Podcasts about ucs

Our guest this time is Aaron Wolpoff who has spent his professional career as a marketing strategist and consultant to help companies develop strategic brands and enhance their audience growth. He owns the marketing firm, Double Zebra. He tells us about the name and how his company has helped a number of large and small companies grow and better serve their clients.   Aaron grew up in the San Diego area. He describes himself as a curious person and he says he always has been such. He loves to ask questions. He says as a child he was somewhat quiet, but always wanted to know more. He received his Bachelor's degree in marketing from the University of California at San Diego. After working for a firm for some four and a half years he and his wife moved up to the bay area in Northern California where attended San Francisco State University and obtained a Master's degree in Business.   In addition to his day job functioning as a business advisor and strategist Aaron also hosts a podcast entitled, We Fixed it, You're Welcome. I had the honor to appear on his podcast to discuss Uber and some of its accessibility issues especially concerning access by blind persons who use guide dogs to Uber's fleet. His podcast is quite fascinating and one I hope you will follow.   Aaron provides us in this episode many business insights. We talk about a number of challenges and successes marketing has brought to the business arena. I hope you like what Aaron offers.     About the Guest:   Aaron Wolpoff is a seasoned marketing strategist and communications consultant with a track record of positioning companies, products, and thought leadership for maximum impact. Throughout his career, Aaron has been somewhat of a trendspotter, getting involved in early initiatives around online banking, SaaS, EVs, IoT, and now AI, His ability to bridge complex industry dynamics and technology-driven solutions underscores his role as a forward-thinking consultant, podcaster, and business advisor, committed to enhancing organizational effectiveness and fostering strategic growth.   As the driving force behind the Double Zebra marketing company, Aaron excels in identifying untapped marketing assets, refining brand narratives, and orchestrating strategic pivots from paid advertising to organic audience growth. His insights have guided notable campaigns for consumer brands, technology firms, and professional service providers, always with a keen eye for differentiating messages that resonate deeply with target audiences. In addition to his strategic marketing expertise, Aaron hosts the Top 20 business management podcast, We Fixed It, You're Welcome, known for its sharp, humorous analysis of major corporate challenges and missteps. Each episode brings listeners inside complex business scenarios, unfolding like real-time case studies where Aaron and his panel of experts dissect high-profile decisions, offering insightful and actionable solutions. His ability to distill complex business issues into relatable, engaging discussions has garnered widespread acclaim and a dedicated following among executives and decision-makers.   Ways to connect with Aaron:   Marketing company: https://doublezebra.com Podcast: https://wefixeditpod.com LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/marketingaaron     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 Hi there, and welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. Today, we get to chat with Aaron Wolpoff, who is a marketing strategist and expert in a lot of different ways. I've read his bio, which you can find in the show notes. It seems to me that he is every bit as much of an expert is his bio says he is, but we're going to find out over the next hour or so for sure. We'll we'll not pick on him too much, but, but nevertheless, it's fun to be here. Aaron, so I want to welcome you to unstoppable mindset. I'm glad you're here, and we're glad that we get a chance to do   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 01:58 this. Thanks, Michael, thanks for having me. You're gonna grill me for an hour, huh?   Michael Hingson ** 02:04 Oh, sure. Why not? You're used to it. You're a marketing expert.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 02:08 That's what we do. Yeah, we're always, uh, scrutiny for one thing or another.   Michael Hingson ** 02:13 I remember, I think it was back in was it 82 or 1982 or 1984 when they had the big Tylenol incident. You remember that? You know about   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 02:25 that? I do? Yeah, there's a Netflix documentary happening right now. Is there? Well, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 02:31 a bottle of Tylenol was, for those who don't know, contaminated and someone died from it. But the manufacturer of Tylenol, the CEO the next day, just got right out in front of it and said what they were going to do about removing all Tylenol from the shelves until it could be they could all be examined and so on. Just did a number of things. It was a wonderful case, it seemed to me, for how to deal with a crisis when it came up. And I find that all too many companies and organizations don't necessarily know how to do that. Do they now?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 03:09 And a lot of times they operate in crisis mode. That's the default. And no one likes to be around that, you know. So that's, I guess, step one is dealing even you know, deal with a crisis when it comes up, and make sure that your your day to day is not crisis fire as much as possible,   Michael Hingson ** 03:26 but know how to deal with a crisis, which is kind of the issue, and that's, that's what business continuity, of course, is, is really all about. I spoke at the Business Continuity Institute hybrid conference in London last October, and as one of the people who asked me to come and speak, explained, business continuity, people are the what if people that are always looking at, how do we deal with any kind of an emergency that comes up in an organization, knowing full well that nobody's really going to listen to them until there's really an emergency, and then, of course, they're indispensable, but The rest of the time they're not for   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 04:02 sure. Yeah, it's definitely that, you know, good. You bring up a good point about knowing how to deal with a crisis, because it will, it, will you run a business for long enough you have a company, no matter how big, eventually something bad is going to happen, and it's Tylenol. Was, is pre internet or, you know, we oh, yeah, good while ago they had time to formulate a response and craft it and and do a well presented, you know, public reassurance nowadays it's you'd have five seconds before you have to get something out there.   Michael Hingson ** 04:35 Well, even so, the CEO did it within, like, a day or so, just immediately came out and said what, what was initially going to be done. Of course, there was a whole lot more to it, but still, he got right out in front of it and dealt with it in a calm way, which I think is really important for businesses to do, and and I do find that so many don't and they they deal with so many different kinds of stress. Horrible things in the world, and they create more than they really should about fear anyway,   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 05:07 yeah, for sure, and now I think that Tylenol wasn't ultimately responsible. I haven't watched to the end, but if I remember correctly, but sometimes these crisis, crises that companies find themselves embroiled in, are self perpetuated? Yeah?   Michael Hingson ** 05:23 Well, Tylenol wasn't responsible. Somebody did it. Somebody put what, cyanide or something in into a Tylenol bottle. So they weren't responsible, but they sure dealt with it, which is the important thing. And you know, they're, they're still with us. Yeah?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 05:38 No, they dealt with it. Well, their sales are great, everyday household product. No one can dispute it. But what I say is, with the with the instantaneousness of reach to your to your public, and to you know, consumers and public at large, a lot of crises are, can be self perpetuated, like you tweet the wrong thing, or is it called a tweet anymore? I don't know, but you know, you post something a little bit a little bit out of step with what people are think about you or thinking in general, and and now, all of a sudden, you're in the middle of something that you didn't want to be in the middle of, as a company well,   Michael Hingson ** 06:15 and I also noticed that, like the media will, so often they hear something, they report it, and they haven't necessarily checked to see the facts behind it, only to find out within an hour or two that what they reported was wrong. And they helped to sometimes promote the fear and promote the uncertainty, rather than waiting a little bit until they get all the information reasonably correct. And of course, part of the problem is they say, well, but everybody else is going to report it. So each station says everybody else is going to report it, so we have to keep up. Well, I'm not so sure about that all the time. Oh, that's very true, too, Michael, especially with, you know, off brand media outlets I'll spend with AI like, I'll be halfway through an article now, and I'll see something that's extremely generated and and I'll realize I've just wasted a whole bunch of time on a, you know, on a fake article, yeah, yeah, yeah, way, way too much. But even the mainstream media will report things very quickly to get it out there, but they don't necessarily have all the data, right. And I understand you can't wait for days to deal with things, but you should wait at least a little bit to make sure you've got data enough to report in a cogent way. And it just doesn't always happen.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 07:33 Yeah, well, I don't know who the watch keepers of that are. I'm not a conspiracy theorist in that way by any means?   Michael Hingson ** 07:41 No, no, it isn't a conspiracy. But yeah,   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 07:44 yeah, no, no, I know, but it's again. I think it goes back to that tight the shortness of the cycle, like again. Tylenol waited a day to respond back in the day, which is great. But now, would you have you know, if Tylenol didn't say   Michael Hingson ** 07:59 anything for a day. If they were faced with a similar situation, people would vilify them and say, Well, wait, you waited a day to tell us something we wanted it in the first 30 seconds, yeah, oh, yeah. And that makes it more difficult, but I would hope that Tylenol would say, yeah. We waited a day because we were getting our facts together. 30 seconds is great in the media, but that doesn't work for reality, and in most cases, it doesn't. But yeah, I know what you're saying,   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 08:30 Yeah, but the appetite in the 24 hour news cycle, if people are hungry for new more information, so it does push news outlets, media outlets into let's respond as quick as possible and figure out the facts along the way. Yeah, yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 08:46 Well, for fun, why don't you tell us about sort of the early era and growing up, and how you got to doing the sorts of things that you're doing now. Well, I grew up in San Diego, California. I best weather in the country. I don't care what anyone says, Yeah,   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 09:03 you can't really beat it. No, I don't think anyone's gonna debate you on it. They call it the sunshine tax, because things cost a lot out here, but they do, you know, he grew up here, you put up with it. But yeah, so I grew up, grew up San Diego, college, San Diego. Life in San Diego, I've been elsewhere. I've traveled. I've seen some of the world. I like it. I've always wanted to come back, but I grew up really curious. I read a lot, I asked a lot of questions. And I also wanted, wanting to know, well, I want to know. Well, I wanted to know a lot of things about a lot of things, and I also was really scared. Is the wrong word, but I looked up to adults when I was a kid, and I didn't want to be put in a position where I was expected to know something that I didn't know. So it led to times where I'd pretend like I need you. Know, do you know? You know what this is, right? And I'd pretend like I knew, and early career, career even, and then I get called out on something, and it just was like a gut punch, like, but I'm supposed to know that, you know,   Michael Hingson ** 10:13 what did your parents think of you being so curious as you were growing up?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 10:17 They they liked it, but I was quiet, okay? Quiet, quiet, quietly, confident and curious. It's just an interesting, I guess, an interesting mix. Yeah, but no, they Oh, they indulged it. I, you know, they answered my questions. They like I said, I read a lot, so frequent trips to the library to read a lot about a lot of things, but I think, you know, professionally, you take something that's kind of a grab bag, and what do I do with all these different interests? And when I started college undeclared, I realized, you know, communications, marketing, you kind of can make a discipline out of a bunch of interests, and call it something professional. Where did you go to college? I went to UCSD. UCSD, here in San Diego, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 11:12 well, I was just up the road from you at UC Irvine. So here two good campuses,   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 11:18 they are, they are and UCSD. I was back recently. It's like a it's like a city. Now, every time we go back, we see these, these kids. They're babies. They get they get food every you know, they have, like, a food nice food court. There's parking, an abundance of parking, there's theaters, there's all the things we didn't have. Of course, we had some of it, but they just have, like, what if we had one of something or 50 parking spaces, they've got 5000 you know. And if we had, you know, one one food option, they got 35 Yeah, they don't know how good they have it.   Michael Hingson ** 11:53 When I was at UC urban, I think we had 3200 undergraduates. It wasn't huge. It was in that area. Now, I think there's 31,000 or 32,000 undergrads. Oh, wow. And as one of my former physics professors joked, he's retired, but I got to meet him. I was there, and last year I was inducted as an alumni member of Phi, beta, kappa. And so we were talking, and he said, You know what UCI really stands for, don't you? Well, I didn't, I said, What? And he said, under construction indefinitely. And there's, they're always building, sure, and that's that started when I was there, but, but they are always building. And it's just an amazing place today, with so many students and graduate students, undergrads and faculty, and it's, it's an amazing place. I think I'd have a little bit more of a challenge of learning where everything is, although I could do it, if I had to go back, I could do it. Yeah, UCI is nice. But I think you could say, you could say that about any of the UCs are constantly under, under development. And, you know, that's the old one. That's the old area. And I'm like, oh, that's I went to school in the old area. I know the old area. I remember Central Park. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So you ended up majoring in Marketing and Communications,   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 13:15 yeah. So I undergrad in communications. They have a really nice business school now that they did not have at the time. So I predated that, but I probably would have ended up there. I got out with a very, not knocking the school. It's a great, wonderful school. I got out with a very theory, theoretical based degree. So I knew a lot about communications from a theory based perspective. I knew about brain cognition. I took maybe one quarter of practical use it professionally. It was like a video, like a video production course, so I I learned hands on, 111, quarter out of my entire academic career. But a lot of it was learning. The learning not necessarily applied, but just a lot of theory. And I started school at 17, and I got out just shortly after my 21st birthday, so I don't know what my hurry was, but, but there I was with a lot of theory, some some internships, but not a ton of professional experience. And, you know, trying to figure it out in the work world at that point. Did you get a graduate degree or just undergrad? I did. I went back. So I did it for almost five years in in financial marketing, and then, and I wear a suit and tie to work every day, which I don't think anyone does anymore. And I'm suddenly like, like, I'm from the 30s. I'm not that old, but, but no, seriously, we, you know, to work at the at the headquarters of a international credit union. Of course, I wear a suit, no after four and a half. Years there, I went back to graduate school up in the bay the Bay Area, Bay Area, and that's when I got my masters in in marketing. Oh, where'd you go in the Bay Area? San Francisco, state. Okay, okay, yeah, really nice school. It's got one of the biggest International MBA programs in the country, I think. And got to live in that city for a couple years.   Michael Hingson ** 15:24 We lived in Novato, so North Bay, for 12 years, from 2002 to the end of June 2014 Yeah, I like that area. That's, that's the, oh, the weather isn't San Diego's. That area is still a really nice area to live as well. Again, it is pretty expensive, but still it   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 15:44 is, yeah, I it's not San Diego weather, a beautiful day. There is like nothing else. But when we first got there, I said, I want to live by the beach. That's what I know. And we got out to the beach, which is like at the end of the outer sunset, and it's in the 40s streets, and it feels like the end of the universe. It just, it just like, feels apocalyptic. And I said, I don't want to live by the beach anymore, but, but no, it was. It was a great, great learning experience, getting an MBA. I always say it's kind of like a backpack or a toolkit you walk around with, because it is all that's all application. You know, everything that I learned about theory put into practice, you got to put into practice. And so I was, I was really glad that I that I got to do that. And like I said, Live, live in, live in the Bay. For a couple years, I'd always wanted   Michael Hingson ** 16:36 to, yeah, well, that's a nice area to live. If you got to live somewhere that is one of the nicer places. So glad you got that opportunity. And having done it, as I said for 12 years, I appreciate it too. And yeah, so much to offer there.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 16:51 The only problem I had was it was in between the two.com bubbles. So literally, nothing was happening. The good side was that the apartment I was living in went for something like $5,500 before I got there, and then the draw everything dropped, you know, the bottom dropped out, and I was able to squeak by and afford living in the city. But, you know, you go for look, seeking your fortune. And there's, there's, I had just missed it. And then I left, and then it just came back. So I was, I was there during a lull. So you're the one, huh? Okay, I didn't do it, just the way Miami worked out. Did you then go back to San Diego? I did, yeah. So I've met my wife here. We moved up to the bay together, and when we were debating, when I graduated, we were thinking, do we want to drive, you know, an hour and a half Silicon Valley or someone, you know, somewhere further out just to stay in the area? Or do we want to go back to where we where we know and like, and start a life there and we, you know, send, like you said at the beginning, San Diego is not a bad place to be. So as it was never a fallback, but as a place to, you know, come back home to, yeah, I welcomed it.   Michael Hingson ** 18:08 And so what did you do when you came back to San Diego?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 18:12 So I have my best friend from childhood was starting as a photography company still does, and it was starting like a sister company, as an agency to serve the photography company, which was growing really fast, and then also, like picking up clients and building a book out of so he said, you know you're, I see you're applying for jobs, and I know that you're, you know, you're getting some offers and things, but just say no To all of them and come work with me and and at the time it was, it was running out of a was like a loft of an apartment, but it, you know, it grew to us, a small staff, and then a bigger staff, and spun off on its own. And so that's, that's what I did right out of, right out of grad school. I said no to a few things, and said there's a lot, lot worse fates than you know, spending your work day with your best friend and and growing a company out and so what exactly did you do for them? So it was like, we'll call it a boutique creative agency. It was around the time of I'm making myself sound so old. See, so there was flash, flash technology, like web banners were made with Flash. It had moved to be flash, Adobe, Flash, yeah. So companies were making these web banners, and what you call interactive we got a proficiency of making full website experiences with Flash, which not a lot of companies were doing. So because of that, it led to some really interesting opportunities and clients and being able to take on a capability, a proficiency that you know for a time. Uh was, was uh as a differentiator, say, you know, you could have a web banner and an old website, or you could have a flash, interactive website where you take your users on an experience with music and all the things that seem so dated now,   Michael Hingson ** 20:14 well, and of course, unfortunately, a lot of that content wasn't very accessible, so some of us didn't really get access to a lot of it, and I don't remember whether Adobe really worked to make flash all that accessible. They dealt with other things, but I'm not sure that flash ever really was. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I really, I don't think so.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 20:38 What we would wind up doing is making parallel websites, but, but then mobile became a thing, and then you'd make a third version of a website, and it just got tedious. And really it's when the iPhone came out. It just it flash got stopped in its tracks, like it was like a week, and then action script, which is the language that it runs on, and all the all the capabilities and proficiencies, just there was no use for it anymore.   Michael Hingson ** 21:07 Well, and and the iPhone came out, as you said, and one of the things that happened fairly early on was that, because they were going to be sued, Apple agreed to make the I devices accessible, and they did something that hadn't really been done up to that time. They set the trend for it. They built accessibility into the operating systems, and they built the ability to have accessibility into the operating systems. The one thing that I wish that Apple would do even a little bit more of than they do, than they do today, although it's better than it used to be, is I wish they would mandate, or require people who are going to put apps in the App Store, for example, to make sure that the apps are accessible. They have guidelines. They have all sorts of information about how to do it, but they don't really require it, and so you can still get inaccessible apps, which is unfortunate,   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 22:09 that is Yeah, and like you said, with Flash, an entire you know, ecosystem had limited to no accessibility, so   Michael Hingson ** 22:16 and making additional on another website, Yeah, a lot of places did that, but they weren't totally equal, because they would make enough of the website, well, they would make the website have enough content to be able to do things, but they didn't have everything that they had on the graphical or flash website, and so It was definitely there, but it wasn't really, truly equal, which is unfortunate, and so now it's a lot better.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 22:46 Yeah, it is no and I hate to say it, but if it came down to limited time, limited budget, limited everything you want to make something that is usable and efficient, but no, I mean, I can't speak for all developers, but no, it would be hard. You'd be hard pressed to create a an equally parallel experience with full accessibility at the time.   Michael Hingson ** 23:16 Yeah, yeah, you would. And it is a lot better. And there's, there's still stuff that needs to be done, but I think over time, AI is going to help some of that. And it is already made. It isn't perfect yet, but even some graphics and so on can be described by AI. And we're seeing things improve over, over, kind of what they were. So we're making progress, which is good,   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 23:44 yeah, no, I'm really happy about that. And with with AI and AI can go through and parse your code and build in all you know, everything that that needs to happen, there's a lot less excuse for for not making something as accessible as it can   Michael Hingson ** 23:59 be, yeah, but people still ignore it to a large degree. Still, only about 3% of all websites really have taken the time to put some level of accessibility into them. So there's still a lot to be done, and it's just not that magical or that hard, but it's mostly, I think, education. People don't know, they don't know that it can be done. They don't think about it being done, or they don't do it initially, and so then it becomes a lot more expensive to do later on, because you got to go back and redo   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 24:28 it, all right, yeah, anything, anytime you have to do something, something retroactive or rebuild, you're, yeah, you're starting from not a great place.   Michael Hingson ** 24:37 So how long did you work with your friend?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 24:42 A really long time, because I did the studio, and then I wound up keeping that alive. But going over to the photography side, the company really grew. Had a team of staff photographers, had a team of, like a network of photographers, and. And was doing quite, quite a lot, an abundance of events every year, weddings and corporate and all types of things. So all in, I was with the company till, gosh, I want to say, like, 2014 or so. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.   Michael Hingson ** 25:21 And then what did you go off and do?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 25:25 So then I worked for an agency, so I got started with creative and, well, rewinding, I got started with financial marketing, with the suit and tie. But then I went into creative, and I've tried pretty much every aspect of marketing I hadn't done marketing automation and email sequences and CRMs and outreach and those types of things. So that was the agency I worked for that was their specialization, which I like, to a degree, but it's, it's not my, not my home base. Yeah, there's, there's people that love and breathe automation. I like having interjecting some, you know, some type of personal aspect into the what you're putting out there. And I have to wrestle with that as ai, ai keeps growing in prominence, like, Where's the place for the human, creative? But I did that for a little while, and then I've been on my own for the past six or seven years.   Michael Hingson ** 26:26 So what is it you do today? Exactly?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 26:30 So I'm, we'll call it a fractional CMO, or a fractional marketing advisor. So I come in and help companies grow their their marketing and figure themselves out. I've gone I work with large companies. I've kind of gone back to early stage startups and and tech companies. I just find that they're doing really more, a lot more interesting things right now with the market the way it is. They're taking more chances and and they're they're moving faster. I like to move pretty quick, so that's where my head's at. And I'm doing more. We'll call em like CO entrepreneurial ventures with my clients, as opposed to just a pure agency service model, which is interesting. And and I got my own podcast. There you go. Yeah. What's your podcast called? Not to keep you busy, it's called, we fixed it. You're welcome. There you   Michael Hingson ** 27:25 go. And it seems to me, if my memory hasn't failed me, even though I don't take one of those memory or brain supplements, we were on it not too long ago, talking about Uber, which was fun.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 27:39 We had you on there. I don't know which episode will drop first, this one or or the one you were on, but we sure enjoyed having you on there.   Michael Hingson ** 27:46 Well, it was fun. Well, we'll have to do more of it, and I think it'd be fun to but so you own your own business. Then today,   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 27:53 I do, yeah, it's called Double zebra.   Michael Hingson ** 27:56 Now, how did you come up with that name?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 27:59 It's two basic elements, so basic, black and white, something unremarkable, but if you can take it and multiply it or repeat it, then you're onto something interesting.   Michael Hingson ** 28:13 Lots of stripes. Yeah, lots of stripes.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 28:17 And it's always fun when I talk to someone in the UK or Australia, or then they say zebra or zebra, right? I get to hear the way they say it. It's that's fun. Occasionally I get double double zero. People will miss misname it and double zero. That's his   Michael Hingson ** 28:34 company's that. But has anybody called it double Zed yet?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 28:39 No, that's a new one.   Michael Hingson ** 28:41 Yeah? Well, you never know. Maybe we've given somebody the idea now. Yeah, yeah. Well, so I'm I'm curious. You obviously do a lot to analyze and help people in critique in corporate mishaps. Have you ever seen a particular business mistake that you really admire and just really love, its audacity,   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 29:07 where it came out wrong, but I liked it anyway, yeah, oh, man,   Michael Hingson ** 29:13 let's see, or one maybe, where they learned from their mistake and fixed it. But still, yeah, sure.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 29:23 Yeah, that's a good one. I like, I like bold moves, even if they're wrong, as long as they don't, you know, they're not harmful to people I don't know. Let's go. I'm I'm making myself old. Let's go back to Crystal crystal. Pepsi, there you go for that. But that was just such a fun idea at the time. You know, we're the new generation and, and this is the 90s, and everything's new now, and we're going to take the color out of out of soda, I know we're and we're going to take it and just make it what you know, but a little unfamiliar, right? Right? It's Crystal Pepsi, and the ads were cool, and it was just very of the moment. Now, that moment didn't last very long, no, and the public didn't, didn't hold on to it very long. But there's, you know, it was, it let you question, and I in a good way, what you thought about what is even a Pepsi. And it worked. It was they brought it back, like for a very short time, five, I want to say five or six years ago, just because people had a nostalgia for it. But yeah, big, big, bold, we're confident this is the new everyone's going to be talking about this for a long time, and we're going to put a huge budget behind it, Crystal Pepsi. And it it didn't, but yeah, I liked it.   Michael Hingson ** 30:45 So why is that that is clearly somebody had to put a lot of effort into the concept, and must have gotten some sort of message that it would be very successful, but then it wasn't,   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 31:00 yeah, yeah. For something like that, you have to get buy in at so many levels. You know, you have an agency saying, this is the right thing to do. You have CD, your leadership saying, No, I don't know. Let's pull back. Whenever an agency gets away with something and and spends a bunch of client money and it's just audacious, and I can't believe they did it. I know how many levels of buy in they had to get, yeah, to say, Trust me. Trust me. And a lot of times it works, you know, if they do something that just no one else had had thought of or wasn't willing to do, and then you see that they got through all those levels of bureaucracy and they were able to pull it off.   Michael Hingson ** 31:39 When it works. I love it. When it doesn't work. I love it, you know, just, just the fact that they did it, yeah, you got to admire that. Gotta admire it. They pulled it off, yeah. My favorite is still ranch flavored Fritos. They disappeared, and I've never understood why I love ranch flavored Fritos. And we had them in New Jersey and so on. And then we got, I think, out to California. But by that time, they had started to fade away, and I still have never understood why. Since people love ranch food so   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 32:06 much, that's a good one. I don't know that. I know those because it does, it does that one actually fill a market need. If there's Doritos, there's, you know, the ranch, I don't know if they were, they different.   Michael Hingson ** 32:17 They were Fritos, but they they did have ranch you know they were, they were ranch flavored, and I thought they were great. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know that one didn't hit because they have, I think they have chili flavor. They have regular. Do they have anything else honey barbecue? I don't know. I don't know, but I do still like regular, but I love ranch flavored the best. Now, I heard last week that Honey Nut Cheerios are going away. General Mills is getting rid of honey nut cheerios. No, is that real? That's what I heard on the news. Okay, I believe you, but I'll look it up anyway. Well, it's interesting. I don't know why, after so many years, they would but there have been other examples of cereals and so on that were around for a while and left and, well, Captain Crunch was Captain Crunch was one, and I'm not sure if lucky charms are still around. And then there was one called twinkles.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 33:13 And I know all those except twinkles, but I would if you asked me, I would say, Honey Nut Cheerios. There's I would say their sales are better than Cheerios, or at least I would think so, yeah, at least a good portfolio company. Well, who knows, who knows, but I do know that Gen Z and millennials eat cereal a lot less than us older folks, because it takes work to put milk and cereal into a bowl, and it's not pre made, yeah. So maybe it's got to do with, you know, changing eating habits and consumer preferences   Michael Hingson ** 33:48 must be Yeah, and they're not enough of us, older, more experienced people to to counteract that. But you know, well, we'll see Yeah, as long as they don't get rid of the formula because it may come back. Yeah, well, now   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 34:03 Yeah, exactly between nostalgia and reboots and remakes and nothing's gone forever, everything comes back eventually.   Michael Hingson ** 34:10 Yeah, it does in all the work that you've done. Have you ever had to completely rethink and remake your approach and do something different?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 34:24 Yeah, well, there's been times where I've been on uncharted territory. I worked with an EV company before EVs were a thing, and it was going, actually going head to head with with Tesla. But the thing there's they keep trying to bring it back and crowd sourcing it and all that stuff. It's, but at the time, it was like, I said it was like, which is gonna make it first this company, or Tesla, but, but this one looks like a, it looks, it feels like a spaceship. It's got, like space. It's a, it's, it's really. Be really unique. So the one that that is more like a family car one out probably rightly so. But there was no consumer understanding of not, let alone our preference, like there is now for an EV and what do I do? I have to plug it in somewhere and and all those things. So I had to rethink, you know what? There's no playbook for that yet. I guess I have to kind of work on it. And they were only in prototyping at the point where we came in and had to launch this, you know, teaser and teaser campaign for it, and build up awareness and demand for this thing that existed on a computer at the time.   Michael Hingson ** 35:43 What? Why is Tesla so successful?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 35:48 Because they spent a bunch of money. Okay, that helps? Yeah, they were playing the long game. They could outspend competitors. They've got the unique distribution model. And they kind of like, I said, retrained consumers into how you buy a car, why you buy a car, and, and I think politics aside, people love their people love their teslas. You don't. My understanding is you don't have to do a whole lot once you buy it. And, and they they, like I said, they had the money to throw at it, that they could wait, wait it out and wait out that when you do anything with retraining consumers or behavior change or telling them you know, your old car is bad, your new this new one's good, that's the most. We'll call it costly and and difficult forms of marketing is retraining behavior. But they, they had the money to write it out and and their products great, you know, again, I'm not a Tesla enthusiast, but it's, it looks good. People love it. I you know, they run great from everything that I know, but so did a lot of other companies. So I think they just had the confidence in what they were doing to throw money at it and wait, be patient and well,   Michael Hingson ** 37:19 they're around there again the the Tesla is another example of not nearly as accessible as it should be and and I recognize that I'm not going to be the primary driver of a Tesla today, although I have driven a Tesla down Interstate 15, about 15 miles the driver was in the car, but, but I did it for about 15 miles going down I 15 and fully appreciate what autonomous vehicles will be able to do. We're way too much still on the cusp, and I think that people who just poo poo them are missing it. But I also know we're not there yet, but the day is going to come when there's going to be a lot more reliability, a lot less potential for accidents. But the thing that I find, like with the Tesla from a passenger standpoint, is I can't do any of the things that a that a sighted passenger can do. I can't unless it's changed in the last couple of years. I can't manipulate the radio. I can't do the other things that that that passengers might do in the Tesla, and I should be able to do that, and of all the vehicles where they ought to have access and could, the Tesla would be one, and they could do it even still using touch screens. I mean, the iPhone, for example, is all touch screen. But Apple was very creative about creating a mechanism to allow a person to not need to look at the screen using VoiceOver, the screen reader on the iPhone, but having a new set of gestures that were created that work with VoiceOver so that I could interact with that screen just as well as you can.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 38:59 That's interesting that you say that, you know, Apple was working on a car for a while, and I don't know to a fact, but I bet they were thinking through accessibility and building that into every turn, or at least planning to,   Michael Hingson ** 39:13 oh, I'm sure they were. And the reality is, it isn't again. It isn't that magical to do. It would be simple for the Teslas and and other vehicles to do it. But, you know, we're we're not there mentally. And that's of course, the whole issue is that we just societally don't tend to really look at accessibility like we should. My view of of, say, the apple the iPhone, still is that they could be marketing the screen reader software that I use, which is built into the system already. They could, they could do some things to mark market that a whole lot more than they already do for sighted people. Your iPhone rings, um. You have to tap it a lot of times to be able to answer it. Why can't they create a mode when you're in a vehicle where a lot more of that is verbally, spoken and handled through voice output from the phone and voice input from you, without ever having to look at or interact with the screen.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 40:19 I bet you're right, yeah, it's just another app at that point   Michael Hingson ** 40:22 well, and it's what I do. I mean, it's the way I operate with it. So I just think that they could, they could be more creative. There's so many examples of things that begin in one way and alter themselves or become altered. The typewriter, for example, was originally developed for a blind Countess to be able to communicate with her lover without her husband finding out her husband wasn't very attentive to her anyway. But the point is that the, I think the lover, created the this device where she could actually sit down and type a letter and seal it and give it to a maid or someone to give to, to her, her friend. And that's how the typewriter other other people had created, some examples, but the typewriter from her was probably the thing that most led to what we have today.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 41:17 Oh, I didn't know that. But let me Michael, let me ask you. So I was in LA not too long ago, and they have, you know, driverless vehicles are not the form yet, but they we, I saw them around the city. What do you think about driverless vehicles in terms of accessibility or otherwise?   Michael Hingson ** 41:32 Well, again, so, so the most basic challenge that, fortunately, they haven't really pushed which is great, is okay, you're driving along in an autonomous vehicle and you lose connection, or whatever. How are you going to be able to pull it off to the side of the road? Now, some people have talked about saying that there, there has to be a law that only sighted people could well the sighted people a sighted person has to be in the vehicle. The reality is, the technology has already been developed to allow a blind person to get behind the wheel of a car and have enough information to be able to drive that vehicle just as well, or nearly as well, as a sighted person. But I think for this, from the standpoint of autonomousness, I'm all for it. I think we're going to continue to see it. It's going to continue to get better. It is getting better daily. So I haven't ridden in a fully autonomous vehicle, but I do believe that that those vehicles need to make sure, or the manufacturers need to make sure that they really do put accessibility into it. I should be able to give the vehicle all the instructions and get all the information that any sighted person would get from the vehicle, and the technology absolutely exists to do that today. So I think we will continue to see that, and I think it will get better all the way around. I don't know whether, well, I think they that actually there have been examples of blind people who've gotten into an autonomous vehicle where there wasn't a sighted person, and they've been able to function with it pretty well. So I don't see why it should be a problem at all, and it's only going to get   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 43:22 better. Yeah, for sure. And I keep thinking, you know, accessibility would be a prior priority in autonomous vehicles, but I keep learning from you, you know you were on our show and and our discussions, that the priorities are not always in line and not always where they necessarily should   Michael Hingson ** 43:39 be. Well. And again, there are reasons for it, and while I might not like it, I understand it, and that is, a lot of it is education, and a lot of it is is awareness. Most schools that teach people how to code to develop websites don't spend a lot of time dealing with accessibility, even though putting all the codes in and creating accessible websites is not a magically difficult thing to do, but it's an awareness issue. And so yeah, we're just going to have to continue to fight the fight and work toward getting people to be more aware of why it's necessary. And in reality, I do believe that there is a lot of truth to this fact that making things more accessible for me will help other people as well, because by having not well, voice input, certainly in a vehicle, but voice output and so on, and a way for me to accessibly, be able to input information into an autonomous vehicle to take to have it take me where I want to go, is only going to help everyone else as well. A lot of things that I need would benefit sighted people so well, so much.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 44:56 Yeah, you're exactly right. Yeah, AI assisted. And voice input and all those things, they are universally loved and accepted now, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 45:07 it's getting better. The unemployment rate is still very high among, for example, employable blind people, because all too many people still think blind people can't work, even though they can. So it's all based on prejudice rather than reality, and we're, we're, we're just going to have to continue to work to try to deal with the issues. I wrote an article a couple of years ago. One of the things where we're constantly identified in the world is we're blind or visually impaired. And the problem with visually impaired is visually we're not different simply because we don't see and impaired, we are not we're getting people slowly to switch to blind and low vision, deaf people and hard of hearing people did that years ago. If you tell a deaf person they're hearing impaired, they're liable to deck you on the spot. Yeah, and blind people haven't progressed to that point, but it's getting there, and the reality is blind and low vision is a much more appropriate terminology to use, and it's not equating us to not having eyesight by saying we're impaired, you know. So it's it's an ongoing process, and all we can do is continue to work at it?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 46:21 Yeah, no. And I appreciate that you do. Like I said, education and retraining is, is call it marketing or call it, you know, just the way people should behave. But it's, that's, it's hard. It's one of the hardest things to do.   Michael Hingson ** 46:36 But, you know, we're making progress, and we'll, we'll continue to do that, and I think over time we'll we'll see things improve. It may not happen as quickly as we'd like, but I also believe that I and other people who are blind do need to be educators. We need to teach people. We need to be patient enough to do that. And you know, I see so often articles written about Me who talk about how my guide dog led me out of the World Trade Center. The guide dog doesn't lead anybody anywhere. That's not the job of the dog. The dog's job is to make sure that we walk safely. It's my job to know where to go and how to get there. So a guide dog guides and will make sure that we walk safely. But I'm the one that has to tell the dog, step by step, where I want the dog to go, and that story is really the crux of what I talk about many times when I travel and speak to talk to the public about what happened in the World Trade Center, because I spent a lot of time learning what I needed to do in order to escape safely and on September 11, not ever Having anticipated that we would need that kind of information, but still preparing for it, the mindset kicked in, and it all worked well.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 47:49 You You and I talked about Uber on on my show, when you came on, and we gave them a little ding and figured out some stuff for them, what in terms of accessibility, and, you know, just general corporate citizenship, what's what's a company that, let's give them a give, give, call them out for a good reason? What's a company that's doing a good job, in your eyes, in your mind, for accessibility, maybe an unexpected one.   Michael Hingson ** 48:20 Well, as I mentioned before, I think Apple is doing a lot of good things. I think Microsoft is doing some good I think they could do better than they are in in some ways, but they're working at it. I wish Google would put a little bit more emphasis on making its you its interface more more usable to you really use the like with Google Docs and so on. You have to hurt learn a whole lot of different commands to make part of that system work, rather than it being as straightforward as it should be, there's some new companies coming up. There's a new company called inno search. Inno search.ai, it was primarily designed at this point for blind and low vision people. The idea behind inner search is to have any a way of dealing with E commerce and getting people to be able to help get help shopping and so on. So they actually have a a phone number. It's, I think it's 855, shop, G, P, T, and you can go in, and you can talk to the bot and tell it what you want, and it can help fill up a shopping cart. It's using artificial intelligence, but it understands really well. I have yet to hear it tell me I don't understand what you want. Sometimes it gives me a lot of things that more than I than I'm searching for. So there, there's work that needs to be done, but in a search is really a very clever company that is spending a lot of time working to make. Sure that everything that it does to make a shopping experience enjoyable is also making sure that it's accessible.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 50:08 Oh, that's really interesting. Now, with with my podcast, and just in general, I spend a lot of time critiquing companies and and not taking them to test, but figuring out how to make them better. But I always like the opportunity to say you did something well, like even quietly, or you're, you know, people are finding you because of a certain something you didn't you took it upon yourselves to do and figure out   Michael Hingson ** 50:34 there's an audio editor, and we use it some unstoppable mindset called Reaper. And Reaper is a really great digital audio workstation product. And there is a whole series of scripts that have been written that make Reaper incredibly accessible as an audio editing tool. It's really great. It's about one of the most accessible products that I think I have seen is because they've done so well with it, which is kind of cool.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 51:06 Oh, very nice. Okay, good. It's not even expensive. You gave me two to look, to pay attention to, and, you know, Track, track, along with,   Michael Hingson ** 51:16 yeah, they're, they're, they're fun. So what do people assume about you that isn't true or that you don't think is true?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 51:25 People say, I'm quiet at times, guess going back to childhood, but there's time, there's situation. It's it's situational. There's times where I don't have to be the loudest person in the room or or be the one to talk the most, I can hang back and observe, but I would not categorize myself as quiet, you know, like I said, it's environmental. But now I've got plenty to say. You just have to engage me, I guess.   Michael Hingson ** 51:56 Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting. I'm trying to remember   Michael Hingson ** 52:04 on Shark Tank, what's Mark's last name, Cuban. Cuban. It's interesting to watch Mark on Shark Tank. I don't know whether he's really a quiet person normally, but I see when I watch Shark Tank. The other guys, like Mr. Wonderful with Kevin are talking all the time, and Mark just sits back and doesn't say anything for the longest period of time, and then he drops a bomb and bids and wins. Right? He's just really clever about the way he does it. I think there's a lot to be said for not just having to speak up every single time, but rather really thinking things through. And he clearly does that,   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 52:46 yeah, yeah, you have to appreciate that. And I think that's part of the reason that you know, when I came time to do a podcast, I did a panel show, because I'm surrounded by bright, interesting, articulate people, you included as coming on with us and and I don't have to fill every second. I can, I can, I, you know, I can intake information and think for a second and then maybe have a   Michael Hingson ** 53:15 response. Well, I think that makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? I mean, it's the way it really ought to be.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 53:20 Yeah, if you got to fill an hour by yourself, you're always on, right?   Michael Hingson ** 53:26 Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I know when I travel to speak. I figure that when I land somewhere, I'm on until I leave again. So I always enjoy reading books, especially going and coming on airplanes. And then I can be on the whole time. I am wherever I have to be, and then when I get on the airplane to come home, I can relax again.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 53:45 Now, I like that. And I know, you keynote, I think I'd rather moderate, you know, I'll say something when I have something to say, and let other people talk for a while. Well, you gotta, you have a great story, and you're, you know, I'm glad you're getting it out there.   Michael Hingson ** 53:58 Well, if anybody needs a keynote speaker. Just saying, for everybody listening, feel free to email me. I'd love to hear from you. You can email me at Michael H i@accessibe.com or speaker at Michael hingson.com always looking for speaking engagements. Then we got that one in. I'm glad, but, but you know, for you, is there a podcast episode that you haven't done, that you really want to do, that just seems to be eluding you?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 54:28 There are a couple that got away. I wanted to do one about Sesame Street because it was without a it was looking like it was going to be without a home. And that's such a hallmark of my childhood. And so many, yeah, I think they worked out a deal, which is probably what I was going to propose with. It's like a CO production deal with Netflix. So it seems like they're safe for the foreseeable future. But what was the other I think there's, there's at least one or two more where maybe the guests didn't line up, or. Or the timeliness didn't work. I was going to have someone connected to Big Lots. You remember Big Lots? I think they're still around to some degree, but I think they are, come on and tell me their story, because they've, you know, they've been on the brink of extinction for a little while. So it's usually, it's either a timing thing, with the with with the guest, or the news cycle has just maybe gone on and moved past us.   Michael Hingson ** 55:28 But, yeah, I know people wrote off Red Lobster for a while, but they're still around.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 55:35 They're still around. That would be a good one. Yeah, their endless shrimp didn't do them any favors. No, that didn't help a whole lot, but it's the companies, even the ones we've done already, you know, they they're still six months later. Toilet hasn't been even a full year of our show yet, but in a year, I bet there's, you know, we could revisit them all over again, and they're still going to find themselves in, I don't know, hot water, but some kind of controversy for one reason or another. And we'll, we'll try to help them out again.   Michael Hingson ** 56:06 Have you seen any successes from the podcast episodes where a company did listen to you and has made some changes?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 56:15 I don't know that. I can correlate one to one. We know that they listen. We can look at the metrics and where the where the list listens, are coming from, especially with LinkedIn, gives you some engagement and tells you which companies are paying attention. So we know that they are and they have now, whether they took that and, you know, implemented it, we have a disclaimer saying, Don't do it. You know, we're not there to give you unfiltered legal advice. You know, don't hold us accountable for anything we say. But if we said something good and you like it, do it. So, you know, I don't know to a T if they have then we probably given away billions of dollars worth of fixes. But, you know, I don't know the correlation between those who have listened and those who have acted on something that we might have, you know, alluded to or set out, right? But it has. We've been the times that we take it really seriously. We've we've predicted some things that have come come to pass.   Michael Hingson ** 57:13 That's cool, yeah. Well, you certainly had a great career, and you've done a lot of interesting things. If you had to suddenly change careers and do something entirely different from what you're doing, what would it be?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 57:26 Oh, man, my family laughs at me, but I think it would be a furniture salesman. There you go. Yeah, I don't know why. There's something about it's just enough repetition and just enough creativity. I guess, where people come in, you tell them, you know you, they tell you their story, you know, you get to know them. And then you say, Oh, well, this sofa would be amazing, you know, and not, not one with endless varieties, not one with with two models somewhere in between. Yeah, I think that would be it keeps you on your feet.   Michael Hingson ** 58:05 Furniture salesman, well, if you, you know, if you get too bored, math is homes and Bob's furniture probably looking for people.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 58:12 Yeah, I could probably do that at night.   Michael Hingson ** 58:18 What advice do you give to people who are just starting out, or what kinds of things do you would you give to people we have ideas and thoughts?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 58:27 So I've done a lot of mentoring. I've done a lot of one on one calls. They told I always work with an organization. They told me I did 100 plus calls. I always tell people to take use the create their own momentum, so you can apply for things, you can stand in line, you can wait, or you can come up with your own idea and test it out and say, I'm doing this. Who wants in? And the minute you have an idea, people are interested. You know, you're on to something. Let me see what that's all about. You know, I want to be one of the three that you're looking for. So I tell them, create their own momentum. Try to flip the power dynamic. So if you're asking for a job, how do you get the person that you're asking to want something from you and and do things that are take on, things that are within your control?   Michael Hingson ** 59:18 Right? Right? Well, if you had to go back and tell the younger Aaron something from years ago, what would you give him in the way of advice?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 59:30 Be more vulnerable. Don't pretend you know everything. There you go. And you don't need to know everything. You need to know what you know. And then get a little better and get a little better.   Michael Hingson ** 59:43 One of the things that I constantly tell people who I hire as salespeople is you can be a student, at least for a year. Don't hesitate to ask your customers questions because they're not out to. Get you. They want you to succeed. And if you interact with your customers and you're willing to learn from them, they're willing to teach, and you'll learn so much that you never would have thought you would learn. I just think that's such a great concept.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 1:00:12 Oh, exactly right. Yeah. As soon as I started saying that to clients, you know, they would throw out an industry term. As soon as I've said I don't know what that is, can you explain it to me? Yeah? And they did, and the world didn't fall apart. And I didn't, you know, didn't look like the idiot that I thought I would when we went on with our day. Yeah, that whole protective barrier that I worked so hard to keep up as a facade, I didn't have to do it, and it was so freeing. Yeah, yeah, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 1:00:41 I hear you. Well, this has been fun. We've been doing it for an hour. Can you believe it? Oh, hey, that was a quick hour. I know it was a lot of fun. Well, I want to thank you for being here, and I want to thank you all for listening. Please give us a five star rating wherever you're listening or watching. We really appreciate it. We value your thoughts. I'd love to hear from you and get your thoughts on our episode today. And I'm sure Aaron would like that as well, and I'll give you an email address in a moment. But Aaron, if people want to reach out to you and maybe use your services, how do they do that?   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 1:01:12 Yeah, so two ways you can check me out, at double zebra, z, E, B, R, A, double zebra.com and the podcast, I encourage you to check out too. We fixed it. Pod.com, we fixed it.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:25 Pod.com, there you go. So reach out to Aaron and get marketing stuff done and again. Thank you all. My email address, if you'd like to talk to us, is Michael, H, I m, I C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, and if you know anyone else who you think ought to be a guest on our podcast, we'd love it if you give us an introduction. We're always looking for people, so please do and again. Aaron, I just want to thank you for being here. This has been a lot of fun.   Aaron Wolpoff, ** 1:01:58 That was great. Thanks for having me. Michael,   **Michael Hingson ** 1:02:05 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collector Series (UCS) sets are some of the most iconic—and expensive—builds in the galaxy. But not all UCS sets are created equal. In this video, we dive deep into the worst flops and top-tier masterpieces of the UCS line!From underwhelming designs and questionable price tags to jaw-dropping detail and collector's dream builds, we break down the highs and lows of LEGO's most ambitious Star Wars sets.What's YOUR favorite (or least favorite) UCS set? Let us know in the comments!Don't forget to LIKE, SUBSCRIBE, and turn on NOTIFICATIONS for more LEGO content every week!#LEGOStarWars #UCS #LEGOReview #StarWars #MillenniumFalcon #WorstToBest #LEGOCollection

We got footage of the new map, info on the new Mega Evolution Licenses coming to the game, and a new UCS rulebook. And if all that wasn't enough Nexus joins the podcast to give all their thoughts on the news!

Thomasville's volleyball team won the Bobby Davis Invitational championship in Demopolis, beating University Charter School 25-14, 25-18. In other action from the tournament, the Tigers lost to UCS in the first pool-play game 18-25, 25-22, 11-15, beat Sweet Water 25-16, 25-16, Jackson 25- 13, 25-20 and Demopolis 25-18, 24-26, 15-8. In the finals, Zion Howard had 11 aces, Zakiya Pritchett 4 blocks and 7 kills, Imani Brothers 25 digs, Lyric Thompson 6 digs and 6 assists, Austin Marshall 17 sets and Kirstin Marshall 7 blocks. In other action last week, Thomasville beat visiting Sweet Water 25-22, 20-25, 25- 20, 25-14...Article Link

Today we unpack some of healthcare's succession and retirement trends Doctors should know about when considering hiring, replacing and leaving medicine better than how it found you! Craig Fowler, Founder & President of the Athenic Group, which helps Hospitals, Medical Practice Owners, UCs, Nurses, PAs, Doctors and others solve their healthcare recruiting challenges through dedicated Physician Search and the training and development of your recruiting the right medical staff to fit in well in your practice environment and remain committed for years to come. LISTEN TO FULL PODCAST EPISODE Craig is a 20+ year veteran of the physician recruiting industry; including holding senior leadership roles with several of the largest retained physician recruiting firms in the country. He is a former President of the National Association of Physician Recruiters (NAPR) and is a sought after speaker and trainer on physician recruitment processes and trends. He has also received accolades from respected healthcare organizations and associations such as: TEAMHealth, Tenet Healthcare, Piedmont Healthcare, Memorial Hermann Hospital, UT Chattanooga, Medical College of Georgia, Physician Hospitals of America, American Academy of Private Physicians, Concierge Medicine Today Forum. Some of his media credits include: NBC News, New England Journal of Medicine, Becker's Healthcare, Neurology Today, MGMA, NAMPC, Concierge Medicine Today, NAPR, and AAPPR (formerly ASPR). ATHENIC GROUP 220 N Jeff Davis Dr, Ste 4 Fayetteville, GA 30214 Office: 404-580-3443 cfowler@athenicgroup.com Recruitment Services Our recruitment services division functions as a boutique search firm specializing in physician and provider recruitment. We use the same resources large retained firms' use, but we take a more tailored and personal approach. Training & Development Our training and development division offers a range of services to help improve your recruitment team's performance, therefore decreasing your need for outsourced recruitment. Services range from skills evaluation, rookie recruiter training, team development, training workshops and ongoing coaching. Complementary Services Our primary focus is to help your practice, facility and community by improving the lives of those who seek healthcare from you. Other complementary services that we offer include: Expert Marketing Services, Succession Planning/Consulting for the Concierge and Direct Primary Care Practice, Expert Witness Testimony Services, and Search Evaluation & Consultation Services. www.AthenicGroup.com © Concierge Medicine Today, LLC. ("CMT") All rights reserved.   Disclaimers: This content is for educational purposes only and does not provide medical, financial, legal, or professional advice. Concierge Medicine Today, LLC (CMT) is not liable for errors from guest contributions. Users should consult reliable advisors before making decisions. By using this content, you agree to CMT's Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, releasing CMT from liability. CMT may remove content without notice, and guest interviews do not imply endorsement. Users assume all related risks. Thank you.

Adolescence is a limited series on Netflix consisting of 4 episodes, each made up of a single continuous hour long take. This "one-er" format presented tremendous challenges to the sound team, both on set and in post production. Intense planning was needed in order to capture everything in production, and constant panning was needed in the mix to keep the sound locked to the shifting camera movement. Production sound mixers Rob Entwistle & Kiff McManus tell us about the organized chaos during filming, while supervising sound editor, James Drake, and re-recording mixer, Jules Woods, discuss the intricate detail they dove into to create the immersive feel of the final mix. Listeners in London England, come on out on August 24th at 7pm to the Crown and Two Chairmen to the second Tonebenders London Sound Design Meet-up, presented by the Motion Picture Sound Editors. Also you have until August 15th to get your Listener Field Recording Stories. Full details on how to submit are at https://tonebenderspodcast.com/field-recording-story-submissions/ SPONSOR: Sound Ideas is Introducing the newest instalment to The Hollywood Edge's legendary sound effect collection: Premiere Edition - Volume 12! Build a rich audio-sphere to enhance all your productions, with this impressive assortment of sound genres: ranging from Machinery, to Nature, to Science Fiction. Access over 3000 sounds, available in four resolutions and with descriptive metadata in UCS formatting. Head over to www.sound-ideas.com/ to learn more. Episode Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/320-adolescence/ Podcast Homepage: https://tonebenderspodcast.com This episode is hosted by Timothy Muirhead

This episode has been a long time coming. I have been trying to figure out how to tackle a discussion about A.I. and it's influence on how sound editors will all be able to do our work in the future. So when the MPSE put out a press release about A.I. created work and it's eligibility at their Golden Reel Awards, I saw it as a chance to broach the subject. David Barber, MPSE President, and Brent Findley are both on the A.I. committee with the guild and have spent countless hours thinking about how A.I. is going to effect sound editors. Listeners in London England, come on out on August 24th at 7pm to the Crown and Two Chairmen to the second Tonebenders London Sound Design Meet-up, presented by the Motion Picture Sound Editors. Also you have until August 15th to get your Listener Field Recording Stories. Full details on how to submit are at https://tonebenderspodcast.com/field-recording-story-submissions/ SPONSOR: Sound Ideas is Introducing the newest instalment to The Hollywood Edge's legendary sound effect collection: Premiere Edition - Volume 12! Build a rich audio-sphere to enhance all your productions, with this impressive assortment of sound genres: ranging from Machinery, to Nature, to Science Fiction. Access over 3000 sounds, available in four resolutions and with descriptive metadata in UCS formatting. Head over to https://www.sound-ideas.com/ to learn more. Episode Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/318-how-will-a-i-affect-sound-designers/ Podcast Homepage: https://tonebenderspodcast.com This episode is hosted by Timothy Muirhead

Protestors at the Stand up for Science march in Washington DC, in March 2025. Photo by Geoff Livingston. Researchers at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) recently released a report documenting more than 400 attacks on science by the Trump administration in the first six months since his inauguration. Earth Island Journal editor-in-chief and Terra Verde cohost Maureen Nandini Mitra talks with two of the four coauthors of the report — Darya Minovi and Kristie Ellickson of UCS' Center for Science and Democracy — about the insidious ways in which this administration is silencing the work and voices of scientists, and the implication of these attacks on the environment, public health, and our democracy. The post Silencing Science appeared first on KPFA.

When a baby is born, the bones of the skull are meant to behave like the slats of a wooden barrel, flexible enough to slide into the correct orientation as the brain beneath them doubles in size during the first year of life. However, in about seven of every 100,000 births one of those seams between the bones of the skull (called a suture) closes too early along a single side of the forehead, a condition called unicoronal synostosis (or UCS). Instead of rounding out evenly, the skull twists: one brow pulls backward, the opposite brow juts forward, the eye sockets tilt, and the nose shifts off‑centre. Beyond cosmetic considerations such as the visible asymmetry, these children can also face raised brain pressure, vision problems and slower development.

Fresh off of receiving 2 Emmy nominations, for Sound Mixing and Sound Editing, the audio team from The Bear sits down to talk about their work on the latest season of the acclaimed series. Re-Recording Mixer & Supervising Sound Editor Steve "Major" Giammaria, Dialog Editor Evan Benjamin and Production Sound Mixer Scott Smith, break down the many challenges this series presents, both on set and in post production. They breakdown a few key scenes and follow how the dialog is captured on set, cleaned and prepped in editorial and finally crafted on the mix stage. Listeners in England mark your calendars for Sunday August 24th for the Tonebenders London Sound Design Meet-up presented by the motion picture sound editors. Full Details at https://tonebenderspodcast.com/tonebenders-sound-design-meet-up/ See you there everyone! SPONSORS: The Cargo Cult's Matchbox 2 is a change management tool that is invaluable when doing comforms. It reveals the differences, reports on the damage, and then re-times your sound mix, saving you incalculable amounts of time. To Learn all about the new features in Matchbox 2, head over to www.https://www.thecargocult.nz/ , to learn more about Matchbox 2 and pulldown the free 15 day trial. Matchbox 2 is exactly what you have been waiting for. Spend your time being creative and let Matchbox handle the conforming. Check out Extension 12, of the iconic General Series 6000 Library: Sound Ideas' most popular sound effects collection. This newest addition features Over 2,500 high-quality recordings, over a wide range of sounds for both the fantastical and the realistic. Available in four resolutions with descriptive metadata in UCS formatting, this library ensures show-stopping results. https://www.sound-ideas.com/Product/2459/General-Series-6000-Extension-12 Episode Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/317-the-bear-season-4/ Podcast Homepage:https://tonebenderspodcast.com This episode is hosted by Timothy Muirhead

Tonebenders' host, Tim Muirhead, tells tales of some of his favourite field recording (mis)adventures and invites all the podcasts' listeners to send in their own stories of capturing interesting sounds in the wild. Tim shares stories of recording in unusual places, when strangers find microphones left to record on their own, his favourite sound he has ever recorded and lots more. To get full details on how to submit your own recordings to be part of a future episode of Tonebenders, go to https://tonebenderspodcast.com/field-recording-story-submissions/ This Episode is an updated re-podcast, that originally aired Oct 5th 2023. SPONSOR: Check out Extension 12 of the iconic, General Series 6000 Library: Sound Ideas' most popular sound effects collection. This newest addition features over 2,500 high-quality recordings, over a wide range of sounds for both the fantastical and the realistic. Including noises of nature, industrial sounds, magical creatures and lots more. Available in four resolutions with descriptive metadata in UCS formatting, this library ensures show-stopping results. Head over to https://www.sound-ideas.com/Product/2459/General-Series-6000-Extension-12 to learn more. Episode Notes: https://tonebenderspodcast.com/316-field-recording-stories-with-tim/ Podcast Homepage: https://tonebenderspodcast.com 
 This episode is hosted by Timothy Muirhead

ドンキ運営会社が初のデジタル社債　年利はポイント込み1％　管理はブロックチェーン。　ディスカウントストア「ドン・キホーテ」を運営するパン・パシフィック・インターナショナルホールディングス（東京都渋谷区、以下：PPIH）は6月13日、ブロックチェーンを活用したデジタル社債を発行すると発表した。PPIHグループの電子マネー「majica」が使えるクレジットカード「UCSカード」の会員を対象に、抽選申し込みの受付も始めた。

Arcane is a ground breaking animated series, especially when it comes to how the show used music and sound design, working together, all the way through the process. In this special conversation from the Riot Games Campus, in California, Supervising Sound Editors (Eliot Connors & Brad Beaumont) sat down with the series composers (Alex Seaver and Alex Temple) to talk about how each of their contributions, inspired the way the others approached their work. They discuss how the musical themes evolved throughout the series, how the sound design had to be based in organic sounds and their desire to make the sound live up to the impressive visuals of Arcane. If you enjoy this episode, go back to eps 309 for more Arcane talk, with the re-recording mixers Penny Harold & Andy Lange. SPONSORS: 
The O-MINI Microphone is a miniature omnidirectional electret microphone. Each one is hand made by Chris Trevino, a practicing field recordist, and a really engaged member of the sound community. He puts a lot of work into making and testing each mic to ensure they live up to his high standards. They are ultra-sonic capable, which makes manipulating your recordings with them a lot of fun. They are extremely affordable. At $150 American for a stereo matched pair, they offer a lot of value. Check it out at www.chrisatrevino.com/store/omini Check out one of Sound Ideas latest libraries The General HD vol 6, which brings over 4000 new effects, to add to your arsenal of sounds: from the deepest depths of the ocean, to the highest peaks of mountains and well beyond. Whatever the mood or circumstance, General HD 6 will cover it. This new library comes with rich metadata in UCS format, and is available in 24bit 96k resolution. Head over to https://www.sound-ideas.com/Product/2465/General-HD-6-Sound-Effects-Collection to learn more. Episode Notes:https://tonebenderspodcast.com/313-the-sound-design-amp-music-of-arcane-season-2/ Podcast Homepage: 
tonebenderspodcast.com 
 This episode is hosted by Timothy Muirhead

Hospitals are really hard to create sound design for. The walla and general soundscape of a hospital is very different than any other location, because they are dense but not necessarily loud. Plus there are lots of medical machines that need to be accounted for. In the new HBO emergency room drama, The Pitt, this challenge is amplified as the show takes place entirely inside an especially intense ER. Supervising Sound Editor Bryan Parker and Re-Recording Mixers Ed Carr & Todd Grace, tell us how they used the sounds of The PItt to increase the tension, emotions and payoffs..... all with almost no score in the series. No detail was left to chance, as a map of the fictional emergency room was used extensively by the sound team, to motivate panning and what kind of sounds are heard by the audience. The use of sound design to draw you into the story is one of The PItt's greatest triumphs. SPONSORS: Check out one of Sound Ideas latest libraries The General HD vol 6, which brings over 4000 new effects, to add to your arsenal of sounds: from the deepest depths of the ocean, to the highest peaks of mountains and well beyond. Whatever the mood or circumstance, General HD 6 will cover it. This new library comes with rich metadata in UCS format, and is available in 24bit 96k resolution.  Head over to https://www.sound-ideas.com/Product/2465/General-HD-6-Sound-Effects-Collection to learn more. The Soundminer Database Companion, or SMDBC, is an amazing App that is extremely easy to use. SMDBC simply cleans up your Soundminer Databases, saving you time and effort on all your future searches. Simple as that. It does not erase anything from your drives, unless you want it to. You can learn everything it can do by heading over to https://smdbc.com While there you can get 10% off your purchase, by using the discount code: TONEBENDERS Episode Notes: 
https://tonebenderspodcast.com/312-the-pitt/ Podcast Homepage: 
https://tonebenderspodcast.com 
 This episode is hosted by Timothy Muirhead

Galeto, massa, polenta e tantas outras delícias fazem parte da gastronomia associada à imigração italiana. Para muitos imigrantes, que deixaram a Itália fugindo da pobreza e da fome, a fartura virou o símbolo da superação das dificuldades. Neste episódio do programa Aconteceu no RS, o professor de gastronomia da UCS e da Unisinos Israel Bertamoni conta a história da culinária nas colônias italianas no Estado.

El jefe de UCS, Jhony Fernández, aseguró en Erbol que si logran una alianza con Andrónico Rodríguez, ganarían la elección en primera vuelta.

El exvocero de gobierno Alex Contreras, declaró en Erbol que si Andrónico Rodríguez pacta con UCS será su peor error político.

Our longest episode yet! Regional finals for every UCS region conclude, Version 1 comes on the show for an interview, A new patch is about to hit, and BRAND NEW ITEMS are coming to the game! Its 2 hour megasode!

The final tournament for every region UCS region is THIS WEEKEND!!! Season 4 is almost at a close so it's time to break down the groups, predict some winners, and guess some players!

Star Wars Celebration is just around the corner, and the hyperspace lanes are buzzing with pre-event news! The hype is reaching critical levels, so join your Escape Pod co-hosts as we blast through the biggest headlines and hottest topics you need to know before the main event. Get ready for our usual mix of insights, laughs, and maybe a few poorly-timed jokes! New Star Wars Strategy Game: Ex-Firaxis developers at Bit Reactor, in collaboration with Respawn Entertainment, have unveiled "Star Wars: Zero Company". It's described as a single-player, turn-based tactics game set in the prequel era. More details are expected at Star Wars Celebration Japan on April 19th. (Source: Eurogamer) LEGO Star Wars May 4th Reveals: Several new LEGO Star Wars sets have been announced for May the 4th, headlined by the Ultimate Collector Series (UCS) Jango Fett's Firespray-Class Starship (75409). This 2,970-piece set depicts the ship from Attack of the Clones. Other new sets include Kylo Ren's shuttle and helmet, a Jango Fett helmet, a buildable Chopper droid, and more. Most sets are available from May 1st, with the UCS ship having early access for LEGO Insiders on May 1st and general release on May 4th. (Source: Jay's Brick Blog) (Source: Geek Culture) YouTini News: Youtini covers a wide range of recent Star Wars news, including the new video game "Zero Company," upcoming books and comics (like a new Darth Vader book and Doctor Aphra series), merchandise reveals for May the 4th (including the LEGO sets and Baylan Skoll/Shin Hati lightsabers), and previews for Star Wars Celebration Japan. (Source: Youtini Articles) (Source: Youtini Merchandise) Light & Magic Season 2: The second season of the ILM documentary series "Light & Magic" premieres today, April 18th, on Disney+. Directed by Joe Johnston, this season focuses on the digital era of the 90s, the making of the prequel trilogy, and ILM's technological advancements during that time, covering films like Twister, Casper, and Pirates of the Caribbean. (Source: Star Wars News Net) Fortnite at Star Wars Celebration: Fortnite will have a presence at Star Wars Celebration Japan (April 18-20). A special announcement regarding upcoming Star Wars content is expected. Star Wars: Beyond Victory (Meta Quest): ILM and Lucasfilm revealed more details about "Star Wars: Beyond Victory – A Mixed Reality Playset", an experience for Meta Quest headsets. Set around the time of Solo: A Star Wars Story, it focuses on podracing and features the character Sebulba. It includes Adventure (VR/MR story mode), Arcade (MR holotable podracing), and Playset (MR figures/vehicles) modes. Attendees at Star Wars Celebration Japan can get a first hands-on look. (Source: ILM) (Source: UploadVR) Try Star Wars Launch Pad! https://www.youtube.com/@SWLaunchPad https://open.spotify.com/show/1v0naAAJZMW0nig3OkFToJ?si=8014aef1647f4da5 Found on any platform in the galaxy! ———————————————————————— Star Wars Escape Pod

We are finally back from Japan! And there were approximately 1000 different Unite tournaments around the world. A ton of ACL talk in this one but new items and UCS regions as well!

CONVENTION CONNECTIONS #4Used Curriculum Sale!!!We are so happy to have the UCS back! Find out all the details here and on our website https://conv.chaponline.com/used-curriculum-sale/BONUS: Volunteers get to shop first!!!For information or to register for convention, to go https://conv.chaponline.comCHAP is the Christian Homeschool Association of Pennsylvania and has provided year-round support to homeschoolers since 1994.  Find valuable resources at https://www.chaponline.comGot PA Homeschool law questions? Check out https://www.homeschoolpennsylvania.org Contact us at https://www.chaponline.com/contact-us with your questions or topics for discussion.Don't miss out on the latest in PA homeschool news! Subscribe to our eNews at https://chaponline.com/subscribe-to-enews/Donate to support CHAP in the endeavor to encourage, connect, equip, and protect homeschoolers at https://chaponline.com/donate/

In this episode of Parenting Teens with Dr. Cam, college admissions coach Dyllen Nellis reveals the secret to crafting standout college applications—authentic storytelling. Forget obsessing over GPAs—top schools want students who can articulate their core values, intellectual curiosity, and unique experiences. Dyllen shares expert strategies to help your teen write compelling essays, develop passion projects, and stand out in a competitive admissions landscape—without parental hovering.   WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE Why authenticity matters more than perfect essays How to help your teen find their unique story The role of passion projects in top college applications The right way to support your teen—without taking over   5 KEY TAKEAWAYS FOR PARENTS OF TEENS Story Over Stats – Grades alone won't get your teen into top schools. Their story and values matter more. Authenticity Wins – Admissions officers can spot fake or forced narratives. Encourage honesty. Passion Projects Stand Out – Schools want students who create real impact through their interests. Curiosity is Key – Support your teen's genuine interests instead of pushing “impressive” activities. Guide, Don't Hover – Give your teen space to explore, make mistakes, and develop their own voice.   ❤️ ENJOYING THE SHOW? Don't keep it to yourself! Share this episode and leave a rating & review. Your support helps other parents find expert advice to help their teens thrive.   RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Free Masterclass: The Top School Admissions Formula Dyllen's Website: NextGen Admit   CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST: Dyllen Nellis Instagram: @nextgenadmit YouTube: Dyllen Nellis TikTok: @nextgenadmit LinkedIn: Dyllen Nellis   CONNECT WITH YOUR HOST: Dr. Cam Caswell Website: AskDrCam.com Instagram: @DrCamCaswell TikTok: @the.teen.translator YouTube: Parenting Teens with Dr. Cam FULL TRANSCRIPT Dr. Cam (00:00.942) Hey parents, Dr. Cam here. College admissions are no joke, trust me. I'm right in the thick of it with my own teen and it is stressful. And if you're like most parents, you're probably think that the GPA and your test scores are the golden ticket to getting into the top school. But what if I told you they're not the most important things? In this episode, I'm joined by Dyllen Nellis, a college admissions coach and founder of NextGen Admin who helps students craft applications that make them stand out beyond just grades. After getting accepted to every single school she applied to, including Stanford, yes, parents, she now helps students around the world to do the same. So we're gonna talk about the number one thing that gives your teens a competitive edge. You wanna hear it? Keep listening, welcome Dylan.   Dyllen Nellis (00:52.595) Thank you for having me.   Dr. Cam (00:54.698) This is such a hot topic, especially now. I know right now my daughter's waiting back to hear back from school. She's hearing from schools and a lot of juniors are in that like frantic mode of, my gosh, grades, grades, grades, grades, grades, building my resume. Why are you telling us that's not the most important thing?   Dyllen Nellis (01:16.501) Well, I think people are so focused on grades, especially parents, you know, when putting a lot of pressure on their kids to do well in school. That's a very normal thing. And it is important, yes, to have good grades, but they are not the thing that's going to help you stand out at a top school, especially, you know, I know a lot of people are really excited about hopefully getting into a really competitive school. That's what I help people do. And what they have to understand is that the people applying to those schools will have those top grades and top test scores. Maybe not perfect, so you don't have to be ultra perfect in terms of grades and scores. the thing is, it's not going to be like, what's the difference between you and some other kid who has the same exact score? So the stats don't show the admissions officers who you are as a person or what you're going to contribute to their university. And that's what they want to know. So what I teach students is that their superpower is their story and it's their unique core values and how they can effectively articulate them in standout, powerful college essays.   Dr. Cam (02:40.396) Right? So now parents are going, okay, so how do I craft a great story for my teen? How do I make sure my teen has a great story? What do you say to that?   Dyllen Nellis (02:51.143) The first thing they need to do is understand who they are. A lot of students will think, okay, what do I write my college essay about? Let me just pick the worst thing that's ever happened to me and write about that. Or the parents will force something onto them and be like, well, you did that one leadership thing that one time, right? So shouldn't you write about that? I guess. And then a lot of times there's this, like, this force in a way that you try to contrive a narrative that doesn't quite express who they really are. And so that's why I say don't don't just start writing the essay, you have to do all of this work that comes beforehand. And so that work is first really sitting down and reflecting, reflecting on who you are, what makes you unique why do you do the things that you do? I think that's the most important part. Like I will get on a call with a student and they'll tell me they're interested in a certain major. And I'm like, okay, that's awesome. Why? Why are you interested in that? And they freeze and they have no idea what to tell me. And then sometimes they'll answer with like experiences that they had or clubs that they were in or things that they did. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, I'm not asking you what you did. I'm asking you like something much deeper, like what is it about this thing that makes you so excited, that makes you intellectually curious? So those are the questions we have to start asking. And that takes a lot of reflection that I think students at that age are not used to. They're not thinking about what are my values as a person? What's my identity?   Dr. Cam (04:42.606) They're trying to figure it out, they don't know yet.   Dyllen Nellis (04:45.873) Exactly. And especially like, it's really cool once they start to understand this, because when they see the patterns of like, all of my experiences in my life actually line up in a way that made me the way I am today. And that's super cool. And I help them identify those patterns and what the values are that like connect all of their experiences together. And then those values become the themes or their college essay. So that's something that I don't think is talked about enough, or like rarely at all, is that college essay should have a theme. Like every single essay needs to have a different theme and that theme is whatever the core value is or whatever the main lesson or you know, how their mindset shifted, how they grew. That is what the essay needs to focus on. So not entirely about a certain challenge that they went through or a certain experience. It's more about what they learned from it because those values and skills that they gained are the things that they are going to contribute to the university. So then the university is like, oh, that's how you're going to make me look good.   Dr. Cam (05:58.85) Right? I want to work backwards from this. So what you're saying is the essay and even the interviews, like my daughter has a lot of interviews, which I think is a similar thing, where they're asking her who she is, what she's passionate about, why she wants to go to that school. And the challenge that I'm seeing with a lot of the kids I work with is they don't know because a lot of them are going where they're supposed to be going and doing what they're doing because that's what they're told they should be doing. And that's what they, so they don't have an inner passion value, everything else. It's like the bottom line is cause my parents told me, right? So do you hear this? Do you see that answer?   Dyllen Nellis (06:31.146) Yes, and that's honestly the hardest part, like especially if they're a senior in high school, that's when things get really hard because we're trying to like pull from nothing, or not nothing, but like there's not much there. And of course, when I work with a student, I can only work with what is actually inherently there because I care a lot about telling authentic stories. So I think this is a really good point to mention, especially for parents of students who are younger, you know, like younger in high school, freshmen, sophomore year, it's important that they're doing things that they actually care about and that lights them up. Because yeah, as we see later down the line, if they don't have that like inner motivation or passion, then it's really hard to craft stories. I actually have an anecdote of this quite recently I worked with a student, she booked a call with me and she presented me her essay and I was like, okay, cool. Let's look at it. But I could tell something was off about the essay. was about like a leadership experience. But for some reason, the story wasn't quite, it didn't seem real to me in a lot of ways. And it didn't seem like we didn't get to those deeper core values as I've been mentioning. So I started asking her about it and suddenly she starts breaking down and crying in front of me and she's like, you know, I don't know like this wasn't a good experience at all for me. Actually, I didn't learn much and my parents just told me that I should write about this and I don't know what I should do. And I was just like, my gosh, it made me so sad. Honestly, I will say I don't think that students in that case are like a lost cause. We can revitalize it, we can fix it. And that's why it takes someone who can help them realize the amazing qualities that they do have, the amazing experiences that they have gone through. Because I don't think, you know, it's exclusive to people who've been high giving their whole life. Like, everybody has a story to tell, it just takes someone to help them realize that instead of forcing a narrative onto   Dr. Cam (08:58.658) We have this belief that we want to force a narrative that makes them sound really good and really high achieving and everything else. And I'm hearing parents already going, okay, so you're telling me my kid needs to do what they're really passionate about. Well, great. They're passionate about playing on their games all day or scrolling TikTok. That's all they're passionate about. So what do I do with that?   Dyllen Nellis (09:27.657) I think that's really interesting if like, instead of maybe shutting down those interests, get curious, get curious about them. So especially with the TikTok one, I'd be like, what kinds of videos are you watching on TikTok? Because I know me, I will get really interesting. I don't know, people get such neat interests on TikTok. And like I would just the other day, I was like learning about manifesting and quantum leaps or whatever and how that relates to quantum physics. Like that was coming up on my feed and I was like, that's so interesting. So I started going down a rabbit hole on that. So your kid might actually be interested in these very niche things that are coming up on their feeds. And I would get curious about that, know, ask them, have conversations, just to learn a little bit more about what's going on in their head? What are the topics that they're thinking about? What are the questions that they have in the world? I think that's a great one. Pursue the questions. What are you thinking of? What are you curious about? What problems do you care about? Our generation is a lot more interested in social issues and mental health. So lean into those things. Does your kid really care about that? All of those things can, you can find some rich insights from there.   Dr. Cam (10:58.124) Right, and I'm gonna take this Dylan and just kind of re-word what I heard to make sure I got this right. I'm hearing rather than fighting with your teen going, you should not be doing this, which you love, because that's not gonna look good and that's a waste of your time. You should want to do this and be doing this because this is gonna look better and this looks like you're being more productive. But when we do that, we're now pushing kids into something that they don't want to be doing. So when they have to talk about it passionately and their interests and what they love, they're like, I don't, I had to do it. So we really want to lean in. And when we lean in and you're right, a lot of kids discover things through TikTok and through other, and I share this too, like my daughter's really into Broadway and she follows all these Broadway stars and gets them, watch them prepare behind the scenes, she knows what like seats, how many seats they sold and what they're doing. And I don't know any of them, like all then sales and all that. Like she knows all this information and all this detail about the business that she learned through TikTok. And it's building and building and that's where she's going for school. That's what she wants to focus on because she so loves it. Right? So I think that that is such a great inlet into what they love.   Dyllen Nellis (12:15.615) Yeah, you nailed it. You nailed it at summarizing that. I also think like, this is not to say like, don't, you know, help them do things that are going to look good. I would just say do so in a way that is still nurturing their interests. You know, so if a kid is really interested in, I don't know, physics, for example, great. What kind of research opportunities can we get for that kid? Like what kind of summer programs exist? Maybe they can start a physics club like, you know, help them learn the things that they are already interested in learning.   Dr. Cam (12:57.526) Yeah, and I want to reiterate it's help not do.   Dyllen Nellis (13:02.389) Yes, my gosh, yes.   Dr. Cam (13:05.637) That's one of the things I know I'm working with a group of kids who are amazing and they're doing projects. And some of the projects you can tell the kids are doing and some of the projects you can tell are 100 % the parents. And you know, you know when it's the parents, because you're like, I'm sorry, there's no way, no matter how brilliant your kid is, that they're coming up with something that takes a college PhD to be able to do, right? What do you say to parents who are like, I want to make sure my teen is competitive and stands out, but I don't think on their own they are competitive and stand out that way.   Dyllen Nellis (13:47.967) Ooh, okay. That's a good question. think, well, first understand that like growth is possible. We can, we can work on it. We can make them more competitive and more positioned to stand out in application season. So I would recommend if, they're earlier in high school, then it's a lot about extracurricular development. Things that really stand out are research, research opportunities. If you can work on your own research project, like independently led, that's awesome. Or work with a university and that takes a lot of like cold emailing usually. That looks awesome too. I know those things are also more challenging to acquire. Another thing I would highly recommend is a passion project as you kind of just mentioned, projects, right? Like projects are great and let your kid like tinker around and fail, you know, trial and error, play around, like explore their interests with projects and projects that especially relate to their interests. Number one, it's great if it can relate to their intended major because that helps them create a more cohesive application.   Dr. Cam (15:08.685) Yeah.   Dyllen Nellis (15:13.043) But projects that also solve problems. I know I mentioned earlier, like having questions, being curious. What are you curious about in the world? What are the problems that exist? What are the problems that you care about? And then create a project to try to solve it or work on it, you know? And so colleges want to see why not that you're not just that you are pursuing your intellectual interests, but that you're also trying to make an impact. Impact is so important to colleges and if you've been able to help your school community or your city or your entire country or internationally like those things look amazing and so just lean into how you can create positive change in the world because that's honestly what we need right now and universities are looking for students who are going to be change makers.   Dr. Cam (16:06.05) Right. And it doesn't have to be big. Like, we don't have to go change the world. I think it's really little things. And as I said, the kids that I'm working with, it's the focus obviously is mental health. That's what my whole thing is. And they're going into their school or their community and doing a small, either a report or a cookie bake sale or something to bring awareness to mental health in their schools because that's something that they just, they want to do. Is that what you're talking about? Doing things like that?   Dyllen Nellis (16:37.589) Yes, I think absolutely start small. Like don't, I know even get so overwhelmed and it will really freak you out. Like I'm speaking from experience, you know, when I was in high school, it's like, oh God, I have to create some like humongous thing. I don't know how to do any of that. Start small. You don't have to make an empire in one day. So it could start off with like making a club at your school. That works. I would recommend taking it further than bake sales though. just cause you want to make sure that this is something that creates real impact and can stand out. So, you know, whether that's like an educational program and then you're teaching in. Like I had a student who really leaned into robotics and she taught these classes in robotics to middle schoolers and she took it to farmers markets and displayed her robots and they had so many outreach efforts and she went to a conference and like chatted with all these other people to get signups for this other program that they put on. So as you can see there, she was able to help so many students in her community and at large. So yeah, as much as you can scale your impact, but you don't need to be at the finish line from the start, like starting small.   Dr. Cam (17:57.59) Right. Now let me ask you Dylan, how involved should parents get into this? Because I think when kids are already, they're struggling with grades and parents are already very involved in trying to get their kids just to get good grades, right? And now they're going, okay, do I have to make sure I'm still on them about their grades? And now do I need to be on them about getting this passion project done?   Dyllen Nellis (18:22.547) Yeah, I feel like also the language of on them feels so harsh.   Dr. Cam (18:27.448) Thank you. Please address that. I would like for you to address that because I did that on purpose.   Dyllen Nellis (18:34.221) well on them feels like you're hovering over them and like breathing on them, which doesn't feel good to the student and it doesn't make them want to like do the things that, I don't know. It makes them self-conscious also. Like I can, I can even just close my eyes and like step into that of like being with the student with the parent being like, you know, staring at me hovering over my whatever. So it doesn't feel good. It makes me feel like I can't make mistakes. It makes I'm literally just channeling right now. Like, what does this make me feel? It? Yeah, it makes me feel like I can't make mistakes. It makes me feel like I'm going to like for every decision that I have, I'm going to get faced with like a million, you know, have you thought about this? What about that? What about that? Like, well, here's the reality of that situation. So   Dr. Cam (19:11.788) Good, I want you to be. That was my goal. I love it.   Dyllen Nellis (19:33.651) For me, I feel like it would make it harder for me to dream big, honestly, because I feel like I'd be faced with a lot of backlash or objections before I even got started. But I need to just try things and fail at them in order to discover that for myself. Plus, like, those are where the experiences come, you know, like you get experience and then those experiences, guess what, can be the content for the college essay. Just saying.   Dr. Cam (20:01.102) Correct. So even the failure makes a better essay when it's their authentic not succeeding at it, then succeeding at it, but their parents made them, did it for them, right? Okay. So the other thing now, how can parents best support their kids? First of all, if their kids are interested in doing this first, and then we're going to talk about if they're not. If their kids are like driven and they want to get into Stanford, they want to get into Yale, they want to look good, they want to do a passion project, how do we support them in that?   Dyllen Nellis (20:41.533) Yeah, I think you should support your kid, first of all. I know we just said, don't be hovering over them, don't be on to them. But I think parents should absolutely still be part of the process. And it's wonderful when they are. I am grateful for the support that my parents gave me throughout high school. because my dad, for example, found Girls Who Code, that program, and showed it. Introduced that opportunity to me and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna apply to that and I did and it was awesome and I only knew about it because he had done some research online about that. So that's awesome. I would recommend just nurture their intellectual curiosity, lean into the things that they're already interested in and yeah, if you want to like look up opportunities online, find things that might interest them, that's great. And then you present them to your student.   And then if they want to do it, you can take that next step. Right, right, exactly. Yeah, and then I think another important thing is for parents to understand a little bit more about the college application process and how it works. And that's a big problem is that parents are giving all this advice or not even advice, but like telling kids to do things in a certain way because they think that they know how the college application process works when I don't know if it's entirely true. Like they might know some of the   Dr. Cam (22:12.174) So what are some big, big misconceptions parents have?   Dyllen Nellis (22:16.19) Well, that's like the story thing that I was mentioning, but like they understand that a college essay needs to have a good narrative. And yes, that's true, right? But that doesn't mean that you like fabricate certain parts of the narrative to make it sound like a narrative because when I read those essays, I've read thousands and thousands of college essays. If I read one of those, I will know in an instant like, this is not what actually happened. I need to talk to the student. Or maybe it did happen, but like not in that way, or they didn't actually think or feel those feelings that is written on the college essay. So I'll often talk to the kid and then find out what the truth was. And I'm like, my God, let's write about that. That's actually so much more interesting. I helped them outline a whole new essay that's still on the same topic. It's still telling essentially the same story, but now it's true. It's authentic and it rings and it sounds great. I have an example of when my dad, at one point, I was writing my college essay for the UCs, the University of California schools, and we needed a turning point. It was like I was having this in the essay. It's like I was experiencing this problem and I needed inspiration to like take action. And he recommended me, right?   And then I walked outside and stood underneath my big tree and the expansive like branches, the branches like inspire me to like expand my thinking. And I literally like wrote part of that in that essay. And now I look back and I'm like, this is the cheesiest thing I ever wrote. Thank God I didn't use that specific line in my essay to Stanford because I actually did use that same essay for Stanford, but I had to cut it down and I cut out that part and I made it better. But yeah, that's a great example of like, okay, if I read that, I would roll my eyes. I'm like, you did not stand under a tree and all of a sudden, like you decided to expand your thinking. What?   Dr. Cam (24:24.065) Sounds very poetic. Not true. Yeah. So the messiness is good. We can have messiness.   Dyllen Nellis (24:43.047) It depends. would recommend... I don't know. It's more about... I wouldn't say like having messiness.   Dr. Cam (24:51.798) Not messiness in writing, but messiness in story. Like the story doesn't have to be a perfect story or can it be a messy situation.   Dyllen Nellis (25:01.269) It doesn't have to be entirely linear and like, here's a bow tied around it like and then everything was solved. Everything was fixed. I think a lot of students think that they have to get there by the end of the essay. I'm like, just be real. What like, okay, if you're still experiencing whatever problem that was introduced in the beginning, you don't have to say, everything is solved. My life is perfect. But like, here's what I'm working on. Here's the lessons that I'm learning. Here's how I have started to take action in my life or improve my life in certain ways. Great. Like if you're on that journey, you've taken steps, then that's great. Yeah. I would be careful with the word messy though. I feel like I want to be very...   Dr. Cam (25:48.29) Okay, I appreciate that. What you said is what I was thinking of just like real, but yeah, I guess when my life is real, I think messy, but that's my life. So let me ask you this. If you have a kid and you're like, they're smart, I know they have what it takes to get into the school, but they're just not motivated to do this. What do you recommend parents do in those situations?   Dyllen Nellis (26:15.975) if they're not motivated to about the college application process or.   Dr. Cam (26:21.432) Well, just about like doing a passion project or doing something or like exploring that situation where it's gonna have this great story. Or I talk to kids too, or like, I'm just boring. I've had kids that I've worked with who are struggling, and I mean, in a mental health capacity, but this comes up because that's what's stressing them out, right? And they're like, I don't know what's right, I'm boring. Like there's nothing exciting, or I'm not motivated to do all this stuff.   So how do parents address that in your mind?   Dyllen Nellis (26:53.235) Yeah. First of all, they're not boring. And I've had people tell me that too. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, you just haven't figured out what makes you unique yet. And let's figure that out. I can help you do that in an hour. Yeah. In terms of like motivating students, I think the most important thing is for them to understand why, why we want them to do this in the first place and what are the benefits of it. Right. Instead of just   Dr. Cam (27:01.42) Yeah. It's fun to do that.    Dyllen Nellis (27:22.163) You have to do this because it looks good to colleges. It's okay. A passion project I think is so awesome. First of all, because you get to learn more about the thing that you're interested in. You got to feel a sense of purpose, which is huge. You're like getting to do something that matters and really investing your all into it. And this is something that is self led. You get to be the leader in this. Like it's not a school assignment you have creative freedom, that's awesome. You're going to learn so many things along the way. So many things like once again, through the trial and error and failures, like those things are going to help you develop skills and lessons in life that you're going to use for the rest of your life. They're going to benefit you in so many other ways beyond college applications. And then it'll look good to colleges for your extracurriculars list. And then also because you have all of these new experiences that are not conventional, right? Because this is a project that you started. Not every other kid is doing this. This gives you such great content for your college essays. You know, if you want to focus in one of your essays on this passion project, but more specifically what you went throug how your mindset changed and how you grew as a person. That's so awesome. So if a student understands that and sees like all of the opportunities that can come from pursuing a passion project like that, then I think they'll be more motivated to want to take action.   Dr. Cam (29:04.172) And we can't make them motivated to do it. We can give them all that information and feed that, but if they're not motivated at all, what do you say to that?   Dyllen Nellis (29:20.469) Oh, I think I know where you're trying to take me, but you can, you can... Oh, really? Okay. Well, here's what I think. If you're like, my kid needs to get into a top school in order to be successful in life, then that is not true. They do not have to go to Stanford. They do not have to go to Harvard, you know, like...   Dr. Cam (29:23.914) I'm not going to take you anywhere. I'm just asking because I know there's a lot of kids that are not motivated at all.   Dyllen Nellis (29:49.841) they can get really great education and be so successful in their lives no matter where they go to college. So not everyone has to achieve at the same level, you know, and if that's just not like met for your kid, then that's fine. That's literally totally fine. So they don't have to get into a top school. So you don't need to force that onto them. If you know your kid would do better at a different type of school, great.   You know, there's like so much great education out there. And, I, I honestly will say I've learned the most, not from college. I know I went to Stanford. I learned some great things there, but, you know, I started my entire business and company and like everything that I know about how to run a business. I learned online because I was just like, let me go on YouTube and, you know, here's another rabbit hole. And then I learned from online business owners. Like these are things that college couldn't really teach me.   Dr. Cam (30:52.588) Yeah. And thank you for that. You kind of are right. That's kind of where I was trying to get you at. But I think the key is like listening to this. If you have a child or a teen who really personally themselves want to get into these schools and they really do or trying everything they can, this is a great piece of information that you can share with them. The story, the passion project, the essay are really core to differentiating themselves. If you have a kid that does not want to do this, even though you want them to do it, we can't force them and push them to do that. And that's okay. There's a lot of other ways that they can go about and find their path in life. Is that correct? Great. Okay. So I want to hear from you. How were your parents and what did your parents, because you're still so young,   Dyllen Nellis (31:41.737) Yeah, absolutely.   Dr. Cam (31:50.55) What did your parents do that you found were the most supportive and helped you the most when you were driven for your own success?   Dyllen Nellis (31:50.943) My parents were great, first of all. I really appreciate all the things that they've done and how they helped me throughout my education. They never really, yeah, they didn't really force anything on me in high school. It's funny, I was just so high achieving and I put pressure on myself and that was just a me thing and I, yeah, it's kind of funny. But like I said, my dad found certain opportunities for me by searching online. I think he was proactive in understanding that you even, not had to, but it would look great if you did do a project, right? And so I didn't know that at all. And nobody at my school was talking about that. Like none of the kids were talking about that. Like nobody, no one was like. No one was very understanding of the college application process at my high school. Like that wasn't the thing. And so he introduced those ideas to me. I said, just just being exposed to those ideas or knowing that that is something, right? Like then I was interested in taking those steps. And if I had an idea, we would work on it, we would discuss it, we would brainstorm it together that was wonderful and if there were any resources that my parents thought that I would benefit from or people who they knew then they could introduce me. So that's yeah that's like a great thing. And then on my essays my parents definitely looked at my essays and helped me edit them as I mentioned before I don't think that they're perfect but that's okay.   Dr. Cam (33:48.814) You can take some of their suggestions and not take some of their suggestions.   Dyllen Nellis (33:54.011) Yes. And I also understand that some students may not want to share their essays with their parents. I think that is totally fine too. Because sometimes students are writing about really personal things. Sometimes it is about the relationship with their parents. Yeah. So I am really grateful for how my parents helped me with that. So it's just like, yeah. And any way that they can support providing resource doing research themselves or like presenting ideas, talking with me about certain ideas, that's all helpful.   Dr. Cam (34:31.352) Yeah, I love that part of it. It's fun to do the brainstorming and just kind of throwing ideas around and then watching them go, watching them take it and go. And that's it's so cool. So Dylan, how do people find you if they want your support in this?   Dyllen Nellis (34:47.793) Yes, you can visit nextgenadmit.com. That's my website. It has everything, all of my programs, all my services, all of that. I'm actually open to working with private clients now for sophomores and juniors in high school. So if that's something you're interested in, then you can book a free call with me on my website as well. And I do want to offer everyone here my free masterclass. I have a full hour long master class where I talk about the top school admissions formula. That's what I call it. And so I'll break down like these very specific parts that it takes to get into a top school. And that's super valuable. You'll get a lot of insight from that. So you can visit nextgenadmit.com slash master class and register for free.   Dr. Cam (35:37.43) Right. I have a feeling a lot of my listeners are going to be jumping over to that because I know we've got, we've got a lot of high achieving kids. So thank you so much, Dylan. What is the one thing that you want people to walk away with from this conversation?   Dyllen Nellis (35:54.047) Ooh, it's that competitive colleges admit students who can effectively articulate their core values, their intellectual curiosity, and their potential to succeed at their institution. That's what these colleges want. And so don't force a fake narrative. You want to tell an authentic story. Because if you're not telling an authentic story, you're telling a cliche one.   Dr. Cam (36:19.362) Yeah, I love that. That is so important. Dylan, thank you so much for jumping on. This was great. Very helpful. Very inspiring.   Dyllen Nellis (36:25.247) Thank you.   ABOUT THE SHOW The Parenting Teens with Dr. Cam Podcast is your go-to resource for navigating the challenges of raising teenagers. Hosted by Dr. Cam Caswell, an adolescent psychologist and certified parenting coach, this podcast offers practical parenting strategies, expert advice, and real-world insights to help you build a stronger relationship with your teen and support their emotional growth. Whether you're struggling with teenage behavior or looking to improve communication, each episode provides actionable tips to make parenting teens easier and more rewarding. Perfect for both new and seasoned parents, this podcast helps you build the confidence to handle teen challenges and thrive together. #CollegeAdmissions #ParentingTeens #AuthenticStorytelling

I'm sure it's no surprise to you that AI has been steadily changing the world, but did you know that optics is a key part of its hardware infrastructure? To explain it, fortunately we have a seasoned product manager who knows both the switching side and the optics side. Lucky for us, he sits next to me at the office and agreed to chat about it. In Episode 61, we continue our conversation with Paymon Mogharabi, Senior Product Manager at Cisco's Optics team, also known as the Transceiver Modules Group. We go into more detail about AI datacenter hardware architectures and Ethernet. Paymon Mogharabi is a networking industry and Cisco veteran of nearly three decades with Electrical Engineering degrees from UC Irvine and USC. After starting at Cisco as a Technical Assistance Center engineer, he became a Technical marketing Engineer for Cisco's Catalyst switches. He then took product management positions for Cisco's Edge Services Router, Nexus data center switches, and UCS server products. He is now a Senior Product Manager in Cisco's Transceiver Modules Group and has sat next to me for the past 7 years, focusing on data center applications. Related links Cisco Optics-to-Device Compatibility Matrix: https://tmgmatrix.cisco.com/ Cisco Optics-to-Optics Interoperability Matrix: https://tmgmatrix.cisco.com/iop Cisco Optics Product Information: https://copi.cisco.com/ Additional resources Cisco Optics Podcast: https://optics.podcastpage.io/ Blog: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticsblog Cisco Optics YouTube playlist: http://cs.co/9008BlQen Cisco Optics landing page: cisco.com/go/optics Music credits Sunny Morning by FSM Team | https://www.free-stock-music.com/artist.fsm-team.html Upbeat by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com

I'm sure it's no surprise to you that AI has been steadily changing the world, but did you know that optics is a key part of its hardware infrastructure? To explain it, fortunately we have a seasoned product manager who knows both the switching side and the optics side. Lucky for us, he sits next to me at the office and agreed to chat about it. In Episode 62, we continue our conversation with Paymon Mogharabi, Senior Product Manager at Cisco's Optics team, also known as the Transceiver Modules Group. We get into smart NICs and future growth affecting optics. Paymon Mogharabi is a networking industry and Cisco veteran of nearly three decades with Electrical Engineering degrees from UC Irvine and USC. After starting at Cisco as a Technical Assistance Center engineer, he became a Technical marketing Engineer for Cisco's Catalyst switches. He then took product management positions for Cisco's Edge Services Router, Nexus data center switches, and UCS server products. He is now a Senior Product Manager in Cisco's Transceiver Modules Group and has sat next to me for the past 7 years, focusing on data center applications. Related links Cisco Optics-to-Device Compatibility Matrix: https://tmgmatrix.cisco.com/ Cisco Optics-to-Optics Interoperability Matrix: https://tmgmatrix.cisco.com/iop Cisco Optics Product Information: https://copi.cisco.com/ Additional resources Cisco Optics Podcast: https://optics.podcastpage.io/ Blog: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticsblog Cisco Optics YouTube playlist: http://cs.co/9008BlQen Cisco Optics landing page: cisco.com/go/optics Music credits Sunny Morning by FSM Team | https://www.free-stock-music.com/artist.fsm-team.html Upbeat by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com

I'm sure it's no surprise to you that AI has been steadily changing the world, but did you know that optics is a key part of its hardware infrastructure? To explain it, fortunately we have a seasoned product manager who knows both the switching side and the optics side. Lucky for us, he sits next to me at the office and agreed to chat about it. In Episode 63, we conclude our conversation with Paymon Mogharabi, Senior Product Manager at Cisco's Optics team, also known as the Transceiver Modules Group. We continue with the constraints to consider when designing AI cluster racks and optics choices for them. Paymon Mogharabi is a networking industry and Cisco veteran of nearly three decades with Electrical Engineering degrees from UC Irvine and USC. After starting at Cisco as a Technical Assistance Center engineer, he became a Technical marketing Engineer for Cisco's Catalyst switches. He then took product management positions for Cisco's Edge Services Router, Nexus data center switches, and UCS server products. He is now a Senior Product Manager in Cisco's Transceiver Modules Group and has sat next to me for the past 7 years, focusing on data center applications. Related links Cisco Optics-to-Device Compatibility Matrix: https://tmgmatrix.cisco.com/ Cisco Optics-to-Optics Interoperability Matrix: https://tmgmatrix.cisco.com/iop Cisco Optics Product Information: https://copi.cisco.com/ Additional resources Cisco Optics Podcast: https://optics.podcastpage.io/ Blog: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticsblog Cisco Optics YouTube playlist: http://cs.co/9008BlQen Cisco Optics landing page: cisco.com/go/optics Music credits Sunny Morning by FSM Team | https://www.free-stock-music.com/artist.fsm-team.html Upbeat by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com

Today I began my discussion with Dr. Adrian Perkel about his new book Unlocking The Nature of Human Aggression: A Psychoanalytic and Neuroscientific Approach (Routledge, 2024)  “Aggression is to the mind what the immune system is to the body. It doesn't seek the fight.” With this perfect mind-body analogy Dr. Perkel proposes a clear way to think theoretically and work clinically with aggression. Throughout the book he links Freud's formulations of the psyche with contemporary physics and biochemistry. Perkel's assertion that “Where the aggressive drive goes, so therein lies the solution to many of the psychological problems that present to us in life” is broadly summarized in three essential points: 1. The aggressive drive in the human psyche has the aim of reducing stimuli and excitations brought on by internal and external impingements - it is not looking for a fight. 2. What constitutes a threat or impingement is not necessarily objective - in fact it is always filtered through subjective experience and the UCS associations that are revisited repeatedly giving rise to a lens through which experience is filtered. 3. This experience is driven by memory traces of experience that embed themselves in the UCS and are revisited and hence enacted in a repetitive manner. “My argument is that what wraps all those three points together is that you have life drive needs yes but they're often unfulfilled they're often frustrated and then we need a second mechanism which is what Freud called the death drive.” Acknowledging that the death drive is contentious in psychoanalysis “in neuroscience it's not contested.” I knew going into this interview that we would only discuss a few concepts and elaborations from his book. For more of Dr. Perkel's writing and webinar on this book please go here and here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychoanalysis

Today I began my discussion with Dr. Adrian Perkel about his new book Unlocking The Nature of Human Aggression: A Psychoanalytic and Neuroscientific Approach (Routledge, 2024)  “Aggression is to the mind what the immune system is to the body. It doesn't seek the fight.” With this perfect mind-body analogy Dr. Perkel proposes a clear way to think theoretically and work clinically with aggression. Throughout the book he links Freud's formulations of the psyche with contemporary physics and biochemistry. Perkel's assertion that “Where the aggressive drive goes, so therein lies the solution to many of the psychological problems that present to us in life” is broadly summarized in three essential points: 1. The aggressive drive in the human psyche has the aim of reducing stimuli and excitations brought on by internal and external impingements - it is not looking for a fight. 2. What constitutes a threat or impingement is not necessarily objective - in fact it is always filtered through subjective experience and the UCS associations that are revisited repeatedly giving rise to a lens through which experience is filtered. 3. This experience is driven by memory traces of experience that embed themselves in the UCS and are revisited and hence enacted in a repetitive manner. “My argument is that what wraps all those three points together is that you have life drive needs yes but they're often unfulfilled they're often frustrated and then we need a second mechanism which is what Freud called the death drive.” Acknowledging that the death drive is contentious in psychoanalysis “in neuroscience it's not contested.” I knew going into this interview that we would only discuss a few concepts and elaborations from his book. For more of Dr. Perkel's writing and webinar on this book please go here and here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Today I began my discussion with Dr. Adrian Perkel about his new book Unlocking The Nature of Human Aggression: A Psychoanalytic and Neuroscientific Approach (Routledge, 2024)  “Aggression is to the mind what the immune system is to the body. It doesn't seek the fight.” With this perfect mind-body analogy Dr. Perkel proposes a clear way to think theoretically and work clinically with aggression. Throughout the book he links Freud's formulations of the psyche with contemporary physics and biochemistry. Perkel's assertion that “Where the aggressive drive goes, so therein lies the solution to many of the psychological problems that present to us in life” is broadly summarized in three essential points: 1. The aggressive drive in the human psyche has the aim of reducing stimuli and excitations brought on by internal and external impingements - it is not looking for a fight. 2. What constitutes a threat or impingement is not necessarily objective - in fact it is always filtered through subjective experience and the UCS associations that are revisited repeatedly giving rise to a lens through which experience is filtered. 3. This experience is driven by memory traces of experience that embed themselves in the UCS and are revisited and hence enacted in a repetitive manner. “My argument is that what wraps all those three points together is that you have life drive needs yes but they're often unfulfilled they're often frustrated and then we need a second mechanism which is what Freud called the death drive.” Acknowledging that the death drive is contentious in psychoanalysis “in neuroscience it's not contested.” I knew going into this interview that we would only discuss a few concepts and elaborations from his book. For more of Dr. Perkel's writing and webinar on this book please go here and here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Today I began my discussion with Dr. Adrian Perkel about his new book Unlocking The Nature of Human Aggression: A Psychoanalytic and Neuroscientific Approach (Routledge, 2024)  “Aggression is to the mind what the immune system is to the body. It doesn't seek the fight.” With this perfect mind-body analogy Dr. Perkel proposes a clear way to think theoretically and work clinically with aggression. Throughout the book he links Freud's formulations of the psyche with contemporary physics and biochemistry. Perkel's assertion that “Where the aggressive drive goes, so therein lies the solution to many of the psychological problems that present to us in life” is broadly summarized in three essential points: 1. The aggressive drive in the human psyche has the aim of reducing stimuli and excitations brought on by internal and external impingements - it is not looking for a fight. 2. What constitutes a threat or impingement is not necessarily objective - in fact it is always filtered through subjective experience and the UCS associations that are revisited repeatedly giving rise to a lens through which experience is filtered. 3. This experience is driven by memory traces of experience that embed themselves in the UCS and are revisited and hence enacted in a repetitive manner. “My argument is that what wraps all those three points together is that you have life drive needs yes but they're often unfulfilled they're often frustrated and then we need a second mechanism which is what Freud called the death drive.” Acknowledging that the death drive is contentious in psychoanalysis “in neuroscience it's not contested.” I knew going into this interview that we would only discuss a few concepts and elaborations from his book. For more of Dr. Perkel's writing and webinar on this book please go here and here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/neuroscience

Today I began my discussion with Dr. Adrian Perkel about his new book Unlocking The Nature of Human Aggression: A Psychoanalytic and Neuroscientific Approach (Routledge, 2024)  “Aggression is to the mind what the immune system is to the body. It doesn't seek the fight.” With this perfect mind-body analogy Dr. Perkel proposes a clear way to think theoretically and work clinically with aggression. Throughout the book he links Freud's formulations of the psyche with contemporary physics and biochemistry. Perkel's assertion that “Where the aggressive drive goes, so therein lies the solution to many of the psychological problems that present to us in life” is broadly summarized in three essential points: 1. The aggressive drive in the human psyche has the aim of reducing stimuli and excitations brought on by internal and external impingements - it is not looking for a fight. 2. What constitutes a threat or impingement is not necessarily objective - in fact it is always filtered through subjective experience and the UCS associations that are revisited repeatedly giving rise to a lens through which experience is filtered. 3. This experience is driven by memory traces of experience that embed themselves in the UCS and are revisited and hence enacted in a repetitive manner. “My argument is that what wraps all those three points together is that you have life drive needs yes but they're often unfulfilled they're often frustrated and then we need a second mechanism which is what Freud called the death drive.” Acknowledging that the death drive is contentious in psychoanalysis “in neuroscience it's not contested.” I knew going into this interview that we would only discuss a few concepts and elaborations from his book. For more of Dr. Perkel's writing and webinar on this book please go here and here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

I'm sure it's no surprise to you that AI has been steadily changing the world, but did you know that optics is a key part of its hardware infrastructure? To explain it, fortunately we have a seasoned product manager who knows both the switching side and the optics side. Lucky for us, he sits next to me at the office and agreed to chat about it. In Episode 60, we continue our conversation with Paymon Mogharabi, Senior Product Manager at Cisco's Optics team, also known as the Transceiver Modules Group. We get into data center hardware architectures and traffic patterns for AI applications. Paymon Mogharabi is a networking industry and Cisco veteran of nearly three decades with Electrical Engineering degrees from UC Irvine and USC. After starting at Cisco as a Technical Assistance Center engineer, he became a Technical marketing Engineer for Cisco's Catalyst switches. He then took product management positions for Cisco's Edge Services Router, Nexus data center switches, and UCS server products. He is now a Senior Product Manager in Cisco's Transceiver Modules Group and has sat next to me for the past 7 years, focusing on data center applications. Related links Cisco Optics-to-Device Compatibility Matrix: https://tmgmatrix.cisco.com/ Cisco Optics-to-Optics Interoperability Matrix: https://tmgmatrix.cisco.com/iop Cisco Optics Product Information: https://copi.cisco.com/ Additional resources Cisco Optics Podcast: https://optics.podcastpage.io/ Blog: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticsblog Cisco Optics YouTube playlist: http://cs.co/9008BlQen Cisco Optics landing page: cisco.com/go/optics Music credits Sunny Morning by FSM Team | https://www.free-stock-music.com/artist.fsm-team.html Upbeat by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com

I'm sure it's no surprise to you that AI has been steadily changing the world, but did you know that optics is a key part of its hardware infrastructure? To explain it, fortunately we have a seasoned product manager who knows both the switching side and the optics side. Lucky for us, he sits next to me at the office and agreed to chat about it. In Episode 59, we begin a new conversation with Paymon Mogharabi, Senior Product Manager at Cisco's Optics team, also known as the Transceiver Modules Group. We begin with his start in Cisco and the history of data center hardware architectures. Paymon Mogharabi is a networking industry and Cisco veteran of nearly three decades with Electrical Engineering degrees from UC Irvine and USC. After starting at Cisco as a Technical Assistance Center engineer, he became a Technical marketing Engineer for Cisco's Catalyst switches. He then took product management positions for Cisco's Edge Services Router, Nexus data center switches, and UCS server products. He is now a Senior Product Manager in Cisco's Transceiver Modules Group and has sat next to me for the past 7 years, focusing on data center applications. Related links Cisco Optics-to-Device Compatibility Matrix: https://tmgmatrix.cisco.com/ Cisco Optics-to-Optics Interoperability Matrix: https://tmgmatrix.cisco.com/iop Cisco Optics Product Information: https://copi.cisco.com/ Additional resources Cisco Optics Podcast: https://optics.podcastpage.io/ Blog: https://blogs.cisco.com/tag/ciscoopticsblog Cisco Optics YouTube playlist: http://cs.co/9008BlQen Cisco Optics landing page: cisco.com/go/optics Music credits Sunny Morning by FSM Team | https://www.free-stock-music.com/artist.fsm-team.html Upbeat by Mixaund | https://mixaund.bandcamp.com

Host Dr. Davide Soldato and his guests Dr. Ann Wu and Dr. Alexa White discuss the article "Air Pollution and Breast Cancer Incidence in the Multiethnic Cohort Study" and the editorial "Growing Evidence for the Role of Air Pollution in Breast Cancer Development"  TRANSCRIPT The guests on this podcast episode have no disclosures to declare.  Dr. Davide Soldato: Hello and welcome to JCO After Hours, the podcast where we sit down with authors from some of the latest articles published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. I am your host, Dr. Davide Soldato, Medical Oncologist at Ospedale San Martino in Genoa, Italy.  Today, we are joined by JCO authors Dr. Anna Wu and Dr. Alexander White. Dr. Wu is a professor of Population and Public Health Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of UCS, while Dr. White is an investigator in the Epidemiology branch of the Environment and Cancer Epidemiology Group at the National Institute of Health.  Today, we will be discussing the article titled, “Air Pollution and Breast Cancer Incidence in the Multiethnic Cohort Study,” and the accompanying editorial.  So, thank you for speaking with us, Dr. Wu, Dr. White. Dr. Anna Wu: Thank you for having us. Dr. Alexandra White: Yes, thank you so much for the invitation to be here. Dr. Davide Soldato: So before going in depth about the results of the study that was published in the JCO, I was wondering if you could give us like a brief introduction and a little bit of background about what was known about air pollution as a risk factor for breast cancer and what was the evidence before this study was conducted. Dr. Alexandra White: Okay. I can start with that question. So, there's been research for decades looking at the relationship between air pollution and breast cancer. And it's been a really challenging question to address for a number of reasons. One being that it can be really difficult to assess exposure to air pollution and many previous studies have had really limited information on people's residences over time. But in general, what we thought leading up to this study was that evidence was most consistent that exposure to traffic related pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide was more consistently related to a higher risk of breast cancer. The evidence for fine particulate matter or PM2.5 was less consistent. More recently, there have been a few large, well conducted studies that have supported a positive association. This new study in the multiethnic cohort led by Dr. Wu is really important because it really demonstrated that, in this large study of over 50,000 women in California, that they also do see an association with PM2.5.  Dr. Davide Soldato: Thank you very much for the introduction. So, Dr. Wu, we just want to hear a little bit more about the results. So, what was the association that was observed for PM2.5? And specifically, the study that you ran was focused on a very diverse population, a multiethnic cohort, and so I was wondering if you observed any type of differences when you consider the different populations that were included in your study. And if you could also give us a little bit of what was the composition of the women that were enrolled in this cohort. Dr. Anna Wu: Thank you for the question. So, the multiethnic cohort study is a cohort of over 200,000 individuals who were enrolled when they lived in Hawaii or California. For the air pollution studies that we've been conducting, we have focused on primarily the California participants. And in this instance for the breast cancer study, it was based on roughly 56,000 individuals out of- there were about 100,000 because half of them were men and they were not included. Of the California participants, 75% of them were African Americans or Latinos and they were self-identified as these racial ethnic groups when they enrolled in the study. And this was a particularly important consideration for us because in most of the studies that have been published so far on-air pollution and breast cancer, as well as other cancer sites, most of those studies were conducted among whites in the US or whites in Europe. And even if they included non-white populations, the numbers tend to be small so that they were not able to conduct racial ethnic specific analysis. So, we were particularly interested in examining these other racial ethnic groups because we know from other studies that racial ethnic minority groups tend to live in communities of low socioeconomic status and those communities also tend to have higher levels of various types of environmental pollutants. And so, it was important for us to actually try to tease apart these various interrelated factors.  So, what we found was that per 10 micrograms per cubic meter, we had a 28% increased risk overall in all participants combined that meet across the racial ethnic groups. We actually did not see any differences or significant differences in the hazard ratios by race ethnicity and they were in general quite compatible with each other. But we did see a stronger finding among the white participants in our study. Dr. Davide Soldato: Thank you, a lot, Dr. Wu. So, I think it's very interesting the fact that in the end you observed that air pollution is a significant risk factor across all the ethnicities that were included in the study. But I think that one very strong point of the manuscript and one very strong point of the analysis was that in the end you also corrected for a series of different factors because we know that the incidence of breast cancer can be modified, for example, by familial history or BMI or smoking habits or also alcohol consumption. And a lot of these risk factors were included in your analysis. And so, I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit whether you observed any significant differences when you observed or included also these risk factors in your analysis, or whether the association for air pollution as a risk factor stands even when we consider all of these other elements. Dr. Anna Wu: Yes. So, we considered all the well-established breast cancer risk factors. And in this situation, we were particularly interested in considering smoking, alcohol intake, use of menopausal hormones, history of diabetes, body mass index, family history, as well as physical activity, because many of these risk factors, such as, for example, diabetes and body mass index, they are risk factors for breast cancer, and air pollution, have also been found to increase risk of these factors.  So, in our analysis, we first adjusted for all of these potential confounders in a mutually adjusted manner, so all of them were considered. In addition, we also conducted stratify analysis. So as an example, we stratified the analysis to examine whether the hazard ratio associated with PM2.5 provided comparable risk estimate or hazard ratio estimates for never smokers, former smokers, and current smokers. Although we did not see significant heterogeneity by these various subgroups, we did see a significantly stronger effect of PM2.5 among individuals who did not have a family history of breast cancer.  Interestingly, our finding was also stronger among individuals who were never smokers and light alcohol drinkers, even though the results were not significantly different. So, we surmised that maybe individuals who already had a high risk because of other established risk factors for breast cancer, we were less likely to be able to observe the effect of air pollution. But it's important to note that other studies, such as the ones that Dr. White has conducted, have also looked at various subgroups, and I think part of the limitation that all of us have is that once you subdivide the study population, even if you start out with a large sample size, often the sample size gets cut in half or a third. And so, we still lack the statistical power to be able to observe significant differences. But I think it is important to note that, in fact, the hazard ratio estimates are actually quite comparable, but we did see a hint of stronger effects among never smokers, and people who were light alcohol drinkers. So, I think this is an area that we certainly need to continue to investigate since there are other subgroups, such as menopausal status, such as hormone receptor status of breast cancer, that we need to consider in future studies. There's still a lot of work we need to do to sort this out, to actually figure out who are the women who are the most susceptible to the exposures. Dr. Davide Soldato: Dr. White, I would really love a comment from you on this specific area and specifically on what still needs to be done. And related to this, a question actually, for both of you, because I think that from a methodological point of view, there is a lot of work that goes into deciding how we are going to assess the exposure to air pollution. So which type of data are we going to use? Which type of data are we currently using in the epidemiological studies that have been conducted and in the one that we are discussing right now in JCO? And what are the caveats for this data that we are using? Meaning, I think that we use mostly residential addresses, which means that we are looking at the exposure where people actually live, which might not be the place where they spend most of their time. For example, if someone is working, maybe they could be more exposed and have higher exposure when they are at work compared to when they are at home. So, I was wondering if you could give us a little bit of an overview as to what is the methodological standard of care right now in terms of this analysis and what can we do better to refine and understand this specific factor as Dr. Wu was mentioning? Dr. Alexandra White: Yeah, so I'm happy to take a first stab at that question. So, I think it's important to note just how far we've come. I think even a few years ago, air pollution was really not considered a risk factor for breast cancer. And a lot of the work that we've been doing and others have really moved this forward in terms of understanding this as a risk factor. And as I mentioned earlier, there have been a lot of challenges in exposure assessment. And to get to your question, I think that our studies in general are doing better at looking at exposure over more years, residences, more time. We know that cancer takes time to develop, and we can't rely on just a single snapshot of exposure. But as you mentioned, almost all of the studies published have really exclusively focused on residential estimates of exposure. And so, there's a real need to understand the exposures that people are experiencing in other aspects of their life, from their commute to their jobs, to really capture that totality of exposure.  And then I think one of the points that Dr. Wu was alluding to as well as we know that breast cancer is a very heterogeneous disease, so risk factors for breast cancer vary by tumor subtypes, by menopausal status at diagnosis. And a lot of studies have really focused on considering breast cancer as a combined outcome, and that might be missing some really important signals where we might have a stronger effect for certain subtypes due to the fact that there's different biologic pathways that are underlying these subtypes or by menopausal status. And so having large study populations where, as we discussed earlier, would really give us the power to look among these smaller groups of women who might be more susceptible and those with younger women, we know that incidence of cancer is rising in young people, and we need to understand the risk factors for that. And most of our studies are really focused on older individuals, so I think that's one important gap, as well as having the power to really look at different differences by tumor subtypes. Dr. Davide Soldato: I think it's very interesting, and I think one point both of you made in the original article and in the accompanying editorial is also the fact that we tend to look at these risk factors in people who are actually aged, while we maybe should be looking at this in an earlier phase of development and potentially during puberty. Do you think that we should design studies that are more focused on this population even though I think that they will take a lot of time to produce significant results?  Dr. Alexandra White: Yeah. I think that it is really important to consider how exposure during early life is related to breast cancer risk. We know that exposures during pregnancy or even as early as during puberty might be particularly relevant for breast cancer. And I think a lot of our studies have really been up against the challenge of the fact that exposure monitoring for air pollution really didn't start until the 1990s. And so, it's challenging, especially for these older cohorts, to get back at that time period that might be relevant. But I think that's something that definitely newer cohorts are going to be able to address, and I think it's going to be really important, and also will give us some clues to better understand the important windows of exposure, but also that might provide clues for the biologic pathways as well that are relevant. Dr. Davide Soldato: And just a related question, because I'm not aware of this, but are there right now cohorts that are specifically looking at this in the US or in other parts of the world? If you are aware of that, of course.  Dr. Alexandra White: There have been some cohorts that have focused on exposure during these hypothesized windows of susceptibility, but I don't think they've been able to follow those women long enough to develop breast cancer. One of the things that we're working on in the sister study is trying to expand our assessment of air pollution exposure back in time to try to get at these earlier windows of exposure. So, I'm hoping that it's something we'll be able to comment on and at least for some of the women in our cohort who are younger. But I don't know, Dr. Wu, if you're familiar with any other populations that are doing this now?  Dr. Anna Wu: Well, NCI funded several new cohorts in the last couple years that are really focused on trying to get a much more refined exposure assessment. So, I know colleagues at University of Michigan that are peers and also Dr. Wei Zheng at Vanderbilt, they are putting together newer cohorts that are younger and also trying to include a range of exposure, not just air pollution, but really environmental exposures. Those cohorts I think have the potential in the future to try to address some of these questions, but again, it will take at least another number of years before there are a sufficient number of endpoints so that they can actually do these types of studies.  Another possibility is that there are a number of big cohort studies in Asia. The age of diagnosis tends to be earlier in Asia. I know that investigators in China are very interested and concerned with the air pollution effects in China. I think there are potentials that in other countries where the age of breast cancer diagnosis is actually younger than in the US and if they establish in a manner that allows them to assess air pollution that they may have opportunities.  And I think the other way to try to address this question, whether there are studies where you can actually tap into either biomarkers or pathology samples so you won't be actually studying air pollution in a large population, but you're actually narrowing it down to try to see if you see any signals in a way that would give you some additional clues and insights as to the mechanism. So I think we're going to have to piece together various types of study to try to answer the questions because one type of study like these observational air pollution studies, will allow us to address one slice of the questions that we have and then we need to put together other studies so that we can address other aspects that we're interested in to put it together. Dr. Davide Soldato: Thank you very much both of you. That was very interesting.  Coming back to the results of the manuscript, we really focused up until now on PM2.5. But it's true that inside of the study you evaluated different pollutants. So, I was wondering whether you saw a similar association for other pollutants that were included in the study or whether the association for higher risk was observed only for PM2.5. Dr. Anna Wu: The results for NO2, NOx, PM10, and carbon monoxide were actually very compatible with the risk estimates that other studies have published as well as from the meta-analysis. So, I would say that our results from the other pollutants are actually very consistent with other results. I think one difference is that our PM2.5 estimates were based on the satellite-based PM2.5 estimates, whereas all the other pollutants were based on monitoring station estimates from EPA sponsored air monitoring stations. So, they are not measured in the same way. And I think different studies over time have used either monitoring station type measures for other pollutants. And I think we were particularly interested in PM2.5 because the measurement of PM2.5 in the monitoring world didn't start until around 2000. So, studies up until that time were less able to actually provide the assessment of PM2.5 as good as we can for air pollution. There's always misclassification. So, I think it's a matter of how much misclassification in the assessment. But, again, we are really limited in really just having exposure over one part of adult life.  Dr. Davide Soldato: Thank you very much. And one potentially related question. We are speaking in general about air pollution, but I think that since we are considering residential addresses, probably we are capturing more either traffic pollution or pollution that comes from probably industries or stuff like that, which is mostly related to residential areas or the place where people live. But I think that in the end we also think about air pollution as something that can come from different forms. And one very interesting point, Dr. White, that you made in your editorial is also that there is a global change also in the way we are faced with air pollution. For example, you made the example of wildfires in your editorial and how this might potentially change exposure to air pollution, maybe for limited times, but with concentrations that are fairly higher compared to what we generally observed. So, I was wondering if you could comment a little bit on that and also, if there is potentially a way to also consider this in future epidemiological studies. Dr. Alexandra White: Yeah, so when we talk about exposure to fine particulate matter, PM2.5, we're assessing exposure to particles that are based on the size of the particle, and we're really not evaluating the types of particles that people are experiencing exposure to. And we know that, in general, that PM2.5 composition really varies geographically due to differing sources of exposure. So, like you were saying, there might be a stronger contribution to industry or from agriculture or from traffic. And so that could really change the PM2.5 exposure profile that individuals experience. And so it could be that this is another really important area that this research needs to consider, which could really help us identify what sources of exposure are most relevant.   Wildfires are a really important growing concern. We know that wildfires are increasing in both intensity and duration and frequency, and we really don't understand the long-term health impacts of wildfires. But we know that wildfire associated PM2.5 might be one of the most dominant contributors to PM2.5 moving forward. And although we've seen historic declines in PM2.5 in the US after the Clean Air Act, those declines have really stalled. PM2.5 itself is projected to increase over the next few decades, so understanding different PM2.5 composition profiles and the sources that drive them can really help us identify the most important targets for any potential interventions. And wildfire PM2.5 in particular may be of concern because it's a combustion byproduct, and so it's thought to have more of the components that might, we hypothesize, are most relevant for breast cancer, such as PAHs or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or metals. And so, these components are thought to act as endocrine disruptors, which may be particularly relevant for breast cancer. So, I think understanding this changing landscape of PM2.5 moving forward is going to be really important in understanding how PM2.5 contributes to cancers beyond just breast, but as well as other female hormone driven cancers and all of the cancers really.  Dr. Davide Soldato: Thank you very much. So, one closing remark, because I think that in general, we have been really in a field of primary prevention for breast cancer where we were focusing on individual behaviors, for example, smoking cessation, reduction in alcohol intake, reduction of BMI, increase of physical activity. But I think that the evidence that is accumulating in the last three years or so is telling us more and more that we also need to shift the perspective on prevention going not only on individuals, but also as including environmental risk. So, I was wondering, how can we include this new evidence in the policies that we implement and how policymakers should act on the data that we have available right now? Dr. Anna Wu: I think it's really important that this new information is communicated to all the stakeholders, including our policymakers, so that they are, first of all, really aware that any changes and not actually adhering to current guidelines can have long lasting consequences, deleterious consequences. And I think it's important to also note that over 90% of the world actually live in areas where PM2.5 exceeds the limit. We have observed increases in breast cancer in many middle- and low-income countries, so I think it's particularly important to emphasize that this is really not just a western country issue, it is really a global issue. Dr. Alexandra White: I agree. And I would just add to that that air pollution is not something that an individual can really change on their own. There are things you can do, you can monitor air quality, you can try to live in a home that's far away from traffic. But really these are large scale problems that really require large scale solutions. And we know that policy changes can be effective here and that this is something that, in my opinion, is not something that we leave to the individual to change. This is something that we as a society should encourage change for the health of everyone. Dr. Davide Soldato: So, thank you very much again, Dr. Wu, Dr. White, for joining us today on the podcast. Dr. Anna Wu: Thank you. Dr. Alexandra White: Thank you so much for having us.  Dr. Davide Soldato: So we appreciate you sharing more on your JCO article and accompanying editorial titled, “Air Pollution and Breast Cancer Incidents in the Multiethnic Cohort Study.”  If you enjoy our show, please leave us a rating and review and be sure to come back for another episode. You can find all ASCO shows at asco.org/podcasts.   The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. This is not a substitute for professional medical care and is not intended for use in the diagnosis or treatment of individual conditions.   Guests on this podcast express their own opinions, experience and conclusions. Guest statements on the podcast do not express the opinions of ASCO. The mention of any product, service, organization, activity or therapy should not be construed as an ASCO endorsement.      

Ever wonder if agriculture and green energy can work together? The answer is yes, and Jess talks with UCS experts Dr. Angel Fernandez-Bou and Vivian Yang about farming and the future of energy in the United States.

Jess hits the road to visit the Los Angeles Auto Show and talk with UCS electric vehicle expert Dr. Dave Reichmuth about what's hot in green vehicles.

The Union of Concerned Scientists (https://www.ucsusa.org/) is a non-profit, science-advocacy organization founded at MIT in 1969. Today, we feature a portion of their November 27th interview with Dr. Christopher Williams (political scientist) called 'Science Will Not Be Silent'. Its about how science policy might be affected by the upcoming Trump administration. Following that, Scott Miller tells us how to spot the stars, planets, constellations, and meteor showers we can see in the night sky in the month of December. Thanks to the UCS for permission to rebroadcast parts of their podcast 'This is Science with Jess Phoenix': https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/science-will-not-be-silent ‘Bench Talk: The Week in Science' is a weekly radio program that airs on WFMP Louisville FORward Radio 106.5 FM (forwardradio.org) every Monday at 7:30 pm, Tuesday at 11:30 am, and Wednesday at 7:30 am. Visit our Facebook page for links to the articles discussed in this episode: https://www.facebook.com/pg/BenchTalkRadio/posts/?ref=page_internal

In part 2 of a 3-part series, Tokyo Academics Lead Admissions Consultant Jennifer Liepin continues an in-depth breakdown of the UC application, diving into the infamous Personal Insight Questions (PIQs). Jennifer provides actionable insights and examples to help you answer these questions effectively, whether you're highlighting academic achievements, leadership, or unique personal experiences. With guidance on crafting responses that resonate, she offers strategies to make your application stand out in the ultra-competitive UC system. If you're applying to the UCs, don't miss this episode, packed with essential advice for gaining a strong edge in one of the world's most selective public university systems.Join free webinars at www.tokyoacademics.com/eventsNeed help applying to college? Contact us for a free consultation where we'll discuss your strengths, weaknesses, and provide an initial assessment to optimize your success. If you want to maximize your chances of getting into your dream schools, we can help! Visit www.tokyoacademics.com/free-trial.

In part 1 of a 2-part series, Tokyo Academics Lead Admissions Consultant Jennifer Liepin breaks down the ins and outs of the UC application, guiding students through each section to ensure they're putting their best foot forward. Jennifer shares strategies on how to approach the Personal Insight Questions, organize your academic and extracurricular highlights, and avoid common pitfalls. She also discusses the popularity rankings of each UC campus, giving insights on how these preferences might impact your application strategy. If you're applying to the UCs, don't miss this episode packed with essential advice for standing out in one of the most competitive public university systems.Join free webinars at www.tokyoacademics.com/eventsNeed help applying to college? Contact us for a free consultation where we'll discuss your strengths, weaknesses, and provide an initial assessment to optimize your success. If you want to maximize your chances of getting into your dream schools, we can help! Visit www.tokyoacademics.com/free-trial.

GB 18030—2022 两年三次征求意见后，于 9 月 30 日公布了《第 1 号修改单》。本期节目，我们将结合公开资料解读修改单的相关内容，管窥标准化工作幕后的曲折。 参考链接 “The Monotype Collection”，英国科学博物馆在线上展出馆藏 FontCreator 于今年 9 月首次推出 macOS 版 字谈字畅 184：十七年等一回 GB 18030—2022《信息技术　中文编码字符集》 《中华人民共和国国家标准公告 2024 年第 23 号》公告了 GB 18030—2022《第 1 号修改单》 「中文信息技术标准化」微信公众号发布 GB 18030—2022《第 1 号修改单》的内容解读 国际标准 ISO/IEC 10646:2020 《信息技术　通用编码字符集（UCS）》也于 2023 年发布了《第一号修改单》 表意文字研究组（IRG） (ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 2/WG 2/IRG) Unicode 平面（plane） CJK 统一汉字扩充 I；Unicode 16.0 内附有该区段的字符集合及码位表 2022年《国家市场监督管理总局令第 59 号》公布了《国家标准管理办法》 Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22635.4300 新增了 Simsun-ExtG 字体，可支持位于 Unicode 扩充 G、H、I 的 9753 个汉字 主播 Eric：字体排印研究者，译者，The Type 执行编辑 蒸鱼：设计师，The Type 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​。

kaboom, whammo, blam check out the UCS  paper: https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/2023-03/unrefined-ending-pa-energy-solutions-refinery.pdf see gareth on RAILNATTER: https://www.youtube.com/@GarethDennisTV Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wtyppod/ Send us stuff! our address: Well There's Your Podcasting Company PO Box 26929 Philadelphia, PA 19134 DO NOT SEND US LETTER BOMBS thanks in advance in the commercial: Local Forecast - Elevator Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

This one is for the nerds! All the intricate changes into UCS season 4. From worlds slots, to championship points, to alternates!

A new report using voting precinct-level data uncovers key information about who is actually voting in our elections, and who our current democratic process is leaving behind. Jess talks with UCS scientist and report author Dr. Liza Gordon-Rogers about what this means for the 2024 elections.

This special episode takes listeners on a film noir-style journey to explore the fossil fuel crime wave that's sweeping the nation. UCS scientists Dr. Carly Phillips and Dr. Juan Declet-Barreto become part of the elite Danger Season Squad, using science to solve crimes against humanity and break the news to the unsuspecting public along with Danger Season beat reporter Jess Phoenix. Visit sciencewithjess.org to see the special graphic novel version of the show!

Discover the latest breakthroughs in brain-computer interface technology as Synchron enables mind control of Apple's Vision Pro headset. This groundbreaking development allows individuals with severe paralysis to interact with advanced devices using only their thoughts, marking a significant advancement in accessibility technology. Learn how Synchron's minimally invasive approach differs from competitors like Neuralink and explore the potential impact on the lives of those with motor impairments.Dive into the world of AI as OpenAI rolls out its Advanced Voice Mode for ChatGPT, featuring real-time conversations, emotional tone detection, and new preset voices. Uncover the controversy surrounding the removal of the "Sky" voice and the company's plans for future rollouts. Plus, get a sneak peek at the upcoming Friend AI Necklace, a wearable device powered by Anthropic AI's Claude 3.5 language model, set to revolutionize AI companionship and assistance.Explore cutting-edge scientific advancements, including a promising new weapon against HIV using llama nanobodies. Discover how these unique antibodies offer unprecedented neutralization capabilities against a wide range of HIV strains, potentially leading to more effective, longer-lasting treatments. Stay informed about the latest developments in technology, science, and accessibility as we unpack the stories shaping our future.From Perplexity's Discover feed:https://www.perplexity.ai/page/openai-begins-hyper-realistic-2_y7h8vPQEWaM4g63WvnVAhttps://www.perplexity.ai/page/friend-s-ai-necklace-hEQy.RkzTMyU0E1wn1eYNwhttps://www.perplexity.ai/page/hybrid-human-llama-antibody-fi-UCs.nTMFTu6QaRoOTXp0gAhttps://www.perplexity.ai/page/synchron-s-vision-pro-mind-con-3ZW3W7OnT5qY0fhTpwGDnwPerplexity is the fastest and most powerful way to search the web. Perplexity crawls the web and curates the most relevant and up-to-date sources (from academic papers to Reddit threads) to create the perfect response to any question or topic you're interested in. Take the world's knowledge with you anywhere. Available on iOS and Android Join our growing Discord community for the latest updates and exclusive content. Follow us on: Instagram Threads X (Twitter) YouTube Linkedin

The first ever episode of the Sleep Over podcast that's also on video! - Carolyn talks with her brilliant mentor, Dr. Robert Dee McDonald, about 3 Common Blocks to communication that wreck havoc in relationships of all kinds, and what can be done to solve them with assertion, empathy, and forgiveness. Dr. Robert shares his wisdom and expertise, and he also shares details about the upcoming Ultimate Communication Skills Workshop in Los, Angeles California, July 12 -14th 2024. To learn more about the Ultimate Communication Skills Workshop and sign up, listeners can email Dr. Robert: robert@teloscenter.com. Here's info from Dr. Robert's flyer for the UCS workshop: ~ Assertion, Empathy & Forgiveness ~ For individuals, couples, coaches, and businesses. Speak Up & Assert Yourself: Be Strong.If you say “Yes” to everything asked of you, if you cannot say “No,” then all your “Yeses” are meaningless, and you are a doormat. Listen with Empathy: Belong.On the other hand, if you say “No” to everything asked of you, if you cannot say “Yes,” then all your “Nos” are powerless, and you are unpleasable. Accept & Forgive: Be Kind.And if you cannot “Let Go,” if you hold on to hurt and anger, you will be unable to heal our wounded heart, and you are unhappy. Self-Confidence: Be New.In a safe context, explore and acquire the Ultimate Communication Skills: How to be open, be closed, forgive & remember, and finally forgive &π forget. “Dr. Robert Dee McDonald is the greatest coach in the world. He resolves people's long-standing issues in minutes. He is the most stunningly effective coach I've ever encountered. Carolyn Lovewell." author of Existential Kink "Dr. Robert Dee McDonald is the best therapist in the world today." You Will Learn Healthy Communication to: • Stand up for yourself • Listen Deeply • Forgive the Unforgivable • Unwind a Painful Memory • Determine Who Owns the Problem • Find Hidden Gifts in Difficult Relationships • Celebrate Self-Love with Real Communication When: July 12, 13 &14, 2024. Fri, Sat & Sun: 9:30am to 6pmWhere: Hilton Garden Inn, 2100 E. Mariposa, El Segundo, CA 90245Early Bird: $2,995 if fully paid by June 1; $3,995 thereafter.CAROLYN LOVEWELL: $2,495 each, if you register now & pay in full Register: Email Robert@TelosCenter.com. This course is a prerequisite for Certification as a Destination Coach. Fees are non-refundable. Written and presented by Dr. Robert Dee McDonald and Dr. Luzette McDonald Author, internationally acclaimed Trainer, founder of The Destination Method and co-founder of The Telos Healing Center, Dr. Robert wrote Tools of The Spirit, a Transpersonal Coaching text, and the best-selling NLP book of all time, The New Technology of Achievement. He has created and taught seminars for over 35 years and has successfully worked with thousands of individuals and couples in 19 countries throughout the world. Dr. Luzette, co-founder of The Telos Healing Center, is an ordained minister and Destination Method Trainer who creates and presents seminars for women in the USA & Europe. All their work is based on the principle that behind every behavior, thought, feeling, fantasy, attitude, and experience are universally acceptable positive purposes seeking self- expression. Carolyn will be at the workshop, and listeners who mention to Dr. Robert that they learned about the Ultimate Communication Skills workshop from Carolyn will receive a $1000 discount on the cost of the event. Listeners can also visit Dr. Robert's website to learn more about his work: https://www.teloscenter.com/

Sign Up for August CPPS: https://cppscoaches.com/schedule/june-2024-cpps-level-1-certification-aug-2024-gamechanger/ Sign Up for New Longevity Seminar! https://cppscoaches.com/schedule/longevity-training-seminar/       Overview: In this episode of "Becoming Ronin," Smitty and OB delve into a fiery online debate between fitness experts Paul Chek and Dr. Mike Israetel. Dr. Israetel argues that much of the emphasis on posture by physical therapists is exaggerated, claiming it has minimal impact on overall health and performance. On the other hand, Paul Chek presents a nuanced view, highlighting the intricate relationship between the nervous system, biomechanics, and posture. He asserts that poor posture can lead to chronic pain, injuries, and reduced athletic performance. Smitty and OB break down both perspectives, offering a balanced analysis before sharing their own views. They lean more towards Chek's holistic approach, drawing from their personal experiences where addressing postural issues led to significant improvements in their clients' health and performance. The episode concludes with practical advice for listeners on evaluating and improving their own posture, emphasizing the importance of an integrated approach to fitness that values both scientific evidence and holistic health practices. Tune in for an insightful discussion that challenges common notions and encourages a deeper understanding of posture's role in overall well-being.       Timestamps:   [0:00] New Seminar Dates [2:30] Episode Intro [4:55] Paul vs Mike on Posture Debate [12:10] How Posture Affects Joints [20:51] Tonic Vs. Phasic Muscles [22:40] Inverted Breathing Patterns [29:39] What Factors Contribute to Posture [36:39 UCS and LCS [40:17] What is a Syndrome? [46:43] Relative Stiffness Issues         Subscribe on Youtube!

Jess has the details on some recent UCS victories in the real world, and gives a preview of what you can expect for the second season of This Is Science.

Tyson Foods is one of the world's biggest meat and poultry producers. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, it's also a major polluter in the United States. A new report from the group says Tyson plants dumped more than 371 million pounds of pollutants into U.S. waterways between 2018 and 2022. John Yang speaks with UCS research director Stacy Woods about the report's findings. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders