with this benefit of cloud native. Thank you for coming to our panel. It is a pleasure to have everyone here. I'm going to allow each of you to introduce yourself. My name is Simon Forster and I'm a technical architect and engineer. I'm a freelancer in financial services in the city of London. And I also serve as a CNCF ambassador. Hello, my name is Annalisa Genaro. I take care of marketing and communication for SparkFabric, a tech company focused on cloud native applications and customer development in Italy. And I'm a KCDI organizer. I'm engaged in the working group of Glossary for the Italian team. I'm a CNCF ambassador and I'm part of the Cartographus Working Group. And I'm Danielle Cook. I am a CNCF ambassador. I am a co-organizer of the Cartographus Working Group and I work at a company called AppCD which provides generative infrastructure from code. We'll just jump right into the questions now that you've introduced yourself. So when we're talking about the quality of cloud native and the profitability of cloud native, how do you convince a business to realize that that is a benefit to them? So the business benefits of cloud native are super, super vital and important. And we have created the cloud native maturity model a few years ago as part of this Cartographus Working Group where we were looking at what technology do people have to get to onboard? What policies are they looking at? What process, like what are the people need to do? And so we created the maturity model in 2021 and kind of evolved it over the last two years and realized in the last, you know, in 2023 that we weren't focusing enough about the business value. And I think we as an industry know that there's been a lot of cloud redundancies or, you know, people redundancies. There's companies that have been going out of business but yet we need to make sure that everyone understands that cloud native is really important and it's helping driving business goals at companies. So we put down to this model, we're here because we are very passionate about communicating these business values and getting everybody and technologists being able to communicate why the tech you're using and adopting will drive business goals. So Annalisa, I wanted to address this question to you. In regard to maturity models, how does that work? I just don't really have a concept of how that works. Could you explain that for us? The cloud native maturity model is a sort of, let's say roadmap and assessment tool. It's organized according to four pillars which are people, process, policy and technology and it identifies five stages of the evolution. So somehow it gives an idea of where the company is at a certain moment of the journey and let's say it helps understanding what are the next steps to be taken and let's say that it has different target audiences. Let's say it's for everyone, to be honest. It was designed as a comprehensive resource for those who are interested in adopting cloud native technologies and processes from engineering practitioners to any kind of managers. So it addresses to anyone regardless of their role and expertise. Let's mention C-suite executives, technology executives, development teams, operations teams and any kind of business stakeholders like project managers, product managers, but even academic and research communities or students. So somehow it needs to be accessible and relevant for many different audiences, for many different people, personas, whether they are beginners or advanced experts, whether they are tech or non-tech people. It's a kind of space where different players of the organization need to play the same game to make the cloud transformation successful. Sometimes we need someone to be an ambassador, to be a bridge between the business interests and the technological interests of the engineering team, for example. So I'm thinking that I would like to ask Simon to respond to how that works and in terms of being a technical person, how do you convince business people that it will benefit them? How do you work together and bridge that gap between the technical people and the financial folks? Thank you, that's a really good question. So the first thing I do whenever I have to discuss the value or the business value of the cloud native computing I'm doing is first off. It's often very easy for me as an engineer or as an architect to identify areas where maybe I can save some money. I can do things such as change my mode and my node types. I can adjust the amount of capacity I'm allocating. I can set limits. I have many techniques at my disposal. The challenge is that I need to go and be able to say, well, when I do this, this frees up our resources and our financial resources to be able to go and invest in other areas for this application. It can either go back into the application's solution design, such as expanding resilience or scalability, or it can go into additional development, or it can go into other areas. Annalisa mentioned the key areas of process and policy as well. CICD is an excellent example of a process that we can further invest in as well. That's just a couple of easy points there. When we speak about cost, now, Danielle, you're speaking from the business perspective and tell us about how we justify cost. Well, I think a lot of us have been walking around the show floor seeing a lot of vendors out there talking about cost optimization and what we need to do, and obviously there's conversations around right sizing. But that isn't necessarily, in the maturity model, how we talk about cost, because we're talking about it in terms of when you start out on your cloud-native journey, you're not necessarily going to save money. You are gonna actually be spending a lot of money, running your traditional environments, and then starting on your cloud-native environments, and we talk about when you get to level three that you're in the messy middle, and that messy middle is you're spending a lot of money, and it's not great. And so if you've communicated the value of cloud-native to your business as a cost-cutting exercise, you're probably not gonna get very far. Versus if you're talking about it in terms of we need to meet customer demand, we need to be able to, and I know Booth say it too, ship applications faster. Well, what are you doing that's gonna allow that? And hey, we have a cost implication that that's gonna be, and we're gonna talk about how that cost implication is not gonna be great for a while, but then it's gonna, the reward's going to end up there eventually. Thank you. A similar experience that I could relate, for example, the team that I work with, when the project initially began, we had to hire a lot of architects and engineers, and the cost seemed to increase rapidly and exponentially. Convincing the business folks, the financial people that this was a good idea was very challenging. So in the future, and you said the messy middle, how does the process look and does it become more cost-effective as you go? And from, again, the bridging between the technical perspective versus the business perspective. Annalisa, how do you respond to that idea? Well, we just heard that translating the benefits of clownative to the business can be challenging. So we might take some steps to bridge the gap. First of all, understand the clownative maturity model. That's the first steps, seems trivial, but you should get familiarized with it. Then you have to speak the right language, which means we should avoid to dive directly into a technical jargon, and we need to try to paint a picture that is at a higher level somehow. We need to use language that resonates with business goals. So if you want to speak, if you need to speak about speed and agility, probably it's better if you talk about quicker time to market or the adaptability to the change and the fast-changing customer needs. If you need to talk about cost efficiency, then probably, as Danielle just mentioned, don't talk about cost reduction, which is not true, but talk about an optimization of spending. So tell the business that they will spend their money better, the organization will spend the money better on further initiatives, for example, on distributing the money to other initiatives and projects. If you talk about resilience and availability, probably you should highlight the impact on the business, highlight the results like minimizing the downtime and ensuring business continuity so that you don't crash if you have a peak of traffic. And this is something that business, of course, understand much better than any other technicality. Don't use technology from the beginning. Just start from a higher, wider scenario and then dive later if needed. But the most important thing we find, this is really the most important thing, is to align technical goals to business goals. Lately, we all know that non-tech people, so C-suite levels, C-suite members should be more and more tech savvy. I'm a marketer, marketer doesn't care about technology, cares about results, about how to use technology. What is the benefit to use that kind of technology? But we need to be more aware of what technology means. On the other hand, tech teams should be, should raise their awareness about the business goals. So we should encourage tech people to think beyond codes and infrastructure. So they should ask themselves questions like, how can our cloud-native processes, technology could enhance customer satisfaction and trust? And how can our solutions help grow the revenue or the cost reduction? So it's something that helps in bridging the gap between non-tech and tech people because otherwise people are not engaged enough, they don't understand why they should take some decisions, the business and tech teams, of course. I see what Annalisa just explained was very clear about how business and technology, the different sides of the business can work together to make it a successful transition and what technical people know and what business people know sometimes doesn't overlap a lot. So I'm wondering also when you translate and transition rather to cloud-native, it seems so hard. Danielle, can you maybe address how to make it not so hard to make everyone understand how it could go more smoothly? Well, I think from a business point of view, we are looking at customer retention rates. We're looking at our annual recurring revenue. We're looking at EBITDA and customer acquisition costs or CAC. What are our sales? What are our profit margins? And so as technologists, we need to learn that language because we can have better-informed conversations when we're saying, here's why this open-source tool that I'm using and why I need to go to KubeCon and figure out how to use it better is gonna actually make a difference when it comes to improving customer satisfaction rates or, you know, and that helps drive our ARR. And if we can all speak that language, we will do a much better job of being able to align with that. I think, you know, ideally, the business would understand our language that we're using, but frankly, you know, some people still struggles to say Kubernetes, so it's that. Yes, indeed, absolutely. That's true. I wanted to ask you to, Danielle, as follow-up. When you were talking previously, it would be nice to have a few examples of how Cloud Native can help solve some obvious business issues. Could you share a few examples with us? Yeah, so in the Cloud Native maturity model, we do provide some specific examples. So one that I mentioned, just customer satisfaction rates. So as an example, you know, a B2C company, so a business-to-consumer company, has a bunch of data coming into the company that they need to get to their end users. Well, why do they have to do that? You know, customer satisfaction rates, we need to retain them, we need to make sure they're happy. So that is, you know, the main business goal. What that means is, hey, if we adopt Cloud Native technologies, if we containerize, if we all the things that Simon would say would do, you know, we can actually release more features faster, we can make sure that the data is in the consumer's hands faster. So if we look at it from, what is the customer retention rate? What is the customer satisfaction measurement? So like a net promoter score, and we know that language, so we can again align with, we will increase your net promoter score by delivering this data this much faster, which means we're gonna use this more expensive cloud that is closer to our end users in this region. And that's how we need to start thinking about things from the top down. Simon, do you have other examples that you could share with us? Yeah, certainly. When I think through the situations that I find myself involved in and cost discussions, first off, there's three key stakeholders that I need to be thinking about and taking into account. First one, if I think of three people, I've got my CTO, I've got my Chief Financial Officer, and I've got my CISO, my Chief Information Security Officer. They're really helpful and useful people, and here's why. So when I carry out a solution design for a cloud application, I have to think about not only the business functionality it's offering, it might be an HPC grid, it might be a market data system, for example. So I've got a whole pile of business functionality that I've got to work through. I also have to be thinking very carefully about the non-functional requirements of that solution design. I need to be thinking about my availability, I need to be thinking about my resilience, I need to be thinking about my DR. I also need to be thinking about the cross-cutting theme of security. Is there client data located within that?  Now, the important thing is, for me, is that when I start to involve my, or get into the areas of finance and also security, as well as technology and infrastructure and application, once I start talking about non-functional stuff, then I can start to really demonstrate what cloud can do. Mila, you provided an example at the beginning, you asked about starting up a project at Inception, in the costs that are absorbed there. And part of the answer to that question is, what's the counterfactual? What's my alternative? Do I get another data center? Do I go and fill it with racks? Do I procure servers? Do I procure switches? And we're just talking about infrastructure here, and we're not even getting onto the topic of storage. So do I cable all of that up and what are the lead times on that? Okay. Now, to do that in a distributed manner is incredibly expensive. Now, when I deploy an application using a, for example, a cloud service provider, I've got the ability to live up to any regulatory requirements, for example, around is it in the EU, do I have GDPR to worry about? Alternatively, I can decide to place it in a cheaper location. I can absorb the loss of a zone or even entire region and potentially keep my business running. Now, there's investment involved in that, but let's think about the effect of downtime. If I hadn't done that, if I cannot withstand that shock to my business, if I'm out of the markets for an hour, what is the financial cost and the risk that I face? And then just talking on that security topic as well. When I use something like easy examples in Kubernetes are network policies. I can do things within Kubernetes with network policies that are very, very difficult or more complex or take longer to implement within traditional infrastructure. The other thing too, I can take advantage of Falco, for example, a great CNCF project to get more insight into what's running. So taking into account the non-functional requirements and the role of the CISO, the security role within my organization is really important. And suddenly those costs that I might be facing with say cloud costs don't necessarily seem so bad when I consider the advantages and the availability that it gives me because there is nothing that will cause me more stress than downtime when I really, really don't need that. So come back to, so make sure that your CISO and your financial officer are involved from the beginning as well as your technology department and rely on those people with infrastructure and platform experience as much as the developers. Our developers are busy enough as well, by the way. We rely on them all the time. So hopefully, thank you. Thank you, Simon. I see that you're on the cartographos working group, Annalisa, how did you get involved and what is your involvement? What does it entail if you could give us a little explanation of what you do in that working group? Not much. No, to be honest, I joined the group a couple of years ago and I was very new to this industry. So I needed to find a place where to begin to educate myself. And I joined the working group of the cartographos because at that time in my company we were structuring a collaborative journey to offer to our customers. And I needed to understand more about it. I needed to understand how to express the business value and I needed a benchmark somehow. So that was the best way to begin with. I began for business reasons but I stayed because of the people. These fantastic people that are always very collaborative and welcoming but also because people is one of the mentioned pillars of the clownative material model. And this as a humanist, a non-tech person struck me because Italo Calvino said, wrote that innovation is faster than our capability to adapt to it. Which means that probably the flame, the engine of everything lies in the people. And as we said, the more the people are involved, the more they're engaged, the more they're informed, the more you get closer to success also for in a clown transformation process. Then this was really interesting and relevant for people like me that were, they have no technical background to understand that anyone can contribute somehow. So everyone can find a way to help this community, whatever their skills are. We need to promote the model, we need to enhance it. We need to make it more comprehensive and diverse, let's say so.  I said that's why I stay. We're gonna wrap up here soon, but before we do, I just wanted to add one thing. We've been talking about the difference between the business perspective and the technological perspective. And I've observed that sometimes that's a very challenging road to navigate. So in terms of the technologists, how do we emphasize and what words do we use to do so? The business, the culture, the different ways we can communicate it and meet the business goals by doing so. I understand that those of us who are technical need to understand more about how the business is structured, how it works, what the limitations, what the challenges are. But it'd be nice for everyone in the company to have a common language to speak about it. And it's incumbent upon many of us to start to be that bridge between the different perspectives. And in a cloud native transformation that we've already talked about when moving over to that, when we're in the middle of that, making sure that the business people continue to understand it's a marathon and not a sprint. And of course that's my view, but the benefit, I would like everyone in the room to be able to take it home with them and be able to articulate what the benefit of this transition would even be. Does anyone wanna comment on that? So I think what I would encourage all of you to do in your daily work is when you're asked to do something to ask the question, so what does this impact have on our business?  And I think that is the first step. And if your boss and then their boss has to explain that, everyone's gonna get better. Yep, I would also, again, from the technical side, I have to keep consistently educating people and letting them know. For example, we pay as we go when we use cloud services. Yes, there are commitment discounts, but we pay as we go. The great thing is, is that we don't have to go and buy all of those servers upfront in the way that we traditionally did. So I can strike fear into people's hearts by saying we can do a better job of preventing downtime and reducing risk. That's a great thing to communicate to a business.  For us technical people, it's really important for us to learn the difference between capital expenditure, is boring, I know, and operating expenditure. Do we buy the server upfront for three years, or do we pay as we go? And when we consistently remind people of that, that can be a real help as well. So as a technologist, sadly, I have to learn a little bit about bookkeeping, not too much. Secondly, I have to keep communicating. You will be surprised, I'm consistently surprised that things I take for granted, other people don't know my basic assumptions, other people aren't aware of those things. So don't feel free to remind people. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and your expertise. It's a very interesting topic. I appreciate you all being involved today. And thank you to the audience for being here. And we also have on the screen now information about the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Working Group. We are, as a group, our goal is to provide pathways into open source and cloud native for deaf and hard of hearing people to contribute and also to serve as a resource for people to discuss accessibility today. We have CNCF provided interpreters, which is tremendous. We thank you for that. And we thank you for listening to our presentation. And this is how Deaf people clap. I might make a final plug because Catherine is here with us. So I could make sure I could do it. If you're interested in more topics around cloud native after this event, we run a virtual meetup called Q-Crash with lots of technical talks and whatnot. It's coming up in April. So it's something you can do virtually from your home in case you're interested. This would be us talking about an event at an event.


We end up having one endpoint to query a number of things. If I look at my demo site that have installed the different plugins that are available on the repository and Github for WP GraphQL is we have a number of plugins, we have the main plugin in itself that does the querying and exposes the information on the endpoint of GraphQL and then we have GraphQL which is an IDE that is inset in our admin area, you'll be able to see it right here and I'm going to run a few queries. We have one that allows for authentication, let's say if you are going to query for information or make a mutation of sorts, you can request for authentication and then there is one that is coming out, it's new, version 0.10 has just come out that exposes wukamas on the same endpoint. So therefore I'm just going to show you some of those crazy things that are happening. Now for Taylor who is building this, you can be able to just go to the different links and also on this particular in the documentation you're able to see the different plugins that are there, the one, if you go to the one that talks about the different extensions right here and if you go to the different extensions that are available and you look out for the one of wukamas right here at the bottom you can be able to go and support the Kickstarter project that is available for just to push forward this work but you'll see that it's ready and a couple of things have been thrown in there so we are ready and good to go. So in comparison to what's happening in the rest API here, let's say this is me just querying for the posts that I do have but I have so much information coming in that I don't need. I just want you to compare with what you see when we try to do something like this for just for the posts themselves. I'll hit this button and see the information that comes back. So I requested for an idea tied to an Alexa and that is all I'm getting back. Simple JSON field, simple information, actually if you look at your network monitor this cuts the response by about half the time 50% is just shaded off. So if I wanted to also get the content I am able to just get that also in an instant. So when I hit that query point I'm going to get back this information just coming in. Ah look at that. I just want you to imagine let's say if you had a mobile phone application this would work so well with whatever technology using especially for JavaScript because it's well documented, you have things like Apollo client that help you with handling the data that is coming in. Imagine the power that we get when WP GraphQL is attached with a advanced custom fields one of the biggest plugins in the WordPress repository. It adds meta fields onto our pages and posts and allows us to add simple information on each page, on each post that we can actually use maybe if we are doing to develop special components. Now I just wanted to show you that this is not the only plugin that's available rather we have a number of extensions that have come in. So we have one for WooCamas that extends all the custom post type of the products and the categories that come, the attributes, the tags and exposes them on this same endpoint. So I want to try out something for you and you can see. Marku I don't know so much about what the data structure is for the query but if I start on something by guessing products is I am able to query the products that are coming in. The products just like the posts have nodes then I can be able to get the ID of the product that's coming in. I can get the name of the product, it's a good one. I can get what else is there, the price of the product. I can get maybe the sale price, the regular price. I can even get the total sales that are attached to that item. So think of it as me developing a single page app. If I hit this endpoint and just query it with that information we still have our posts coming in nicely and then as we start going we realize we actually have the products coming in here and we have them by name, by price and so we can expose this to a single page app giving us better control over our data giving us better control of what comes up. Now if this was the case for the REST API remember Wukamas has it so now REST API endpoint so we'd have to hit two endpoints from our single page app that means more network queries meaning there is more time that is involved in returning of the data and we're still going to get a lot of stuff attached to the REST API endpoint that we actually don't need yet here we're just getting what we need. If I realize I don't need some of these things I can just take them off quickly and then by hitting play I have all the information that I need so if you enjoyed what is happening here please like this video, subscribe leave a comment, leave a question I'll be trying to play around with exposing this into a real world example I'll be sharing about how to get this into a single page app using React or even using React native for mobile phone apps like, subscribe to the channel and share with your friends bye


So, I'm going to share some tips on how we can support pollinators in our landscapes. And to start off with, I just want to introduce the topic by saying that pollinators are very important to nature and wildlife and also the human diet. And pollinators such as honey bees are vital for our U.S. agriculture industry and economy. They pollinate a variety of crops, which include apples, blueberries, oranges, and almonds, just to name a few. And in urban landscapes, many flowering native plants, which are key food sources for pollinators, have been replaced by houses, roads, lawns, and whatnot. So there are some definite ways that we can try to help support pollinators in our landscape. By supporting pollinators in our landscape, we're helping to support honey bee populations. We're also providing shelter and food for native bees and other pollinators. And I will be using the word native a lot. I should probably define that. Native means that whether it's a pollinator species or a plant, that particular species is originates from a specific area or region and is adapted to that area's climate, soil types, those types of things. And so when possible, we want to grow native plants to support the native pollinator population. So that's what I mean when I say native. So also supporting pollinators in our landscape can ensure good pollination for our fruits and vegetables that we might grow in our backyards. We can also see an increase in yields and in some cases, depending on the fruit or vegetable, a larger fruit or vegetable. And then additionally, supporting pollinators in our landscape provides some seasonal, long beauty and diversity as well as focal points and other interests. So today's talk, we're going to define what a pollinator is. We'll introduce some different types of pollinators, and then we'll talk about the importance of pollinators and some ways that we can support pollinators. And so to start off with just a simple diagram of a flower and the flower parts, you don't necessarily need to know all of the flower parts, but just put the diagram up there so that as I'm talking, you have something to reference the different parts. So pollinators can be anything that helps to carry pollen from the male part of the flower, which is the stamen, and it carries it to the female part of the same or another flower, the stigma. So the female part of the plant is called the stigma, the male part is called the stamen. And some plants actually have both male and female flowers on them. Cucumbers is an example. When cucumbers set their first blossoms, typically those first blossoms are male flowers, and therefore they will not set fruit. So it's usually the second flush of blossoms that produces our fruit or our cucumber. Some flowers just have male flowers or some plants just have male flowers and some plants just have female flowers. And so then it requires a pollinator to transfer the pollen from the male flower to the female flower. It results in pollination. Pollination can happen either intentionally or incidentally. For example, some animals such as many bees intentionally collect pollen, while others such as many butterflies and birds move pollen incidentally because the pollen just sticks on their body while they're collecting nectar from the flowers. And that's how it gets dispersed. There's also direct and indirect pollination, and I'll talk about that on the next slide. But I want to point out that many of our fruits and vegetables do require insects to carry the pollen from one plant to another. So keep that in mind as we continue with the presentation today. So when we're talking about direct and indirect pollination, some crops are pollinated by pollinators, some crops are wind pollinated. In the United States, honeybees perform much of our insect pollination, but there are help from other pollinators, which we'll talk about in a little bit. And so honeybees, therefore, are vital to our agriculture industry and our economy, and they pollinate a variety of popular crops, which you'll see on the left hand of your screen. The cereal grains, which are on the right side, like wheat, corn, and rice, which happens to make up the largest part of the world's diet, they don't need pollinators. This is because the crops on the right, cereal crops on the right, are wind pollinated. And soybeans are also wind pollinated crops. Honeybees are probably our most well-known pollinators, and North Dakota happens to be the number one honey-producing state in the United States. In 2018, according to the North Dakota Department of Ag, we produced 38 million pounds of honey, valued at roughly $71 million. And according to a variety of different sources, pollinators are generally responsible for one in every three bites of food that we eat. This includes 120 different crops, which are mainly fruits, vegetables, and nuts. And pollinators contribute approximately $15 to $20 billion in U.S. crops, or they contribute to the crop because of their pollinating efforts. One specific crop that absolutely needs pollinators to achieve pollination is almonds. Some of our other crops, like berries, maybe need a pollinator, but maybe not. Some you have to have two different types of cultivars, and that requires a pollinator to transfer pollen from one to the other. There's also berry species, like raspberries, that the more of the female parts that are pollinated, the better quality the raspberry will be, so the less mushy it might be. So thinking back to pollinators and pollination, and you can use your chat box for this one. Maybe what are some other pollinators that you can think of? And Julie, I'll rely on you to monitor the chat box. I'm seeing butterflies, hummingbirds, bats, flies, moths, mason bee. Oh, good. How are they doing? Very good. Very good. And I'm especially excited to hear that someone mentioned a mason bee because mason bees are one of our North Dakota's native pollinator bees. They're generally somewhat solitary, so very excited to hear about that. We won't be covering all of the different species of native pollinators, but we'll just be giving an overview. So very pleased to see that wide range. There's more. Cool. Just like humans, beetles, and ants. Good. You guys are awesome. I hardly have to read my list off. Did anyone say rodents? I don't think so. So rodents can be pollinators, too. There are specific flowers that rodents populate or pollinate. And a fun fact, the world's largest pollinator lives in Madagascar and happens to be the lemur. The lemurs pollinate a tall species of palm tree called the traveler palms. And so when they go and get the nectar from those flowers, they spread it to the next tree and help to pollinate those trees. So depending on what you consider large, because technically humans could be pollinators inadvertently too, but the lemur is the largest intentional pollinator. So just a fun fact. As we talk about some of these pollinators, bumblebees actually happen to be one of our native pollinators along with other solitary bees like the mason bee, leaf cutter bees. And I do want to point out that bees are not to be feared. They are generally very docile and don't attack people on purpose. It is wasps and hornets that are more aggressive, especially in the latter part of summer when their food sources are getting short. But when we talk about wasps as pollinators, there are tiny, what we'll call parasitic wasps that are beneficial insects. Those can also be pollinators too. And there are little tiny flies, hover flies and wheat mid, or midge flies, I'm referring to wheat midge because I work a lot with the egg industry and so we monitor wheat midge populations.  So when we think about some of these pollinators, they can be attracted to different kinds and types of flowers. And so that is important to be somewhat familiar with as we're designing our landscape. For example, butterflies, they tend to be attracted to bright red and purple flowers that have faint but yet fresh odors. Bees are attracted or tend to be attracted to white, yellow or blue flowers that have contrasting ultraviolet patterns and generally have a mild or pleasant odor. There is a special tiny bee that is attracted to the vanilla plant and actually is the only kind of bee that is able to pollinate that. And they have done some trials with, well right now most of the vanilla is hand pollinated but it's a lengthy process and so they are working on ways to get the vanilla orchid to be able to be pollinated by other species other than this tiny bee. Excuse me. Hummingbirds, which I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with, tend to be attracted to scarlet colors, oranges, reds and white, especially tubular shaped flowers with no distinct odors. Moths, which tend to be most active at night. There is an exception, the acumon sphinx moth is active during the day. That is also known as our hummingbird moth because it can look or when it moves quickly, it sounds and looks like a hummingbird because it does have a very long pervascus as well. That's the feeding part. But moths, they tend to be attracted to pale reds, purples, pinks and white flowers that give off a strong sweet odor at night. To me I would think of petunias, they tend to have a strong sweet odor. Beetles like soldier beetles and other beetles are attracted to white or green flowers with odors that range from none to strongly fruity or foul.   So I just wanted to throw that out as a fun fact. Bats, which are also primarily active at night, they are attracted to dull white, green or purple flowers that give off strong and musty odors at night. If you like alcohol, like tequila, bats are responsible for pollinating the agave plants that make tequila. Bats also produce one of my favorite fruits or pollinate one of my favorite fruits, bananas. I'm not a fan of mangoes, but they do pollinate mangoes and guava as well. So if anyone likes those types of fruits, that's where bats can be beneficial as well. And going back to our native pollinators, there are more than 4,000 native bee species in North America. And according to T.J. Prashka, who is our area extension specialist in crop protection up here at the North Central Research Station in Minot, there are more than 250 solitary bees in North Dakota. And he will actually be sharing more on conserving solitary bees on April 16th during the NDSU Spring Fever Garden Forum. So pollinator decline is happening in both managed and wild pollinators. Managed pollinators would be our honeybees because they are they are here during the summertime and then they are wintered in warmer states down south, maybe Florida, California, those types of places. But both managed and wild pollinators are facing similar stressors such as habitat loss. We're starting to see alternate land uses interfering with overwintering, foraging, and nesting sites of our pollinators. As I mentioned before, urban areas are replacing some of these habitats. Nutrition is also another stressor. The specific plants needed for nutrition and habitat are being replaced or declining. And these native pollinators do need these specific plants for their various life stages. The monarch is a good example. Milkweed is specifically needed for the larval stage of the monarch. Climate change is also a stressor for our pollinators. And how this affects them is that as we start to see climate change, more flowering plants might be starting to occur farther north than than usual or at higher elevations, which can cause food sources to become out of sync with our pollinator life cycles and migration. We're also starting to see parasites and diseases. We've heard a lot about honeybee diseases, colony collapse disorders, those kinds of things. And as we're seeing right now with COVID, our world is is much more mobile. And so with more travel and commerce allows the extensive transfer of parasites and diseases. And our pollinators are no exception. And so these non-native parasites and diseases can infect our native species and cause decline. The last stressor that all of our pollinators struggle with or face are pesticides. And these can be herbicides, which are pesticides designed to kill weeds, insecticides, and fungicides.  And some of this pesticide damage can be from use in the environment or it can actually happen when our beekeepers are trying to keep our bees healthy. For example, with the mites that affect honeybees. There are pesticides that they can use to help protect the honeybees but at the same time those can be damaging to the honeybees. And so the other way that pesticides can harm our pollinators is by killing important forage plants that the pollinators need for nutrition. And we'll talk a little bit more about this but dandelions is a good example of a weed or what some might call a weed being controlled by a pesticide. Dandelions actually provide really good early season forage for our native bees. So honeybee problems this is just a little bit of a summary from the previous slide but a little more detail on on the honeybee problems. And again more than a third of the world's crop species such as alfalfa, sunflower, and numerous fruits and vegetables and seeds depend on bee pollination, particularly honeybees. They are plagued by the Varroa mites. There are some diseases as well. The Israeli acute paralysis virus is an important virus that has been indicated in colony collapse disorder. And that disease has probably been an introduced disease from bees brought in from other countries or different species of bees. And then also with our honeybees we tend to see some migratory stress since our honeybees are wintered in southern states like California and Florida we see that migratory stress. The transportation of these bees across the country for pollination purposes and frequent moves cause high levels of stress. And as we know from ourselves when we're under a lot of stress our immune systems don't function as they should. Additionally poor nutrition is attributed to some of our honeybee problems and part of that is are the monocultures that honeybees are being asked to feed upon. Just like us as humans we need a diet that has a wide range of nutrients and vitamins and minerals. And so bees and other pollinators also need a mixed pollen diet rather than a single pollen source. In some reviews of bee problems bees feeding on monoculture crops have been likened to humans only eating sardines or chocolate or parsnips for a whole month at a time. So you can imagine how you might feel even though you may be a huge chocolate lover how you might feel after a whole month of eating nothing but chocolate. And then pesticides. Neonicotinoids are the main pesticide of concern which is an insecticide. And so folks are trying to reduce the use of this particular pesticide because it can linger in the plants and as the bees feed upon the pollen and the nectar they can become exposed to it. And because of all these different things combined not just one one particular item beekeepers are losing about a third of their hives per year. So it's it's becoming a growing problem and as you can see it's it's not linked to just one particular stressor. So just a visual to demonstrate the importance of pollinators and bees specifically. This slide is from Dr. Esther McGinnis. She's our NDSU Extension Specialist and Associate Professor in Horticulture. She's also my graduate school advisor and I borrowed this slide from her because it gives a good depiction of what might make up some traditional breakfast foods. We've got some fruits and we've got coffee, milk, bacon, eggs, some greens. And so in the next slide we'll see what a breakfast looks like without bees or without pollinators. And so you can see that it looks pretty plain and pretty bland without those fruits. And for those that are coffee lovers we even lose the coffee. And if we think about how pollinators whether they directly pollinate our foods or whether they're somehow involved in the process we can probably even take milk out. Because even though our dairy cows do eat a fair amount of grains and when pollinated feed sources they also have a large part of their diet is made up of hay specifically alfalfa which does need bees for pollination. So depending on how we look at pollination we can probably take milk off the menu too if we don't have bees and other pollinators. So how can you help? One of the popular initiatives these days is to build a pollinator garden. And NDSU Extension has a pollinator program through our Master Gardener program. Folks can actually go online and if you just search in search NDSU Extension Master Gardener pollinator garden you can find more information information about building a pollinator garden and also about becoming a certified pollinator garden. And so the picture to the right is actually our pollinator garden that we have here in Pierce County. Our Pierce County Soil Conservation District graciously allowed us to place it on their property. So building a pollinator garden is a great way to help pollinators and planting other nectar and pollen producing plant that bloom season long is another great way. And also creating a pollinator friendly lawn and yard is another great way to help support pollinators and we'll talk a little bit more about each of these as we go forward. When we're supporting pollinators in our landscape we need to think about their four basic needs. They are essentially just like we are. One of their basic needs is food and their food source happens to be nectar and or pollen. If it's a bee usually pollen is involved. They also need a source of water and they need some type of shelter primarily for nesting and and just escaping predators. And then their fourth need is the sustainable use of pesticides. And we'll refer to that as integrated pest management because it's a it's a whole system of looking at our pesticide use. These next few slides are are going to focus primarily on tips if we were going to be building a pollinator garden but can certainly work for adding any types of plants to our landscape. So if we're building a pollinator garden we can select plants or we should select plants that bloom from early spring. So coming up you know the end of April early May all the way into late fall probably late September early October. And usually we want to have at least 10 to 20 species and we should include as many native plants as we can. And it is okay to include some non-natives. Those can be beneficial in the landscape as well and beneficial to pollinators. We do want to be careful with some of our non-natives especially some of the cultivars. A good example would be the double blossomed flowers sometimes in the genetic selection of those. Some of the reproductive parts can be lost or some of their nectar producing capabilities are lost and so even though they're pretty they may not provide the nutrition that our pollinators need. And when we are mixing non-natives with our natives generally we want to follow the 6040 rule. So 60 native and 40 no more than 40 non-native. And then when we're planting our food sources for our pollinators we also want to try to plant in drifts or clumps of three to five per species. And the reason for this is to help our pollinators find and use them. Essentially they become a landing zone. And another reason that we plant them in clumps is because some of our pollinators don't have a tremendous energy reserve and so if those plants are a little bit closer together it helps them to conserve energy as they're foraging. And we want to make sure that the natives that we're choosing are adapted to our local climate soil and our native pollinators. Here in my particular area up in north central North Dakota we are in the zone three reliably zone three. We may be able to get some zone four plants to survive if they have enough winter protection. So definitely match your plants to your growing zone. A couple other things to consider that I didn't put on the slide because it would have just been too much text. But since we do have some pollinators that are out at night try to include some night blooming flowers that would support our moths and possibly bats. Some examples of night bloomers and most of these are annuals would be moonflower. They smell really wonderful at night. They're kind of they're kind of a climbing vining plant almost like a morning glory. And they do bloom white but they can look really pretty in the moonlight and they smell delicious. Another annual is night flocks. Nicotiana is another annual. And then also another fun one kind of an old-fashioned garden favorite is four o'clock. Those tend to start blooming in the afternoon and last into the evening. And then perennial would be evening primrose which is supposed to be hardy for zones three through eleven. So definitely add some night blooming flowers in your variety. And then another thing to consider is to vary the sizes of the plant to accommodate some of our tiny solitary predators or I'm sorry pollinators. Some examples of plants that would have smaller flowers or blossoms to accommodate these tiny pollinators would be feces from the mint family. Also plants from the carrot family such as dill or one of our native plants golden Alexander. Golden Alexander kind of resembles dill in its blossoming. And since you're probably wondering what all of these plants look like because I did not show pictures if you get a chance I did post the link but you can also google beautiful landscapes building a pollinator garden. This is one of our NDSU extension publications and there is a chart of our native plants by season so that can give you some ideas and there are pictures in there. And then sources of native plants. The first thing would be to check with your local nursery because they will be the best source to be able to get native plants that can grow for your particular location. Some alternative sources. You can google the prairie moon nursery prairie restorations and morning sky. And these also have catalogs available if you're like me and you like to flip through a catalog versus scrolling through an online catalog. You may be able to request a catalog from these and that will also give you some good ideas of what these plants look like. And on a dreary day while it's dreary here so on a dreary day like today flipping through a plant catalog can bring great joy. Some other food sources besides plants to consider would be putting cut fruit out for our butterflies and bees and then also a hummingbird feeder. The cut fruit and the hummingbird solution or hummingbird feeder solution serves as an energy source. The sugars in those two items serve as an energy source. That's essentially what these pollinators are acquiring from the pollinator plants when they're feeding on the nectar. And I should have posted a recipe. I'm sure there will be questions about hummingbird feeder recipes and I can answer this in more detail later but just a quick overview. It's generally a one to four solution of sugar and water. It is recommended only to use refined sugar over other sweeteners such as honey or brown sugar. And the reason for this is some of the other sweeteners can contain fungus or develop molds that can be harmful to the hummingbirds. And so a simple recipe for a hummingbird feeder solution is just one fourth of cup sugar, one cup boiling water, and then you just dissolve the sugar in the water, let it cool down, and put it into your hummingbird feeder. There's no need for the red dye. Some of the chemicals in the dye can be harmful to the hummingbirds and then also make sure with your hummingbird feeder that if it's hot that you're emptying and cleaning it at least two times per week. And when you clean it, make sure that you are cleaning it with hot tap water or a very weak vinegar solution. We want to avoid using dish soaps because they can leave some residues that can be harmful to our hummingbirds. And then every time that the hummingbird feeder is empty, especially in a period of heavy feeding, go ahead and clean it before you refill it. I'm not sure what I did, Julie. There we go. I clicked on the link. I'm sorry about that. Okay, good. So our next need for pollinators is a water source and we have a variety of ways that we can get water for our pollinators. On the right hand side I have a super simple way where you can take the saucer of a plant container and just fill it with some glass or some colored beads or pebbles or rocks and then put water in it. And the purpose of that is that the pollinators will then have a landing spot so they don't drown in the water. So the other water sources on the left hand side, like the bird bath and the fountain or ponds, we do want to make sure that we have something in them that the pollinators can land on. So some type of landing platform. So for example, in a bird bath we might just float a piece of wood in the bird bath so that our bees and butterflies can land on them and not drown. They will drink from the edges but sometimes they can fall in. I know when I've changed my bird bath I've sometimes found casualties. Sometimes they get in there. The other thing with our bird baths and our bodies of water, even the saucer on the right with the water in it, we do want to try and change that water frequently. This benefits both the birds and the bees. No pun intended. And it just, because it decreases the chance for molds and funguses and bacteria to grow that could stick in them. And also it decreases the mosquito breeding grounds so that we have less mosquitoes in our yard. The third need for pollinators is shelter. And this is both for safety and for nesting. With our native bees we have what we call cavity nesting bees and ground nesting bees. A lot of our native solitary bees are ground nesters. And one of the most fun ones that I've come across is they're called sweat bees or metallic bees. They have a bright iridescent green color and they're about the size of a house fly and they burrow in the ground. They are a ground nesting bee. They're very, very docile.  Because they like the salty flavor of our our skin from our sweat. So we want to have some bee houses which I've pictured or posted a picture of an example on the right. You want to have various size holes because our native bees are varying sizes and so some have different preferences. And you'll notice on the top of the the peak of the bee house there are some wood chips in there and then in the bottom behind the chicken wire are pine cones. And so some of our native pollinators prefer those sources for nesting as well. We also want to save some bare ground. If we're building a pollinator garden we want to try not to cover all of it up with mulch or fabric. We want to leave a little bit of bare ground for our ground nesting bees. Dead trees also provide although they can be an eyesore. They provide a nice habitat for our cavity nesting natives native pollinators. Something that I've done in my yard if I've had a dead tree is I've cut it up into a big log and used it as a decorative focal piece in my flower beds for some of these native pollinators. So it can be a matter of just getting creative. Also bundles of hollow stems like those of sunflowers are preferred by some cavity nest nesters. And then one thing that can be hard for some gardeners is to resist the urge to cut down our perennials in the fall. Because there are some of our native pollinators that will nest in those hollow stems. And if we can resist the urge to cut them down in the fall the next thing is to resist the urge to not cut them down too soon in the springtime either. Generally the rule of thumb is if you've left them up over the fall leave them standing until you see the first bumblebee in the landscape in the spring. Fun fact is that 70 percent of bees live in nests below ground. And the other 30 percent of bees live in cavities such as plant stems or holes bored in trees by woodpeckers or beetle larvae. Some bees can hollow out or core out wood themselves others cannot. So they'll lay their eggs in hollow stems or nest in them. Some other creative ways to provide shelter in your landscape would be a rustic arbor or bench made from some kind of natural untreated wood. Split rail fence I myself happen to be keen on split rail fences. We can do some neat things with those. The main thing is just to provide a variety of different structure types for our natives. And the fourth need for our pollinators is sustainable pesticide use. And by sustainable pesticide use we're able to still use pesticides we just have to use them responsibly. And when we're using integrated pest management we're combining a variety of different techniques. We're combining cultural physical barriers all of those kinds of things natural pests natural enemies before we're employing the use of a pesticide. And we do that so that we can try to minimize the effects of pesticide use on humans and the environment. So when we're sustainably using a pesticide the number one thing that we want to do whether we're trying to control weeds or insects or some other kind of pest is to identify the pest and make sure that we've identified it correctly. Next we want to determine if control measures are actually needed. So is the problem severe enough to warrant a treatment or in the case of maybe vegetable production or an agronomic other agronomic crop is the expected loss from the pest acceptable or does it cost less than controlling a treatment or does it cost less than control treatment if it costs less than the control the treatment may not be needed is what i'm trying to say. And third we don't want to use a pesticide unless there's a definite reason to do so. So in some cases the problem might take care of itself naturally by predatory insects or a change in weather when we in in the springtime that's a nice example it might be nice and warm things are starting to get active and then all of a sudden we get a cool spell and that can be one of those natural events that can decline a pest problem. Grasshoppers don't like cool wet weather so if we have a cool wet spring we may have a decrease in our grasshopper population which might be a good thing. Predatory insects we have ladybugs and lace wings they might take care of some of our aphid problems for us without having to apply a pesticide. So using the beneficial insects to help us keep pest populations down is a big part of integrated pest management and sustainable pesticide use. And then the other thing to remember is that pesticides seldom discriminate. If we're using a pesticide like an insecticide it's going to kill the good bugs along with the bad. When I get calls in the office and I get a lot of them the number one thing people want to know is what can they spray to kill a particular pest on a particular plant in their landscape. And so the first thing that I go over with them is this point that whether they're spraying whether they're targeting the bad insect they're still going to be killing the good. And so then we back up to the second point or the third point where we don't want to use a pesticide unless there's a definite need to do so. So is the damage that that pest is going to cause warranting the use of a pesticide? And then number six is to make sure that the pest is present. Naturally we've identified it but we also want to make sure that it's in a vulnerable stage before we're treating it. Some pests, insect pests once they get to a certain size aren't as vulnerable to the pesticide. Weeds are another great example.  And then the last point in using pesticides responsibly or incorporating integrated pest management is that we want to choose the right pesticide. We want to make sure both the pest and the plant that we're treating are on the label because the label is the law and we have to follow the label requirements. And then since we're talking about the label we do want to make sure that we look at the label and pay attention to any safety precautions, mixing instructions, special application instructions, personal protective equipment that might be needed to apply that that particular pesticide. So with some special considerations for pollinators regarding pesticide use, we only want to apply pesticides of course when we need to but if we are going to have to make a pesticide application we only want to do it when pollinators are inactive. And our bees and other pollinators typically are active and foraging during periods of high temperature and sunlight. So we don't want to be spraying our pesticides during that key peak of the day. So we might be spraying in the early morning or in the early evening hours to avoid our pollinator foraging times. Also high temperatures can cause some pesticides to vaporize which can increase the potential for pollinator or off-target plant injury. So we want to examine the area that we're going to be applying a pesticide to and if there are bees or other pollinators actively foraging on the flowering weeds or plants we want to postpone that pesticide application until they're no longer foraging. We also want to be cognizant of residual activity of pesticide. This is an important factor in determining safety to pollinators. Generally the shorter the re-entry interval listed on the label that means the less residual activity. So the shorter the re-entry interval generally means a shorter residual activity period or less persistence. We also want to try to minimize drift to non-target plants or plants that bees might forage on. And generally applications should not be made if wind speeds exceed 10 miles per hour or are blowing towards adjacent flowering plants. And then we also want to choose the lowest toxicity possible and that will generally be indicated on the label. There will be signal words such as caution, warning, danger. They give a general idea of toxicity level. Caution is the lowest toxicity level and danger being the highest toxicity level. Also I do want to point out that some of our organic and natural pesticides do not necessarily mean non-toxic pollinators. Some of our organics and naturals can be just as toxic as our synthetic pesticides. So some other things to consider when we're thinking about supporting pollinators in our landscape is to consider the use of trees. And flowering trees can be a very important source of pollen and nectar for our pollinators especially in the springtime. This is usually when our tired and overwintered bees and other native pollinators are emerging and they need that immediate source of nutrition and sustenance. Maples and willows are notable trees that provide an early supply of food. Apples and cherries tend to bloom a little bit later but they provide beautiful blossoms and very good food as well. The other neat thing about trees besides providing an early supply of food for our pollinators is that they provide a large amount of food at one time when the full tree is blooming. American basswood or linden is one of the best nectar producers that we have aside from our fruit trees of course. It will attract many bees and other pollinators. I've put a picture here of the American linden or American basswood and then also in the side a picture of the blossoms. They actually smell really good too and if you're fortunate to see one in bloom there will generally be a lot of bees and pollinators around it. If you have a small yard, trees might be an option for you to be able to maximize the amount of pollinator food that you can provide if you don't have enough space to incorporate a pollinator garden. Another way that we can support pollinators in our urban landscapes is by creating a pollinator friendly lawn and we can do this in a number of different ways. We can intentionally reduce the size of our lawn maybe turning some of it into a pollinator garden or a habitat for pollinators. We can also cut down on our mowing maybe mow every other week and allow the grass to grow up to three inches or higher. Some of our lawn grasses will produce seed heads that will attract grass pollinators. Also we want to try to rethink our ideal of the perfect lawn and maybe allow some low-growing flowering plants or as some might call them weeds to grow because these can be especially valuable nutrition and forage for our pollinators as well. Dandelions, I mentioned them before, they are an excellent early season source of nutrition for our native pollinators. Also there are some low-growing clovers. You may have clover, white clover growing in your lawn that you've been trying to get rid of for years. Go ahead and let it grow because that is actually a really good source of nutrition for our pollinators as well. Additionally the clover can decrease our fertilizer needs in our lawn so it can decrease the nitrogen needs as it is a legume. That in turn can help us to cut down on some of our fertilizer use in our lawn if we're after that lush green lawn which may help us to support our pollinators and I have to sneeze I'm sorry. Excuse me, I'm talking about fertilizer and fertilizers always make me sneeze. Another thing that we can do with our lawn and this relates to allowing those flowering plants or as some like to call them weeds to grow rather than using a pesticide. So those are a couple ways that we can cut down on on some of the chemical use in our our lawns. Another option is to leave an area of the lawn as a nomo zone as suggested in the image to the right and you can see in the background there are dandelions that have grown in the in the lawn and been allowed to go to seed. Another option that seems to be gaining some popularity is the what they call nomo fescue lawns. They're they're really maybe it's maybe a little misleading because I don't think they're truly nomo but they need considerably less attention than our traditional Kentucky bluegrass and and other types of lawns.  And then to round this out I just want to remind everyone that in June we have our national pollinator week and so that would be hopefully a great time to start looking at extra ways that we can help the pollinators in our areas. There will be I'm sure lots of different activities nationwide that we can participate in and hopefully by then our current social distancing situation will be letting up some and and we can participate in some of those activities. And so with that I guess I will open it up to questions. Okay well thank you so much that was a great great webinar. So just a couple comments Kathy says our honey bees we see escapees and they'll die come winter and Shelley said generally honey bees have a hive somewhere they can range up to five miles to forage.  So do you have any other commentary on that question or thought? I guess that I don't know enough about the the honey bees but generally yes they do require a hive and what I can share is that if you see a swarm of honey bees that generally means that they've gotten pushed out of their hive and are looking for a new hive and so the best thing to do in a situation like that is to call a local beekeeper and see if they will come take them. You can also look on if you don't know of a local beekeeper you can look on the North Dakota Department of Egg website and there is a listing a map listing of apiaries in the area. I should have maybe posted a slide of that but I already had a lot of talking points so I'm not sure if that answered your question. Well Shelley tells us and this is great to know she is a master beekeeper and she's taught honey beekeeping for four years so maybe sometime you can do a webinar for us Shelley. That would be wonderful. I have another question here or here's first to comment we have a huge basswood tree in our yard and Jennifer was glad to hear it's so beneficial and she hasn't smelled the blooms. We have a question from Erin what attracts wasps to the garden? Generally we if there's rotting fruit or some kind of other rubbish nearby that might attract them generally in the early part of the summer we won't see them a whole lot they'll become more active in the latter part of the summer as they begin foraging as their food sources get shorter and they start foraging to prepare for either overwintering or migrating. So it looks like we have a couple questions here. Shelley our beekeeper says the best time to manage wasps is in the spring when their populations are small using traps so thank you Shelley. Jeanie says I read that a native bee house needs to be six inches deep to produce healthy female bees and it needs to be completely cleaned every year. I don't know on the measurements I know they vary but I can say that yes they should be cleaned. Charlotte says she has an oregano plant growing in her herb garden and she noticed the bees are attractive to the flowers of the plant. Thank you I forgot to mention herbs yes herbs are a wonderful source for pollinators. Oregano, borage pretty much chives they love chives too so yes definitely incorporating herbs into your landscape is is a great source of food for our pollinators. Thank you for sharing. Oh and Jennifer I missed her question as I was going through she says she's sad to see how many bees get killed in pools. Do you know any products to put in a pool to help them float on? I don't know of any specifically but an idea that comes to mind might be pool noodles or those types of things. Does anyone else have any ideas on that? We have another question and I think we'll have to let everyone go since we're a little late but thank you for for answering all these. Lila asks are cat mints like walkers low good for pollinators? I'm not sure on the specific variety but yes the cat mint family is in the mint family and yes they are a pollinator species as well. And I'll add in a comment we just put some brand new herb guides. I'm a food and nutrition specialist so there's a lot of recipes as well as growing herbs and it's on the field to fork website. So sounds like we have some people growing herbs so you've got some new resources. Any last question? Oh here we go. Shelly says if the first water source a honeybee finds is a pool the hive will water there most frequently. Floating wood pool noodles etc work well so thank you Shelly. So you have some more options besides the pool noodles. Well with that I'm going to wrap up the webinar for today and I thank you all for your participation and very good job Yolanda and you brightened our day so thank you for doing this. Thank you.


Hey survivors welcome to the video. Please like the video and share your thoughts in the comments please share the video and Click the subscribe button underneath the video If you haven't subscribed yet to receive notifications for my future uploads If you would like to donate My PayPal link is in the video description If you are interested in one-on-one coaching my email is also in the video description We have recently been approved for the YouTube partner program. I Remember when I first started the channel almost six months ago. I Was overwhelmed by the requirements of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch time hours Within 12 months But I had the belief that I could do it Just under six months later. We now have almost 10,000 subscribers and Almost 120,000 watch time hours So it just shows that if you believe you can do something no matter how overwhelming it may seem in the beginning It doesn't mean that it cannot be done. Of course. I Couldn't have done it without you Thank you all for contributing to the success of this channel and I do believe that this is only the beginning Onto the topic of this video Narcissist need excessive admiration Narcissist need to be regarded with respect or warm approval at all times They need to be looked at with pleasure as something impressive or attractive If you look at the nine traits of MPD from the DSM five Every trait seems to reflect the fact that they require excessive admiration One of the traits is that they require excessive admiration I am going to go into the nine traits right now and how this relates to their excessive need for admiration arrogance and domineering Narcissist are arrogant They will often reveal an exaggerated sense of their own importance or abilities. I Believe that the reason for this is because deep down they are deeply insecure about themselves grandiosity They feel superior to you They feel that their traits and talents are superior Again, I believe that the reason for this is because they are actually deeply insecure about themselves They have an inferiority complex. They secretly doubt their importance or abilities They do not believe that their traits and talents are as great as they display them to be It's almost like there is an internal battle where on one hand, they don't really believe they are any good But then they compare themselves to other people and they understand what the world wants to see So it's like they are fighting with that negative belief of themselves preoccupation with success and power Narcissist have high expectations of themselves. They do not expect to fail They have ambitions of achieving its success and power as they believe that this will provide them with the attention and admiration they so desperately crave lack of empathy This is what makes Narcissist so dangerous It can be hard to detect, but it puts everyone around them at risk of some form of harm Whether it's psychological emotional or physical harm They also have lack of remorse and a lack of guilt I believe that the reason why Narcissist have a lack of empathy is because they are hurt hurt people hurt people In some area of their lives the Narcissist is not satisfied or fulfilled in some way and until that need is met There is no possibility of them learning how to empathize with other people The problem is Narcissist cannot be satisfied or fulfilled The Narcissist is like a cup with a hole at the bottom If you imagine trying to fill up the cup it would never be full It would just leak out at the bottom It's the same thing with the Narcissist Belief of being unique They have this belief that not a lot of people have things in common with them They are different to everyone else. They are special This reflects on their excessive need for admiration They cannot just be like everyone else or blend in with all of the other people They have to stand out They have to be noticed for all of their amazing abilities traits and talents Sense of entitlement The Narcissist believes that they deserve certain privileges or special treatment I believe that the reason for this is because they constantly compare themselves to other people And believe that they have missed out on a lot of things earlier in life If you could look into the Narcissist's past You may actually discover that they did miss out on something that they were entitled to Maybe to someone who was less deserving This may have been identified by them as a form of special treatment Remember these traits are most often learned from their environment Requires excessive admiration The topic of this video, yes Narcissists have the need to be excessively admired or locked up to by others They also believe that they deserve this admiration As they believe that they deserve special privileges Exploitative Narcissists have a defining characteristic of being exploitative They will use people for their own gain or advantage I believe that their exploitative nature is fueled by their lack of empathy Their urge for engaging in exploitation Is a serious threat And poses as a danger for society And those around them Envious of others Narcissists have a tendency to be envious of other people They are envious of other people's progress or success They are envious of their satisfaction or fulfillment in any aspect of their lives They are of course envious of any attention and admiration that other people receive As they believe that that was meant for them This goes back to their arrogance and entitlement Those are the nine traits of MPD, Narcissistic Personality Disorder I'm sure you can see that they most definitely do require excessive admiration Now I'm going to talk about social media and how this relates to their excessive Their need for excessive admiration I believe that social media is even teaching people to become more narcissistic People seem to have this obsession with uploading selfies Trying to get as many friends, followers and likes as they can They will even pay a lot of money to have their page promoted It seems that attention and admiration is a form of currency more valuable than money And we can already see the effects that this is having on the world People are now competing with each other for attention and admiration They are resorting to more desperate and extreme measures Anything to be noticed People are having plastic surgery Doing whatever it takes to compete for that admiration They are self-absorbed and lack empathy So they are willing to step on other people to get what they want Why are they so desperate for attention and admiration? I believe this goes back to their childhood They were most likely neglected as children by their parents A parent is supposed to give their child attention, admiration, validation and approval If not by their parent then at least someone else in their family or their environment The problem is The narcissist as a child did not have anyone to attend to their emotional needs They did not have anyone to show them love or kindness They did not have anyone to admire, validate or approve of them This was very traumatizing for the child As we all need attention, admiration, validation and approval Especially at that age This trauma within the narcissist has led them to become very self-absorbed They only care about themselves They only care about their own needs The reason for this is because no matter how much attention, admiration, validation and approval they receive It's never enough It never satisfies or fulfills them As we go into adults We are supposed to attend to ourselves We are supposed to validate and approve of ourselves Narcissists are always seeking validation externally Narcissists will even fake interest in people who they are not even attracted to It doesn't feel awkward or uncomfortable for them Because they do not care about people anyway Remember they are self-absorbed and lack empathy All they care about is what they want in that moment And what they want is attention and admiration I believe that narcissists will often flirt and fake interest in people who they are not attracted to Because they have a fear of rejection They will lead them on because they do not see a human being with feelings They see people as objects And in that moment they are basically using that object to extract whatever they want from it Most often attention and admiration Their fear of rejection is so great That they will even arrogantly lie to themselves that the person is interested in them And this is where they can become obsessed stalkers If the narcissist is aware that you do not admire or approve of them You do not see them the way they want you to see them As this image of perfection This could cause a narcissistic injury From that point on they may try to tear you down or become passive aggressive They might even begin to stalk you They cannot handle rejection If you do not like them or you reject them That's your fault something is wrong with you If you do not view them as this image of perfection It's like you are attacking them You are hurting them So now you must pay Of course it shall be obvious by now that narcissists are lying to themselves They don't really believe that they are this image of perfection They are actually deeply insecure and have an inferiority complex They constantly compare themselves to other people And are very envious and jealous of them But when you do or say something Even something as natural and honest as showing disinterest to a person You are not attracted to or interested in They cannot deal with that They are living a lie They do not want you to reveal the truth To them The problem is If you are a person that lives in truth You will not be able to open your mouth without causing a narcissistic injury This is why narcissists prefer to be around people Who are willing to deny the truth and live a lie From the beginning of the relationship You may have noticed that they were training you to deny the truth And accept their lies Notice how they use tactics like denial, projection, blameshifting and gaslighting These are all manipulative tactics Which are designed to deny or hide the truth of the situation Narcists need excessive admiration To the point where one person could never satisfy this need The potency of your admiration of them Also decreases the longer you are around them This is why it is so easy for them to discard you and move on Towards the end of the relationship The potency of your admiration decreased So they required a fresh source of supply Due to the fact that narcissists are self-absorbed And lack empathy It is likely that the narcissists even cheated on you Narcists are prone to cheat in Because they can never be satisfied or fulfilled Narcists are like cups with holes at the bottom You tried to fill the cup But the liquid keeps licking out because of the hole at the bottom It's the same thing with an narcissist You could give them attention and admiration all day every day It would never fill them up And by giving them attention and admiration all day every day You would then be instantly reducing the potency of your supply And they would get bored of you very quickly And they would get bored of you very quickly Narcists get bored easily They are always going from relationship to relationship They are always buying new clothes, new shoes, or new cars Trying to hold on to whatever admiration they can get Once they have got what they want from that relationship Or that material item, they are off to the next It never ends It's like a constant chase for them Trying to obtain as much admiration as they can But they can never be satisfied or fulfilled The liquid continues to leak out of their cup And they are just doing whatever they can to keep it full But it keeps leaking out Narcists are pathologically envious and jealous Of any attention or admiration that you might receive They feel entitled to receive all of the attention and admiration While in their minds you are inferior And therefore do not deserve any of that In their distorted minds they also believe that you are envious of them When most of what they say or do displays the fact that they are envious of you They are extremely competitive and hate to lose They will try to compete with you in anything and everything And sometimes you will not even realize that you are in a competition Envious Narcists also like to use backhanded compliments To put you down or to target your self-worth and self-esteem Everything is a game to them Everything is a competition that they have to win And that's how you know that they are pathologically envious of you So they will be envious of any attention or admiration that you might receive They will also do whatever they can to sabotage or prevent you From receiving any attention or admiration Because they already know that will make them feel a certain way If you want to know just how envious the Narcists is of you Pay attention to their level of competitiveness Are they willing to go out of their way to compete with you? Pay attention to their level of sabotage or prevention Their actions always reveal just how envious they are of you They cannot stand you having a source of happiness outside of them Because that threatens their control It threatens their distorted idea that they are the best They are what you desire want and need So they will compete with you in some form of game Whether it's a real physical game or something psychological or emotional Whatever it is they have to win And they will not stop until they have destroyed you They will not stop until they have eroded your self-worth and self-esteem If you have a community outside of them They will do whatever it takes to destroy that To turn you against them or turn everyone against you This is their way of controlling the situation And regulating their intense feelings of pathological envy Remember Narcists are trying to sabotage you Because there is something to sabotage You have some form of ability or talent They are viewing you as being superior to them And that's why they have to sabotage it and bring you down They will do whatever they can to erode your self-worth and self-esteem You could have all of these amazing qualities But you will not be able to see them Because you are too focused on the Narcists false attitudes and beliefs towards you Remember that the Narcists false attitudes and beliefs Have everything to do with them and nothing to do with you They are based on their own insecurities and inferiority complex Their own envy and jealousy of you So please detach from the Narcists false attitudes and beliefs They are especially jealous If someone else gives you the attention or admiration Which they should have been given to you In their minds the Narcists is thinking Why do you need them to give you attention or admiration? I can do that Of course once you leave that person and return to the Narcist The jealousy will fade away and they will go back to who they really are Remember Narcists are self-absorbed They do not care about what you desire want or need from them They only care if there is a threat to their Narcists' ex-supply It does not mean that they care or that they love you They only care about their source of attention, validation, admiration and approval escaping If they really cared about you, you wouldn't even think about going elsewhere The Narcists will be there for you Not just suddenly remembering your desires once and needs As you are about to get it elsewhere Whether it's from a friend, family member or even my videos I hope this video has helped you to understand why and how Narcists need excessive admiration I know I talked about stalking in this video and this is a very serious crime Yes, the Narcists cannot take rejection and will deny the fact that you are not interested in them Narcists are delusional They believe that they are somehow significant in your life And they are something you desire want or need They are in denial and they just tell themselves that Because they can't stand the feeling of not being wanted by us Some people think this is funny or cute But it's not, it's a very serious crime And as mature responsible people, we should see it that way So if you are being stalked or harassed Please check out my playlist of videos on the Narcists harassing and stalking you Thank you for watching Please like the video Share your thoughts in the comments And please share the video with anyone who you believe may help Thank you Talk soon


In this video, we will provide the solution to question 3 for exam 1 in Math 2270. In this question, we are given a matrix, which is 3 by 3a. It's given us 301 first row, second row is negative 120, and third row is 001. And we're given a matrix, we're given a vector in R3, whose entries are negative 12 and 3. And we're asked to compute the matrix vector product, a times x. Now the matrix vector product by definition is we're going to take the first scalar in the vector x, and we times that by the first column vector of A. We add that to the second scalar in x times the second column vector of A. And then thirdly, we add that to the third scalar in x times the third column vector of A. Now the number of scalars inside the vector x needs to equal the number of rows inside, sorry, excuse me, the number of columns inside the matrix in order for this product to be defined. If those are not the same numbers, like this three columns and three numbers, that has to be the same. Otherwise it doesn't work. The number of columns in A needs to equal the number of rows in x, viewing x as a column vector. And so as such, we're looking for linear combinations of these three columns right here. And you can see that, you can see that choice A has, it's a linear combination of the columns of A. So is choice C and so is choice, I take that back, choice C, the third column is actually not the third column of A. So that one would rule it out automatically. I'm just kind of talking about elimination right here. If you look at choice E, also the columns do not coincide with the columns of A whatsoever. So C is not right, E is not right. If you look at choice B, that is not the first column of A, that's actually just x itself. These are acceptable columns though, so that one wouldn't work. If you look at choice D, let's see those, that's x again, that's not the second column of A. So D doesn't work. If you look at F, you're going to get, these are the correct columns of A. So just by looking at are these linear combinations of the columns of A or not? It turns out A and F are the only ones that actually work in that regard. Now the coefficients need to be the entries of x, right? So notice that you take the first entry of x right here, that's times the first column of A, that's good. The second one, you take the second entry of x times the second column of A, so far that's good. And then the third entry of x times the third column of A, that's good. So we see that A would be the correct choice for this one. I want to mention that with choice F, although the column vectors are right, the linear combinations are not. I mean, notice the coefficients 0, 3, 0 and 1, that is not the vector x. So F is an incorrect choice, A is the correct choice on this one.