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An Ofsted inspection "contributed" to the death of headteacher Ruth Perry. That's the conclusion of senior coroner Heidi Connor. This is the first time Ofsted has been listed as a contributing factor in the death of a head teacher. Ofsted are yet to comment on the verdict. Ruth Perry had been head of Caversham Primary School in Berkshire for 13 years when she took her own life in January, ahead of an inspection report being made public which had downgraded the school from Outstanding to Inadequate, based on safeguarding concerns. The school was regraded this summer to Good. Her death ignited a national debate about the mental health of school leaders and the pressure they are under in terms of inspections. Anita is joined by Ruth Perry's sister, Professor Julia Waters.America Ferrera is an award-winning actress, a director, producer and activist. She shot to stardom with her roles in Ugly Betty and The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants, but you'll most recently have seen her playing Gloria, an assistant to the chief executive of Mattel, in the blockbuster Barbie film, who delivers a powerful monologue on the double standards of being a woman. America joins Anita to talk about how she didn't "set out to be a role model, or to break barriers, or to have a career about defying the norm.” Food has revolved around women for centuries. History of food can provide us with a lens through which we can discover untold stories of women: their joys, struggles and ever-changing roles in society. Pen Vogler, author of “Stuffed," explores such themes in her new book and examines the history and culture of British food through political, social and global upheavals. Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rebecca Myatt Studio manager: Duncan Hannant

Joel sat down with two ERB reviewers and contributors to discuss their recent reviews, as well as what they have been reading lately. A wide swath of genres are discussed, including biography, poetry, theology, and of course, some epic fantasy!Amy Merrick is a senior professional lecturer in journalism at DePaul University in Chicago. She is also a freelance writer and editor, and a longtime member of the Religion in Literature book group at Grace Lutheran Church in River Forest, IllinoisAarik Danielsen is the arts and entertainment editor at the Columbia Daily Tribune and an instructor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He writes a weekly column, The (Dis)content, for Fathom Magazine. His work has been published in Image Journal, Think Christian, Christ and Pop Culture and more.Books and Writing Mentioned in this Episode:If you'd like to order any of the following books, we encourage you to do so from Hearts and Minds Books(An independent bookstore in Dallastown, PA, run by Byron and Beth Borger) King: A Life by Jonathan EigParting the Waters: America in the King Years by Taylor BranchStrength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr.Amy's Review of "King: A Life" by Jonathan Eig for ERBTouch the Earth: Poems on the Way by Drew JacksonAarick's Review of "Touch the Earth" by Drew Jackson for ERB.Promises of Gold by Jose OlivaresThe Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. TolkienSaving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clark by Jenny OdellHow to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny OdellWhat Are People For? Essays by Wendell BerryBulwarks of Unbelief: Atheism and Divine Absence in a Secular Age by Joseph MinichThe Town and the City by Jack KerouacThe Wind Knows My Name by Isabel AllendeThe House of the Spirits by Isabel AllendeWhen Church Stops Working by Andy Root and Blair BertrandInto the Narrowdark by Tad Williams

In which Carla learns that the most important Supreme Court case of the civil rights movement was brought about by a sixteen-year-old in her state...and an entire county in her state shut down public school rather than integrate.Marked explicit for racism and racist violence.Theme song and stinger: “Comadreamers I” by Haunted Me, off their Pleasure album, used with permissionMy history teacher, Mr. Curtis: https://www.theremightbecupcakes.com/goodbye-my-friend-for-now/Referenced episodes: 9: Family Trees: https://www.theremightbecupcakes.com/episode-9-family-trees/Sources and recommended reading:Something Needs to Be Done About Prince Edward County: A Family, A Virginia Town, and a Civil Rights Battle by Kristin Green https://bookshop.org/a/6560/9780062268686Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch https://bookshop.org/a/6560/978067168742714th Amendment: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv, https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/fourteenth-amendment5th Amendment: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/fifth_amendmentPlessy v. Ferguson: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Plessy_v._FergusonR. R. Moton HS/Museum: https://www.nps.gov/places/virginia-robert-russa-moton-high-school.htmhttps://motonmuseum.orgReverend Vernon Johns and Reverend Martin Luther King: https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/johns-vernonBarbara Rose Johns: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Rose_JohnsDavis v. County Board of Education of Prince Edward County: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis_v._County_School_Board_of_Prince_Edward_CountyBrown v. Board of Education: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Board_of_EducationSavage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools by Jonathan Kozol https://bookshop.org/a/6560/9780770435684The Stanley Plan: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_PlanThe Brown Scholarship—how to apply: http://brownscholarship.virginia.govHow to Support Cupcakes:Substack: http://theremightbecupcakes.substack.com, 75% paid subscription discount for Patreon subscribersAudible: https://www.audible.com/ep/creator?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004RCare/Of Vitamins: https://takecareof.com/invites/chr4bw and enter code CUPCAKES at checkoutPatreon: https://patreon.com/theremightbecupcakesand please visit my lovely sponsors that share their ads on my episodes.Where to Find Cupcakes:Substack: http://theremightbecupcakes.substack.comPatreon: http://patreon.com/theremightbecupcakesFacebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/theremightbecupcakesFacebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/theremightbecupcakesTwitter: @mightbecupcakesInstagram: @theremightbecupcakes and @carlahauntedReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/theremightbecupcakes r/theremightbecupcakesGoodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/804047-there-might-be-cupcakes-podcast-groupContact: carla@theremightbecupcakes.comComplete list of ways to listen to the podcast on the sidebar at http://theremightbecupcakes.com

“I'm writing about group creativity, which is not something we often do … what's interesting to me is what happens in the friction between people's minds through conversations, through discussion, through the exchange of ideas, through debate, through sort of egging one another on … bringing about any idea that's going to sort of undermine the nature of reality as we know it.” Gal Beckerman of The Atlantic joins us on the show to talk about his fascinating new book, The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas, including the story behind the Ph.D. he earned in order to write it, how he found the people who drive his narrative from 17th-century France to present-day Minneapolis, how technology helps (or hurts) the exchange of ideas, and so much more.   Featured Books: The Quiet Before: On the Unexpected Origins of Radical Ideas by Gal Beckerman Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65 by Taylor Branch At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 by Taylor Branch King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild   Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer, edited by David Eitel, and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional bonus episodes on Saturdays.)

CLICK HERE to listen to episode audio (5:32).Sections below are the following: Transcript of Audio Audio Notes and Acknowledgments Images Sources Related Water Radio Episodes For Virginia Teachers (Relevant SOLs, etc.). Unless otherwise noted, all Web addresses mentioned were functional as of 8-23-21. TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO From the Cumberland Gap to the Atlantic Ocean, this is Virginia Water Radio for the week of August 23, 2021.  This episode, the second in a series of episodes on water in U.S. civil rights history, explores water as symbolism in African American civil rights history.  [The first episode in the series--the series overview--is Episode 566, 3-1-21.]  We start with about 50 seconds of music. MUSIC – ~53 sec – Lyrics: “Well the river ends between two hills; follow the drinkin' gourd.  There's another river on the other side; follow the drinkin' gourd.  Follow the drinkin' gourd; follow the drinkin' gourd.  For the ol' man is a'waiting for the carry you to freedom; follow the drinkin' gourd.” You've been listening to part of “Follow the Drinking Gourd,” recorded by Eric Bibb in 2013.  The song is believed to have been used prior to the Civil War as a code to help enslaved people escape on the Underground Railroad.  In that interpretation, the verses gave information about the route, and the drinking gourd referred to the Big Dipper, setting the direction to go by pointing towards the North Star.  Another water-related spiritual song, “Wade in the Water,” is also believed to have been used as Underground Railroad code.  Both songs became popular hymns within African American churches and, by the mid-1900s, were closely associated with the modern Civil Rights Movement. In a 2018 post entitled “The Role of Water in African American History,” Tyler Parry stated that, “water's culturally symbolic importance resonated across generations….” Following are four other examples of water symbolism connected to the African American movement for civil rights. Number 1: “Parting the waters.”  This phrase refers to the account in the Bible Book of Exodus, in which God parted the waters of the Red Sea so that the Israelites could escape from Egyptian slavery.  It's been used as a metaphor for the enormous challenges that African Americans have faced in acquiring and asserting their civil rights.  For instance, it's the title of the first volume in Taylor Branch's trilogy on the modern civil rights era, America in the King Years.  That trilogy is the source for the next two examples. Number 2. “Until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”  Martin Luther King, Jr., frequently used this phrase, taken from the Bible Book of Amos, to describe how long the U.S. civil rights movement would need to continue. Number 3: “Springs of racial poison.”  At the signing of the federal Civil Rights Act in July 1964, President Lyndon Johnson said, “We must not fail.  Let us close the springs of racial poison.” And number 4. “A fire no water could put out.”  Dr. King used this phrase in his final public sermon in Memphis.  Recalling demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama, when Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety “Bull” Connor ordered fire hoses turned on demonstrators, Dr. King said that Connor didn't realize “that there was a certain kind of fire that no water could put out.” These examples are only a small piece of a much larger story.  I invite listeners to offer Virginia Water Radio other examples of water metaphors and symbolism in U.S. civil rights history. Thanks to Eric Bibb, his manager Heather Taylor, and Riddle Films for permission to use this week's music, and we close with about 25 more seconds of Mr. Bibb performing “Follow the Drinking Gourd.” MUSIC – ~ 24 sec – Lyrics: “For the ol' man is a'waitin' for to carry you to freedom; follow the drinkin' gourd.” SHIP'S BELL Virginia Water Radio is produced by the Virginia Water Resources Research Center, part of Virginia Tech's College of Natural Resources and Environment.  For more Virginia water sounds, music, or information, visit us online at virginiawaterradio.org, or call the Water Center at (540) 231-5624.  Thanks to Ben Cosgrove for his version of “Shenandoah” to open and close the show.  In Blacksburg, I'm Alan Raflo, thanking you for listening, and wishing you health, wisdom, and good water. AUDIO NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Eric Bibb performance of “Follow the Drinking Gourd” heard in this Virginia Water Radio episode was taken from a video recording dated March 19, 2013, and posted by Riddle Films online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjBZEMkmwYA.  Audio for this recording is used with permission of Eric Bibb, via his manager Heather Taylor; and of Liam Romalis at Riddle Films.  More information about Eric Bibb is available online at https://www.ericbibb.com/.  More information about Riddle Films is available online at http://riddlefilms.com/.An excellent version of “Wade in the Water” (the other song mentioned in this week's audio), performed by Deeper Dimension, is available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NQvOFTioJg. Click here if you'd like to hear the full version (2 min./22 sec.) of the “Shenandoah” arrangement/performance by Ben Cosgrove that opens and closes this episode.  More information about Mr. Cosgrove is available online at http://www.bencosgrove.com. IMAGES Image of the relation of the constellation known as the Big Dipper and as the Drinking Gourd to the North Star.  Image from the National Park Service, “North Star to Freedom,” accessed online at https://www.nps.gov/articles/drinkinggourd.htm, 8/23/21.Map of escape routes for enslaved people prior to the U.S. Civil War.  Map by National Park Service, “What is the Underground Railroad?”  Image accessed online at https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/what-is-the-underground-railroad.htm, 8/23/21.Sculpture in Birmingham, Alabama's, Kelly Ingram Park, recalling fire hoses being used on civil rights protestors in the 1960s.  Photo by Carol M. Highsmith, March 3, 2010.  Accessed from the Library of Congress, online at https://www.loc.gov/item/2010636978/, 8/23/21.SOURCES Used for Audio Kenyatta D. Berry, “Singing in Slavery: Songs of Survival, Songs of Freedom,” PBS “Mercy Street Revealed Blog,” 1/23/17, online at http://www.pbs.org/mercy-street/blogs/mercy-street-revealed/songs-of-survival-and-songs-of-freedom-during-slavery/. Taylor Branch:At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2007;Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1988; Personal Communication, March 16, 2021;Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1998. Joel Bressler, “Follow the Drinking Gourd: A Cultural History,” online at http://www.followthedrinkinggourd.org/. Encyclopedia Britannica, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers – Poem by Langston Hughes,” online at https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Negro-Speaks-of-Rivers. C. Michael Hawn, “History of Hymns: ‘Wade in the Water,'” 2/1/16, Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church, online at https://www.mississippi-umc.org/newsdetail/2576866. High Museum of Art (Atlanta, Ga.), “'A Fire That No Water Could Put Out': Civil Rights Photography” (exhibit November 4, 2017—April 29, 2018), online at https://high.org/exhibition/a-fire-that-no-water-could-put-out-civil-rights-photography/. Martin Luther King, Jr.:August 28, 1963, speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. (“I have a dream” speech), as published by American Rhetoric, online at https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm;April 3, 1968, speech in Memphis, Tenn. (“I've been to the mountaintop” speech), as published by American Rhetoric, online at https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemountaintop.htm. LearntheBible.org, “Parting of the Waters,” online at http://www.learnthebible.org/parting-of-the-waters.html.Bruce McClure, “Here's How To Find The Big Dipper and Little Dipper,” EarthSky, March 7, 2021, online at https://earthsky.org/favorite-star-patterns/big-and-little-dippers-highlight-northern-sky/. Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “Symbolism,” online at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/symbolism. National Center for Civil and Human Rights (Atlanta, Ga.), “Rolls Down Like Water: U.S. Civil Rights Movement” (exhibit), online at https://www.civilandhumanrights.org/exhibition/us-civil-rights/. National Park Service:“Kelly Ingram Park” [Birmingham, Ala.], online at https://www.nps.gov/places/kelly-ingram-park.htm;“North Star to Freedom,” online at https://www.nps.gov/articles/drinkinggourd.htm;“Theophilus Eugene ‘Bull' Connor (1897-1973),” online at https://www.nps.gov/people/bull-connor.htm;“Underground Railroad,” online at https://www.nps.gov/subjects/undergroundrailroad/index.htm. NPR (National Public Radio) and Smithsonian Institution, “Wade in the Water” (26-part series produced in 1994 on the history of American gospel music), online at https://www.npr.org/series/726103231/wade-in-the-water.Tyler Parry, “The Role of Water in African American History,” Black Perspectives blog (African American Intellectual History Society), May 4, 2018, online at https://www.aaihs.org/the-role-of-water-in-african-american-history/.PBS (Public Broadcasting System) “American Experience/Soundtrack for a Revolution,” online at https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/soundtrack/. Walter Rhett, “Decoding ‘Wade in the Water,'” Black History 360*, February 18, 2011, online at https://blackhistory360.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/decoding-wade-in-the-water/. Selma [Alabama] Times-Journal, The drinking gourd and the Underground Railroad, January 26, 2004. Smithsonian Folkways, “Voices of the Civil Rights Movement: Black American Freedom Songs 1960-1966,” online at https://folkways.si.edu/voices-of-the-civil-rights-movement-black-american-freedom-songs-1960-1966/african-american-music-documentary-struggle-protest/album/smithsonian. Tellers Untold, “How Harriet Tubman used ‘Wade in the Water' to help slaves escape,” February 15, 2021, online at https://www.tellersuntold.com/2021/02/15/how-harriet-tubman-used-the-song-wade-in-the-water-to-help-slaves-escape-to-the-north/. For More Information about Civil Rights in the United States British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), “The Civil Rights Movement in America,” online at https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zcpcwmn/revision/1. Georgetown Law Library, “A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States,” online at https://guides.ll.georgetown.edu/civilrights. Howard University Law Library, “A Brief History of Civil Rights in the United States,” online at https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/intro. University of Maryland School of Law/Thurgood Marshall Law Library, “Historical Publications of the United States Commission on Civil Rights,” online at https://law.umaryland.libguides.com/commission_civil_rights. U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, online at https://www.usccr.gov/. U.S. House of Representatives, “Constitutional Amendments and Major Civil Rights Acts of Congress Referenced in Black Americans in Congress,” online at https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Data/Constitutional-Amendments-and-Legislation/. U.S. National Archives, “The Constitution of the United States,” online at https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution. RELATED VIRGINIA WATER RADIO EPISODES All Water Radio episodes are listed by category at the Index link above (http://www.virginiawaterradio.org/p/index.html).  See particularly the “History” subject category. This episode is part of the series Exploring Water in U.S. Civil Rights History.  As of August 23, 2021, other episodes is the series are as follows:Episode 566, 3-1-21 – series overview. Following are links to some previous episodes on the history of African Americans in Virginia. Episode 459, 2-11-19 – on Abraham Lincoln's arrival in Richmond at the end of the Civil War.Episode 128, 9-17-12 – on Chesapeake Bay Menhaden fishing crews and music.Episode 458, 2-4-19 – on Nonesuch and Rocketts Landing in Richmond.  FOR VIRGINIA TEACHERS – RELATED STANDARDS OF LEARNING (SOLs) AND OTHER INFORMATION Following are some Virginia Standards of Learning (SOLs) that may be supported by this episode's audio/transcript, sourc

Mahesh Ram is a serial founder and entrepreneur and he's currently the founding CEO of Solvvy, a leading SaaS provider of conversational self-service and automation solutions to leading global companies with over 550 million end users. Prior to Solvvy, he was the CEO of GlobalEnglish which pioneered online business English education for learners in over 120 countries. GlobalEnglish was later acquired by the Pearson PLC. He previously held CTO roles at Thomson Reuters.   Questions   Could you just tell us a little bit about your journey? How it is that you ended up in this world of customer experience automation? Can you tell us a little bit about Solvvy? So a big part of artificial intelligence is natural language processing, could you just break down what that really is to our listeners so that they can understand and maybe even get a better connection with maybe how this could work in their business? A business is really looking to try and find a way to have more automation in their business. What's maybe one or two things that you think they could start off doing if they're at ground zero, they have no automation. Where can they start to try to get their business on level one of trying to get automated and have their customers come on board? Could you share with us what is the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely can't live without in your business? Could you also share with us maybe one or two books that have had really great impact on you, it could be a book that you read recently, or even one that you read a very long time ago, but it still has a great impact on you. Could you share also share with us what's one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? It could be something that you're working on to develop yourself or your people. Where can listeners find you online? Do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote, because it kind of helps to get you back on track, or just get you going if you get derailed for any reason? Do you have one of those?   Highlights   Mahesh's Journey   Mahesh shared that he thinks the whole area of customer experience is one that always fascinated him, his entire career has been about automating complexity. And by taking very complex things and turning them into easier, better, more frictionless experiences and that's been true for whether that's online education or legal and tax compliance. But when he thinks about customer experience, it's the thing that impacts every single one of us, all of us have great experiences we can talk about with brands and we have those very poor experiences we talk about with brands and we make decisions based on those things. And he's no different than everybody else, than their customers.   And so, when he saw the potential for the technology to truly deliver a better experience at scale, he was hooked. When he saw that the incredibly powerful PhD work that his co-founders had done that enabled the ability to deliver this incredible customer experience at scale, he just couldn't resist because as a CEO, he has often seen that they're just not good enough at this. So that's what motivated him and that's what excites him about what they're doing.   What is Solvvy About?     Me: All right. So can you tell us a little bit about Solvvy? I know you mentioned in your bio that you are currently at Solvvy and Solvvy is about CX automated platforms and basically powering customer experiences. Just in in real word terms so our listeners that are listening, whether they are managers, or business owners of small or medium businesses, they can get a better understanding of what you do could possibly influence what they do to enhance frictionless experiences for their customers.   Mahesh shared that there's a famous book called The Effortless Experience that he thinks described very nicely what they're trying to do, but at Solvvy, they built a powerful SaaS platform, it's a solution that takes machine learning and natural language processing, natural language understanding at its core, but delivers an end user or consumer experience that allows every one of us as consumers to interact with the brand in a way to get self-service automation sometimes, other times get the right journey, be able to get to the right agent at the right time. But the way they like to think about it is allowing any brand in the world at scale to deliver what they think of is like concierge level journey. Imagine if the system understood you, it knows what you want, you just talked to it and it tells you where you need to go. Sometimes it provides you an immediate answer, other times it has to ask you some follow up questions because it needs a little more information from you in order to pinpoint either the right answer or get you to the right agent.   And you can imagine how this can be scaled across a global footprint, across the world. Their customers are B2B and B2C companies that have hundreds and millions of end users. But they're serving two customers, if you will, they're serving the companies that buy and implement them but ultimately, their end customer is their consumer, their end user and can they (Solvvy) deliver an intelligent solution like sometimes it's in the form of a chatbot, other times it's in the form of taking them on a journey and taking them to the right agent. But that's what they do. They made it really simple to implement something that's very complex under the hood, but it's very simple for companies to implement and it delivers an immediate ROI to the business and better experience for the user.   Me: Does your company primarily work with a particular type of industry like retail? Or is it more service based kind of organizations? Could you give an example of maybe one of your clients that has seen success as a result of this approach?   Mahesh shared that first of all they work across a wide number of verticals, both B2B and B2C. But he would say some of their strongest verticals are things like ecommerce, not so much pure physical retail, but oftentimes the ecommerce arm of a retail business, FinTech. So consumer FinTech and banking, a good example would be a consumer finance banking application stash, which many people have used, millions of users use them. They work with brands like Ring - the home doorbell, home alarm, home security company, which is now part of Amazon. These are some of the companies. So it's a wide spectrum of companies but typically it's a situation where he as an end user of a product or service, have adopted that product or service, but have questions about how to get the most out of it. And sometimes that can be simple, that can be he's an ecommerce customer and he has ordered something and he wants to cancel something or he wants to see where it is, he's wondering why there's a delay.   Other times, it might be something like he bought a device and he doesn't know how to make it work with his iPhone, we've all had that experience. And in both those situations, Solvvy can understand the issue as expressed by the user in everyday natural language, and then be able to connect the user to the right solution that could be a stepwise guide an answer, it could be in some cases, collecting more information and giving it to the agent who can then help you 3 to 10 times faster than they could. So that those are some examples of companies they work with, that it's a pretty broad spectrum. They even work in healthcare, they work with Calm, which is one of the leading meditation apps, many of your users, entrepreneurs may be using that to do meditation and peace of mind. Wonderful application, they support their end users. So it ranges across a wide range of industries.   What is Natural Language Processing?   Me: So a big part of artificial intelligence is natural language processing. And I know for the average person, that may sound like really high level, could you just break down what that really is to our listeners so that they can understand and maybe even get a better connection with maybe how this could work in their business?   Mahesh shared that the way to simplify the complex, obviously, natural language processing is a deep science and there's 10s of 1000s of research papers and PhD thesis on this, but he'll simplify it because he thinks at the end of the day, as consumers, it boils down to one thing is the ability to understand, in the customer experience space, it's the ability to understand when a user expresses an issue or what we think of as an intent.   So, you might say, “I bought the jeans last week, they don't fit me, please help.” And if you have enough data about prior examples of that, you can quickly learn, the machine learning can actually learn that the natural language expression in that case is likely a call to say, “Hey, can I return or exchange this?” Nowhere is the word return or exchange used. So he thinks natural language understanding in context of customer experience is about understanding how people in that business or in that problem area express issues, they often don't use the words that the companies use, they may not use the word return or exchange, they say, “I want to give this back.”   So NLU (Natural Language Understanding) is the technology that allows you to move away from that kind of keyword dependency and understand the core intent of what the user is doing.   And the way you do that is you actually train on the prior data, because chances are most businesses have had 1000s, if not hundreds of 1000s of people asking similar questions before. And the machine learning can actually learn how real users express real issues and start to get better at detecting that as soon as they finish typing something in or speaking something.   And we're all familiar with Alexa, and it has a specific set of natural language understanding where you can ask what's the weather and it's been trained to understand those words, is it going to rain today? And it knows to answer you with an answer and tell you to take an umbrella. So that's an example of NLU that most people would understand but in the context of customer experience, it's very much about understanding that businesses specific natural language.   Tips for Implementing Automation in Your Business   Me: So let's say we have some listeners who their business, let me give you an example. Let's say for example, it is a pastry business and she or he may have an outlet where customers can come and pick up little pastries like cupcakes or a slice of bread pudding or whatever the case is. And they're really looking to try and find a way to have more automation in their business. What's maybe one or two things that you think they could start off doing if they're at ground zero, they have no automation. Where can they start to try to get their business on level one of trying to get automated and have their customers come on board?   Mahesh stated that he thinks the first thing he thinks if you think about foundational principles, it's first of all, let's make sure that we collect all that information in a place where you make sure that you answer it, that you keep track of it, that you have some history of what's happened with that user.   And so typically, you would use some sort of a simple support CRM business. They partner with companies like Zendesk, Freshdesk, and others. And those are pretty simple to implement, they don't really require a lot of deep technology to implement a simple implementation.   And that allows you to then say, “Okay, Yanique called me on Tuesday asking about the status of her pastry order. And I need to get back to her.” It keeps track of it and if you come back a week later, he might know that you asked about this last week. And so, he might start his conversation with you by saying, “Is this about the pastry order you placed last week?”, So he has some context.   So he thinks first thing is to put a simple system in place, there's lightweight systems, there's inexpensive systems, they don't cost a lot of money. And typically, you can scale up or down depending on how many resources you have. So that, he thinks is first things first.   Second thing is, he thinks a lot of businesses would just benefit from writing some simple content, and other things on their websites to be able to answer the most frequently asked questions. So pay attention, once you're starting to track what people are asking, you should then be able to go back and say, let me write an article about how do I customize a cake. Or if I order a bulk order of pastries, do I get a discount? These might be common questions that you see in the data that you see, after you see this is coming up over and over. So that would be like a starting point, you'd start with some sort of a knowledge base so people can find the answer for themselves because most people don't want to wait for your team, especially if you have a small team, it might take 24 hours for you to answer that question about a bulk order, well, you might have lost the order by that time.   So you're better off letting the customer get the help they need. And that goes to the third thing, which is then the third thing is they work with OpenTable. You're familiar with OpenTable, people make reservations at any restaurant, hundreds of 1000s of restaurants around the world. And they serve two audiences, as a consumer if you want to book a table at a fancy restaurant, perhaps in San Francisco, but also the restaurant owner who has to then control some of those back end tools. And they provide a whole range of tools.   But imagine an experience where that restaurant owner can interact with technology to be able to change their hours or modify frequently asked questions. So, that's where they often come in is that they end up giving brands a way to automate even more complex things.   So if you say, “Hey, I want to customize my cake.” the Natural Language Understanding can actually understand that or maybe you don't say customized, “I want to order a special cake for my niece. And I want it to say something very unique.” Something like that and nowhere would he use the word customized. I could come up to you and say, “Great, looks like you want to customize the cake. We have these options for you, which one do you want.”   And take you down the path and actually collect all that information and say, “I've got everything I need, somebody will get back to you within an hour with an ETA on when this cake will be ready for you. Does that make sense?”   And imagine that experience in 35-40 seconds, he might have actually gotten your order right. And he'll still handed off to a human being because somebody still has to bake the cake. But at that point, he's such a delighted consumer that maybe he'll order a little extra. Maybe at that point, you present him with an offer and say, “If you want to order a dozen cookies for the other guests, there's a special offer 10% off right now.” So he thinks if you think about automation, it's not about putting a blocker in front of the user, it's about automating things that otherwise they'd have to wait too long for.   App, Website or Tool that Mahesh Absolutely Can't Live Without in His Business   When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Mahesh stated that that's a great question. He thinks for them, because they've gone completely virtual right due to the pandemic, so everybody's virtual. So he thinks it would be tempting to say an online meeting tool like Zoom. But he actually thinks that the most indispensable tool is probably something like Slack because it's a communication vehicle for everyone to share information and ideas.   And what they've done which is nice with Slack is they've used some of the third party bots and applications inside Slack to do things like give praise to someone. It makes it easy to give praise and it shows up in Slack, everyone can read it, it also then writes it automatically to the performance management system. So it's a great way to motivate your employees or help people motivate one another for great work, “Hey, Yanique did a great job today on this, she made it possible for me to help this customer.”   It makes it easy to just go into Slack and give her praise. That's one example. You can share documents; you can even do video calls in Slack. So, it's a pretty powerful tool, he's sure other people use other things like it. But that's one that he would say it's been very, very crucial for them.   Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Mahesh   When asked about books that had a great impact, Mahesh shared that one book is very personal. His grandfather lived in India, grew up in India, he had spent most of his career in the public service. But he's very interested in music and after the age of about 60, he decided to become a music and dance critic. And he started writing and then actually became a well-known critic and musicologist in one of the major newspapers of India.   And at the age of 88, his grandfather decided to write a book. He wrote a book on music and musicians and just his recollections and opinions. And it turned out to be a really, really well received book and got a lot of critical praise at the age of 88. He thinks that to him, it was less about the book and more about the fact that his lifelong passion for learning had never stopped. And so, it's as much the book as the writing of the book as the book itself, it's both. So that was one.   The second one, which he thinks has become more and more relevant as a book he has probably read three times. It's a three volume, very heavy, long trilogy called Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, written by a man named Taylor Branch, and it's kind of the entire lifespan of Martin Luther King and it's probably about 2000 pages total.   So it's not light reading. But it talks about all of the ups and downs of the civil rights movement, the great triumphs, and then of course, later in his life some of his regrets and so on, and so on. And he thinks it really comes home when you think about the events of the last couple of years and what's going on in the world, you realize that these struggles, the great struggles don't have easy answers and solutions don't just emerge and everything is great.   Things have a way of taking far longer and being much more difficult than you ever imagined when you started. Ideals are what carry you through but even, there's a lot of frustration you have to overcome whether that through in business or in social life. So those are two. And then for fun, he thinks one that he always like reading, it's light reading is Calvin and Hobbes a cartoon strip, because he just thinks it reminds him that at the end of the day, we all take ourselves way too seriously.   Me: That's so true. And life is so short, we really have to enjoy laughter.   What Mahesh is Really Excited About Now!   Mahesh shared that they're working on so many incredibly exciting things in the business. He'll choose one or two that he thinks excites him the most. The first thing is what he calls the Omni-Channel experience. Take the example of the pastry shop, he thinks they're just now entering in the United States, the notion of a truly omni-channel experience where businesses have to meet consumers where they live.   It's no longer reasonable to expect customers to come to your website. They live in Instagram, they live in Snapchat, they live in WhatsApp and this has already happened in other markets like in China, you have WeChat and India WhatsApp is very, very strong. And if he wants to order a pizza from Domino's in India, he's just as likely to use WhatsApp as I am to go to www.dominos.com.   But in North America, that's just now happening, it's just happening where brands have to be creating really strong presence but the problem is there isn't one thing. It isn't like he can just build for WhatsApp, on a Monday, he might choose to interact with the pastry shop mentioned on Facebook Messenger. On Tuesday, he might want to go into WhatsApp and place an order for a cake. On Wednesday, he might go to the store brand to the website and try to order it. And it could change if two users might have two different things.   So brands have to be in all these places. But he can't have different things going on in those sites. If he asked you what's the price to customize the cake, and you give him three different answers on three different channels, that's a real problem, consumers get really annoyed.   So he thinks what they're doing at Solvvy, which is really exciting, is they're making it possible for businesses to build the intelligent layer once in the platform, and then deliver on any of these channels they choose with the same consistency. So if you come in on a Monday and say, “I want to return the shoes that I bought on Facebook Messenger.” They'll take you through that entire experience and get to get it returned and connect you to an agent. But on Wednesday, you come back and ask “Where's my order on the company's website?” They'll be able to answer that question just as accurately on that thing. So the consistency across platforms.   So it's consistent and personalized so it knows enough to ask Yanique for her email address and look it up and tell you exactly where your order is, that kind of personalization automated is critical.   And then he thinks that goes to the second piece, which is what excites him more than anything is the ability to deliver a truly personalized experience. Think about yourself or anybody in the audience, when you buy a product or service, the experience you have in the first week, maybe the first 10 days, maybe the first 30 days, if it's a piece of software is so crucial. How well you use it, how well you get acclimated to it, determines how happy you are with it. So they think at Solvvy, how do they enable brands to be able to deliver that kind of support and on boarding and guidance to say a first 30-day user, it's different than for a user who has been with the brand for 6 to 12 months and do that at scale, do that for millions of people.   So a good example would be they work with a very large meal kit delivery service, they deliver meals to your home. And he can deliver a different experience for someone who's ordering their very first meal, that's a little bit more hand holding, a little bit more like, “Hey, did everything come as you expected?” Because they're not used to some of the things about unpacking the ice and doing these things. But if somebody who ordered 12 meals in the last 2 months, he probably don't want to waste their time asking them if they know how to unpack the ice, he wants to ask them if they're looking for new recipes.   So the ability to do that at a massive scale, because you can't do that one by one, but technology allows you to say, I'm going to do that for everybody who's a first 30-day user is going to get this experience. So those are the kinds of things, so personalization and omni-channel are the two things that he thinks really, really excites him about the business.   Me: Two things came to mind when you were speaking just now. So the first thing you mentioned was omni-channel and I personally as a customer, I'm trying to wonder if there's no technology out there that let's say, for example, utilities is something we all have to pay every month, let's say our electricity bills, and you may talk to your electricity company, you may not talk to them very often, but there are times when you do have to interface with them. So let's say for example, you reach out to them on Twitter messenger because there was a power outage in your area and they communicated and said, okay, they've sent their engineers to sort it out and we should get service restored within X amount of time. And then four months later, you may need to contact them because you're trying to pay a bill, you're trying to use their platform to pay the bill, but you're having some challenges and when you call them on the phone, you can't get them, it would be good to know that they're able to connect those experiences. So they would say to you, “Oh, hi, Miss Grant, we haven't heard from you in four months, how have things been?” Because then it shows that they're paying attention to the last time someone was in contact with you, even if it wasn't the same agent that you dealt with four months ago. Is that possible?   Mahesh shared that it's not only possible, they're doing that all the time. There's kind of a divide in the middle, which is whether I know who you are, I don't right. Oftentimes, if you're going to an ecommerce site, you go to www.nike.com, you're probably not identifying yourself, and you may not want to identify yourself, you may not want them to know that it's Yanique.   But if you have an existing relationship with the brand, you still might come to the website of the utility company and not identify yourself but based on the type of question you're asking, they might say, “In order to help you, you'll have to identify yourself.” But he doesn't want to give that to you until he realizes you need that.   So, then he might say, “Can you please tell me the email address or can you log in?” And then based on the login, now he can come back and say, “Looks like you came in last week and asked this question. Are you asking about the same thing?”   And if you say no, then he can pop up and give you the more generic menus and say, “Hey, would you like to be able to do it?” So not only is it possible, they're doing it all the time with brands where they're personalizing the experience, this goes back to his notion of personalization is that sure it can understand prior interaction data and ask you if that's the case. Sometimes that can be intrusive, you may not care about something four months ago, it's not that.   But if you've called three times in the last week, chances are it's about the same issue.   And so at that point, what he needs to do is two things. One is he needs to make sure that every single thing that you told him on the first call or the first technology interaction with Solvvy, for example, it's been recorded properly to the agent, so that the next agent picks who it up, your second call a week later has everything in front of them and that's the key.   The key is not to make you repeat yourself, not make you repeat yourself and that's what technology enables. He'll give you one example. In the example with the meal kit is if you come in and say “Hey, help my mind steak is spoiled. I'm really angry.” Well, first of all, you're probably pretty upset because your dinner just got ruined, that's not a good experience, you might stop using the brand. But if he immediately pop-up and say, “I'm sorry to hear you have a missing or spoiled ingredient, can you just give me the information, this and it pops up your meal and it says which of the ingredients is missing or spoil, tell me what's wrong with it.” And immediately, he'd say he could shoot a credit back to your account. And then you can still talk to the agent if you want and complain more. That's a really good experience.   Unfortunately, it doesn't feed you your meal that night, but it does make you feel like the brand is there for you and really cares about doing something right, they can make an offer and give you two free meals or whatever it might be. But again, even if he passed you to an agent in that case, the agent knows that you called because your steak was spoiled, the ice had melted, that you were expecting to get it with two side dishes and you only got one and they start the conversation with you knowing all this, they're not asking you to repeat any of this. That's what they do.   Me: Brilliant. It's funny you mentioned the meal delivery service for home because I started using one recently and I find the young lady service to be so poor. When you call her she doesn't return your phone calls, when you send her a message on WhatsApp she takes forever to respond. She sends out her menus the week before like on a Friday and then you indicate to her how many days per week you wanted meals and which items you were interested in. And I think for last week I told her I was interested in the meal for Thursday. The meal wasn't delivered, I tried to call her on Thursday afternoon to ask her, “Weren't you supposed to deliver the meal today?” She hasn't responded to my WhatsApp. I called her twice, she hasn't responded to my call, frankly, I don't think I'm going to order from her again because either she's taken on more than she can chew or she's clearly not ready for this level of business because if you're dealing with people, and you're delivering meals to them and they've indicated to you what they want and when they want it, if you can't manage the communication portion, then maybe you need to outsource that for the business.   Mahesh stated that he thinks that's a brilliant point. He thinks that oftentimes people take on more than they can handle but they lose sight of the customer. He thinks it goes back to the customer like how often does she talk to you and ascertain how well you like the service, did she check in with you? Does she have a survey?   Because if she loses you, the thing she probably doesn't grasp yet and he thinks some small business owners don't always grasp this is how expensive it is to acquire a customer, to get Yanique to try it for the first time is a really hard thing. And so losing you is much worse than acquiring two new people, because they already gone through the effort of convincing you and you've already done it.   So this does speak to something that he thinks a lot of entrepreneurs can do better, which is to survey and get feedback from customers, because you may well be sympathetic to her if she was talking to you. If she told you honestly, “Hey, look, I'm really struggling with this but I'm really trying to make it work. I'm an entrepreneur and I want to make this work. I'm so sorry about your meal. Let me see what I can do.” You were probably willing to give her the sun, the moon and the stars to get it right. But if you don't hear from her, you just assume that she doesn't care.   Me: I'm actually thinking of deleting her number out of my phone because I don't think I want to do business with her anymore. Her communication is extremely poor and her food, it's not amazing but it's good and it's healthy and it's a better choice than me having to go and have fast food for sure. But the challenge, as I said, is she needs to work out that aspect of it or she's going to lose more than one customer.   Mahesh agreed and stated that he thinks the other thing that he would say that technology allows us to do with a lot of the brands is to be predictive. So, if for example, Yanique is coming in frequently with questions about certain kinds of issue, they do something that they call category analytics for businesses, where they look at every single question that has ever been asked for that brand and they grouped them into big categories and so they can tell the brand, the food kit company that you're missing ingredient issues have spiked 23% in the last two weeks, something's up, they don't know what it is because they're not in their factory watching.   But they can drill in and they can tap into that, they can double click on it and they can see all the actual expressions by the user and they can do keyword searches, they can say show me everything with the word ice in it. So if the ice is melting, maybe they go back to the warehouse people and say, you need to package the ice better. So those are the kinds of insights that businesses often lack and it's very difficult to do because technology allows you to do it without having to have a human being looked at every single issue, it automatically categorizes all the questions.   Where Can We Find Mahesh Online   Website – www.solvvy.com LinkedIn – Mahesh Ram Twitter - @solvvyinc Twitter - @rammahesh   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Mahesh Uses   When asked about a quote that he tends to revert to, Mahesh shared that he actually has a bunch of them. But the one that recently came up as he was reading the book by the very, very famous Roman Emperor, Philosopher, Marcus Aurelius, he had written a book 2000 years ago, so it's a long time. But everything in there so timeless because he's really does a lot of reflection on his life.   The quote that he said, which he thoughts was really great was, “Adapt yourself to the life you have been given; and truly love the people with whom destiny has surrounded you.” And he thought that was just such a nice sort of simple way of saying, we're all given something and it's up to us to make the most of it, we keep looking around for something better, chances are you're never going to find it and the people too. So he thought that was a really nice quote.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners    Links   The Effortless Experience: Conquering the New Battleground for Customer Loyalty by Matthew Dixon Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch The Complete Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Figuratively and literally speaking every Landmark tells an explicit or implicit story about us global citizens. Landmark is a continuum dialogue presumably that began during the Neolithic period and is still existing in 21st century. Landmark connotes various features like origin of the culture, their knowledge, their habitat and also their communication with nature. In this environment landmark can be interpreted as a myth and or a story. However in this context the same will be featured as a story. For clarification myth connotes a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. While stories spread between cultures or as faiths change, myths can come to be considered folktales. In view of the aforesaid explanation I am still conscious of the fact that the term mythos lacks an explicit distinction between true or false narratives. Now that I have provided some context I must confess that it appears that regardless of status, albeit ancestors or descendants ethnicity have always occupied the geographical precincts of landmark. Plausibly, the logistics and detail of every landmark story may bring all global citizens together especially since the only way to find our way is by a landmark The tone and tenor of this line of reasoning gives practicality to this conversation because my story activates cognition .William Anderson Gittens ,Author, Cinematographer, Dip., Com., Arts. B.A. Media Arts Specialists’ Editor in Chief Devgro Media Arts Services Publishing®2015License Cultural Practitioner, Publisher, Student of Film, CEO Devgro Media Arts Services Publishing®2015WORKS CITED A. M. Hund and A. R. Naroleski, “Developmental changes in young children's spatial memory and language in relation to landmarks,” Journal of Cognition and Development, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 310–339, 2008.View at: Publisher Site | Google ScholarA. R. Lew, K. A. Foster, H. L. Crowther, and M. Green, “Indirect landmark use at 6 months of age in a spatial orientation task,” Infant Behavior and Development, vol. 27, no. 1, pp. 81–90, 2004.View at: Publisher Site | Google ScholarD. Gentner and K. Kurtz, “Relational categories,” in Categorization Inside and Outside the Lab, W. K. Ahn, R. L. Goldstone, B. C. Love, A. B. Markman, and P. W. Wolff, Eds., pp. 151–175, APA, Washington, DC, USA, 2005.View at: Google ScholarD. Gentner, “The development of relational category knowledge,” in Building Object Categories in Developmental Time, L. Gershkoff-Stowe and D. H. Rakison, Eds., pp. 245–275, 2005.View at: Google ScholarE. W. Bushnell, B. E. McKenzie, D. A. Lawrence, and S. Connell, “The spatial coding strategies of one-year-old infants in a locomotor search task,” Child Development, vol. 66, no. 4, pp. 937–958, 1995.View at: Publisher Site | Google ScholarDonald E. Lively; Russell L. Weaver, Contemporary Supreme Court Cases: Landmark Decisions Since Roe V. Wade (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006), p. ix Echols, James (2004), I Have a Dream: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Future of Multicultural America. Gittens,William Anderson, Author, Cinematographer, Dip., Com., Arts. B.A. Media Arts Specialists’ Editor in Chief Devgro Media Arts Services Publishing®2015https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00129257Meacham, Jon (August 26, 2013). "One Man". Time. p. 26.See Taylor Branch, Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954–1963.Tierney, John (5 September 2177). "The Missing Men in Your Family Tree". The New York Times. Archived from the origSupport the show (http://www.buzzsprout.com/429292)

Episode Notes: In today’s episode, Pastors Stephen Law and Sean Clemons discuss racism in America, and share practical steps you can take if you are struggling with the question, “What can I do?” Access the show notes below, search for Vantage Point on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or gracecov.org/vantagepoint.  Practical Steps: Have conversations with your African American friends, coworkers, and/or spiritual family.  Attend, participate and/or serve at a Black Lives Matter’s protest.  Take time to educate yourself.  Use your voice on social media and/or through legislation and political change. Take time to pray and share the Gospel.  Recommended Resources:  1 John 5:14  Jeremiah 5  Be the Bridge by Latasha Morrison Divided by Faith by Michael O. Emerson & Christian Smith  The Color of Compromise by Jemar Tisby  Before the Mayflower: A History of the Negro in America, 1619 - 1962 by Leronne Bennett Black Labor, White Wealth: The Search for Power and Economic Justice by Claud Anderson  Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch Did this episode help you see your faith, life, and culture more clearly? If so, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Follow us on @gracecovya. 

It's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. day, so celebrate it by watching films about civil rights or read about the inspiring man himself. Selma (DVD)- https://goo.gl/7WH2E8 Selma (BLU-RAY)- https://goo.gl/M48VMC Ghosts of Mississippi (DVD)- https://goo.gl/Q1TbYA The Long Walk Home (DVD)- https://goo.gl/5fYVSt Lee Daniel's The Butler (DVD)- https://goo.gl/zHCms2 Lee Daniel's The Butler (BLU-RAY)- https://goo.gl/drfLA1 A Raisin in the Sun (DVD)- https://goo.gl/Venp7G A Raisin in the Sun (BOOK)- https://goo.gl/Y51MV1 Loving (DVD)- https://goo.gl/aXSVtu Loving (BLU-RAY)- https://goo.gl/3cCLA7 Mississippi Burning (DVD)- https://goo.gl/ZsAiAi The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (DVD)- https://goo.gl/Bsy5uf 4 Little Girls (DVD)- https://goo.gl/C7z9fY American Experience: Freedom Riders (DVD)- https://goo.gl/EHSEPE Martin Luther King Jr., A Life (BOOK)- https://goo.gl/Y5hHbW The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr. (BOOK)- https://goo.gl/EgBkVU Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (BOOK)- https://goo.gl/NQiaUJ Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65 (BOOK)- https://goo.gl/W3m4ER At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68 (BOOK)- https://goo.gl/KXUzDS The Heavens Might Crack: The Death and Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. (BOOK)- https://goo.gl/F3HWhV

   Philanthropists in Silicon Valley Want Your Ideas The provincial Silicon Valley that was loathe to step outside of Northern California is practically ancient history. An industry that once shunned Washington, D.C.'s buttoned-up bureaucrats now leads in lobbying and campaign contributions. Increasingly, philanthropists in Silicon Valley are making investments that in many ways are changing the very structure of our institutions. The New York Times is running a series on the institutional investments Silicon Valley titans are making.  For example, Netflix's Reed Hastings and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg are making investments to enhance and experiment with innovative new educational tools and models. Other tech philanthropists have long invested billions to fight more global, humanitarian problems, such as climate change and malaria. They also offer microloans to small businesses in developing nations. The election of Donald Trump to the presidency as not caused the mass tech exodus from Washington that was initially feared. Indeed, while Big Tech and the Trump administration remain worlds apart on net neutrality, there is some common ground. Issues like cybersecurity, government efficiency, and the effect of artificial intelligence on jobs are largely bipartisan. It is now inside-the-beltway institutions that are struggling to tweak their own insular tendencies. What should policy professionals be thinking about as they develop their outreach efforts to philanthropists in Silicon Valley? How does tech sector philanthropy work? The goal of this episodes is to help answer these questions and more as you structure your efforts. Bio Gina Dalma (@ginadalma) is Special Advisor to the CEO and vice president of government relations at the Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF). SVCF is the largest community foundation in the world, with more than $8 billion in assets under management. Gina is responsible for leading SVCF's ongoing lobbying efforts in Sacramento and its emerging efforts in Washington, D.C.  SVCF's California lobbying work is currently centered around education, affordable housing, immigration and economic security. In Washington, D.C., SVCF hopes to be a leading voice on topics that have the potential to advance the philanthropic sector. Gina was pivotal in the passage of the California Mathematics Placement Act of 2015, which Gov. Brown signed into law on Oct. 5, 2015. SVCF sponsored this legislation. She serves as a member of the California Department of Education's STEM Taskforce Advisory Committee. She is also a member of the National Common Core Funders Steering Committee and an Advisory Board Member of the Silicon Valley Education Foundation. Prior to her promotion to special advisor in 2015, Gina was SVCF's director of grantmaking. In that role, she led the grantmaking team in using a diverse set of tools, including strategic investments, to solve our region's most challenging problems. She also led SVCF's education grantmaking strategy, as well as the Silicon Valley Common Core Initiative. Prior to joining SVCF, Gina was director of innovation at the Silicon Valley Education Foundation. Before moving to the United States, Gina held several positions related to urban economic development and regulatory economics in the federal and state public sector in Mexico. She holds a Bachelor of Science in economics from ITAM in Mexico City, a Master of Science in economics from the University of London and a Master of Arts in international policy studies from Stanford University. Resources Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963 by Taylor Branch News Roundup FCC's Net Neutrality Initial Comment Window Closes The FCC's initial comment period regarding its proposed rules to overturn  the Obama-era net neutrality rules closed on Monday. The comments span the gamut. Some commenters favor overturning the existing rules. Other commenters advocated for new legislation that would replace the FCC's rules. Still others advocated for upholding the existing rules entirely, without new legislation. A couple of data points this week on net neutrality -- Civis Analytics released one showing 81% of Americans are against blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization of some sites over others. Interestingly, Civis Analytics counts Verizon Ventures and Alphabet Chair Eric Schmidt among its investors. Another poll, this one by INCOMPAS and the GOP-polling firm IMGE, showed 72% of Republican voters oppose throttling and blocking sites like Netflix. Further, a Morning Consult released a report showing Senators who support net neutrality enjoy high approval ratings. Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey has a 55% approval rating, and Oregon Senator Ron Wyden has an approval rating of 61%. America's Cybersecurity Issues Intensify Verizon announced that "human error" that resulted in misconfigured security settings caused the personal data of some 6 million Verizon customers to be leaked online. We're talking customer phone numbers, names, and PIN codes. Apparently, an Amazon S3 storage server's settings were set to public instead of private. Selena Larson has the full story at CNN Money. As far as Russia is concerned--President Trump keeps equivocating. One day he says he thinks maybe Russia interfered with the election. The next day, he's publicly less sure. This is all amidst an intensifying investigation that has zeroed in on Trump's son, Donald Jr. Trump senior also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Germany 2 weeks ago, as you know, at the G20 Summit in Hamburg.  After that meeting, Trump talked about needing to move forward with forming a cybersecurity unit with Russia. President Trump said he had questioned Putin about the hacks and that Putin had vehemently denied them. Republicans and Democrats quickly condemned the president's statements, questioning  the president's trust of Russia. Then, 3 days later, the Trump administration moved to limit federal agencies' use of Kaspersky Labs. Kaspersky Labs is the Russia-based cybersecurity firm.  Several officials believe the Kaspersky may be a Trojan Horse the Kremlin uses to hack government data. You can find coverage in the Washington Post by Phillip Rucker, as well as Politico, by Eric Geller, and Reuters' Phil Stewart.   Meanwhile, Joe Uchill reported in the Hill on a new poll conducted by the cyberscurity firm Carbon Black which shows 1 in 4 voters do not plan on voting due to cybersecurity concerns. Feds Uphold NSA's Gag Orders The gag orders the National Security Agency routinely uses when it requests identifying information from tech companies don't violate the 1st Amendment. That was the holding of a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decision last week in a matter brought by Cloudflare and Credo Mobile. The companies wanted to notify customers when the National Security Agency obtained their information. The companies argued that notifying customers of such inquiries is their First Amendment right. But the Court disagreed. As long as certain civil liberties protections are in place, those gag orders that prevent companies from notifying customers that the NSA is investigating them are Constitutional. Joe Uchill has the story in the Hill. New Documents Suggest Backpage.com Facilitated Sex Advertising/Trafficking New evidence suggests Backpage.com did know alleged prostitution was going on on its website and that it indeed allegedly helped facilitate it,. Johnathan O'Connell and Tom Jackman report for the Washington Post. Documents show Backpage apparently did things like troll its competitors' websites for sex ads. After finding sex ad buyers, Backpage allegedly had staffers and contractors contact those buyers and offer them free advertising .  A 16-year-old girl the FBI says was being trafficked on the site was found dead in a Chicago-area garage on Christmas eve. Again, you can find long form coverage in the Washington Post. To report sex trafficking happening anywhere--you can contact the National Human Trafficking Resource Center at 1-888-373-7888. That's 1-888-373-7888. You can also text HELP or INFO to 233733. That's 233733. And those coordinates are available 24 hours a day 7 days per week. DraftKings/Fanduel Merger a No-Go DraftKings and FanDuel--the two leading fantasy sports sites--have dropped merger talks. The Federal Trade Commission was blocking the merger after finding the merged company would have controlled between 80 and 90% of the fantasy sports market. Ali Breland reports in the Hill. Musk: AI is "Biggest risk we face as a civilization" At a meeting of the National Governor's Association last week, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said Artificial Intelligence is "the biggest risk we face as a civilization". He called for more effective regulations. The Economist also published a report that shows China and the U.S. in head-to-head competition for dominance in the Artificial Intelligence market.  The article suggests China may account for up to half of the world's Artificial Intelligence-attributable GDP growth by 2030. By 2030, AI is expected to comprise some $16 trillion of total global GDP. Racist Airbnb host to pay Asian customer $5,000 Finally, Tami Barker, the Airbnb host who denied a UCLA law student her reservation because she is Asian will have to pay $5,000 in damages to the student, Dyne Suh, and take an Asian American studies course. "It's why we have Trump", is what Barker wrote to Suh via the Airbnb app. "I will not allow this country to be told what to do by foreigners," she said.

Jaemin and Gabe discuss making writing an effortless habit, the birthday blues, online dating woes, new favorite podcasts, microfiber towels, and more! Send us thoughts, feedback, and Quick Picks of your own at guyswithfeelingsshow@gmail.com. Show Notes (4:00) What Are You Bringing to the Table? • Gabe: The Birthday Blues…why is this such a prevalent thing? • (14:15) Jaemin: How I finally made writing an effortless, enjoyable habit (after struggling for over a decade). (28:25) Quick Picks • Gabe's #1: Making your own almond milk. • (31:31) Jaemin's #1: New favorite podcast: The Daily by the New York Times. • (34:51) Gabe's #2: Chrome extension for finding email addresses: Hunter • (37:18) Jaemin's #2: Ulysses writing app (for Mac and iOS) • (41:40) Gabe's #3: Parting the Waters : America in the King Years 1954-63 by Taylor Branch • (44:55) Jaemin's #3: Antibacterial microfiber towels infused with silver. (Norwex, E-Cloth) Find Us Online • Gabe's twitter – Gabe's latest blog post: “My Top 6 Books of 2016”” • Jaemin's twitter – Jaemin's latest blog post: “My Favorite Podcasts of 2017” • Music for the podcast: “As Colorful As Ever” by Broke For Free

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch has selected eighteen essential moments from the Civil Rights movement as presented in his "America in the King Years" trilogy and has written new introductions to set each passage in historical context. "For nearly 25 years, since publication of Parting the Waters," says Taylor Branch, "teachers have pressed upon me their need for more accessible ways to immerse students in stories of authentic detail and import. The goal here is to accommodate them and others by careful choice."Taylor Branch is the author of Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-1963; Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65; At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68; and The Clinton Tapes. In addition to the Pulitzer, he has won the National Book Critics Circle Award.Presented in partnership with Open Society Institute - Baltimore. Recorded On: Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Branch's talk focuses on reinterpreting the legacy of Martin Luther King in the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and how the ideals of the Civil Rights Movement can be carried on amidst concerns for national security and public safety. Branch is the award-winning writer of a multi-volume history of the Civil Rights Movement and the work of Martin Luther King, Jr.: "Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63" and "Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-5." These exhaustive treatments of the early history, personalities and politics of the Civil Rights Movement—representing 13 years of writing and research—have established Branch as a national authority, and he frequently advised President Clinton on racial matters and civil rights issues during his terms.