Alright, who here has made a comment to themselves as they were coding within the code itself? You might have a few reasons for this. You could have copy pasted a section from Stack Overflow, and what does it do again? You may have made a choice, and why did you do that? But when you made that comment, were you thinking you were making documentation? Engineers know to make the docs they need, but sometimes newbies are told that to be a real programmer, their code needs to be dry. We're told the codes who speak first call it self comments fraud, and comments mean time tree factor. These comments as docs have different benefits in long form docs. They can summarize the purpose of a particular file, describe functions in place, give the why, and lower cognitive load. With all these reasons to use in code comments, we may be wondering why we aren't using them everywhere, but what's the problem with that? The first time I tried web scraping I had to do lists, non-working code, and notes expressing confusion. Red arrow points to my favorite comment of all time, oh it's a list, thank God. Why would you contribute to this? I feel confused just looking at it now, and I wrote it. There are a lot of variation in best practices for comments. We can all agree that comments, if used properly, can be an invaluable part of a code based. A lot of people feel that no comment means bad code, but I expect, oh here it is. But no comment can mean bad code, but this might also be true. So when are we just labeling our cats, and when are our comments useful? The internet, of course, has some advice. So we've all seen the Stack Overflow newbie smackdown, right? The advice, refactor, don't use comments. Use only the right comments, only your code matters. Ah, thank you internet people. Sometimes the response to someone's thoughtful question is, this has been discussed to death. We forget how much new programmers are taking on when we put them down for asking about best practices. How dare they? All this best use talk is important, but let's go back and remember when we were first writing our first lines of code and encountered the power of the comment. Some newbies throw them everywhere to support their learning. So what happens when we tell newbies to hide their learning process? I wanted to show you an example of my earliest comments, but none of them exist.  So the next time I saw someone being told their commenting style was an anti-pattern, I couldn't let it go. A lot of people online claim their code has always been dry. We are all perfect coding robots, or we are fooling ourselves. Time for a survey. I asked many questions, essentially, are comments good? Or what about clean code being king? It's clear comments remind us what code does clarify thinking and save dev times. We're pretty positive about comments, but when we ask, is clean code self-documenting the results spread out with no agreement? We have internalized this despite the usefulness of comments. People care a lot about this topic. In their written answers, they wrote tomes and expressed a variety of viewpoints. No surprise since they're experienced ranges from one month to 30 years and they use a variety of languages.  You'll be happy to know that I'm probably the only one of these folks who have to go through this. 78% of my respondents disagree with this practice. A whole lot of people, a whole lot of people, 60% use inline comments despite our collective shame about the practice. And 63% of us use comments to explore new ideas. So comments are part of the code that we produce. And the fact that we produce them offers us lessons about how we learn, collaborate, and create. How we support new learners and their future documentation habits or not support new learners and their future documentation habits tells us a lot about the gap we may have in our model of the usefulness of what can be a big support for devs. Best practices have a lot of confusion and do as I say, not as I do. It's important that we don't, that we remember our overwhelmed learner. If you start to think about comments as an early form of documentation, should we better define our best practices and create tooling to address the legitimate concerns of comment rot? So the bottom line, let's stop putting down people who have ideas different than ours. PS, who thinks this is some oxygen documentation right here? That was a long 15 seconds. So this is my contact interview. Thank you all for coming. If you want to share the survey with other folks, I have a link for you here and I'll be adding its Twitter soon. And if your company would like to hire a DevRel, we should be in touch because apparently I will try anything to get on stage.


nesia in addressing the multidimension of climate change in this case the level of climate change and the capacity of each country is different we are aware that there is no solution just for all climate change and the decision should be part of that solution there are three points especially what we have achieved in this opportunity the first is that Indonesia in 2050 to achieve the net zero emission in 2050 through the road to the sector and to the region and to support the growth of the green economy that we are planning the second is that the sector is focused on improving resilience and adaptation so that the greenhouse gas or GRK of the sector can be mitigated along with the recommendation of FAU we hope that the climate or climate smart agriculture is supported by the development of the rural and low-emission agricultural and water technology in the climate protection including organic farming that is part of it we also need to increase the capacity of the farmers to provide information to the farmers the climate is based on including the climate information of the most polluted land that is based on the digital that we developed as well as other technologies such as AOT and smart farming for that we use technology and data as an sector accelerator that is very important in building the climate land and increase the productivity we encourage FAU to continue the first is to provide education, education and support we encourage FAU to promote the environment including the government, the government, the LSM and other and the third is to promote sustainability and investment together with the challenges that we have in the future we hope that FAU continue to do extraordinary to promote the climate and get the opportunity especially for our farmers in this context we encourage FAU and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region as well as other development to connect with the multi-fac including in the sector working with the farmers and other farmers but what I can tell you happy to do all the thoughts about the land and the world Thank you Good morning Peace be upon you Peace be upon you Thank you Indonesian delegation for your intervention I don't see any and so I like to thank all the contributors who contributed in this session and offered very good comment on a very important very strategic issue that's climate change I now ask FAU deputy director general Ms. Maria Helena Samedo to take the floor and give a summary and closing remarks please Ms. Samedo you have the floor Thank you very much Mr. Chairperson Minister Muhammad Abdul-Hazak Honorable minister distinguished participants ladies and gentlemen greetings from Rome where I am connected but I have been followed with much interest in your discussion and I would like again to thank you for sharing your perspectives on the importance of climate action resilience and sustainability in the region and providing important inputs and feedback from your region Asia Pacific on FAU's new strategy on climate change as we have heard today climate change is one of the most important ongoing and future challenge to enhancing food security and nutrition in the region but also globally as the minister from Maldives said climate change is an existential threat and minister your words to touch my heart I am from a small island development state and I could see what you are talking about the Asia and the Pacific region is the most exposed and vulnerable region to the negative impacts of continued global warming as referred by my colleague the most recent assessment by the IPCC makes clear that the impact of climate change on communities in the region and the agri-food system have been and will be much greater than previously thought and it was clear that is happening is not something we are thinking on in the future we are facing it for this we have heard during this session that there is no doubt that urgent action to tackle climate change risk and driver is vital for future food security and nutrition in the region but as it has been said and I think the representative from Australia is very strong there is no one size fits all approach for building climate resilient agri-food system we have welcomed the opportunity to hear from member countries the specific policies and measure that you are adopting to manage climate induced disaster adapt to climate variability and change and mitigate future climate change let me some take away from your discussion first I will say the need to move at scale and in an integrated and programmatic approach second the importance of adaptation and innovation to face extreme challenge you mentioned the question of water scarcity energy the need to expand the partnership the need of knowledge exchange it was mentioned the south-south cooperation the importance of using innovation to increase climate resilience and early warning system at the local level to support the small scale producers to better adapt to climate change and to access science innovation technologies the need to develop innovative models of finance and investment and also the need to move at scale and I am very proud to say that FAO is supporting these efforts at multiple levels with policy guidance technical analysis data advocacy and facilitate the access to finance at scale as I rightly mentioned the new FAO strategy on climate change is a major undertaking and a crucial way to ensure that FAO continues to meet the needs of our member countries to tackle this issue and it is for this reason that we have work to make the process to develop the strategy as it has already been mentioned as inclusive consultative as possible and we took serious note of your comments today your advice and for sure it will be included in the global strategy but more important in our action action plan how we move from the global strategy to action in the ground and I think it has been rightly said this is what we need and what is important to respond to the challenge you are facing in the region Excellencies ministers before closing I would also like to acknowledge the kind support of the director general the chairman minister Mohammed and the director of our office of climate biodiversity and environment Eduardo Mansour in facilitating this home table event and for ensuring we are up to date on the development of the strategy and way forward I wish you a successful deliberation for this important regional conference and I look forward to have the outcomes of your debates of a strategy which will be able to respond to your expectations and again thank you for being here with us today and again wish you a good day over to you minister thank you miss Samadu for your final inspiring message and inspiring word the reminder that there is no one size fits all approach for building climate resilient agri-food system we'll need multi-pronged action program that's important we'll have strategy we'll have program we'll need fund for implementation of the range and innovation and multi-pronged action program at the ground level that's my feeling it's important issue we have to have address it it's a question of survival it's a threat to existence of human being thank you to all who contributed and participated in this very important round table discussion we have approaching to conclusion end of the conference being chairman, being minister of agriculture of Bangladesh we are so proud of hosting this conference of FAO now we're going to take up the agenda for the adoption of the report of the conference the relevant document is a draft report as the distinguished delegates have already had the opportunity to consider this report I would like to ask the report here to make a big presentation on the agenda item Dr. Dar thank you honorable chair excellencies distinguished delegates I'm pleased to present the draft report 36th session of the Asia Pacific regional conference convened from 8 to 11 March 2022 in a hybrid format this report has been prepared in two stages the report of the senior officers meeting was adopted by the conference on the 9th March 2022 the report of the regional conference was prepared on the 10th March based on members interventions and deliberations and the submitted statements of the ministerial session the adapted report of the senior officers meeting was incorporated into this the full conference report before you was reviewed and revised by the session of the drafting committee convened on the 10th March from 7 to 840 in the evening the drafting committee comprised of 14 representatives of 9 member nations the drafting committee reviewed the text draft conference report paragraph by paragraph excluding the adapted text of the SOM each paragraph was agreed by consensus of the drafting committee and at the end of the review the chair inquired if any member of the drafting committee wished to revisit the text of the adapted SOM and no requests were made the draft report 36 session of the Asia-Pacific regional conference presented before you today for adoption is the outcome of this thorough process I'd like to thank all the members of the drafting committee who have contributed to the preparation of this draft regional conference report for their hard work and their support to me as the chair of the drafting committee thank you again honorable chair and distinguished delegates to this ministerial meeting Thank you Dr. Dhar for this clear summary of the report and the intensive and collaboration drafting process that collected and properly incorporated comments to the removed report as you are aware the FAO secretary circulated a near complete draft conference report and obtained your comments a week ago we then had very detailed and substantial discussion on the two days of the senior official meeting and the results of whose discussion were incorporated into the by the draft committee by a process of consensus and the report was circulated we adapted the SOM report on March 10 the adapted the adapted the SOM report is a substantial part of the conference report yesterday was included by the draft committee and the full report was circulate last evening delegation along with all the language translation today therefore this full conference report is the result of a considerable period consultation and contribution and the members to reach consensus this process has been followed to ensure the participation from all delegation as this region covers several time zones considering that this report is a result of extensive consultation as well as the deliberation of the conference I would like to ask that the members adapt the draft draft conference report in block editorial changes and language correction if any will be made by the secretariat before this is posted on the website if there are many comments at this report the floor is now open are there any comments from the floor please floor is open you have comment thank you Mr. Chair if you allow I have a word on the report and thanks to the report here also the drafting committee for drafting a very outstanding report for the conference but I have a submission on behalf of the head of delegation of Bangladesh on paragraph number 6 if you recall that our honourable prime minister in the inaugural speech has uttered a word in fact called upon the FAO and the PRC for creating a special fund I think the word was creating a special fund for increased investment for agriculture development in the region so may I request on behalf of the head of delegation of Bangladesh to add this at the bottom of the paragraph if I read out this way if we read the last but the before the field of agriculture research sharing of cutting edge technologies and creating a special fund for increased investment so that's three words creating a special fund for thank you Mr. Chia thank you for your solution for incorporating our prime minister's views point I would request a report here can we incorporate it all member countries who are participating in person also virtually if they have any comment or any objection on incorporating what Bangladesh proposed let's see director general and authority of FAO I would request if we can consider to incorporate Bangladesh suggestions incorporate the word for creating special fund special fund if you want established you should follow the members in this region if you follow the process how many members initiate and how much original contribution who is leading initiate so that's that's your business that isn't any objection from the floor it seems the proposal is being accepted anonymously it's a consensus okay thank you very much for any other comment on the report there are I see consensus on the report and it is I don't see any comment from the floor so I see consensus on the report I adopted in block I thank I thank FAO who are closely working for organizing this conference and we try to provide logistic and support also I thank I congratulate all who are closely associated and contributed for preparing final report and it has been as adopted I concluded follow I think that the deliberation on this agenda item adoption of the report is now finalized and we move to final session we have now reached the point of agenda to close the PRC may now request his Excellency Mr. Chu Nongyu Director General of FAO to give his concluding remarks. Excellencies dear chair all the colleagues ladies and gentlemen congratulations on a successful regional conference for the second time Asia and the Pacific regional conference have made a history in 2020 hosted by Buddha you are pioneering the convening of a fully virtual regional conference in FAO history this time here in Bangladesh you have successfully conveyed 36 sessions of regional conference in a hybrid mode this region is so far so dynamic so complex with many challenges yet also many opportunities your discussion during the regional conference have clearly outlined all of this and showing a way forward your leadership at the political wing to build back better is evident over the past two days you have shared your successful and good practice in innovation and agro-food transformation for the benefit of the region agro-food system should and must play a decisive role in the future of Asia Pacific region transform agro-food system will be important for you to maintain a sustainable environment increase the biodiversity while they provide opportunity for decent jobs this is the value added of modern intensive farming well the many countries in the region are dynamic with very high or middle high incomes by GDP the rural areas in the region are not as dynamic and the GDP not what we would expect to see I'm a son of a farmer I always look at the inequality between the city and the rural areas between the man woman, between the rich and poor these are the three real types of inequality well we say a better life for all even no one behind we need to work the talk who is the Vandemburg group which is left behind people from countryside people from remote areas people from the seeds people from the distant countries people from landlocked countries we have to address these issues politically together with all relevant partners not only with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, Rural Affairs this depends on the different countries have a different political assignment but also we focus from Ministry of Welfare women children environment, science, education health, use, trade financial and investment we needed to work all work together as a one big team collectively and in an efficient in fact coherent manner we have to have the farmers in responsible investment, science and innovation information technology this time I made a PNG there's three minutes to come one is communication and ICT one is for social welfare and use and religion culture so it's really big teamwork we need to talk about the digital technology and the big data the water is involving and also we in this agriculture sector we must not simply follow we must lead agriculture, food and nutrition are at core of the humanity need and the specific region for leadership dear friends I'm pleased to see you consensus going forward you are the key ministers working with FL or you are the window ministry to work with FL livestock for farmer fishers and the pastoralist at the grass root country level agriculture through your ownership, your political commitment and your action plans if you do not take the leadership and initiative with crowd no other key partners will move forward to the front line this is your critical role the Asia Pacific region conference has been successfully concluded but the dialogue must continue consensus should be built upon and ownership partnership and more important the action should be more boldly, timely agently I have seen a great progress since I took office as FL director general yet our mission is not yet accomplished let us continue to work hand in hand to address the challenges facing our most vulnerable populations that support all the members of the region that need our assistant most FL is intergovernment professional agency under the UN big family FL we follow all the mandate under the FL basic task 27 2017 you the minister conference approved that so all the members all the my colleagues and all the partners we get that consensus to follow and to respect the FL basic tasks so once again I really appreciate all of you to support FL support me and support your farmers lastly I invite all of you to give the big applause to the host country the People's Republic of Bangladesh and also minister of agriculture minister of fishing almost food and others especially appreciation to the honorable prime minister for her strong leadership make this regional conference so successful and also I thank you for your cooperation in vitro and in person thank you thank you all let's do it take the action on behalf of the conference I extend thanks to the director general for his informative and inspiring thoughtful concluding remarks with the actions outlined in this meeting we may all take hope that we'll drive agriculture and roll sustainable development to achieve the SDG I thank you Mr. Chu he has been given direction for it for all on all agenda strategy for climate change strategy for scaling up digitization in this region strategy for one health and strategy for sustainable greener agricultural production system and he has been always an inspiration for this conference I sincerely thank DG and his team for successfully organizing this conference I invite you all to show their appreciation using clapping hands a chairperson I have few words to say I have few words to say allow me to take the opportunity to make a closing statement I believe the 36th session of the original conference for Asia and the has been very meaningful with excellent exchange of diverse knowledge information and we have broaden our understanding on a good system for the region this is an extraordinary moment in the history of the region and also for Bangladesh being able to successfully organize this conference we did expected that it will be participate in person by most of the country of the APRC but we know that COVID-19 is hunting still us so we could not get all the participants in person but most of the member country participated virtually or by video that impressed us and we are happy seeing the participation so wide participation from across the region I like to say few words on Bangladesh being host country Bangladesh has been historically chronic food deficit country we have faced many semi-feminine condition in 1967 1969 when British colonial ruler took Bangladesh it was taken by a corporate house East India Company and it enslaved the subcontinent of 200 million people during that time East India Company had one office in London city with two windows and one door in 100 years they became the largest corporate house of the world their revenue earning was equal to the revenue of the British king and for that main source was Bengal, Bangladesh Greater Bengal, West Bengal and Bangladesh Bangladesh textile Bangladesh handicrafts and jute and other agro products so Bangladesh was rich but later on for exploitation by the colonial ruler Jaminder and landlords it became poorest country well Bangladesh is also is very vulnerable to disaster like flood cyclone and storm drought and so on regularly we have flood it inundated three major mighty rivers first through Bangladesh and it has about 400 rivulets river and country we have very fertile soil you will be happy to note that it has excellent aquifer in 15 to 20 feet you can get fresh water without much problem still we could not harness this natural resources to be self sufficient all successive government since colonial ruler they have ambition or they have planned to be self sufficient input all are elusive however after we became independent country after liberation of 1971 all successive government took number of initiatives and they made concerted effort to make Bangladesh self sufficient we see that Bangladesh now almost self sufficient in 1971 we used to produce 10 million ton of food grain that's our staple food rice and wheat at the moment we grow 45 million tons of rice, wheat and maize together we are self sufficient in 42 we are self sufficient in vegetables and we have increased the production of all crops we have introduced some new crops like oils, oil seeds like pulses, vegetables and fruits we have introduced new crop like dragon fruits coffee and cashew nut so our agriculture is growing we have become self sufficient in the mid production unfortunately per capita income is extremely low people cannot afford to buy those high value crops in 2000 present government under the dynamic leadership of shekhasina they assume the responsibility to govern this country in 2009 she put agriculture on top of the agenda she attest highest importance in our development program we place through our election manifesto and our vision document 2021 we want to become self sufficient by 2015 and we want to achieve all mdg goal by late age 2017 we want to bring down our poverty to half I am happy to note that before this august gathering that Bangladesh became self sufficient input drain in 2015 and we achieve all that mdg goal by 2015 and we brought down our poverty to half it was supposed to be 28% now it stands 20% and we have placed to the nation that we will be achieving all the dg goal we bring the SDG to SDG goal number one and number two number one poverty to almost zero and also zero hunger we are going ahead we have a very comprehensive program and I think we are on very much track recently you know and Columbia University jointly awarded our honorable prime minister for being on SDG track and Jeffrey Sachs rebel economics while he was transferring the award to our honorable prime minister in Columbia University campus he commented that Sheikh Hasina is a jewel in a crown she is a diamond in a crown so that's our proud for her and for her leadership we are very proud to be host of this international or regional conference we talk to many important issues we are trying to address those we are trying our heart to digitalize Bangladesh and integrate information and technology in our agri food system we have suggested and it has been integrated in the report that if you will look into if we can or we can form a half digital half in Bangkok in the headquarter or for this region so we can exchange ideas and technologies are being evolved in the ICT sector agricultural production system and agri food system well that's about Bangladesh and our recommendations I think if you seriously will look into all the recommendations we have evolved in this forum and it will add in in the future agenda we look forward always to work very closely with FAO since we have been member of FAO since 1973 we got all our support from FAO in terms of technology and also mobilizing resources to undertake different research and development project and we gracefully and graciously thank them for providing us support I took little bit longer time but again I thank FAO for selecting Bangladesh as venue and it has upgraded our status at the global level I think we are able to organize international or regional conference we face with the adverse impact of current COVID-19 pandemic on across the region we see its impact on public health food production and economic development including food security agriculture and fisheries forestry and nutrition simultaneously the region is having other crisis such as desert locust it came last year until India was part of the India African swim fever fall army war we are already victim of army a fall army war our mesh field is being infected and there is some sign that other crops will be infected too droughts, floods all are our challenges no sub region has been spared multiple and severe challenges one way or other we share all those problem our discussion have had an urgency and a particular focus which has been very cogent and useful I believe these four days of deliberation in the senior officers and ministers meeting has been very productive these were helpful in broadening our knowledge and enhancing the understanding of sustainable agriculture and role development especially in the light of disaster response and resiliency we discuss FAO's substantive paper on results and priorities for FAO in the region on the work of the FAO SPC joint ministers of agriculture and forestry presentation by CFS civil society and the private sector we attended events on sustainable agriculture system and on climate change we are fully committed to FAO's mission we remain hopeful that we will achieve sustainable development goal two of ending hunger by 2030 and of ending SDG1 on poverty with our collective wisdom commitment and action I am grateful to all members for your active participation and contribution to make this regional conference a success I wish to express my appreciation to the delegates for your valuable inputs to the report as well as for flexibility in arriving at the consensus I would also like to recognize all ministers present for kindly serving as vice chairman and helping me to nicely conduct the conference I am also sincerely grateful to the reporters a minister from Philippine for his invaluable work of capturing and synthesizing proceedings this was a critically important job and he did it admirably I extend my appreciation to the tiredness work of the interpretation team of the excellent simultaneous interpretation that has been essential to our communication during the conference and across this many time tunes I sincerely thank the many people behind the scene in the PRC national committee in Bangladesh for their tireless work of preparation for this meeting I can tell you that Bangladesh team worked very hard and they are very sincere and they are very concerned that that should not be slightest error or loophole in organizing this conference I sincerely thank them for their hard work and effort for making this conference successful it is because they spend long hours organizing the conference and it ran as smoothly as we planned thank you, thank you all of you and now I used to express my appreciation to Mr. Kim director general and regional representative at FAO secretariat we have been in touch with him for last two years the day Bangladesh was selected as a venue we have been in touch very closely hard to heart these days and now I used to express my appreciation to his excellency Mr. Chu Dungu the director general for his valuable advice and the FAO staff for their contribution and dedication he was the main source of inspiration and always he encouraged the day I talked when he started his campaign he visited Bangladesh I had opportunity to meet him and onward after his election we had a chance to talk and he said that I am looking forward to visit Bangladesh as soon as possible time I will go there he was eagerly waiting but because of corona he was very thankful this conference has created opportunity to come to Bangladesh I don't know in future he will have time to stay so longer time as he is doing in connection with the conference so that's our pleasure and my people in Bangladesh to come to close to SAS and personnel high standing very closely we got on behalf of the peoples of Republic I would like to thank my colleagues for their excellent person in this conference although it could not be all together we still managed to come together I now my turn to declare the session of FAO regional conference for Asia and Pacific closed me and my colleague and everybody we look forward to see each other in the next conference I don't know they have not finalized yet did you have you finalized or it has been it has been decided that it will be in Sri Lanka I look forward I don't know I am a public leader I will not have chance if I remain I will but I go to throw an election and then become minister then my chance will come but government officers they have every opportunity to attend in Sri Lanka conference thank you ladies and gentlemen also I say thank you for hotel staff and volunteers and also FAO staff all they support the ordinary operation so thank you it's not you there for the conference bubble so far safe smooth efficient effective so thank you a secretary of the conference Dr. Sridhar he was excellent person and he was helping me to conduct this conference I sincerely thank secretary of the conference


We are a soccer club, soccer program based in Charlotte, North Carolina and our hope is that we can just come and bring a sense of joy and excitement and fun to the boys and girls that are here at Ford Pickett for this time. So we've put together some, we've had some donations of some equipment, some soccer goals and some balls and things and our hope is that we can just organize some fun time for the kids and that they can just be able to enjoy themselves. We're just very grateful for this opportunity. It's something that came up rather quickly so we had to make adjustments in our schedule but no sacrifice here we know that many others have sacrificed a whole lot more and that a lot of going through some real challenges so if we can be here and be a positive force then then that's our desire and we're really grateful for those who have allowed us this opportunity to be here.


Hi Frishers! Congratulations on clearing your yet another milestone. We are enabled to greet you in person. Nevertheless, it is with immense pleasure to welcome you all to the Dead Soul family. No one forgets the first day of the college life, and it should be marked with happiness so that you will always remember this day in your heart. You have stepped into this college with your thoughts, high hopes, double aims, and aspirations. We will make sure that your ambition will be accomplished. As you embark on a new academic journey, the advantage of the many online services are available to help you achieve your full potential. The virtual expression of online glasses speaking let us be more independent and self-disciplined as learners.  In addition, let us also trust our own judgment and delve deeper into the content that we did in traditional class. This so-called new normal may not be easy to cope with for everyone, but it is at times like this when we can challenge ourselves and come out even stronger than before. As students of Literature, you will discover that the world of Literature has so much more to offer than you could possibly imagine. And choosing this subject is a choice you will not regret. So, go forth and serve every class to get new knowledge, not only for academics, but for life as well. We deeply feel that, like every other passing batch, you'll hold the name of the college height and contribute immensely wherever you go with the knowledge you obtain from that sort. We hope you live your college life with the same zeal full of enthusiasm and let exuberance remain the same till you graduate as a class of 2023. Let us learn, grow, help each other and strive for excellence.


Welcome to Feed More Tech Talks event. I'm Susan Tenby. I've been working at TechSoup since the year 2000. It's been pretty much my only job. I have worked here since we launched. We were an organization called CopyMentor before we became TechSoup in 2000 and I am the Director of Global Community. I've been doing online communities things at this organization since we launched. And TechSoup, a global organization and we've been eclipping nonprofits with the solutions that they need to build a more equitable world for over 30 years. From discounted tech products and services to articles, webinars, courses and more, we deliver the training and tools nonprofits need to be better, stronger and faster for transforming their communities. Together with our partners around the world, we've actually reached 1.3 million organizations and we've delivered more than 16 billion US dollars of tech tools and services to date. We're currently in 236 countries. We're in 39 languages. And with the help of our global network, we have 62 partners who help us share our work and services across the world. And you can learn more about the TechSoup global network and our global partners at tsgn.org. So a little bit about today, part of what we do is we connect nonprofits with each other. So we don't just connect nonprofits to technology. We also connect nonprofits to each other and being part of that network means that we cross paths with lots of smart, passionate people. And today's guest, Allison Schill, is one of those smart and passionate people. And I just spent time with Allison at the ReFed Summit in Minneapolis last week. And Allison is the CEO of the Food Donation app, Carrot. And Carrot uses technology to connect edible surplus food in businesses directly to local nonprofits and provides donation data tracking tools for nonprofits, municipalities, and corporations to meet state mandates and corporate social responsibility initiatives. She's passionate about reconnecting all members of the community and healing through food. Today she's gonna share lessons and opportunities for organizations that tackle hunger. Welcome, Allison, let's dive in. So tell me, first of all, I'd like some background. Tell me why is food insecurity been a focus of your work? How did you arrive at this work? Thanks, I'm so excited to be here today and talk with all of you. So it all started for me. I was working in the waste industry for recycling and sustainability. And I was in the city of New York when Hurricane Sandy came through and just devastated all of the coastal communities in New York City. There were so many donations coming in from all over the country and all these little pop-up nonprofit organizations that were trying to help their communities, those people that lost everything in their lives. But there was no real rhyme or reason to where the donations were going. And there was a huge misallocation of where all the resources were supposed to be. So we ended up with piles of clothing just on the streets in the beaches where cars were buried in sand and food going, like certain type of food going to one place and diapers going to another place. And there was no way to really communicate between the two. So later when I got involved in food waste working for a cleaning nonprofit in California called Food Forward, and I realized there really needed to be a network of all of the nonprofit organizations across the country without any sort of exclusivity which is the only kind of collaboration I had seen previously. So I created Carrot and got involved in the LA Food Policy Council to start working on not only local policies but also state policies like SB 1383 and have just taken off since then. Oh, cool.  So why don't you tell us a little bit about SB 1383 and how it aims to reduce edible food waste in California? Yeah, SB 1383 was introduced a number of years ago, I think in 2016, and really it comes out of the greenhouse gas initiatives that California is taking on. So one of the major contributors to greenhouse gases, the third largest man-made contributor is methane emissions from landfills. So SB 1383 is aiming for edible food in particular to increase the amount of edible food waste that is currently being disposed by 20% in 2020 or 20, I think it's 2025, 23 and I think, sorry, yes, by 2025 and that's a statewide rule. And they're doing that by having a number of mandates. Some of the mandates are on the individual donors themselves, so certain types of food entities such as grocery stores, wholesale food producers, warehouses that do distribution and then a lot of the restaurants that are hospitals, hotels, schools, you name it, like the ones that have a lot of food are all mandated now to donate their maximum amount of edible food. And they also have to keep records of all their food donations, of all the partners that they have food donations with and they have to have a written agreement in place with the non-profit organizations that are rescuing their food. In addition to that, non-profits have to have records of all of the food donations they're getting in from these tier one and tier two generators is what they're called here. And then the jurisdiction is that they're all residing and have to basically give inspections and give resources and do a bunch of other things like capacity planning in order to make this all work. So it's a really stringent kind of regulation to force a certain amount of people into donating food, which is, I don't know, really exciting. So how is the implementation status going in California for SB 1383? So that's on a jurisdiction by jurisdiction basis right now. Definitely there are larger jurisdictions and areas that have a running start on this, like the San Francisco Bay Area and the Silicon Valley area definitely have a lot more experience and a lot more resources available for them. So they've been doing a good job rolling it out. But a lot of other cities, this is a new concept to them. They haven't really experienced this kind of a waste. They have experience in recycling. A lot of cities have experienced somewhat in compost, but never in donating food. So a lot of people are asking carrot and other types of services like that for health and guidance in navigating this. Not only that, but actually kind of help when you state itself, this is new to them. So they're having to take a lot of time listening to the feedback of the constituents, all the stakeholders involved to make sure that the law is not prohibiting people from doing what they're supposed to do, which is feeding people and is really enhancing the program instead. Sorry, go ahead. No, I was just gonna ask what your experience was with the rollout, with the program rollout. Yeah, and so this has been great for me because I've been involved with it through the very beginning. I was able to create a tool that takes into effect all of the different stakeholders and create an open network that is basically carried to a free app that anyone that's a nonprofit organization can join and rescue food for free. And then anyone who's a food donor can also sign up and post feed for free. And then there's some other aspects of carrot that allow for cities to be able to travel, the donations in their area and for larger human profits to be able to do things as well. So my experience has been that as people are rolling, as cities are rolling this out, as long as they have the partnerships in place to do it, there's a good chance for success. But there's some cities that are trying to roll it out right now and meeting a lot of resistance and there's a lot of resistance in the collaboration aspect of it too. Some nonprofit organizations are not wanting to give the information that they're supposed to because they want to protect their donors. Some donors are doing what's calling back calling, which is where they take all the food that wasn't sold, take it back to one central warehouse location and where usually that warehouse is not anywhere near edible food like recovery organizations that can redistribute it out quickly. And so that food might have during that transportation time inspired and not been good to use anymore. So there's a real big learning curve that everyone's going through. So you mentioned that challenge of the food expiring. What other challenges have you faced and also what solutions have you come out of those challenges during the implementation? Absolutely, yeah. So the rollout definitely like any state that's thinking about doing this needs a lot of data, not only beforehand, but during the actual process of onboarding users. I think that one of the great things that CalRecycle did for this was during the whole process leading up to this, they allowed for a lot of public comment and public feedback. And they really were helping to determine how is the policy going to affect the different stakeholders involved and then adjusting things as necessary. Like at one point in time, they were going to have all the nonprofit organizations trying to record exactly how much of their food that they rescued was then having to be composted and like non-perfectively, we have no ability to do that. We're stretched up under pay. I think that also they should have maybe brought in some other stakeholders as well because now we're running into some problems where corporations weren't necessarily brought in and this is a little bit new to us or a lot of the different grocery stores or restaurant associations are like we have no idea what this is at all and how to do it.  So we're trying to work our way through these growing pains of learning what was wrong. There's a couple of other things I wanted to mention too that there were some things that were outlined in the original policy and then it was supposed to start on January 1st, 2020. But now we had to go back on some of the things where they did go back on things and people like, hey, what's going on? Because this is so new and it's so flexible, it's been very confusing for a lot of the municipalities and a lot of the stakeholders involved. And I think that's a lesson that can be learned for other states moving forward is what we've experienced here in California can be then sent as a lesson. So how do you think, based on that, how do you think it's going to influence policy in other states? California has definitely been a leader in a lot of these types of kind of ladle paradigm shifts. But I think that one of the biggest things is that we have provided California has definitely integrated a lot of funding opportunities for municipalities, for own profit organizations to increase their scope, increase their capacity of the edible food that they're able to serve, increase the amount of trucks and staff that they have. And then also it's created a lot of infrastructure that wasn't there before, so just care it. Like now that there is this free online platform where data can be generated and everybody can, without any sort of exclusivity, be able to cost and rescue food, other states will be able to adopt it a lot quicker. And I think that one of the most important things is that as corporations like the big box chain grocery stores are involved in this and learning about it, there'll be a value proposition added for them as a whole corporate entity to enable a more robust and stronger feed donation practice within all of their stores across the nation. So it'll be easier to adopt when other states get into that. And one other thing I really wanted to mention is there's a disaster preparedness aspect to it. So when disaster hits, a lot of cities are scrambling, where are my resources? Where are my places that can help me redistribute the resources? And having this kind of network already set up will really help there. And previously the status quo of food donation has always been about one nonprofit saying how many pounds of food that they've been able to rescue and then basing their grants off of that. This is hopefully shifting that a little bit away from this growth growing towards monopolization into more of how can we really hone it down to local resilient communities that are able to have their different nutrition needs met and have all of their smaller relationships between the food producers and the redistributors of that food in one small area. Okay, cool. This super interesting stuff. Before I move to the audience Q&A, I'm going to just ask you one more question which is how can people in the room help you? What is your call to action to those listening? Yeah, if there are any nonprofit organizations in the room right now that are looking for a free food donation app and definitely in the future too as we get more and more donors involved in different areas and definitely sign up for carrot. It's C-A-R-E-I-T. You can download it on your phone and create a donation profile or a nonprofit profile for free and just spread the word about how food donation can be a non-exclusive, non-monopolized experience across the United States. Okay, cool. Thank you so much. I'm going to switch to ask some audience questions right now and then we'll get back to the presentation just hopping into the questions. David Porter asked what liability from food poisoning are companies facing with SB 1383? So SB 1383 does speak into account that if the food is not safe to eat, it should not be donated. If nonprofits still have to use their best judgment and other safety protocols in place, there is education that is being distributed by the municipalities and they're hired consultants to go out and do that education about what safe food should be donated. And if food is not safe or is honestly, they're too full of a certain type of food, it's can be rejected. And that is absolutely allowed within SB 1383 that food is rejected by the nonprofits. They still have the ability to say, no, I don't want to serve that. So other than we have the Good Samaritan Act, which is obviously the dilemmas in Good Samaritan Act country-wide, California also has its own California Good Samaritan Act which protects donors from liability that if they donate food in good faith that it will not get somebody sick, they will not be held liable. Okay, thank you. So the next question comes from the Food Brigade, to which Cappine, in light of record keeping requirements placed on participating nonprofits, do you have any numbers on the percentage of hunger relief organizations that are participating thus far? And as context, I know that a lot of patrons here in New Jersey do not accept food from the major food banks here because they do not want to deal with the restrictive paperwork requirements and or do not take food from TEF AP because of the necessary record. I can only speak to my own personal experience. A lot of cities right now are hiring CARAT because we offer that free record keeping compliance tool for nonprofit organizations. Obviously the Feeding America Network has the Meal Connect app and people have access to that. That's a kind of ongoing debate right now of whether or not Feeding America food banks are willing to share that data with surrounding communities and their food recovery organizations that are working with them. But I think that because CARAT has that free aspect where a nonprofit is automatically able to comply, a donor is automatically able to comply, that's why people are hiring me. Other nonprofit organizations that are like, we just simply don't have the staff to even think about this and we're only really able to take things that are dropped off on our door, they don't have to participate in SB 1383. But unfortunately that also means that they're not able to take food donations from those tier one regulated and tier two regulated food donors. And those donations instead have to be diverted to a nonprofit that is participating in SB 1383. I hope that answers your question. We're all here today because we're committed to feeding our communities. For many of us it's getting harder and harder to keep up with the growing demand and costs. We spent last year interviewing about a dozen 62 organizations learning from them. And these were organizations that food to people who need it, just like yours. And we listened to them and we wanted to make sure that we could help them as TechSoup. So what we heard is not surprisingly, nonprofits just like yours wanna connect with each other. They wanna get advice on things pertaining to the unique needs of their organization, such as for example, how do you handle food inventory? How do you automate your processes of your food banks using spreadsheets and client records, data security, all sorts of unique techniques that deal with actually feeding people that need food? So we brought all those learnings together and we launched Quad. And Quad is TechSoup's newest initiative and it's a space where you can come together with your peers and other stakeholders to work on these issues. The issues that are most important to you while saving resources and tools and training, giving you the resources and tools and training that you need to feed people. I'm gonna pass it to my colleague, Erin to talk about our new initiative, Quad. And it's a membership-based platform for nonprofits building connections, getting individualized support and accessing savings on tech products and services for your food charity so that you can help more people. And with that, I'm gonna pass it to Erin. Thanks, Susan. Hi, everybody. I have my camera off because of my connection. But anyways, I'll be moving on here.  This is where your crew can hang out to offer you advice, share best practices and give you the encouragement needed to keep moving forward with new solutions. As a member, you also get access to templates, how-to guides and events with experts that understand the new unique challenges you're facing as a hunger-relief organization. Plus, you also get a dedicated member support in a meet to ensure you're getting the most out of your Quad membership. As a nonprofit ourselves, we're nonprofits for three decades. We've learned a thing or two about how to provide the best care for your community. And we'd love for you to experience that firsthand. As member support, I'll help guide you on getting products and advocating for you. We'll have a consultation call. But what Quad members especially appreciate are the huge savings on tech products and services in the TechSoup catalog. Plus unlimited access to your two over 170 TechSoup courses for keeping your staff and volunteers on their A-game. And all of this is for $200 a year. That's less than what most nonprofits pay for tech solutions, training and services. So let's take a closer look at those savings. So here are some of the dozens of products that you would be able to request through Quad with fees removed. This includes Adobe Acrobat Pro DC, Norton Security Deluxe with Books Online, Windows Operating System Upgrade. These are just four of the products alone. And in these four, you'll save $199. So that immediately reverses you from the Quad membership payment. And with your Quad membership, you can also access TechSoup's range of services to help your food security or better implement and manage your technology. Quad members have saved $163 alone on just these three popular products below. Salesforce Management, Digital Management Assessment, Digital Marketing Consultation and Website Security and Hosting. This is just sort of a sampling of the services you would be able to access as a Quad member. And the Quad benefits and savings continue, of course, with the unlimited access to over 170 of our courses to keep you, your staff and your volunteers on their A-game. With Quad, you can save $350 alone on some of our popular courses on grant writing and management and Google Ad Grants and cybersecurity. Again, this is just a small sample of what you can get. And in addition to the savings on the popular software and services and training, you get access to this rich community space. Here's an example of a post from one of our food security organizations who's sharing a free tool like here, a free tool to help with pantry pickup and deliveries. This is just one example of a member sharing tools and best practices that can help the organization. Here's our food security library of articles and resources we're all continually adding to. Here you'll find templates for Excel, document management solutions, tools for managing volunteers and more. And then we have events with experts and other food security organizations to learn more from one another in real time, like in this case, apps for volunteer management. So you are in good company. These are some of the organizations who are part of Quad right now from food banks, food rescue organizations, senior citizen councils. All of these organizations are working hard to feed their community just like you. And they wanna share their learnings and challenges while accessing the tech savings needed to grow their impact on a shoe screen budget. We'd like to see you as part of the community as well. If you'd like to learn more info and schedule a call with me, let me know in the chat and we'll follow up with you. We'll also drop in a link where you can learn more about Quad. Thanks for listening and I hope you're excited about joining. And now it's time for a little bit more Q&A from the audience if there are any, feel free to. Are there more questions? Oh, I see more questions came in. Yep, Tanya, as a nonprofit, Tanya asks, as a nonprofit, we've been buying the food directly from our SC farmers. However, it's been difficult to raise funds. Suggestions on how we can continue to do the work. Is that for me? Direct to me? Yeah, it's SC, South Carolina, I'm assuming, but it sounds like you're working on getting more produce and having a hard time connecting with more people that have produce. This is a really detailed kind of question. Yeah, South Carolina, okay. I think that one of the things that you can try and do is definitely connect with, I would honestly have to have a personal, do you want to set up and put conversation with me because that might be a little bit more useful to help you connect with the resources that you would need to either do fundraising or to get more food for free. Tanya, please feel free to reach out to me. I'm gonna drop my email here in the chat. And for those of you who also wanted to have a demo for carrot, please feel free to reach out to me directly and also to ask me any questions. I've got about 10 years of experience in this. And there's a lot of free sources that I can refer you to and other really great nonprofit organizations or for-profit organizations that can help you as well. And I'm noticing that some people are dropping DMs to me that they're in. I preferred you write it just to everyone just because it's hard for me to manage the DMs and they will go away after we hit the recording button. If you don't mind just either say that you're in, say it out loud to the larger chat so that I don't have to transfer them over if that's okay with you and happy that people are excited and joining us. Okay, see if there's another question, I'm okay. Here we go. Regarding the social network element of Quad, this is a question for Erin. How many organizations are currently, I can actually answer this question, are currently participating in Quad? That's what Brigitte asked this question. And right now, as we mentioned, we just, this is the newest initiative of text if we just launched it a couple months ago. There's about 33 organizations currently in Quad. Erin, is that right? Yeah, roughly around that. And we've talked to a couple of organizations and the consultations, they've mentioned that there are other forums they go to related to food security, but they did notice that the uniqueness that we have and we should cultivate is the tech aspect. So while you can talk about a lot of things in there, one way we can help support of course is the conversation surrounding tech tools and how that can help you make impact with your programs. And when it comes to logistics, support, operations, strategy, everything. So that's one thing that makes us stand out since it's such a small community right now. In some ways, with the Quad membership, you can add nine additional colleagues too. Our goal, again, is to get people talking about solutions and challenges. And so we think, since it's so new, not many people in there are right now and each of you have the ability to add nine colleagues. You can create your own community there with your own narratives and topics you wanna talk about. It's at the beginning and there's potential for really building it out in a proper way to make impact. Thanks, Erin. Sure. All right, next question. The in-town collaborative said this one is for Allison. With the law mandating donations, have you seen an increase of people dumping food at nonprofits and overwhelming them? So that's a great question. This is very early in this process. So it's hard to say exactly how it will continue to shake out because the actual enforcements for this don't take effect until 2024. So right now everybody is being notified that they need to start donating food right now, but they won't be fined for it until 2024 if they're not. So I think that we're rolling out a lot of composting as well as this mandatory food donation thing. And we're educating the people at the grocery stores and the hospitals and everything about what the difference is between food that needs to be composted versus food that needs to be donated. Donation and dumping has definitely been a problem for years and years before SB 1383 and it will continue to be a problem and it just takes more education really. Non-profit organizations do have the ability to say no, even if they show up on site and see a donation and see that it's just half of it's all rotten, it's gonna get a boost. So as far as my personal experience, no, we haven't seen that yet. In fact, it's in the opposite because there has been more time and more incentive to go out and do that sort of education and teaching people about how to avoid donation and dumping. There are also really great food recovery organizations that do have the capacity sometimes to take a small percentage of contaminated food and be able to have volunteers sort that out to get the fresh produce away from the needs to be composted produced. And now that there's an infrastructure to compost it in place that there's more initiative to do that as well. Great, thank you. We're getting more questions. Okay, we have a question for Erin actually. So the question is, can you explain the tech part of Adobe? We get charged 19 per month. If we join, does this reduce this monthly cost? That's a great question. So the quad membership removes administrative fees, but that doesn't remove the discount that you may get directly at Adobe's site. So you would still pay the discounted cost per month, but we remove the administrative fee. That administrative fee is the fee to get access to the discounted rates directly at Adobe. That Adobe product is a discounted product. So you'll be paying normally a discount for the monthly subscription or service, but there are other products. There's a lot of products at TechSoup that are just strictly donated. For instance, a docusign standard is $89 admin fee. And so you don't have to go to docusign site to get a discount there, you just get it. So if we remove the admin fee of $89, that's it. And you can get your docusign subscription without having to pay anymore. So it depends on which products there are. What I think I will do for quad members is I'm gonna put together a list differentiating the donated at this offers, which ones that removed admin fees get you directly the product compared to the removed admin fees get you discounted products where you still pay. Yeah, that's something to put together and I'll get that. And if you, I don't know your name, admin computer, but if you want that, I'll find out and let you know I can send it to you directly. Maybe just DM Aaron through Zoom right now that might be the easiest or put it in chat if whatever you prefer and your email address. And I was only laughing, Aaron, just because it's so complicated. We definitely need some sort of chart because like even what you just said, like it's very complex, not a simple answer. Yeah, and since I'm so deep into it, I thought it was easy, but I can answer more questions definitely. Yeah, so we have time for a couple more questions. I'm gonna, or at least one. So David Porter is asking Allison, why is SB13 necessary from a company's perspective? Other than regulation, what incentives do companies have and what to do what 1383 requires? Have these incentives been explored? That's a great question. And then I'm gonna take it a little bit further because obviously there's the tax incentives that have been around for a while for companies to be able to donate food. But I think that one of the prohibitive things of the past has been that if a company has a established relationship with a food bank that then later reroutes donations out to individual nonprofits to pick up, there's been a lot of inconsistencies in the past of them having pickups for their regularly scheduled runs. And I think what SB1383 does is it really opens up the puts a fire under the feet of the donors to find a reliable partner and to open up that network of more and more non-profit organizations being available to not only take the food, but also have resources and funds directed directly at them from their municipalities to be more consistent with this. So it incentivizes companies to establish stronger relationships and to have these written contracts that are in place with their receiving agency partners. So it actually, it takes away the laxative method that was being used to the past. And sometimes if we have some food, we can maybe put it out there and somebody might pick it up, but we'll probably just end up putting it, throwing it away anyways. But the incentives also are not only taxed, but also there's a lot of community feeding, the feeding of a community that is near them aspects of this, where they're now, maybe they were paying attention to the pounds of food that they were donating or the types of produce or meat or dairy, which are items that are obviously necessary and hard to find in a lot of communities. But now they have more of incentive to get these items that they may be previously were throwing away, put into the donation pile and then put out into the community so that they can actually measure that impact in a more visible and transparent way. Thanks, Allison. And so with that, I'm going to wrap up. I wanted to mention that if anyone wants to talk about other food rescue, food redistribution apps, drop them in the chat just so others can know. Feel free to use the chat right now for that. And thank you to everyone for being a part of our community. We hope to see you in Quad. Again, if you're interested, just chime in, I'm in, in chat or hit reply on any of our reminder emails or email us at community at TechSoup. Email me at Susan at TechSoup. It's very easy to find us or you could just message us again, like I said in the chat. And if you know someone who you think might be interested and want to know about Quad, please tell them to reach out to us or send us their information. We know that this community from talking to those 62 organizations that I mentioned at the beginning is a very strong referral community and you all trust each other. So if you yourself don't want to join Quad for whatever reason, but you think of someone else that might benefit from it, please let us know, connect us with those people we've actually brought in. A lot of people just buy that kind of network referral. And again, a final reminder that we will be sharing the replay from today's event. Any slides and links shared in an email in the next couple of days. And thank you. Mostly, oh, there's Aaron's cat and his cat's tail, which always appears in every new video. It's really fun. Yeah, feel free to drop your links in the chat as we say goodbye. Thank you for joining us. And we'll see you again soon. We're doing these Feed More Tech Talks every other week. So thank you. Have a great weekend, everyone.


I'm Carol Monly, I'm your host today on Think Tech Global. My special guest is Matt Stone, who's a graduate of the Richardson School of Law, but who's now based in Japan. And he is the CEO of a company called Temenos Inc. And so welcome, Matt. Well, thanks for having me on the show. We're really looking forward to talking about Temenos Inc. and what you are doing there. So tell us a little bit about Temenos and the work that you're doing. Sure. Well, I think it's important to mention right off the bat that Temenos started here in Hawaii in 1985, we incorporated. And Dr. Irv Rubin started the company and was doing management consulting from here around the U.S., particularly on the East Coast, but around the U.S. and globally, and in particular places like New Zealand and Australia and Singapore. I joined the company roughly five years ago. I took over as COO and now CEO a few years ago. And so now what we're doing is we're still offering, you know, management and training and consulting, but we're moving into the next sort of phase of the company's existence. And we do leadership development solutions with both software and data enabled and in-person coaching and training. So your audience are organizations and what else, leaders, governments? That's right. Leadership, we usually start pretty high up at the top, but leadership on down to, you know, mid-level management in governments and corporations around the world. Okay. So let's dig a little deeper into actually what these tools are that Dr. Irv Rubin developed. What are they called? Well, the tools are built on a behavior model that Dr. Rubin, Dr. Rubin came out of MIT. He's kind of a, I guess you'd call him a guru in the organization development world. And there's some other famous names, Dr. McGregor, Doug McGregor, and Ed Shine, who's the culture guru. And then there's Dr. Rubin, who was really the feedback guru. And so years and years ago, Dr. Rubin went out to figure out what were the common behaviors, specific observable behaviors that all people around the world recognize as what he called win-win. In other words, behaviors that when they happen empower both people in a relationship. So he spent years researching it, and then he developed a model. And that model is now our source code for all of the solutions that we do. And what's the model called? It's called the Rubin 48 behaviors. Okay, the Rubin 48 behaviors. That's right. Not familiar? Many of us are familiar with the Myers-Briggs personality test, right? So this is kind of an extension that is going deeper into analysis for a broader audience, right? In this case, organizations. Is that? Well, for many, many years, a lot of the solutions, disk, MBTI, a lot of them are self-assessment based. They're me reflecting on my preferences. And that's fine. There's actually value in that. It's a great starting point for a lot of people in terms of building self-awareness is starting to think about myself differently. And then as you think about yourself, if we can have a conversation about that, that might help us. But where they kind of stop and where our solutions kind of go the next mile is helping us sort of tune our currency, our behavioral currency, the words that we use and the behaviors we associate with the values that are important to us. So if we use our tools and our model, we can kind of speed up that process and allow people to have feedback conversations they would never have otherwise. Okay. So first of all, let's understand what the Rubin-48 is and then how that translates to business because I understand that's great. Sure. Well, whether it's business or organizations, now more than ever, communication is critical to success. And the issue is that we're seeing, and it's going on here in Hawaii, it's going on around the world, is that leaders and teams have to change faster than ever. They have to innovate faster, they have to collaborate, they've got people all over the world, many remote people.  And yet we don't stay in jobs a long, long time to develop their relationships. So what happens is if I work on a team, I have a set of values. You want to say that trustworthiness is a big value for me or respect. And you would, likewise, if you're on the team, maybe you're my manager, you would also have a set of values.  Well, I might have a different definition behaviorally of what respect looks like in a given situation. And that can be informed by my unique personality, my background, things that have happened around me in my life, just as you would have your own unique currency. So the model is a common language that helps us see if we're on the same page. So the model being, in this case, the Rubin 48. And so describe how that works. How does that look? Are there 48 items? There are. Actually, what Dr. Rubin did is he figured out that there was this common behavioral language around the world, and he would ask people, what kind of behavior do you need to experience to feel like you've had a win-win, right? And he got all of thousands and thousands of answers from people around the world. And he figured out that there were a lot of commonalities in them, and then he edited them down into 48. And there are 24, what we call push behaviors, and 24 pull behaviors. So give us some examples of push behaviors and pull behaviors. Oh, so, well, they're broken down into styles. So each push and pull have four styles each. And in the push side, you have describe, prescribe, appreciate, and inspire. Describe? Describe. Mm-hmm. Prescribe. Prescribe. Appreciate. Appreciate. And inspire. OK. So, for example, describe is about facts. It's about things that are factual. The purest form of a describe would be listening to Spock and Star Trek, if you remember Star Trek. And Spock was always very factual, right? This is what's happening, or this is what happened. That's describe. So explaining, for example, explaining the bases for your decisions is a describe behavior. Mm-hmm. For some people, that's a really important behavior. For others, it's not as important as another behavior. So if we're using our model, whether it's the feedback tool or in the other solutions that are derivatives of that, it helps people to point to a behavior and tune their behavior much more quickly. OK. So you're identifying these push behaviors, and then the pull behaviors, tell us about those. Well, the first style of the pull behaviors is attend. Like what you're doing right now, you're listening to me, you're nodding, you're making me feel like I can push information toward you. So pulling energy is about making it possible and OK for someone else to push information and thoughts and facts toward you. And so attend is the first one. It's foundational. It's a gateway. If I'm not looking at you or not paying attention to you. And whatever you're pushing toward me is meaningless. That's right. OK. That's right. Now, there are some cultural things that go on here. So I'm based in Japan, and culturally, the pull behaviors can be very different in Japan. So it's very common for Japanese business people to look down when you're telling them something, to cross their arms and make noises that maybe we may not associate with them being receptive. And I learned this years ago that I thought, oh gosh, I'm in this business meeting and someone's looking down and they're not paying attention. Actually they were, I found out later, they were thinking deeply about what I was saying. So again, my assumption about behavior is my own. And with our tools, we can more quickly understand where the differences are behaviorally. So that brings up a good point. So you mentioned you're in Japan, you're based in Japan, but of course your tool is used worldwide, right? So how do you account for the cultural differences in determining how to measure somebody's behavior? Well, the beauty is the measurement comes from the person. So the tools that we have really enable a conversation that would be very hard to have otherwise. So it's essentially a catalyst.  Let's say we have a feedback conversation using our system. We would have a behavior model to look at. And you would be able to tell me, Matt, this is the behavior I want from you more. And from this behavior, I'd like to see less frequency in this behavior. Uh-huh. OK, so I'm taking a leap. So you and I work in the same company. OK, I'm your manager. You're my employee. I have now adopted a we as a company have adopted Rubin 48, right? So you're you're saying that with this understanding of how the tools work and adopting the tools that you and I can be more productive for our company because I can communicate with you better. You can communicate with me better. And we're on the same page. Boy, that's exactly right. I mean, we essentially have a common language that helps us accelerate our relationship and move to a place of higher trust and understanding. You know, one of the big problems that we have, we all have it, is that no matter, you know, who you are, we are operating because it's biological on assumptions, our own assumptions, our own assumptions about what something means. And we're so often wrong. I mean, how many times in your life have you found out later that a behavior that someone did at work or at home anywhere that you took it one way, but actually they meant it a completely different way? Well, I know one thing that I always think about is that and I think it is a Japanese style, which is always to nod, which to us in the Western world might mean yes, but really, as I understand the Japanese, by nodding means I hear you. That doesn't necessarily mean I agree with you. That's exactly right. The body language of nodding means I'm paying attention to you. And then when you say, for example, aso, aso, it's like acknowledging verbally, OK, but it does not guarantee that the person understands even anything you're saying agrees to give you a million dollars for your project or anything like that. You can walk away thinking, wow, we've got a great partnership. The deal is linked and then no, no, no deposit is made of your account. And you're wondering why. So we all have assumptions. And so often the way we treat other people in a given moment is really our own. It's the golden rule. Even if I treat you the way I want to be treated, that'll never get us to where we need to be. Ultimately, I need to understand what you need. Right. So do you have some examples of some major changes that you've seen in the organizations or the people, leaders who have adopted your behavioral tool? Boy, we ever. I mean, we work with the Department of Defense at the Pentagon. We do regular trainings there. We work with hospital systems and private corporations. And across the board, what we see when leaders use these tools, at first, they're a little bit hesitant. Many people in leadership have experienced what's called a 360. And a 360, if people don't know, is often an anonymous aggregated feedback loop. So here's a leader and they will interview or poll or survey anywhere from a few people to a lot of people. And then they aggregate this data. So you get this data back and it says, 22% of the people surveyed think you're horrible in this area, for example. Well, what happens is now, instead of probably a lot of valuable feedback that you might get, a lot of times it causes so much fear and anxiety and distrust. And the person who is evaluated, right? The value of that feedback can often not be ever reach a point of behavioral change. And so what we see is, as people come to our system, they hear feedback. There's immediately fear. Direct open dialogue, that can be kind of scary. But then they find out that our model is all positive. We operate on frequency perception and desire for frequency change of positive behaviors. And we have a methodology that makes it a lot easier to have a more constructive, positive conversation. So what happens is, and this just happened literally two weeks ago, we had a leadership team that is using our system and told us that it has just revolutionized the way that they're communicating with each other. OK. Well, so exactly how do they adopt? How do they find you? And how do they adopt the behavioral tool? Well, we're online. We have lots of connections and friends and partners. It depends on where you are in the world, in terms of how to find us. What's the feedback tool called? It's called Behavior Tuner. Aha, I think we have a little logo of the Behavior Tuner. Right. So the Behavior Tuner, and that is the name of the feedback tool. And how does that relate to the Rubin 48? So like all of our solutions, we also they're similar to an engagement survey that's built on the same Rubin 48 behaviors. Think of the Rubin 48 as our source code. And we have a suite of solutions that we call behavioral OS, behavioral operating system. And so Behavior Tuner lives on a site called behavioralos.com. And so it's our signature one-on-one feedback tool. And it's used by leaders around the world. And so a lot of times, if we're working with a leadership team, we'll start off by having those leaders do a few feedback sessions with other leaders. And we'll debrief them. And we have something called the Relationship 360 Journey. And that's over a three to four month process, where we do before and after assessments, so they can measure the change that happens very quickly. So I don't know if that answers your question. OK, well good. Well, we're going to go into a break. This is my guest, Matt Stone, who's the CEO of Temenos, Inc. based out of Japan, but a global company that works with our organizations and leaders in behavioral tools. We'll be right back. This is Carol Monly on Think Tech Global. Aloha. My name is Mark Shklav. I am the host of Think Tech Hawaii's Law Across the Sea. Law Across the Sea is on Think Tech Hawaii every other Monday at 11 AM. Please join me, where my guests talk about law topics and ideas and music and Hawaiiana all across the sea from Hawaii and back again. Aloha. Hello, and welcome to Out of the Comfort Zone. I am your villainous host, RB Kelly.  Truth number one, this is a real mustache. Truth number two, I want you to watch my show on Tuesdays at 1 PM. So tune in and let me know which is the truth and which is the lie. I'm RB Kelly with Out of the Comfort Zone and show up next Tuesday to see my mustache live. Welcome back. This is Carol Monly on Think Tech Global with my special guest, Matt Stone, who is the CEO of Temenos Inc. So Matt, we were talking about basically how this behavioral tuner works and the Rubin 48. So tell us exactly how now does an organization or a company or a leader who might be interested in learning more about this and how to meet you and how to contact you and exactly what are we talking about in terms of maybe cost and time and follow-up. Wow, OK, that's a big bite. I'll try and tackle those one at a time. In terms of contacting Temenos, we're online at temenosink.com. Temenosink.com. Of course, you can also reach out to me directly on LinkedIn. Just look for Matt Stone, Temenos Inc. You'll probably recognize my face on there now, so you'll find me easily. And I love connecting with more people on LinkedIn. So that's a great way, and I'm always happy to talk to people directly. Again, we talk to people all over the world. And I'd love to connect with more and more people here in Hawaii as well. We are a Hawaii corporation. This is home. So we're committed to Hawaii forever and ever. As far as how we work and how we deliver the solutions, the first thing is the diagnosis stage. So we talk with our clients. It's usually senior management, C-suite level, or senior, depending on the size of the organization. They may not have a corporate suite. But regardless, we talk to the top leaders. And because leadership sets the tone for everything. So even if they perceive that the problem might be lower down the ranks, there needs to be some stuff starting at the top. And then these days, everything's about data. Everything's about information, right? And we want to measure of success. That's right. And one of the hard things in the learning and development and anyone working in learning and development knows this. The hardest thing is when clients say, well, how do we know we're going to be successful, right? So our tools, the way they're designed in and of themselves gives you data points from the beginning and data points towards the end of a particular journey so you can actually, at a minimum, you're going to have some pretty compelling data to look at. And what is the data going to show? The data is going to show, for example, when we do a team assessment where we survey a team based on our model, we ask them about the current state priority given a particular behavior. And then we say what would be the best, the most ideal priority given to that. Can you give us an example? Yeah, so for example, explain the basis for our decisions or talk from the heart about your ideals and values. There's another behavior. So if you survey a team, you would find out, oh gosh, of all the behaviors in the 48, this behavior talking from the heart about your values and ideals, this team has identified, 85% of the team says this should be a very high priority. And a majority of members say it is currently a low, low priority. So we look for gaps in current state versus perceived ideal state. And what that does is it says, oh, we know specifically behaviorally what we could focus on right now to improve engagement, to improve the overall health of the culture of a team. And about how much time does it take from the time they decide, let's say, to contact you to acquire or purchase or engage with your company to getting the first stage of results or data. Yeah. Well, the beauty of having online tools is that we can deploy them really, really fast. The longest period of time is always the diagnostic period of what is the problem, what is the issue you're trying to solve, and then the approval process. But once that happens, we can move very quickly. And what we like to do, in many cases, and not all, it depends, is we do a survey of a division, a team, of sort of the pool of people that were at issue. And then we move from group to individual work through behavior tuner with the individual feedback assessments that we do through that tool. The beauty is they're both built on the same behavior model. So we have a common language to reference from one solution to another, if that makes sense. So above what's the size, from your smallest to maybe your largest organizations that you've worked with as you process through? Yeah, I mean, everywhere from a 10-person kind of recruiting firm to multi-multi-thousands of people at hospital systems, the US government, where we do training. I think we're doing food and drug administration. Actually, we just wrapped up a program. I wasn't the one who did it. How big is your team? Your team at particular? We have a core member, about a half a dozen people around the world. And then we have partners and affiliates beyond that. We kind of have a business model. These days in the world, you have to have a networked model, because a lot of people are contractors and doing their coaches, their trainers. And so we create opportunities for them to partner with us in using our solution. And generally, is there a how expensive or what's the cost? Yeah. Well, I just said that we work with everything from small organizations to big ones. And I would say along those lines that our pricing really reflects the nature of the issue that we're dealing with. So if a company adopts our tool set, for example, and they go through the process of an investment upfront, moving forward, the investment goes really low. Because at that point, all they need to do is buy licenses to access the tools. And then they can use them on their own. So it could be a very low cost after an initial investment, but very, very doable, especially when you look at what other expenditures that you can make in learning development space. And what kind of follow-up do you provide to your clients? Follow-up data analysis, for example, customized aggregated reports. So we can say, gosh, let's look at not only changes over time, but let's look at differences in a large organization between departments. What's going on in the marketing department versus sales versus human resources? And what's the cultural health of each one? And what are the behavioral markers that are different or the same? It's hard to have a unified culture and to maintain that culture. And yet, that's so important for brand building. Do you have any major success stories you want to share with us? We do have to keep some of them sort of the names. Confidential. That's right. That's really important. But we just worked with a company recently where their leadership team, there's been sort of an elephant in the room. And they're all really good people. These are executives. And they're all really great people. But they've been avoiding talking about this thing. And it was literally to the point where you just don't know what decisions are going to get made as a result of, after a while, avoidance leads to some big changes, no matter what. That's just there's no other way. I mean, people leave hurt feelings, but it limits our potential to build something great together. And so everyone has good intent. Everyone wants the best. But there's this elephant in the room. And we first surveyed the whole team and gave that data. And the CEO of that company called me and said, we're already, this is already helping, just knowing this behavioral data and looking at the specific behaviors, not values, but behaviors, helped us start talking. Then we moved quickly to individual one-on-one feedback sessions between them using our system. And they just said it's totally revolutionized. And they're now talking. Immediately, it started, it broke open the doors. Pick your metaphor. But the elephant is in the room, but they're talking about the elephant. And they're moving towards solutions for the future. And all three of these people that were in this core leadership team are telling us individually that they're just thrilled with it. So how unique is this behavioral tool? I'm going to use the words of a very, very seasoned person in L&D in New York City who looked at our stuff. We're doing a pilot program for a very, very exciting company that's around the country. They're very big. And I can't reveal the name right now. But after five minutes of looking at the model and the behavioral OS system, she said to me, Matt, I've never seen anything like this. This is terrific. This is what the world needs. I want it. So we're hearing that more and more. And it's a really exciting time to be working in this field. Well, you mentioned, you and I talked earlier about going to New York and meeting an author of a particular book. Yes. Right? So I think we have a picture of the book Insights, right? Oh, yeah. Tell us a little bit about that and how that relates to what you're doing. Well, and actually I went to Denver. Tasha Yurik, Dr. Tasha Yurik is based out of Denver. She's just a tremendous, tremendous mind and a human being. And we connected because I was reading her book, gosh, maybe a year and a half ago, I forget. And I read it and I thought, man, this is the most terrific book on this subject. It really explains the why of why none of us are as self-aware as we think we are and how she talks about, she writes about the research that shows that self-awareness is the most important thing to leadership success. And yet, here we are and we're none of us. And it's not about how educated you are, how old you are, we're just not as self-aware. And the only way to become truly self-aware is to have direct, open conversations and honest conversations with people around us. And that's the hardest thing to do because we're all afraid of it, all of us. Right. And it's always important to get an outside, almost person to come in and help you become self-aware. External information, external feedback. We need it, but none of us, I mean, none of us like to do it. But if we do it, the benefits are amazing. And it leads to more success in business and a happier life because let's face it, our relationships are what, that is the real difference maker, its relationships. Well, I'm gonna step back for a moment and talk about your law degree because our audience may not know Matt was at the law school when I was there as an associate dean so many years ago. But so how has your law degree helped prepare you for this international business and being based in Japan? That skill set that you've developed in law school and I know in your prior work experience which was in business, marketing, entrepreneurial work, how has that prepared you for what you're doing now? Do we have another two hours? I mean, I would never, I will never regret getting a law degree. I also practiced law, I practiced in family law and actually that comes into the picture a lot because guess what? It's relationships you're dealing with and there's a lot of similarities to the issues that go on on leadership teams and in companies because we're human everywhere we go. But I will say this, law school and practicing law and here at Richardson, what an amazing place to be. There are the relationships that I got here. It's a diverse place where we need to check our assumptions about what behaviors mean for example. But the legal thinking and analysis is so important today being able to understand what are facts and what are not facts and speak in factual terms and prioritize things very quickly and spot the most important issues. I use my legal thinking and skills every single day. Right. Every single day. So I love Richardson, I love Hawaii. I, you know, this is home and it's always great to be back here. Well, we've had a really interesting talk Matt and I have a few seconds left and I'm gonna ask you to look into camera four and give to our audience some parting information about how to either reach you and find out more about Temenos and your other last thoughts. Well thanks Carol. Yeah, do reach out to us at temenosink.com that's T-E-M-E-N-O-S, ink.com and on LinkedIn, Matt Stone. You can find your Matt Stone, Temenos CEO. I really like, you know, connecting with people and even if it's just sharing information, we wanna be of service to the world so don't hesitate to reach out. Okay, well thank you. Well, this has been Carol Monly on Think Tech Global with my special guest Matt Stone who is the CEO of Temenos, ink, which is very involved in feedback tools for businesses, organizations and leaders. Thank you so much for joining us today and we'll see you next time Aloha.