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About WillWill is recovering System Administrator with a decade's worth of experience in technology and management. He now embraces the never-ending wild and exciting world of Information Security.Links: Color Health: https://www.color.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/willgregorian TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at the Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: This episode is sponsored in part by CircleCI. CircleCI is the leading platform for software innovation at scale. With intelligent automation and delivery tools, more than 25,000 engineering organizations worldwide—including most of the ones that you've heard of—are using CircleCI to radically reduce the time from idea to execution to—if you were Google—deprecating the entire product. Check out CircleCI and stop trying to build these things yourself from scratch, when people are solving this problem better than you are internally. I promise. To learn more, visit circleci.com.Corey: Up next we've got the latest hits from Veem. Its climbing charts everywhere and soon its going to climb right into your heart. Here it is!Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I'm Corey Quinn. Sometimes I like to talk about my previous job being in a large regulated finance company. It's true. I was employee number 41 at a small startup that got acquired by BlackRock. I was not exactly a culture fit, as you probably can imagine by basically every word that comes out of my mouth and then imagining that juxtaposed but they're a highly regulated finance company.Today, my guest is someone who knows me from those days because we worked together back in that era. Will Gregorian is the head of Information Security at Color Health, and is entirely too used to my nonsense, to the point where he becomes sick of it, and somehow came back around. Will, thanks for joining me.Will: Hello. How are you?Corey: It's been a while, and so far, things are better now. It turns out that I don't have—well, I was going to say I don't have the same level of scrutiny around my social media usage that you do at large regulated finance companies anymore, but it turns out that when you basically spend your entire day shitposting about a $1.8 trillion company in the form of Amazon, oh, it turns out your tweets get an awful lot of scrutiny. Just, you know, not by the company that pays you.Will: That's very true. And you knew how to actually capitalize on that.Corey: No, I sort of basically figured that one out by getting it wrong as I went from step to step to step. No, it was a wild and whirlwind time because I joined the company as employee 41. I was the first non-developer ops hire, which happens at startups a fair bit, and developers try to interview you and ask you a bunch of algorithm questions you don't do very well at. And they say, “Well, I have no further questions. Do you?”And of course, there's nothing that says bad job interview like short job interview. “Yeah, just one. What are you actually working on in an ops context?” And we talked about, I think, migrating from EC2 Classic to VPC back in those days, and I started sketching on the whiteboard, “Let me guess it breaks here, here, and here.” And suddenly, there are three more people in the room watching me do the thing on the whiteboard.Long story short, I get hired and things sort of progressed from there. The acquisition comes down and then how, uh, we suddenly, it turns out, had this real pressing need for someone to do InfoSec on a full-time slash rigorous basis. Which is where you came in.Will: That's exactly where I came in. I came in a month after the acquisition, if I remember correctly. That was fun. I actually interviewed with you, didn't I?Corey: You did. You passed, clearly.Will: I did pass. That's pretty hard to pass.Corey: It was fun, to be perfectly blunt. This is the whole problem with startup FinTech in some ways, where you're dealing in regulated industries, but at what point do you start bringing security in, as someone—where that becomes its own function? And how do you build that out? You can get surprisingly far without it until right afterwards then you really can't. But for a startup in the finance space, your first breach can very much be something of a death knell for the company.Will: That's very true. And there's no really good calculation on when you bring those security people in, which is probably the reason why—brace yourself—we're talking about DevSecOps.Corey: Oh, good. Let's put more words into DevOps because goes well.Will: Yeah. It does. It really does. I love it. You should look at my Twitter feed; I do make fun of it. But the thing is, it's mostly about risk. And founders ought to know what that risk is, so maybe that's the reason why they hired me because they felt like there's existential risk around brand and reputation, which is the reason why I joined. But yeah, [sigh] fundamentally, the problem with that is that if you hire a security practitioner, especially the first one, it's kind of like dating, in a way—Corey: Oh, yes.Will: If you don't set them up correctly, then they're doomed to be failed, and there are plenty of complexities as a result. Imagine you're a scrappy FinTech startup, you have a bunch of developers, they want to start writing code, they want to do big and great things, and all of a sudden security comes in and says, “Thou shalt not do the following things.” That's where it fails. So, I think it's part culture, part awareness from a founder perspective, part DevOps because let's face it, most of the stuff happens in infra side. And that's not to slam on anybody. And delicious goes on.Corey: Yeah. Something that I developed a keen appreciation for when I went into business for myself after that and started the Duckbill Group, is that when you talk to attorneys, that was really the best way to I found to frame it because they've been doing this for 2000 years. It turns out InfoSec isn't quite that old, although occasionally it feels like some of the practices are. Like, you know, password rotation every 30 days. I digress.And lawyers will never tell you what to do, or at least anyone who's been doing this for more than six months. Instead, the answer to everything is, “It depends. Here are the risk factors to consider; here are the trade-offs.” My wife is a corporate attorney and I learned early on not to let her have any crack at my proposal documents in those days because it's fundamentally a sales document, but her point was, “Well, this exposes you to this risk, and this risk, and this risk, and this risk.” And it's, “Yes, I'm aware of all of that. If I don't know how to do what I do, effectively, I'm not going to be able to fulfill this. It's not the contract; it is the proposal and worst case I'll give them their money back with an apology and life goes on.”Because at that point, I was basically a tiny one-man band, and there was no real downside risk. Worst case, the entity gets sued into oblivion; I have to go get a real job again. Maybe Amazon's hiring, I don't know. And it's sort of progressed from there. Left to their logical conclusion and letting them decide how it's going to work, it becomes untenable, and it feels like InfoSec is something of the same story where the InfoSec practitioners I've known would not be happy and satisfied until every computer was turned off, sunken into concrete, and then dropped into Challenger Deep out in the Pacific.Will: Yep. And that's part of the issue is that InfoSec, generally speaking, hasn't kept up with the modern practices, technologies, and advancements around even methodologies and culture. They're still very much [unintelligible 00:06:32] approaching the information security conversation, militaristically speaking; everything is very much based on DOD standards. Therein lies the problem. And funny enough, you mentioned password rotation. I vividly remember we had that conversation. Do you remember that?Corey: It does sound familiar. I've picked that fight so many times in so many different places. Yeah. My current thing that drives me up a wall is, in AWS's IAM console, you get alerts for any IAM credential parents older than 90 days and it's not configurable. And it's, yes, if I get a hold of someone's IAM credentials, I'm going to be exploiting it within seconds.And there are studies; you can prove this empirically. Turns out it's super economical to mine Bitcoin in someone else's Cloud account. But the 90-day idea is just—all that does—the only good part of that to me is it enforces that you don't have those credentials stashed somewhere that they become load-bearing and you don't understand what's going on in your infrastructure. But that's not really the best-practice hill, I would expect AWS to wind up staking out.Will: Precisely. And there lies the problem is that you have basically industry standards that really haven't adopted the cloud mentality and methodologies. The 90-day rotation comes from the world of PCI as well as a few other frameworks out there. Yeah, I agree. It only takes a few seconds, and if somebody is account—for example, in this case, IAM account—has programmatic access, game over.Yeah, they're going to basically spin up a whole bunch of EC2 instances and start mining. And that's the issue is that you're basically trying to bolt on a very passe and archaic standard to this fast-moving world of cloud. It just doesn't work. So, things have gotten considerably better. I feel like our last conversation was, what, circa 2015, '16?Corey: Yeah. That was the year I left: 2016. And then it was all right, maybe this cloud thing has legs? Let's find out.Will: It does. It does. It actually really does. But it has gotten better and it has matured in dramatic ways, even on the cybersecurity side of the house. So, we're no longer having to really argue our way through, “Why do we have to rotate passwords every 90 days?”And I've been part of a few of these conversations with maybe the larger institutions to say, look, we have compensating controls—and I speak their language: ‘compensating controls'—you want to basically frame it that way and you want to basically try to rationalize why, technically speaking, that policy doesn't make sense. And if it does, well, there is a better way to do it.Corey: I feel very similarly about the idea of data being encrypted at rest in a cloud context. Yeah in an old data center story this has happened, where people will drive a pickup truck through the wall of the data center, grab a rack into the bed and peel out of there, that's not really a risk factor in a time of cloud, especially with things like S3 where it is pretty clear that your data does not all live in easily accessible format in one facility. You'd have to grab multiple drives from different places and assemble it all together however it is they're doing it—I presume—and great. I don't actually need to do any encryption at rest story there. However, every compliance regime out there winds up demanding it and it's easier for me to just check the box and get the thing encrypted—which is super easy, and no noticeable performance impact these days—than it is for me to sit here and have this argument with the auditor.It's one of the things I've learned that would arguably make me a way better employee than I was when we worked together is I've learned to pick my battles. Which fights do I really need to fight and which are, fine, whatever, click the ridiculous box. Life goes on.Will: Ah, the love of learning from mistakes. The basic model of learning.Corey: Someday I aspire to learn from mistakes of others instead of my own. But, you know, baby steps.Will: Exactly. And you know, what's funny about it is that I just tweeted about this. EA had a data breach and apparently, their data breach was caused by a Slack conversation. Now, here's my rebuttal. Why doesn't the information security community come together and actually talk about those anti-patterns to learn from one another?We all keep it in a very in a confidential mode. We locked it away, throw the keys away, and we never talk about why this thing happened. That's one problem. But, yeah, going back to what you were talking about, yeah, it's interesting. Choose your battles carefully, frankly, speaking.And I feel like there's a lesson to be learned there—and I do experience this from time to time—is that, look, our hands are tied. We are basically in the world of relevance and we still have to make money. Some of these things don't make sense. I wholeheartedly agree with my engineering counterparts where these things don't make sense. For example, the encryption at rest.Yeah, if you encrypt the EBS volume, does really get you a whole lot? No. You have to encrypt the payload in order to be able to secure and keep the data that you want confidential and that's a massive lift. But we don't ever talk about that. What we talk about and how we basically optimize our conversations, at least in the current form, is let's harp on that compliance framework that doesn't make sense.But that compliance frameworks makes us the money. We have to generate revenue in order to remain employed and we have to make sure that—let's face it, we work in startups—at least I do—and we have to basically demonstrate at least some form of efficacy. This is the only thing that we have at our disposal right now. I wish that we would get to the world where we can in fact practice the true security practices that make a fundamental difference.Corey: Absolutely. There's a bunch of companies that would more or less look all the same on the floor of the RSA Expo—Will: Yep.Corey: —and you walk up and down and they're selling what seems to be the same product, just different logos and different marketing taglines. Okay. And then AWS got into the game where they offered a bunch of native tools that help around these things, like CloudTrail logs, et cetera, and then you had GuardDuty to wind up analyzing this, and Macie to analyze this, but that's still [unintelligible 00:12:12], and they have Detective on top of that, and Security Hub that ties it all together, and a few more. And then, because I'm a cloud economist, I wind up sitting here and doing the math out on this and yes, it does turn out the data breach would be cheaper. So, at what point do you stop hurling money into the InfoSec basket on some level?Because it's similar to DR; it's a bit of a white elephant you can throw any amount of money at and still get it wrong, as well as at some point you have now gone so far toward the security side of things that you have impaired usability for folks who are building things. Obviously, you need your data to be secure, but you also need that data to be useful.Will: Yep. The short answer to that is, I would like to find anybody who can give you the straight answer for that one. There is no [unintelligible 00:13:00] to any of this. You cannot basically say, “This is a point of stop.” If you will, from an expenditure perspective.The fundamental difference right now is we're trying to basically cross that chasm. Security has traditionally been in a silo. It hasn't worked out really well. I think that security really needs to buck up and collaborate. It cannot basically remain in a control function, which is where we are right now.A lot of security practitioners have the belief that they are the master of everything and no one is right. That fundamentally needs to stop. Then we can have conversations around when we can basically stop spending the expenditure on security. I think that's where we are right now. Right now, it still feels very much disparate in a not-so-good way.It has gotten better, I think; the companies in the Valley are really trying to basically figure out how to do this correctly. I would say the larger organizations are still not there. And I want to really, sort of, sit from the sideline and watch the digital transformation thing happen. One of the larger institutions just announced that they're going to go with AWS Cloud, I think you know who I'm talking about.Corey: I do indeed.Will: Yeah. [laugh]. So, I'm waiting to see what's going to happen out of that. I think that a lot of their security practitioners are up for a moment of wake-up. [laugh].Corey: They really are. And moving to cloud has been a fascinating case study in this. Back in 2012, when I was working in FinTech, we were doing a fair bit of work on AWS, so we did a deal with a large financial partner. And their response was, “So okay, what data centers are you using?” “Oh, yeah, we're hosting in AWS.”And their response was, “No, you're not. Where are you hosting?” “Okay, then.” I checked recently and sure enough, that financial partner now is all-in on Cloud. Great. So, I said—when one of these deals was announced—that large finance companies are one of the bellwether institutions, that when they wind up publicly admitting that they can go all-in on cloud or use a cloud provider, that is a signal to a lot of companies that are no longer even finance-adjacent, but folks who look at that and say, “Okay, cloud is probably safe.”Because when someone says, “Oh, our data is too sensitive to live on the cloud.” “Really? Because your government uses it, your tax authority uses it, your bank uses it, your insurance underwriter uses it, and your auditor uses it. So, what makes your data so much more special than that?” And there aren't usually a lot of great answers other than just curmudgeonly stubbornness, which, hey, I'm as guilty of as anyone else.Will: Well, I mean, there's a bunch of risk people sitting there and trying to quantify what the risk is. That's part of the issue is that you have your business people who may actually be embracing it, but then you—and your technologists, frankly speaking. But then you have the entire risk arm, who is potentially reading some white paper that they read, and they're concluding that the cloud is insecure. I always challenge that.Corey: Yeah, it's who funded this paper, what are they trying to sell? Because no one says that without a vested interest.Will: Well, I mean, there's a bunch of server manufacturers that are going to be left out of the conversation.Corey: A recurring pattern is that a big company will acquire a startup of some sort, and say, “Okay, so you're on the cloud.” And they'll view that through a lens of, “Well, obviously of course you're on the cloud. You're a startup; you can't afford to do a data center build-out, but don't worry. We're here now. We can now finance the CapEx build-out.”And they're surprised to see pushback because the thing that they miss is, it was not an economic decision that drove companies to cloud. If it started off that way, it very quickly stopped being that way. It's a capability story, it's if I need to suddenly scale up an entire clone of the production environment to run a few tests and then shut it down, it doesn't take me eight weeks and a whole bunch of arguing with procurement to get that. It takes me changing an argument to, ideally a command line or doing some pull request or something like that does this all programmatically, waiting a few minutes and then testing it there. And—this is the part everyone forgets—McLeod economic side—and then turning it back off again so you don't pay for it in perpetuity.It really does offer a tremendous boost in terms of infrastructure, in terms of productivity, in terms of capability stories. So, we're going to move back to a data center now that you've been acquired has never been a really viable strategy in many respects. For starters, a bunch of you engineers are not going to be super happy with that, and are going to take their extremely hard-to-find skill set elsewhere as soon as that becomes a threat to what they're doing.Will: Precisely. I have seen that pattern. And the second part to that pattern, [laugh] which is very interesting is trying to figure out the compromise between cloud and on-prem. Meaning that you're going to try to bolt-on your on-prem solutions into the cloud solution, which equally doesn't work if not it makes it even worse. So, you end up with this quasi-hybrid model of sorts, and that doesn't work. So, it's all-in or nothing. Like I said, we've gotten to the point where the realization is cloud is the way to do it.Corey: This episode is sponsored by our friends at Oracle HeatWave is a new high-performance accelerator for the Oracle MySQL Database Service. Although I insist on calling it “my squirrel.” While MySQL has long been the worlds most popular open source database, shifting from transacting to analytics required way too much overhead and, ya know, work. With HeatWave you can run your OLTP and OLAP, don't ask me to ever say those acronyms again, workloads directly from your MySQL database and eliminate the time consuming data movement and integration work, while also performing 1100X faster than Amazon Aurora, and 2.5X faster than Amazon Redshift, at a third of the cost. My thanks again to Oracle Cloud for sponsoring this ridiculous nonsense. Corey: For the most part, yes. There are occasional use cases where not being in cloud or not being in a particular cloud absolutely makes sense. And when companies come to me and talk to me that this is their perspective and that's why they do it, my default response is, “You're probably right.” When I talk about these things, I'm speaking about the general case. But companies have put actual strategic thought into things, usually.There's some merit behind that and some contexts and constraints that I'm missing. It's the old Chesterton's Fence story, where it's a logic tool to say, okay, if you come to a fence in the middle of nowhere, the naive person, “Oh, I'm going to remove this fence because it's useless.” The smarter approach is, “Why is there a fence here? I should probably understand that before I take it down.” It's one of those trying to make sure that you understand the constraints and the various strategic objectives that lend themselves to doing things in certain ways.I think that nuance gets lost, particularly in mass media, where people want these nuanced observations somehow distilled down into something that fits in a tweet. And that's hard to do.Will: Yep. How many characters are we talking about now? 280.Corey: 280 now, but you can also say a lot with gifs. So, that helps.Will: Exactly, yeah. A hundred percent.Corey: So, in your career, you've been in a lot of different places. Before you came over and did a lot of the financial-regulated stuff. You were at Omada Health where you were focusing on healthcare-regulated side of things. These days, you're in a bit of a different direction, but what have you noticed that, I guess, keeps dragging you into various forms of regulated entities? Are those generally the companies that admit that they, while still in startup stage, actually need someone to focus on security? Or is there more to it that draws you in?Will: Yeah, I know. There's probably several different personas to every company that's out there. You have your engineering-oriented companies who are wildly unregulated, and I'm talking about maybe your autonomous vehicle companies who have no regulations to follow, they have to figure it out on their own. Then you have your companies that are in highly regulated industries like healthcare and financial industry, et cetera. I have found that my particular experience is more applicable to the latter, not the former.I think when you basically end up in companies that are trying to figure it out, it's more about engineering, less about regulations or frameworks, et cetera. So, for me, it's been a blend between compliance and security and engineering. And that's where I strive. That doesn't mean that I don't know what I'm doing, it just means that I'm probably more effective in healthcare and FinTech. But I will say—you know, this is an interesting part—what used to take months to implement now is considerably shorter from an implementation timeline perspective.And that's the good news. So, you have more opportunities in healthcare and FinTech. You can do it nimbly, you can do things that you generally had to basically spend massive amounts of money and capital to implement. And it has gotten better. I find myself that, you know, I struggle less now, even in the AWS stack trying to basically implement something that gets us close to what is required, at least from a bare minimum perspective.And by the way, the bare minimum is compliance.Corey: Yes.Will: That's where it starts, but it doesn't end there.Corey: A lot of security folks start off thinking that, “Oh, it's all about red team and pentesting and the rest, and no, no, an awful lot of InfoSec is in fact compliance.” It's not just, do the right thing, but how do you demonstrate you're doing the right thing? And that is not for everyone.Will: I would caution anybody who wants to get into security to first consider how many different colors there are to the rainbow in the security side of the house, and then figure out what they really want to do. But there is a misconception around when you call security often, to your point, people kind of default to, “Oh, it's red teaming.” Or, “It's basically trying to break or zero-days.” Those happens seldom, although seems they're happening far more often than they should.Corey: They just have better marketing now.Will: Yeah. [laugh].Corey: They get names and websites and a marketing campaign. And who knows, probably a Google Ad buy somewhere.Will: Yep, exactly. So, you have to start with compliance. I also would caution my DevOps and my engineering counterparts and colleagues to, maybe, rethink the approach. When you approach a practitioner from a security side, it's not all about compliance, and if you ask them, “Well, you only do compliance,” they're going to may laugh at you. Think of it as it's all-inclusive.It is compliance mixed with security, but in order for us to be able to demonstrate success, we have to start somewhere, and that's where compliance is—that's the starting point. That becomes sort of your northern light in a referential perspective. Then you figure out, okay, how do we up our game? How do we refine this thing that we just implemented? So, it becomes evolving; it becomes a living entity within the company. That's how I usually approach it.Corey: I think that's the only sensible way to go about these things. Starting from a company of one to, at the time is recording, I believe we're nine people but don't quote me on that. I don't want to count noses. One of the watershed moments for us when we started hiring people who—gasp, shock—did not have backgrounds as engineers themselves—it turns out that you can't generally run most companies with only people who have been spending the last 15 years staring at computers. Who knew?—and it's a different mindset; it's a different approach to these things.And because again, it's that same tension, you don't want to be the Department of No. You don't want to make it difficult for people to do their jobs. There's some low bar stuff such as you don't want people using a password of ‘kitty' everywhere and then having it on a post-it note on the back of their laptop in an airport lounge, but you also don't want them to have to sit there and go through years of InfoSec training to make this stuff makes sense. So, building up processes like we have here, like security awareness training, about half of it is garbage; I got to be perfectly honest. It doesn't apply to how any of us do business. It has a whole bunch of stuff that presupposes that we have an office. We don't. We're full remote with no plans to change that. And it's a lot of frankly, terrible advice, like, “Never click a link in email.” It's yeah, in theory, that makes sense from a security perspective, but have you met humans?Will: Yeah, exactly.Corey: It's this understanding of what you want to be doing idealistically versus what you can do with people trying to get jobs done because they are hired to serve a purpose for the company that is not security. “Security is everyone's job,” is a great slogan and I understand where it's going, but it's not realistic.Will: Nope, it's not. It's funny it's you mentioned that. I'm going through a similar experience from a security awareness training perspective and I have been cycling through several vendors—one prominent one that has a Chief Hacking Officer of sorts—and amazingly enough, their content is so very badly written and so very badly optimized on the fact that we're still in this world of going to a office or doing things that don't make sense. “Don't click the link?” You're right. Who doesn't click the link? [laugh].Corey: Right. Oh, yeah. It's a constant ongoing thing where you continually keep running into folks who just don't get it, on some level. We all have that security practitioner friend who only ever sends you email that is GPG encrypted. And what do they say in those emails?I don't know. Who has the time to sit there and decrypt it? I'm not running anything that requires disclosure. I just don't understand the mindset behind some of these things. The folks living off the grid as best they can, they don't participate in society, they never have a smartphone, et cetera, et cetera. Having seen some things I've seen, I get it, but at some point, it's one of those you… you don't have to like it, but accepting that we live in a society sort of becomes non-optional.Will: Exactly. There lies the issue with security is that you have your wonks who are overly paranoid, they're effectively like the your talented engineer types: they know what they're talking about and obviously, they use open-source projects like GPG, et cetera. And that's all great, but they don't necessarily fit into the contemporary context of the business world and they're seen as outliers who are basically relied on to do things that aren't part of the normal day-to-day business operations. Then you have your folks who are just getting into it and they're reading your CISSP guides, and they're saying, “This is the way we do things.” And then you have people who are basically trying to cross that chasm in between. [laugh].And that's where the security is right now. And it's a cornucopia of different personalities, et cetera. It is getting better, but what we all have to collectively realize is that it is not perfect. To your point, there is no one true way of practicing security. It's all based on how the business perceived security and what their needs are, first and foremost, and then trying to map the generalities of security into the business context.Corey: That's always the hardest part is so many engineering-focused solutions don't take business context into account. I feel very aligned with this from the cost perspective. The reason I picked cost instead of something like security—because frankly, me doing basically what I'm doing now with a different position of, “Oh, I will come in and absolutely clear up the mistakes you have made in your IAM policies.” And, “Oh, we haven't made any mistakes in our IAM policies.” You ever met someone for who not only is that true, but also is confident enough to say that? Because, “Great. We'll do an audit. You want to bet? If we don't find anything, we'll give you a refund.” [laugh]. And it's fun, but are people going to call you with that in the middle of the night and wake you up? The cloud economics thing, it is strictly a business hours problem.Will: Yeah, yeah. It's funny that you mention that. So, somebody makes a mistake in that IAM cloud policy. They say, “Everybody gets admin.” Next thing you know, yes, that ends up causing an auth event, you have a bunch of EC2 instances that were basically spun up by some bad actor, and now you have a $1 million bill that you have to pay.Corey: Right. And you can get adjustments to your bill by talking to AWS support and bending the knee. And you're going to have to get yelled at, and they will make you clean up your security policies, which you really shut it down anyway, and that's the end of it. For the most part.Will: I remember I spun up a Macie when it had just came out.Corey: Oh, no.Will: Oh, yeah.Corey: That was $5 per gigabyte of data ingested, which is right around the breakeven point of hire a bunch of college interns to do it instead, by hand.Will: Yeah, I remember the experience. It ended up costing $24,000 in a span of 24 hours.Corey: Yep.Will: [laugh].Corey: And it was one of the most blindsidingly obvious things, to the point where they wound up releasing something like a 90% pay cut with the second generation of billing. And the billing's still not great on something like that. I was working with a client when that came out, and their account manager immediately starts pushing it to them and they turn to me almost in unison, and, “Should we do it?”—good. We have them trained well, and I, “Hang on,”—envelope math—“Great. Running this on the data you have an S3 right now would cost for the first month, $76 million, so I vote we go with Option B, which is literally anything that isn't that, up to and including we fund our own startup that will do this ourselves, have them go through your data, then declare failure on Medium with a slash success post of our incredible journey has come to an end; here's what's next. And then you pocket the difference and use it for something good.”And then—this is at the table with the AWS account manager. Their response, “So, you're saying we have a pricing problem with Macie?” It's like well, “Whether it's a problem or not really depends on what side of that transaction [laugh] you're on, but I will say I'll never use the thing.” And only four short years later, they fixed the pricing model.Will: Finally. And that was the problem is that you want to do good; you end up doing bad as a result. And that was my learning experience. And then I had to obviously talk to them and beg, borrow, and steal and try to explain to them why I made that mistake. [laugh]. And then finally, you know [crosstalk 00:29:52]—Corey: Oh, yeah. It's rare that you can make an honest, well-intentioned mistake and not get that taken care of. But that is not broadly well known. And they of course can't make guarantees around it because as soon as you do that you're going to open the door for all kinds of bad actors. But it's something where, this is the whole problem with their billing model is they have made it feel dangerous to experiment with it. “Oh, you just released a new service. I'm not going to play with that yet.”Not because you don't trust the service and not because you don't trust the results you're going to get from it, but because there's this haunting fear of a bill surprise. And after you've gone through that once or twice, the scars stick with you.Will: Yep. PTSD. I actually learned from that mistake, and let's face it, it was a mistake and you learn from that. And I feel like I sort of honed in on the fact that I need to pay attention to your Twitter feed because you talk about this stuff. And that was really, like, the first and last mistake that I made with a AWS service stack.Corey: Following on my Twitter feed? Yeah, first and last mistake a lot of people make.Will: Oh, I mean, it was—that's too, but you know, that's a good mistake to make. [laugh]. But yeah, it was really enlightening in a good way. And I actually—you know, what's funny about it is if you start with a AWS service that has just basically been released, be cautious and be very calculated around what you're implementing and how you're implementing it. And I'll give you one example: AWS Shield, for example.Corey: Oh, yeah. The free version or the $3,000 per month with a one-year commitment?Will: [unintelligible 00:31:15] version. Yeah, you start there, and then you quickly realize the web application firewall rules, et cetera, they're just not there yet. And that needs to be refined. But would I pay $3,000 for AWS Shield Advanced or something else? I probably will go with something else.There lies the issue is that AWS is very quick to release new features and to corner that market, but they just aren't fast enough to, like, at least in the current form—you know, from a security perspective, when you look at those services, they're just not fast enough to refine. And there is, maybe, an issue with that, at least from my experience perspective. I would want them to pay a little bit more attention to, not so much your developers, but your security practitioners because they know what they're looking for. But AWS is nowhere to be found on that side of the house.Corey: Yeah. It's a hard problem. And I'm not entirely sure the best way to solve for it, yet.Will: Yeah, yeah. And there lies a comment where I said that we're crossing that chasm right now…. We're just not there yet.Corey: Yeah. One of these days. If people want to hear more about what you're up to and how you view these things, where can they find you?Will: Twitter.Corey: Always a good decision. What's your username? And we will, of course, throw a link to it in the [show notes 00:32:33].Will: Yeah, @willgregorian. Don't go to LinkedIn. [laugh].Corey: No. No one likes—LinkedIn is trying to be a social network, but not anywhere near getting there. Thank you so much for taking the time to basically reminisce with me if nothing else.Will: This was awesome.Corey: Really was. Will Gregorian, head of information security at Color Health. I'm Cloud Economist Corey Quinn and this is Screaming in the Cloud. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you've hated this podcast, please leave a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice along with an ignorant comment telling me why I'm wrong about rotating passwords every 60 days.Corey: If your AWS bill keeps rising and your blood pressure is doing the same, then you need the Duckbill Group. We help companies fix their AWS bill by making it smaller and less horrifying. The Duckbill Group works for you, not AWS. We tailor recommendations to your business and we get to the point. Visit duckbillgroup.com to get started.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble.

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In 2006, Angie and Will Scott, COO and CEO and co-founders, started Search Influence as a technically oriented search, social, and digital marketing agency, supported with tracking and attribution, and demonstrating value across very complex systems. Challenged at the beginning to find people with the needed skills, the agency outsourced its production work and developed an intensive training cycle and “robust” documentation for new hires. Will claims that, to this day, the agency's internal-facing superpower is training and education.  For the agency's first six years, SEO required seeding web content with relevant keywords. Will says that today's content has to be more nuanced . . . that SEO is now “more about meeting the customer where they are in the buyer's journey.” The agency concentrates on three verticals: midmarket healthcare (driving patient visits to individual practitioners on up to regional medical centers and, on the practice side, generating more leads), higher education, and tourism – market segments where the strategically complex buyer's journey is characterized by “multiple systems between a customer's first interaction with the brand and actually closing the sale.” When the real estate market crashed in 2008, two years after Hurricane Katrina destroyed New Orleans and decimated the region's small businesses, the national economy took a downturn. New Orleans was still rebuilding. Tourism was booming. Medical and – in particular, elective medical – remained strong. At a time when many companies were failing, Search Influence . . . grew. Unlike many agencies, Search Influence does not try to “do it all.” Outsourcing work that is not in its areas of concentration (SEO and paid advertising) and bringing on partners to provide services complementary to its quantitative efforts keeps the agency focused and nimble. Client websites are built by a cadre of website development partners. Early on, the agency built a process, an internal editorial team, and platforms to manage external freelancers who produced as much as 10,000 pieces of content monthly for a large direct-to-SMB digital marketing company. That creative management arm is still in place today. Angie questions whether it makes sense to try to develop “side skills” when the agency can so easily partner with “top talent.” With its practice built around content, the Search Influence developed an internal tool, UpScribed, that morphed into an external-facing platform. Through UpScribed, other marketers (including those who are not Influence clients) get direct access to the Search Influence content team. When Covid “shuttered” a lot of New Orleans's small businesses, the purposely overstaffed agency went to work for its clients . . . for free. That's taking a rare, long-range view on things. The same clients they keep afloat today will be tomorrow's even-more-dedicated customers. In this interview, Angie, who has an accounting background, talks about maintaining organizational balance. Will identifies a valuable list of free business development networks and ecosystems available to help small enterprises. They can be found on their agency's website at: searchinfluence.com or on their blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I'm joined today by Angie and Will Scott. They are the COO and CEO and co-founders at Search Influence based in New Orleans, Louisiana. Welcome to the podcast, Angie and Will. ANGIE: Thank you. We're excited to be here. WILL: Thanks, Rob. ROB: It's a treat to have you here. We don't always get a little tag team like this, so that is an exciting change of pace. Why don't you start us off by telling us about Search Influence and what the agency's superpower is? WILL: Search Influence, Angie and I started it together more than 15 years ago. We started rather technical. I had come out of a position where I was very focused on SEO, so that's what we started with. Over the span of time, though, what we have decided our internal-facing superpower is, is training and education. Because we started in 2006, it wasn't really easy to go out and find folks who had the skills we needed, so we did do a lot of training. And to this day, we remain robust documentation and a training cycle for all new hires. Externally, we feel like the things that we do really well are still more in the technical realm. Our name is Search Influence, so search is a big part of where we spend our time. But we've also spent a lot of time thinking about tracking and attribution and how we actually demonstrate value across very complex systems. Our top verticals in which we work are healthcare, higher ed, and tourism. And in almost every one of those cases, there are multiple systems between a customer's first interaction with the brand and actually closing the sale, in whatever way that happens. ROB: I can certainly think that through. We're talking about healthcare – what part of healthcare? Obviously, it's a journey. We're not going to the ER here. What segment of the healthcare market is representative, would you say? WILL: Our focus has historically been on the midmarket, so think a handful of practitioners up to say a regional medical center. Very much about driving patient visits, and on the practice side, more leads. ROB: This is I'm coming to an area, I'm trying to figure out where I should go, or it might have an existing doctor and it's an evolution over time of where my loyalty is going to go. There's a journey there. There's a journey in travel. All of that makes sense. I can certainly see – you talked about 2006; there was I would say a lot of science around SEO, and it has evolved into art and science, to an extent. How have you thought about evolving your team and the documentation as there has become more of – I would almost say Google and the search engines have moved more towards searcher satisfaction with what they found, which is kind of an art. WILL: Yeah, in the early days, say 2006 through probably 2012-2013, it was easier to be a little more heavy-handed, to think about content primarily as a vehicle for keywords to correlate to what people were searching for. I think in the time since then, we and any company that tries to practice SEO in a serious way have learned that the content actually has to be more about meeting the customer where they are in the buyer's journey. And that's a much more nuanced piece of content than one where you're trying to have an appropriate keyword density and blah, blah, blah, and highly targeted internal links and that kind of thing. ROB: Right on. You started in 2006; a few years in, we hit a weird economic spot and the market of search was rotating at that time as well. How did you think through and evolve through that transition to emerge healthy on the other side? Maybe it was always healthy to an extent, but I don't know. The tourism thing was probably down a little bit if you were in that market at the time. WILL: New Orleans is interesting on a lot of levels. In 2008, when everybody else was suffering from the real estate market crash, we were booming because it was two years after Katrina. Where everybody else was seeing people drop the keys off at their mortgagor and walk away, we were still in a heavy rebuilding phase. Also, with the focus on medical, particularly elective medical – that was really a heavy piece for us at that time – there wasn't much of a downturn. We actually grew through that recession. ANGIE: Right. Our largest focus, though, at that point was medical. We were – I don't know, lucky or saw something coming, I don't know. WILL: I prefer brilliant. [laughs] ANGIE: [laughs] We almost felt bad at that time, I remember. It's like when your baby is sleeping through the night and no one else's is and you don't want to say that they are. I think we would talk about if somebody asked, but we just didn't talk about it because we felt bad. It was like, “We're growing.”  ROB: And that's been an echo for this year for a lot of people. This past year, this COVID, 15-16 months now, some people – restaurant industry, they're just scrapping to get by. A few restaurants figured out how to nail takeout and delivery, and they're doing better than ever. And then some folks in the digital realm are just doing great, growing. But it's hard to talk about. WILL: Totally. Sadly, we are not among them, because we did have a bunch of revenue in tourism and attractions leading into COVID. ANGIE: But they're starting to come back as the recovery comes. WILL: Yeah. And we did this thing where because we were intentionally overstaffed – we didn't cut nearly as much as we should have if we were trying to meet revenue. So we had staff and we reached out to our customers who were paused because of budget, and we created this thing – our core values spell CHARGE. We marketed it as the “Recharged Fund.” We put our team to work for free for those clients who were effectively shuttered because of the pandemic. ROB: That's a pretty bold move, and I wonder, when you first started doing that, how long did you think it was going to be before things echoed back, and when did you start wondering again? WILL: A handful of weeks. [laughs] ANGIE: Like everyone else. WILL: I was actually out of town and Angie was responsible for shutting the office down on March 13th. I don't think at any time until many, many weeks later we thought that it was going to be more than a handful of weeks that we were out of the office. ROB: That was a rude awakening for a lot of us. “Oh wait, this basement setup I'm in? This is a lifestyle.” That's when I went back to the office and I grabbed some tables and chairs and I said, “Okay, this is going to be for real. I'm bringing home a screen, I'm bringing home anything I want to see for the next few months.” ANGIE: Right. I think everybody had that happen. We did the same thing. We plotted out a very careful schedule for everybody to be able to come one by one and meet me at the office to get any equipment or furniture or anything that they needed so that they could set up some sort of workspace once you realized this may be life. [laughs] ROB: If we rewind a little bit, we mentioned earlier that you are co-founders. Talk about the journey that let you both into a place at the same time where you're like, “Hey, let's start Search Influence and drop whatever we were doing before.” What did that jump look like? WILL: At that time, we had come from working together – we actually met at work, which is I think part of what makes it so effective for us. But what happened was we found ourselves at the beginning of 2006 still in that Katrina hangover, if you will. I had actually just exited another company, and we were looking for what we were going to do next. We had the good fortune that Angie and I don't have the same skillsets. Angie is a businessperson. She has a degree in accounting and has spent her whole career in that side of the businesses, whereas I, oddly enough, have a degree in architecture, but I've spent my whole adult career on the more creative and development side. We saw this opportunity, especially post-Katrina, that there were a lot of small businesses that were decimated. It actually wasn't too much unlike right now, except that the infrastructure didn't exist for these companies to go online as they had to after Katrina. Angie's family runs a chiropractic clinic, and we saw them as sort of a prototype. They had been located in a place called Chalmette. They were the Chalmette Chiropractic Clinic. Chalmette is a New Orleans suburb that you really don't hear enough about in the context of Katrina, but it flooded from two directions, and one of those directions came through an oil field. So it wasn't just wet; it was wet and oily. We really had to restart their business online. For a little while, the Chalmette Chiropractic Clinic was practicing out of our garage. And then, because it was 2006, we were able to build their brand rather quickly online, rebuilding them as New Orleans Chiropractic and ultimately the Maple Street Chiropractic Clinic. ANGIE: And making sure that their patients could find them. At that point in time, it wasn't just about cellphone service and so forth. People were searching online for where did they go, where did they set back up. Thankfully, Will had exited; I still had my current role, an accounting and HR role at a business, so we were able to not only have the time, because I had moved into consulting, but also have the funds and also the time to really get it going and truly focus on the business between both of us. I think we were lucky and we also had an agreement that we would only start a business that didn't require going out and finding investors or getting loans. So we were able to get it going just between the two of us and devote everything we had to it. ROB: What sort of business were you working in together when you met? WILL: That business morphed over the time that we were there. It was originally a website business, and then we moved into online Yellow Pages. You remember Yellow Pages, right? ROB: I do. I sure do. WILL: We actually put them online so that they looked like the book, which was –  ANGIE: Weird. [laughs] ROB: It reminds me a little bit – I had a friend in the agency business who exited his agency, and what they used to do was take the corporate earnings reports and he would put them on CD-ROMs and make it look just like the real thing, but on a CD-ROM and maybe a little bit interactive. He built a good business of it. So you can never underestimate what that looks like. You can see how that would lead adjacently, then, to the search side where you would have some of those technical chops of how to do that right. I can see the transition there, for sure. ANGIE: Right. WILL: It really was. I remember having a conversation with a guy who was at Yellow Pages. It was shortly after I'd exited that business and I was thinking about maybe going to work for them, and I said to him, “What's your biggest priority for these phonebooks?” He said, “Anti-scraping technology.” He turned it around and asked me the same question: “What would be your biggest priority?” I said, “Making our data as accessible to Google as humanly possible.” So clearly, I didn't get that job. ROB: Yeah, there's a little bit of a strategy delta there. But somehow those businesses managed to wander around. I knew some folks here a few years ago who were working for YP.com, which is YellowPages.com. I don't know if they're in there selling to car dealerships and TV stations or what they're doing, but those businesses remain around. There was obviously at some point a step where it made sense, Angie, for you to join full-time as well. What did it look like when you started growing the team? Who did you need to join? At some point I'm sure it came from “We're doing this, we're not taking investors, we're not taking on debt” to “Hey, this is kind of a good business. We can grow it.” ANGIE: Right. If I had to guess, looking back, I maybe spent six more months consulting within the other company. Having two of us full-time devoted to it was not necessary when you only had – we weren't even employees; we weren't even getting paid. So once we started having employees, you start to have to build all the processes, the handbook, the payroll. I was bookkeeping sitting at night for an hour, no big deal, super easy. But once we started having employees and growing that side of the business, that's really when I think it took over for me. Our first employee was actually somebody who stepped in and worked with Will really closely on what we now would look back and probably call account management, because it was strategy, and then we had – at the time we were outsourcing all of our production work. They would basically strategize with our production teams outside of the company. ROB: Got it. That's an interesting little strategy there. Different people still recommend, even at scale, having different percentages of the work go outside the firm and then have some burstable capacity outside of there. I think probably one part of your journey where you've had to make a lot of decisions is what to add and what not to add. You mentioned you're in three verticals now, but you could be in 12 or 20, and there's probably some services you've added over time and some you haven't. How have you navigated that decision of “We're going to add this line of service; we're not going to add this line of service. We're going to add this vertical; we're not going to add this vertical”? How have you navigated the temptation to do everything? WILL: I think it was about 10 years ago that I coined the phrase, “If we really want to lose money, we'll take a website client.” The thing is, there's a very different skillset there. What we do instead is we have partners that we work with to build websites at different scales for different clients if they need them. But the things that we do really, really well are much more quantitative. We also developed a practice around content, so much so that we built an internal tool that we ultimately turned into an external-facing tool that we call UpScribed. It's a platform that other marketers can use to have direct access to our content team. We had a period in time where we were the backend for a company that has been acquired – and they may still have the same name – Yodel, who was one of the big direct to SMB digital marketing companies probably between 2007 and 2013-2014. We were doing as much as 10,000 pieces of content a month for them. ROB: Wow. WILL: As you can imagine, we didn't employ the writers and editorial staff to do all of that, so we built a process where we had an internal editorial team and platforms to manage external freelancers for the actual creative of that. ANGIE: That we will use today. WILL: Yeah, that we still use today. And UpScribed has clients using it external to Search Influence as well. ANGIE: Because it turns out that is an agency problem. [laughs] Which is probably not a surprise to anyone. I think right now – it's funny; I was actually chuckling inside my head that you maybe were a fly on the wall in the last few weeks, because we've been discussing literally writing out the services that we are going to spend all of our focus and time on. We do quarterly planning, we do annual planning. These are the services that we should be planning around, and that's SEO and paid search. Sorry, SEO and paid advertising. I have to get my words right. Then those other services that we do still offer, like website builds and PR and so forth, we would find really good partners if we don't already have them. A lot of it we already have a great partner for. And to your point of what things we outsource, we outsource and partner with different people who are really good at that stuff. There's people out there who are very good at video production. Why would we build that? That would be silly, because there's some really great video production companies out there that we can use, and use their strengths. WILL: And it turns out that somewhere in the last decade, people have forgotten how to do SEO. I think as everybody's gotten on the whole inbound content marketing bandwagon, we've forgotten the basic blocking and tackling of SEO. Oftentimes, we'll come across a site that has great content that's completely inaccessible to search. I think of myself as having grown up in SEO because back in 1999, we were using GoTo.com to try to figure out what keywords we were going to stuff into the metatags. So really, for us, when we think of the things that we've trained our team on historically and where we feel like we're adding a lot of value, it's in those places that are technical and quantitative and ultimately that we're able to demonstrate very good return on those investments because of that tactical focus. ROB: Has there ever been a service area that helped teach you some of these lessons? Like you dabbled in it and you realized – maybe it was websites, maybe there was something else. Sometimes our eyes get a little bit big for our appetites and we say, “Oh sure, let's do that too,” and then we get our hand smacked one way or another. ANGIE: I think maybe it wasn't services and it was more so certain clients, probably, that led us down “Yeah, we can figure out cross-domain tracking for this and that,” and then you get into it and you're like, whoa, this was a much bigger thing than we thought it was. But then you're there and you've got to figure it out. So I think it was probably more the client side that drove us down some of these more technical areas. ROB: That makes sense. If we broaden that a little bit, what are some bigger picture lessons you've learned along the way that if you were picking up the phone to yourself 15 years ago, you'd be like, “Hey, you're going to want to do this. Don't do that. Do this differently”? WILL: This is one of those things – and I think time and maturity allow you to really look at these things in the right way. Almost all of those lessons helped us to better understand the kind of company that we want to be. A great example is we spent about five years with a single reseller representing way too much of our business. The kind of work that they needed was much more fulfillment, much more high throughput work, and it was not as satisfying for our team to execute on. It didn't make for the greatest work environment for some of our team for a while. And then after all that, they decided to take that business in-house, which meant that they were taking a really big chunk of our revenue with them. I think that was a really good lesson learned. When you find yourself with too much concentration in one customer, you've really got to get busy making sure that you're doing the business development work that makes them not so monolithic. I think anybody who's ever worked with customers knows, when a customer comes to you and says, “Hey, I want to give you five times as much money,” you don't say, “Hey, sorry, we can't take that because that would screw up our customer concentration.” ANGIE: Right, because a lot of people do talk about that. They say, “Don't let a single customer get to X percentage of your revenue.” It's like, don't let them? So, say no? Who's going to do that? No one's going to do that. So really, the answer is not that. It's when they offer that, you go and you find more of that in other clients. ROB: Notoriously – I'm here in Atlanta, and one of the bigger agencies here for a good while has been Moxie, and they're owned in a holding company now. But when they were acquired, at least if the street reports are to be believed, they had 200 or 300 people and 70% of their business was Verizon. Every time a new iPhone launched, they had to do all the in-store collateral, just fire drill. Are you going to say no to that? You've got 150 people you can put on the payroll to serve this client. You figure out how to grow out of it. I think what is often the case with some of these reseller, these channel relationships, these subcontract relationships, is sometimes they're selling a deal that you haven't quite figured out how to sell yet. Was that your experience? Or did their business look a lot like business you were bringing in yourself? WILL: It actually didn't look like the business we were bringing in ourselves. In fact, we found ourselves with two account management teams, one that was serving our direct clients and one that was serving this reseller. And there were a couple of other smaller resellers as well, and their lived experience day to day was very different, and their understanding of the work that we did also was very different. So it was hard to move somebody from that partner account management team to the direct account management team or vice versa and have them be Day 1 ready. ANGIE: The reseller was selling packages because you could sell them – you didn't have to understand everything. If you have a large sales team, it is much easier to hand them a package that says, “This is what you're getting on this month in Month 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,” whatever it is. It was the same work over and over, whereas our direct clients were much more about the marketing funnel and creativity and so forth. ROB: So even some of those clients may have been – would it be fair to say they were a little bit smaller where the direct engagement might not make sense? Was there a delta in deal size, or was it just a matter of the relationship? WILL: I think generally speaking, those that were coming in through our reseller partners were smaller than we would've approached directly. ANGIE: Yes. WILL: They were much more true SMB. The other thing that we talk about as an opportunity and that we try to tell new business owners about when we encounter them is that we didn't know how many services were available for small businesses when we started this up. Things like SBA's Small Business Development Center and all of the different networks and ecosystems. We literally had a meeting with one of those organizations, the local big entrepreneur ecosystem entity, and we sat down with them and we were like, “Hey, you guys are doing great things here. We'd love to get engaged. How can you help us out?” As we were talking to them, they started asking us questions like, “How many people do you have? How much revenue do you have?” At the end of the conversation, they were like, “You seem like the kind of people who could really help us out.” ROB: [laughs] Wow. WILL: Yeah. Not the plan. But I think there are so many of those services available that smaller entrepreneurs who are coming up in that classic startup ecosystem don't really have a sense of. ROB: What are a couple more of those that you would say someone should at least take a look at and not miss out on? Maybe New Orleans driven, maybe more national in scope. What should people pay attention to? ANGIE: Later on – probably much later on, I went through the 10,000 Small Businesses program, I guess you would call it. It's put on by Goldman Sachs, and I would say that's a really good one. And it is everywhere. They're all over the place. They do a really great job of walking through – you don't have to go there with questions. They assume you don't know anything and you're going to learn it in the classes. So that's a really good one. WILL: I was going to say we have a number of purpose-driven organizations that I think are opportunities as well. There's one called the Good Work Network that tends to work mostly with smaller businesses primarily in marginalized areas, and I'm sure that there are sort of sisters around the country. There's one called Vet Launch, which is focused specifically on veteran entrepreneurs. I would say that there are going to be dozens of these, and if you can find one that you can plug in consistent with their affinity, the resources are going to be invaluable. ROB: That's a great thought, to think about plugging into the affinity. It creates that extra link. Sometimes it's hard to ask for help, it's hard to ask for mentors, it's hard to ask for advice. Sometimes that linkage can be a relationship you incubate over time, but it sounds like a great shortcut you're talking about there, about navigating through a shared interest. That's a really great thought there. Angie, Will, I'm sure when people want to find Search Influence, I'm sure they can search for you and find you pretty quickly. But if people want to connect to you, how else should they go about finding you, connecting with you, and keeping track of what's next for Search Influence? WILL: Our website, searchinfluence.com, and our blog are really great places to start. We are pretty active as a company on Facebook and LinkedIn, and Instagram as well. Those are all great places to connect with us. ROB: It's not to be missed. LinkedIn in some ways seems to continue in effectiveness, even though – you probably have this worse than I do – the random connections. I don't know how you handle them. I get a lot more than I'd like to get, I'll put it that way. WILL: What's funny is that I've been getting a lot of them – a lot of my random connections lately have actually been somewhat relevant. So if I do choose to connect with folks, I'll say, “Hey, I connected with you because I'm interested in this thing that's in your bio. I'm not a buyer today, but I wanted to have you in my list of connections.” ROB: Nice. WILL: Especially when you're working B2B. When we're approaching folks who work in higher ed or who work in hospitals and health systems, they're on LinkedIn and they're paying attention. So from a cold outreach to start a conversation perspective, I find LinkedIn to be the most effective. ROB: Makes so much sense. Angie, Will, congratulations on building, growing, sustaining a meaningful business through making it through some challenging times and some good ones. Thank you for sharing your journey with us. It's really helpful. I think it's motivating, and there's great little tips all along the way to learn from. Thank you so much for sharing. ANGIE: Yes, thank you for having us. WILL: Yeah, Rob, thanks for having us on. I was glad to be introduced to your podcast because in prepping for this, I came across a number of episodes that I thought were really useful. ROB: Well, thank you. We all need to get outside our head sometimes, and that's part of it as well. Thanks for coming on. Be well. ANGIE: Thank you. ROB: Bye. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

“Sicherheitshalber” ist der Podcast zur sicherheitspolitischen Lage in Deutschland, Europa und der Welt. In Folge 45 sprechen Thomas Wiegold, Ulrike Franke, Frank Sauer und Carlo Masala zuerst über die Situation rund um Taiwan. Das aggressive chinesische Vorgehen gegen Hongkong legt die Frage nahe, ob die Republik China auf Taiwan, deren politischer Status umstritten ist, womöglich ein ähnliches Schicksal droht. Könnte China gar versuchen, sich den selbsterklärten demokratischen Inselstaat mit militärischen Mitteln einzuverleiben? Greifen dann die USA ein? Welche Konsequenzen hätte das - und kann Europa etwas tun? Im zweiten Teil begrüßen die vier Podcaster Frau Oberstarzt Dr. Stephanie Krause als Gast und wenden sich im Gespräch mit ihr der 2011 ausgesetzten Wehrpflicht zu. Haben die letzten zehn Jahre die Bundeswehr verändert? Und wenn ja, wie? Ist eine Freiwilligen-Bundeswehr mehr Profi-Truppe als die Wehrpflichtarmee? Abschließend wie immer der “Sicherheitshinweis”, der kurze Fingerzeig auf aktuelle, sicherheitspolitisch einschlägige Themen und Entwicklungen - diesmal mit neuen Gesprächen zur strategischen Stabilität zwischen den USA und Russland, dem “HMS Defender-Vorfall” vor der Insel Krim, einem von Drohnen begleiteten Eurofighter sowie langfristigen Finanzierungszusagen für Rüstungsprojekte. Taiwan: 00:02:30 Wehrpflicht: 00:43:14 Sicherheitshinweise: 01:29:51 Literatur, Langfassung: www.sicherheitspod.de Thema 1 - Taiwan Antoine Bondaz/Bruno Tertrais, Europe Can Play a Role in a Conflict Over Taiwan. Will It?, World Politics Review, 23.3.2021, https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/articles/29515/europe-can-help-prevent-a-taiwan-war Franz-Stefan Gady, Emerging Technologies and Future Conflict in the Asia-Pacific, IISS, https://www.iiss.org/publications/strategic-dossiers/asia-pacific-regional-security-assessment-2021 Philip Anstrén, Why Europe's future is on the line in the Taiwan Strait, New Atlanticist, 24.3.2021, https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/why-europes-future-is-on-the-line-in-the-taiwan-strait/ John Cena Apologizes to China for Calling Taiwan a Country, New York Times, 25.5.2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/25/world/asia/john-cena-taiwan-apology.html?searchResultPosition=10 Thema 2 - Wehrpflicht Unser Gast: Oberstarzt Dr. Stephanie Krause https://web.archive.org/web/20210120125823/https://www.bundeswehr.de/de/organisation/sanitaetsdienst/aktuelles-im-sanitaetsdienst/ein-regiment-in-frauenhand--5018904 Gesetz zur Änderung wehrrechtlicher Vorschriften 2011, Bundestagsdrucksache 17/4821, https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/17/048/1704821.pdf Jahresbericht der Koordinierungsstelle für Extremismusverdachtsfälle BMVg 2020, https://www.bmvg.de/resource/blob/5035922/12c56d83535897f117043e86041a91c8/Zweiter%20Bericht%20KfE%20%28Final%29.pdf Die geforderte Mitte. Rechtsextreme und demokratiegefährdende Einstellungen in Deutschland 2020/21, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, https://www.fes.de/index.php?eID=dumpFile&t=f&f=65543&token=be951e80f3f538cca04a67567b9da4b995a93c64 Sicherheitshinweise Frank: USA und Russland Dialog zu strategischer Stabilität https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/16/u-s-russia-presidential-joint-statement-on-strategic-stability/ Carlo: HMS Defender vor der Krim https://augengeradeaus.net/2021/06/britischer-zerstoerer-in-umstrittenen-gewaessern-vor-der-krim-neufassung/ Rike: Eurofighter verbunden mit Drohnen https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/schleswig-holstein_magazin/FCAS-Bundeswehr-testet-unbemannten-Drohnenflug-in-Jagel,shmag83926.html Thomas: Rekord-Verteidigungshaushalt https://augengeradeaus.net/2021/06/bundestag-gibt-fast-20-mrd-euro-fuer-ruestungsprojekte-frei-auflagen-unter-anderem-fuer-fcas-und-puma-schuetzenpanzer/

The On The Radar Podcast features music, interviews and studio performances from a Midwestern perspective. Episode 124 features the SECOND EVER Twin family band in KLASHING BLACK. This alternative pop duo from NW Ohio talked about finding and evolving their sound, dealing with the harshness of the internet, and believing in themselves in their songwriting. They also performed their newest song "Will It?" at Bike Rack Records, and shared the audio of their live performance of the song "Hold Us Down". Host: Christopher "Peapod" Daher Producer: Mark Miller and Michael Jones of Bike Rack Records Intro: ROVR "eh2fay" Logo: Flesh and Bone Design Subscribe and support us at www.ontheradarpc.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

Will Cady heads the Creative Strategy Team at Reddit, which he describes as a platform of more than 100,000 different, intent-driven, purpose-driven communities representing 100,000 distinct cultures . . . and an “incredible petri dish of niche subcultures that are emerging and influencing or becoming mainstream culture.” He says that “people go to Google to search for information . . . and to Reddit to search for what other people have found.”  Reddit's Creative Strategy team sits between these “very curious” subculture communities and the brands that want to find their place in these communities. Will says the Creative Strategy Team's mission of “turning curiosity into understanding” runs both ways . . . 1) brands need to understand the different cultures on a deeper level to know what is coming in the future and 2) Reddit need a deeper understanding of the brands and how they meet cultural needs of the different communities. He explains. “Brands are made up of humans” and, when these humans tell a story, they gain the ability to build powerful connections and customer trust. He says Reddit is a place where brands can be proud, vulnerable, ask forgiveness, explain changes in how they do business, find out what customers want . . . and to bring something to a community that was never before available. He says marketing today is not “going in the direction of building trust” . . . Building trust is already a critical component of today's marketing. Reddit is best known for the AMA, where people present their “positions” and invite people to “Ask Me Anything.” For brands, an ad looks like any Reddit post, but is delivered to an audience of people who go to pre-selected communities. This “promoted post” can host text, an image, a GIF, or a video.” The upvote and downvote mechanism is optional. Comments can be on or off. Will uses origami as a metaphor for this, where the promoted post is the piece of paper . . . which can be folded into any shape. A brand can engage Will's team to create promoted posts. However, the platform has been built to be incredibly rich in capabilities, but at the same time, simple, for those who want to go the “do-it-yourself” route.  The opportunity to use promoted posts to research market trends or test user perceptions is huge. Will provides this example: Chipotle had observed the variety of trending diets (paleo, keto), announced that it was developing “Lifestyle Bowls,” asked the groups following these diets what ingredients they wanted, and then launched the bowls, thanking those who had commented for helping to make the product “right” . . . with resounding success.  Will's personal history touches on music, mysticism, and marketing, all of which, he says, center on knowing, studying, and playing with what moves people. In addition to leading the Creative Strategy Team, he teaches meditation, reads tarot cards, and jams with musical groups . . . a bow to his 15-plus years as a professional musician. He used Reddit as his “secret weapon for learning” and a way to promote his music long before he took his first position with the company. He says the Reddit of the years from 2013 to 2016 “felt a little bit more like a Wikipedia or a Craigslist . . . (a) ubiquitous part of the internet, but it wasn't a business.” When he started working in sales at Reddit, the company did not have a viable ad product . . . the new and very small sales team had to build it.  Today, Will sees Reddit as a hybrid of tech and media, a bellwether of social trends, and a place for brands to build relationships with their customers. In order to move forward into the future, media, tech, marketing, and businesses in general will need good answers to three questions:  Why are we here?  What are we doing for humanity?  What are we doing for the world?” Interesting questions for all of us. Transcript Follows: ROB: Welcome to the Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Kischuk, and I am joined today by our guest, Will Cady. Will is the Head of Creative Strategy at Reddit, and Will's based in Los Angeles. Welcome to the podcast, Will. WILL: Thank you. Thank you for having me, Rob. ROB: I think everybody probably listening understands and knows Reddit on some level, so I think it would be interesting to understand your role within that Reddit world. WILL: The creative strategy team at Reddit, our mission is we turn curiosity into understanding. And Reddit, if nothing else, is full of curiosities. As a platform with over 100,000 different communities representing 100,000 distinct cultures, it's proven to be this incredible petri dish of niche subcultures that are emerging and influencing or becoming mainstream culture. What the creative strategy team does is we sit in between the community and the brands that want to activate and find belonging, find community on this platform, and we really provide understanding going both ways – understanding for those brands to look at all of these different cultures and understand them at a deeper level so that they can find their place, they can understand the future that's coming, and then also Reddit user behavior, they're very, very curious. They seek. They don't scroll. They're there for a reason. We want to pair that curiosity with a deeper understanding of the brands when they come in to talk about how their products, how their services are really meeting the needs of the cultures of the different communities that people are a part of. ROB: That's a fascinating place in the ecosystem. I love how you said that people seek. It really resonates with my own experience with Reddit. There's a lot of sites that you can go to and if you're not logged in, you don't feel like you're missing much. But if you're not logged in on Reddit, I feel like you're missing the world. It's not even like some sites where they feed content to you and you feel like you're being fed to an algorithm. It really is feeding curiosity. I think it would be interesting for us, Will, also to understand – I think you have a very interesting journey at Reddit yourself. Talk about how you came into this wild world of Reddit and what your own career path has been within the organization. WILL: It's a long and winding and strange journey. My career, by my expertise, I sit at this strange nexus point between music and mysticism and marketing. Today I'm leading the creative strategy team, also teaching meditation, doing strategy reports, doing tarot readings, all of the above, jam sessions and whatnot. For me, they all actually really come together in a very coherent way, which is not expected, but it's interesting. You look at music and marketing and mysticism. You look at all of these things, and really what they are at their center is knowing what moves people and studying what moves people and playing with what moves people. I spent about 15 to 20 years as a professional musician, building a meditation practice and all that, and when I moved from Boston to Los Angeles, I started to realize when I stepped into digital media at a music publisher magazine that there was a lot I had to learn about what resonates in culture. What actually catches and reverberates and becomes movements, becomes these really big mainstream cultural ideas. I got really, really fixated on that. I started to really longform my experiments with this. And I would always go to Reddit. Reddit was kind of my secret weapon for learning. It's how I discovered teachers like Alan Watts. It's how I promoted my music into different communities that utilized some of these audio lectures from Alan Watts. I saw my music videos go to the front page of Reddit All, all the time, and really drive hundreds of thousands of listens in a moment. As a marketer, I would always think, how can I understand what we're really trying to achieve here through the lens of the communities that this brand is trying to reach on Reddit? And then if I'm really lucky, how can I find a way to get this content that we're creating for this brand in front of the Reddit audience? At that time – this is about 2013 to 2016 – it's surprising how different media was, even really not that long ago. But looking narrowly at Reddit, Reddit felt a little bit more like a Wikipedia or a Craigslist. It was this ubiquitous part of the internet, but it wasn't a business. It wasn't something like a Facebook or a Twitter. I saw that Reddit was starting to hire some folks, and I knew. I knew that there was this incredible power on the front page of the internet that a lot of people around me in the media industry didn't really understand. So it was really a no-brainer for me to take that job, and it was an exploratory role. It was like, let's see what the Los Angeles market can be and do for Reddit. I started as a salesperson, and I was one of a very, very short list of people representing Reddit in a massive market. We basically said yes to every email and phone call that we got. We took all the meetings. We found that Reddit has a lot to offer everybody. If you want to do an AMA, you want to do some research in terms of market trends or user perceptions – all of these things that are around advertising, Reddit has value to add. We didn't have, really, a viable ad product in 2016. We had to build it. We've built a great platform now, but in that time in between, we really had to tell the story: “Listen, this is the most influential audience on the internet, and your brand's got to at least be listening to it, if not speaking to it. So let's keep talking. Let's figure out a way to build a partnership.” That became the basis of the playbook that is a massive part of the brand partnerships operation and is serviced by the creative strategy team. ROB: It's interesting; you started down this path. You mentioned the AMAs. When a marketer wants to think about the entry points to marketing on Reddit, obviously there are organic avenues – which you may enter at your own peril. When it comes to you, your team, what sort of entry points are possible on a self-service approach and what kind of entry points are a little bit more structured? WILL: The AMA is a really good metaphor for how to do Reddit in general because it's a conversation. It's a dialogue. You're coming to the platform, and when an AMA is happening, it's a live experience. It's an exchange between you and the community, and it's really based on this idea of being human. There's this thrill. It's so funny that it was so massive on Reddit so early because even though it's text-based, it's very fresh and relevant to some of the experiences we have right now where if it's a celebrity – John Boyega or Chris Pratt, Hosier, some of the AMAs I had the privilege to work on – the users in that thread were just so excited that they were on the same URL as somebody that they really admire and respect. You're working with that kind of excitement to create a moment of remarkable connection that feels really authentic, vulnerable, and human, and is not the kind of thing that you would typically see in a press junket. It was unexpected and it was different and it defied the way that things felt for fans before. Today, we do that with brands. The big truth here is that brands are made up of humans, and when the humans behind the brands show up and they tell a story, it's a moment to foster a very powerful connection that builds trust. Brands have a place where they can be proud, they can be vulnerable. We've had brands come to us and say, “We have a Super Bowl commercial. Let's talk about it.” That was the first time anybody on Reddit could say “I have a Super Bowl commercial.” That's a moment where brands are bringing something to the community that the community of people couldn't bring to themselves beforehand, and it created this excitement. We've had brands come to the community for mea culpa. “We're making a big transformation” or “We're trying to explain what has transpired over the last couple of months.” It's an opportunity to meet human to human, to recognize that there are human beings on other side of that keyboard and build trust from there. This is really where marketing is – not even headed, it's where it's at right now: thinking about building trust. The AMA has been around for a long time, and it's elegantly simple. Ask Me Anything. It represents the blueprint of everything that you can do with platforms like Reddit. ROB: And it's so helpful to have a coach like your team as someone's heading into that. So the AMA is one of those ad products that's available; what's the range of ad products that are available to a brand who's thinking about marketing on Reddit? WILL: This is interesting. Talking about the team, the creative strategy team is incredibly sophisticated at these things. They're so sophisticated that they make it easy. That's the important lesson that I've definitely learned on my path. Reddit has such a depth to it that there's so many exciting things you can do, but it's really remarkably easy, and you've got to start with what makes it easy. That's the focus of the creative strategy team. We can drive this thing at 150 miles per hour if you want, but let's start at 20. Crawl, walk, run. Let's do some interesting engagements here. From an ad standpoint, the atomic unit is called the promoted post. It looks like a Reddit post. It can host text, it can host an image, a GIF, a video. You can have comments off, you can have comments on. It's got the upvote mechanism, the downvote mechanism if you want to use that and get a great signal. And it looks and operates in the same exact way as any post on Reddit, the only difference being that through the targeting, you can control who does and does not see that media. The way that I look at things from the creative strategy team is through the metaphor of origami. [laughs] The promoted post is a piece of paper, and we make cranes, we make boats, we make all manner of different things out of that simple piece of paper. That's the AMA. That's the megathread, which is a vast, longform bit of text that explains all of the product details. Really great for our car buyers and our computer buyers and our tech audience. We do conversation posts where we do something like a writing prompt, where we co-create with our users. We put web comics in there. We put videos in there and GIFs and memes. But it's all one ad unit. So it's elegantly simple with the potential to be staggeringly sophisticated. ROB: When someone's thinking about getting into this atomic unit of a promoted post, is it something they can dabble in self-service? Do they need to engage with your team? There's certainly advantages for that sometimes, but can someone dip their toe in the water and fire up an ads account and a credit card? Or is it more complicated than that? WILL: They absolutely can. We have a self-serve platform, an ads manager. You can jump right into the promoted post and you can select your targeting. It has great parity with the kinds of ads managers you're going to see on other platforms. We've spent the last 3 to 4 years really investing in building that, and it's a great way in. ROB: It certainly sounds like it. When someone starts to think about how to do well on this, one thing I think we'll think about is targeting. How should we think about targeting? What's the menu of possibilities? Are you looking mostly at targeting people who follow a certain subreddit, people who have commented? What's a good targeting campaign look like? WILL: That's a great place to dive into now because the ads manager is going to look like what you experience elsewhere. You're going to be able to target based on interests, but what those interests are constructed by is slightly different than what you have elsewhere. It's not a social graph. It's not based off of people's identity, their information. It's based off of the communities that they go to. It's a community graph rather than a social graph. So if you have the interest category of auto enthusiasts, for example, that's going to serve your ad to people that are engaging with a constellation of subreddits like “What car should I buy?” or the Toyota subreddit or the WRX subreddit. Everything from the broad interest in cars to the make and the model. And Reddit has something that is also really remarkable here when it comes to this kind of targeting, and its intent. When you look at a community like “What car should I buy?”, when somebody's engaging in a community like that, they're not just interested in cars. They have the intent to buy a car. They are in the market. They are looking for that information. We have intent-driven, purpose-driven communities for everything imaginable – for vacuum cleaners and climate change and everything in between. ROB: I'm so glad you mentioned intent because that was certainly in the back of my mind. When you're talking about users following subreddits, it reminds me so much of the power that has made Google search so powerful for so long. It's always been that someone was intentional in what they were searching for, and you weren't just slicing demographics 10 different ways. It's really piquing my curiosity in a big way. I think something that leads us to that marketers should probably think about: what should marketers not do when they're entering into the world of marketing on Reddit? WILL: I love that you brought up the similarities with Google there. If Google is where you search for information, Reddit is where you search for what other people have already found. We've found that when it comes to the trust that people have in the information on products and news, Reddit was closer to Google than it was to the rest of social media in terms of scoring tremendously high on the trust that people put into that. Because it is a resource that people use for information. It's hard to find information that you can trust online right now. Reddit is a place that verifies through other people, like “Here's my actual experience.” So whatever that life moment that you go through – and I myself have gone through so many in the last couple years; I've gotten married, I've gotten a home, I've gotten a juice machine. [laughs] In each of those scenarios, I was using Reddit for my product journey to really figure out, what can I trust when it comes to learning how to go through this passage? For brands, I think they've got to really be cognizant of the role they should play in meeting people on that journey. There's value in simply being there, just knowing that Reddit is on the path to purchase and that there's an incredible amount of consideration that people are putting into that path when they're on Reddit. And just show up. Just show up and wave your hand and say, “Hey, happy to be here. This is our product, this is our info.” It's super simple. You can take your marketing that you're using in other channels and put it in the right place at the right time, knowing how important this platform and this audience is. And don't overthink that. Then beyond that, it's an opportunity to really engage. Once you've gotten some signal, place a few different bets, a few different targeting cohorts that you set up with your creative. See what's resonating. Maybe you might be surprised, actually, at who's engaging with your ads. Maybe it doesn't actually match your expectations. That might be a way to step into an intersectional audience that is really an opportunity that you hadn't considered. Begin to have a dialogue with them. Turn the comments on when you're ready (you can start with the comments off). Have a prompt and bring the humans behind your brand on board. Say, “This is our R&D team. We've noticed that you're changing the way we think about vacuum cleaners, the way we think about home gardening.” That's a huge space for transformation right now. Have a conversation. Show up authentically and really be there for them. To provide a story and a case study here, that's exactly what Chipotle did a couple of years ago. They released the Lifestyle Bowls, which were based off of the cultural observation that all of these diets were emerging, like the paleo diet, Whole30, keto, etc. We have communities for each of those, and they're robust and very, very active. So Chipotle with their ads, they turned the comments on and said, “We are making lunch items for your diet. What should we put in it?” They stayed in that conversation and they had a back-and-forth. When they came back around, they were able to say, “Lifestyle Bowls are out and you helped us know how to make them right. Here they are.” And the trust they earned was incredible. The call to action was very, very powerful because all of the Redditors who had participated in that said to their coworkers, their friends, their family, “We're going to lunch at Chipotle because I've got to try this bowl that I had a hand in creating.” It created a cultural moment in these niche subcultures that, as the tide rose on all of these different diets, Chipotle's Lifestyle Bowls rose with them. ROB: It's interesting that you mention that because Chipotle with those bowls – they actually come across as quite authentic all the way down to the store. I was at Chipotle a month ago and they had cauliflower rice, which I imagine is part of this, right? WILL: That's where that mission statement of the creative strategy team comes into play. We turn curiosity into understanding. At first it's like, cauliflower rice? That's a curiosity. It's strange. But then when you understand the reasons for that and where it comes from and how it fits into culture, it shows itself to be a tremendous opportunity. So what we want to do is highlight things like that early and often so that our partners have more time to develop their products and their marketing and be agile in the moment when things like that really come to bear. ROB: All the way down to the store, that entire initiative feels very authentic, very – not to say this inappropriately in a food context, but it feels organic. It just feels right. So it's awesome to see that stemming from the Reddit ecosystem. When you think about the different communities – obviously this has been a big year for Reddit news-wise. You may be tired of talking about it or you may not be, and it's not as much in the moment right now, but the entire Wall Street Bets, GameStop, crypto rotation – there's a few news cycles on that alone. What's interesting about that is it's not that that movement started this year; it's that that movement became visible this year. Are there some other communities that you think are maybe waiting for that moment? Are there types of conversation that you think might be driving a news cycle next month? WILL: I'm not tired of it. I'm grateful for it because it revealed a 10-year-old secret to everybody, which is that Reddit communities are staggeringly sophisticated and influential. I've been telling that story for a long time, and now I have a story that everybody recognizes and everybody has the full context on. Before, I was telling the story of McDonald's and Szechuan sauce and the Rick & Morty community, or the March for Science, or some of the fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders, or when Reddit flooded a hospital ward with pizzas for a young cancer patient. All of these really remarkable stories of Reddit doing exactly this for over 10 years, and now there's one that really has become the shorthand, where everybody saw and understands, I think in a very intuitive way, the power of Reddit. That's what GameStop and Wall Street Bets really represents. It's the power of Reddit on the world stage. And we know that it's going to happen again because this is Reddit doing what Reddit does. It's very well-spirited. It's the human spirit, and it's so important for the voice of communities to be able to influence culture in this way for the decades that are ahead of us. I think that there are quite a few communities right now that we can expect to see some similar kinds of moments from. It's rarified that you're going to have something that reaches the kind of stratospheric level of the GameStop moment because it was just this revelatory moment. But I think that what was learned by communities and the broader web and culture is that there are really powerful ways to vote with your dollars that we kind of understood as people beforehand, but now we have tools that we didn't have beforehand to really have a collective impact together. So I think we're going to see different versions of people voting with their dollars together in other sectors that are going to be really, really interesting. In a lot of what we saw with that, people were just throwing one dollar or five dollars into the pot or something like that, and there was this sense of collectivism and what we can do together. We're going to see that I think in a lot of other areas. I also think there are some more subtle shifts that are coming. I've been keeping an eye on the sustainability communities on Reddit for some time, and there's a whole underbelly of people that are raising their own chickens and making sourdough and growing vegetables in their backyard, and it's emerging into this – I always look for the language. I really like this community called Zero Waste. It represents an idea that I want to live a life that is not producing any waste. It's an aspirational lifestyle in a totally different direction than what we considered beforehand. This community was having a discussion earlier this week about whether or not brands belong in a community like this, and how they felt about seeing brands move towards product packaging and messaging that at its best is contributing to the cause and at its worst is what you would call greenwashing. There's an example of some soap company that had paper packaging for the soap, and when you peeled back the paper there was a plastic container on the inside. [laughs] The sentiment that came through in that community was that they really want brands to be a part of this. They're really, really encouraged to see that brands are stepping into changing the way they manufacture their products, that they're making pledges to support things like community gardens and all of the different circular systems that are going to save our planet and going to save all of us. They know that brands have influence. They know that brands have resources and power, and that can really shift things the way they like to see them. So I think we're going to see that influence not be one of those dramatic spike moments that Wall Street Bets was, but I think over the course of the next 10 years, it's going to be this protracted rising tide that is going to shift the way that we all think. I think that term, “zero waste,” is going to be very obvious to all of us in the future. But it's very clear to just a niche subculture on Reddit right now. ROB: It's going to be probably interesting. What strikes me about Wall Street Bets is you have this intersection of democratization. You have this democratized community on Reddit, but then you have the democratization of finance, and you have these apps where you can fire up an app and make an investment. At the intersection you're talking about with zero waste, there will be some communities who will – you'll probably be able to buy carbon credits and point them in places you can't think about right now. Some communities on Reddit will love that and use that, and some will hate it. You'll have all pieces of that out there. It seems like looking for areas where something tangible is being democratized is maybe a good place to keep an eye on Reddit.  WILL: Yeah. I don't know if we've got the time to really dive into the depth of this one here, but the very nature of the way we exchange value is changing. The digitization of currencies is supporting that, and there are currencies that belong to communities; there are currencies that belong to causes. All of that can facilitate a moment where the two things I described come together. You have a purpose – zero waste, sustainability – and you have the realization of the things that we can do when we vote with our dollars together. Those can come together and create real change in the world, and we're going to see that over and over and over again. ROB: And Reddit's been in the middle of that for longer than most with Reddit Gold and all that. It's interesting how long it's been hiding in plain sight on Reddit, is what I would say. WILL: Isn't it? It's crazy. [laughs] ROB: I think there's one other interesting thing to pull on. Reddit has this legacy of being – it just feels techy. It may have been unapproachable for some, but now so many digital natives – you've been at this forefront of – this is true in a couple of cases – Silicon Valley mindsets meeting the LA media landscape. That cultural alignment, what does that look like over time? How has it evolved in your time there? WILL: Wow. The LA/San Francisco connection is a really, really interesting one. There's a dynamic between tech and media. When I first started, it was like this denial that media could act like tech and that tech could act like media. Vastly, vastly different things. I would say both industries were kind of looking down their nose at each other. Over the following years, they've really seen a tremendous amount of interplay on the level of how the funding works and how the talent is hired and how the products are developed, and of course, the user bases. Is Netflix a media company or a tech company? It's really at a place right now where we're understanding that tech and media are very, very much a hybridized thing.  I think over the course of the next few years, that element that is very, very present in marketing around purpose and intent is going to come in. There are so many options when it comes to our media and there are some many options when it comes to our platforms that all of these businesses really need to think about their why and about the intent of their brand and the intent of their users, and build against that. I think there are other centers than San Francisco, New York, and LA that are really ahead when it comes to thinking about why. They're unexpected because they're different voices. The voices of sustainability, for example, are not coming from metropolitan cities. They're coming from places like Hawaii. They're coming from different mindsets altogether. That's I think a really, really exciting place as the soul goes back into business. Media and tech, for them to find their place in the future, and for marketing to find its place in the future, they have to have a good answer in terms of “Why are we here? What are we doing for humanity? What are we doing for the world?” ROB: Wow. It's such a great point to bring it down to. This has been a tremendous privilege. Thank you so much for this grand tour of how to think about Reddit for marketers, what the options are, and how to do so thoughtfully. I think the authenticity of the brand comes through in how you and your team are thinking about these things as well. WILL: Thank you. Thank you for giving me a platform for my voice. I appreciate the time.  ROB: Fantastic. Have a great one. WILL: You too. ROB: Bye. Thank you for listening. The Marketing Agency Leadership Podcast is presented by Converge. Converge helps digital marketing agencies and brands automate their reporting so they can be more profitable, accurate, and responsive. To learn more about how Converge can automate your marketing reporting, email info@convergehq.com, or visit us on the web at convergehq.com.

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I had a real fun talk with Kane and Kyle! Get into it, babes! Please check out their merch page! Every $1 spent = 1 tree planted https://klashing-black-merch.creator-spring.com/listing/kb-willit-light?product=935

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

Will It be delicious or down right vicious. Join in as we taste snacks from other countries as found in world market and random alcohols as well. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/myrandomworld/message

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

In this episode, Anna Jordan talks to Will Butler-Adams, managing director of Brompton Bikes. We discuss taking over the company from its founder and the future of manufacturing.   You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for more on business succession and international trade. Remember to like us on Facebook @SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lower case. Would you prefer to read Will Butler Adams' podcast interview instead? Hello and welcome to Small Business Snippets, the podcast from SmallBusiness.co.uk. I’m your host, Anna Jordan. Today we have Will Butler-Adams, managing director of Brompton Bikes. He started at Brompton in 2002 as a project manager, moved up to engineer director and decided to take on the role of MD when a rival company was going to buy the company out in 2008. After making some changes, production sped up and Brompton now sells 55,000 bikes per year, with key markets in the UK and China. A UK-based Brompton bike hire scheme was launched in 2011. Outside of the firm, Butler-Adams is a fellow at the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and the Royal Geographical Society as well as the City and Guilds of London Institute. He’s also a member of the British Manufacturing & Consumer Trade Advisory Group, consulting on post-Brexit trade deals outside the EU. We’ll be discussing what it’s like to take over a business from its founder and how to maintain brand loyalty. Anna: Hi Will. Will: Anna, good morning. Anna: How are you? Will: Well, very lucky. In the current climate, as we are seeing, some really, really challenging times both emotionally and also commercially, for many people globally. It's a pretty unprecedented time and we are finding ourselves as a business, one of the few sectors that has benefited from the current crisis. Anna: I understand you're in the factory right now. Will: Yep, I'm in the factory. We've traded non-stop throughout from the very first lockdown. And that has come with all sorts of challenges. But funnily enough, and we'll talk about a little bit more no doubt, that bicycle is a very, very useful tool in a situation like this. And there has been this sort of global enlightenment, to the value of something so humble as a bicycle. So, you know, we've contributed in our own peculiar way to try and to help people through this crisis. Well, I will start a little bit further back from here. When you when you bought the company, way back in 2008, you made a generous valuation estimate and you bought out the founder Andrew Ritchie's controlling stake in the company. Some might see that as a bold strategy. Why did you go for it at the time? Will: I joined the company in 2002, there were about 30 of us. Initially, I just thought I was going to muck about with a mad inventor making what looked like a fun and interesting product, not much more than that. And then [after] two or three years I'd move on. I was pretty young at 28, but the bike got under my skin and it affected my life. I wasn't naturally an urban liver. And yet, it's such fun living in London with this bike because it gave me this freedom. And I saw it had a similar, quite profound effects on our customers. That's very alluring and, in some respects, addictive. I was consumed by the company, entirely consumed by it. And Andrew, the inventor, is an absolute flipping genius. But he's not a builder of a business because he is much more of a sort of complete megalomaniac, detail, engineering right down in the nitty gritty. We're both engineers, but I'm more of a ‘vision, empowerment and grow’ engineer. And I wanted, by the time we got to 2008 – in fact, 2006 or 2007 – I wanted to commit my life to the product he'd invented, but I couldn't do it if he still had the control. The reality is that, even if you've made me the MD back then I wouldn't have had the control that I needed to do what I needed to do because I knew I needed to do things that he wouldn't approve of. He had to let go of control. It didn't mean I was then taking control because I never did. I just took out his controlling stake. But it then meant I had authority and autonomy to do what I knew needed to happen to the business for it to fulfil its potential. Were there signs that he [Ritchie] may have been getting to the point where he was more willing to give over some of the control? From what I've read, he was quite reluctant to delegate when he was in charge. Anna: Life isn't black and white. It's full of moments in time, and people, and there's a certain amount of luck. And it's whether you see the opportunity or the luck floating by and whether you jump on to it. But in this particular case, I think it was a moment in time where Andrew was getting so caught up in the detail. And when a business gets to a certain size, if you're trying to control everything, you've become the eye of the needle, and everything has to go through you. And you think that by recruiting people that you will find that then, you have less work to do. But if you are the person who is controlling everything, everything has to come through you. And by recruiting more people, you find you're even busier. That's what happened to Andrew: he got busier and busier and busier. It was making him unhappy. Because he was putting himself under so much pressure, there was a sort of nosedive where he was not enjoying himself because the business was becoming so successful. Also, I was being more confident. In the early days, the company was owned by him and his friends. His friends weren't Andrews. They were entrepreneurial, independent businesspeople in their own right. They could see and bring perspective and support Andrew to make the decision because they could see there was no way he could continue, because it wasn't his forte. So, they encouraged him to let go. It's worth saying that on many occasions, since then, he's vehemently regretted it because I've done things of course, which I knew I'd have to do that he didn't agree with. Tell me – what kind of protestations did he have? Will: It's about detail. Andrew is an inventor – in the absolute classic sense of the word. He spent 13 years, he hand-drew 1000s of drawings – technical drawings – not just for the bike, but how to make the bike and in insane detail. It’s something straight out of A Beautiful Mind. It's unreal that one human being could do what he did against a sort of backlog of everyone telling him, ‘What are you doing, wasting your time? You've tried, you fail, you're still at it, why are you still at it?’ He wouldn't give up. But he would worry about training and worry about tolerances, worrying about the grammar and would pick up on some problem, you know, six pages deep in our website, and ask me, ‘How would I let this happen?’ It's wrong, but in the grand scheme of things, when you're running a business and trying to do this and open up markets in Japan and an office in London developing this, he assumed that I would know everything and check every piece of written word and that I'd signed off every detail, but it doesn't happen like that. You have to find people better than you, you need to trust them, you need to allow them to make mistakes, just not mistakes that will take out the business. But his perception is that I was running the business – when it had 100 people, 200 people, 300 people, 400 people – in the same way that he ran the business when it had 40 people. That's just not possible. So that was the friction, and in some respects, still is a friction. In most cases, everything Andrew said was technically correct. It just wasn't the priority. And the problem is, when you're running a business and you're growing at some speed, you actually have to walk past things that are wrong. You're walking straight past something that is absolutely wrong. Unacceptable, not right. But you have to leave it because there's an even bigger wrong over there. You need to deal with the biggest [wrong]. It gives me huge pleasure that there are some things that I've been walking past for eight, nine, ten years. Finally, we've got the breadth and the capacity as a business to finally address some of these things that have been bugging me. But if you get distracted by every minutiae, as you're growing a business, you won't move the business forward because you'll never get to the most important thing that then allows you to move on to the lesser things and as you build down through the priority list. I think especially when you're starting a business, you're so used to playing all the roles, so that can be difficult to let go of. But interestingly, in Brompton’s case, when I joined, there were fewer than 30 people. I was the person running the machines. I rolled my sleeves up, spent three weeks running machines. The business was so small that that is what I did. That role has changed significantly. We now have offices around the world and we've got lots of people and I'm really doing nothing. That's a really tough call to design yourself out of a job, because there is no operational control in my role. Speaking of internationally – and you probably saw this coming – but I'd like to talk a bit about Brexit. We’re a week and a half in now. It's been ‘chaotic’, in a word, especially for exporters. I think that as somebody who has worked to advise on trade deals, and who wants to grow their market in other parts of Europe, especially for small business exporters, what do you think the forecast is for them, say the next three to five years? Will things get better? Will: What I would say – and this is not entirely directly answering your question, but indirectly does – when you're in business, you need to focus on things that you can control. You can control who you employ, you can control the culture of your organisation, how you present yourselves and what you do to inspire your team. What you can't control is FX (foreign exchange), what you can't control is Brexit. So, what you need to do is put in place strategies to mitigate the things that you can't control to allow you to get back to focusing on the things you can control. What happened with Brexit was, it started four years ago, we took a decision four years ago, to plan for the worst-case scenario. It took us about three months, the worst-case scenario hasn't then changed in three-and-three-quarter years, it's still the worst-case scenario. So, for the last three-and-three-quarter years, we've focused on growing our business innovating, distribution, communication – and we've doubled the size of our business. But what I saw over Brexit was many businesses got so caught up in worrying about something that they couldn't control, that they didn't do anything, they stagnated. They were worrying about the latest rumours – ‘I've heard it's that but maybe it's this or it could be this’. And I think in business, you need to not get distracted by things you can't control, focus on your core, focus on your added value, and manage the things you can't control by putting in place strategies to minimise the risk. Small business owners are so accustomed to planning ahead but without a lot of concrete information that's been difficult to do. Will: I'm not sure I agree. With a small business, you're more flexible than a bigger business, you're much more nimble. You have a tremendous advantage against some of the bigger players because you can adjust and you're smaller. I think it's not straightforward. It is possible to be able to try and mitigate those risks. And there aren't that many of them. Clearly Brexit is one, FX is another, trade tariffs is a third, but there aren't that many. And there's some good advice out there to support you. I know that Brompton has been open about being against planned obsolescence. This is where a company will manufacture a product so that it is unusable after a couple of years [or a certain period time], which is long enough where somebody can develop a connection with the product, but not so short that they get disengaged from the company and never buy from them again, there's regular income for that company. Phones are especially notorious for this practice. My question to you is that if a customer is only going to buy one Brompton bike for life, how do you maintain brand loyalty from customers? Will: The way you can maintain brand loyalty from customers is to give them a product that they may need to buy once in their life. Capitalism has done some amazing things – brought people out of poverty, it’s brought health, it’s brought education, but it has come at a cost to our planet. And certainly, in the last 50 years, increasingly. So, we have to rethink how we engage with consumerism and how we buy things and how we reuse things and don't just buy and chuck away and just, we're sucking value out of our planet, which our planet can't sustain. Apart from the fact that the customer must prefer the product they've had for a long time. If you've got some pots and pans that came from your granny or your parents or an old jacket or anything that's had longevity, you cherish it because it's given so much to and if you can keep it working for as long as possible, that makes total sense to me. Coming back to brand loyalty, there are things we can do to engage with our customers where they're having fun. We do races all round the world, not the last 12 months, but we do activities, we do events. And we want people to have fun, and this year with a fair wind we’ll make 70,000 bikes. I mean, they're like eight and a half billion people in the world of which nearly over 50 per cent live in cities. I mean, we haven't even started, the opportunities are immense. We want to create things, then actually what we want to do is when it's finished, which we're not out yet, we should be able to take the product back, recycle it and start all over again and have a full circular economy. Anna: Is that something that you're planning to do in future? Wil: Definitely. We need we need to do that, because there will come a point where the bikes that we were making 20 years ago, in some cases 15 years ago, have come to the end of their life, at which point for those bikes, we should be able to bring them back, take them apart for recycling, then round we go again. I've read that your marketing budget isn't huge, either. Will: I think the experience that a customer has with your product, too often, businesses are obsessed with selling you something. But that's not how you build a brand. A brand isn't what you feel when you bought it, you can buy anything. And the moment you buy and you have this sort of rush of, ‘Whoopee isn't this fantastic?’ The question is, go back to that same customer in two years’ time and say, you know that £100 you spent or that £300 you spent, was it worth it? And, sadly, in most cases against you might have never been used, or yeah, it was brilliant for about six months, and then it bust or something went wrong. There aren’t many things that that we absolutely cherish and love. I think the scope for us to be delivering a useful product, it's not just about buying, it's about looking after the customer for the life of the product. Things need looking after, which is why we have put in a lot of energy. If you like, our marketing budget goes into looking after the customers we already have – that's the most effective marketing budget. If the customers that you have really love their product, and when things go wrong, which they do, we look after them as best we can, then that's the best marketing you can get. So, spend your money on warranty or on customer service, customer support. And then when that's all perfect, you might have a little bit left over for doing some proactive marketing. But often people they forget about are the customer, they just want to go out and do this trend or get more new customers, forgetting about the ones they’ve already got. To round off, I'd like to talk a little bit about manufacturing in the UK. For a long time now it's dwindled, but then others have said, ‘Well, the UK is so innovative and it's still a very strong player in the manufacturing industry.’ In your view, where do you see it going in the next few years? Will: I think there is so much potential to manufacture in the UK, simply because the barriers to entry to doing efficient lean manufacturing are so much lower than they used to be. When I was at university, which is increasingly becoming quite a long time ago – Anna: Oh, I know the feeling! Will: Yeah! If you wanted to design something like a car, you needed a computer that filled up a room and they cost, in today's money, millions of pounds. So, the only companies that could afford the technology to allow you to design effectively were the Fords or the massive companies in the world. But you can buy a computer and start doing 3D design, you can get things printed in 3D in metal. If anything, manufacture’s become entrepreneurial again, because if you come up with an idea, if you can design it, you can print it, you can prove it, you can go on to social media, and then you can raise the money to get started. There's so much potential. The real sense of pride comes from, the reason that it's so satisfying with manufacture, is you see you’re creating something. It's that sense of creation, it's like growing plants – you're seeing something happen and come alive in front of you. You're creating something tangible – that's really, really satisfying. We've been encouraged and told that everything is on a computer and it's all noughts and ones. Actually, it’s the innate sense of pride about something tangible that's going out the door. I think actually the opportunities for it, not just in the UK but globally for manufacturing. Manufacturing doesn't need to be where there's cheap labour. Manufacturing is where there are the best ideas and robotics, semi automation, 3D printing, the cost of software and the ability to design, meaning the best ideas can sprout anywhere in the world, and you can manufacture locally, where the brains are. Anna: It would be a bit like, since the rise of social media and blogging, we've seen content creation go more into the individual’s hands, you feel like manufacturing can go from larger companies to individuals. Will: Definitely. It's a really positive thing because of disruption. I mean, if you look at things about flying taxis, people coming up, there are like 50,60,100 different companies around the world, all coming up with their different flying taxis. It was unthinkable 25 years ago, because it just wasn't possible for small businesses or small groups of individuals to try and come up with something so revolutionary, it would only be a LES four-digit or Nissan, or something – forget it. Yet, all these start-ups are doing it, because the whole engineering and manufacturing has been broken down and it makes it much more accessible. And if your idea is strong enough, if your passion burns bright enough, you can do it. Anna: Well, on that rather inspirational note, I'll leave it there. Thank you ever so much for coming on the podcast, Will. Will: Anna, it's my pleasure. Thank you for asking me. You can find out more about Brompton Bikes at brompton.com. You can also visit smallbusiness.co.uk for articles on business succession and international trade. Remember to like us on Facebook at SmallBusinessExperts and follow us on Twitter @smallbusinessuk, all lowercase. Until next time, thank you for listening.    

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

On today's FULL episode, we're going to discuss the latest travel industry news...and there's plenty OF it! Find us on social media: Facebook and Instagram Email us: hello@thetinlounge.com Articles we discussed: Train travel is experiencing its own version of the 'RV effect' Solo Travelers Plan to Travel More Often and More Sustainably US Travel Pushes for Specific Policy Actions as Spending Expected to Plunge A Guide to Understanding How Americans Will Be Traveling for the Holidays Some Say a COVID-19 Vaccine Will Be a Turning Point for Travel. Will It? How COVID-19 Has Changed the All-Inclusive Hotel Concept SeaDream Yacht Club's Guests Return To U.S.; Political Fallout Occurs An Agent's Checklist For Booking International Travel As heard on Excess Baggage: Norwegian Cruise Line Launches Docuseries Covering Restart Beaches Turks & Caicos Postpones Re-Opening South Africa Reopens to All International Travelers Thailand To Require Medical Insurance For Foreign Visitors Chile To Reopen Borders November 23 With Strict Protocols Female Empowerment Is at the Heart of Hotel Zena in Washington, D.C. AMResorts expanding its European footprint DOT gives tentative OK for Aer Lingus to join Oneworld alliance 14 Travel Gifts That Made Oprah’s Favorite Things in 2020 See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

Pete explains how his good friend Cliff Stocker liked Petes song 'long time gone', Pete tells how Cliff and his band 'Slack Alice'  recorded their own version of the song utilising only two of the 4 or more verses. The drummer in the band Liam Barber had played with Pete in various bands that Pete had put together over the years. Liam went on to play in Petes band for a special BBC event for the County of Lancashire where Pete would typically decide what song to play next, the BBC event was supposed to be 40 minutes, it went down so well the band played for 2.5 hrs! Liam had described playing drums for Pete was a baptism of fire! Another local musician in the north of England a certain Andy Nutter joined the Band for the BBC event on Congas, he was a one man show in himself.  Pete talked about the fact he had so many songs of differing styles,that he could play for up to 6 or 8 hours never repeating a song. On one or more occasions Pete was required to play for an open air summer festivity in Mittersill at his base Pletzers Cafe https://www.konditoreipletzer.at/ with many hundreds of people milling out the front of the premises being entertained by Pete whilst sitting and enjoying the sun consuming Pletzers cold drinks, icecreams and cakes, Pete explains how a planned 4 hours playing turned into a marathon 8 hrs!  During one of Petes outside Pletzer performences in Mittersill, a young lady came up to Pete asking whether he could play a Townes Van Zandt song https://youtu.be/j54Yk3xSYx4 for her father a former Mittersill resident now based in Houston Texas, Pete being influenced by what was going on in America it didnt take long to discover and play Van Zandts great music one of Petes favorite artists. The final section of the Podcast dwells on the adventures and people Pete met whilst in the USA for a period of three months. Pete was based for a period of time in Willits California https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willits,_California where he was a guest at Bill Meyerhoff's ranch where Pete had been given use of a ranch cabin by helping the Meyerhoff family with certain duties on the ranch. During one of his several visits to the USA, Pete had driven to the Smoky Mountains in Tennesee and had met some ethnic country blue grass musicians and had even sat in on one of their sessions to sing and play guitar. Most people are intrigued by Petes Yorkshire accent wherever he happens to be, these people in Tennesee and Willits California were no exception!  These were members of the Willy Nelson Band https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_(Willie_Nelson%27s_band) who Pete had met at Kinocti Lake in California, one of the band who Pete briefly chatted to was Michael Raphael the Harmonica Player, Willy Nelson himself was never present.  Whilst in Willits on his initial visit to the town, Pete had net someone who invited him over to a house opposite Andy's bar where a recording studio was based, Pete saw a lovely Fender Stratocaster on a stand and asked who the guitar belonged to, it belonged to Gene Parson's a former member of the Pop group the Byrd's who Pete then met. Pete explained to Gene where he came from and where he was staying in Willit's, Gene immediately knew who the people were, and even knew the man that Pete had met on his first visit to Willits a certain Lloyd Gullick https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34485439/lloyd-gullick-obituary/ Gene knew everyone it seemed, in fact he was to tell Pete that his father used to drive cattle down from Oregon to California via the Drover's roads with non other than Lloyd Gullick a local rancher and Cowboy!  Whilst at the Meyerhoff ranch Pete was asked by Bill if he'd like to join him in a long drive into the mountains to collect two wrought iron gates that somebody had sold to Bill, the owner of the gates made of Bronze was non other than actor Steven Seagal Bill had had no idea who he was, and Pete only realised who it was when they got back to Meyerhoff's ranch!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/bernie-aird/message

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

Time Stamp Information: (01:00) Panel Intros (07:00) EA Play CONFIRMED to hit Xbox Game Pass on November 10th, Same Day as the Series X/S launch. NEW Rumors suggests that Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order will arrive WITH New Single Player Content on the SAME DAY...........Will It?? (42:00) Bloober Team's The Medium LOOKS insanely scary AF in NEW Game Play Trailer, the Panel discusses IF its the 1st title that will play on the NEW Hardware, find out what WE had to say! (1:04:00) Sony has been making "All the Wrong Moves" "Post September 16th" which was their PS5 "Reveal Event". Since then it has been one "Blunder After Another". This past Sunday was the "Icing on the Cake" when they had "Japanese YouTuber's" Playing the PS5, to say it was AWFUL would be an UNDERSTATEMENT at BEST. Find out would the Panel had to say on the matter! (2:10:00) Panel Outro's and Special Message to the Community --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/craig-ravitch/support

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

Netflix's Project Power, staring the guy from Inception and the guy from Django Unchained, seems like it should be a hit... but will it, WILL IT?! The boys chat about this week's nerdy news, review this Netflix flick, and chat about other obscure superhero films that may (or may not) be worth a watch. Shaken Not Nerd is brought to you by Incognito Comics! Get comics delivered to your door in this crazy time! Head over to incognitocomics.com.au 

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

THE MOVIE PODCAST is a film news and entertainment podcast that covers the week's biggest movie stories and a unique topic of the show. You can catch Daniel, Shahbaz and Anthony in a new episode every Monday! Please be sure to rate the show and subscribe.Got a topic request? Have a movie suggestion? Did we get something wrong? Let us know at ThisTimeWith.com/talk EPISODE #57: Taika Waititi Takes on Star Wars, Tom Cruise Goes to Space, and Christopher Nolan Won't Delay Tenet - May 10, 2020 REVIEWSLalalynne left us a FIVE STAR review on Apple Podcasts and said, “Entertaining, informative & consistent. These guys are just so charismatic & passionate about movies & actually know what they're talking about. I look forward to every single episode!”MAILBAGCosmin says, Hey guys. Hope you are well and safe. I just want to send my support and respect for what you're doing and wish you all the best. Also... due to the 4th of May day, I've been watching the sequel trilogy again(I don't know why tbh) and the season finale of the Clone Wars. Are we going to ignore the fact the The Clone Wars, specially the last season, is better in anyway than the sequel trilogy?!?! That's a topic that I would love to hear someday. Wishing you guys the best. Stay safe and sane. NEWSNicolas Cage to Play ‘Tiger King's' Joe Exotic in Scripted Series From ‘American Vandal' Showrunner - Joe Otterson, Justin Kroll / VarietyTaika Waititi to Direct New 'Star Wars' Film - Aaron Couch / THRTemuera Morrison to Appear as Boba Fett in Season 2 - Will Thorne / VarietySan Diego Comic-Con Will Be a Streaming Event This Summer - Jon Fingas / EngadgetTom Cruise Plots Movie To Shoot In Space With Elon Musk's SpaceX - Mike Flemming Jr / DeadlineNew Zealand Returns To Production, Paving Way For ‘Avatar' Sequels & ‘The Lord Of The Rings' Series To Resume Filming - Andrea Wiseman / DeadlineChinese Cinemas Set To Gradually Re-Open After Authorities Give Green Light - Tom Grater, Nancy Tartaglione / DeadlineChristopher Nolan Wants ‘Tenet' to Revive Movie Theaters. Will It? - Brent Leng, Rebecca Rubin - Variety TRAILERSSpace ForceThe Last of Us Part IIMichelle Obama's BecomingThe King of Staten IslandBeckyShirleyYes, God, Yes OUT THIS WEEKCapone (May 12)Scoob! (May 15) WHAT WE'RE WATCHINGAnthony: Last Dance, Dark Side of the Ring, Westworld, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3, Batman Returns, TagDaniel: The Newsroom, Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian, Prop Culture, Dark Side of The Ring, The Last Dance, Defending Jacob, Spider-Man, Harley Quinn, BearsShahbaz: Prop Culture, The Last Dance, Casino Royale, Cheaper by the Dozen, Spider-Man, Harley Quinn TRVIADANIEL: 1SHAHBAZ: 1ANTHONY: 2FOLLOW US:Follow Daniel on Twitter, Instagram, and LetterboxdFollow Shahbaz on Twitter, Instagram, and LetterboxdFollow Anthony on Twitter, Instagram, and LetterboxdFollow The Movie Podcast on Twitter, Instagram, Discord, and YouTube  

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET

WGAG RADIO AND THE BRAIN TRUST PRESENTS, "HOT DAMN POLITICS" HOSTED BY NEFERTITI SURVIVING THE GAME. STEP INTO THE ARENA OF POLITICS, WHERE YOU ARE GIVEN ALL THE ANGLES, INS AND OUTS AND THE UNTOLD HIDDEN AGENDAS OF POLITICANS AND POWER PLAYERS IN THE GAME OF POLITICS. AS A NEW ERA OF POLITICANS TAKE CENTER STAGE WHAT ROLES DO THEY PLAY AND HOW  WILL IT, IF AT ALL EFFECT LIVES. FROM SNAKE OIL SALESMAN AND AIR HEADED SPEAKERS, WE EXAMINE IT ALL RIGHT HERE ON WGAG RADIO! TUNE IN EVERY WEDNESDAY NIGHT FOR SOME HOT DAMN POLITICS AT 9 PM EST ON WGAG RADIO!! CALL IN 1.515.605.9828 OR 1.425.569.5274 SPEAK WITH NEFERTITI AND THE BRAINTRUST!! THE NUMBER ONE POLITICAL TALK SHOW ON THE PLANET  

Lesson 15.5 Shopping for clothes1. That looks a bittoo plain. 那个看起来太朴素了。2. This looks to mea little old-fashioned. 这个款式看起来比较旧一点。3. I'd likesomething not too fashionable. 我想买不太时髦的。4. Could I see someof the new styles, please? 可以看一下新的款式吗？5. It's the verylatest fashion. 这是最新的样式。6. It's of goodquality. 这是优质品。7. It's the bestquality hat, and our own make. 帽子的布料是最好的，而且是本店自制的。8. Will it wearwell, and won't the color fade? 耐穿吗？不会褪色吗？9. Is it washable? 耐洗吗？10.CanI wash it in a washing machine? 这件衣服可以用洗衣机下吗？11.Itneeds to be hand-washed. 必须要用手洗。12.Willit shrink? 会不会缩水呢？

As of late, we have been living In our prayers! If you haven’t heard, we got a building and we are so thrilled and expectant for what God has for this house! As we continue to learn our family values, Pastor Jeremy introduces us to “Honor Is our Privilege”. Pastor Jeremy abridged 2 Chronicles 7:1 and looked at how Solomon built God's temple with honor. They sacrificed bulls, sheep, and goats just to honor the lord in modern times this was equivalent to millions of dollars today. Insane right? Although sacrificing was the norm god was calling them to ultimately walk in obedience. “Honor is a gift that was made to clothe each other in” in that same way we were meant to honor one another, we were also meant to honor God to a higher with regard. Pastor Jeremy gives us a look at how we can do that with God. This week, How will you honor God? Will it be with your time? Will It be with your Finances? Will it be with your relationships? What does that look like for you? “   Scripture References:  2 Chronicles 7 1-16 (NKJV) 1 Kings 8:10-13

Welcome to Crumbs of Science!Join us in our very first episode, where we learn all about building with gingerbread, making fat birds, and the best way to make sure a child is cooked all the way through. Special guests: structural engineer Will Horton and pediatrician Dr Jake Barlow.Recorded by Sarah-Jayne Robinson and Tim Newport at CPAS Podcast Studio.Edited by Tim Newport, transcribed by Sarah-Jayne Robinson.Intro music sampled from "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/---Transcript:SJ: Next to a great forest, there lived a poor woodcutter who had come upon such hard times that he could scarcely provide daily bread for his wife and his two children, Hansel and Gretel.[intro music]SJ: Hi everyone, my name is Sarah-JayneT: And my name is TeeSJ: And we’re Crumbs of Science, a podcast about the science in and around fairytales. Now because this is our very first episode, we thought we’d give you a little bit of a background about ourselves. SO my name is Sarah-Jayne or SJ and I think that I decided at about five years old that I was going to be a fairy princess in my future to the extremes where my 21st birthday I had, it was themed ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and I went as a fairy princess. But I also have a science background, I have an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering and arts from the University of Western Australia and after I graduated I spent five years travelling around the world working on oil rigs and I’ve worked on six continents so far, so almost made it to all the continents, so almost made it to all the continents of the world, one more to go.T: Is that one more Antartica?SJ: It is Antartica – it’s very hard to get to. But I have experienced at least a little of all the others so far. So I’ve also done a fair bit of science and now I’ve left that job and I’m currently studying a Masters of Science Communication (Outreach) at the Australian National University, which is why we’re doing this podcast.T: Ah, and so my name’s Tee and I’m also studying this, the Masters of Science Communication (Outreach) at, uh, the Australian National University. Um, and I’d just like to thank the Australian National University for their facilities in recording this podcast today. I studied journalism and geology at university and I actually worked for several years putting on science kids parties, where I’d go to children’s birthday parties and instead of a clown, I would be a scientist and everyone would get to do science experiments, um I’ve also done …SJ: What was your favourite? Your favourite science experiment that you did at a kids birthday party?T: Um, so one of my favourites was definitely, uh, making little rockets, where you mix alka-seltzer and water in little pointy test tubes and then put them on a little base and you just put it on the ground and count down 5…4… and then it just goes off. Uh, great experiment, definitely need safety glasses for everyone though, those thing uh, move very fast. Um, but I also did a bunch of science as well, during my geology degree, I did a three week field trip out to the, out to Broken Hill, um, out to the desert where they filmed Mad Max and got to camp for three weeks uh, and stare at the ground, it was great.SJ: I think that’s most of geology isn’t it?T: Yeh, it’s really, [sigh], it’s really tough to make sound exciting.SJ: Is geology a real science, oh, who knows? So, our podcast is about fairytales and this week, if you couldn’t tell from that opener, we’re discussing Hansel and Gretel, which is the, one of the most famous fairytales, originally published in 1812 by the Brothers Grimm and a fun little fact, this story was told to them by Dorchen Wild, who later on actually married one of the brothers, um, she married Wilhelm. So, the story of Hansel and Gretel, it’s a fairly tragic start to it – two children and their two parents, who are living in their lovely little cottage, in the woods, and one evening, their father suddenly comes to the realisation that, we have no food, so his wife turns over to him and says ‘Listen, man, early tomorrow take the two children, give each of them a little piece of bread then lead them into the middle of the thickest part of the woods. Make a fire for them and leave them there, for we can no longer feed them. The man protests a little bit, says that he can’t do this, he loves his children, but then the woman says ‘if you don’t do it, all of us will starve together, and she gave him no peace until he said yes’. Little interesting thing about this, you would have heard there that I’ve said that it’s his wife or the mother, uh, which is how the original version in 1812 went, but the version in 1857 actually had it as the stepmother. So the Brothers Grimm realised that they could make this story more exciting then included it as a stepmother instead and then that was part of the whole stepmother trope that you also see in Cinderella and Snow White and pretty much, if you’ve got a stepmother, they’re going to try and kill you, I think is how these stories go.T: After their father has been convinced, to take them in the woods, by his wife, the children hear everything that the father has said, um, and Hansel tells Gretel that he has a plan and he’s going to get them back, and so he goes outside, he fills his pockets with pebbles and then he goes back in the house and goes back to sleep. In the morning, the mother comes and wakes them up and says ‘get up children, we’re going into the woods, here’s some bread. Don’t eat it til midday. The father leads them out, into the woods and starts a fire for them and says, ‘Just go, take a nap, and I’ll go back and cut down some trees and I’ll be right back. And of course, he doesn’t come back, but because the kids already know about the plan, Hansel has been dropping pebbles through this entire, on the journey there. And so, when the moon comes up, he can see his way back. So he follows the pebbles all the way back to the house.SJ: Family was all happy again, everyone was nice and cheerful. Until, about a month later, when they realised, hmmm… we still have no food. This story is actually part of, there are a bunch of stories about children being abandoned, there’s the French one which was Le Petit Poucet, there’s Finette Cendron, which was the story of three princesses abandoned by their parents and there’s another version in Italy by Giambattista Basil, where the cruel stepmother kicks the kids out. And this actually has some origins in a human event which happened in 1315 – 1317 or 1325 depending on what you look at, which was the Great Famine. Now, the Great Famine was due to some horrible weather conditions in Northern Europe, specifically affecting the English Isles, France, and those sort of areas around there. And all their crops died, the situation got worse and worse until 1318 when they finally had some good weather again, but through those three years, times were really, really tough and it’s been said that between 10% and 25% of the villagers in those countries actually died. Pretty much due to starvation or if they didn’t die due to starvation, they were so weak that then the diseases came and picked them off really quickly. And during this time, people went to some really extreme measures to try and get enough food to feed their family and these measures included murder, robbing your friends and neighbours, the old voluntarily not eating so that they would die, cannibalism and also abandoning your children in the woods to fend for themselves. So, this horrible fairytale, probably actually happened. Maybe not the rest of it, but the origins are based on actual life events. So, the mother, once again, convinced the father, we need to get rid of these children, or we’re all going to starve. And Hansel and Gretel, once again, because they had no food, they were awake at night, very hungry and Hansel thought again, that’s alright, I’ll go down, get some pebbles, I’m a smart cookie, I’ve got this. But it turns out, that the mother had actually locked the door, so they couldn’t get out. Now, they were given two slices of bread, to carry in their pockets for the walk, because these parents weren’t totally heartless, so this time Hansel crumbled up the bread and left it behind on the walk. Then once again, got to the woods, the parents try the same trick, ‘You stay here, rest by the fire, we’re just going to go chop down some more firewood and once again, the parents disappeared. Hansel, waited til that evening, until the moon would rise and he could see his trail bed..bre.. trail of breadcrumbs but then, turns out, they were all gone. Animals ate them. I don’t know what, how this could have happened, animals eating breadcrumbs, but Hansel, though he was a bit of a thinker, didn’t think that hard.T: So, quite regularly, you’ll see articles going around, um, saying, ‘oh no you shouldn’t, you shouldn’t feed birds bread, oh you can’t be feeding the ducks bread, you’ll kill the ducks.SJ: Like the very famous scene in About a Boy, when he’s feeding, feeding bread to the ducks and then he throws the whole loaf and the duck dies.T: You can actually, you can feed bread to birds. It’s totally fine to feed bread to birds, just like it’s totally fine for humans to eat bread. But here’s the thing, you shouldn’t eat it all the time. So,SJ: But Oprah loves bread, she would eat it all the time if she could.T: So would I. But it’s not healthy for us and it’s not healthy for the birds either. It’s a lot of uh, empty proteins, it fills the bird up without actually providing any nutritional value. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in the UK, advises that you should only feed small, small amounts of bread and you should try to mix up the types of things you feed so you’re not just feeding them bread. Wholegrain bread, much better for birds, as opposed to white bread, um because, partially because wholegrain bread has all those little seeds and grains and other things that are nutritional by themselves contained within the bread whereas white bread is purely, purely the bread itself and is not very good for the birds. There’s an article in the Washington Post about, uh, different types of bird seeds and how many bird seeds are actually filled with a type of seed that birds don’t eat. So there’s a type of seed called Milo, it comes from a particular plant. While it’s really good agricultural feeding, so feeding various fowl like chickens and so on, it’s not so good for backyard birds. Backyard birds will just leave it in the container. He says, on a theoretical scale from 0, where no bird has any preference to it, and 30, where every species eats this type of seed, uh, red milo seed, that makes up the majority of bird seed, rates a 6, which is the lowest score of any seed type. At the top of the list, of things that birds love to eat, is sunflower seeds, black oil sunflower seed or shelled sunflower, sunflower seeds that humans like to eat are not the kinds that birds like. TheySJ: [Disappointed sigh], well that’s good because I don’t like sharing my food. So, the story continues, they couldn’t find their way home, so instead they wandered around the wood, all through the night, the entire next day. They were horribly hungry because they’d only managed to find a few small berries to eat, then on the third day, they walked until midday when they came to a house built entirely out of bread, with a roof made of cake and the windows were made of clear sugar. Now, to any child, or to any person really, this sounds like a dream, but to two little children, who’d been wandering for three days with nothing to eat, probably thought that it was a mirage. But by that point, they’re willing to eat anything, enough mirage stuff, [cough], so they sat down and they started eating this house. Whenever I think of this story, I always think of it as a gingerbread house, though it doesn’t actually say that in the narration of the original 1812 or 1857 version. And, as an engineer, I’m not quite sure how great bread or gingerbread would be as a house.T: So, there are actually competitive gingerbread-house making competitions. And one of the largest houses, gingerbread-houses ever built had an actual internal volume of 1000 square metres, uh, built as a charity fundraiser in 2013.SJ: Can you think, 1000 square metres, that’s a bit hard to visualiseT: YehSJ: What sort ofT: So it’s nearly 20SJ: SizeT: It’s nearly 20 metres long and 12 metres wide and it is 6 metres tall at it’s highest point, so that’s, it’s about the size of a small actual house.SJ: That would require so many stepladders to build. So, we called a structural engineer, Will Houghton, currently working at GHD, to ask him some questions about gingerbread houses, which is a very normal thing to do in your work day.[ring tone]SJ: So Will tell us a bit about gingerbread houses - would you build with gingerbread and why?Will: In the construction of something like this, you tend to need to look at it in two ways. There’s the, um, the materials you use for the construction and also the applied loads. So, in those two avenues, the capacity of gingerbread as a construction material. I mean, there has been some research done to date, obviously not on this scale. But in essence, it does appear to behave quite nearly as a concrete in that, um, well I will say unenforced concrete. It is quite brittle in nature so if you do load it, if you do stand on say, a floor panel made from gingerbread, it would crumble beneath your feet. But when I say brittle, it’s more it has no tensile capacity. So if you try and pull it apart, it’s very weak and if you try to compress it it would have some strength but it would probably crumble. So as a construction material you would really need to either have limited load to ensure it works within capacity or you would need to somehow strengthen it. And there are various ways you could do that, you could use some sort of taffy or marshmallow to really reinforce it and give it more tensile strength. But if it was to be loaded and it was to form, the marshmallow or the taffy would act as a cement and hold it together and give it that additional strength.Tee: So Will, with gingerbread as a building material, how big of a house could you make?Will: It comes down to, in one sense the location of the building. So I see there would be no actual constraints on how high or how wide it could go. You can always engineer the materials to take it. If you go higher with these buildings you are exposed to more winds loading, that’s something I can’t really imagine you can design out. If you imagine a building with four walls you obviously have a windward face. I think what probably helps in this case given my understanding, is the site would be in a forest of some sort, typically you would get some, um, some shielding from any wind source, um, by the trees or whatever was nearby so could be working in our favour and you could then go higher. With these kind of structures, especially with brittle materials like gingerbread, you can actually strengthen it by having a compression load acting on it. So in this sense here, with your walls, they’re obviously supporting the roofs, the roof is exerting a dead load, so that weight on those walls. That load is compressing those walls and would strengthen them under any lateral forces like wind or whatnot. I don’t know if this would be a two-story house, I think with a gingerbread cottage you might want to keep it single story and that would definitely make construction easier. It comes down to what she needs, so does she need a four-bedroom house or is she fine with a two-bedroom. Might be fine to go single-story.SJ: Now we know that it’s a little bit hard to work out 14th century prices and also magic of course is priceless, but can you maybe give us a bit of an estimate of how much this gingerbread house would cost to build?Will: Typically, with a construction like this, there’s several different avenues where the cost comes from. You obviously have the design itself which is a proportion of the fee and the documentation thereof to assist in the construction. There is the procurement of the materials, the procurement of the resources, so the manual labour required, any plants or whatnot that you might need to help pour the gingerbread. In terms of the manual labour, I’m sure there is a portion of magic that can be involved to assist with any lifting, so any heavier pre-carved elements, if they were to be used. Why would you hire a crane, when you can use a witches magical powers, I don’t know? So I imagine there’s not that many of them and they would be a specialised resource, perhaps they would be quite expensive, if it’s a very remote site, it might be that the higher cost comes from transportation. So gingerbread, luckily enough would be quite light to transport, I’m not sure if they would be baking it on-site or if they’re baking it say in a workshop nearby and then transporting it to site, so there’s a few variables to really look at before we give a final cost to this.SJ: Thanks so much Will, we really appreciate you coming along and lending your expertise to our podcast.Will: Thank youSJ: So we left off in the story, before we got very side-tracked by amazing gingerbread houses, that Hansel and Gretel had just started eating this house of bread, when they heard ‘Nibble, nibble, little mouse, who is nibbling at my house.’ Hansel and Gretel were obviously terrified, then out of the doors walked a lovely, little old woman who took pity on the children and said ‘oh you dear children, where did you come from? Come inside with me and you will be just fine.’ So she took them in, she gave them some nice food. They then went to bed thinking ‘Yay, we’re so lucky’. But the twist is that this old woman was a wicked witch who was lying in wait there, for children. So she had built her house of bread in order to lure them to her and if she captured one, she would kill him, cook him and eat him. And for her, that was a day to celebrate. Pretty horrific celebration, but still, once again, no judgment, 1300s, life was tough.Tee: Yeh, 1300s, get what you can.SJ: When this story originated from, in the 1300s, witches weren’t seen in the same way as we view them in the 15 or 1600s or how they are viewed now. So, in the 10th century there was a canon or book of sorts called Epsiopy which talked about women being seduced by illusions from the devil, and then they would think that they could fly on the backs of certain beasts in the middle of the night alongside the goddess Diana. However, these women were dismissed as being stupid and foolish, thinking, how an earth could they do that, how silly women, goodness. Then it was only in the 15 and the 1600s that inquisitors started to believe that women could actually make magic happen by pacts with the devil and they were pretty terrified of them because they thought that they could do things like putting a broomstick in water and causing a storm or a flood, So then you had all the horrible witch hunts of the 15 and 1600s where, how was it that they told if women were witches?Tee: One of the most famous tests is to, uh, chain someone up and throw them in a river, because, if they floated, they were a witch and should be killed but if they drowned and died, well good news, not for them, they weren’t a witch.SJ: Fool-proof method really.Tee: I mean, it’s just, it’s just science.SJ: Simple science, it’s obviously the best way to tell if someone was a witch. So, Hansel and Gretel, they were sleeping peacefully, the witch said ‘They will be a good mouthful.’ So she grabbed Hansel, threw him in a little stall and she made Gretel cook for him for the next few days. So cooking him delicious things to fatten him up, so she could eat him when he was fat and delicious, not skinny and tough. So, and all Gretel got to eat during this time was crayfish shells. So, poor little Gretel, she’s not doing great, but Hansel’s about to get eaten, so he’s not doing great either.Tee: No-one really comes out on top in this story.SJ: Nope, they’re pretty upsetting. So, everyday, the witch tested Hansel to see if he was fat and fat enough to be delicious food. So, she would get him to stick his finger through the bar, because she didn’t have very good eyesight, uh, Hansel was actually able to trick her by instead by sticking a stick out, so it didn’t seem like he was getting any fatter despite all the delicious food that he was eating. However, after four weeks, the witch got fed up and said to Gretel ‘Hurry up and fetch some water. Whether your brother is fat enough now or not, tomorrow I am going to slaughter him and boil him. In the meantime, I want to start the dough that we will bake to go with him. So, Gretel was pretty sad. Um, in the 1812 version of the story, it actually says that she sat in the kitchen and cried tears of blood, which once again, horrific, uh honestly, that could probably happen in the 13th century, people weren’t very healthy.Tee: The Brothers Grimm clearly thought that that was a little bit much though because in their 1857 version, they’ve now edited it out and it’s not in the, uh, traditional retelling of the story.SJ: Not saying that Gretel cried tears of blood? But that would look so pretty in the animations. Uh, eh. So the witch called Gretel over and the witch said to her ‘Look inside and see if the bread is nicely browned and done, for my eyes are weak and I can’t see that far. If you can’t see that far either, then sit on the board, and I’ll push you inside. Then you can walk around inside and take a look.’ So, if you can walk around inside, pretty big oven. But Gretel was a little bit clever and she realized that the witch probably didn’t good have, probably didn’t have very good intentions if she was going to push her inside the oven. So instead, Gretel said ‘I don’t know how to do that, first show me. Sit on the board and I will push you inside.’ So, the old woman sat on the board and because she was light, Gretel pushed her all the way inside and then quickly closed the door and secured it with an iron bar. The old woman in the hot oven began to cry and wail but Gretel ran away and the old woman burned up miserably.Tee: We decided to see if the witches plan was going to work in the first place, even if she hadn’t been foiled by these clever children. Could she have actually cooked and eaten them in this oven?SJ: So we did some calculations of our own and since neither of us are experts in cooking children, we decided that we would call on an expert, Dr Jake Barlow who is currently working at the paediatric wing at the Royal Children’s Hospital.[ringtone]SJ: So Jake, you’re a doctor, very wise, know lots of things, could you tell us, could this witch survive on a diet of children?Jake: Uh, it probably would be reasonably nutritious, it’s, you know, decent quality red meat. I think the main concern, uh, from a medical point of view, would be developing a disease known as kuru, which is a form of prion disease. Now prion disease is pretty cool. So the way they work, essentially you have a protein that is folded, well, assembled badly in such a way that it will both cause other proteins to fold badly and therefore it sort of spreads itself. Mad cow disease would be the classic. Its, um, protein causes a degeneration of the brain, sort of like a dementia-type process and then that would lead to, um, progressive loss of cognitive function and then death. The problem with this is that the proteins when they fold in this way, they also bear a resistance to heat, so they might need to be heated to three and a half thousand disease celsius or something similarly difficult to achieve in your standard kitchen oven especially in your gingerbread house that will probably burn down at temperatures much below 3500 degrees Celsius. And so the protein survives the cooking process, and then when you eat them they start doing their folding problem in you, and so they are transmissible but they’re not sort of alive in the same way that something like a bacterial, bacterial infection is transmissible and alive.SJ: So Jake, if you were going to roast a child, how would you do it?Jake: Uh, I haven’t considered this before. I guess I think you could think of a number of options. And I think it would probably depend on the child, I mean my concern would be the surface area to volume ratio of the child. Obviously children are small so they have relatively high surface area compared to their volume which means that they gain and lose heat quickly which is relevant from a medical point of view but I imagine is also relevant from a cooking point of view. And once you have your child cooked, or burnt on the outside and all cold on the inside, so you’d want to make sure that they’re cooked through evenly. Therefore I’m thinking your options would either be to slow-roast the child so that, especially a larger child, so that the core is cooked through, or potentially something like a spit-roast like you would do with an entire whole pig or something like that.SJ: So Jake, these children have been wandering for three days in the woods, what sort of state would they be in, by the time they made it to the witches cottage?Jake: I think there’s a lot of issues at play here, obviously you need to think about the environment that they’re in so exposure will be a factor, the quality of their clothing, if it’s sort of threadbare, homespun potato sacks that will provide minimal insulation and so the child will develop hypothermia more rapidly as we discussed sort of previously with the surface area to volume ratio element. Weather will obviously affect it, especially if it’s raining and their clothing becomes sodden. The environment they’re in, windchill, protection from other elements, their, either, availability of skill, or ability to light a fire to conserve heat and provide wool. The bread will provide a degree of sustenance, but obviously it is mostly carbohydrate and doesn’t really have much in the way of vitamins and minerals and micronutrients. Three days, certainly possible, for children who are acclimatized to the environment. Uh, it would very much depend on the weather.Tee: Well, that’s a lot of information I didn’t know and probably shouldn’t know. Thanks Jake for coming on the show.Tee: So the story continues with the witch having burnt up, Gretel runs to Hansel and unlocks his door. He jumps out, very excited to not be killed and eaten, as you would be and then they look around and find that the whole house is actually filled with precious stones and pearls.SJ: This is an amazing house by the way.Tee: And these children are just not very observant. They walk into a house, they don’t see the cage, the don’t see…SJ: The human-sized ovenTee: Yeah, and they don’t see all of the gems, but anyway. They find these precious stones and pearls, they fill their pockets with all them and they find their way back home. Their father rejoiced when he saw them once more for he had not had a happy day since they'd been gone and now he was a rich man. However, the mother had died. Now when I was reading that I thought, ok, what happens after that? But no, that's how the story ends is, however, the mother had died.SJ: Such a great last sentence of a children's fairy tale, that let’s be honest, probably your mum is reading out to you. So this story might not seem like it has a whole lot to do with science but there's a pretty cool mix between magic and science that was around in those sorts of days because they had a bit of a definition of magic and let's be honest, a weird definition of science. So William of Auvergne who was a 13th century French priest and bishop so just before the time of the great famine, he believed that magic was superstition however, natural magic was a part of science and if you didn't use it for evil, this was all fine. And some elements of natural magic were that seal skin could be used as a charm to repel lightning, vulture body parts were obviously a protective amulet, and if you wanted your garden to grow well you would get virgins to plant your seeds because that was a scientific way of promoting their growth. So, probably not quite how we’d define science today but they also had some other weird things going on with the science and the medicine of the time because they believed in sympathetic magic which was using imitation to produce effective results. So for example, if a patient was suffering from a liver complaint, they would use the liver of a vulture to cure it.Tee: So an example of this is using a treatment to help, to stop the flow of blood of a wound, by using wool soaked in olive oil from the Mount of Olives and combining that with a spoken story about Longinus, who was famously healed of his blindness using the blood of Christ. So these were religious elements blended with the magical and with the scientific.SJ: So, it’s a little bit cagey on what you’d call science, but then again, science wasn’t all that advanced at the time. They had some famous scientist around that era such as Fibonacci who you've probably heard of, with the very famous Fibonacci sequence named after him who was actually an accountant and was famous for introducing Arabic numerals to Europe and making accountants lives easier and also a very famous scientist at the time was Roger Bacon who was called by some as the first modern scientist and he wrote on all areas of science and even managed to envision machines for travelling on land or water, submarines and air travel which is pretty advanced when you think that they were mainly going around via horse and buggy. Now we’ve spent so long learning about Hansel and Gretel, maybe you can answer a question for me. How did Hansel and Gretel get lost in the woods?Tee: I don’t know SJ, how did Hansel and Gretel get lost in the woods?SJ: The trail was crumby.Tee: [groans]SJ: Thank you very much everyone for listening. Um, hopefully you’ll tune in next week when we're going to talk about The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen, one of my all-time favourites.Tee: So until then, we hope you have a happily-ever-after[Fairytale music]

00:48 - Will’s Superpower: 1) The ability to take something complicated and to find simple ways to think about it that work most of the time. 2) A rigorous love of structure. Thinking in Systems: A Primer (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1603580557/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1603580557&linkId=2f955f8b81a88700bdf8f1cd379e0c70) 02:30 - Systems Thinking/Theory Stella (https://www.iseesystems.com/store/products/stella-architect.aspx) 08:48 - How do you know when to stop modeling? 10:12 - How do you figure out what your team’s rate of change is? Organizational Changes Process Changes Changes to the Software Systems You’re Managing Virginia Satir’s Change Model (https://expertprogrammanagement.com/2018/10/satir-change-model/) 19:30 - Focusing Attention Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061339202/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0061339202&linkId=e9faa7b9d66edbae1e2c610f55ebde4c) 20:31 - Impacting Systems 24:47 - Patterns of Dysfunction The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter, Updated and Expanded (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1422188612/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1422188612&linkId=70478b6c58e8a4a81afa96d2fa80fe1e) 32:13 - Sharing Ideas and Contributing with Systems Thinking The Portal Podcast (https://podtail.com/en/podcast/the-portal/) 38:59 - Having Adaptive Capacity 44:30 - Taking Bets (Risks): Cheap vs Expensive 48:10 - Systems Having Properties and Behaviors and Building Useful Missing Tools Good Strategy Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0307886239/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=0307886239&linkId=6e73e7f9b9bd877daeb787de395da471) Reflections: Jessica: The difference in reasoning about properties vs reasoning about behavior. Will: It’s easy to look at yourself sometimes as the lone practitioner trying to pull the industry forward. But, it’s exciting to have conversations like these to know there are other people out there trying to do the same thing. Arty: Systems thinking as a way to think about how to optimize the quality of decisions. Rein: A problem is a reduction of the system. One of the most important skills for a systems thinker and a problem solver is the ability for form a problem with a complete understanding of the complete mess that we’re choosing to not think about right now. This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Will Larson.

Hoo boy! Eddie has been waiting to watch the IT Part Two trailer just for you guys! Will IT live up to the hype? Will IT be too scary for Eddie to survive? Hard to say, you'd better tune in! And while you're here we've got some great recommendations for your bookshelves! Lee's keeping that contemporary feel coming with CJ Tudor's amazing debut, The Chalk Man. Is it a biography of Eddie's secret undercover life as Banksy? Probably not! Meanwhile, Eddie wants to start a fight on the internet, because let's face it, the internet? Wayyyyyy to civil and full of friendly discussion! That's right, Eddie loves trash, and will do anything for that love--except diss Patricia Cornwell! It's on! The post 5.3 | C.J. Tudor, Kathy Reichs, & IT Chapter Two appeared first on Crime Time.

Longtime buddies Will Crocker (Senior Director of Customer Experience)  and Spencer Burke (VP of Growth) chat the return of Game of Thrones, a ban on the government from creating free tax-preparation software, and a potential ban on crypto mining in China. Also, Prince Harry calls for a ban on Fortnite?!        TRANSCRIPT: [0:00:17] PJ: Hello again. Welcome back to Braze for Impact, your weekly tech industry discuss digest. This is PJ Bruno, and I'm thrilled to have with me two very close buddies. I have Will Crocker, senior director of CX, that's customer experience. Hi, Will.   [0:00:32] Will: Hey, how you doing, PJ?   [0:00:33] PJ: And also, of course, my good friend Spencer Burke, the head of the House Growth. He's here with us today.   [0:00:40] Spencer: Hey, hey, it's good to be back.   [0:00:42] PJ: It is good to be back.   [0:00:43] Will: You guys grew a house?   [0:00:46] PJ: I'm just trying to rewatch more Game of Thrones, and I had that moment where Melisandre's like, "Robert of the House Baratheon." And I wanted to do something similar for Spencer, but I don't know if it hit.   [0:00:57] Spencer: PJ of the House Bruno.   [0:00:59] PJ: Exactly. Just makes you sound more special, I think.   [0:01:02] Will: So Game of Thrones is coming back real soon, right? What do you guys think?   [0:01:06] PJ: Oh, yeah. Sunday night. I'm thrilled. I'm gonna be in the UK, so I'm trying to find people there that ... For a watch party, because as you know, Game of Thrones takes place in England. Or so it may seem. I'm pumped. I'm so freaking pumped for the last season. Spence, any predictions?   [0:01:25] Spencer: I feel so far behind. I'm up to date, but my wife, Jenny, like you, is rewatching. She rewatched everything.   [0:01:33] PJ: You have to.   [0:01:33] Will: Everything? That's a lot.   [0:01:35] Spencer: Over the past couple months. Yeah. And so I'm going through, and I'm like, "All right, who's this again? What did they do?" And since she's been rewatching it, I'll come in at season four and be like, "Oh yeah, that's the guy who ..." And she's like, "No, that hasn't happened yet." And then when she got [inaudible], I was like, "Oh, but that's the guy who did this." She's like, "No, that was three seasons ago."   [0:01:54] PJ: Right.   [0:01:54] Spencer: So I'm just totally discombobulated, but I know once it gets started, there's the action, there's the dragons. We have a big battle coming. Gonna get straight into it.   [0:02:03] Will: Yeah, and you have a cheat sheet that's going to tell you what's going on in the new episodes.   [0:02:07] Spencer: Exactly.   [0:02:07] Will: Meanwhile, I am my girlfriend's cheat sheet, and I am in the same place as you, so I'm just gonna start making things up. I'm just gonna go out there and just say, "That's the secret Stark over there, that one. Just pay attention."   [0:02:21] PJ: They're gonna need to level up those recaps. That's gonna become a five to 10-minute thing of just, "Okay, wait, what ... There's all the sub-threads."   [0:02:30] Will: I'm actually shocked HBO didn't release a pre-episode which was a condensed, 30-minute explainer of what happened in the last season. They should've done that this week. They could've gotten a ton of views on that.   [0:02:40] PJ: Dude, tell me about it. I really ... I need something like that. I need-   [0:02:43] Spencer: That must exist somewhere. A supercut.   [0:02:45] Will: I'm sure YouTube has created that.   [0:02:47] PJ: There's a fan out there that's made that, for sure.   [0:02:49] Will: My main prediction is that HBO is gonna make a lot of money.   [0:02:52] PJ: And then they're gonna go back, they're gonna do a prequel, right? I think there's already talk about some sort of ... Around the time of Aegon and the Mad King. [crosstalk]   [0:03:01] Will: There are apparently four or five in production right now.   [0:03:04] PJ: Jeez.   [0:03:04] Will: Yeah.   [0:03:05] Spencer: Wow.   [0:03:05] PJ: It's a cash cow. What're you gonna do?   [0:03:07] Will: Got to milk it.   [0:03:09] PJ: That's what you do with a cash cow, man.   [0:03:11] Spencer: Did you guys watch SNL this past weekend?   [0:03:13] PJ: I didn't, no. Was there-   [0:03:14] Spencer: Kit Harington was the host.   [0:03:15] PJ: Oh, nice.   [0:03:16] Will: Yeah, he looked like he's 12 years old when I saw that ... The photo. It was really weird.   [0:03:20] PJ: When he's clean-shaven, he does look very young.   [0:03:22] Spencer: He also has a very laddish accent compared to his Jon Snow character. But they had a skit that was a parody of all of the spin-offs, so they had a Game of Thrones that was a Law & Order ripoff, just all of these different versions taking characters and then putting them into a sitcom or a drama or whatever. It was really funny.   [0:03:41] PJ: Classic. Yeah, I mean, I wonder ... Those guys ... You would think you just have a calling card to any job you want after you were on Game of Thrones, but I don't know. It's tough to break out of that when you've made a role for yourself.   [0:03:54] Will: Yeah, you can get pigeonholed pretty easily, I think. I think some of the other characters like that, like Robb Stark, who died seasons ago, what's he been in? Who knows?   [0:04:03] PJ: I don't know. I just see flashes of his face in different-   [0:04:06] Spencer: Actually, I do know.   [0:04:06] PJ: You do know?   [0:04:06] Spencer: He's in that Bodyguard show.   [0:04:08] Will: Oh, really?   [0:04:09] Spencer: I forget what ... Is it Netflix?   [0:04:12] Will: Is Sean Bean at a Starbucks now, shilling coffees? Is that where he is after he said "No, I need more money," and they were like, "Well, we'll kill you in season one. It's fine."   [0:04:20] Spencer: Yeah, he was in the Bodyguard on Netflix. Check it out.   [0:04:24] PJ: Check it out. We're plugging it. Plugging it here. All right, guys, we could talk about Game of Thrones forever, we might as well move on. But in light of Game of Thrones coming up and all the exiles that happen throughout Game of Thrones, this is the Banishment Episode-   [0:04:40] Speaker 8: You are banished!   [0:04:42] PJ: -of Braze for Impact.   [0:04:46] Spencer: Dun dun dun.   [0:04:47] PJ: Exactly. Dun dun dun dun dun dun ... We're really thrilled about it. We're gonna talk about some bans and some tentative bans that are on our radar right now. Starting off with number one, the House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill that includes language that would permanently bar the Internal Revenue Service from creating a free, electronic service for Americans to file their taxes, advancing a primary objective of the industry of for-profit companies like Intuit and H&R Block. Companies like Intuit, which produces TurboTax, which I use, and H&R Block allow most Americans to file for free as long as they earn less than $66,000 for the year, but most eligible Americans don't take advantage of that, with just three percent filing for free. Are you guys TurboTaxers? Do you-   [0:05:37] Will: TurboTax, yeah, regrettably.   [0:05:38] Spencer: TurboTax.   [0:05:39] PJ: We subscribe over here. TurboTax. Yeah, I was one of those late bloomers for doing my own taxes. It was kind of like you'd check off things as becoming an adult. "Oh, got to do this. Got to do this." Taxes was the last thing. It was like my dad did it, and I paid a guy to literally handle all of it. Now I'm TurboTax-ing, and I'm a grown, grown man now.   [0:05:58] Spencer: Consider yourself an adult?   [0:06:00] PJ: I thought ... For me, that was the last bit of criteria to say, "Okay, I've made it. I'm an adult."   [0:06:05] Will: It's truly ridiculous that we have to file like that. It's crazy. No other country in the world does it that way. Apparently, I think, in the UK, you have to make ... This number might be a little bit wrong, but it's something like 125,000 pounds a year to have to file. Other than that, what happens is the government just mails you your tax return, because they've got all the data like the IRS does. And they say, "If you want to contest this, go for it. Otherwise, here's your check."   [0:06:32] Spencer: Good to go.   [0:06:33] PJ: Yeah. Super easy. Why are we making it so hard on ourselves?   [0:06:37] Will: It also really screws poor people as well, here, because people have this idea in America that paying taxes ... You are always paying your taxes, right? Filing taxes your taxes is synonymous with paying your taxes. When in reality, if you make $30,000 a year, you're almost certainly going to get a refund. They're leaving money on the table, and if the IRS isn't automatically doing it, they don't get the refund, and IRS doesn't call them to complain, either.   [0:07:03] PJ: Yeah.   [0:07:06] Spencer: They have the information. Especially for a simple filer. You're just getting your deductions, you worked at the same place, you've lived in the same state. They know ... They know it. They could just do it. Estonia does this. Estonia. But apparently, I was reading-   [0:07:24] Will: They have e-citizenship, too, though.   [0:07:25] PJ: It just would ... Is it ... What's the reasoning? It's just it would take a lot of work for that to happen?   [0:07:30] Spencer: Well, there's a couple of reasons. One, these companies spend a lot of money lobbying our Representatives.   [0:07:35] Will: Tens and tens of millions of dollars every year.   [0:07:38] Spencer: The second is the party that prefers to remove taxes, they tend to do it for the people with the most money. But that aside, they think that if it's too easy ... Too easy to pay your taxes, it'll be as a result too easy for our Congress to increase taxes. So they try to make it harder so that people have to go through the pain and we all hate taxes. So there's-   [0:08:08] PJ: So wait, the thinking is that taxes will be increased if we did less work?   [0:08:13] Will: They want you to associate misery and pain and nonsense with taxation every year, and they've been highly successful, I would say.   [0:08:21] PJ: Yeah, tell me about it.   [0:08:23] Will: So, it's ... I don't know. I hope that someday we get there, but this bill that's about to go through with the tax free preparation software, banning all that stuff, it's, I believe, a bipartisan-supported bill, which just makes me really, really ask virtually everyone in Congress, "Guys, what the hell's going on?"   [0:08:49] PJ: I mean, it's just they're making money, right? Is it just-   [0:08:52] Will: Yeah. I think it costs the IRS more money to deal with these external agencies, too. Because you have to imagine on the technical side, they're building integrations and accepting all these form factors from all these different places. If the IRS just built this internally, or some other service built it that was easy to use and free, everyone would start using that, and then all of a sudden all of the overhead costs and all that starts to go down, too.   [0:09:20] PJ: Well, let's hope there's a different future for us, because I think that should be a free tool, hands down.   [0:09:26] Spencer: For sure. Have any of you guys had to deal with cryptocurrency and paying taxes on that?   [0:09:33] Will: I have, yes. It was pretty damn confusing. That might be the exception for where you might have to file something yourselves.   [0:09:43] Spencer: Yeah, right. Here's this new, sketchy asset that I made some money on.   [0:09:47] Will: Yeah, I made ... Not, I would say, a well-informed investment on it, because I don't think virtually anyone's investment on it is well-informed, unless you're a Ph.D. Mathematician who's dug into the source code. But yeah, I'd go as one of the lucky ones and got out while I was sensible, so I had to figure out where the hell to put that in TurboTax. It was weird.   [0:10:06] PJ: I'm sure it was. Did you, as well, or-   [0:10:08] Spencer: Yeah, this year. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it now, but-   [0:10:13] PJ: Well, since you're mentioning crypto ... Nice segue. Appreciate it. Onto our next ban. China considers ban on cryptocurrency ... Mining, that is, because it's a stupid waste of energy. Regulators in China are considering a ban on cryptocurrency mining as an undesirable economic activity, according to a government document released Monday. Basically, the whole thinking is that it's a huge waste on valuable resources because it takes so much energy to do this crypto mining. According to a recent report in Nature Sustainability, crypto mining emits anywhere between three million and 15 million tons of carbon dioxide globally. China making a decision that's good for the environment? I'm a little confused.   [0:10:59] Will: Yeah, although they've actually been getting a lot better about that. I think they won the race to the bottom in terms of environmental impact, and then realized how awful the bottom was and are trying to desperately claw up the other side now.   [0:11:12] Spencer: Yeah, I think with the Olympics, when they had to just close factories so that it wasn't so polluted that people were hacking up a lung while running a marathon.   [0:11:21] PJ: Jeez.   [0:11:21] Will: Yeah. It's still not good there, but they're doing a lot more, I think. Anyway, on the crypto subject, I just don't know. It's just like ... I see the potential, maybe, of something like this in the future, but right now, I read some article ... This was a year ago, that said that a year ago, Bitcoin itself was taking as much electrical energy every month as the nation of Germany.   [0:11:51] Spencer: I think it's one percent of global energy consumption is going to Bitcoin mining.   [0:11:55] Will: Yeah, and they kept saying that it's gonna go up. And that's only Bitcoin, too. There are, what, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of other cryptocurrencies? If you assume Bitcoin is maybe half the market, probably? Something like that? Or maybe it's a third. Who knows? Anyways, that means a huge portion of global energy is essentially right now going to give people another store of money. Banking's a hell of a lot cheaper. Do you know how much energy J.P. Morgan probably spends? I don't know what it is, but I guarantee you it's not one percent of energy.   [0:12:31] PJ: Right.   [0:12:31] Spencer: Especially since most of the mining happens in China, and they're still pretty reliant on coal for a lot of that energy consumption, so not great with the whole global warming thing and the future of humanity, but who knows?   [0:12:44] PJ: Yeah, but I mean, you mentioned it, Will. Maybe sometimes you need to hit the bottom first to know that you need to dig yourselves out.   [0:12:52] Will: I just want to thank you guys as the hosts of this podcast for picking really uplifting topics. [crosstalk]   [0:12:57] Spencer: Do you have a story about hitting rock bottom you'd like to share with us?   [0:13:01] Will: No, that's coming in an upcoming episode of When Shift Hits the Fan.   [0:13:03] PJ: That's true. Look forward to our Rock Bottom Episode, starring Will Crocker.   [0:13:07] Spencer: Will, didn't you ... You were telling me before the show a little bit about graphics cards and how the changing and use in mining was affecting the prices.   [0:13:17] Will: Oh, yeah, there was a point where I ... I play computer games, so I own a graphics card, and there was a point where I bought a graphics card, and usually any piece of technology you buy depreciates over time. It's just because newer stuff comes out, and it gets better. But the market for GPUs, which are graphical processing units, was so nuts because of Bitcoin a couple years ago that I realized my graphics card had appreciated almost 50% at one point. And there just came a point when I was like, "Should I just sell this thing and wait for a while and get out of the market?" But it's absolutely insane how much the prices were fluctuating based upon that. If anybody who's an nVidia stockholder, you rode that wave right with everyone else.   [0:13:59] PJ: The graphics card biz. I see you, Will.   [0:14:03] Will: I'm long on the graphics card biz. They have real applications, too, like neural net processing and a lot of the kind of things that you see people doing, like libraries like TensorFlow to do understanding complex deep learning problems in computer science. All of that requires GPUs, essentially, so it's gonna come forward, but it's gonna fall a little bit for the crypto.   [0:14:26] PJ: Will, since you are such a gamer, and I am as well ... Spencer, were you a little bit in your heyday, probably?   [0:14:32] Spencer: A little bit.   [0:14:33] PJ: I mean, I think given that, Will, you should probably take some beef with Prince Harry, because this next article: Prince Harry calls for a ban on Fortnite. I know that's not your top game, but still, I mean, let's take a look at this.   [0:14:47] Will: Yeah. Fortnite's all right.   [0:14:49] PJ: Ahead of one of the biggest nights in the gaming industry, Prince Harry has called for a ban on Fortnite due to its supposed addictive qualities. Harry said, "That game shouldn't be allowed." In a British accent, of course. "That game shouldn't be allowed. Where's the benefit of having it in your household?" And then, also, Harry suggested Fortnite, a shooter game focused on survival, was responsible for tearing families apart. "It's like waiting for the damage to be done and kids turning up on your doorstep and families being broken down."   [0:15:24] Spencer: Is this real?   [0:15:24] PJ: This is real. This is a legitimate quote.   [0:15:26] Spencer: No.   [0:15:26] PJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no.   [0:15:27] Will: You're tearing me apart, Lisa!   [0:15:30] PJ: "You're tearing me apart, Prince Harry!" Yeah. So that's where he stands on it. Ironically enough, he feels the same way about social media, feels like it's real poison in general. And I guess a day later, him and Meghan Markle started their own Instagram page, so you can follow them on that, which is nice.   [0:15:51] Will: Oh, yeah, which also isn't destroying society at all, right? That's just totally fine that everyone's addicted to Instagram and those things.   [0:15:58] PJ: Exactly. I mean, ban on addictive substances, i.e. Video games. This is ... We're addicted to our tech, obviously, right? But thoughts on video games? To me, my argument was always: video games, yes, they can suck time and everything, but to me, it was always ... It's like an interactive art form. I'm witnessing somebody's art they've put together. Especially MMORPGs, massive multiplayer online role-playing games. Anything that has a big, big, huge world, and I just want to run around all of it, I just really appreciate the design and thought that goes into all of it. That's my feeling.   [0:16:33] Will: It's like a concert in some ways, right? Like at a concert, you're coming to watch music, but you're also coming together to experience that with everyone else around you, and I think multiplayer games are the same way. You're creating that human interaction, which creates the art around it.   [0:16:44] PJ: Yeah.   [0:16:46] Will: Yeah, I don't know about this. I wonder if EA bribed Prince Harry to pick on Fortnite. It was like, "Epic Games needs to be taken down a notch." Because couldn't you just make this claim about most games?   [0:16:58] Spencer: Yeah, why Fortnite, Prince Harry?   [0:17:01] Will: Just because it's the big target. I don't know.   [0:17:03] PJ: Yeah, that's probably what it was. He was thinking about it, and it's just-   [0:17:06] Spencer: It's the only video game he's heard of.   [0:17:07] PJ: I mean, for a guy who smokes as much pot as Prince Harry, I would've thought that video games would be right ... What do you do, then, when you're stoned?   [0:17:13] Will: Is he a toker? I didn't know that.   [0:17:15] Spencer: Yeah, if we want to talk about tearing families apart, how about the royal family of the British Empire?   [0:17:20] PJ: Oh, man. Dude. Counterargument in your face.   [0:17:24] Will: Whoa, guys. Whoa, guys. We have EMEA customers here.   [0:17:28] PJ: Of course, we're just playing. This is all in jest. But no, I think it's a genuine thing. I'm sure plenty of parents are concerned when their kids are spending hours and hours in their room. I'm sure they also don't understand how social gaming actually is.   [0:17:42] Spencer: Especially Fortnite.   [0:17:43] PJ: Especially Fortnite. But what I will say, if you want to ban Apex Legends, you can just go ahead and do that as far as I'm concerned, because I can't even get in a session without throwing the remote against the wall, everyone's so good.   [0:17:54] Spencer: Talk to this guy.   [0:17:55] Will: It's just because you're bad. But it's just the ... Real talk. I'm sorry. Don't just run around in the open and just flail about. Hide behind things. Shoot people.   [0:18:04] Spencer: You should get a lesson from Will.   [0:18:05] PJ: I thought that when you run out in the middle of the board and you kind of scattershot and spin in circles-   [0:18:10] Spencer: He can't be taught.   [0:18:11] Will: I need clay to mold.   [0:18:14] PJ: I'm too old. I'm too old. This old sponge is dried up. There's not much I can learn left.   [0:18:18] Spencer: "This Old Sponge," that's our new show.   [0:18:21] Will: On the subject of ... "This Old Sponge," with PJ Bruno. But on the subject of addiction and games, I do think it's a problem. It is something that ... it's not great for kids to spend infinite hours on these sort of things, but I think there's some interesting, far less intrusive ways than banning the stupid thing. I think ... I've seen some things I think in Vietnam or China, somewhere in Asia, there're some countries now which have stipulations that if somebody has n hours of consecutive play time, that they then have to pop up a message that says, "Hey, are you sure you want to keep playing? Maybe it's time to go take a break or go outside."   [0:19:00] PJ: That's pretty cool.   [0:19:00] Spencer: I like that.   [0:19:00] Will: Or I think some of the games also have something where you have to ... you get reduced experience or something like that after you play for too many consecutive hours.   [0:19:10] PJ: Interesting.   [0:19:11] Spencer: In-game punishment.   [0:19:12] Will: So the game ... Yeah, so you basically get decreasing rewards in the margin.   [0:19:17] Spencer: That's smart.   [0:19:18] PJ: That is really smart. Or if they could have a feature that causes your parent to care more and actually put some restrictions on how much you're playing the game. That's just me. Anyways, we're at our time. Will, thank you so much for being here.   [0:19:35] Will: Thank you, PJ. I hope you find yourself in the game someday, and stop hating the game. Hate the player.   [0:19:43] PJ: That's true. And I'll never stop searching for myself in-game. Spencer, thanks for coming along for the ride.   [0:19:48] Spencer: Thanks, Peej.   [0:19:49] PJ: And you, too. Thanks for joining us, guys. You take care. [0:19:52]

Naruto Creator Masashi Kishimoto New Manga " Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru" Looks Art looks Amazing. Will It be better than Naruto? | The Anime podcast Ep 11. Weekly Shonen Jump has announced that the creator of Naruto, Masashi Kishimoto will be making a return to the pages of Jump in Spring 2019 with Samurai 8: The Tale of Hachimaru a manga that aims to mix Kishimoto's love of Samurai, Japanese culture and clothing in what he believes to be his best work yet. However, he won't be doing the art once again with his assistant Akira Okubo handling the art. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/theanimepodcast/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/theanimepodcast/support

After "A Star is Born" you'd think Hollywood would cool it on movies about musicians but here comes the much awaited Queen biopic "Bohemian Rhapsody." So we got a hold of special guest Grace Randolph to see what she thinks. The film was labled a "troubled production" because its original director was fired during filming. Nonetheless, two members of Queen were executive producers on the film. Willit rock your world? Give a listen. Then Bill Bregoli tells us about "London Fields" another "troubled production" and Bill McCuddy has "Pick of the Litter." It's a heartwarming documentary about service dogs. And Neil has our DVD releases of the week. As Queen would say - it's "a killer." 

I've got Debbie Tringale on the show today, a dog training expert with a very special superpower, or "unfair advantage" as I like to call it. But her business is very location-based, and she mainly caters to local people. How can she transition her services online, gather a following, and create revenue streams for her new online business? Find out more about Debbie at MeandMyDogs.biz. In this episode I talk about idea validation, which I cover extensively in my book, Will It Fly? I also mention a book by a good friend of mine, Chris Ducker, called Rise of the Youpreneur. It's got a lot of great information in it about building a personal brand, and various models and offerings you could use in your business. If you want to be considered for a coaching session, apply via the form at AskPat.com. If you enjoyed today's episode and you love the format of this show, and helping other entrepreneurs, can you help me convince others to listen too? All you have to do is leave a quick review and rating

In this episode, I look at 10 questions yet to be answered this off-season.  Will the Nuggets look to add another player?  Who will get the final 2-way contract? Will IT be healthy by the start of camp? What is in store for Cancar? What is the timetable with Jarred Vanderbilt? Do the Nuggets have a G-League team in the works? Are there plans to build a training facility? Will Millsap (or Jokic, Harris) host a pre-training camp event? Will the schedule screw DEN again? What is the timetable with MPJ? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we tackle the subject of fan art. We discuss what it is, what it isn't, whether or not you should do it, and the legality of it. We definitely are of three minds on this one so get ready for some arguing! Legal statement: Will, Jake, and Lee are not lawyers and this is not legal advice. However, they have experience, thoughts and options on the topic of fan art. If you are looking for real legal counsel, speak to a lawyer that specializes with Intellectual Property (IP). What is fan art? [3:00] Jake’s definition: Any drawing or illustration by a fan of a character or IP that is owned by another company or person. What if someone did fan art and it become successful and gets traction on a social media platform i.e. Reddit? Give credit where credit towards that artist or to whoever owns the IP. In reality the fan art topic is more directed towards taking IPs that have great popularity already. There are these massive IPs like Marvel, DC Comics, Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, etc. There are lots of people at conventions and online who are selling prints and merchandise using these IPs. So the question is, “should you do fan art of these IPs?” and “should you sell it?” Fan art comes in 4 Categories: [10:50] Derivative Work: something that you draw which is pretty much based on the character, your version of the character. The character in your style. Parody: focused on the humor aspect, doing something funny with the character, needs Plagiarism: creating a copy, or using actual artwork and reprinting it (reprint on paper or a t-shirt) Transformative Work: take something that was created and transforming it into something new. i.e. A book review, a drawing of something that hasn't been visualized What is the actual legality of it? Where is the line? [13:28] Hard Line: if you don’t own the character, you need to be careful with the IP. It is illegal. Grey Line: If the company or person who owns the character will care, prosecute, or send a cease and desist. Jake’s thoughts [14:00] If you have a piece of original art, that you created, on a physical piece of paper, you can sell it. That piece is a one-off the original. However, prints and t-shirts become more grey area. You have created a derivative that the company hasn’t created. Ultimately, using another IP but if it became a parody in some way than it is in a “safer” zone i.e. SNL, parody, t-shirt or print. If it has a strong point of view or a strong stylistic design, that couldn’t be mistaken for a licensed work then it’s a better situation to be in BUT best practice is to contact the copyright owner and ask for permission or to buy a license for the IP you want to use. Sometimes larger companies are hard to get ahold of and request legal use of the IP. It is not in the companies economic interest to pursue legal action such as Jake Parker’s Iron Giant prints. Jake Parker Iron Giant Print It is hard to say what is going to happen if you do fan art. There are instances that artist received cease and desist and there are also instances where the owner of the IP likes the fan art and wants to purchase the IP for it. Lee’s thoughts: [18:03] It is very clear who owns the IP of certain art. The grey line starts to work against you once dollars start to get involved- if you start to actually make money off of the art that could go against you. If you just gave away your art it wouldn't be an issue. Lee clarifies Transformative art- There was a case where a photograph was used to created a sculpture (that was very close) and this case was not deemed illegal for the photography. Fan art opens up problems and developing the mindset “I can grab what I want to”. Limits the artist and builds false notoriety and is illegal. The question is whether you will be prosecuted or not. And ultimately, if it’s not a parody it is illegal. Another point to look at is: how much of the project or work is under a copyright? If you take out the copyright work, how much of your project is left over? Does the art still stand if the copied images are taken out. Example: Jake's sketchbooks. Jake Parker’s art books WIll’s thoughts: [22:58] There are forms of fan art that art legal and it depends on the degree in which you recreate the IP. Some fan art is definitely not original and  pure plagiarism but there are IPs that have been exaggerated and are protected under law. Dominic Glover (started illegitimate and became legitimate) Totally Legal Fanart video Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc.- Parody in a court of law recreating “Pretty woman walking down the street”. Campbell won because they were appealing to different audiences. Wills 5 degrees of fanart [32:00] (From bad to good) A pure copy Copy reference but they change the style i.e. watercolor- Rendering has changed Come up with New original pose, and in your own Your own pose, style, and add a concept or something completely different i.e. Will creates known characters into children Completely original pose, style, environment, and genre. Every single thing has changed. Why not create you own thing? [36:00] Will- It’s rewarding aspect to recreated two ideas but there are pitfalls if not careful. Sometimes artist become reliant on fan art. Do it for the right reasons. You can ask- Do i do it for the love or doing it for financial gain? Jed Henry is an example of creating “level 5” fanart. It is original and merges the IP and Henry’s style and vision. Jed Henry’s Ukiyo-e Heroes Could someone young make fanart and avoid these pitfalls? [45:30] Often times fan art is done for economical reasons and to gain tractions. However, young artists need to be mindful. Don’t lean on fanart. Doing fanart allows for great exposure but shouldn’t be that bulk of your work. Fanart can also be an interesting exercise as an artist to grow and learn. Consider WIll’s 5 step evaluations. How much did you change it? Are you selling it? How close to the line are you? The closer you get to the line, the more you are going across the ethical and legal boundary. Do the fanart to learn, get exposure and sometimes to get work but don’t let it be you main thing. Maybe for every fanart piece you do, do 5 original personal pieces. Don’t sell you soul to fan art. Jake found another artist’s list that puts your fanart at risk [51:00] Kirawara Fan Art Risk List: Used original logo Makes it tasteless, sexual, or slanderous Little or no difference Does not have a parody or influence of parody If you sell a high number of prints or commission If it caters to the same market as the copyright owner i.e. Marvel prints don’t exist As an official (career) Marvel artist, you can sell prints and consider them official Marvel art prints. It helps to supplement those artists income. Other artist eat into this market- a thing to consider. Another “pro” fan art point [55:00] In the end, it’s still illegal, but it help keeps the popularity of the IP alive. Whether or not you get in trouble for it is entirely up to the IP owner. LINKS svslearn.com Jake Parker, http://mrjakeparker.com. Instagram: @jakeparker, Youtube: JakeParker44 Will Terry, http://willterry.com. Instagram: @willterryart, Youtube: WillTerryArt Lee White, http://leewhiteillustration.com. Instagram: @leewhiteillo forum.svslearn.com Podcast production and editing by Aaron Dowd. Show notes by Tanner Garlick.

Today, the IT Industry accounts for about 2 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, comparable to the footprint of air travel. Will IT emission eclipse air travel one day soon? Urs Hölzle thinks the clear answer is “no”: he says IT energy will decrease, and perhaps decrease significantly, over the next decade. Find out why. Hölzle is Senior Vice President of Technical Infrastructure & Google Fellow and oversees the design and operation of the servers, networks, and data centers that power Google's services, as well as the development of the software infrastructure used by Google’s applications. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 33271]

Today, the IT Industry accounts for about 2 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, comparable to the footprint of air travel. Will IT emission eclipse air travel one day soon? Urs Hölzle thinks the clear answer is “no”: he says IT energy will decrease, and perhaps decrease significantly, over the next decade. Find out why. Hölzle is Senior Vice President of Technical Infrastructure & Google Fellow and oversees the design and operation of the servers, networks, and data centers that power Google's services, as well as the development of the software infrastructure used by Google’s applications. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 33271]

Today, the IT Industry accounts for about 2 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, comparable to the footprint of air travel. Will IT emission eclipse air travel one day soon? Urs Hölzle thinks the clear answer is “no”: he says IT energy will decrease, and perhaps decrease significantly, over the next decade. Find out why. Hölzle is Senior Vice President of Technical Infrastructure & Google Fellow and oversees the design and operation of the servers, networks, and data centers that power Google's services, as well as the development of the software infrastructure used by Google’s applications. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 33271]

Today, the IT Industry accounts for about 2 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions, comparable to the footprint of air travel. Will IT emission eclipse air travel one day soon? Urs Hölzle thinks the clear answer is “no”: he says IT energy will decrease, and perhaps decrease significantly, over the next decade. Find out why. Hölzle is Senior Vice President of Technical Infrastructure & Google Fellow and oversees the design and operation of the servers, networks, and data centers that power Google's services, as well as the development of the software infrastructure used by Google’s applications. Series: "Institute for Energy Efficiency" [Science] [Show ID: 33271]

Upgrading Leadership In Churches  Interview With Rev. Dr. Bishop William Willimon   Hugh Ballou: Greetings, this is Hugh Ballou. Welcome to this version of The Nonprofit Exchange. We talk to leaders worldwide about their particular perspective in leadership, their expertise, and to hear from their perspective, from their seat that they led from for so many years. My guest today is Will Willimon, Dr. Reverend Will Willimon. We are sitting in Durham, North Carolina at the Duke Divinity School where Will will tell you a little bit about what he does here. He and I got connected a number of years ago when he came to north Alabama as a bishop, and I was serving in a Methodist church. We first got connected there. I have been extremely impressed with his writing, and we have interfaced a few times. You have even spoken at one of my events in Greensboro. Welcome, Will, to the Nonprofit Exchange. Will Willimon: Thank you. Hugh: It's like when I go somewhere and say, “I'm Hugh Ballou. This is Will Willimon.” Tell us about yourself, your background, and why you're here at the Duke Divinity School. Will: I'm a Methodist preacher from South Carolina. As a young preacher, I was summoned by Duke Divinity School. I came up here and joined the faculty back in the ‘70s to teach worship. Didn't like teaching full-time, so I went back in a parish in South Carolina. Then again Duke called me to the pulpit of Duke Chapel, and I was there 20 years. It was my first experience with a ministry that large, a budget that large, a staff that large. From there, I was a bishop. After being a bishop for eight years, I was invited back to Duke. I teach courses in preaching and mission. I also teach a class for ordained leadership, and for the doctor of ministry, I teach a leadership class. In my latter years, I find myself moving more into leadership. In fact, in my mind, I think every class I teach here at Duke Divinity School is a leadership class because I think leadership is utterly necessary for ordained clergy to be leaders, but often that is something they say they don't get in divinity school. It's right at the top of the clergy list of skills they wish they had more of. Hugh: That's amazing. As people go into this meaningful work in ministry, first off, it's very difficult work. It's very challenging work. Let's go back a minute. We talked about leadership. I want you to define leadership. I also want to ask you about what do you think from interviewing pastors that have been in churches for a while, what do they think they wish they had known before they started? Define leadership. Then what are you hearing from preachers out there they wish they had gotten from this class you're teaching? Will: I hear pastors complain about administration. That consumes too much of their time, they don't enjoy doing it, they had no training in how to administer well. Larger church pastors, whenever you're together, the talk always gets to staff: staff problems, problematic people on staff, hiring people, holding people accountable, all those things you got to do in supervision. I think few pastors come into the ministry saying, “God is calling me to administer a church.” And yet that is the work you find yourself in. Another problem is I know when I went into ministry, my vision of myself was I will be a part of a small rural congregation in South Carolina. I hope I'll have a part-time secretary. That would be wonderful. Then you wake up one day like I did at Duke Chapel, and I had 30 human beings that I was supposed to be supervising and orchestrating and coordinating and leading. That was when I reached out and tried to get better leadership administrative skills. Probably should have reached out sooner. I hear about administration. Then I hear pastors complaining about conflicted congregations, congregations that don't seem to respect their authority and leadership. This whole complex set of things that leaders, managers, administrators have to do. I hear a lot of that. You mentioned that being a pastoral leader is hard. I agree. However, there are times I think when pastors get together and complain, whine about administrative leadership difficulties thinking this is what everybody faces who works with human beings that have some tasks assigned to them, some mission they are engaged in. Maybe the surprising thing is that pastors are surprised this is the world. Hugh: This is the work. It's with people. Years ago, I interviewed you for an article I was doing for a magazine on the topic of conflict. We were talking about particularly how pastors do or don't approach conflict. One of the statements you made was typically, pastors want to move away from conflict. One of the people I interviewed on the podcast was a woman named Dr. Roberta Gilbert. She was a psychiatrist and a colleague of Murray Bowen. I don't know if you- Will: I know Bowen theory, yeah. Hugh: I have been studying it for nine years. She was on this series of podcasts. What she helped me realize was that we move toward conflict, remaining calm, sticking to the facts. Instead of avoiding it, moving toward that. I found that Bowen systems is a way to know self, so it helped me to reframe some of my leadership. But conflict is one of the things that exists in any human system like Bowen talks about. Part of what that theory helped me do was he calls differentiation of self. What are our principles? That is a really foundational piece for leadership is defining self. Will: Agreed. For pastors, self-knowledge is a never-ending task. It may be complicated by the fact that for pastors, we have lots of opportunities to be self-deceitful if we want to be. One, I think people aid us in our self-deceit as they say to us, “You're just so loving and caring. We have never had a pastor like you.” Pushing all those buttons. Then you start to believe that. It is a halo effect. I was in a church recently that has severe problems with decline and severe problems with their staff being unable to step up. The first thing the pastor said was, “We have a wonderful staff here. I feel so privileged to be working with them.” I'm thinking that from one angle, that sounds charitable, and you seem to be a charitable person. You're thinking positively about these people. From another angle though, let's be honest, you don't want to do the work that would be required by being truthful, that you've hired the wrong people, you are going to have some painful conversations, you need to make some moves. Rather than do that work, you are going to say, “We have a wonderful staff, and we are all Christians.” I love that self-knowledge. For instance, in a leadership class I teach here, two thirds of the class always admits they have problems with conflict. Much of the class says one of the appeals of Christian ministry is that they could do this without hurting people. In business, you have to fire people. I know it sounds ridiculous as you know the church. I try to say it's very important to own that. I put it on my list, too, with clergy. I think we clergy think of ourselves as powerless people. We look at our paycheck and say we don't have much influence or power or they'd be paying me more. It's easy for us to say there is a problem of the staff, that it's for the personnel committee. They deal with this; since I'm the pastor, I don't deal with that. I think that can be very dangerous. One of my jobs as a bishop was to discipline errant clergy who had moral lapses, and invariably, the image was, “I am just a loving, caring pastor. I couldn't hurt anybody.” That is dangerous. It's important for pastors to own who they are, the power they have. Use that power carefully. Self-knowledge is a big deal. I don't know if the president of General Motors has to know thyself, as Socrates advised, but pastors do. There are so many opportunities for deceit, for those moments where you say: I am telling you this for your own good and because I love you. Probably more typical is for pastors to say in response to when I ask “Why didn't you tell the truth? Why didn't you share the facts?” “Oh, I am such a loving, caring person. I didn't want to hurt this person.” We pastors have many resources for deceiving ourselves about our real motives. Hugh: Along that channel, I find that the really best leaders have a confidential advisor or coach, a mentor, somebody that helps them discover their blind spots because they are called blind spots for a good reason. That would be one of them. It's an accountability partner. Will: Good advice. I remember we had a consultant in Alabama, and he educated us during a day about what it takes to revitalize a moribund, static, plateaued congregation. You gotta do this and this and this. Have these discussions, these strategies. At the end of the day, at the bottom of the list he put- His voice raised and he said, “None of this can be done by yourself. You've got to get external assistance. You have to get a coach, an advisor, a mentor. You have to get somebody who is not embedded with you, somebody who has no power in that configuration.” I sure found that to be true. As Alabama's bishop, the church gave me a job but I had no training, and as you can see, very few gifts. I had 800 pastors, 600 churches. It was a leadership management nightmare. After a couple months, I got a retired business executive. I asked, “Bill, what'd you make your last year at the life insurance company?” He said, “About $400,000.” I said, “Well, I'm prepared to offer you $20,000 to work with me and to be my coach, to be my advisor. God wants you to do this. God has told me to tell you to do this. You wouldn't want to disappoint the Lord, would you?” He said, “Wow, you really do need an advisor if that's your attitude about things.” It was wonderful. He had an office near mine. Bill went with me to meetings. He sat at the back of the room usually, took notes. We would have an evaluation after the meeting. He would say things to me like, “Once again, you talked about a third of the time, and two thirds of the time, they were talking.” Or he would say things to me like, “You know, you're asking less questions than you did when we first started. I think you have to discipline yourself to ask more questions and make fewer declarative statements. Your questions are not as good as they were in the early days. I'm afraid you're falling into the trap of thinking you know what's going on now. No, you don't.” Because that is a moving target, people are being deceptive, and they don't even know they are being deceptive. It was wonderful. The trouble with being a bishop is it is really hard to find anybody who will tell you the truth, except generally your most severe critics whom you can't stand because they are so critical. Bill was wonderful. Now, when any pastor says to me things like, “Oh, this church. I tried this, and it didn't work.” “Let me stop you right there. I know where you're going with this. I am going to recommend you get a coach. You get some help. Let me just stop you right there and talk about the help.” I'm just not sure pastors can do much of anything without somebody coming in from the outside and making the work as difficult as Jesus means it to be. I use that phrase a lot. If the work assigned to us was simply to be a loving, caring group of people, a lot of churches are a loving, caring group of people because that's all the pastor knows how to lead, the pastor is uncomfortable around anybody in their twenties, so therefore the pastor ends up spending a lot of time with people my age. Unfortunately, Jesus Christ, the work he has given us to do, the mission is much more demanding than that. There is going to be disagreements. There will be crises, not simply because people are hard to work with, which they are, but because Jesus Christ is hard to work with. He won't let us be the men's garden club. I keep trying and thinking about leadership. What difference does it make that we are Christian doing this? How is our leadership of a different quality than, say, leadership by a well-meaning humanist or something? That is a hard question to answer, but nevertheless, I think it important for clergy. Hugh: It is. We take sound leadership business principles, and we learn from them. When we put them in the church, they are different because it is the church. There are things we can learn. In my conversations with Jim Forbes, a pastor from Riverside, New York, he said, “We need for our spiritual journey experience 15-20% outside of our discipline.” Talk about the coach so we don't get stale and blind. Nothing else is there. This is what I know. Part of what Bishop Joe said to us at Blacksburg is the Methodist Church was losing 1,200 members a week in America. We get on a track where we think this is how it ought to go, but it's not working. We have sat ourselves up for failure. Some of the gaps in leadership. When I talked to Cal Turner, and he has talked to the council of bishops, he went to his leadership team at Dollar General and said, “I am the son of the boss. I got this because I am son of the boss.” He was president and chairman of the board. “You have the skills. I have the vision.” He claimed the vision, but he said that he wanted them to do this. Everybody stepped up. Cal said, “Hugh, leadership is about defining your gaps and finding really good people to fill them.” He also pointed out that transparency is- You're not whiny, but he was very straightforward. They know. They know you don't know it. Why pretend? If I didn't tell them, they would be like, “Well, I'll show him.” There is this vision thing. I worked with Dick Wills when he was bishop in Tennessee. We were talking about a cabin retreat. I was talking about the vision for that since I was leading it. He said, “The cabinet is not going to develop the vision. I didn't see anywhere in the Bible where God gave the vision to a committee. Here is the vision.” That is the vision piece. I don't think the great commandment is your mission. That is a commandment. That is a commission. That is not a choice. Paul Borden said that when you brought him in to talk to north Alabama. That is not a choice. What is it that God has called this church or organization? We are talking about leadership in the church. There are some unique differences, but there are some global differences for anybody leading any organization. A lot of what you are talking about corporate leaders have trouble with, too. Talk about the pastor. Back to Bowen systems. There is this pseudo self and basic self. We want to please people, so we go into pleaser mode, which is a downward spiral, rather than going with our principles and making the right decisions for the right reason. Not pulling people in and saying, “This is not how we do things.” It's a pleaser personality. You did say to me in that interview a while back that in addition to avoiding conflict, it gets worse as it goes on. You also said that conflict is the sign of energy in an organization. We don't ever eliminate it. We are energetic people. Managing this and addressing it, I think we misunderstand words. One word is we need to confront the conflict. The root of it is with your front. It doesn't mean you hit them with a baseball bat. With your front means approach it directly, calmly, and openly, stating the facts. There is a huge challenge I see in this area you're talking about. How can pastors equip themselves, besides having a good coach? I suggest it doesn't always have to be clergy. Will: You can have coaches. When pastors talk about difficulty of personalities, because you have graduated from divinity school, you have had zero training in how to handle people, how to hold people accountable, how to have difficult conversations with people about their work. But I guarantee you you have people in your church that God has called to the ministry or personnel work. Draw on them. Commission them to do this with you. There is an arrogance behind the pastor who says, “I have hands laying on my head. I'm good at preaching and administration and budgetary oversight.” With one meeting with the finance committee, I was thinking I have always disliked people like you in high school who were always talking about some really interesting math problem in homework. I'm no good in math. That is one reason I went into the ministry to avoid that. Any wonderful guy who has called you. This is what you're good at. Let me give you that authority to do that. As you were talking, you talked about good business principles and how they are different in the church. That is so true. However, I don't want to let us clergy off the hook by saying a frequent way- It's either arrogance or evasiveness. “Wait, remember now, the church is not a business.” That is just a cop-out for saying, “I am so arrogant I am not going to submit to instruction. I am not going to learn.” You were talking about conflict. You can get better at managing conflict. There are certain things you can learn. You do this, then you do this, then you do this. You develop an attitude, which doesn't say, “There is conflict. I did something wrong,” but rather, “There is some heat being generated here. I can feel it. Maybe I am doing something right.” There have been moments in my ministry where I swear it's like Jesus says to me, “Gosh, ain't it a shame that I didn't have your personality. Maybe I wouldn't have ended up like I did on the cross.” Sometimes, good management leadership principles can be overruled by the theological missional commitments of the church. I remember when I was weighing into the immigration fight in Alabama, taking on Jeff Sessions. My management coach said, “Ah, really, at this time, I hate to see you get into this.” I said, “Well, the better clergy are asking me to get into this with him.” He said, “This is one of those moment when I realize that this is more than about good management coaching. This is about the gospel and Jesus Christ. I guarantee you you're going to do this because I know you. This is where I realize I'm not ordained. I'm not clergy. At your best, you think like clergy. I just want to say now as you go into this, know that you will come into some casualties and take some hits and expend some of your capital, but it sounds like you think this is right.” Part of being clergy is applying theological and knowing- In the class I was just teaching, I had Douglas Campbell, who is our great New Testament scholar here, talking about conflict. He was talking about how Paul served a multi-cultural diverse church. He said, “Boy, it's all blowing up in his face. You have people with Pagan values and Pagan ethics, and you have Jewish Christians, and Gentile Christians. They are fighting it out with each other over who is a real Christian.” A number of the pastors in the program said, “I've been there. I am there.” Then Douglas said, “You know, maybe Paul would say, ‘If you're in a placid, content, homogeneous church, you ain't much of a missionary, are you? You're not much of an Evangelist.' The testimony to how effective Paul was is the squabbles going on, the conflict they're having.” I thought that was a great way to put it. If my church doesn't have any conflict over racial issues or political issues, you better check out your Evangelistic leadership because Jesus Christ is about wider business than simply a happy club of older adults. Hugh: That's what separates us from being a social club. Will: Absolutely. We usually say, “We have love, harmony,” yeah. But if that love and harmony is by our disobeying Christ's commission, it's wrong. You mentioned Paul Borden. I loved him in a church leadership on testosterone way. I remember one of my pastors saying to Paul, “You can't be captured by the older adults in your congregation. You have to free yourself from that. You have to ask yourself, every time you go to the hospital to visit those shut-ins, who are you not visiting? Who are the conversations you're not having?” One of the pastors said, “Paul, don't you think there is something to be said for honoring the sacrifices and love of those dear people who built this church?” Paul said, “No, the church does not exist to honor any human being. The church exists to honor Jesus Christ.” Paul whacks him to the thing he says, “Some of you should have gone into nursing. Maybe you can empty bedpans, do nice things for people. This is better than that. You are a preacher of the word of God.” I don't know how the group perceived that, but I was thinking it is good to be- Sometimes it is good to be reminded that God has called me for more than an efficient, well-run organization. Again, I'm not trying to dismiss leadership management incompetence. For me, preaching was the thing that kept calling me back to say, “I am not simply aspiring to be a manager of an efficient volunteer organization. I am a spokesperson for God. I am the one that says, Okay people, we are gathered again before the scriptures. How are we being challenged?” Hugh: Our duty and delight is to do meaningful work and to challenge people. I am thinking Reinhold Niebuhr, “Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.” Will: Quoting Reinhold Niebuhr reminds me of his book, Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic. But in there, he says something that has challenged me throughout my ministry. “Before I became a pastor, I thought there were so many boring and tame sermons because preachers were cowards. You have to be careful about how you say things. Now that I have become a pastor, I realized the source of bad preaching is love. You start to love these people, you are with them. You have a front row seat on their misery. The last thing you want to do in a sermon is make them more miserable. That is why there is so many boring and tame sermons.” Not sure if he was right about his characterization of prophets in Israel, but I found that so challenging that many of the really unfaithful things pastors do and lead, they blame it on love. I'm not telling this congregation the truth about their future, the fact that they have no future or very little future because I love them. They are some of the sweetest people. It complexifies leadership and Jesus' name. it also says to me now. Be honest, here. You have noted that when you tell people painful truths, what do they do? They come back at you, and they start telling you painful truths. Then where would we be? We might be something on the way to being the body of Christ where the church says, “We are not only loving and caring and friendly; we are also truthful to a degree that you can't get without the holy spirit working in you.” Hugh: We're also not truthful in how we interpret the Bible. Paul Borden challenged the great commission is not your mission, it's a choice. Richard Rohr or John Bishop, they talk about how we hijack scripture for our own purposes- Will: We do. Hugh: -as leaders. We misinterpret that. That is a built-in liability. You spoke about power earlier. I want to ask about that in a minute. I find a lot of leaders are unaware of the power differentiation. The pastor is an influencer of power, whether they know it or not. We get in trouble with relationships. We get in trouble with money. We get in trouble with authority because we are not aware that we have a position of power with what we do. In my church in Atlanta that I served, the session, which is the ruling body of the Presbyterian church, were Sotheby executives who abdicated their authority to the pastor, which is not in the book of order. He has one vote. The teaching elder gets equal votes. They abdicated because he was the CEO. It was that power position that they gave into. They didn't know how to be the board. But he got things done. He died at 63 because he really wore out his body. He worked hard and grew that church. It was a great delight to know him. I do find that typically clergy especially are unaware that they do have this position of power. What they say has a lot more weight. How does that get us in trouble? Will: It's dangerous- It's also so important to own your power and use it responsibly. We give policemen guns, but then we really expect them to be very careful in using the firearm. When I am ordained in the Methodist church, the bishop says, “Take thou authority to preach the word. Take thou authority to administer the sacraments.” The bishop should have said, “Take care with thou authority we're giving you.” It amazes me that illustration is fascinating. I have been on boards of colleges where you have these powerful executives on the board. It's like they walk into a church meeting and turn off their brains and become docile, smiling people. Some of them will say, “It's the church. It's not like a business.” I say, “I think it should be more like a business. By the way, I guarantee your business for any of its ethical failings would never do anything this unethical that is going on right now in the treatment of staff or whatever. Come on. Be an executive. Use your power. I watched a little college go just about down the drain because of a board sitting there saying, “He is the president, and he has his Ph. D. I just have my B.A. degree, so what do I know?” They tolerated behavior they would never have tolerated in their bank or whatever. Knowledge of power, clergy moral abuse. I remember a dean of a medical school told me one time, “The purpose of medical education, morally speaking, is to produce people who can be alone with naked people and not take advantage of them.” I said, “Turn around. You see the divinity school. We do that in three years for a lot less money than you charge to do that.” I thought it was a great- Clergy are around naked people a lot, vulnerable people a lot. To take advantage of that vulnerability is a heinous act that requires removal from ministry. We can never- You violated a whole thing. Oftentimes, when I have been involved in disciplining clergy, the self-image the clergy person has is, “Me? No, I'm just- She said she was lonely, and her marriage was unhappy. I'm in the business of loving. So I tried to love.” I said, “That is your explanation for what occurred on your desk?” “Yes.” “That is horrible. Goodbye.” It is a big issue. In the congregation, I do think one thing we clergy have to be savvy about is power, power inequalities, power dynamics. Who are the powerless people in the congregation who are not being heard and who are not speaking up? I remember a pastor turning around a congregation. A group came to him and said, “We don't like this. We don't like this.” He said, “Every one of you is over 65. You represent 70% of this congregation.” They said, “We certainly do. Glad you've noticed that.” He said, “I bet you represent 90% of the giving.” “We're glad you noticed that, too.” “If this church is going to live another day, I have to ignore you as much as I can. I've just met with the pitifully six people we have in this congregation in their 20s. Here is what I have heard from them. We could lose those few people. I have challenged them to double their numbers this year. Here is what they tell me we need to do. For the good of this church, I am going to have to take my orders from them. I hope you'll understand that. I hope you'll see that by my doing that, I am giving this church another day.” That struck me as somebody understanding power and saying, “I have to discipline myself not to let you have the power that determines the mission of this church.” Hugh: That is not a typical decision though. Will: I honored this pastor. Teach me how to do more of that. One other thing you said is one thing as a bishop, my coach said to me, “You've been an academic. The way you guys think about stuff is with your mouth open. You say, ‘Hey, this is an interesting idea. I want to know how you feel about that.' You can do that in your old job, but you can't do that in your new job. In your new job, when you say to them like you did in a meeting, ‘Hey, I'm thinking why don't we have district offices? I think you guys ought to be in your car more than in your office. You have to be in the district.' So why don't we make district offices? It was breathtaking. Everybody there froze and said, ‘You have a job now where you have power. You could actually do that if you wanted to.' You have to be a bit more careful about the stuff you throw out. If you want to shock them, if you want to steamroll them, you have the power to do it. I believe you'll end up paying a heavy price for that.” It was a great thing to say. You're the bishop. You could move them to Timbuktu if you're unhappy with them. They know it. Hugh: Leaders do that not only in the church, but also in other charities, and are totally unaware of their consequences of those actions. Will: That's a good word, consequences. Hugh: There are consequences, and they are unaware of them. I want to close this interview out with two more questions. Recently, there was an article in the Washington Post that said at its current trajectory, mainline denominations have 23 Easters left. That is a pretty sobering thought whether it's true or not. What do leaders in mainline churches need to do to turn that trend around? Will: Ooh. I have a long list. A bunch of stuff. Today, I would say: One is we have to look at the painful, ugly stuff, like that statistic. We have to stop lying. We have to find a way to tell difficult truths to people whom we love. Again, I'm a preacher. That is what I think I do every week is stand up and tell difficult truths from Jesus to people that I love, many of them. We ought to be good at this. I think in a sense we ought to be made to stare at that and think, I can't be this kind of leader that I thought I was trying to be. Pastors would often say to me, “This is not the same church I signed on with. I tell you what, when I joined, I didn't sign on for this.” What a dumb statement. We serve a living God for one thing, and not of the dead. But also, every leader has got to constantly retool, constantly go back to school, constantly start over, constantly ditch these principles that worked great at my last job. They are inappropriate at this one. Get used to it. I start my ordained leadership class by saying to them, “I am going to try to share with you what I think I‘ve learned. A lot of it I learned the hard way. Maybe it will help you avoid some of my mistakes. You will get tired of the pontificating and the stories about Alabama, but you need to use that. You take that in. About 50% of that is going to be wrong. You can't serve the same church I served. You can't do what I did. There are people here in their 20s who don't know a lot about ministry, but you know more than I do about the future. That is your job in this class. You take in what I've got, and you sort through it. But you also keep your eyes on the future of things. The Lord is taking me out of this game. But He is sending you in. Step up and take responsibility.” That is the move I think we got to make. We will not have a future in mainline Protestantism unless we can do that. I must say I'm more impressed by local pastors in little out of the way places that are finding a way to lead into the future. I'm more impressed than I am about seminaries and all. Hugh: Hey there, it's Hugh Ballou. Wasn't that a great interview with Dr. William Willimon? We lost the last few seconds when I said thank you and goodbye because of a technical glitch, but you had all this great content.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Social media was set ablaze this week by the release of a new book titled Fire and Fury that delusional Trump haters believe will finally bring the President down. Will It? No. But it will serve it's propaganda purpose perfectly.  We talk about that, the Fake News awards, scary tech headlines, and how the media fractures society all on this episode of the Propaganda Report Podcast with Monica Perez and Brad Binkley.  Fake News Awards Nomination – CNN for Blatantly Biased Liberal Listicles (With 16 Examples!) https://propagandareportdaily.com/fake-news-awards-nomination-cnn-for-blatantly-biased-liberal-listicles-with-16-examples/ Tweet Storm 2018 – All Trump’s 2018 Tweets (Updated January 6th) https://propagandareportdaily.com/tweet-storm-2018-all-trumps-2018-tweets-updated-january-6th/ If you haven’t, Subscribe to the Propaganda Report podcast on iTunes. Rate and review us. We’d love to hear from you. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/t… Or subscribe on your Android listening platform of choice. http://www.subscribeonandroid.com/pro… If you want to donate out and help out the show, you can do so on Paypal at https://www.paypal.com/donate/?token=2TvY2zlEkKJXp_rkEgJs0B4QdCkt30MwOIxlp4vM4stbrgoTdmPqTfQ6wmEYFAkBcUgsDG&country.x=US&locale.x=  or better yet, you can become a Patron. https://www.patreon.com/propagandareport Like the Propaganda Report Podcast on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/thepropagand… And join the conversation with us on Twitter @MonicaPerezShow @freedomactradio Thank you for listening to Ep. 78 of the Propaganda Report Podcast with Monica Perez and Brad Binkley (Johnny Blastoff)  

CONTENTS OF THIS PODCAST: - Objectification of Snapchat - "You always have two choices" - Will - "It's the duty of every man to respect the dignity of every woman" - JPII - Pursuing the Beauty behind the beauty - How do we pursue women well?

A five night series.. OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN? WILL IT? LISTEN LIVE CLICK ON DATE AT 6PM THEN CLICK MEDIA PLAYER AT GLOBAL STAR 5 MONDAY MARCH 25TH RAGGED EDGE LIVE RADIO BROADCAST 6PM THE NATIONS: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE NATIONS TUESDAY MARCH 26TH RAGGED EDGE LIVE RADIO BROADCAST 6PM THE NATIONS: THE DRIVE FOR THE REDEMPTION.. THE CROSS & NATIONS WEDNESDAY MARCH 27TH RAGGED EDGE LIVE RADIO BROADCAST 6PM THE NATIONS: THE SEIZURE ASSIMILATION INTO A NEW ORDER ...globalism THURSDAY MARCH 28TH RAGGED EDGE LIVE RADIO BROADCAST 6PM THE NATIONS: THE JUDGMENT OF THE NATIONS... FRIDAY MARCH 29TH RAGGED EDGE LIVE RADIO BROADCAST 6PM THE NATIONS: THE HEALING OF THE NATIONS & HOPE OF THE NATIONS