This is Startup Storefront. Every year, more and more people are changing their diets to plant-based. There are a variety of factors for this, including health, sustainability, and climate change. The palette of the average American is evolving, and yet the restaurant industry isn't keeping up. This gap in the market is where planta, a 100% plant-based restaurant group, is betting their figurative farm. Launched in 2016, they've expanded to 11 locations across the United States and Canada, with a whole bunch more still on the way, including California, Georgia, and New York. Stephen Solm, our guest today and the founder of planta, wants to alter the perception of plant-based restaurants one dinner at a time. Today, we talk with Stephen about how restaurants have the power to make or break hotels, re-engineering dishes versus starting from scratch, and the madness that comes with rapid expansion. Welcome to the podcast. On today's show, we're talking planta founder, Stephen. Thanks for joining. People who don't know, what is planta, or planta, as whoever listening wants to call it? It can be a lot of things to a lot of people. Planta is a restaurant group and a brand that I established in 2016 with my partner, Chef David Lee. It's really meant to challenge everyone's perception of what plant-based hospitality should mean. I think, as a whole, it's evolved quite a bit in the last seven years, but veganism hasn't always had the best rap, and so trying to debunk that by creating experiences that really excite people and inspire them to take some of these learnings and experiences into their personal life and rely less on animal products to feed themselves and their families. What made you either personal choices, health decisions, what was a part of your journey, or even Chef's journey into the plant-based diet, I guess? Yeah, so January of 2016, I was living in Toronto at the time, and it was a freezing cold snowy Sunday, and I turned on Netflix and watched Cowspiracy. It's like a really interesting, informative documentary on just the impact of, or the climate impact of animal agriculture, and I was super moved by it at the time we had owned four restaurants in Toronto under the hospitality group that I started in 2012, and felt really inspired to call an all-hands meeting and say, I think we need to examine and evaluate our supply chain and ensure that where we are sourcing from is traceable, and it's not coming from one of these factory farms. What did you uncover during that process? Nothing too tremendous, because these were all pretty high-end restaurants that were very proud of their supply chain, but had to interview fish farmeries and look at what they were feeding fish, and discovered that there was rendered animal product in some of the fish that were being fed in the farms, and so it's like, in what world is a fish intended to be feeding on rendered horse meat? Yeah. It doesn't feel like the... Not in the natural course of existence. Correct. I think it just really uncovers a lot about what isn't talked about a lot, and so we converted 25% of the menus at those four restaurants to plant-based, and then that's really when I started my pursuit for recognizing that I became the topic of conversation whenever I went out to dinner with the boys, or whenever we would go out with a few couples, and they would say, oh, what's the vegan going to eat? What's the vegan going to eat? Where is this? This was in Toronto when I was... Okay. It was still in Toronto. Okay. This was still in Toronto. Yeah, I was living there, started the company there, and became the topic of conversation, and realized that there's a huge opportunity to create a place that only serves plant-based food that's cool and exciting, and makes people feel like they're not sacrificing anything. I'm curious in this question.  What would you decide to put on the menu? Yeah. So I think that's what's made Planta really unique specifically, is that it's always started with vegetables and it's ended in vegetables. There's never been any alternative meat products or ancillary alternatives that's been used in our food. I think that there's definitely a place for that, the Wendy's and Burger King's of the world where you want to substitute an already not-that-good-for-you thing with something else that's... Yeah. Heavenly processed. Yeah, a processed thing as well, but I think obviously it's no doubt it's better for the planet. I think it's just hard to make the argument that it's better for your health. So what we kind of have done is tried to create flavors, textures, and experiences that just take vegetables in its finest form and alter and adjust them to create something that's really filling. So this is kind of before Planta was born, but it's really easy to do great pasta dishes or ratatouille or we did this really great chickpea cake dish at one of our high-end restaurants. And if it tastes good and the texture's good, people are open to trying it. Yeah. Yeah. I was wondering when you switched the menu from animal-based proteins to 25% vegan, Daniel Hume of Eleven Madison Park talks about shifting his restaurant to all vegan and how he really struggled at first when he took... everything was centered around the animal protein as the main course and then all of a sudden he's cooking the vegetable as the main course. And it took him a while to get it right. And what was interesting was that this is a three Michelin star chef, one of the best restaurants in the world, talking about how difficult it was. And so I'm curious about your transition and if you found it easier just starting a brand new restaurant with all vegetable entrees versus trying to re-engineer what you had already built into offering like a 25% vegan menu. That's a really good question. I think it all comes down to perception. So the first restaurant that we started our company with in 2012 was called The Chase. And really the year it opened and beyond and the 10 years it's been in existence has been around the utmost quality of everything. Origin sourcing, really incredible products. There's very little resistance on the consumer side for what they're willing to limit themselves to spending. We put seven or eight plant-based dishes on the menu with the intention that we are having great options for vegans and vegetarians or people that are just looking for a meal that's comprised of mostly plants. That wasn't intended to divert the concept from one thing to another. That restaurant is known for extremely powerful seafood-driven entrees. Five-story seafood towers, whole fish that are carved table side, really experiential. So a chickpea panisse or like almond tagliatelle is not moving the needle to divert the sails that much. I think going back to the EMP piece, Daniel's such a genius. I think maybe the challenge there is, how do I take an experience that costs $300 per guest and ensure that that same value is perceived when I don't serve Dover Soul or a rack of lamb or a duck for two? And that's probably where I would sense that resistance comes from, from the guest perspective, because it's like if I'm only eating, not only, but if I'm eating squash and a pasta dish and things that are not raised, fed, and slaughtered for food, where's the premium? Right. And so I think where Planta differs is that we are not intending to really become a place that you dine every single day. And it's not replacing your daily routine. And it's certainly not at a price point that is intended to be your special occasion restaurant. So it falls in a more of an everyday price point that allows people to resonate saying, tonight I'm not going to eat fish. I'm going to have Planta, or I'm going to go to Planta because I'm plant-based. It could be a variety of things, but I think that what you charge and how that experience is delivered does impact people's decision to resonate with what they're really willing to spend for the lifestyle. Can you give us a window into the price point? And so if we go for two people, what are we looking at, you think? Like 80 bucks, maybe a couple of drinks? Without tipper tax, it's about $45 per guest. OK. And then when you first started to go down the road to people, like in my world, let's say real estate development, we'll say the restaurant business is hard enough, right? And I have an answer for this, so I'm curious for your answer. And then you're entering, let's call it, I don't want to say niche market, but let's call it a growing market, where I think the world understands more consciousness is the thing. People are moving to plant-based. We have a couple, let's call them icons here in LA, crossroads. People can point to them. And so we have some signals in the market that there are attempts being made, and it seems to be working. From your perspective, as you go sort of nationwide on building on all of these different restaurants, what do you view as the most challenging part? And obviously, your background's in restaurant touring. I really want to dive into this, and I want the listeners to know, because on the outside, it could be like, wow, this is crazy, right? Like entrepreneurship in general, but I'd love to hear your window into the world. Yeah, I mean, have a drink. I love the restaurant business for this reason. It is extremely challenging what business isn't. Obviously, we're not building a subscription-based, reoccurring revenue model. That just, you get collect funds from guests every single month without having to do anything. I wish things were differently perceived, but it's retail, and it's experience-driven, and it's a business. I think that this is just the path that we're going on, because the restaurant business, as a business, is a massive part of GDP. People always have to eat, and people always want that engagement, and they love to resonate with brands that align with their personal values. Living in a society and environment where we can have the ability to choose, my parents and grandparents didn't have those choices. They kind of fall into businesses, and then they use their entrepreneurial fight-or-flight mentality to win at all costs. Now we're entering this path where I can create a concept or a drink or a clothing line that's so niche and specialized and an opportunity to win. And so restaurant business is hard. There's no doubt about it, especially when you are so reliant on people and their decisions. That's the hardest thing about it, but I don't know a business that isn't difficult to run and that isn't really based on people. And particularly, we get to do something that is rewarding, because the more guests that choose Planta or at least can influence their buying decisions at a grocery store or another restaurant, it's solving a massive problem that not nearly enough people talk about, that we choose to not really talk about at Planta because we don't want to be activists. We just want to say, whoa, that was really good. And I think I could totally do that and eat that again. Has it been difficult to do something like the training side of it? So same concept almost, a restaurant finding the talent is hard enough. But then in this setting, your menu is a little bit different, let's say. Or maybe there's just more of a training emphasis on the products and the ingredients and how they're different. Has that been a challenge or is it more of your employees are just eye-opened every day and they're learning? Yeah, I think it's just management one-on-one. You get people excited about your business and you get them excited to do a really great job and hopefully the choices that they make are aligned with what your company's mission is. And you use technology and performance management and just overall good instinct to determine if these are the right people for your guests. And so for the most part, over the moon that we have, like a concept and an experience that people want to work and be a part of. I mentioned to you earlier, I do real estate development. So whenever I do every project, and you're talking to an investor, let's say, there's always these weird questions like what happens if they fail, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I always tell them my macro is so simple, especially in Los Angeles and other parts of the country have this too. But basically what I tell them is if you drop a pin generally anywhere in LA and you do a five-foot radius, there's a million people, five-mile radius, there's a million people within that circle. And to be successful as a restaurant, maybe you do three turns, but you really just, you need like maybe a hundred of those people, a hundred and twenty of those people to show up per day. And so those numbers are pretty good if you're, and it goes back to what you were saying before, if your product is, let's say, better or more intriguing or can really get into someone's consciousness. And I think that's it. And then people go, oh, that makes a lot of sense. For sure.  And somehow they're in business. It's really strange, right? And it's like, well, there's proximity and people enjoy that short walk. How did you and Chef meet? What was that story like? So we were actually introduced by one of his great friends and regulars. He owned and operated one of the best restaurants in Canada. It's called Note to Bene. And when we pitched the idea of doing a completely plant-based concept to our investors, they basically responded by saying, you know, you should really talk to David. And he has this remarkable appreciation for vegetables. And I had known David. And we had connected kind of just more on a professional level at events and other things that we contribute to in the city. And we kind of met every week for about six or seven straight weeks about what this could be and what it could look like. And really debated almost up until a month before we opened about whether it should be vegan or vegetarian. And his idea was we could do vegan, but lunch and brunch needs to be vegetarian. And I was fresh in my six-month journey of being plant-based. And I'm like, no way, nothing. And so we decided on that. What was driving that for him? Was it just more flexibility in the menu? I think more flexibility, the concept of doing a really well curated brunch menu without eggs, feels a little bit overwhelming for a chef. And I couldn't appreciate that. And I don't think it's just really overwhelming for a chef. I think people's mentality is like, what am I going to eat? But I think when you realize it, the eggs and the dairy, they're just a vehicle to provide some form of a textural element that can usually and creatively be replaced. And so this takes, you know.  Oh, I mean, yeah, for sure. What's good is that I'm comfortable behind the stove myself and have a lot of passion for the creativity. But I couldn't ask for someone that's more appreciative of the different varieties of vegetables available to them. And it was obviously, it's proven to be the best decision ever. Did you always want to go big, go like several locations? Or was that like baby stepping him? I've always had the dreaming spirit. So two-fold. One, it's pretty hard to create that scale in our business without multiple locations. And two, it's a numbers business. And so you can really accomplish a lot when you do have more locations. And so of course, we started with one. But it's evolved to 11 locations. And it's also evolved into scaling down our non-plant-based restaurants. So we've sold everything under the Chase Hospitality Group banner and our exclusive opening planters. So I'm dealing with a fire drill right now, because I'm going through a closing, which is normal in real estate.  The latest in the last four hours?  Yeah, the stuff we deal with sometimes. No, it's absolutely insane. I was talking about this with our head of development and project management this morning. And I said, because I'm keeping East Coast time, so this is at 4.30 in the morning, I'm really ready for the camera crew to tell me that we've been punked. Like, how is our day starting like this already? And it's only 7.30. What fire drills today? We are intending to open up our location in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on the 15th of February, contingent on a gas meter being installed Friday. We then got a heads up that an inspector came to the location and found out that the gas line going into the water heater doesn't have a chimney connection. And so it was going to be returning the gas back into the space. Jeez. So we had to call off the meter install, which means we have to delay training, which means we have to delay the opening. And so all of those things, it starts with an emergency and it ends with informing the media that you're not keeping the February 15th date. So that was that. Anything and everything related to project development is usually an emergency because it's always cost money. And how do you deal with it personally? What is your thing? Is it just like, at some point, you get used to it, right? So the skin thickens. But is there something you do in particular? You go for a walk? Yeah, I have a pretty high tolerance for stress. And so really, unless there's somebody getting hurt, a flood or a fire, I'm not typically bathed by. Right, if it's not life or death. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I try to mitigate this with hiring the best people and hopefully the best consultants to help you navigate every city with a different set of rules. The county of LA versus the city of LA, which is the city of West Hollywood, I mean, they're all different. All so different, yeah. They're all so different. It's so true. And so you end up relying on people a lot. But yeah, having kind of the connection to nature is really what allows me to take a moment, try to be really present with my kids when I'm home and they usually are a good grounding feature for me to realize that there are bigger problems out there. Yeah, I've been doing cold plunges, that's my thing. Really? Yeah, I haven't been back there. So yesterday I was telling them during this fire drill, I was on the phone with the banker and my broker and I took the call in the cold plunge because I was like, it can't get any worse, I don't think. So this is like the worst thing I'm gonna deal with today. And we're gonna sort this out together. You wanna try it out after the episode? Yeah, we can throw you in there. The one thing, you know, I speak to different restaurant groups across the country and the one thing they always talk about that's so hard for them is understanding California just because the labor laws and the labor markets are significantly different. So what they usually tell me is something like, we do great in Chicago, we do great in New York and then we come to LA and we barely, like we're not even making money, you know. And what has that been like for you to deal with? And again, this is more as an educational vehicles. People understand that it is a little bit different out here. The minimum wage is a little bit different. All city councils are trying to get it to like a little bit over $22, which they're calling the livable wage now. And so it's hard. It's hard enough, but now it's especially hard. What has it been like for you, sort of maybe learning that or navigating through that? Yeah, I mean, we started our business in Canada. So there's a pretty similar structure around really, really high wages relative to the rest of, the markets that we operate in, Florida compared to Toronto. So I think it's just making sure that your business plan is prepared for mitigating those costs. I think the guests in California understands that you have to pay a little bit more for a cocktail here than you do in Chicago because we're providing $8 more per hour for every single person that works in our building. So, you know, the goal is California also has a thriving restaurant business. We need to align ourselves with that side of the lane and then work just the one that can't make it. You know, so I'd like to think of ourselves as we're not completely risk averse, but recognize that quality is recognized in LA. And so it's not as if people have bad taste here. And so a lot of people choose to live in California. A lot of people choose to eat in California. And so, you know, I always just get super inspired going to a farmer's market or going to Erwan and realizing like, wow, like there's two complete spectrums here. One is someone cultivating like farming as their career and bringing it to for consumption as fresh as it can be. And there's someone that's built a business model around, you know, making produce as beautiful as a jewelry store. And there's a market for that too. And so this understanding who you're gonna be marketing to and ensuring that there's enough of your guests that appreciate what's on the plate. What are some of the grand openings you can announce? Obviously, it sounds like New York's gonna have to wait. Brooklyn's gonna have to wait a little bit. Yeah, no, we're still operating that we can do it. So we've got Brooklyn on deck next and then we're really fingers crossed gonna be able to get Marina Del Rey open in March. Nice. That is also contingent on one public hearing that has taken 15 months to get scheduled so far. Is that for alcohol or is that? That's for alcohol, yeah. Yeah, we've got pretty intense opening schedules. So we're expanding two more locations in DC, a total of three in California. We've got Atlanta, Georgia and Soho, New York. That's all on kind of the immediate vicinity. Do you have any maybe like dream project where it's like a hotel restaurant but the whole experience is sort of catering a little bit to the vision? Yeah, yeah. Tell me about it. Well, hopefully somebody listening to this podcast is a hotel owner or a developer. But yeah, I would like to do a plant a hotel in residence that kind of takes all the elements of really incredible sustainability and furniture and textiles and have this partnered with like a really great fitness and wellness partner. But like, imagine this is like my dream waking up in the morning and calling down for room service and having three or four different dairy alternatives to choose from with your coffee and have an entirely plant-based breakfast and brunch menu and then all being able to like go downstairs and go into the beach club and having cocktails and everything, it just feels to me like this is, this is the future. Yeah, it seems like a no-brainer actually. Where do you see this ideal location being? Well, you know, I think anywhere where... Where there's a beach? Yeah, anywhere where there's strong leisure and anywhere where there's strong business. I think for someone like myself, and I know that I'm certainly not alone in kind of the corporate travel world, you know, I was on the road like 105 nights last year. There's a really like hard thing to do to continue your lifestyle with ease, which is why I love coming to LA so much because it's like there's always a juice bar and there's always a great place to go for a walk and exercise and that's not so much the case in other markets, you know, like Chicago or DC or wherever, they exist. But for the traveler that cares about continuing their values and their personal lifestyle when they travel, to me it feels like an untapped market. Yeah, I agree. Some new learning for me and the reason I was asking the question too was, I was talking to this group that they only do restaurants with a hotel. And I was really curious on this model, like why is that the model? Because if the hotel sucks, you know, you're kind of pigeonholed to this probably lackluster experience. And so they said, no, we take the reverse approach. Well, they'll bring in like a big name chef, let's call it. And if the restaurant's full, now the room price can go up from 200 a night to 800 a night. And I was like, oh, this is in. And so it's like, I had never recognized that, right? Where it just changes the entire financing and structure of an entire asset, like a 20 story building, all of a sudden you could really flip in terms of revenue. Like you can double it just by having an amazing culinary experience. And I was like, wow, like that's really something. That is really cool. Isn't it? And it made sense. Like when he said it, I was like, oh, that's actually kind of genius. And now I'm like, I should do that. I don't know, maybe we'll do it together. But it's a good idea. I like the synergies of it. It makes sense. And obviously the reverse is true where if it doesn't work, then it's a pretty catastrophic failure too. But to your point, all businesses are tough and it all comes down to people. Just going back a little bit to your Miami location, I believe you guys are growing produce on the roof of that. So my question is actually twofold. So like how much of a percentage of the restaurant's produce is getting grown from the roof and is there a way where you can envision, say like getting close to, cause we just talked to David Quo, little fatty and he wants to get to close to a hundred percent of what he's growing for the restaurant being nearby. And I'm curious if you have a vision of trying to achieve that just to take it one step further like locally grown, like, oh yeah, it's on the roof. And I know you can't do that in every location obviously, but I can imagine like the California locations are probably just as prime for that as Miami. The climate to grow for sure, the real estate, not so much. I think Miami is such a unique layout that allows us a flat roof to do just that. Percentage-wise, it's pretty minimal because we have to pivot to greens and vegetables that can grow within the limited season. Nothing really survives in the summer because it's so, so hot. But when it comes to like herbs for cocktails, herbs for garnish, lettuces, it's all grown. Are we using a hundred percent of it on herbs? Yes. But, you know, lettuces and tomatoes, it's just, it's not enough to keep high volume. And on the kind of the future of planning, I think we're, we would be more inclined to find somebody in the vertical farming space that we can co-invest with and ensure that their market logistics and distribution can complement our soil locations. That's probably a more attainable goal for us because, you know, what we've realized is that we can only be good at what we're known to be pretty good at. And that's running restaurants. Anything that we can potentially dabble in as an investor, we want to explore. But what we don't want to do is become the subject matter expert in farming when there are truly such incredible visionaries that are doing exactly the same thing as us trying to expand and maybe don't have access to the capital. So I think the goal in that is to kind of look for letting experts be experts and, you know, supporting where we can. Anything else people should know or where should they work and they find you? Well, we got a lot of grand openings in the works, which is exciting. Yeah, a lot of grand openings and follow along at Planta. And, you know, super excited to be welcomed into this market. It feels like such a surreal experience that as cheesy as it sounds, like that we get to be a part of this fabric. It's like so epic. That's awesome. So I know there's such an appreciation for what we do already in this, like just ingrained in the culture here. And so it just really feels like this is gonna allow us to like level up and really challenge ourselves to like deliver something so epic. Looking forward to it. Yeah, that's for sure. Steven, thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. If you made it this far, I bet you loved the episode. So you should join our YouTube channel membership for only $2.98 a month. This gets you access to one, the whole unabridged conversation. Two, you get the episodes on Monday, one day earlier. Three, you get two additional entries to our giveaways. Check out our Instagram to see what we've given away. And four, you get access to seasons one through three. That's over 100 episodes of wisdom and life-changing advice. What are you waiting for? Join.


Hello viewers, welcome to my channel. In this video, we are going to see about how to create Google Sheet and how to rename the sheet and organize it. For that, first go to drive.google.com. In Google Drive, click New button at the top left corner. In that drop down, you can find Google Sheets. By clicking the Google Sheets, you have two option. One is blank spreadsheet and another one is from a template. If you want a blank spreadsheet, you can simply click on the blank spreadsheet or if you need to use any template in the Google Sheets, click from a template. Google Sheets has many templates like to-do list, annual budget, monthly budget, and many more. In this, you can use whichever you need. I'm just going to select the blank sheet. Now you can see that we have created the new blank Google spreadsheet. You can also use a short method to create a new blank Google spreadsheet by entering sheet.new. This sheet will also automatically save in your Google Drive as previous method. Now you can rename your Google spreadsheet by just click on the title at the top left corner. You can also rename the tab by right click on it and select Rename Option. You can add color to the tab if you want. By right click on the tab, choose Change Color from that you can select whichever color you want. You can also organize this spreadsheet file in the folder of Google Drive by just click the folder symbol next to the star symbol. In that you can create new folder to save or move it to the existing folder whichever you want. That's it. In this video we have learned how to create, rename, and organize the Google Sheets. Thank you for watching this video. If this video is useful, consider to subscribe my channel and don't forget to like and share the video. Thank you.


I'm your host, Winston Welch, and I'm delighted you're joining us again today, where you'll find us every other week, where we explore a variety of topics, organizations, events and the people who fuel them in our city, state, country and world. And maybe the universe, since I just saw on the Internet, we've got the third unconfirmed sighting of UFOs today. So, that said, as a disclaimer, any views today are strictly my own opinions, whatever. They're not connected with any organization. And with that, I am delighted to say I have, again in the studio with me today, Christopher Garth from the Hawaii Dispensary Alliance, which is a patient-centered group of businesses, individuals and political leaders educating and advocating on behalf of medical cannabis. And we didn't get enough time, of course, to talk last time, so thank you again for coming back today. Yeah, absolutely. My pleasure. Thanks so much. I feel like I've been in the studio a lot, and as you said, we didn't get enough time last time. We're probably going to run out, so we should go ahead and work on our next step. We are going to run out of time today. So, right now you're in the middle of a busy legislative season, so you've been tracking some bills, and I would like to go straight to that so people know maybe what's up because, you know, they're hungry for information, so for those of people that aren't able to watch this live, they're going to be able to pick it up later this week and when you post it on your website. Sure. Yeah. Hopefully, we're all of that summer generation, we'll remember how a bill becomes a law through Schoolhouse Rock. How a bill becomes a law. Yeah, there was the little, yeah, he's all rolled up, and it goes on a choo-choo train, doesn't he? Something like that. Yeah. So, we don't have a choo-choo train. We did. That'd be great. We're still working on that. It's coming from Kapolei, but whatever mechanism we're using rolls significantly slower than that. You know, we only have a part-time legislature here. They only run a 60-day sprint, and they're part-time. We elect them in, and they're part-time. So they have, to their estimation, they have 3,000 bills every session that they have to go through, at least at the end of this, or opening with this legislative session. They have 3,000 bills. The reality is, it's probably only half of that, because we do a biennium every two years as a legislative section, and with another 1,500 from the previous session last year, and then 1,500 this year, gives us that 3,000. It's a lot of bills to go through. It's a lot, especially for people that are working part-time, that have other jobs, that have constituents to answer to. I'll say this, they do the best with what they have been given. Okay. And maybe our opinions will change, your viewer at home, your opinion will change at the end of this conversation, but we'll give them that credit right now. They do the best with what they can. We've just experienced crossover, which is where a bill is passed from one chamber, either at the House or the Senate, to the other chamber, or vice versa.  And conference is really where the nitty and the gritty are put together, filed through, and the result comes out as a final bill. And it goes to the governor's office for signature, ultimately. Now, just to be clear on that, so first of all, you get a bill and maybe you have proposed a bill, and you give it to a sympathetic legislator. Correct. And in either the House or the Senate, and she will craft a bill, or you might help her craft the bill that makes sense. And then she'll have her committee have some hearings, and if it lives through that, then a companion bill, does it have to be introduced in the Senate? It doesn't have to be a companion bill. And most often what we've seen with respect to cannabis bills and perhaps other bills is that the companion in one chamber or the other will usually get shelved for the simple fact that they have so much work to do. They have so much ground to cover. And with so many different issues and different opinions and objectives of either a legislator or public, they don't have the time to dedicate to that conversation. So they just let one chamber focus on that bill, get it as right as they're going to be able to get it, and then throw it over to the other chamber, and then it goes into that other chamber's committee. They're committees in some cases. Committees, various committees, or committees. Yes. Depending on how whoever is in power allocates that decision, is that right? That's called the referral process. The referral process. And so one of your bills, if someone wanted to kind of make sure that it got a very thorough vetting, might put it in three or four committees. Is that possible even? It certainly is. It certainly is. Sometimes you'll see as many as six committees. And depending on how thorough you want the vetting to be, it's more opportune to have fewer committees rather than more. Just because of the deadlines that are imposed through each cycle of each period or term of the legislative session, you might not be able to make the deadlines. You might not be able to make it to the next committee. In which case it just dies. It becomes deferred, ultimately, or filed in a case. So we're in that place where these bills have crossed over once. They have. They're now in the other House committees. Correct? The opposite chamber. And then they are deciding on whether that wording makes sense. And if they want to let it proceed or defer it or just let it run out of time. That is correct. And then it will come back into a... Will it be sent over to the other side? It will be sent over for a floor vote. A floor vote. And then if it passes both sides, does each bill in its respective chamber pass? Or how does that work? Does each bill... So if it comes from the houses, go back to the house and then have to be passed out. What they'll do is they'll send it to conference after the second crossover. And then in conference, you'll have a conference committee with conferees from each chamber where they come into this room and the public sits there and they're very quiet and they're all at attention. And you can hear a pin drop, except you can't hear what... In most cases, you can't actually hear what the legislators are saying. And then they together, they vote in that conference to... They hash it out. It's a tit for tat kind of. It's an exchange of ideas. We'll do this if this happens on... If we can agree. So through that exchange, through that dialogue, oftentimes great ideas are introduced and sometimes very vital ideas are laid to the side for the sake of time or lack of attention to the detail for one reason or another. Oftentimes what comes out of conference can be completely separate from the idea of... What went in? How the bill even originated for the first hearing after it was referred to the beginning of the session. So in the best case scenario, your bill gets heard, gets crossed over, crossed over, crossed over. Everybody votes on it. Each house votes on the approved final version. And then it goes to the governor for signature. I'd say the best case scenario is your bill gets referred in the beginning in January and it gets one committee. And it gets heard in that committee. Maybe it gets deferred, but later on in conference it gets brought up again and the idea gets inserted. Which is something that we've seen before. And you're obviously trying... Thank you for clarifying that process a bit because it is quite opaque for the average Joe or Julie to follow that. And you're obviously dealing, like you said, with part-time legislators who have a lot of different bills from all kinds of angles to compete with. Like you said, 3,000 and they get whittled down, but what is the final amount that comes out of that? And how many are you tracking at this point? So we started the session tracking 94 bills. And that's, of course, carryover from the previous session. And we saw a few of those past last session. We were hoping that some would actually get hearings in this session. But of the, let's see, something like 37, 35 bills that were cannabis specific coming out of 2018, only five of them are moving forward, have actually crossover to the other chamber. And are the rest sort of maybe deferred or maybe just died somewhere? Because they didn't make the crossover deadline because they didn't actually cross over. They're not dead, but they're not going to be heard again. So in that instance, we're waiting for conference. And those ideas or that language to be recirculated, reconstituted into whatever the final product is going to be. And is it easy for you to remember those five bills that have made it through? Which ones that stick out in your mind is the most important that we might be looking at? In all honesty, the most important bills to my members, to my constituency and for the industry, in my opinion, from the perspective of the Hawaii Dispensary Alliance, our bills didn't get heard. Our bills didn't receive the conversation that they should have. Now there is one. There is an omnibus bill. I believe it's 2729, House Bill 2729. That's an omnibus bill. And the new House Health Chair, John Mazzuno, has provided good conversation around this. Chair Baker for Consumer Protection and Health out of the Senate will hear it on Thursday. So that's a good thing. And there are some really good topics within that. One is reciprocity, which allows patients from other states or territories and perhaps even other countries that recognize medical cannabis. They can come to Hawaii and participate in our medical cannabis program. Another is the availability of safe cardiopulmonary devices, which is vaping, basically, to be introduced. And then another is for telehealth to be part of the program. Well, you really have to be kind of a lawyer to figure out all these posts to get by and just hoops to jump through it. It's a very complicated process, so you're a very patient person to get through all of this. Well, as we mentioned in our previous conversation, as much as I'm monitoring these, I am not engaging necessarily with the legislators, with the legislators, with the legislation, with the legislature. I'm letting it work itself out, because as we stated from the get-go to our members and to the general public, we didn't anticipate great success with this legislative session. The asks that we were making with the legislative working group, which was part of what came out of a couple years back legislation, none of those programs, protocols or ideas were really integrated into a legislative measure that made sense, that was a workable. And because it's an election year, we knew that what we wanted wasn't going to happen. So you have to plan years in advance for this. And I think a lot of the time, it's a great idea. It just doesn't make it out of the gate that first year. Whatever the great idea is, people have to think about it and think, oh, it reminds me a lot of the marriage equality battle, that you would have these ideas that is so obvious to people, it's obvious to the masses, right? Of course.  But you talk about reciprocity, and that it has to be introduced and just chugging back and forward. Why are politicians behind the curve in some of these issues, what is it that they're afraid of? Well, there are a couple of things. One is it's an election year, right? And because they're part-time, but also because they've dedicated themselves to public service, they want to make sure that they have a voice in the next year. So there's value to that. There's value to continuity in our legislators. That makes sense. I'm okay with that, to a certain degree. But the other part is, when it comes to the direction of these programs, be it marriage equality or dignity with death, or in our case, cannabis or medical cannabis, it really, the direction comes from the top down. Instead of the bottom up. Instead of the bottom up. And it's not necessarily the legislators, not necessarily the set of president or speaker of the house, the resistance ultimately, or the direction, comes from the governor. It's interesting. And we'll pick that up when we come back here in a moment where we're going to take a short break and I'm having a great talk with Chris Garth. We're learning a lot about the legislative process and just how patient focus you have to be in this. This is out and about on ThinkTech Livestreaming Network Series. We'll be back in a minute. We have this crazy thing going on today. We're just walking by and all these DJs and producers are set up all around the city. I just walked by and I said, what's happening guys? They told me they were making music. Little talent. And then sat down. I said, what are you doing? Winston Welch back on ThinkTech Livestreaming Network Series. This is out and about. And I'm talking with Christopher Garth, the executive director of Hawaii Dispensory Alliance, who is a very cool cat. And Christopher, so I'm just, Chris, how do you do? How did you get involved in this? I'm curious. It's on a personal level. What brought you to this organization and this cause? So I'm the co-founder of the Hawaii Dispensory Alliance. Garrett Halladier is my business partner. And we, Garrett has a background in developing economies. So he's traveled all through Asia, Southeast Asia, and worked with a number of organizations and diplomats to make sure that, or to really figure out what drives an economy and how to create an economy. And it's not often that an opportunity to be at the threshold of a new industry presents itself, presents itself. And with medical cannabis dispensaries being presented through the legislature a couple of years, or several years back, a couple of people came to me and said, hey, we have this idea. You should create a trade association for the cannabis industry. Jumped at that opportunity and recognized very quickly that this industry wasn't going to, it couldn't be, shouldn't be about just the eight licensees. And we've done everything that we can to engage the public, to engage the professionals, to engage the legislator, the legislators, as well as the licensees here and beyond to make this program in Hawaii as patient-centric as possible, as robust as possible, and as legitimate as possible. And when it comes to the legislation, we've run into some issues there, trying to tackle exactly what the directive of this program should be. We've run into issues with the Department of Health. We've run into issues with our legislators. We've run into issues with the general business community as a whole. As it appears, the information, the education hasn't, wasn't out there to make medical cannabis or cannabis a light conversation or a conversation that anyone wanted to engage with. So we really had to cast a lot of light on this to bring people out of the shadows to prove that if you engage with cannabis, you're not a criminal. If you are a patient, you shouldn't be criminalized, right? You substituted marriage equality for that, and it's the same story. It's the same story. It is. So why are, what are people so afraid about? I mean, it's, you said that it's from the top down, but if you look, if you ask people in the street, they're overwhelmingly in support of this, I believe, aren't they? Yeah, absolutely. Pulling statewide at 71%, and these numbers are provided through anthology research. And then our neighboring counties, Outer Island, pulling at 81%. So this is approval. It's a no brainer. People want this. They want it to be legal. They want it to be open. They want it to be a job creator, a business economic engine to be legal, safe, and available. It's not happening like it should. It's not, unfortunately, and there's still this incredible stigma about public safety regarding this product. The cakey. Well, not even the cakey. It's going to ruin my neighborhood. Well, statistically proven, neighborhoods that have dispensaries are cleaner, have demonstrated less crime, less violent crime, and have a greater sense of community ownership because there's a dispensary. These dispensaries recognize the stigma that's applied to them, so they go out of their way to make sure that their storefronts are clean. They go out of their way to, of course, this is in other areas. And I would assume that as our dispensary program continues to grow and continues to mature, that we'll experience this. Right now, we're still well behind. And I don't know what it is about Hawaii's delegation that keeps cannabis suppressed. And let me, I think that Hawaii was the first state to legalize medical marijuana, wasn't it? We were the first state to legalize it through our legislation. Through our legislation. So this is, and how many years ago was this? This is 1999, 2000. 2000, 1999. It was the same with marriage equality. It was way back in the 90s, at least, and the state said, you have to have a compelling interest to show that this, why can't you grant equality to everyone? And then Hawaii kind of went way back and just didn't really do anything about it and let everyone else catch up. So it was at the vanguard of this, like it is with cannabis. And now it's, but it's time is coming again. People are obviously, they're like, guys, get with it. Help these folks create jobs, create businesses, create sustainable green growth. It is. And we're right around the corner for that. And I think one of the most important factors in getting us over that tipping point or getting us to and then beyond is making sure that we elect the right people. This is an election year. We have the opportunity for the con con coming up. Make sure that you're engaged. Make sure that you're asking anyone who comes and knocks on your door and says, I'm running for X, Y, or Z, ask them how they're going to fund that pet project. Ask them, will cannabis be a part of that funding mechanism? And if not ask them why, if they can't justify it, let them know that they're not the right candidate for you. Very important. This is every individual taking this step. Do you keep a scorecard of folks that you're going to endorse for certain races? We will. The Hawaii Dispensary Alliance will release that information after June or after the first week of June. So that's when the filing deadline happens. And then after that we'll know who's running for which position at the state, at the county, and at the federal level. So you'll be sending out a questionnaire of all the candidates and say, how do you feel about this, that, or the other? They will answer the questionnaire, they'll get back to you, you'll tabulate it and you'll say this is an ally for green growth, for creating jobs, for not being afraid of reality. Absolutely. Actually, we're going to, through another organization that I chair, which is a super pack called Hawaii for Responsible Cannabis Use. Okay, that's a super pack. Hawaii for Responsible Cannabis Use. Right, you can visit that at HIVENN.org. HIVENN.org. Correct. That group will host community forums, they'll bring together all of the candidates, whether they're pro-cannabis or not, to have that discussion before the community. Okay. And this is something, so when people are watching here in the con con, that's a little jargony for some people. What's the con con? Con con is a constitutional convention where we as a state as delegates for our respective political parties and citizens of this great state have the opportunity to take a look at the constitution of the state and say, hey, this is outdated or this needs to be improved, we need to switch this, let's, let's hooli 2018. And could we actually write it in our constitution that we have a right to use medicinal products of our choice or something along those lines? I don't think that that's really, we certainly could have the opportunity for that. But more, I think the true benefit of a constitutional convention for this conversation as well as others is introducing the idea of voter initiatives or ballot initiatives because that's something that we don't have. We've seen medical cannabis, we've seen adult use cannabis pass in other markets and other areas and other states because the citizens have vocalized their desire to have it. When we go back to 2000 and 1999, when it came to medical cannabis in Hawaii, that was done by the legislature. But if the people had spoken up, we would have had this dispensary program, we would have had medical cannabis significantly faster that the availability of those apparatus wasn't available or wasn't introduced and is only available if we have a constitutional convention to allow voter initiatives. Like California. Like California. So perhaps that's something that we can all work on together and if people want to get involved in this and they say, you know what, I'm going to do something about it. What is the line from that movie where it says I'm mad as hell, I'm not going to take it anymore. If you're mad and yell out your window, what was that movie? You know, it's with Faye Dunaway's in it and, oh, not Network, wasn't it Network? Something like that. It'll come to us afterwards.  You can Google it.  We just want to have some progress here on this obvious initiative and other people out there watching too and they say, well, I'm, you know, it's Hawaii. I don't really feel like getting that mad, but I'd like to do something about it. How can people participate in this? Can they volunteer for your office? Can they help you ask questions to candidates? Can they show up and help maybe, you know, have to seat people or what can they do? Yeah, absolutely. I think the first thing is to visit our website and that is that is www.hi-4cann.org. That's Hawaii for Responsible Cannabis Use. Check us out. You can donate. You can contribute there. But send us an email. What times you're available to go knock on doors? What resources you have to contribute? If you own a print shop, if you are a graphic designer, let us know. This is a grassroots effort to make sure that all of that collateral is available to you, to the public, to get the word out. And that's so, so we can go to hi-4cann.org. And if they're interested in starting a business, a cannabis related business, whether it's artwork or, you know, accessories or whatever it is, they can visit your website for the Dispensary Alliance. That's correct. That is the, that is HawaiiDispensaryAlliance.org. Hawaii spelled out? That is correct. Okay, HawaiiDispensaryAlliance.org. And that is a 501c6, which is a business league, a Chamber of Commerce. So that's correct. You have, you have a lot of different members there of all different types. We certainly do. Okay. And I think you've also put out a really excellent publication I want to draw people's attention to so that they can find it on the website. And it has a ton of information. It's basically a white paper, the last one that I read. And you gave a shout out to the person who created that for you, but really excellent resource for legislators, for the general public to see that the sky isn't falling. This is a no-brainer. We've got to do this. And that information is contained in your publication, which is called The Cannabis Insider. And you can visit that at cannabisinsidermag.com. Cannabisinsidermag.com. And there's also links on your HawaiiDispensaryAlliance as well. So when we're seeing here five years down the road and you're looking back, what are you going to think? Oh, all that headache for nothing. We're here. We've arrived. It's happened.  Bear with us. Give us what you got. Hang in there. We're going to make it happen. And we're going to make it happen. We're going to—we're transitioning over to a new economy that's clean, green, sustainable that is based in healthy living and good choices. And I think that this is an obvious one. And we can just look towards our fellow Western states as an example and realize we've got a good future in front of us. And with people like you at the helm—and I'm hoping you're going to run for high political office someday or something, but right now what you're doing is super important and we need you to see this through. And then we're going to—but I'm looking for—I'm just seeing a bright future for you as well down the road for other things after this one is tackled. So thank you again for coming on the show and we've got obviously more conversation coming up here in advance. But right now we're going to be monitoring the situation. We're going to have people go to your website, HawaiiDispensaryAlliance.org. Hi4CAN, C-A-N-N.org, and the Cannabis Insider, mag.com. Okay, so that is all we have time for today. I have been delighted to be speaking with Chris Garth, Executive Director of the Hawaii Dispensary Alliance and Co-Chair of the Hawaii Cannabis— Hi4CAN. Hi4CAN.org, which is a super PAC designed to advance this agenda in a civilized way. That's all the time we've got today. So thank you so much for being here, Chris. And I will be looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks. I'd like to thank our broadcast engineer Ian Davidson, our technical producer, Ray Sangelang, our floor manager, Robert McLean, and Jay Fidel, our executive producer, who puts it all together. So I hope you have a terrific week out there. Get on your internet, get on the phone and advocate, call your legislators and tell them this is an important issue for you, whether it's for right now or for next year, or down the road, and for other people that you care about and love. So thanks. Until next time, a hui hou.


Welcome back, everyone. Today we're going to be unboxing an ultra block kit and these are external right blockers. And this kit was loaned to us by Digital Intelligence. You can see a link down below for the kit and for the company. So thank you very much, Digital Intelligence. So let's go ahead and open this up. So this is a Pelican case and this is kind of the standard case you'll see with these right blocker kits. And whenever we open it up, we have three external right blockers on the left hand side and then all of the connectors and adapters and power connectors that we need on the right hand side. So let's go ahead and go through the right blockers first. These are external right blockers. And whenever you take them out, you can see the quick reference instructions and these do describe exactly how to use the right blocker. So make sure you keep these little tags with them. So taking out the right blocker, this right blocker on the side, you can see SATA, you can see the power connector and then IDE. So sometimes we still run into IDE drive, so you might have that, but usually we'll be using the SATA connector here. And then on the back, we have the connector to our forensic workstation as well as power input. On the ends, we don't have anything for this one. So this is a SATA IDE right blocker and I'll be showing actually how to use these in future videos. So if we flip it over, you have the indicator, you can turn on the right blocker. You can see the status lights and we'll go over what each of these status lights mean whenever we're actually using the right blocker. So the procedure for using this and it describes it in the quick reference guide is connect our source drive on this side with power and the data cable and then connect our right blocker to our forensic workstation and then the very last stage is connecting the power to the right blocker. So this does take a specific order. Some people have them powered on and then connect everything up, but they recommend connecting the source first, connecting our destination and then having the power turned on after that. So we'll talk about actually how to use these a little bit later. And for now, I'm just going to unpack the kit. Next, we have another right blocker that works pretty much exactly the same way, but it looks a little bit different. This right blocker is specifically for USB. So notice we don't have a USB-C connector, but we can get an adapter if we have a USB-C connection. This is for USB right blocking. On the other side, we have our connection into our forensic workstation. On the back, we have power and then we have the USB 3.0 bridge. And we have a little bit more options here. You do have a menu item because you can do some configurations with the USB right blocker. But remember that USB most of the time has its own flash controller. So USB drives can potentially modify themselves. So be aware about how USB is working because you should use a USB right blocker. But even using a USB right blocker might not always protect from changes in the source device. But at least you from your forensic workstation will not be able to connect to the USB device and make changes. So it's a USB bridge. So next we have the PCIe bridge. It also has a menu option along with power. On one side, it has a weird looking connector and basically we stick an adapter in there whenever we want to do any type of PCIe connections. And then on the other side, we have our connection to our forensic workstation. And then on the back again, we have power. So setting these up and connecting to these pretty much all work exactly the same way. We're looking to connect our source device first, then we connect our forensic workstation and then we turn on the power and then we start doing our configurations, whatever we need. Now for these external right blockers, you do want to make sure that you are testing them. It's possible that they go bad. Although I've never had one of these external drives go bad. I have heard of, you know, sometimes something goes wrong. So depending on where you're at, you might have to test it before every time you use it. They're not difficult to test and we'll talk about that later. Or I've seen labs that test them, for example, once a month to make sure they are up to spec. So it's very quick. Once you have your testing methodology down, testing these is very simple as long as you have some test source data. So those are our three bridges. And basically what these are doing is you have some sort of connection coming in. You have a connection going out to your forensic workstation. You have power and that's that's it. The whole idea of this is what we want to be able to read from the source device, but we don't want to be able to write anything back to it. So that ensures that we can make a disk image, for example, and guarantees that we're not writing any of our own data to that disk image. So I always recommend using external right blockers, especially like this because they're so easy to share amongst a lab and even take with you on a scene or something like that if you need to. Let's look at some of the accessories. So first, these blue cables are the cables that are connecting to your forensic workstation. So we have a USB connector type and this is the connector going into the right blocker. We have two of these cables included for the three right blockers. Next, we have an IDE power cable. So we connect the power into the tabular right blocker here and then the IDE cable connector for the drive actually goes into here. Next, we have an IDE data cable. So the blue side goes into the right blocker and the black side goes into the source drive. So next, we have a PCIe M2 adapter and the idea is you might have a little PCI M2 device. You can just slide it in there and then move this peg around and then you can image the drive that way. So on one side, we have our source drive that we want to plug in and then we have this little connector in the back that also requires an adapter. This connects into the right blocker directly. Next, we have SATA power cable. So this end connects into the right blocker itself. This end connects into SATA power. So basically you have your SATA cable, which is up next. We have a SATA data cable and then the SATA power cable. This side is going to connect into your right blocker, into your right blocker. The other side is going to connect to the data port and the data section on the drive and this is the power section on the drive. Okay, so I'll demonstrate those later. So next, we have a SATA to micro SATA adapter. If you have a micro SATA drive, you can connect that in and then you can use the SATA power and data cables, connect them and then connect that to the right blocker. And then you have right blocker for also micro SATA. Next, we have a little adapter for the PCIe. So where you saw these slots, for example, we plug that into there and then we plug the other end into our PCIe right blocker and then we have access to that. So that provides power and data to the drive that we're trying to work with. Okay, next we have power cables. This is US standard power cable for the right blockers themselves and there are two power cables included. So the power bricks are in the top. So the power brick, power cable go together and we have this connector for the power of the right blockers themselves. Next, we have a USB 3 forensic card reader and the idea behind this is that it has a lot of different card adapter types that you might run into and then it has a USB 3 connector. So we can use this in conjunction with the USB right blocker, connect everything in and then all of these different card types will also be right blocked. And then finally we have another M2 adapter. So basically it takes in an M2 SSD and M SATA SSD and it converts it to SATA 3. It's just a little adapter very similar to this one except it looks more like the size of a normal hard drive but the same idea. So I've cut that open. If we open this up, we have first our adapter plate and just like before we have our SATA connector here and then we have the little pins where you can put either your M2 or your M SATA SSD. So it fits down in there and then we have, I think it's the back plate for it. So an instruction set and then this is the holding plate that makes it seem kind of like a hard drive with a nice digital intelligence logo on there. Okay, so it's just another adapter. You can essentially open this case up, put this along with the drive that you're going to image into this case and then it just works exactly like a normal hard drive kind of form factor except that everything's enclosed and safe. So that's a nice little feature. So you can customize these kits and get any type of write blockers or as many write blockers as you want.  Again, I like these external hardware write blockers because they are so easy to share. A whole lab can use them, obviously not at the same time, but if you have a small lab and a limited budget, I find these to be very, very flexible. Some of these accessories are optional, but I would really consider this kit very basic if you want to start doing imaging using external write blockers along with all the different connector types. This kit is going to get you really far. So that's pretty much it for this unboxing. Next, I'll show you how to connect up your write blockers as well as how to use several of the accessories and image common drive types. So that's it for today. Thank you very much.


My name is Sakari Samoei, a citizen scientist here, which normally takes these water levels on a daily basis, and I come from this particular community. In case of any catastrophe, I'm the first person to be affected. For example, when the water level goes down and down, then I'll miss taking water from here. I'll be in a very big problem. The research team has been working on trying to estimate the importance of these forests for the water cycle. When we started working in this forest and started talking to different stakeholders, we realised that there was a sort of a playing game without understanding how things were connected. So by presenting this evidence on how water and forest are connected, we are hoping that the actors who make decisions in both sectors also find a common ground for discussions on what the solutions are. Forest, as we know, they play a very important role in the hydrological cycle. First they protect the water sources from loss of water through evaporation, but also the vegetation in the forest will enhance smooth infiltration, percolation of water through the canopies, down into the soil through the litter, the water gets clean and then most of the water sinks in the soil, and therefore the water table becomes now sustainable and we get rivers and springs now becoming viable. We need capacity building to enhance the monitoring approach so the communities and the population need to be educated about these techniques of monitoring. It's important also to revise our curriculum regularly to see how it fits best in this system monitoring of water resources in the country. Indigenous forests play a very big role in terms of flow of water to the rivers. Compared to this, which is a cypress plantation, the ground is more or less bare. You can see the kind of service that you have. It shows that there was a lot of rains probably last night or the day before and there was a kind of run-off. There are many challenges. One is governance. You see, water and forestry unfolds under different policies. So there is a need to have those policies synchronized. To my right is the Mau Forest. It borders most of our tea estates. Most of the agricultural lands, when there's erosion, when there's heavy rainfall, there's a lot of soil that gets to these particular rivers. So these sedimentation levels affect the water volumes. So in order to mitigate those effects, monitoring is a must. The responsible authorities also require support from the government in terms of finances, in terms of facilities for them to be able to monitor the water. By knowing the water volumes, by knowing the water quality, flood planning is possible. The citizen scientists are the local community people. The river is their resource and the forest adjacent to them is their resource. So they benefit from both because they get the water for their domestic use. They benefit also from the forest because they are able to get firewood. They graze their animals in the forest and so these two resources are a great asset for them. When the land is built, we extract water from it. That's the reason why I started building. That's why I work on a land. When we have a land in our country, we come around here to collect water. We build and sell water. We collect water, we pay for it, then we enter our place. But the land is a part of the land. It's a good idea because you find that we cannot actually be everywhere. So if the community can actually assist us in collecting the data, then that one is a plus on our side. The main challenges that we normally encounter when we are actually doing this monitoring is in terms of finances. Because you know to generate water quality data is an expensive process. Because we require the treatments, we require the chemicals. So at times you find that you want to do the monitoring but the necessary chemicals that are needed to generate the data are not there. Data sharing in general is difficult because people sit on their data, they stick to their data, they try to sell it, it's a kind of power issue, I have the data so then I can make maybe more decisions or you need my data, you have to buy them. Information is still power. Of course this attitude worldwide is changing but not enough yet. So this is where we come in as well with the private sector together also in the Sondu base and the communities to at least have these kind of platforms and exchange what I collect might benefit you as well and what you're collecting benefits me as well. So why can't we not share it and try to solve these huge environmental problems that we are facing?


Hello, my name is Hannah Rosen. I'm here to talk with you about the Lyricist 2021 open source software survey report. I am a strategist for research and scholarly communication at Lyricist. Here's a pretty picture of me so you can put a face to this faceless presentation, regrettable earrings, but deep enthusiasm for understanding trends in the field of cultural heritage and scholarly communication. So we put together this survey in the spring of 2021 to understand the current major trends surrounding open source software and support and use for libraries, archives, and museums within the United States. Survey questions were designed with input from Lyricist members. The topic was actually also chosen by Lyricist members. So this is really a practitioner driven survey and they were keenly interested in understanding how their peers support and advocate for open source software programs. So we wanted to specifically understand how institutions support OSS software through financial contributions, through staff contributions, how OSS adoption or support is justified within institutions, and understand how OSS is evaluated for adoption. So here is a picture of the cover of the report. It's very pretty. Here's the DOI. Please check out the slides afterwards and check on the report. It's completely open access. For the purposes of this report and for the purposes of the survey, open source software programs are defined as community based programs specifically designed for Glam institutions that stands for galleries, libraries, archives, and museums, such as Folio or Archive Space or Omega. There are a lot of other OSS programs that are used within those institutions, but they're designed for a more universal use such as Ubuntu or Apache Tomcat. And it's just a little too difficult to figure out how to put those into the scope of our survey. So we really wanted to focus on software specifically designed for this community. We had 92 cleaned up responses. We were pretty pleased with that. Half of all respondents represented doctoral universities. So we definitely had the data definitely skewed R1 and R2. But 16% were from master's colleges and universities. 8% were from bachelor's and associate's colleges. 9% were from academic institutions outside of the US and 15% were from non-academic institutions. The non-academic institutions included independent archives, museums, public libraries, library consortia, national libraries, and private libraries. So still very much within the range of institutions using these kinds of softwares and being part of these software communities. And institutions from outside of the United States included primarily multiple responses from Canada, but also individual responses from universities in Columbia, El Salvador, Italy, and South Africa. So the first question we really asked once we got through all the demographics was how does your institution interact with GLAM open source software? And we gave people a bunch of different options and they could choose as many of these options as they wanted in their answers. Were you a founding member of a program? Were you on a governing board? Do you financially contribute to one or more as part of a membership? Do you provide technical contributions to an OSS program or non-technical contributions? Do you use OSS through external hosting services? Or just advocate or even prohibit the use of OSS? When we looked at the findings, sort of the most popular forms of use were internally using OSS or externally using OSS through hosted services. The majority of respondents 73% are internally using and externally hosting OSS software. So 73% of institutions are internally using it and that's an overlap with 55% of institutions hosting. The results definitely indicate a disparity between use and support. Only 41% of respondents said they financially contribute to OSS. Although it is important to note that the question specifically mentioned memberships as an example of external support. So respondents, to be fair, may have had different interpretations of financially contribute which could have fallen under other categories such as external hosting. When we asked in what areas of your institution do you use OSS, the top three areas were archival management, digital exhibits, and institutional repositories. These all appear to promote the use of unique materials within an institution. Under other service you can see that everything else coming behind it was digital asset management, digital preservation, discovery layers, library services platforms, and collections management. And there could be multiple reasons for the top three areas appearing to promote the use of unique materials. We learned in a previous survey about accessibility that there appeared to be more experimentation with systems where we, as institutions, controlled the content. But it could also be that these communities just have better open source software offerings. We didn't explore too deeply so that might be something to investigate at a later time. Under other services there were a bunch of different ones including learning management systems, content management systems, journal publishing systems, researcher management, and other small apps and tools. So we also asked in instances where you choose not to use GLAM OSS programs, could you please indicate the reasons why? And we gave a few sort of broad reasons. The biggest reason, the biggest barrier to OSS adoption reported in the survey is the lack of technical expertise within an institution. And this makes sense, but it was interesting to see that this ranked higher than cost or the quality of proprietary software. Staff time and knowledge is fundamental for successful adoption and many institutions do not have the funding available for the crucial human resources needed to support OSS. OSS communities provide a level of support, but such support can differ significantly from the help and training framework offered by proprietary vendors for one time or ongoing fees. So we asked how much money does your institution directly financially contribute to OSS programs? And we broke this down into institution types. For each institution type, bachelor's, master's, doctoral, et cetera, the majority of institutions do not financially contribute to OSS programs. And due to the dominance of doctoral universities within the survey responses, it's difficult to draw many conclusions about non-doctoral universities. However, the graph does demonstrate that this highest tier of library funding, doctoral universities, provides a really wide array of financial contributions with no apparent dominant financial bracket. Respondents were asked where the sources for OSS funds came from. And there were many different responses, but the most frequently mentioned sources were the operations budget and the collections budget, followed by IT and general library budgets. Oftentimes respondents mentioned that more than one of these areas was responsible for paying for OSS. So OSS does not have one dominant place in an institution. It's often coming from different areas. We also asked respondents who is in charge of making decisions regarding OSS budgeting. And the majority of respondents said that the university librarian slash dean of the libraries was responsible for managing budgetary decisions around OSS. Others mentioned senior AULs and other higher level administration. So this is really a very top level decision. We also asked about non-monetary supporting OSS. We asked on the left, you can see how much staff time do you allocate to technical contributions, such as coding, software testing, or technical team meetings. And on the right hand side, you'll see the graph for how much staff time do you allocate to non-technical contributions, such as governance meetings, community feedback voting, or user testing. Now, there appears to be a fairly even split between those institutions that do allocate staff time and those that do not. The majority of survey respondents that do allocate staff time don't allocate very much time, typically less than one FTE. And so you can see here that the majority of respondents on either side don't allocate staff time. But the biggest chunk of staff time is usually less than half an FTE, since only 5% of both technical and non-technical contributions is a full FTE. You can see, though, that the right side of the slide is better than the left hand side. Respondents are more likely to allocate staff time to non-technical contributions than technical contributions. And we asked respondents, if you went from only using OSS to actively supporting OSS, what motivated you to start contributing money or resources to external OSS efforts? And this is a quote from one of our respondents. OSS works if we all contribute. It is in our own interest to contribute and we gain expertise. But we are more proactive and with OSS and we can influence or request or support the development of specific features. So there was a lot of sort of altruistic goodwill that we saw in the responses, but goodwill was more often combined with an institutional need, such as product sustainability, custom features, or desired development. So the second portion of this survey was devoted to justifying OSS, which focuses on how institutions justify investing these funds or resources in OSS programs. We asked, what considerations are most important to your institution in terms of supporting OSS? And one of the most important considerations appears to be the sustainability of programs and services. Respondents ranked that as more important in considering supporting OSS than financial advantages or benefits for end users. So that really showed us that the value proposition for OSS is not a financial savings, and it's not necessarily even about features, but there seems to be an understanding of long-term sustainability for OSS programs. We also wanted to know how does your institutional mission affect OSS adoption? We wanted to see if it was a barrier, if it was actually a way to encourage OSS use, or if it was just neutral. And the majority of respondents said that our institutional mission does not affect OSS decision-making at all. But the second largest group of respondents, a little under 30%, said our institutional mission is actually structured in a way that encourages the use of OSS and or open infrastructure. And only 5% said that the institutional mission discourages the use of OSS and open infrastructure. So we took that as a good sign. And in the survey report, you'll actually find a few examples of phrasing that encourages the use of OSS. The third section of the report, evaluating OSS, covers the ways that Glam institutions determine the qualifications for OSS, their evaluation tactics, and their decision-making about long-term OSS maintenance. So we asked about seven features, user experience, community relationships, preservation of digital content, digital workflows, yada, yada, yada. And we said, which do you think is better addressed by OSS versus proprietary software? Now, one of these was basically a tie, digital workflows. Users tended to think that OSS and proprietary were fairly even. But other than that, institutions appear to prefer OSS in all categories except for user experience and speed of upgrade releases. So we're definitely hoping that this information helps both our internal lyricist communities make decisions about priorities in terms of development, but also any other OSS communities trying to figure out their strategic pathways forward. So we also wanted to know if there were any barriers in terms of IT criteria. We said, are the IT criteria used to evaluate Glam OSS different from those used to evaluate proprietary software? 77% said no. So you'd think that would be an easy one to dismiss. But several open-ended responses revealed that there are more concerns over privacy and security in OSS. When purchasing a proprietary system of any sort, privacy and security concerns can be addressed and negotiated in contracts. And many registered service providers of OSS can also provide contracts that address these kinds of concerns. But the ability to internally adopt OSS without any legal barriers could affect how privacy and security concerns are perceived by IT staff or other stakeholders needed to buy into these programs. We asked what factors related to OSS product maturity affect your decision-making? And the majority of survey respondents see the size of an OSS community as the most important factor related to OSS product maturity with the remaining factors clustered fairly close together underneath. So what are the takeaways for this report? If you only remember a few things from this asynchronous report that you're watching on your own time, there's a disparity between OSS use and financial support. About half of institutions are allocating small amounts of staff time to OSS work, and they lean more towards non-technical contributions. OSS outperformed proprietary software in all provided categories, but two, user experience and speed of upgrades. And the biggest barrier to OSS adoption reported in the survey is the lack of technical expertise within an institution. We are using all of these insights to guide decision-making at lyricists. We are figuring out how this can be applied to our own open-source software communities. We're using it to explore different forms of sustainability in our grant applications and in some of the research that we're doing through the Catalyst Fund. So we definitely hope that this information has been helpful for you. It was certainly helpful for us. And as I said, please, please read the report. It is open access and available to anyone who is interested in reading it. So thank you so much. Have a great morning, afternoon, or whatever time you are watching this.