Our Podcast Page Click Here for YouTube Subscribe to our RSS Feed Click Here for TuneIn Click Here for Google Podcasts Click Here for Spotify Click Here for Radio Public Click Here for Radio.com Click Here for iHeart Radio Want to Know When the Next Big Buck Podcast is Released? Join the Club: Click Here to Join Our Mailing List Submit A Buck: Click Here to Submit a Big Buck Hunt Pic Big Buck Registry Social Media Links: Facebook: Click Here for Our Facebook Page Twitter: Click Here for BBR Twitter Instagram: Click Here for BBR Instagram Email Us: BBR Feedback:Feedback@BigBuckRegistry.com Be a Guest: Guests@BigBuckRegistry.com CREDITS: This Show was Written, Edited, and Produced by Jason “Jay” Scott Ammann Deer News Written and Recorded by Jim Keller Chubby Tines Tip of the Week Written by Dusty Phillips

In our final episode of the decade we run down the 2nd largest media conglomerate in the world, the Walt Disney Company. In this first of three parts we start with Walt Disney's birth in Chicago in 1901 and continue all the way up to his company introducing another death star as if its an original plot device. Along the way we learn about a man and an empire that has abused copyright law, bought the US government wholesale to change said copyright law, flirted with Nazism, busted unions, snitched to Joseph McCarthy, and offered family cruises to Jeffrey Epstein's private island. I'm sure it's just a coincidence that former Disney chairman Richard Cook was on the flight logs. Check our patreon for Parts 2 & 3. Here's the referenced Paste article about Walt's Nazi links: https://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2017/06/walt-the-quasi-nazi-the-fascist-history-of-disney.html

This week on the Bottom Line on KCLR, John spoke with Claire Phelan Head of Operations at UPMC Whitfield and to David Beirne Senior Vice President of UPMC International & Ireland Country Manager, we hear about the changes in health technology and what this can mean to the patient, about their plans for the future and the decision to partner with Kilkenny GAA on the naming rights sponsorship of Nowlan Park.This week saw the launch of www.irelandsoutheast.com a new website which was launched for investors and professionals to learn more about the South East region as a place to live, work and invest. The site offers practical information and case studies of successful businesses and professionals in the region. During the week John Purcell spoke with Alan Quirke Director of the Ireland South East Development Office which created the website. This weekend Subtitle the Film Festival will be in full swing throughout Kilkenny, and John met with Richard Cook the man behind Subtitle as well as Cat Laughs and Kilkenomics, he spoke about the business behind festivals as well as about his career throughout the years.   If you're interested in relocating or moving back to Kilkenny then check out www.careerskilkenny.ie Kilkenny's largest careers event taking place on December 28th in the Medieval Mile Museum in Kilkenny.   Produced by Deirdre Dromey.   To contact the show, email thebottomline@kclr96fm.com

Just when you thought you'd heard it all about deer urine, deer scent attractants, deer behavior, and deer farming,  along comes a Richard Cook, the formulation master wizard behind Cooks Fatal Attraction deer scent lures.   Unlike many brands with expired diluted product, Richard raises deer, collects specimens, and ships his extremely fresh undiluted product quickly. It's like shopping for organic anything directly on the farm itself.   We take a deep dive into Richard's deer scent operation. OUR SPONSORS:  Minus 33 Merino Wool,  Covert Scouting Cameras, Grizzly Ears,  QUIETKAT, Rackology, BIG BUCK MERCH   DISCOUNT CODES: Minus 33 10% OFF: BIGBUCK33 QuietKat 15% OFF: BIGBUCK15 Deer News Here's What We Discuss: Pure, Fresh, Deer Herd Collection Techniques Maine Minnesota Board of Animal Health 12 Years Old, Buying His First Bottle of Scent Age 20 to 41,  with Minimal Results A Farming Background, Bucks Like to Fight Deer into Estrus,  A Seeder Tranquilize, Estrous Production for Early Deer Season A Semen Tank, and Conception Rate Run the Buck by the Pen Cooling the Urine, Immediately, and a Gallon Jug Big Order Days, Big Bladders, and Small Best Results in 3 Year Old Bucks Identify Estrous by Smell Urine Master Skip the Taste Test, The Urine Smell of Many USDA Food Inspector, Sanitization A Collection System Bumping Velvet, Herd Care Doe in Heat, Doe Estrous Drag Lines Dominant Buck and Scent Rope Doe Estrogen 30 pg/mil Keep Em Calm, Bedding Scent, Doe Scent Rutting Buck vs Dominant Buck Pre Orbital Buck Scent Bedding Scent Sweet Corn, Oak, Dirt, Red Apple Synthetic vs Non Synthetic Scent Stick Wax Preservation No Preservatives Memorable Deer Hunt Help Support This Show: Click Here to Support Us Big Buck Merch: Click Here for BBR Deer Hunt Merch FEEDBACK HOTLINE: 724-613-2825 PLACES TO FIND OUR PODCAST: Click for Apple Podcasts Click Here for Stitcher Click Here for Google Play Click Here for Our Podcast Page Click Here for YouTube Subscribe to our RSS Feed Click Here for TuneIn Click Here for Google Podcasts Click Here for Spotify Click Here for Radio Public Click Here for Radio.com Click Here for iHeart Radio Want to Know When the Next Big Buck Podcast is Released? Join the Club: Click Here to Join Our Mailing List Submit A Buck: Click Here to Submit a Big Buck Hunt Pic Big Buck Registry Social Media Links: Facebook: Click Here for Our Facebook Page Twitter: Click Here for BBR Twitter Instagram: Click Here for BBR Instagram Email Us: BBR Feedback:Feedback@BigBuckRegistry.com Be a Guest: Guests@BigBuckRegistry.com CREDITS: This Show was Written, Edited, and Produced by Jason “Jay” Scott Ammann Deer News Written and Recorded by Jim Keller Chubby Tines Tip of the Week Written by Dusty Phillips

In this week's episode, Barney Hoskyns and Mark Pringle are joined by special guest Keith Altham to pay tribute to the late Scott Walker, an artist he interviewed many times for New Musical Express. They consider Walker's early years as a teen idol and as a Walker Brother, followed by his bold '60s solo albums and his radical re-emergence in the '80s. Keith talks about touring with Scott and Jimi Hendrix – and about introducing the NME to the concept of "humour". The three of them listen to a clip from an interview with Martin Fry and Mark White of '80s icons ABC about Trevor Horn's production of debut album The Lexicon of Love. Mark then introduces selections from the week's new additions to the RBP library, including Mick Jagger talking to Dawn James in 1965, Anne Briggs "zooming down a whirlpool to annihilation", David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust album, My Bloody Valentine live at London's Clarendon, John Mellencamp's self-confessed status as a rock cliché and Salt-n-Pepa being denied their rightful place in hip-hop's history. Barney rounds it all off with tributes to writers Steven Wells and Mick Farren. Hosted by Mark Pringle and Barney Hoskyns Produced by Jasper Murison-Bowie Pieces discussed: Keith's articles on The Walker Brothers, Scott Walker and Scott hiding away; Scott Walker by Chris Welch, Scott Walker by Ian McDonald, Scott Walker by Richard Cook, Scott Walker by Graham Reid, Mick Jagger, Anne Briggs, David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, My Bloody Valentine @ The Clarendon, 10 Questions for John Mellencamp, Salt-N-Pepa, T. Graham Brown, Steven Wells tributes, Mick Farren tributes

IRG (Ideographic Rapporteur Group) 是一个我们多次提及的工作小组，而关于它的组织、成员与运作，听众或许知之甚少。今日本台有幸邀来 IRG 青年专家 Eiso，与大家分享 IRG 幕后的故事。同时，Eiso 也将进一步为我们介绍 CJK Unified Ideographs 相关的基本概念、历史信息以及工作进展的最前沿。 参考链接 ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2/IRG (Ideographic Rapporteur Group)（国际标准化组织与国际电工委员会·第一联合技术委员会·第二分委员会·第二工作组·表意文字小组） UTC（Unicode Technical Committee，Unicode 技术委员会） 魏安（Andrew C. West）博士，英国语言学家、汉学家；开设有个人网站 BabalStone 井作恆（John H. Jenkins） 曲理查（Richard Cook）博士 小林劍?（Ken Lunde）博士 康立论（Lee Collins），Unicode 创始人之一。 SAT 大正新修大藏经文本数据库（大正新脩大藏經テキストデータベース, The SAT Daizōkyō Text Database） ISO/IEC 2022，使用七位或八位编码表示各种文字的通用技术规范，包括中国国标 GB 2312 在内的东亚各国文字编码均遵从此标准 中文资讯交换码（CCCII，Chinese Character Code for Information Interchange） 中日韩统一表意文字（CJK Unified Ideographs） Chữ Nôm（?喃） Unicode 标准附件第 38 号：Unihan 数据库 Unihan 数据库搜索站 日本「文字情報基盤整備事業」 韩国历史信息统合系统（한국역사정보통합시스템） Unicode 标准附件第 45 号：U 源表意文字 统一字汇及排序（URO，Unified Repertoire and Ordering） 中日韩统一表意文字扩展 G 区草案 工尺（chě）谱 表意文字异体字数据库（IVD，Ideographic Variation Database） 嘉宾 陈永聪（Eiso Chan）：国际标准化组织表意文字小组（ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2/IRG）青年专家，主要从事 Unicode 和 OpenType 东亚部分相关工作 主播 Eric：字体排印研究者，译者，Type is Beautiful 编辑 蒸鱼：设计师，Type is Beautiful 编辑 欢迎与我们交流或反馈，来信请致 podcast@thetype.com​。如果你喜爱本期节目，也欢迎用支付宝向我们捐赠：hello@thetype.com​。 Type is Beautiful 会员计划已上线，成为我们的会员，即可享受月刊通讯、礼品赠送、活动优惠以及购物折扣等权益。

This is our annual Hanging of the Greens service, where we decorate the Sanctuary with wreaths, garlands, and place poinsettias for Christmas. Our guest performers are the band Looney's Fortune, comprised of Patti Amelotte on hammered dulcimer, Georgiana Hennessy on violin/fiddle, Matt Tonge on 12-string guitar, and Richard Cook on flute and bagpipe. Learn more about them at http://www.looneysfortune.com/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In which I chat with Critical Depth Games’ Richard Cook, who is braving the rotoscope (is that the name of the technique?) waters to bring us the greatest fighting game since the original “Mortal Kombat,” the Kickstarting “Super Combat Fighter.” Not only did we chat Cook’s love of fighting games, and rotoscoped (what’s the damn […]

Our host, Sarah Kocianski is joined by four great guests: Leda Glyptis, Chief of Staff at 11:FS, Joy Macknight, Deputy Editor at the Banker, Helene Panzarino, MD at Rainmaking Colab and Angelique Schouten, Global Board Member at Ohpen to talk about all the latest news in fintech. Including: First up, ING’s money laundering fine. Dutch bank ING admitted criminals had been able to launder money through its accounts and agreed to pay €775 million ($900 million) to settle the case. Dutch financial crime prosecutors said ING had violated laws on preventing money laundering and financing terrorism "structurally and for years" by not properly vetting the beneficial owners of client accounts and by not noticing unusual transactions through them. Half a billion stolen from UK banking customers in H1 2018. Industry group UK Finance said £145m of that was due to authorised push payment (APP) scams, in which people are conned into sending money to another account. But £358m was lost to unauthorised fraud, which includes transactions made without account holders' knowledge. Funding Circle’s IPO. Funding Circle has set a price range for its initial public offering (IPO) of 440 pence to 460 pence per share. The flotation will value the firm up to around £1.5 billion. The peer-to-peer lender said it intends to raise £300 million from the IPO. We have a brief comment from Funding Options Managing Director, Ryan Edwards-Pritchard to find out more. Funding Options’ funding. ING Ventures, the fintech venture capital arm of the Netherlands-based global bank, has taken a £5m minority equity stake in Funding Options. This follows the recent announcement that they're partnering with ING in the Netherlands to help Dutch businesses find the right finance for their situation. Monzo’s Million Customers. Tom Blomfield, said the "milestone shows that there’s real, mainstream appetite for a bank that’s doing things differently". Monzo now accounts for 15% of all new current account openings in the UK. Monzo customers now spend £12,000 on their cards every minute, the firm said, with £4bn in payments made so far. Monzo's "unicorn" valuation, of more than $1bn (£770m), is expected to be confirmed when it closes its latest round of fundraising, more than four times higher than its valuation less than a year ago. We have a great comment from Richard Cook, Monzo's Online Community Manager to get a bit of insight into how they reached their milestone. Cleo picks up $10M in series A fundraise. Cleo, the London-based “digital assistant” that wants to replace your banking apps. “Broke into” the US 6 months ago, and now has 350k US users, and 600k in the UK. Adding 30k new users per week. Big London VCs are already invested, including funders of Skype, Wonga and Transferwise and its latest investor is Balderton Capital. Open Banking, the US is behind the times. In the United States currently, there’s no legal requirement stipulating a financial institution must make a consumer’s financial data available to a third party in the event that a consumer provides affirmative consent. Goldman Sachs wants your piggy bank. Goldman Sachs’s US savings bank, Marcus comes to the UK, US savings bank, which was set up two years ago, has been a big success, attracting $20bn (£15bn) of savings. The company offers savers an easy-access online savings account that pays a competitive rate of interest on balances from £1 to £250,000. Revolut’s Luxembourg licence. Revolut plan to apply for an e-money licence in Luxembourg despite claiming they have no plans to leave London, but to hedge their bets against any impact of Brexit. They have also applied for a banking licence in Lithuania, partly to avoid Brexit disruption. HSBC tells Welsh singer to send letter in English. Singer Geraint Lovgreen has complained to the Welsh Language Commissioner after HSBC told him they could not respond to his letter because it was written in Welsh. The bank said they could not reply to him because it was written "in a foreign language" and he was asked to "resend your message in English". HSBC, which describes itself as "the world's local bank", insisted it worked hard to provide Welsh language services for its customers and it also worked "closely" with the Welsh Language Commissioner. All this and so much more on today's episode of Fintech Insider! Subscribe so you never miss an episode, leave a review on iTunes and every other podcast app. Spread the fintech love by sharing or tweeting this podcast. Let us know your thoughts @FintechInsiders and join the discussion by signing up at www.fintechinsidernews.com This week's episode was written and produced by Laura Watkins and edited by Holly Blaxill. Special Guests: Angelique Schouten, Helene Panzarino , Joy Macknight, Leda Glyptis, Richard Cook, and Ryan Edwards-Pritchard.

Our hosts, David M. Brear, Sam Maule and Simon Taylor are joined by two great guests: Ahmed Zaidi CTO at Catalyst AI and Kathryn Harris Innovation Lead at Lloyds Banking Group, to talk about all the latest news in fintech. Including: Starling closes their community. Citing several factors for the move, such as lack of use by most customers, the forum being a distraction for the company from core focus and a vocal minority misunderstanding its purpose. Starling’s post also made reference to banking being a highly regulated environment and forum interaction being restricted by that due to ‘tipping off’ rules. Starling says they remain committed to open conversation with customers and the wider fintech community through other channels such as social media, blog and monthly newsletter. We have a couple of great interviews with Sophie Guibaud, Managing Director for Europe at Fidor and Richard Cook, Online Community Manager from Monzo to get an insight into what communities have provided there. Digitised sexism. It turns out that women entrepreneurs who seek to finance their ventures using bank financing are increasingly forced to find solutions elsewhere. And compared to men, women entrepreneurs are pushed into desperate and extreme types of financing. State of concern. New York state’s top banking regulator on Friday sued the federal government to void its decision to award national bank charters to online lenders and payment companies. Maria Vullo, superintendent of New York’s Department of Financial Services, called the decision by the OCC to let financial technology companies, or fintech firms, obtain charters “lawless, ill-conceived, and destabilizing of financial markets.” The fintech hub to watch. Alipay and China UMS to set up EU hub in Luxembourg. At the end of a week-long mission led by Minister of Finance Pierre Gramegna to Beijing, Hangzhou and Shanghai, China’s Ant Financial confirmed the decision of its payment arm – Alipay - to set up its EU hub in Luxembourg. The announcement comes after China UMS, another major Chinese Fintech company, also announced its choice of Luxembourg. During the visit, several cooperation agreements have been signed. Arizona hits London on a mission to woo UK fintechs. Doug Ducey, the Governor of Arizona, hopes Britain’s best Fintechs can be persuaded to look beyond Silicon Valley when expanding into the US for the first time. Arizona is pitching to British fintechs in the UK this week, offering regulation-free access to the US market and promises of help with office space and talent. South African fintech JUMO to expand in Asia with Goldman Sachs backing. South Africa-based financial technology firm JUMO plans to expand in high-growth Asian markets after securing the backing of Goldman Sachs. Since 2014, JUMO, which provides credit and savings products to customers and SMBs through mobile, has mainly focused on Africa where the adoption of mobile money has transformed the banking landscape. We have a great interview with 11:FS' own Lesley-Ann Vaughan to get some deeper insight. Abu Dhabi opens digital sandbox. Abu Dhabi Global Markets (ADGM), the emirate's international financial centre, has further underlined its fintech ambitions with the launch of a digital sandbox. The sandbox is designed to offer banks, fintechs and regulators an open digital marketplace in which to collaborate on the creation, testing and adoption of new products. Mary Meeker, the legendary internet analyst is leaving Kleiner. Meeker’s by far the most senior woman in VC. The departure is rooted in different visions for the types of deals they would like to do. But like so many disputes in recent years at Kleiner Perkins, according to those familiar with the situation, there was also persistent friction between the two sides in ways that had little to do with the firm’s core business — over mundane things such as whether to host a holiday party in San Francisco or closer to Sand Hill Road in Silicon Valley. And finally, the 'first' pub in the UK has gone cashless...and it's near Ipswich. All this and so much more on today's episode of Fintech Insider! Subscribe so you never miss an episode, leave a review on iTunes and every other podcast app. Spread the fintech love by sharing or tweeting this podcast. Let us know your thoughts @FintechInsiders and join the discussion by signing up at www.fintechinsidernews.com This week's episode was written and produced by Dhanum Nursigadoo, produced by Laura Watkins and edited by Holly Blaxill. Special Guests: Ahmed Zaidi, Kathryn Harris, Richard Cook, and Sophie Guibaud.

Richard Cook is the man behind optical boutique Spex Pistols in Dundee’s Westport. Chances are if you see someone with interesting eyewear in Dundee, they’ve been to see Richard. Spex Pistols specialises in designer, vintage and classic frames as well as their very own range that’s due to launch soon. I think it’s fair to say that Richard is a big personality and well known throughout the creative community. He has built Spex Pistols to be that go to place for great glasses. Not only that but he prides himself on the quality of his customer service. Whether you’re going in to buy glasses or not he’s created a relaxed and fun atmosphere in the shop. To be honest it’s worth just dropping by for a chat. We begin by talking about his school days and the problems and difficulties he faced within the education system. We later go on to explore that this is largely down to Tourette's syndrome and a stutter that he later overcame. His first real opportunity came working in a spectacle lens making factory in Dundee. Richard talks about how he excelled even in areas that he’s struggled with in school. It just took someone to believe in him and offer that opportunity in order for him to flourish. When Richard was screwed over by a business partner and his marriage failed he was left in a pretty dark place. Despite this, he decided to open his very own store and Spex Pistols was born. He talks about how being dragged to a Pecha Kucha night ended up changing his life. It also led on to Dundee’s first Pecha Kucha baby! It’s a really triumphant story of the power of a community around you. I was really surprised about how deep our chat got. We talk about mental and physical health which is often avoided. It’s something that I touched on with Jennifer Jones as well and hopefully something I can explore further with future guests. Spex Pistols website - http://spexpistols.com/ Spex Pistols Twitter - https://twitter.com/spexpistols Spex Pistols Instagram - https://instagram.com/spexpistols/

What causes clients to keep coming back? Is it information? Or could it be entertainment? For too long we've treated teaching and learning as an activity that needs endless slides, pages and work. But what if clients get better results having fun? And what if you had a ton of fun as well? Let's find out how to speed up client learning with some pretty minor tweaks in your e-books, courses, presentations and webinars. Click here to read the transcript on the website:  #166: How To Speed Up Client-Learning With The Incredible Power of Infotainment ===================== When my mother-in-law, Preta, was in her twenties, she was teaching at Sunday school. Like most Sunday schools, the kids were there to learn about the Bible. However, my mother-in-law decided to teach the girls how to sew tiny dresses for their dolls. Within weeks of her starting up, all the girls wanted to be part of her class. Ironically, this made the other Sunday school teachers jealous. They complained to the “higher authorities”, and Preta was called in to explain herself. “We've heard you're not teaching them about the Bible, and instead only involving them in play”, said the person in charge. “You can come in and test the knowledge of the kids,” retorted my mother-in-law, “and you'll find they know they're well-versed in their Bible studies”. You can clearly see the wisdom of play in this story, can't you? You can also see how people in charge resist it a lot, even though it's apparent that we all have a maddening streak of playfulness we can't seem to shake. That when learning something, we want the trainer to bring a sense of joy into our learning. Instead, most education is soulless, incredibly dull and it's not surprising that clients drop out. The problem is that we're pretty sure we're guilty of this callous training and teaching as well. But what if we were to make fun the core of our system? What if we postponed designing the information-based section and thought about the fun elements, instead? What if fun wasn't an afterthought but part of the entire structure of learning? How would we do things differently, if this were the case? In this series, let's look at:
In this series, let's look at: 1) How to create Infotainment 2) Why we need to understand the goal 3) How to place the fun elements in your training 1) How to create Infotainment If you were in charge of getting a kid to write, would you start with “slimy, oozy eyeballs?” Here is a story of Jen Jackson from Seattle. She'd started a small English tutoring business aimed at kids that were being homeschooled. One of her students was Michael, Michael clearly despised writing, despite being able to read well. His mother tried “everything”, but her methods weren't working, so she called Jen to help Michael write. Except for the fact, that Jen didn't make Michael write at all. The two of them read joke books, challenged each other to tongue twisters and did everything but write. The second meeting involved fun drawing games and drawing a monster. Still, no writing was included. It was only the third session where a Monster Cafe was created, apparently to accommodate Michael's monster. That's when Michael wrote out a short menu that included slimy, oozy eyeballs. In the sessions to follow, Michael went on to create many menus for different monsters. Today, Michael is not exactly prolific, but he willingly writes short paragraphs and is eager to keep improving. When we read this story, we can see how entertainment has led to information success, can't we? Yet, as an educator it somehow feels scary. Even if you embrace the power of entertainment as the doorway to learning, how are you supposed to implement it? If you did what Jen did, wouldn't Michael's parent look at you funnily, wondering if you were just wasting their time and money? What are you supposed to do when you're not dealing with kids, but adults instead—and in serious fields like marketing or finance? The core of entertainment is to take the pressure off, completely Let's say you wanted to learn Photoshop. If you've never looked at Photoshop before, that sounds a bit intimidating, doesn't it? So how do you make it fun? You look at the what causes people to freeze. Incredibly, it's the computer and Photoshop itself. When I'm showing clients how to use Photoshop for the first time, I usually take them to a cafe—without the computer. We sit down and work our way through some core shortcuts. If the client wants to learn to draw, what alternatives would they need? Wait, you're reading this, so you can easily play along. Let's say you want to get the brush tool. Which letter on your keyboard would you press? Yes, you're right, it's the letter B. What if you wanted to change the opacity of the brush to 30%? What number would you press? Some clients say 30, but of course, the answer is 3. What about 50%. Yes, it's 5. And 70%? I'm teasing. Of course, you know the answer. Let's move on to the brush size. If you wanted to increase the brush size and you had to choose between the left and right square bracket, which one would you choose? Most of us correctly select the right square bracket, which means that the left one will reduce the brush size. Imagine you're sipping a cup of coffee, there's no computer in sight, and you're told to create a theoretical drawing in Photoshop. You have to get to the brush, get the opacity to 90% and then reduce the brush size? Notice how much fun that whole exercise turned out? The first way of taking the pressure off a person or a group is merely to get them as far as you can from the activity. When you put yourself (and the student or client) in a different setting, the pressure is instantly off and a sense of play sets in. However, not everyone can waltz their way into a cafe or garden Some teaching needs to be done at the venue itself. What do you do, then? One of the best and most effective ways to get the pressure off is to get the clients to do something wrong. Let's take an example. Of the many workshops we've had over the years, one of the more intimidating ones is the uniqueness workshop. The fact that we were going to take three days to get to uniqueness didn't help. How do you take the pressure off? You get the uniqueness wrong, that's what you do. Within minutes of starting the workshop, I gave each client an advertisement for a local business. They all had the same ad, and they had to figure out the uniqueness of the company in under 10 minutes. However, before they started, I informed them, that all of them, no matter how hard they tried, would get the assignment wrong. Imagine you're in the room right at this very moment You can hear the hush, can't you? You have an assignment, but you're going to get it wrong. But that quiet lasts only for a few seconds. Everyone has a big smile on their face as they take on the assignment that they just can't get right. The pressure to get it all correct is gone, and they can have a jolly good time. They start the assignment, complete their version of it, and then they're all chattering away and having a great time. After which everyone is called upon to give their answers, and a logical explanation follows. They've been entertained as well as informed! Tah, dah, infotainment! Good teachers know the value of play. Good workshop trainers will take the pressure off as quickly as they can. Excellent writers and speakers will use the power of stories to get their audience smiling, long before the main guts of the information comes along. The more pressure you put on a student, client or audience, the more the brain goes into shut down mode. Which is why we have to release the tension. But more importantly, it's because you need to understand the real goal. But what's the purpose? Ah, that's easy. You want the client to want to go forward of their own accord. You want them to beg you to continue. They must enjoy themselves so much that what you're teaching them must feel like a bowl of warm, chocolate muffins. Understanding the goal is what makes the client—or student come back repeatedly. Let's find out how we can get this goal going, shall we? 2) Why we need to understand the goal “‘Better, faster, cheaper.’ That was NASA's mantra around the year 1999. And it was in this very year that the Mars Climate Orbiter was destroyed. On Nov 10, 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter, a $125 million satellite was supposed to become the the first weather observer orbiting over another world. For the orbiter to do its job, it needed to get into a stable orbit around the red planet. But something had gone wrong. The software was required to control the Orbiter's thrusters, and it did so, using the system of measurement of “pounds”. However, a separate software was processing data in the metric unit—”newtons”. The two systems of measurement threw the entire mission entirely out of whack, and atmospheric friction likely tore the fragile satellite apart. From the outside, it might look like a doofus-plan: that sophisticated scientists didn't notice that the software was calculating in two completely different units. And just like that, the mission—the $125 million mission—was no more. When training clients, the burnout rate is consistently like the Mars Orbiter That's because we're using completely different systems of measurement in our teaching methods. The goal isn't necessarily to get the ideas or learning across. Yes, that's the final goal, but not the primary goal. The primary goal of any training system is to get the client back. Remember the story about Jen Jackson and how she tackled Michael's writing problem?
Remember how my mother-in-law got her students to get all excited about Sunday school? When you think about education in an objective sense, you may feel that it's your job to get the information across. But knowledge is tiring. It's frustrating. It's the wrong system of measurement. And it's most often what causes the client to burn up before the mission so much as gets underway. Instead, think of how you can get the client back using fun and a factor of entertainment. Entertainment doesn't just mean you're rolling out tacos and a Mariachi band
But then again, who says learning has to be all work, work and more work? In the headlines course, for example, we start off with an assignment that goes like this: Day 1: Introduce yourself Day 2: Watch three videos—and these videos are from the movie, Karate Kid Day 3: List five topics and many sub-topics

And what does their list look like? Ice Cream •   Cup •   Cone •   Scoops •   Buckets •   Sprinkles •   Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup •   Brown Cow •   Whipped cream By Day 5, clients are clearly having fun Mermaids, dinosaurs, deep sea aliens (yes, deep sea aliens exist, you know)—they all make a list. And everyone is having a blast. They're getting to know the members of their tiny group; they're coming up with all of these crazy topics and sub-topics. And it's a lot like what happens at our place every Friday. On Fridays, for the past four years, we've taken our niece Marsha to the food market The assignments could involve walking to the veggie section, weighing an object and writing down the weight. Or we might have to skip—no walking, just skipping—to the dairy section to find out how pricing works, and how Swedish rounding of prices works. In short, Marsha (and I) have been running, jumping and skipping through our learning exercise. She's learned about frozen, dried and fresh foods. She's learn about weights and measures, about addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Then when we get home, we do spellings in the garden or walking around the car (yes, I get sneaky steps on my Fitbit when I do that activity). However, let's make this really boring. Let's hunch over a desk or dining table and you get the idea why most kids detest having to study. There's zero entertainment and a lot of screaming and do this, do that, involved, instead. So what would Marsha want to do the following week? And the week after? Doesn't take much imagination, does it? If our goal is to educate, to train, to impart knowledge, you and I are sure going about it the wrong way. A workshop doesn't need your audience to reverentially worship you as you show them slide after slide. At Psychotactics workshops, clients go for walks and do their assignments. They sit by the pool. We have games, we have soft toys like Jordan the otter, and of course, Elmo comes along wherever we go. At one workshop, two our clients, Jessica and Alia, who happened to be belly dancers, taught one part of the group to dance, and the other to clap along and create the mood. Would you want to go to another dull, reverential note-taking-workshop or come to a Psychotactics workshop, instead? If it sounds like too much fun, and no work, that's not the case at all Every course online, every workshop, every book you write needs to be result-oriented. If the client buys your product or service to get a result, a result needs to be the finale. But why does it have to be boring? The only reasons why any learning is boring is because the trainer doesn't realise that fun is possible, or they take the easy route and do what they've already done a million times before. To create a fun-based situation takes a lot of work on your part. It's not as if to suggest that a serious training session isn't a lot of work. It's just that you need to do so much more planning when fun is involved. Entertainment is great for the learner or the audience, but it's a hard grind for you to put into place. However, the results of information + entertainment are incredibly predictable Clients come back repeatedly. If you were to attend a Psychotactics workshop, you'd find close to 50% of the audience are back for a second, third, fourth helping. Clients travel long distances just to be at the workshop. And they sign up even before we have time to put up a sales page. For instance, if you take the Singapore Landing Page workshop, ¼ of the seats are already gone. With the Brussels workshop, ¾ of the seats were taken before we completed the sales page. A similar trend plays out when we're conducting courses online. There's the Article Writing Course—yes, the live course online—in July 2018 The seats would go on sale by early March. And before you know it, and often within 24 hours, that course is filled to the brim. If you look at a presentation, there are compelling videos, loads of cartoons, a touch of animation—all designed to give the audience respite, even though the presentation may be under 40 minutes long. And if you've read a book from Psychotactics, you know that once again there are cartoons, a recipe in the middle of the book and an epilogue at the end of the book telling you the process of how the book was made. What's the goal of education? To come back, that's what the goal should be, shouldn't it? Imagine you as a kid wanting to race to school every day, because, hey, school was so much fun. Imagine desperately wanting to continue a video series on a topic like Photoshop, because the presenter is so amusing. Now make no mistake. It's not about pure entertainment. You're there for the information as well, but why on Earth does the process of imparting information have to be so boring? “Better, faster, cheaper” That was the mantra, the chant that caused the Mars Polar Lander to fry just 23 days after the Mars Climate Orbiter. According to an article in Wired Magazine, vibrations in that craft’s legs may have convinced the craft’s on-board computer it had already landed when it was still 100 feet in the air.“The specific reasons [for that failure] were different, but the underlying parts, this overly ambitious appetite, were the same.” “NASA made some “big-time” changes after that,” said NASA engineer Richard Cook, who was project manager for Mars exploration projects. They got rid of several other missions, including one that involved bringing rocks back to Earth. NASA, it seems, reevaluated what they were doing, based on strategies and concepts that had stood the test of time. When teaching, what stands the test of time better than entertainment? Would you rather go back to a place that is boring, or one that is a fun-learning experience? Which one are you most eager to go back to, time and time again? Well, since we're on the same page, let's go to the third part. Now that we're pretty sure that fun is part of learning, let's move to the third part and find out just where we can put fun parts in the learning. 3) How to place fun elements in your training Rob Walling has an unusual video in the middle of his presentation that takes the audience by surprise. In May 2017, I spoke at the Double Your Freelancing conference in Sweden. Rob was one of the speakers, and his topic was about the topic of “how to launch a startup.” Rob's a pretty easy-going speaker, with well-thought-out slides and a gentle progression. Until midway, when the entire presentation seems to stop for an intermission of sorts. Walling decides to show the audience a video of how his son solves a problem progressively. It's a home video, nothing flashy, yet the audience laughs as they watch the story unfold. How did the video show up in Rob's presentation? It's the same question that could be asked when you attend a Psychotactics and go off scampering for a scavenger hunt. Right in the middle of the workshop, there's a peculiar assignment. The pre-assigned groups are given 30 minutes to go out and find a whole bunch of items, return and then upload the pictures to the blog. The next day each group makes a presentation; the best entry is chosen by popular vote, and there's a tiny little prize ceremony. You noticed the fun element in both the examples, didn't you? The question is: how did they get there? And the answer becomes pretty apparent even as the question is being asked. Someone has to put it there, because yes, it may show up quite by chance. However, in most cases, the creator of the product or service has to be proactive enough to put in the fun elements. Your product or service needs this break as well Why should it be? When I went to school, we had a short break of 15 minutes, then a lunch break of an hour. We'd race out of the class at break time, so we could get onto the playground. Was the play connected in any way to our biology or physics class? Of course not, but the fact that someone decided to have the short and long break enabled us to study and play on every given day. Your product or service needs this break as well The way to go about creating the entertainment factor is to sit down with the book you're about to write. If you could make it fun, more interesting, what would you do? If you're about to conduct a course online, what do the assignments look like? Is there any space for play? What about your workshops or seminars? Are the participants like prisoners listening to you drone on forever? Or is there some factor of entertainment and play? If you remember picking up a copy of the Reader's Digest, you have this example with “The Lighter Side of” and “Laughter the Best Medicine” in the middle of some pretty serious articles. Someone sat down and said: “Ooh, all of this stuff is intense. We need to lighten up”. Not everyone appreciates the entertainment, of course A scavenger hunt may not go down well with 100% of the participants. Cartoons in a marketing book sound a bit crazy, doesn't it? A door that creaks open on a website (it's going to be on our new website) may seem outlandish. And there are always going to be naysayers. However, by and large, those are the people who wanted to stay in and do their homework while we ran out during school breaks. If they're unhappy with the entertainment factor, don't go around chaining the rest of your group to ol' grumps. Instead, design the event, the book, the product or service with a bunch of fun elements. Look through other books or situations to find inspiration Esquire Magazine may have a joke section—just one joke told by a supermodel. Could you be that supermodel in your book? If you've got a video course, why do you have to be Ms.Serious or Mr.Let's-Get-To-The-End? Have a couple of videos that tell a joke, or show something funny around your neighbourhood. Maybe take a leaf from Rob Walling's book and put in a video about your kid's crazy jokes. The fun part doesn't always have to be disconnected. It can connect quite easily as well. In The Brain Audit, there are sections where there's a whole page of cartoons, and they connect quite precisely. There's also a total disconnect with a butter chicken recipe. Do what you please: connect or disconnect at will. • Crossword puzzles • Recipes • Funny home videos • Cartoons • Stories • Case studies These are just some ways to entertain your audience while educating them As this article demonstrates, entertainment isn't just a nice-to-have. Instead, it's a necessity. Sometimes it is the reason why people show up. Sometimes it's the reason why they stay and continue. And sometimes the entertainment may be right at the end, like when David Attenborough and his crew put in the “how we made this documentary” as an epilogue of their film. When you see an idea you like, make sure you borrow it and use it well. We've used ideas from video and used it our books. We've been to a Sting concert and used some of the concepts in our podcasts. You can get ideas from everywhere if you look out for them—and more importantly—implement them. My mother-in-law's Sunday school story didn't end well. She managed to get the kids interested, but jealousy worked against her. She was told to stop the fun bits and focus only on the serious religious teaching, instead. You, on the other hand, aren't going to be pulled up if you add entertainment to your work. However, you have to plan in advance. The entertainment isn't likely to just work its way into your syllabus. Sit down, create the entertainment. Start small and build from there. Work is fun. But play is just as educational, if not more so. Next Up: The Secret of How To Get Clients To Keep Coming Back Repeatedly  

Interview of artist painter Richard Cook

Episode 27-Matthieu Branlat, Resilience Engineering. Biography: Matthieu Branlat is a Senior Scientist at SINTEF ICT in Trondheim, Norway. He obtained a PhD in Cognitive Systems Engineering from the Ohio State University in 2011. His research explores ways to contribute to the knowledge and improvement of socio-technical systems, particularly in high-risk environments. Themes of investigation include resilience engineering and system safety, decision-making, collaborative work, cross-cultural competences and the design of technology to support human operations. Recent and on-going projects are conducted in domains such as crisis response; air traffic management; military operations; intelligence analysis and cyber security; medical care and patient safety. Book recommendations: Resilience Engineering: Concepts and Precepts by David Woods, Erik Hollnagel and Nancy Leveson Resilience-Engineering in Practice: A Guidebook by Erik Hollnagel, Jean Paries, David Woods, and John Wreathall Sources of Power by Gary Klein Behind Human Error by David Woods, Sidney Dekker, Richard Cook, Leila Johannesen, and Nadine Sarter Contact information: email: matthieu.branlat@gmail.com

The O’Reilly Security Podcast: Human error is not a root cause, studying success along with failure, and how humans make systems more resilient.In this episode, I talk with Steven Shorrock, a human factors and safety science specialist. We discuss the dangers of blaming human error, studying success along with failure, and how humans are critical to making our systems resilient.Here are some highlights: Humans are part of complex sociotechnical systems For several decades now, human error has been blamed as the primary cause of somewhere between 70% to 90% of aircraft accidents. But those statistics don’t really explain anything at all, and they don’t even make sense because all systems are composed of a number of different components. Some of those components are human—people in various positions and roles. Other components are technical—airplanes and computer systems, and so on. Some are procedural, or are soft aspects like the organizational structure. We can never, in a complex sociotechnical system, isolate one of those components as the cause of an accident, and doing so doesn't help us prevent accidents, either. There is no such thing as a root cause We have a long history of using human error as an explanation, partly because the way U.S. accident investigations and statistics are presented at the federal level highlights a primary cause. That is a little naïve (primary and secondary causes don’t really exist; that's an arbitrary line), but if investigators have to choose something, they tend to choose a cause that is closest in time and space to the accident. That is usually a person who operates some kind of control or performs some kind of action, and is at the end of a complex web of actions and decisions that goes way back to the design of the aircraft, the design of the operating procedures, the pressure that's imposed on the operators, the regulations, and so on. All of those are quite complicated and interrelated, so it's very hard to single one out as a primary cause. In fact, we should reject the very notion of a primary cause, never mind assigning the blame on human error. Studying successes along with failures If you only look at accidents or adverse events, then you're assuming that those very rare unwanted events are somehow representative of the system as a whole, but in fact, it's a concatenation of causes that come together to produce a big outcome. There's no big cause; it's just a fairly random bunch of stuff that's happened at the same time and was always there in the system. We should not just be studying when things go wrong, but also how things go well. If we accept that causes of failure are inherent in the system, then we can find them in everyday work and will discover that very often they're also the causes of success. So, we can't simply eliminate them; we've got to look deeper into it. Humans make our systems resilient Richard Cook, Ohio State University SNAFU catcher, says that the most complex sociotechnical systems are constantly in a degraded mode of operation. That means that something in that system (and usually a lot of things) is not working as it was designed. It may be that staffing numbers or competency aren’t at the level they should be, or refresher training's been cut, or the equipment may not be working right. We don't notice that our systems are constantly degraded because people stretch to connect the disparate parts of the systems that don't work right. You know that, in your system, this program doesn't work properly and you have to keep a special eye on it; or you know that this system falls down now and then, and you know when it's likely to fall down, so you keep an eye out for that. You know where the traps are in the system and, as a human being, you want the resilience, you want to stop problems from happening in the first place. The source of resilience is primarily human; it's people that make the system work. People can see the purpose in a system, whereas procedures can only look at a prescribed activity. In the end, we have a big gap between at least two types of work—work as imagined (what we think people do), and work as done (what people actually do)—and in that gap is all sorts of risk. We need to look at how work is actually done by being mindful of how far that's drifted from how we think it's done. Related resources: Behind Human Error Nine Steps to Move Forward From Error ‘Human Error’: The handicap of human factors, safety and justice Human error (position paper for NATO conference on human error)

The O’Reilly Security Podcast: Human error is not a root cause, studying success along with failure, and how humans make systems more resilient.In this episode, I talk with Steven Shorrock, a human factors and safety science specialist. We discuss the dangers of blaming human error, studying success along with failure, and how humans are critical to making our systems resilient.Here are some highlights: Humans are part of complex sociotechnical systems For several decades now, human error has been blamed as the primary cause of somewhere between 70% to 90% of aircraft accidents. But those statistics don’t really explain anything at all, and they don’t even make sense because all systems are composed of a number of different components. Some of those components are human—people in various positions and roles. Other components are technical—airplanes and computer systems, and so on. Some are procedural, or are soft aspects like the organizational structure. We can never, in a complex sociotechnical system, isolate one of those components as the cause of an accident, and doing so doesn't help us prevent accidents, either. There is no such thing as a root cause We have a long history of using human error as an explanation, partly because the way U.S. accident investigations and statistics are presented at the federal level highlights a primary cause. That is a little naïve (primary and secondary causes don’t really exist; that's an arbitrary line), but if investigators have to choose something, they tend to choose a cause that is closest in time and space to the accident. That is usually a person who operates some kind of control or performs some kind of action, and is at the end of a complex web of actions and decisions that goes way back to the design of the aircraft, the design of the operating procedures, the pressure that's imposed on the operators, the regulations, and so on. All of those are quite complicated and interrelated, so it's very hard to single one out as a primary cause. In fact, we should reject the very notion of a primary cause, never mind assigning the blame on human error. Studying successes along with failures If you only look at accidents or adverse events, then you're assuming that those very rare unwanted events are somehow representative of the system as a whole, but in fact, it's a concatenation of causes that come together to produce a big outcome. There's no big cause; it's just a fairly random bunch of stuff that's happened at the same time and was always there in the system. We should not just be studying when things go wrong, but also how things go well. If we accept that causes of failure are inherent in the system, then we can find them in everyday work and will discover that very often they're also the causes of success. So, we can't simply eliminate them; we've got to look deeper into it. Humans make our systems resilient Richard Cook, Ohio State University SNAFU catcher, says that the most complex sociotechnical systems are constantly in a degraded mode of operation. That means that something in that system (and usually a lot of things) is not working as it was designed. It may be that staffing numbers or competency aren’t at the level they should be, or refresher training's been cut, or the equipment may not be working right. We don't notice that our systems are constantly degraded because people stretch to connect the disparate parts of the systems that don't work right. You know that, in your system, this program doesn't work properly and you have to keep a special eye on it; or you know that this system falls down now and then, and you know when it's likely to fall down, so you keep an eye out for that. You know where the traps are in the system and, as a human being, you want the resilience, you want to stop problems from happening in the first place. The source of resilience is primarily human; it's people that make the system work. People can see the purpose in a system, whereas procedures can only look at a prescribed activity. In the end, we have a big gap between at least two types of work—work as imagined (what we think people do), and work as done (what people actually do)—and in that gap is all sorts of risk. We need to look at how work is actually done by being mindful of how far that's drifted from how we think it's done. Related resources: Behind Human Error Nine Steps to Move Forward From Error ‘Human Error’: The handicap of human factors, safety and justice Human error (position paper for NATO conference on human error)

O'Reilly Radar Podcast: SNAFU Catchers, knowing how things work, and the proper response to system discrepancies.In this week's episode, O'Reilly's Mac Slocum sits down with Richard Cook and David Woods. Cook is a physician, researcher, and educator, who is currently a research scientist in the Department of Integrated Systems Engineering at Ohio State University, and emeritus professor of health care systems safety at Sweden’s KTH. Woods also is a professor at Ohio State University and is leading the Initiative on Complexity in Natural, Social, and Engineered Systems, and he's the co-director of Ohio State University’s Cognitive Systems Engineering Laboratory. They chat about SNAFU Catchers; anomaly response; and the importance of not only understanding how things fail, but how things normally work.Here are a few highlights: Catching situations abnormal Cook: We're trying to understand how Internet-facing businesses manage to handle all the various problems, difficulties, and opportunities that come along. Our goal is to understand how to support people in that kind of work. It's a fast changing world, mostly that appears on the surface to be smoothly functioning, but in fact, as people who work in the industry know, is always struggling with different kinds of breakdowns, and things that don't work correctly, and obstacles that have to be addressed. Snafu Catchers refers to the idea that people are constantly working to collect, and respond to, all the different kinds of things that foul up the system, and that that's the normal situation, not the abnormal one. Woods: [SNAFU] is a coinage from the grunts in World War II on our side, on the winning side. Situation normal, so the normal situation is all fucked up, right? That the pristine, smooth work is designed, follow the plan, put in automation, everything is great, isn't really the way things work in the real world. It appears that way from a distance, but on the ground, there are gaps, uncertainties, conflicts, and trade offs. Those are normal—in fact, they're essential. They're part of this universe and the way things work. What that means is, there is often a breakdown, a limit in terms of how much adaptive capability is built into the system, and we have to add to that. Because surprise will happen, exceptions will happen, anomalies will happen. Where does that extra capacity to adapt to surprise come from? That's what we're trying to understand, and focus on, not the SNAFU—that's just normal. We're focusing on the catching: what are the processes, abilities, and capabilities of the teams, groups, and organizational practices that help you catch SNAFU's. That's about the anticipation and preparation, so you can respond quickly and directly when the surprise occurs. Know how things work, not just how they fail Cook: There's an old surgical saying that, 'Good results come from experience, and experience comes from bad results.' That's probably true in this industry as well. We learn from experience by having difficulties and solving those sorts of problems. We live in an environment in which people are doing this as apprenticeships very early on in their life, and the apprenticeship gives them opportunities to experience different kinds of failure. Having those experiences tells them something about the kinds of activities that they should perform, once they sense a failure is occurring. Also, some of the different kinds of things that they can do to respond to different kinds of failures. Most of what happens in this, is a combination of understanding how the system is working, and understanding what's going on that suggests that it's not working in the right sort of way. You need two kinds of knowledge to be able to do this. Not just knowledge of how things fail, but also knowledge of how things normally work. No anomaly is too small to ignore Woods: I noticed that what's interesting is, you have to have a pretty good model of how it's supposed to work. Then you start getting suspicious. Things don't quite seem right. These are the early signals, sometimes called weak signals. These are easy to discount away. One of the things you see, and this happened in [NASA] mission control, for example, in its heyday, all discrepancies were anomalies until proven otherwise. That was the cultural ethos of mission control. When you lose that, you see people discounting, 'Oh, that discrepancy isn't going to really matter. I've got to get this other stuff done,' or, 'If I foul it up, some other things will start happening.' What we see in successful anomaly response is this early ability to notice something starting to go wrong, and it is not definitive, right? If it was definitive, then it would cross some threshold, it would activate some response, it would pull other resources in to deal with it, because you don't want it to get out of control. The preparation for, and success at, handling these things is to get started early. The failure mode is, you're slow and stale—you let it cook too long before you start to react. You can be slow and stale, and the cascade can get away from you, you lose control. When teams or organizations are effective at this, they notice things are slightly out, and then pursue it. Dig a little deeper, follow up, test it, bring some other people to bare with different or complimentary expertise. The don't give up real quick and say, 'That discrepancy is just noise and can be ignored.' Now, most of the time, those discrepancies might probably be noise, right? Isn't worth the effort. But sometimes those are the beginnings of something that's going to threaten to cascade out of control.

O'Reilly Radar Podcast: SNAFU Catchers, knowing how things work, and the proper response to system discrepancies.In this week's episode, O'Reilly's Mac Slocum sits down with Richard Cook and David Woods. Cook is a physician, researcher, and educator, who is currently a research scientist in the Department of Integrated Systems Engineering at Ohio State University, and emeritus professor of health care systems safety at Sweden’s KTH. Woods also is a professor at Ohio State University and is leading the Initiative on Complexity in Natural, Social, and Engineered Systems, and he's the co-director of Ohio State University’s Cognitive Systems Engineering Laboratory. They chat about SNAFU Catchers; anomaly response; and the importance of not only understanding how things fail, but how things normally work.Here are a few highlights: Catching situations abnormal Cook: We're trying to understand how Internet-facing businesses manage to handle all the various problems, difficulties, and opportunities that come along. Our goal is to understand how to support people in that kind of work. It's a fast changing world, mostly that appears on the surface to be smoothly functioning, but in fact, as people who work in the industry know, is always struggling with different kinds of breakdowns, and things that don't work correctly, and obstacles that have to be addressed. Snafu Catchers refers to the idea that people are constantly working to collect, and respond to, all the different kinds of things that foul up the system, and that that's the normal situation, not the abnormal one. Woods: [SNAFU] is a coinage from the grunts in World War II on our side, on the winning side. Situation normal, so the normal situation is all fucked up, right? That the pristine, smooth work is designed, follow the plan, put in automation, everything is great, isn't really the way things work in the real world. It appears that way from a distance, but on the ground, there are gaps, uncertainties, conflicts, and trade offs. Those are normal—in fact, they're essential. They're part of this universe and the way things work. What that means is, there is often a breakdown, a limit in terms of how much adaptive capability is built into the system, and we have to add to that. Because surprise will happen, exceptions will happen, anomalies will happen. Where does that extra capacity to adapt to surprise come from? That's what we're trying to understand, and focus on, not the SNAFU—that's just normal. We're focusing on the catching: what are the processes, abilities, and capabilities of the teams, groups, and organizational practices that help you catch SNAFU's. That's about the anticipation and preparation, so you can respond quickly and directly when the surprise occurs. Know how things work, not just how they fail Cook: There's an old surgical saying that, 'Good results come from experience, and experience comes from bad results.' That's probably true in this industry as well. We learn from experience by having difficulties and solving those sorts of problems. We live in an environment in which people are doing this as apprenticeships very early on in their life, and the apprenticeship gives them opportunities to experience different kinds of failure. Having those experiences tells them something about the kinds of activities that they should perform, once they sense a failure is occurring. Also, some of the different kinds of things that they can do to respond to different kinds of failures. Most of what happens in this, is a combination of understanding how the system is working, and understanding what's going on that suggests that it's not working in the right sort of way. You need two kinds of knowledge to be able to do this. Not just knowledge of how things fail, but also knowledge of how things normally work. No anomaly is too small to ignore Woods: I noticed that what's interesting is, you have to have a pretty good model of how it's supposed to work. Then you start getting suspicious. Things don't quite seem right. These are the early signals, sometimes called weak signals. These are easy to discount away. One of the things you see, and this happened in [NASA] mission control, for example, in its heyday, all discrepancies were anomalies until proven otherwise. That was the cultural ethos of mission control. When you lose that, you see people discounting, 'Oh, that discrepancy isn't going to really matter. I've got to get this other stuff done,' or, 'If I foul it up, some other things will start happening.' What we see in successful anomaly response is this early ability to notice something starting to go wrong, and it is not definitive, right? If it was definitive, then it would cross some threshold, it would activate some response, it would pull other resources in to deal with it, because you don't want it to get out of control. The preparation for, and success at, handling these things is to get started early. The failure mode is, you're slow and stale—you let it cook too long before you start to react. You can be slow and stale, and the cascade can get away from you, you lose control. When teams or organizations are effective at this, they notice things are slightly out, and then pursue it. Dig a little deeper, follow up, test it, bring some other people to bare with different or complimentary expertise. The don't give up real quick and say, 'That discrepancy is just noise and can be ignored.' Now, most of the time, those discrepancies might probably be noise, right? Isn't worth the effort. But sometimes those are the beginnings of something that's going to threaten to cascade out of control.

All six of the USN Face of Fitness 2014 cover model competition finalists and photographer Richard Cook are interviewed. Exclusive behind-the-scenes coverage!

Holmes talks with game designer and documentary filmmaker Richard Cook.

STR 54: Pixel Poetry Games As Art.This episode is a bit of a departure from our usual. Instead of talking exclusively about retro games we mainly tackle a  more philosophical gaming topic. We talk with Richard Cook, indie game developer, indie film maker, 3D artist, and musician about what it takes to make a game. We also delve into the issue of whether or not games can be considered art and his new film, which he is trying to get funding for, Pixel Poetry: A defining film about the transcendence of art through technology.Richard was an interesting guy to talk to and we hope you enjoy the interview. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from Stalking The Retro.Check out Richard's Indiegogo campaign at: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/pixel-poetry

NASA hosted a media teleconference on Wednesday, September 19 to provide a status update on the Curiosity rover's mission to Mars' Gale Crater. During the briefing researchers discussed an unusual football-size rock that will be the first for the rover's arm to examine. Participants in the teleconference were Richard Cook, JPL; Mars Science Laboratory Project Manager, John Grotzinger, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; Mars Science Laboratory Project Scientist, Mark Lemmon, Texas A&M University, College Station; Mars Science Laboratory Science Team Co-Investigator.

Helen Mark is in Gloucestershire to find out more about one of our most fascinating creatures, the eel, and hear why efforts are being made to save this endangered species. When eels arrive in the UK as tiny babies, called elvers, they do so at the end of an exhausting 4,000-mile marathon swim from the Sargasso Sea where they have spawned. For generations, their arrival was greeted with much anticipation by fishermen on the Rivers Severn and Wye where they were caught at night and often used in dishes and delicacies. But the eel is in trouble and has been placed on the Red List of Fish to Avoid by the Marine Conservation Society who class it as critically endangered. However, others believe that the decline in the number of eels is not just a result of over-fishing but is also due to the way in which rivers are managed and flood defences are erected, so blocking the eels migratory route, and that by leaving them to their own defences the eels' fate will be sealed. Helen Mark meets some of the people involved with trying to save this precious and mysterious creature including fisherman Richard Cook who has a life-long passion for eels and who is now taking tanks of eels into schools to teach the children who look after them for a few weeks about the importance of the fish, our rivers and the environment . Eventually, the children will release the eels back into the river as part of a restocking project. Helen also hears from Bernadette Clarke of the Marine Conservation Society about the reasons why they felt it was important that eels should be classed as critically endangered and placed on the Red List. And Helen meets Andrew Kerr of the Sustainable Eel Group which is working to devise a recovery plan to protect and preserve the eel. Presenter: Helen Mark Producer: Helen Chetwynd.

Richard Cook is a former federal government analyst who was one of the key figures in the investigation of the space shuttle Challenger disaster. In 1985, he went to work for NASA as the lead resource analyst for the space shuttle solid rocket boosters, external tank, and Centaur upper stage. Cook’s first assignment led to his writing a memo on engineers’ concerns that flaws with the solid rocket booster O-ring seals could cause the shuttle to blow up. In 1986, after the Challenger disaster, he disrupted a NASA cover-up when he provided his memo, along with other documents on the hazards of the O-rings, to the New York Times. His disclosures paved the way for revelations by engineers from Morton Thiokol, Inc., about how they opposed the launch of Challenger the night before lift-off. Called to testify before the Presidential Commission at an internationally televised public hearing, Cook stood his ground when his experience and competence were challenged. He continued to contribute to the investigation during interviews with Commission staff and the NASA Office of Inspector General and in meetings with Senator Ernest Hollings, who was trying to raise issues before the Senate on whether there had been White House pressure to launch Challenger. In addition to extensive interviews with the media after the disaster, Cook published articles in the Washington Post, Washington Monthly, Space and Security News, and the Houston Post; gave a press conference with the Institute of Space and Security Studies, where he said that the Presidential Commission had been created to cover-up the role of the White House in the launch decision; and wrote a report which he submitted to the U.S. Justice Department with a request for a new investigation. In 1991, he was the recipient of the Cavallo Foundation Award for Moral Courage in Business and Government, sharing the award with Roger Boisjoly of Morton Thiokol. Before joining NASA, Cook worked as an analyst for the U.S. Civil Service Commission, where he received extensive training in federal government operations. He then worked for the Food and Drug Administration and next served in the Jimmy Carter White House under Esther Peterson, special assistant to the president for consumer affairs. He also taught history at the Field School, a private high school in Washington, D.C. Cook left NASA to become an analyst with the U.S. Treasury Department in 1986. There he developed and taught training courses on policy analysis and led project teams on financial policy and organizational restructuring. He authored Challenger Revealed- An Insider’s Account of How the Reagan Administration Caused the Greatest Tragedy of the Space Age in 2006. He retired from the federal government in January 2007 and works today as a writer, lecturer, and consultant. His website is richardccook.com. Cook graduated with honors from the College of William and Mary, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He resides in College Park, Maryland. One of his areas of interest has been the monetary system and he has written a series of articles about the current financial crisis including- Extraordinary Times, Intentional Collapse, and Takedown of the U.S.A., Has the Battle for America Begun?, and An Emergency Program of Monetary Reform for the United States. He spoke recently on Will We See the End of the Empire in Our Time? at the Building a New World Conference". His forthcoming book is entitled We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform and he can be contacted regarding the book at economicsanity@gmail.com. Richard spoke about the current crisis we're in, particularly what is not reported in the press or widely understood by the public about money creation, debt, and credit and the financial shenanigans that are impoverishing the country. He also oferred his ideas for monetary reform, including the abolition of the Federal Reserve, national control over the creation of credit and a citizen's dividend. DownloadRichard C. Cook's website is: http://www.richardccook.comSource: We The People Radio Network (WTPRN)Aired: 6/03/08 12:00 AMThis podcast is an aggregate of audio files freely available online. Please visit the original source and subscribe to the host website.

www.DogCastRadio.comHear from Border Collie expert Joyce Geier what a working herding dog's life entails - and about the Hallmark Channel's movie, You Lucky Dog, where a rescue Collie is taken on to help herd sheep, and heal a family. Canix - cross country running with your dog - is a great way to get yourself and your dog fit and trim, Richard Cook has all the answers you need. In the DogCast Radio News hear about the rescue dog being helped out by a famous little blue pill and how hard life can be for David Beckham's dog. Download us to your MP3 and let us entertain you as you go out and about with your dog.

www.DogCastRadio.comHear from Border Collie expert Joyce Geier what a working herding dog's life entails - and about the Hallmark Channel's movie, You Lucky Dog, where a rescue Collie is taken on to help herd sheep, and heal a family. Canix - cross country running with your dog - is a great way to get yourself and your dog fit and trim, Richard Cook has all the answers you need. In the DogCast Radio News hear about the rescue dog being helped out by a famous little blue pill and how hard life can be for David Beckham's dog. Download us to your MP3 and let us entertain you as you go out and about with your dog.

Radio Free MS is delighted to have Richard Cook join us tonight. He is running in the 2nd District for US Congress, join us !!

Radio Free MS is delighted to have Richard Cook join us tonight. He is running in the 2nd District for US Congress, join us !!

Part 1: Congressman Dennis Kucinich has posted the following on his web site: “The U.S. monetary reform is urgently needed: It is long past time we look at the implications of . . . the privatization of money created by the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, the bank fractional reserve system and our debt-based economic system. Unless we have dramatic reform of monetary policy, the entire economic system will continue to accelerate wealth upwards. I am currently working on drafting legislation for an ‘American Monetary Act’ to address these and other issues in order to protect the economic well being of America.” Observers believe that this single measure has the potential of bringing together tens of millions of people who have realized that our bank-run debt-based monetary system lies at the center of the financial crisis. The question is of course - how are these tens of millions going to find out that there is such legislation being developed?Kucinich is working closely with Stephen Zarlenga, director of the American Monetary Institute and author of: The Lost Science of Money. Zarlenga was interviewd in May 2009 after his return from Washington, DC, where he had briefed members of Congress. A report on the briefing was done by Richard CookDownloadStephen Zarlenga's website is http://www.monetary.org/Source: TUC RadioAired: 6/17/09 12:00 AMThis podcast is an aggregate of audio files freely available online. Please visit the original source and subscribe to the host website.

Part 2: Congressman Dennis Kucinich has posted the following on his web site: “The U.S. monetary reform is urgently needed: It is long past time we look at the implications of . . . the privatization of money created by the 1913 Federal Reserve Act, the bank fractional reserve system and our debt-based economic system. Unless we have dramatic reform of monetary policy, the entire economic system will continue to accelerate wealth upwards. I am currently working on drafting legislation for an ‘American Monetary Act’ to address these and other issues in order to protect the economic well being of America.” Observers believe that this single measure has the potential of bringing together tens of millions of people who have realized that our bank-run debt-based monetary system lies at the center of the financial crisis. The question is of course - how are these tens of millions going to find out that there is such legislation being developed?Kucinich is working closely with Stephen Zarlenga, director of the American Monetary Institute and author of: The Lost Science of Money. Zarlenga was interviewd in May 2009 after his return from Washington, DC, where he had briefed members of Congress. A report on the briefing was done by Richard CookDownloadStephen Zarlenga's website is http://www.monetary.org/Source: TUC RadioAired: 6/17/09 12:10 AMThis podcast is an aggregate of audio files freely available online. Please visit the original source and subscribe to the host website.

Just some good ol' boys... Mike joins the PDFFL Dynasty League. Richard Cook and Steve Carter join us. Dynasty discussion, draft to win, draft for youth or balance? We discuss the Fantasy Jungle fiasco. Miles Austin, Ocho Cinco, Kellen Winslow and Brady Quinn all discussed. Congrats to S. Bateman, our first ever crowned Red vs Blue NCAA Champ!