Happy to be here with Rebecca Van Damme. We have a mutual friend, Tad Hargrave, and we both have presented for Tad's audience. And I thought Rebecca would be good to come and talk about content and social media algorithms and how to do content in a way that really resonates with our ideal audience without overworking, without working too hard on it. So Rebecca, great to have you here. Hi, thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. Yeah, so let me give you a chance to just do a brief intro of yourself and then we'll get into the conversation, yeah. Sure, so I'm Rebecca Van Damme. I am a content strategist for healers, activists, artists, social entrepreneurs, change makers, the same kind of people that George works with, Tad works with, we're all kind of niche mates. And I call myself a strategist and not a coach because I feel like I love coaches and I feel like coaches are helping people get out of their own way. And for me, I'm like, once you're out of your own way, let's talk about the way forward. So I end up doing mindset stuff because of course it comes up. And of course people's fears and emotions get in the way of showing up online, but that's not where I tend to focus. I tend to focus more on the practical and the big picture. I really like big picture thinking. Yeah, that's awesome. And well, let's get right into it because the social media algorithm is something that everyone, they either feel like, oh, it's treating me badly, not showing my content, or it's just spaffling sometimes. I would love for you to share your perspective on it, like why we don't need to, I guess, chase the algorithm as you say to be able to have a good business, so yeah. Yeah, so I think first off, people are not only too focused on the algorithm, they're too focused on social media. I think social media is a great supplement to an already functioning business funnel. Some people might feel differently. I know Jonah Richmond has built his business totally on Instagram and that's amazing. And it's a testament to there being no one right way to do things, that there's lots of different strategies out there and ways to make it work. But my point of view is that your, if you've got the right building blocks in place, if you know what your vision is, why you do what you do, if you know who you serve, if your offerings really speak to the people who you serve, if you then serve your gifts with excellence and generosity, if all of those things are in place, then people will talk about you. They will tell their friends and colleagues about what you do and there will be some kind of word of mouth going on. And then nurturing that word of mouth and building relationships is number one hands down where it's at. And I see all of this as a garden and I see the word of mouth network as little bees, sending messages to each other. And I see in this garden of a thriving business, social media as fertilizer. So it's no, you can't replace good soil, good seeds, sunlight, water, you can't replace all of that with fertilizer. But if all of that stuff is thriving and then you put fertilizer on it, then you'll enhance it. So that's thing one is that I think people are hyper focused on social media and social media is, these platforms are full of what we call cold leads. They're people who we don't know that well. And of course we can nurture those relationships on social media, but generally the people who don't know us yet are cold leads. The people who follow us are lukewarm, maybe warm, but then if we can get them onto our email list, then they become warm. And then if they buy something from us and they're hot leads, and then we sell things to the people who have already bought from us, it's a lot easier. But people wanna go from zero to 60 on social media and they get bummed out because they've pitched their offerings to a cold crowd and wondering why it's not working. So that's the thing one is that I think people just put so much weight and heaviness on social media. And then the other thing is, is that thinking about the algorithm, I've had so many people ask me, well, I heard that scheduling apps, you know, turn down the volume on algorithm. And I heard that- Actually, before you go there, I'm so sorry. I just wanted to say, I agree with you on what you just said about the social media being, like it's an amplifier, right? Of existing good resonant offers and connections with people.  I should just post on social media. And if I get the algorithm right, use the right hashtags that drop, you know, secret. I don't even use hashtags on Instagram because I noticed it just gets bots following me. And anyway, that's a whole other thing. But yeah, just rice hashtags and, you know, other tricks to get attention. Then, you know, I'll build a following and then they'll want to buy from me. Well, maybe, maybe not. So I want to emphasize what you said there. It's like, yeah, the sunlight, the soil, you know, good water, good seeds.  So, excellent, excellent. Okay. So then you're saying social media scheduling apps, right? Let's talk about that. Like, I often get people saying, well, you know, why don't you use scheduling apps? You just, you know, use it. And then it puts it out everywhere. And there's this, well, let me actually hear you. Let me hear your point of view on social media scheduling apps first. Yeah, maybe we feel differently about it. For me, so my thing is, you know, people ask me a lot of questions about won't this hurt the algorithm, won't that hurt the algorithm? If I do too many hashtags, won't that hurt it? If I use the scheduling app, won't that hurt it? If I put the hashtags in the first comment instead of they're asking all of these questions and they're these nitty gritty things that stop the flow. And certainly in the beginning when people are building their following and building their base, to me, these are not the questions. The questions are, how do you wanna express yourself? What are you trying to say? How do you wanna say it? Who are you talking to? And how do you get consistent? And I am all about building structures and processes to get consistent. And I use scheduling apps to do that, but I'm curious, what's your thing with scheduling apps? No, I actually don't have anything with scheduling apps. I mean, I tell people, listen, if you wanna use it, go for it. And I, maybe I'm kind of old school in my social media. I like to do it manually, not manually. I mean, I do use Meta Studio, Creator Studio to schedule Facebook and Instagram posts, but I like to do it, I'll tell you what it is. I resist scheduling too far in advance because I feel like, I don't know if I, I don't know if three weeks from now I want that piece of content to be the piece of content that week. So like, I think I schedule up to like seven days in advance, something like that. And I feel like that's far enough for me. I'm not saying it's bad to schedule, but it's like, I guess you know what it is. I'll tell you what, I have, there are apps that automatically post certain things on a regular basis. And I'm like, I'm not saying that that's bad. I'm just saying that it kind of misses the opportunity of more authentic creation or more like being in touch with the audience. I don't know, I'm being too old school about it. So that's my style. And that's what worked really well for me. It's like every week I'm thinking about what's real for me this week, even though I do pre-purpose a lot of old content, don't get me wrong. I still bring back the best of, but I still kind of like touch it again to go, is this still real for me or what might I modify a little bit to, yeah, so. I love that.  I just think it's in the moment and it's another layer of authenticity to bring into the mix. So I think it's great. I think for me, and I know what you're talking about, the apps that kind of queue things up and you put them in categories and you don't know what's going out. It's just gonna, yeah, I don't use those. I use the ones where you're actually mapping it out. And I think for me, I just like to get ahead so that I know things are rolling. And then if I have a spark of inspiration, I always tell my clients, so you've got your three posts a week going out or however many posts a week going out. And then if you've got a moment you're like, today this thing is happening, I wanna say something, cut in, pop in, like do a real, do a story, whatever. But at least you know that you don't have to today because you've got stuff going out. And that's my thing is just freeing up time and space to cut down on decision fatigue and make room for other things in your business. That's where I'm really at. And then I have some clients who have like 45,000 followers on Instagram and they're getting nitty gritty about the algorithm. At that point, I'm like, go for it because you already know what's working and it's gonna make a big difference if only 1,200 people are seeing your posts versus 10,000. That's a big deal. So go for it, learn the algorithm at that point. But in the beginning when people are trying to get the plane off the ground, it's not the time to be tinkering with the levers and just get the plane off the ground. Yeah, totally. Yeah, I, yes, exactly. Yeah, cause like the algorithm is kind of like, well, let's turn the wheel a little bit to the left or a little bit to the right. It looks like your plane's not even flying when you're turning up the right floor. No, I like that analogy. So then let's talk about, well, what should people lead with in their content? Like what is, what do you recommend to I guess quote unquote stand out or there's so much that we can create from within us. What do we choose? Yeah, so my secret sauce is always the unpopular belief. Your most unpopular belief. And I've found this to be true in my business. My most unpopular belief is that building a business and disrupting capitalism are not mutually exclusive.   Whatever force they're trying to fight, the force that's against the good, they're like, oh, she said it. But then there's clients who are in my niche and are like a square in my target market who are like, no, you can't be an anti-capitalist marketer. And then it's a conversation. It's a controversial conversation topic. It makes people wanna dig a little deeper. So there's that. And I think it also shows confidence, courage and bravery which makes you feel to people they can count on you because you're going to put yourself out on a limb because you have integrity, because you're not afraid. It kind of puts you in the position of fearless leader and people feel held by that. People feel like they can rest in your confidence and then maybe they can have a little bit more confidence. Maybe they can be a little more bold in the things that they say. And so I don't say unpopular belief because sometimes people have unpopular beliefs that are hateful. And that is not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about the thing that's going to punch down or put someone in danger or as bigoted in some way. There's plenty of unpopular beliefs people should keep to themselves in my opinion. But I'm talking about the unpopular belief. The thing that should be said that people are afraid to say because they're afraid they're gonna lose business that's the thing you should say in my opinion. Yeah, that's totally. Yeah, that's essentially how I feel like my business hasn't put on a map as well. So I'm really glad that you're saying this because, yeah, years ago, I started to say my unpopular belief, which some of my niche mates disagree with, which is fine, like you said, it's a conversation. But I always say, I'm anti, you're anti-capitalist, I'm anti-funnel. Like I'm like, that's really, I mean, really, I think when I started creating content consistently in like 2014, 2015, that was what I was leading with. I was like, I don't like sales funnels and here's why.  Like I feel like if your unpopular belief could give people relief, like, oh my God, that means I don't have to do that anymore or I don't have to hold that burden anymore. That's awesome. Or like you said, if it could make people go F, yeah, or hell, hell, yeah, that's someone said it, you know? Like I thought maybe I was weird. So that's like, okay, give relief or heck, yeah, I'm totally with you, sister or brother, or if there was, oh man, I thought I was weird in thinking that, you know? It's like all of these unpopular beliefs, many others are kind of in the closet about, right? It's like when you say, you're like, okay, yes, there's others who feel like I do and we can talk from there. And so I really, yes, absolutely. So in fact, I wanna welcome those who are watching this or hearing this comment below the video and share with us what is your, what do you think your most unpopular belief might be? And I'm not saying that just so I can get comments on the video, I don't care about that, but I do care about what people's unpopular beliefs are. Whether you wanna comment below, share it on your social media and see what happens. So Rebecca, I wanna ask you this. So what if I do have a lot of people in my audience who they have a side to them, maybe that they lean into a little bit much, which is, yeah, not very confident, right? Which is shy, you get different ways to think. You can introverted or afraid to be vulnerable publicly or they don't want to be criticized.  Entrepreneurship is an art and if you're an entrepreneur, you're an artist and sharing art is vulnerable. If you read a poem on stage, it would feel the same way. If you wrote a song and sang that on stage, if you did a dance on stage, if you had an opening at an art gallery for your first opening, it doesn't matter what you're showing to the world. It is scary to show your stuff and then the breaks. But the more you do it, the easier it gets. So I think it's also in line with this algorithm conversation of all of this, have you ever read the War of Art? I have read bits of it. I know the general gist of it. Of course, it's been around a lot within my circles, but yeah. Yeah, so Stephen Pressfield in that book talks about resistance with the capital R. And I think these conversations about the algorithm when you're just getting started are resistance with the capital R. It's just any way, any excuse to get out of the discomfort of being seen and having your beliefs be seen and having your art, which is, in this case, your business be seen, and there's truly no way around it.  You just keep doing it. I've also seen resistance show up as, I've been working with a client for a while and I'm wondering what's going on, like what's getting in the way and then I find out that they only really put an hour toward their business a week. And I'm like, oh, so it's a hobby. Resistance shows up as just not being in your business, like putting work in. So I think you were asking, I forgot the original question, you were asking Peter. That's a really good way because a lot of those who are, I guess for lack of a better word, shy quote unquote, about sharing their unpopular belief is, you're right, artists and that's a really good way of putting it. We have that side to us. I mean, it's often the artists who are more counter-cultural and willing to or more sensitive towards certain values and are shy about sharing those values. So I really well said, I really like how you said it. And I'll just also add that, remember that there are already people who would feel relief at what you said or say, heck yes, thank you or say, I'm not the only one. And you probably, dear shy person or you probably already know a couple of people who would rally you on with that unpopular belief. And so my suggestions go and post about it and then quickly or share with a couple of those people, trusted friends, colleagues to say, I'm about to say this. And will you support me in saying this? And when you do send the link to them and say, I said it or something and watch the support make you stronger, right? So that you can like you said, show up again and again. And I agree with you. The more you do it, the more it's like, oh, I can do this. You either grow thicker skin or you grow a better strategy for dealing with the inner critic and the outer critics, right? Okay, so this is really good. Thank you for bringing this up. I also wanna ask you about you know, how do you describe your work? Unless people are so, yeah, I find this so hard. Myself included, right? Describe our work and without as much struggle and the way that resonates with people. Any tips you can offer there? Yeah, so another thing that I've noticed over time is that when people sit down to write something, it often comes out and I'm talking marketing copy. It either comes out as really academic or really clever neither of which strike the heart of the people we're trying to talk to. So what I have found is that writing like we talk is the way to go. And in order to capture that sometimes sitting down to write is not the way to go. Sometimes we should just talk into our phone or have a friend ask us questions and do a Zoom call like this and have a friend say, okay, what do you do? What are you passionate about? Why do you do what you do? What is the core belief that drives this business? How did your business get started? What's the road that led you here? And just talk and then transcribe what you said and there's your about me page. And you can do that for all kinds of sections of your website or for a copy that you use on social media. But I find that in marketing copy this natural conversational way of being is so much more resonant. And you're gonna end up saying things that you wouldn't have said if you sat down and wrote. Some of us are different. Some of us are writers and we already write like we talk or it kind of flows. But a lot of people get in their way when they sit down to write something and they just need to talk excitedly to a friend about what they're passionate about. And then it comes out, right? It's awesome. Such a good tip. I mean, transformational method really. It's like I hope everybody watching this will actually try it, actually do it.  Hey, can we take an hour and half hour we'll just swap, right? Is this something you do with clients as well? Yes, but I'm phasing out my one-on-one work. So this is what I've been doing for years is I just say, you talk, I type. And I physically, I'm like their little secretary. I'm a fast type, I just capture everything they say and I ask them questions and do it that way. And then we turn that copy into their website copy or whatever. But I am turning these one-on-one sessions into group coaching at some point. I just haven't created that offering yet. But yes, I do. I have to talk to you about that possibility. And I think group coaching is actually a great idea because guess what? You're bringing together people that can potentially support each other following this method. And then, you know, you're kind of supporting the method that you're helping them use it more effectively with each other. So that's really cool. Well, tell us about what is, yeah. I mean, you know, what are you offering right now and how can people reach out to you and what should, you know, I'll put the links below too of course. But go ahead. Yeah, so okay, so right now I'm in the middle of content cultivation course. This is the second time I've offered it and now it's back to being a wait list. So any of these offerings you can find at my website, rebeccavandam.com slash offerings. So content cultivation course at this point is a 30 day program to help people get consistent online. Have my thing is strategy plus systems plus structure equals sanity. And that's what I'm helping people do there. And I'll do it again. I just don't quite know when. The other thing I offer is a monthly free Q&A that I call content strategy cafe. It's every first Friday and it's an hour of ask me anything. And so that's another thing that I'm doing. And then eventually I will have more offerings, group coaching and things like that. And I'm figuring it out. But if you sign up for either of those email lists, you'll end up on my newsletter and you'll be the first to know when new stuff drops. So it's Rebecca Van Dam, that's Rebecca, just like it's typically spelled R-E-B-E-C-C-A-V-A-N Van. Dan is D-A-M-M-D-A-M-M, rebeccavandam.com. That's the main site. And yeah, I'll put the links below rebeccavandam.com slash email is email list and the offerings is rebeccavandam.com slash offerings, which is a nice, nice link there. Awesome, it's been great to have you in this conversation. I really enjoyed it myself and I think there are some really key perspective shifts and action steps that you mentioned that I think folks maybe rewind a little bit and watch it again perhaps if you'd like and take action on it because I think it will make a difference. Any parting words of encouragement or anything else you want to share before we go? Well, I just want to thank you so much, George. I really love the work that you do. I'm always telling people about your offerings and I think that you feel a very important niche in this marketing work that we do. So I'm happy you're around and I'm so glad to finally get to talk to you. I am too. I'm so glad to bring you on and have you share. So thank you for what you do. I know you do a lot of support for Tad's content strategy as well. So I've seen his content really blossom in the past, I guess, a year or so since you've been working with him. So I know it's working. Yay. Good job, good job. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good to see you. Yeah, good to see you and thanks for showing up for this. Cool, bye.


Hello everybody, Andrea Trosky here with Dental Tutoring. So a lot of you have been sending messages asking about time management. So whether you are a new student or you've been in school for a while, you will quickly start to realize that time management is very difficult. So you have to figure out how to study, how to find time to eat, how to find time to work, how to find time to be with your family, how to find time to just sort of be you and have a little bit of a life. But more importantly, you might have seven tests one week, two tests the next week, homework assignments, projects, group presentations, everything that you have to prepare for. And your teachers don't care how many tests or assignments or quizzes you have for other classes. They are only concerned with their own. When I was a student, I remember thinking, don't the teachers ever talk to each other to just sort of say, well, they have a test on Monday. So don't give them a test on Monday. Give them a test on Tuesday instead. But typically they don't talk to one another. They don't really care, I guess, as horrible as that sounds, but they don't really care what the other teacher has planned. So time management is a huge thing. And if you don't have it down pat, it can mean the difference between a pass and a fail. And you might have come to realize that already. And I'm not saying this to scare you, but I'm saying this so you can start to prepare yourself. So the best thing that you guys can do is to either buy a calendar, buy an agenda, buy a planner, anything, find something that works for you so that you are able to see per week and then per month how many tests, assignments you have, projects, presentations that you have to prepare for quizzes, all of that. You might have to prepare for a clinic. You might have to prepare a little bit more for your labs, but make note of everything. So then I would suggest, say the Sunday, the week before, look at the week that you have coming up and then make some choices and make some decisions of when you are going to study for what topic, when you are going to have some free time, things like that. When I was a student, I pretty much planned hour per hour. So I did have to work after school, not every day. I don't really remember to be honest now, but some weeks it was every day, but then other weeks it was maybe four times a week, three times a week. I worked mainly on the weekends, though, too. But as you can imagine, me trying to study after school was impossible if I had to work. But I would always study after work and just before I went to sleep. Because after work, you're pretty hyped up, right? So you can't sleep right away anyway. So I would study for at least an hour after that. And that would make me tired. But then at least I knew that I was able to get at least an hour of studying in every single day. And I say this because it's a good idea to get at least two hours in every day, if you can, and up to six hours of studying a day at the most. So let's say you have a test Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. So let's say that you have a test every single day. Start to study for those tests a couple weeks, at least a week before. But I suggest at least a couple weeks. That way, if you're only able to study, let's say, an hour every single day, then start two weeks beforehand. So then by the time your test comes up, you'll feel pretty confident, right? But let's say you don't have to work. Then you might not necessarily have to study two weeks beforehand because you will have at least, let's say, four hours a day to study. So that's a lot easier for you. See how if you have, let's say, four hours a day to study, you can get a lot more done than if you only have an hour a day. So look at what your schedule is. If you have prior commitments, say you have an extra curricular activity after school every day, or you watch your niece every Saturday, I don't know, something like that. But if you have prior commitments, that's OK, but try to work around them. Because in school, you need to make sure to pass, right? And you will come with a lot. Like, you will have to do a lot, and it does become overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. The best thing to do is to stay organized. So that's where a planner comes in. So then at least you can see what you have to do per week and then per month. And then plan out per day sort of what you're doing in the morning, the afternoon, evening. And then also, though, make sure to give yourself some time away from all of that.  Because you should not have to study all day every day, because that will not help either. You might feel like you have to, because you have so many tests, assignments, and projects, but that's not helping you either. So there is such a thing as studying too much. So does that make sense so for everybody? So the best thing to do for time management is to write everything down and then plan per week. And no waste of time.  So when you are studying or working on projects, put the cell phone away, do not go on the computer, just sort of do that for a good four hours, and then that's it. So does that make sense? So good luck, everybody. If you're a new student, you will soon see how it can be very overwhelming, but it is possible if you stay organized. So good luck. And if you guys need any help, just let me know.


What do you think about Gritty? I love him. Absolutely love him. Somebody said on the internet it was a cross between myself, the orange hair, and Jake Floracek with his googly eyes. It's a cool thing to have a mascot for the flyers. Never had one. First class all the way, Gritty. I love you, baby. So former hockey player, now TV personality, how has that transitioned back? It's tough. I'm not as smooth as you are on the microphone doing an interview. I was like, yeah, it was really good. I just was so soft-spoken. And the producer's in my ear.  Like, you're a funny guy from that first point to now. I feel like I'm a million times better and just trying to be yourself on TV and talk hockey. The game I love, the game I know so well, and hopefully people appreciate it. Post-NHL life. You know what's wild? I played for 17 years in the NHL. A week after I lost out, game seven, I had a baby boy. Wesley, my son, there was really not much transition from, I guess, one job to another. I became a dad and loved every single second of it.


for those who are either just joining us or are joining us for the first time in a while.  I look like I'm like midway through being raptured because my only light source in this room is a very old overhead light that is both very bright and very yellow. So I'm looking particularly ghostly in this moment. Luckily, you will not be looking at me much. We have three members of Gorilla Opera here who will be sort of handling the Q&A and discussion afterwards. And I just wanna give it a minute or two because I see a couple of people still trying to enter and we will go ahead and hit play. Before we do that, a reminder that captioning is available. However, you do need to click the link that was just shared in the chat by my colleague, Derek. The captions are external instead of embedded in Zoom for this session. This session is also going to close us out. So after our Q&A with Gorilla Opera, we will be turning things back over to Keita to close not just today and this session, but our 2022 convening. I think that that is everything. Thank you for your time. Your attention and your focus. I am going to be quiet and go away and quite literally turn over the camera. On the cane, the mussel's dangling from his bones to old sleeves and feet, always finally boiling. Doctor's orders. The kink. I'm gonna smash those carrots. Still sho' them. He always has seeds. We were twins. He's a wild. He loves his soup. And I love to the last drop. Inviting everyone back into space with us, taking a moment to sit in what we're sitting in, feeling, same as we have after each performance, starting with gratitude to Gorilla Opera for sharing this piece with us. And I will actually defer to you all on how you would like to begin, if you'd like to give some information about the company, about yourselves and about the piece when you're ready. Yes, I'm very happy to start. My name is Aliana de la Guardia. I use she, her pronouns. I'm the artistic director of Gorilla Opera. I am a Latina female and I have short brown hair, brown eyes and light skin.  And I would love to just start by introducing our company, Gorilla Opera. We are an opera ensemble that presents new and experimental works of opera theater. So the work that we perform is not opera as you know it. You will never see us perform Puccini, never Verdi, nothing, we only work with living composers to present new work. This was a particularly very collaborative work which I would love for Denise and Bajar to expand upon later. I wanna also say that Gorilla Opera, we're in our 16th season, we've been doing this for 16 years. We have commissioned and presented, we've commissioned over 40 works, including the works that we have in development and we represent over 30 composers in those works. I wanna talk a little bit about the development process of salt. This was pitched to me by both Denise and Bajar during COVID which was at a time where I was considering how Gorilla Opera could continue to present new work with all of these personnel restrictions happening. Everywhere and nowhere wanting singers in their venues. So they said this work is for one singer. We want you to do it, it's with electronics. And I said, well, now is the time to experiment and do something like that. We're an experimental ensemble after all. And it began with a grant from the Multicultural Council Mass Multicultural Council, excuse me. And at the time we said, well, let's make it a film, let's make it a short film. And because we made that film, we got a lot of the content from the video that you saw in the performance that we just presented. And if you wanna see the short film, I'm happy to share it with you. So that was the beginning of the process of creating the musical language for the work, a lot of the visual language for the work and also immersing me as the performer in both the performative, the visual and the musical world of the piece. I wanna also say that my mother is in this as well. And she has some of the hands and she has some of the faces and the body parts that you see in the film and also the video for the show. So that really is how it started. And then we worked with a presenting partner, the Museum of Science, to perform this that you saw tonight on their subspace series. And this was the first presentation of the piece, which was basically a 20 minute version. We then toured to the Ice Factory Festival this past August and we used that opportunity to expand the work into a nearly 40 minute work. So it is evening length now. And we added three scenes that include more video and animation, more music with additional recorded artists and shadow theater that is behind the animation and behind the animation and video art, which is really, really, really beautiful. And I'm also very happy to share that video with anyone who is interested in the full work and also that we're showing the full work from the Ice Factory Festival on our Guerrilla Emergence Festival, which is a virtual festival of four nights of live streams and on demand at the end of this month that have four Guerrilla Opera works on them. And this is one of them. So please let me know and I will give you a festival pass so you can see all of our work, but this one in particular, cause it's so beautiful. And I wanna say what we also expanded at the Ice Factory Festival was the width of our set. What you saw in the video had one large projection screen in the back and one kind of in the front. And now it has two large projection screens, one in the back, one slightly in the front and the actor goes between the both of them and there's video art and lighting design that is shine on both of them. Another thing that we changed from this production to the other is that we hang the screens directly from the grid of the theater. So we do require a theater that has a grid and if you do not have a grid, we have a very large scaffolding. So we can be very flexible, but we do prefer a grid and this is why, because that beautiful linchpin moment where you see that the salt waterfall is so, when you're there in person, it is such a communal moment to watch that salt fall as a group and to meditate and have a catharsis together after the intensity of this music with just the salt falling and that is the music for that entire scene. It is just the salt falling and that salt is falling for minutes from a rig that we have perfected from the grid and again is another beautiful moment that we're prepared to install into any theater. And we have a skeleton crew, but a very, very, very professional and just the best team. And I'm gonna post a picture of our team in the chat so you can all see it. But I would love to now turn it over to Bahaar to talk about the music and then Denise to talk about the visual world and the libretto. So Bahaar, please take it away. And if you can unmute yourself, you're not sure how to unmute yourself. Yeah, unmute that. Okay. There's an issue here with my phone. Is it possible that Denise starts and then I just fixed this issue that I'm having right now and then I start, is that okay? Yeah, Denise, are you present? Sorry, I apologize. There's huge mistake here, sorry. Bahaar is joining us from an airport. At the moment, literally in transit. So thank you for being present in the way that you can be present. Denise, we would love to hear from you. Hello, I'm Denise Khateri. My pronouns are she, hers.  I'm wearing a scarf around my neck and a gray, dark gray sweater. About salt, well, it started a few years ago. The idea started in my mind. I had a lot of, I knew a lot of older women who like, mostly Iranians who were trapped in abusive marriages and they just couldn't get out of it either because of their children or social norms or they were just too scared to become independent suddenly at an older age. And then they were just trapped in those marriages and there was no way out for them.  Is there a way that they can release it? Or if like in their fantasy, how do they see it? How do they see that moment of release? And I thought about, and one of the people that I knew, one of the husbands actually had a very high blood pressure and some other diseases that the doctor strictly forbidden salt. And that was when the idea came to my mind of like, you know, it's sure, it's a fantasy. It's something that passes people's mind. And I was thinking what would happen in the mad donation of this woman who has been trapped and who can't get away from it? Like, you know, what would happen in her mind? And that was the initial thought of salt. And I really wanted to see the isolation, see the feeling of being trapped of that woman. So that's why in my direction, I had the performer, aka Aliana here frozen in one spot and not really moving around the space because I wanted that release and that movement to be for salt for when it drops and for when we saw it falling from the ceiling. Yeah, and then the whole process was very collaborative as Aliana said, Bahar was very flexible and also Aliana was very flexible to change a lot of things during the rehearsal process. Even in the libretto and the music, we had to experiment with a lot of stuff to make it work. The way that we wanted people to get the effect that we were looking for. So it was a very, very collaborative process. Thank you for sharing. Bahar, are you all set to join us? Amazing. Okay, finally, hi. Hello. Hello, and I really apologize for all this issues that I'm having. I am currently in the airport in the transit. So there's a lot of light here as you can imagine. There's a lot of noise here as the people are walking and talking a lot. So I apologize if there's a lot of noise in the background while I'm talking. My name is Bahar, Bahar Rorya'i. I'm from Iran, short, dark hair, dark eyes. I think light skin and I'm extremely happy that I'm here and I'm glad that I can share some things about this piece that is becoming more and more dear to me. The more that I'm thinking about it, the more it's becoming more precious. I was lucky that Denise Khateri asked, gave me the return. Well, Denise and I have been working together and collaborating a lot since 2014. We've been constantly working on theater and animation that Denise made. And so we know each other and we know our aesthetics. So when Denise gave this to me, it was basically a very, it was like a play. And Denise has this very special writing, style of writing that is very much repetitive, extremely minimal. And things come back. There is a lot of rhythm in it. So when I read it, read the text, I was like, yes, absolutely, let's do this. So we divided the text into recitative aria, recitative aria, recitative aria. Whereas in the recitative, everything is so fast. She's so anxious. She's somehow living in her mind. She's in the reality, but she's not. Because things from the past and the future and things that she wants to do comes, all of them at the same time comes in her mind. But then we have this aria that she goes deep and in the contemplation process of, if this is going to happen, if I'm going to do this, what is the image of it? So I recitative aria, recitative aria, and then the last section is this whole process of hair. So hair desiring something. We don't know really what, if she really did this or not, but there's a desire and that desire in the sound of the salt comes back to us, in the sound of the water comes back to us, in the sound of the door comes back to us, the walking and everything is repetition and there is a power of repetition. That brings that anxiety, that there is a very small moment from going into the peak of anxiety, when something comes back and then suddenly jumping that peak. So I've been trying to make that as you see, there's an announcement. I have followed it. The music, what do you want women and small children and attend the performance period on one ear and then walk in the first floor? Well, it is for Aliana and live electronics. There's a lot of processing while she's singing there. I have this program that, there are specific parts that when she's singing, it goes to the program and then it reflects on her own sound, as if she's actually covered by her own voices in her mind. I also very much feel this, I think I could be connected, I was connected to the pain, the fear, the hope, everything that was happening for this woman. I could feel it and of course it's coming from the text because the text was powerful.  And it was trying to tell the story, which always there's this morning, we have when the person dies in Iran, we have this movement and singing. So we were trying to capture that. I don't know what else I can say. That was beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I do, we are already running sort of close on time. So folks who are attendees, if you have questions or comments you'd like to put into the chat because Bahar is on an iPhone right now, I'm going to be reading those out loud and elevating them to the group. So this is your opportunity while we have the folks from Gorilla Opera present. And I know that I speak for at least a few folks here, surely everyone, when I say that that piece is beautiful and very affecting. And also the author for participation either to watch the full video or to attend the Gorilla, I put it in here, the Gorilla Emergence Festival. I know I and my teammates and colleagues at least would love the opportunity to view and participate and we'll happily take any information there. And I'm going to take the moment to remind folks that you can engage with Gorilla Opera the same place you can engage with our other folks on the Huvva app through all of the info that was shared there as well as the things that have been posted in the chat. Are there questions or comments or burning things folks want to bring to Aliana, Denise and Bahar? Giving a moment as I rapid fire. I also want to elevate how much I enjoyed hearing each of you speak about each other as we sort of wait for questions or comments from attendees. The whole theme over the course of this month has very much been about community and communities and how we build it. And it was beautiful to hear each of you reflect on what the other co-creators of this brought. I am curious about the process of working with the Museum of Science. I think it's really exciting that the place that this sort of smeared live was not at one of the various museums with art in the name. So if anyone would like to speak to that, that's definitely a question I have the like production part of my brain. So yeah, the Museum of Science there, they have like an adult programs team and they bring in artists to produce STEM based work, work that what helps them reflect some of their programmatic priorities as well. And they commissioned us to be a part of the subspace series, which is an evening series. So they open up the museum again on certain evenings and invite audiences to come in and to see new work by artists, many of which are local. And we presented salt on a double bill with another piece called Distorted Attitudes Three by a colleague of ours, Anahita Abasi. And it was sort of tied together through this Iranian woman presence. And I have to say these are amazing, these women are amazing colleagues to each other, absolutely love each other and are like instant friends even though maybe they've met only on Zoom or anything like that. And it was a genuine experience. And since I'm talking about that and the Museum of Science, they did work with us as presenters, so they commissioned us and invited us into their space. And we created this basically anew for them. But because of them gave us the opportunity to continue this work that we were planning on presenting as a full live performance anyway. So it was a serendipitous collaboration. It was a really mutual collaboration. We were very happy with them and they were really happy with us and they invited us back this year. And I think in their words that they absolutely love us and they want us back every year. So you can look for us at the Museum of Science. There's two, I just want to pop something really quickly in. There's two people that we didn't talk about that are really great collaborators on this. And the first one I want to shout out is Nujo Wang who we call Nora. And she is the video artist that created all of the video projections that you see. She mapped all the projections, she created all the video content. And in the new version collaborated with Denise who drew a lot of the content and then Nora animated the content. And so as a result, I interact with like Nora and Denise's work that is projected onto a screen which is already beautiful work that you saw with like little eyeballs popping up on a barrel and then like a giant, like a movie projected onto a different thing. And another one is our associate producer and lighting designer who is Keith Lynn Parkman. And she from the Museum of Science to the Ice Factory Festival created a really, really beautiful lighting design. And also is essentially the technical person, the technical point person and manager that helped us move the show from Boston to New York. So those are our two other collaborators that you see in the photo that I posted a link to a photo in the chat. And those are where we are the dream team of Salt. All women, very fierce and very professional. I want to elevate this comment from Carrie with Theater Kapow. Thank you, Aliana, Denise and Bahar. What a wonderfully collaborative creation that really provokes thought and emotion. Thank you for sharing. So just uplifting that. I'm gonna give folks- Thank you, Carrie. Yeah, I'm gonna give folks another moment or two to post any questions or thoughts or reflections before I turn things over to my boss, Hida, to bring us into closing for not just this session or this day, but for the entire convening. So if folks have any questions or comments or things they wanna uplift for Aliana, Bahar and Denise, this is the moment. I know putting everybody on the spot, people are trying to type their own phones. And I do wanna say I love, like on a personal, my personal cup of tea level, the idea of an opera company that is producing work only by living composers and still firmly naming and classing themselves as opera unapologetically and holding both of those things in space is like beautiful. I also wanna reflect on the diversity of performance we have seen. I am incredibly proud to live in Maple Nation and in New England and to have seen puppetry and opera and dance and theater used to reclaim space and histories. It has been a beautiful several days with all of you. Any last things from the folks at Grilla Opera that you'd like to share, stay, pop in the chat? The floor, mic, camera is yours. I'll just end by reiterating my invitation to come see the Gorilla Emergence Festival, which is a festival that contains three of our complete works. One is a musical performance of a work that will be premiered very soon. One is a live performance of a work that will turn into a film. So we don't just produce live performance, we produce every kind of performance and sometimes a work starts as one thing and ends up as another. And we're also showing the complete film of Salt from the Ice Factory Festival. And the final work is an interview with another collaborator of ours, Emily Coe who is whose work we are premiering at the end of the year. Her work, Her Alive Undead is a multi-generational work about a family of Chinese American women, but with a sci-fi and surrealist bent because we are Gorilla Opera after all. And so you're going to see an interview with her and two work samples that we haven't shown anyone. So please join us. And I put my email in the chat, but you can also very easily find my information online on every platform because I'm everywhere and I'm very happy to extend free passes and invitations, open invitations to any of our shows. Please contact me directly. Thank you. Kida? Thank you. Thank you, everyone. Babatni, I'm, aside from the voice issue, I'm so extremely grateful for those of you who have joined us today, those who joined us last week and how amazing is New England. I am, sorry, I am from, a nation that technically is New England, even though it's in New York, somehow we got left out of the fact that our nations are more firmly New England than they are New York, which is what I'm reflecting on right now about communities in New England and how much there is here, even though people don't necessarily think of us as a quote theater center or theater hub. And the first question I always say to them is, well, what is your definition of theater? Everything that we have seen today falls within my personal definition of theater. And so I'm really excited about the conversations that have been started, especially today, starting with what was raised earlier, sharing each other's breath, what Babylon brought into the room, coming together after such a traumatic experience as the onset of COVID and also finding where our permissions lie. Where can we speak? Where should we speak? How should we speak? Which again, reflects back to the indigenous, the native panel and knowing what those responsibilities are. But something that has reflected, resonated with me today, especially this experience of doing a hybrid convening is that perfection is not beautiful. Our imperfections are beautiful. All of the tech issues that have happened today, or the last week, and when we did the in-person medicaid portion, all of those things are proof one, that we exist, and two, that we're going forward together. There's so much that we are doing together. So I want to say top of the knee, thank you for being here. I can't stress how much and how important the team is. Leilani just referred to me as her boss, which is not a word I would ever use. We are a team. Thank you, Leilani. Thank you on your 90th day at NIFA, taking on so much of this work and emceeing us through all of this. Thank you, Derek, for all of the tech work that you've been holding down for us. It's been amazing. I'm, y'all know how I am. I love to adapt things. I never master anything. Mina had to leave because life is real and she's picking up her son from school. And Mina was formerly a part of the NTP team and is a consultant for us and is really, we're not letting her go. Yes, she's moving on and she's doing everything and all of that, but she's never going away because we love her and we need her. Thank you also to Sherry. Sherry has been captioning this entire day and all of last week. I know her fingers hurt and I really, really appreciate it. Sherry has been captioning for the National Theater Project for a few years and I told her earlier, she's really a part of our team at this point. But really thank you to all of you who have been with us, who have shared this journey with us. I hope there's some of you that I have known for a while. Some of you I have lost touch with over time and some of you I am meeting via Zoom or in my language, Zoomakik for the first time. And I hope that this conversation and these relationships continue to build. We will be doing another regional convening next year, I hope and hopefully in person. And all of you, one joyful thing about Hoover is now we know how to get ahold of you all. So you will all hear about that as well. I think our time here together is over for now. It's not over, it's just over for now. And so from the bottom of my heart from the NTP team, thank you so much for joining us for the regional convening and see you soon. Thank you so much. And sorry I was just out of the room. I really appreciate this sharing this space. I really appreciate it. Many, many thanks. Have a good one. Thank you, Bahar. Merci, Bahar.


Hello, my name is David Garski and I'm a software engineer at Wolf SSL. Today we're going to be talking about WolfBoot with the STM32. This is a multi-part video series starting with an overview of Wolf SSL and the WolfBoot library. Wolf SSL was founded in 2004 with the need at MySQL for a SSL library that matched the licensing, which is GPL. As a result of that, our co-founders Todd and Larry decided to write this. It was called Yazzle and C++ and in 2006 they wrote an embedded C version of it called CYazzle. In 2014, we changed the name to Wolf SSL and that's what you see today. We have over a thousand OEM customers and 17 resale partners and at any one point in time we're securing over 2 billion connections because of the products that we're in. ST is a really great partner of ours and I'm really proud today to present this video series about WolfBoot in conjunction with them. These are our Wolf SSL products. The Wolf SSL library itself is a TLS library that provides client and server functionality for all the latest standards. It's built upon our Wolf Crip library, which is a FIPS 140-2, 140-3 certified crypto engine. It's also certified for aeronautics use with a DO178C certifications. We have a Wolf MQTT client library for cloud broker connections. We have an SSH client and server also supports SCP and SFTP. Our Wolf TPM library is based on the TCG's 2.0 specification and allows use of crypto chips like the ST33 TPM. And today we'll talk about WolfBoot, our secure bootloader. It can also support major boot when used in conjunction with Wolf TPM. We also have wrappers for Java, C-sharp, Python, and we have some other tools like command line utilities. Something that's not mentioned here is we also have a TLS-13 sniffer which supports a key manager. And there's also an intrusion detection prevention system called Wolf Century that's being released. So WolfBoot is a generic secure boot solution. It runs on virtually any microcontroller. It is designed to run in bare metal and it's very easy to port additional platforms with our hardware traction APIs. There's no dynamic memory used so it's all static or stack based and we've also designed it to be the code to be safe so that it can be used for aerospace, medical, and automotive. The WolfBoot library is based on the IETF suite draft which is a firmware update architecture for internet things and it defines things like that the actual swapping of partition should happen in the bootloader and there should be mechanisms to roll back on failures things like that which you fully support. We also have examples available in our WolfBoot examples repository and we have key generation and signing tools that have been written in Python and C. So the firmware partition image can be hashed and signed using these algorithms. These are very common asymmetric key algorithms where you have a public-private key. Public key is a root of trust that's embedded into the bootloader and the private key is what's used to sign the image. We also support encryption of the partitions using Cha Cha Poly. Additionally you can offload the verification of these images to secure elements like the STSafe A110 or the ST33 TPM. You can also use those to pin the root of trust, that public key that's trusted for the signed firmware. WolfCrypt is what's used for the verification underneath and we support assembly optimizations that are incredibly fast for these platforms. So our partition scheme is very flexible and it's determined at build time. The bootloader usually takes 10 to 30 kilobytes. There's one flash sector that's reserved for swap and then the remainder is split between application and update partitions. The firmware update mechanism, it will prevent a fallback to a previous version. So if let's say somebody tried to install an older version, it will prevent that. If the update fails, so if you send down an update and it fails to boot the application successfully, on the next reboot it will actually roll back. Additionally, it's PowerFailSafe, so during the swapping of the partitions, if there's a power failure on resumption of power, the process will pick up exactly where it left off. There will be no lost data. Some platforms support hardware assisted bank swapping and if that's available we leverage it. We support external spy flash memory for the update partition and the swap sector and it's important to note that the update mechanism where the transport mechanism that the OTA image comes down is actually in your application, it's not in the bootloader. So this is a list of supported STM32 microcontrollers with Wolf boot that have currently been ported and are supported. It's the STM32 G0, L0, L5, WB, F4, F7 and H7. There are more being added all the time and we're happy to help support or port these for you. Here's a comparison of Wolf boot with STSBSFU and ARMS trusted firmware TfM. Wolf boot is highly optimized with the memory footprint and processing time. It's also based on proprietary and efficient HAL interfaces and it uses our WolfCrypt optimized cryptographic engine which is validated. This supports all the STPKA which is the ECC hardware acceleration. The SBSFU and TfM, they offer a full coverage of the STM32 families, demonstrate how to combine STM32 features and reach a high level of security. It has TfM secure services framework for trust zone and the system level certification on slick micros. Next I'm going to show you a comparison slide of the three. The code base for Wolf boot is proprietary but it's open source GPLv2. I believe you can get the source code for the other ones as well. Wolf boot, you have the ability to do two partitions or it's required for the update procedure. The other ones you can do one or two. With Wolf boot you can sign with ed25519 or ECC or RSA and you also support encryption of the partition using Cha Cha Poly and soon we'll add AESGCM as well. Let's see, obviously ours uses WolfCrypt underneath which is a certified very robust WolfCrypt library. There's secure elements support for things like the STSafe or the ST33 and it's also possible to support external flash. Our Wolf boot is fully make file based while the others have some examples for EWRM, Kyle and STM32Q by DE. So we're going to dive a little bit into the Wolf boot implementation details. So these are the software components. Your application sits here, it can be on an RTOS or not. There are two APIs that the library can, that your application can call into Wolf boot from your application side. So you can call an API that says perform an update on the next reboot. You can also call an API that says I successfully booted my application, do not roll back on the next reboot. So those are important. And the state of those is maintained in the flash which I'll show you later. So there's only a couple of public APIs in the sense from the application the rest is all internal in the Wolf boot library. There's a route of trust, which is the public key that is specific to you that can be pinned into the firmware for the bootloader. And that's what's used for the verification of the partitions. We do support multiple keys and we support offloading its other hardware if the platform supports it. And then our FIPS certified WolfCrypt engine is over here. Important to note that WolfCrypt itself supports all the secure elements like the ST safe and it's what's responsible for handling that. So these are the how APIs for a new platform. The most important are the flash erase and write functions. The init usually what we do is we'll speed up the clock to the fastest so you can have the quickest boot time. If you're using external spy flash, you'll need a spy driver ported as well. This example for partitioning of an STM32F4, this one's a little unusual and they're all a little different depending on the sector size. This one happens to have large sectors of 128KB. You can see in this example how we partitioned it. Wolf boot sits in the first few small sectors, usually with less than 32K. And then there's a primary partition and update partition and a swapping partition. This shows you where, you know, an upgrade from a version 1 to a version 2 and how it swaps. This state of the update process is stored in the last, the end of the last sector of the update partition because usually there's free space there, hopefully. And this swap sector is what makes sure that we can do it in a power fail safe way. And with our support for external spy flash memory, there's a couple more how APIs as I mentioned and the firmware update partition and the swap space can be offloaded to the external spy flash, giving you more onboard flash space available for your application. This slide covers a few useful resources. One is a GitHub link to our Wolf boot repository and other is the examples repository. This is a link to the IETF Suite draft standard. There are also a couple of useful YouTube videos that have been posted. And I'll go over this in the next video where the documentation is, but it's in the Wolf boot docs directory in markdown format. So if you have any questions about Wolf boot or are interested in adding any additional platforms, you can email us at faxatwolfhussesale.com. And thank you for your time and I look forward to presenting the next video for you.